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Ruth King

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump’s Federalist Revival The president-elect’s EPA pick will restore balance to the federal-state relationship. Kimberley Strassel

By on December 8th, 2016

Donald Trump had barely finished announcing his pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency before the left started listing its million reasons why Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was the worst nomination in the history of the planet: He’s an untrained anti-environmentalist. He’s a polluter. He’s a fossil-fuel fanatic, a lobbyist-lover, a climate crazy.

Mr. Pruitt is not any of those things. Here’s what he in fact is, and the real reason the left is frustrated: He’s a constitutional scholar, a federalist (and a lawyer). And for those reasons he is a sublime choice to knock down the biggest conceit of the Obama era—arrogant, overweening (and illegal) Washington rule.

We’ve lived so many years under the Obama reign that many Americans forget we are a federal republic, composed of 50 states. There isn’t a major statute on the books that doesn’t recognize this reality and acknowledge that the states are partners with—and often superior to—the federal government. That is absolutely the case with major environmental statues, from the Clean Air Act to the Clean Water Act to the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Congress specifically understood in crafting each of these laws that one-size-fits all solutions were detrimental to the environment. Federal bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency traditionally and properly existed to set minimum standards, provide technical support, and engage in occasional enforcement. States, with their unique knowledge of local problems, economies and concerns, were free to innovate their own solutions. CONTINUE AT SITE

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Donald Trump Cabinet Picks Signal Deregulation Moves Are Coming Business leaders predict changes may come in everything from overtime pay to power-plant emission rules By Nick Timiraos and Andrew Tangel

By on December 8th, 2016

Business leaders are predicting a dramatic unraveling of regulations on everything from overtime pay to power-plant emission rules as Donald Trump seeks to fill his cabinet with determined adversaries of the agencies they will lead.

The president-elect’s pick Thursday to head the Labor Department, fast-food executive Andrew Puzder, is an outspoken critic of the worker-pay policies advanced by the Obama administration. Mr. Trump’s choice for the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is a primary architect of legal challenges on President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations.

Other cabinet nominees critical of regulations advanced under Mr. Obama include Rep. Tom Price to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, financier Wilbur Ross Jr. at the Commerce Department and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. All will require Senate confirmation.

Those picks suggest the Trump administration, backed by a Republican Congress, is determined to advance labor, environmental and financial regulatory policies more favorable to many American corporations, though not all will back his proposals. Business leaders say all Americans stand to benefit from a lighter touch that would boost profits, growth and hiring, particularly for small and midsize businesses.

“If government can stimulate business to hire more, rather than vilify us, that’s going to be a better milieu,” said Andrew Berlin, CEO of Chicago-based Berlin Packaging LLC, which makes glass and plastic bottles for consumer products.

“The continual onslaught of regulation over the last eight years—that probably has been pretty much our No. 1, overall concern as manufacturers,” said Jason Andringa, CEO of the Vermeer Corp., a Pella, Iowa-based maker of construction and farm machinery. “That there may be some relief from that is very appealing to us.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Tony Thomas: Gaia Can’t Stomach Spagbol

By on December 8th, 2016

Where would we be without climate science — or, more particularly, what of carbonphobic academics if the global warming scam were ever de-funded? Why, researchers who devote their energies to the planet-despoiling peril of pasta with meat sauce would need to find something productive to do!
Fight global warming by reducing CO2 emissions from your spaghetti bolognaise! This is the recommendation of two academics associated with Melbourne’s RMIT University whohave found that the farm-to-fork “Global Warming Potential” (GWP) of pasta with meat sauce can be significantly reduced by eliminating beef and substituting kangaroo. They recommend that for an even greater impact on global heat, rising seas, coral bleaching, tempests, bushfires and ocean acidification, you should dispense with the kangaroo too, and make your spagbol topping with lentils and kidney beans.

The Journal of Cleaner Production study, reprised at The Conversation, is by RMIT Principal Research Fellow Karli Verghese and Stephen Clune, senior lecturer in sustainable design, Lancaster University and formerly an RMIT Research Fellow. The authors say, “We hope that chefs, caterers and everyday foodies will use this information to cook meals without cooking the planet.”

A Conversation commenter, William Hollingsworth, self-identifying as “a Marxist monarchist”, suggests another planet-saving refinement to our favorite family fare. “Reduce the footprint for spaghetti bolognaise even further by cooking it in one pot, not by boiling the spaghetti separately which doubles the amount of energy needed for cooking and adds another pot to be washed up. Tastes just the same,” he says.

The true hero of RMIT’s spaghetti bolognaise-led crusade against global warming is not Skippy the Kangaroo but Oscar the Onion. The carbon footprint of onions, say the researchers, is so low it would take 50 medium onions (5.8kg) to generate 1kg of greenhouse gases. By contrast, a mere 44gm of premium beef spagbol topping generates a similar 1kg carbon footprint.

The authors, who are clearly not silly, stop short of recommending 50 medium onions for dinner. “Due to different culinary and dietary requirements,” they explain, “it is hard to argue that you can replace beef with onions.” (Insert flatulence jokes here.) A commenter, possibly a Scot[i], remarks that he would much rather eat 2.6kg of oats than 5.8kg of onions for the same greenhouse emissions.

From the paper, we discover that the five cloves of garlic in a spagbol recipe generate a mere 10 grams of harmful emissions, and the grated zucchini only 20 grams. There seems no need for either the Turnbull federal or Andrews state government to include garlic and zucchini emissions in their CO2 reduction targets. Nor do garlic and zucchini emissions bulk large in the global annual emissions tally of 42 billion tonnes.

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ISRAEL, MOVIES AND TELEVISION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Basketball Game that Put Israel ‘On the Map’ Dani Menkin’s new documentary, ‘On the Map,’ recounts how the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team’s 1977 triumph galvanized Israel By Matthew Futterman

By on December 8th, 2016

Sports and sports movies are at their best when the players involved understand something far larger than just a game is on the line.

Israeli filmmaker Dani Menkin proves this with his documentary “On the Map,” the story of the 1976-77 Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team. The team won for Israel its first European basketball championship and forever changed Israelis’ view of their country and its sporting prowess. It opened in Los Angeles last month and premieres in New York Friday.

Menkin was a boy in Tel Aviv when former U.S. collegiate star Tal Brody led Maccabi to the pinnacle of European basketball. He watched Israelis pour into the streets to celebrate the shocking win over Russia’s CSKA Moscow team.

“Everyone remembers where they were when Tal Brody said we are on the map and we are here to stay,” Menkin said in a recent interview from Los Angeles, where he lives now. The exact quote, delivered by a delirious Brody after the 91-79 beatdown of the Russians on February 17, 1977, in a small gym in Belgium, was: “We are on the map. And we are staying on the map—not only in sports but in everything.”

Brody chose Israeli basketball over the NBA in 1966. On a post-college trip, he learned firsthand that the country, especially Tel Aviv, wasn’t a desert backwater but rather a soulful and hedonistic oasis.

“The social life was very attractive,” said Brody, who has lived in Israel for most of the past 49 years.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Cyberattacks, Terrorism Pose Grave Threats to the U.K., Spy Chief Says Head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service says cyberwarfare, antidemocratic propaganda must be countered By Jenny Gross

By on December 8th, 2016

LONDON—The head of the U.K.’s foreign intelligence agency warned Thursday that cyberattacks and the militant group Islamic State pose grave dangers to Britain and its allies.

In rare public comments, MI6 chief Alex Younger said that to protect itself and friendly nations from these threats, the U.K. must expose the magnitude of cyberwarfare and propaganda operations that subvert democracy.

“The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty. They should be a concern to all those who share democratic values,” Mr. Younger said in his first major speech since his appointment as spy chief two years ago.

Mr. Younger didn’t specifically say Moscow had been behind a recent wave of cyberattacks, but his comments come as Western governments warn of Russian meddling in U.S. and European politics.

The U.S. intelligence community has accused Moscow of interfering in the U.S. election by leaking emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee in Washington and from other organizations and government agencies.

U.S. officials say the Russian-backed hacking effort is likely to continue as Moscow tries to influence U.S. politics and key elections in Europe. The Kremlin has denied the allegations.

Russian interference could be particularly aggressive in Europe, where Moscow has forged ties with euroskeptic political parties, which could make it harder for Europe to keep up sanctions on Moscow, White House officials and other experts say.

Mr. Younger described the threat from terrorism as “unprecedented,” singling out Islamic State. He said the Sunni Muslim militant group was plotting violence against the U.K. and its allies from Syria, and that the U.K. couldn’t be safe from terror threats until the Syrian civil war was brought to an end.

Since June 2013, he said, intelligence agencies have disrupted 12 terrorist plots.

Mr. Younger specified Russia by name for casting all groups that oppose Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s government as “terrorists” and refusing to differentiate between rebels working with U.S.-backed allies and Islamic State fighters.

Russia began airstrikes in Syria last year at the request of the Assad government. Residents, antigovernment activists and monitoring groups have for months accused Russia of bombarding the eastern, opposition-held neighborhoods of Aleppo and worsening the humanitarian crisis there.

Rebels have suffered a series of staggering losses in the northern Syrian city, and Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. issued a joint statement on Wednesday condemning the violence.

“In Aleppo, Russia and the Syrian regime seek to make a desert and call it peace,” Mr. Younger said. “The human tragedy is heartbreaking.”

Mr. Younger also tried to soothe worries that Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president and the U.K.’s exit from the European Union will affect the close security ties among Britain and its allies.

“I will aim for, and expect, continuity,” he said. “These relationships are long lasting and the personal bonds between us are strong.” CONTINUE AT SITE

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EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Copying Singapore’s Math Homework The world needs a network of organizations to help countries learn from each other’s education systems. By Wendy Kopp

By on December 8th, 2016

Ms. Kopp is the founder of Teach For America and CEO and co-founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organizations working to expand educational opportunities in 40 countries.

Every three years, hundreds of thousands of teenagers in dozens of countries take an exam that tests their knowledge in science, math, reading, collaborative problem solving and financial literacy. The most recent results, issued this week, provide rich data for determining whether countries’ education systems are high-performing, making progress, or lagging behind. The PISA test is administered by the Program for International Student Assessment, a project of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Here are a few of the success stories from the current report: In Australia, immigrant students perform as well as other children. In South Korea, students from lower-income families perform on a par with wealthier peers. In Vietnam, the academic performance of girls and boys is roughly equitable. And Qatar experienced the fastest progress in math, while Georgia experienced the fastest progress in science.

Unfortunately, experience shows that most countries, including the U.S., fail to make the most of the PISA data. Even though PISA shines a light on policies and practices driving high performance and meaningful progress, only sporadic, ad hoc and generally bilateral opportunities exist to carry knowledge of what’s proving successful in one country to other parts of the world. Most countries write off the opportunity to learn from the highest-performing countries, since they are far away and seem very different. What can the U.S. or Chile, for example, learn from Singapore or Estonia—and vice versa?

The answer is almost certainly a great deal. For an issue like education—which is of enormous importance to global development—this absence of a global approach for fostering the exchange of ideas and best practices is an anomaly. Other global issues such as public health and the environment have robust channels and funding mechanisms for spreading best practices. In education, innovative ideas and new approaches that could benefit students on the other side of the world rarely see the light of day beyond a particular place. CONTINUE AT SITE

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BOOKS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Shortcuts to Addiction Big Pharma, the author argues, has inflated the number of Americans with chronic pain to 100 million when 25 million would be more realistic. Sally Satel reviews “Drug Dealer, MD” by Anna Lembke. By Sally Satel

By on December 8th, 2016

Psychiatrist Anna Lembke, chief of addiction medicine at Stanford University’s medical school, has spent her career helping patients battle their addiction to opioid drugs, from Vicodin to heroin. Out of this experience comes “Drug Dealer, MD,” a short and feisty book in which, among much else, she calls out practitioners for overprescribing painkillers and censures a scamming subculture in which patients abet their own addiction and suffering.

The “prescription drug epidemic,” as Dr. Lembke calls it, encompasses several trends, the most dramatic being a spike in overdose deaths. Prescription-drug abuse, she explains, began to be a problem in the 1990s, when campaigns for improved pain treatment gained ground. In 2001 the powerful Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations established standards for pain management in response to the widespread problem of under-treating pain.

Few experts would deny that the inadequate treatment of pain had long been a challenge for American medicine, and the new standards were not in themselves misguided. But the pendulum has since swung in the other direction. Too many well-meaning doctors use long-acting, high-dose narcotics to treat nasty toothaches and minor injuries when such drugs are really meant to relieve the agony of cancer and other severe, unremitting conditions. The more opiate medications in circulation, the more opportunities for patients—and non-patients—to abuse them.

Part of the blame for the epidemic, Dr. Lembke says, rests with the pharmaceutical companies, which have been heavy-handed in their promotion of narcotics to doctors. Meanwhile, she argues, Big Pharma has exaggerated the number of Americans with chronic pain, inflating the figure to 100 million when 25 million would be more realistic.

Users themselves, of course, must assume some responsibility too, and one can only applaud Dr. Lembke for wading into these politically incorrect waters, given that any discussion of the role of the user is construed as blaming the victim. There are patients, Dr. Lembke writes, who “visit a doctor’s office not to recover from illness but to be validated in their identity as a person with an illness.” She describes how patients finagle pills out of doctors and, in an amusing riff, labels their strategies by user type. “Senators” will “filibuster” the doctor with unrelated problems until the final few minutes of a visit and then make a plea for narcotics; the doctor is now so short on time that he relents. “Exhibitionists” writhe in fake pain. The “Dynamic Duo”—a patient and his crying mother (“the commonest co-dependent”)—present a team too pitiful to refuse. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Lawyer for a Lawless EPA Scott Pruitt can restore respect for the states in environmental policy.

By on December 8th, 2016

As Donald Trump rolls out his domestic-policy nominees, Democrats are discovering to their horror that more often than not he meant what he said. The latest evidence is the President-elect’s intention to nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

There was a time when Republican EPA administrators were liberals in GOP power suits. Think William Reilly under George H.W. Bush or Christine Todd Whitman under George W. Bush. They more or less agreed with the left’s command-and-control model of environmental regulation, and they’d pile more costs on the private economy.

The Democratic Party’s green extremism, especially on climate change, has made such Republicans obsolete. President Obama couldn’t get his climate-change agenda through a Democratic Congress, so he ordered the EPA to impose it on the 50 states by diktat. The agency reinterpreted statute after ancient statute as its bureaucrats saw fit, daring the courts to stop them. Think of the Clean Power Plan to put the coal industry out of business, the carbon endangerment rule, grabbing authority to call any pond or puddle a “waterway,” and so much more.

Mr. Pruitt’s first job will be restoring respect for the Constitution and cooperative federalism in EPA rule-making. He knows how to do this because he led the legal charge by the states against EPA abuses, including the victory of a Supreme Court stay on the Clean Power Plan as it moves through the appellate courts. If he is confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Pruitt could order the EPA’s lawyers to inform the courts that the agency no longer stands by the legal interpretation behind the Clean Power Plan.

Democrats will attack Mr. Pruitt as a climate-change “denier,” but his only offense is disagreeing with them on energy policy. The irony is that Mr. Pruitt will probably do more for the environment than Mr. Obama ever did because he will make sure that rules issued by the EPA are rooted in law and thus won’t be overturned in court.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT ON DECEMBER 8, 1941

By on December 8th, 2016

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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EDUCATION, IMMIGRATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Sanctuary Campuses How the safety of students and faculty are compromised to achieve the leftist agenda. Michael Cutler

By on December 8th, 2016

Two disturbing articles focusing on “Sanctuary college campuses,” serve as the predication for my article today.

On November 22, 2016 “The Atlantic” published, “The Push for Sanctuary Campuses Prompts More Questions Than Answers: It’s not clear how far colleges would or could go to stop the deportation of students.”

This article detailed how some “Sanctuary” colleges will not cooperate with immigration authorities.

Consider this excerpt from this article:

“Faculty at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, who would like to see the school become a sanctuary campus, met on Monday with administrators to “have a better sense of what their expectations are for a sanctuary campus,” said Joanne Berger-Sweeney, the school’s president. Her faculty expressed interest in the school declining to pass immigration information to federal authorities, and in establishing a network of alumni who are willing to offer pro bono legal help to undocumented students.”

On December 1, 2016 the website, “The College Fix” posted, “UC President Napolitano to campus cops: Don’t enforce federal immigration law.”

Here is are salient excerpts from this article:

Napolitano — who served as Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama administration, charged with protecting the nation’s borders — put out a statement Wednesday that her office will “vigorously protect the privacy and civil rights of the undocumented members of the UC community and will direct its police departments not to undertake joint efforts with any government agencies to enforce federal immigration law.”

The announcement comes as students in the country illegally and their peer allies are distraught that there might be mass deportations of undocumented students under a Donald Trump presidency. Many student leaders have announced their schools are “sanctuary campuses.” Now campus leaders are essentially following suit.

According to Napolitano’s office, there are about 2,500 undocumented students enrolled across the 10-campus UC system.

“While we still do not know what policies and practices the incoming federal administration may adopt, given the many public pronouncements made during the presidential campaign and its aftermath, we felt it necessary to reaffirm that UC will act upon its deeply held conviction that all members of our community have the right to work, study, and live safely and without fear at all UC locations,” Napolitano stated.

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