Hungary´s PM Viktor Orbán: 2017 "will be the year of revolt for European democracy"

The much vilified Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán´s prediction for 2017 is spot on:

“Hungary is a stable island in the turbulent western world because the people were consulted on their opinions here, and we defended the country against illegal immigration.
“This will continue in 2017, which will be the year of revolt for European democracy.
“In many cities in Western Europe people now have no peace of mind, crimes against women rapidly multiply and the terror threat skyrockets.
“This shakes the confidence and self-esteem of the Western world. The economic slowdown, crime, terrorism, migration, indecision and insincere speech all adds up, and Western leaders won’t provide the answers.”

Read the entire article here.

The truth about the Soviet Union and "building socialism" worlwide: 200 million people died

 On the 25th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union, professor Richard M. Eberling has written a must read article on what this experiment in "building socialism" resulted in:

December 24, 2016 marks the 25th anniversary of the formal end of the Soviet Union as a political entity on the map of the world. A quarter of a century ago, the curtain was lowered on the 75-year experiment in “building socialism” in the country where it all began following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, led by Vladimir Lenin in November 1917.

Some historians have estimated that as many as 200 million people worldwide may have died as part of the 20th century dream of creating a collectivist “paradise on earth.” The attempt to establish a comprehensive socialist system in many parts of the world over the last 100 years has been one of the cruelest and most brutal episodes in human history. Making a new “better world” was taken to mean the extermination, liquidation, and mass murder of all those who the socialist revolutionary leaders declared to be “class enemies,” including the families and even the children of “enemies of the people.”

Read the entire article here.

Trump’s inauguration "will be the beginning of the end for the Green Blob"

There is definitively something good to look forward to next year!:

But with Trump’s inauguration it will be the beginning of the end for the Green Blob—that sinister cabal of corrupt politicians, UN- and EU-technocrats, bent scientists, shrill activists, rent-seeking corporatists, blood-sucking lawyers and gullible journalists which has held the world to ransom these last four decades by promoting the man-made climate change scare story and other, related environmental scams.

Read the entire article by James Delingpole here.

The Trump administration takes on the global warming establishment

There is reason to believe that the Trump administration will return to sanity with regard to global warming:

Now the backers of the global warming alarm will not only be called upon to debate, but will face the likelihood of being called before a highly skeptical if not hostile EPA to answer all of the hard questions that they have avoided answering for the last eight years.  Questions like:  Why are recorded temperatures, particularly from satellites and weather balloons, so much lower than the alarmist models had predicted?  How do you explain an almost-20-year "pause" in increasing temperatures even as CO2 emissions have accelerated?  What are the details of the adjustments to the surface temperature record that have somehow reduced recorded temperatures from the 1930s and 40s, and thereby enabled continued claims of "warmest year ever" when raw temperature data show warmer years 70 and 80 years ago?  Suddenly, the usual hand-waving ("the science is settled") is not going to be good enough any more.  What now?
And how will the United States fare on the international stage when it stops promising to cripple its economy with meaningless fossil fuel restrictions?  As noted above, people like Isabel Hilton predict a combination of ostracism and "loss of leadership" of the issue, most likely to China.  Here's my prediction:  As soon as the United States stops parroting the global warming line, the other countries will quickly start backing away from it as well.  This is "The Emperor's New Clothes," with the U.S. in the role of the little kid who is the only one willing to say the obvious truth in the face of mass hysteria.  Countries like Britain and Australia have already more or less quietly started the retreat from insanity.  In Germany the obsession with wind and solar (solar -- in the cloudiest country in the world!) has already gotten average consumer electric rates up to close to triple the cost in U.S. states that embrace fossil fuels.  How long will they be willing to continue that self-destruction after the U.S. says it is not going along?  And I love the business about ceding "leadership" to China.  China's so-called "commitment" in the recent Paris accord is not to reduce carbon emissions at all, but rather only to build as many coal plants as they want for the next fourteen years and then cease increasing emissions after 2030!  At which point, of course, they reserve their right to change their mind.  Who exactly is going to embrace that "leadership" and increase their consumers' cost of electricity by triple or so starting right now?  I mean, the Europeans are stupid, but are they that stupid?

Read the excellent article by Francis Menton here.

Professor Niall Ferguson admits: "I was wrong on Brexit"

Professor Niall Ferguson now admits that he was wrong in opposing Brexit. Not many academics of his stature are prepared to admit that they erred. Having read Ferguson´s recent column in the Boston Globe, I admire his honesty:

The three words you are least likely to hear from an academic are “I was wrong.” Well, I was wrong to argue against “Brexit,” as I admitted in public last week. By this I do not mean to say “I wish I had backed the winning side.” Rather, I mean “I wish I had stuck to my principles.”
For years I have argued that Europe became the world’s most dynamic civilization after around 1500 partly because of political fragmentation and competition between multiple independent states. I have also argued that the rule of law — and specifically the English common law — was one of the “killer applications” of western civilization.

Read the entire column here.

Extreme weather expert Roger Pielke Jr. on his "unhappy life as a climate heretic"

This is what happens when a top scientist dares to publish something the global warming mafia does not like:

Much to my surprise, I showed up in the WikiLeaks releases before the election. In a 2014 email, a staffer at the Center for American Progress, founded by John Podesta in 2003, took credit for a campaign to have me eliminated as a writer for Nate Silver ’s FiveThirtyEight website. In the email, the editor of the think tank’s climate blog bragged to one of its billionaire donors, Tom Steyer : “I think it’s fair [to] say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538.”

WikiLeaks provides a window into a world I’ve seen up close for decades: the debate over what to do about climate change, and the role of science in that argument. Although it is too soon to tell how the Trump administration will engage the scientific community, my long experience shows what can happen when politicians and media turn against inconvenient research—which we’ve seen under Republican and Democratic presidents.

I understand why Mr. Podesta—most recently Hillary Clinton ’s campaign chairman—wanted to drive me out of the climate-change discussion. When substantively countering an academic’s research proves difficult, other techniques are needed to banish it. That is how politics sometimes works, and professors need to understand this if we want to participate in that arena.

More troubling is the degree to which journalists and other academics joined the campaign against me. What sort of responsibility do scientists and the media have to defend the ability to share research, on any subject, that might be inconvenient to political interests—even our own?

I believe climate change is real and that human emissions of greenhouse gases risk justifying action, including a carbon tax. But my research led me to a conclusion that many climate campaigners find unacceptable: There is scant evidence to indicate that hurricanes, floods, tornadoes or drought have become more frequent or intense in the U.S. or globally. In fact we are in an era of good fortune when it comes to extreme weather. This is a topic I’ve studied and published on as much as anyone over two decades. My conclusion might be wrong, but I think I’ve earned the right to share this research without risk to my career.

Instead, my research was under constant attack for years by activists, journalists and politicians. In 2011 writers in the journal Foreign Policy signaled that some accused me of being a “climate-change denier.” I earned the title, the authors explained, by “questioning certain graphs presented in IPCC reports.” That an academic who raised questions about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in an area of his expertise was tarred as a denier reveals the groupthink at work.

Yet I was right to question the IPCC’s 2007 report, which included a graph purporting to show that disaster costs were rising due to global temperature increases. The graph was later revealed to have been based on invented and inaccurate information, as I documented in my book “The Climate Fix.” The insurance industry scientist Robert-Muir Wood of Risk Management Solutions had smuggled the graph into the IPCC report. He explained in a public debate with me in London in 2010 that he had included the graph and misreferenced it because he expected future research to show a relationship between increasing disaster costs and rising temperatures.

When his research was eventually published in 2008, well after the IPCC report, it concluded the opposite: “We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and normalized catastrophe losses.” Whoops.

The IPCC never acknowledged the snafu, but subsequent reports got the science right: There is not a strong basis for connecting weather disasters with human-caused climate change.

Yes, storms and other extremes still occur, with devastating human consequences, but history shows they could be far worse. No Category 3, 4 or 5 hurricane has made landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, by far the longest such period on record. This means that cumulative economic damage from hurricanes over the past decade is some $70 billion less than the long-term average would lead us to expect, based on my research with colleagues. This is good news, and it should be OK to say so. Yet in today’s hyper-partisan climate debate, every instance of extreme weather becomes a political talking point.

For a time I called out politicians and reporters who went beyond what science can support, but some journalists won’t hear of this. In 2011 and 2012, I pointed out on my blog and social media that the lead climate reporter at the New York Times , Justin Gillis, had mischaracterized the relationship of climate change and food shortages, and the relationship of climate change and disasters. His reporting wasn’t consistent with most expert views, or the evidence. In response he promptly blocked me from his Twitter feed. Other reporters did the same.

The excerpts from the Wall Street Journal article by extreme weather expert, Dr. Roger Pielke Jr, are published by Marc Morano in his Climate Depot blog:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/12/03/extreme-weather-expert-dr-roger-pielke-jr-my-unhappy-life-as-a-climate-heretic/

Arizona University climate change specialist: Ten years from now humans do not exist anymore

The end is near! Ten years from now humans do not exist anymore if we are to believe University of Arizona "climate specialist", emeritus professor Guy McPherson:

The University of Arizona emeritus professor says in 10 years, humans will cease to exist. Abrupt rises in temperature have us on course for the sixth mass extinction - similar to one that happened about 252 million years ago that culminated in the "great dying".
That event was the worst of the mass extinction events in our planet's history and saw all complex life cease, leaving microbes and fungi to rule the planet.
"I think we are heading for something like that this time around, too," McPherson said.
"I just don't see how very complex, very complicated organisms that depend upon so many other species, such as humans, I just don't see how we get through that."

PS

For  those interested in other predictions of apocalyptic events, here is one list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

Trump´s realism on environmental policy is most welcome after Obama´s crusading

Donald Trump´s realism and pragmatism with regard to global warming and environmental policy is most welcome after Obama´s ideological crusading. Trump is actually very close to what Bjorn Lomborg and the Copenhagen Consensus has been propagating. 

John Tierney summarizes in an article in the City Journal:

Trump has vowed to ignore the Paris international climate agreement that committed the U.S. to reduce greenhouse emissions. That prospect appalls environmentalists but cheers those of us who consider the agreement an enormously expensive way to achieve very little. Trump’s position poses a financial threat to wind-power producers and other green-energy companies that rely on federal subsidies to survive.
During the campaign, DebateScience.org, a consortium of science groups, submitted a questionnaire to the candidates. Hillary Clinton responded to a question about climate change by calling it a “defining challenge of our time” and promising to make America the “clean energy superpower of the 21st century.” Steering clear of this litany of green promises, Trump said merely that there was still “much that needs to be investigated” about climate change. Instead of promising to install a half-billion new solar panels, as Clinton promised to do, Trump offered the kind of perspective found in the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of prominent economists who have concluded that other problems are far more pressing than climate change.
“Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources,” Trump said, “should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water. Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria.  Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population.  Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels.  We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.”

The Trump presidency: UN climate bureacracy still in a state of denial

I was curious about how the vast UN climate brureacracy has reacted to Donald Trump´s election:
A search for "Trump" on the COP22 site produces an empty page!

http://newsroom.unfccc.int/search.aspx?search=Trump

The UN climate change establishment is obviously still in a state of denial, but they will soon wake up to the hard reality ...

Here is e.g. what is going to happen to the US energy policy, according to the Trump team:

Energy Independence

The Trump Administration will make America energy independent.  Our energy policies will make full use of our domestic energy sources, including traditional and renewable energy sources.  America will unleash an energy revolution that will transform us into a net energy exporter, leading to the creation of millions of new jobs, while protecting the country’s most valuable resources – our clean air, clean water, and natural habitats. America is sitting on a treasure trove of untapped energy. In fact, America possesses more combined coal, oil, and natural gas resources than any other nation on Earth. These resources represent trillions of dollars in economic output and countless American jobs, particularly for the poorest Americans.
Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block America’s fossil fuel producers, the Trump Administration will encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands and waters. We will streamline the permitting process for all energy projects, including the billions of dollars in projects held up by President Obama, and rescind the job-destroying executive actions under his Administration.  We will end the war on coal, and rescind the coal mining lease moratorium, the excessive Interior Department stream rule, and conduct a top-down review of all anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama Administration.  We will eliminate the highly invasive "Waters of the US" rule, and scrap the $5 trillion dollar Obama-Clinton Climate Action Plan and the Clean Power Plan and prevent these unilateral plans from increasing monthly electric bills by double-digits without any measurable effect on Earth’s climate.  Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. It is the industry that fuels all other industries.  We will lift the restrictions on American energy, and allow this wealth to pour into our communities. It’s all upside: more jobs, more revenues, more wealth, higher wages, and lower energy prices.
The Trump Administration is firmly committed to conserving our wonderful natural resources and beautiful natural habitats. America’s environmental agenda will be guided by true specialists in conservation, not those with radical political agendas.  We will refocus the EPA on its core mission of ensuring clean air, and clean, safe drinking water for all Americans.  It will be a future of conservation, of prosperity, and of great success.

The Trump presidency is the best thing that could happen for solving real environmental problems

The Trump presidency is the best thing that has happened for the advancement of real environmental goals. By finally putting an end to the global warming hoax, the United States will lead the way in working for a better and cleaner environment. The billions of dollars that have been wasted in order to "combat climate change" will now be used for meaningful environmental projects:

Trump’s election also has upended the global near-consensus on climate policy, given his skepticism of global warming and embrace of the coal industry.
The United States has been the indispensable nation concerning global warming politics since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Environmentalists had hoped the Paris Agreement of December 2015 was the final nail in the coffin of climate skeptics and locked in a permanent, binding agreement curtailing emissions – and future fossil fuel development – for the rest of the century.

Enter Donald Trump. He is the only candidate to become a head of government in the past several years who rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Between calling that science “a hoax” and actively supporting the U.S. coal industry’s recovery, his ascent could result in the U S. withdrawal from the 1992 Climate Convention Treaty, which underpins the Paris Agreement.
It’s difficult to underestimate how large a political earthquake this would be for many of the world’s left-leaning political classes. The primary focus of European industrial and foreign policy in the last 20 years has been built around climate change treaties, while China has dramatically adjusted its energy production system to come into alignment with U.S. and other developed-economy climate goals. Now, the U.S. will likely entirely reverse its stance, possibly putting China’s planned economy under duress.

Read the entire article here

Michael Goodwin on the Trump voters

Michael Goodwin´s column in the New York Post is worth reading. Here is an excerpt:

Trump voters had the courage of their conviction to go against all their betters, all the poobahs and petty potentates of politics, industry and, above all, the fraudulent hucksters of the national liberal media.
And who, at this extraordinary juncture, dares say that Trump is not worthy of victory and of the salute of his countrymen? He has done what nobody thought he could, overcoming the doubts and scoffs every incredible step of the way.
No candidate in modern times and perhaps ever has suffered such abuse at the hands of the dominant culture. Virtually every day, nearly all the front pages and broadcasters in the entire country vilified him in an attempt to destroy him.
The late-night comics made fun of him like so much trailer trash, Wall Street saw him as a threat, Hollywood looked down on him and even the pope added his two cents of disdain.
It was dirty pool, against any standard of fairness and decency, but that was not the would-be assassins’ biggest mistake. It was that failing to destroy Trump, the elite smart set unleashed its contempt on his supporters.
The effect was the opposite of what was intended. Instead of demoralizing the Trumpsters, the nonstop attacks hardened them and made them more determined to finish what they had started.

Read the entire column here

PS

Steve Hilton´s column on Fox News is another excellent read:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/11/09/trumps-incredible-victory-is-second-brexit-only-better.html

Morning news

After Brexit, now this:

The polls, the mainstream media and the pundits were

all wrong!

EU - the European empire - is doomed to fail

The remains of one failed empire - The Forum Romanum in a 1890s photograph.

One wonders what will remain of the EU headquarters in Brussels a hundred

years from now?

The Dutch historian Thierry Baudet has written an excellent article about the failure of the European Union empire.

Here is an excerpt:

The idea that nationalism leads to war while European unification promotes peace is therefore false. And let’s not forget that Europe has not been at “peace” over the last 50 years. During most of that period, the countries of Europe were engaged in a fight to the death with the Soviet Union, which was once again the expression of yet another anti-national philosophy – in this case communism. As the Communist Manifesto insisted, “Working men have no country.”
As you might expect, today’s attempt to bring about political unity in Europe is a major source of tensions. The political landscape in virtually every country in Europe has now been marked by the emergence of increasingly powerful parties that are opposed to the established order.

Nationalism makes democracy possible

Distrust of the South is increasingly prevalent in Northern Europe, and vice-versa. Here again, it is not nationalism but the European project which is the source of the conflict. It follows that we should seek to create a Europe that is radically different to the current EU.
What we need is a Europe without a central regime: a Europe comprised of nation states, which are not afraid of national differences, and willing to cooperate with each other. The authority of nation states over their own borders should be restored, so that they themselves can decide who they want to allow in their territory.
In the service of their economic interest, they should opt for flexible visa regimes, which will nonetheless allow them to keep control of crime and immigration. We will also have to dissolve the euro to give nation states some monetary breathing space so that they can once again set their own interest rates in response to local conditions. Finally, we will have to get rid of harmonisation which undermines diversity.
Far from being a source of conflict, nationalism is the force that makes democracy possible. Without this unifying force, parliaments would be unable to take legitimate decisions. As the example of Belgium has shown, a lack of national unity can make the administration of a country extremely difficult. The irrational fear of nationalism could ultimately result in the establishment of a restrictive empire in Brussels. The time has come to call a halt and restore the nation state.

Read the entire article here

Loss making New York Times is planning to intensify its global warming propaganda

The loss making New York Times is planning to intensify its global warming scare propaganda:

The New York Times is looking for a climate change editor

Drone footage that shows Greenland melting away. Long narratives about the plight of climate refugees, from Louisiana to Bolivia and beyond. A series on the California drought. Color-coded maps that show how hot it could be in 2060.

The New York Times is a leader in covering climate change. Now The Times is ramping up its coverage to make the most important story in the world even more relevant, urgent and accessible to a huge audience around the globe.

We are looking for an editor to lead this dynamic new group. We want someone with an entrepreneurial streak who is obsessed with finding new ways to connect with readers and new ways to tell this vital story.

The coverage should encompass: the science of climate change; the politics of climate debates; the technological race to find solutions; the economic consequences of climate change; and profiles of fascinating characters enmeshed in the issues.

The coverage should include journalism in a variety of formats: video, photography, newsletters, features, podcasts, conferences and more. The unit should make strategic decisions about which forms are top priorities and which are not.

The climate editor will collaborate with many others throughout the newsroom, but will operate apart from the current department structure, with no print obligations. --

To Apply

Applicants should submit a resume, examples of previous work, and a memo outlining their vision for coverage to Dean Baquet and Sam Dolnick by Sept. 19. This vision is the most important part of the application. It should be specific and set clear priorities. Some important questions to wrestle with:

What audiences should we be focusing on?

How will our coverage fit into their lives, and how will they experience it?

How will we distinguish our coverage from other journalism in this space?

What will be the main vehicles for the coverage? Features? News? Videos?

Should there be a signature voice attached to our climate coverage? Who?

How will you make a difficult subject interesting and accessible?

What stories are we willing not to do?

What should the team look like to get it done?

This non-Guild position is open to internal and external candidates. Applications should be sent to nytrecruit@nytimes.com.

PS
I´ll bet that the well paid job goes to the person who answers the penultimate question by demanding that the NYT should, if possible, even more emphatically refuse to publish any stories criticizing the global warming hysteria ...

Cosmopolitan´s list of global warming calamities

Cosmopolitan , "the Women's Magazine for Fashion, Sex Advice, Dating Tips, and ..." has published a list of what future trendy readers will have to sacrifice as a result of human-caused global warming:

Unless our society can curb human emissions, here are 10 things that could be gone in the next century:

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

1. Your future income.The Women's Magazine for Fashion, Sex 1. Your

1. Your future income.

2. Pretty much all of America's national parks. 

3. Millions of people.

4. The Maldives.

5. Coffee!!!!!!

6. Wine.

7. And chocolate.

8. Wild animals.

9. This village in Alaska.

10. Most of our glaciers.

Who gives a damn about the Maldives or a village in Alaska, but a world without coffee, wine and chocolate must be really intolerable!

Economist Joseph Stiglitz on the failure of the euro

The Telegraph´s Jeremy Warner has a good piece about a new book by economist Joseph Stiglitz:

As the economist Joseph Stiglitz, notes in a compellingly argued new book on the failure of the European project – The Euro, and its threat to the future of Europe – on virtually every occasion when voters have been directly consulted, they have rejected the idea of further integration.
And in each case, whether it was introduction of the Euro or reform of the constitution, they have been ignored. --

Six years after the start of the Eurozone crisis, the economy is still deep in the doldrums, with output in some nations a pale shadow of its former self, shockingly high levels of youth unemployment and what growth there is now almost wholly dependent on the drip feed of central bank money printing.
How did things get so bad? In his book, Stiglitz convincingly demonstrates that the root cause of virtually all Europe’s economic and political ills was the premature introduction of the euro.
In itself, this is not a particularly new idea, but Stiglitz lends it virtually irrefutable intellectual backing.
To begin with, things seemed to go swimmingly, with all member states apparently growing richer together. But far from leading to convergence among national economies, the single currency was beneath the surface driving a dangerously destabilising process of divergence.
Structurally, economies were growing apart, not together, with the Eurozone ever more precariously divided into surplus and deficit nations.

Read the entire column here

Small is beautiful - On why Switzerland is successful

The New Zealand based columnist Oliver Hartwich describes why the Swiss are successful:

"If you are looking at Switzerland from outside, you cannot help but wonder how this small piece of central Europe – mountainous and with no obvious strategic advantages over its larger neighbours – made itself a world-class economy.

Well, for a start it probably helped that the Swiss never became part of the EU. Where other European countries succumbed to the idea of an integrated continent, the Swiss stubbornly remained independent and did their own thing. And it worked well, so there is hope for Britain after Brexit. --

For many years, Switzerland has been ranked as the world’s most competitive country by the World Economic Forum (New Zealand is 16th).
The key to Switzerland’s success is its decentralised nature. If every tier of government has income tax-raising powers, and if the various tiers of government are small in size, it is not difficult to imagine what this set-up will do to economic development. As councils and cantons can feel the results of their political decisions in their own pockets, of course they will pursue growth-friendly policies. As they realise that their residents are not just inhabitants but taxpayers, of course they will try to keep them happy.
Switzerland has chosen a path to economic development that is diametrically opposed to New Zealand’s and to most other developed economies. Instead of trying more centrally controlled policies, Switzerland has opted for the principle of subsidiarity. That means relegating decision-making to the lowest tier possible.
From a New Zealand perspective, the Swiss approach to governance is the polar opposite of what we have been trying so far. But even we have to realise that Swiss government yields much better results than we could ever hope for.
In a nutshell, Switzerland means that big does not always mean better and that small can be quite beautiful. It also demonstrates government needs performance incentives in order to, well, perform. That is not so surprising if you are in business but for government, apparently, it’s a big discovery."

Dr. Oliwer Hartwich: "Germany and Merkel are often praised for ´saving´ refugees. The opposite is true"

New Zealand based political and economic commentator Dr. Oliwer Hartwich strongly criticizes Angela Merkel´s refugee policy:

Germany and Merkel are often praised for “saving” refugees. The opposite is true. They have lured refugees onto a dangerous route and into an economic situation that offers few of them any positive perspective. They have encouraged these poor Syrians to give all their savings to dubious people traffickers and board unsafe boats. And along this route, thousands of refugees have drowned and died.
As Sir Paul Collier, the Oxford economist and former World Bank Director, said it would have been much better to deal with Syrian refugees in those safe countries bordering Syria: Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. If it had wanted to do something good, Germany could have helped to pay for these camps. But it did not.
By the way, this solution is actually the one prescribed by international law under the Geneva Convention and the Dublin Regulation. There has long been the “first country of asylum” principle. This means that countries are expected to take refugees fleeing from persecution in a neighbouring state.
Germany has no border with Syria, and there are plenty of safe countries between Germany and Syria. Even Austria is relatively civilised. Germany should have never signalled its willingness to accept all Syrian refugees.

Read the entire article here

Weak OSCE observers in Ukraine only in action during banking hours - without binoculars!

The Putin sponsored war against Ukraine goes on uninterrupted, while the OSCE cease-fire observers - nicknamed the "deaf, dumb and blind" by locals - limit their weak presence to banking hours:

AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — As the afternoon shadows grow long, nocturnal creatures begin to stir. A stray cat rises from a nap, stretches and trots off to hunt. Overhead, swallows swoop and screech in the deepening twilight.

Soon, the human inhabitants of this town in eastern Ukraine set about their evening rituals.

Green-clad soldiers strap on their helmets and load their guns, while white-clad European cease-fire observers pocket their notebooks, climb into their cars and drive away. And then the fighting starts.

This improbable routine between soldiers and monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plays out nightly, illustrating the glum quagmire of the Ukraine war, now entering its third year.

“I never see them here at night,” said Tatyana Petrova, whose apartment looks over a parking lot that is a frequent listening post for the monitors. “In the evening, I look out and they are gone, and then the concert starts.”

--
“We call them deaf, dumb and blind,” said the Ukrainian military nurse who ordered the observers out of her field hospital. She offered only her nickname, Romashka, a typical practice for soldiers here. “They know nothing. They see nothing. They are too soft.”

On a recent afternoon in Avdiivka, whose prewar population of 35,000 people has decreased by about half, monitors wrapped up at the close of business at 5 p.m., as usual. By and large confined to their hotels after dark, monitors say they pass the time watching television, surfing the internet or chatting with colleagues. They can listen for violations from inside the hotels.

The Russians even have forbidden the "deaf, dumb and blind" to use binoculars! :

Emblematic of the group’s weak hand, one key mission of observers stationed at two crossing posts on the Russian-Ukrainian border has conceded to Russian pressure not to use binoculars, lest the observers observe too much.

Read the entire New York Times article here.

Finally, a priest who dares to speak out: "A Christian Duty in the Face of Terror"

This article by the New York priest, Father George Rutler, should be read by all people who still care about Western civilization. Here are extracts from the article:

After another devastating ISIS attack in France, this time against a priest in his 80s while he was saying Mass, the answer isn’t just, “Do nothing.” As racism distorts race and sexism corrupts sex — so does pacifism affront peace.
Turning the other cheek is the counsel Christ gave in the instance of an individual when morally insulted: Humility conquers pride. It has nothing to do with self-defense.

The Catholic Church has always maintained that the defiance of an evil force is not only a right but an obligation. Its Catechism (cf. #2265) cites St. Thomas Aquinas: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the State.”
A father is culpable if he does not protect his family. A bishop has the same duty as a spiritual father of his sons and daughters in the church, just as the civil state has as its first responsibility the maintenance of the “tranquility of order” through self-defense.--

Were it not for Charles Martel at Tours in 732 and Jan Sobieski at the gates of Vienna in 1683 — and most certainly had Pope Saint Pius V not enlisted Andrea Doria and Don Juan at Lepanto in 1571 — we would not be here now.  No Western nations as we know them — no universities, no modern science, no human rights — would exist.--

The dormancy of Islam until recent times, however, has obscured the threat that this poses — especially to a Western civilization that has grown flaccid in virtue and ignorant of its own moral foundations.

The shortcut to handling the crisis is to deny that it exists.
On the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, there were over 60 speeches, and yet not one of them mentioned ISIS.
Vice has destroyed countless individual souls, but in the decline of civilizations, weakness has done more harm than vice. --

The priest in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvrary in Normandy, France, was not the first to die at the altar — and he will not be the last.
In his old age, the priest embodied a civilization that has been betrayed by a generation whose hymn was John Lennon's "Imagine" — that there was neither heaven nor hell but "above us only sky" and "all the people living for today." When reality intrudes, they can only leave teddy bears and balloons at the site of a carnage they call "inexplicable."

Hypocrite Leonardo DiCaprio at his annual St. Tropez party: "We are the last generation that has a chance to stop climate change"

Leonardo DiCaprio and the usual celebrity crowd have again been partying in St. Tropez. And there is no end to the hypocrisy:

“While we are the first generation that has the technology, the scientific knowledge and the global will to build a truly sustainable economic future for all of humanity — we are the last generation that has a chance to stop climate change before it is too late,” DiCaprio said, according to EcoWatch.
The star’s weighty message didn’t dampen the festivities: del Rey and the Weeknd performed while Mariah Carey flitted about the room snapping pictures with her fellow celebrities. --

Dozens of A-list stars made the trek to the French Riviera for the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s annual Gala to Fund Climate and Biodiversity Projects, including U2 frontman Bono, actors Bradley Cooper, Edward Norton, Jonah Hill, Tobey Maguire and Chris Rock and singers Mariah Carey, Lana del Rey and The Weeknd.

The event’s co-chairs included Robert De Niro, Kevin Spacey, Kate Hudson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Cruz, Cate Blanchett and Charlize Theron.

Breitbart´s Daniel Nussbaum comments:

If just one of the celebrities who attended the event traveled the 12,000-mile round trip from Los Angeles to France by private jet, they would have burned enough fossil fuel to emit approximately 86 tons of carbon dioxide. The average American, for comparison, puts out around 19 tons of carbon dioxide on airline flights per year.

Thank you, Angela - Vielen Dank!

Vielen Dank, Angela!

Thank you!
Vielen Dank!
አመሰግናለሁ
Շնորհակալություն
Çox sağ ol
Eskerrik asko
ধন্যবাদ
Hvala ti
Благодаря
ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတ
Salamat
Zikomo
Aitäh
Kiitos
Je vous remercie
Dankewol
Tapadh leat
Grazas
გმადლობთ
Ευχαριστώ
આભાર
Mèsi
na gode
Mahalo
धन्यवाद
Ua tsaug rau koj
Daalụ
Terima kasih
Go raibh maith agat
Þakka þér
Grazie
ありがとうございました
Matur nuwun
Gràcies
Рақмет сізге
អរគុណ
谢谢
Spas dikim
Gratias tibi
Paldies
Ačiū
Dank je
Dziękuję Ci
Obrigado
спасибо
Tack
Дякую
Takk

Background reading:

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/692831/west-paying-blood-folly-politicians

Putin is smiling tonight: His friend IOC President Bach fixed Russian participation in the Rio Olympics

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is smiling tonight. His friend, the German President of the IOC Thomas Bach, did what he was asked to do:

The Russian flag will be flying at the Summer Olympics, after all, as the International Olympic Committee decided Sunday that athletes from the nation mired in an ongoing drug scandal will be allowed to compete on the sporting world’s largest stage next month in Rio de Janeiro.
Less than two weeks before the start of the Rio Games, the International Olympic Committee ruled against barring Russia from the Summer Olympics but did approve measures that could reduce the number of Russian athletes participating.

Here is how sports, business and "friendship" mix in Bach´s world:

Bach has been a regular visitor to Russia in his three years as head of the IOC, both before and after the Sochi Olympics. Putin has also shown himself willing to travel to improve contacts with the IOC, giving a well received speech in 2007 in Guatemala — delivered in English, which is rare for Putin — ahead of the vote which gave Sochi the 2014 Olympics.
Since he won Olympic gold in 1976, Bach’s chosen sport of fencing has been transformed, most recently by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, a Putin ally who has pumped large sums of his own money into the sport over eight years as president of the International Fencing Federation.
That money has increased the profile of one of the more niche sports on the Olympic program, making for a bigger media presence and glitzier competitions.
Bach also has business connections in Russia. After becoming president of the IOC, he kept his other role as chairman of the supervisory board of Weinig, a Germany company which produces woodworking machinery. Weinig, which did not respond to requests for comment, has a strong presence in Russia, with a headquarters near Moscow and offices across the country.
Besides Bach, several other influential IOC members have long been sympathetic to Russia.

Putin´s mafia state will not host the football World Cup 2018

It is becoming more and more obvious that Putin´s mafia state will not host the football World Cup in 2018. Vladimir Putin bought the cup through massive corruption, which in itself should be enough to move the games to a more civilized environment. Now there is the case of massive Russian state sponsored doping:

Russia’s hosting of the World Cup is becoming increasingly problematic for FIFA’s leaders after the International Olympic Committee withdrew support for sporting events being staged in the doping-tainted nation.
The IOC’s move followed this week’s second damning World Anti-Doping Agency report, which accused Russia of state-sponsored doping.
The scandal landed at FIFA’s door after Russian football was for the first time implicated in the alleged doping cover-up by a country that has been entrusted with football’s most prestigious event in 2018.
Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, whose department is accused of orchestrating the deception, is also head of the country’s football federation and is a member of FIFA’s ruling council.
Football’s governing body is standing by the 2018 hosts – just as it has done throughout six years of scrutiny since the contentious vote to hand the World Cup to Russia for the first time.
“Preparations for the World Cup are in full swing,” Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, said Wednesday. “FIFA said yesterday that they are preparing for the World Cup to be held in Russia.”
And 2018 is not the only countdown. FIFA is less than 11 months from staging the Confederations Cup, an eight-team warm-up competition, in Russia.
Dick Pound, the former WADA president who authored the earlier report on doping in Russian track and field, said FIFA now has another “credibility issue” to confront following McLaren’s findings.

The shame- and brainless John Kerry has been advising David Cameron about ways to overturn Brexit!

Here is another proof that US Secretary of State John Kerry is a walking disaster:

The US secretary of state has raised doubts about whether Brexit will ever happen, suggesting most leave campaigners do not truly believe in Britain’s divorce from the EU and do not know how to achieve it.
Claiming there were a number of ways in which Thursday’s vote could be “walked back”, John Kerry, who visited Downing Street on Monday, said David Cameron was loth to invoke article 50, the EU exit procedure.          

Several scenarios could see the vote overturned, involving either a Labour or Tory prime minister. But all are speculative

                         

He said the British prime minister felt powerless to “start negotiating a thing that he doesn’t believe in” and “has no idea how he would do it”.
Apparently referring to Boris Johnson, one of the frontrunners to replace Cameron, Kerry added: “And by the way, nor do most of the people who voted to do it.”

PS

Fortunately this shame- and brainless politician will soon be out of work.

This does not reflect very well on David Cameron either. He should not have put in this way when talking to a US Secretary of State!

CLEXIT after BREXIT!

Excellent Australian initiative:

CLEXIT after BREXIT!

Read more about the initiative to get rid of the horrendous Paris climate agreement here

Boycott Billionaire Branson!

Richard Branson:

Billionaire businessman Richard Branson is calling on Parliament to “reject” the “nonbinding” Brexit vote and is demanding a second referendum.

Mr. Branson has insisted the vote was “technically an advisory non-binding referendum for MPs to consider” which should be instantly reconsidered as the public had voted against big business and  globalisation.

Read the entire article here

My advice:

Boycott Billionaire Branson and his Virgin empire!

After Brexit people in other EU countries want a referendum

UK voters voted out. Now it is clear that people in other EU countries demand the same chance to vote about membership in the failed EU. But Angela Merkel and the othe EU leaders will be doing their utmost in order to prevent that:

A recent survey by the Pew Research Centre found that only 38 per cent of France had a favourable view of the EU, marking an astonishing negative shift in attitudes towards Brussels since the 2009 financial crisis that has been mirrored to varying degrees all across Europe.
A poll last month by Ipsos-MORI found that nearly half of voters in eight big European Union countries want to be able to vote on whether to remain members of the bloc, with a third saying they would opt to leave, if given the choice.
European leaders moved immediately to stamp down talk of referendums, with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, warning against “hysterical reactions” and pledging that the remaining EU member states were "determined to keep our unity as 27".

Read the entire article here

What will happen after the British EU Referendum?

Whatever the result in today´s EU Referendum will be, this will follow:

- The stagnating, undemocratic and corrupted European Union - which is beyond repair - is bound to implode within the next ten or twenty years. Brexit would hasten this process. That´s why many of those, who really care about Europe, have supported the Leave side.

- Even if the British decide to stay in the EU, David Cameron will be an utterly diminished leader, not only in the UK, but also in the EU and on a global level. It is difficult to see, how he can stay on as PM after a narrow win for his side.

- If the British vote to leave the EU, there is not the slightest chance that Cameron will be able to continue as PM. The way he has chosen to conduct his Remain campaign has been dishonest and divisive. A Conservative backlash is bound to follow.

Boris Johnson on Brexit: The defining moment

The defining moment of the EU Referendum campaign:

Must read: James Delingpole on David Cameron

James Delingpole on David Cameron:

"In the thirty years or so I that have been following the British political scene I don’t recall seeing any senior politician – not even the arch-fiend Tony Blair himself – conduct himself with quite such blatant disregard for honesty or fairness or the dignity of his office.

And as Cameron has led, so his shabby crew of Remainers have followed. When the ship’s captain fails to set standards, even the most principled officers and crewmen start turning rotten."

Read the entire article here

Remain campaign on the murder of MP Jo Cox: "This will play well for us"

Breitbart London discloses how the Remain campaign uses the tragic murder of MP Jo Cox for their own purposes:

Remain: When ‘Kinder, Gentler Politics’ Really Means ‘Dirtier, Uglier’

“This will play well for us,” said a Labour pro-Remain figure on Saturday responding to the murder of pro-Remain Labour MP Jo Cox.

Will Straw, director of the Remain campaign, has been caught red-handed advising his team how to exploit Cox’s death by playing up the message that Leave represent “division and resentment” while only Remain represents “decent, tolerant Britain.”

This is what the left means by “dog-whistle” politics.
Only this time, it’s the left which is blowing that whistle.

Read the entire article here

The best Brexit video

This is a brilliant video. If you have vote, and still are undecided, please watch it!

"Project Grief": UK Remain campaigners trying to turn the narrative away from immigration

Breitbart London is right:

Since the tragic killing of Labour MP Jo Cox three days ago, many in the media and the ‘Remain’ campaign have focused on the “tone” of the EU referendum debate in the attempt to insinuate that her alleged killer was motivated by the rhetoric of the ‘Leave’ campaign.

The main focus of the referendum debate had turned from the economy to immigration over the past couple of weeks, a topic on which the ‘Remain’ campaign has no clear answer and which had seen the ‘Leave’ campaign jump into the lead in opinion polls.

Now, however, ‘Remain’ supporters have been speaking about how Jo Cox’s death was caused by “hatred” and “divisive rhetoric” as they try to turn the narrative away from the effects of mass immigration.

Read the entire article here

The Sunday Telegraph supports Brexit: "The EU belongs to the past"

The Sunday Telegraph joins the Brexit camp:

Leaving the EU does not mean leaving Europe. A vote for Brexit on Thursday will not change our geography. Just as our island story has been intertwined with that of the Continent, often with bloody and tragic consequences, it will continue to be so.
One of the principal ambitions behind the original Common Market was to forge a political system in Europe that would prevent a repeat of the dreadful world wars. Those conflicts involved dictatorships. Democracies do not go to war with each other; and there is no reason why an independent Britain cannot maintain alliances and harmonious relations with our neighbours. Indeed, it is essential that we do so.
But there is a world beyond Europe that the Remain camp simply ignores. A world that offers enormous opportunities for Britain to be a global player once more.
The case for Leaving is not negative and jingoistic. It is optimistic and hopeful. It is the case for a strong, independent and outward-looking Britain. Just as in 1973, when we joined the Common Market, we are at a crossroads in our history. The path we took then offered much but led us into a cul-de-sac, hemmed in by a sclerotic, hide-bound, rules-obsessed, inward‑looking institution.
The EU belongs to the past. On Thursday we hope the country chooses the future – and votes to leave.

Read the entire article here

One can only hope that the British will vote to leave the shipwreck called EU!

Will Bill Clinton again be handed the keys to the White House?

One wonders whether Americans are ready to accept that this man again will have the keys to the White House ...

There are probably still a lot of people, who remember this

Norwegian PM wants UK to stay in EU - but back home only 18% of Norwegians would like to join!

The Independent thinks that this is "a blow to Eurosceptics and Leave campaigners":

Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, has said that Britons wishing to leave the European Union next week “won’t like” life on the outskirts of the 28-member state bloc.  
It will come as a blow to Eurosceptics and Leave campaigners who often cite Norway’s relationship with the EU as the model for Britain to emulate. Norway, which rejected joining the bloc at a referendum in 1994, has access to the majority of the continent’s market and is part of the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement.

Ms. Solberg, who already in 2014 declared that she wants to be the politican who takes Norway to the EU - may think that she is coming to the rescue of fellow conservative PM David Cameron with these comments, but her views on EU membership are shared only by 18% of the Norwegians. Even among supporters of Solberg´s own party, only 28% are for Norwegian EU membership!

Ms. Solberg´s advice should be taken with a pinch of salt!

The Spectator: EU "resembles nothing so much as the Habsburg Empire in its dying days"

The EU "now resembles nothing so much as the Habsburg Empire in its dying days".

(image by Wikipedia)

The Spectator´s stand on Brexit is worth reading:

... when Britain last held a referendum on Europe, every newspaper in the land advocated a ‘yes’ vote. Only two national titles backed what is now called Brexit: the Morning Star and The Spectator.
Our concern then was simple: we did not believe that the Common Market was just about trade. We felt it would be followed by an attempted common government, which would have disastrous effects on a continent distinguished by its glorious diversity. The whole project seemed to be a protectionist scam, an attempt to try to build a wall around the continent rather than embrace world trade. Such European parochialism, we argued, did not suit a globally minded country such as Britain. On the week of the 1975 referendum, The Spectator’s cover line was: ‘Out – and into the world.’ We repeat that line today.
Since 1975 the EU has mutated in exactly the way we then feared and now resembles nothing so much as the Habsburg Empire in its dying days. A bloated bureaucracy that has outgrown all usefulness. A parliament that represents many nations, but with no democratic legitimacy. Countries on its periphery pitched into poverty, or agitating for secession. The EU’s hunger for power has been matched only by its incompetence. The European Union is making the people of our continent poorer, and less free.
This goes far beyond frustration at diktats on banana curvature. The EU has started to deform our government. Michael Gove revealed how, as a cabinet member, he regularly finds himself having to process edicts, rules and regulations that have been framed at European level. Laws that no one in Britain had asked for, and which no one elected to the House of Commons has the power to change. What we refer to as British government is increasingly no such thing. It involves the passing of laws written by people whom no one in Britain elected, no one can name and no one can remove.

Ipsos MORI poll also puts Leave ahead in Britain

More great news from the UK:
The campaign to quit the European Union has surged into a six-point lead with exactly a week to go, a sensational Ipsos MORI poll reveals today.
In a dramatic turnaround since May, some 53 per cent now want to leave and 47 per cent want to stay, excluding don’t knows.
It is the first time since David Cameron pledged the referendum in January 2013 that Vote Leave have come out ahead in the respected monthly Ipsos MORI telephone survey, which is exclusive to the Evening Standard.

PS

Some music to celebrate:

German foreign minister says a Brexit will "shake the European Union"

German foreign minister Steinmeier thinks that a Brexit could lead to the disintegration of "a very successful, decades-long integration":

Germany's foreign minister says the European Union would be shaken by a British vote to leave and would have to ensure that it did not ultimately lead toward the bloc's disintegration.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that if Britain goes "things wouldn't just carry on as 28 minus one the following day".
He said: "It would shake the European Union (and) we would have to assure each other that the European Union continues to stick together - and that a very successful, decades-long integration process does not in the end turn to disintegration."

Well, let´s hope that a Brexit really leads to the disintegration of the present, highly unsuccessful and undemocratic monster that the European Union has become!

Warmists desperate: "In order for us to start acting on climate change then, maybe we need to tell a few lies"

First they renamed global warming "climate change". Now, when the majority of voters could not care less, a Huffington Post columnist thinks that replacing climate change with "massive worldwide death machine" or "crazy killer weather" will do the trick.
And if this does not scare people enough, the writer thinks that "maybe we need to tell a few lies":

In order to avoid catastrophic climate change it’s essential that we act now, but that small fact hasn’t stopped it slipping down and off the list of what’s important to the majority of voters.

The problem can’t be with the issue’s importance. The evidence is all there, and it’s terrifying. Climate change is without a doubt the single biggest threat the human race has faced since the last ice age.

Maybe the real issue is with the wording, because ‘climate change’ just doesn’t sound that bad.

Every night I go to sleep, and every morning I wake up and the climate has changed. It’s called the weather.

Now if a corporation is having trouble selling a product, do they give up? Maybe they do eventually, but they try almost everything before that and step one is to rebrand.

Which involves altering very little apart from a product’s appearance, and hoping that’s enough.

It’s why Kentucky Fried Chicken is now ‘KFC’, British Petroleum is ‘BP’ and Justin Timberlake left NSYNC and got a haircut. You need to check out some of the old photos - he looked like a sheep.

So instead of ‘climate change’ what about we call it ‘extreme disasters happening right now’, ‘massive worldwide death machine’ or ‘crazy killer weather’?

You might not care about stopping ‘climate change’, but I’m sure most of us want to stop ‘crazy killer weather’.

These new titles also have the added benefit of being exactly what will happen if we continue to do so little.

Another problem is that most of us only care about what’s happening day to day, and not at all about anything that hasn’t happened yet on a big enough scale to really effect us, no matter certain it seems.

In order for us to start acting on climate change then, maybe we need to tell a few lies.

Read the entire column here