DANIEL GREENFIELD: THE LEFT’S WAR ON SCIENCE ****

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/

“We did not come to ask for mercy from nature,” Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, the Lysenko of Soviet agriculture, once declared. “We must wrest it from her.”

Communist science was guided not by the journey from hypothesis to fact but by the dusty
proclamations of Marxist theorists. Soviet scientists were expected to reject capitalist science and formulate a science that matched the Communist worldview.

The Communist worldview insisted that every living creature could be completely transformed into anything. It rejected natural selection as having a competitive capitalist bent that suspiciously resembled a biological version of free market competition. And pseudo-scientists like Lysenko and Michurin matched bad science to bad ideology laying out an official dogma in which transforming the environment could transform any creature and in which intraspecies struggle did not lead to evolution.

The USSR’s politicization of biology crippled its agriculture. Its leaders rejected free market competition on the human level and in the plant and animal kingdoms. They insisted that nature had to follow Marxist dialectical materialism and locked up and murdered the scientists who disagreed. By the time the USSR fell, a land which had once exported wheat to the world had gone deep into debt to buy wheat from the United States.

But bad ideology driving bad science didn’t die with Lysenko and Michurin. The new Lysenkos are Warmunists like Michael Mann and James Hansen. The environmentalists, like the Communists, believe that human beings have total control over the environment and that the environment determines all. Where they differ is the perceived effect of that influence. Warmunism, like Communism, originates not from science, but from ideology. The Communists divided industry into two types by ideological classification; the good cooperative Socialist industry and the bad competitive Capitalist industry. The Warmunists similarly ideologically classify two types of industry; environmentally conscious green technology and dirty non-socially conscious brown technology.

The Warmunists, like the Communists, classify science and industry not by outcome, but by ideology, and then paper over that classification with bad science. Green technology is often dirtier and less efficient than the so-called brown technology, but like the collective farms and the idiotic ramblings of Michurin and Lysenko, it’s better because it more closely fits the Socialist vision of how things ought to work.

Scientists debate, but ideologues delegitimize. The Communists did not debate science. They declared dogma and locked up anyone who disagreed. The Warmunists don’t have the power to sentence their critics to prison, though some among them have broached the notion, instead they plot campaigns of character assassination against those who question the theories that they try to pass off as final facts.

The Warmunists, like the Communists, are not interested in learning how the world works, but in using their notions of how the world ought to work to develop a model of how human beings ought to behave.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ ON GOSNELL…”WHAT’S LIFE GOT TO DO WITH IT?”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345598/understanding-gosnell-kathryn-jean-lopez ‘They were filled with expectation . . . the expectation that there was Something More than the atrocious evil that had befallen them . . . Something More than the darkness . . . Something More than despair.” So said Father Peter John Cameron, a Dominican priest and editor of Magnificat, a daily devotional, to the families of Newtown, Conn., gathered at St. Rose of Lima […]

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: 1984 PLUS 29 **** MUST READ….

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345662/i1984i-29-victor-davis-hanson

Imagine if, during the campaign of 2008, someone had written the following: “If Barack Obama is elected president, then each year from now on the federal budget will be a trillion dollars in the red. He will pile up in two terms more debt than all previous presidents combined. Interest rates will stay at near zero; 7.6 percent unemployment will be proof of progress in creating jobs. Record use of food stamps, unemployment, and disability insurance will be hallmarks of recovery. The government will take over health care, and the costs will skyrocket. During Obama’s second term, ammunition will vanish from America’s store shelves in panic buying. Gay marriage will become uncontroversial. Women will be eligible for infantry combat. The only question about amnesty for illegal aliens will be when, not if, it is enacted. States will begin legalizing marijuana.” Obviously, such a conspiracist would have been dismissed as an unhinged nut.

You may object that Obama himself has hardly been responsible for all these radical transformations. True, but he helped to create, in brilliant fashion, a “hope and change,” quasi-revolutionary climate — the political cover, if you will, for the media, the universities, federal judges, state legislatures, and Congress to reinvent American popular culture and tradition in a manner rarely if ever seen in the past.
How, then, did the Obama team do that?

LANGUAGE
First were the necessary changes in language. In the Obama age, as in Orwell’s 1984, the natural meanings of words had to change. See the third book of Thucydides’ history for the details.

Running up serial trillion-dollar deficits was not profligacy, but rather making “investments” for “the children.” Irresponsible borrowing became “stimulus.” Indeed, “trillion” — not a frequently used part of most people’s vocabulary before 2009 — suddenly replaced “billion” as a familiar fiscal numerical adjective. A takeover of health care that would spike premiums and ration services, devices, and procedures was aptly named the “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

“Assault weapons” superseded “semi-automatic rifles,” even as “semi-automatic” and “automatic” were no longer distinct adjectives. The obvious purpose of rapid-fire weapons was to kill innocent children, not to protect your household from intruders, to shoot fast-moving game, or to practice a sport at a shooting range, much less to remind the government, in Second Amendment fashion, that the populace was autonomous and vigilant.

WHILE J-Z AND BEYONCE STRUTTED IN CUBA…SILVIO CANTO JR.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/did_jay-z_hear_about_the_cubans_who_risked_their_lives_rather_than_watch_his_little_walk_in_havana.html

Another side of Cuba that Jay-Z did not see is that of a dozen Cubans found in the ocean escaping the island.

Two different cruise ships picked up Cubans in make shift rafts trying to escape Cuba. These Cubans chose to risk their lives rather than greet Jay-Z and spouse in the streets of Havana.

My guess is that Jay-Z and spouse do not have a clue that some Cubans would rather risk death than watch their little walk in Havana. Yes, a few Cubans wanted nothing to do with that “educational” trip after all. I think that Cubans can smell a propaganda charade miles away. They’ve had their share of charlatans who smoke cigars for 50 years.

Mr & Mrs Carter also showed incredible hypocrisy when they said nothing about Roberto Zurbano, a black Cuban who lost his job for writing about racism in Cuba.

Zubrano wrote the truth, i.e. there is great dissatisfaction in the Cuban black population about the revolution’s priorities and choices. He touched on a topic that the “revolution” avoids. The Castro PR machine, with the assistance of too many clowns in the US, has pushed the idea that “white rich Cubans” left for Miami and that “blacks” finally got their due. Not really. Not really at all.

Zubrano confirmed what Brian Lloyd French, a Canadian writer, said to me a few weeks ago. Brian confirmed that blacks are excluded from positions of responsibility in the government as well as those joint ventures that international companies do with the Castro family.

Zubrano focused on black Cubans. However, the Cuban “revolution” has failed all Cubans, unless you are part of the party elite, the privileged class that gets to watch US baseball games on cable TV and go on the internet.

Overall, a bad week for Jay-Z and the Cubans that he left behind. Maybe the next guy who gets to go on an “educational” trip will actually educate himself about Cuba.

SHOSHANA BRYEN: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ISRAEL….A REMARKABLE COUNTRY

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/04/happy_birthday_israel.html If countries were people and Israel was an American, it would begin to collect Social Security in nine months. It would be eligible for a reverse mortgage and only a few years from mandatory withdrawals from its 401k. We’d be talking retirement and watching the grass and the grandchildren grow. In national terms, Israel […]

BRIDGET JOHNSON: HAGEL REPLACES “DRONEFARE MEDAL” WITH “DISTINGUISHED DEVICE” SEE NOTE PLEASE

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/04/15/under-pressure-hagel-replaces-dronefare-medal-with-distinguishing-device/

WHO IS DUMB AND DUMBEST? HAGEL OR SENATOR JOE MANCHIN (D W.VA)?????

After pushback from Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has decided to roll back plans for the dronefare medal.

On Feb. 13, the Pentagon established of the Distinguished Warfare Medal to recognize the achievements of “a small number of service men and women who have an especially direct and immediate impact on combat operations through the use of remotely piloted aircraft and cyber operations.”

Lawmakers were concerned about the proposed precedence of the new medal over combat medals including the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Production on the DWM was stopped after Hagel agreed to review the medal.

“While the review confirmed the need to ensure such recognition, it found that misconceptions regarding the precedence of the award were distracting from its original purpose,” Hagel said in a statement today.

“The Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the concurrence of the service secretaries, have recommended the creation of a new distinguishing device that can be affixed to existing medals to recognize the extraordinary actions of this small number of men and women,” he continued. “I agree with the Joint Chiefs’ findings, and have directed the creation of a distinguishing device instead of a separate medal.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Hagel’s statement confirmed why he voted for his confirmation: “Simply put, he does the right thing.”

“Secretary Hagel’s commonsense approach to reviewing this important issue proves to our combat veterans that their sacrifices are valued,” Manchin gushed. “I truly am grateful for his leadership and for his willingness to listen to all who care so deeply about this issue.

DAVID GOLDMAN: THE MEN RESPONSIBLE FOR STARVING EGYPTIAN FAMILIES

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/04/15/the-men-responsible-for-starving-egyptian-families/?singlepage=true Egypt’s pound has fallen by 40% since last December, from 6 to the dollar to 8.25 to the dollar on the black market. The prices of basic food items like beans and milk have risen by more than that, pricing all forms of protein out of the range of the half of Egyptians who […]

DAVID SINGER: TWO NEW PALESTINIAN MYTHS

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/04/two_new_palestinian_myths.html Two new Arab myths have surfaced in the past week to complicate attempts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to procure the resumption of the long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the PLO. The first myth can be directly attributed to Mustafa Barghouti — a presidential candidate for the now defunct Palestinian National Authority […]

MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY: VENEZUELA’S CUBAN ELECTION

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578418491184138804.html The Castro regime wasn’t going to allow an easy victory for the opposition candidate who has pledged to stop sending oil to Havana. Venezuela held a presidential election on Sunday to replace left-wing populist Hugo Chávez, whose death was announced on March 5. The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) put up Nicolás Maduro, […]

Putin’s Got a List Vladimir’s Idea of Moral Equivalence.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578424520066643466.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn_Opinion They say history repeats itself as farce, but it usually takes longer than this. A day after the U.S. government published its list of Russians banned from travel to the U.S. under the Magnitsky Act, Russia responded Saturday with two lists of its own. The first is what the Russian Foreign Ministry dubbed the […]