A former climate alarmist comes in from the hot – from Hot Air:

David Evans is a scientist. He has also worked in the heart of the AGW machine. He consulted full-time for the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He has six university degrees, including a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. The other day he said:

The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic.

And with that he begins a demolition of the theories, premises and methods by which the AGW scare has been foisted on the public…

Do read the whole thing as it is an excellent look at the way scientific credentials are conscripted for political purposes. It is good to keep in mind that the basis of global warming being “settled” is the assertion that all the scientists advancing it are on the level. This article is yet more evidence that those who push global warming alarmism are corrupt grant-grubbers in the service of corrupt politicians, bureaucracies and businesses.

The bad news is that there is a such a gigantic constituency in favor of global warming that getting rid of it will be difficult – after all, we’re decades in to many government programs which have proven counter-productive and no end in sight…as was once said, the closest thing we have to immortality is a government program. Doesn’t matter how stupid or destructive it is, once people are making money off it they will defend it to their dying breath.

This one, though, might be coming to an end. What I’ve read recently indicates that we’re entering a cooling cycle – and as temperatures drop over several years it will become increasingly difficult to defend the global warming alarm. Naturally, they’ll just seek to replace it with some other government-funded doomsday scenario, but global warming’s days may be numbered.

While the world is justifiably concentrating on the Islamist attempts to cross the Israeli border at multiple points, we must not forget what else is going on – both the continuing oppression of the Moslem people by their Moslem governments as well as the Moslem persecution of Christians. From USA Today:

An angry mob attacked a group of mainly Christian protesters demanding drastic measures to heal religious tension amid a spike in violence, leaving 65 people injured, officials said Sunday.

The Christian protesters have been holding their sit-in outside the state television building in Cairo for nearly a week following deadly Christian-Muslim clashes that left a church burned and 15 people dead.

More than 100 people rushed into the sit-in area, lobbing rocks and fire bombs from an overpass and charging toward the few hundred protesters sleeping in the area. Vehicles were set on fire and fires burned in the middle of the street…

The way things are going it seems as though at least some Moslems in Egypt want a bit of “ethnic cleansing” there. While there is this sob story about how Palestinians have lost their land, completely ignored is the fact that the Christians of Egypt are the descendents of the ancient Egyptians…it is the Copts of Egypt, not the Arabs, who are the actual Egyptians. Conquered ages ago and oppressed ever since, we’re now seeing a wave of attacks unprecedented in history.

What are the Christians to do? They can’t get justice – they can’t even get a sense of security which would allow, say, a confidence that their local church won’t be burned next week because some Islamist claims a Christian looked crossways at him. Are all the Christians to leave? Are they to just sit there and take it? What will we do? We’re bombing Libya supposedly to help the innocent…what will we do for the oppressed Egyptians?

One thing certain, until a time comes when a Christian can live in safety in the Moslem world, there will be no true peace.

Not at all good news – from Pajamas Media:

Hamas is hailing the “new wind” blowing from its Egyptian neighbors, one that is strengthening the position of the terrorist group in the international arena. With bold words and actions, Hamas is celebrating the end of its international isolation and new Egyptian involvement. Says Hamas political head Khaled Meshaal, in an article for Egyptian daily Al-Ahram:

Egypt is dealing in a “new wind” with Hamas, because its responsibility now is different after the revolution. … We are looking to Egypt now, hoping that Egypt is prepared to face the Zionist danger at the strategic level.

The “new wind” is evident in Egypt’s diplomatic strategy. After brokering the reconciliation between the two major Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, Egypt has encouraged the United States to support the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state…

And I’ll bet that at least some in the Obama Administration are in agreement with that – because the basic, leftwing narrative is that Israel is an imperialist creation and is the stumbling block to peace in the Middle East…if only we could some how, some way, curb Israel, all would be made well. You know, a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capitol…and a “right of return” for Palestinian “refugees” (some of whom are the great-grandchildren of those who fled in 1948). All tied up in a pretty, little bow.

The unreality of the liberal view is astounding. Locked in to a rigid, narrow ideology, they are incapable of either applying the lessons of history or even so much as thinking things through. The supposition that a Palestinian State would solve the problem ignores the fact that Hamas, especially, is committed to the destruction of Israel…and as long as we don’t confront them on that, they’ll never have a reason for retreating from that position. Given this, any attempt to meet their other demands (demands which are purely interim as far as Hamas is concerned) is folly. We can negotiate with anyone – but only if the ultimate goal is the same. If Hamas had a goal of a two-State solution, then we could work that out…but as long as their goal is a single-State solution, there is no point.

And now that Hamas has Egypt at their back – and likely even more firmly at their back once the upcoming Egyptian elections put at least some Moslem Brotherhood people in to the Egyptian government – they will simply be more convinced that time is on their side. They will believe that the correlation of forces is coming around to their view – and will continue to press their ultimate goal by every means possible.

US policy as regards Hamas – and Egypt, if they continue to back Hamas – should be “no deal” as long as Hamas will not make a public announcement – in Arabic – that they fully recognize Israel’s right to exist with Jerusalem as the undivided capitol of the Israeli State. Until they do that, then there is just no reason for talks – not talks about a Palestinian State, not even talks about exchanging phone numbers for future talks. Nothing, nada, zero, zip. Make them come to us – and the Israelis – hat in hand to negotiate the half a loaf which is the only possible outcome in accordance with Israeli security.

Can this lead to frustration on the part of Hamas and other Arab powers? Sure could. Could it lead to another war? You bet. And if it comes to that, then Israel backed by the United States will whip the Arabs, again. Eventually, as long as we stick to the basic, reasonable demand that Israel must continue to exist as a Jewish State, they will come ’round to our view – they’ll have to. The only reason they don’t is because they are convinced that eventually they’ll march on Tel Aviv and kill or exile every Jew in Israel. That dream has to be destroyed before peace is possible…and that will take firmness and a willingness to go all the way on our part.

The other side is coming together and setting out their firm goals – we must do the same. Anything less will make war more likely, rather than less. If Egypt wants to buddy up to Hamas then it is time for us to be more demonstrably on Israel’s side than ever before. But, will we? I doubt it. We’ll probably get the worst of both worlds – both an unwillingness to fight for what is right combined with an unwillingness to surrender. We’ll totter and sway and make things worse as we go…and we’ll have quite a middle east mess to clean up once we get Obama out of office.

From The Hill:

The Obama administration approved 204 new waivers to Democrats’ healthcare reform law over the past month, bringing the total to 1,372…

And what is amazing is that liberals will keep on defending him…they’ll swallow feces if its seasoned with liberal talking points.

From Politico:

…Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss gave a shout out to both Georgia natives. “We’ve got Newt Gingrich,” he said, which earned a whistle of approval from one member of the audience.

When Chambliss added, “We’ve got Herman Cain,” loud whoops, cheers and applause were heard.

Among convention goers, Gingrich was more of a secondary thought. “We’re very excited to see Cain — and of course, Newt,” said Deborah McCord, a Columbia County delegate.

Cain, a Morehouse College graduate, plans to announce his presidential candidacy on May 21 at Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta. But he’s already lined up quite a fan base – especially among tea party activists, a group Cain has been diligently courting…

Cain continues to play his hand well – and Gingrich needs to figure out a way to set his campaign on fire (unless the whole point of the exercise is to introduce a series of reform ideas in to the GOP primary – a worthy object, in and of itself). Cain is still the longest of long shots – but he is becoming a force to be reckoned with. This will be interesting to watch.

And, of course, either of these two gentlemen would be far superior to our current President…as well as the last President we had from Georgia.

In this case, about the Spanish Civil War – from CNA:

A new film on the Spanish Civil War falls short in portraying the brutal persecution that the country’s Catholics underwent, says author Robert Royal, Ph.D.

“This is a part of Catholic history that has been long neglected,” he said, but “the movie is too nervous to tackle it.”

Released to theaters on May 6, the historical epic “There Be Dragons” was directed by Roland Joffe, known for his work in the acclaimed 1986 film “The Mission.”

“There be Dragons” shows the intense conflict that arose in Spain between the Nationalists attempting to protect the establishment and Republican revolutionaries seeking regime change in the 1930s…

Learning the truth about Spain in the 1930’s is difficult because the losers gained complete control of the historical narrative – mostly because the victorious Franco regime was stained by cooperation with Hitler and Mussolini…something that could never be either ignored or erased. It is said that the Spanish Civil War was a conflict both sides deserved to lose…and there is a great deal of truth in that. But not all truth.

While there were gigantic, unresolved passions and hatreds in Spain – legacy of a series of 19th century, and even older, national conflicts – the bottom line for starting the Civil War lay with the narrow election of a center/left government which proceeded to govern as if the people of Spain had opted for a full-blown socialist and anti-clerical government. Civil War became inevitable as this government – well meaning, it must be said – ran roughshod over long-standing Spanish traditions. While the leftist narrative is that a tiny group of Spanish officers were corruptly trying to maintain their own privileges, the fact of the matter is that the Nationalist and Republican armies were fairly equal in size, and both sides fought with a supreme disregard for personal safety which demonstrates that both sides had deep wells of popular support (the sublime courage of the Republicans defending Madrid is equaled by the Nationalist defenders of the Alcazar…and these are just two among hundreds of examples)

One of the most heartbreaking events of the Spanish Civil War which still does not come out – and is apparently glossed over in this new movie – is the savage persecution of the Catholic Church in Republican Spain. This persecution started before the Civil War with the burning of churches and various legal restrictions on the Catholic faith – and once the Civil War started, it became what amounts to an attempt to erase the Church from Spain. Priests were murdered, nuns were raped, Church property was pillaged and destroyed, the public celebration of the Mass was banned…thousands of Catholic, lay and cleric, were murdered or otherwise persecuted for nothing more than being Catholic. It was as bad a persecution as that the Russian Orthodox Church suffered in communist Russia…and far worse than the persecution of the Church in 18th century revolutionary France. And it has been pretty much dropped down the Memory Hole.

The “why” of this is obvious – it is bad press to have the Republican side in Spain being seen as persecutors. The narrative is that selfless, humane, kind Spanish Republicans fought the good fight against Franco’s fascists. And that is all we’re ever supposed to know about it. But the truth is the truth, after all, and the longer we allow a lying, leftist narrative about any event the continue, the harder it will be to get at the truth. This isn’t, after all, the only effort which has been made to air-brush out leftist crimes in order to paint a false picture…the crimes of the left are glossed over, or explained away, and thus we have people in 2011 who assert boldly that a leftist course would be nothing but light and reason…and I’ll bet that most on the left don’t even suspect the crimes which are buried in the Marxist graveyard.

History has to be “warts and all”, or it isn’t history. You have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. While all sides will take their lumps in this, the side which stands to lose the most is the left…because most of the left’s crimes have been thus-far successfully covered up, at least to some extent. But the blood of murdered millions cries out to us – to tell the truth; to let the whole world know what really happened so that we all may learn from the past, and do better in the future. It is a pity this new film failed in this charge – but perhaps the upcoming Cristiada will open the door to truth, at least a little bit.

From NFIB:

The month of April marked a second consecutive month of decline in small-business optimism; NFIB’s index dropped to 91.2 in April – a much smaller dip than the previous month, but still another sign of the nation’s anemic economic recovery. While reports of net jobs created by small firms stayed positive, the numbers posted did not match the surprising gains cited in last week’s Labor Department report. This suggests that the bulk of new hiring is happening in larger firms and the smaller counterparts on Main Street—the ones traditionally responsible for leading the country out of recessions, are still struggling to hire…

So, the Magical Mystery Recovery continues…as long as you close your eyes, click you heels three times and repeat “I believe in Ben”, you can see all the recovery you want…for the rest of us, not so much.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

http://videos.mediaite.com/embed/player/?layout=&playlist_cid=&media_type=video&content=ZXXH42059BV7LH8H&read_more=1&widget_type_cid=svp

On the other hand, the guy who says he doesn’t want it means he may be best for the job…

Government gets involved, government screws it up – from Smart Money:

The government’s recent $8,000 cash incentive for first-time home buyers has proved even more costly for recipients than for taxpayers, according to data released Monday. Typical buyers have lost twice as much to price declines as they received from the program.

The median home value fell to about $170,000 in March from $185,000 a year earlier, according to Zillow.com. That means a buyer who closed on a house just before the tax-credit program expired in April 2010 collected $8,000 but has since lost $15,000 in value. Those who bought earlier in the program have done worse; the median price is down $20,000 from March 2009…

There is nothing quite so asinine as a government attempt to fix the economy. It just can’t be done – not ever. You see, no matter how smart the people in government are, no matter ho much information they have, they will never be smart enough or have enough information to determine what will happen when tens of millions of people live their lives. It is why socialism – of whatever stripe – never works. The trick just can’t be done – there is no way to know, at any given moment, what millions of people will do with their time, labor and money.

All government can do regarding the economy is protect against force or fraud in the market place – police the transactions to make certain that people aren’t being cheated, and then just leave everything alone. If a company is going to fail, then let it fail – if it is making massive profits, then don’t impose a “windfall profits tax”; things will be as they will and as long as no one is being defrauded, government has no place.