(Powerline) Barack Obama steadfastly refuses to go near the border crisis his policies have created, despite the entreaties of quite a few Democrats. His explanation: “I’m not interested in photo-ops; I’m interested in solving a problem.” Which struck a lot of people as funny, since along with fundraising, photo ops are Obama’s obsession. If he is not interested in a photo op at the border–not even a selfie!–it could be the first time ever.
UPDATED W/VIDEO
Gateway Pundit has two stories that really should be one. The first is of the Australian government cutting back 90% of the funding related to global warming from their annual budget.
The Daily Caller reported:
Australia’s conservative coalition is set to cut more than 90 percent of the funding related to global warming from their budget, from $5.75 billion this year to $500 million, over the next four years.
Environmentalists and leftist politicians in the country protested the move by conservative Liberal Party Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s governing coalition to slash funding for climate programs, arguing such funding for green energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions were necessary to stop global warming….
And the other old story that is more than worth repeating is this (via Gateway):
Over five years ago Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. Gore made the prediction to a German audience in 2008. He told them that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”
This wasn’t the only time Gore made his ice-free prediction. Gore’s been predicting this since 2007. That means that this year the North Pole should be completely melted by now.
Not only is the North Polar cap not melted away – global warming is not happening either. There has been no global warming in 17 years and 9 months [graph at top].
This flat-line comes at a time of a drastic increase in CO2:
Climate scientist Dr. Murry Salby, Professor and Climate Chair at Macquarie University, Australia explains in a recent, highly-recommended lecture presented at Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany, why man-made CO2 is not the driver of atmospheric CO2 or climate change.
Dr. Salby demonstrates:
See and Read More HERE
See more at Gateway Pundit
Bill O’Reilly cuts through the nonsense and the rhetoric. He features a statement by Border Patrol spokesperson agent Hector Garza, as well as a statement made on national television by Texas Governor Rick Perry. Both of the men share the opinion that the Obama regime is not engaged, at least not in a positive manner, in the border crisis.
O’Reilly also shows a clip of a woman who travelled from Honduras to the United States and was relocated into Maryland and given a court date. The news crews were there at her appointment, but she wasn’t. She also doesn’t answer at the address she listed as her residence.
While O’Reilly reports a 20% figure as those who actually meet their immigration appointment, that seems high.
He offers some lively commentary on the Obama response to the border situation and the lax immigration enforcement in general. It is accurate and not very complimentary.
Powerline has this story of government run media being used to guide the public towards a certain conclusion.
Salon.com (yes, I know) is celebrating that the BBC has decided to go full Pravda on us and cease allowing “climate deniers” on the air. Well, it is a government-run media establishment. But that would be the same BBC that refused to allow Churchill to broadcast his “appeasement denial” views back in the 1930s. Yup, same slimy people.
Anyway, quoth a jubilant Salon:
Good news for viewers of BBC News: you’ll no longer be subjected to the unhinged ravings of climate deniers and other members of the anti-science fringe. . . Were every network to start doing what the BBC is, their unfounded opinions would cease to be heard, Bill Nye wouldn’t have to keep debating them, and maybe, just maybe, they’d all just go away.
Esquire Magazine goes further in it’s diatribe of censorship that prove there is a totalitarian in every leftist waiting to get out, something Powerline missed, by-the-way:
The BBC Forbids Idiots On The Topic Of Science: No longer must Bill Nye debate the ignorant, at least in the U.K.
[….]
…BBC journalists must now attend seminars with academics and scientists who educate on what constitutes popular and marginal opinions.
Perpetuating ignorance for the sake of entertainment is not only getting boring, but is actively dangerous. US media companies should take note. American media makes political bipartisanship a game of spin and false controversy, which—as Jon Stewart will tell you—can inflict a lot of very real pain….
Yes, re-education camps… you read it right. Scientism on the march in the name of secularism. The Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge, would be proud, as would others. Even the HHS is defining media in the immigration battle, this from The Corner:
– No recording devices will be allowed
– No questions will be allowed during the tour
– No interacting with staff and children at the shelter
– We ask that your questions be provided via email or phone after the tour to Kenneth Wolfe
– HHS ACF public affairs will provide answers to your follow up questions as quickly as possible
– We will provide photos of the facility after the tour
– There will be no on-site interviews by HHS staff before or after the tour, all inquiries go to Kenneth Wolfe
To continue… while the BBC stops debate on climate, the UK starts to talk seriously about the normality of pedophilia. CNN notes just how bad it is for the BBC in this regard:
Gay Patriot notes the following:
An increasingly vocal and open group of prominent British Academics is claiming that paedophilia is a perfectly normal and natural thing.
“Paedophilic interest is natural and normal for human males,” said the presentation. “At least a sizeable minority of normal males would like to have sex with children … Normal males are aroused by children.”
The presentation in question was presented at an academic conference at Cambridge University in the UK, where other topics included: “Liberating the paedophile: a discursive analysis,” and “Danger and difference: the stakes of hebephilia.”
And — like every other horror of the current ear — this has its roots in the sexual liberation movement of the 1970′s.
With the Pill, the legalisation of homosexuality and shrinking taboos against premarital sex, the Seventies was an era of quite sudden sexual emancipation. Many liberals, of course, saw through PIE’s cynical rhetoric of “child lib”. But to others on the Left, sex by or with children was just another repressive boundary to be swept away – and some of the most important backing came from academia. [Emphasis added]
Hey, “Love is Love,” right?…
Malcolm Muggeridge (a British journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier-spy and, in his later years, a Catholic convert and writer) said it best:
“If God is ‘dead,’ somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Heffner.”
A friend showed this graphic to me and I uploaded a response to it by Larry Elder for him. And another acquaintance of mine on FaceBook also responded to the above graph, I will include his commentary as well. Enjoy the excoriation of a White House graph/talking point. Here is what my friend said — sarcastically — with the graphic.:
Firstly, you underestimate my ability Scott H. Secondly, job growth IS good… but it is how you define “is” and “good.” Did Obama stifle majorly what our engine of the free market is capable of? There are two link below that are worth taking some time rummaging through… especially Amity’s work:
From the video description of the above video:
Larry Elder talks about the harm in having government meddle in the recovery of our free-market systems. Other topics on this from history can be found here:
✦ Uncommon Knowledge: The Great Depression with Amity Shlaes (http://youtu.be/lLeAqbOUt4c);
✦ The History of Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (http://tinyurl.com/qdgf6eo)
For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/
And here is some input from Brian C.
Scott says you cannot argue with statistics, oh yes I can! You can make statistics say anything you want! That is what Obama does with the jobs numbers and the GDP! Sean those numbers are not the real job numbers. Those are the fixed job numbers that politicians use to make themselves look good, when in fact they are crappy! In fact, every month we have been loosing jobs. They do not count the people who lost their job or left the work force in those numbers. Last month they reported a net loss of over 100,000 jobs in the private sector. We have been loosing around that and more since Obama took office. That is why the number of people working has gone down every year since Obama took office! This is why we have record number of people on the government dole! There have been jobs created but when you take the jobs that have been lost, it is a net loss! Obama is a private sector job destroyer! Even the jobs that are created are mostly low paying jobs! These are the things liberals and the news media will not tell you!
Just wanted to give the reader a few avenues in responding to the above propaganda.
I just came across this and wanted to know more about it and found Inconvenient History’s blog post on it. Thank you.
…First, the excerpt is taken out of context. What was Reagan really speaking about? The excerpt appears like those vintage World War II photos with incorrect captions asserting that something is there in the photo when it is not.
A quick examination reveals that the footage is indeed real and was taken in 1967. But wouldn’t such footage have been used against Reagan in his various political campaigns including two for the presidency? And, even if buried at the time, surely such footage would have come out during his controversial visit to the Waffen SS cemetery at Bitburg. But, I have no recollection of such comments.
Today, however thanks to the power of the Internet, one is able to answer such questions in minutes. The short clip was indeed Reagan and it was taken in 1967. However, the topic was not the Holocaust. In fact, during a CBS Television and Radio broadcast on May 15th hosted by Charles Collingwood, then Governor Ronald Reagan was debating aspects of the Vietnam war with then Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Jeff Jordan asked Reagan whether he approved that the Diem regime put six million in forced prison camps and that American advisors did nothing “but help them in this.” To which Reagan responded,
“I challenge your history again. There is absolutely no record that six million people were put in concentration camps. They only have 16 million to begin with. Now, I’d also like to challenge something else about the supposed evils of the Diem regime. I do approve of Diem’s land reform in which he took from the great mandarin holdings, and began to make land available to the peasants and to the people of Vietnam, who had never owned land before. But also, I would like to call to your attention that a team from the U.N. was sent to Saigon, Vietnam, to investigate the charges against Diem’s regime They did investigate those, but as they returned to this country, Diem was assassinated, which I think was one of the great tragedies of this whole conflict; and the United Nations report, which they declined to make official because they thought why bring anything up now that he’s been killed, has on the other hand, been published, there has been public access to it, and the United Nations report completely cleared the Diem regime of any of the charges that had been brought against him.”
And thus in minutes our 9 second clip is exposed as a complete hoax. I certainly hope that this hoax disappears quickly from the internet and is not passed around by those who think they have found an ally in Ronald Reagan….
Here is the whole video:
This incredible story comes via The Blaze:
Progressive commentator Sally Kohn took aim at a word she deemed derogatory and dehumanizing in a CNN column published on July 4.
She compared the term to “n*****” and “f*****” and called for an end to its public usage.
The word: “illegal.”
Here’s how she opened her column:
During the civil rights era, Alabama Gov. George Wallace was asked by a supporter why he was fixated on the politics of race. Wallace replied, ‘You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about n*ggers, and they stomped the floor.’
In the 1980s, during the rise of the gay rights movement, North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms accused a political opponent for supporting ‘f*ggots, perverts [and] sexual deviates of this nation.’
Today, opponents of immigration reform attack undocumented immigrants as ‘illegal immigrants.’ Even worse, like anti-immigration extremists, some prominent elected officials use the term ‘illegals.’ Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, said, ‘I urge all Mainers to tell your city councilors and selectmen to stop handing out your money to illegals.’
Not the same thing? Of course it is.
She goes on to call for the elimination of the term “illegal” from public discourse, essentially arguing that social pressure should be employed to rid American parlance of the adjective.
Walter Hudson (PJ Media) explains what we are not going to do… and that is, dilute real evil, real meaning, to terms that are TRULY offensive:
Even the MMA guys/gals get it… but don’t hold your breath for the cultural Marxists to do anything else thean want to change and control language — to suit their purposes.
In many countries, you can be jailed and lose your life for this choice!
Recently, a Texas teenager made headlines with photos of her hunting expeditions. Below the White Rhino is said to be “rare.” But is this the reality? For instance, the WWF mentions the numbers now compared to their near extinction:
✦ The majority (98.8%) of white rhinos occur in just four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. Northern white rhinos and southern white rhinos are genetically distinct subspecies and are found in two different regions in Africa. Southern white rhinos were thought to be extinct in the late 19th century, but in 1895 a small population of less than 100 individuals was discovered in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. After more than a century of protection and management, they are now classified as Near Threatened and about 20,000 animals exist in protected areas and private game reserves. They are the only rhinos that are not endangered.
In other words, if it weren’t for these hunting reserves and their great capability of protecting endangered species, the White Rhino would be — I repeat — would be most likely extinct.
But this didn’t stop former porn star who lived with Charlie Sheen saying hunter Kendall Jones lacks morals. however, as usual, the left does not understand how supply and demand can properly conserve something that altruism never can. More from the Mail Online:
…’Controlling the male lion population is important within large fenced areas like these,’ Jones writes. ‘Funds from a hunt like this goes partially to the government for permits but also to the farm owner as an incentive to keep and raise lions on their property.’
Jones’s photos show her posing with bagged zebras, hugging a dead leopard, and smiling beside elephants she’s killed.
One particular photo, in which she’s posing alongside a an extremely endangered rhinoceros, has her critics especially steaming, but the Texas Tech cheerleader says it was alive and well.
‘The vet drew blood, took DNA samples, took body and head measurements, treated a leg injury and administered antibiotics. I felt very lucky to be part of such a great program and procedure that helps the White Rhino population through conservation,’ she wrote….
Technology Tell tells us more about the sitch:
…Since posting photos posing with her game, Jones’ has come under attack. People are under the impression Jones is a giant A-hole who just flies to Africa and starts poaching animals for no good reasons other than because she thinks it’s awesome. This is not the case.
On her page, Jones writes:
Ok I’m gonna explain for the 53567544th time. The rhino was a green hunt, meaning it was darted and immobilized in order to draw blood for testing, DNA profiling, microchip ping the horn and treating a massive leg injury most likely caused by lions. People try to say that lions will not attack a hippo, rhino or elephant, quiet the contrary. Lions attack and kill the young of these species. The adults try to fight the lions off and are regularly successful, but do get injuries in the process. As for the lion that I shot with my bow, it was within a 45,000 acre fence with other lions and plains game. It’s in S Africa, so yes it was within a fence, but 45,000 acres is the equivalent to 70 square miles and considered fair chase. Lions that have come in and taken over a pride, not only kick the older lion out, but will also kill all of his cubs so that the lioness will come into heat again. Controlling the male lion population is important within large fenced areas like these in order to make sure the cubs have a high survival rate.
She goes on to explain the fencing situation and the purpose for the raising of lions within the fence, then continues:
Now to the leopard, this was a free ranging leopard in Zimbabwe on communal land. The money for the permit goes to the communal council and to their village people. Within this area of approximately 250,000 acres, 107 head of cattle was killed in a single year due to leopard kills. Leopard populations have to be controlled in certain areas.
For the lazy readers, I’ll summarize. Kendall handsomely paid the government and the farmers for the hunt, fed the community with the game, didn’t even kill some of the game during the “green hunt” (and actually helped injured animals), and she provided necessary, ordained population trimming to the local conservation efforts….
In another informative article, American Hunter notes well that capitalism and hunting equal growth in endangered animal populations:
…Zimbabwe was down below 30,000 elephants in 1989, but today the population is about 110,000. CITES allows Zimbabwe 500 permits a year, or less than half of 1 percent of its population. Elephants reproduce at a rate of 4 to 5 percent a year. Because of the growth rate, Botswana has more than 130,000 elephants. Experts say its carrying capacity is 60,000. Botswana will be issued a quota of 400 elephant by CITES in 2010.
The plain fact is that Africa is a developing continent with a largely rural population that must, for lack of an alternative, derive virtually all of its revenue from natural resources. According to the World Bank, 60 percent of the Sub-Saharan African population lives on less than $1 per day.
African governments have increasingly recognized wildlife as a precious natural resource that can be managed through sustained-utilization, which is to say, hunting.
Even more telling, some African countries have tried bans on hunting. There are two examples of this: Kenya and Tanzania. Tanzania closed hunting in 1973 and reopened it in 1978 after poaching reduced its elephant population by over half. Once hunting reopened, the elephant rebounded to a current population around 125,000.
In 1977 Kenya banned hunting and has never reopened it. The costs have been staggering. According to the African Conservation Foundation, 70 percent of Kenya’s wildlife outside national parks has been poached out. Kenya’s elephants fared even worse: between 1979 and 1989, the elephant population fell from 130,000 to 17,000.
What does hunting provide? Two things: money and oversight. As we noted, rural Africans are poor and must eke a living from whatever means are most expeditious. Safari companies provide long-term employment to rural Africans. There are the immediate and obvious jobs, such as working in a hunting camp, but there are also anti-poaching teams, bridge and road building crews and game scouts who all derive a livelihood from hunting.
In Zimbabwe, hunting elephants alone generates $15 million a year, according to George Pangeti of the Zimbabwe Parks Department. And continent-wide, approximately $77 million will be generated from the 1,540 quota of hunted elephant set by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) for 2010.
In the 2007 hunting season in South Africa, 16,394 foreign hunters spent $91 million, according to the South African Professional Hunters Association. The association estimates that 70,000 jobs are created by South Africa’s game-ranching industry.
[….]
The elephant is another excellent example of the benefits of hunting. CITES was formed in 1973 as African elephants were being hammered by commercial poachers for their ivory. The elephant population in Africa dropped from over 1 million in 1970 to at least 472,269 in 2006, according to the World Conservation Union. Most estimates say the actual elephant population in Africa is around 600,000 today.
In 1989, CITES banned commercial ivory sales yet allowed hunted trophies to be exported. Once the ivory trade was stifled, elephant populations in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa bounced back. The countries without growing elephant populations today are in unstable regions, such as the Congo, where poaching is still a problem.
Zimbabwe was down below 30,000 elephants in 1989, but today the population is about 110,000. CITES allows Zimbabwe 500 permits a year, or less than half of 1 percent of its population. Elephants reproduce at a rate of 4 to 5 percent a year. Because of the growth rate, Botswana has more than 130,000 elephants. Experts say its carrying capacity is 60,000. Botswana will be issued a quota of 400 elephant by CITES in 2010….