Politeia Clearinghouse

Memeshock Dictionary 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:52:00 +0000

Hello MemeShockers:

OFFICIAL MEMESHOCK DICTIONARY

The following is an exhaustive list of MemeShock approved memes for viral attacks and assimilation efforts. It is intended to be a reference guide bloggers, YouTubers, Wikipedians, and in general anyone with with access to any form of media. MemeShockers are encouraged to use these memes as frequently as possible for maximum effect.

It is suggested that users attempt to "try the terms on for size" and get accustomed to using them so that they naturally think to use them in settings where they can spread them

This thread will be deleted, updated, and reposted from time to time as new memes and talking points are added.

(ND) = Needs Development

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------------Abortion:

*a long list of abortion memes have been created with a special thread devoted to the topic: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=7843

Noteworthy memes include:

1.) FETAL RIGHTS: Rights of fetal children.

2.) FETAL CHILD: Unborn child has become associated with "kooky pro-lifers" so we need something more subversive. "Fetal" is a term related to the term pro-aborts often use but "child" is a term that humanizes an unborn person hence we splice them to get people who disagree with us to bite the bait. (I've tried this before and it actually works over time)

3.) FEGEISM/FETAL AGEISM: Ageist discrimination against fetal children due to their stage of development. People who deny parental responsibility to fetal children are "fegeists." The term is supposed to be a multi-purpose branding tool. (use emotionally like how some scream "racist" or "sexist")

4.) MURDERING OUR NATION'S CHILDREN: Self-explanatory, use with self-righteous undertones

5.) ANTI-FETAL RIGHTS EXTREMISTS: Adamant pro-choicers

6.) PRENATAL JUSTICE: Legal obtaining of fetal rights.

7.) GYNOCENTRISM/GYNOCENTRIC BIGOTRY: Focus on mother to the exclusion of the baby.

------------Ayers, and Other Radical Associations:

1.) AYERSGATE: The scandal of Obama's association with Bill Ayers

2.) PEACE TERRORIST: To describe Ayers and similar kinds of people

3.) CRYPTOMARXIST: To describe small "c" communists and their sympathizers.

4.) ANTI-WAR BIGOTRY: Hateful behavior of anti-war radicals and extremists.

-----------Bailouts:

See the associated thread for questions regarding usage: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=8326

1.) FEDERAL PARTNERSHIP STIPENDS: Taxpayer money given to prop up failing companies. (do not use "corporate." These companies are largely corporations, but we do not want to further the "all-corporations-are-evil" meme, which was originally created for Marxist purposes.)

2.) PLUTOCRATIC/KLEPTOCRATIC SOCIALISTS: Wealthy socialists who believe in a certain form of wealth redistribution (ie to themselves)

3.) REVERSE SOCIALISM: Redistributing wealth to the rich rather than the poor.

----------Cap&Trade:

See the associated thread for questions regarding usage: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=8773

1.) RATIONING ENERGY: Limiting net energy usage below a certain level throughout the entire economy.

2.) ENERGY INTENSIVE ECONOMY: An economy whose primary modes of production rely on energy consumption.

3.) MANDATE RECESSION: Necessarily precipitate a recession through government policies.

4.) CAPPING PRODUCTIVITY/PROSPERITY: Capping the amount of production and economic growth that is permitted in a society.

5.) CLOSED MARKET SYSTEM: An economic system that does not permit net economic growth.

6.) ZERO-SUM JOB PRODUCTION: Job production that is the product of other jobs being lost. This is to describe the so-called "green jobs" that will be created by people buying and selling a limited supply of carbon allowances to each other.

7.) CONFINED ECONOMY: An economy that is confined to a certain amount of production. Also an economy with a closed market system.

8.) SUPPLEMENTARY ALTERNATIVES: Lesser alternative energy sources such as wind or solar power. The point here is to point out how alternative energy sources can only be supplementary, as they can't produce the degree of energy we need.

9.) REALISTIC ENERGY REQUIREMENTS: Energy requirements needed to maintain the average American lifestyle.

10.) INDUSTRIAL STANDARDS/AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL STANDARDS: Levels of industrial production required to sustain the average American lifestyle.

11.) ENERGY RATIONING POLICIES (additional term): Policies that limit net energy usage below a certain level throughout the entire economy.

----------Communism:

1.) KLEPTOCRACY/COMMUNIST KLEPTOCRACY: The communist form of government (because they violate property rights, by nature of what they are)

2.) KLEPTOCRATIC REGIME: Any individual communist government

3.) SHAKE DOWN MONEY: Money taken for redistribution from a socialist or communist government (and yes socialist includes the so-called "social democracies" of Western Europe) (ND)

----------Coups

1.) DEMOCRATIC FAILURE: A violation of the principles of classical liberalism (not the same as "liberalism" in the modern sense) by a democracy.

2.) DEMOCRATIC CONTRADICTION: A violation of democratic principles (the principles of classical liberalism) by a democratic consensus. Same idea as a democratic failure.

3.) CORRECTIVE INTERVENTION: A coup or invasion designed to correct a democratic failure.

4.) GOOD GOVERNANCE: The governance of a state by democratic principles or the principles of classical liberalism. This term is often seen in National Endowment for Democracy (NED) writings and would be good to viral along.

----------Democrats/Liberals:

1.) DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS: Democrats who wish to adopt European style economic policies and social programs.

2.) NEO-SOCIALISTS: Ideological proponents of "social democracy." (social democracy is European-style socialism)

3.) NEO-MARXISTS: Academic Marxists and their allies. (the kind usually found on college campuses)

4.) NEW SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA: Democratic Party (for quasi-casual/satirical usage)

5.) NEW NATIONAL SOCIALISTS: Democratic Party (for quasi-casual/satirical usage)

6.) NEOCOM: Modern day advocate of wealth redistribution. (let's make the "neocon" smear backfire on them) (ND)

7.) DEMENTOCRAT: Democratic equivalent of DailyKoses "Repuglican."

8.) DEMONICRAT: Democratic equivalent of DailyKoses "Repuglican."

---------False Environmentalism:

1.) WATERMELONS: People who use environmental issues to support wealth redistribution and hurt rich countries. (red on the inside, green on the outside)

2.) REGULATIVE EQUALITY: Meme to support equal regulation of all countries on global warming. (the idea being to call the watermelons bluff)

----------Foreign Policy

ROBUST INTERNATIONALISM: US imperialism with a name change. (the left has everyone convinced that empires aren't cool)

----------Gay Marriage:

The later six terms are part of the gay marriage memeplex. See the associated thread for questions regarding usage: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=8613

1.) HETEROCENTRIC SOCIETAL BENEFITS: Benefits gained from maintaining heterosexual cultural norms

2.) GAY PARTNERSHIPS: Gay marriage only we want to replace the component "marriage" with something else. Our position is that marriage by definition is straight. This replaces the subliminal message that marriage can be gay with our own view.

3.) HETEROCENTRIC/PATRIARCHAL SOCIAL REALITIES: The social realities based on sociobiological observations that patriarchy and straightness are the norm in human populations.

4.) PARENTAL MARRIAGE CONTRACTS: Traditional marriage. This points to the natural function of marriage as parenting so that people can see the qualitative difference between the two kinds of partnerships._

5.) NATURAL PARENTING: Being raised in a traditional nuclear family by both a mother and a father.

6.) HETERONORMATIVE: The property of human sociobiology being naturally heterosexual.

7.) HUMAN SOCIOBIOLOGY: The social nature of humans. The term sociobiology* implies that this is a hard social science based on scientific observations (the same kind of observation that zoologists make when they study populations of giraffes or cattle) as opposed to the soft social sciences which are largely merely based on politically correct social constructs.

----------Global Poverty Act:

1.) INTERNATIONAL WELFARE: The policies in the Global Poverty Act

2.) OUTSOURCING AMERICAN PROSPERITY/MONEY: The effect of the Global Poverty Act to flush $1,000,000,000,000 down the toilet where it will never see America again (point out that this is the last thing we need right now with the economic crisis, use the numbers not the written word "one trillion" for psychological effect)

3.) NATIONAL CLASS INTEREST: The interests of Americans regardless of class to oppose the global poverty act, which will outsource nearly one trillion dollars overseas (stress that this will hurt Americans of all classes)

4.) CRYPTOCOMMIE: Obama or anyone that hides marxist policies of wealth redistribution. (used to describe supporters of the Global Poverty Act)

----------Gun Rights:

1.) GUN DEFENSE RIGHTS: The right to defend oneself any by extension ones home or property with a gun.

2.) HOME SECURITY: The effect of owning guns in the house

3.) AGGRESSIVE DISARMISTS: Gun control proponents (ND)

4.) CONSTITUTIONAL OPPOSITIONISTS: Gun control proponents (ND)

----------Healthcare:

See the associated thread for questions regarding usage: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=10281

1.) LIMTING PATIENT-CONSUMER CHOICE: The effects of a single-payer or nationalized healthcare scheme on patients abilities to choose doctors. The idea is to use consumer-type rhetoric to help sell the meme.

2.) SOCIALIZED MEDICINE: A medicine system that denies coverage by preventing others from purchasing healthcare on the free market.

3.) DENIES COVERAGE: The property of a socialized medical system in preventing one from being covered with ones own money.

4.) MANDATED RATIONING: The effects of a single-payer or nationalized healthcare system on healthcare distribution.

5.) VIOLATING PATIENT RIGHTS: The violation of the rights to use private funds to purchase additional healthcare. This is to counter the situation in Canada where people are not permitted to purchase extra healthcare even if they want to.

6.) COMPREHENSIVE HEALTHCARE DEFORM: Socialized Healthcare. (for quasi-casual/satirical usage)

7.) HEALTHCARE SOCIALIZATION: The process of turning our healthcare system into a single-payer system.

8.) PATIENT-CONSUMER RIGHTS: The rights of patient-consumers to purchase healthcare on the free market

9.) STEAL COVERAGE: The act of taking ones healthcare and giving it to others.

10.) HEALTHCARE RATIONING: The redistribution of healthcare in even amounts.

11.) ECONOMICALLY UNJUST: The property of being unjust justice being defined as the right to do with ones money as one wishes (the idea here is to do meme-reappropriation from the left "economic/social justice" nonsense meme.

12.) REDISTRIBUTE HEALTHCARE: Denying coverage from some so as to give it to others.

13.) PATIENT-CONSUMER: Any patient who purchases healthcare on the free market. We want to conjoin this phrase so that the possibility of a patient who is not a consumer has been "surgically" (pun intended) been removed from the mind of opposition.

14.) DEATHCARE: Bumper sticker type meme to describe single-payer/public option healthcare.

15.) AUTHORITARIAN MEDICINE: Obama's healthcare proposal stressing it's authoritarian nature in denying people further coverage.

16.) CONSUMER FREEDOM: The freedom of patient-consumers to purchase their own healthcare as they see fit.

17.) PROTECTING CHOICES: The act of maintaining the current healthcare system and thereby allowing for greater patient-consumer choice.

18.) MEDICAL EXTORTION: Illegal use of official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage. Forcing one to join the government run single payer system of healthcare or else pay huge tax fines.

----------Illegal Immegration:

1.) UNDOCUMENTED ILLEGAL: Illegal immigrant (memetic splicing technique, "undocumented" being the bait, and "illegal" being the hook)

2.) CITIZEN'S BENEFITS: Rights given to American citizens. (ie. social programs benefits, entitlements, education, voting rights, etc. etc.)

3.) COMPREHENSIVE BORDER SECURITY REFORM: Reforms to seal the border using walls and/or unmanned aerial surveillance drones. The goal is to take the emphasis off of "immigration reform" (which is a left-wing Trojan horse meme) and refocus it on the proper primary goal of immigration reform.

----------Iraq War:

1.) COALITION PEACEKEEPERS: Soldiers in Iraq

2.) SENSIBLE POLICY ON IRAQ: Staying in Iraq until the job is done

3.) GENOCIDE PREVENTION: What we are doing in Iraq (When using this, argue that this is what would happen if we pulled out prematurely.)

4.) IMPLOSIVE WITHDRAWAL: Withdrawal from Iraq before stability is achieved

5.) IRAQI DEMOCRACY: What we are defending in Iraq

----------Judicial Activism and Social Justice:

See the associated thread for questions regarding usage:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=8868

1.) SOCIAL JUSTICE RHETORIC: Language equating equality of outcome with justice. The entire basis of so-called "social justice" is in fact a set of views believing that the rules should be changed if something is losing. It is not a valid argument, but rather a childish ploy. The point here is to dismiss this out of hand by pointing out that it is rhetoric.

2.) COHERENT IDEOLOGICAL GROUNDING: A view based on a coherent consistent ideology or philosophy based on premises or axioms that do not shift at random to accommodate equal outcome.

3.) RIGGING OUTCOME EQUALITY: Rearranging a legal system such that equal outcome will result regardless of merit.

4.) JUDICIAL ACTIVISM: The tendency of judges to legislate from the bench.

5.) JUST PROCESS/PROCEDURAL JUSTICE: Just legal proceedings that judge people blindly and fairly and are not changed after the fact to achieve a desired outcome.

6.) INCIDENTAL INEQUALITIES: Inequalities that arise as side effects from a just system. The idea here is to reinforce the fact that justice is prior to concern for inequality, and that the occurrence of inequalities of outcome do not necessarily denote an unjust system.

7.) JUDICIAL PREJUDICE: The bias of a judge in favor of a political correctness "protected class" to rig outcome equality that is based on subjective bias rather than objective justice.

8.) SUBJECTIVELY BIASED/SUBJECTIVE BIAS: (in a judicial context) bias in judgment based on emotional appeals and rather than reason.

9.) OBJECTIVE JUSTICE: Justice as it is objectively and correctly defined. The idea being to reunite the concept of objectivity with the concept of justice so as to dispel the view that justice is subjective in nature.

----------Leftist Radicals:

1.) ANARCHIC PERSONALITIES: Individuals who believe that their is no transcendent moral authority or who see ALL authority even abstract authority as tyrannical for it's own sake (note: This doesn't have to be religious authority, it can also be based on objective ethical philosophies as well. This is based on and is the converse of Theodore Adorno's "authoritarian personality" which tried to label all right-wingers as mentally defective. It is recommended users research the "Authoritarian Personality" when using this meme so as to use it in a similar yet opposing context)

2.) RADICALS AND EXTREMISTS: Left-wing radicals (the idea is to link "radical" with "extremist" thereby getting rid of the false distinction drawn by leftists between the two)

----------Moral Values:

See the associated thread for questions regarding usage:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=9125

1.) ANARCHIC/LIBERTINE PERSONALITIES*: Individuals who believe that their is no transcendent moral authority or who see ALL authority, even abstract authority, as tyrannical for it's own sake (note: This doesn't have to be religious authority, it can also be based on objective ethical philosophies as well.)

2.) MORAL DEGENERATES/MORALLY DEGENERATE**: People who do not believe in a natural moral law of any kind.

3.) MINDLESS PERMISSIVENESS: The permitting of any sort of behavior without any question as to the morality of said behavior.

4.) NORMATIVE IMPAIRMENT: The inability to make objective moral judgments of others actions of any kind. The idea is that people who are normatively impaired are "defective" in the sense that they are not able to make moral judgments in a way similar to how a blind person can not see or a deaf person can not hear.

5.) SIMPLISTIC/MINDLESS PERSPECTIVISM/RELATIVISM: The simplistic reduction of all of ethics to relativism, which lacks any serious intellectual attempt to find an objective basis for morality. The idea here is to flip the common conception of relativism as being the more nuanced intellectual view on it's head. The argument behind this is similar to Alan Bloom's argument in Closing of the American Mind -that if all is relative then we don't have to bother to think about anything because all is true and false at the same time.

6.) MORAL ANOMIE: A state of moral normlessness in society upon which one can no longer distinguish between proper and deviant behavior. This term can be modified into a number of terms to deal with a variety of issues (ie Sexual Anomie, Narcotic Anomie, Marital Anomie etc. etc.).

7.) MORAL CLARITY**: The ability to see universal principles and make objective moral judgments based on self-evident moral truths.

8.) OBJECTIVE MORAL JUDGMENTS: Moral judgments of others behavior based on self-evident moral truths. The idea here is to conflate objectivity with moral judgment so as to eliminate the politically correct stigma against judging others behavior and instead describing it as something that is intelligent or positive.

9.) SELF-EVIDENT (MORAL) TRUTHS**: A priori truths about morality that form an objective basis for natural law and are the basis for making objective moral judgments.

*Appears in the Leftist Radicals section as well.
** Appears in the Natural Rights section as well.

----------Natural Rights:

See the associated thread for questions regarding usage: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=12621914298&topic=8438

1.)SYNTHETIC RIGHTS: socially fabricated rights based on contract (ie consensus) rather than natural law.

2.)NATURAL RIGHTS: Inalienable rights based on natural law.

3.) SOCIAL FABRICATIONS/SOCIALLY FABRICATED: Synthesized through arbitrary " social consensus" rather than derived from universal principles.

4.) MORAL NIHILISTS/VALUES DENIERS: people who do not believe in natural law.

5.)MORAL CLARITY: The ability to see universal principles.

6.)NATURAL LAW: The universal principles of transcendent human values from which natural rights are derived.

7.)TRANSCENDENT HUMAN VALUES: Self-evident moral truths based on universal principles. (we want to draw a wedge between the humanistic form of relativism here and objective notions of what it means for a human to be good)

8.) UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES: Self-evident truths from which transcendent human values are derived.

9.)SELF-EVIDENT (MORAL) TRUTHS: A priori truths about morality that form an objective basis for natural law.

10.) MORAL DEGENERATES: People who do not believe that a natural law or natural rights exist in any form.

----------Obama Supporters:

1.) OBAMBIES: Zombie-like Obama supporters

2.) LOBAMATIZED VOTERS: People who voted for Obama

3.) FULL FRONTAL LOBAMATY: The state of becoming an Obama supporter.

4.) O'BOT: Obama robot

----------Patriotism:

1.) PATRIOTICALLY INCORRECT HATE SPEECH: Speech attacking America, Americans as a people, or American interests. (use profusely on the "Hate America People")

2.) ANTI-AMERICAN BIGOTRY: Unpatriotic or more explicitly anti-patriotic sentiments towards America, or opposition to US interests.

----------Political Correctness and Identity Politics:

This memeplex is a unique in that it is a not just designed to attack political correctness but also be a form of counter-political correctness in its own right. See the associated thread for questions regarding usage: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=9157&post=30962&uid=12621914298#post30962

1.) DIVISIVE IDENTITY POLITICS: Identity politics that causes divisions within society and pits one identity against another.

2.) DISUNITY: The state of divisiveness and discord within a community caused by divisive identity politics.

3.) CULTURAL INTEGRATION: The integration of different identities into the melting pot.

4.) COMMUNITY VALUES: The values around which cultural integration is to occur -namely ours.

5.) EXPLOITING DIVERSITY: Using diversity the way the Cultural Marxists intended it to be used -to attack politically incorrect identity groups (WASPs, "rich white European males" etc. etc.)

6.) UNITY: The state of a community in which it is culturally and politically united.

7.) PROMOTE DIVISIVENESS: Attacking politically incorrect identity groups.

8.) SHARED VALUES: Values shared by a community in a state of unity.

9.) HEALTHY SOCIETY: A society in a state of unity.

10.) FRAGMENTED COMMUNITY: A society in a state of disunity.

11.) TOGETHERNESS: A state of unity, but with doubleplusgood bellyfeel connotations to it. :)

----------Radical Feminism:

1.) FEMALE SUPREMICISTS: Feminists who think they should be allowed to undermine men's rights.

2.) FEMALE ELITISTS: Feminists who argue for matriarchy. (This should usually be used in reference to critical theorist/neo-Marxist feminists in academia who espouse these views)

----------Religious Issues/Anti-Theism

1.) FAITH BASED COMMUNITY: Group people who identify as religious

2.) ANTI-FAITH BIGOTRY: Attitudes of ACLU etc. when attempting to remove all cultural aspects of religion (vociferous anti-theist attitudes)

3.) FAITH BASED DISCRIMINATION: Discrimination based on religious belief (often to be leveled at politicians who make an issue out of ones personal religious belief in things such as judicial appointments, can be used in similar situations)

----------Vouchers/Education:

1.) ANTI-CHOICE: The position of opposing school vouchers. (term expropriation from pro-abortion usage of "anti-choice")

2.) EDUCATIONAL CHOICE: The opportunity provided by vouchers to enter a school of ones choice.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------General Slogans: (for bumper stickers, t-shirts and the like)

1. "Change you can believe in? Stop the march towards the U.S.S.A!"

2. "Hey Momma, I Said No'Bama!"

3. "I'm Pro-Choice - for School, to Smoke, to Own a SUV, to Use Edison's Lightbulb, to Drill for Oil!"

4. "Blood is cheaper than oil." (Only if you want to tick them off. :) Not to be taken seriously)

5. "We can't all be idiots, some of us have to be Conservatives."

6. "Vouchers: It's about bringing school choice to everyone, not just the few who can afford to pay for it twice."

7. "Bailouts: It's a snake trying to eat it's own tail. Eventually it runs out of tail."

8."You Baracked the wrong vote."

9."I'm insane? You're Hussein!"

10."Total Obamination!"

What Happened in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Why

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 14:40:00 +0000

Tags: Mladic, Srebrenica, Bosnia, R2P, U.N., Ghadaffi, Lybia, Arab Spring, NATO, sovereignty, New World Order, Treaty of Westphalia, autonomy, Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Yugoslavia, ICTY, Samantha Power, International Crisis Group, George Soros, Serbia

Infowars: "Ratko Mladic Arrest: the Uses and Hypocrisy of U.N. “Genocide”", by Eric Pottenger and Jeff Friesen

The meaning behind the media response is clear: the arrest last Thursday of the so-called “Butcher of Bosnia,” General Ratko Mladic, is being deliberately used as a well-timed propaganda weapon in the ongoing war by globalists against the national sovereignty of countries around the world. A survey of the mainstream media accounts of the arrest reveal that the specific details of the crimes attributed to Mladic have been cast aside completely. Perhaps the same will be said of his forthcoming trial in the Hague–only time will tell. The real judgment against Mladic, however, will be formed in the court of public opinion. And it is in this venue where indictments–usually hypocritical–and slogans–usually trite–function as evidence. It is here where language and imagery is used to conjure up the worst genocidal massacres in world history. There is a craft at work here. For the audience to be effectively persuaded, emotion must take the place of reason. All discernment must be set aside. Only then will the stage be set to suggest how a tragedy like this can never happen again.

The real ‘crime’ being committed, once one understands the true motives behind the arrest, is not “crimes against humanity” but what the global elite see as the greatest threat to their power: a strong sovereign state. The territorial violations of Libya and Pakistan should be seen in this context. And Syria, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran could be next. One would be wise to ignore high-sounding humanitarian appeals or justifications for dropping bombs on civilian populations. These appeals were prepared beforehand to be used as selling points to justify aggression.

Like Serbia twenty years ago, the “guilt” these nations share is their strength and defiance. They represent obstacles on the path toward global governance. (...) Ratko Mladic is depicted as an “ethnic cleanser,” a “mass murderer,” a “genocidal butcher,” a “war criminal,” a “mastermind of massacre,” and a “thug.” He has been accused of “orchestrating the biggest mass murder of civilians in Europe since the Second World War.” And by linking Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi with this man, with these adjectives, these crimes, and with the horrifying images they conjure, it is almost as if Gaddafi functions as Mladic’s surrogate. So it was appropriate that we acted resolutely in Libya. We cannot be plagued by “collective guilt“; we cannot suffer “the consequences of Western inaction.” We cannot be forced to witness the tragic scenes of “mass graves” and “bones sticking out of the ground.” This is a “battle for humanity.” As Henry Porter reflected in the Guardian last Sunday, “for evil to triumph it is enough only for good men to do nothing.”

Serbian War Guilt: When the Charge of Genocide is Built on a Lie (Srebrenica, Bosnia, 1995)
What is missing from the recent articles about the genocidal war guilt of Ratko Mladic is the context in which the killings in Srebrenica took place. This collective omission is convenient for the geopolitical purposes in which the charge of genocide has been used, both in the mid-nineties and today.

Ratko Mladic was a commanding General of the Bosnian Serb army during the bloody civil war in Bosnia, a war which started shortly after the breakup of the Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991. Bosnia is a rugged, mountainous country, situated at the crossroads of empires. For centuries it has been home to three major ethnic groups, which proved unfortunate at a time of religious tension and political uncertainty. Under the thirty-eight year reign of Josef Tito, Christian Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats lived side-by-side with Muslims in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia, a state within Yugoslavia. The undoing of the Republic of Yugoslavia was the undoing of the unity and stability which existed between these religious-ethnic cultures. Serbs represented just under half of the Bosnian population, and now faced the prospect of a Muslim-dominated government. An independent state of Bosnian Serbs was soon created, Republika Srpska. The territorial rights claimed by each group were hotly disputed by competing ethnic factions. The ensuing war broke out to settle these territorial disputes, with overtones that were religious and cultural in nature. Egregious violence was committed by all sides.

Srebrinica gained significance during the war through its being one of the UN-occupied “safe areas,” which were created ostensibly to harbor civilian refugees and provide humanitarian relief. The facts suggest, however, that by 1995 the United Nations had begun implicitly supporting the Muslim military in their conflict against the Serbs, in this case allowing Bosnian Muslim soldiers to operate a UN-protected garrison in the village, from which troops would then raid Serb-dominated villages and terrorize the local civilian populations. About the Muslim raids upon Serb villages, Stella L. Jatras writes:

“Yasushi Akashi, former UN Representative in Bosnia, admitted in the Washington Times of 1 November 1995, that “it is a fact that the Bosnian government forces have used the ‘safe areas’ of not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Gorazde for training, recuperation and refurbishing their troops.” In other words, the so-called safe areas were used as military posts to train Mujahedin fighters from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Turkey and the entire Islamic world, free to commit their treachery by attacking Serbian villages and returning like thieves in the night back to the safety of their UN protectors who conveniently looked the other way to these violations. Prior to the events at Srebrenica, these “Holy Warriors of Islam” had attacked 42 surrounding Serbian villages and over 3,000 Serbian villagers had been slaughtered without fear of being reprimanded or punished by the UN. Yet, when Serbs were provoked to retaliate against these Muslim assaults from these so-called “safe-areas,” they were condemned by the entire world.

“Further proof of the violations of proclaimed “safe areas” by Bosnian Muslim forces was provided by Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, former UNPROFOR commander who stated that Muslims “shoot on the Serbs to step up the pressure and to obtain a fresh intervention from NATO.” [5]

These accounts are significant, as the Bosnian Muslims have long been characterized by the West as helpless victims in the conflict, victims of unthinkable Serb atrocities. This is a characterization that still survives to this day, as the recent arrest of Ratko Mladic reveals. But the situation in Srebrenica was far more complex, and war guilt not quite so one-sided. As revealed, not only was the Bosnian Muslim garrison conducting murderous raids upon neighboring Serb villages. But the so-called UN peacekeeping force was providing them the safety to do so. Addressing the motive behind the UN’s complicity in these raids, Diana Johnstone writes:

“From the U.N. Secretary General’s 1999 Report on Srebrenica, it emerges that the idea of a “Srebrenica massacre” was already in the air at a September 1993 meeting in Sarajevo between Bosnian Muslim president Alija Izetbegovic and members of his Muslim party from Srebrenica. On the agenda was a Serb proposal to exchange Srebrenica and Zepa for some territories around Sarajevo as part of a peace settlement.

“‘The delegation opposed the idea, and the subject was not discussed further. Some surviving members of the Srebrenica delegation have stated that President Izetbegovic also told them he had learned that a NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina was possible, but could only occur if the Serbs were to break into Srebrenica, killing at least 5,000 of its people.’”

“Izetbegovic later denied this, but he is outnumbered by witnesses. It is clear that Izetbegovic’s constant strategy was to portray his Muslim side in the bloody civil war as pure helpless victims, in order to bring U.S. military power in on his side. On his death bed, he readily admitted as much to his ardent admirer Bernard Kouchner, in the presence of U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Kouchner reminded Izetbegovic of a conversation he had had with French President Mitterrand in which he “spoke of the existence of ‘extermination camps’ in Bosnia.”

Kutchner: “You repeated that in front of the journalists. That provoked considerable emotion throughout the world. [...] They were horrible places, but people were not systematically exterminated. Did you know that?”
Izetbegovich: “Yes. I thought that my revelations could precipitate bombings. I saw the reaction of the French and the others-I was mistaken. [...] Yes, I tried, but the assertion was false. There were no extermination camps whatever the horror of those places.” [6]

The significance of these remarks attributed to the Bosnian Muslim president are obvious. From the perspective of Izetbegovich, an infusion of superior military firepower (and global public support) on the side of the Bosnian Muslims would provide an obvious advantage in their ongoing war against the Serbs. But first the U.S.-led NATO forces needed a “humanitarian crisis” to justify intervention, as the dispute was local in character (meaning, neither side posed an international security threat, which had been the standard governing interventions during that time). In other words, Bosnia needed a “genocide” to sell their war to the West, which is exactly what the situation in Srebrinica was set up to provide. The Bosnian Muslim high command laid a trap in Srebrenica, predicated upon goading the Serb army to seek revenge for the Muslim raids upon the neighboring Serb villages. Perhaps this explains why the Bosnian Muslim commanding officer at Srebrenica, Naser Oric, had established such a reputation for viciousness against the Serbs. Johnstone writes:
“In testimony to a French parliamentary commission inquiry into Srebrenica, General Philippe Morillon, the UNPROFOR officer who first called international attention to the Srebrenica enclave, stated his belief that Bosnian Serb forces had fallen into a “trap” when they decided to capture Srebrenica.

“Subsequently, on February 12, 2004, testifying at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, General Morillon stressed that the Muslim commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, “engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region, and this prompted the region of Bratunac in particular—that is the entire Serb population—to rebel against the very idea that through humanitarian aid one might help the population that was present there.”

“Asked by the ICTY prosecutor how Oric treated his Serb prisoners, General Morillon, who knew him well, replied that “Naser Oric was a warlord who reigned by terror in his area and over the population itself. I think that he realized that these were the rules of this horrific war, that he could not allow himself to take prisoners. According to my recollection, he didn’t even look for an excuse. It was simply a statement: One can’t be bothered with prisoners.” [7]

These atrocities lured the Serbs into launching a predictable attack upon the village. After which the Bosnian Muslim officer corps was suddenly pulled from the garrison. Johnstone continues:

“…the Muslim high command in Sarajevo ordered the Srebrenica commanders, Oric and his lieutenants, to withdraw from Srebrenica, leaving thousands of his soldiers without commanders, without orders, and in total confusion when the foreseeable Serb attack occurred. Surviving Srebrenica Muslim officials have bitterly accused the Izetbegovic government of deliberately sacrificing them to the interests of his State.” [8]

What is undisputed in all accounts is that Bosnian Serb forces overtook the town. The question that remains debated–and that which is of central importance today–is whether a “genocidal massacre” of the Muslim population can be said to have occurred. Then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, “proved” her case of genocide by waving satellite photos of discolored dirt mounds, claiming they were mass graves. In her recent interview with Charlie Rose, Albright stated, “…the thing I did was to get declassified the photographs of what was going on in Srebrenica. We had pictures that showed [what] had been an empty field, then a field with people, then a field with rats as the people disappeared. And I took that to the Security Council and I think it opened the way for us then ultimately to take action.” [9]

Albright’s testimony appears dubious when compared to eye-witnesses of the Serb advance upon the town. Stella L. Jatras writes:

“Tim Butcher of the Daily Telegraph, London (24 July 1995), wrote regarding Srebrenica, “After five days of interviews the United Nations chief investigator into alleged human rights abuses during the fall of Srebrenica has not found any firsthand witnesses of atrocities.”

“An International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report, document #37, dated September 13, 1995 states: “Approximately 5,000 Srebrenica Muslim troops left the enclave prior to its fall. The Muslim government has admitted that these men were reassigned to other units of its armed forces. The fact that family members were not informed of it was justified by the obligation to keep it a military secret.” The ICRC further reported that there were indications that sporadic clashes broke out between the Muslim soldiers who wanted to stay and fight and other soldiers and civilians who wanted to flee. In some cases, the names of “missing” soldiers are listed as many as two and three times. As previously stated, approximately fewer than 2,000 bodies have been found in graves. Considering that the civil war in Bosnia had lasted over four years, this could not exactly be called a “genocide” when compared to other massacres taking place all over the world such as in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia. [10]

“Captain Schouten, the ranking UN officer on the scene in Bratunac, Het Parool, stated less than a week after the genocide was said to have taken place:

“‘Everybody is parroting everybody [about Srebrenica] but nobody shows hard evidence. In the Netherlands people want to prove at all costs that genocide has been committed. I don’t believe any of it. The day after the collapse of Srebrenica, July 13, I arrived in Bratunac [alleged massacre site] and stayed there for eight days. I was able to go wherever I wanted to. I was granted all possible assistance; nowhere was I stopped.’” [11]

Although the motive of the Western powers against Serbia is far too detailed and complex to go into here, it is immediately obvious that Serbian nationalism must first have been weakened for the nation to be brought into the larger plan for European political integration and the expansion of NATO’s reach in Eastern Europe. This undoubtedly explains why the recent arrest of Ratko Mladic is being heralded as a “victory for the EU”; and why the current Serbian president, Boris Tadic “deserves our respect” for carrying out the arrest. From his position as the president of Serbia, Boris Tadic has stuck yet one more dagger into Serbia as an independent state. Mladic will soon be tried and convicted by unelected bureaucrats in the Netherlands, home of the World Court, not in Belgrade, where sovereignty is then preserved, and where his actions would unlikely serve the internationalist agenda that we have outlined above. >>>

Endnotes

[1] McTernan, John “The Arrest of Ratko Mladic Tells Muammar Gaddafi — You Can Run But You Can’t Hide”, (Telegraph), May 26, 2011. See also, Tony Blair, “Doctrine of the International Community at the Economic Club,” April 24, 1999.
[2] Power, Samantha, A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (Harper Perennial).
[3] Ackerman, Spencer, “Mastermind of Bosnia Massacre Caught, 16 Years Later” (Wired), May 26, 2011.
[4] The Charlie Rose Show (Bloomberg TV), May 26, 2011.
[5] Jatras, Stella L., “‘Srebrenica’ — Code Word to Silence Critics of U.S. Policy in the Balkans,” (Antiwar.com), July 31, 2000
[6] Johnstone, Diana, “Srebrenica Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for More War,” (Counterpunch), October 12, 2005.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] The Charlie Rose Show (Bloomberg TV), May 26, 2011.
[10] Jatras, Stella L. “Srebrenica’ — Code Word to Silence Critics of U.S. Policy in the Balkans,” (Antiwar.com), July 31, 2000
[11] Israel, Jared, “Srebrenica, A Small Town in Yugoslavia: Five Years On and the Lies Continue,” July 29, 2000.

June 2, 2011
~

The Nexus Between Makeability and Coercion

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 14:59:00 +0000

Introduction
During the US Presidential campaign we ran a series of posts related to the Left and their tendency towards coercion. Somehow we never got round to posting the final part III.

Since the subject got a new dimension over the last couple of weeks, we've taken the relevant paragraphs from those three segments and distilled them to one new two part post, entirely devoted to explaining this ugly tendency - which, as we shall see - is an integral part of a particular world view.

Speaking solely of the Left in this respect would be a bit of an oversimplification. It goes a few levels deeper than that. It is a built-in particle of all Utopian ideologies, and it is practically synonymous with collectivism.

We've also added the latest discoveries and innovations, while resisting the temptation to use current events as illustrations. These are so blatant, they hardly need stressing.

Once philosophy isn't grounded in reality but in makeability, sooner or later it always comes down to aggression. Violence and coercion are at the heart of every level of idealistic thought, metaphysically, epistemological and ethically. This stands to reason. We will take a look how it translates into daily practice and why the Left's style of activism reminds us so much of the fascist methodology.

What is subjectivism?
Subjectivism has three approaches.

The most rational one is, that universals (objectives, essences, concepts) do not exist, or are unattainable since cognition is filtered through the individual's fallible mind and senses. What we take for 'real' are actually as many different perspectives of 'reality' as there are human beings. In this theory there are men, but not man-ness.

All those individual perspectives are the basis for the magic approach to subjectivism, which posits that thought itself creates reality: reality, (the object), is thus dependent on human consciousness, (the subject), for its existence. A thinker does not need to concern himself with the outside facts to acquire knowledge of it.

The mind, containing raw percepts and emotions, unfiltered and unprocessed by reason (the pool called the subconscious) has the power to create 'reality' in conformity with the thinker's wishes. Pathos, emotions and will take the place of reason as the primary tool of 'cognition' (evidently we can't speak here of a 'cognition process' as such).

Iconically Albert Einstein once asked a subjectivist, "do you really think the universe is not there when you aren't watching it?" A subjectivist might legitimately ask, "If I die overnight, will the sun rise tomorrow?" Here we can see that the fallacy rests on not separating the man-made from the metaphysical.

To the third uptake on subjectivism the individual approach is utter nonsense, but on the macro or group level, it is not. Groups can perform change on the ground in conformity with their 'common will'. One might object that it is one man's mind that has a will and there is no such thing as a 'group will'. Try explain that to educated people who 'know' that groups even take 'decisions' (a matter of very sloppy identification: what they actually mean is, that a certain interchange has taken place, that has led to a certain (unconscious) effect).

Political philosophy
This group subjectivism is the most pernicious of the three, since it has momentous conquences for political philosophy. It is the basis of racism, ethnic nationalism, polylogism, and multiculturalism. From there it is but one step to gulags, psychiatric asylums and Socialist concentration camps (meaning, all Left and Right variations: Marxism, Fascism and National Socialism).

When the Western Left abandoned the ambition of reaching Utopia through violent revolution, they embraced democratic principles and even usurped Liberalism, debasing it to a form of moral and social laissez faire. This temporarily halted the coercive tendency, but it resurfaces now that the Left is reverting back to its origins rooted in the Counter-Enlightenment.

The latter is a rather loose collection of ideologies that may be Rightist (Heidegger) or Leftist (Marx et al), and which - in various degrees - is subjectivist; they reject morality and man's ability to acquire knowledge, and deny there is a meaning to life, this to the point of nihilism. They are always collectivist, hate capitalism and free-markets, have a disdain for reason, love strong states and strong men, and have a (latent) contempt for democracy which they see as a dictatorship of the middle class, which they hate too. On the other hand, they have fully embraced radical egalitarianism.

Cut

The substance of the subjectivist mind
Subjectivists do not engage in cognitive processes in any exact sense of the word. An object - say a banana - isn't perceived externally (what is the form, the color, its smell, etc.?), but the question is rather, how does the banana 'strike' the observer. A subjectivist sits in reception how the banana 'comes across', what emotion will the banana trigger in him, the mind functioning as a sounding board or a radio receiver, if you will.

This is also at the heart of the cannabis legalization campaign: the effect of a narcotic is a short-cut to superior subjective 'thought processes'.

The received signal translates into a pleasant or an unpleasant percept. The passive, 'open mind' approach opens the field wide to (auto) suggestion, free association, and projection. This can run wild, even resulting in psychosis, since it goes unchecked by sobering logic and reason. Subjectivists are ardent manipulators of perception. Read also "When Reason Fails".

Where do they get it?
The basis for this improper method of 'cognition' is the Kantian notion that the mind is locked up inside the skull, forever separated from outside reality. It has become a place of smoke and mirrors, with loosely floating memes and particles or ideas that are only a ghostly form of the actual thing; the real object (the universal: man-ness) is localized in some parallel universe, unbreachable by the human mind.

This originally Platonic belief allows subjectivists to manipulate facts, and pick and choose among data to reach any conclusion they like. Reality becomes pliable, facts floating memes that can be one thing on Monday evening, but quite another on Tuesday morning, according to one's nightly experience or (political) expediency.

Their ethics program leads them to reach only collectivist conclusions.

Justification for coercion
Cut off from reason, the duty of altruism, which is at the core of Kantian ethics (deontology), tends to demand force since that is the only means of ensuring that everyone complies with the ultimate moral duty to self-sacrifice. This reinforces the subjectivist default position of coercion, but the ultimate source lies in anti-reason: in absence of objective knowledge, might makes right (Pragmatism), which is further enhanced by the absolute morality that forcing the 'good' on people is for the benefit of all concerned.

The absurdity of this ethics system is illustrated by the contradiction that it delegitimizes at the same time doing good, if this is done with a particular purpose in mind (any). But worse, it forbids self-defense and telling a lie, even if this is done to prevent a murder! If a company or a person advertises as "conforming to the highest 'ethical' standards", rest assured it is Kantian ethics!

The 'soft' alternatives
The Western Left have managed for a long time to suppress the natural tendency to use force. By applying the perversion of pacifism, declaring any form of violence - even in self-defense, or to protect the innocent - morally beyond the pale ("make love, not war") they limited themselves to the use of only peaceful methods of persuasion. Today they have perfected these soft methods of manipulation (see also "The Hidden Sinisterism of the O Campaign"), such as Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)* , The Nudge and the Delphi technique to such an extent that one might ask, whatever foul thing will they think up next?

When you aren't being Nudged, you're probably being Delphied into compliance.

"The Delphi Technique — What Is It?"

* Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) replaces subjective thought with subjective (body)language. Instead of thought, it is here mostly language that serves as a tool for the creation of reality.

These and rhetorical equivocations are fairly easy methods to make unsuspecting people comply with the ideology. Political correctness is one such method by which group pressure is used to place someone - or his actions - outside the realm of moral respectability: no one wants to be called a bigot, a racist or a Fascist. False moral equivalence and equivocations are other methods. Feigned outrage, we all know too well.

Why a debate with a subjectivist is not possible
There are two ways for getting people's cooperation: by a process of persuasion, such as a debate, or by some form of coercion. As we shall see, the chasm between the two schools on the nature of thought, is wide and cannot be overcome: objectivism and subjectivism are mutually exclusive. Debate doesn't work where subjectivists are involved; objectivists cannot be cajoled into taking some arbitrary position by coercion.

Let's have a look at the peaceful option: parley. This works fine among objectivists who reach truth through a process of dialogue. Such a process is impossible with subjectivists, since you cannot have a debate with someone who is convinced that anything you say is just ... well, your personal opinion. In the eyes of the subjectivist, in the absence of objective standards to truth - the outcome of such 'conversations' is always one arbitrary, personal taste pitted against another. Hence the shouting matches, the expletives, the ad hominems and all the other Postmodern 'debating techniques' that are also at the heart of the Alinsky tactics for radicals: it's intimidation.

On the other hand it is also very hard to agree to diagree with a subjectivist since he's convinced himself that your 'arbitrary' position is sheer ill will: you're out to hurt him and the superior, altruistic, collectivist causes he stands for. At this point a process of psychological projection has long set in and he'll accuse you of whatever he's engaged in himself.

One could temporarily appease him, but that would only feed the bully. He'll be back for more since his strategy worked.

Coercion does not work for those who stubbornly cling to reason. The problem here is that human minds can be silenced or destroyed, but they cannot be forced to accept something they know to be untrue.

But to the subjectivist any position is morally interchangeable with any other: the subjectivist reels in frustration with the intransigence of the objectivist.

Cut

Means of control
As Ayn Rand has pointed out, it is not possible to foist a lie on rational people by force: A = A even under the most vile circumstances. Therefore tyrants resort to immobilizing their subjects' minds by forms of oppression like irrational and contradictory laws, what in Soviet times was termed cynicly, "the truth of the day". Such stories have become world literature through the books of the East European author Franz Kafka.

Leonard Peikoff in "The Ominous Parallels" makes the case that the Nazi death camps were actually controlled experiments in mass mind control: what do absurd situations, that bear no relation whatsoever with known reality, do to the human mind ... absurd, as in the surrealism of Viennese walzes accompanying people to the gas chambers? It's a very intriguing suggestion.

Violence, alienation, drug abuse and alcoholism are all methods to halt rational thinking. Some drugs however, like cannabis and LSD enhance superior subjectivist 'thought.' Suggestible minds however can solve the problem without such aides: by means of evasion they're able to rationalize whatever they are expected to 'believe'.

A recent example by the Dutch version of Bono illustrates rather well the perversion subjectivism might lead to: his solution for world peace would be to take away man's free will. As this happens to be the very seat where the moral compass expresses itself, this particular suggestion speaks volumes of the unethical nature of coercion that justifies itself through its own ethics: any demagogue would have been proud as a peacock of such a Faustian proposition.

One can see how idealists and Utopians can become ruthless capos, and cultured peoples can end up producing the most toxic ideologies.

Objectivist ethics
In Ayn Rand's philosophical theory of Objectivism the initiation of force is evil, but self-defense is a moral obligation. Refraining from it would be tantamount to being an accomplice to evil. Retaliation is also warranted against an irrational enemy, which repudiates the Bush doctrine of preemptive strike. This is because these enemies themselves allow only such methods. This is not 'stooping to their level', but on the contrary, preventing them from using it against you or any other innocent.

While Liberals and Postmodernists have reached the suicidal, relativist conclusion that since there is no absolute good or evil but only so many equally valid perspectives, Objectivism offers a real ethics program based on reason. The good fosters life, evil does not. While there may be grey areas, it is safe to state that dictators proposing mass murder - even if justified by a Sorelian myth of victimhood - is pure, unadulterated evil.

To appease such a man, has the effect of the appeaser becoming an accomplice. This is the real Faustian dilemma. In absolute terms, the good has nothing - repeat nothing - to gain from evil since there is no good in absolute evil. You cannot bargain with men like Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and Ahmadinejad about the amount of victims they might make.

They never learn, do they?
Subjectivists lack the philosophical tool that would lead to the conclusion, that the problem lies in what they perceive as the solution: sacrifice of the individual to the whole. Therefore Leftists always believe they will perform better than the preceding lot. This leads to an endless succession of Socialists blaming so-and-so for the bankruptcies, but promising they will do Utopia better this time around. In reality, the ideology has been well tested and was found wanting each and every time. That is because their ideologies are based - not on reality - but on a racket resting on a perceived ideal from which no one is exempted.

Prejudice, bigotry and absolutes
An popular imperative among subjective thinkers is not to pass moral judgment on others. But, as we have seen, since opponents through lack of objective standards can't debate the matter to find truth, this imperative is thrown to the wind as the opponent is demonized in the foulest possible matter. Hence it is possible today for Leftists to sincerely ask Sarah Palin fans how they can like this woman: take your pick, "she's a creationist, a Christian fundamentalist, she's against abortion, isn't she?" The entire person is demonized.

Person and ideas have become merged into one inseparable caricature of reality. Neither a motivation nor a clarification is necessary: the primitivity of the school yard epithet! They fail to realize what dangerous ground they're on. The next step is active Storm-Trooper-ship. It's no wonder they sound like Fascists! That is because they use the same philosophical tools: the talking points have reached the status of absolute dogma, while the method of implementation is pragmatism, an act of the will.

Regretably examples of such positions are everywhere, but to mention just one for clarity: the finer points of this issue aside, Darwin's theory of evolution is true (dogma), because it happens to be expedient to what we believe (pragmatism, because we say so). All should embrace this belief because the alternative would be unthinkable. Once embraced by the gatekeepers as admissable, the same mechanism can be used on any other subject, an individual or a collective: "the bailout Bill was the only solution to the credit crisis", "Palin is a b*tch", "all Jews are parasites", no further questions or motivation is required.

acquiesce

Related articles

- American Thinker: "The Left's Sexual Terrorism", by Robin of Berkeley"
- PJM: "Klavan on the Culture: "Shut Up"

Related

- "Blurring the Border between Reality and Perception" (media bias - series)
- "When Reason Fails" (series)

Related dossiers

- "The Dystopia of Paradise"
- "The Political Pathology Asylum"
- "Assault of the New Storm Troopers"
- "The Urban Guerilla"
- "The Unholy Alliance"

Obama Registration at Fr. Assisi School in Jakarta

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:44:00 +0000

Psychological Projection

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 10:39:00 +0000

Psychological projection a.k.a. Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS)

Formatieduur Kabinetten Vanaf 1945

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 17:03:00 +0000

Jaren Kabinet Formatieduur in dagen
1945 – 1946   Schermerhorn/Drees 47
1946 – 1948   Beel I 47
1948 – 1951   Drees/Van Schaik 31
1951 – 1952   Drees I 50
1952 – 1956   Drees II 16
1956 – 1958 Drees III 122
1958 – 1959 Beel II 10
1959 – 1963   De Quay 10
1963 – 1965   Marijnen   70
1965 – 1966   Cals 46
1966 – 1967   Zijlstra 38
1967 – 1971   De Jong 49
1971 – 1973   Biesheuvel 69
1973 – 1977   Den Uyl 163
1977 – 1981 Van Agt I 208
1981 – 1982 Van Agt II 108
1982 Van Agt III 17
1982 – 1986   Lubbers I 57
1986 – 1989 Lubbers II 54
1989 – 1994   Lubbers III 62
1994 – 1998   Kok I   111
1998 – 2002 Kok II 89
2002 – 2003 Balkenende I 68
2003 – 2006 Balkenende II 125
2006   Balkenende III 8
2007   Balkenende IV 90
2010   Rutte

History of Islam and how they build victory mosques

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:46:00 +0000

First published on Facebook by Sandy Lynn on Friday, September 10, 2010 at 10:26pm

"History of Islam and how they build VICTORY MOSQUES...", by Pamela Kafir Liner on Monday, September 6, 2010 at 3:46pm

The HISTORY OF ISLAM may hold answers to WHY it is so important for Moslems to build that GROUND ZERO MOSQUE..

In 630, Muhammad led 10,000 Muslim soldiers into Mecca and turned the pagans' most prominent spot, the Ka'aba, into the Masjid al-Haram Mosque.

In 634, Rightly Guided Caliph Umar conquered Syria and turned the Christians' most prominent spot, the Church of Job, famous for being visited by Saint Silva in the fourth century, into the Mosque of Job.

In 637, Caliph Umar conquered Hebron and turned the second-most prominent spot in Judaism, the Cave of the Patriarchs, into the Ibrahimi Mosque. (This was repeated by Saladin in 1188.)

In 638, Muslim generals Amr ibn al-As and Khalid ibn al-Walid conquered Gaza and turned the prominent fifth-century Byzantine church into the Great Mosque of Gaza.

In 638, Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem.

In 691, Caliph Al-Malik ordered the _Dome of the Rock_ built on the most prominent spot in Judaism, the Temple Mount, followed by Caliph Al-Walid building the Al-Aqsa Mosque there in 705.

In 651, Muslims conquered Persia and turned Zoroastrian temples in Bukhara and Istakhr into mosques.

In 706, after Muslims took Damascus from the Byzantine Empire, Caliph Al-Walid turned the prominent Orthodox Church of St. John the Baptist into the Umayyad Mosque.

In 710, Gen. Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Pakistan, defiled the prominent Sun Temple in Multan, which house the great idol "sanam," and erected a mosque.

In 784, after the conquest of Spain, Emir Abd ar-Rahman turned the prominent Visigothic Christian Church of Saint Vincent into the Great Aljama Mosque of Cordoba. After the conquest of Egypt, Caliphs al-Mamun (813-833) and al-Hakim (996-1021) turned prominent Coptic Christian churches and Jewish synagogues in Cairo into mosques.

In 831, Muslims conquered Palermo, Sicily, and Asad ibn al-Furat turned the prominent Church of Saint Mary of the Assumption into the Great Mosque of Bal'harm. In 1193, Muslims conquered Delhi, India, and Qutbuddin Aibak turned the Red Citadel in Dhillika, the most prominent spot of the last Hindu rulers, into the Qutb Minar Mosque.

From 1250-1517, Mamluk Muslims controlled the Golan Heights and used the ancient Synagogue of Katzrin as a mosque.

In 1387, Turkish Muslims conquered Thessaloniki and turned the Katholikon Monastery and the Church of Aghia Sophia, which housed the relics of Saint Gregorios Palamas, into mosques, as Symeon of Thessaloniki recorded: "The greatest number of the buildings of the churches fell to them, of which _the first_ was the Holy Church of the Savior. … These were trampled underfoot and the infidels rejoiced in them. … Most of thhe religious buildings in the city were despoiled, while altars were demolished and sacred things profaned."

On May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople and turned the great Byzantine church, Hagia Sophia, into the Ayasofya Mosque. The _largest_ church in Christendom for a thousand years, the church's four acres of gold mosaics were covered with whitewash and Quran verses.

In 1458, Sultan Mehmet II conquered Athens and turned the Greeks' most prominent spot, the Parthenon on Acropolis hill, into a mosque. When Venetian Gen. Francesco Morosini drove the Muslims out in 1687, a cannonball hit the gunpowder stored in the mosque, blowing it up. In the 15th century, Ottoman invaders turned Saint Clement's Macedonian Orthodox Monastery in Plaosnik, Balkans, into the Imater Mosque.

From 1519-1858, Muslim Mughal rulers gained control of India and turned over 2,000 Hindu temples into mosques, including demolishing the Temple of Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya, the birthplace of Rama, and replacing it with the Babri Mosque. India's Mughal Muslim ruler, Jahangir (1605-1627), wrote in Tujuk-i-Jahangiri: "At the city of Banaras [was] a temple. … I made it my plea for thhrowing down the temple … and on the spot, with the very same materials,, I erected the great mosque."

In 1543, Hayreddin Barbarossa's 30,000 Muslim troops wintered in Toulon, France, and turned the prominent Toulon Cathedral into a mosque.

In 1570, under Sultan Selim II Khan, Muslims conquered Paphos, Cyprus, and Gov. Mehmet Bey Ebubkir turned the prominent Christian church into the Great Mosque of Paphos.

In 1571, Muslims invaded Famagusta, Cyprus, and turned Saint Nicolas Cathedral, a rare Gothic church, into the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Nicosia, constructed in 1228, into the Selimiye Mosque.

In 1588, Sultan Murat III turned the Eastern Orthodox Church of Saint John the Forerunner in Constantinople into the Hirami Ahmet Pasha Mosque.

In 1781, after having conquered the Old City of Acre, Ottoman Muslims turned the Roman Catholic church built by Crusaders into the Jezzar Ahmet Pasha Mosque, where a hair from Muhammad's beard is preserved.

In 1923, Muslims expelled Greeks from Turkey and turned Orthodox churches into mosques. In World War II, Nazis allied with Bosnians and turned the prominent Artists' Gallery Museum in Zagreb, Croatia, into a mosque.

In the 1950s, Muslims expelled Jews from Arab lands and turned synagogues into mosques. Algerian Muslims warred against French colonial rule till France pulled out in 1962, after which the Cathedral of St. Philippe was turned into the Ketchaoua Mosque. Violence against Jews caused 30,000 to flee and the Great Synagogue of Oran was turned into the Mosque Abdellah Ben Salem.

In 1974, Turkish Muslims invaded northern Cyprus, and prominent Greek Orthodox churches were turned into mosques. In 1981, Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands converted Amsterdam's historic Catholic Sint-Ignatiuskerk into the Fatih Mosque, and a synagogue in The Hague into the Aksa Mosque.

William J. Federer is the author of: "What Every American Needs to Know About the Quran: A History of Islam and the United States."

Education: The Theoretical versus the Practical

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:51:00 +0000

Which is more important: the theoretical or the practical? Although some people like to focus on one or the other, I suggest that such a separation is an error. They should be considered two parts of the same whole, and neither should be considered more important than the other.

To illustrate the connection of the theoretical with the practical, consider education. Surely there is nothing more practical than the education of children. However, what has happened to education in this country since the 1960s is the result of a theory: postmodern thought. This is true whether you agree or disagree with the transformation that has taken place during the past fifty years in the name of progress.

The objective of traditional American eduction was to produce intelligent, capable, individuals. who could think for themselves, and make decisions based on their own judgments. Such individuals were expected to have free will and an inner compass which gave them character and morality which was compatible with the principles and ideals upon which America was founded.

Here's what Antony C. Sutton wrote in his book, America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones:

The National Education Association produced a program for the 1976 Bicentennial entitled "A Declaration Of Interdependence: Education For A Global Community" which was pure progressivism, or postmodernism. On page 6 of this document we find: "We are committed to the idea of Education for Global Community. You are invited to help turn the commitment into action and mobilizing world education for development of a world community."

This is an objective straight out of Hegel's philosophy. This objective is explained in Self Knowledge And Social Action by Obadiah Silas Harris, Associate Professor of Educational Management and Development New Mexico State University: "When community educators say that community education takes into consideration the total individual and his total environment, they mean precisely this:

"The field of community education includes the individual in his total psycho-physical structure and his entire ecological climate with all its ramifications - social, political, economical, cultural, spiritual, etc. It seeks to integrate the individual within himself [sic] and within his community until the individual becomes a cosmic soul and the community the world."

And on page 84 of the same book:

"The Cosmic soul ... the whole human race is going to evolve an effective soul of its own - the cosmic soul of the race. That is the future of human evolution. As a result of the emergence of the universal soul, there will be a great unification of the entire human race, ushering into existence a new era, a new dawn of unique world power."

This last quote sounds more like a German in 1933 than any American. It has the same blend of the occult, the ethnic and absolutism. All of this is theory, but does in have practical outcomes? I think it does.

Now compare the objective of progressive education with our Constitution, the basic theory under which the United States is governed. Our Constitution makes the individual supreme, i.e. the government exists only to serve individuals and government has no power except by express permission of the people. Of course, progressives (postmodernists) do not agree with this view of our Constitution. They think in terms of collectives (factions), not of the individual. This is way they consider it a "living document".

Nevertheless, the supremacy of the individual is guaranteed by Amendments IX and X of the Constitution. Amendment IX reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People." Note, the "retained". And, Amendment X reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Therefore, the proposals of John Dewey and his followers (who provided the theory for progressive education in this country are unconstitutional. But the constitutionality of this theory has never been challenged, since it is impossible to bring a legal case against a theory. And the practical application in the schools and classrooms are controlled by progressives shaped by postmodern theory.

It is difficult for many people to understand how drastically education has been transformed since the 1960s. The educational psychologists and philosophers, who are the recognized leaders in their fields (because they get the financial support), promote education as a socialization process. The goal of postmodern education is to "socialize" the child, to give him firm ideas about how he is part of a larger whole (a collective), and to generate politically correct behaviors in accordance with some collective (faction). It is not that this is some better and wonderful way to do things -- it is only that it serves the purposes of some collective, or someone.

Obviously, somebody is behind the scenes deciding what the vision of this new society should be, what the children need to believe, and what they need to be indoctrinated with. The entire purpose of education today is toward transforming this country. It is very much group oriented, just as was communism and German fascism. It is not interested in producing intelligent, capable, individuals who can think for themselves, and make decisions based on their own judgments.

Realize, there is nothing wrong with wanting to create a decent society, without war, crime, insanity, and with morality, responsibility and decency, i.e. a Utopia. But the only legitimate way to do this is to first, create intelligent, capable, aware, responsible and decent individuals, who then go out and put a better society and world there. No social plan, political system, or Utopian agenda will ever do it, because these always ignore and suppress the individual.

The government should exist for the benefit, safety and happiness of the individuals. Not the other way around - which is how postmodern education, and political and social planners view it. Let's be real here. Can government insure happiness? Can any collective enjoy freedom? Only individual people feel, and experience anything. All this over-emphasis on government and the collective is simply garbage. It's playing with words and metaphors - attributing individual human qualities to various collective concepts - where none truly exist.

However, the practical outcomes in education today are all based on theory--as are the events we are living with.

Dr Sam Holliday

All publications copyright © 2010 Armiger Cromwell Center. Permission is granted to forward this article by e-mail to friends or colleagues on a fair use basis. For reprint permission, contact Armiger Cromwell Center at armigercc@comcast.net

More by Dr Sam Holliday on the Armiger Cromwell dossier on Politeia Articles.

Copy of Mark Levin Notes: Members of the Journolist

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:17:00 +0000

The list of known members of the left-wing now-defunct JournoList listservShare

A Free Republic poster has compiled the list of known members to date of the left-wing now-defunct JournoList listserv. Spread the word.

N.B. The list is incomplete. In all the Journolist had some 400 members. We will try to update as more information becomes available.

1. Ezra Klein
2. Dave Weigel
3. Matthew Yglesias
4. David Dayen
5. Spencer Ackerman
6. Jeffrey Toobin
7. Eric Alterman
8. Paul Krugman
9. John Judis
10. Eve Fairbanks
11. Mike Allen
12. Ben Smith
13. Lisa Lerer
14. Joe Klein
15. Brad DeLong
16. Chris Hayes
17. Matt Duss
18. Jonathan Chait
19. Jesse Singal
20. Michael Cohen
21. Isaac Chotiner
22. Katha Pollitt
23. Alyssa Rosenberg
24. Rick Perlstein
25. Alex Rossmiller
26. Ed Kilgore
27. Walter Shapiro
28. Noam Scheiber
29. Michael Tomasky
30. Rich Yesels
31. Tim Fernholz
32. Dana Goldstein
33. Jonathan Cohn
34. Scott Winship
35. David Roberts
36. Luke Mitchell
37. John Blevins
38. Moira Whelan
39. Henry Farrell
40. Josh Bearman
41. Alec McGillis
42. Greg Anrig
43. Adele Stan
44. Steven Teles
45. Harold Pollack
46. Adam Serwer
47. Ryan Donmoyer
48. Seth Michaels
49. Kate Steadman
50. Matt Duss
51. Laura Rozen
52. Jesse Taylor
53. Michael Hirsh
54. Daniel Davies
55. Jonathan Zasloff
56. Richard Kim
57. Thomas Schaller
58. Jared Bernstein
59. Holly Yeager
60. Joe Conason
61. David Greenberg
62. Todd Gitlin
63. Mark Schmitt
64. Kevin Drum
65. Sarah Spitz
66. Ben Adler
67. Daniel Levy
68. Jonathan Stein
69. Avi Zenilman
70. Suzanne Nossel
71. Nick Baumann
72. Ryan Avent
73. Nate Silver
74. Gregg Sargent

Sources:
(http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/06/25/the-death-of-journolist-does-privacy-end-at-the-edge-of-your-th/)
(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20086.html)
(http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/06/after-journolist)
(http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/17/politico-the-secret-liberal-journalist-cabal/)
(http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/archive/2009/03/26/journolist-revealed-inside-the-liberal-media-email-cabal.aspx)
(http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2009/03/who-doesnt-love-the-journolist.html)
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/jun/25/usa)
(http://www.frumforum.com/the-inside-scoop-on-journolist)
(http://twitter.com/TimFernholz)
(http://twitter.com/DanaGoldstein)
(http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/9/22/142845/064?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime+%28TalkLeft%3A+The+Politics+of+Crime%29)
(http://www.frumforum.com/responding-to-john-hawkins)
(http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/obama-wins-and-journolisters-rejoice/)
(http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/a-few-excerpts-from-journolist-journalists/)
(http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-stories-about-rev-jeremiah-wright/)

The Journolist in pictures shows an unfortunate monochromatic tendency in the membership -

American Thinker: "The unbearable whiteness of being on Journolist (important update)", by Thomas Lifson

The left wing cabal to manage the news known as Journolist is apparently guilty if one of the cardinal sins of the left: lack of diversity. Big Fur Hat, the comic genius who posts regularly on iOwnTheWorld.com, has assembled head shots of the publicly identified members of the listserv group, and guess what? Not a single African-American is to be found. (See update below!) (...) >>>

Jul. 24, 2010

Windhandel

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 08:58:00 +0000

The Collective

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:28:00 +0000

"The Grand Jihad", by Andrew McCarthy

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:16:00 +0000

Many Westerners can't face the truth about the connection between Islamism and the Koran. Islam is not a moderate, but an extreme belief. Islam is not mainstream. It is not a religion as we understand it. It does not distinguish between spiritual and daily life, and that includes the law. Sharia law is making inroads. The Project is an incremental, but comprehensive campaign.

Jihad is the method to establish Sharia law. There is a debate in Islamist circles if one way to establish it, terrorism, hasn't outlived its usefulness with all the blowback. Word has it the Muslim Brotherhood is ready to throw Al Qaeda under the bus. The peaceful way to obtain the objective is through dawa, or stealth Jihad. There is no question that the objective of the Project is to establish Sharia. The discussion is over the method.

Freedom to Muslims means submission to Islam. Therefore a discussion about freedom for women is ridiculous, as the two debators will talk at cross purposes. Peace is Islam means the establishment of global Sharia (the global Caliphate).

The Islamists agree with the left that the biggest obstruction to their ideals are liberty, individualism and the US Constitution (capitalism, Classical Liberalism, Liberty). There are historical links between the Left (and the far Right) with Islamism. But also now there's an understanding with advocacy groups like CAIR, ACLU and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

People are evading the evident for two reasons. The assertion that the Project is real is often met with the response that the premise in effect validates the central thesis of the salafist-whabbist violent fringe of Islam. This is an admission that it is true, but they aren't willing to face it: if 1.5 billion Muslims are convinced of this we're doomed. Indeed. The other reason they are denying it, is because they share an agenda with the Islamists: the destruction of the free world. The media narrative in the Gaza propflot story was in place even before events had played out.

There are currently 85 Sharia Courts in the UK. There are 'debates' about it in the Netherlands. Full Sharia is thus established through a temporary state of apartheid: one law for Muslims and another for the rest of us. People's imagination just can't be stretched to the extent they can see it happen.

Asked what McCarthy sees as the remedy, this is awareness. Go after the terrorists obviously, but we must with all means at our disposal raise awareness to counter the dhimmi mentality. The 15 story 911 Mosque is a case in point: it has the subtlety of a sledge hammer. It's telling that in the name of tolerance and outreach a symbol of Muslim triumphalism is erected near Ground Zero.

June 2, 2010
~

It Is Why They Are Called Atheists

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:28:00 +0000

Atheists no longer believe there is no God, apparently. Instead, they merely lack belief in the divine. They are not un-believers. They are simply non-believers. And non-belief is not a claim, so it requires no defense.

This, atheists think, makes their job easier by relieving them of any responsibility to provide evidence for their view, er…their non-view. After all, no one is obliged to give evidence for the non-existence of fairies. Thus, atheism secures the inside lane as the default view for reasonable people. Or so atheists claim.

For example, if you asked me which Rugby team was the best in England, I wouldn’t know where to start. Since I have no interest in the question and no information on the issue, I cannot form a belief one way or another. Because I have no beliefs about the quality of Rugby competition in the UK, I am truly a non-believer regarding the question. I am neutral.

This is not the case with atheists. It’s true, atheists have no belief in God, but they are not neutral on this question.

For an atheist to enter a debate, he has to take a position. If he takes a position, he asserts a belief. And when he asserts a belief, he makes a claim. When he advances an argument, presumably he believes the conclusion that flows from his own reasoning. Theists say there is a God, and atheists argue they are wrong. This is not neutrality.

To say you do not believe in God is very different from saying you lack belief about God. Anyone who has a point of view has a belief. And atheists have a point of view. This makes them believers of a very particular stripe: They believe God does not exist.

There’s another problem, though, that apparently has escaped the notice of those atheists who claim the high road of reason as their own. Given any point of view (e.g., “God exists”), there are only three possible responses to it. You can affirm it (“God does exist”), you can deny it (“God does not exist”), or you can withhold judgment (“I don’t know”), either for lack of information or lack of interest.

In the God debate, the first is called a theist (of some sort), the second an atheist, and the third an agnostic. The alleged non-believers in question here are neither theistic nor agnostic. Only one logical option remains: They deny God exists, which is why they are called atheists to begin with. An atheist (a = not, theist = regarding God) is a person who holds there is not a God. That is an active claim, not a passive non-belief.

Greg Koukl, Stand to Reason

Under the Bus: archive

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sun, 23 May 2010 13:39:00 +0000

<<< To the current file

The tally so far -

Image via Wikipedia

Washington Post: "Allies everywhere feeling snubbed by President Obama", by Robert Kagan

The contretemps between President Obama and Israel needs to be seen in a broader global context. The president who ran against "unilateralism" in the 2008 campaign has worse relations overall with American allies than George W. Bush did in his second term. (...) compounding the problem has been the administration's evident impatience with allies who don't do as they are told. (...)

This administration pays lip-service to "multilateralism," but it is a multilateralism of accommodating autocratic rivals, not of solidifying relations with longtime democratic allies. Rather than strengthening the democratic foundation of the new "international architecture" -- the G-20 world -- the administration's posture is increasingly one of neutrality, at best, between allies and adversaries, and between democrats and autocrats. Israel is not the only unhappy ally, therefore; it's just the most vulnerable. >>>

Mar 18, 2010
~

Today, the Armenians -

The O admin to date has liberally tossed every good cause under the bus, the Armenians not excluded. The House Foreign Affairs Committee begs to differ. From The Guardian:

"Turkey last night recalled its ambassador after the house foreign affairs committee approved 23-22 the non-binding measure despite objections from the Obama administration, which had warned that such a move would harm relations with Turkey (...) >>>

But it isn't over. Turkey's reaction: expel 100,000 Armenians!

VOA: "White House Urges Congress Not to Pass Armenian Genocide Resolution"

The White House says a Congressional resolution declaring the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide could hurt relations between Armenia and Turkey. National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contacted the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman Wednesday, saying further congressional action could impede progress on normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia. The committee began debating the non-binding resolution Thursday ahead of a scheduled vote. If approved, the measure would then go to the full House for consideration. (...) >>>

Turkey urges no vote in US on Armenia genocide (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
US to vote on Armenian 'genocide' (news.bbc.co.uk)
Turkey Recalls Envoy to U.S. Over House Genocide Vote (Update1) (businessweek.com)
Genocide vote over Armenia (guardian.co.uk)

Mar 4, 2010
~

Obama votes 'present' on 'special relation' -

The Foundry: "President Obama’s Refusal to Back Britain on Falklands is Disgrace"

The Obama administration’s decision to remain neutral in the dispute between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands is a shameful decision that will go down very badly across the Atlantic. As The Times has just reported, Washington has point blank refused to support British sovereignty over the Falklands, and is adopting a strictly neutral approach. (...) >>>

Feb. 25, 2010
~

Today, the people of Zimbabwe - Barely one hour after Hillary got kudos for her Internet doctrine, putting the big L back into Liberalism, the good news is eclipsed by a truly ominous report concerning Zimbabwe. I tell ya, tha man loves tyrants and dictators, preferably the viler the better ... this is no longer an incident or indeed an accident:

The Weekly Std: "Obama Administration Working to Normalize Relations with Mugabe Regime"

After one year in office, the Obama administration's foreign policy has been defined by an odd role reversal. The rogues gallery of the world, from Burma to North Korea to Iran to Russia to China, have been largely embraced by the White House and State Department --while relations with key democratic allies, like Great Britain and the liberated Eastern Bloc, are increasingly strained.

Enter Zimbabwe, an Africa dystopia of the most sinister variety. (...) Right as the Mugabe regime finally looked as if it wouldn't come back up for another breath, the Obama administration throws it a lifeline. Is it a surprise to anyone that the people of Zimbabwe, dying (literally) for good governance and sound economic management, are treated exactly like the democratic revolutionaries in Iran? (...) >>>

Jan. 22, 2010
~

A note to idiots: this is how great 'talking to bully regimes' works:

FT: "China detains dissidents ahead of US visit"

Chinese police have detained dozens of dissidents and political reform advocates ahead of US President Barack Obama’s first visit to China, according to family members and human rights activists.

The crackdown comes as human rights groups worry that Mr Obama, who arrives in China on Sunday, will play down China’s poor human rights record in order to get cooperation from Beijing on issues such as climate change, trade and the economy. (...) >>>

Nov. 14, 2009
~

Yesterday under the bus, Pope John Paul II, R. Reagan and M.Thatcher ...

The Foundry: "Morning Bell: Reagan, Obama and the Berlin Wall"

(...) the leftists in America do not want us to remember Reagan’s role in history. That is why President Barack Obama (the same man who found time to jet to Copenhagen at the drop of a rumor that his presence could win the Olympics for his hometown of Chicago) could not be bothered to attend the 20th anniversary of the wall’s fall last night.

Instead, President Obama taped a video message that completely failed to mention Reagan or British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. More than petty partisan slights are at stake here. President Obama’s refusal to recognize the role President Reagan’s and Prime Minister Thatcher’s leadership played in defeating despotism goes to the core of Obama’s foreign policy priorities. Heritage scholar Nile Gardiner explains (...) >>>

Nov. 10, 2009
~

Tehran protestors shouted in fact: "Obama, whose side are you on?"

CNN: "Obama spokesman: President 'moved' by Iran protest images"

Nov. 6, 2009
~

Double trouble here: not only are terrorist gangs put on a moral par with the governments that are defending against these onslaughts with one hand tight behind their backs, but they even get into trouble for winning those battles because this offends pomo notions of "just war" ... boy, are we in trouble with this mentality ... no wonder these powder kegs are getting intractible and prolongued , but who cares in the mind set of good intentions:

Washington Times: "EDITORIAL: Undermining Sri Lanka - America takes the wrong side in anti-terror fight"

Sri Lanka is joining Israel as a country facing a war crimes investigation for effectively fighting back against terrorism. America should support the Sri Lankan government or keep its nose out of Colombo's business. Last week, Stephen Rapp, U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, filed a report to Congress on incidents during the recent conflict in Sri Lanka that "may constitute violations of international humanitarian law or crimes against humanity." The report focuses in particular on January to May 2009 when, after 12 years of conflict, the Sri Lankan military surrounded and destroyed the major armed formations of the Tamil Tigers and killed the terrorist group's leaders. (...) >>>

Oct. 28, 2009
~

NYT: "Obama Drops Plan to Isolate Sudan Leaders"

The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s government, rather than isolating it as President Obama had pledged to do during his campaign. (...) >>>

Oct 18, 2009
~

Fastest growing file on Articles (guess it was only a matter of time) - we can't have dissidents disrupting the mutual dictator appreciation fest ... today, Iran's Green Revolution ...

NewsMax: "Obama Cuts Pro-Democracy Funds for Iran", by Kenneth R. Timmerman

The Obama administration has cut funding for pro-democracy and human rights programs in Iran, reversing years of efforts during the Bush administration to help develop a civil society, congressional sources told Newsmax this week. The move is apparently intended to please Iran’s rulers after they criticized President Obama and the State Department for allegedly seeking to fund a “velvet revolution” during the June presidential elections in Iran.

“It sounds like the Iranians complained in Geneva and we acceded to their demands,” a former senior government official familiar with the pro-democracy programs told Newsmax. “It’s shameful,” he added. “This sends a clear message to Tehran that we are empowering the Iranian regime to be obstinate and fight us." (...) >>>

Oct 15, 2009
~

Today ... Russian Human Rights activists ...

Der Spiegel: "Washington Promises to Tone Down Criticism of Kremlin", by Benjamin Bidder in Moscow

The US needs the Kremlin's support on Iran, Afghanistan and disarmament. Now Washington has promised Moscow to stop its continual criticism of Russia's democracy in a bid to get it on board. But Russian human rights activists are furious about what they see as American apathy to their plight. (...) >>>

Oct. 14, 2009
~

Obama's moral courage and his soft spot for despots ...there goes the Dalai Lama ...

NewsMax: "Obama Shuns Dalai Lama"

Two years ago in October, the Dalai Lama became the 146th recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, with President George W. Bush seated beside him at the award ceremony. But this October, President Barack Obama will shun the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate when he makes his scheduled visit to the U.S.

Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett recently traveled to Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama's place of exile in India, to deliver the message that the Tibetan monk will not be welcomed at the White House. The Dalai Lama is lauded in much of the world as a figure of moral authority, but China demonizes him and claims he seeks to destroy China's sovereignty by pushing for independence for Tibet.

"A lot of nations are adopting a policy of appeasement" toward China, Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of Tibet's government in exile, said after Jarrett delivered the news. "I understand why Obama is not meeting with the Dalai Lama before his Chinese trip" scheduled for November. "It is common sense. Obama should not irritate the Chinese leadership." (...) >>>

Sept. 26, 2009
~

Who's tossed under the bus today? Lo and behold! It's the Organizer-in-Chief's own Organization for Community Organizers, ACORN! (not really, of course: this is only kidding) ...

WSJ: "Obama Backs Acorn Probe"

Acorn is getting attention from the highest levels of government: President Barack Obama Sunday joined the call for an investigation. Obama, in an appearance on ABC, said he backed an investigation into the community organizing group after some of its employees were videotaped offering tax advice to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. (...)

Asked whether the federal government should cut off money to the group, the president demurred. “This is not the biggest issue facing the country,” he said. “It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.” The House and Senate last week passed similar measures barring Acorn from receiving federal money. (...) >>>

Sept. 20, 2009
~

Today, here in one go, Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, 4 corrupt ACORN employees and Yosi Sergant (Communications director of the National Endowment for the Arts), who thought art in the service of the state (or the Dear Leader, I'm not sure at this stage) to be a good idea:

- Politeia: "The Postmodern Narrative As Revealed by Van Jones"
- FoxNews: "After Census Severs Ties, ACORN May Face Scrutiny of Housing Grants"
- HufPo: "Yosi Sergant, Administration Aide Demoted: Glenn Beck Strikes Again"

Sept. 13, 2009
~

Today, Poland and the Czech Rep.

As was to be expected ... only the most delusional must still have any illusions left as to the nature of the Obama administration:

The Washington Times: "EDITORIAL: Obama jilts Poland and the Czech Republic"

The United States is poised to dump a critical missile-defense agreement with two of its most dependable NATO allies. The Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported yesterday that the Obama administration is going to scrap the "third site" anti-missile system scheduled to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic were scheduled to be deployed by 2013. Now the plan appears to have been shot down.

This move sends the wrong signal to our allies in Eastern Europe. The former Soviet satellites have been among the strongest proponents of a robust U.S. role in Europe because they believed they could count on the United States to defend their interests against perennially predatory Russia. Both countries showed good faith by sending troops to fight in Iraq as part of the multinational force. The Polish and Czech governments acted courageously when they agreed to host the missile-defense system. (...) >>>

Aug. 29, 2009
~

Today ... Georgia:

Atlas Shrugs: "OBAMA THROWS ANOTHER ALLY UNDER THE BUS: GEORGIA"

Obama is to the free world what General Sherman was to the South. Who in the free world can take up the slack? Perhaps Israel should supply the Georgians with what they need - a pointed message to both Putin and his puppy, Obama.

US backtracks on Georgian request for weapons -- Yahoo! News (hat tip the Rockman)

Biden told the crowd in the ornate parliament chamber that Georgia should not use military force to retake its lost territories. "It's a sad certainty but it is true, there is no military option to reintegration, only a peaceful and prosperous Georgia," he said. "(Show) those in Abkhazia and South Ossetia a Georgia where they can be free and their communities can flourish." (...)

VP Hairplugs remarked, "Your Rose Revolution will only be complete when government is transparent, accountable and fully participatory, when issues are debated inside this chamber, not only out on the streets," Biden told parliament. The Obama administration preaching "transparent, accountable and fully participatory" -- now that's rich. Another revolution for democracy spit on by hope and change. >>>

July 24, 2009
~

Bible Prophesy Today: "A Tale of Two Dictators. . . Or Is It Three?", by Jack Kinsella

For six long days, the protesters in Iran waited to hear some words of support from the President of the United States. Public pressure for him to say a few words in support of the Iranian freedom demonstrations began to build, even as Obama justified his silence by saying that he didn't want to "meddle in Iran's business." Standing up against a dictatorship and for people willing to risk their lives in search of freedom is hardly 'meddling'. Unless one is a fascist and one's sympathies therefore lie with the state instead of the people. (...)

The Principle of the Big Lie was articulated and later field tested by Adolf Hitler, who explained it like this: "All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true in itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods." (...) "It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation." (Mein Kampf, Chapter 10)

The point relevant to the Big Lie that I am trying to make here is that eventually, the public becomes conditioned to it. Not just the lie, but the principle itself. Even when they know it is a lie, they'll accept it -- and even defend it. When Obama finally broke his silence to condemn the Iranian government's reaction to the demonstrations, his criticism was tempered by his reference to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "President" Ahmadinejad and to Ayatollah Ali Khameni as "Supreme Leader." The demonstrators heard what they needed to hear. Obama recognized Ahamadinejad's presidency as legitimate while acknowledging Khameni as Iran's 'Supreme Leader'. Since the catalyst for the revolt was Khameni's legitimization of Ahmadinejad's election, Obama's 'condemnation' cut the legs out from under the revolution.

But so accustomed have we become to hearing that whatever Obama does is too deep for the average person to grasp, the only ones who really heard what Obama was saying were the Iranian students he was throwing under the bus. (Which brings something else to mind. Ever notice how indelibly linked Obama has become to that 'bus' metaphor?) Remember during the campaign when Joe Biden babbled something about a 'test' and how at first, it is gonna look like they're doing the wrong thing? Maybe Joe wasn't babbling at all, but planting the first seeds in preparation for the conditioning process to come. (...) >>>

July 11, 2009
~

The Washington Times: "Obama Saudi suit stance irks 9/11 families"

Family members of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks say they have been blindsided by the Obama administration's opposition to their lawsuit seeking damages from top members of the Saudi Arabian government over suspected financial links to the 9/11 attackers. (..) >>>

June 24, 2009

Under the British Bus: the Cedar Revolution:

BBC: "UK envoy in first Hezbollah talks"

The British ambassador in Lebanon has held her first meeting with a senior official from the Hezbollah movement. (...) >>>

June 23, 2009
~

Under the bus: The entire Iranian June Revolution:

Politeia: "Open Letter to the Delusional Iranian Artists in Exile"

Those who have been using their wits lately, may have noticed the gaping discrepancy between the soft-spoken utterings of postmodern, relativist politicians, and their actions with regard to the situation in the less free parts of the globe. (...) Since the fallacy of relativism always causes them to balance the merits of the one party - say the blessings inherent in Islamofascist theocracy, with the insidious failings in another - say western liberal democracy, it is very, very hard for them to publicly favor one system over another. Both are equally valid in their own right, you see - morally as well as culturally. (...) >>>

June 16, 2009
~

Spot the problem ... a drive to replace one oppression with another! Under the bus: the Iranian Left:

Revolutionary Road: "Riot in Tehran streets after election day(3) second day!"

June 14, 2009

~

Under the bus: the oppressed:

Politeia: "Obama: Throw the Oppressed Under the Bus!" (video)

Read the entire Wall Street Journal article by Dan Hennenger also. The 'under the bus' theme has also inspired Alphonzo Rachel in ZoNation on PJTV to great satire. (...) >>>

April 24, 2009
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Under the bus: the Afghan Counter-Hirabah:

Politeia: "Afghanistan: the Obama policy presentation"

The comprehensive, 'regional' Afghanistan Conference is kicking off in The Hague. In attendance are over 70 countries (including Iran) and NGOs. According to the Dutch Foreign Minister the idea is to shift the responsibility from the US to the UN. The strategy: parley with the 'moderate Taliban'. That's right! Throw the victims under the bus ... (...) >>>

March 30, 2009
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Related

- "Why Has Obama Got It In for Muslim Women?"
- "Obama Throws Muslim Women Under the Bus"

Introduction to this dossier

Science as a Narrative: archive

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Thu, 13 May 2010 10:39:00 +0000

Back to the active dossier <<<

Read it all (including the comments section) -

The Dartboard: "Banquet At Delmonico’s – How Darwinism Came to America"

Post Civil War America was looking for a new belief system, says social historian Barry Werth. Across the Atlantic Charles Darwin had proposed a new theory of biology, but had left the popularization of it to others. In Banquet at Delmonico’s, Werth chronicles the spread of Darwinian evolution in America, focusing on the works of English philosopher Herbert Spencer. (...) >>>
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Here's more by Terrell Clemmons. The following is a funny illustration of the lengths to which 'scientists' of the evolutionary, biochemical type go, to proof their point:

The Dartboard: "Pot’s Plan to Take Over the World?"

Last month PBS aired a two hour special on The Botany of Desire by science writer, Michael Pollan. Pollan set out to explore how four particular plants have evolved to satisfy human desires: the apple, which evolved to satisfy our desire for sweetness; the tulip, our desire for beauty; the cannabis (marijuana plant), our desire for intoxication; and the potato, our desire for control.

The documentary shows beautifully how over time man has cultivated, cross-bred, and aided the transfer of these plants from one native environment to another. What’s odd is that Pollan talks about the plants as if they’re the ones in control while all these things are going on. (...) >>>

Dec. 28, 2009
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David Berlinsky: "The Devil's Delusion"

David Berlinski is a writer, thinker, and raconteur who lives in Paris. His latest book is The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, to be released in paperback in September 2009.

(...) Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement–one that now includes much of the scientific community.

“The attack on traditional religious thought,” writes David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion, “marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion.” A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. (...) >>>

Dec. 27, 2009
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Image by evil nickname via Flickr

Salvo Magazine: "Blinded by Science? Don't Be; That's Just the New Atheists Masking Their Faith Choice", by Terrell Clemmons

In the November 2006 cover story of Wired magazine, Gary Wolf thoughtfully gave ear to some of atheism's most aggressive voices and labeled the movement that they lead “New Atheism.” Envisioning a brave new world in which science and reason overcome religious myth and superstition, New Atheists labor to purvey a comprehensive worldview that explains who we are and how we got here (Darwinian evolution), diagnoses our most urgent ill (ancient superstitions about God), and, most importantly, prescribes a cure for that ill (eradication of religion).

In the same month that Wired reported on New Atheism, Time magazine artfully depicted the science and religion quandary with a combination double helixÆrosary on its cover. The title, “God vs. Science,” might have led a casual reader to expect a story about a theologian opposing science, but the article actually covered a debate between two scientists. Geneticist Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, and biologist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University weighed in on Time's questions about science, belief in God, and whether the two can peaceably coexist in an intellectually sound world-view. Collins said they can; Dawkins said absolutely not. (...)

Certainly, atheists, scientific or not, are free to adopt whatever belief system they choose, but can they legitimately claim science as the basis for atheism? Put more simply, has science disproved God, as the irreligionists maintain? A closer look at Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins sheds light on that question. The most significant difference between the two scientists is not that one believes in biblical creation and the other in Darwinian evolution. Both affirm Darwinism. The salient distinction is that Collins allows for the possibility of God, whereas Dawkins does not. But it wasn't always so. (...) >>>
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The heresy of questioning Darwin's Dogma:

The Dartboard: "Darwin’s Quantum Leap", by Terrell Clemmons

Early in 2009, the International Year of Darwin got underway in Shrewsbury, England, the birthplace of Charles Darwin. As part of the celebration marking both Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species, a sculpture was unveiled in Shrewsbury’s Mardol Quay Gardens. Nearly forty feet high, sixty feet long, and weighing over 200 tons, the structure, named Quantum Leap, resembles a gigantic slinky placed on the ground like an upside down ‘U.’ Darwin coordinator, Jon King, explains, “What we wanted was an iconic structure – something that was big, was bold, but something that could be interpreted in different ways.” In an irony apparently lost on its celebrants, the name ‘Quantum Leap’ makes a fitting metaphor for the thinking of contemporary Darwinists. (...) >>>
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It's all based on false philosophy that's the problem ... again confusing truth with consensus (like in polls):

Salvo Magazine: "Scientocracy Rules - Creating Consensus Is the PC Way to Get Smart", by Casey Luskin

(...) scientific literacy is certainly not a bad thing. A scientifically literate individual is simply someone capable of making informed decisions about scientific questions in both his personal and his civic life. One might presume that, so long as a person has a working knowledge of science—perhaps even a college-level science education—he would be scientifically literate, even if he dissented from, say, neo-Darwinian evolution.

Not so. Though Mooney might claim otherwise, Unscientific America appears based upon the premise that “science literacy” requires full assent to the “consensus” on controversial topics like evolution, embryonic stem-cell research, and global warming. It’s not even clear whether scientific literacy demands an understanding of science, provided that one endorses all the proper policy positions. (...) >>>

Dec. 26, 2009
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RenewAmerica: "Corruption of the science establishment: causes and cures", by Fred Hutchison

By now, most of my readers have heard of the scandal nicknamed "Climategate," involving the suppression of information that contradicts a supposed consensus of the science establishment about global warming. For ten or fifteen years, we have been told that when scientists have reached a consensus, all further debate should stop. (...) The most remarkable part of this strange story is there never was a consensus in the scientific establishment in the first place. (...) Why? Why are the scientists lying about having a consensus? The central thesis of this essay is that when a scientist pursues consensus instead of seeking truth, decay settles into his professional ethics and his intellectual prowess. Interestingly, the same is true of philosophers, theologians, politicians, and those seeking to be good Christians and good citizens. (...) >>>

December 25, 2009
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Nourishing obscurity: "Academic dishonesty from the days of the so-called Enlightenment"

Tiberius Gracchus, worthy historian and all round good guy, wrote, on the post about The Admissibility of Evidence:

James, legal evidence is not the same as historical evidence.

After my expostulation “rubbish”, I then presented an article explaining why this was so. In a nutshell, this is precisely the three card trick that the dark Enlightenment philosophers pulled on an unsuspecting world in the C18th and which has poisoned academic thought from those days onwards.

In short, it was iniquitous academic dishonesty of the grossest kind. I don’t blame Tiberius because he is of a generation which had its education in the post-modern, humanist times we live in today [which I narrowly escaped] and thus his view is a parroting of that same old line. (...) The major movement in the C18th century was the revolution in thought and the dawn of the “scientific age”. Look at the people seen as heroes today – Copernicus, Newton, Galileo – presented as railers against the dead hand of the Church and its narrow-minded bigots. The argument has been presented by the humanist Enlightenment philosophers that questioning is good, ever-upwards technology is good and that in the stars lie the answers.

Hence Darwin and his quite shaky theory based on the fossil record, the theory of natural selection by no means established, though the fossil record itself – the entity, not the philosophy which has been spun from it – is of course there. Thus, even the manner in which we judge truth and historicity has been skewed so as to be interpreted solely through the new god Science but even in its supposed empiricism lies a host of small deceits. (...) >>>

Dec. 24, 2009
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Related:

- "Greenism" - dossier includes the Climategate journal
- "Live Ethics" - dossier includes pro life issues, genetics, eugenics, euthanasia, abortion, etc.

________________________________________________________________

Introduction to subjective, nominalist strands of thinking, currently rife in academe, Pragmatism, Skepticism, Positivism, all are in one way or another relativist in nature. This is bad enough in the humanities, but it's downright destructive in exact science. Postmodern (relativist) thinking rejects objective truth on principle: to them science is but a Western, subjective narrative. We should not be surprised that 'consensus' - the postmodern arbiter of 'truth' - has taken the place of objective knowledge?

This is still a hypothesis, but there may be a pattern: it's like the history of Emmanuel Kant is repeating itself in Climategate. Kant went into non-contradictory philosophy - the traditional vehicle to truth since Aristotle and St Thomas of Aquinas - and rendered it useless by stretching it to such irrational lengths that it seemed to disprove itself: as an Orwellian avant la lettre, he called it Pure Reason. Since that time we have the 'speculative' version of philosophy, which has given the entire field a bad name. Kant's ideological crime is that he did it purposefully so as to "make room for the faith".

Ever since, contradiction is not viewed as a symptom of error, but rather that "something interesting is going on". As a result, anything goes - provided that it supports the argument, usually an article of political ideology. It is reminiscent of Climategate. Truth and billions of taxpayer's money are at stake here, but the real victims might well be science and humanity itself. Already there are commentators declaring science invalid for having produced untruth. Time will tell where this is going. After philosophy, will we lose science too?

Stop the Obama Constitutional Crisis: archive

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:40:00 +0000

To the current file <<<

WND: "Corsi detention orchestrated by Obama's political friend - Investigative reporter held in Kenya while reviewing president-elect's links"

The Kenyan official who reportedly orchestrated the detention of WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi when he visited Kenya to investigate President-elect Barack Obama's close ties to the nation's prime minister, Raila Odinga, was Odinga himself (...) his detention was orchestrated by Odinga, not President Mwai Kibaki or Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka. Corsi, in fact, had discussed with governmental officials for the president and vice-president his findings, and they provided no objection to his scheduled press conference. (...) However, investigations conducted for WND by members of Odinga's own party, the Orange Democratic Movement, reported the links to Odinga. The investigators are being left unidentified by WND for their own safety. The Kenyan sources for WND identified the links between the detention and Odinga as (...) >>>

Dec 20, 2008
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America's Right: "Berg: Injunction Dismissed, Case "Alive and Well""

Yesterday's update on the U.S. Supreme Court docket for Philip Berg's case against Barack Obama and the DNC caused confusion, due to the entry of what looks like an outright denial below the entry notating that the case has been distributed to conference. Even the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was caught up in the confusion, writing yesterday afternoon that Justice Anthony Kennedy had in fact dismissed Berg's action. (...) Upon seeing the docket yesterday after receiving news of the distribution for conference, my first instinct was that one of Berg's attempts to enjoin the presidential electors from voting had been denied by Justice Kennedy, and that his petition for certiorari went on as planned. I was right. "Justice Kennedy dismissed our injunction yesterday," Berg told America's Right this afternoon. "Our case is alive and well." Alive? Yes. Whether it could be considered "well" is to be determined, as the Supreme Court has already denied a pair of eligibility-related cases which reached full conference, like Berg's action will do on Friday, January 9, 2009. There are, however, a few differences between those cases and the one filed by Philip Berg. (...) >>>

Dec 18, 2008
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NewsMax: "Supreme Court Won't Review Obama's Eligibility for Presidency"

The Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth. The court did not comment on its order Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election. (...) >>>

Dec 8, 2008
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... some commentators beg to disagree ... Moran has lost it now (or is his memory playing tricks?) ...

PJM: "Yes, Virginia, There Is Obama Derangement Syndrome", by Rick Moran

The birth certificate controversy shows that the only bipartisanship in America today is wild, unreasoning hatred for one's political foes. (...) >>>

Dec 5, 2008
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America's Right: "Berg to File Emergency Injunction Today, Awaits Answer from Barack Obama and DNC"

One day after the deadline set by Supreme Court Justice David Souter for Barack Obama and the DNC to respond to attorney Philip Berg's Petition for Writ of Certiorari has passed without an answer, Berg is filing a motion in the Court in an attempt to further prevent Obama from taking office in January as the 44th president of the United States. (...)

Berg said that it is "apparent that we have made some concrete breakthroughs in terms of taking our message and our arguments to the American people," and indeed his challenge of Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility, started with a simple complaint on August 21, 2008, has taken on a mind of its own. A full-page advertisement ran in the news section of yesterday's Chicago Tribune, and will run again tomorrow. Another full-page ad ran last week in the Washington Times. Articles have been published online and otherwise by the Washington Post, MSNBC, The Christian Science Monitor, AOL News (today), and more. (...) >>>

Dec 2, 2008
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WND: "Proofin' the prez: Who's in charge? - Constitutional lawyer says electors have duty to investigate citizenship"

A one-time vice presidential candidate who is considered an expert on the U.S. Constitution says it is up the electors from the 50 states to make certain President-elect Barack Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen before they cast votes for him in the Electoral College Dec. 15. If they do their duty, they would make sure that if they cast a vote for Mr. Obama, that Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," Herb Titus, the Constitution Party's running mate to Howard Phillips in 1996, told WND today. (...) >>>

Nov 25, 2008
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America's Right: "Deputy White House Press Secretary Avoids Question About Obama Birth Certificate"

In a press briefing this morning, Deputy White House Press Secretary Tony Fratto ended the briefing by overtly avoiding a question regarding President-elect Barack Obama's birth certificate and demands made by the CEO of WorldNetDaily that a long-form document be released. From the transcript (video also available at the link HERE) (...) >>>

Nov 24, 2008
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... a comprehensive update on the law suits and an invitation for another red hot petition ...

WND: "Petitioners tell president-elect to prove his eligibility for office -
Thousands sign online demand, reveal frustration over secrecy"

Thousands of people are jumping aboard a petition that demands documentation of President-elect Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the highest office in the U.S., not just assurances from party officials. Within only a few hours of its launch, more than 10,000 petitioners today had joined the effort coordinated by WND founder and editor Joseph Farah. A report accompany Farah's petition explains the many questions raised about Obama's eligibility, from an apparently fabricated "Certification of Live Birth" posted online to questions about what nation's passport he used during to travel to Pakistan. (...) >>>

Nov 22, 2008
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TRP: "SCOTUS To Discuss Obama “Natural Born” Lawsuit"

While Democrat activist lawyer Phil Berg, who filed the original “natural born” lawsuit, currently has his case in legal limbo before the US Supreme Court, the Court will hold closed-door hearings on a similar suit filed by New Jersey resident Leo Donofrio. The hearing will take place on December 5, 2008, ten days prior meeting of the Electoral College. (...) >>>

Nov 21, 2008
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WND: "Obama camp: Lawsuits by citizens are 'garbage' - Legal challenges spring up across U.S., demand proof of eligibility for office"

More than a half-dozen legal challenges have been filed in federal and state courts demanding President-elect Barack Obama's decertification from ballots or seeking to halt elector meetings, claiming he has failed to prove his U.S. citizenship status. An Obama campaign spokeswoman told WND the complaints are unfounded. "All I can tell you is that it is just pure garbage," she said. "There have been several lawsuits, but they have been dismissed." WND is tracking the progress of many cases across the U.S., including the following (...) >>>

14th Nov 2008
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We The People Foundation: "Draft of WTP full-page ad to be published in USA TODAY the week of November 17, 2008"

An Open Letter to Barack Obama:
Are you a Natural Born Citizen of the U.S.?
Are you legally eligible to hold the Office of President?
Dear Mr. Obama: (...) >>>

10th Nov 2008
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America's Right: "Post-Election, Berg v. Obama Continues"

Today, attorney Philip Berg disseminated a press release reminding all that, despite the results of Tuesday's election, his lawsuit against now President-elect Barack Obama is alive and well. As it stands now, the United States Supreme Court is awaiting a response which may or may not come from Obama, the DNC and Federal Election Commission by December 1, 2008. (...) >>>

9th Nov 2008
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Atlas Shrugs: "WILL SCOTUS SOUTER TELL OBAMA TO PRODUCE BIRTH CERTIFICATE DECEMBER 1 UPDATED: /OR NOT"
This is interesting. Souter tells Obama to produce the vault copy by December 1, 2008. I believe the messiah will defy the Justices. Who will force the issue? Who wants to open up that pandora's box? Imagine if there is something on that birth certificate that disqualifies Obama from the office of the President. What are you going to do? Start a civil war? (...) Here is the fraud report first reported at Atlas. (...) Over 80,000 letters and Email signed petitions to Congress sent so far ... Will Congress or The Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) decide? See the petition, - ... sign and send same or a letter to Congress at the following link, - UPDATE From Berg's site (...) Let me clarify, Obama does NOT HAVE TO RELEASE HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE, though he should. He must respond and considering the fact he was elected ... Here is the SCOTUS website showing what is on SCOTUS's docket (...) >>>

7th Nov 2008
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... Hawaii 5.O...

World Net Daily: "Doubts persist about Obama birth certificate - Considerable evidence still points to candidate's birth in Kenya"

Even though Hawaii officials now claim to have verified the authenticity of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate – in hopes of ending widespread speculation and even multiple lawsuits challenging the Democrat candidate's constitutional qualification to be president – it turns out there is still reason for serious questioning. In fact, there is considerable evidence that Obama was born in Kenya, not in Hawaii as the candidate and his campaign have maintained.
As WND reported from Honolulu last week, Gov. Linda Lingle instructed the Hawaii Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to Obama's original birth certificate. Lingle's letter to WND made clear that the original doctor-generated and hospital-released birth certificate on file with the state's health department would be released to the press if Obama so requested – but to date the candidate has made no such request. (...) >>>

3rd Nov 2008
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America's Right: "Halloween Provides Scare for Philip Berg, News on Sarah Obama Tape"

Third Circuit Denies Appeal, Ohio Court Tosses Related Suit, the Associated Press Reports that Obama Birth Certificate is Genuine, and Berg Provides an Update on the Sarah Obama Tapes

Third Circuit Denies Appeal
(...) Philip Berg's attempt to delay the election until after Illinois Sen. Barack Obama produces his birth certificate and other documentation proving his constitutional eligibility to serve as president of the United States has been rebuffed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. (...) DENIED. (...) Berg, of course, remained defiant. "The Third Circuit took the wrong position, again saying that I don't have standing," he said. "If I don't have standing, then nobody does. (...)

Ohio Court Tosses Related Suit
Warren County (Ohio) Magistrate Judge Andrew Hasselbach rejected a lawsuit filed last week in a southwest Ohio court asking Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to verify Obama's citizenship or remove him from the ballot. According to an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Hasselbach told plaintiff David Neal that he "relied too much on what he read on the Web," and explained that the burden of proof was on Neal to show that Obama was ineligible, and not on Obama--or anyone else--to prove otherwise. (...) "Until we stand up and fight as one, like John McCain always says, we are doomed to stuff like this and the bailouts," Neal said. "God only knows what's next." (...)

"It seems as though the judicial system isn't working like ole' Tom and Ben [Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin] thought it would because of gutless Judges. I think the day is fast approaching when we as American citizens are going to have to find a different approach. The judicial system is failing us and failing the constitution." (...)

Associated Press Reports that Obama Birth Certificate is Genuine
In an article published today in the Honolulu Advertiser, the Associated Press reports that Hawaiian officials have examined Barack Obama's "original birth certificate" and determined it to be genuine. (...)

The Sarah Obama Tapes (this may be it)
It was almost ten days ago that I first reported that Berg was in possession of a taped conversation with Sarah Obama, Kenyan paternal grandmother to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, during which she says that her famous grandson was born in Kenya and that she was present at the hospital for his birth. (...) "I have the tape," Berg said. "The transcript of the tape is in the Supreme Court filings, along with the two affidavits from the individuals." The audio of the tape will be released, Berg said, as soon as he "reviews some legal issues." (...)

To me, America's Right has been about articulating the conservative message, exposing liberal bias in the mainstream media, and the preservation of the ideas and ideals of our founding founders. Reporting on Berg's suit against Barack Obama, to me, has been about the latter two more so than about Obama himself. It's been about the media and about the Constitution, not the candidate, and I'm not so sure that I really want to go down this road without careful consideration. (...) >>>

1st Nov 2008
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Citizen Wells: "Supreme Court Rally, Philip J Berg, October 30, 2008, Supreme Court Steps, Defend the Constitution"

Philip J Berg will go to the US Supreme Court on Thursday, October 30, 2008. Show up at the steps of the Supreme Court and help defend the Constitution. From MommaE talk radio:

“Please post this on every Blog you can and e-mail to everyone in your address book and ask them to send it to everyone in their address book!! RALLY AT SUPREME COURT FOR PHIL BERG!!

Ok, they didn’t get the binding done on the motion for the Supreme Court in time! Phil will let me know tonight what time everyone is suppose to be at the Supreme Court Steps to meet him tomorrow and I will send it out to you tonight as soon as I get it! (...) >>>

30th Oct 2008
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America's Right: "Mr. Berg Goes to Washington"

Today, should everything go according to plan, only five days after his federal lawsuit against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was dismissed for lack of standing from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, attorney Philip Berg will file his appeal in Philadelphia and, once it is docketed with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, will travel to Washington, D.C. to file a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court. There, Berg says, should things progress on schedule, he will be accompanied by a television crew from Fox News Channel. (...)

The non-standard course of action Berg mentioned, it seems, is the concept of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court without first exhausting all options at the Circuit Court level. By appealing at the Third Circuit, the case could have been heard by a panel of three judges, if not more, and then taken to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. (...) Even if the case were heard, Berg faces long odds in the courtroom as well, as the standing doctrine as it stands now does not lean in his favor. (...)

Update: The filing at the United States Supreme Court will be happening tomorrow morning and not today (...) from a conversation he had with representatives at Fox News Channel, a television crew will be meeting him in Washington D.C. to follow his progress as he files his Petition for Writ of Certiorari. (...) his interview with Fox News Channel's Rick Leventhal, taped yesterday, should air this evening in either the 6:00 or 7:00 hour, just before Barack Obama's 30-minute infomercial. >>>

29th Oct 2008
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WND: "Obama's birth certificate sealed by Hawaii governor - Says Democratic senator must make request to obtain original document," by Jerome R. Corsi

Although the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama's birth certificate has become a focus of intense speculation – and even several lawsuits – WND has learned that Hawaii's Gov. Linda Lingle has placed the candidate's birth certificate under seal, and instructed the state's Department of Health to make sure no one in the press obtains access to the original document under any circumstances. The governor's office officially declined a request made in writing by WND in Hawaii to obtain a copy of the hospital-generated original birth certificate of Barack Obama. (...) Although the Obama campaign could immediately put an end to all the challenges by simply producing the candidate's original birth certificate, it has not done so. (...) >>>

27th Oct 2008
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The links and service points:

- The official Phil Berg website.
- Here is a link to the court documents filed by Berg.

- Click here to sign the petition.

Join the group on Facebook.

London Calling: archive

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:27:00 +0000

To the current file <<

Urgently wanted: Cameron U-turn -

Image via Wikipedia

PJM: "Is David Cameron the ‘John McCain’ of the British Conservative Party?"

A much loathed Labor government, the economy in shambles, and little hope that things will right themselves soon — this is the situation which preceded Margaret Thatcher’s triumph in 1979. And this should be a formula for the UK opposition Conservative Party to be way ahead in the polls in 2010. However, this time around, it looks as if a hung parliament will be the election result.

A hung parliament is the result of a parliamentary election in which no one party has a majority in the House of Commons. It is then a scramble to see which parties can beat the others to a successful coalition to form a government. Some believe the prospect of a hung parliament is not so bad.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, is the pretty boy adored by the blue-rinse set, but he has not been able thus far to impress the rest of the country. (...) >>>

Mar 3, 2010
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Hillary declares Falklands negotiable -

Times Online: "Argentina celebrates diplomatic coup as Hillary Clinton calls for talks over Falklands"

Argentina was celebrating a diplomatic coup today in its attempt to force Britain to accept talks on the future of the Falkland Islands, after an extraordinary two-hour meeting in Buenos Aires between Hillary Clinton and the country’s President Fernández de Kirchner. Responding to a request from Mrs Kirchner for “friendly mediation” between Britain and Argentina, Mrs Clinton said she agreed that negotiations were a sensible way forward and offered “to encourage both countries to sit down”. Her intervention defied Britain’s long-standing position that there should be no negotiations unless the islands’ 3,000 inhabitants asked for them. It was hailed in Buenos Aires as a major diplomatic victory, but condemned in the Falklands. (...) >>>

Mar. 2, 2010
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Britain: "we are the Falklands" -

While Obama tosses the 'special' relationship with Britain under the bus by voting 'present', the renewed conflict with Argentina over the Falklands may well be a game changer at home:

Business Insider: "British Navy Cuts Off Argentine Warship In Apparent Escalation Of New Falklands Crisis"

A British Navy destroyer has intercepted an Argentinian warship in an apparent escalation of the Falklands Island Oil Crisis, according to The Sun. The announcement comes just hours after the Argentinians filed a complaint with the United Nations over British oil exploration in the Falklands. The small group of islands off the coast of Argentina are a British possession that the two had a conflict over in 1982. >>>

Feb. 25, 2010
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Hudson NY: "Where Have All the Conservatives Gone?", by A. Millar

Britain will hold a general election within the next five months. And after more than a decade of the Leftwing Labour party, the Conservatives are expected to win. Party leader David Cameron is a likeable if nondescript man, in sync with the fashionable concerns of the media, and out of touch with the electorate. Labour is loathed in Britain. So much so that there has even been talk of it being cast into the political “wilderness” for a decade, if not of its total destruction. It is not difficult to grasp why. (...)

Cameron’s speech on January 2 was an opportunity to show the public that he too will tackle the matters the electorate cares about. (...) Instead, Cameron repeatedly spoke of “hope” and - you guessed it - “change.” He has plans for “a new high-speed rail network,” but has no plans, so it seems, to tackle radical Islam - or “violent extremism.” The difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in the USA is striking in comparison to the difference between Labour and the Conservatives. (...) If Labour will not tackle radical Islam, rising crime, uncontrolled immigration, and the EU (which makes 75 percent of Britain’s laws), then the opposition must. Cameron does not get that. (...)

In August, former Conservative Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit remarked that Cameron’s electioneering strategy would drive “hard-core” conservatives to vote for UKIP; this does indeed appear to be happening. UKIP will run 500 candidates in the general election, and Lord Pearson has said he hopes to force a hung parliament. If so, his party will push for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, and raise the issues of pressing importance to the country, especially the country’s conservatives.

Most readers will be aware of Lord Pearson. He was thrust into the limelight almost a year ago, after he invited Geert Wilders to screen his movie, Fitna, to a private audience in the House of Lords. Britain does not have an equivalent to Wilders. But with his experience of party politics, his moral compass, and willingness to address the issues, he might well be on the way to becoming something close to it. Naturally, the media is not keen to include him in the debates leading up to election day. >>>

Jan. 6, 2010
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Britain regressing to pre Thatcher socialism:

Telegraph.co.uk: "Entire cities have become job creation schemes under Labour"

Labour has turned public sector employment into a system of mass indoor relief in some of our major cities. Urban centres such as Swansea, Newcastle and Ipswich have become so dependent on government-created jobs that the cutbacks in public spending which are inevitable whatever party is power, are likely to have a devastating effect on local employment. So says a report from the independent research unit, Centre for Cities which warns that over the next decade cities will not able “to depend on the public sector to provide the bulk of future jobs growth”. Such regional conurbartions need to begin planning now for the private sector to take a bigger role in offering employment, say the report’s authors whose conclusion, of course, is absolutely sound. (...) >>>

July 16, 2009
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Melanie Phillips: "The real Prime Minister"

There has been a political coup. Not the one that everyone thought might happen last week until it became clear that the putative assassins had the courage of a blancmange.No, the Prime Minister has instead been captured, imprisoned and forced to mouth the lines now being written for him by the man who is now effectively running the Government. Step forward the real Prime Minister, Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool, Business Secretary and now First Secretary of State and Lord President of the Council. The irony is stupendous. (...) >>>

June 14, 2009
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ITN: 'Labour MPs email petition for Brown to quit'

Labour MPs are reportedly circulating a draft email urging Gordon Brown to stand down. Reports suggest there are up to 100 MPs who could be prepared to put their names to it. The email is said to be addressed to the Prime Minister, who is already reeling from the announcements of four departures from his Government in the past two days. According to reports, the email sta tes: "We are writing now because we believe that in the current political circumstances you can best serve the interests of the Labour Party by stepping down as Prime Minister." No MPs have so far broken cover to claim ownership of, or support for, the email. Meanwhile, Mr Brown is being defiant and brushing off calls to quit (...) >>>

June 3, 2009
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Expert View of Philip Webster: "One more senior Cabinet resignation will tip Brown over the edge" ...

Times Online : "Hazel Blears resigns from Cabinet in further blow for Gordon Brown"

Hazel Blears dealt a potentially fatal blow to Gordon Brown's political authority today when she announced her departure from Cabinet on the eve of crucial local and European elections.It was the fourth ministerial resignation in 24 hours and the second at Cabinet level after the news yesterday that Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, was also standing down to focus on saving her seat at the next general election.But whereas Ms Smith's decision leaked out – she had been willing to hang on until a next week’s expected reshuffle – Ms Blears announced her resignation less than two hours before Prime Minister's Questions. (...) >>>

June 3, 2009
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Dear Londoner...

The Home Secretary’s admission that she is too scared to walk around London alone at night offers little hope for Londoners - first Mayor Livingstone said neither he nor the Metropolitan Police Commissioner could solve the problem of gun and knife crime, and now this.

London needs leadership to deal with this growing problem rather than the shrugging of shoulders or heads in the sand. We need positive action - a short, medium and long-term strategy for getting us out of this mess. It is time we heard what will be done to make London safer.

27 children were killed by other children last year on London’s streets and we have seen more deaths since 2008 began. I have already set out a 5 point plan to tackle this growing problem. How many more families will lose children before we see action?

I’ll see you on the campaign trail as I continue to press this issue...

Boris

Election Countdown

There are under 100 days to go until London has the chance to make a real change. If you’re not registered to vote yet, go to www.aboutmyvote.co.uk to exercise your rights as a Londoner.

22nd Jan. 2008
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"Thank you for supporting Boris’s campaign.

It’s been a great 2008 so far, with Boris outlining his vision for a greater London and showing Londoners why it’s time for a change. Now, with 100 days to go until the election, it is essential that we maintain momentum to win back London on May 1st – and momentum means more and more signed-up supporters from across London. That’s where you come in.

We need you to tell your colleagues, friends and family – everyone in your address book – to encourage them to register on the website at www.backboris.com/register and boost Boris’s chances of sweeping to victory in May.
Together we can build a momentum that will eject Mayor Livingstone from County Hall, and give London back to Londoners.

Thank you."

Updated: 19th Jan. 2008

Greenism (2): archive Januari 1, 2010 -

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 11 May 2010 15:00:00 +0000

I sometimes wish that we could have, over the next five or ten years, a lot of horrid things happening — you know, like tornadoes in the Midwest and so forth — that would get people very concerned about climate change.
--Nobel Prize winning economist Thomas Schelling
____________________________________________________________

To active file <<<

Evil skeptics, FOI petitioners and other 'extremists' - While we've worked out the CRU emails must have been leaked, not hacked, Norfolk Constabulary - perhaps infested with nefarious Common Purpose members for all we know, have opened a global witch hunt on people who've asked the CRU for disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act - it's one bl&*$dy outrage after another -

Telegraph: "Police question climategate information seekers"

Norfolk Constabulary is trying to work out who stole thousands of emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia at the end of last year. The emails, that were posted on the internet, appear to show scientists were unwilling to reveal data on global warming and led to an international scandal known as ‘climategate’. Already prominent climate change sceptics around the world have been questioned and members of staff at the university, but is has now emerged that ordinary members of the public who did nothing more than request information are also being targeted. Sebastian Nokes, a businessman and climate change sceptic, wrote to a national newspaper to complain. He said all he had done was request information on the CRU’s disclosure rules and he was questioned on his political and scientific beliefs. Detective Superintendent Julian Gregory, who is leading the investigation, said his unit is looking into anyone who could give clues to who stole the emails and working with experts in "extremism". (...) >>>
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Tweet: Whaha Michael Mann Threatens Minnesotans4GlobalWarming w/Lawsuit Over Satirical Vid 'Hide theDecline' - http://ow.ly/1AQ0U #climategate

The language of fear and disaster -

Warning Signs: "How to Spot "Green Talk"", by Alan Caruba

Aside from the idiotic claims that environmentalists like Al Gore regularly make to justify their various scams and schemes, anyone who has devoted any time to reading the huge volume of lies they put forth begins to notice the constant use of what I call “Green talk.” I am hardly alone in this and a friend of mine, Rich Kozlovich, has actually made a list of favorite phrases he identifies as the weasel-words and phrases Greens favor. With his permission, I will share some of it. In no particular order, if you read or hear any of the following, it is a warning sign that there is little proof to support whatever is being claimed (...) >>>

Apr 20, 2010
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Paranoid commie lore: "scientists have known about AGW for 200 years!" (which happens to have been the start of the industrial revolution) -

Google Group alt.politics.socialism.trotsky: "Climate Change and Big Business"

(...) This book was originally published before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) attended by government leaders in Copenhagen last December. The author, Lord Nicholas Stern, was appointed by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown in 2005 to head a Review of the Economics of Climate Change and he published his report in October 2006. (...) Scientists have known about the 'greenhouse effect' for nearly 200 years, with Joseph Fourier propounding the theory in 1824. Guy Stewart Callendar discovered the anthropogenic greenhouse effect in 1938, that is the contribution of human beings burning fossil fuels to increased levels of CO2 and the consequent increase in the Earth's temperature. So the scientific material is not new, though in recent years large amounts of more accurate data have resulted from research. What has propelled the climate change issue onto the agenda of imperialist governments and their international agencies, like the UN and World Bank, is the ever deepening crisis of world capitalism. (...) >>>

Apr 19, 2010
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Two CRU whitewash reports are in. Here's a digest of the cover-up, but I encourage you to read the entire article - it's quite concise -

National Post: "Climategate whitewash", by Peter Foster

'Climategate scientists cleared of wrongdoing” read the headline in yesterday’s Post. Who expected anything else? The two self-inquiries launched by the University of East Anglia into its Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were always destined to produce whitewashes, as did a recent UK parliamentary inquiry, and as will an “independent” review by the UN.

The first of the UEA reports, from a committee headed by ardent warmist and anti-carbon profiteer Lord Oxburgh, appeared this week. As Lawrence Solomon points out elsewhere on this page, the choice of Lord Oxburgh indicated that the fix was always in for an inquiry which fails to address, let alone probe, most of the major issues. And yet there is a mountain of condemnation-by-faint-exoneration between the lines of the report’s ridiculously slim five pages.

Its attempt to present CRU head Phil Jones, and his beleaguered band, as unworldly boffins who were blindsided by all this attention is ridiculous. (...) The CRU’s data has appeared in two forms: raw and cooked. Much of the raw variety, unfortunately, has been “lost.” This is treated by the review as infinitely excusable due to the pressures of the academic life. You know, tedious admin meetings, the pressure to publish, the need to get in those applications for multi-million dollar grants attached to proving man-made global warming. But how can ditching the fundamental data on which your science depends be dubbed mere carelessness with “non-essential record keeping?”

As for the cooked data, the CRU has been accused of “manipulation” not in the legitimate statistical sense, so that different data sets may be comparable, but in support of the results required by government-funded, highly politicized science. Without data suggesting rising temperatures due to anthropogenic emissions, there would be no justification for massive global programs such as cap-and-trade, redistributionist “clean development,” or the hefty subsidization of alternative energy. The CRU is also gently fingered for its lack of statistical sophistication. (...) >>>

Apr 17, 2010
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Alan Caruba on Brian Sussman's book "Climategate," who traces environmentalism back to communism. We can go back even further than that: it's Rousseauism - the notion that nature is all good and culture is evil. Since man can't help but produce culture, it's man who equals evil. The war on reality, making no distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made, continues. If they could they'd start taxing the air we breath ... what's that? They're now outlawing CO2? Great quote:

"Regulating CO2 would make about the same sense as regulating oxygen on the grounds that it produces rust or that it is a component of fire. Regulating Co2 is crazy!"

CFP: "Brilliantly Exposing Climategate", by Alan Caruba

Apr 14, 2010
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The eco brown shirts start changing gear -

Small Dead Animals: "Y2Kyoto: The Greenpeace Militia"

The climate fascists are getting restless... (...) >>>

Apr 4, 2010
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Dr Strangelove praises warming sceptics - A abominable story with a positive twist. An "independent scientist" (a tautology) - Dr Strangelove comes to mind - who thought up a scientific, collectivist pseudo religion (Gaia "theory") says humanity is not yet "evolved enough" to stop climate change; but he praises the sceptics, because he at least understands that's a prerequisite to produce science in the first place. Now, what makes that the rest of the warmists? He may have been the clever dicky who equivocated warming=war, ecojustice=peace -

Telegraph: "James Lovelock: 'humans too stupid to stop climate change', says maverick scientist"

Prof Lovelock, the man behind the Gaia theory which says that the planet behaves like a single organism, claimed humans were “not clever enough” to handle the problems associated with global warming. In an interview, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist applauded “good” climate sceptics and gave warning that global warming would one day lead to severe conflict."I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle as complex a situation as climate change," he said. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.” (...) Without change, he said, climate change would likely one day lead to war. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being,” he said in his interview with The Guardian. “I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.” The controversial scientist is best known for his ideas that portray Earth as a living thing, a superorganism – named Gaia, after the ancient Earth goddess – in which creatures, rocks, air and water interact in subtle ways to ensure the environment remains stable. (...)

Prof Lovelock said he was disgusted by the actions of some scientists who have damaged the work of many other good scientists. "Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science," he said. "I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do." He added that the recent events surrounding the topic had left his thoughts about climate change “sceptics” thawing. “What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek,” he said. “The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours. “You need sceptics, especially when the science gets very big and monolithic.” >>>

Mar 30, 2010
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Corporations jumping off the bandwaggon -

BusinessGreen: ""Climategate" blow fragments corporate response to global warming"

The corporate response to climate change has become increasingly fragmented in the past year as the combination of the "climategate" scandal, the disappointing conclusion to the Copenhagen summit and the global recession has led some firms to voice scepticism over the need to take action to curb carbon emissions.

That is the conclusion of a major new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which polled more than 540 senior executives, and found that while a number of firms remain fully committed to increasing investment in low-carbon goods and services, many senior executives are unconvinced by the case for climate change policies.

The survey, which was sponsored by the Carbon Trust, IBM, Hitachi and software company 1E, found that just over half of respondents believe the "jury is still out" on the urgent need to tackle climate change, while 32 per cent of companies polled said they do not yet have a coherent strategy in place to address energy use, an increase of seven percentage points on last year.

Moreover, just 12 per cent of businesses said they were introducing new green products to keep up with rivals, and seven out of 10 respondents said that carbon reduction policies are primarily driven by public relations issues. (...) >>>

Mar 29, 2010
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SPECTRE for parliamentarians -

James Delingpole: "Climategate: the parliamentary cover-up"

Climategate exposed the greatest scandal in the history of modern science but you’re never going to hear this from any of the official investigations. Andrew Orlowski at The Register has uncovered why.

Turns out, that there’s this well-funded SPECTRE-like advocacy group called GLOBE (Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment) International which has co-opted leading parliamentarians from the main parties in both the Commons and the Lords into advancing the AGW agenda.

One of those is Lord Oxburgh, recently appointed – on the Royal Society’s recommendation – to lead one of the two official enquiries into Climategate. Mysteriously, Lord Oxburgh has failed to mention GLOBE in his register of interests. Orlowski reports (...) >>>

Mar 26, 2010
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Tory Aardvark: "Climategate – Labour Government Response To ePetition To Suspend The CRU"

This is the epetiton to suspend the CRU (...) The response from the Government is classic nothing to see here, move along now, Monty Python meets warming alarmist. Climategate, Glaciergate, the deeply flawed IPCC 2007 report and the other lies that have been found out, have never happended for Gordon Brown and David Miliband. (...) >>>

Mar 25, 2010
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Brits pull nightmare nursery rhymes - This is none too soon, since Senator Inhofe already told us kids get traumatized by the nanny states' nightmare scenarios. Imagine what the bstds have been doing! For all their "love" and "empathy" they've got no scruples whatsoever when it comes to pushing their 'narratives' on tender souls -

SkyNews: "Nursery Rhyme Climate Change Adverts Banned"

Two Government advertisements which used nursery rhymes to raise awareness of climate change have been banned for overstating the risks. The adverts, from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, were based on the children's poems Jack and Jill and Rub-A-Dub-Dub. But the campaign went beyond mainstream scientific consensus in asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled. It pointed out that predictions about the potential impact of global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "involved uncertainties" that the adverts failed to reflect. The two posters juxtaposed adapted extracts from the nursery rhymes to warn about global warming. (...) >>>

Mar 17, 2010
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I told you postmodernism is killing us -

WSJ: "Climategate Was an Academic Disaster Waiting to Happen", by Peter Berkowitz

The notion of objective truth has been abandoned and the peer review process gives scholars ample opportunity to reward friends and punish enemies.

Last fall, emails revealed that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and colleagues in the U.S. and around the globe deliberately distorted data to support dire global warming scenarios and sought to block scholars with a different view from getting published. What does this scandal say generally about the intellectual habits and norms at our universities?

This is a legitimate question, because our universities, which above all should be cultivating intellectual virtue, are in their day-to-day operations fostering the opposite. Fashionable ideas, the convenience of professors, and the bureaucratic structures of academic ... (...) >>>

Mar 13, 2010
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Kindergarden climate 'scientists' - The glowbull warming empire strikes back in the Netherlands as well ... and how! With a faulty data set, copy-pasted from the CRU site! De Telegraaf newspaper is quoting today Prof. Ross McKitrick, who reviewed a Dutch study published only on Tuesday, which claimed that climate warming was doubling down on us. As it turned out, the 'scientists' had been using a faulty data set, which didn't include the influence of the earth's oceans in its model, and which even the CRU itself had warned NOT to use.

Mar 10, 2010
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The glowbull warming empire strikes back - Leftist ideologues masquerading as 'scientists' are still pushing the dialectic of man versus nature. Without the 'mad-made' hypothesis, the shake-down wouldn't be possible -

AOL: "Proof of Man-Made Global Warming Grows 'Stronger'"

Climate scientists have hit back at skeptics with the publication of a new paper that says the case for man-made global warming is now "stronger than ever." An international team of scientists led by Britain's Met Office -- the country's national weather service -- has spent the past year reviewing 110 studies published since 2007 that tracked changes in the earth's climate. Their paper, published in the journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, concluded that the possibility the world is warming because of natural variations in climate (such as increased volcanic or solar activity) is "increasingly remote." Instead, they firmly pin the blame on man's burning of fossil fuels. (...) >>>
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Gore: dirty oil's behind the conspiracy -

NewsMax: "Gore: Organized Campaign Behind Climate Skeptics"

Former Vice President Al Gore says critics of his global warming warnings are part of a "massive, organized campaign." Appearing on the Norwegian talk show “Skavlan” to promote his newest book "Our Choice," Gore said: “There has been a very large, organized campaign to try to convince people that it [global warming] is not real, to try to convince people that they shouldn't worry about it. "In my country, the oil and coal companies spent $500 million last year just on television advertising just on these questions. There are now five anti-climate lobbyists on Capitol Hill in Washington for every member of the House and Senate. So it's been a very massive, organized campaign." (...) >>>

Mar 8, 2010
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Scientists again caught with proof of partisanship -

Washington Times: "Climate scientists to fight back at skeptics", by Stephen Dinan

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times. (...)

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work. (...) Last month, President Obama announced that he would create a U.S. agency to arbitrate research on climate change.

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and a chief skeptic of global-warming claims, is considering asking the Justice Department to investigate whether climate scientists who receive taxpayer-funded grants falsified data. He lists 17 people he said have been key players in the controversy.

That news has enraged scientists. Mr. Schneider said Mr. Inhofe is showing "McCarthyesque" behavior in the mold of the Cold War-era senator who was accused of stifling political debate through accusations of communism. (...) He said the "social contract" between scientists and policymakers is broken and must be reforged, and he urged colleagues to try to recruit members of Congress to take up their case. He also said the press and nongovernmental organizations must be prodded. (...) >>>
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Climategate: "Swedegate: Climate professor’s lies exposed By Swedish meteorologists"

Disgraced Professor Phil Jones of Britain’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and his boss, Professor Edward Acton, head of the University of East Anglia appear to have been exposed in a blatant attempt to pervert justice. The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) has released evidence that proves Jones lied to Parliament during his testimony last week on the Climategate scandal. (...) >>>

Mar 7, 2010

A Congressman calls for IPCC funding to be put on hold, and Myron Ebell writes on The New York Times Fighting Back Against the Climate-gate Scandal - Fox News: "The Grey Lady finally notices that the climate change establishment knows its under fire. Now, the Grey Lady" - #hilarious Also: the warmists have started their defense against the skeptics: they've figured that they (the skeptics) have but 5% probability to be right. "Oh, and get this: the IPCC UNDERSTATED the effect of mankind on climate change." And last but not least, Delingpole: "Warmists overwhelmed by fear, panic and deranged hatred as their 'science' collapses." That alone unmasks them - not as seekers of truth - but as dogmatic ideologues who want to right at all cost. Read it all -

WND: "Clash over 'global warming' ratcheted up another degree"

Congressman wants funding stopped; scientists plan retaliation campaign (...) Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, is citing the doubts about the integrity of "climate change" science in a letter asking for an accounting of U.S. taxpayer support for the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. The U.S. since 1994 has given some $50 million to the panel, and contributions under Obama now have doubled. (...) >>>

Mar 6, 2010
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SoroS, now a legal extension of Government -

PJM: "BREAKING: ‘Anti-Lobbyist’ Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus ‘Green Jobs’", by Christopher Horner

After two studies refuted President Barack Obama’s assertions regarding the success of Spain’s and Denmark’s wind energy programs, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to attack the studies.

Via the FOIA request, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has learned that the Department of Energy — specifically the office headed by Al Gore’s company’s former CEO, Cathy Zoi — turned to George Soros’ Center for American Progress and other wind industry lobbyists to help push Obama’s wind energy proposals.

The FOIA request was not entirely complied with, and CEI just filed an appeal over documents still being withheld. In addition to withholding many internal communications, the administration is withholding communications with these lobbyists and other related communications, claiming they constitute “inter-agency memoranda.” This implies that, according to the DoE, wind industry lobbyists and Soros’s Center for American Progress are — for legal purposes — extensions of the government. (...) >>>
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Monckton: see you in hell, Al baby -

PJTV: "Lord Monckton v. Al Gore: Doubling Down On Global Warming"

Lord Christopher Monckton tells Bill Whittle that he's going after former Vice President Al Gore and his dubious doomsday claims about climate change. Stay tuned to PJTV for the full interview. [video]

Mar 4, 2010
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Memo to parliament: it's junk science -

Renowned Institute of Physics condemns climate 'consensus' as junk science in Memorandum to Parliament. After Al, Phil Jones also unrepentant, doubling down on warming hypothesis, but admits sending "pretty awful emails" to hide decline (Mail Online) -

Climategate: "DEVASTATING REPORT: The Institute of Physics condemns junk climate science"

The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has prompted the world-renowned Institute of Physics, with a membership of over 36,000 physics-related scientists, to publish a report condemning junk climate science. The Institute has just submitted its views to the UK’s House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry set up to investigate the Climategate scandal revealing unethical and criminal conduct by researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The Institute agrees with climate sceptics that the leaked emails prove

“prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law.”

The Institute totally vindicates the attempts of independent auditors such as Canadian researcher, Steve McIntyre, to access the hidden and/or destroyed climate data. The illegal refusal to disclose has undermined claims the world’s climate is undergoing ‘catastrophic’ human-influenced change. This powerful lobby group lambastes crooked climate scientists for their “inappropriate” conduct that made it necessary for analysts like McIntyre to waste years seeking appeals via Freedom of Information legislation. Nevertheless, the Institute says, the “right to such appeals has been shown to be necessary.” Thus the voice of tens of thousands of honorable scientists unhappy with climatologists, has been put to Parliament calling for “a wider inquiry into the integrity of the scientific process in this field." Here is the text of the report (...) >>>

Mar. 1, 2010
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Independently reviewing the IPCC, but is Nuttall an omen?

NYT: "Independent Board to Review Work of Top Climate Panel"

An independent board of scientists will be appointed to review the workings of the world’s top climate science panel, which has faced recriminations over inaccuracies in a 2007 report, a United Nations environmental spokesman said Friday. The board’s work will be part of a broader review of the body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, who spoke on the sidelines of an international meeting of environment ministers here.(...)

Mr. Nuttall said the review body would be made up of “senior scientific figures” who could perhaps produce a report by late summer for consideration at a meeting of the climate panel in October in South Korea. He said that several countries had made clear at the meeting here in Bali that they would prefer that the review panel be appointed by an independent group of scientists rather than the climate panel. He said that plans for assembling the panel would be announced next week. (...) Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, told reporters here this week that he did not support a ban on the use of gray literature and that the news media had overblown the climate panel’s missteps. (...) >>>

Feb. 27, 2010
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What irony - going after the fraudsters with anti Mafia laws -

Climategate: "Beating the Climategate Cover Up: the next legal step"

In this article I will outline the fundamentals of the civil and criminal cases against such climate fraudsters (...) As correctly reported yesterday in American Thinker the civil litigation net will soon be cast far and wide in the U.S. skilfully applying the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Although RICO laws were intended to bust Mafia crimes they have successfully been employed in civil lawsuits, too. (...)

- Caption: The Inhofe family building an igloo for the Gores - Jim Inhofe here in an interview with PJM's Richard Pollack -

In the U.S. we now have the release of the much-anticipated report from the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW). Spokesman and Minority leader Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has stated the need for an international criminal investigation into what he called, “unethical and potentially illegal behavior by some the world’s leading climate scientists.”

In his presentation of the EPW’s report, Inhofe emphasized the significant finding of the British Government that data destruction at the CRU was criminal. This announcement will have considerable impact upon President Barack Obama’s climate change policy that is unravelling in the wake of a barrage of US lawsuits challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) directives. With the abstaining American press increasingly accused of cronyism to politicians, in Britain the climate data fraud is more conscientiously reported by national daily publications such as, ‘The Telegraph.’

At last, skeptic politicians and large corporations are heeding the advice of legal commentators to use the law as the best way to bust what Inhofe terms, “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation.” (...) very detailed and robust legal petition filed by the world’s largest coal company, the Peabody Energy Corporation (PEC), that is a superb template for any litigant looking to file their own suit. (...) >>>

Feb. 26, 2010
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Tory Aardvark has the story illustrating the complete insanity of the upside-down thinkers in the climate folly. This carbon trading scheme is rewarding non-production with tax-payer's money to the tune of 1 billion pounds sterling. On top of that jobs are lost in a recession, and the production is taken elsewhere - India in this case. It's what I've taken it to be all along: a giant global scam for the redistribution of wealth, taken from the West and deposited in developing countries: world socialism, in effect. No wonder the ideologues have thought up the West's climate debt. I'm linking to Part 2 because it contains a link to Part 1. Do read it all and be utterly, utterly shocked, shocked!

Tory Aardvark: "Climategate – Corus Redcar Steel Works The Price Of Gordon Brown’s Insane Climate Change Policies Part 2"

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High Alert! Methane is the new CO2!

Climategate:"It’s hot! It’s new! It’s not C02!"

Based upon this UK Telegraph article I’d say this will be the new AGW Battle Cry: The Methane Time Bomb, aka the Al Queda of Climate.

Atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas, which is as much as 60 times more potent than carbon dioxide, appear to have risen significantly for the past three years running, scientists say. (...) >>>

Febr. 24, 2010
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Recovered: the medieval warm period and it was global - a great chart, do lots of hovering -

Science Skeptical: "The Medieval Warm Period - A global Phenomenon"

Febr. 23, 2010
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India making a clever move - The less credibility the climate body has, the less it can do to block vital economic development.

WSJ: "India Supports a Toothless IPCC"

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed support for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its leader, Rajendra Pachauri, at a local energy conference in New Delhi Friday. The move has surprised many observers, but it may prove to be politically astute.

The IPCC's credibility is in tatters. From climategate to glaciergate, Amazongate, natural-disaster gate, and now Chinagate, the revelations of bad science keep coming. Given all that, plus the much-publicized flap between Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Mr. Pachauri over the science behind "melting" Himalayan glaciers weeks before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, superficially one might have expected the Indian government to jettison Mr. Pachauri as soon as possible.

But Delhi isn't just offering him and the organization rhetorical backing. At Friday's annual flagship event of the Energy and Resources Institute—which Mr. Pachauri has headed for almost 30 years—the prime minister offered to provide technical assistance through a newly established glacier research center. The government has also formed a network of scientific institutions to develop domestic science and research capacities on climate issues.

The explanation for this support is simple: It is in the Indian government's interest to perpetuate a weak IPCC and a toothless Mr. Pachauri at its helm. Given the recent scandals, the IPCC is hardly in a position to lobby India for carbon concessions. No one from the IPCC can again cavalierly dismiss their critics as promoting "voodoo" science or "vested interests," as was Mr. Pachauri's wont. By offering scientific support to the IPCC, the Indian government is actually confirming its lack of confidence in the U.N. body's scientific credentials. (...) >>>

Feb. 22, 2010
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It's actually very hard to keep up with the breaking news. Just the headlines then ... Back at the UN, Yvo de Boer is jumping the sinking ship. This is proof positive we're making headway. Gate du Jour is "Czech Gate" - oldest data record dumped for no apparent reason, other than filtering. Sit down for this one: "Nature" says Antarctica is cooling. Watts says Gate du Jour is actually the IPCC's underestimation of antarctic ice by some 50 percent. Sea levels have fallen. For all the good news, you'd think climatists would be dancing with joy! No, they're not ... Satellite data debunks glowbull warming theory. World's biggest coal company drags Obama to Court. And then there's the trouble of the urban heat islands in Oz. I could give you more, but what the 'eck ... Pachauri's is the Quote du Jour:

I don’t think the credibility of the IPCC can be dented. If the IPCC wasn’t there, why would anyone be worried about climate change?

Feb. 18, 2010
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The climate-corporate complex is crumbling! Today's double bill entry: the corporations are jumping ship. Apparently it's now considered a liability to be associated with the scam. Times Online has an interview with Al Gore's "hero of Planet Earth", Robert Watson. He's suggesting a warmist Wikipedia is the answer to the climate cover up and bias. Apparently he hasn't heard about a story breaking around Christmas that Wikipedia's Climate Doctor, William Connelley, had personally rewritten 5,428 climate articles. Delingpole at the time added his twopence worth, revealing the climate doctor is a gd hippy! Enjoy.

Climategate: "The dominoes are falling: ConocoPhillips, BP, Caterpillar to quit Climate Group"

(...) The title of the Businessweek article is, “ConocoPhillips, BP, Caterpillar to Quit Climate Group.” Awesome. Now that’s big news. Everyone seems to be catching on. (...) >>>
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Times Online: "UN must investigate warming ‘bias’, says former climate chief"

Feb. 17, 2010
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The Professor has been caught with a tunnel vision: he's only able to think within the IPCC framework. Read it on Pajamas. Then, NEW! "Scandinaviagate":

Hide the Decline: "Scandinavian temperatures, IPCC´s "Scandinavia-gate"", by Frank Lansner

In recent years the Swedish scientist from Stockholm University, Karlén, has tried to create attention to the fact the Scandinavian temperatures when represented by IPCC cannot be recognized in the real data from the Scandinavian temperature stations (...) IPCC shows temperatures around year 2000 should be approximately 0,7 K higher than the peak around 1930-50, whereas the actual data collected by Karlén shows that year 2000 temperatures equals the 1930-50 peak, perhaps even lower. Was Karlén wrong? To evaluate this, lets check out the national meteorological institues of the respective Scandinavian countries (...) >>>

Feb. 16, 2010
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NEW! "Oinkgate"

The Pig Site: "Meat Industry Challenge on Flawed “Cancer” Report"

A high profile report which suggests possible links between meat and cancer has been found to be significantly flawed by leading academics. The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) 2007 report has been consistently cited as proof of a perceived link between red and processed meat consumption and risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, despite now privately acknowledging a number of errors and that these will be taken into consideration as part of an ongoing review, the charity has said it is not planning to inform the public and policymakers directly of the flaws. (...) >>>

Feb. 15, 2010
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OMG! Professor Jones, in a Q&A with the BBC is backpeddling; filthy deniers come crawling out of the woodwork left, right and center. Weather stations are at fault! Joseph D'Aleo on Pajamas has an analysis of the interview shovel-ready: "What Did Phil Jones Actually Admit? Was He Correct?"

Times Online: "World may not be warming, say scientists"

The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution. In its last assessment the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the evidence that the world was warming was “unequivocal”. (...) It warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and that there could be 5C-6C more warming by 2100, with devastating impacts on humanity and wildlife. However, new research, including work by British scientists, is casting doubt on such claims. Some even suggest the world may not be warming much at all. “The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC. (...) >>>

Feb. 14, 2010
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IPCC acknowledge mistake er ... flaw

Reuters: "U.N. climate panel admits Dutch sea level flaw"

The U.N. panel of climate experts overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level, according to a preliminary report on Saturday, admitting yet another flaw after a row last month over Himalayan glacier melt. (...) >>>

Feb. 14, 2010
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Arizona jumps climate ship

IBD: "Arizona Quits Climate Pact"

The Grand Canyon State avoids a big economic hole by suspending its participation in a multistate initiative to fight climate change. As climate fraud is exposed, economic reality sets in. Will California follow? Not since King Canute have government officials engaged in an exercise as futile as in 2007, when seven U.S. states and four Canadian provinces got together to form something called the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2012.

Leading the charge for the pact was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (...) Since then, the nation has slid into a recession, and the only thing man-made about climate change has been the manipulated and manufactured claims that we are doomed if we don't act to fight it. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, seeing which way the snow is blowing, has issued an executive order saying her state will suspend its participation in the emission-control plan or any program that could raise costs for businesses and consumers. (...) >>>

Feb. 13, 2010
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What a bummer! It not only turned out this probe is instituted by the University of East Anglia itself, but just hours after the announcement, the first member of the independent panel is forced to resign because he might have a preconception or two as Editor-in-Chief of "Nature", one of IPCC's 'scientific' sources. Bishop Hill has the broad headings, the scope of the Russell investigation. They've also discovered another panel member with various problems involving bias. Read about Geoffrey Boulton here en here.

Reason Magazine in addition has raised objections to BP's Head of Research and Technology, David Eyton. BP has been 'sustainable' and 'socially responsible' for years - a loyal member of the climate-corporate complex. Also the corporation has been funding climate research at major universities - not because they give no credence to the AGW hypothesis, one would think. Nigel Lawson's GWPF has issued this statement on the news of the Russell enquiry: no public hearings, no transcripts. This enquiry has all the makings of a cover up. Indeed, doesn't the very choice of appointees betray a shocking lack of what constitutes objectivity?

The Guardian: "'Climategate' review panellist quits after his impartiality questioned"

Nature editor Philip Campbell forced out of independent panel after saying there was nothing to suggest a cover up by scientists at the University of East Anglia (...) >>>
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Just how entrenched the true believers are - from nutjob to 'scientist' - oozes from a conversation on US television between Joy Behar and Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues". See and read it in Climategate Blog.

Feb. 12, 2010
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Sky News: "Probe Into Leaked Email Scandal"

An independent review into the 'Climategate' leaked email scandal at the University of East Anglia has been announced. Sir Muir Russell has been appointed to investigate allegations that leading academics manipulated data on global warming. A separate police investigation is ongoing into whether the emails were leaked or hacked. (...)

Climate change sceptics claim some emails suggest scientists have been colluding in an attempt to bolster the theory that global warming is caused by humans."There aren't league tables about how good scientists are. We're expecting them to police themselves," he said.

"So if there's any evidence that they're conspiring against their critics, conspiring to shut down debate about what they're doing, conspiring not to comply with Freedom of Information requests - I think that's pretty bad news." (...) He will also look at the way the unit deals with all aspects of its research processes and the policy for Freedom of Information requests.

Many climate experts fear the scandal risks undermining decades of sound research on global warming. (...) The inquiry is due to finish by the Spring. >>>
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Climategate: "Australiagate: Now NASA caught in trick over Aussie climate data"

In this article we look at the findings of two independent climate researchers who analyse climatic data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to show warming of two degrees per century for Australia without explanation. We find that an earlier study by Willis Eschenbach in an article on What’s up with That (WUWT) is wholly substantiated by Kens Kingdom’slatest analysis of Ken Stewart at his ‘kenskingdom’ blog. As a consequence, absent any other justification from NASA, we must conclude that the NASA data has been fraudulently cooked. (...) >>>
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The blanket good-for-all justification for glowball warming:

The Foundry: "Morning Bell: Global Warming – Is There Anything It Can’t Do?"

(...) No snow, too much snow. It does not matter to the enviroleft crowd. For them, global warming always is to blame. That is the whole reason the movement made a deliberate decision earlier this decade to stop calling it “global warming” and start calling it “climate change.” That way they could expand the universe of terrible things they could plausibly blame on global warming. One British citizen even maintains a comprehensive list of everything the enviroleft has tried to blame on global warming including: Atlantic ocean less salty, Atlantic ocean more salty, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning faster, fish bigger, fish shrinking, and (most importantly) beer better, beer worse. (...) Here is what we do know: the cap-and-trade system in Europe is completely failing to reduce carbon emissions; the cap-and-trade system proposed here in the United States would do nothing to affect global temperatures, but would do trillions of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy. (...) >>>
Feb. 11, 2010
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The Guardian is proposing to save the narrative of climate change by launching a new narrative! That Jones, Mann and the CRU have a bunker and a siege mentality, because they were viciously attacked by evil deniers, who are waging a war against them paid for by ruthless, dirty energy corporations. In the meantime, India pulling out of IPCC:

Telegraph: "India forms new climate change body"

The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own leading scientist Dr R.K Pachauri. >>>

Feb. 10, 2010
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Help out The Guardian saving climate change! It's important 'cause a lot of money and ideology is caught up in this scam ...

The Guardian: "'Climategate' was PR disaster that could bring healthy reform of peer review", by Fred Pierce

Peer-review was meant to be a safeguard against the publication of bad science but the balance is shifting towards open access. In a unique experiment, The Guardian has published online the full manuscript of its major investigation into the climate science emails stolen from the University of East Anglia, which revealed apparent attempts to cover up flawed data; moves to prevent access to climate data; and to keep research from climate sceptics out of the scientific literature.

As well as including new information about the emails, we will allow web users to annotate the manuscript to help us in our aim of creating the definitive account of the controversy. This is an attempt at a collaborative route to getting at the truth. (...) The annotations - and the real name of the commenter - will be added to the manuscript, initially in private. The most insightful comments will then be added to a public version of the manuscript. We hope the process will be a form of peer review. If you have a contribution to make, please email climate.emails@guardian.co.uk. The anonymous commenting facility under each article will also be switched on so that anyone can contribute to the debate. (...) >>>
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Another FOIA stonewaller is getting away with breaking the law

Climategate: "British climate professor John Mitchell may face fraud charges"

Now another senior British climate scientist–this time Professor John Mitchell, the Met Office’s Director of Climate Science-is about the face the full force of the blogosphere for contemptuous breaches of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Mitchell and the UK Meteorological Office have apparently been up to the same tricks as Professor Phil Jones (...)

- Caption: Hat Tip Patriot Post -

The Met Office is refusing to disclose Prof Mitchell’s working papers and correspondence with his IPCC colleagues in response to requests filed under the FOIA. The block has been endorsed in writing by Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth –- whose department has responsibility for the Met Office. Professor John Mitchell was joint chief fabricator of the absurd headline in the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning IPCC report: that the Earth is now hotter than at any time in the past 1,300 years. A claim totally at odds with the evidence presented in the IPCC’s First Report of 1990. (...) >>>

Febr. 9, 2010
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Pajamas is proposing to open up a new field in web 2.0 activities: reseach blogging - qui bono? - follow the money. Apparently Scotland Yard is investigating a case of fraud amounting to 1 to 1,5 billion dollar. The Science and Public Policy Institute has made it known that 79 billion dollar has already been spent on this consensus science.

A few days ago we suggested to have a look at the climate-industrial complex, such as the Apollo Alliance, and its European counterpart, the Lisbon Council but there are many, many more. A rep of this PR lobby group, "Envirocomm", was caught trolling web 2.0 social platforms, asking open and unbiased questions, like "What do you think businesses should do towards greater sustainability and socially responsible entrepreneurship?" ...

The British Telegraph in an article on Saturday describes the mutual appreciation society between Pachauri's Teri Research Institute and transnational corporatism in India. Word has it the man is as huge a grandiose Narcissist as The Annointed One at the other end of the globe. In psychology this is the type of sociopath who seeks to sacrifice as many as possible to a supposed ideal.

Over to the 'gate du jour': "Wavegate" and more "Dissertationgates"

Telegraph: "New errors in IPCC climate change report"

The publication of inaccurate data on the potential of wave power to produce electricity around the world, (which) was wrongly attributed to the website of a commercial wave-energy company. (...) a diagram used to demonstrate the potential for generating electricity from wave power has been found to contain numerous errors. The source of information for the diagram was cited as the website of UK-based wave-energy company Wavegen. Yet the diagram on Wavegen’s website contains dramatically different figures for energy potential off Britain and Alaska and in the Bering Sea. When contacted by The Sunday Telegraph, Wavegen insisted that the diagram on its website had not been changed. It added that it was not the original source of the data and had simply reproduced it on its website. The diagram is widely cited in other literature as having come from a paper on wave energy produced by the Institute of Mechanical Engineering in 1991 along with data from the European Directory of Renewable Energy. Experts claim that, had the IPCC checked the citation properly, it would have spotted the discrepancies.

It can also be revealed that claims made by the IPCC about the effects of global warming, and suggestions about ways it could be avoided, were partly based on information from ten dissertations by Masters students. One unpublished dissertation was used to support the claim that sea-level rise could impact on people living in the Nile delta and other African coastal areas, although the main focus of the thesis, by a student at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, appears to have been the impact of computer software on environmental development. The IPCC also made use of a report by US conservation group Defenders of Wildlife to state that salmon in US streams have been affected by rising temperatures. The panel has already come under fire for using information in reports by conservation charity the WWF. Estimates of carbon-dioxide emissions from nuclear power stations and claims that suggested they were cheaper than coal or gas power stations were also taken from the website of the World Nuclear Association, rather than using independent scientific calculations. (...) >>>
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New! Africagate (or Raingate)

Climategate: "Raingate splashes across the London Times"

The London Times today reports on a story that has been circling the blogosphere in recent weeks as either “Raingate” or “Africagate.” The respected British mainstream newspaper exposes yet another example of what peer-review means in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 2007 Fourth Report. A paper described as “consensus science” about severe drought affecting African crop production turns out to be nothing more than hyped up speculation from a single study, put together by a lone researcher. The revelation was overlooked first time round by the mainstream media as it broke during the deluge to cover the Pachaurigate and Glaciergate stories.

The London Times reports: (...) “The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.” (...) Unlike the glacier claim, which was confined to a section of the technical Working Group II report, this “50 percent by 2020″ claim forms part of the key Synthesis Report, the production of which was the personal responsibility of the chair of the IPCC, Dr R K Pachauri. It has been repeated by him in many public fora. He, therefore, bears a personal responsibility for the error. >>>

Feb. 8, 2010
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Cashing in on the climatescare: Remaining underexposed in the hottest hoax around is the climate-industrial complex, trying to cash in on green fascism at the expense of the tax payer. So far we've identified the Apollo Alliance, and its European counterpart, the Lisbon Council. A rep of this PR lobby group, "Envirocomm", was caught trolling the Internet, posing open and unbiased questions, like "What do you think businesses should do towards greater sustainability and socially responsible entrepreneurship?" ...

Townhall: "Disclosing the Real Risks on Climate Change", by Paul Driessen

(...) Insurance companies and reinsurers may want to “disclose” alleged 20-foot higher sea levels and more violent hurricanes conjured up by computer models. These Gore and IPCC scare stories can translate into “increased risk,” higher premiums and additional profits. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says carbon permits could be a “boon” for the Big Apple’s financial sector, creating a commodities market of “as much as $3 trillion by 2020.”

Other members of the climate-industrial-government-activist-scientist complex likewise have a big stake in global warming disasters and massive government spending to “prevent a cataclysm” and terminate our “perilous dependence on fossil fuels.” Exelon, Duke Energy, Penn State (Mike Mann again), NASA and other institutions all see huge potential returns on “investments” in climate alarmism and lobbying. (...) As Climategate unfolds and 2010 elections approach, will wind turbine makers and carbon traders benefit – or will it be hydrocarbon-based industries like chemicals, manufacturing, airlines and tourism?

Indirect impacts on business trends: Are profit projections based on melting glaciers and other Climategate fraud, greenwashing, backroom lobbyist deals, or wishful carbon trading? How will new laws affect demand for goods in industries that have recently been extolled – or vilified. It is becoming increasingly clear that the real risks to businesses, investors, employees, and low-income, minority and elderly families are not due to climate change. They are the result of policies enacted in the name of preventing climate change. (...) >>>

Feb. 7, 2010
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Police hear suspect: A British newspaper is reporting that East Anglia police have been interviewing Paul Dennis, a scientist and colleague of Phil Jones, the man at the center of the Climategate storm. He caught their attention because he has refused to sign a petition in support of Jones. He has also been emailing scientific material to a climate sceptic. He told bloggers the police are still laboring under the assumption that Climategate was hacked in order to sabotage Nopenhagen. We've concluded weeks ago, Climategate was leaked before it was hacked. Is Paul Dennis our hero? Read it all in ...

Norwich Evening News: "Police quiz UEA scientist over climategate scandal"

A scientist colleague of the man at the centre of the University of East Anglia's climategate scandal has revealed that he has been interviewed by police over the affair - but denied he was responsible for leaking hundreds of emails. (...) >>>

Here a great vid of an honest scientist - a climate loyalist at that - making a dog's breakfast of the IPCC and their dogmatic science.

Jan. 6, 2010
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Now that the Iron Curtain of anthropogenic glowball warming is crumbling Delingpole is venting steam, and he's in no mood for niceties:

Telegraph: "Climategate: time for the tumbrils"

(...) Now suddenly it has all changed utterly. And you know what? I’m in no mood for being magnanimous in victory. I want the lying, cheating, fraudulent scientists prosecuted and fined or imprisoned. I want warmist politicians like Brown and disgusting Milibands booted out and I want Conservative fellow-travellers who are still pushing this green con trick – that’ll be you, David Cameron, you Greg Clark, you Tim Yeo, you John Gummer, to name but four – to be punished at the polls for their culpable idiocy.

For years I’ve been made to feel a pariah for my views on AGW. Chris Booker has had the same experience, as has Richard North, Benny Peiser, Lord Lawson, Philip Stott and those few others of us who recognised early on that the AGW thing stank. Now it’s payback time and I take small satisfaction from seeing so many rats deserting their sinking ship. I don’t want them on my side. I want to see them in hell, reliving scenes from Hieronymus Bosch. Yeah, maybe it isn’t the Christian way. But screw ‘em. It’s not as though they haven’t all been screwing us for long enough.

Tags: Al Gore roasting on an open fire, Ed Miliband with a red hot poker up his jacksie, etc >>>

Feb. 5, 2010
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In the last couple of days IPCC mistakes have been discovered that set the Dutch Environmental Minister's knickers in a twist. While Greenpeace and Eco Defense keep singing the man-made settled science tune, the Labor politician is demanding the IPCC clarify the enormities.

NRC: "New mistake found in UN climate report"

The UN climate change panel IPCC not only wrongly predicted Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, it also put more than half of the Netherlands below sea level. The Dutch environment minister, Jaqueline Cramer, on Wednesday demanded a thorough investigation into the 2007 report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change after a Dutch magazine uncovered it incorrectly states 55 percent of the country lies below sea level. The the Dutch national bureau for environmental analysis has taken responsibility for the incorrect figure cited by the IPCC. Only 26 percent of the Netherlands is really below sea level. (...) >>>

Feb 4, 2010
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Telegraph: "After Climategate, Pachaurigate and Glaciergate: Amazongate", by David Delingpole

(...) Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that:

This, then appears to be another WWF report, carried out in conjunction with the IUCN – The International Union for Conservation of Nature. (...) It gets even better. The two expert authors of the WWF report so casually cited by the IPCC as part of its, ahem, “robust” “peer-reviewed” process weren’t even Amazon specialists. One, Dr P.F. Moore, is a policy analyst (...) >>>
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Cassy Fiano on Hot Air takes another look at the data from China, the direct link to the IPCC, and CRU only publishing 10 out of the 105 freedom of information requests:

Hot Air: "Climategate scientist hid more information?"

(...) A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.

… Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei- Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had “screwed up”. (...)

The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN’s embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (...) The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full. (...) >>>

Feb. 2, 2010
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"Gates" Du Jour: "Climbersgate" and "Dissertationgate": This is truly beyond belief! Donna Laframboise shows the IPCC bible, on which entire governments base their policies, rests on thin ice produced by WWF, who base themselves on stories fabricated by Greenpeace. We are the people we have been waiting for! Not content? Read the "Gates" Du Jour: "Climbersgate" and "Dissertationgate":

Telegraph: "UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article"

The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine. (...) >>>
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Remember the dying coral reefs? Resting on Greenpeace's visions of Dystopia ...

Watts Up With That: "Gate du Jour – Now it’s Greenpeace reports in the IPCC AR4"

Donna Laframboise, who gave us the list of World Wildlife Fund non peer reviewed studies cited in the IPCC AR4 continues to make lists. Here’s her latest list. Those calm, rational, thoughtful folks at Greenpeace seem to have had a significant hand in the IPCC climate bible. She writes (...)

In one section of this Nobel-winning report, climate change is linked to coral reef degradation. The sole source for this claim? A Greenpeace report titled “Pacific in Peril” (see Hoegh-Guldberg below). Here the report relies on a Greenpeace document to establish the lower-end of an estimate involving solar power plants (Aringhoff). Read more at her blog here. In the meantime, here’s the list (...) >>>

Jan. 31, 2010
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Climategate: "WTF now? Greenpeacegate?"

(...) Let’s just go to Donna Laframboise out of Toronto Canada, the creator of NOconsensus.org, who yesterday broke the story that the IPCC is using the political activist group Greenpeace as source for quite a few “facts” in its report; in fact, in at least one case, they were the sole source. She begins (...) >>>
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PJM: "Climategate scandal: NOAA and NASA Complicit in Data Manipulation"

Recent revelations from the Climategate emails, originating from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, showed how all the data centers — most notably NOAA and NASA — conspired in the manipulation of global temperature records to suggest that temperatures in the 20th century rose faster than they actually did.

This has inspired climate researchers worldwide to take a hard look at the data proffered, by comparing it to the original data and to other data sources. An in-depth report, co-authored by myself and Anthony Watts for the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), compiles some of the initial alarming findings with case studies included from scientists around the world. (...) >>>

Jan. 30, 2010
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Shock! Osama endorses the watermelons' "Western climate guilt" narrative. The Unholy Alliance holds firm.

Canadian Press: "Bin Laden blasts US for climate change, calls for boycott of US goods, dollars"

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming. (...) >>>

Jan. 29, 2010
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Climategate: "The edifice crumbles: top climatologist openly breaks with Climategate conspirators"

Further damning revelations are pouring in from the gaping wound that has inflicted the fast unraveling theory of the green monster that is man made global warming. As reported today by By Marc Morano of Climate Depot, Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has split ranks with other members of the discredited “hockey team” of climatologists exposed for fraudulently hiding and destroying data in the Climategate scandal that broke on November 19, 2009.

Christy served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed in these new revelations he explains how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes. But he fell from favour for proposing that the IPCC allow for well-credentialed climate scientists to craft a chapter on an alternative view presenting evidence for low climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases. (...) >>>
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Remember the Russians and their 'dirty' gas and oil interests when it transpired that data from Siberian weather stations were dropped in favor of urbans centers? Surprise! Same cherry picking procedure is also reported from Canada ...

Climategate: "Defamatory? So sue me, Gavin. I triple dog dare you"

Earlier this month we brought you the story regarding the outrageous dropping of 806 ‘cold’ weather stations in one year. Now we bring you a follow up story that shows this controversy is not going to go away. We’ve now learned that there has been more shameful cherry picking of temperature stations in Canada where, since the 1970s, the number of local stations included in the U.S. government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) database has dropped from 600 stations to only 35 stations today. And, the really shocking statistic is that the now discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is taking data from only one of 100 reliable weather stations for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle, to be used by climatologists to calculate global average temperatures. (...) >>>

Jan. 27, 2010
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GWPF: "IPCC Wrongly Linked Global Warming To Natural Disasters"

The United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

- Caption: Leuven University Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Vice President of the IPCC and internal investigator of the IPCC claim that there's a sound scientic ground for the relation between severe weather conditions and global waming -

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month's Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions. (...) >>>

Jan. 25, 2010
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The story broke on Dec. 8. Pachauri admits and apologizes for the behavior of an underling on Jan. 22. They're going to defend this scam up to the hilt. Dogmatic "science" is politics after all! "Scam, scam, scam!" (must see video). Times Online details how much Pachauri's environmental company has made off of this gletcher fraud.

Also don't miss the second item of today, must watch video of John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel live on his San Diego show for a one hour documentary that explains in detail how the conspiracy took place. Item #3 announces an investigation of Climategate by the UK Parliament that may well be the death knell!

Mail Online: "Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified", by David Rose

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders. Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action. ‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in." (...) The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121. Last Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’. (...) an analysis of those 500-plus formal review comments, to be published tomorrow by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the new body founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, suggests that when reviewers did raise issues that called the claim into question, Dr Lal and his colleagues simply ignored them. (...) >>>
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This is a must watch video ... John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, has long attacked the Global Warming scam. Now, he goes live on his San Diego show for a one hour documentary that explains in detail how the conspiracy took place. If you only have time to watch one segment, watch #4...don't miss this, it's stunning!

Watts Up With That: "John Coleman’s hourlong news special “Global Warming – The Other Side” now online, all five parts here"
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Australian Climate Madness: "UK Parliament in investigate Climategate"

The Science and Technology Committee today announces an inquiry into the unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The Committee has agreed to examine and invite written submissions on three questions:

—What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?

—Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate?

—How independent are the other two international data sets?

The Committee intends to hold an oral evidence session in March 2010. (...) >>>

Jan. 24, 2010
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BBC: "UN climate deadline turns out to be 'flexible'"

The UN climate convention says nations signing up to the accord reached at last month's summit will not have to do so by the deadline of 31 January. (...) >>>

Jan. 21, 2010
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! This news broke on Dec. 8 - it has only just now penetrated the mainstream, and only because the UN's IPCC (the political climate panel) finally admitted its mistake (go figure!):

Times Online: "UN climate chief admits mistake on Himalayan glaciers warning"

The vice-chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has admitted that the group made a mistake in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele said it was an error that the IPCC included the date in its 2007 assessment of climate impacts and added that it would be reviewed. He said, however, that it did not change the broad picture of man-made climate change. (... hey, why should the facts stand in your way of a global looting!, CT) Climate change sceptics have said that it undermines the credibility of climate science, especially after the revelations contained within the contents of e-mails stolen last year from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. (...) >>> (... you don't say!, CT)
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Australian Conservative: "Climategate reveals “a level of scientific chicanery of the most appalling kind”"

A former New Zealand journalist now publishing Poneke’s Weblog has posted a 4600-word analysis of the ClimateGate emails. Poneke writes: “This is the longest and most important article I’ve yet written for this blog and I make no apology for its 4600 words — more also than in any newspaper article. As a journalist, I believe the Climategate emails have exposed one of the most significant news stories of the decade. As the mainstream news media has so far barely gone beyond giving those who wrote them and their supporters time and space to deny their undeniable contents, I present here an extensive journalistic account of what they actually say in the context of the dates and events in which they were written, with full links to all the emails. “Having now read all the Climategate emails, I can conclusively say they demonstrate a level of scientific chicanery of the most appalling kind that deserves the widest possible public exposure.” (...) >>>

Jan. 20, 2010
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The Island of Doubt: "Forget climategate; here's a real embarrassment for the IPCC"

The revelation that at least one group of authors working for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would rely on grey literature or even popular media sources for their reporting could end up being a real blow to the Nobel prize-winning organization. If you haven't heard by now, a section of the Fourth IPCC report, which came out in 2007, cited a prediction for the complete disappearance of all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas by 2035. This alone would be sufficient justification for describing the consequences of climate change as catastrophic, as something like 40% of the world relies on annual meltwater from the area. (...) >>>

Jan. 20, 2010
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Climategate: "An open letter to Australian Members of Parliament"

Below we wish to share with you a fine Open Letter by Australian lawyer, Val Majkus who has written to all of her nation’s Members of Parliament to object to policy decisions being implemented on ‘junk’ climate science. In the letter Val, with a keen legal mind, goes to great lengths to explain the details of her concerns: recently substantiated by leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in England. I hope others will join me in heartily endorsing Val’s campaign for a full public enquiry, i.e. a ‘Royal Commission’ on apparent unethical and/or illegal conduct by certain climatologists. (...) >>>

Jan. 18, 2010
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The book is here: CRUTAPE!

While we may not be posting to the dossier on a daily basis anymore, that doesn't mean the subject has died or there's nothing of importance to report. Quite the contrary is the case. We could be updating this file on an hourly basis. Even we don't have that much time. Today's main: "Climategate, the book", go to original post to read excerpts, or order here:

WattsUpWithThat: "History in a hurry: the first book about Climategate is published"

Electronic publishing has revolutionized the art of writing, now less than two months since it happened, we have the very first book about Climategate (Climategate The Crutape Letters By Steven Mosher, Thomas W. Fuller, CT). I’ve read the book, and it appears to be an accurate and detailed portrayal of the history not only of the Climategate events and the players, but also of the events leading up to it. I’m flattered that this book mentions me and my surfacestations project several times. I was interviewed for the book, and this website is featured prominently–and they borrowed liberally from both the posts and the comments. For those of you that want to follow a detective story, this one has as the twists and turns of Mickey Spillane with a Hardy Boys approach to a matter of fact story line. I highly recommend it. This book is being published in electronic downloadable form, and is available for purchase online. (...) >>>

Jan. 17, 2010
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Prison Planet: "Climategate Scientist Received Over Half A Million From Obama Stimulus Package"

A leading scientist involved in the climategate scandal received over half a million dollars in federal economic stimulus funds from the Obama Administration last Summer, it has been revealed. Professor Michael Mann of Penn State University, currently under investigation by the institution itself for his role in massaging climate data and hijacking the peer review process to advance the myth of anthropogenic global warming, was awarded a grant of $541,184 by the government in June 2009. Mann, the creator of the now infamously discredited Hockey Stick Graph, landed money that came directly from the U.S. Treasury’s economic stimulus package, reveals the Washington free-market think-tank group The National Center For Public Policy Research (NCPPR). (...) >>>

Jan. 14, 2010
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In December Geert Wilders MP requested an emergency debate in Dutch Parliament on Climategate, which was held today amidst uproar about an investigation into the Iraq War, which may well trip up the Government. The right of center liberal party VVD has called for an independent enquiry into 'climate change'. The MSM are downplaying it as "much ado about nothing", yet the Environmental Minister is taking it more seriously. While earlier she judged an independent investigation "superfluous" in the light of "the scientific consensus", today she told Parliament to be awaiting in spring the results of an "international investigation" (would that be the IPCC internal enquiry?). If Parliament isn't satisfied further independent research may be commissioned. - Hat Tip: Climategate.nl
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American Spectator: "Group Demands REAL Investigation Into Mann", by Paul Chesser

The Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg, Pa. does not trust Pennsylvania State University to investigate Climategate hockey sticker Michael Mann, because of the millions of dollars that his research brings to the university. The foundation today released a 12-page policy brief which addresses Mann's Climategate emails, the significance of his role, and why the university has a conflict of interest in investigating him. Commonwealth held a press conference today at the state capitol about their report: (...) >>>

Jan. 13, 2010
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FEATURE - Mail Online: "It has a gigantic supercomputer, 1,500 staff and a £170m-a-year budget. So why does the Met Office get it so wrong?", by Richard North

Its supercomputer makes 1,000 billion calculations a second - then tells us to expect a mild winter. But what would you expect from a 'scientific' organisation that for 20 years has been dominated by climate change zealots, and whose current chairman is the former boss of the World Wildlife Fund? (...) >>>
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The Westerner: "‘Climategate’ professor Michael Mann protected ‘to maximum extent’ by Penn State policy"

It ultimately falls to one man to decide if we ever see headlines that shout: “Penn State Climate Prof Fudged Facts to Fetch Funding” (...) Henry “Hank” Foley, the new vice president for research and dean of the graduate school, will hold professor Michael Mann’s academic future in his hands if an internal inquiry, now under way, sparks an investigation that finds Mann broke university policy. But results of Penn State’s internal Climategate probe may not come until Mann’s part of the globe really warms up, in May or June. In addition, you may never learn what really happened between Mann and other leading lights in the global warming movement. That’s because Penn State, like other universities, treats such inquiries as confidential personnel matters, protected by policy “to the maximum extent possible.” More surprising (...) >>>

Jan. 12, 2010
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Has the giant face-saving operation begun? Not being a poet, there's no good way to express the irony of the situation ... [sarc] "a pause", is that what it is, is it? and they never tell you it hasn't 'warmed' in a decade [/sarc]. The very idea gives the game away. If it really is the climate, present winter conditions should be meaningless! [under breath: postmodern idiots!]

Telegraph: "Big freeze could signal global warming 'pause'"

The Arctic conditions which have brought Britain to a standstill over the past week could be the start of a "pause" in global warming, some scientists believe. (...) >>>

Jan. 11, 2010
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This post strengthens our hypothesis that a prime target may be science and with it, reason:

Climategate Blog: "For the love of God: Support Climate Change"

A number of religious leaders of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and other faiths have formed a growing movement to transform society from their pulpits by emphasizing the connection between ecology and religion. We couldn’t help it, and had to see what this was about. We followed the link to Dominique Browning’s Personal Nature blog post, on the EDF website. She is moved and inspired to hear that the clergy are bringing their flocks into the climate change camp.

"The conflict between politics, religion and science has been with us for centuries; think of Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin. Today there is rampant confusion between faith, something you believe in, and science, something that requires only connective leaps between hypotheses and demonstrable evidence. We seem to have lost our trust in the authority of scientists, no matter how impressive their level of training and achievement. A fascinating new Pew poll showed that Republicans are overwhelmingly less likely to “believe” the science of climate change than Democrats, who aren’t entirely persuaded either. (...) >>>
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A blog for adepts to follow, "Errors in IPCC Climate Science" by Douglas Hoyt and Warwick Hughes:

Errors in IPCC Climate Science: "Canberra Airport – rejected by Jones et al 1986 – pardoned in the 1990’s – now corrected (again) by UKMO"

While experimenting with BoM raw Canberra Airport data I was surprised to find the UKMO have corrected the data here and there. It is noteworthy that Jones et al 1986 rejected Canberra (WMO 949260) with an 80 code which translates as “Non-homogenous and uncorrectable” – after comparing it with Sydney.
Canberra was “pardoned” and included in his 1994 station data – but oddly it never made the cut for his 1226 station 1996 update, which is confined to stations still reporting. (...) >>>
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Eco terror retaliates:

PoCa: "Climategate: East Anglia aftermath, and beyond", by Juliet Eilperin

A new guerrilla green operation has begun. (...) A case in point: Greenpeace has filed a Virginia Freedom of Information Request with both Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's (D) office and the University of Virginia demanding an array of correspondence concerning Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at both the conservative Cato Institute and at George Mason University. Michaels also held the title of Virginia's official climatologist starting in 1980 until Kaine announced in August 2006 he did not consider Michaels as holding that honorary post. (...) >>>
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Today in India: "Pachauri in a spot as climategate hits TERI", by Ajmer Singh

Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of UN's Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), had advocated emission reductions at the recently concluded Copenhagen Climate Summit. But back home in India, he seems to be failing to uphold standards of propriety in his professional dealings. (...) Pachauri's position is untenable (...) >>>

Jan. 10, 2010
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Words fail you in this day and age. The British extremism squad has the case under investigation. More on that on the Climategate Blog. On Jan. 4 we already broke the news: Hadley was leaked ...

Bisshop Hill: "Statement from the Norfolk Police"

This morning I contacted Norfolk Constabulary with a view to finding out if they had yet ascertained whether the breach at the Climatic Research Unit was a leak or a hack. I have just received a response which is frankly amazing: (...) >>>

Jan. 8, 2010
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... precession ...

American Thinker: "Climategate and the Migrating Arctic Tree Line", by Dexter Wright

(...) The location of the Arctic Circle is a function of the tilt of the Earth's axis, which is approximately twenty-three and a half degrees (23.5o) from the orbital plane of our planet. This is why the Arctic Circle is at sixty-six and half degrees (66.5o) north latitude, exactly 23.5o south of the North Pole, which is at ninety degrees (90o) north latitude. But this angle of axis tilt has not always been 23.5o. The Earth's axis has been calculated to "wobble" on a 40,000-year cycle.

This "wobble" is known as "precession," and this phenomenon is well-documented by astronomical observations throughout history. (...) These types of "errors" and "omissions" seem to be indicative of the entire "Global Warming" investigation conducted through, or in collaboration with, Dr. Jones. Perhaps the best conclusion to come to is that the entire body of work compiled by the IPCC is tainted and therefore unreliable for any policymaker. >>>

Jan. 7, 2010
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IBD: "The CO2 Lie"

A new study shows that Earth's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from all sources, including man, has remained unchanged for 160 years. As it turns out, there may be no carbon to offset. (...) Unlike the Climate-gate charlatans at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Wolfgang Knorr of Bristol's Earth Sciences Department followed the data where it led instead of trying to manipulate it to "hide the decline" in global temperatures the earth has experienced in the last decade.

The new study, published in the online journal Geophysical Research Letters (...) does show that only 45% of man's emissions, not 100% as warmers claim, stays in the atmosphere (...) The rest is absorbed by nature, and that percentage hasn't changed since 1850. Knorr arrived at that figure by relying solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice. He did not rely, as the CRU did, on badly written computer models with built-in fudge factors to direct the data to a foregone conclusion.

Another result of this study, reports Anthony Watts at WattsUpWithThat.com, is that emissions from deforestation, caused in large part by the clearing of forest land to grow allegedly planet-saving biofuels, may have been grossly overestimated. This finding agrees with results published in November in the journal Nature Geoscience by a team led by Guido van der Werf from VU University in Amsterdam. It reanalyzed deforestation data and concluded that resulting emissions have been overestimated by a factor of two. (...) >>>

Jan. 6, 2010
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We told ya so: Hadley was leaked before it was 'hacked'. Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for the BBC posted on November 23 on his blog, that whilst he was busy performing his forecasting duties, he had been sitting on the Hadley information since ... October 12 (!). He promised to comment on his page as soon as he could free up some time. The story broke only on November 19! The discrepancy has never been explained, until today. Climategate was leaked before it was hacked. When Hudson didn't do anything with the information, the whistleblowers - in the run up to Nopenhagen - had to take other measures to break the story. Read it all in the Homeland Security News Wire below. Should the BBC take down the page, we have a screenshot online here.

On American Thinker meanwhile Clarice Feldman relays a report in The Telegraph that Michael Mann of Climategate's Hockey Stick fame, received a surprise today: a notice to all his colleagues that there's an effort to collect data on misuse of federal funds in his operation, in an effort to mount a Federal False Claims Act suit (...) >>>

Homeland Security News Wire: "Climategate evidence suggests release was a leak- Climategate – Outside hacker, internal mole or whistle-blower ?"

New information reveals that the now-famous break-in of the computers at the University of East Anglia— which revealed that in a few instances leading climatologists seemingly massaged data to show more global warming and discussed excluding contradictory research— in fact, may not have been the act of an intruder. A detailed analysis of the East Anglia’s files by Canadian network engineer discloses that the emails and documents were likely leaked by an internal source, spotlighting a perennial but often neglected threat — old-fashioned espionage or whistle-blowing. (...) >>>
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Newsmax: "Hurricane Chief: Probe Climategate"

A former director of the National Hurricane Center called Sunday for an investigation into the “scientific debauchery revealed by ‘Climategate,’” citing the way global warming skeptics have been marginalized by the mainstream media. (...) The science isn’t settled, Frank wrote, despite what “climate alarmists” would lead you to believe. They also attack skeptics by painting them as tools of Big Oil or questioning their qualifications. But they are “numerous and well qualified,” Frank wrote. (...)

“Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people's endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March,” Frank wrote.

“They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel's report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.”

“Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to ‘strongly reconsider’ her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS' true position.” (...) >>>

Jan. 4, 2010
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Bishop Hill: "A climategate snippet on urban heat islands"

While reading the Climategate emails, I chanced upon a message to Phil Jones from a Chinese researcher, Yan ZhongWei inquiring if the great man would like to be a co-author on a forthcoming paper. (...) >>>

Jan. 3, 2010
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Bill Whittle on PJTV goes through the trouble of looking at the climate debate from a scientific perspective - that is, how it should be conducted were it unbiased and truly scientific, which it isn't. It's one sided and ideology driven. Indeed, by watermelons ...

PJTV: "Nopenhagen: The Truth is Missing From the Climate Debate"

Jan. 3, 2010
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Check out these three great blogs: "I Love CO2", and "Climategate, Anthropogenic Global Warming, history's biggest scam" and "Climategat: arrest the crimatologists".

Jan. 2, 2010
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Screenshots van een PvdA Kandidaat

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:20:00 +0000

The Trilateral Commission and the EU (series)

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:57:00 +0000

by James Higham, first published on "nourishing obscurity"

Part I
Let this series of three posts walk you through one thread in what the hell is going on right now and why people are suffering. As each new screenshot goes up, the question is, “So what?” Be patient because it is leading somewhere.

Part II
In Part 1, it was argued that there are many groups about, many thinktanks and all have a view of the world which they’d like to see implemented. In the end, it comes down to traction – how much notice is taken of them. As you saw, the TLC has an awful lot of traction.
Traction is one thing – convincing the government or opposition of the day of your views – but it’s another thing getting them presented and passed in the legislature.

Part III
The TLC has some history in Europe. Immediately after the close of the Cold War, the Trilateral Commission – a private policy group comprised of American, European, and Asian counterparts – released its study, Regionalism in a Converging World, Trilateral Commission/Trilateral Papers #42, 1992.

According to its Introduction:

“…regionalism need not be opposed to globalism. The world should not have to choose between one or the other. It needs to live with both. The challenge…is how to channel the forces of regionalism in directions compatible with and supportive of globalism.”

The idea is not the TLC’s – they merely parrot what is pushed by the globalists and it goes back a very long way. (...)

Europe became for the rest of the world a recognized model to advance internationalism above single state interests. This reality was perceived early on by European federalists and is evident in the 1946 Hertenstein Program. (...) >>>

Related

- "World Federalist Movement"

Dossiers

- "Building the State of Europe"
- "Transnationalism"
- "Neototalitarianism"
- "Common Purpose"
- "Greenism"
- "Hegel's Legacy"

Barack Obama and the New Party

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:01:00 +0000

De economische crisis “back to the future”

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 11:31:00 +0000

"De crisis in de jaren dertig van de vorige eeuw, zoals zo veel perioden met ernstige werkloosheid, was eerder het gevolg van wanbeleid door de overheid dan van een natuurlijke instabiliteit in de economie. ... De politiek van Roosevelt was zeer destructief. Het heeft de duur en de ernst van de crisis onnodig verernstigd."

-- Milton Friedman (1912-2006), winnaar Nobelprijs voor Economie, en economisch adviseur van President Ronald Reagan.
Deel I

In een recent artikel in Wall Street Journal, getiteld ”Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years”, vertelt senior economisch correspondent Stephen Moore, hoe in zijn tijd bij het Libertarische Cato Institute, een nieuwkomer die “Atlas Shrugged” niet had gelezen, als 'maagd' werd aangeduid. Doorwrochte kennis van Ayn Rands klassieke roman (Nederlandse titel “Atlas in Staking”) over de economische slachting veroorzaakt door een niets-ontzienende overheid, was zowat een harde eis om bij het instituut te mogen werken. “Als de tegenwoordige politici over de staking van “Atlas” zouden hebben gelezen”, verzucht Moore, “dan zouden de huidige problemen een stuk sneller worden opgelost”. Velen die Rands werk kennen hebben reeds opgemerkt, dat politici vandaag exact die acties ondernemen, die Rand in “Atlas” aan de kaak stelde.

- Illustratie: "Atlas Shrugged" boekomslag, ontwerp van Nick Gaetano -

Het duizend bladzijden tellende boek werd in 1957 uitgebracht en was meteen een bestseller. Ayn Rand ontvluchtte als jonge vrouw de Sovjet Unie. Ondanks haar jeugd verraadde ze een diep inzicht in totalitaire systemen en de destructie die socialisme teweegbrengt. In 1957 was Rand al een begrip in Amerika. In een onderzoek in 1991 wezen lezers de klassieker aan als het meest invloedrijke boek, na de Bijbel.

Rands roman is gebaseerd op een unieke filosofie die Rand zelf ontwikkelde en die zij Objectivisme heeft genoemd. Het zou haar theorie geen recht doen die in een paar zinnen te schetsen, maar de moraal van het verhaal is deze: politici reageren altijd op een crisis - die ze in de meeste gevallen zelf veroorzaakt hebben - met het creëren van regelgeving, wetten en reguleringen. Deze veroorzaken op hun beurt nog meer problemen, hetgeen politici aanzet tot nog meer regelgeving, wetten en reguleringen. Die neerwaartse spiraal herhaalt zich, tot de sectoren die de economie moeten dragen, uiteindelijk ineen zijgen onder de collectieve lastendruk.

De huidige crisis werd veroorzaakt doordat federale regeringen sinds President Carter een beleid voeren, dat private banken dwingt op te treden als uitvoerders van sociaal overheidsbeleid. Onder de "Community Reinvestment Act" worden banken onder het mom van sociale rechtvaardigheid verplicht positieve discriminatie toe te passen. De huidige president Obama heeft in 1995 eigenhandig Citibank aangeklaagd voor het weigeren van een hypotheek op grond van 'rassendiscriminatie'. Banken werden zo verplicht hypotheken te verstrekken aan mensen die zich deze eigenlijk niet konden veroorloven. De semi-overheidsbanken, Fannie Mae en Freddie Mac kochten al deze zogenaamde 'subprime' hypotheken op en verkochten die op de markt als normale effecten.

In “Atlas” worden de rondpompers van kapitaal beschreven als “de plunderaars en hun regelgeving”. Iedere wet heeft een goedaardig klinkende naam, zoals de Anti-graaiwet om inkomens te verdelen, en de Gelijkheids- en kansenwet, die regelt dat zakenmensen niet meer dan een onderneming mogen hebben, zodat “anderen ook een kans hebben”. De Anti-hond-eet-hond-wet heeft tot doel faillissementen tegen te gaan die het gevolg zijn van “moordende concurrentie”.

Die wetten en regels klinken absurd, maar ze zijn niet veel gekker dan de plannen die er momenteel in diverse regeringszetels gelanceerd worden. Washington heeft net de 700 miljard dollar kostende "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" en "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act" bedacht.

President Obama zat nog geen honderd dagen in het Witte Huis toen hij het "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" ondertekende. Die wet zal de federale begroting, onder President Bush in acht jaar tijd reeds uitgegroeid tot 1.5 biljoen dollar, verhogen met nog eens 1 biljoen.

Het huidige economische beleid komt rechtstreeks uit “Atlas Shrugged”. Hoe incompetenter de ondernemer, hoe meer subsidie er in de onderneming wordt gepompt. Er is reeds 2 biljoen dollar aan subsidies verstrekt aan omvallende verzekeringsmaatschappijen, banken, investeerders, en autofabrieken. De volgende die staan te trappelen zijn projectontwikkelaars, de staalindustrie, chemische fabrieken, luchtvaartmaatschappijen, etanolboeren, bouwers - ja, zelfs katviskwekers en pornofilmproducenten. Iedere 'bailout', bedoeld om de “markt te kalmeren”, betekent weer een biljoen dollar naar de knoppen.

Zoals Rand al had voorzien worden incompetente bestuurders die hun bedrijf op de klippen laten lopen behandeld als slachtoffer, terwijl slimme zakenmensen die toch nog winst weten te maken worden neergezet als misdadigers.

Deel II

In de jaren vijftig waren de spoorwegen een van de belangrijkste pijlers van de Amerikaanse economie. In “Atlas” heeft de energieke spoorwegonderneemster, Dagny Taggart, een geweldige toekomstvisie maar ze wordt zo tegengewerkt door overheidsingrijpen, dat een faillissement erop volgt. Overdreven? Een recente headline in the Wall Street Journal kopte, “Spoorwegverladers vragen het Congres tarieven te reguleren”.

“Atlas” verhaalt ook over een ondernemer die een wondermetaal heeft uitgevonden. In naam van het publieke belang eisen politici dat de uitvinder naar Washington wordt geroepen om het patent op zijn uitvinding over te dragen aan de overheid.

- Illustratie: boekomslag van Ayn Rands "The Virtue of Selfishness", herdrukt in"Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal". Ontwerp van Nick Gaetano: "Man's Rights" -

De scene doet sterk denken aan een gebeurtenis vorig jaar, toen zes bankdirecteuren door de Minister van Financiën, Paulson naar Washington werden geroepen. Daar kregen ze te horen, dat ze een document moesten ondertekenen waarin stond, dat een percentage van de winst voortaan zou worden afgedragen aan de overheid. De ambtenaren van Financiën verzekerden hen dat deze afpersing een publiek belang diende.

“Atlas in Staking” is een ode aan de ondernemer, de producent van welvaart door menselijk vernuft die voor eigen rekening risico's neemt. Er weerklinkt een constante waarschuwing door in het boek. In een cultuur waarin winst, welvaart en creativiteit niet worden gewaardeerd, is welvaart gedoemd te verdwijnen.

“Atlas” eindigt met de economie in comateuze staat. Uiteindelijk komen politici radeloos aan bij zakenman John Galt, die zich in de chaos staande heeft weten te houden. Ze vragen hem hen te helpen de economie er weer bovenop te krijgen. De discussie zou vandaag gevoerd kunnen zijn:

Galt: "Jullie vragen me om Economisch Dictator te worden?"

Mr. Thompson: "Ja!"

"En jullie zullen iedere order opvolgen?"

"Ja, natuurlijk!"

"Begin dan maar met de afschaffing van de inkomstenbelasting."

"Oh, nee!" riep Mr. Thompson. "Dat kunnen we niet doen . . . Hoe zouden we de ambtenaren moeten betalen?"

"Ontsla ze maar."

"Oh, nee!"
De inkomstenbelasting afschaffen, dat zou werkelijk een injectie voor de economie zijn. Maar regeringen doen het tegenovergestelde. In naam van solidariteit worden de belastingen juist verhoogd.

David Kelley, voorzitter van de “Atlas Society”, conservator van Rands ideeën, zegt dat de boodschap na verloop van jaren steeds pregnanter is geworden. Er zijn plannen om “Atlas” te verfilmen, met Angelina Jolie in de rol van de spoorwegheldin. Kelley grapt dat het niet meer nodig is: we maken het nu in werkelijkheid mee!

Door de griezelige parallellen met de huidige crisis zijn de verkopen van “Atlas” de laatste zeven weken verdrievoudigd in vergelijking met dezelfde periode in 2008. Yaron Brook, directeur van het “Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights” heeft recentelijk bekendgemaakt dat vorige jaar een record aantal van 200.000 exemplaren is verkocht.

Mensen zijn terecht bezorgd over de economische crisis, het stijgende overheidsingrijpen en pogingen van de overheid om de economie te reguleren. Ayn Rand begreep en benoemde de onderliggende oorzaken van economische crises. In haar boek bepleit ze een zowel praktische als principiële oplossing: scheiding van staat en economie.

Illustraties in dit artikel dank aan Quent Cordair Fine Art Gallery voor Romantisch Realisme

- Cartoon links: Day by Day, door Chris Muir (klik om te vergroten) -

Meer lectuur: "Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse" - Thomas E. Woods Jr., Ron Paul

Lees en blader in het boek in de Amazon Online Reader.

Yaron Brook, directeur van het Ayn Rand Instituut spreekt over de crisis op Glenn Beck:

Gerelateerd:

- BNet: "Why Do CEOs (Still) Love Ayn Rand" of "Wat Objectivisme Niet Is"

Wilders' Pearls Before Swine

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:37:00 +0000

In addition to our series on the Wilders trial and the corruption of the law (part I, part II), the following is the text of the speech Geert Wilders delivered yesterday at the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam.

Such fine words have not been uttered very often within the walls of the multicultural Shangrila. It would have been great to see how the MSM would have spun it. Regrettably the text isn't very open to interpretation. As a consequence it may be filed under the category 'buried news'.

Here's the text.

Mr Chairman, members of the Court,

For a brief moment I'd like to make use of my right to speak before the Court.

Of all our achievements freedom is at the same time the most cherished and most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to this cause and indeed have died for it. Freedom in this country is the sum total of centuries. It is the result of a truly unique history that has led us where we are today.

I believe with all my heart and soul that freedom in our country is under attack. Our heritage - liberty - of which many generations could only dream, is no longer a given, can no longer be taken for granted.

I am devoting my life to the defense of liberty. I am aware of the risks involved and I am paying the price every day. It is my duty and therefore I stand before you today.

I know my words can be harsh sometimes, but they are never without a purpose. I do not intend to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction. But neither is it my intention to hurt people. I've got nothing against Muslims. I have an issue with Islam and the Islamization of our country, because Islam cannot be reconciled with liberty.

Future generations will question how we, in 2010, in this place, in this hall, have served our most precious achievement; if freedom exists for both parties in this debate, if there's freedom also for Islam critics, or if only one side may be heard in this debate in this country. Is the freedom of speech for everyone, or is it only for some? The answer to that question, is also the answer to the question if freedom still has a home in this land.

Liberty never was the possession of an elite group; it always was the heritage of everyone. It blesses everyone equally.

Lady Justice is wearing a blindfold, but she can listen all the better. I hope she hears the following words loud and clear.

It isn't just a right, but it's also the duty of free people to stand up against an ideology that is a threat against liberty. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

I hope the freedom of expression will triumph in this trial. That I may be cleared of the charges, but also that the universal freedom of speech may survive.

And finally, Mr. Chairman, members of the Court,

This trial deals with the freedom of expression. But it is also about truth. Is what is specified in the indictment true, and are the equations I've made, correct? If all that is true how can it be punishable by law? That's why I am asking you emphatically to grant me my requests for witnesses and expert-witnesses in the field of the freedom of speech. But I also request you to publicly grant me in full my requests for witnesses and expert-witnesses in the field of Islam.

I'm not just referring to Messrs Jansen and Admiraal, but also to expert-witnesses from Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. I have to be able to defend myself. I have to show that what I've said is the truth. Please do not prohibit me this. Without these witnesses I can't defend myself and that, in my opinion, would make this an unfair trial.

Geert Wilders

You can send your reaction to Geert Wilders directly.

Climategate: Leaked Before it Was Hacked

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:39:00 +0000

The Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Hadley at Hadley was leaked before it was 'hacked'.

Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for the BBC posted on November 23 on his blog, that whilst he was busy performing his forecasting duties, he had been sitting on the information since ... October 12 (!). He promised to comment on his page as soon as he could free up some time.

The story broke only on November 19! The discrepancy has never been explained, until today. Climategate was leaked before it was hacked. When Hudson didn't do anything with the information, the whistleblower(s) - in the run up to Nopenhagen - had to take other measures to break the story.

Read it all. Should the BBC take down the page, the screenshot is below.

Homeland Security News Wire: "Climategate evidence suggests release was a leak- Climategate – Outside hacker, internal mole or whistle-blower ?"

New information reveals that the now-famous break-in of the computers at the University of East Anglia— which revealed that in a few instances leading climatologists seemingly massaged data to show more global warming and discussed excluding contradictory research— in fact, may not have been the act of an intruder. A detailed analysis of the East Anglia’s files by Canadian network engineer discloses that the emails and documents were likely leaked by an internal source, spotlighting a perennial but often neglected threat — old-fashioned espionage or whistle-blowing. (...) >>>

Update:

Is Paul Dennis the hero of the piece?

doodle.png by CassandraTroy on Aviary

"The Dystopia of Paradise": strands of Postmodernism

noreply@blogger.com (Cassandra Troy) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Introduction

Postmodernism follows modernity, the era of the Enlightenment, which lasted roughly from the Renaissance until the outbreak of World War I. Period definitions tend to vary. Jonathan I. Israel, who wrote a number of great tomes on the subject - "Radical Enlightenment" and "Enlightenment Contested" considers the Enlightenment proper ended by 1750.

Postmodernism is rooted in the Counter-Enlightenment movement, a philosophical reaction to the Enlightenment. The departure from modernity is most clearly marked by the ideas of Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who radically rejected all the tenets of modernity. Further watersheds in post and anti-modern thought are marked by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

Postmodernism proper made its influence felt most dramatically in Europe during the interbellum and in the US as well after World War II, having its temporary culmination with the counter-culture of the 1970s and 1980s.

The current revival is largely due to the dissemination of those ideas to younger generations and the arrival of the fellow-travelers at the corridors of power after having taken “the long road through the institutions.” The informative term was coined by Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), an political theorist and founding member of the Communist Party of Italy. When revolution stubbornly refused to catch on he advised a “long march through the institutions,” by whih he meant the capture of the arts, cinema, theater, schools, universities, seminaries, media, and the courts.

The process was greatly assisted by the subversive activities of the Soviet KGB and Frankfurt School. The insidious influence of these anti philosophers can hardly be overestimated.

After the failed 1968 revolution the fellow travelers became aware of the possibility that they might seize political power after all, after achieving 'cultural hegemony,' or control of society's intellectual life by cultural means.

The term postmodernism is used in these pages in a limited sense, covering philosophical efforts as structuralism and post structuralism; not as a creative style in art or design, nor as a designate of a time period. The term is used here to indicate the whole of relativist and subjectivist thinking as it is applied in a political context, roughly between 1968 and the present.

As well as the revival of the Middle Ages, some trend watchers have detected an end to the postmodern epoch, but frankly there are few signs of an impending demise. Apart from the much vilified neo-conservatism there is no reaction, counter, antithesis or rival political philosophy in sight that might capture popular attention: if the dialectic of Thesis and Antithesis holds true, what we should see at some point is a positivist or rationalist revival. This is not on the horizon. Neo Atheism - a off shoot of Skepticism also does not qualify. That said, the general conditions are ripening for a return to some form of 'total state' under a charismatic post-democratic leadership.

Skepticism
Skepticism is a Naturalistic theory that also holds that man is incapable of acquiring knowledge about reality. It even rejects consciousness and reduces man to a collection of spare parts, a live robot if you will, or a walking factory of genes and hormone secretions, the evolutionary/biochemical approach to humanity. In effect, it reduces man to the animal level.

The term Skepticism by its Greek root σκεπτω, to think, suggests reason, but on the contrary, the theory excludes it. It is a sad conclusion that Skepticism is endemic in current academia. Anthony Rizzi, founder and director of the Institute for Advanced Physics has written a very informative book on the basic principles of Aristotelean philosophy. "Science before Science: a guide to thinking in the 21st century" was written for the express purpose of exposing, refuting and hopefully reversing the fallacies in academia, related to the sources that underlie this form of relativism.

Pragmatism
Pragmatism is another departure from reality and sensory based information. Absolutes are considered perverse and truth has no basis in fact. Pragmatism has the opposite effect of deontology. The latter is the ethics of good-intent-bad-result-never-mind, the postmodern permanent get-out-of-jail card. In Pragmatism the opposite holds true: the aim justifies the means. If an idea – being in itself unknowable - leads to the outcome desired by its proponents it should be accepted as true on that ground alone, irrespective of unknowable 'facts of reality.'

The champion of Pragmatism is the American pioneering psychologist William James (1842-1910), who gave the concept its name. The brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James wrote: 'The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”

The Heraklitean doctrine asserts there was no permanent reality except the reality of change; permanence is but an illusion of the senses. Heraklitus (535-475 BC) taught that all things carried with them their opposites, that death was potential in life, that being and not-being were part of every whole - therefore, the only possible real state was the transitional one of becoming. An idea must be judged by its utility in a particular situation. What works today, may not work tomorrow.

Pragmatism is a Romanticist version of relativism. Extrovert action is valued over introvert reflexion. Pragmatism is essentially amoral. It has contributed to the nastiness of Postmodernism by exercising a sort of secular, Western form of taqqiyah (a form of deception Muslims use to conceal the truth. This Islamic concept to deceive an enemy (i.e., non-Muslim, infidel, kafir, etc.) is not only common practice, but is considered a virtue among Muslims). It is governed by the same principle: our goal is so ethical that even the unethical is justified in reaching it, the utility which is expedient towards realization of the goal.

As a consequence pragmatism is dishonestly presented as the opposite of what it aims to achieve. It seemingly is the practical over theory, portends to position the individual in a central role, ostensibly respects reason and facts, while its very principle constitutes an assault on logic (everything is in flux), gives a central role to feelings and passion (subjectivism), denies reality (nothing is absolute), and reduces the individual to an atom of the collective. That collective - in pragmatism is usually 'our generation,' 'the rave,' or society - it's not an aggregate, but an 'organic unity.'

It holds a number of Orwellian concepts, as Hegel's 'ethical whole' to which individual free will must be sacrificed for the creation of the Collective Will to Power, and Rousseau's notion which has come down to us in Marxism, of 'true freedom through the state'. A picture of mystical collectivism is emerging which looks ominously familiar, but is by itself not enough to warrant great concern.

Is gets stickier when pragmatism is coupled to dogma and subjectivism. This is the winning combination that made National Socialism such a lethal ideology: the two principles strengthen one another. One can see how that works: the aim justifies the means because we say so. Dogmatism couples blind belief to an already brutal concept.

The so-called 'mixed economy' as advocated by Third Way techno-Socialists may serve as an example of the Pragmatist approach to political questions. The 'reasonable alternative' lends random concepts and ideas from one political movement or philosophy or other as a practical application or a desired goal: the result is an unintegrated, ideological hotchpotch.

State controls through corporatism, the redistribution of capital through taxation, and subjective benefits for unequal groups is so pronounced in this branch of politics that it is doubtful if the compromise between statism and individual private property, freedom and individual autonomy in the future will be guaranteed. The border between the state-granted rights to citizens, and the infringements by the state on the private realm, is haphazard and highly arbitrary in Pragmatism. Considering that the Pragmatist approach to foreign policy is presently replacing nations with transnational states in competing super federations, it is seriously in doubt if the value of liberty will prevail in the face of the Pragmatic approach.

Objectivism versus subjectivism

Object (n.), from 1398, "tangible thing, something perceived or presented to the senses," from M.L. objectum 'thing put before' (the mind or sight), neut. of L. objectus, pp. of obicere 'to present, oppose, cast in the way of,' from ob 'against' + jacere 'to throw.'

Subject (n.), borrowed directly from L. subjectum 'foundation or subject of a proposition,' a loan-translation of Aristotle's to hypokeimenon. Grammatical sense is recorded from c.1638. The adj. is, attested from c.1330. Subjective 'existing in the mind' is from 1707.

In philosophy subjectivism means that thought creates reality. Reality (the object) is dependent on human consciousness (the subject). This means that man does not need to concern himself with the outside facts of reality to attain knowledge. The mind – containing raw percepts and emotions (unfiltered and unprocessed by reason) - has the power to create 'reality' in conformity with his wishes. Pathos, not logic, is therefore man's primary tool of cognition.

Reality is not a collection of objective facts, but merely an illusion of a real world. That world is Kant's noumenon and cannot be known by the human mind: man is incapable of objective knowledge. (see chapter 3.b.) Iconically Albert Einstein once asked a subjectivist, "do you really think the universe is not there when you aren't watching it?" A subjectivist might legitimately ask, "If I die overnight, will the sun rise tomorrow?"

There are two kinds of subjectivism, depending on the view of who creates 'reality.' The main subjectivism theorist, Immanuel Kant, did not support the possibility of the creation of personal 'realities'. Instead he posited social subjectivism, the idea that social groups create their own realities. To Kant, man as a species, does have the mental structure to create reality.

Later followers accepted that fundamental approach but carried subjectivism to further extremes: if the mind exists, there is no reason why all should have the same mental make-up, why mankind should not consist of competing groups, each with their own type of consciousness, vying with others for the control of 'reality.'

Marx posited a social subjectivism of oppressing and oppressed classes while the Nazis, following in their footsteps, substituted social class for race (polylogism). They invested ethnic groups with their own mental constitution, a racial version of subjective 'truth,' invalid for others. This is what present day postmodern multiculturalists term the 'narrative'. Over the last two centuries the notion has given rise to various racial theories.

In a social setting the outcome of subjectivity is segregation, or in postmodernism, multiculturalism. A multicultural society is a subjectivist political model, an archipelago of distinct cultural and racial islets. It should not to be seen synonymous with 'immigration country' or be confused with its opposite, 'melting pot.' Read also: The Dialectics.

In these pages the term subjectivism is used both in the individual and in the collective sense, often in pointing out in a social or a political context, the subjective inequalities as set out in the Marxist dialectic. It becomes best visible in Socialist policies - such as subsidies, grants and preferential treatment of minorities, and in multiculturalism - the relativist approach to empowering cultural and racial minorities, and the shifting of capital, power and rights from the powerful to powerless, as opposed to objectiveness which aims at applying one set of rules or standards to all.

The opposing position to subjectivity is objectivity, which rests on the view that reality exists independent of the human mind. The subject perceives the object to acquire knowledge of it. Instead of the introspection involved in subjectivism, the attention is directed outward, to the facts outside the consciousness.

In a social or political setting the objective approach seeks to apply equal rules and treatment for all concerned, without regard of the individual involved - king or beggar - or his particular circumstances, poor, rich, social caste or background: murder is murder, no matter who committed it and in what circumstances.
Objectivity has been the highest standard of moral judgment for a very long time.

To give a characteristic example between the subjective and objective perspective: conflict mediators are trained to allow the less powerful party all manner of compensation in proportion to their subjective inequality in order to ensure equality of outcome. In other words, the dice are loaded against the party who is deemed 'more powerful', in itself highly arbitrary and subjective.

Laws and rules may be written down in documents with a view to objective application, if they don't apply to all in equal measure, the result is whimsical, reverse class justice.
As the term subjectivism reflects so well the rejection of objective reality, the word is used here almost as synonymous to relativist thought patterns.

It must be well noted however that subjective in these pages does not translate to the opposite of Objectivism, Ayn Rand's brilliant philosophical theory of Capitalist ethics. Although some principles and definitions may coincide, in no way it is meant to follow its tenets as a theory, which would require strict detachment of the observer from the matter in hand, uncompromising submission to the laws of nature, and rejection of any knowledge not based on (sensory) empiricism.

Only one designate, however, is clearly descriptive of the core fallacy, namely Rand's term 'the primacy of consciousness' - as opposed to 'the primacy of existence,' or in Natural Philosophy 'the primacy of essence,' opposed to 'the primacy of being.' The terms 'consciousness first' or 'existence first' are also used here for short measure.

For proper understanding an illuminating question might be, does a new born already possesses self-awareness, or is that a faculty that is developed only later, well within toddler age? Unborn children have an awareness of things surrounding them, sounds and bumps, but that doesn't constitute self-awareness. Relativism - perhaps not always consciously so - holds that humans posses self-consciousness independent of our physical bodies, a philosophical remnant of what in religion is the immortal soul.