What I imagine the editorial room of Reason looked like way back in 1976

Although they deny it, in 1976 Reason magazine published an issue devoted to Holocaust denial.  The issue didn’t contain any claims of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy about how the Holocaust was a hoax. It was “softcore” Holocaust denial which Deborah Lipstadt defines as:

Softcore denial uses different tactics but has the same end-goal. (I use hardcore and softcore deliberately because I see denial as a form of historiographic pornography.) It does not deny the facts, but it minimizes them, arguing that Jews use the Holocaust to draw attention away from criticism of Israel. Softcore denial also makes all sorts of false comparisons to the Holocaust. In certain Eastern European countries today, those who fought the Nazis may be lauded, but if they did so with a communist resistance group they may be 

Fine summer weather [image credit: BBC]
Heatwaves happen. But if one dares to exceed a previously recorded temperature for the time of year, it must somehow be your fault. Natural variation isn’t even considered, because it would weaken the warmist narrative.

It’s summer, temperatures are hot － sometimes record hot － and as usual, climate alarmism reaches record highs as climate activists have a field day with fearmongering rather than with facts and data, writes Chris Martz @ Climate Change Dispatch.

Every week, various weather events end up getting caught in the spokes of the wheel of climate; it’s an endless cycle. Rinse, wash, repeat.

This time, it’s the [second] European heatwave this summer.

A Bit of Historical Perspective

While countries like the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium have recorded their hottest temperatures on record this week, Paris’s record high of 108.7°F (42.6°C) on Thursday, July 25, made international headlines…

Bernd Riexinger, the leader of Germany’s radical left party (Die Linke) has called for the nationalisation of all airlines to fight global warming.

“Anyone who has such a dramatic societal impact must not be allowed to remain market-based and unregulated. Airlines need to be state-owned – as well as the energy or rail industry,” he told reporters of the Funke Media Group.

Climate-damaging air travel had become irresponsibly cheap was also due to the fact that air traffic control had been privatised. “Flying was better when it was regulated and mostly in public hands. A wild competition in the aviation market was allowed – to the detriment of employees and at the expense of the climate.”

According to Riexinger, new climate policies are needed that set clear climate targets for all companies.

Full story (in German)

The post Climate Communism On The Rise In Germany appeared first on The Global…

Could Oberlin College, like The Evergreen State College, now be in financial difficulties because of ill-advised wokeness? If you’ve been following the story, Gibson’s Bakery sued the College after three students were caught shoplifting or beating up the shop owner (they pleaded guilty). The College and its students then tried to exact revenge, defaming the bakery, accusing it of racism (a charge that proved palpably ridiculous), and even cutting off college business with the store. A local local jury found the College guilty and fined it $11.2 million in compensatory damages and then $33 million in punitive damages, making a total of over $44 million. That was reduced to $25 million (the punitive damages were higher than allowed by Ohio law), but then the judge slapped another $6.5 million on Oberlin to cover the Gibsons’ expenses and lawyer fees.  Ergo, the college is in the hole for over $31…

“The recovery of the people is tied to recovery of food, since food itself is medicine—not only for the body but also for the soul and the spiritual connection to history, ancestors, and the land.” —Winona LaDuke

This map highlights regions where crops were initially domesticated and evolved over long periods of time, and where the diversity of traditional crop varieties and related wild plants is especially high.

Decolonizing our diets is a process of healing our bodies through reclaiming our indigenous foodways. We must recover our ancestors’ wisdom before it’s gone forever. What foods did they eat? How was food prepared? What herbs and plants did they use for medicine? How did they conduct their ceremonies? Despite colonial suppression, indigenous foodways have survived in the daily acts of resistance that include story telling, recipe sharing, ceremony, and the planting and preserving of heirloom seeds.

Source:
http://blog.ciat.cgiar.org/origin-of-crops/

You know you’re down the rabbit hole when breathless teenagers, dictating world economic policy are actually taken seriously. That vacuous ninnies like Greta Thunberg get any air time at all, speaks volumes about the witless, gullible and naïve that permeate the mainstream press.

As they lose their grip on public attention, climate alarmists are now ramping up the rhetoric with ridiculous claims that an increase of few degrees C is all set to wipe out whole species, leaving the planet a barren wasteland. [Note to Ed: what was that story about a boy who kept crying ‘wolf’?].

Bullying and berating the proletariat about how our current lifestyle (not theirs, mind you) – and the energy systems that critically support it – is destroying life before our very eyes, Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg & Co are only the latest in a long line of deranged zealots, fixated on wrecking jobs, wealth…

Cuba has a very sad history.

It traded a regular dictatorship for a communist dictatorship six decades ago, and the results have been predictably awful.

Oppression, persecution, rationing, spying, deprivation, and suffering are facts of life in that socialist hellhole.

For a while, it was subsidized by the Soviet Union, but that communist system eventually collapsed. More recently, it’s been subsidized by Venezuela, but now that socialist system also is collapsing.

And this means extra hardship for the people of Cuba.

Jose Nino explains one of the grim consequences of Cuba’s central planning.

Cuba is now implementing a rationing program to combat its very own shortages of basic goods. A CBC report indicates this program would cover basic items such as chicken, eggs, rice, beans, and soap. …When Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959, the Cuban state maintained an iron grip on the economy. For decades…

It has been a momentous week for the country’s justice system and old-fashioned notions of “law and order”.

First, the Ardern government has said it is considering a report which  recommends the abolition of prisons.  A Maori-led review of the justice system is also urged by this report.

Second, the PM has intervened in a land dispute in Auckland and thereby over-ridden the role of the courts.  

Getting rid of prisons is the remedy ingeniously proposed to reduce the high ratio of Maori inmates in our prisons.

The proposal is contained in the Ināia Tonu Nei: Māori Justice Hui report (here) released during the week.