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Mother Nature’s Message to Mankind by Alan Caruba Online

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After a tornado tore through Moore, Oklahoma in 1999, people returned and rebuilt their homes and other structures destroyed by it.

Many of the homes, instead of including a basement, were rebuilt on concrete slabs that offer no protection when high winds tear them loose. The elementary school was believed to be strong enough to protect students, but it wasn’t.

No lessons were learned from that tornado, although meteorological systems have been put in place to provide some warning.

I did not have to wait for the usual pronouncements from various environmental organizations and individual “experts” that the tornadoes that struck Oklahoma were the result of “global warming” or “climate change”, but tornadoes are a product of weather systems all around the world and have occurred for the millennia of Earth’s existence.

Typical of the way Greens exploit every dramatic weather event, Solon.com, a liberal website, posted an article by David Sirota repeating all the usual environmental lies. “Was the severe weather system culminating in yesterday’s Oklahoma City intensified—or even created—by climate change? That question will almost certainly be batted back and forth in the media over the next few days.

After all, there is plenty of scientific evidence that climate change intensifies weather in general, but there remain legitimate questions about how—and even if—it intensifies tornadoes in specific.” This is the worst kind of balderdash; utterly without merit.

Sirota then went on to blame “sequestration” for increasing the impact, citing “an 8.2 percent cut to the National Weather Service”, claiming falsely that there was no way it “could maintain around-the-clock operations at its 122 forecasting offices” and saying it means that its employees “are going to be overworked, they’re going to be tired, they’re going to miss warnings.”

This is the naked politicization of a human tragedy. Sequestration had nothing more to do with the deaths of some twenty children in Moore than the insane killing of children at Sandy Hook school in Connecticut that led to immediate calls for more gun control laws.

This is typical of liberals for whom everything is about politics and power.

Sequestration, an idea put forth by President Obama and adopted by Congress as a process so idiotic and drastic that it was believed it would never be allowed to occur. It cuts the rate of federal spending, but not the amount of spending. As with the air controllers and meat inspectors, there have not been, nor will be, massive government employee layoffs.

As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) points out, one result was the curtailment of White House tours, but shortly after it was initiated, the Obama administration was still able to find millions to send to Egypt on top of the two billion it sends annually.

The government has responded to tornadoes and other weather-related events with an alphabet soup of agencies, from NASA and NOAA to FEMA. The National Weather Service (NWS) does its best to track and warn against tornadoes. According to Tuesday’s The Wall Street Journal, “The National Weather Service estimates that 80% of tornadoes are ‘weak’—EF1 or less—and less than 1% are violent, meaning EF5 or higher.” Such tornadoes are rare. “If the storm is upgraded, it would be only the 59^th EF5 since 1950—and the second in Moore…”

On a page from NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory offering “Tornado Basics”, it asks and answers the question “How do tornadoes form?” It answers by saying “The truth is that we don’t fully understand. The most destructive and deadly tornadoes occur from supercells, which are rotating thunderstorms with a well-defined radar circulation call a mesocyclone.”

Greens love computer models to justify their absurd claims, but the Severe Storms Laboratory says that tornado development “is related to the temperature differences across the edge of downdraft air wrapping around the mesocyclone. Mathematical modeling studies of tornado formation also indicate that it can happen without such temperature patterns, and, in fact, very little temperature variation was observed near some of the most destructive tornadoes in history.” Computer modeling is a poor substitute for Mother Nature.

What is known is that about 1,200 tornadoes annually and they generally occur in a stretch of the Midwest known as “tornado alley.” The worst of them do tremendous physical damage and kill people; which begs the question of why people moved back to Moore and rebuilt despite the 1999 tornado.

The real question is why people believe that humans have anything to do with the weather or the climate? Why does anyone believe that carbon dioxide (CO2) has anything to do with weather events or trends? The answer is that Al Gore, James Hensen, and a raft of other climate charlatans, along with countless Green organizations, have been lying to Americans and others around the world.

Since founding The National Anxiety Center in 1990 as a clearinghouse for information about Green fear-mongering, I have been a guest on countless radio shows. I tell listeners that Mother Nature has a message for mankind. It is “Get out of the way. Here comes a tornado, a flood, a hurricane, a blizzard, a wild fire.”

After the dead are totaled and a cost is estimated, there will still be tornadoes in Oklahoma and the rest of tornado alley. The primary lesson to be learned is that Mother Nature is infinitely more powerful than anything humans are alleged to do to affect it in any way because we have zero effect on it.

The other lesson is that America and other nations have wasted billions of dollars on idiotic “renewable energy” such as solar and wind projects that provide unreliable, costly alternatives to the energy on which a nation’s prosperity depends.

The opposition to “fossil fuels” and nuclear energy that Green organizations generate is an attack on human activity, along with their opposition to beneficial chemicals that can, for example, eliminate malaria and other diseases that afflict mankind demonstrates their core belief that it is humans that are responsible for harming the Earth. They are not.

To be Green is to seek to control and reduce humankind through an extensive matrix of lies.

Tornadoes are a “force majeure.” As Wikipedia explains, is “a common clause in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as war, strike, riot, crime, or an event described by the legal term, ‘act of God.”

The Moore, Oklahoma tornado was a force majeure.

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Criminal alien allegedly rapes, brutalizes 9-year-old in ‘Sanctuary City’ by Jim Kouri

Illegals Released from Jails

An Ecuadorian criminal alien, who was released last year when Baltimore, Md., became a sanctuary city, was arrested by federal agents for the violent rape of a 9-year-old girl, according to a Judicial Watch report released on Monday.

While the rape occurred in the city of Baltimore, the suspect, Henry Estrella-Cordova, was nabbed by officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and not members of the Baltimore Police Department, said the public-interest group that investigates government corruption and abuse.

According to the Judicial Watch report:

So-called “Sanctuary Cities” are releasing criminal aliens back onto U.S. streets without notifying federal law enforcement officers tasked with deporting killers, rapists, and other felons.

“[This case] marks the latest in a series of heartbreaking examples involving an illegal alien haven blowing up in a local government’s face. We’ve seen this nationwide in municipalities that enable illegal immigrants to commit atrocious crimes by protecting them from the feds.

“There are too many cases to list here, but examples include a Salvadoran gangbanger who murdered a father and his two sons in San Francisco, an illegal alien member of a notoriously violent street gang who killed a high school football star in Los Angeles and a Bolivian with an extensive criminal record who killed a nun while driving drunk in Virginia.”

The 31-year-old Estrella-Cordova was arrested in Silver Spring, Md., by officers of ERO Baltimore’s Criminal Alien Program (CAP) after they received information that Estrella-Cordova was wanted on state rape charges and was illegally living in the United States, according to federal officials.

“Arresting individuals [who] are alleged to sexually exploit children and removing them from our streets is an ICE priority in maintaining the safety and quality of life that the citizens of Maryland expect,” said Daniel Schichel, acting field office director for ERO Baltimore.

“Sadly, Schichel made no comments about Baltimore’s Mayor [Stephanie Rawlings-Blake] and her harebrained schemes for garnering votes for herself and her [Democratic] party,” said political consultant Joseph Lewis.

Estrella-Cordova entered the United States illegally at an unknown place and at an unknown time more than one year ago, according to ERO Baltimore.

ICE agents were informed that Estrella-Cordova was the suspect in an extremely violent rape against a 9-year-old child and that a warrant for his arrest was issued on the charges of second degree rape; second, third and fourth degree sex offense and second degree assault.

According to the arrest warrant, the crimes occurred on or about May 7. The investigation indicated that Estrella-Cordova was an Ecuadorian citizen illegally in the country. Following an investigation federal law enforcement officers located him in Silver Spring near a bus terminal.

ERO officers turned him over to the Baltimore City Police and but they made certain to place an immigration detainer on him to ensure he is not released into the community again by Baltimore officials.

“Once again, public safety of citizens takes a backseat to politically-correct, social-engineering schemes by feckless politicians,” said for police detective Iris Aquino. “That poor child will carry the emotional scars of rape for the rest of her life.”

According to ICE, the alleged child predator faces up to 61-years in prison.

“Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s sanctuary order, which is supposed to help Baltimore recruit 10,000 families in a decade, probably attracted the alleged child rapist. That’s why last spring Rawlings-Blake signed the measure prohibiting police and social agencies from asking anyone about their immigration status. The order also prohibits city funds, resources or personnel from investigating individuals suspected of violating federal immigration law,” according to Judicial Watch.

Chris Crane, the current president of the union for ICE agents, the National ICE Council, in a letter to lawmakers stated, “President Barack Obama, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and ICE Director John Morton have all but abdicated their leadership in the enforcement of immigration laws and the protection of U.S. borders and citizens.”

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Silencing Free Speech on College Campuses by Alan Caruba Online

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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The enemies of these freedoms, as expressed in the First Amendment, have always been at work to narrow and eliminate them.

A recent, egregious example of this was the subject of an article by Hans Bader, a former attorney with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. In 2003 he joined the staff of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as CEI’s Counsel for Special Projects after having service as Senior Counsel at the Center for Individual Rights.

On May 10, he wrote an article, “Federal Title IX Enforcers Effectively Define Dating and Sex Education as ‘Sexual Harassment’” based on the views expressed by Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

As we have seen of late, the federal government has been using the powers of the Internal Revenue Service to harass organizations identifying themselves as “Tea Party” groups, “patriots”, and even pro-Israel. The Department of Justice has come under fire for the way it accessed phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors.

The most fundamental fear of the Founders was a central government grown too large and acquiring powers to itself not delineated or prohibited by the Constitution. That document is devoted to limitations on the federal government and the states at the time it was introduced demanded that a Bill of Rights be included before they would ratify it.

It is a precious legacy for all Americans, but it has also been the target for all manner of individuals and groups that want to impose their own interpretation on it and to expand it in ways that actually undermine it.

“In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution,” said Lukianoff, “the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to mandate that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent.”

“In 2011, the Department of Education took a hatchel to due process protection for students accused of sexual misconduct.”

Now college students have had speech codes imposed on them that are “so broad that virtually every student will regularly violate them,” said Lukianoff.

In essence, the new codes would define as punishable, any expression of sexual topics that offends any person!

In effect this outlaws any expression of opinion regarding sexual activity to include debates about sexual morality, gay marriage, or a classroom lecture on Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita.” It would outlaw any sexually themed joke that anyone might find offensive for any reason. It would criminalize any request for a date or any flirtation that is not welcomed by the recipient, all defined now as “offenses.”

As Lukianoff warns, “There is likely no student on any campus anywhere who is not guilty of at least one of these ‘offenses.’ Any attempt to enforce this rule evenhandedly and comprehensively will be impossible.”

Bader said “No one would believe you if you made this up, but it’s now actually happened.” The definition is found in a May 9 Title IX Letter of Findings and Resolution Agreement involving the University of Montana” but which now applies to all colleges and universities in America.

Bader notes that what makes this especially troubling is that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this behavior, stating that isolated instances of trivially offensive sexual speech are not illegal and are not to be considered “sexual harassment” in even the broadest possible sense.

Silencing free speech on our nation’s campuses is the official policy of the Obama administration.

The mandate must be overturned before countless students find themselves expelled from colleges and universities for the flimsiest reasons. It affects what can be taught and discussed on those campuses. It is in direct contempt of the freedom of speech embedded in the First Amendment.

On May 5^th in a speech delivered to the graduating class of the Ohio State University, President Obama warned students that “Unfortunately you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warm of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems; some of these same voices are also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”

No, you should not reject these voices. Some come from the Tea Party movement. Others come from organizations such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Individual Rights, among the many who keep an eye on what appears to be the most corrupt administration to have ever held power in Washington, D.C.

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U.S. Naval Academy Instructor Teaching On Behalf Of U.S. Muslim Brotherhood from Barry Sommer

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According to promotional material, a United States Naval Academy professor is teaching on behalf of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and where global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi reportedly serves as a trustee.

IIIT recently announced its Summer Students Program for 2013 to be held from May 26 – July 3.

According to the IIIT announcement, one of the instructors for the program will be Professor Ermin Sinanovic, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland who will be teaching the following course titled “Muslim World Affairs”:

One of the other instructors at the IIIT summer program will be US Muslim Brotherhood leader Louay Safi, identified in the announcement as affiliated with the College of Islamic Studies of the Qatar Foundation. In 2009 Louay Safi, also an official at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), was at the center of a controversy when it was learned that the US Defense Department brought him to Fort Hood as an instructor and that he had been lecturing on Islam to troops in Fort Hood who were about to deploy to Afghanistan.

In February 2010, the activities and lectures of Dr. Safi on all military bases were suspended pending a criminal inquiry by the U.S. military. A shooting took place at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas on November 5, 2009 in which a single gunman killed 13 people and over 30 people were injured in the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base.

The only suspect in the shooting is Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old U.S. Army major serving as a psychiatrist.

Dr. Safi has also been recently identified as a leading member of the Syrian National Council, a Syrian opposition group dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Entire story is featured at Islam Today Oregon

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Dear SUA Members, Supporters, Associates and Friends:

Major General Paul E. Vallely

Stand Up America US (SUA) was founded in 2005 because we were witnessing the decline of America; the dismantling of our Constitution, and the destruction of the very fabric of our society.

Our mission has been to educate and inform the public, to uncover and expose wrong doing, to be stewards of fact and reason, and to help right our ship of state based upon constitutional conservatism. But we are being out-gunned, out-spent, out-organized, and over-run.

It is well known that since the Obama Administration has taken over, our diplomatic and military influence, power, reputation and morale is in steep decline. Additionally, confidence in our government is now at an all-time low and undermines our system to the core.

With so many scandals now under investigation, the people cannot rely on equal treatment under the law and the specter of tyranny is now more evident than ever, despite the President’s words at the commencement ceremony at Ohio State in which he said “They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”

We now know that the IRS has operated from an ideological slant that belies the rule-of-law and this administration is also conducting a set of cover ups for many other scandals such as Benghazi, the AP/leaks phone records seizures, the ‘Extortion 17’ investigation, Fast and Furious, illegal NLRB appointments, the ‘Pigford’ law suit, Obama Care, the Syria debacle, and much more.

It is now clear that the Obama Administration has been using federal agencies and selective enforcement of law as their own tool box for personal and political gain.

On many levels, our way of life has changed, maybe for good, especially when Obama has turned the CIA into his own hit squad with his personal “kill-list” while ignoring the clear danger signals and serious threats arising all over the world. As he leads from behind he sets America back – we cannot tolerate this any longer. “Red Lines” have been crossed!

He is blatantly hiding in plain sight, continually deflecting Americans’ focus, and extracting power to his own ends. His words and actions are meant to deceive and destroy, and he demagogues those who disagree. His never ending campaigning to raise taxes and strip us of our 2nd Amendment rights goes on unchecked, and he continually avoids giving truthful answers on so many fronts. More staggering is that over seven months have passed since Benghazi and the President is still taking a pass and sticking to their talking points, obfuscation, deflections with a blatant disregard for honesty and critical leadership.

With your help, SUA can continue to help expose this tragic and blatant undermining of our military, our governmental system and our nation’s fabric and ethics. We have upcoming books, press conferences, videos and more that will shed light on extortion and anti-American practices of the Obama Administration. Our military families need for your help, all of America needs your help!

Additionally SUA has added significant resources to ensure we stay at the cutting edge of intelligence gathering and analysis, both at home and abroad and we plan to add further quality components to our web site to help keep you informed. This has been financially taxing but it has added great value as SUA continues to influence lawmakers and policy makers.

We are thankful for the support we have received from so many generous sources over the years, both in funding and volunteerism, but sadly, our job is far from over and we have much more to do.

PLEASE HELP Stand Up America expose and stop these insidious deeds and decline. Thank you again for your support – please make a donation today by navigating to this link or click on the Contribute button below.

This is a Secure Donation Site

Major General Paul E. Vallely, U.S. Army (Retired)

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Caution!  Common Sense Needed Concerning Jolie by Debbie Lewis at www.WilliamLewisFilms.com

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Where has the common sense in this country gone?  People don’t trust the media, yet when the media says something, the people react, instead of first thinking about what is going on.  So it is with Angelina Jolie and the whole I-removed-my-breasts-because-I-MIGHT-get-cancer business.  The recently released film, Peddling Influence, discusses who uses the media, including the pharmaceutical industry.

While, technically NOT the pharmaceutical industry, the medical industry and pharmaceutical businesses scratch each other’s backs and promote and protect each other, even to the detriment of the patients they both so diligently say they are in business to help.  And, as covered in Peddling Influence, media uses spokesmen and women familiar to the public, often times politicians, actors and actresses, or athletes, to sell their wares and ideas.

Given this bit of information, who better to scare the public into mutilating themselves without cause than Jolie?  After all, she appeals to EVERYONE…men love her and women wish they looked like her…heck, I’ve even heard women say they’d “do her.”  She is the perfect go-to person for something as outlandish as surgically removing perfectly healthy tissue from your body!

Jolie’s “heartfelt” explanation of why she chose the double mastectomy route is classic.  She used concern for her children and the desire to be with them for as long as she can, plus the ever-woman-empowering “my body, my choice” declarations to push the hype.  Mike Adams, of Natural News, calls all of this out as just what it appears to be, a VERY clever PR campaign by a company bent on securing profits.

There are a couple of things, though, that nearly everyone has missed.  This part takes common sense, which seems to be sorely lacking these days.

First, in Jolie’s op-ed, she cites the WHO statistic that 458,000 people die of breast cancer each year.  According to the US government’s Census site, the world’s population is over 7 Billion.  If you do the math, you will find that a mere .0065 PERCENT (YES!  FAR less than 1%!!!) of the world’s population dies from breast cancer.  Lets just ramp this up a bit. Make it “look” better for them.

The WHO Cancer Fact Sheet tells us that in 2008, 7.6 Million deaths were attributed to all cancers.  Going with the WHO reported figure for breast cancer deaths and the same for ALL cancer deaths, this would mean that breast cancer is responsible for only 6% of all cancer related deaths.  Is this really enough to scare people into such drastic procedures?

Second, Jolie did not have cancer.  Yes, her mother died from cancer, but does that automatically mean she will get it?  Also, there are many studies in preventative measures.  PLUS, and this one is the kicker for me, she has so much money that she literally could have ANY TREATMENT SHE WANTED, should she actually GET cancer, unlike the rest of us.

Should she actually get cancer, she could have her breasts removed, if she decided that was the thing to do.  OR, she could visit the Burzynski Clinic in Texas, try the all natural Gerson Therapy, she could go to Mexico for the Hoxsey treatment, she could follow the inspiring guidelines revealed in the wonderful film Forks Over Knives,  The point is, she did not have to mutilate herself and go public, thereby pushing people everywhere to even consider the same course of action, because she has this gene marker.

The point is, there are preventative options if you find you have the potential for the disease and there are alternative options for cancer treatment.  AND, given what I know from my research for Peddling Influence, about how the Public Relations industry works and how big business manipulates the population through the mainstream media purely for profit, it’s no surprise to me that this is playing out as a master ploy to get people to consider destroying healthy tissue in the name of prevention.

Why?  Follow the money!  There is WAY more money in diagnosing and performing the procedure than there is in simple natural prevention.  Just sayin’!

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A bee in their bonnet by Paul Driessen

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Anti-pesticide activists falsely blame new pesticides for bee colony problems

Chemophobic anti-pesticide groups are at it again. This time they’re attacking a widely used and safe new insecticide, but their assertions and real agendas are nothing new.

Radical environmentalism rose to ascendancy on opposition to pesticides, specifically DDT. “If the environmentalists win on DDT,” Environmental Defense Fund scientist Charles Wurster told the Seattle Times in 1969, “they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before.” Using Rachel Carson’s often inaccurate book Silent Spring to drive a nasty campaign, they succeeded in getting the Environmental Protection Agency to ban US production and use of DDT in 1972, leading to a de facto global ban even to combat malaria.

Trumpeting illusory or manufactured dangers of DDT and callously indifferent to the deaths of millions from this horrible disease, radical greens still battle its use, even to spray only the inside walls of primitive homes to keep most mosquitoes out, and keep those that do enter from infecting people.

Attacking a new class of insecticides for equally spurious reasons is thus no big deal, even if the chemicals are safe and vital for modern agriculture. Their real goal is to raise more money and acquire more power. As Saul Alinsky taught, they have picked their new target, personalized and polarized it, and attacked it relentlessly.

The target now is a widely used new class of safe pesticides – neonicotinoids – that Beyond Pesticides, Pesticide Action Network, Sierra Club and other “socially responsible” groups are blaming for bee population declines in various countries. But the real danger is a phenomenon called “colony collapse disorder,” which poses a serious threat to bees, crop pollination, flowers and food crops in many areas.

CCD and other bee die-offs are not new. What we now call colony collapse was first reported in 1869, and many outbreaks since then have turned scientists into Sherlock Holmes detectives, seeking explanations and solutions to this mysterious and scary-sounding problem. Fungi, parasitic mites and other possible suspects have been implicated, but none has yet been arrested or convicted.

That’s created a perfect Petri dish for anti-pesticide groups. They’re pressuring the United States and other countries to banneonic pesticides, by blaming them for bee population declines. Their fear-mongering assertions are pure conjecture, but that hasn’t stopped activists – or news outlets – from promoting frightening stories implicating the chemicals.

“Neonics” are derived from naturally-occurring nicotine plant compounds and have been hailed as a low-toxicity pest treatment. They are often applied to seeds or on soils during planting, become part of the plants’ physiology, and work by giving treated plants internal defenses against invasive pests. That means neonics are toxic only to insects that feed on crops, which dramatically reduces the need to spray entire fields with other, less safe pesticides. It also curtails risks to farm workers and beneficial insects.

Claims that these insecticides could kill bees appear plausible at first blush, and laboratory studies have shown that high doses can affect bees in minor ways. However, doses that bees receive in lab studies “are far above what a realistic field dose exposure would be,” says Dr. Cynthia Scott-Dupree, environmental biology professor at the University of Guelph. The difference is akin to an 81 mg aspirin tablet versus a full bottle of 200 mg tablets, or light rainfall on a bee versus throwing it into a bucket of water.

Scott-Dupree helped coordinate a Canadian field study that compared hives exposed to neonics to those that weren’t exposed – and found no difference in colony health between the two groups. Another study by Britain’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs reached the same conclusion.

The DEFRA evaluation of studies purporting to link neonics to bee harm found that the lab work was conducted under extreme scenarios which would not occur under real-world conditions. “Risk to bee populations from neonicotinoids, as they are currently used, is low,” the scientists concluded.

That’s hardly surprising. Plant tissues contain only tiny amounts of neonics, bees are not feeding on the plants, and pollen contains barely detectable neonic levels.

Nevertheless, several beekeepers and activist groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that EPA immediately ban all neonicotinoids.

The lawsuit is not merely ill advised. By blaming pesticides, activists are ignoring – and deflecting attention from – a very real and serious threat to bees. The aptly named parasitic mite “Varroa destructor” threatens honeybees directly, while spreading and activating previously dormant or harmless bee viruses, which then become dangerous.  The mites are not easy to eradicate.

“You can imagine how hard it is to kill a bug on a bug,” says John Miller, President of the California State Beekeepers Association, and sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Treating Varroa requires insecticides that can be toxic to bees at levels high enough to be effective. Well-intentioned apiarists trying to combat Varroa can accidentally overdose hives withmiticides.

Various neonicotinoids are widely used in Canada to protect its vast canola fields, and Canadian bee populations are thriving, notes science writer Jon Entine. Varroa-free Australia is likewise one of the world’s prime users of these pesticides, and its bee colonies are among the planet’s healthiest. By contrast, bee populations have been severely impacted by Varroa mites in areas of Switzerland where neonics are not used.

Multiple studies point to still other factors that explain why bees are struggling. They include bees developing resistance to antibiotics, funguses like Nosema, multiple bee viruses and parasites, bacterial infections like foulbrood, exposure to commonly used organophosphates, bee habitat loss, and even long-term bee inbreeding and resultant lack of genetic diversity.

Activists aren’t asking for investigation into these problems – which calls their science, sincerity and integrity into question. Their track record on DDT and malaria underscores this modus operandi. The activists get money, publicity, power and phony solutions – and end up hurting the very things (bees and people) they profess to care so much about.

Right now, no one knows why bees aren’t thriving. Studies have shown that neonicotinoids are innocent, and reflexive bans will harm farmers, whose crop yields will fall; consumers, whose food bills will rise and food safety will decline; and environmental values, as older, more toxic insecticides will have to be reintroduced to protect crops. The detective work needs to continue, until real answers are found.

The prudent, precautionary approach would be to avoid eliminating vital, low-toxicity neonicotinoids, while continuing to study their potential effects on bees, and other potential causes of die-offs and colony collapses. Right now we don’t have an equally low substitute for neonics. Sound, replicable science – not pressure group politics – must underpin all pesticide policies, or the unintended consequences will be serious, far-reaching, and potentially devastating to agriculture and food supplies.

We need to let science do its job, not jump to conclusions or short-circuit the process, as the media did in accusing Richard Jewell of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing.

This time – as always – we need answers, not scapegoats.

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

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The Green Enemies of Humanity, Science and the Truth  by Alan Caruba Online

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Among the greatest liars on Earth today is the international organization called Friends of the Earth (FOE). It has engaged in the most scurrilous fear-mongering for decades, along with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund, while all the time they pulled in billions in funding.

In May 2012, the Daily Caller noted that “The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate change activities.’” The leading critic in Congress, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) asked at the time, “Which would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4 billion on Air Force base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s?”

“Would you rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would you rather have more funds put toward modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend the nation against the legitimate threats that we face?’

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On May 9^th, I received an email from Friends of the Earth that repeated all the lies we have heard for years. Painting with a very broad brush that completely ignores the fact that the U.S. climate has always had highs and lows of temperature, FOE complained that “Last year the U.S. experienced record-breaking weather all over the country. But, the nightly news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC barely talked about what was fueling this extreme weather—climate change.”

What FOE failed to mention was a record that was set in 2012-13; as of May, according to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, the U.S. had its longest stretch in recorded history—2,750 days—without a major hurricane landfall. The many claims of “extreme” weather are classic fear-mongering. I might also add that, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, the number of wildfires is at a ten-year low. Glaciers are not melting and seas are not rising, unless a millimeter or two worries you.

“Climate change” is the replacement name for “global warming.”  Climate is measured in centuries. The weather is whatever is happening anywhere in the nation on any given day. Around the world, however, there has been a significant increase in cold weather and many are still waiting for spring to arrive.

Typical of the hyperbole that is representative of the lies we have heard from so-called environmental organizations, FOE fumed that “the nightly news programs at the major broadcast networks have largely ignored what is fueling this extreme weather—climate change.”

Citing a Media Matters for America study, FOE noted that “ABC’s nightly news program did only one segment about climate change last year. Meanwhile NBC’s news show did only four and CBS just seven segments to this critical issue.” Perhaps this is because these notably liberal news organizations have concluded it is not a critical issue?

It gets better, FOE was angry, saying “What’s almost worse is that when these networks have covered global warming, they have often treated climate change as a ‘two-sided debate’ rather than what it really is; an issue in which there is overwhelming scientific consensus.”

These are people who do not want to have a debate because, based on the facts, they would lose. As for scientific consensus regarding either global warming or climate change, there is NONE. If anything, leading scientists around the world have been debunking global warming now for years.

One of the leading think tanks in the effort to end the global warming hoax has been The Heartland Institute. It has sponsored several international conferences in which scientists and others have offered papers and addressed the topic. I recommend you subscribe to its national monthly, Environmental & ClimateNews. Its Managing Editor, James M. Taylor, J.D., provides the latest information on the environmental organizations greatest villain, carbon dioxide (CO2).

Two recent dispatches by Taylor noted in one that “Climate models supporting predictions of rapid global warming during the next century have performed miserably predicting global temperatures during the past two decades”, citing a comparison of computer model predictions and real-world temperatures by climate scientist Roy W. Spencer.

In another, Taylor noted that “New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, but global temperatures are not following suit. The new data undercut assertions that atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing a global warming crisis.”

Undismayed by the facts, FOE could only cite the taxpayer-funded PBS News Hour that “devoted 23 segments to covering climate change.” When the President is telling everyone that the climate is the greatest threat to the nation, PBS bureaucrats who know where the money comes from can be depended upon to broadcast his lies.

Ironically, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion by Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer on the same day the FOE email arrived. It was titled “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide.” Schmitt was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S. Senator from New Mexico. He is an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University and a former director of the office of energy research at the U.S. Department of Energy.

“The cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how exaggerated NASA’s and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide.”

No wonder FOE is upset that even the mainstream media networks no longer want to report on a global warming that does not exist. There’s real science and there’s the fulminations and lies of Friends of the Earth.

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