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2014

American Physical Society Sees The Light: Will It Be The First Major Scientific Institution To Reject The Global Warming ‘Consensus’? James Delingpole

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/03/20/American-Physical-Society-Sees-The-Light-Will-It-Be-The-First-Major-Scientific-Institution-To-Reject-The-Global-Warming-Consensus

PLEASE NOTE: PROFESSOR LINDZEN WROTE THE FOREWORD TO RAEL JEAN ISAACS BOOK “ROOSTERS OF THE APOCALYPSE”
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Roosters of the Apocalypse: How the Junk Science of Global Warming is Bankrupting the Western World (New, Revised… by Rael Jean Isaac (Nov 25, 2013)
The American Physical Society (APS) has signalled a dramatic turnabout in its position on “climate change” by appointing three notorious climate skeptics to its panel on public affairs (POPA).

They are:

Professor Richard Lindzen, formerly Alfred P Sloan Professor of Meteorology at Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a highly regarded physicist who once described climate change alarmism on The Larry King Show as “mainly just like little kids locking themselves in dark closets to see how much they can scare each other and themselves.”

John Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who has written: “I’m sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see.”

Judith Curry, Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, a former Warmist (and still a self-described “luke warmer”) who has infuriated many of her more extremist colleagues by defending skeptics and by testifying to the US House Subcommittee on the Environment that the uncertainties in forecasting climate science are much greater than the alarmists will admit.

As Anthony Watts has noted, this is news guaranteed to make a Warmist’s head explode.

The reason it’s so significant is that it comes only three years after one of the APS’s most distinguished members – Professor Hal Lewis – resigned in disgust at its endorsement of what he called “the global warming scam.”

Disturbed by an “appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change” which “was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members”, Lewis went public with his letter of resignation to the APS’s then President Curtis G Callan Jr. (Callan’s replacement Malcolm Beasley appears to be of a more skeptical bent. When he wrote earlier this year to President Obama congratulating him on his support for “science”, he studiously avoided any mention of the president’s war on climate change)

ANDREW McCARTHY: TRANSNATIONAL TRANSGRESSIONS ****

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/373964/print ‘Your independence is irreversible, absolutely irreversible.” So declared Vice President Joe Biden, thrilling a parliamentary assembly in Pristina, Kosovo. These were still the early months of the Obama administration, and the vice president was touring the Balkans to take a victory lap in the breakaway Serbian territory whose independence he’d done so much to […]

Column One: The Worst Alternative By CAROLINE B. GLICK

http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=346054

PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas must have gotten a kick out of it on Monday when he visited the White House and President Barack Obama praised him as “somebody who has consistently renounced violence, has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security.”

After all, the same day the men met, Abbas’s regime continued its week-long celebration of the deadliest Palestinian terrorist attack on Israel to date.

On March 11, 1978, PLO terrorists commandeered a passenger bus on the coastal highway and massacred 37 people, including 12 children.

Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist, led the raid. Ever since, she has been lionized by the PLO.

While he met with Obama, Abbas’s adviser Sultan Abu al-Einein proclaimed that Mughrabi was the ultimate role model for Palestinian women.

In Einein’s words, (reported by Palestinian Media Watch), “In March, [we mark] Palestinian Women’s Day, in March, Palestinian Mother’s Day also occurs, in March… [we remember Dalal Mughrabi] who would not agree to anything other than to establish her state between Jaffa and Lebanon in her special way.”

Einein urged Palestinian youth to follow Mughrabi’s example of mass murder. “Let the young people hear me: Allah, honor us with Martyrdom, Allah, give us the honor of being part of the procession of Martyrs.”

The Israeli Right didn’t need the Mughrabi festival to understand that Obama’s claim that Abbas wants peace is ridiculous. As Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon explained last Saturday, Abbas is “a partner for taking, not for giving.”

Israeli Leftists, who have slavishly championed Abbas, are finally catching on. Last month, in an op-ed in Haaretz, long-time PLO champion Shlomo Avineri acknowledged the dynamic at work in the two-state policy model and how Abbas uses it to Israel’s disadvantage.

Avineri wrote that it is not that Abbas “is no partner for talks, but that he is an excellent partner for talks — as long as they are talks designed to lead Israel to make more and more concessions, and to put them in writing. Then, on one pretext or another, he is unwilling to sign and brings the negotiations to a halt, so they can be restarted in the future ‘where they left off’: with all the previous Israeli concessions included, and no concessions having been put forward by the Palestinian side.”

DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE MURDERER’S HONOR

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

The story of Islam is a murder mystery. It’s not a murder mystery that asks who did it, but when it will end. The detective peering through his magnifying glass at a curly hair caught in the door isn’t wondering who did it. He already knows who the killer is. The great mystery is how to make him stop.

This isn’t a story about right and wrong. In the terrains of tribe and clan that the murderers come out of, whether they are raised in a village with two goats and a well or a mansion overlooking a major city; Right is power and Wrong is not having power.

A man is right because he has power. A woman is wrong because she doesn’t. A Muslim is right because he has power. A Christian is wrong because he doesn’t.

When a woman has power and a man doesn’t, the man has been dishonored. When a Christian has power and a Muslim doesn’t, the Muslim has been dishonored.

There is only one answer for dishonor, death. Kill the one who has dishonored you so that you may feel powerful again. The men with the magnifying glasses will call it extremism, but it’s so much simpler and so much more complicated than that.

The powerful need not compromise. They have honor. Those who have no power but do not compromise also have honor. The extremist does not compromise whether in power or out of it. Therefore he always has honor. The extremist is willing to die for the power and honor of Islam.

Islam is never powerless, but is always compromised in some way short of perfect purity.

Perhaps it fails to drive out all the non-Muslims and doesn’t force women to cover their eyes. Or maybe it tolerates chess and kite flying. Even the crudest Salafist finds some human norm short of total and complete extremism. He compromises and the seed of that compromise gives birth to a movement that will not compromise even on that.

Each Islamic movement carries within it the seeds of its own extremist counter-movement and that movement too will carry its own seeds of death. The Islamic revolution devours its own children forever for honor’s sake.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Absolute honor is the search for absolute power. A power so pure that it transcends the human means necessary to achieve that glorious end. A purity so total that it will elevate the smuggled cocaine, the rapes and murders, the torture and the broken oaths, to the golden truth that the ends of Islam justify all its mangled means.

The murderer kills because he wants power. He goes on killing for honor’s sake. When the blade slips or the victim pulls a gun, then the murderer skulks off into the night nursing his grudges and pledging that he will return or his children will return or their children, for the sake of his honor, on and on through the ages.

This is what the media calls a cycle of violence, but it would be more accurate to call it the cycle of honor.

SYDNEY WILLIAMS: THE DEBACLE THAT IS DE BLASIO

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“We get what we deserve” is a common phrase that describes everything that happens to us, from the behavior of our children, to the money we make, to the political leaders we elect. The concept comes from Luke, writing in the New Testament, “…for we receive the due reward of our deeds.” That phrase – not the Biblical one, but that which has become common usage – should have special meaning for the 76% of New York City residents who did not bother to go to the polls last November 4th. Recent polls suggest that even the few that did go to the polls may be having second thoughts.

The press declared Bill de Blasio’s victory a “landslide,” in that he won about 72% of the votes cast. The new Mayor took it as a mandate, just as did his fellow populist Democrat in the White House in 2008. The fact is, though, turnout in New York City was a record low, the lowest since “mid-20th Century,” according to the New York Times. His Republican opponent was the competent, but uninspiring Joseph Lhota. A 24% turnout meant that only 17% of New York’s eligible voters actually cast their ballots for him, hardly a mandate; though an early endorsement from President Obama made him comfortable in saying, “I won!”

The problem with ideologues, as we have learned from President Obama, is that their “hope and change” prevents then from focusing on practical problems. In their desire to see things as they wish them to be, they ignore the world as it is. People who walk with their heads in the clouds cannot avoid stepping into puddles. In his first few weeks, Mr. de Blasio has stepped into a lot of puddles. Early on, his SUV was seen speeding and failing to stop at two stop signs, when there was no emergency. A day or so later a NY Post photographer caught him jaywalking across a Brooklyn street. Neither offense was unduly serious, except that just days before he had proposed traffic safety initiatives. His attitude was typically elitist: ‘do as I say, not as I do.’

RUTHIE BLUM: YA’ALON NOT MINCING WORDS

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=7783

International relations and ‘marit ayin’

When Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon criticized the United States in a speech he delivered on Monday at Tel Aviv University, he must have known that serious backlash would follow. After all, this was not his first rodeo with the White House and State Department.

Earlier this month, when asked in an interview on Channel 2’s “Meet the Press” whether he considered U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to be an “honest broker,” Ya’alon hesitated. “That’s something we will have to see during the course of the negotiations,” he said.

Two months ago, Ya’alon accused Kerry of “acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor.” When this statement, which had been made in private, was leaked, Ya’alon got into a lot of hot water at home and abroad, and immediately issued a public apology.

His words this week were no more minced.

MARTIN SHERMAN: SHIMON NETANYAHU OR BINYAMIN PERES? ****

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Into-the-Fray-Shimon-Netanyahu-or-Binyamin-Peres-346075
Anyone watching portions of the PM’s AIPAC address might have been excused for thinking Bibi had morphed into Peres. But worse, much worse, was still to come.

By virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, [we] hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

– Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948

I think it’s a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a [Palestinian] state, and peace.

– John Kerry on Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence on public recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, March 14

The “Jewish state” question is hard for many non-Israelis to understand… But for Netanyahu and his followers, the question is essential. Arab leaders have never conceded that a non-Arab state can hold a permanent place in the Middle East… Until they do so, there will be no real peace, because Palestinians will keep pressing to weaken and eventually eliminate Israel’s Jewish majority.

– Jackson Diehl, “Obama’s Middle East fallacy” – The Washington Post, March 17.

In last week’s column, I warned that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s continued capitulation to concessionary demands has proven dysfunctional and counter-productive, and has not created any understanding of Israel’s position, but rather a stimulus for additional demands.

As if on cue…

Readers will recall, I wrote: “Once exposed, his weakness precipitated mounting pressures to give way again and again. And each time he did, rather than receiving commendation for his ‘moderation,’ all Netanyahu got was continuing condemnation for not complying with the next emerging demand.”

And then, as if on cue, just as the column was submitted, the next demand emerged, along with incipient condemnation for his refusal to comply.

This resounding affirmation of the accuracy of my assessment-cum-prognosis was provided courtesy of none other than US Secretary of State John Kerry, with his demand that Israel forgo its eminently reasonable insistence that the Palestinians publicly acknowledge the very raison d’etre of its establishment – to be the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Since compliance with this new demand would in effect largely nullify much of the rationale for Israel’s continued existence, the very fact that it is now being raised should be cause for grave concern for Israel and its supporters in the US.

After all, to mollify the Obama administration, Netanyahu has over the past five years consented to a series of previously inconceivable concessions, despite expressing prior unequivocal opposition to them, frequently excoriating political rivals for contemplating similar concessions in the past.

Judicial Watch Information Request Reveals Problematic Cable on Marc Rich Pardon for Clintons- Jerry Gordon

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/52303#CurDomainURL#/blog.cfm

On the very day that tax evader and renegade oil speculator Marc Rich died on June 26, 2013 in Lucerne, Switzerland, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Rich was pardoned on the very last day of former President Clinton’s second term in January 2001 in a series of pardons shepherded by current US Attorney General Eric Holder. President Clinton had been entreated by Rich’s, ex-wife, Denise, a major Democrat fundraiser, aided by representations from ADL director, Abe Foxman, who was reported to have earned a large fee for facilitating the pardon. Despite Marc Rich engaging in back door oil deals with the late Saddam Hussein, the apartheid South African government and the Palestinian Authority, President Clinton had signed off. He has subsequently rued granting Rich’s pardon.

Judicial Watch finally received the results of the FOIA request and published the redacted copy on its website, yesterday. Reading it, one can only surmise whether this might prove to be a problem for several people; former US Ambassador to Israel during the Clinton era, Martin Indyk and then Israeli Foreign Minister, now President , Shimon Peres.and possibly ex-Mossad head, Efraim Halevy.

Peres assumed the Israeli Premiership after PM Rabin’s tragic assassination by an Israeli extremist in November 1995.The period referenced in the Judicial Watch post followed the arrival back of the PLO-Fatah under the late Yassir Arafat in furtherance of the ill-fated Oslo Accords signed in September 1993 at the White House under Clinton’s auspices. Arafat became the first President of the PA and, in 1996 began a series of attacks on Israeli joint patrols in the disputed territories the period of a near decade long Palestinian violence against Israel. Indyk is currently Secretary Kerry’s Special Envoy facilitating negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on a purported final status agreement. This redacted cable could be problematic for Hillary Clinton’s possible candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016?

RACHEL EHRENFELD: OBAMA AND KERRY DENY ISRAEL’S STATUS AS A JEWISH STATE

http://acdemocracy.org/obama-kerry-deny-recognition-of-israel-as-jewish-state/
On March 20, 2013, in Jerusalem, President Obama recognized Israel as the Jewish State. Moreover, he insisted the ”Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state, and that Israelis have the right to insist upon their security.” He repeated this statement the following day, saying, “let me just reiterate that a central element of a lasting peace

must be a strong and secure Jewish state, where Israel’s security concerns are met, alongside a sovereign and independent Palestinian state.”

In Jerusalem, in December 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry stated:

“And I join with President Obama in expressing to the people of Israel our deep, deep commitment to the security of Israel and to the need to find a peace that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, recognizes Israel as a country that can defend itself by itself, and that is an important principle with which the prime minister and the President and I are in agreement.”

Exactly a year later Obama is denying Israel’s right to be recognized as a Jewish State. During his March 20 meeting with PA president Mahmoud Abbas, President Obama omitted talking about the Israeli recognition requirement in favor of stressing security concerns.

John Bingham: Islamic Law is Adopted by British Legal Chiefs …Should now be called “Allahbion”

Solicitors told how to draw up Sharia-style wills penalising widows and non-believers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10716844/Islamic-law-is-adopted-by-British-legal-chiefs.html

Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.

Under ground-breaking guidance, produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude unbelievers altogether.

The documents, which would be recognised by Britain’s courts, will also prevent children born out of wedlock – and even those who have been adopted – from being counted as legitimate heirs.

Anyone married in a church, or in a civil ceremony, could be excluded from succession under Sharia principles, which recognise only Muslim weddings for inheritance purposes.

Nicholas Fluck, president of The Law Society, said the guidance would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.