RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Spin Doctors of “Renewable Energy”

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/15/the-spin-doctors-of-renewable-energy/print/

The spin doctors of renewable energy are in overdrive. On June 11 the renewable energy establishment jointly released the UN’s annual report on financial investment in the sector (Global Energy Investment 2012) and the annual report by REN21 (Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, a UN spinoff) which focuses on the end uses of renewable energy — how much is being used in what sectors of the economy. The double release was timed nine days prior to the UN’s coming summit on “sustainable development” entitled Rio + 20 [it’s been years since the last Rio environmental gabfest]. It is designed to push the summit–with an expected attendance of 50,000, from heads of states to run of the mill activists– to enact yet more subsidies for renewables in pursuit of the holy grail: a “green” economy.

No one expects the media or delegates to read lengthy reports. In this case a single summary report of both reports has been issued, so that it is not even necessary to read two summaries. As in the case of the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change reports, the summary is more tendentious and politically loaded than the reports on which it is based. But given that the summary is what is widely read and quoted–certainly it’s all the Rio delegates are likely to read–it carries the greatest weight. And it has a dual message. On the one hand the renewables sector is moving forward splendidly. Investment in solar has now outstripped that in wind and overall investment in renewables in 2011 grew 17% over 2010 despite the miserable economy. End uses have also grown strongly, to the point where renewables now supply 16.7% of total global energy consumption. On the other hand, there are headwinds. Those lower costs create pain on the supply side, sinking some major companies. Bottom line: the summary report quotes Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environmental Programme: “This sends yet another strong signal of opportunity to world leaders and delegates meeting later this month…It is essential to continue government policies that support and nurture the sector’s growth…Otherwise the low-carbon transition could weaken just at the point when exciting cost reductions are starting to transform the economics.” A not so veiled threat here to the assemblage at Rio. Keep the subsidies coming or the green economy could collapse and it will be your fault.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/15/are-american-jews-waking-up/ This week, a Gallup poll showed that President Obama’s support level among American Jews had dropped from 74 percent in 2008 to 64 percent. That drop is twice as large as the drop for any other racial or ethnic group. It still leaves two-thirds of Jews standing in support of a President who will […]

All of us have regrets in life. Some have more than others. I’ve probably shot myself in the foot more than should ever be allowed…and hurt my loving parents and others as well in the process. Sure, my “luck” was not the best, I was naive in many ways, and there were, at times, truly […]

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2012/6/15/main-feature/1/the-aircraft-plot/e Edward Kuznetsov lives in Jerusalem and is the author of three novels: “Prison Diary”, “Mordovian Marathon” (“both written secretly in prison and smuggled abroad”) and “Russian Romance”, all of which have been translated into many languages. In 1974, “Prison Diary” won the Gulliver Award in France, being declared the best book written by a […]

http://sarahhonig.com/2012/06/15/another-tack-whats-in-a-name/

Word is that US President Barack Obama, remarkably free from introspection and unencumbered by healthy hints of self-doubt, assiduously attributes Israeli mistrust of him to his eminently Muslim middle name. For him that encapsulates it all.

Such simplistic, one-dimensional explanations typify his neophyte missteps on the treacherous turfs of foreign policy. Obama botches things up because of his predilection for facile grand gestures, which, alas, can’t alter intricate realities. He hasn’t got an elementary handle on our Israeli outlook and is likewise unable to navigate the tempestuous Islamic sea that swirls ominously around us.

He doesn’t get us and he doesn’t get them.

Obama’s oversimplified presumptions about our perceived antipathy toward him (without stopping to consider his undisguised cold shoulder to us), are matched by oversimplified expectations that the Muslim/Arab world should cheer him. These too hinge on that eminently Muslim middle name. Being called Hussein should, in and of itself, create an affinity, make Muslims trust him and accept him as a kindred spirit.

This, of course, is every bit as simplistic as the notion that Israelis should harbor misgivings because of his name.

In both cases there’s more than latent condescension in the notion that simpleton natives can be attracted or repelled with trivial outward accoutrements. Obama, the sophisticated enchanter, can manipulate them. Whether he captivates or chides them, they, like impressionable children, will play out his expectations, complying with considerations as silly as those encapsulated in a name.

The name accounts for everything.

It explains away resentment of his policies as betokening prejudice against his extraction. It claims a special position vis-à-vis the Third World by boasting about connections unprecedented for an American leader. Obama banked on being recognized as a quasi-native son of non-Western cultures, who – with no other attributes than his African absentee father’s distant heritage and his Asian stepfather’s upbringing – could forge bonds unlike any previous White House tenant.

All this doesn’t just convey unwarranted hubris, it also – and foremost so – causes misrepresentation, misconception and distortion. It presents things as they definitely are not and it triggers dismal consequences.

By not giving Israelis and the enemies who surround them more credit, Obama does what few before him had managed as incompetently. He alienates America’s one committed comrade while earning the disrespect of all those he set out to endear with just his name and fawning flattery. Few had succeeded in doing as badly in as short a time.

Would Obama Snitch On Israel To Iran? — on The Glazov Gang
by Jamie Glazov
Tommi Trudeau, Dwight Schultz and Nonie Darwish battle it out on Frontpage’s television debate program.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/15/communist-website-denounces-the-glazov-gang-1/

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter?utm_source=P&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3817&P+Auto+1= Unrequited love is a sad and mournful thing, as any teenager could tell you. Barack Obama, too. His European friends, who swooned with such ardor four years ago, are cooling off.Mr. Obama still nourishes his lifelong crush on the Europeans, regarding them as the source of the kind of government compassion and bureaucratic kindness […]

http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/5901 “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.” – John Adams I was listening to a local radio program when one caller, his voice rife […]

http://danielgordis.org/?p=2526

When Prof. Asa Kasher, Israel Prize laureate and author of the IDF’s ethical code, delivered the Shalem Center’s annual Zalman Bernstein Memorial Lecture earlier this week, one of the first questions from the audience was from a young woman studying at a posthigh school, pre-army program in Aderet.

“You spoke of how the singing of Hatikva still moves you,” she said, “and it moves me as well. But it doesn’t move everyone. What role do you believe the government ought to have in instilling a sense of Zionist passion in a younger generation of Israelis?”

OK, she didn’t phrase it precisely that way, but that was what she wanted to know. Her question, I thought, was important because it was a reminder that we’ve got a hungry young generation here. They’re desperate to believe that by virtue of their living here, they’re part of something important, even majestic. Does anyone else still believe what she does, she wanted to know? One can understand why she’s asking.

Whatever you think our policy toward thousands of illegal Sudanese refugees ought to be, there’s no denying that images of Jewish immigration police rounding up helpless refugees is a distressing one. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be discomfited, not to wonder if a country created by people who had nowhere else to go 60-something years ago couldn’t have dealt with this better.

For those of you old enough to remember, during their epic heavyweight battle in 1974 known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” Muhammad Ali made famous a defensive ploy known as the “Rope-a-Dope.” Flailing on the ropes, the former boxing great feigned being beaten by then World Heavy Weight Champion George Foreman.  Allowing Forman to […]