Thursday, February 28, 2013

Obama Solicits Stories of “Gun Violence”

by John Hinderaker in gun control, Second Amendment

To further his gun-ban efforts, President Obama is using his permanent campaign organization, Organizing For Action, to solicit stories about “gun violence.” Some of the stories are no doubt sincere, some–since they are anonymous–are likely fabricated, and some are merely political, like this one from “Keith K.”:

As a high school teacher, my students ask me why their lives are not as important as an NRA money. “that’s just the way it is” is a terrible answer to have to give kids. so we can make a rational decision about guns.

Is he really a high school teacher? I hope not.
OFA posters don’t necessarily have any idea what they are talking about. Matt W. writes:

Given the increase in gun violence and mass shootings in the last two decades it seems unbelievable that we can’t agree on some form of legislation to monitor and regulate the purchase and use of firearms.

Actually, homicides, and homicides using firearms, have been cut almost in half in the last 20 years. And there is already an enormous amount of “legislation to monitor and regulate the purchase and use of firearms” at both the state and federal levels.
I wondered whether Obama had gotten any gun stories from my home state of South Dakota, where just about everybody is armed. Despite all those guns, so far there is only one, from “Jared L.”:

Living in South Dakota I have the luxury of enjoying a lifestyle free from fear of violence as many inner-city neighborhoods experience on a daily basis. I also have the luxury of having grown up on strong traditions which includes hunting and know what it takes to be a responsible gun owner and say definitively that what we need in this country to reduce gun violence isn’t needless legislation, but a comprehensive approach that examines whether or not current laws are being properly enforced, digging into the underlying issues that lead to increases in violence, and a focus on providing adequate healthcare coverage to those with mental health issues so that no one seeking help is turned away at the door when the clock hits 5PM. This is the approach that will have the greatest impact on violence in our country, everyone needs to be sure to let their legislatures know that this is the approach to reduce violence in our communities.

Sensible thoughts, but probably not quite what Obama had in mind. It would be nice if lots of gun owners submitted “gun stories” to the OFA site. Who knows, the liberals who frequent that site might actually learn something.

The Democrats must know that they have zero chance of getting a gun ban through Congress; they probably can’t even get it through the Democratic Senate. So what is the point of this kind of effort? Like so much that the Obama administration does, it is not intended to achieve any practical goal, but rather is designed to keep the party’s base in a state of hysteria to maximize turnout in 2014. A perpetual campaign with no apparent objective other than to achieve perpetual power; that is today’s Democratic Party.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/02/obama-solicits-stories-of-gun-violence.php

Feds Propose Rule to Protect ‘Threatened’ Wolverine from Climate Change

By Penny Starr

This undated image provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a wolverine. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has posted a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would add the wolverine to the list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
Although the wolverines have "made a remarkable recovery" since the early 20th Century, the Fish and Wildlife Service warns that "climate warming over the next century is likely to significantly reduce the wolverine habitat, to the point where persistence of wolverines in the contiguous United States, without intervention, is in doubt."
Protecting the wolverine under the Endangered Species Act "can help protect the wolverine from extinction by increasing its ability to persist in the face of climate change," the agency said.
The proposed rule identifies "several risk factors" for the wolverine population that, "in concert with climate change, may result in reduced habitat value for the species,” the text of the proposed rule stated.
“These risk factors include human activities like dispersed recreation, land management activities by Federal agencies and private landowners, and infrastructure development,” the rule stated.
Under the heading “Reduction in Habitat Due to Climate Change,” the rule states that its definition of climate change comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an arm of the United Nations.
“The term ‘climate change’ thus refers to a change in the mean or variability of one or more measures of climate (e.g., temperature or precipitation) that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer, whether the change is due to natural variability, human activity, or both,” the rule stated, citing the IPCC’s definition of climate change.
The text also stated that there are “scientific uncertainties on many aspects of climate change,” but then listed the sources used to support the rule’s claim that the wolverine’s habitat is threatened by it.
Based on selected climate change studies, the rule stated:
“We analyzed the effects of climate change on wolverines through three primary mechanisms: (1) Reduced snowpack and earlier spring runoff, which would reduce suitable habitat for wolverine denning; (2) increase in summer temperatures beyond the physiological tolerance of wolverines; and (3) ecosystem changes due to increased temperatures, which would move lower elevation ecosystems to higher elevations, thereby eliminating high-elevation ecosystems on which wolverines depend and increasing competitive interactions with species that currently inhabit lower elevations.
“These mechanisms would tend to push the narrow elevation band that wolverines use into higher elevation. Due to the conical structure of mountains, this upward shift would result in reduced overall suitable habitat for wolverines.”
Comments on the proposed rule are open until May 6, 2013, according to the federal registry. At the time this story was posted, more than 6,000 comments had been submitted on the regulations.gov, many of which are supportive.
The Fish and Wildlife Service says it will make a final determination a year from now on whether to add the wolverine to the list of endangered and threatened wildlife. " The Service will also decide whether or not it is prudent to designate critical habitat for the wolverine, and whether such a designation would be beneficial to this species given the threat to its habitat is climate change."
The Endangered Species Act was made law in 1973. Its purpose is “to protect and recover imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend,” according to the FWS.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/feds-propose-rule-protect-threatened-wolverine-climate-change

All the President’s Thugs

Hey, Bob, you can’t say we didn’t warn you. We knew this White House was capable of attacking even the great Bob Woodward for telling the truth.

You could have listened to Michael Barone. He saw it coming even before Barack Obama was elected. In October 2008, he penned “The Coming Obama Thugocracy.”

I experienced it when DOJ press harpy Tracy Schmaler yelled at a half dozen reporters, as the White House official did to you, about my under-oath testimony involving the New Black Panther dismissal. Her victims included Pete Williams, Quin Hillyer, and Shayrl Attkisson. After Schmaler’s thug tendencies were well known, she was nurtured and promoted within the Thugocracy instead of being canned as any administration before this one would have done to her — Republican or Democrat.
Schmaler has since been appointed a Made Man of sorts, entering the rarefied private sector air of David Axelrod’s shop.
Schmaler’s story is typical of this gang. Her shouting, threats, and rants at reporters would have rendered her unqualified to serve in the press shop of a state department of agriculture.
But there is something unique about the Obama White House. It borrows tactics and standards from the darker figures in history — threats, projection, unrepentant dishonesty, towering columns in stadiums, and even bloody mayhem like Fast and Furious hatched for political purposes.
Richard Nixon seems like a fluffy kitten compared to this crowd.
Which brings us back to you, Mr. Woodward. What’s happened when you, of all people, are the bad guy? Had you ventured into any cocktail party in Silver Spring or Takoma Park just a few years ago, you would have been treated like a hero – liberal Washington’s very own version of Pittsburgh Pirate Bill Mazeroski who with one swing of a bat brought down the reviled Nixon. “Maz” never had to pay for a meal in Pittsburgh after that October afternoon in 1960 when he delivered a World Series.

That used to be you, Bob. But now, you’re the problem!
You, of all people, threatened by a Democrat White House. So where are your defenders? Where are the new hipster reporters of the left to defend you? Where have all the flowers gone, they used to ask.
But this is serious stuff. When the elder statesman of the industry that guards the First Amendment is threatened by the White House, it marks a dangerous turn. When other “reporters” join in, it is even more dangerous.
Perhaps this will be enough for the usual phalanx of fools at places like Mother Jones, TPM Muckraker, and The Nation to at last wonder if we’ve come full circle, back to those days of righteous triumphs in August 1974. Outrage toward abuse of power was so in vogue. Where is the righteous indignation that seized a nation beginning in May 1973?
Maybe it was all a show, Bob. Did the wave you started have more to do with the “R” after Nixon’s name than principle? With you, I’d say it was principle. But with the rest of the liberal left, it’s starting to look like poor Dick Nixon got a raw deal compared to this mischief of rats.

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/02/27/all-the-presidents-thugs/?singlepage=true

The Truth About Dorner: Leftism Is Violence

The Truth About Dorner: Leftism Is Violence

Posted By Andrew Klavan

^[1]
There’s nothing for me to add to the great work already done by SooperMexican ^[2], Mediaite ^[3], Michelle Malkin ^[4], Sean Hannity ^[5] and others critiquing the media coverage of alleged mad dog cop-killer Christopher Jordan Dorner. The media have been dishonest in trying to cover up Dorner’s left-wing views. They’ve been beyond hypocritical in drawing no link between Dorner’s acts and his politics — after they have repeatedly tried to link acts of violence to conservatism even when, as usual, there was no link to be made. Worst of all, as Big Government ^[6] has shown, they are beginning to try to justify the slaughter.
Most of the conservative commentators listed above have been careful to point out that connections between a madman and his politics, whether right or left, should only be drawn with caution. And they all say that it’s irresponsible to blame political commentators, right or left, for the actions of a lunatic who may have taken inspiration from them.
I’m not so sure. Violence is inherent in left-wing philosophy, and the violence it inspires should be laid at its door.
Haven’t you noticed this? The American left is always waxing hysterical about right-wing violence and the true violence always comes from the American left. The American news media cry out in horror at peaceful Tea Party ^[7] demonstrations and look the other way when Occupy Wall Streeters ^[8] commit vandalism, rape, and even murder. The media try to pin any political assassination attempt on conservatives; yet almost all American political assassinations are committed by the left. If you want more examples as well as proof, read Demonic ^[9] by Ann Coulter — who, unlike any left-wing pundit I can think of, needs a bodyguard whenever she speaks on college campuses!

^[10]
What Coulter calls “Imaginary Violence from the Right vs. Actual Violence from the Left” is not an accident. Violence is an essential part of the left’s approach. The 19th century political philosopher Frederic Bastiat pointed out the fact (that Ayn Rand later popularized) that redistribution of wealth is in and of itself an unjustified use of force against the property of individuals. The fact that it’s a collective use of force in no way legitimizes it. Nor does the sanction of raw democracy which, as the old joke goes, is just two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for supper. In Bastiat’s words:

As the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual — for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.

Leftism requires this illegitimate use of force — this use of violence — because free individuals simply will not do what leftists, in their wisdom, have decided is right and good.
The left has never bought into the central revelation of the Enlightenment: things are made to work perfectly fine without much control from above. This Enlightenment insight was inspired by the earlier work of Isaac Newton who discovered that God didn’t have to move the stars around in the sky or cause the apple to fall to earth. The Big Dude had cleverly put machinery in place that worked pretty much on its own. The economist Adam Smith translated this insight into economics when he pointed out that individuals working in their own interest frequently promote the interest of everyone as if by an invisible hand. The founders translated the idea into politics by creating a system in which individuals could act without too much government interference. These geniuses didn’t trust in individual goodness, not at all. They trusted in the handiwork of the Creator — that is, they trusted the overall human system was built to work without kings and aristocrats — or a democratic mob — forcing people to do what they wanted.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, the founding saint of modern leftism, rejected that Enlightenment wisdom. He hated the modern world and thought humanity had been better off in a state of noble savagery. In that state, Rousseau believed, men were truly free because their laws naturally followed the general will. If people in the corrupt modern age violated the general will, they had to be “forced to be free.”
The logic of Rousseau led to the guillotine. You can’t say: “Well, it’s no fair blaming the pundit Rousseau for the violence of the madman Robespierre.” The guillotine was inherent in Rousseau’s thought. And it’s Rousseau’s thought — his idea that individuals should be forced to follow the “general will” — that informs all leftist thinking — including, by the way, Obama’s second inaugural address.
So no, I don’t think we should be so quick to disconnect Dorner’s kill spree from the left-wing pols and pundits who inspired it. They are philosophically complicit.
Leftism is violence. It always was.
Also read:

HuffPo Users Overwhelmingly Support Spree Killer ^[11]

Article printed from Klavan On The Culture: http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan
URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2013/02/10/the-truth-about-dorner-leftism-is-violence/
URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/files/2013/02/shutterstock_2429484.jpg

[2] SooperMexican: http://www.soopermexican.com/2013/02/07/news-media-scrub-cop-murderers-manifesto-of-pro-obama-pro-hillary-loved-msnbc-pro-gay-and-anti-gun-comments/

[3] Mediaite: http://www.mediaite.com/online/when-crazed-shooters-cant-be-linked-to-the-tea-party-media-displays-admirable-restraint/

[4] Michelle Malkin: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/08/the_blame_righty_mob_falls_silent_116962.html

[5] Sean Hannity: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/index.html#/v/2152437628001/liberal-hypocrisy-on-display-over-murder-suspects-manifesto/?playlist_id=86924

[6] Big Government: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/09/Media-pressures-LAPD-reopen-investigation

[7] Tea Party: http://www.mrc.org/dobbs/selective-outrage-bogus-claims-violence-used-against-tea-parties

[8] Occupy Wall Streeters: http://www.mrc.org/bias-alerts/big-three-networks-dont-care-about-ows-crimes-until-democratic-mayors-do

[9] Demonic: http://www.amazon.com/Demonic-How-Liberal-Endangering-America/dp/0307353494/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360537192&sr=8-1&keywords=demonic

[10] Image: http://www.amazon.com/Demonic-How-Liberal-Endangering-America/dp/0307353494/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360540909&sr=8-1&keywords=demonic

[11] HuffPo Users Overwhelmingly Support Spree Killer: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/02/09/huffpo-users-overwhelmingly-support-spree-killer/

http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2013/02/10/the-truth-about-dorner-leftism-is-violence/?singlepage=true

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Defensive gun use aggregator site

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[2/23/13] Homeowner shoots intruder (Slayton, TX) (lubbockonline.com)

submitted 3 hours ago by theprez

[2/24/13] Woman shoots at intruder to protect family [WA] (kirotv.com)

submitted 1 hour ago by Kromulent

[2/24/13] Woman shoots intruder near Holt [MI] (woodtv.com)

submitted 1 hour ago by Kromulent

Mentally ill man tried to break into my home this morning, police saved his life. (self.dgu)

submitted 1 day ago by Wiebelhaus

[2/24/13] Family fights back when 3 gunmen storm their home; one intruder shot [Houston] (khou.com)

submitted 1 hour ago by Kromulent

[2/22/13] Wheelchair bound man fatally shoots son in self-defense (Lakeland, FL) (wftv.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by theprez98

[2/23/13] Homeowner speaks after shooting and killing alleged intruder (Hickory, NC) (wcnc.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by theprez98

Federal appeals court lets stand lower court ruling that Illinois must allow concealed carry. (saf.org)

submitted 1 day ago by nobodyspecial

[2/18/13] Car burglar stopped by a gun-toting businessman (Bakersfield, CA) (bakersfieldnow.com)

submitted 1 day ago by theprez98

[2/22/13] Woman shoots, cuffs armed intruder (Holt, MI) (usatoday.com)

submitted 1 day ago by theprez98

[2/18/2013] Armed restaurant employee stops would be robber in his tracks (Lancaster City, PA) (fox43.com)

submitted 1 day ago by slugsgomoo

[2/22/13] Copied from a Female Facebook friend's post in Maryland (self.dgu)

submitted 2 days ago by hdg3xb

[1/1/13] New Year’s Day homicide ruled justifiable (Dayton, OH) (whiotv.com)

submitted 1 day ago by theprez98

[2/22/13] Home intruder dies in shooting (Houston, TX) (chron.com)

submitted 2 days ago by shawmutt

WOW! Even his moma said he had it coming (wfaa.com)

submitted 2 days ago by donquioxte3000

Suspect Shot During Folsom Boulevard Robbery (rosemont.patch.com)

submitted 2 days ago by Kromulent

Two killed in home invasion attempt (timesdispatch.com)

submitted 3 days ago by donquioxte3000

Share your Defensive Gun use story with President Obama. Let's flood this form with your stories about how a firearm saved your life! (barackobama.com)

submitted 3 days ago by wizdumb

Is this the same DGU in facebook? (self.dgu)

submitted 3 days ago by pifeed

[2/19/13] Tenant fires gun to ward off burglar (burlingtonfreepress.com)

submitted 4 days ago by jsled

Robbery Suspects 'Choose' another target. (self.dgu)

submitted 5 days ago* by DoySneck

Homeowner shoots, kills intruder climbing through window : [xpost r/news] (reddit.com)

submitted 5 days ago by Kromulent

Tragically, this is not a case of defensive gun use (foxnews.com)

submitted 5 days ago by slaghammer

TN great-grandmother holds two robbery suspects at gunpoint until police arrive (columbiadailyherald.com)

submitted 6 days ago by Kromulent

[2/17/13] Armed robber is shot and killed by store employee (Sacramento, CA) (news10.net)

submitted 6 days ago by theprez98

The Media's Republican Latinophobia

The Media's Republican Latinophobia

Brent Bozell

At what point will the public tire of liberal journalists lamenting that the Republican Party is overwhelmingly white and thrilled about it? They've been drawing that cartoon so long surely they'll eventually run out of ink. They love their 2012 narrative that every non-white group is rushing to Obama and the left, and they want to keep it that way.
So what do you do when the GOP elects or nominates a black or Hispanic (as they've done constantly)? You rip them personally, mercilessly. Ask Justice Thomas.
This is why everyone should have expected something absurd from the media when Sen. Marco Rubio was picked to give the response to President Obama's State of the Union address. But this year perhaps they went too far. They made utter, complete fools -- of themselves.
Few happenings in politics have been more overhyped than Sen. Marco Rubio taking a swig of water in mid-response, and few reporters have looked more ridiculous on that trivial subject than CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "So can a drink of water make or break a political career? U.S. senator, possible presidential candidate. We're going to find out whether he likes it or not."
On screen were the words "CAREER ENDER?" The befuddled masses at CNN tried to claim they were joking, but you never send personality-challenged Wolf Blitzer on a comedy mission.
NBC anchor Brian Williams, who simply will not stop fainting at the sight of Obama, piled on, hyping, "the televised moment from last night that just might live on forever." Forever? Who's betting they'll be discussing The Swig in 2112? Williams insincerely called it "one of the cruelest aspects of politics in the television age," that any cruel journalist would dwell on this kind of fluff. "That will certainly be the case" with Rubio, Williams promised. If it is up to Williams, sure.
At least Chris Matthews focused on the substance, which is no compliment since he'd been wiser to comment on water. "It was Tinkertoys. It was a kid's presentation of a philosophy, reduced to maybe the ninth grade level." This is the same Matthews that muttered "Oh God" into his microphone before Gov. Jindal began in 2009, so he's not exactly open-minded. Rachel Maddow said it was "claws out."
Now imagine someone saying that to Matthews after Obama's 2004 convention speech. Obama's speech was unoriginal "Tinkertoys" from a ninth-grader, or came from a speaker with "claws out." He would have denounced this rhetoric as incredibly racist, if not mentally unbalanced.
The media elite have the same knives drawn for Sen. Ted Cruz, like Rubio, a tea party favorite. Cruz drew media hostility for daring to underline the truth that the government of Iran put out a statement expressing its fondness for Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel. James Fallows, a former editor of U.S. News and World Report and current NPR pundit, wrote a blog suggesting Sen. Cruz was "Separated at Birth" from Joseph McCarthy and then others reflexively followed suit, like Chris Matthews.
The "Hardball" host insisted "I rarely say it, but there was echoes of Joe McCarthy there. Really strong echoes. ... The jackals are in the street tonight." This is not new turf for Mr. Matthews. He also insisted in 2010 that Michele Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh were McCarthyites or worse.
One would think at this late date a "historian" like Matthews could recognize that ahem, there were a pile of Communist Party operatives inside the U.S. government during the "Red Scare." (He should read "Blacklisted by History" by Stan Evans.)
So now we have Matthews calling one Latino senator a boy playing with Tinkertoys and another one a jackal in the street. Imagine the apoplexy if a Fox News host used these terms for Obama or a Latino liberal.
From Clarence Thomas to Rubio and Cruz, media liberals have never been able to stand the idea that Republicans admire and welcome conservative minorities, not just for their talents, but for the courage they display to endure the endless mudslinging of liberals.
Rubio and Cruz could see how easy it is to sit on the other side of the partisan aisle. See Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who has not only admitted failing to disclose several free trips to the Dominican Republic from a major donor, but faces charges he enjoyed prostitutes on those trips. From Jan. 24 through the morning of Feb. 18, there have been a total of just seven stories aired on the Big Three network's evening and morning shows.
NBC had four stories and CBS three, most of them heavily loaded with the Menendez side of the story. ABC has yet to do a single morning or evening story on the brewing scandal. Sen. Menendez actually appeared on the Jan. 27 edition of ABC's "This Week," but guest host Martha Raddatz embarrassed herself by not asking a single question about the scandal.
It's ridiculous that a Latino senator can get in more "hot water" for drinking water than for a corruption scandal. But that's the way our "objective" networks play with Latino Republicans.

http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2013/02/20/the-medias-republican-latinophobia-n1515911/page/full/

Green Anti-Humanism--The use of fictitious necessity to rationalize human oppression is not new

Green Anti-Humanism
The use of fictitious necessity to rationalize human oppression is not new.

By Robert Zubrin

"Forward on Climate" rally in Washington, D.C., February 17, 2013

Comments

Robert Zubrin

On February 11, 2013, the Denver Post ran a guest commentary of great clinical interest. In the piece in question, Colorado State University philosophy professor Philip Cafaro advanced the argument that immigration needs to be sharply cut, because otherwise people from Third World nations will come to the United States and become prosperous, thereby adding to global warming.

“And make no mistake: Immigrants are not coming to the United States to remain poor,” warns the philosopher. “Those hundreds of millions of new citizens will want to live as well and consume energy at the same rates as other Americans. . . . What climate change mitigation measures . . . could possibly equal the increased greenhouse gas emissions we would lock in by adding 145 million more new citizens to our population?”
This is truly remarkable. Conservative immigration skeptics have voiced the concern that immigrants might not assimilate and achieve success, and even common xenophobes have never objected to would-be immigrants’ attaining prosperity elsewhere. But according to Cafaro’s liberal argument, the wretched of the Earth must be kept poor wherever they reside, because otherwise they will ruin the weather for the rest of us. Following this logic, the United States should adopt the role of the world’s oppressor, enforcing the continuation of poverty around the globe.
But why stop there? We have millions of poor people right here in America who hope to rise into the middle class. Surely we must stop them from doing so. At present, there are at least 12 million unemployed. If they get jobs they will be able to keep their homes, and buy oil, or gas, or coal-fired electricity to heat them. They will be able to put food on their tables, and to buy gasoline to drive to work or get their children to school or soccer practice — or engage in any number of other ecologically unsustainable practices. Not only that: if the rabble become more prosperous, they can pay for better medical care, prolonging their carbon-footprinting lives. And what about those impoverished black farmers down south who want to migrate north and integrate to better their condition? Why, they are as big a global-warming threat as migrating Mexicans! Better keep them in their place.
The use of fictitious necessity to rationalize human oppression is not new. Whether the justification is a putative lack of food (e.g., Malthus, 1817, “A great part of the [Irish] population should be swept from the soil”), shortage of Lebensraum (e.g., Hitler, 1941, “The law of existence requires uninterrupted killing, so that the better may live”), overpopulation (e.g., Ehrlich, 1967, “India . . . will be one of those we must allow to slip down the drain”), or global warming (e.g., Cafaro, 2013), the argument has always been the same:

There isn’t enough of x to go around.
Therefore human numbers, activities, or liberties must be severely constrained.
Those of us enlightened by wisdom must be empowered to do the constraining.
And having obtained such power, let’s make the best of it and stick it to those we despise anyway.

All these cases were frauds. Ireland never lacked the capacity to feed its people. During the entire “great famine,” the island continued to produce massive amounts of beef and grain. The Irish just couldn’t afford to buy any of it due to the enforcement of rack-renting, high taxation, and suppression of manufactures. Germany never needed additional living space. It has a bigger population now than it did under the Third Reich, on much less land, yet it has a far higher living standard. Hitler just used the Lebensraum imperative as an excuse for genocide. Contrary to Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, the world was not overpopulated in 1967. In fact, since that time, as world population has doubled, average GDP per capita has nearly tripled. Yet, unfortunately, that did not stop population-control advocates from obtaining billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to help Third World regimes stop reproduction among their poor, in general, and despised national minorities, in particular. And there is certainly no moral case for limiting carbon emissions.
Quite to the contrary: The expanded use of carbon is both good and necessary. As a result of the carbon-dioxide enrichment of the Earth’s atmosphere, plants are now growing faster. Furthermore, global warming lengthens the growing season and increases net rainfall. We are making the Earth a more fertile planet. But even better, the tenfold increase in human carbon use over the past century (from 900 million tons in 1910 to 9 billion tons in 2010) has driven a tenfold rise in global GDP per capita, from $900 per year in 1910 to $9,000 per year today. This escape of a large fraction of the world’s population from horrific poverty, accomplished through expanded carbon use, is among the greatest accomplishments in history.
If all are to attain a life of dignity, it clearly needs to go much further. Yet there are those who would call a halt to this miraculous march forward. For them, environmental devotion is enough to condemn billions to perpetual misery.
— Dr. Robert Zubrin is president of Pioneer Energy, www.pioneerenergy.co, and the author of Energy Victory. His latest book, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, was published last year by Encounter Books.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341175/green-anti-humanism-robert-zubrin

As The Consensus Among Scientists Crumbles, Global Warming Alarmists Attack Their Integrity

(Photo credit: Michael Fleshman)

Global warming alarmists are attacking the integrity of scientists, desperately seeking to minimize the damage presented by a recent survey of geoscientists and engineers regarding global warming.
A recent survey of more than 1,000 geoscientists (commonly known as earth scientists) and engineers reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies found that only 36 percent agree with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assertion that humans are causing a serious global warming problem. By contrast, a majority of scientists in the survey believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.
Global warming alarmists, desperate to restore the shattered remains of their fictitious global warming consensus, spent the last week in overdrive expressing outrage and attacking the scientists participating in the survey. Their asserted arguments go something like this:
Argument 1
The survey consisted of geoscientists and engineers in Alberta, Canada, which has the highest per capita of geoscientists and engineers in North America. Oil companies and companies in related industries employ many of these geoscientists and engineers. These scientists are therefore biased and do not represent geoscientists and engineers as a whole.
Argument 2
Geoscientists and engineers are not qualified to give an informed opinion on global warming. Only atmospheric scientists are qualified to do so.
Argument 3
The survey takers claim their survey is not strong evidence against the mythical global warming consensus, therefore skeptics cannot cite the survey while debating the mythical consensus.
Let’s address the first two arguments first. These arguments would be plausible, and perhaps might even be persuasive, except that alarmists have been saying exactly the opposite for decades. When alarmists say that scientists can be biased based on their career path, and that only atmospheric scientists are qualified to give informed opinions on global warming, they are engaging in the most laughable form of hypocrisy.
Let’s start with Argument 1.
Skeptics frequently point out that claims of an alarmist global warming consensus rely on tainted, biased participant pools. Donna Laframboise, for example, has documented absurd bias and activism with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where environmental activists drive the IPCC findings in their roles as lead authors. Similarly, I documented how environmental activists directed the findings of a recent National Academy of Sciences (NAS) global warming report and how nearly all of the 23 NAS authors were already on the record as being global warming alarmists before being chosen to write the report.
Additionally, an often misrepresented survey claiming 97 percent of scientists agree that humans are causing a global warming crisis (actually, the survey asked merely whether some warming has occurred and whether humans are playing at least a partial role – two questions to which I would answer yes), restricted its participant pool to government scientists and scientists working for institutions dependent on government grants. Scientists who work for – or are funded by – government institutions know that their funding will dry up and their jobs will disappear if and when global warming stops being an asserted crisis.
When skeptics point out these blatant biases, however, alarmists claim that scientists by their very nature are immune from having their environmental activist affiliations, the source of their paychecks or their preexisting advocacy for global warming restrictions influence their research and scientific opinions. Skeptics who call attention to such biases are demonized as “attacking scientists” or “attacking science” itself.
So which is it? Skeptics are willing to play by any set of rules alarmists make, just so long as the rules are consistently applied. Alarmists can’t have it both ways. Scientists’ career choice, salary dependency, and preexisting sociopolitical points of view either taint their objectivity or do not taint their objectivity. They do not taint skeptics’ objectivity while failing to taint alarmists’ objectivity. When alarmists make duplicitous claims to the contrary, they are about as intellectually compelling as Vizzini attempting to divine the location of the poisonous iocane powder in The Princes Bride.
Now let’s address Argument 2.
Skeptics frequently point out how people who have little or no atmospheric science education dominate the IPCC, the NAS report and other so-called “consensus” reports. People without advanced science degrees and degrees in fields other than atmospheric science serve as lead authors for IPCC. Less than a quarter of the authors of the NAS report have degrees relating in any significant way to atmospheric science. Heck, the godfather of global warming alarmism, James Hansen, is an astronomer. The head of the IPCC , Raj Pachauri, is a railroad engineer.
Alarmists claim that their scientists’ lack of in-depth training in atmospheric science does not diminish their authority to speak on global warming issues. Skeptics who point out such shortcomings are, again, accused of attacking scientists or attacking science itself.

Yet now alarmists claim that skeptics who are earth scientists and engineers are not qualified to weigh in on the global warming debate.
So which is it? Scientists who do not have in-depth training regarding atmospheric science either are qualified or are not qualified to speak authoritatively on global warming issues. Alarmists can’t have it both ways.
Let’s finally address Argument 3.
The authors of the survey claim their survey is not strong evidence against the mythical global warming consensus. They have even asked skeptics to stop citing the survey while debating the mythical global warming consensus.
It should come as no surprise that the survey takers make such arguments. After all, the survey takers are deeply entrenched in the alarmist camp and their own survey results undercut their preexisting beliefs. Indeed, while writing up their survey results, they frequently use terms such as “denier” to describe scientists who are skeptical of an asserted global warming crisis, and they refer to skeptical scientists as “speaking against climate science” rather than “speaking against asserted climate projections.”
It is a novel argument that the only people who can interpret or assign meaning to scientific studies or surveys of opinion are the scientists who performed the research or the people who conducted the surveys of opinion. If alarmists indeed wish for these to be the uniform rules of the global warming debate, they must concede meteorologist Antony Watts’ findings that data reported at surface temperature stations are substantially influenced by the urban heat island effect. They must also concede the interpretations of satellite temperature data provided by skeptical climate scientists John Christy and Roy Spencer. Etc., etc., etc.
While alarmists demonstrate comedic hypocrisy in their proffered rules for the global warming debate, they are nevertheless consistent when it comes to conjuring up contrived outrage whenever skeptics deal a powerful blow to their mythical consensus of scientists. The volume of their contrived outrage indicates the degree to which their mythical alarmist consensus has been shattered.
Boy, the alarmists sure are expressing outrage this week!

This article is available online at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/20/as-the-consensus-among-scientists-crumbles-global-warming-alarmists-attack-their-integrity/

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Obama’s immigration bill offers amnesty to criminal immigrants, money for lawyers

- The Daily Caller - http://dailycaller.com -

Obama’s immigration bill offers amnesty to criminal immigrants, money for lawyers

By Neil Munro

President Barack Obama’s draft immigration plan would provide work permits and a “path to citizenship” to illegal immigrants who have fled police and or who await deportation in jail. It would also provide a pathway for immigrants whose convictions are subsequently vacated, and for those who have been jailed for fewer than five years, according to the drafts’ supporters.

The draft, which was leaked on Sunday, would also provide illegal immigrants with many new legal rights, and create a cornucopia of billing opportunities for immigration lawyers.
For example, one section allows illegal immigrants who have committed crimes to stay in the country until their courtroom appeals are settled, perhaps years after their deportation was ordered.
“Sec. 123 of the White House bill would allow immigrants to exhaust their [criminal] appeals before being removed on the basis of a criminal conviction,” said a Feb. 19 tweet from Ben Winograd, an immigration lawyer in D.C. Winograd formerly worked at the American Immigration Council.
Other sections of the draft bill would allow judges to provide illegals with taxpayer-funded lawyers and fine government immigration lawyers.
Judge could also let illegal immigrants stay if their deportations would incur an “extreme” hardship to the deportee, rather than today’s standard of “exceptional and extremely unusual” hardship, according to Winograd.
The much-touted immigration rewrite is being pushed by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which helped created the immigration council.
The association’s 12,000 members would profit from the draft law because they would be paid to guide clients through the new complexity, and to help their clients win work visas and also their own slices of American citizenship.
The “provision show that the administration is not serious about enforcing immigration laws,” said Steve Camarota, the research director of the Center for Immigration Studies.
The complex provisions “gut the law when it comes redefine when illegal immigrants facing deportation can stay,” he said.
“Public safety …. and enforcing our immigration laws do not seem to matter,” added Camarota, whose group backs reforms that would halve annual immigration to roughly 500,000 people.
Obama’s draft law would wipe also out all state and local rules that penalize illegal immigrants, sharply reducing the ability of voters in every state, county and city to protect their communities if federal authorities decline to enforce immigration law.
The draft’s details are important, partly because Obama says he will push Congress to pass his draft if legislators do not write their own law.
More importantly, many of the draft’s features are being pushed by immigration lawyers who are lobbying the eight senators in the so-called gang of eight. The leading senators include Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
The White House’s lawyer-friendly draft shows that it “has outsourced the formation of immigration policy to the American Immigration Lawyers Association,” said Camarota.
Some of the eight senators also employ staffers who are trained immigration lawyers or who have lobbied for the immigration association before. In 2003, for example, Cesar Conda, Rubio’s chief of staff, lobbied the White House on behalf of the lawyers’ association.
The pending draft would also allow judges to offer bail to detained illegal-immigrants who claim they would be persecuted if forced to return home.
Once offered bail, many illegal immigrants do not return to the courthouse.
The draft’s offer of bail is a “much needed change,” said a Feb. 19 tweet from Philip Wolgin, an immigration advocate at the Center for American Progress.
The center is an advocacy group for the interests of university-trained progressives who profit from complexity and change. They include rights lawyers, media workers, diversity advocates, social workers, government regulators and education-sector managers.
The interests of the high-status post-graduate class often clash with the interest of unskilled and skilled workers, who tend to prefer simpler laws and rules that can’t easily be exploited by clever and established professionals.
Nationally, roughly 20 million workers are unemployed or underemployed.
Winograd, Wolgin and other immigration-advocates favor an amnesty for at least 11 million illegal immigrants now in the country, and the award of visas to applicants’ relatives and many low-skilled and high-skilled foreign workers.
The legal details are part of a 200-page detailed draft that only covers a portion of the planned immigration rewrite.
The leaked White House plan doesn’t include any language on the contentious demand by companies for a “future flow” of skilled and unskilled workers. Those sections would describe the how many workers could be imported by which companies, and for what purposes.
Currently, industry advocates say companies should be allowed to import as many workers as they wish. But that demand is controversial, because unions and many voters oppose such “open borders” rules.
Those rules would allow companies to import new workers who would compete for jobs against the 20 million Americans are now unemployed or underemployed.
Follow Neil on Twitter

Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com
URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/20/obamas-immigration-law-offers-cornucopia-to-immigration-lawyers/

The Overwhelming Judgment of Science Rejects Obama's Global Warming Claims

President Barack Obama in his second inauguration address called for new action to “respond to the threat of climate change.” Taking advantage of the bully pulpit and a huge national audience, Obama mustered his best possible arguments in a brief case for why addressing global warming is supposedly necessary. Unfortunately for global warming alarmists, Obama’s case was exceptionally flimsy. Then again, Obama did not have much to work with, as the overall case for global warming alarmism is exceptionally flimsy.
Obama presented his argument as follows: “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.”
Given a fresh canvas on which to work, Obama sought the most compelling examples of an asserted global warming crisis. He chose wildfires, drought and powerful storms. At the same time, he urged us to defer to the “overwhelming judgment of science” on these matters.
President Obama, I agree we should strongly consider the overwhelming judgment of science. Let’s apply the overwhelming judgment of science to your three cherry-picked examples and see what the science reveals.
Leading off the Obama “Big Three” is wildfires. What does the overwhelming judgment of science reveal?
The National Interagency Fire Center reports the number of annual wildfires in the United States has been declining for more than 30 years. In fact, the “overwhelming judgment of science” reveals the number of wildfires rose from the 1950s through the 1970s, as global temperatures declined, and has been declining ever since, as global temperatures have modestly warmed.
The really interesting part about wildfires in the United States is a recent increase in the number of acres burned per wildfire after the federal government reversed a decades-long policy of putting out as many wildfires as quickly as possible. In the 1990s, environmentalists and federal forest officials reported forests had become overgrown as a result of firefighters putting out too many natural fires too quickly. Since then, firefighters are responding to fewer forest fires and letting more acres burn. As a result, even though wildfires occur less frequently as our planet warms and as soil moisture improves (more on that coming right up), our global warming Alarmist in Chief presents the misleading assertion that global warming rather than a change in federal wildfire policy is causing a recent increase in acres burned due to wildfires.
Next in Obama’s “Big Three” of asserted global warming crises is drought. What does the “overwhelming judgment of science” reveal?
U.S. and global soil moisture improved throughout the 20th century as our planet warmed in its recovery from the Little Ice Age. According to the Global Soil Moisture Data Bank, global soil moisture increased throughout the 20th century at almost all sites. Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that 20th century droughts were quite mild when compared to droughts in previous centuries. This “overwhelming scientific judgment of science” was confirmed in November when a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature found “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.”
Finally, the President asserts that global warming is causing more powerful storms. This assertion is particularly fictitious. NOAA reports a long-term decline in strong tornadoes striking the United States. The National Hurricane Center reports that the past 40 years have seen the fewest major hurricane strikes since at least the mid-1800s. Even Hurricane Sandy reminds us that the U.S. Northeast has experienced only one major hurricane strike since 1960, but experienced six major hurricane strikes during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, when global temperatures were cooler.
Clearly, the “overwhelming judgment of science” contradicts President Obama and global warming alarmists. This is a good thing.
Now let’s play a game of “pretend.”
Let’s pretend that none of the overwhelming scientific evidence presented above actually existed. Let’s pretend that science supported rather than contradicted President Obama’s assertions. The question is, what would Obama have us do to solve the problem?
Obama’s solution is to impose still more economy-killing carbon dioxide restrictions on the U.S. economy. This makes about as much sense as losing your car keys in Boston but insisting on searching for them in Los Angeles. True, global carbon dioxide emissions have risen more than 33 percent since the year 2000. However, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have declined during that time and will continue to decline for the foreseeable future. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that during 2012 alone, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions declined by 8 percent compared to 2011.
China by far emits more carbon dioxide than any other nation and Chinese emissions are growing rapidly. China alone accounts for 75 percent of the global increase in carbon dioxide emissions since 2000. If the United States completely eliminated all of its carbon dioxide emissions today (something that is impossible to do), the only thing we would accomplish would be to delay by about five years an equal increase in Chinese emissions. And China has repeatedly and emphatically insisted it will not agree to any restrictions on its carbon dioxide emissions.
Thankfully, President Obama, the “overwhelming judgment of science” shows the asserted global warming crisis exists solely in the minds of global warming alarmists.

This article is available online at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/01/24/the-overwhelming-judgment-of-science-rejects-obamas-global-warming-claims/

Thursday, February 28, 2013

HuffPo Users Overwhelmingly Support Spree Killer [11]

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

HuffPo Users Overwhelmingly Support Spree Killer ^[11]