Last week I conducted an extensive interview with Max Allen of the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. [,,,] Well, after pondering this, I emailed Max Allen some talking points for our interview, which forms the basis of the essay below related to the interview, and also includes responses to some questions I was asked during the interview.
Read it all, and then tune into IDEAS this evening for Head Explosions, Part 1.
With a totalitarian party to vote for.
It’s a sea change from the ousted regime of President Hosni Mubarak, when women were guaranteed 64 parliamentary seats. In the latest post-revolutionary elections, the quota was eliminated and women won only five seats. “The other seats went to the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists,” said El Soud, co-founder of the Revolutionary Women’s Coalition, which has 4,000 members on Facebook.
“We are going backward, backward and backward,” she added.
The time has come for these three simple words: “Or else, what?“
The European Union’s ambitious low carbon plan collapsed yesterday when Poland vetoed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically after 2020. The move is the latest stage in the ignominious failure of EU carbon policy that has seen a grandiose carbon trading system bog down in a quagmire of scandal and price collapse. Europe will meet its current carbon reduction goals less because of any serious action than because the continent’s economic crisis brought on by the poorly constructed euro experiment has stalled economic growth.
“These discoveries put a lot of what we see today medically in a broader context,” said Bustamante. “For example, this man, who died when he was about 45 years old, was likely very fit. He got lots of exercise and ate a true paleo diet. And yet he had begun to develop heart disease. This shows that the selective forces we’re familiar with today just weren’t in the picture then. These types of disease were probably common, but they didn’t kill people. People died instead of an arrow in the back or in hunting accidents. There is still so much more to learn.”
Lord Monckton, sternly but sadly, told those who had raised their hands: “You know, from the plain and clear demonstration that I gave during my lecture, that the IPCC’s statistical abuse was just that – an abuse. Yet, perhaps out of misplaced loyalty to your professor, you raised your hands in denial of the truth. Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority. In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.”
Occupying Media: 24 Hour Protest People Panel
Hyatt Regency Austin
Texas Ballroom 1-3
5:00PM – 6:00PM
The Occupy Wall Street Movement began in September, 2011 with the goal of holding a 24/7 public protest at the nerve center of American finance. Uniquely among American mass protest movements, the “occupation” …
Via Tabatha Hale
From the comments – “Figures. They take the one guy in Detroit who actually uses birth control and whack him.”
(h/t Joe)
Last Fall a business professor in Bangalore, India published a detailed column that explained why America and Europe are on a permanent decline into oblivion. He cited several reasons why, but Nationalization of the Family and Entitlement Mentality were two prime ones.
Here’s a snippet:
The crisis faced by the West is primarily because it has forgotten a six-letter word called ‘saving’ which, again, is the result of forgetting another six letter word called “family”. The West has nationalised families over the last 60 years. Old age, ill health, single motherhood – everything is the responsibility of the state.
When family is a “burden” and children an “encumbrance,” society goes for a toss. Household savings have been negative in the US for long. The total debt to GDP ratio is as high as 400 percent in many countries, including UK. Not only that, the West is facing a severe demographic crisis. The population of Europe during the First World War was nearly 25 percent and today it is around 11 percent and expected to become 3 percent in another 20 years. Europe will disappear from the world map unless migrants from Africa and Asia take it over.
The demographic crisis impacts the West in other ways. Social security goes for a toss since people are living longer and not many from below contribute to their pensions through taxes. So the nationalisation of families becomes a burden on the state.
Unbelievably, HSUS, and to a lesser extent PETA, have grown into well-funded juggernauts with tremendous political influence at the local, state, and federal levels in the United States. HSUS pushes for a thousand-plus laws on all levels per year to usher in its brave new vegan vision. Most of this lobbying activity appears to be illegal and based upon fraudulent fundraising activity. There is an ongoing IRS investigation into this matter. Meanwhile, PETA’s focus is the media, education, and influencing public opinion to embrace the animal rights agenda. Horrifically, they have been incredibly successful to this end.
It has long been the goal of HSUS and PETA to “capture” California and to mandate veganism through carefully worded and placed state laws. The “capture” of California would be the crown jewel of their animal rights movement knowing that as goes California, so goes the nation. To this end, HSUS has ushered forth SB 917 and AB 1117. SB 917 will legally redefine the term “animal cruelty” with purposefully overbroad and poorly defined law to include the transportation, display, and all sales of animals on public property.
Michael Totten interviews Andrew Tabler.
MJT: There’s a whole chapter in your book about you and bunch of other journalists at a Syrian government conference.
Andrew Tabler: [Laughs.]
MJT: Writing about something like that would normally be a thundering bore, but this was fascinating. The authorities did everything in their power to make sure nobody understood anything or left the conference with any information whatsoever. Why do you suppose they spent so much time and effort making themselves all but impossible for mere mortals to understand?
Andrew Tabler: One of the ways the Syrian government defends itself is by obscuring everything that happens inside the country. Right now there’s a huge question about whether or not to intervene. The government can dispute whatever argument pro-interventionists have. This isn’t unusual for these kinds of regimes. Assad is a master at manipulating the press. Often times hardly anyone is even paying attention to Syria, though that’s changed now. At the time they could snow job us, but now it’s a lot harder, especially when so much violence is being captured on YouTube.
“The big news yesterday was that Energy Secretary Steven Chu does not own a car. But his wife owns a 2002 BMW 325i, which gets 21 MPG, according to the Daily Caller. Why did Chu not get her to trade in the Beamer for a Chevy Volt? Also, as a Cabinet secretary, he gets a security detail that drives him around in an SUV, most likely a Cadillac Escalade. We can mince around with words over whether he owns a car or not, but he is not taking public transportation, walking or riding a bicycle to get everywhere.”
