BREAKING: Terror attack in Barcelona.
Charlie Martin will keep the updates coming.
Archive for 2017
August 17, 2017
YOU DON’T SAY: Road to renewable energy is filled with potholes of ‘magic thinking.’
Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson’s “roadmaps” for states to reach a 100 percent renewable energy portfolio by 2050 has become the new benchmark for aspiring politicos who hope to chart their own political course with promises to bring their states and eventually the entire United States to green salvation.
Among them, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) has launched his own gubernatorial campaign in Colorado on just such a declaration, and backed it up with a federal bill, the 100 by ‘50 Act, ”that fully envisions a complete transition off of fossil fuels for the United States.” Polis is joined by Rep. Paul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate.
“To remain a global economic leader, we must invest in renewable energy technology and fully embrace a cleaner, carbon-free future,” Polis said. “I’m proud to introduce this bill to advance 100 percent renewable energy nationally by investing in energy generation, transmission, and storage solutions of the future, rather than throwing taxpayer dollars into the past.”
Unfortunately, the research underpinning the bill and similar efforts elsewhere, has been roundly criticized, with a peer-reviewed paper finding “significant shortcomings” and “errors, inappropriate methods, and implausible assumptions” in Jacobson’s work. The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, has led Jacobson to advise the 21 authors who contributed to the peer review that he has lawyered up, rather than push back on the substantive criticisms of his work.
That hardly seems auspicious.
WHEN IS A FLAG A ‘THREAT”? Snowflake SJW’s and virtue-signallers on social media are now claiming that the mere appearance of some clown in a Nazi uniform or holding a Nazi flag is a “threat.” Legendary photojournalist Stan Forman showed us in this 1976 Pulitzer-winning photo when a flag is really a threat. (In Boston, not the Deep South, BTW).
Otherwise it’s just a piece of cloth.
QUESTION ASKED: Who’s Next, George Washington?
Well, yes.
SPENGLER: What Do We Say About Decent Men Who Died for a Wicked Cause?
This might not be a comfortable piece to read, which is why I’m recommending you give Spengler your full attention today.
TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 1561: Why Hasn’t Trump Drained The IRS/DOJ Swamp? Excellent question. “The Justice Department’s job is to defend the government, but it is also supposed to pursue justice. And there is no question the IRS did wrong. It has been documented by the Treasury Department’s inspector general and admitted by the IRS itself. It’d be one thing if the plaintiffs were demanding a billion-dollar payout, but they aren’t. Their main request is that the IRS come clean on what happened, and the government is resisting with all its power. The real question is why the Justice Department is even fighting this suit, when it ought to be leading a renewed investigation into what happened and how it got covered up.”
ROYAL NAVY PASSENGER TRANSFER: A RN helicopter and a nuclear sub exchange passengers. A U.S. Navy photographer snapped the photo.
FAKE NEWS AND FASCISTS: The Paranoid Style in American Journalism: Blogger Anthony Senatore does some historical review of interest.
Hofstadter offered evidence that paranoia was not the exclusive domain of politics and conservatives in his claim that a paranoid style was often a component of the left-wing press. The history of journalism as seen through the lens of paranoia and grandiose conspiracy is well documented. Fox News provided the fertile ground for President Trump’s birther beliefs from 2011 to 2016. Even so, on December 8th, 2015, Rachel Maddow and MSNBC took the paranoid style of journalism to heights hitherto unknown.
Read the whole thing.™
South Korean President Moon Jae-in Thursday said he has received assurances from U.S. President Donald Trump that Washington would not launch any attack against North Korea without Seoul’s approval.
F.I.R.E.’S ROBERT SHIBLEY ON CHARLOTTESVILLE: Police must act fast to protect First Amendment rights: The deliberate decision by local and campus leaders to let violence start serves the interests of those who would squelch debate. “State, local, and even college campus leadership appear to be telling police to stand by while some degree of unlawful violence takes place right before their eyes. Yet when that violence predictably spirals out of control, the authorities profess their inability to have done anything to stop it. Meanwhile, those inclined to violence are emboldened, secure in the knowledge that the publicity payoff is high and the odds of punishment low.”
I think it’s quite possible that they wanted violence, and to squelch debate. Certainly that’s consistent with their actions. I hope the DOJ investigation will take a very close look at what orders were given when, by whom, and why. A Black Lives Matter protester quoted in the piece: “It’s almost as if they wanted us to fight each other.”
EUGENICS: Iceland Eliminates People with Down Syndrome.
One might be forgiven for assuming that Iceland has developed an innovative treatment for the chromosomal disorder. It turns out Iceland’s solution is much simpler, and much more sinister: using prenatal testing and abortion to systematically exterminate children with Down syndrome. This isn’t progress; it’s eugenics.
Prenatal testing is optional in Iceland, but the government mandates that doctors notify women of that option. About 85 percent of expectant mothers undergo the test, and close to 100 percent of those women choose to abort if their child is diagnosed with Down syndrome. Just two children with Down syndrome are born in Iceland each year, often as the result of faulty testing.
The CBS article does little to accord this subject the moral gravity it deserves. “Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates,” the authors note casually. CBS News’s tweet promoting the story read simply: “Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion.”
But Iceland isn’t “eliminating Down syndrome” at all. It’s eliminating people.
You might be reminded of this quote from doomsday cultist Paul Ehrlich:
I have understood the population explosion intellectually for a long time. I came to understand it emotionally one stinking hot night in Delhi a couple of years ago… The temperature was well over 100, and the air was a haze of dust and smoke. The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people.
People — they’re the worst, aren’t they?
WELL, I LIKE THAT BETTER THAN OUR ELECTION NARRATIVES: Diesel Is Driving Election Narratives in Germany.
There’s an election campaign underway in Germany right now, and one of the biggest issues the candidates are wrangling with has to do with something as seemingly mundane as a transportation fuel. Diesel cars, foundational to the German car industry, are no longer the eco-darling they once were, and earlier this week Angela Merkel, who is running for a fourth term, conceded for the first time that Germany will need to move towards banning diesel cars in the near future. That has set off a political furor in the country.
It’s hard to believe that diesel was once considered the greener fuel option, but 20 years ago countries across Europe—Germany included—began to push carmakers to increase sales of diesel vehicles over their gasoline-powered variants. Because they generally get higher mileage, diesel cars were perceived to be the greenest option, and were seized upon in a part of the world where the budding market for environmentally conscious consumers was most fertile. Unfortunately, diesel has a drawback: its tailpipe emissions include far more local air pollutants, and many of Europe’s major cities are battling a surge in smog as a result of the continent’s switch to diesel vehicles.
The diesel problem is especially notable in Germany, which was ground zero for the emissions test cheating scandal that rocked Volkswagen back in 2015 (and a number of other German car manufacturers since then).
It seems likely that government officials knew about this cheating, and turned a blind eye for competitive reasons.
WELDING SPIDER SILK AND KEVLAR: The process uses lasers. The results are fascinating.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF ON VIRGINIA’S LAW ENFORCEMENT FAILURE AT CHARLOTTESVILLE. “A third tragic lesson was the failure to shut down even minor acts of violence before they spun into a full-fledged melee. Virginia Homeland Security Secretary Brian Moran watched the Saturday demonstrations from a command center. Faced with individual acts of violence, he commented, ‘I compare it to hockey. Often in hockey there are sporadic fights, and then they separate.’ But street demonstrations are not hockey. While there is an understandable inclination to fear overreacting, the fact is that allowing small incidents of violence invites violence on a larger scale — just as happened here.”
ALL THE VIEWS THAT’S FIT TO SUPPRESS: The A.C.L.U. Needs to Rethink Free Speech.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Alumni take Trinity to task over free speech ‘double standard.’ “‘We’re back, again, to a discretionary rule-of-man and not rule-of-law, applied equally,’ he said, noting that Trinity’s ultimate tolerance of Williams’ remarks stood in stark contrast to its draconian student speech codes, summarizing the college’s attitude as ‘academic freedom for me, speech and behavior codes for thee.'”
THE SCORPION STINGS THE FROG, EVERY TIME: Washington Post Reporter Smears Iraq War Vets as Potential Extremists. “This was after she shilled for Hezbollah terrorists.”
MEET THE ANTIFA: Jake Tapper makes note of ‘disgusting,’ unprovoked attacks on journalists. Weird how this kind of thing never happened at Tea Party rallies.
PUTIN AND UKRAINE WAR VETS: It’s complicated. “Gore, But No Glory For Russia’s Ukraine War ‘Veterans’.”
These Russian vets didn’t return to a hero’s welcome. Most bear permanent scars, both physically and mentally, and with no veterans benefits and few jobs available they struggle to make ends meet. Moreover, infighting among different groups of them over ideology, strategy, and legacy has kept them from uniting as a more influential voice.
They include the Union of Volunteers of Donbas, a group headed by Aleksandr Borodai, the former leader of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The group is closely tied to the Kremlin through Vladislav Surkov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s point man on the conflict, and seen by some volunteers as being elitist. RFE/RL spoke with some members of the group in a village outside Kaluga, where they were participating in war games on July 30.
Another is the Public Movement of Novorossia, an organization headed by Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a Russian who commanded separatist forces in the first months of the war but is viewed by many volunteers as a traitor for retreating and relinquishing territory in Ukraine to Kyiv. Girkin, who was eventually recalled to Moscow by the Kremlin, didn’t respond to RFE/RL’s request for an interview.
Kamayev does what he can to help by running Veterans of Novorossia, a St. Petersburg-based NGO whose name (“New Russia”) draws on an imperial-era term denoting large parts of today’s southern and eastern Ukraine. His deputy, 41-year-old Denis Shchinkorenko, fought in arguably the bloodiest action of the Ukrainian war — the battle for Ilovaysk.
They assist Russian volunteers who fight or fought in eastern Ukraine, many of whom are frustrated and disappointed with the uncertainty of their future, Kamayev says.
They’re paying the price for Russia’s dependence on oil income, and for Putin’s reliance on plausible deniability in Ukraine.
EVERYBODY’S UNDER FBI SCRUTINY: Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch ‘tarmac meeting’ under more FBI scrutiny.
The American Center for Law and Justice says the FBI has acknowledged they are searching for more documents they might have related to the now-infamous “tarmac” meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The additional search by the FBI comes about one week after the ACLJ released emails they obtained from the Department of Justice about the meeting, many of which showed some reporters were reluctant to cover the meeting when word first broke.
Previously, the FBI told the ACLJ that they found no documents. But, the batch of documents the ACLJ released previously showed FBI employees who were involved in email threads with DOJ officials.
The ACLJ celebrated the decision on their website, saying, “While we appreciate that the FBI has ‘reopened’ the case file and is now ‘searching’ for documents responsive to our duly submitted [Freedom of Information Act] request from more than a year ago, it stretches the bounds of credulity to suggest that the FBI bureaucracy just discovered that ‘potentially responsive’ records ‘may exist’ on its own accord.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee has taken an increased interest in Lynch’s role in the Clinton email investigation after former FBI Director James Comey said in sworn testimony Lynch asked him to stop referring to the Clinton email probe as an “investigation,” and that he should use the word “matter” instead.
“That language tracked the way that the campaign was talking about the FBI’s work, and that’s concerning,” Comey said under questioning on June 8.
Stay tuned.
NEWS FROM SARAH PALIN’S LIBEL SUIT AGAINST THE TIMES: NY Times editorial writer: ‘I didn’t mean to suggest that Loughner wasn’t responsible.’
We now know who wrote the NY Times editorial that led Sarah Palin to sue the paper for defamation. A first draft was written by editorial writer Elizabeth Williamson. However, the offensive part connecting Palin to the 2011 Tucson shooting was added in a rewrite by editorial page editor James Bennet. Bennet testified Tuesday in a hearing the judge ordered to help him decide whether or not to dismiss the lawsuit as lawyers for the NY Times have requested. During the hearing, Bennet claimed he didn’t mean to draw a direct connection between Palin and mass murder.
Well, it kinda did. John Sexton comments: “So, the best case scenario here is that the editor of the NY Times editorial page is both ignorant of the facts and incapable of crafting clear sentences. Hopefully, Judge Rakoff isn’t falling for his act. He said he will rule on the motion to dismiss before the end of the month.”
For thoughts on Judge Rakoff’s “highly unusual” step of holding an evidentiary hearing on a motion to dismiss, see this post by InstaPundit co-blogger — and international media and libel law authority — Charles Glasser.
WELL, YES, BUT IT’S NICE TO HAVE SOMEONE NOTICE: NBC and the BBC: There were violent left-wing protesters in Charlottesville. “Both NBC News and the BBC have put out videos offering fact-checks on some of President Trump’s claims about what took place in Charlottesville. Both agree there were violent anti-fascist protesters who came to the protest looking for a fight.” It’s sad that their willingness to report this is news, but it is.
RETIRED MARINE CORPORAL JONATHAN LAFORCE: America Already Has A Single-Payer System, And It’s Killing Veterans Like Me.
In addition to medical care, the VA also provides compensation and pension for those who are injured in service. You go in, speak with a veteran services’ officer, present your medical records, file for the injuries (while continuing to lack treatment), and then you wait.
Why wait? What are we waiting for? Good question. First, the electronic paperwork has to move through a labyrinthian process of review, after which you get a letter telling you the VA has now received the paperwork you filed a month or more prior and somebody will be getting in touch with you to determine what’s next. A couple months will pass (if you’re lucky), after which you will receive a phone call telling you that appointments have been scheduled for examination. You must make those appointments or you cannot receive a rating.
Notice what’s missing? If you said a human being to check if this exam is compatible with your schedule, you’d be correct. The appointments are filed without any input or knowledge on your part. You’ve got work and can’t make it? Tough luck, Joe. You’re a single parent and don’t have anybody to watch your kids so you can make your appointment? Too bad. Guess you’ll have to do without.
Nor can you go into a local doctor with forms for them to fill out and mail to the VA.
Read the whole thing.