ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Global Warming and Fake Science By Norman Rogers

Posted By on November 4th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/global_warming_and_fake_science.html

About 10 years ago the brand name global warming was changed to climate change. The reason was simple. The Earth was failing to warm. An additional benefit of the climate change slogan was that everything that goes wrong with the weather can be blamed on climate change, caused by burning fossil fuels. The 2012 hurricane Sandy, that flooded parts of New York and New Jersey, is routinely blamed on climate change. The great New England hurricane of 1938 struck the same area and was vastly worse, killing more than 600 persons. That could not be blamed on climate change caused by CO2, because CO2 was not an issue in 1938. Blaming Sandy on CO2-caused climate change is simply a made-up story without scientific foundation. Just because there are plenty of scientists making a connection between climate change and Sandy does not mean that a scientific foundation exists. It does mean that plenty of scientists are eager to benefit from natural disasters.

The idea that scientists are neutral observers resistant to political influence and money is naïve. Scientists are bought and sold every day in the courtrooms of America as paid witnesses. Scientific organizations lobby relentlessly and effectively in Washington. The National Academy of Science pretends to be the government’s advisor on scientific matters. Somehow their recommendations always suggest that more money should be spent on science. Global warming, a.k.a. climate change, has been a bonanza for a large segment of the scientific community. Just as with other special interest groups, the policy recommendations of the science community are heavily influenced by the prospects of getting money from the government. We need science, but science cannot be allowed to run wild.

Computer modeling is the basis for the predictions of climate doom. Computer modeling is hard to do properly, but easy to manipulate to produce the results that are most beneficial to the scientific community. Computer models are excellent vehicles for weaponizing confirmation bias – searching for, or manufacturing, data that confirms one’s biases. Scientists that see the massive holes in the global warming theory are reluctant to speak up because they will be attacked if they do. Getting in the way of money from Washington is not allowed. Yet, there are hundreds of prominent scientists that do speak up. Suppression of global warming skeptics by means of fear and intimidation is not the practice of science. It is the practice of totalitarian politics.

There are forces, known and unknown, that can change the climate. From 1910 to 1940 the Earth warmed strongly. That warming cannot be blamed on CO2. Nobody knows what caused that warming. Yet the warming from 1970 to 2000 is confidently blamed on CO2 and other greenhouse gases. That is a leap of faith, because we don’t know if the recent warming was really caused in part or totally, by the same unknown force that caused the early century warming. The global warming computer models are not remotely good enough to resolve this question.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Trigger Warnings and Mass Psychogenic Illness by Stewart Justman

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

https://quillette.com/2018/11/02/trigger-warnings-and-mass-psychogenic

Contrary to the tradition of free inquiry, many college students now demand the suppression of ideas they find offensive. As if to raise the stakes by transforming the issues in play into medical ones, many also claim that such ideas traumatize them. Implying as it does that offensive material doesn’t just insult decency or pollute the public realm but wounds the very psyche of those exposed to it, the term “trauma” as deployed by the critics of free inquiry has indeed taken the argument to a new level. What are we to make of the contention that students are so vulnerable that the syllabus of a lit course should carry a “trigger warning” to the effect that their psyches might suffer damage merely as a result of the reading?

A medical argument calls for a medical reply.

Suppose rumors begin to circulate in a small town that the insulation stuffed into local walls and attics contains a toxic substance. Literally surrounded by toxicity, the residents begin to report symptoms like nausea, headache, dizziness and poor concentration, with each new case producing others in a cascade effect. The Emergency Room overflows. Upon investigation, however, no toxic source can be found. According to the medical literature, we have here a case of mass psychogenic illness (or mass hysteria): a social phenomenon in which people suddenly fall ill, and inspire others to do so as well, in the belief that they have been exposed to a toxic agent, though in fact the belief itself is making them sick. Such an outbreak poses a spurious emergency.

So too, I argue, does the trigger-warning movement. A mass reaction to an imaginary toxin and an over-reaction to the perceived dangers of toxic ideas represent parallel events (except that the threat allegedly posed by toxic ideas lacks the local and limited character of a classical psychogenic incident). Just as the former has the suddenness of a panic, the latter flares up instantly on the slightest provocation, as documented recently by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in their critique of the trigger-warning movement, The Coddling of the American Mind. In both cases an incident can become an immediate cause célèbre, with ambulances, fire trucks, investigators, and reporters hastening to the scene of a psychogenic outbreak, and the news media, social networks, student populations, and university authorities swept up in a comprehensive reaction to students’ claims of injury.

Schools appear to be the most common venue for psychogenic outbreaks, perhaps because a population concentrated in a tight setting makes an ideal conductor.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

In Bulgaria, Netanyahu warns Europe of possible attacks by Iran Ram Liran

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/11/02/in-bulgaria-netanyahu-warns-europe-of-possible-attacks-by-iran/

“The most potent force of militant Islam is the Iranian regime. It’s devouring one nation after the other,” PM Netanyahu says • In talks with Bulgarian, Greek and Romanian leaders, Netanyahu expected to discuss possibility of embassy moves to Jerusalem.

Iran is the “most potent force of militant Islam” and Europe should be wary of possible Iranian attacks on its soil, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Thursday during a state visit to Bulgaria.

Speaking to reporters in the Black Sea city of Varna after meeting with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Netanyahu said radical Islam is a threat to the world, and that Israel has recently revealed a number of Iranian plots to carry out attacks in Europe.

Netanyahu traveled to Varna for a meeting Friday of the Craiova Forum, which includes the prime ministers of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, and the president of Serbia.

Ahead of his trip, Netanyahu said he wants to strengthen ties with European countries and “change the hostile and hypocritical approach of the European Union” toward peace in the Middle East.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

‘I look to Trump as a role model,’ says Brazil’s president-elect Boaz Bismuth

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/11/02/i-look-to-trump-as-a-role-model-says-brazils-president-elect/

In what appears to be his first foreign media interview, Jair Bolsonaro tells Israel Hayom U.S. President Trump “is doing a brilliant job” and there are “many things I use as examples for what I’m doing” • “I plan to move embassy to Jerusalem,” he tweets.

Until a few weeks ago, Jair Bolsonaro, now the president-elect of Brazil, was a little-known legislator. No one thought he would go on to become the leader of the country.

But on Wednesday, a week after he astonished everyone by winning the presidential election in Brazil – the largest democracy in Latin America – Bolsonaro chose Israel Hayom for what appears to be his first interview with the foreign media, and made it clear that his support for Israel and promises about Jerusalem were not just an election gimmick.

In a tweet on Thursday, Bolsonaro reiterated his position that he saw no problem in possibly moving the Brazilian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a platform he had promoted during his campaign.

“I plan to move the embassy to Jerusalem,” the unequivocal tweet stated.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the sentiment from “my friend the President-elect of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, for his intention to transfer the Brazilian Embassy to Jerusalem. This is a historic, correct and thrilling step.”

Earlier this week, Bolsonaro confirmed that Netanyahu had congratulated him on his electoral success. Officials in the Bolsonaro camp confirmed he would visit Israel next year, after taking office.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest obstacles to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. If Brazil does move its embassy to Jerusalem, it would become the third country to do so after the United States and Guatemala.

Bolsonaro is expected to announce a full cabinet this month, ahead of his Jan. 1 inauguration. Israel Hayom Editor-in-Chief Boaz Bismuth spoke to Bolsonaro by telephone, with the help of an interpreter.

Q: Did you know that your name, Jair, means ”bringing light” in Hebrew?

“Yes, I was informed not long ago. I have the moral compass of a man who intends to do his best for his country and intends to tighten relations with other countries that think the same way we do and champion democratic elections, liberty and respect for others,” he says.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Midterm madness — or Trump’s last stand? Could the US midterm elections change the course of Trump’s presidency? Andrew Stuttaford

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/7306/full

There are journalistic assignments that should be refused, not as a matter of principle but out of basic common sense. Making predictions about American politics in the age of Trump is one of them. That Donald Trump won the Republican nomination was surprising. That he ended up in the White House was — well, a strong enough what-the-hell adjective does not exist (I did not expect Trump to prevail and nor, quite possibly, did he). However, the chequered nature of that win, a two per cent loss in the popular vote (the widest margin of “defeat” for a victorious candidate since 1876) but a passable, if far from overwhelming, majority in the only vote that counts — the Electoral College — was a necessary reminder that federalism matters more and elite opinion less than is sometimes assumed.

Remembering that is a good beginning to understanding why, despite Trump ratcheting up a record of gaffes, blunders and peculiarity unthinkable in any other president, earlier talk of a Democratic “wave” in the midterm elections on November 6 has evaporated.

While that might merit a celebratory presidential Diet Coke, the Republicans still face a tricky day on the sixth. Despite a healthy economy (GDP grew at an annualised 4.2 per cent in the second quarter, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 per cent in September and in the same month consumer confidence reached an 18-year high), almost all the “generic” polling has the generic Democrat comfortably ahead of the generic Republican. Even without Trump in the Oval Office this was coming. An incumbent president’s party almost always struggles in the midterms. Like a British by-election, except for far higher stakes (all the seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs, as will 35 Senate seats and numerous state-level offices), midterms are often used by the voters who show up (turnout is typically around 40 per cent, compared with 60 per cent in a presidential election year) to shake a fist at those in charge.

There are incumbent presidents, and then there is Donald J. Trump, whose approval rating has been dismal for most of his time in office. As I write (late October) it is ticking up and now stands somewhere in the mid-40s, weak for a strong economy and at a roughly similar level to Barack Obama’s polling eight years ago. But that was in the aftermath of the financial crisis and shortly before game-changing midterms in which the Democrats suffered a loss of more than 60 seats and control of the House, as well as a brutal reduction in their Senate majority. The Republicans’ chances will be hurt by too much Trump in some areas — upscale suburbs and their remaining redoubts on the east and west coasts in particular — but they could, in a paradox that may mean trouble for them beyond 2018, be hurt by not enough Trump elsewhere, specifically in the rust belt, where voters who moved from Obama (or no vote) to Trump made enough of a difference in their states to tip the 2016 election the GOP’s way.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

College Assignment Asks Students to Compare Trump and Nazi Policies By Katherine Timpf

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/college-assignment-compare-trump-administration-nazi-policies/

That comparison is offensive to everyone who suffered at the hands of the Nazis

A University of Arizona student reports that her class was asked to compare President Donald Trump administration and the Nazis’ policies as part of an extra-credit assignment for a course on the Holocaust.

“Now that you have studied the Vichy Anti-Jewish Laws, the German Ordinances, and pre-Vichy laws imposed on the Jews (French, immigrant, and refugee) and the repercussions that they had for Jews in France, examine and analyze more current anti-immigrant laws in the United States,” states the extra-credit assignment, a copy of which was obtained by Campus Reform.

One Jewish American student, L’wren Tikva, told Campus Reform that she was offended by the assignment, saying that it was “insensitive” and that it felt “extremely one-sided and [like] full-on indoctrination.”

“As a Jewish American who has ties to those who survived the Holocaust it’s pretty trivializing comparing Trump’s policies to the Holocaust,” Tikva reportedly wrote to her professor. “Almost all of these policies are in no way comparable and the President is in his legal authority to implement these policies.”

Apparently, the professor responded and stated that she was also a relative of Holocaust survivors, that “her intent was not to compare Trump to Hitler,” and that she was “not [at] all comparing what eventually transpired in Vichy, France to what is happening now in the U.S.A.”

“I am certainly not cheapening the Holocaust by looking at the laws emphasized in pre-war France and examining the focus and rhetoric of certain immigration laws in the recent past and current moment in the States,” the professor continued.

Here’s the thing, though: That is exactly what she’s doing. She can try to defend herself and say that she wasn’t trying to compare what the Nazis did to what Trump is doing, but simply reading the assignment is enough to show that that was clearly her intent. She wasn’t simply asking students to examine Trump’s policies, she was asking them to examine Trump’s policies through the lens of what happened in Nazi Germany, which clearly insinuates that she is looking for students to draw some similarities between the two.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Kavanaugh Accuser Admits She Fabricated Allegations as a ‘Ploy’ for ‘Attention’ By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/kavanaugh-accuser-admits-she-fabricated-allegations/

A woman who made graphic allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has admitted to investigators that she fabricated them to “get attention.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has referred Judy Munro-Leighton to the Justice Departement and FBI for investigation into potentially materially false statements and obstruction.

“The Committee is grateful to citizens who come forward with relevant information in good faith, even if they are not one hundred percent sure about what they know,” Grassley wrote in his letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “But when individuals intentionally mislead the Committee, they divert Committee resources during time-sensitive investigations and materially impede our work.”

On September 25, “Jane Doe” from Oceanside, California sent an anonymous letter to Senator Kamala Harris alleging that the then-nominee for Supreme Court and his friend raped her “several times each” in the back of a car. Details were sparse, such as the time frame and location of the alleged attack.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” Kavanaugh said when questioned the next day by committee investigators about the allegation. “The whole thing is just a crock, farce, wrong, didn’t happen, not anything close.”

Later on October 3, Judy Munro-Leighton emailed the committee claiming to be the “Jane Doe” of the letter and said she was “sharing with you the story of the night that Brett Kavanaugh and his friend sexually assaulted and raped me in his car,” calling it a “vicious assault.”

“I refuse to allow Donald J. Trump to use me or my story as an ugly chant at
one of his Republican rallies,” Munro-Leighton wrote. “I know that Jane Doe will get no media attention, but I am deathly afraid of revealing any information about myself or my family.”

Investigators located Munro-Leighton living in Kentucky, not California, and discovered that she is a left-wing activist decades older than Judge Kavanaugh.

She admitted to investigators that her story was a “tactic” and “that was just a ploy.”

“No, no, no. I did that as a way to grab attention,” she told investigators. “I am not Jane Doe . . . but I did read Jane Doe’s letter. I read the transcript of the call to your Committee. . . . I saw it online. It was news.”

“I was angry, and I sent it out,” she said of her email to the committee describing the allegations.

“Oh, Lord no,” she responded on whether she has ever met Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh was confirmed as Associate Justice on the Supreme Court on October 6. During his acrimonious confirmation process, multiple women came forward with accusations of sexual assault against him. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified to the Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and attempted to rape her at a party when they were both in high school.

However, several on-the-fence senators, including Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Susan Collins, sealed the slim majority in Kavanaugh’s favor with their votes to confirm him, citing a lack of hard evidence supporting the accusations against him.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tech Companies, Universities, Scientists Attack Trump Over ‘Erasing’ Transgender People By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/tech-companies-universities-scientists-attack-trump-over-erasing-transgender-people/

Last week, The New York Times reported — oh horror! — that President Donald Trump is returning the definition of “sex” in federal law to the commonsense and biological meaning of male and female the term had since time immemorial, until just yesterday. The Times breathlessly reported that Trump’s move would “erase” transgender people. This week, companies, universities, and scientists jumped on the “Resistance” bandwagon over the issue.

Transgender identity has critics on the Right (concerned about confusing children and putting women and girls at risk) and the Left (among radical feminists who link transgenderism to “rape culture” and “conversion therapy”).

Congress could pass a law adding “gender identity” to “sex” on the list of protected characteristics, following the democratic process for achieving this change. Instead, Barack Obama unilaterally redefined the term, which Congress clearly intended to mean biological sex. Obama, not Trump, is the undemocratic innovator in this case.

Yet, in an exercise of topsiturvidom that would impress George Orwell, big businesses like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and JP Morgan Chase have teamed up with hundreds of scientists and universities like Princeton and Rutgers to criticize Trump for imposing a “restrictive” view of sex.

Activists have glossed over important issues in their rush to normalize transgender identity. Transgender “treatments” — hormone therapy and the more drastic surgery — have left people scarred. Hormones increase the risk of deep-vein thrombosis (for men on estrogen) and ovarian cysts (for women on testosterone). Max Robinson, a 21-year-old woman who once identified as a man, regrets having taken male hormones and removing her breasts, calling such “treatments” “not a cure at all.”

The science behind transgenderism is shoddy at best. At the genetic level, human beings are either male or female. Sex is biologically geared toward reproduction, and therefore is inherently binary — as children result from one male and one female.

“They are trying to recreate humanity in terms of cis and trans, instead of male and female,” Dr. Michelle Cretella, executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, told PJ Media in September. This new idea makes “our bodies meaningless. But our bodies mean everything. They tell us who and what we are, scientifically, concretely.”

None of this is to deny that people who identify as transgender are people, have basic rights, and should be treated with respect. They may need legal protections, and both sides should debate the issue. Powerful people are avoiding that debate, teaming up to effectively erase the human body, and claiming that Trump’s defense of biology, common sense, and democratic norms is actually “erasing” transgender people. CONTINUE AT SITE

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Brooklyn Synagogue Vandal a Black Democratic Activist and Former City Hall Intern By Rick Moran

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/trending/brooklyn-synagogue-vandal-a-black-democratic-activist-and-former-city-hall-intern/

The alleged vandal of a Brooklyn synagogue is a Trump-loving, anti-Semitic white supremacist, right?

Well, not exactly.

James Polite, a 26 year old black Democratic activist and a former city hall intern who worked on hate crime issues was arrested yesterday and will probably charged with a hate crime.

Literally everyone rushed to frame the vandalism as another example of anti-Semitic hate being enabled by the president and Republicans.

ABC7:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate, releasing the following statement:

“I am disgusted by the discovery of anti-Semitic graffiti at a house of worship in Brooklyn. At a time when the nation is still reeling from the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, New Yorkers stand united with the Jewish community and against hate in all its forms. In New York, we have zero tolerance for discrimination in our laws or in our spirit. I have directed the State’s Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate this hideous act and hold those responsible accountable to the full extent of the law. As governor, I am also doing everything in my power to ensure our religious institutions are free from violence and intolerance. This week, we announced the launch of an additional $10 million grant program to help protect New York’s non-public schools and cultural centers, including religious-based institutions. The disgusting rhetoric and heinous violence in this nation has reached a fever pitch and is ripping at the fabric of America, and it must stop. In New York, we have forged community through chords of commonality and we will always stand together against hate and discrimination.” CONTINUE AT SITE

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Angela Merkel is on her way out – and so is her vision for the EU Her throne will likely sit empty because Macron is the only leader with any desire to take it. Douglas Murray

Posted By on November 3rd, 2018

https://spectator.us/angela-merkel-vision-eu/

Whatever anyone’s views on the enterprise, there was one question always begging to be asked of the European Union: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ At an early stage it wasn’t clear to everyone. Then the purpose and direction of travel seemed agreed — under the stewardship of Angela Merkel. She was there to settle disputes, authorize bailouts, offer German help to struggling nations and protect the project as it led to ever-closer union. Whatever else can be said of it, with Merkel at the helm at least the EU appeared to have direction. Not anymore.

This week — after another political drubbing for the CDU in Hesse — the German Chancellor announced that she would not seek re-election as head of the party she has led for 18 years. She also announced she would be stepping down as Chancellor at the next election, in 2021, a position she has held since 2005. During that time in office she has worked with four French presidents, four British prime ministers, and seven people who tried to run Italy. Her demise is proving a drawn-out affair — but we can see, in parallel, the demise of her vision of Europe. A clear, federalist vision which once seemed inevitable and now sorely lacks a leader.

Today there is simply no one on the scene capable of acting as the queen or emperor of that project, as Merkel has done for the past decade. That is due, in no small part, to the decisions she took and the hardness and hubris with which she acted when she held the most powerful position in Europe. The Merkel project had created a EU that had unachievable ambitions, seeking to govern countries with long histories of independence, and was fundamentally un-European in that it sought to impose uniformity upon the most gloriously diverse set of countries on earth.