tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1965542593234654422024-03-19T01:20:56.369-07:00Warning SignsAlan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.comBlogger3322125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-1694716784818750132015-06-11T05:23:00.000-07:002015-06-11T05:23:28.704-07:00No Strategy. No Clue.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4ex2Kf9WZdKHAlzE6mMqlBdVQ6maqRYhg2RqEFALAU_OpwO6ta11Bb6dWVB2vC93SeQzowByqZ9mcLFiZtbN0pRi-faVadVuUe4kH3uaczDKsRRzJ9QP9XR192OUPFL0N6pe3x6J99o/s1600/Obama+-+No+Idea+What+Im+Doing.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4ex2Kf9WZdKHAlzE6mMqlBdVQ6maqRYhg2RqEFALAU_OpwO6ta11Bb6dWVB2vC93SeQzowByqZ9mcLFiZtbN0pRi-faVadVuUe4kH3uaczDKsRRzJ9QP9XR192OUPFL0N6pe3x6J99o/s400/Obama+-+No+Idea+What+Im+Doing.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Wednesday, June 10 Wall Street Journal headline at the top of the page was
“Obama Set to Expand Troops in Iraq.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
were 589 days into the two terms Barack Hussein Obama has served in the office
of President of the United States and he is as clueless now as he was when he
arrived on January 20, 2009. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“President
Barack Obama is poised to send hundreds more American advisers to a new base in
a strategic Iraqi region to help devise a counterattack against marauding
Islamic State militants, U.S. officials said Tuesday, a shift that underscores
American concern over recent battlefield losses.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s 450 “trainers.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We have
had losses because (1) Obama was elected on a promise to end the conflict in
Iraq and (2) reelected by pulling out troops to the point that the remaining
Iraqi troops—Shiites in the south—decided it wasn’t worth dying for their
leaders. Can’t say I blame them, but dying at the hands of ninth century
Islamic fanatics is the fate that threatens the entire Middle East, not just
Iraq or what’s left of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This is
how we lost the war in Vietnam. There was a time when Americans utterly
destroyed their enemies on the battlefield. In the latter half of the last
century, starting in Korea, we forgot how to do that and why that’s how wars
are won.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In all
candor, like a lot of Americans, I went back and forth about the Mideast
conflicts. Looking back, I think George H.W. Bush showed remarkable insight
when, after driving Iraq’s Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, he stopped at the
border and came home. George W. had the notion he could somehow introduce
democracy to the region. He couldn’t and it will likely never really occur
there because Islam is the only law and it has kept the region ignorant,
backward, and under the thumb of tyrants for centuries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Islamic State troops must be stopped at some point, but Obama is not the
President who will do it. Whatever U.S. backed combat occurs will be just
enough to present enough television news images to convince the gullible that
progress is being made.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Obama
arrived in office without any strategy and has spent the last six and a half
years “muddling through” as the British say. He and the Democratic Party had
only one goal; to win the elections. After that, they wanted to “fundamentally
transform” the greatest nation on planet Earth. They have largely made a mess
out of everything they touched from ObamaCare to Common Core. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There’s a
reason why Obama will send more troops and that’s because every one of our
allies has told him that, if the U.S. does not again assert its role of global
leadership, they are not going to cooperate with him in a thousand different
ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Our allies
in the Mideast have told him they lack the military strength (and will) to
conduct any kind of war with ISIS. The U.S. and much of the rest of the world
cannot afford to sit by and let the enormous oil wealth and reserves of the
Mideast come under the control of ISIS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So, once
again we read headlines about U.S. troops returning to the Mideast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What that
means is that the 2016 elections are more critical to the future of the
nation than all previous ones.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I think
Americans, liberals, conservatives and independents alike have had more than
enough of President No Strategy. I think there are enough older Americans who
remember and take pride in a nation that was unabashedly the world’s leader in
the pursuit of peace and democracy. And I think that the thirty percent or so
of brain-dead liberals are not sufficient to affect the outcome of a 2016
election devoted to restoring the nation’s economy and leadership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It can be
done. John F. Kennedy was on his way to doing so. Reagan did so. In 590 days
from now, we can begin to do so again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-42507980253998815012015-06-10T05:39:00.001-07:002015-06-10T05:39:22.455-07:00"Skeptics" Gather in D.C.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAGqZKn4yJ9N0Sr1UHb7WDfMk3G9TpcJFd8o83JvqlqueavNuMv32PI6uO4UdYAfny6ERra6H48eYQ5m-iDxhG8InUBCO8AxDZLFXIWk3H0F-BQtXzzwu5CESSi2LBz7T8of_7qtaDD0/s1600/Climate+Change+Scream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAGqZKn4yJ9N0Sr1UHb7WDfMk3G9TpcJFd8o83JvqlqueavNuMv32PI6uO4UdYAfny6ERra6H48eYQ5m-iDxhG8InUBCO8AxDZLFXIWk3H0F-BQtXzzwu5CESSi2LBz7T8of_7qtaDD0/s400/Climate+Change+Scream.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">On
Thursday and Friday, June 11-12, there will be a gathering of some of the
nation’s and the world’s leading climate change “skeptics” in Washington, D.C.
and joining them will be members of Congress and their staffs. The Tenth
International Conference on Climate Change will occur and the odds are that the
mainstream media, as it has done for all the previous conferences, will do its
best to ignore it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
attendance as well will be scores of scientists, economists, and policy experts
for a conference being held just two blocks from a White House in which the
President of the United States resides while lying about “climate change” as
the greatest threat to the planet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In March,
the Gallup Poll revealed that “Although climate scientists have been in the
news describing this winter as a strong signal that global warming is producing
more extreme weather, Americans are no more likely today (55%) than in the past
two years to believe the effects of global warming are occurring.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Conference is sponsored by <a href="http://www.heartland.org/">The Heartland Institute</a>, a Chicago-based free-market
think tank and, while most of us have heard of the Rand Corporation or the
Heritage Foundation, Heartland is one of the those power houses that labors
without the “image” accorded others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Founded in
1984, it has a full-time staff of 31 with approximately 235 academics and
professional economists who participate in its peer-review process, plus more
than 160 elected officials who serve on its Legislative Forum. In addition to
the environment, its scholars also focus on education, health, budget and tax
issues. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I have
been a Heartland policy analyst for so long I can’t recall when I joined.
Approximately 8,300 supporters contribute to its annual budget of $6 million. It
does not accept government funding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Without
your knowing it, the nine conferences that preceded the current one have had a
dramatic impact on your life and wallet. For one thing, you’re not being robbed
by a “carbon tax” aimed at “reducing greenhouse gases.” On the other hand, you
may be at risk of losing a coal-fired plant that provides your electricity if
the Environmental Protection Agency is allowed to continue its vile attack on
our energy resources.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It has
been Heartland and a handful of other think tanks that labored to inform the
public about the science that utterly debunked the lies about “global warming”
and now works to do the same for those applied to “climate change.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heartland’s power is seen in its conferences.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
problem for Heartland and the rest of us is that we are up against the U.S.
government whose Obama administration is completely committed to the lies;
agency by agency within the government have budgets and programs to continue to
telling the lies. Beyond them is the entire system of government schools and,
beyond them, much of the higher education community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In early
June the Daily Caller reported that “National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year ‘pause’ in
global warming: They ‘adjusted’ the hiatus in warming out of the temperature
record.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is what Heartland and
others have been fighting against and exposing since the global warming hoax
began in the late 1980s. And we are beginning to see the Congress respond. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
reported by CNS News, appropriators in the House of Representatives have let it
be known that they are taking aim at one of the Obama administration’s most
cherished priorities—international climate change funding. An appropriations
bill for the State Department and foreign operations excluded the Green Climate
Fund, the Clean Technology Fund, and the Strategic Climate Fund, while also
removing funding for the U.SN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
That’s millions in U.S. taxpayer funding that will not be wasted on the climate
change hoax.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Conference will honor some of the world’s leading “skeptics”—the alarmists call
them “denier.” They include Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) as the winner of the
Political Leadership on Climate Change Award, sponsored by the Heritage
Foundation. My friend, Robert M. Carter, Ph.D. will receive Heartland’s
Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science award. Others whom you may not have
heard of include William Happer, Ph.D., David Legates, Ph.D., and Anthony
Watts, all of whom have been on the front lines of the battle for the truth about
the planet’s climate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">An entire
generation has grown up and graduated from college since the first lies about
global warming were unleashed. That’s how long Heartland and others have
labored to present the truth. If the media fails to take notice of this week’s
conference, you will know that the battle will continue for a long time to
come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-18710616532116287942015-06-09T05:28:00.000-07:002015-06-09T05:28:53.386-07:00Predicting Earthquakes. Not.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjITNmJBy7ryfajeuyh48OKb26eFuUYaBBMoRZyw7VMWOLp3S_f7Z8JMJG5TJhdTRmDd_lZZKbC3RDWNxvAUdtmVhA7l7pngxdrrNphSn8sbH6W5MrvEyGbhk8rQ5yLe5jGZJzyfLxzex8/s1600/AA+-+New+Madrid+Earthquake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjITNmJBy7ryfajeuyh48OKb26eFuUYaBBMoRZyw7VMWOLp3S_f7Z8JMJG5TJhdTRmDd_lZZKbC3RDWNxvAUdtmVhA7l7pngxdrrNphSn8sbH6W5MrvEyGbhk8rQ5yLe5jGZJzyfLxzex8/s400/AA+-+New+Madrid+Earthquake.jpg" width="364" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
president of the Space and Science Research Corporation, John Casey, is also
the author of “Cold Sun: A Dangerous ‘Hibernation’ of the Sun Has Begun!” and
has called attention to a meteorological cycle that until the global warming
hoax occurred, was largely unknown to many people and, to a large degree still
is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Nature has
not cooperated with the charlatans who made claims about a dramatic warming of
the Earth. Since 1998 the planet along with the Sun has been in a solar cycle
distinguished by very few, if any, sun spots—evidence of solar storms—and a
cooling of the Earth that has some predicting a forthcoming new Little Ice Age.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
Wikipedia reports: “<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Solar Cycle 24</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> is the
24th solar cycle since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity
began. It is the current solar cycle, and began on January 4, 2008, but there
was minimal activity until early 2010. It is on track to be the Solar Cycle
with the lowest recorded sunspot activity since accurate records began in 1750.”
These cycles occur every eleven years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was surprised to receive a news release from the </span><a href="http://www.spaceandscience.net/id16.html"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Space and Science Research Corporation (SSRC)</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> on Monday with the headline “Earthquake
and Volcano Threat Increases” because, frankly, I could have put out the same
release and, if such activity did increase, I could claim credit for predicting
it and, if not, few if any would recall I had made such a claim. While
earthquake activity has been studied for decades, even the U.S. Geological
Survey (USGS) makes no claim to being able to predicting when or where one will
occur. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What the USGS can tell you is that their scientists (and
others) “estimate earthquake probabilities in two ways: by studying the history
of large earthquakes in a specific area and the rate at which strain
accumulates in the rock.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A translation
of this is that they have only the most minimal clues when and where one will
occur. A recent </span><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/predicting-earthquakes-mixed-outcome-improving-data-crunching-1498641"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">International Business Times</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> article reported that this may
change as the introduction of “big data analytics” kicks in to provide “a leap
of accuracy of quake predictions.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ansi-language: EN;">The SSRC news
release was about a letter that Casey had sent Craig Fugate, the Administrator
of the Federal Management Agency which “disclosed that we are about to enter a
potentially catastrophic period of record earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
throughout the United States.”</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Casey’s
letter outlined “how the ongoing dramatic reduction in the Sun’s energy output
will not only plunge the world into a decades-long cold epoch, but at the same
time bring record geographic devastation in monster earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Other
scientists have come to similar conclusions, but after years of sorting through
all the claims about global warming and “climate change”, one might want to
tread lightly before embracing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I asked my
colleague at <a href="http://www.heartland.org/">The Heartland Institute</a>, Science Director Jay Lehr, for his reaction
and he was quite candid. “I have read it and am extremely skeptical. It sounds
like the agency is looking for some press and, of course, when they turn out to
be wrong no one will be upset. No harm. No foul. Being ready for earthquakes in
known quake zones makes sense; creating unwarranted fear does not.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dr. Lehr
summed up my own reaction. I would recommend his skepticism to everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Will there
be earthquakes here in the U.S.? Yes. The New Madrid earthquakes were the
biggest in the nation’s history, occurring in the central Mississippi Valley
and so large they were felt as far away as New York and Boston, Montreal and
Washington, D.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President James Madison
and his wife Dolly felt them in the White House. They lasted from December 16,
1811 through March of 1812 and there were more than 2,000 quakes in the central
Midwest, and between 6,000-10,000 in the boot-heel of Missouri where New Madrid
is located near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When will
new earthquakes or volcanic eruptions occur? I doubt anyone knows the answer to
that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-79149661327557135012015-06-07T12:48:00.002-07:002015-06-07T12:48:32.307-07:00Caitlin Jenner? Hello Sucker!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUGC3Gk-Eu382b-0HToBD60rqjt6fwZTEKOq_9ymhf0EMKfGhVPebt7b34QOhvxM5s9e7xIY-6r5cfisdPnBvZQunpf7BEKkWhzwwKAqulFtB9OUaK3CDIqmNGZxk_zfRwQ0w7dsPxB4s/s1600/AA+-+Caitlin+Jenner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUGC3Gk-Eu382b-0HToBD60rqjt6fwZTEKOq_9ymhf0EMKfGhVPebt7b34QOhvxM5s9e7xIY-6r5cfisdPnBvZQunpf7BEKkWhzwwKAqulFtB9OUaK3CDIqmNGZxk_zfRwQ0w7dsPxB4s/s400/AA+-+Caitlin+Jenner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It doesn’t
matter that Bruce Jenner, famed Olympic athlete and member of the Kardashian
family, thinks that he is female. He can never be female no matter what surgery
he undertakes to make it reflect the fantasy in his head. Born a male, his body
is a billion cells and nerve contacts whose DNA determines his true gender. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That’s why
those who are buying into the pop cultural myth and news coverage of Jenner’s
announced transformation should be greeted “Hello, Sucker!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s worse than just plain stupidity; it is
the tip of a massive effort to alter society that dates back to those arrogant and
deluded founders of communism who thought that, for it to succeed, the family
as a key element of all societies, had to be eliminated.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7_jV_y1ylGN45IukBcVE5bK2YsLRw-LhcRd2hNx8n3qOUXjq5KrbHU00xh0kE4Wh40z80RaJBgt9Qcr2GvMXm0PlJwfPvCNe-lYBV9GUne3NWiCL6qAZXAdHP10ywZ7iKS9hGjUzRGUk/s1600/Takedown.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7_jV_y1ylGN45IukBcVE5bK2YsLRw-LhcRd2hNx8n3qOUXjq5KrbHU00xh0kE4Wh40z80RaJBgt9Qcr2GvMXm0PlJwfPvCNe-lYBV9GUne3NWiCL6qAZXAdHP10ywZ7iKS9hGjUzRGUk/s200/Takedown.png" width="133" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Dr. Paul
Kengor, Ph.D., is a leading scholar on Communism and the author, among other
excellent books, of “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated
Progressives for a Century” and, just out, “Takedown: From Communists to
Progressives, How the Left Has sabotaged Family and Marriage.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>($18.95, WND Books, softcover)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The only
way progressives—communists—know how to advance their agenda is to lie about it
in every way. Even a short look at the lives of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
the authors of Communist manifesto, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Das
Kapital</i>, tells you what motivated their wish to destroy the family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As Dr.
Kengor points out, Engels had written that he “favored that marriage should not
be a legal relationship, but a purely private affairs” noting that Engels “revealed
a highly promiscuous attitude toward sexual morality and marital relationships.”
Between the two men, they had many mistresses. Of the six children Marx
fathered, four died before he did and two committed suicide. Both men leached
off of Engel’s inheritance, never working a day in their lives. Marx’s family
finally refused to lend him a dime; in brief, two men with a disdain for traditional
marriage and widely held Judeo-Christian moral values.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Therefore,
to understand why we are drowning in anti-family propaganda and efforts to
change the laws affecting what marriage is and is not, Dr. Kengor notes that “Even
way back when, in the mid-1800s, the far left had its sights on the family,
with marriage at its epicenter. And this particular component of the extreme
left—the communist left—was devoutly atheistic in its orientation ambition, and
mission. It rebelled against God, a rebellion against the Creator that was central
to its new direction and fundamental transformation.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Fundamental
transformation”? Where have we heard that term before? Oh yes, from President
Barack Obama’s lips. This was the candidate for President who said marriage was
strictly between a man and a woman <em>before</em> he was elected and “evolved” into
supporting same-sex marriage. Hello, Sucker!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Same-sex
marriage,” says Dr. Kengor “is hardly a Marxist plot, a latent communist
conspiracy. It is, however, a crucial final blow to marriage—the only blow that
is enabling a formal, legal redefinition that will unravel the institution”, adding that
“what the left has steadfastly said and written and done to marriage and
the family over the last two centuries cannot be ignored.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Much of
the wider American culture, outside of the far left, has also become secular
and dismissive of traditional religious teaching on matters such as family and
marriage…The radical left could never have achieved this ultimate takedown of
marriage without the larger American public’s broad acceptance of gay marriage.”
If you can believe that two men or two women can and should get married, than
you will believe anything. In five thousand years of civilization, we are close
to letting all of the moral and civil lessons learned in the past be ignored,
forgotten or rewritten.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We have,
as a society, been tending more and more in this direction, dramatically when
the Supreme Court legalized abortion and, in its forthcoming decision on
same-sex marriage, likely a similar acceptance. When that occurs, our society
will be just decades away from a serious breakdown. As it is, more and more
children are growing up in single-parent family settings, lacking as often as
not, a father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If you
want to look at men dressing and acting like women, tune in America’s most
famous drag queen, RuPaul’s television show. He’s male. Those on the show are
male.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There are
among us, men and women, whose sexual preference takes them in the direction of
their own gender. They constitute 1.8% if the U.S. population. There are those who, born
male, now claim to be female. That is their problem deserving of no special
laws or attention. Changing our entire society and culture to benefit this slim
nitch of society is a very bad idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Bruce
Jenner’s absurd claims will make him a rich man. Not a rich woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-18175247353266108082015-06-06T09:41:00.002-07:002015-06-06T09:43:29.612-07:00"The Best Medicine Ever..."<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Call it "the best medicine ever", but the donations that have come in this past week have been a big boost to my spirits as I recover from an operation that has left me unable to write my commentaries or have a normal life for now. I anticipate that I will be active again soon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's why, if you have been thinking about showing your support for "Warning Signs", this would be a good time to do so with my sincere, heartfelt thanks. -- Alan Caruba </span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-86332871766897185622015-06-06T07:22:00.002-07:002015-06-06T07:22:57.168-07:00Cartoon Round Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbmmkt2tUk4H-Qenq6mJbKdtqt3F8GOopQgjqqTNj6HHmd5B08phJ2B662Mdq01nXSdc2P1aue_2RTqKeU-uFTE9nJj62jUG6YlImzmQfvlGZB0XFW-frFGUFYHA7JCIgOLRgwavSjbOw/s1600/Cartoon+-+Air+Campaign+Against+ISIS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbmmkt2tUk4H-Qenq6mJbKdtqt3F8GOopQgjqqTNj6HHmd5B08phJ2B662Mdq01nXSdc2P1aue_2RTqKeU-uFTE9nJj62jUG6YlImzmQfvlGZB0XFW-frFGUFYHA7JCIgOLRgwavSjbOw/s400/Cartoon+-+Air+Campaign+Against+ISIS.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-685194839899288542015-06-04T10:57:00.001-07:002015-06-06T07:02:21.685-07:00"The Best of" Caruba Commentaries: Obama's Make-Believe life<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the wake of a serious operation that will require rest and recovery, I thought I would offer "The best of" previous commentaries and will start with "Obama's Make-Believe Life" which, since posted on January 2, 2010 has gone viral. Enjoy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obama's Make-Believe Life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By
Alan Caruba (1/2/10)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he’s led a
kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened
because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall,
good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim
name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile
speaking skills could even put him in the White House.<br /><br />In a very real
way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has
written two memoirs before the age of 45? “Dreams From My Father” was published
in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The “Audacity of Hope” followed in 2006.
If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor
and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a “communist with a small ‘c’”
was the real author.<br /><br />His political skills consisted of rarely voting on
anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the
Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good
fortune of having Mayor Daley’s formidable political machine at his disposal.
<br /><br />He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was
either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan
that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital. How, many
must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat
convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard
of him before?<br /><br />He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took
Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small
black population, he oozed “cool” in a place where agriculture was the
antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers
drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.<br /><br />And then he had the
great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept
candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something
crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant
state of Alaska. It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984’s Walter Mondale
and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat.<br /><br />The mainstream
political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile
commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom
directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was
extraordinary.<br /><br />Now, nearly a full year into his first term, all of those
gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be
President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing
at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the
briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.<br /><br />Far
worse, however, is his capacity to want to “wish away” some terrible realities,
not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave
the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It
knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain.<br /><br />The
great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign “world tour” were no
substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a
world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.<br /><br />Oddly and
perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned
him to destroy the Democrat Party’s hold on power in Congress because in the end
it was never about the Party. It was always about his communist ideology,
learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme
leftist friends and colleagues. <br /><br />Obama is a man who could deliver a snap
judgment about a Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer who arrested an
“obstreperous” Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against
“jumping to conclusions” about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted “Allahu
Akbar.” The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this
by calling the Christmas bomber “an isolated extremist” only to have to admit a
day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot. <br /><br />He is a man who
could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though
those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America.
He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a
civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he
is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the
perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to
elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so
lame.<br /><br />The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the
Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth. <br /><br />Knock,
knock. Anyone home? Anyone there? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of
his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic
individual’s life. <br /><br />When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a
birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to
his. Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been
sequestered from review. He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts
remain hidden.<br /><br />We laugh at the ventriloquist’s dummy, but what do you do
when the dummy is President of the United States of America? </span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-56631716952505763822015-06-03T06:05:00.003-07:002015-06-03T06:05:32.816-07:00Good News<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I survived surgery and the hospital. Am home again and will begin several weeks of recovery. Hope to be writing my commentaries by the coming week. Thanks for your prayers and kind thoughts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Alan Caruba</span></div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-84736469286664596982015-05-29T08:38:00.000-07:002015-05-29T08:38:18.431-07:00Hiatus Announcement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj88Rc_GQWSOyiOYx804QkZsP9HqeMghFoq5PIM_vFLmY8upTgoYjs439Z45LR4XgpVKS3w1dMLLriy88EP_hx0pNgzyS33d2hungOc8pfB8Eo6qPl35kJMcDz4OwEvCvtGVTExHKKLfus/s1600/Aa+-+Hospital+Op+Room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj88Rc_GQWSOyiOYx804QkZsP9HqeMghFoq5PIM_vFLmY8upTgoYjs439Z45LR4XgpVKS3w1dMLLriy88EP_hx0pNgzyS33d2hungOc8pfB8Eo6qPl35kJMcDz4OwEvCvtGVTExHKKLfus/s400/Aa+-+Hospital+Op+Room.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">On
Saturday, May 30, I will be in a hospital for an operation that will require a
number of days for the initial recovery. As a result, for the coming week I
will not be posting commentaries to my blog. I greatly enjoy sharing my views
of the nation and the world. It’s a complex and often dangerous place, so my
effort has always been to provide a point of view and information you may not
find elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This would
be a good week if you would like to show your support for my “Warning Signs” blog
with a donation to express your enjoyment of the commentaries. Thank you!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Alan Caruba</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-31671150461296862172015-05-29T06:21:00.002-07:002015-05-29T06:21:28.707-07:00Cartoon Round Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxIiowcBBeKYUem4ehwY0H52ypkHd_v7-QzXgNtOPyxgR5CQdM13VCv8JgUyRypmUMr1izi153hyphenhyphenDOcn07prC3q3GUjBAgPcvegHgVWmloimKTSqgPhD4GbFFSACFngztCjrLK47HwDYo/s1600/Cartoon+-+ISIS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxIiowcBBeKYUem4ehwY0H52ypkHd_v7-QzXgNtOPyxgR5CQdM13VCv8JgUyRypmUMr1izi153hyphenhyphenDOcn07prC3q3GUjBAgPcvegHgVWmloimKTSqgPhD4GbFFSACFngztCjrLK47HwDYo/s400/Cartoon+-+ISIS.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-8050882142038161062015-05-28T05:49:00.000-07:002015-05-28T06:13:10.019-07:00The Hillary Enigma<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoPc309nYAoIMRkNj9Sas40kbSoL0K0jf_eIJnRRvqpMleHFA_ybZKo9taNyRFS_G00EvuHKcJk4_ZI1qzRRhJPTBmfoWBSUDAw7IDKfo7OMhj9VeyoseDnIdfw2qCJFPqFz0VzfaSpD0/s1600/Hillary+Old.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoPc309nYAoIMRkNj9Sas40kbSoL0K0jf_eIJnRRvqpMleHFA_ybZKo9taNyRFS_G00EvuHKcJk4_ZI1qzRRhJPTBmfoWBSUDAw7IDKfo7OMhj9VeyoseDnIdfw2qCJFPqFz0VzfaSpD0/s400/Hillary+Old.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Does it
strike anyone as strange that the only candidate for the Democratic Party’s
nomination to be the next President of the United States is the wife of a
former President? There is no historic precedent for this, no way to measure
this against how Americans have selected Presidents in the past.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Like most
Americans, I first took notice of her when Bill began his campaign to become
President. I recall being struck by the fact that in 1969 as a student at
Wellesley College, her 92-page senior thesis was devoted to the community
organizer, Saul Alinsky’s book. The title of the thesis was “There is Only the
Fight…”: An Analysis of the Alinski Model.” She would request Wellesley to deny
access to it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Alinksy
was a Communist. His twelve rules for radicals, unlike the Ten Commandments,
are devoid of a moral message. Instead, the message is “this is how you can
win.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hillary would do well to review
Rule 7, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was already old news when she announced
her candidacy and it is becoming older with every passing day as she fails to
take questions from the media, participating in totally staged events to look
like “one of the people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">She and
Bill are not one of the people. They, like the Bushes, are political royalty.
They have both been around a very long time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Hillary,
however, despite the millions of words that have been written about and by her
remains an enigma. Other than being farther to the Left than Bill, she is a
woman whose “achievements” in life have largely been the result of having
married Bill. She would spend eight years in the White House as the First Lady
and, pursuing her college dreams of political power, they would move to New
York State where she ran and won a Senatorial election. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There
isn’t a single Senate bill that she introduced or that is credited to her. She
is said to have worked hard and gotten along well with her colleagues, but her
Senate years are a blur in her public life. Then she made a bid to be the
Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 2008 and along came Barack Hussein
Obama with whom the voters fell in love. When he was elected, he asked her to
become his Secretary of State. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With the
exception of the Benghazi tragedy on September 11, 2012, a clear failure of
judgment and duty, and about which she lied, her years as Secretary of State reflect
her years in the Senate; nothing of any significance resulted, no major
treaties, no major anything, except for one more scandal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So the
question remains; who is Hillary Rodham Clinton? What are her fundamental
principles beyond the acquisition of political power? And money. Lots of it
while uttering nonsense such as she and Bill being “dead broke” when they left
office? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What are
we to make of her deletions of thousands of emails on her private
server—something she was not supposed to use as Secretary of State—and her
assertion that those we may never see were of no importance? They’re important
if, as is widely believed, foreign governments hacked her private email server
and thus had access to information about policies affecting themselves and
others. She may not have broken a law, but she surely did not obey Obama White
House policy regarding the emails.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Alinski’s
Rule 1 is “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
Power is derived from two main sources—money and people.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We are
told that Hillary has a huge amount of money with which to wage a campaign to
become the first woman President. In light of the revelations about the Clinton
Foundations, virtual slush funds, and the millions earned by her and Bill to
give speeches, there is little doubt of that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">You
cannot, however, buy trust and the polls indicate that is seeping away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Her die-hard
supporters probably know as little about her as the rest of us, but it is their
trust she is depending on right now. Should she actually receive the Democratic
Party’s nomination, the distrust of independent voters, disaffected Democrats,
and of course Republicans, will play a crucial role in who is elected in 2016.
It is not likely to be Hillary Clinton.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is not
likely because, as we have already seen, she seems to have reached a point
where her political abilities have grown tired and out-of-date. These are not
the 1990s. A whole generation has been born since Bill was President. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Like her,
the Democratic Party seems tired as well. Can you believe there is not another
Democrat, a Governor or Senator who could emerge to represent the Party? How
devoid of any real leadership has the Democratic Party become if the only
candidate they can offer is a former First Lady? That has been her primary
claim to fame despite the two offices she has held since the 1990s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I suggest
that Hillary ceases to be an enigma if you just think of the Wellesley student
who thought the best topic for her senior thesis was the book by a dedicated
Communist, Saul Alinsky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-33366491751338625182015-05-27T05:38:00.000-07:002015-05-27T05:38:35.842-07:00Leaving the Church of Environmentalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAezc0XaY1nqlETU9clokQhkK0pCGu1lajHA1Td35RTLb35WnDbk6TAfru5lCxAdpmDPLTTEqrMRswjgYyNT2sd1fWKTCbjUStv-wqCpDe3dhHhOiuv9ahMW1p_id6JEIp2Xw6_DCfenc/s1600/Cartoon+-+More+GW+and+Snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAezc0XaY1nqlETU9clokQhkK0pCGu1lajHA1Td35RTLb35WnDbk6TAfru5lCxAdpmDPLTTEqrMRswjgYyNT2sd1fWKTCbjUStv-wqCpDe3dhHhOiuv9ahMW1p_id6JEIp2Xw6_DCfenc/s400/Cartoon+-+More+GW+and+Snow.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In March
2009 while the Environmental Protection Agency was rushing to fulfill a presidential
campaign pledge to document that carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other greenhouse
gases endangered public health and the environment, a longtime employee, Alan
Carlin, put out a 93-page report challenging the science being cited and the
drift of the agency from its initial role to one captured by fanatical
activists and alarmists, treating environmentalism more as a religion than
based in science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At the
time Carlin was a 72-year-old analyst and economist who, as The New York Times
put it, “had labored in obscurity in a little-known office at the Environmental
Protection Agency since the Nixon administration.” His EPA career would span 38
years.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
website for his new book, <a href="http://environmentalismgonemad.com/">“Environmentalism Gone Mad”</a> says, “Dr. Alan Carlin is
an economist and physical scientist with degrees from Caltech and MIT and
publications in both economics and climate/energy, who became actively involved
in the Sierra Club in the 1960s as an activist and Chapter Chairman. This led
to a career as a manager and senior analyst at the
Environmental Protection Agency.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As he says
in the preface “The purpose of this book is to explain why I changed from my
lifelong support of the environmental movement to extreme skepticism concern
their current primary objective of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span><br /><strong>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Although I and the many other climate skeptics are now referred to as
‘deniers’ by the climate alarmists, that does not change the science—and there
is no valid scientific basis for the alarmists’ catastrophic climate
predictions—or justify their fantastically expensive and useless ‘solution.</span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">’”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Carlin
went from being a dedicated environmentalist, based on its initial philosophy
of conservation, to an observer of the movement that was taken over and
distorted to advocate falsehoods about global warming and a transition
from fossil-fuels to “clean energy” meaning wind, solar and bio-fuels. As an
economist he understood how absurd it was to suggest rejecting fossil-fuels,
the key element of modern industry and society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“The
climate alarmists,” says Carlin, “have now been making their apocalyptic
predictions for almost thirty years and it is now possible to compare their predictions
with actual physical observations.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Suffice to say all the predictions of a significantly higher
temperature—the warming—have been wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In fact,
the Earth has been in a natural cooling cycle since 1998 and shows no
indication of warming<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Predictions
about the North and South Poles melting, a major rise in ocean levels,
increased hurricanes and other climate events have been wrong along with
countless other climate-related apocalyptic predictions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Having observed how the
EPA has functioned for more than three decades, Carlin warns that its current
“environmental policy has been hijacked by radicals intent on imposing their
ideology by government fiat on the rest of us whether we like it or not…If
environmental policy is based on government fiat or ‘green’ policy
prescriptions the results have been and are very likely to continue to be
disastrous.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At
625 pages, Carlin’s book takes the reader from his early days as a Sierra Club
activist and chapter leader to being an EPA outcast, denounced for telling the
truth about the false claims of global warming, climate change, and what is now
being called extreme weather. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
an economist, Carlin is particularly upset that “the Obama Administration’s
climate/energy policy is wasting very large sums on non-solutions to minor or
non-problems.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book has come along
as President Obama has been flogging “climate change” as the greatest threat to
the nation and the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“It
has been long recognized that weather is chaotic," says Carlin. While we operate within the
four seasons, the weather that occurs can only be predicted in the most general
terms. Suggesting that humans actually have any effect on the weather is
absurd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That
is why the predictions made by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change and all the others based on computer models are, by definition,
worthless. Computer models cannot predict anything about the vast chaotic
global climate system. Even today, meteorologists are mystified by the actions
of clouds which can form and disappear in minutes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It’s
useful to keep in mind that climate is measured in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">centuries</i>, while the weather is reported as what is occurring today
and forecast, at best, for no more than a week. Weather records are
maintained for purposes of comparison and within the larger context of
determining the Earth’s climate cycles. Like those in the past, the present
cooling cycle is based on a comparable one of the Sun that is producing lower
levels of radiation. You don’t need a Ph.D. in meteorology to understand this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Carlin
does not hesitate to excoriate the blather put forth by the alarmists;
particularly their claims that the weather is affected in any significant
fashion by human activity and development in particular. “There is simply no
evidence thus far that the normal activities of man have or will result in
catastrophic outcomes for either man or nature.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
actions the alarmists call for do nothing to enhance and benefit our lives.
They drive up the cost of energy and food. They ignore how dependent modern
life is on the use of fossil fuels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Despite
all the lavish funding by liberal foundations and the federal government on
their global warming doctrine-inspired programs, the radical environmental
movement has long since gone so far beyond rationality that it is
counter-productive in achieving its own ends.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So
long as it remains heavily funded and backed by the federal government, we
must, like Carlin, speak out against environmental extremism. We must elect new
people to govern in a more realistic, science-based fashion. We must urge our
current legislators to rein in the rogue Environmental Protection Agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">©
Alan Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-80182393973453175232015-05-26T04:42:00.000-07:002015-05-26T05:02:42.072-07:00Barack "Climate Change" Obama<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLHLty5WBP6Vy1I3GUgMXq-rpzSqP-Hvy0FiMqBeEb4-MQPCwHY8DqC7Xsu0Xwgfs1eSVnCoopKgD6jpz4VaJEtPQ8-Ufda5xTvIy9HBpO-NMk1qyKqc-V4p3yEyX5WxoQqGWqYtoRKjE/s1600/Cartoon+-+Climate+Change+Threats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLHLty5WBP6Vy1I3GUgMXq-rpzSqP-Hvy0FiMqBeEb4-MQPCwHY8DqC7Xsu0Xwgfs1eSVnCoopKgD6jpz4VaJEtPQ8-Ufda5xTvIy9HBpO-NMk1qyKqc-V4p3yEyX5WxoQqGWqYtoRKjE/s400/Cartoon+-+Climate+Change+Threats.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Woe to
the land that’s governed by a child.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-
Shakespeare, Richard III</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I have
been wrestling for some kind of explanation why the President of the United
States, Barack Obama, would continue to talk about climate change and urge the
global transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and bio-energy. I have concluded
that he thinks everyone, not just Americans, are idiots. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We know he
lies about everything, but these two topics are clearly near and dear to his
heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRN0K5_SZGkG_bn9Qrp3zCuiGSQ4IY6INgK-e9e1UpTuamhktaZwSBzKwVKAZEYBpJ9A4FsiMj_voiakPTGc2zoQKUva3NzyqxrVta-eAsbKwzsyxNMhZ30UIxPDa1TeH7zsgV0d-Ilqw/s1600/Paul+Driessen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRN0K5_SZGkG_bn9Qrp3zCuiGSQ4IY6INgK-e9e1UpTuamhktaZwSBzKwVKAZEYBpJ9A4FsiMj_voiakPTGc2zoQKUva3NzyqxrVta-eAsbKwzsyxNMhZ30UIxPDa1TeH7zsgV0d-Ilqw/s200/Paul+Driessen.JPG" width="132" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">My friend,
Paul Driessen, is a policy analyst for the <a href="http://www.cfact.org/">Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow</a>, a free market think tank. Among the pundit class he’s ranked very
high by his colleagues. Here’s what he has to say about climate change:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Earth
climate always has changed, is always changing, and always will change—but not
from fossil-fuel use. Solar fluctuations, deep ocean circulation patterns, and
other <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">powerful natural forces</i> have
driven climate change and weather events throughout Earth’s history and will
continue to do so.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“President
Obama’s hubris is breathtaking. He now thinks an army of regulators can control
our planet’s temperature and climate by tweaking emissions of plant-fertilizing
carbon dioxide, a mere 0.04% of the atmosphere.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“America’s
communities do not need to be protected from climate change. They need to be
protected from the excesses of authoritarian presidents and bureaucrats.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Driessen
and I look at and listen to Obama and wonder if others too see and hear someone
uttering some of the most absurd claims about the climate. Then we worry that
this someone is the President of the United States with the power to turn his
ignorance into national policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At this
point we have suffered his initial failure to respond to the recession he
inherited from the 2008 financial crisis. More than six years later the economy
has barely moved toward a normal rate of growth. Then we were gifted with
ObamaCare and the disruption of what was widely regarded as the best health
system in the world. And, for good measure, he imposed Common Core on an
already weakened educational system. It is being repealed and opposed in many
states. For good measure, his foreign policy, if he has one, is widely regarded
as a total failure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">How is it
a former “community organizer” possesses a seemingly vast understanding of
meteorology? Did they also teach that at the Harvard Law School? “Climate
change,” said Obama, addressing a graduating class of the Coast Guard Academy,
“constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our
national security, and make no mistake; it will impact how our military defends
our country.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Our
military and our combatant commanders,” the President told the Academy
graduates, “our services—including the Coast Guard—will need to factor climate
change into plans and operations, because you need to be ready.” For what? For
a rainstorm? For snow? Wind?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This is
the same President who sees no threat to our national security from Iran whose
leaders shout “Death to America” every day when they aren’t also shouting
“Death to Israel.” He has zealously been pursuing a deal that would enable
Iran, the leading supporter of terrorism, to have nuclear weapons. Meanwhile
Islamic State (ISIS) is taking over more territory in northern Iraq and into
Syria. Obama might as well be dropping bags of marshmallows on them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He blamed
climate change in the form of “severe droughts” for the rise of Islamism in the
Middle East and Africa. Someone needs to tell Obama that there have<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> always</i> been severe droughts somewhere
on the planet, and floods, and forest fires, and blizzards, and hurricanes.
Even so, in the last eighteen years, there have actually been LESS of these
natural events, along with the flatlining of the planet’s overall or average
temperature—there has been no warming!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Not
content to blame climate change for the rise of terrorism, the White House
issued a report that was described as “a doomsday scenario of health, security,
economic and political issues.” The thing about climate is that it measured in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">centuries</i>, not years. As for the
weather, while records are maintained, it is usually reported as today’s news
with a forecast of the coming week. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So you
shouldn’t be surprised that the report blamed “asthma attacks” on climate
change!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Suffice to
say there isn’t a glimmer of hard evidence to support anything the President is
saying these days about climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And this
is the same President that wants the U.S. and the rest of the world t<a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/obama-we-have-transition-fossil-fuels-prevent-climate-change">o give up the use of fossil fuels</a>—coal, oil and natural gas—to “stop climate
change.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">IF Obama’s climate change idiocy is just a way to distract Americans from the real
problems we have encountered thanks to his failure to address them, then it is
purely cynical and political. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">IF Obama
really believes this stuff, he is unfit to be President. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-85966524361114843212015-05-24T05:01:00.000-07:002015-05-24T07:14:57.769-07:00Memorial Day 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3K4iaV9ivLAo2A4d0PPDuHpyH2La6UG3DizKSkuJGWdqKl-R_lJic_BrQSsWFIg8ZVhU5kTd_CvuNObx0nYKZoxyDttI1-OShBY_sEL8_yntUgBc3O4KgfwAOmMop8-Wb9Fd4GtJEZg/s1600/US+Soldiers+with+Flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3K4iaV9ivLAo2A4d0PPDuHpyH2La6UG3DizKSkuJGWdqKl-R_lJic_BrQSsWFIg8ZVhU5kTd_CvuNObx0nYKZoxyDttI1-OShBY_sEL8_yntUgBc3O4KgfwAOmMop8-Wb9Fd4GtJEZg/s400/US+Soldiers+with+Flag.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We need to
remind ourselves that Memorial Day is not just another three-day weekend or a
day when all manner of sales are offered to those who want to go shopping. It
is a day set aside to honor the ultimate sacrifice of those who have fought to
defend our nation and take military action in foreign nations. We honor, too,
those who suffered wounds and returned home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We like to
think of America as a nation that has gone to war only when we had to, but a
new book, “America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Invaded with Almost Every
Country on Earth” tells a different story based on history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
documented by its authors, Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock, America, “has
invaded or fought in eighty-four out of 194 countries (countries recognized by
the United Nations and excluding the United States) in the world. That’s 43
percent of the total. And it hasn’t been militarily involved with just ninety
or a hundred countries. It has had some form of military involvement with a
spectacular 191 out of 194. That’s more than 98 percent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Most
people,” the authors note “would probably agree that much of what America has
done around the world has clearly been wise and noble (as in helping liberate
Europe from Nazi tyranny.) Some, however, have been wrong and/or unwise. And
some of what America has done has been in-between. In some sense, it’s like
looking at the history of one’s own family. And, indeed, all of it—the
liberations, the fiascos, and follies—is, in some sense, part of the history of
every American citizen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGchwxT3pFAyO6HLT1TM_9Ik_-_rebMYMQVbFvpjkKMRaLnhFAAa2hWuSllE-zw8DxratYOh_rQyD0Xejd2-E_GEILyWUqTJ0xnvYvjrqjnlDmJH0AybHuZXw039WFFbMCVmC1iY3f4uY/s1600/AA+-+American+Eagle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGchwxT3pFAyO6HLT1TM_9Ik_-_rebMYMQVbFvpjkKMRaLnhFAAa2hWuSllE-zw8DxratYOh_rQyD0Xejd2-E_GEILyWUqTJ0xnvYvjrqjnlDmJH0AybHuZXw039WFFbMCVmC1iY3f4uY/s200/AA+-+American+Eagle.jpg" width="165" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That’s why
it is a good idea to pause on Memorial Day because as an American it is part of
your history. “Americans are always hoping for peace but usually preparing for
war” says the authors who remind us that “the American eagle is an ambivalent
bird holding arrows in the talons of one foot and an olive branch in the
other.”</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Our
natural instinct is for peace. Only aggressive nations, usually led by despots,
want war. That is not a description of America. We have not, however, shied
from war when the enemy was a well-defined aggressor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“In the
twenty-first century, the United States, though challenged by Russia and China,
is the sole remaining superpower. The global responsibilities that we began to
shoulder in the twentieth century seem today more burdensome than ever. The
cost of being the world’s policeman seems exorbitant in terms of both lives and
treasure.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That’s why
we need to remind ourselves that, as a former Secretary of Defense, Robert
Gates, has said of America, “We are the indispensable nation.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We have
learned what happens when our President has retreated from the responsibility
to deter war. Since leaving Iraq with no U.S. military ground support that
nation which was stable at the end of our war there has come under attack by
the Islamic State. The President’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran that would
allow them to become a nuclear power is causing Arab states to regard the U.S.
as abandoning them and could lead to a nuclear arms race in a part of the world
that is far from stable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The U.S.
in the wake of World War Two has a vast network of bases and alliances that
span the world. Many of those bases were created at the invitation of the host
nation. The result, as the authors note is that “The U.S. military, but virtue
of its global reach, is almost invariably the first to respond to natural
disasters as they occur around the world. If not us, then who will?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">On
Memorial Day we honor our sons and daughters who gave their lives when their
nation called on them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Today the
sacrifice of over 218,000 American servicemen and servicewomen is memorialized
in military cemeteries in twenty-four different overseas cemeteries in eleven
different countries. The boundaries of Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty,
therefore, stretch around the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We worry
about the emergence of other world powers, but I doubt that Russia which lost
127 million of its people in World War Two or China which is focused on
building an economy based heavily on world trade are serious wartime threats. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That does
not, however, exclude the likelihood that events may cause the next President
to conclude that the only way to put the lid on the Middle East is to return
militarily to Iraq and to make it clear to Iran that its nuclear ambitions are
untenable and unacceptable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
ancient Romans knew a truth they share in the phrase, “Si vis pacem, para
bellum.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want peace, plans for
war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">About the
only thing that is predictable is that somewhere in the world there will be new
wars and, given its power and its responsibility, America may well be engaged
in restoring the peace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015 </span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-1432012749488721482015-05-22T06:33:00.005-07:002015-05-22T08:34:29.120-07:00Cartoon Round Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CqPTd3vl7P6b60bJcWVLlOv5Is8LhFAExPRe8OfXoWaJVpoBw9jzjwLqDTTpVMyozgt46zM-IqDNyJkG33-1ckSaxgQwqFYxYycESoFIvPgK8IuCECHTahd8fSOicHFB6QrOUE_w43c/s1600/Cartoon+-+Fall+of+Ramadi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CqPTd3vl7P6b60bJcWVLlOv5Is8LhFAExPRe8OfXoWaJVpoBw9jzjwLqDTTpVMyozgt46zM-IqDNyJkG33-1ckSaxgQwqFYxYycESoFIvPgK8IuCECHTahd8fSOicHFB6QrOUE_w43c/s400/Cartoon+-+Fall+of+Ramadi.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-40842661648100791262015-05-21T04:52:00.000-07:002015-05-21T05:13:29.382-07:00Thinking About China<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQKvDOnL1VSgUvQ7u-FAQyJujGfKYyN5fBHLwsX6lRIh3sNZKkTt4yQ5BpsCdUQsHcB3p4dVuZzjeG8OO941ntfxy0gDZGyr7jENtVLTgouCpXRAcx8u8zIjiNrwiBYoBg2nnSAITV32Y/s1600/China+Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQKvDOnL1VSgUvQ7u-FAQyJujGfKYyN5fBHLwsX6lRIh3sNZKkTt4yQ5BpsCdUQsHcB3p4dVuZzjeG8OO941ntfxy0gDZGyr7jENtVLTgouCpXRAcx8u8zIjiNrwiBYoBg2nnSAITV32Y/s400/China+Map.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Napoleon
Bonaparte purportedly said “Let China sleep, for when China wakes, she will
shake the world.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3MnL9xGOxxQMVKcuEn9u-9s0ZfnujB2OzH-bwrsbTz3S7ozVXWEYdp-EN8IJ_sxj__9L5TiUp1_N2lUieD9LYQtpTS8FZPJH7odc86KyG1_w6MgRu7L7Qq2H_moKAYmo53IcJFqsC4Q/s1600/Cover+-+China+Challenge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_3MnL9xGOxxQMVKcuEn9u-9s0ZfnujB2OzH-bwrsbTz3S7ozVXWEYdp-EN8IJ_sxj__9L5TiUp1_N2lUieD9LYQtpTS8FZPJH7odc86KyG1_w6MgRu7L7Qq2H_moKAYmo53IcJFqsC4Q/s200/Cover+-+China+Challenge.jpg" width="131" /></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As Thomas
J. Christensen, the author of his recently published “The China Challenge:
Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power”, reminds us, “For millennia China was
arguably the greatest civilization on the planet and for many previous
centuries its most powerful empire.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">China is
no longer an empire, but it remains a huge nation geographically and huge in
terms of its population. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the
website</span><a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> worldometers.info</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, we learn:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The population of China is estimated at 1,393,783,836<strong>
</strong>as of July 1 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">China's population is equivalent to 19.24% of the </span><a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/"><span style="color: #338fac; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">total
world population</span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">China ranks number 1 in the list of </span><a href="http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/"><span style="color: #338fac; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">countries by population</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">54%</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
of the population is urban (756,300,115 people in 2014). <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The median age in China is 35.7 years.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christensen is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Currently he is the William P. Boswell
Professor of World Politics and director of the China and World Program at
Princeton University. After reading his book, you might well conclude that
there is little about China and Asia he does not know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are mostly dependent on various news stories about China
to have any idea what is occurring, but the fact remains that just as the U.S.
has its optimists and pessimists, conservatives and liberals who influence
policy the same exists for China, so a lot depends on who is being quoted.
Generally, though, it is only the top leaders who are. That means we are
getting the Chinese “party line” and the occasional general or admiral warning
against any aggression.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">China did not begin to awaken as a modern nation until after
the death of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, a
Communist with a capital “C.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Christensen notes that, while keeping its political ideology, the
leader that followed him made a “peaceful transformation launched under CCP
leader Deng Xiaopping in 1978 and the collapse of the superpower Soviet Union
thirteen years later that made China appear to stand tall again among the great
powers.” The transition was to a capitalist-based economy.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These days the Chinese and the Russians are making efforts
to achieve areas of cooperation and, in particular, their militaries. They hold
drills together for common defense strategies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christensen believes that “China’s return to great power
status is perhaps the most important challenges in twenty-first century
American diplomacy”, but to put that in context he points out that “China’s per
capita income is only one fifth that of the United States” and “though a true
trade superpower, many of its exporters are controlled at least in part by
foreign investors.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Still, the pessimists do not give enough credit to the
sustainability of U.S. leadership in Asia,” says Christensen. “For example,
they often underestimate the value of American’s unparalleled network of allies
and security partners.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can be sure
that the Chinese leadership does not. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They also have, as one would expect, concerns about U.S.
military power in their area of the world, but they feel the same about Japan
and South Korea as well. “China is not currently an enemy of the United
States,” says Christensen, nor is it likely to be for a long time to come. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“It does not need to be contained like the (former) Soviet
Union. Nor should China become the kind of regional or global adversary that we
have faced in the past, although that outcome, unfortunately, is still a
distinct possibility.” That possibility depends on China’s leadership now and
in the future. For now they are concentrating on their economy and are likely
to do so for many years to come.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP3gwKlReY9RA075n4YOpmi3KzG7Qowc85AAq7bIEOtiNMomo6M34YEI6oqPW2ejBs7X745u_F8eam2BcTBQL9rHQ8Mwp1goe3y14BAV4X_g7hGXNQUkS7WYA74i_tEAGJ_S5LoDjtvd4/s1600/Chinese+Money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP3gwKlReY9RA075n4YOpmi3KzG7Qowc85AAq7bIEOtiNMomo6M34YEI6oqPW2ejBs7X745u_F8eam2BcTBQL9rHQ8Mwp1goe3y14BAV4X_g7hGXNQUkS7WYA74i_tEAGJ_S5LoDjtvd4/s200/Chinese+Money.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“China’s economic clout is real and growing rapidly,
especially since the 2008 financial crisis. China has been the main engine of
growth for the world’s economy since that time and, by some measures, has
become the world’s number one trading state.” There is only one reason why the
U.S. has not yet recovered from the financial crisis and his name is Barack
Obama.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suspect that Obama is held in disdain by the Chinese
leadership despite all the public handshakes. For one thing, China weathered
the financial crisis far better than the U.S. “One of the burdens the new Obama
administration inherited in early 2009 was a China bearing a mix of cockiness
and insecurity that would negatively influence its policies in 2009-2010,” says
Christensen and as the U.S. foundered in Afghanistan and Iraq “American power inspired
less awe.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Sometime in 2012, the ‘Asia pivot’” of the Obama
administration “would be jettisoned in Washington for the more subtle ‘Asia
rebalance.’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you get the feeling that
the Obama administration has no real China policy or one that will have little
influence, you are right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With regard to China, It likely does not matter what the
Obama administration does for its remaining one and a half years in office. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Various scholars and diplomats will continue to keep a
watchful eye on China and most surely many corporate leaders and U.S.
entrepreneurs will do so as well given its huge population as a marketplace.
It’s already a great tourist destination.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Napoleon was right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">© Alan Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-54864576027023783082015-05-20T06:23:00.001-07:002015-05-20T08:04:13.879-07:00The Slow Death of Common Core<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTsF8mXyekKcbHcM0xYWIfFLyHZ772IKRrcFG10XUfDQLfJ2arS0V1iVZV9cJy19bQOtj31H8Ipg2YJ9pkPJDY0FyjiKRuQMRXA1S2CGG9yBbD9vZw49awNmVcZEvUIiTBCAtRHnPLkwc/s1600/Cartoon+-+Common+Core+Testing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTsF8mXyekKcbHcM0xYWIfFLyHZ772IKRrcFG10XUfDQLfJ2arS0V1iVZV9cJy19bQOtj31H8Ipg2YJ9pkPJDY0FyjiKRuQMRXA1S2CGG9yBbD9vZw49awNmVcZEvUIiTBCAtRHnPLkwc/s400/Cartoon+-+Common+Core+Testing.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Think
about the major policy undertakings of the Obama administration over the past
six and a half years. It began with a “stimulus” that wasted trillions in the
quest of generating jobs, but did little to nothing in achieving that goal.
That was followed by ObamaCare which most agree has been a disaster for the
nation’s healthcare sector and, finally, Common Core, a one-size-fits-all
testing program intended, we were told, to improve learning standards in the
nation’s schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only thing it has
achieved is the opposition of parents, teachers unions, and entire states.</span></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJJnMMFOy4Hl67D0j_-ADEUE_5xgvRVH4sgx6cJq6Cj0_SgDOJyh5_bMbYqm73yMBIT6uplsVANZ5bH3cYO0hgVyFbb4B0bXAOTXCLMGgthaevTPbbhfQfv2hyphenhyphenn0PrSh1PGuG4P3Ea3I/s1600/Heartland++-+School+Reform+News.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJJnMMFOy4Hl67D0j_-ADEUE_5xgvRVH4sgx6cJq6Cj0_SgDOJyh5_bMbYqm73yMBIT6uplsVANZ5bH3cYO0hgVyFbb4B0bXAOTXCLMGgthaevTPbbhfQfv2hyphenhyphenn0PrSh1PGuG4P3Ea3I/s1600/Heartland++-+School+Reform+News.png" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the
April edition of The Heartland Institute’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://news.heartland.org/education">School Reform News</a></i>, one could find headlines that included “Arizona House Votes to
Repeal and Replace Common Core”, “Arizona House Votes to Repeal Common Core”, ”West
Virginia <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>House Passes Common Core Repeal
Bill”, and “Ohio Bill Would Protect Students Opting Out of Common Core
Tests.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In March, some 19 states had
introduced legislation to either halt or replace Common Core. Do you see a
trend here?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One trend
of significance was noted in a commentary by Jason L. Riley in the May 6 edition
of The Wall Street Journal. “The Soccer Mom Revolt Against Common Core” cited a
national poll released by Fairleigh Dickinson University earlier this year that
put “approval for the new standards at 17%, against 40% who disapproved and
other 42% who were undecided. A breakdown by gender had Common Core support 22%
for men and only 12% for women.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Perhaps
the greatest surprise among these numbers is that the nation’s largest teachers
union, the National Educational Association, as Rob Bluey of the Heritage
Foundation noted in February “is no longer a cheerleader for Common Core
national education standards.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
letter to the union’s three million members, its president, Dennis Van Roekel,
took Common Core to task for its failure to even provide information for
implementing it in their classrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
American Federation of Teachers had raised similar concerns nearly a year
earlier!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Writing on
September 2014, Joy Pullman, a Heartland Institute research fellow whose
expertise is education held forth on the <a href="http://news.heartland.org/editorial/2014/09/25/top-ten-things-parents-hate-about-common-core">“Top Ten Things Parents Hate About Common Core.” </a>Among them was “The senseless, infuriating math.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“If Common Core hadn’t deformed even the most
elementary of our math abilities so that simple addition now takes dots,
dashes, boxes, hashmarks, and foam cubes, plus an inordinate amount of time”,
you are not going to get the right answer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Parents in
growing numbers have discovered, as Pullman notes, that “when they do go to
their local school boards, often all they get are disgusted looks and a bored
thumb-twiddling during their two-minute public comment allowance.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pullman says, “The bottom line is, parents
have no choice whether their kids will learn Common Core, no matter what school
they put them in.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That, obviously, is changing
as state after state pulls out of the Common Core program.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In a new
book by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman, “Crimes of the Educators: How
Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children”,
Blumenfeld points to “Growing levels of illiteracy, plunging international
rankings, the decline of critical-thinking skills, mushrooming decadence, mass
shootings, and companies that can’t find the skilled workers they need—these
have become some of the atrocious hallmarks of U.S. public schools.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Common
Core schemers are engaged in what can only be described as consumer fraud with
monumental implications for education and the future of America.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bottom line is that “the scheme was never
field-tested before being foisted on America.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There is
no part of student’s education that Common Core does not impede or corrupt. In
the area of science, Blumenfeld says “Instead of teaching children about
science—real science—the standards will offer students a steady stream of
controversial propaganda presented as unchallenged fact.” Regarding climate
change “students will be required to learn that human activities are mostly to
blame, even though this notion is disputed by countless scientists and a vast,
growing body of actual scientific observational evidence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Closest to
home are Common Core’s “National Sexuality Education Standards” aimed to begin
the “sexualization of children in kindergarten” says Blumenfeld. “Is learning
about ‘homosexual marriage’ before first grade in government schools really
‘age appropriate’ or necessary?” But it gets more radical “with graphic lessons
promoting everything from masturbation and fornication to transgenderism and
homosexuality.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We
shouldn’t be surprised at the backlash Common Core has received from both
parents and teachers unions among others. Like the “stimulus” and ObamaCare,
Common Core demonstrates a thorough lack of understanding of the values of
individuality that have underwritten our nation’s free market economy, helped
create a respected healthcare system, and which parents have expected the
educational system to pass on to new generations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Instead Common Core teaches
collectivism—socialism—and degrades various elements of education from math to
English to science.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It cannot
be removed from our nation’s schools soon enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-87612962713634734492015-05-19T06:08:00.001-07:002015-05-19T10:41:22.384-07:00Stupefying Generations of Americans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4fVNDeHembjj8uYGpvPIcLBCdai5gz826wCsdsXBMrRRmUsm9ofgIbk4TcEBkP2UMskyE53rOgZyGUr7aIyxmKUxFME4Va4ET3dwmuE_B4CStZ5aJStLQzinQBWknPxfzdmZCG_Qu-As/s1600/School.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4fVNDeHembjj8uYGpvPIcLBCdai5gz826wCsdsXBMrRRmUsm9ofgIbk4TcEBkP2UMskyE53rOgZyGUr7aIyxmKUxFME4Va4ET3dwmuE_B4CStZ5aJStLQzinQBWknPxfzdmZCG_Qu-As/s400/School.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I used the
verb “stupefying” to describe a long process in our nation’s schools that has
produced several generations of Americans, dumbed down and resulting in more
than half who are functionally illiterate, nor can do math, and, as a recent
headline reported “Student’s Results in Social Studies Stagnate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“U.S.
middle-school students’ performance on social studies didn’t improve much
between 2010 and 2014, federal test scores released Wednesday (April 29) show,
underscoring concerns about the uniformed citizenry and workforce.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it comes to U.S. history, the share of
students scoring at or above proficiency last year was 18%, up one percentage
point from 2010. In other words, over 80% failed to have a grasp on the
subject, critical to every citizen’s understanding of U.S. history, its
Constitution, and governance.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV1tu-UghRaJVsBO2-wctoiw6LWDuNredJ9ht8B3tu64ObfEY85AvhvP_5NC__6Noctk-7E9ucdNlF-mU5Xa3bRK4BvFjZqmHTHudA-XwjHLP-u8JHYwywUt9AjyNEvbd_ZMlrjrju2v8/s1600/Cover+-+Crimes+of+the+Educators.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV1tu-UghRaJVsBO2-wctoiw6LWDuNredJ9ht8B3tu64ObfEY85AvhvP_5NC__6Noctk-7E9ucdNlF-mU5Xa3bRK4BvFjZqmHTHudA-XwjHLP-u8JHYwywUt9AjyNEvbd_ZMlrjrju2v8/s200/Cover+-+Crimes+of+the+Educators.png" width="133" /></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">An
extraordinary new book by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman, “Crimes of the
Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s
Children” ($26.95, WND Books) should be the center of conversation for a
nation’s media, but I suspect this may be among the few places you would learn
about it. Blumenfeld has written ten books on education and Newman is an
international journalist, educator and consultant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What
history does teach us is that progressives, also known as communists, have
slaughtered millions in their quest to create the perfect society where
everybody earns the same amount, thus abandoning them to equal poverty. To
achieve this, it was necessary to exercise complete control over what the
children learned and what the media shared as news.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Blumenfeld
notes that “In the United States the socialist utopians adopted a new and unique
method of conquering a nation; by dumbing down its people, by destroying the
brainpower of millions of its citizens.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This was
launched in 1898 by John Dewey, a socialist, and outlined in his essay titled
‘The Primary-Education Fetich.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In it
he showed his fellow progressives how to transform America into a collectivist
utopia by taking over the public schools and destroying the literacy of
millions of Americans.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“The plan
has been so successfully implemented that it is now a fact that half of America’s
adult population are functionally illiterate. They can’t read their nation’s
Constitution or its Declaration of Independence. They can’t even read their
high school diploma.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This was
achieved by changing how children are taught to read in our government schools.
Previously the method was phonetics in which children learned the alphabet, the
sounds the letters represented, and how in combination they composed words. The
present method is called “whole word” in which the child must recognize the
whole word without identifying its alphabetical elements. “That forces children
to read English as if it were Chinese,” says Blumenfeld.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">He notes
that most teachers are unaware of what they are doing and most parents trust
the public schools that are supposed to represent the cherished values of our
democratic republic. “But the unhappy truth is that today’s public schools have
rejected the values of the Founding Fathers and adopted values from
nineteenth-century European social utopian plans that completely contradict our
own concepts of individual freedom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpzfoopKgbaUUdoJe92FUyzyWQ7g7M_X2egL9SYodstA-ilR31g-hqfwEkV7mVyFOsDps-0-ME7K4rtWlfAY9fUm_vRy-zFZ_eYWATTd8n6yMYShkjhOpFCj3uxzx3ufVJgyUQ7_RpSeg/s1600/pills.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpzfoopKgbaUUdoJe92FUyzyWQ7g7M_X2egL9SYodstA-ilR31g-hqfwEkV7mVyFOsDps-0-ME7K4rtWlfAY9fUm_vRy-zFZ_eYWATTd8n6yMYShkjhOpFCj3uxzx3ufVJgyUQ7_RpSeg/s200/pills.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Blumenfeld
also identifies a fact that is hidden in the growing numbers of people who
having passed through our schools or attending experience dyslexia and learning
disabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brain scans have demonstrated
this. Our schools are places where the answer to the normal child’s energy and
curiosity is deemed being “over-active” and our schools “push various
psychiatric drugs on millions of children by requiring them to take such
powerful, mid-altering stimulants as Ritalin or Adderal to alleviate such
school-induced disorders as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These drugs are as potent as cocaine and
have even caused sudden death among teen athletes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span><br />
“The long-term utopian plan required destroying America’s political, social,
and moral culture of religious freedom, individual rights, unobtrusive
government, and high literacy for all.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That is a
virtual definition of what has occurred in America today. We see it in the
attack on religion, particularly Christianity, in America. We see it in the
attack on traditional marriage in the name of the homosexual objective of
“same-sex marriage.” We see individual businesses attacked for not wanting to
give up their spiritual values and beliefs when challenged by homosexuals. We
see it in the vast growth in the numbers of single mothers, often never
married. And, of late, we see it in the obscene hatred being directed against
our nation’s police forces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The statistics
cited in “Crimes of the Educators” have been published by Jeb Bush’s Foundation
for Excellence in Education and they include:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Eighty-one
percent of American 18 year olds are unprepared for college coursework.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">More than
25 percent of students fail to graduate from high school in four years; for
African-American and Hispanic students, this number is approaching 40 percent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Seventy
percent of those in prison and 70 percent of those on welfare read at the
lowest literacy levels according to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">According
to tests in 2012 given to 15-year-olds by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation & Development, U.S. students were at 17<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> place in
the world on reading, 29<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> in math, and 20<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> in science.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“These
failures,” says Blumenfeld, “ are not the result of an accident. They are the
result of programs created by the best-organized and best-paid educators on the
planet. All of these programs that create failure were conceived to produce
precisely the results we are getting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This
explains, too, why many concerned parents have decided to teach their children
at home while others spend their money to have their children tutored to
overcome the damage of our public schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If you
have looked around and thought to yourself that too many of the people who see,
hear, work with, and who vote are dumb, you now know why.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-65841804722445472162015-05-18T06:23:00.001-07:002015-05-18T06:41:26.363-07:00The EPA Myth of "Clean Power"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhubv3f02DB3GLG601c4ItQ3F3mPJ7s_hyphenhyphenD3l3_u3btLjp5-ymE9-RaguVqSgNM0bPvNEESHk9XSibN0VwwI-PgtQ8lx00TyZD0Y8rVJwrtPryDl7ENmTYvQYGYuJ8nTqv6yrCp-emlptE/s1600/Cartoon+-+EPA+Torture+Report.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhubv3f02DB3GLG601c4ItQ3F3mPJ7s_hyphenhyphenD3l3_u3btLjp5-ymE9-RaguVqSgNM0bPvNEESHk9XSibN0VwwI-PgtQ8lx00TyZD0Y8rVJwrtPryDl7ENmTYvQYGYuJ8nTqv6yrCp-emlptE/s400/Cartoon+-+EPA+Torture+Report.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There are
many things I do not like about the Environmental Protection Agency, but what
angers me most are the lies that stream forth from it to justify programs that
have no basis in fact or science and which threaten the economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Currently,
its “Clean Power” plan is generating its latest and most duplicitous
Administer, Gina McCarthy, to go around saying that it will not be costly, nor
cost jobs. “Clean Power” is the name given to the EPA policy to reduce overall
U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It is
requiring each state to cut its emissions by varying amounts using a baseline
established by the EPA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Simply
said, there is no need whatever to reduce CO2 emissions. Carbon dioxide is not
“a pollutant” as the EPA claims. It is, along with oxygen for all living
creatures, vital to the growth of all vegetation. The more CO2 the better crops
yields will occur, healthier forests, and greener lawns. From a purely
scientific point of view, it is absurd to reduce emissions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Writing in
The Wall Street Journal on April 22, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-states-should-boycott-the-federal-clean-power-plan-1429659225">Kenneth C. Hil</a>l, Director of the Tennessee
Regulatory Authority, said “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) set
off a firestorm when he advised states not to comply with the Environmental
Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Yet that advice isn’t as radical as his
detractors make it sound. As a state public utilities commissioner who deals
with the effects of federal regulations on a regular basis, I also recommend
that states not comply.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Noting its
final due date in June, that refusal would impose a Federal Implementation Plan
on states “that risks even greater harm,” said Hill. “But the problem for the
EPA is that the federal government lacks the legal authority under either the
Constitution or the Clean Air Act to enforce most of the regulation’s ‘building
blocks’ without states’ acquiescence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As this is
being written there is are two joined cases before the DC Circuit Court of
Appeals, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">State of West Virginia v EPA </i>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Murray Energy v EPA.</i> They are a
challenge to President Obama’s “War on Coal” and the EPA efforts to regulate
its use. Fifteen states, along with select coal companies, have sued for an
“extraordinary whit” to prevent the EPA from promulgating the new carbon
regulations found it the Clean Power plan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Writing in
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hill</i>, Richard O. Faulk, an
attorney and senior director for Energy Natural Resources and the Environment
for the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University, noted that “The
EPA’s argument confidently hinges on convincing the courts that the Clean Air
Act doesn’t mean what it says. By its plain language, the bill <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prohibits</i> the EPA from regulating the
power plants from which these emissions derive. Moreover, coal plants are
already addressed under an entirely different section of the bill than the one
EPA insists justifies its powers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The latest
news as reported by Myron Ebell, the director for energy and environment of the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, is that “Senator
Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) this week </span><a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11495124&msgid=101374&act=O2V9&c=1468182&destination=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.capito.senate.gov%2Fcontent%2Fcapito-and-bipartisan-group-senators-introduce-legislation-roll-back-%25E2%2580%259Cclean-power-plan%25E2%2580%259D" title="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11495124&msgid=101374&act=O2V9&c=1468182&destination=http://www.capito.senate.gov/content/capito-and-bipartisan-group-senators-introduce-legislation-roll-back-%E2%80%9Cclean-power-plan%E2%80%9D"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">introduced a bill</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to block
the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions from new and existing power plants. </span><a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11495124&msgid=101374&act=O2V9&c=1468182&destination=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.congress.gov%2Fbill%2F114th-congress%2Fsenate-bill%2F1324%3Fq%3D%257b%2522search%2522%253A%255b%2522s.1324%2522%255d%257d" title="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11495124&msgid=101374&act=O2V9&c=1468182&destination=https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1324?q=%7b%22search%22%3A%5b%22s.1324%22%5d%7d"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">S. 1324, the Affordable Reliable Energy Now
Act,</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> has 26 original co-sponsors, including Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman
James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Democrat Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Both
Majority Leader McConnell and Chairman Inhofe have said that they are
determined to stop EPA’s greenhouse gas rules, so I expect quick action to move
Capito’s bill. In the House, a bill to block the rules, </span><a href="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11495124&msgid=101374&act=O2V9&c=1468182&destination=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.congress.gov%2Fbill%2F114th-congress%2Fhouse-bill%2F2042%3Fq%3D%257b%2522search%2522%253A%255b%2522hr%2B2042%2522%255d%257d" title="http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11495124&msgid=101374&act=O2V9&c=1468182&destination=https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2042?q=%7b%22search%22%3A%5b%22hr+2042%22%5d%7d"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">H. R. 2042, the Ratepayer Protection Act,</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> was
voted out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on 29th April and is
awaiting floor action.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It’s worth
noting that, when Obama took office, fifty percent of America’s electrical
energy was supplied by coal-fired plants and, just six years later, that has
been reduced by ten percent. What kind of President would deliberately reduce
American’s access to affordable power? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It’s the
same kind of President that believes—or says he does—the pronouncements of the
U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s “Climate Change
2014 Synthesis Report” claims that world will face “severe, pervasive and
irreversible damage” if coal-fired and other carbon-based—coal, oil, and
natural gas—energy sources aren’t replaced with “renewable energy sources”—wind
and solar—by 2050. It wants fossil-fueled power generation “phased out almost
entirely by 2100.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now this is just
insanity, unless your agenda is to destroy the world’s economic system and kill
millions. That would be the only outcome of the IPCC recommendations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
columnist <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/LarryBell/Clean-Power-Plan-Climate-Change-EPA-IPCC/2015/04/06/id/636688/">Larry Bell</a>, a professor at the University of Houston, points out that
“As for expecting renewables to fill in the power curve, European Union
experiences offer a painful reality check. Approximately 7.8 percent of
Germany’s electricity comes from wind, 4.5 percent from solar. Large as a
result, German households already fork out for the second highest power costs
in Europe—often as much as 30 percent above the levels seen in other European
countries. Power interruptions add to buyer’s remorse.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFExyxRi5AQzxvwajPWkzTttx5CCJTaO1qFZM0xGFpzm9_knWm4mGcKJrWgIwvQNY4YonvB4z7oH_9nsNapvoQDy_lTVC8ISvaOX380-rNgD5tRsxVbKIy7lbsfDpCR6YxFC92LJIB-Hg/s1600/Heartland+-+Climate+News.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="107" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFExyxRi5AQzxvwajPWkzTttx5CCJTaO1qFZM0xGFpzm9_knWm4mGcKJrWgIwvQNY4YonvB4z7oH_9nsNapvoQDy_lTVC8ISvaOX380-rNgD5tRsxVbKIy7lbsfDpCR6YxFC92LJIB-Hg/s200/Heartland+-+Climate+News.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
reported in The Heartland Institute’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://news.heartland.org/energy-and-environment">Environment & Climate News</a> </i>“European governments, once at the vanguard of renewable
energy mandates, appear to be having second thoughts about their reliance on
giant wind farms…” There has been a sharp drop in such projects with
installations plunging 90% in Denmark, 75% in Italy, and 84% in Spain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What the
EPA is attempting to impose on America is a drain on our production of
electricity coupled with an increase in its price. It is an obscene attack on
our economy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-2091694991321291462015-05-16T23:08:00.001-07:002015-05-17T07:38:46.573-07:00My 2015 Commencement Address<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jkqdYpnkMZNdE3l340FEhyDshO-H0vyJcy6NfKezsJNeoiOq84S0WSM07fmKwyF6vQi3DQVUS-dRIy-0UesX5hNftyKGslVJxLp52ZtcMB6I5TEddgmaNI6nz3vLC8L8_a4RraYWYpA/s1600/AA+-+College+Graduates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_jkqdYpnkMZNdE3l340FEhyDshO-H0vyJcy6NfKezsJNeoiOq84S0WSM07fmKwyF6vQi3DQVUS-dRIy-0UesX5hNftyKGslVJxLp52ZtcMB6I5TEddgmaNI6nz3vLC8L8_a4RraYWYpA/s400/AA+-+College+Graduates.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p><br />
</o:p></span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">All manner of people are giving commencement speeches to students graduating from colleges and universities these days. It is doubtful that any will be remembered because the prospects of students depend in large part on the economy into which they are entering, the majors they pursued, their individual ambitions, and capacity for hard work. Then, too, there’s dumb luck which often plays a role.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For those
graduating this year, my profound sympathy because the economy could not be
much worse short of being declared an official Depression. Out of a total of
330 million Americans, there are currently 93,194,000 Americans who are not in
the workforce because they can’t find a job or have given up looking. Even in
the field of manufacturing—not something you studied for—the number of jobs
have declined by 7,231,000, some 37% since manufacturing peaked in the U.S. in
1979. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">U.S.
economic growth rate has slowed to 0.2%. In short, it is virtually non-existent.
So, with your diploma in hand, unless you majored in the sciences, math or
engineering, you are not likely to join the workforce any time soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those of you who majored in social work,
theatre arts, elementary education, and something called parks and recreation,
are going to be at the bottom of the salary scale for the rest of your life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Of the
previous graduates from 2008 to the present who voted for Barack Obama, just
14% have real jobs. You have had the vast misfortune of being born just in time
to live through the worst presidency in the history of the nation. If, in fact,
you even know the history of the nation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">You are at
a further disadvantage because the curriculums of the government schools you
attended have been so distorted that you have been led to believe that the
Founding Fathers were all slave-owning, white elitists when in fact, many
opposed slavery, the labor source of their era, and would have abolished it.
However they knew they could not get the Constitution ratified by the southern
states if they did. It’s called compromising for a greater goal, the finest and
currently the oldest functioning Constitution on Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Depending
on your race and sex, you have already been taught to blame anything that goes
wrong in your life on whether you are white, black or Hispanic, male or female.
If you want to know what’s wrong, look in the mirror and ask yourself what<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> you</i> are doing wrong or not doing
right—dressing, manners, behavior, addictions, et cetera.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If you
have been raised to believe in God and have spiritual values, you are likely to
be mocked, though not necessarily to your face. While still the majority faith
in America, Christianity is under attack from many directions, not the least of
whom are homosexuals that constitute less than 2% of the population. Their
attack on traditional (and biological) male-female marriage that has been part
of every civilization going back five thousand years and more will degrade
society in many ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For many
of you, graduation means years of paying off huge loans for the privilege of
picking up a degree that, as noted—short of science, math and engineering—will
not yield a lot of income. This will impact your lifestyle including possibly
having to move back in with your parents. It may mean putting off marriage and
a family of your own for a while and your loans will affect being able to
secure a mortgage on a home, but everyone is having problems doing that these
days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So, if all
this looks and sound bleak, it is because it is. A real commencement speech
should tell you the truth but most of them do not. They are generally filled
with inspiring talk about the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The future
you are looking at along with everyone else is fraught with danger. That,
however, can be said of every “future” that every American has faced since the
nation was established. It took a shooting war with Great Britain just to have
a nation and Americans have been engaged in wars large and small ever since.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The threat
of Communism faced Americans after World War Two and generations previous to
yours waited out and opposed the Soviet Union for nearly fifty years before it
collapsed. Communism is still around however in China, nearby Cuba, Venezuela
and other nations who suppress their people in the name of the utopian society
they claim to have. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The more
recent threat is the rise of Islamism, radical Islam as practiced and supported
by a significant percentage of the world’s one billion-plus Muslims. It is a
cult about Mohammed based on the total domination of the world. Divided between
two sects, Sunnis and Shiites, when they are not killing each other, they are
killing “infidels”, anyone who is not a Muslim.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It will
fall to you and your fellow graduates to fix the nation’s problems and right
now its biggest one is that the federal government is too large and we are
collectively facing an $18 trillion debt that must be resolved because just
paying interest on it makes doing anything else difficult at best. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">All of the
states are in debt as well as they struggle to pay the health benefits and
pensions of civil service workers, active and retired. That often doesn’t leave
much money for fixing potholes and other infrastructure needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Whatever
problems you will encounter, keep in mind previous generations often
encountered much worse, such as those in the 1930s during the Great Depression
and in the 1940s who fought World War II, and those from the 1950s and 1970s
who were called on to fight the Korean War and the war in Vietnam; more
recently those who fought the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Respect their
sacrifices and their courage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If you
want to see the government grow even larger along with the debt, vote for
Hillary Clinton. She’s still mentally and ideologically stuck in the 1990s,
plus she has engaged in behavior that would get anyone else put in jail. You
have a large choice among Republican candidates and eventually it will narrow
to someone capable of tackling the future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The best I
can do is to wish you good luck. You’re going to need it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-4071780879079143892015-05-15T10:44:00.003-07:002015-05-15T10:49:55.706-07:00Cartoon Round Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-67176247384331401612015-05-14T06:17:00.001-07:002015-05-14T06:29:11.139-07:00Sex Education Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan Caruba</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the
1940s and 50s, what passed for sex education was literally about the birds and
bees as metaphors for inception and child birth. The emphasis was on waiting
until marriage to engage in sex. There were instructional books with a mostly
medical orientation to the information they provided but whether they could be
found in the schools is anyone’s guess. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Somehow
that generation (and earlier ones) managed to learn enough about sex to engage
in it within the context of a society that regarded sex outside of marriage as
sinful. By the 1960s, the generation fathered in the wake of World War Two told
everyone not to trust anyone over thirty and that sex, drugs and rock’n roll
were the only things that really mattered in life. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In 1979,
with Jimmy Carter’s blessing, the federal government took control of the
nation’s educational system via the Department of Education, but the real
takeover began much earlier. It has been in serious decline ever since with
huge dropout rates and failures to learn reading and math that put us well
behind when compared to other nations. Traditional American values have often
been abandoned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Eugene
Delgaudio, president of <a href="http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/">Public Advocate of the United States</a>, recently emailed
members and those who follow the organization’s issues about “a little first
grade boy (who) asked his mother if he was ‘transgender,’ and if he could be ‘a
girl in love with a girl.’” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">His
school, Mitchell Primary School in Maine was teaching about the “transgender”
lifestyle. His mother was upset to learn about this, but as is frequently the
case, parents are the last to learn about sexual information and attitudes
being taught. In this case, isn’t first grade just too damn early for
transgenderism to be a part of the curriculum?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Delgaudio
is largely focused on “the radical Homosexual Lobby and their allies in the
education system (that) routinely refuse to give parents any options that
threaten their anti-Family agenda. And, fearing retaliation…the school
administrators and superintendent ignored the parents’ outrage.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
pro-family<a href="http://www.massresistance.com/"> MassResistance</a> recently informed members and those who follow their
issues about “unbelievable surveys given to children in Massachusetts and
schools across America” in public middle schools and high schools during school
hours. The surveys are “officially” anonymous and voluntary, but are
administered in the classroom with pressure to participate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The major
survey is “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” put together every two years by the
National Centers for Disease Control. State and local education departments can
modify it if they wish. These surveys are now ubiquitous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Among the questions students must answer was whether they were heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or "not sure."</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Have you
ever had sexual intercourse (oral, anal, vaginal?)"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"How old
were you when you had sexual intercourse (oral, anal, vaginal) for the first
time?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"During
your life, with how many people have you had sexual intercourse (oral, anal,
vaginal)?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There were
nine pages of the questions and answers to be provided. I was astounded at how
personal and intrusive the survey was. And I seriously wonder whether such
information would have any impact or influence regarding the behaviors
involved. Indeed, the survey went far beyond the topic of sex. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I don’t
like having the government involved in such intimate areas of student’s lives. These
are questions and issues parents should address with their children,
determining the right time to do so and providing whatever information they
deem appropriate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Having
said that, it would be naïve to suggest that today’s youth from a very early
age cannot access tons of information about sex from the Internet. A 2010 study
of 177 sexual health websites by the Journal of Adolescent Health concluded
that 40% of those addressing contraception and 35% of those addressing abortion
contained inaccurate information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In early
April, <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a6329/sex-ed-facts/">Cosmopolitan</a> posted “11 Facts About Sex Ed in the U.S. That Might
Surprise You.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“While
teen pregnancies are on a decline,” said the article, “teens are having more
sex—and contracting more STIs (sexually transmitted illnesses) than ever
before. The problem, according to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention is that sex education isn’t happening early enough.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cosmopolitan
noted that only 22 states and the District of Columbia require that public
schools teach sex education. In addition, 33 states also mandate HIV/AIDS
education, and 35 states let parents opt out on behalf of their child. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Does it
surprise anyone to learn that the 1981 Adolescent Family Life Act which
promoted “chastity and self-discipline” was ended by the Obama administration
in 2010? We have all being living with an administration which dismissed
enforcement of the Marriage Defense Act and is the most pro-homosexual
administration in the history of the nation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">We are a
sex-drenched nation in terms of popular entertainment. It is experienced from
the earliest years of any child’s life. This means parents have to be
pro-active to ensure their children get the education they need to avoid the
STIs and more importantly not to impregnate or get pregnant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the
meantime, there is no knowing what they are learning, for good or ill, in
school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-91225921299592843862015-05-13T04:35:00.003-07:002015-05-13T04:35:46.343-07:00Endless Racial Discord<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-GRibB6VAY5sWZmougRkzO_8Jxa6p_6FJU69DNdga5qJHHLfsBVi_IZYlgSwlAxoUxUVJmQjSU-aWY0GPRpf0p0jxaxEYPfUO1T7KoigN8ESgRM0Cf6Xy1WD5wxs59TU1VgdAS_Iidh4/s1600/AA+-+Obama+Increased+Black+Unemployment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-GRibB6VAY5sWZmougRkzO_8Jxa6p_6FJU69DNdga5qJHHLfsBVi_IZYlgSwlAxoUxUVJmQjSU-aWY0GPRpf0p0jxaxEYPfUO1T7KoigN8ESgRM0Cf6Xy1WD5wxs59TU1VgdAS_Iidh4/s400/AA+-+Obama+Increased+Black+Unemployment.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When I
look back at the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, I marvel at how
naïve I was that the passage of major legislation was going to “solve” the
problem of discord between the white and black race. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">On May 3,
the Wall Street Journal reported on a survey regarding racial disturbances
around the nation such as those that wracked Baltimore. “A resounding 96% of
adults surveyed said it was likely there would be additional racial
disturbances this summer…” To nobody’s surprise, blacks and whites “viewed the
situation differently.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Asked to
choose between two possible explanations for recent events, 60% of blacks said
they reflected ‘long-standing frustrations about police mistreatment of
African-Americans.’” Some 27% of black respondents said they thought the
disturbances were caused by people as an excuse “to engage in looting and
violence.” I favor the latter explanation because I doubt that our nation’s
police forces engage in deliberate harassment and mistreatment of blacks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Indeed,
Baltimore has a back Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a black police chief, and
many blacks among his force. If the issue was the police, then no city in
America is safe and that is just not so. Unfortunately, the foolishness of
Baltimore’s Mayor, who told the force to stand down and let the rioters have
their way, was then demonstrated by her request that the Department of Justice
(DOJ) launch an investigation of the city’s police force.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
problem with that is that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has only fifty
employees responsible for handling labor-intensive ‘pattern or practice’
investigations among the nation’s 18,000 state and local forces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no way the Baltimore investigation
will produce anything of useful information. It is far more likely that the
outcome will be more political than demonstrative of trends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What is
generally not being noticed is that the Obama administration, as reported in
Politico.com on May 8, “has opened more than twenty such investigations into
local law enforcement agencies “most of which result in either a settlement
agreement with local officials or a lawsuit that pushes legally binding
reform.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKmOJnRZPR3tHEjPI9wPHkHJ_yd1JdFm7e9-x43evjpeS4F_4o_jjTizrUieSU9hv1rgvScFMQ6XV7n-lQUSvFxAZBIyh3ik917b-AWYUFtoqn39kxvxoGS-FFED7k9qCK0XyZviKDGA/s1600/AA+-+Obama+and+Sharpton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKmOJnRZPR3tHEjPI9wPHkHJ_yd1JdFm7e9-x43evjpeS4F_4o_jjTizrUieSU9hv1rgvScFMQ6XV7n-lQUSvFxAZBIyh3ik917b-AWYUFtoqn39kxvxoGS-FFED7k9qCK0XyZviKDGA/s200/AA+-+Obama+and+Sharpton.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I have
come to the view that the most racially divisive leader in America is our first
African-American President. Why else has Rev. Al Sharpton become his most
widely recognized “adviser” and why are administration figures are less likely
to be found honoring fallen police officers than the alleged black victims?
Three were sent to Freddie Gray’s funeral and none to the funeral of the slain
police officers. The First Lady, too, has been stirring up racial discord.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Referring
to the Baltimore riot, he said that “we as a nation have to do some
soul-searching” when as <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/baltimore-is-not-about-race-1430781505">William McGurn</a> of The Wall Street Journal noted the
trillions spent on liberal programs, personified by LBJ’s “War on Poverty”,
have not succeeded in reducing poverty and have contributed to creating whole
populations that live off of government handouts of one sort or another.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“While the
Great Society’s billions were creating a culture of dependency,” said McGurn,
“South Korea—with its emphasis on trade and global competition—rose from the
ashes of a terrible war to become the world’s 12<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> largest economy.”
This occurred over the same time period the liberal dependency programs and
liberal governance of many U.S. cities created the problem we are addressing
and discussing today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Nor is the
answer for the federal government to take over the management of the nation’s
police forces. We have already seen how it has ruined the educational system
and is now doing the same to our health system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Are their
differences between whites and blacks? Yes, but they are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">economic</i>. Middle and upper class blacks share the outlook of their
white counterparts. They look at the inner cities and they understand that
decades of liberal governance has driven out businesses large and small, along
with anyone who could afford to leave. Yes, there was “white flight”, but they
were joined by blacks who saw there was no future to be had there for their
children. The rest are trapped.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So, will
there be more riots and disturbances in our cities this summer? Yes, that would
appear to be the case. So long as police are not allowed to take action against
the instigators and perpetrators, that is a given. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Not until
this nation returns to the high levels of respect for the men and women who put
their lives on the line every day will we see a cessation of such events. My
experience and the nation’s over the past six decades is an indication that
some pundit will be holding forth on this topic six decades from now…only it
will be worse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-86678037545031187122015-05-12T05:30:00.002-07:002015-05-12T06:18:23.364-07:00Obama's Middle East Debacle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig3e2jiB5RmdNjTYkD4zMv6yTVPcX-UDfO6Y87rDBE4CmN3K-Fg5S-aOQ0q8PWyzyWCEqS__BEfu-esR_tYWKZFeUpRzhjO6R_agZKvc-a_uoBkU1nXQ18_adDsnrtBpVtisnYE11zvjU/s1600/Cartoon+-+Obama+No+Islamic+Threat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig3e2jiB5RmdNjTYkD4zMv6yTVPcX-UDfO6Y87rDBE4CmN3K-Fg5S-aOQ0q8PWyzyWCEqS__BEfu-esR_tYWKZFeUpRzhjO6R_agZKvc-a_uoBkU1nXQ18_adDsnrtBpVtisnYE11zvjU/s400/Cartoon+-+Obama+No+Islamic+Threat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5qZK4ctWm7NfKAg5ABRPbShJXR09nvOYkBNi0juHddqGmf-0WgeWrjVhwL09zsgOZvL_r3noU4DWUb6XMpNFfUi3nMG8UQV7oz9Q6RmSZEily7uekIUmZa2_GbFY6ProEv2h8AaUlII/s1600/Saudi+Arabia's%2BKing%2BSalman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5qZK4ctWm7NfKAg5ABRPbShJXR09nvOYkBNi0juHddqGmf-0WgeWrjVhwL09zsgOZvL_r3noU4DWUb6XMpNFfUi3nMG8UQV7oz9Q6RmSZEily7uekIUmZa2_GbFY6ProEv2h8AaUlII/s200/Saudi+Arabia's%2BKing%2BSalman.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I had to
laugh when I heard that the new King of Saudi Arabia, Salmon, told the White
House he wasn’t going to attend Thursday’s photo-op get together of Arab
leaders. Some lesser Saudi officials will attend. The message is clear enough,
so long as Obama continues to make nice with Iran, the center of the problems
in the Middle East, the Saudis and the others are going to be wary of any
proposal that comes out of the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As far as
the Middle East is concerned, Obama seems to have no idea of the history or the
dynamics that affect all the actions there. His Secretary of State, Kerry, is
no better. He met with Arab officials last Friday and they told him they want a
defense treaty in the event they were attacked by “external forces”, something
that the Congress will not approve so long as Obama is in the White House.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One would
think that any President at this point would have concluded that the
Palestinians have no intention of signing onto a peace treaty with the
Israelis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Writing in
The New York Times on May 8, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it bluntly, “It doesn’t matter what
these politicians think now or have said in in the past. Peace between Israel
and the Palestinians is not happening in the next two years.” That’s how long
we all have to wait until Obama leaves office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><a href="http://www.meforum.org/5229/netanyahu-back">David P.Goldman</a>, a Senior Fellow of the Middle East Forum, writing in Asia Times Online
on May 10, spelled it out. “It is inconvenient for diplomats to say so, but the
Palestinian Authority collapsed quite some time ago,” noting that “President
Mahmoud Abbas’ term in office began in 2005 and ended six years ago, and he has
not called new elections for the simple reason that Hamas—the Palestinian
branch of the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood—would win those elections.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These days the Egyptians label Hamas a
terrorist organization and have taken steps to eliminate the Brotherhood. At
least <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">they</i> know who the enemy is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Obama has
been antagonistic to Israel from before he was elected and has made little
effort to hide it. Consider this, as Goldman notes, “Hamas fired over 4,000
rockets at Israel in 2014, prompting Israeli counterstrikes during the summer.”
Its declared intention and the reason for its existence is to eliminate the
State of Israel. Why are we surprised to hear that Obama wants to take the
statehood issue to the United Nations, a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and has
little to say of the Palestinian Authority’s assertion that it wants to drag
Israel in front of the International Criminal Court for having defended itself
against the attacks by Hamas!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Not only
has the Saudi King sent Obama a message, but so did the Israelis when they
overwhelmingly reelected Benjamin Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. “The
Israelis look around the Middle East and see nothing but conflict, carnage,
instability and danger,” said Schanzer. “The Obama doctrine—which includes a
deliberate contraction of American power in the Middle East—has undeniably made
Israel less safe.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It has
made the U.S. and the world less safe too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One of the
most obscene aspects of the Obama obsession with Iran is that, in return for
any deal—which Iran would ignore and cheat—they are ready “to provide as much
as $120 billion in sanctions relief to satisfy the narrow technical parameters
of a nuclear deal, which would legitimize Iran as a threshold nuclear state.
These funds,” said Schanzer, “will flow to Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and other Iran terror proxies dedicated to Israel’s demise.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To put all
this in perspective, as Goldman reminds us, “From Israel’s standpoint, the
Palestinian Authority was offered 95% of Judea and Samaria in return for a
final peace agreement, and both times (at Camp David in 1999 under Ehud Barack
and in 2008 under Ehud Olmert) the offer was rejected.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“The U.N.
Security Council,” said Goldman, “will punish Israel for the failure of
negotiations that were meaningless to begin with, and establish a
Hamas-controlled state within nine miles of the Mediterranean coast. Iran has
already promised to arm West Bank Arabs, just as it armed Hezbollah and Hamas.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Israel
which has enjoyed the support of the United States since it declared its
independence in 1948 is now put at risk by the first administration to
deliberately turn its back on it in preference for a deal with the leading
terror-sponsor, Iran, in the Middle East.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">You cannot
make a greater mess of the mess that already exists in the Middle East, but
Obama is doing his best to add to it. What else should we expect from a President
who refuses to utter words like “Islamic terrorism”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-196554259323465442.post-66205134105326130752015-05-11T06:22:00.003-07:002015-05-11T06:22:56.460-07:00You're on the Front Line of the Islamic War<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDVEYJVegjYEkxCu0zBGKKK9FUn3jN09QxBRaYoQ73AFJtIAZR5al08RdzD1B2K08KqhiRKC402xeRwDm_RIanaXvJ8K_VZWL0krtZgU9lpglVwdVC9elkaimCXhbkJsAJeqgggy2J9Vg/s1600/AA++-+Pamela+Geller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDVEYJVegjYEkxCu0zBGKKK9FUn3jN09QxBRaYoQ73AFJtIAZR5al08RdzD1B2K08KqhiRKC402xeRwDm_RIanaXvJ8K_VZWL0krtZgU9lpglVwdVC9elkaimCXhbkJsAJeqgggy2J9Vg/s400/AA++-+Pamela+Geller.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By Alan
Caruba<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Does
anyone remember what happened on September 11, 2001? Or is it just “ancient
history” at this point? Some three thousand totally innocent Americans were
murdered by a sneak attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C. Who did it? The same murderous Islamists who attacked an event
in Garland, Texas to focus attention on the insanity that passes for one of the
world’s great “religions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Islam is
not a religion. It is a cult around the so-called prophet Mohammad and his
assertion that the Koran was the word of Allah. The name Islam means
“submission” and the purpose of Islam is the tyrannical control over the entire
world’s population. Within this alleged holy faith, two sects, Shiites and
Sunnis, have been at war almost from its inception, never failing to kill one
another.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
turmoil in the Middle East is the direct result of this murderous cult and
those Muslims who oppose the killing that flows from Islam must keep their
silence or become its victims. Jews and Christians can speak out and debate
about aspects of their faiths, but Muslim risk death when they do so. For those
Jews in Christians living in Middle Eastern nations, death is always a prospect
for no other reason than not being Muslim.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Americans
have not yet fully embraced the fact that they are on the front lines along
with other Western nations in a global war with Islam. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Will it
take another 9/11? Surely the recent attack by two Islamists on May 3<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">rd</span></sup>
in Garland, Texas, was another wake up call. They arrived intent on killing as many
of those attending the American Freedom Defense Initiative event. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Garland police officer killed both before
anyone <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>had to die in the name of the
Bill of Rights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7rplisg9hgOECaIdCRYXwVZlZf7cwvWNWd2I4fvwNDAHAD9uL_aK89U82a6sZ-txtIhDLl50kq5g6RWGP1IJ2vVaU_0U1yUnG5-E3J3R9Ltj3q83mLONuZNFlQq_vH_PgK43Z87aWKU/s1600/AA+-+Garland+TX+and+Islam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp7rplisg9hgOECaIdCRYXwVZlZf7cwvWNWd2I4fvwNDAHAD9uL_aK89U82a6sZ-txtIhDLl50kq5g6RWGP1IJ2vVaU_0U1yUnG5-E3J3R9Ltj3q83mLONuZNFlQq_vH_PgK43Z87aWKU/s400/AA+-+Garland+TX+and+Islam.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">But why
Garland, Texas? Because, as my friend <a href="http://www.amilimani.com/terrorist-attack-at-free-speech-event-in-texas-an-eyewitness-account/#more-2045">Amil Imani</a> noted in a recent commentary,
“The venue was chosen as a defiant response to a Muslim group that had held a
conference entitled ‘Stand With the Prophet Against Terror and Hate.”’ Ironic,
eh?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their response to the event that
invited cartoons of Muhammed as to want to kill the participants. If that is
not war, I do not know what is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If Muslims
feel hatred, they have earned it here in the United States and elsewhere they
have attacked any criticism or defiance, from Charlie Hebdo in France to the
countless attacks around the world from Mumbai, India to Bali. A website, the
Religion of Peace, com, posts news of the daily assaults by Muslim on both
other Muslims and those they call “infidels”, unbelievers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Pamela
Geller who leads the American Freedom Defense Initiative has been widely
assailed for her event that was intended to respond to the earlier one in
Garland that Amil Amani noted “was convened to eliminate free speech or any
expression, verbal and/or artwork depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammad in a
negative light.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“As a
life-long expert on the subject of Islam, I felt that this event—more than
anything else Pamela could have done—would be the target of a violence
terrorist attack in the name of the religion of peace, either real and
explosive or on social media at the very least.” It was real. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
Garland police were taking it seriously. Amani said “I was astonished at the
large police presence already there. Some of the cops were dressed in tactical
gear and carrying AR-15s. The security was ubiquitous, almost as if something
untoward had already happened.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Speaking
in an interview with Sean Hannity on May 6, Geller noted that neither the FBI
nor the Department of Homeland Security has yet to have contacted her about the
thwarted attack. “This is a serious threat” said Hannity. “Basically a Fatwah,
a death threat, has now been issued.” Geller noted the lack of interest or
concern expressed by those in our government one might expect to at the least
make an inquiry, adding that “I have a team now, private security, and NYPD
counterterror has been in touch with me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Now I call
that a level of courage for which Pamela Geller should be praised, but I heard
too many criticisms that she was being “provocative.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Provocative”?????<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When are
Americans going to realize that the Islamists do not need any provocation? When
are we going to start acting like we are at war? A good first step would be to
stop inviting Muslims to immigrate to America. The Obama administration has
been importing as many as possible. The next step is to understand that it is
Obama and his administration that are part of the Islamic war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is the
Pamela Geller’s that are crying out to us. We need to listen. We need to
support them. We need to arm ourselves if we have not done so already. Then we
need to secure “concealed carry” laws in every State of the Union. We are at
war.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">© Alan
Caruba, 2015</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.</div>Alan Carubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10901162110385985193noreply@blogger.com4