It’s almost three years since I wrote a 270-word blog post about the corruption of the investigative process at Penn State under a university president since indicted and facing 20 years in the slammer for obstruction of justice and child endangerment. Michael E Mann, creator of the “global warming” hockey stick, didn’t care for my post, and sued for defamation – and here we all are. Neither Mann nor I live or work in the District of Columbia, so I assumed that, having airily assented to his venue-shopping and chosen to accept the case, the DC courts would be capable of adjudicating the matter. Little did I know that, in the dank toilet of DC justice, they can, on the one hand, have two trial judges simultaneously ruling on the same case while, on the other hand, be entirely unaware of whether their own anti-SLAPP law is appealable and thus require a decision from the Appeals Court on whether the law is appealable before the appeal can be appealed.
Prince Charles ended his tour of the United States in Louisville, Kentucky yesterday where, the Independant reports, that during a speech at the Cathedral of the Assumption Prince Charles took a shot at capitalism by stating that it had “enormous shortcomings”:
“Prince Charles spoke of an “economic system that seems to have enormous shortcomings” at one of the final events of his four day royal tour of the United States.
“The future King gave a speech yesterday tackling the environmental and economic issues faces the world at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, Kentucky.
“…The Prince of Wales told the invited audience: “We are standing at a moment of substantial transition where we face the dual challenges of a world view and an economic system that seem to have enormous shortcomings, together with an environmental crisis – including that of climate change – which threatens to engulf us all.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/03/breaking-german-news-germanwings-airbus-co-pilot-was-muslim-convert/
GERMAN REPORT —HE WAS RADICALIZED! GERMAN CO-PILOT WAS MUSLIM CONVERT–
— STAYED AT Bremen Mosque
Police have reportedly found an “item of significance” at the apartment of the co-pilot who crashed the Germanwing passenger plane into the Alps this week.
The item was NOT a suicide note.
A German news website claims Andreas Lubitz was a Muslim convert.
Speisa.com reported:
Israeli newspaper Yediot got their hands on the European Union’s 40-point plan to “pressure Israel into negotiations” in the wake of Netanyahu’s re-election.
An EU diplomatic source told Ynet that there was a definite chance that the recommendations in the report, which the member states have yet to approve, were more likely to be implemented following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement during his election campaign that a Palestinian state would not be created under his rule.
Our peevish, petulant, and impetuous president has struck again:
In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.
But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5451/itai-dzamara-missing
Itai Dzamara, a critic of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, has been missing since March 9, 2015. It is feared that the Mugabe regime has abducted him, and that his safety and life are under severe threat. It is expected that if he is harmed or found murdered, whoever is found responsible, no matter who, will be punished with the full force of the law. It would be best, if he has been abducted, if he were returned safely to his home at once.
Banning such events, speakers and displays is not the answer. It is a stance not only intellectually bankrupt, but one that solidifies a dangerous precedent: the intolerance of free speech.
Removing dissent — however morally intended — is intrinsically antithetical to education, especially at a university.
The greatest problem with the current lot of anti-Israel voices is not that they are “offensive” or “mean;” it is that what they say contains outright lies and falsehoods.
However malicious or misguided, the speech and conduct of those who oppose Israel –who cannot or will not see the difference between an open, tolerant democracy and repressive, authoritarian governments — should be refuted, not suppressed.
In 1902, the Russian Jewish author and early Zionist leader, Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940) responded to a fellow journalist’s effort to label Zionism as “historically retrograde”, “politically reactionary” and “unworkable”. “Defame it if you must!” he wrote. “The dream is greater than its slanderers. It need not fear their calumny.” [1]
My Pope Center Clarion Call today is a review/essay of Kevin Carey’s new book The End of College. I found it fascinating and highly persuasive. In sum, Carey argues that the old-fashioned college bundle (degree, fun, dubious learning) will soon be replaced by what he calls “the University of Everywhere.”
The U of E is the vast assortment of online learning, assessment, and certification that has been gaining momentum slowly for decades. (His history of that development alone is worth the price of the book. If you’ve never heard of Patrick Suppes or Herbert Simon, you’ll marvel at their pioneering work.) The standard retort when online courses come up has been, “They’re not very good and can’t compete with actually being in the classroom.” Carey’s counter-argument to that is devastating.
He actually took the online MIT introductory biology course taught by the famed Eric Lander and found that learning the material online was much better than being in the classroom. What I find so appealing about the U of E is that it’s a spontaneous, unregulated, free-market response to the evident inefficiency of the educational status quo. Carey and I are in perfect agreement that higher ed is mainly run for the benefit of the producers (faculty, administration, and other hangers-on) with little concern for the consumers.
Even if, as the US Administration ceaselessly assures us, Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons can be frustrated for a while, any relaxation of the current economic sanctions will be used to finance Iran’s other drive: its quest for regional hegemony.
To begin with, the P5+1 could adopt the very successful style of negotiation practiced by Palestinians as well as Iranians. This is to whittle away at the position of the other side by extracting one little concession after another, but then to delay the negotiations indefinitely when the deal seems to be imminent. The result is that when negotiations do resume, it is not from zero, but from an inferior initial position of the other side.
Whenever a deal seems near, one of the P5+1 should come up with a further demand or demands. What they could do is adopt that role in succession, so that Iran is the party that needs to keep starting afresh from a worse position.
Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics has a devastating indictment of the Coward-in-Chief and his deliberate thumb in the eye to the honor of the American military:
Travel back with me, dear reader, to a magical and sunny time. It was only 10 months ago, on a glorious June morning when President Obama called the White House press corps together in the Rose Garden. There, our smiling president proudly announced that the United States had secured the release of an American serviceman held captive in Afghanistan for five years.
Flanked by the grateful parents of returning Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the president lauded his administration’s “ironclad commitment to bring our prisoners of war home.” The soldier’s father, Bob Bergdahl, read a prayer; the young man’s mother, Jani, hugged the president. It was a story that could please all Americans: parenthood (quite properly) trumping partisanship.
