DEI is philosophy without form, acceptance without accomplishment, and incompetence without consequence!

By Rich Kozlovich

On November 26, 2024 Rajan Laad posted this article, DEI's Clouded Lens, saying:

"The Camerimage festival this year was marred due to 'sexist' opinions of the festival's director Marek Żydowicz in an op-ed for Cinematography World about female directors and cinematographers. Żydowicz received intense backlash from many in the film industry and tried to extinguish the fire with not just one but two apologies but the outraged mob thought his sexism was too severe for forgiveness. The British Society of Cinematographers replied to Żydowicz that they were "disheartened and angered by your profoundly misogynistic comments and aggressive tone, which we view as symptomatic of a deep-rooted prejudice.".........The festival jury didn't withdraw but "committed to being part of any gender representation debate."

He goes on to list the prominent filmmakers who pulled out in outrage.  Okay, so, what was said by festival's director Marek Żydowicz that was so outrageous so many pulled out?

One of the most significant changes is the growing recognition of female cinematographers and directors. This evolution is crucial as it rectifies the obvious injustice present in societal development. However, it also raises a question: Can the pursuit of change exclude what is good? Can we sacrifice works and artists with outstanding artistic achievements solely to make room for mediocre film production?”

That's it?  That's all it took to set them off?  Maybe instead of apologizing he should  have offered them ice cream, cookies, and a safe room to cry out their little eyes. 

If the best filmmakers are all men, then they'll demand at least, the very least, one woman must be on that list.  But when you give in to insanity it never ends.  How about this.  There must be one black, or one homosexual woman, or one homosexual man, or one Asian, or one, Hispanic, or one atheist, or one communist, or...well... you get the idea.  This kind of insanity is a metastasizing cancer infecting all the cells in the body until the body dies.  And DEI is killing every institution it infects. 

So, what does this mean in reality?  It means someone who excelled must be sacrificed to accommodate these leftist fanatics, but it won't be the most prominent or most successful filmmakers, because that may impact future employment.  So they have to choose struggling up and coming filmmakers in order to accommodate a less qualified woman.   What if that up and coming filmmaker was the very best of them all?  Well, too bad, he'll be sacrificed anyway.  

What hypocrisy! 

Are we approaching the day when people will understand there can be no apologizing for telling the truth?  You can never apologize enough to satisfy them.  Your punishment must be permanent as a a warning to all others to never deviate, even the slightest.  Consensus to the  the sacred tenets of leftist insanity is absolute.  Or else!   

Well, how's this?  Truth isn't sexist, and it isn't racist, it's just the truth, and prominent people who tell the truth must have the courage to stand for up for what's true, regardless of the personal consequences. Once that happens there's an automatic separation of the sheep from the goats, and sides are taken, and battles enjoined, but truth and time are on the same side, and as Ben Franklin said, "Truth will very patiently wait for us". 

I can already hear it...."Oh yeah, what's truth?" So, here's the irrefutable definition:

Truth is the sublime convergence of history and reality. Everything we're told has a historical context and foundation. Everything we're told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. If what's presented to us fails in either category, it's wrong. All that's left to do is develop the intellectual response to explain why it's wrong. 

 

Standing against the tide telling the world, "You're all wrong and I'm prepared to tell you why", isn't for the faint of heart.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is irrational!  It's leftist philosophy without form, acceptance without accomplishment, and incompetence without consequence, and it's long overdue for the cancer of DEI to be cured with with the only cure possible.  An injection of MEI, Meritocracy, Excellence, and Intelligence.  It just takes guts. 

 

 “Consensus: “The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”  - Margaret Thatcher

Posted by Rich Kozlovich at 5:44 AM No comments:

Michelle Obama, Class-Warfare, and Clueless Hypocrisy

August 22, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I used to think the world’s biggest hypocrites were the bureaucrats at international bureaucracies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund.

They jet around the world at our expense (in business class, of course) urging governments to increase tax burdens, yet their salaries are tax free.

I’m not joking. Bureaucrats who pay no tax (on very generous salaries) have a mission of encouraging higher taxes on the rest of us.

As far as I’m concerned, this hypocrisy is even worse than the politicians who oppose school choice while sending their own kids to private school. And worse than the elitists who lecture us about global warming while living in 10,000-square foot homes and flying in private jets.

But we may have an example of hypocrisy that beats all alternatives. At the Democratic Convention this week, Michelle Obama demonstrated a remarkable absence of self-awareness, as captured by this tweet.

Ms. Obama’s intention was to promote class warfare by implying that it is unseemly to be successful.

Does she not know she’s part of the top 1 percent? Maybe the top 0.1 percent?

Here are some details from Business Insider, including the fact that the three homes mentioned in the tweet have a combined value of more than $22 million.

…the Obamas’ life after the White House has been full and highly lucrative. …These endeavors — along with the six-figure pension all former presidents receive — have significantly contributed to the Obamas’ net worth, which is at least $70 million, according to International Business Times. The New York Post pegged their fortune much higher, at $135 million. …

All things considered, the Obamas could stand to earn as much as $242.5 million in their post-presidency life, American University estimated in 2017. …they purchased an 8,200-square-foot mansion in Washington, DC, for $8.1 million… In addition to their residence in Washington, DC, the Obamas still own their home in Chicago… It’s valued at about $2.5 million. …In 2019, the Obamas reportedly purchased a house in Martha’s Vineyard for $11.75 million.

Have the Obama’s taken “more than they needed”?

For what it’s worth, Ms. Obama’s class warfare would not have been grotesquely hypocritical if she had simply said something like “those of us with a lot should be willing to pay a lot” or “people like me should be pay more to help those with less.”

That’s the message of lefty groups like the so-called Patriotic Millionaires. They don’t hide their wealth. They just have a masochistic desire for higher taxes.

That’s bad tax policy, but it’s not hypocritical. Ms. Obama should learn from them.

P.S. Even better, Ms. Obama should learn about good tax policy so she can then support reforms that would enable other people to get rich like her.

P.P.S. There’s another reason that I don’t like what Ms Obama said. She should have said that her mother was suspicious of people who “earned more than they needed” rather than “took more than they needed.”

In a free-market system, you only get money by providing value to someone else. Transactions are voluntary and based on mutual benefit.

To be fair, her statement would have been accurate if she was referring to government bureaucrats, subsidy recipients, and others who obtain unearned wealth because of government coercion. Given the big-government views of her husband, which she seems to share, I’m completely confident she was referring to people who earn money honestly.

P.P.P.S. The Patriotic Millionaires are hypocrites, but in a different way than Ms. Obama.

P.P.P.P.S. There’s a test that supposedly determines whether libertarians are hypocrites.

Michael Cohen: Bigger than Planet Earth!

By Peter Murphy March 2nd, 2019 Climate 2 Comments @ CFACT

 

Each of us can think of that someone in history or in the present day who fits the description, “larger than life.”

Think Winston Churchill, John Wayne, JFK, Babe Ruth, Kim …(never mind – you get the point).

This past week in Washington, D.C., that figure was none other than Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney for President Donald Trump, and now a convicted felon who is headed to federal prison. In fact, Mr. Cohen wasn’t just larger than life; he was more important than the Planet Earth itself!

Mr. Cohen testified for three days before different committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, two days of which were behind closed doors, and one day in public. His public appearance before the House Oversight and Reform committee was widely attended by members of Congress of both parties, and had wall-to-wall television news coverage plus hours more of commentary by media talking-heads.

By contrast, just one day prior to the public hearing featuring Cohen, the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on climate change.  It was attended by exactly two Democrats (the majority Party in the House), a handful of Republicans, and basically no media.

The Republicans, the minority Party, summarily out-voted the two Democrats to end the hearing before it started due to the obvious lack of interest – from themselves, the Democrats who were AWOL, and the media, which ignored it altogether.

Nary a day goes by without alarmist statements of politicians and media figures pretending to be scientists—along with scientists posing as politicians and media figures—about the inexorable gloom and doom of the Planet Earth. Man-made climate change, it’s often claimed, is an “existential threat;” the Earth will be “uninhabitable” in just a few decades hence; we face the “point of no-return” even sooner (or a bit later), and so forth. That’s the mantra from nearly every Democratic elected official and major media and Hollywood figure, and they are sticking to it.

With such a dire emergency, you would think a congressional hearing this past week on the subject of climate change would draw full attendance from members of Congress and wall-to-wall news coverage, at least from the cable networks. It drew neither, and became a non-event as a result.

Now, members of Congress lead frenetic lives. They get pulled in all kinds of directions with committee meetings, constituents, television appearances, speeches, travel junkets, fundraisers, and so on. It’s hard to be everywhere simultaneously. Still, with the point-of-no-return supposedly fast approaching for our planet, you would think the same politicians would at least pretend to care by showing up at a committee hearing on the cause—climate change—and what to do.

Instead, the news channels and D.C. politicians were fixated on Michael Cohen, President Trump’s latest enemy of the moment, who was thought to have the goods on the president and who poured out his dubious self to the House Oversight Committee.

Notwithstanding the glaring contrast of these two House committee hearings on Capitol Hill, there may be a striking similarity: the credibility of Michael Cohen and man-made climate change are suspect, to say the least.

All but the most blindly partisan know Michael Cohen was a charlatan and a convicted perjurer, and had nothing new or substantive to offer.  Even the Office of Special Counsel had no need of him for its investigation of President Trump. He’s that useless. Yet, members of Congress pretended he mattered and conducted a show hearing, which for many of them advances their political interests – nothing more.

Could the same be said for climate change? That is, how many politicians beyond Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and several other fanatics sincerely believe the Earth will end soon because mankind is destroying it with its capitalistic lifestyle? In fact, evidence suggests insincerity even from Sen. Sanders, given his demand of the 2016 Clinton campaign for carbon-spewing private jet travel.

Politicians are notoriously short-term thinkers, as in the next meeting, the next fundraiser, or the next election. Most don’t worry about long-term issues like “Earth in the Balance” or the $22 trillion national debt because it remains a problem well into the future, if at all.

Might many of the politicians who claim man-made climate change is a long-term threat say so because it serves their near-term political interests, e.g., fundraising, re-election, and accolades from Hollywood actors? The non-attendance and non-attention to this latest hearing on climate change—which became a non-hearing—is a clue that perhaps not a few politicians are actually phoning it in on this issue about which they pretend to care.

Judging by interest of media and our elected officials in D.C. this past week, their priorities were clear:  Michael Cohen regurgitating insults was more important than the man-made climate change. He’s not just larger than life. Michael Cohen, for one brief shining moment in America, was larger than Earth itself.

Have We Lost Our Minds?

By Rich Kozlovich

Some years back Burt Prelutsky  wrote an article entitled “Those poor, poor perverts”.   The basis of the article was a discussion as to how ridiculous are the arguments surrounding pedophiles and how they are to be treated by society.

He uses the old story of how “intellectuals” (Editor's Note: He used the word “nuts”, but they were the intellectuals of the day.  Nothing has changed!) would sit around for hours and discuss how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

See, television did cure one thing.

The only problem is that so many of those who are in decision making positions apparently don’t waste their time on television, mores’ the pity, because they now sit around and decide how many feet away from a school a convicted pedophile may live who has been released from prison.

Prelutsky makes a point that should be obvious to the most casual observer:

 “For what reason would any sane society ever release such a person from jail? The notion that kids are safe if the creep lives 2,000 feet away from where they play is perfectly loony. What about the kids walking to and from those parks and playgrounds? “

He points out that it is like releasing all the bank robbers from the prisons and telling them they can’t live any closer that two blocks away from a bank and expecting this to be the solution to their wanting to rob banks. He goes on to say, “judges and lawmakers seem happy to ignore the rates of recidivism among rapists and pedophiles. Is there anyone else, aside from defense attorneys, who would argue that a man who’s raped a six year old child deserves a second chance?”

We have ceded our own common sense to the “experts”! Are they really all that credible?  So credible that we willingly abandon traditional values, common sense and moral balance?

Where is our moral compass?

As unpleasant an issue as this is, I use it to show a peculiar mindset that has permeated society that really is nuts. Concern about pedophiles, bank robbers and other assorted villains of society is the common concern that we all must share. We also have the added concern of those who are destructive to society in a much larger and more insidious way. The green movement! The group industry and society as a whole must have concerns about.  That's the environmental movement, and those who promote it inside and outside industry.

They promote junk science and outright fraudulent science as fact, and those who should be at the fore front standing against this nonsense turn into cheerleaders, and everyone laps it up like ice cream.

We are willing to accept nonsense from these people because the media is on their side. The EPA is clearly complicit as they continue spewing out a lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations. They support junk science through grant money.  Integrated Pest Management and Green Pest Control are these kinds of endeavors.

The green movement even has legislators held hostage to them via their monetary support.

Some years back a California congressman wanted to make changes to the Endangered Species Act…not repeal it as is really needed…..just add some sanity to it; and the Sierra Club spent a ton of money to defeat him and they did. They stated that “this was a lesson” to other legislators. This makes them more deadly to more people over a broader scope of humanity than bank robbers or even pedophiles.

Do we as an industry really believe all the nonsense they spew out? Do we really believe that we can really come to some sort of mutually acceptable final agreement with them? No matter what many of the prominent people in our industry say publicly; when I talk to them personally and off the record, they all acknowledge that it is all claptrap.

A lobbyist I have known for years makes the point that in any negotiations there must be some compromise, and I agree. The problem we seem to have is being able to understand the difference between compromise and capitulation. If during these discussions we give up something, I would like to know what the other side is giving up.

I am not talking about just being quiet for a while either. Or being quiet while their brethren from some other greenie group attacks us, which is what usually happens. There is no command and control system within the green movement. They will not only continue attacking industry they will attack their green brethren as sell outs for not being green enough.

If you give up 25% of something and they go away until next year, but they will be back the very next year demanding that you give up another 25%,  And this will go on, and on, and on until you no longer have anything to give up.

When you dance with the Devil you don't call the tune, you can't name the dance, you don't lead and you may not be able to leave the dance floor. Why don't we get it?

If you think this is an extreme and unreasonable view; ask Kentucky Fried Chicken. They backed down on point after point and the animal rights people said that this was a “good start”. There will be no end to their demands because the Neville Chamberlain “Policy of Appeasement” philosophy will not work on people with an agenda?

They are the anointed! They know best about all things. They truly believe their individual and collective intellect is far greater than all of the practical experience accumulated by mankind over the centuries. Their's is the “vision of the anointed”, and must not be ignored, no matter the consequences.

As a result of the policies they have promoted they clearly have become the 20th century’s greatest mass murders, and are working just as hard in the 21st century to maintain that status.

Ford Motor Company found out the hard way. In a Fox News article Steve Milloy points out:

“After Ford caved into pressure from left-wing activist investors and issued a report stating that it “views stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and energy security as critical and related business issues that warrant precautionary, prudent and early action,” the enviros thanked Ford in return by accusing his company of putting “more heat-trapping pollution into our skies each year than the entire country of Mexico”; continuing to “produce more global warming pollution on average than any other automaker”; continuing to make SUVs; and fighting a California law that would require a 30 percent reduction in automobile carbon dioxide emissions by 2016.”

Let’s not kid ourselves; what they really want is Ford, and the rest of the automobile industry, out of business.

So, what do they want from us in pest control? Well, I am sure that if we would offer to kill ourselves that they would agree that this would be a nice "start"!

If you look at who has affected people’s health positively and negatively you will find that it is the pesticide application industries that have saved and extended lives, and it's the environmental movement who has taken lives.

So why do we listen to them? Why does anyone?

I am the last one to decry their desire for a simple life without all the modern conveniences; if that is what someone wants, then I say…enjoy! However, if all of these people think their ideas are so great, why are all the greenies and their supporters living in the developed world and not in the third world where their policies hold sway? If they really believe all of the stuff they spew out, they need to take a personal stand and move there.

They could really make an impact on everyone’s mind by taking their children with them also.

Certainly that must make sense to everyone! After all, why would a greenie want to expose themselves and their children to all of these terrible chemicals and advanced technology of an advanced nation?   Right?

They need to move to one of the many areas of the world where there are no roads, few cars and no running water contaminated with any chlorine or fluoride. No electricity, no vaccinations, no genetically modified foods, no fungicides, no anti-bacterial cleaners, all organic food, no pesticides, no air conditioning.

Will there be many takers? I have no doubt there would be few, if any!  You can be sure that the greenies will be as close to the modern conveniences and the society they claim to despise as surely as bank robbers will rob banks and pedophiles will hang around children.

To paraphrase the earlier question asked by Burt Prelutsky:

“For what reason would any sane society ever believe anything these people say?"

The notion that society would be better off adopting the ideas and philosophies of the green movement is perfectly loony.” And yes!  We really have lost our minds!

Let's try and get this once and for all.  The left is irrational, misanthropic and morally defective, that's history and that history is incontestable. Dystopia follows the left like Sancho Panza followed Don Quixote.  A madman!

Dems scream after Mitch McConnell schedules a vote on their own Green New Deal

February 13, 2019 By Monica Showalter

There's nothing quite like handing Democrats What They Want.

So to accommodate them, wily old Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled a vote on freshman socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her sidekick Sen. Ed Markey's much-vaunted "Green New Deal," just to help them out.

But wait. The Senate lefties are not happy about it.

All that methane-filled and benzene ring-infused hot air about cutting cow farts, getting rid of cars, ending jet travel, and retrofitting every building in America to 'go green' -- the plan which was so quickly signed onto by nearly all major Democratic presidential candidates, and then pulled from the website -- suddenly isn't quite what Democrats want to go on the record about these days.

So we see headlines like this:

McConnell Trolls Democrats By Pledging A Vote....... To Read More

Environmentalism, Pantheism, Statism and Pessimism

David Limbaugh  Dec 07, 2018

Meaning no disrespect to climate alarmists of the past half-century, who have been quite formidable in their doomsday warnings, the modern era has ushered in a new wave of scaremongers who threaten to eclipse their predecessors.

This shouldn't discourage the original enviro-wackos of the 1970s, who hadn't accumulated sufficient empirical data to support their burgeoning secular religion. Give those people a break; how were they to know they'd have egg on their faces for predicting apocalyptic global cooling? We're much more advanced now, so it's not fair to judge them.

Admit it. A full week doesn't pass without some cataclysmic news about climate change. The meteorological activists are brilliantly adept at shoehorning any weather event or natural disaster into their ominous narrative.

If world temperatures are cooling -- or warming -- they attribute it to overall warming. If there's a severe hurricane, it's because of evil capitalist carbon emissions. If California forest fires are caused or exacerbated by their asinine environmental policies, they blame them, too, on the "deniers," because one thing is certain about global warming blowhards: Their supposedly having good intentions means never having to apologize for their consistently failed prophecies. Al Gore, after all, is still an icon of this movement despite his embarrassing record and his unconscionably stratospheric personal carbon footprint............It's worth noting, for example, that the 10 worst famines of the 20th century were caused not by the excesses of capitalism or by environmental disasters but by collectivists trying to control human nature............To Read More.....

 

Viewpoint: Greenpeace and ‘the awful reality of anti-science activism’

Bill Wirtz | Genetic Literacy Project | August 9, 2018

The Austrian research portal “Addendum” released a bombshell video regarding the facts, figures, and positions regarding GMO foods. In this report that attempted to explain the reality of both the technology, economic implications and public discourse, the site sat down with both current and former Greenpeace activists, leading them to reveal the awful reality of anti-science activism.
Whoever was under the illusion that organizations the likes of Greenpeace are actual environmentalists who pursue the improvement of human health and biodiversity, will suffer a severe shock from the exchange included in the Addendum video. Sebastian Theissing-Matei, spokesperson for Greenpeace in Austria gave these answers:..........

But for Greenpeace, it’s not the scientific evidence that counts, but the fear it can spread as an effective business model. This is confirmed in the same Austrian report, by former Greenpeace activist Ludger Wess, who is now a science writer who was one of the first journalists in Europe to cover the emerging biotechnology and high-tech industries:............

 Current donors of this organization need to ask themselves the question whether they want to support this self-admitted political organization, which has no regard for the truth............To Read More...

Hate speech, bias and intolerance at UDel

Paul Driessen

University of Delaware students, faculty, administrators and trustees must truthfully answer a simple, but important question: Would this conduct have been ignored or excused if the targets had been Muslim?

A recent article by the editor-in-chief of the school’s student newspaper proclaimed “Green Dragon slayer for hire, in a geography department near you: To members of the Cornwall Alliance, environmentalists are satanic ‘Green Dragons,’ sent from the bowels of hell to threaten world order and harm the needy.”

Caleb Owens’ article links tenured UDel geography and climatology professor David Legates and his Christian faith to “far-right American evangelicals,” fossil fuel funding and the “anti-environmentalist” Cornwall Alliance. Legates is pilloried as a “listed speaker and trusted affiliate” of the Alliance.

The article relies heavily on Iliff School of Theology sociology professor Antony Alumkal, whose book Paranoid Science Owens asserts “charts the long and complicated relationship between science and the American Christian evangelical movement, examining the intra-religious tensions that have accompanied various strands of science denial, including the intelligent design and anti-environmental movements.”

Expanding on this, Owens falsely claims “far-right American evangelicals have been responsible for some of the most radical opposition to scientific positions regarding topics such as climate change and evolution, working in close tandem with secular free-market idealogues.” [sic]

“To find religious justification for their activity,” he says, “Christian anti-environmentalists” and groups like Cornwall “claim a specific literal interpretation of Genesis, finding free market justification in passages that describe God giving humans unrestricted reign over [the] earth. According to the interpretation, God granted humans dominion over the planet and the license to exert power over earth’s resources. From here, environmentalist attempts to regulate fossil fuel use, for instance, stand contrary to man’s God-given destiny.”

Underscoring his bias and intolerance, a cartoon accompanying the article depicts a cute, frightened green dragon carrying a “recycle” placard being attacked by members of a Christian mob dressed in nineteenth century garb straight out of a Frankenstein movie, and brandishing a cross, torch and pitchfork.

In his imagined coup de grace ,Owens claims that “groups like” Cornwall have received “indirect” funding from fossil fuel companies, such as Exxon Mobil – and “government officials and climate activist groups have questioned Legates’ funding and motivations, possibly traceable to fossil fuel industries.”

Owens didn’t even give his target organization its proper name, and clearly didn’t review its actual policy and religious positions. I’ve co-authored articles with Professor Legates and know him, the organization, Cornwall founder and national spokesman Calvin Beisner, and many of its staff and advisors very well.

First off, it’s the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.

Those final four words underscore what this fine organization is, what it stands for – and how disingenuous Owens’ article is.

In no way does Cornwall or anyone affiliated with it promote or condone “unrestricted reign” over our Earth or a license to exploit its resources without legal or regulatory constraints. They hold that people are integral and rightful inheritors and stewards of our planet, with a God-given right to utilize its energy and other resources to nourish and sustain humanity – responsibly, for this and future generations.

“Godly dominion,” Beisner explains, “means enhancing the fruitfulness, beauty and safety of the Earth, to the glory of God and benefit of our neighbors and humanity. Because humans are imperfect, and some take impermissible advantage of opportunities, government rules against fraud, theft, violence, pollution, and harm to other people’s health and property are necessary and proper restrictions on our dominion.”

Nor is Cornwall anti-environment or against environmental groups, though it definitely opposes extremist forms of environmentalism. Cornwall’s DVD lecture series “Resisting the Green Dragon” makes that distinction and, as Beisner notes, clearly and persuasively explains that “much radical environmentalism is indeed an alternative to the Christian religion, is thus acceptably termed ‘pagan’ in its nature-focused views. It also often does indeed strive to establish a powerful, dominant one-world government.”

The “Green Dragon” DVD series prompted the title for the Owens article, and some of its misguided criticisms. In his own Dragon lecture, Legates says segments of the scientific community improperly engage in “post-normal science,” altering or distorting facts to advance political goals. Owens suggests that this is not happening and claims Legates is in denial about human-caused climate change.

However, even Dr. Mike Hulme, a former member of the IPCC and University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (and an evangelical Christian), said post-normal science focuses on “the process of science – who gets funded, who evaluates quality, who has the ear of policy makers” – rather than on what should be an honest, transparent, evidence-based scientific method. Hulme called the IPCC “a classic example.”

Moreover, like many other scientists, Legates has explicitly affirmed that climate change is frequent and recurring, and people play a role, especially at local levels but even on global scales. What he denies is that carbon dioxide emissions are the primary driver and manmade change is likely to become disastrous.

All this puts Cornwall at odds with political activist groups that use sustainability and climate change to justify their positions against fossil fuels and economic development. All people, Cornwall says, should be able to develop the natural resources needed to maintain or improve their health and wellbeing.

It is especially immoral to tell Earth’s most destitute, diseased, malnourished, energy-deprived countries and families that they can improve their ghastly situations only at the margins. Or only to the extent that they can do so only with renewable energy – and without fossil fuels, genetically engineered crops like Golden Rice, insecticides to combat disease-carrying insects, and other technologies that wealthier nations have used to give billions of people living standards that few could even dream of a century ago.

Caring, ethical students, universities, environmental groups and people of faith do not politicize or pervert “sustainable development” concepts in ways that ignore the needs of current generations. They do not say people living today must refrain from using natural resources, based on completely unpredictable raw material requirements of completely unpredictable, constantly evolving future technologies. They do not seek to protect people from exaggerated future dangers that exist mostly in bald assertions, questionable science and computer models – while perpetuating dangers that are very real, even lethal, right now.

Caring, ethical people do not condemn fossil fuel, nuclear and even hydroelectric energy, while promoting energy that is land-intensive, destructive to wildlife and habitats, expensive, weather dependent, unpredictable, sporadic, and completely inadequate to power modern industrialized economies, lift people out of poverty – or even manufacture more wind, solar and biofuel installations.

These principles put David Legates and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation firmly on the side of humanity, evidence-based science, and mainstream environmental and Christian thinking.

Finally, as to funding, Legates and Beisner have told me neither they nor Cornwall ever received “one dime” from any fossil fuel company. Owens’ slick, crafty suggestions that they did could have meant he has a job waiting for him at MSNBC – except that the claims are libelous, especially in the context of the headline claim that Legates is “for hire” by Cornwall or an oil company. (Meanwhile, six progressive-climate alarmist religious groups received over $3 million in nine years from liberal foundations, some of which have clear financial stakes in renewable energy policies. Why is there no problem with that?)

The University of Delaware cannot let this biased, deceitful, defamatory hate speech go unchallenged – especially in an official campus newspaper, housed in a UDel building, funded by Delaware taxpayers.

Imagine the outrage it would have generated if the professor’s conservative, environmental and climate views were rooted in the Koran and his Muslim faith. Or the cartoon had featured a woman in a hijab and a bearded man waving a banner emblazoned with a star inside a crescent moon.

And it’s not just the double standards. This is yet another attempt to intimidate and silence unwelcome voices on campuses. It has to end – and be replaced by open, robust, respectful, tolerant free speech for all.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for theCommittee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT,org ) and author of articles and books on energy, climate change, carbon dioxide and economic development

Scott Pruitt and the Return of the Black Cat News Story

They did the same thing to Ronald Reagan’s key appointments.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr June 20, 2018

Do you remember when we called those utterly frivolous though dreadfully ominous news stories of yesteryear Black Cat News Stories? They filled the media in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Not a week passed when a Reaganite was not being hounded by reporters for committing some minor misdeed or often no misdeed at all, for instance, forgetting to wash one’s hands after lunch or neglecting to hold the door for a lady. That was back in the days when it was permissible to call a lady a lady, and her gender was a matter of fact not of litigation.

As I recall Michael Kinsley, the comic genius of that faraway time, once accused Attorney General Ed Meese of jaywalking despite Meese’s vaunted support for law and order and even the death penalty. I do not recall if Michael was calling for the Attorney General to step down at the Justice Department, but I do remember Michael was very disturbed and might even have called for a Congressional inquiry. Then there was his indignation over Reaganites’ misuse of government frequent-flyer mileage. He persuaded a lot of Reagan’s critics that this was a symptom of far-reaching corruption.

Well, now we have the closest approximation to President Reagan in the White House. That that would be President Donald Trump, and the Black Cat News Story has returned. His latest presidential appointee to suffer its ensnarement is Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He has not been accused of jaywalking or riding his bicycle the wrong way down a one-way street, but he did accept tickets to football games. He paid for them, but critics — that is to say environmentalists and possibly vegetarians—have claimed he did not pay enough for them. Also he might have had a secretary pick them up..........To Read More....

The Double Standards Industry

Paul Driessen Apr 14, 2018 @ Townhall

It’s a good thing environmentalists have double standards – or they wouldn’t have any standards at all.  

 

Empire State legislators worry that anything above the current 0.0001% methane in Earth’s atmosphere will cause catastrophic climate change, and that pipelines will disturb wildlife habitats. So they oppose fracking for natural gas in New York and pipelines that would import the clean fuel from Pennsylvania. 

 

But then they bribe or force rural and vacation area communities to accept dozens of towering wind turbines that impact thousands of acres, destroy scenic views, kill thousands of birds and bats annually, and affect the sleep and health of local residents – to generate pricey intermittent electricity that is sent on high voltage transmission lines to Albany, Manhattan and other distant cities. 

Meanwhile, developers are building a 600-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina, to power generating plants that provide low-cost electricity almost 24/7/365. A portion of the 100-foot-wide pipeline right-of-way must go through forested areas, necessitating tree removal.

 

To protect migratory birds and endangered bats, state and federal officials generally require that tree cutting be prohibited between mid-March and mid-October. Because the Atlantic Coast Pipeline is behind schedule, the companies sought approval to continue felling trees until May 15, to avoid further delays that could increase costs by $150-350 million. The request was denied. 

Not surprisingly, the pipeline, logging and request to cut during migratory and mating season have put the developers, regulators and environmentalists at loggerheads. A 16-mile long segment through Virginia’s George Washington National Forest garnered particular attention. 

Although the short segment would affect just 200 of the GWNF’s 1.1 million acres, the Virginia Wilderness Committee claimed any tree cutting in the area would create an “industrial zone” and “severely degrade some of the best remaining natural landscapes” in the Eastern USA. The Southern Environmental Law Center called the entire project “risky” and “unnecessary.” The groups prefer to “keep fossil fuels in the ground” and force a rapid transition to solar and wind energy.
 

One has to wonder how they would react to the far greater environmental impacts their “green” energy future would bring. Will they be true to their convictions, or continue applying double standards?
 

For example, using sun power to replace just the electricity from Virginia’s nearly 24/7/365 Lake Anna Nuclear Generating Station would require nearly 20,000 acres of solar panels that would provide power just 20-30% of the time. The rest of the time, the commonwealth would need fossil fuel or battery backup power – or homes, businesses, hospitals, internet researchers and environmentalist offices would have to be happy with electricity when it’s available, instead of when they need it. 

 

That’s 100 times more land than needed for the pipeline, which will be underground and mostly invisible, whereas the highly visible solar panels would blanket former crop and habitat land for decades.
 

Natural gas and coal generate about 55 million megawatt-hours of Virginia’s annual electricity. Replacing that with wind power would require thousands of gigantic turbines, sprawling across a half-million acres of forest, farm and other lands. Backup battery arrays and transmission lines from wind farms to distant urban areas would require thousands of additional acres.
 

(This rough calculation recognizes that many turbines would have to be located in poor wind areas and would thus generate electricity only 15-20% of the time. It also assumes that two-thirds of windy day generation would charge batteries for seven straight windless days, and that each turbine requires 15 acres for blade sweep, operational airspace and access roads.)
 

The turbines, transmission lines and batteries would require millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, neodymium, lithium, cobalt, petroleum-based composites and other raw materials; removing billions of tons of earth and rock to mine the ores; and burning prodigious amounts of fossil fuels in enormous smelters and factories to turn ores into finished components. 

 

Most of that work will take place in Africa, China and other distant locations – out of sight, and out of mind for most Virginians, Americans and environmentalists. But as we are often admonished, we should act locally, think globally, and consider the horrendous environmental and health and safety conditions under which all these activities take place in those faraway lands.
 

Many turbines will be located on mountain ridges, where the winds blow best and most often. Ridge tops will be deforested, scenic vistas will be ruined, and turbines will slice and dice migratory birds, raptors and bats by the tens of thousands every year. Those that aren’t yet threatened or endangered soon will be.
 

The wind industry and many regulators and environmentalists consider those death tolls “incidental takings,” “acceptable” losses of “expendable” wildlife, essential for achieving the “climate-protecting” elimination of fossil fuels. The deaths are certainly not deliberate – so the December 2018 Interior Department decision to end the possibility of criminal prosecutions for them, under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, makes sense. 

 

However, when regulators allow industrial wind facilities in and near migratory routes, nesting areas and other places – where large numbers of eagles, hawks, falcons, geese, other birds and bats congregate – the number of deaths soars beyond “incidental” or “acceptable.” And as the number of US onshore wind turbines climbs from 40,000 a few years ago, to 52,000 today, to potentially millions under “keep oil, gas and coal in the ground” demands, the threat of decimation or extinction across wide areas skyrockets. 

 

Some say we should install future turbines offshore, in our coastal areas. Truly monstrous 3.5-megawatt turbines would certainly reduce the total number needed to replace substantial quantities of fossil fuel electricity. However, they would destroy scenic ocean vistas, decimate sea and shore bird populations (with carcasses conveniently sinking from sight), impair porpoise and whale sonar, interfere with radar and air traffic control, and create significant hazards for submarines and surface ships. 

 

Even worse, as wildlife biologist Jim Wiegand and other experts have noted, the wind industry has gone to great lengths to hide the actual death tolls. For example, they look only right under towers and blades (when carcasses and maimed birds can be catapulted hundreds of yards by blades that move at nearly 200 mph at their tips), canvass areas only once every few weeks (ensuring that scavengers eat the evidence), and make wind farms off limits to independent investigators.
 

The bird and bat killings may not be criminal, but the fraud and cover-ups certainly are.
 

The attitudes, regulations and penalties associated with wind turbines also stand in stark contrast to the inflexible, heavy-handed approach that environmentalists, regulators and courts typically apply to permit applications for drilling, pipelines, grazing and other activities where sage grouse and lesser prairie chickens are involved – or requests to cut trees until May 15, to finish a Virginia pipeline.  

The Fish & Wildlife Service, Center for Biological Diversity and Audubon Society go apoplectic in those circumstances. (Audubon was outraged that Interior decriminalized accidental deaths of birds in oilfield waste pits.) But their silence over the growing bird and bat slaughter by wind turbines has been deafening.
 

These attitudes and policies scream “double standards!” Indeed, consistent bird and bat protection policies would fairly and logically mean banning turbines in and near habitats, refuges and flyways – or shutting them down during mating, nesting and migratory seasons.
 

It’s time to rethink all these policies. Abundant, reliable, affordable energy makes our jobs, health, living standards and civilization possible. The way we’re going, environmentalists, regulators and judges will block oil, gas and coal today … nuclear and hydroelectric tomorrow … and wind and solar facilities the following week – sending us backward a century or more. It’s time to say, Enough!
 

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.