Author: Papa Giorgio

Hollywoods New Age Environ-mental-ism (emphasis on “mental”)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Moonbattery has this excerpt from Gwyneth Paltrow:

Just how wacky are the Hollyweird moonbats who use their inordinate influence to chart the course of our culture? The America-denouncing (and America-boycotting) Gwyneth Paltrow demonstrates:

“I am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter,” she wrote on her website GOOP. “I have long had Dr [Masaru] Emoto’s coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around it.”

It’s all based on actual science:

Her scientist friend Dr. Habib Sadeghi described an experiment where “Emoto poured pure water into vials labelled with negative phrases like ‘I hate you’ or ‘Fear’. After 24 hours, the water was frozen, and no longer crystallised under the microscope: It yielded grey, misshapen clumps instead of beautiful lace-like crystals.”

In contrast, he wrote water labeled “’I love you’ or ‘Peace’” produced “gleaming, perfectly hexagonal crystals.”

…read more…

When people reject God, they put into His place something… literally anything [read here the “ocean”] to answer to. G. K. Chesterton said:

  • “When a man ceases to believe in God he does not believe in nothing, he believes almost in anything.”

A truly “wild” example of this truth. (See more at The Blaze)

Sikhs Clash With Traditional Weapons at the Golden Temple

Published by Papa Giorgio

This story comes via International Business Times:

Violent clashes broke out on Friday morning in a temple complex which houses the holiest Sikh shrine, injuring at least a dozen people.

The clashes between Sikh groups broke out in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India’s Punjab state, on the 30th anniversary of the controversial entry of the Indian army inside the holy shrine.

The army operation, titled ‘Operation Bluestar,’ was meant to drive out armed terrorists supporting separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from the temple complex regarded as a holy place by Sikhs around the world.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who ordered the operation, was killed by her Sikh body guards in retaliation months later.

Friday’s clashes were triggered when a radical Sikh group’s leader attempted to make a speech from the rostrum of the Akal Takht, one of the five most important seats of power in the Sikh religion, and chanted slogans supporting Khalistan, or independent Sikh homeland.

Simranjit Singh Mann, a separatist leader and the head of the hardline faction Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar, tried to grab the microphone from the head priest of the Akal Takht when the ceremony commemorating the army operation began.

The task force volunteers from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which manages the temple complex, objected to this, triggering the clash. Local media reported that swords and other traditional weapons were used by both sides….

…read more…

Bergdahl’s Former Platoon Fights Back Amid Criticism ~ The Kelly File

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via The Kelly File ~ Awesome Stuff!

(Gateway Pundit) Former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow, the team leader the night Bowe Bergdahl initially disappeared, and five former Bergdahl platoon mates went on The Kelly File on Thursday to discuss the latest Obama scandal.

  • Former Sgt. Buetow: He walked away in the middle of Afghanistan on the farthest front lines you could be on to go seek out the Taliban.
  • Megyn Kelly: Do you feel that was an affront to you, that to say his service was with honor and…
  • Beutow: Saying that’s honorable. Saying that walking away, whatever his agenda was with trying to connect with the Taliban, explain to me how that’s honorable? I mean that’s spitting in the face to everyone who deployed, came back, and…
  • Second Bergdahl platoon mate: Not even every one in this company but every single one in the military.

Former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow, the team leader the night Bowe Bergdahl initially disappeared, told The Kelly File on Thursday that, “I had to leave the room,” when Obama announced his deal with the Taliban in the Rose Garden.

Buetow joined five platoon mates on The Kelly File tonight. All six platoon members said they consider Bergdahl a deserter.

Watch Climate Debate Between Morano & TV Anchor Anand Naidoo

Published by Papa Giorgio

Also, see the recent recanting of major contributor to the Global Warming theory, via Climate Depot:

Scientist Dr. Daniel Botkin Tells Congress why he reversed his belief in global warming to become a skeptic: ‘There are several lines of evidence suggesting that it (AGW) is a weaker case today, not a stronger case’ — Rips Obama climate report as ‘filled with misstatements contradicted by well-established and well-known scientific papers’

Prominent Scientist Dr. Botkin, who has studied climate change for 45 years, told the Committee in Q&A:  ‘I have been concerned about global warming since 1968 and in the 1980s, it looked like the weight of evidence lent towards human induced climate change, to a significant extant, and since then it’s moved against it.’

Later in the hearing, Botkin elaborated: ‘I was concerned that there was a human induced climate warning and I gave talks and TV interviews that said that, but since the middle of the 1990s, there is evidence that is running against that. 

For example the temperature change is not tracking carbon dioxide very well. Then there is the information from the long term antarctic ice core and some from recent paper in the arctic,  that suggest that carbon dioxide does not lead temperature change,  it may actually lag it significantly or may not lead it at all, and if that is the case that is still an open but important scientific evidence. 

So there are several lines of evidence that are suggesting that it (AGW) is a weaker case today, not a stronger case.’

[….]

Selected Excerpts: (Full Testimony here)

Since 1968 I have published research on theoretical global warming, its potential ecological effects, and the implications for people and biodiversity. I have spent my career trying to help conserve our environment and its great diversity of species. In doing so I have always attempted to maintain an objective, intellectually honest, scientific approach in the best tradition of scientific endeavor. I have, accordingly, been dismayed and disappointed in recent years that this subject has been converted into a political and ideological debate.

[….]

I want to state up front that we have been living through a warming trend driven by a variety of influences. However, it is my view that this is not unusual, and contrary to the characterizations by the IPCC and the National Climate Assessment, these environmental changes are not apocalyptic nor irreversible.

2. My biggest concern is that both the reports present a number of speculative, and sometimes incomplete, conclusions embedded in language that gives them more scientific heft than they deserve. The reports are “scientific-sounding” rather than based on clearly settled facts or admitting their lack. Established facts about the global environment exist less often in science than laymen usually think.

3. HAS IT BEEN WARMING? Yes, we have been living through a warming trend, no doubt about that. The rate of change we are experiencing is also not unprecedented, and the “mystery” of the warming “plateau” simply indicates the inherent complexity of our global biosphere. Change is normal, life on Earth is inherently risky; it always has been. The two reports, however, makes it seem that environmental change is apocalyptic and irreversible. It is not.

[….]

The extreme overemphasis on human-induced global warming has taken our attention away from many environmental issues that used to be front and center but have been pretty much ignored in the 21st century.

Nine Environmental Issues that need our attention now

  • Energy
  • Fresh water
  • Phosphorus and other essential minerals
  • Habitat destruction
  • Invasive-species control
  • Endangered species
  • Pollution by directly toxic substances
  • Fisheries
  • Forests

Other scientists turning on “evidence” of anthropogenic global warming.

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips IPCC at Congressional Hearing: ‘The IPCC leadership has in the past been very adept at putting troublesome authors in positions where they cannot harm the cause. That practice must end’

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips 97% consensus claim: ‘The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever’ – IPCC Lead Author Trashes 97% Consensus claims: UN IPCC Lead Author & University of Sussex economist Dr. Richard Tol: ‘Science is, of course, never settled.’ – Tol: ‘The 97% estimate is bandied about by basically everybody.  I had a close look at what this study really did. as far as I can see, The estimate just crumbles when you touch it. None of the statements in the papers are supported by the data that’s in the paper. The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever.

Flashback: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol admits no global warming for 17 years – Rips bias in IPCC – UN’s ‘inbuilt alarmism made me step down’ – ‘By the time the report was finished, however, it hadn’t warmed for 17 years’

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘One of the startling facts about climate change is that there are very few facts about climate change. Climate change is mainly something of the future so we are really talking about model projections’

Congressional hearing: Scientists say UN IPCC puts politics before science, needs reform – IPCC Lead Author Tol: ‘Competent people are excluded because their views do not match those of their government’

UN Lead Author Michael Oppenheimer Admits to Congress Climate Science Not ‘Settled’: ‘The question of exactly how warm the Earth will become as a result (of rising CO2), that’s not’ settled

Climate Depot Note: Dr. Botkin joins many other scientists who recently publicly dissented from man-made climate fears.

The global warming movement continues to lose scientists, many formerly with the UN IPCC.

Another Prominent Scientist Dissents: Environmental physicist Dr. Jean-Louis Pinault: ‘This is a very uneven debate, skeptics cannot enforce their arguments in scientific journals that are subject to censorship’ – Declares AGW has produced an ‘economic and political media frenzy unprecedented in the history of science’

Another Dissenter: Geoscientst & former UN Consultant Dr. David Kear declares warming fears ‘based on unfounded unscientific beliefs’ – An ‘innocent gas, CO2, has been demonized and criminalized’

Another Prominent Scientist Dissents! Fmr. NASA Scientist Dr. Les Woodcock ‘Laughs’ at Global Warming – ‘Global warming is nonsense’ Top Prof. Declares

Flashback: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol admits no global warming for 17 years – Rips bias in IPCC – UN’s ‘inbuilt alarmism made me step down’ – ‘By the time the report was finished, however, it hadn’t warmed for 17 years’

Green Guru James Lovelock on Climate Change: ‘I don’t think anybody really knows what’s happening. They just guess’ – Lovelock Reverses Himself on Global Warming

More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore

Top Swedish Climate Scientist Says Warming Not Noticeable: ‘The warming we have had last a 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all’ – Award-Winning Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, formerly of UN IPCC: ‘We Are Creating Great Anxiety Without It Being Justified’

‘High Priestess of Global Warming’ No More! Former Warmist Climate Scientist Judith Curry Admits To Being ‘Duped Into Supporting IPCC’ – ‘If the IPCC is dogma, then count me in as a heretic’

German Meteorologist reverses belief in man-made global warming: Now calls idea that CO2 Can Regulate Climate ‘Sheer Absurdity’ — ‘Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us’

UN Scientists Who Have Turned on the UN IPCC & Man-Made Climate Fears — A Climate Depot Flashback Report – Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

‘Some of the most formidable opponents of climate hysteria include politically liberal physics Nobel laureate, Ivar Giaever; Freeman Dyson; father of the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock — ‘Left-center chemist, Fritz Vahrenholt, one of the fathers of the German environmental movement’

Flashback: Left-wing Env. Scientist Bails Out Of Global Warming Movement: Declares it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon…strictly an imaginary problem of the 1st World middleclass’

Krauthammer Notes The Disconnect Of The Admin (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio
Obama Inspired Taliban To Kidnap More

…For the Taliban, it doesn’t matter. They see the exchange as an unmitigated victory. “Our talks finally proved successful for the prisoners’ swap,” says the commander. “We returned our valued guest to his people and in return, they freed our five heroes held in Guantanamo Bay since 2002.”…

…“I cannot explain how our people are happy and excited over this unbelievable achievement.” (He too has been known to TIME for several years). “This is a historic moment for us. Today our enemy for the first time officially recognized our status.”…

….Asked whether the Taliban would be inspired by the exchange to kidnap others, he laughed. “Definitely,” he says. “It’s better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of useless people. It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work hard to capture such an important bird.”

(Time Magazine, HotAir, andThe Hill)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: But that’s not a messaging problem, that’s a conceptual problem. They have no idea what they actually did. Even those of us who might grudgingly accept the cost of that swap would understand that this is a defeat for the United States. This is a moment of solemn solemnity and sorrow that we had to make this deal endangering our country as a result but in the name of saving someone. But the president thought of it as a victory lap, shows up in the Rose Garden, he has his acolytes speaking about this being a happy day, Harry Reid, it’s a day we ought to celebrate. This is insane. This is a defeat for the United States, and, if anything, you regretfully announce it solemnly and you move on.

Gay Patriot provides this UPDATE:

As the Bergdahl Narrative Falls Apart, Obama Administration Turns Its Venom on the Troops

One might have been tempted to think the Obama Administration had hit rock-bottom when they called Bowe Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers liars and “swift-boaters*” for disputing the Administration’s official line that Bergdahl served with “honor and distinction.” (Maybe with the Taliban.) That seemed to be as low they could go.

Then, somebody went and tossed them a shovel.

An administration spokesman (for the Department of Housing and Urban Development) took to Teh Twitters and called those soldiers (the ones that didn’t desert and collaborate with the Taliban)… “psychopaths.” 

…read it all…

MUST Bake Cakes for Gay Events, Plus, Reeducation Camps For You

Published by Papa Giorgio

In another case a Christian bakery shut down due to mob tactics (e.g., fascism):

NPR’s Nina Totenberg, on the July 8, 1995 edition of Inside Washington wished for Jesse Helms and/or his grandkids to get AIDS.

Christian bakery closes after LGBT threats, protests

….“It’s a sad day for Christian business owners and it’s a sad day for the First Amendment,” owner Aaron Klein told me. “The LGBT attacks are the reason we are shutting down the shop. They have killed our business through mob tactics.”

Last January, Aaron and Melissa Klein made national headlines when they refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.

Klein tells me he has nothing against homosexuals — but because of their religious faith, the family simply cannot take part in gay wedding events.

“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said. “I don’t want to help somebody celebrate a commitment to a lifetime of sin.”

The lesbian couple filed a discrimination with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and told their story to local newspapers and television statements.

Within days, militant homosexuals groups launched protests and boycotts. Klein told me he received messages threatening to kill his family. They hoped his children would die. [an old liberal tactic, see video to the right.]

The LGBT protestors then turned on other wedding vendors around the community. They threatened to boycott any florists, wedding planners or other vendors that did business with Sweet Cakes By Melissa.

“That tipped the scales,” Klein said. “The LGBT activists inundated them with phone calls and threatened them. They would tell our vendors, ‘If you don’t stop doing business with Sweet Cakes By Melissa, we will shut you down.’”….

See previous post on “camp” topic: The Kiss of Tolerance = “Tolerance” Camps for Dissenters

Professor of Anesthesiology at Loma Linda University Interviewed

Published by Papa Giorgio

A short bio and interview of Dr. Bernard Brandstater MB, BS, FRCA, FANZCA, FACA, Professor of Anesthesiology, Loma Linda University via Creation.com:

  • Organized and hosted the first congress of anesthesiologists in the Middle East: 127 specialists and professors from 23 different countries.
  • Founded the Middle East Journal of Anaesthesiology, still going strong today.
  • Gave the first epidural anesthesia in the Middle East; gave the first thousand himself, on-call day and night for a long time.
  • Designed a novel multiple-aperture epidural catheter that became used world-wide.
  • Introduced positive-pressure artificial respiration, replacing obsolete tank respirators.
  • Had the first survivals recorded anywhere of babies with tetanus of the newborn.
  • Introduced prolonged intubation1to assist infant breathing.2 This landmark technology spread rapidly. It triggered the quick appearance of neonatal intensive care units around the world. Dr Brandstater was invited to present a lecture on this at a 2013 conference at Sydney University.
  • Was emergency medical consultant for King Saud of Saudi Arabia. He gave anesthesia to three of his queens, plus other VIPs.
  • Designed and inaugurated the surgery suite at the new University Hospital. Hundreds of casualties from the Lebanese civil war were treated there.
  • Lived through the dramatic 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and the surrounding Arab nations. Refugees flooded into Lebanon, and sadly they helped to disrupt the delicate politico-religious balance in Lebanon.
  • In 1969 was appointed a professor of anesthesiology at Loma Linda University, California. He again served as founding chairman of a new department, which is now large and influential.
  • Founded an anesthesia program for dentistry, now a model for programs elsewhere. He also inaugurated the Loma Linda Pain Clinic; and there’s much more!

…read it all…

Why Frank Underwood From “House of Cards” Is a Democrat

Published by Papa Giorgio

From Politico:

…Deep down there is something rotten in the state of Frank Underwood. He isn’t just self-interested and ambitious. His ambition is boundless. Saying he has no principles is unfair to people without principles. Underwood is willing to do anything to serve himself and accumulate power, and in the first two seasons we’ve seen Frank do horrific things as he tries to climb the greasy pole. In short, Underwood isn’t just an unattractive person. He’s a psychopath. So why did the creators of the show make him a Democrat?

“House of Cards” is based on the British show of the same name. The creator of the American version, Beau Willimon, has followed many of the plot twists of the British version turn for turn. But in the British version, the main character is a conservative. Why did Willimon make Spacey’s character a Democrat who leans liberal, when he leans at all?

In an interview with TV Guide, Willimon described Underwood as “two scoops of LBJ with a dash of Richard III and a pinch of Hannibal Lecter.” Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the great congressional arm-twisters of the 20th century and one of the most ruthless and ambitious politicians of all time. Underwood’s office has a famous set of pictures of the real-life LBJ working a colleague over with a mixture of charm and bullying, very much in the way Underwood behaves on the show. So there’s an element of cinéma vérité here.

But the real reason they made Underwood a Democrat, I think, is a little stranger and a little darker. And it comes with a lesson for Republicans. I think Willimon made Underwood a Democrat because he wanted us to like him….

…read more…

fzgnhfgnfg

The Obama State Dept. Infuriates Lt. Col Ralph Peters (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Gateway Pundit:

Really!? Even the NYT’s is saying he was a deserter, he wrote a note for God sake!

…Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl left behind a note in his tent saying he had become disillusioned with the Army, did not support the American mission in Afghanistan and was leaving to start a new life. He slipped off the remote military outpost in Paktika Province on the border with Pakistan and took with him a soft backpack, water, knives, a notebook and writing materials, but left behind his body armor and weapons — startling, given the hostile environment around his outpost…

Jihad Watch adds some interesting points… with a response from Bowe father in those emails shortly before he deserted:

….Even more disturbing, however, are the questions swirling around Bowe Bergdahl himself. Former infantry officer Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served with Bowe Bergdahl, wrote in the Daily Beast on Monday that “Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.” Refuting reports that Bergdahl got separated from his unit while on patrol, Bethea declared: “Make no mistake: Bergdahl did not ‘lag behind on a patrol,’ as was cited in news reports at the time. There was no patrol that night. Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I’ve talked to members of Bergdahl’s platoon—including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I’ve reviewed the relevant documents. That’s what happened.”

Corroborating this was an Associated Press report that was also published on Monday, stating that “a Pentagon investigation concluded in 2010 that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his unit, and after an initial flurry of searching the military decided not to exert extraordinary efforts to rescue him, according to a former senior defense official who was involved in the matter.” This official said that the evidence that Bergdahl had deserted was “incontrovertible.”

Why might Bergdahl have deserted? A clue may lie in the fact that the Taliban claimed in 2010 that Bergdahl had converted to Islam and was teaching bomb-making to its jihadists. His father, Robert Bergdahl, appears to be a convert to Islam, as during the ceremony with Obama in the Rose Garden announcing the exchange, he proclaimed: “Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim” – the phrase, “In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful,” which is the heading of 113 of the Qur’an’s 114 chapters. (Journalist Neil Munro noted in the Daily Caller that “although Bergdahl quoted the Quran verse, the White House transcript did not translate it or even include the Islamic prayer. Instead, the transcript simply said Bergdahl spoke in the Pasho language, which is the language of the Pushtun tribe, which forms the vast majority of the Taliban force. In fact, ‘Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim’ is Arabic.” The lavishly-bearded Robert Bergdahl has also called for the release of the jihadists in Guantanamo and has implied that American troops are killing Afghan children in a tweet he concluded with “ameen,” the Arabic form of “amen.”)

What’s more, it was also revealed Monday that in an email to his father just days before he deserted, Bergdahl wrote: “I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.” He thundered: “I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools. I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

His father thundered back: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

….read more….