Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #546

The Guardian view on carbon offsetting: an overhaul is overdue (The Guardian)

Why deforestation means less rain in tropical forests (NPR)

Green transition won’t be perfect and we’ll need natural gas, World Energy Council CEO says (CNBC)

Saudis, other oil giants announce surprise production cuts (Associated Press)

Energy Expert Stresses Need for More Pipelines After Train Derailment

U.S. Company Signs Deals In Europe For Small Nuclear Reactors

Not So Easy To Kill: Flashback to the 2009 ClimateGate Exposure

Claim: Companies are Cashing in on Climate Anxiety with False Marketing  In proglodyte cant: ‘greenwashing’.

Global warming is killing Indians and Pakistanis

The thread that ties the recent chemical spills together (Vox) The author’s premise is that as long as we have an oil & gas industry, chemical spills will happen. The implication is that we must therefore eliminate the oil & gas industry in order to prevent chemical spills. This is like saying that road accidents will happen as long as we have an auto industry, and therefore we must abolish the auto industry in order to prevent road accidents. The flaws in this reasoning are left as an exercise for the reader.

Racist Left Screams Quiet Part Out Loud

Michigan Schools Admit Pushing Critical Race Theory

Distinctively Black Names and Educational Outcomes

New York creates list of ‘disadvantaged communities,’ ruffles feathers in the process (Gothamist)

Preventative healthcare may soon get more expensive in North Dakota (CBS News)

A Texas Judge Hits Preventive Health Care With a Gut Punch (Washington Post)

American Ramble review: a riveting tale of the divided United States (The Guardian)

Trans Activist Reveals the Pride at the Heart of the Transgender Movement in Comments About God  Completely out of touch with reality.

Did Bud Light Go ‘Woke’ With Trans-TikTok Star? Boycott Calls Intensify

Kentucky Governor Signs Bill Banning ESG Investment In Public Pensions

From agitator to insider: The evolution of AOC (Politico)

The Big DEI Gulf On Campus: It’s Much More Than He Said/Ze Said (Real Clear Wire)

Federal Judge Blocks Tennessee Law Banning Drag Shows With Minors Present

They’re the Democratic Party’s Top Operatives—and Lobbying for a Company Accused of Destroying Black Heritage Sites  (Washington Free Beacon)

Centrist Democrats hatch secret plan to head off debt ceiling calamity (Politico) How secret can it be, if Politico knows about it? (I guess it’s a ‘calamity’ that the government can’t borrow as much money as it wants to. You would almost think that the debt ceiling was put there to do that.)

‘A dangerous force’: Chicago mayor’s race tests teachers union clout (Politico)

Madonna Hosts Fundraiser For Nashville’s ‘Queer Community’ Following Covenant Shooting

ECHR Orders Italy To Compensate Deported Tunisians

ABC’s ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Performs Step-by-Step Abortion, Depicts Pro-Lifers as Violent, Bloodthirsty Maniacs

Boston Kids Doc Urges Blue States to Prepare for Gender Surgery Boom

Cornell Rejects Student Proposal for Trigger Warnings

Republicans push for stricter election laws, despite scant proof of fraud (Washington Post) ‘Scant proof’ because the current system is opaque.

‘60 Minutes’ Interview With Marjorie Taylor Greene Prompts Backlash (Daily Beast)

MTG Calls Dems a ‘Party of Pedophiles’ in Softball ‘60 Minutes’ Interview (Daily Beast)

Joy Reid’s Religion Seminar: Being Anti-Trans Is ‘Anti-Gospel, Anti-Christ’

In Trump case, experts see echoes of failed case against Sen. John Edwards (Washington Post)

Anti-Semitic Claims Against DeSantis

French Woman Faces $13,000 Fine For Facebook Post Calling President Macron “Filth”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene: From the far-right fringe to the Republican Party’s front row (CBS News)

After Nashville, Action on Assault-Style Weapons? (The Bulwark) By using the progodyte cant term ‘assault-style weapons’, the Bulwark lines up with the Left.

Rejected! NCAA Ignored Gun Grabber’s Demand To Pull Final 4 From Texas

Fox News has been blown to smithereens (Washington Post) So many people are bashing Trump these days that Jennifer Rubin had to find something new to lose her shit about.

The Thought Police Come for Miss Marple

At Elon Musk’s Twitter, speech is anything but free (Axios) Ina Fried, who started life as a biological male named Ian Fried, is a trans activist who quite naturally has nothing good to say about cis male bigot Elon.

Texas Wants to Make Last Night’s CMT Music Awards Illegal (Daily Beast)

CMT Award Rundown: Drag Queen Frenzy and A Push For Gun Control

Disney Chief Bob Iger calls Gov. DeSantis’ actions ‘anti-business and anti-Florida’ (L.A. Times)

‘Seditious scumbag’: Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel likens ‘60 minutes’ to Fox News after Marjorie Taylor Greene interview (Raw Story) They don’t make colonels like they used to.

Despite Warnings, Sweden Joins EU Lawsuit Against Hungary

Top Dem Super PAC Hits DeSantis Over Natural Gas as Its Leaders Rake in Cash From Gas Industry

Read it.

Images from the scene reveal some of the boxcars were full of Coors Light and Blue Moon beer products.

 

Read it.

Read it.

San Diego County supervisor Nathan Fletcher (D.) announced his resignation last week after two women accused him of sexual assault. Hours later, California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) featured Fletcher in a video announcing a multimillion-dollar campaign to unseat Republicans.

Read it.

Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future fraud is astounding. When it comes to Covid fraud, we’re number 1. The fraud is massive and the indictments are still coming.

Read it.

Read it.

Police in Canada seized more than 100 3D-printed guns last year, with some jurisdictions seeing big increases in this type of weapon and even busting manufacturing rings for the first time.

In Calgary, for example, police seized 17 3D-printed guns in 2022, compared to just one each in 2021 and 2020.

Wow! Seventeen! It’s a crime wave!

Read it.

It used to be that Congress were the biggest criminals in D.C. Now they have competition.

In February, Rep. Angie Craig was assaulted by a career criminal in the elevator of her D.C. building. The attacker, who had previously been busted 13 times for assault, decided to go for his 14th outing by punching the congresswoman in the face while trying to force her inside.

Rep. Crag, a Democrat who had once attended a Black Lives Matter rally, wisely refused to let her attacker inside her apartment and threw hot coffee at him instead. In that moment, Craig perhaps decided that Congress Lives Matter more than those of oppressed criminals.

Had Craig been armed, she might have done better than rely on her coffee remaining hot for self-defense, but last year she had complained that “attempts to address gun violence in this country have been stymied by gridlock, special interests and career politicians”.

Quillette.

Jennifer Ann Gries, a 25-year-old housing-services supervisor at California’s Stanford University, appears to lack the critical-thinking skills and good judgement demanded by her job description. For some reason, she was surprised when her claims of being forcibly raped on-campus drew a lot of attention.

John  Hinderaker at Power Line.

The liberal philosophy, reduced to its essence, is that most people need to be poorer, to consume fewer resources. To do less. To enjoy less. But not them, of course. Us.

Steve Sailer.

Canada has been having a George Floyd-like meltdown over “unmarked graves” at boarding schools, which is spun to make them sound like the Katyn Forest, but is more like students died of TB back before penicillin and then the Indian community has failed to keep their grave markers maintained. But it all serves to justify a cultural revolution to denigrate the heroes of the Old Canadians so that the New Canadians don’t have to be reminded that You Didn’t Build Canada.

Hence, the American leader of the vast coalition in which the Old Canadians won World War II must go.

Read it.

Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, has lost her battle to stay in power after her centre-left Social Democratic party (SDP) was narrowly beaten into third place in a cliffhanger election by its conservative and far-right rivals.

With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the right-wing National Coalition party (NCP) won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin’s SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%.

Critics of corporate diversity efforts emerge, even as initiatives falter (Washington Post)

San Francisco could be on the verge of collapse. What should California do about it? (S.F. Chronicle)

Federal judge slaps down ban on Seattle ICE deportation flights, sanctuary county immediately tries again

Ivy League Schools Are Now Pushing $90,000 Per Year In Tuition This is deliberate–anyone who looks at the Ivy school endowments will realize that they don’t need to charge tuition at all, much less at these nose-bleed rates. The goal is to make it too expensive for anybody except Children of the Crust to pay for an Ivy League education, while cutting breaks in the form of ‘scholarships’ and ‘financial aid’ for favored minority groups to make sure the ‘diversity’ comes out right.

The Media, Far-Left Congressman Jamaal Bowman: Guns For Me But Not For Thee

These 5 states will be the first to kick residents off Medicaid starting in April (CNN) In the Narrative Media, ‘kick off’ means ‘quite extending benefits to people who no longer qualify’. These were people who got a special break because of COVID; COVID is now over, so they get dropped. CNN, who think that everyone ought to get free health care at the expense of taxpayers, of course thinks this an atrocity.

Investigation Reveals ‘Revolving Door’ Of DOJ, Big Tech Employees

One in four college applicants avoids entire states for political reasons (The Hill) I certainly would.

Watch: Anthropology Prof Angered After Being Mocked For Denying Ability To Tell Gender From Human Bones

Democrats Run on Abortion, Even for Offices With Little Say on the Issue (N.Y. Times) Virtue-signaling is paramount.

NYC Man Shot Twice by Thief Charged With Attempted Murder

Trans people face rhetoric, disinformation after shooting (The Hill) Welcome to our world.

Illegal Immigration Surged At Northern US Border With Help Of Americans

Trump will attack his indictment on three basic points. Let me rebut them (The Guardian) Robert Reich, who is not a lawyer nor plays one on TV, pushes the Narrative.

The Observer view: Donald Trump deserves to face the full force of justice (The Guardian)

Trump ceded the moral high ground on presidential indictments long ago (Washington Post) And his treatment merely underscores the double standard being embraced.

Alvin Bragg alleges ‘unlawful’ interference in Trump case (Reuters) Apparently nobody is above the law–except the Cocky Chipmunk.

These prominent figures have remained silent on Trump indictment (The Hill) And who could blame them? Aside from the Narrative media, of course.

How ‘no one is above the law’ became anti-Trump sloganeering (Washington Post)

‘Delay, delay, delay’: How Trump could push his trial into the heart of campaign season (Politico)

Bragg Confirms Federal Funds Used in Trump Probe, Bolstering GOP Investigation

Judge Who Oversaw Tax Fraud Case Against Trump’s Business Expected to Preside Over His Arraignment (N.Y. Times) When you’re on a witch-hunt, you’ve got to make sure you buy the right judge.

Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals, Shielding Him, Reveal Their 2024 Predicament (N.Y. Times) Maggie Haberman continues her anti-Trump assignment to spread Narrative FUD.

WATCH: One Trump Lawyer Shades Another on Live TV (Daily Beast) The best of American high-school ‘journalism’.

From Fascism To The Forbidden Fruit And More, Morning Joe On The Trump Indictment Had It All!

Maggie Haberman on Donald Trump (N.Y. Times) The Times abandons all pretense of being a news organization. (“Go right to the source/And ask the horse….”)

Who Is Alvin Bragg? What You Need To Know About The Manhattan DA Who Indicted Trump

2 Pro-Impeachment Senators Question Motives Behind Trump Indictment (N.Y. Times)

Justice Dept. said to have more evidence of possible Trump obstruction at Mar-a-Lago (Washington Post)

Indictment secrecy repeats pattern of past efforts targeting Trump

Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks

Judge shields Hunter Biden’s finances from public in child-support case (N.Y. Post)

An app launched to make seeking asylum simpler has left migrants even more precarious (NPR)

Has The White House Even Said The Word ‘Christian’ Since The Nashville School Shooting? (Daily Wire)

Insider: Biden Deemed ‘Too Old’ to Attend King Charles’ Coronation

Harvard professor’s fossil fuel links under scrutiny over climate grant (The Guardian)

‘War of the states’: EV, chip makers lavished with subsidies (Associated Press)

Antarctic ice melt poses grave risk to ocean circulation, new study finds (CNN)

Sustainable mining reform must be everything, everywhere, all at once (The Hill)

France drops pink atomic bomb on EU green energy talks (Politico)

EU agrees to double renewables by 2030 and UK unveils its long-awaited climate plan (CNN)

EU agrees compromise on nuclear energy amid French pressure (Financial Times)

A green state tosses a lifeline to a major coal plant (E & E News)

New oilfield in the North Sea would blow the UK’s carbon budget (The Guardian)

Lithium is becoming more crucial in a warming world, but Maine’s huge deposits may never be mined because of environmental concerns (Boston Globe)

More Climate Fiction From the BBC

EPA brief filed in Young v. EPA

UK Government To Punish Households Using Gas

DANIEL MCCARTHY: Climate Science Makes A Bad Religion

Babylon Bee.

Long a staple drink of people who hate actual beer, Bud Light felt putting Dylan Mulvaney’s face on a can would also attract people who hate actual women. “As a man acting out the most horrendously offensive stereotypes of women, Mulvaney taps into the soul of people who despise real women,” said Mr. Whitworth. “As a company dedicated to serving those who detest real beer, the partnership made perfect sense. The new beer can just shouts, ‘Come, enjoy this atrocious substitute for the real thing’.”

Read it.

I suspect Barney Frank.

Read it.

As opening sentences go, ‘You fucking Nazi c*nt,’ takes some beating. This was the charge made against Andrew Doyle not by some faceless internet troll but by an old friend to whose son he is the godfather. A left-wing homosexual with a doctorate in early Renaissance poetry, Doyle makes an unlikely flagbearer for fascism. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone to whom the accusation would be more comically absurd. So, what caused his friend to make it? What deranging force separated an otherwise sane man from his senses?

That is what The New Puritans seeks to answer. In it, Doyle succeeds in doing what few writers have managed: he gives form to that nebulous movement known as woke.

Read it.

The value of Latin is usually set forth in two main ways; first, relating to practical skills, and secondly relating to insight into the human condition, which has been the traditional aim of every Humanities subject. If these be the grounds of success or failure, and if the sample base for evaluating success or failure necessarily consists of those taking the subject, then this lack of consultation with students to see how, or whether, the subject has given them such practical skills and such insight, constitutes a major hole in the argumentation of any defender of the Classics.

Everyone, I grant, was at some point or another a student; but the crucial point is that they are not students now. By listening to current students, Classical academia in general might understand better why students do, or do not, continue to take Latin, and what benefits they derive from that subject.

In this article, I will seek to remedy this hole in the discussion in a very small way, by providing my own perspective as a secondary-school student and highlighting the key benefits that I have drawn from my study of Latin to date.

When I took beginning Greek in college, the teacher went around the class asking why we were wanting to learn classical Greek. When he got to me, I said (being a smartass) ‘To be civilized.’ He said, ‘No, you learn Latin to be civilized; you learn Greek to be educated.’  … which is precisely what a Roman would have said.

Read it.

Color me hopeful, but we have heard about a new kind of paint that holds the potential to cut airline fuel usage and make our homes and communities cooler. How? Well, some of the brightest and most beautiful colors in nature can only be replicated using heavy metals and chemicals. And those paints absorb infrared radiation, making objects covered in them much hotter. But Debashis Chanda, a nanoscience researcher with the University of Central Florida, has created a way to mimic nature’s way of reflecting colors without absorbing heat. It’s the same way a rainbow is created after it rains. Chanda’s research looks at why structural colors, as they’re called, may be the future of paint, and how altering the way light is reflected off surfaces could help cool a rapidly warming environment.

Read it.

Washington Free Beacon.

For over two decades, attorney Philip Howard has endeavored through his nonpartisan organization Common Good to promote a restoration of “common sense” in government operations by replacing bureaucratic red tape and legal roadblocks with individual accountability. His previous four books, starting with the 1995 bestseller The Death of Common Sense, and notably including one titled Life Without Lawyers, have earned acclaim from across the mainstream political spectrum, from George Will to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., to the New York Times.

In his newest tome, Not Accountable, Howard traces the lack of government accountability to what he concludes to be its underlying source: the rise of public employee unions. Whereas his earlier studies described “a flawed governing philosophy” that overemphasized procedural rights at the expense of the public good, “applied by people acting in good faith,” this one “is a story of raw power and democratic disloyalty.”

Job security (‘you can’t fire me’) is a cornerstone of labor union practice.

Read it.

Independent journalist Steve Baker says he was recently warned that his aggressive reporting and commentary about Jan. 6 have created growing ire at the U.S. Department of Justice that could lead to his prosecution for being at the Capitol on that fateful Wednesday in 2021.

Read it.

Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

Read it.

Donald Trump has been indicted, essentially for the crime of being Donald Trump and opposing the Left’s total hegemony over everything. But as Trump himself has often warned, they’re not really after him, they’re after us, and he is just in the way. A 33-year-old Trump supporter named Douglass Mackey discovered the truth of that adage in the worst possible way on Friday, the first day of America as a Leftist banana republic in which foes of the regime are targeted solely for their opposition to that regime. Mackey was convicted of election interference and faces up to ten years in prison, all because of a meme he tweeted during the 2016 election. Yes, you read that right: a meme.

Read it.

A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll reveals that a majority of Americans believe a college degree isn’t worth the cost and time. Sliding confidence in the higher education system indicates that the American Dream can be achieved without a college degree. This is an ominous sign for liberal professors teaching meaningless programs, particularly in the humanities.

Tech Crunch.

Your romantic love story with Iris (get it, like IRS?) continues similarly throughout the game — while getting to know you, she asks you further questions, like what your address is and whether you have dependents (TH3K only works for single people without dependents, because Iris doesn’t want to get involved in a complicated situation and/or MSCHF did not make the game that complex… also, it doesn’t do state tax.) She even gets nosy enough to ask you for your annual income, tax withholdings and even your social security number, but you’re so enamored by Iris that you’re willing to look past her invasive questions — and the fact that she seems to love talking about taxes. A lot.

I am not making this up.

DHS OIG finds millions in American Rescue Plan funds misused by NGOs, given to ‘gotaway’ illegal immigrants

A deadline looms for rules governing deep-sea mining, but a rushed decision may be risky (CNBC)

Biden to Hunter-linked clergyman at Greek independence event: ‘I’m gonna ruin your reputation by talking’ (N.Y. Post)

Conservatives call for charges against Biden after Trump indictment (N.Y. Post)

Biden And Harris Will Not Be On The 2024 Presidential Ticket — Here’s Why (Forbes)

Florida grand jury accuses Biden HHS of ‘complete abdication of responsibility’ for migrant children welfare (Fox)

‘Human trafficking’: Florida grand jury blasts federal immigration policy (Tampa Bay Times)

Pentagon Critics Blame Diversity Policies and Fitness Standards for Recruiting Woes

Mayorkas: ‘Extraordinary’ Number of Migrants

House Republicans Say Homeland Security Chief’s $60 Billion Budget Concedes Border Cannot Be Secured

The Supreme Court’s Ginni Thomas problem is bigger than legal ethics (MSNBC) But not as big as the Narrative Media’s need to make or find some way of smearing Clarence Thomas.

The Preposterous Ginni Thomas Dark Money Situation Has Gone On Far Too Long (Esquire)

Ginni Thomas’ Anonymous Donations Questioned: ‘So Much Wrong With This’ (Newsweek)

Lawrence: Secret funds of Ginni Thomas group may be worst SCOTUS ethics crisis ever (MSNBC) EVER!

‘Stolen Youth’: The Anti-Woke Book That’s Afraid of Everything (Daily Beast)

One of America’s Worst Judges Just Gutted a Key Part of Obamacare (The Nation)

Tucker Carlson Says Trans People Hate Christians Because They Won’t Accept Them as ‘Gods’ (Rolling Stone)

Tucker Carlson’s anti-trans rant after Nashville shooting endangers us all (MSNBC)

GOP Strategist and Epstein Fanboy Convicted of Teen Sex Trafficking (Daily Beast)

Kentucky’s new anti-trans horror signals a need for blue-state havens (Washington Post) I have no objection to all trans people migrating to blue states.

Louisiana AG Shares Startling Findings On Censorship Collusion Between Government And Big Tech

New Zealand Minister Slammed After Blaming ‘White Cis Men’ For Violence

PBS on ‘Violent Extremism’: Blame the Far Right, They Caused Antifa Violence in Portland??

Students sue University of Wyoming sorority for accepting transgender member (N.Y. Post)

7 sorority sisters at University of Wyoming sue Kappa Kappa Gamma to challenge induction of transgender member (NBC News)

Members sue sorority, claim ‘peeping’ trans woman with ‘visible erection’ allowed to live with them (ABC News)

Lawyers share safety worries in anonymity request for students in UW sorority suit (Casper Star-Tribune)

Audience laughs at professor telling Riley Gaines there is no difference between male, female bone structure (Fox)

‘Woke’ University of Pittsburgh professor denies difference in male, female skeletons (N.Y. Post)

Transgender activist tells MSNBC ‘God made me in her image’ (Fox)

‘I know we can do better as a city’ | South Austin business owners nervous as homeless encampments pop up (ABC News) Homeless people migrate to blue areas because they get free stuff.

Cornell’s classroom trigger warnings are a disaster for free speech (N.Y. Post)

TN House Speaker calls Democratic disruption at state capitol an ‘insurrection’ (WKRN)

Red America is growing because blue America is shrinking (Washington Post)

Are people fleeing Oregon? Census data shows population decline (Fox)

New census estimates show which California counties are losing residents (KTLA)

Exodus Trend Persists: Homebuyers Unfazed By High Mortgage Rates Leave Expensive Cities

21 State AGs Warn Top Asset Management Firms About Woke Investing

Tensions Flare Inside NPR After Staff Layoffs and Town Halls (Bloomberg)

Automakers are resigned. Manchin is furious. Europe has to wait. (Politico)

Biden admin moves to limit EV tax credit eligibility in potential blow to climate agenda (Fox)

The $7,500 tax credit to buy an electric car is about to change yet again (NPR)

Biden administration tightens EV tax credit rules (Accounting Today)

Why Kentucky Is Dead Last for Wind and Solar Production (Inside Climate News)

Corporate Interests ‘Watered Down’ the Latest IPCC Climate Report, Investigations Find (Inside Climate News)

How to Harness Mega Seaweed Blobs For a More Sustainable Future (TIME)

Northwest Florida officials brace for impact of sargassum seaweed along beaches (ABC News)

Scientists consider sinking massive seaweed blob headed for Florida (NBC News)

This Ocean Monster Offers a Potential Climate Solution (Washington Post)

Planes, Shipping Lanes, and Automobiles: Surprising Ways Climate Change Can Affect Transportation (NASA)

Carbon capture will probably make electricity more expensive (The Verge)

“Wind Power Fails On Every Count”: Oxford Scientist Explains The Math

European Parliament Moves Towards Criminalisation of ‘Ecocide’

Washington, DC’s Cherry Blooms Draw Crowds—and Climate Questions (Wired ‘Science’)

Trump and Stormy Daniels cash in on merchandise after indictment (BBC) “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” — Hunter S. Thompson

The unhinged GOP defense of Trump is the real ‘test’ for our democracy (Washington P0st) Greg Sargent pushes the Narrative.

The GOP doesn’t know what the charges are against Trump — and doesn’t care (MSNBC)

Trump’s fundraising efforts after indictment pay off, with over $4 million raised (The Hill)

Latino Networks Desperate For Trump Mugshot

The data’s clear: The indictment makes Republicans like Trump more (Politico)

Barr: Dems Using Indictment to Sink Trump in ’24

Online threats of violence but few signs of far-right organizing around Trump indictment (NBC News)

A gag order for Donald Trump is ‘extremely likely’ once he’s before a judge, legal expert says (Business Insider) Good luck with that.

Former Trump employees secretly cheering ‘wonderful news’ of his indictment: Maggie Haberman (Raw Story) Maggie Haberman continues her anti-Trump crusade with Narrative FUD.

How Alvin Bragg Resurrected the Case Against Donald Trump (N.Y. Times) The power of a corrupt prosecutor is almost limitless.

Ron DeSantis Vows To Violate U.S. Constitution To Protect Accused Criminal Donald Trump (Huffington Post) These proglodyte fairy tales get more and more extreme.

The Other McCain turns over a rock.

This “lockstep” nature of a curriculum based upon the average student results in what I’ve called the “Hansel and Gretel” approach to teaching. Those who recall the fairy tale know how Hansel and Gretel left a trail of bread crumbs behind them to help them find their way back home. In a similar manner, the teacher doles out lessons in a time-ordered sequence — the bread-crumb trail of knowledge — with a certain amount of math, grammar, history, etc., to be taught each day, without regard to the abilities or interests of the students. Let us stipulate that this method cannot be separated from the classroom system; we are not passing judgment on whether teachers are “nice” people, or whether they are sincere in their desire to help students learn, when we apply critical scrutiny to the system itself. No matter how intelligent or dedicated the teacher may be, so long as “education” is a matter of group instruction, with children assigned to classrooms by age (rather than by their ability or interest), and the teacher required to bring the children along through a prescribed set of lessons, this “Hansel and Gretel” method must be used, and its effects are predictable, as the critic saw in 1912.

Public education in general violates a basic principle of successful organization, i.e., voluntary association through mutual self-selection. Think about college fraternities. Candidates for membership attend rush parties at the houses that they’re interested in joining. Members of the fraternities meet the prospective candidates, then vote on which ones should receive offers of membership. A student might receive such bids from more than one fraternity, in which case he is free to choose between them. And once an offer of membership is accepted, the pledge must go through a trial period — learning the secret handshake, etc. — before becoming a full-fledged member. Each fraternity has standards of behavior, embodied in a code, and enforced by a membership committee that can expel any member who fails to uphold the code. And if member for any reason becomes dissatisfied with the obligations of fraternity life, he is always free to quit. In a free society, this is how practically all successful enterprises are organized, and a major reason public schools are such a disaster is because they are not based on this principle of mutual self-selection. Public schools are based on government-imposed compulsion, and as such are offensive to the spirit of liberty.

Read it.

You knew it had to happen.

Read it.

The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) is a Turkish charity that has been banned in multiple EU countries for ties to jihadism. In spite of that, it has been playing an important role in fundraising efforts for the victims of the Turkish earthquake, which has had the effect of giving it political and moral legitimacy.

Founded in the 1990s to support Bosnian rebels, the IHH has been described as a Turkish government proxy, giving logistical support to Islamists and advancing Ankara’s foreign policy objectives. The group has often been used as a liaison point with extremist Syrian rebels. Turkey has been lambasted for supporting Islamist extremism over the past decade to further destabilise Syria, using NGO fronts.

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.

Read it.

March 23 marked the anniversary of the murder of Mireille Knoll, an elderly Jewish woman and a Holocaust survivor who was living in Paris. Her murder was one of many brutal, antisemitic attacks in France over the past several years.

On March 23, 2018, two men, Yacine Mihoub and Alex Carrimbacus—both Knoll’s neighbors—entered her apartment, stabbed her eleven times, and lit her body on fire. Allegedly it was a botched robbery that turned into a murder. But, during the investigation and trial, it became evident that antisemitism was a factor in Knoll’s murder.

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

It is hard to single out the most egregious demagogue in the U.S. Senate, but near or at the top of my list is Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He likes to blast “dark money” even though Democrats by far receive more so-called “dark money” than conservatives or Republicans. (I’m updating my periodic Lexicon of Political Terms accordingly, to reflect that “dark money” means “donations from the private sector that supports ideas or causes the left doesn’t like.”) Whitehouse in particular likes to attack the Federalist Society as some kind of “cabal” or conspiracy to transform the federal judiciary, as if there were no issues whatsover that any decent person could possibly argue over. He never deigns to argue about anything. If it were up to Whitehouse, I suspect he’d censor or outlaw the Federalist Society. Fortunately he’s just another Senate blowhard.

Ditto for climate change. Earlier this week Whitehouse chaired a Senate committee hearing on the subject “Left Holding the Bag: The Cost of Oil Dependence in a Low-Carbon World.” It was a set up to denounced fossil fuels, of course, with the witness lineup tilted three to two in favor of the climatista party line. The primary dissenting Republican witness was our pal Ben Zycher of the American Enterprise Institute, who has actually appeared here on Power Line under the pseudonym “Comrade Molotov.” (And now you know. . .)

Read it.

As I’ve noted frequently in the past, culture-enrichers don’t restrict their stabbing activities solely to infidel victims. They’re generally equal-opportunity knifemen, especially when drug deals are part of the mix, as seems to be the case in this news report from the Italian city of Padua.

Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.