Month: May 2014

Kings Advance, But Not Before Showing Teemu Selanne Off In Style

Published by Papa Giorgio

Players from the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks, as well as the Honda Center crowd, salute Teemu Selanne in the last game of his memorable NHL career.

Teemu's Family

(The 2013 story is linked in photog) One happy byproduct of Teemu Selanne’s excellent hockey adventure is that his three sons, Eemil, Eetu and Leevi, and daughter, Veera, are around for first-hand viewing of their father.

But the teenage boys, or at least one of them, can be a little tough cracking on dear old dad. The 42-year-old Selanne, who had the game-winner for the Ducks in the playoff opener against Detroit, was laughing about the ribbing on Thursday after the morning skate.

“Every time I come home they are talking about the game,” he said. “And my youngest one, he doesn’t  believe I have scored so many goals without … pretty much, no moves in hockey, he thinks.

“He [Leevi] is 13 and he thinks I have only three moves and the goalie still don’t know those.”

His goal in Game 1 was his 42nd in the playoffs. Selanne, for the record, has 663 regular-season goals.

The boys remember the Ducks’ Stanley Cup victory in 2007. Selanne’s daughter (he said emphatically that  she won’t be playing hockey) was born later that year.

“Even the year we won they still … they remember everything,” Selanne said. “But even so somebody would ask them in school, ‘What does your dad do for a living?’

“They would probably not know: ‘I don’t know, sometimes he goes to play hockey and sometimes golf. To be honest, I don’t really know. But he can’t help with schoolwork or homework. So I don’t know what he’s doing.’….

(CBS Sports) Selanne gets emotional farewell from players, fans

…”I’m going to miss watching you play,” said Drew Doughty. “I really am. Thank you.”

Selanne’s quip to Justin Williams was bleeped out a bit, but it sounded like something about Game 7 heroics.

“It’s been an honor, man,” said a sincere Jonathan Quick, who then received great praise from Selanne who called him “unbelievable.”

Selanne also shared a bit of a longer embrace with Anze Kopitar, saying “You’re a hell of a player. Don’t give up.”

As he reached the end of the line, Selanne was greeted by thunderous applause from the Honda Center crowd. His teammates stayed on the ice with him, as did the Kings, who looked on and tapped their sticks as the cheering swelled around the ice.

Selanne appeared to be holding back tears as the affection rained down from the rafters….

[….]

Selanne wraps his NHL career with 1,457 points, which ranks 15th all-time in the NHL. His 684 goals are 11th most in NHL history.

The Flash started his career with the Winnipeg Jets where he set the rookie scoring record with 76 goals and 132 points in 1992-93, a record that will probably never be broken.

He spent parts of four seasons with the Jets before being traded to the Mighty Ducks in 1995-96. His first stint in Anaheim lasted six years before he moved on to the San Jose Sharks for three seasons. He spent one season with the Colorado Avalanche before heading back to the Ducks for the last nine seasons of his career. He won his first and only Stanley Cup with the team in 2007.

To go out in such a disastrous Game 7 is unfortunate, but it does nothing to tarnish the remarkable legacy left by Selanne, who was one of the last remaining links to the run-and-gun days of the early 1990s in the NHL.

Attention will turn to Jaromir Jagr and Martin Brodeur as part of the old guard in the NHL, but Selanne was one of those players that was universally loved by hockey fans all over the world. The void he will leave in the NHL is a big one, but what incredible memories he left us all with.

When “Peer-Reviewed” Is Used To Hold the Line (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(UPDATED) Via Fox News and Climate Depot:

Some are calling it the new “Climategate.”

A paper by Lennart Bengtsson, a respected research fellow and climatologist at Britain’s University of Reading, was rejected last February by a leading academic journal after a reviewer found it “harmful” to the climate change agenda. The incident is prompting new charges that the scientific community is muzzling dissent when it comes to global warming.

“[Bengtsson] has been a very prolific publisher and was considered one of the top scientists in the mainstream climate community,” said Marc Morano, of the website ClimateDepot.com, which is devoted to questioning global warming.

Bengtsson had grown increasingly skeptical of the scientific consensus, often cited by President Obama, that urgent action is needed to curb carbon emissions before climate change exacts an irreversible toll on the planet with extreme drought, storms and rising seas levels.

The president repeatedly has rejected naysayers in the climate debate — most recently, when he spoke May 9 in Mountainview, Calif. “We’ve still got some climate deniers who shout loud, but they’re wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate,” he said.

The administration recently released a comprehensive climate report that critics worry will be used to justify additional environmental regulations.

Bengtsson’s paper, submitted to the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that greenhouse gas emissions might be less harmful and cause less warming than computer models project. For that, Morano said, Bengtssonpaid a steep price.

“They’ve threatened him. They’ve bullied him. They’ve pulled his papers. They’re now going through everything they can to smear his reputation. And the ‘they’ I’m referring to is the global warming establishment,” Morano said.

…read more…

A good portion of the article is below, thanks to The Global Warming Policy Foundation, any more will require denaro [a subscription] (See also the Daily Mail for a fuller dealing with the topic): 

…The unnamed scientist concluded: “Actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate skeptic s media side.”

In other words, the truth hurts our advocacy. Scientists should not have a global warming or a skeptic “side.” According to the Oxford dictionary science is, The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. Notice there is nothing about suppressing the observations and experiments you don’t like.

Professor Bengtsson resigned from the advisory board of Lord Lawson of Blaby’s climate skeptic think-tank this week after being subjected to what he described as McCarthy-style pressure from fellow academics.

Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor, said that the pressure exerted by other climate scientists had been appalling and the comparison with McCarthyism was “fully warranted”.

And this study didn’t even argue that climate change is happening, only that it is happening more slowly…

(The Lid)

 

In an echo of the infamous “Climategate” scandal at the University of East Anglia, one of the world’s top academic journals rejected the work of five experts after a reviewer privately denounced it as “harmful”.

Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading and one of the authors of the study, said he suspected that intolerance of dissenting views on climate science was preventing his paper from being published. “The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist,” he added.

Professor Bengtsson’s paper challenged the finding of the UN’s Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the global average temperature would rise by up to 4.5C if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were allowed to double.

It suggested that the climate might be much less sensitive to greenhouse gases than had been claimed by the IPCC in its report last September, and recommended that more work be carried out “to reduce the underlying uncertainty”.

The five contributing scientists, from America and Sweden, submitted the paper to Environmental Research Letters, one of the most highly regarded journals, at the end of last year but were told in February that it had been rejected.

A scientist asked by the journal to assess the paper under the peer review process wrote that he strongly advised against publishing it because it was “less than helpful”.

The unnamed scientist concluded: “Actually it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of ‘errors’ and worse from the climate sceptics media side.”

Professor Bengtsson resigned from the advisory board of Lord Lawson of Blaby’s climate sceptic think-tank this week after being subjected to what he described as McCarthy-style pressure from fellow academics.

Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor, said that the pressure exerted by other climate scientists had been appalling and the comparison with McCarthyism was “fully warranted”.

The claims are a stark reminder of events at the University of East Anglia in 2009. Scientists there were accused of manipulating data and suppressing critics of global warming predictions in the run-up to the crucial Copenhagen climate change conference.

They were later cleared, though the IPCC was found to have misrepresented their research by failing to reflect uncertainties over raw temperature data.

Professor Bengtsson, the former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, said he accepted that emissions would increase the global average temperature but the key question was how quickly.

He added that it was “utterly unacceptable” to advise against publishing a paper on the ground that the findings might be used by climate sceptics to advance their arguments. “It is an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views. The reality hasn’t been keeping up with the [computer] models. Therefore, if people are proposing to do major changes to the world’s economic system we must have much more solid information.”

Scientists from around the world sent messages of support to Professor Bengtsson. David Gee, a former geology professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, wrote: “The pressure on you from the climate community simply confirms the worst aspects of politicised science. I have been reprimanded myself for opposing the climate bandwagon, with its blind dedication to political ambitions…..

Mark Steyn (Steyn Online) has some commentary that underlies the “peer pressure” or the peer-review process:

Here’s what Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State mean by “peer review.” When Climate Research published a paper dissenting from the Jones-Mann “consensus,” Jones demanded that the journal “rid itself of this troublesome editor,” and Mann advised that “we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers.”

So much for Climate Research. When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the “consensus” reservation, Dr. Tom Wigley (“one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change”) suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to “get him ousted.” When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr. Jones assured Dr. Mann, “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Which in essence is what they did. The more frantically they talked up “peer review” as the only legitimate basis for criticism, the more assiduously they turned the process into what James Lewis calls the Chicago machine politics of international science. The headline in The Wall Street Journal Europe is unimprovable: “How To Forge A Consensus.” Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That’s “peer review,” climate-style.

“Climategate” wasn’t only about the science – “Hide the decline” et al. It was also about the general thuggishness with which Mann and his gang treated anyone who disagreed with them, however mildly: The science is settled. Got it? Nice little peer-review journal you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it….

…read more…

Darwinism Under the Microscope, Lessons From History (Sylvia Baker)

Published by Papa Giorgio

From video description:

http://edinburghcreationgroup.org | With the rise of genetics and molecular biology, evidence is emerging that Darwinism is not the unlimited process we once thought.

Sylvia Baker is a biology graduate of the University of Sussex and the University of London. She accepted the evolutionary theory put to her at school and at university – until the pressure of evidence forced her to rethink the whole question.

California Democrats Kill Bill to Outlaw Sex-Selection Abortions

Published by Papa Giorgio

Breitbart reports on this horrendous example that comes from the Party of Death:

On Tuesday, thirteen Democrats on the California State Assembly Health Committee voted down a bill that would have outlawed the practice of sex selection through abortion.

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (AB 2336) ran into opposition by all of the Democrats on the committee, who saw the bill as a prelude to broader abortion restrictions, according to a report from LifeNews.com. Instead, Democrats introduced a resolution to condemn sex-selection abortion–but not to outlaw it.

The bill was introduced on May 6th by Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), who said in her opening testimony that “the U.N. estimates that upwards of 200 million girls around the world have been aborted merely because they were ‘the wrong gender.'” She explained that countries like India and China are dominated by a male-child mentality, with mothers preferring future working men and family providers over the “burden” of baby girls.

“This is the real war on women,” Grove told the committee. “Girls are being killed simply for being girls and it’s happening right here in California and not just Third World Nations.”….

Lifenews fills in some blanks:

Sex-selection abortion in California—which has evolved into a cottage tourism industry for women wishing to hand-pick their baby’s gender—will remain a protected practice after the Assembly Health Committee snubbed a proposal on May 6 to end the barbaric trend. As expected, the committee voted along party lines, 13-6, squelching Assembly Bill (AB) 2336 (Grove R-Bakersfield).

In introducing her Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act at the hearing, Assemblywoman Shannon Grove offered statistics showing that entire population segments are shifting toward male majorities as experts estimate that 160 million girls have been killed either from through sex-selection abortion or infanticide at birth by parents seeking a boy.

Grove cited evidence that women from China, India, and other nations where the practice has been outlawed are now coming to California to take advantage of the state’s dangerously deregulated abortion laws.

“This is the real war on women: the killing of baby girls simply because they are girls,” Grove told committee members. “We hear often in this Capitol building about women’s rights, equal rights for women, equal protection under the law, equal pay. Well colleagues, girls are being killed simply for being girls and its happening right here in California and not just Third World nations.”

Grove also reminded committee members that multiple Planned Parenthood workers across the country have been captured on undercover videos assisting patients seeking abortions based on gender.

“Are American girls somehow less valuable or do they deserve less dignity, less worth?” Grove said at one point in her testimony….

…read more…

Saturated Fats Unrelated To Bad Health (Bacon v. Bread)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is a portion of the Wall Street Journal article by Nina Teicholz, entitled: “The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease“

“Saturated fat does not cause heart disease”—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. For many diet-conscious Americans, it is simply second nature to opt for chicken over sirloin, canola oil over butter.

The new study’s conclusion shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias.

Our distrust of saturated fat can be traced back to the 1950s, to a man named Ancel Benjamin Keys, a scientist at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Keys was formidably persuasive and, through sheer force of will, rose to the top of the nutrition world—even gracing the cover of Time magazine—for relentlessly championing the idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and, as a result, cause heart attacks.

[….]

One consequence is that in cutting back on fats, we are now eating a lot more carbohydrates—at least 25% more since the early 1970s. Consumption of saturated fat, meanwhile, has dropped by 11%, according to the best available government data. Translation: Instead of meat, eggs and cheese, we’re eating more pasta, grains, fruit and starchy vegetables such as potatoes. Even seemingly healthy low-fat foods, such as yogurt, are stealth carb-delivery systems, since removing the fat often requires the addition of fillers to make up for lost texture—and these are usually carbohydrate-based.

The problem is that carbohydrates break down into glucose, which causes the body to release insulin—a hormone that is fantastically efficient at storing fat. Meanwhile, fructose, the main sugar in fruit, causes the liver to generate triglycerides and other lipids in the blood that are altogether bad news. Excessive carbohydrates lead not only to obesity but also, over time, to Type 2 diabetes and, very likely, heart disease.

The real surprise is that, according to the best science to date, people put themselves at higher risk for these conditions no matter what kind of carbohydrates they eat. Yes, even unrefined carbs. Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish. The reality is that fat doesn’t make you fat or diabetic. Scientific investigations going back to the 1950s suggest that actually, carbs do.

The second big unintended consequence of our shift away from animal fats is that we’re now consuming more vegetable oils. Butter and lard had long been staples of the American pantry until Crisco, introduced in 1911, became the first vegetable-based fat to win wide acceptance in U.S. kitchens. Then came margarines made from vegetable oil and then just plain vegetable oil in bottles.

All of these got a boost from the American Heart Association—which Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crisco oil, coincidentally helped launch as a national organization. In 1948, P&G made the AHA the beneficiary of the popular “Walking Man” radio contest, which the company sponsored. The show raised $1.7 million for the group and transformed it (according to the AHA’s official history) from a small, underfunded professional society into the powerhouse that it remains today.

After the AHA advised the public to eat less saturated fat and switch to vegetable oils for a “healthy heart” in 1961, Americans changed their diets. Now these oils represent 7% to 8% of all calories in our diet, up from nearly zero in 1900, the biggest increase in consumption of any type of food over the past century.

This shift seemed like a good idea at the time, but it brought many potential health problems in its wake. In those early clinical trials, people on diets high in vegetable oil were found to suffer higher rates not only of cancer but also of gallstones. And, strikingly, they were more likely to die from violent accidents and suicides. Alarmed by these findings, the National Institutes of Health convened researchers several times in the early 1980s to try to explain these “side effects,” but they couldn’t. (Experts now speculate that certain psychological problems might be related to changes in brain chemistry caused by diet, such as fatty-acid imbalances or the depletion of cholesterol.)

We’ve also known since the 1940s that when heated, vegetable oils create oxidation products that, in experiments on animals, lead to cirrhosis of the liver and early death. For these reasons, some midcentury chemists warned against the consumption of these oils, but their concerns were allayed by a chemical fix: Oils could be rendered more stable through a process called hydrogenation, which used a catalyst to turn them from oils into solids.

From the 1950s on, these hardened oils became the backbone of the entire food industry, used in cakes, cookies, chips, breads, frostings, fillings, and frozen and fried food. Unfortunately, hydrogenation also produced trans fats, which since the 1970s have been suspected of interfering with basic cellular functioning and were recently condemned by the Food and Drug Administration for their ability to raise our levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol.

Yet paradoxically, the drive to get rid of trans fats has led some restaurants and food manufacturers to return to using regular liquid oils—with the same long-standing oxidation problems. These dangers are especially acute in restaurant fryers, where the oils are heated to high temperatures over long periods.

The past decade of research on these oxidation products has produced a sizable body of evidence showing their dramatic inflammatory and oxidative effects, which implicates them in heart disease and other illnesses such as Alzheimer’s. Other newly discovered potential toxins in vegetable oils, called monochloropropane diols and glycidol esters, are now causing concern among health authorities in Europe.

In short, the track record of vegetable oils is highly worrisome—and not remotely what Americans bargained for when they gave up butter and lard.

Cutting back on saturated fat has had especially harmful consequences for women, who, due to hormonal differences, contract heart disease later in life and in a way that is distinct from men. If anything, high total cholesterol levels in women over 50 were found early on to be associated with longer life. This counterintuitive result was first discovered by the famous Framingham study on heart-disease risk factors in 1971 and has since been confirmed by other research….

…read it all…

More info on the history of this myth via Tom Naughton (I will recommend another video byDr. Mercola):

John Cisna, a teacher, ate only McDonald’s to teach his class how to choose low caloric meals and how to embrace healthy choices, even at Mickey D’s.

The Government warned us strongly that we shouldn’t drink whole milk… but now that’s proving to be untrue. What else do they lie about?

AfterBurner ~ Time To Go [Boehner and McConnell]

Published by Papa Giorgio

Whatever happened to a loyal opposition? Boehner and McConnell just seem to be loyal, without the fervency and drive to oppose Obama’s recklessness. Bill Whittle is tired of seeing our country’s oldest tenets left hanging from a thread with no major leadership there to save them. It’s time for a new group of young leaders to takeover

It’s an Orwellian World We Live In ~ Pro-Life Arguments = Torture

Published by Papa Giorgio

First Things has a quick synopsis of the issue, then we will delve into National Review Online’s follow-up:

U.N. experts in Geneva were at it again last week telling the Holy See that Catholic teaching on abortion is a human rights abuse, revealing a chasm between the Church’s understanding of its mission and how U.N. officials perceive it. The episode is reminiscent of a time in history when secular leaders did not accept a separation of Church and State.

The American on the U.N. Committee Against Torture, Felice Gaer, told the Holy See that the Church’s position on abortion was a “concern” and that “women should have a right to choose.” Prohibitions on abortion are a form of torture according to Gaer—who ironically spent a decade on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

An expert from the country of Georgia tried to be nuanced, and accused the Catholic Church of having “publically shamed” women and doctors who commit abortions through excommunication, thereby torturing them….

(First Things)

The Catholic Church it Has No Right to Oppose Abortion ~ U.N.

When the committee met in Geneva on Monday [video] for a hearing on the Vatican’s compliance with the Convention Against Torture, Vice Chairperson Felice Gaer, an American, said in her opening statement that laws that ban all abortion—which is the position of the Catholic Church–may violate the convention. She also repeated verbatim some language that had been in a letter the CRR had sent to the committee on April 11.

Gaer, however, did not quote the section in CRR’s letter that urged the committee to tell the church that the freedoms of religion and speech did not give the church a right to advocate against abortion.

CRR’s letter included several recommendations for how the Committee Against Torture should deal with Catholicism.

CRR recommended: “Urge the Holy See to refrain from negatively interfering publicly or privately in women’s or legislators’ decisions concerning access to abortion and to support states as they attempt to align their policies on women’s reproductive rights with their obligations under the convention.”

CRR also recommended that in its upcoming report on the Vatican’s compliance with the Convention Against Torture, the committee should: “Note that the Holy See’s actions are a violation of Articles 1, 2 and 16 of the Convention Against Torture and that the rights of freedom of speech and of religion extend only so far as they do not undermine women’s reproductive rights.”

(CNS News)

Now for NRO’s excellent warning:

Kathryn has been covering the ongoing effort by radical pro-abortion NGOs to apply the U.N. Convention against Torture to the Catholic Church for — among other things — its international pro-life advocacy. The argument is so facially irrational that one would be tempted to dismiss it out of hand. Not even the U.N. could be so blindly malicious and ideological that it would attempt to destroy the church’s rights of free speech and religious liberty for the sake of protecting abortion-on-demand, could it?

Moreover, even if the U.N. Committee against Torture moved against the Vatican, such an action would be irrelevant to American courts and American constitutional law, wouldn’t it?

In fact, there is cause for concern. To be clear, the effort by the Center for Reproductive Rights clearly and explicitly targets the church’s rights to free speech and religious liberty. Here’s an excerpt from its recommendations to the Committee:

Note that the Holy See has negatively interfered with states’ attempts to develop legislation on abortion that would have served to better protect women from torture or ill-treatment. Note that the Holy See’s actions are a violation of Articles 1, 2, and 16 of the Convention against Torture and that the rights of freedom of speech and of religion extend only so far as they do not undermine women’s reproductive rights, including the right to be free from torture or ill-treatment. (Emphasis added.)

This is an astonishing statement, one that clearly targets the Catholic Church’s pro-life advocacy, equating it with state-sanctioned “torture or ill-treatment” of women and girls. By equating advocacy with torture, the Committee could begin an international legal process that would cause the U.N. to review statements or actions by pro-life public officials as “torture” within the meaning of the Convention. Radical pro-abortion groups would file amicus briefs citing new international legal standards equating pro-life advocacy with torture, thus claiming such advocacy is beyond the protection of the First Amendment. Indeed, the argument would be simple (and chilling): By permitting unfettered pro-life advocacy — by public officials and private citizens — the United States would be in violation of international law, specifically by torturing its own citizens.

[….]

It’s difficult to overstate the perversity of the abortion lobby’s U.N. argument. There are few acts more barbaric than abortion, and the very idea that such barbarism can be insulated even from criticism insults the very notion of free speech and obliterates religious liberty. This is a dramatic escalation of the already-overwrought “war against women” rhetoric, and one that would lead to such absurd results as domestic “women’s groups” accusing conservative candidates of literally torturing voters with pro-life arguments.

…read it all…

Media Carrying Water for the White House ~ IRS and Benghazi

Published by Papa Giorgio

Maddow: “Did you just call me a cheerleader?”

Rep. Huelskamp: “I don’t know, maybe you have that history. I’m saying—”

Maddow: “No, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on.”

Rep. Huelskamp: “When you’re a cheerleader for the administration, you’re not being a journalist. When you’re not willing to look at the facts. If it was Bush, you would be jumping and screaming.”

FrontPage Magazine has a story about Judicial Watch — through court order — getting emails that show collusion on the part of the White House… and ultimately, media cover-up. After quoting and email, some FP commentary about Benghazi is worth noting:

…This revelation appears to contradict written testimony given by Morell to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last April, during which he insisted that “there is no truth to the allegations that the CIA or I ‘cooked the books’ with regard to what happened in Benghazi and then tried to cover this up after the fact.” Morell also claimed it was Rice, not the CIA, who linked the video to the attack. “My reaction was two-fold,” he told Committee members, “One was that what she said about the attacks evolving spontaneously from a protest was exactly what the talking points said, and it was exactly what the intelligence community analysts believed. When she talked about the video, my reaction was, that’s not something that the analysts have attributed this attack to.”

Why is all this important? Because the false narrative concocted by the Obama administration deflected blame away from the State Department and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for not protecting the dedicated diplomats she had posted  in post-Qhaddafi Libya. This was a highly volatile environment and a burgeoning haven for terrorist groups, something the Obama administration did not want to admit. Morell has since left the CIA and joined a consulting firm founded by former aides to Clinton, front-runner for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president. This is a key issue of public trust that must be addressed. (The Foundry)

Rhodes’ email blows Morell’s allegation out of the water, but a critical question remains unanswered: who did brief Rice in the aforementioned “prep call”?

[….]

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who believes the newly released emails completely undermine President Obama’s 2012 campaign narrative (i.e. “Al Qaeda is on the run”), also believes a more thorough investigation of Benghazi is warranted. “I think the Republicans have something here that really ought to be looked at,” he said Tuesday. “I just don’t know if there’s gonna be any interest in the mainstream media. They should, because this exposes a cover-up of a cover-up. The fact that it was redacted when the documents were asked for and only revealed by a court order is telling you this is a classic cover-up of a cover-up, and that is a serious offense.”

What Krauthammer is referring to is the reality that Rhodes’ email wasn’t included in the 100 pages of emails released by the administration last May, when Republicans refused to confirm John Brennan as CIA director until the “taking points” memos were released. 

Yet Krauthammer’s other point about a lack of mainstream media interest is just as germane. Some of that lack may be driven by the reality that Ben Rhodes’ brother is CBS News President David Rhodes, who was not enamored with former CBS investigative report Sharyl Attkisson’s reporting on the attack, despite the fact that she had been one of the few reporters to follow the story wherever it led. Yesterday in interview with Glenn Beck, Attkisson said she was glad to see “a little more light” shed on that relationship, even as she bemoaned the incestuous relationship between Big Government and Big Media, and the increasing level of intimidation aimed at journalists who refuse to abide that collaboration.

Unfortunately, many in the media are still willing to carry water for the White House. The George Soros-funded Media Matters insists Fox News is “distorting” the use of Ben Rhodes’ memo “to falsely suggest that the administration was lying about the Benghazi attacks for political gain.” Slate’s Dave Weigel claims the email “was largely redundant” and that the talking points blaming the attacks on a video “came from the CIA,” apparently ignoring Morrel’s testimony. Politico Magazine Deputy Editor Blake Hounshell tweeted, ”Can you point me to a credible, authoritative story saying the WH knowingly pushed a false narrative?” demonstrating a willful obliviousness to the efforts undertaken by Attkisson, Karl and Fox’s Catherine Herridge.

That’s water-carrying by commission. There’s also water-carrying by omission. On Tuesday, when this story first broke, CBS This Morning was the only network broadcast to cover it. ABC, CBS and NBC completely omitted the story from their evening broadcasts.

…read more…

Many left leaning — influential — bloggers on the left sway their larger counterparts to the progressive agenda:

Progressive Bloggers Are Doing the White House’s Job

When Jay Carney was grilled at length by Jonathan Karl of ABC News over an email outlining administration talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, it was not, by the reckoning of many observers, the White House press secretary’s finest hour. Carney was alternately defensive and dismissive, arguably fueling a bonfire he was trying to tamp down.

But Carney needn’t have worried. He had plenty of backup.

He had The New Republic’s Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as “nonsense.” He had Slate’s David Weigel, along with The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog, debunking any claim that the new email was a “smoking gun.” Media Matters for America labeled Benghazi a “hoax.” Salon wrote that the GOP had a “demented Benghazi disease.” Daily Kos featured the headline: “Here’s Why the GOP Is Fired Up About Benghazi—and Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” The Huffington Post offered “Three Reasons Why Reviving Benghazi Is Stupid—for the GOP.”

It’s been a familiar pattern since President Obama took office in 2009: When critics attack, the White House can count on a posse of progressive writers to ride to its rescue. Pick an issue, from the Affordable Care Act to Ukraine to the economy to controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi, and you’ll find the same voices again and again, on the Web and on Twitter, giving the president cover while savaging the opposition. And typically doing it with sharper tongues and tighter arguments than the White House itself.

While the bond between presidential administrations and friendly opinion-shapers goes back as far as the nation itself, no White House has ever enjoyed the luxury that this one has, in which its arguments and talking points can be advanced on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis. No longer must it await the evening news or the morning op-ed page to witness the fruits of its messaging efforts.

[….]

Joan Walsh, an editor-at-large at Salon, brought this tension to a head last year when she slammed Klein for being too critical of the Obamacare rollout and, in essence, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. “On one hand, yes, it’s important for Democrats to acknowledge when government screws up, and to fix it,” Walsh wrote. “On the other hand, when liberals rush conscientiously to do that, they only encourage the completely unbalanced and unhinged coverage of whatever the problem might be.”

Unbalanced. Interesting word for a card-carrying member of the progressive media to use.

…read more…

The Kiss of Tolerance = “Tolerance” Camps for Dissenters

Published by Papa Giorgio

Gay Patriot has a great short commentary that led to me inserting the above video:

A player for the Miami Dolphins has been fined, suspended, and sentenced to Tolerance Camp for sending an unsupportive tweet upon the occasion of Michael Sam’s drafting and the PDA that followed.

[….]

Also, NBC’s Matt Lauer drives home the point that it doesn’t matter what a player does on the field, but who he goes to bed with at night that the MFM care about by calling for more gay Affirmative Action in the NFL. (Once again citing the tiresome “Right side of history” cliche leftists use because, apparently, being a leftist gives you the power of precognition to know how History is going to work out.)

“The big picture here in terms of the NFL, is this a sea change or is this a one-off? Is this the league moving to the right side of history? Which by the way, they really can’t do unless more players come forward.”

Powerline as well wades into the thick of the topic with this great commentary on the whole matter:

I wrote here about the selection by the St. Louis Rams of Michael Sam, an openly gay football player. The selection brought widespread praise including, predictably enough, from President Obama.

But at least one football player, Don Jones of the Miami Dolphins, reacted negatively — probably not to the selection itself, but rather to the exuberant kisses on the lips that Sam exchanged with his boyfriend while the cameras were rolling.

Jones tweeted “OMG” and “horrible.” For this expression of opinion, Jones has been duly punished. The Dolphins have denounced and fined him, and have barred him from team activities until he attends and completes “educational training.” Jones has issued an abject apology.

The Dolphins, of course, are still trying to overcome the adverse publicity generated by the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin “bullying” affair. But I suspect they would have come down hard on Jones regardless. The NFL — a thoroughly authoritarian operation that hardly allows players to celebrate touchdowns — is determined to crush any public expression of disapproval relating to Sam by anyone associated with the league.

Doing so will help the NFL’s image with the PC crowd and the gay community. Whether it will help Sam is another matter.

Jones probably isn’t the only NFL player who considered Sam’s very public wet kiss “horrible.” And more than a few players probably will resent seeing a fellow player silenced and shamed for expressing a sentiment they share or at least understand. That resentment might well manifest itself in resentment of Sam beyond the probably slight amount he would have experienced due to his sexual orientation.

Not much is sacred in a sports locker room or on the field. Attempts by the NFL to make Michael Sam a sacred cow may prove counterproductive.

Sam himself says he wants to be treated like a football player, not a gay football player. Football players are teased constantly for whatever it is they plausibly can be teased about. No speech code protects them. This is especially true of rookies.

[….]

Hot Air wonders what will happen if the Rams cut Michael Sam, not an uncommon fate for a player selected so late in the draft. The question answers itself: the Rams will be lambasted as “homophobic” and the NFL will suffer a black eye.

[….]

…Sterling engaged in a personal conversation that he did not intend to be made public. Were his comments offensive? Sure. Mostly, they were weird. But Sterling never meant to shove them into anyone’s face. Contrast this with the Sam kiss: why were television cameras present to record it in the first place? Did ESPN televise the reactions of any other 7th round draft choices? I don’t think so. The cameras were waiting for Sam to get the call only because he is gay, and the television networks want to promote the cause of homosexual equivalence. Is it unreasonable to infer that the kiss was televised precisely so that some individuals like Jones would take offense, and then be made into a lesson for the rest of us?

…read it all…

ALL Tweets from TWITCHY!

Boko Haram Kidnapped Girls Because of… Yep… Global Warming

Published by Papa Giorgio

From the annuls of “you thought you heard it all till…” — and it has EVERYTHING to do with the lefts inability to fight evil:

Britain’s Guardian newspaper has come up with a novel explanation for the kidnapping of over 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria. (h/t Marc Morano)

Conventional analyses have pinned the blame on the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram (which means: “Western education is forbidden”). But according to the Guardian’s Nafeez Ahmed, the real culprit is ‘climate change.’

After Breitbart quotes a bit from this article, they continue to point out that the author, Nafeez Ahmed, is a 9/11 truther as well:

The article is by no means Ahmed’s first attempt to exculpate Islamist terrorists’ actions by implying that the West is, in fact, mainly to blame. He is also a 9/11 Truther.

In fact, overwhelming evidence confirms that al-Qaeda networks in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Asia-Pacific, have been penetrated and manipulated by Western intelligence services. Conspiraloonery? If only it was. As I argue in my 3rd book, The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (2005), the evidence for this is extremely well-documented, deriving from innumerable, credible intelligence sources. But why? Largely to destabilize regional environments to pave the way for new “security” policies that serve to protect not people, but foreign investors taking over regional markets — especially markets with significant oil and gas deposits.

Ahmed’s work has been praised by luminaries including left-wing journalist John Pilger, who wrote:

“Nafeez Ahmed’s understanding of the post 9/11 power game, its lies, illusions and dangers, is no less than brilliant. Everyone should read this wise and powerfully illuminating book.”

…read it all…

As has been pointed out earlier… climate change causes all sorts of maladies (via The Corner):

Study: Global Warming Will Cause 180,000 More Rapes by 2099

Global warming isn’t just going to melt the Arctic and flood our cities—it’s also going to make Americans more likely to kill each other.

That’s the conclusion of a controversial new study that uses historic crime and temperature data to show that hotter weather leads to more murders, more rapes, more robberies, more assaults, and more property crimes…

…read it all…

These leftist are on the cutting edge of journalism… yuk, yuk. Breitbart provides a “COMPLETE” list of phenominom caused by Global Warming:

In case you haven’t seen his site, it purports to provide “A complete list of all the things that have been caused by global warming.”

The A section alone includes:

AIDS, Afghan poppies destroyed, African holocaust, aged deaths, poppies more potent, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatened,  aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pockets, air pressure changes,  airport farewells virtual, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaskan towns slowly destroyed, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, allergy increase, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  anaphylactic reactions to bee stings,  ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink,  Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear,  Arctic tundra lost, Arctic warming (not), a rose by any other name smells of nothing, asteroid strike risk, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty,   atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased,

Each entry includes a hyperlink to the article promulgating each particular spurious claim.

But nobody actually believes this stuff, surely?

Unfortunately, yes. The people who do are called liberals.

One of them is a friend of mine and, by way of a greeting, he sent me a link to this article in The Ecologist the other day. It’s headlined Time To Wake Up: the Climate Denial Beast and reports on a speech made by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, warning on the extent to which evil climate denialists are funded to pump out their vile propaganda by the agents of Big Oil.

Senator Whitehouse invites us to be shocked by the fact that, according to research by some activist or other at a German university, “from 2003 to 2010, 140 foundations made grants totaling $558 million to 91 organizations that actively oppose climate action.”…

…read more…

I A-c-t-u-a-l-l-y Agree: Rich, White Guys ARE Evil!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Who would of thunk? I a-c-t-u-a-l-l-y agree with liberals! I too think rich, white, men are evil and are ruining both our country, and the world!

I apologize… for us — even if I am poor:

….Now take a look at the top executives at eight of the top 10 groups devoted to fighting that “Global Warming” fight:

  • Sierra Club? White male.
  • Nature Conservancy? White male.
  • League of Conservation Voters? White male.
  • World Wildlife Fund? White male.
  • Environmental Defense Fund? White male.
  • Friends of the Earth? White male.
  • National Audubon Society? White male.
  • Nature Conservancy? White male.

Check your privilege, greenies. (http://tinyurl.com/kmm977b)

WOW! These white males ARE ruining the country! (Editors note, two things: 1. I like when a presupposition from within a religious or political premise is applied on itself; 2. I am beginning to agree with the left that white males are evil!)

The below is from Progressives Today: