I used to believe that child sacrifice went out of style, at least in the West, thousands of years ago, yet today we see child sacrifice in the name of a new religion, transgenderism.  How is it that after being disgusted by the crimes of a doctor named Mengele, less than one-hundred years later we are seeing blatant experimentation on the youngest and most innocent of our population, mere children.

What has happened that children who cannot vote, sign a contract, who are considered incapable of making common ordinary everyday decisions due to their inexperience in the world, are suddenly capable of taking unproven and dangerous drugs and approving irreversible surgery which they will carry only with the help of more drugs for the rest of their lives? And who are those who are going along with the mutilation of children?  They are those whom we consider the best and brightest of us, those who have taken an oath to do no harm, doctors.  Since when has the medical profession become an adjunct arm of a political or social fad? The attached article gives a glimpse into the freighting world that is existence today, where life-changing actions are taken very often with little or no consultation or support of medical science.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/transgender-ideology-and-the-corruption-of-medicine

Originally published 06.01/2023 on Fox News.com by Alex Epstein

The “green energy” movement claims that it wants cost-effective energy—affordable, reliable, plentiful—just without fossil fuels’ pollution or GHG emissions. But this is contradicted by its hostility toward clean, non-carbon nuclear and hydro—the most proven alternatives to fossil fuels.

You might expect the “green-energy” movement to be the Number 1 supporter of clean, non-carbon nuclear and hydroelectric energy, but instead, it is the Number 1 opponent. “Green” groups have opposed nuclear for decades (leading to crippling costs) and worked to shut down hydroelectric dams. 

Why does the “Green” movement oppose nuclear and hydro?

It is because “green” solar and wind are just so cost-effective and so “green”?

No. Solar and wind have not proven to be cost-effective at all, and in many ways, they are the least “green” form of energy.

“Green energy” isn’t really energy

Calling solar and wind “green energy” makes them seem like other forms of energy, just “green.” But they’re not. All other forms of energy provide reliable energy—real energy—whereas solar and wind are unreliable parasites of reliable energy.

Despite claims that solar and wind are rapidly replacing fossil fuels, they provide less than 5% of world energy—only electricity, one-fifth of energy—and, crucially, even that small percentage depends on huge subsidies and reliable (mostly fossil-fueled) power plants. 

Calling solar and wind “green energy” makes them seem like other forms of energy, just “green.” But they’re not. All other forms of energy provide reliable energy—real energy—whereas solar and wind are unreliable parasites of reliable energy.

Solar and wind’s basic problem is unreliability, to the point they can go near zero at any time. Thus, they don’t replace reliable power, they parasitize it. This is why they need huge subsidies and why no grid is near 50% solar and wind without huge parasitism on reliable neighbors.  

The popular idea that we can use mostly or only solar and wind with sufficient battery backup is not being tried anywhere because it’s economically absurd. Batteries are so expensive that just 3 days of global backup using Elon Musk’s Megapacks would cost $600 trillion, about six times global GDP!  

“Green” solar and wind may someday become a part of real energy solutions—if generators using solar and wind are willing to guarantee reliability, instead of generating unreliable power and forcing everyone else to clean up their mess. But today’s “green energy” is not real energy. If solar and wind ever become truly cost-effective, you can be certain of one thing: the “green energy” movement will oppose them as insufficiently “green” given their huge “environmental impacts.” 

“Green energy” isn’t really green

If solar and wind became cost-effective and deployed on a large scale, they would have a level of “environmental impact” from mining and land use that would make the “green movement” oppose them. In fact, this is already happening. “Green” means minimal or nonexistent “environmental impact.”

Because sunlight and wind are dilute sources of energy—they take up more space and use more of many materials than fossil fuels or nuclear. This massive “environmental impact” is not at all “green.”  

Consider the land use requirements of solar. The world uses over 165,000 TWh of energy per year, which requires ~19 billion kW of power on average. An optimistic, real-world power density for solar projects is 10 Watts per square meter. To power the world, you’d need ~1.8 million square kilometers of solar PV projects.  

If 1.8 million square kilometers of solar panels doesn’t seem like much, note that it is more than all cities, towns, villages, and human infrastructure combined (~1.5 million square kilometers).  

And this excludes the huge footprints of solar and battery mining, manufacturing, and transmission. Consider the mining requirements of solar, wind, and batteries. An International Energy Agency projection for a “net zero” scenario shows an increase in mining and processing of minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel, and rare earths by 4,200%, 2,500%, 1,900%, and 700% by 2040. 

Because “green energy” has so much enviromenatal impact even on today’s small scale it faces huge “green” opposition to its land use, mining, and transmission-line-building requirements. For example, the Biden administration recently shut down a prime “green energy” mining site in Minnesota.  

If “green” solar and wind aren’t really energy, and if they have so much environmental impact that the “green” movement opposes them in practice, then why does the green movement so enthusiastically support them rhetorically? To hide its real goal: radically reducing energy use.

“Green”—”minimal human impact”—is a fundamentally anti-energy idea. Energy is “the capacity to do work,” which means transforming—impacting—our environment. The more energy we use, the more we transform Earth, the more impact we have. If you don’t want us to impact Earth you ultimately must oppose every form of energy.

The fundamental hostility of the “green” movement to energy explains why throughout its history it has never supported current, cost-effective sources of energyand only “supported” imaginary sources of energy that might exist in the future.

“Green” leaders supported nuclear—until it became cost-effective, at which point they demonized and criminalized it. “Green” leaders supported natural gas—until it became cost-effective on a global scale thanks to shale energy tech, at which point they demonized it as “fracking.”

Because the “green” movement is anti-energy any enthusiasm its leaders express for fusion is phony; while they may claim to want clean, cheap, abundant energy before it exists, they will not like the impact it has once it exists. And in the past, green leaders admitted this.  

Amory Lovins, the leader of the modern “green energy” movement, said in the 1970s: “If you ask me, it’d be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we would do with it.”  

The world needs to reject the “green” movement and instead embrace a “human flourishing” movement that embraces intelligent human impact on Earth as a good thing. It’s one that both embraces today’s most cost-effective energy sources—including fossil fuels—and is eager to improve on them.

Alex Epstein is the author of “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal and Natural Gas,” and the creator of Energy Talking Points on Substack a source of powerful, concise, well-referenced talking points on energy, environmental, and climate issues.

On April 3 of this year, I posted an article from the Claremont Review of Books regarding the political atmosphere in India.  This quarter, Claremont provides us with an excellent article which asks if France is governable.  Lead by President Emmanuel Macron, a man who admires General Charles de Gaulle and imagines that the “Jupiterian” powers within the French Constitution allows him to lead France in directions which are clearly not supported by the majority of Franch citizens.  Although he has won two national elections, both through run offs, his base popularity during the elections stayed at about twenty-five percent and his current popularity rating is at about the same level.

France and Macron face numerous challenges, the most recent and visible being the French retirement system.  Fourteen percent of the GDP of France is dedicated to the pension system and while the high national debt (112%) and high deficits (5%) are within the range of the United States, the French currency is the Euro and France is under pressure to live within the restrictions of the EU regarding debt.  This at a time when there are calls for higher military spending as the French have allowed their military to decline since the Cold War.  Additionally, the basis for the French economy is being tortured by the rise in the cost of living as “producers” exit the cities for less expensive housing in the surrounding areas, only to find that whatever savings may be found are whittled away the high fuel costs. Increasingly, those left in the cities are those unable to escape, such as the lower working class and those who live on the hand outs of the State.  The time of the “yellow jackets” may arise again as Macron has lost the support of the major unions and farmers. 

Unfortunately, the greatest danger to France is not covered in detail in the article; Muslim immigration, the strain they put on the welfare system and their inability to assimilate (we suggest going to the Gatestone Institute and checking their article entitled, “France: Submission to Islamist Quickly Gaining Ground”).  Approximately ten percent of the Franch population is Muslim with hundreds of thousands arriving both legally and illegally each year.  There are over 750 “no go zones” in France and major steps are taken in the public sector not to “upset” the Muslim minority (one example being that the Holocaust is not taught in French schools).  This is a long-term problem which has no easy answer, but the strain on the French economy, security and growth is huge.

As stable and beautiful a nation may appear, this article shows that it is impossible for any nation or set of politicians to sit back and wile away the hours.  Challenges only seem to multiply and more than ever there is a real need for real “leaders” to accept the challenges they face.  The challenge for the average person is trying to find those politicians who can tackle the problems not only of today, but of the future while refusing to buckle to the often-outlandish cries of those who fail to understand the realities of the world.  

It must be disheartening to realize that even one’s virtue signaling was a cruel joke.  Wearing a mask did not have a positive impact during the time of Covid, wearing a mask could actually be bad for your health.  Oh, the agony of it all!  All that time in one’s car all alone, looking out on those fools who did not wear a mask, believing that one was making the world a bit safer.  All that righteous anger, the stern looks, and verbal abuse heaped on those mere mortals who did not adhere to those who “followed science”.  It was all theater, it meant nothing.  And then the indignity of finding out that one was taking an action that could have a negative impact on one’s health!  Say it isn’t so!

It does make one remember some of those silly folk sayings, doesn’t it?  Such as:

• If all your friends jumped off a roof, would you do it?
• Believe nothing you hear, half of what you see and only one fourth of what you know to be true.
• He who follows the crowd has many companions.
• Collective fear stimulates herd instinct and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
• If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

The article linked below offers what could be, a very common-sense medical discovery.  Yet somehow this possibility was overlooked even though there are studies reflecting these conclusions going back over a decade.  And it does not address the question of hygiene from the repeated wearing of the same mask over a period of days or longer. 

Finally, one more saying:  man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once.  Next time, perhaps we all need to be a bit more skeptical of what the herd says, believes and does.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-harm-caused-by-masks

It is amazing how many of those who claim to “follow science” only look as far as the tip of their nose. I believe it is because sometimes they do not have the expertise or worldly experience to consider all the factors which may impact their own personal or messianic agenda.  At other times, it is because they do not wish to be disturbed by some inconvenient facts, such as cost, contributing factors, outside influences which might upset their wonderful vision, etc.  Sometimes, it is just plain ignorance and laziness that allows them to disregard important realities which would upset or even destroy their vision.

The attached article begins to bring up numerous factors which will impact the vision of EVs.  One of the most obvious questions is whether EVs are as “green” as proclaimed and why is it that certain key factors are ignored by their loudest cheerleaders?  Ignorance, laziness or just an age-old human desire to believe in something that is promised as a quick and easy “fix”?  Unfortunately, history has shown us that the “quicker and easier” the fix, the more costly it is in the long run.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/electric-vehicles-and-carbon-emissions

I have often said that there is a formula to many government actions;

1. Pass a law/regulation, etc. with (we hope) the best of intentions.  These new laws/regulations are designed to meet some real or imagined need, desire, request either made by some special interest group or political goal.  Seldom are they passed at the request of the average citizen who is too busy trying to exist and move ahead with their lives.
2. The new program is instituted and funded and of course, new government employees improve the original idea which was found to be of such great importance to society.
3. Typically, the new governmental department or agency finds that the original goal is much more complex than expected and so studies must be made, which of course, demands time and money.  Or it is found that the new regulations as laid out by the new department do not really address or solve the original goal, but the agency does find other areas where it can “help” the average citizen.
4. With a new purpose or idea, the agency goes back to its source of funds (typically the Congress, State Assembly, City Council, etc.) and asks for additional funds to correct the problems caused by its own actions and to expand the scope of its work.

In other words, a problem is found, a solution is provided, it is found that the solution only made the problem worse and to correct the problem it has created, more money must be spent to correct its own bad actions.

This is being worked out by my local level of government, the City Council of Long Beach California.  The problem is that Measure MA was approved by the voters in 2016.  This allowed the legal sale of marijuana and the city put in place certain rules/regulations to monitor and capitalize on said sales.  The problem was that the rules/regulations were both complex and expensive for those who were going to be granted a license to sell the drug.  In fact, they were so complex and expensive that one of the goals of the original Measure was made worse; instead of eliminating the illegal sale of the drug, it has made the sale from illegal dealers larger. The illegal sale of the drug is estimated to be at least three times larger than the legal sales.  This means that the city is not receiving all the money from the legal sales of a drug which magically became legal and encouraged by the same government that had previously seen the drug as something illegal. When the expected tax revenue is not realized, you can count on the government to do something about it.

An ordinary person might believe that if the rules/regulations/taxes are too high to create a good business, the simple answer would be to re-examine the rules/regulations/taxes which are creating the problem.  One might even suggest letting individuals with real business experience do the work as at least they know how to live within a budget and actually create something that is viable and productive.  No, that would be far too simple and logical.

In its wisdom, the City Council has decided that the solution is to offer the now legal drug dealers a tax reduction if they can abide by additional rules which will increase their cost of doing business at a rate which is theoretically lower than the amount of tax reduction. Brilliant! Everyone in business knows that increased regulations, especially those which increase fixed costs, are the sure way to increased profits. Not to worry, as if the tax revenue to the city does not increase thanks to this solution, I am sure the City Council will have mor great ideas how to fix the problem.

And, just to show that they have their best thinking caps on, the City Council is putting its best Woke foot forward by ensuring that equity in drug dealerships will be reached.  You can apply if you are unemployed and are poor.  Of course, where you are going to get the capital for your business is not included in the new idea, nor is the question of what landlord will want to accept a drug dealer who most likely has no independent business experience and little money.  Unless of course, the new drug dealer has a secret partner who is funding the new business.  Sounds like a strategy for success to me.

When he became President Obama, he said that he wanted to fundamentally change the United States. His economic plan managed to increase the median family income by $3,200 over an eight-year period while at the same time increasing the number of people living in poverty by 787,000. When Joe Biden became president, he said that he saw it as an opportunity, “fundamentally transform the country.”  The result thus far has been that the average American family has lost between $5,600-$7,000 in income in only two years (Heritage.org 4/21/23).

Compare this to 2018, when under President Trump incomes went up $4,600; an increase in one year that was forty-five percent larger than during the eight years of the Obama administration. How was that possible?

Perhaps asking “how was that possible” is the wrong question. One might better ask, “what did Presidents’ Obama and Biden do to basically wreck a system designed and historically capable of incredible growth and wealth creation.”  Could it be that they did not understand the basic system of how the economy works? Could it be that were ignorant of past presidents who had led successful economies? Could it simply be that they believed they were smarter than anyone else? Somehow those who talk about being on the “right side of history” seem to ignore the lessons of history. Or, maybe it is just human nature; having winning such high office is like becoming a king, the new President has a burning desire to show his brilliance by doing something bold and daring.

We must ask ourselves if these two presidents actually believe that more government regulation, more government control, more deficit spending and now, inflation will lead to greater prosperity  Are we to believe that suddenly, a top-down centralized planned economy is going to be better for its citizens when there has never been a successful society based on those precepts?  Oh, I know, “it will be different this time.” 

The two articles linked below offer not only a history of recent results but also solutions to correct our current problems. Dare we hope that we have leaders who will own up to their mistakes?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-incomes-americans-kevin-mccarthy-new-york-stock-exchange-dc3bd179?page=1

Corruption and inefficiency in the spending of your money by all levels of government is nothing new. That corruption and inefficiency is one reason why the government is always seeking new revenue streams; they simply cannot account for the funds they spend.  And the more strings the government (and here I mean any level of government, but it is so blatant at the Federal level) attaches to the monies, the more the opportunity for greater graft and inefficiency. 

In response to the sudden concern about the state of dependence on foreign manufacturing of chips, the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act was passed which would help us decrease that dependence.  Yet buried withing the bill were requirements that billions of dollars (all of which are borrowed) be spent on day care centers for the employees, paid-leave allowances and “prevailing wages” during construction which very often actually slows the completion of Once On projects and leads to more inefficiencies.  If the manufacturing of chips is so important to national security, instead of “prevailing wages”, why not include a bonus if” the work is done ahead of schedule or heaven forbid, even on time?

The attached article gives but a taste of how large government which spends huge sums cannot account for much of the work and cannot keep track of the costs.  Any corporation or family unit that operated on the same basis would very quickly be in deep financial quicksand, but when all you need to do is authorize a new fee, or charge, or tax, why bother with accountability? 

Once upon a time in this country, prior to World War I, there were news reporters and writers who were known as “muckrakers”; they investigated and wrote about the corruption and criminality of numerous politicians and their allies.  Those brave individuals are long gone but the next time your government, at any level, has a hearing on some new fee/tax/surcharge/etc. don’t be afraid to ask what steps that agency is going to take to make sure that the precious monies you earn are not squandered. Remember, it is your money; the government does not generate wealth; the only wealth producers are “we the people” through our work, innovations, businesses, etc.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-more-some-states-spend-the-worse-things-seem-to-get

The twentieth century was not especially wonderful for Italy.  In World War I, although on the victorious side, the cost in manpower was terrible and most of the fighting took place on some of the most inhospitable land on the planet.  That generation was scared and almost immediately fell under the influence of Mussolini, a charismatic, blustering and to be honest, not a very bright individual.  Following his dreams of glory, all of Italy became a vicious battle ground and the nation, ill-prepared for war, was bombed and shelled into submission.  As if those experiences were not enough, Italy suffered bouts of Red terrorism, economic stagnation, and political instability.  The United States on the other hand had a pretty good twentieth-century. Victorious in two World Wars, the victor of the Cold War and huge economic growth, the nation became a super-power.  While the twenty-first century has not been all that great, the nation is still the magnet to hundreds of millions of people around the world who still believe that we are the land of opportunity.

How is it then that we see mobs in the United States, attempting to destroy statues of imperfect men who did great deeds, improved the health of millions of people or who fought for their noble and not so noble ideas but with an honest belief?  We do not see this type of activity in France were Napoleon who was responsible for the deaths of a million of his countrymen and who knows how many of other nations is still honored. Do the French tear down the beautiful palaces created by their despotic kings?  How about the British who first outlawed the slave trade?  Should statues of great explorers be torn down because they dared to believe that their values and system could help people in other lands? 

Why do we suffer they type of self-flagellation?  Who are these self-centered, intolerant racists that create such havoc in their attempt to show us how they have found the Truth?  How can they even dare to make suggestions about how things could be better when they are so woefully ignorant of what truly came before them. 

Which brings us to the article linked below.  Today, one can run across houses, commercial buildings, stadiums, statues and more that were built to glorify the Fascist regime of Mussolini.  They are literally everywhere, and no one defaces them or attempts to tear them down.  Why?  Perhaps it is the realization that those times were three generations ago and that Italy is a different country.  Perhaps it is because people understand that they can learn from history and that to discard it is another step toward totalitarianism.  The line from 1984 that “he who controls the present, controls the past and he who controls the past controls the future”. Perhaps we need to force feed some history to those silly children who believe they have found the “Truth” and that it will be different this time.  If we do not and they continue their ignorant ways, we should not be at all surprised at the result.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/italys-non-cancel-culture

Just as the pandemic revealed to millions of parents the hidden agenda that was being inflicted on their children, so too the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk was one of the most important actions in the past several years.  With the purchase, the citadel of the Left was pierced, and the many secrets contained within its walls revealed.

To say that the secrets were important is a huge understatement for the terrible alliance between the police powers of our nation and social media stood for all to see. A police agency, the F.B.I, known to have openly interfered with the last two Presidential elections, was exposed along with the Deep State bureaucracy of demanding censorship of political and medical opinions which they believed to be dangerous. Demands for censorship poured into the Twitter headquarter from FBI offices across the country, demanding that opinions by American citizens be silenced.

This was possible because, as the linked article points out, “…the administrative state has metastasized into a destructive deep state that threatens to bring about the collapse of America’s constitutional system within our lifetimes.  The unchecked, to this day, power of that deep state in alliance with national police power has gone from being a post 9/11 war on terror to a war on opinions which are contrary to those in political and bureaucratic power.

Years ago, even before being sworn into office, candidate Obama swore to fundamentally transform the United States.  It sounded like just another campaign slogan, but we are seeing just how much the nation has been changed, not by Congress, but by bureaucratic directives and overreaching of police powers.  The adage that the larger the government, the smaller the citizen is being played out before our very eyes and it appears that no one is acting to reverse the capture of power by individuals and groups with little if any accountability.