Tag Archives: United Nations

Why Are They Always After My Cheeseburger ?

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This video is part of an article written by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and posted today:

The video highlights the Department of Agriculture’s newsletter which promotes “Meatless Monday.”

The Department of Agriculture’s newsletter states:

“One simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeterias is to participate in the ‘Meatless Monday’ initiative ,” The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) July 23, 2012 “Greening Headquarters Update” read. “This international effort, as the name implies, encourages people not to eat meat on Mondays. Meatless Monday is an initiative of The Monday Campaign Inc. in association with the John Hopkins School of Public Health.”

Pointing to the United Nations as their informational authority, the USDA’s newsletter said that going meatless is good for the environment because “animal agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases and climate change. It also wastes resources. It takes 7,000 kg of grain to make 1,000 kg of beef. In addition, beef production requires a lot of water, fertilizer, fossil fuels, and pesticides.” It further charged that heavy meat consumption has detrimental health effect.

Human beings have canine teeth, which are designed for eating meat. Why do these people think they should control our diets and determine what we eat when?

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Exactly The Wrong Solution

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It has been proven that when you tax an activity you get less of it. When you provide a tax break for an activity, you get more of it. We have seen over the past thirty years that when taxes on businesses are lowered the economy grows. When taxes and regulations are increased, the economy shrinks. Well, not everyone got the message.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the United Nations has suggested a global tax on developed countries to help underdeveloped countries. The taxes would include a carbon tax, currency taxes, and taxes on billionaires. What the article fails to mention is that in many countries (if not all) poverty is political–not economic. In countries that are free with freely elected governments and private property rights, there is generally prosperity. In countries with dictators (who generally live rather well) and no private property rights, there is generally massive poverty. If the UN truly wanted to fight poverty, they would encourage democracy and private property rights in countries that have neither. All they really want to do is take money from countries that have earned it and give it to dictators in countries where it will never reach those who desperately need it!

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Another Reason To Leave The United Nations

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The Heritage Foundation posted an article today about the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The U.N. has released its press package for its July conference that will finalize the ATT.

The article reports:

This paper perpetuates the belief, on which much of the ATT is based, that the big problem the world faces is a lack of agreed standards on arms transfers. That’s wrong: The big problem the world faces in this regard is that many U.N. member states are dictatorships, supporters of terrorists, or simply incapable of controlling their own borders.

But the paper makes it clear that the job of the U.N.—as the U.N. itself sees it—is to make the case for a very broad treaty. As CASA puts it, “Advocacy efforts should be developed…through relevant reports and op-eds, messages, and statements at relevant meetings and to the press.” So watch out for U.S. taxpayer-funded funded U.N. propaganda in a newspaper near you.

The important sentence in the press kit:

But in spite of its desperate efforts to rebut Second Amendment concerns, the U.N. can’t stop stepping on its own shoelaces. After proclaiming that the ATT “does not aim to impede or interfere with the lawful ownership and use of weapons,” the CASA paper goes on to say that “United Nations agencies have come across many situations in which various types of conventional weapons have been…misused by lawful owners” and that the “arms trade must therefore be regulated in ways that would…minimize the risk of misuse of legally owned weapons.”

I don’t know what the chances of this treaty being ratified by the Senate are. I do know that President Obama has been named Salesman of the Year by many gun stores–private ownership of guns has soared during his administration. People are buying guns while it is still legal to own them.

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The Agenda Behind The Myth Of Global Warming

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Today’s Washington Examiner posted a story about the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio next week.

The article reports on one agenda item at the conference:

“We recognize that subsidies for non-renewable energy development should be eliminated and replaced with a global tax on the production of energy from non-renewable energy sources,” the UN draft agenda, amended by non-governmental organizations at the invitation of the UN, says. “The income of this tax should be allocated to renewable energy development.” The draft agenda was obtained by the Center for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a group skeptical of the UN’s position on global warming.

There is no proof of global warming or that man contributes to it. This is simply a way to redistribute the weath of countries that have prospered to countries that have not prospered. Generally speaking, countries that have prospered are countries with private property rights, freedom, and free economies not controlled by their governments. If the UN really wanted to bring prosperity to the poorer nations of the world, shouldn’t they be working toward establishing freedom in the countries where poverty is rampant?

The article further reports:

CFACT reported in December that negotiators at the UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, discussed the future implementation of “a new tax on every foreign currency transaction in the world,” that would disproportionately fall on the United States because “transactions within the Eurozone won’t have to pay this new tax.”

It really is time for the United States to get out of the United Nations.

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Alabama Gets It Right

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Regular readers of this blog are familiar with Agenda 21. I have written about it a number of times (one example–rightwinggranny.com). Essentially, Agenda 21 is a UN-backed program to end private property rights in America.

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about a move made by the Alabama legislature to pre-empt Agenda 21:

Agenda 21 has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate, but it may not have to be if in a second Obama term the Environmental Protection Agency pursues it by stealth, as it has other environmental agendas that make war on the free enterprise system and rights we hold dear.

One of those is property rights. “Land … cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market,” Agenda 21 says.

“Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes.”

The article reports on what the legislature in Alabama has done:

…Alabama recently passed Senate Bill 477 unanimously in both of its houses. The legislation bars the taking of private property in Alabama without due process and says that “Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in or traceable to Agenda 21.”

We live in a representative republic that theoretically honors states’ rights. It is encouraging to know that one state recognizes the potential problems that could be caused if the federal government continues to usurp those rights. Hopefully other states will follow the example of Alabama.

 

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Feeding The Hate

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On Friday the Washington Free Beacon posted a story about the $192 million in financial aid released to the Palestinian Authority (PA) by the Obama Administration last month. The money was quietly released to the PA after Congress froze the money because of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s attempt to declare statehood before the United Nations, by-passing the so-called peace process.

The article also reports:

The administration also secretly attempted to restore funding to a U.N. cultural agency that unilaterally—and illegally—recognized the “State of Palestine.”

In explaining the administration’s rationale for reinstating the funds, White House spokesperson Tommy Vietor claimed, “The P.A. has recognized Israel’s right to exist, renounced violence, and accepted previous agreements, including the Roadmap,” in reference to the peace plan advanced by the Middle East Quartet, according to AFP.

I suspect that the claim that “The P.A. has recognized Israel’s right to exist, renounced violence, and accepted previous agreements, including the Roadmap,” is news to both Israel and the PA.

Please follow the link above to the Washington Free Beacon article. The article lists recent examples of the kind of inflammatory rhetoric the PA routinely broadcasts to children and adults in the Middle East. Until someone requires both the rhetoric and the attacks on Israel to stop, there will be no peace in the Middle East. Until then, we are simply funding the PA war on a country that we claim to be a friend of.

 

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What Would LOST Mean ?

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Frank Gaffney posted an article at Townhall.com about the Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST) which may come up in the lame-duck session of the Senate at the end of the year. The treaty essentially will give the United Nations control over all waterways and set up a justice system at the United Nations that all nations would be under. In a few words, it is a direct threat to American sovereignty.

The article reports:

First, as Senator Lott once warned, ratification of LOST would commit the United States to submit to mandatory dispute resolution with respect to U.S. military and industrial operations. While LOST proponents argue that the United States will choose available arbitration mechanisms to avoid legal decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), such arbitration panels are no-less perilous for U.S. interests as the decisive, “swing” arbiters would be appointed by generally unfriendly UN-affiliated bureaucrats. The arbitration panels can also be relied upon to look to rulings by the ICJ or ITLOS to inform their own decisions.

Furthermore, while there is a LOST provision exempting “military activity” from such dispute resolution mechanisms, the Treaty makes no attempt to define “military activity,” virtually guaranteeing that such matters will be litigated – in all likelihood to our detriment – before one or another of LOST’s arbitration mechanisms. And the rulings of such arbitrators cannot be appealed.

I don’t think this is what our founding fathers had in mind.

The article concludes:

Of particular concern is the fact that LOST creates an international taxation regime. It does so by empowering the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to tax Americans for the purposes of meeting its ownadministrative costs and of globally redistributing revenue derived from the exploitation of seabed resources.

It is a travesty to portray atreaty with such clearly sovereignty-sapping provisions as an enhancement to our national sovereignty. LOST should be rejected this time – as President Ronald Reagan did thirty years ago and as Senator Lott urged twenty-five years later.

The UN has shown a definite lack of wisdom in selecting members of its Human Rights Commission, do we really want them to exercise any control over America?

 

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Another Reason To Stop Funding The United Nations

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Trails of Tears (English version)

Trails of Tears (English version) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last time I checked, America was a sovereign country. We are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but we are what we are. Well, the United Nations wants to make us better. The UK Guardian reported yesterday that the United Nations has stated that the United States should return the stolen land it took from the Indians. Now that could get very messy very quickly.

The article reports:

A United Nations investigator probing discrimination against Native Americans has called on the US government to return some of the land stolen from Indian tribes as a step toward combatting continuing and systemic racial discrimination.

James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said no member of the US Congress would meet him as he investigated the part played by the government in the considerable difficulties faced by Indian tribes.

Anaya said that in nearly two weeks of visiting Indian reservations, indigenous communities in Alaska and Hawaii, and Native Americans now living in cities, he encountered people who suffered a history of dispossession of their lands and resources, the breakdown of their societies and “numerous instances of outright brutality, all grounded on racial discrimination”.

Man, there are a whole lot of connections made in those statements that I am just not seeing. I totally agree with what is being said about the horrible way we have treated the Indians. I just have a real problem with what is seen as the solution. We took land from the Indians and forced them on reservations. Would giving them back land have any impact on the way they live or their prosperity? There are specific instances where it might–In 1830, Andrew Jackson, the founder of the Democrat Party, signed the “Indian Removal Act of 1830.” The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, and Seminole Indians (known as the “Five Civilized Tribes”) had prospered, and President Jackson had ordered the Army to relocate them. Gold had been found on their land, and they were relocated. Is the gold still there? Is it accessible? How is the land currently being used? The answers to those questions would make an interesting addition to the discussion.

I am not sure anyone has a solution to righting the wrongs done to the American Indian. Giving them their land back really won’t change a whole lot. Giving them an education and helping them transition into the twenty-first century might, but how do you do that without destroying their culture? I will admit to being something of a pro-American snob–I think the American economic system with all its faults is better than any other economic system. I just don’t know how to enable the American Indians to take part in it successfully. I simply am not convinced that giving them back their land is the answer.

Just to be difficult, I also think the United Nations has more important things to worry about–people are being killed in Syria by their own government, Christians are being murdered in Nigeria, and there are some serious questions about human rights in China. Aren’t these things a little more pressing than whether or not to return land in America to the Indians?

 

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The End Of A Nightmare For An American Family

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Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a building lot near Priest Lake in 2005. They planned to build a house there. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had other ideas. As I reported in rightwinggranny on January 9, 2012, the lot is less than an acre and is just 500 feet from Priest Lake on its west side. It is separated from the lake by a house and a road and has no standing water or any hydrologic connection to Lake Priest or any other body of water. Nevertheless, the EPA declared their lot a wetland and threatened to fine them $30,000 every day that they did not return the lot to its original condition. Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled on the lawsuit that followed.

CNBC reported today:

In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA’s argument that allowing property owners quick access to courts to contest orders like the one issued to the Sacketts would compromise the agency’s ability to deal with water pollution.

“Compliance orders will remain an effective means of securing prompt voluntary compliance in those many cases where there is no substantial basis to question their validity,” Scalia said.

In this case, the couple objected to the determination that their small lot contained wetlands that are regulated by the Clean Water Act, and they complained there was no reasonable way to challenge the order without risking fines that can mount quickly.

The value of this case is that it gives Americans a way to fight the EPA when it interferes with private property rights. Since the EPA is one of the ways some people in our government plan to institute Agenda 21(see rightwinggranny) and begin to end the concept of private property in the United States, this is a very important decision.

These are two quotes from United Nations leaders regarding private property:

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class–involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing–are not sustainable.”  Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit

“Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of the accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes.”  This is a quote from the 1976 UN Conference on Human Settlement, held in Vancouver, Canada. Under “Section D. Land,” of the Report of Habitat, which came out of the conference. It is from the preamble and speaks of the private ownership of land.

These quotes are from rightwinggranny on December 14, 2011. I am sure the Supreme Court will be called upon to rule on private property rights in the future. The President we elect in November will have a major role in deciding who sits on the Supreme Court. If you value American’s property rights, you will vote for a Republican in November. Otherwise, you may find yourself with a Supreme Court that does not support private property rights in America.

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The Complexities Of Syria

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The slaughter that is taking place in Syria should be unacceptable to all civilized nations. Unfortunately it is not–the United Nations has commented on it a few times, sent people to see it, but has not really done anything. I have mixed emotions about any role America should play for two reasons–we don’t know who the opposition in Syria is (we could be enabling the Muslim Brotherhood to take over another nation) and also if we decided to intervene in Syria it would get very messy very quickly. Syria is well-armed and has a formidable military. Syria is not Libya. The reason Europe was so willing to help in Libya is that Europe gets most of its oil from Libya. The only country truly interested in Syria is Iran–it is their gateway to Lebanon, Israel and the surrounding of Iraq.

Reza Kahlili posted an article at World Net Daily detailing some of Iran’s involvement in Syria.

The article reports:

The commander of the Quds Forces, Qassem Soleimani, and 15,000 of his fighters have entered Syria with the mission of assisting in the suppression of the Syrian protesters, it was reported last month.

The Quds Forces are acting as a firewall for the Assad regime, because many officers in the Syrian army are joining the opposition over the mass killings of civilians, which so far number more than 7,000.

The article further states that any action against Syria by the United States will be followed by a counterattack by Syria, Iran and Hezbollah on Israel and on American resources in the region.

The situation in Syria is awful. It is probably going to continue to be awful. I am not sure America’s intervening in that situation will make it any less awful.

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Under The Radar In UNESCO Funding

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about John Bolton’s book Surrender Is Not An Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad. In the book, John Bolton tells the story of the PLO’s efforts to be recognized by the United Nations without negotiating with Israel.

The article reports:

In early 1989, Bolton writes, the PLO had launched a major effort to join several specialized UN agencies in the UN system. — “yet another example of the PLO’s perennial strategy to improve its position vis-a-vis Israel by doing anything other than negotiating directly with the Israelis.” The PLO membership campaign followed from the PLO’s 1988 decision to change its name card at the UN from “Palestine Liberation Organization” to “Palestine” — “apparently under the theory that if you sound more like a country than an organization, people will treat you more like a country.”

The next logical step, Bolton reports, was to have “Palestine” become a member of the various UN agencies, thus further attesting to its status as a “state” in international circles in that membership in the organizations is limited to states. How could the United States effectively opposed the PLO’s charade given the PLO’s wide support at the UN?

The first targets of the PLO were the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The United States countered that move by telling the WHO that the United States would withhold funding if Palestine was admitted. We had already withdrawn from UNESCO, but stated that we would not rejoin if Palestine was admitted. In 1990, Congress passed a law requiring the termination of United States funding of any international organization that recognizes Palestinian statehood in the absence of a peace agreement with Israel.

Based on that law, we withdrew funding of UNESCO last year when Palestine was admitted. Unfortunately, President Obama has overturned that withdrawal.  The article reports:

But that’s not the end of the story. JTA reports: “The Obama administration formally announced its intention to ask Congress to waive a ban on funding UNESCO over its recognition of Palestinian statehood.”

And that’s not all! The Obama administration courageously buried announcement of its intention in a footnote to the budget that the White House submitted to Congress this month.

Will Congress restore funding? That’s not entirely clear, but not if Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has anything to do with it. “Any effort to walk back this funding cutoff will pave the way for the Palestinian leadership’s unilateral statehood scheme to drive on, and sends a disastrous message that the U.S. will fund UN bodies no matter what irresponsible decisions they make,” she said in a statement. The Bolton spirit lives on, if not in the Obama administration.

The President needs to follow the law as it was passed in 1990.

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Why I Want To End The United Nations

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Yesterday the U. K. Telegraph reported that Russia and China had vetoed a United Nations resolution to back an Arab League plan to end the violence in Syria. The problem issue was a requirement that the Syrian government withdraw tanks and artillery from the streets. Syria had agreed to do this in November. On Friday it was reported that the Syrian government had killed hundreds of civilians in the city of Homs.

This would seem to be an obvious situation for the United Nations, Amnesty International, and various human rights groups to be involved with. Where are they?

Why would Russia and China veto this? Syria is a puppet state of Iran. Iran does not want the government of Syria to fall. Russia and China have been supplying Iran with nuclear material and knowledge and have been doing a lot of trading with Iran. This is all in keeping with the policy of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Russia and China are not friends of the United States. Their governments do not wish us well, although many of their people do not share those feelings. The United Nations is powerless because it has been taken over by dictators. It needs to be replaced by an organization that actually supports human rights and will protect innocent civilians.

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Exactly Who Should Be In Charge Of “Sustainable Development” ?

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Fox News reported yesterday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking to expand its powers greatly to help America achieve “sustainable development.”  “Sustainable development,” is the centerpiece of a global United Nations conference slated for Rio de Janeiro next June.

Sustainable development is a concept that has been with us for a number of years. A 1987 UN report, Our Common Future, released by the Brundtland Commission, defines sustainable development as:

…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

That sounds really good until you look further. Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit stated:

Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class–involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing–are not sustainable.

The idea here is simple–rather than aspire to obtain a higher standard of living in countries without infrastructure, reliable electricity, and sanitation facilities, we will simply lower the standards of the western world. This is not about ecology–this is about redistribution of wealth.

The article at Fox News reports:

According to the study itself, the adoption of the new “sustainability framework” will make the EPA more “anticipatory” in its approach to environmental issues, broaden its focus to include both social and economic as well as environmental “pillars,” and “strengthen EPA as an organization and a leader in the nation’s progress toward a sustainable future.”

Whatever EPA does with its suggestions, the study emphasizes, will be “discretionary.” But the study urges EPA to “create a new culture among all EPA employees,” and hire an array of new experts in order to bring the sustainability focus to every corner of the agency and its operations. Changes will move faster “as EPA’s intentions and goals in sustainability become clear to employees,” the study says.

The National Academies and the EPA held a meeting last week in Washington to begin public discussion of the study.

One of the things we might want to remember here is that the EPA is not an elected body. They cannot easily be held accountable. They cannot be voted out of office. Regardless of how you feel about the environmental issues here, there is definitely a constitutional issue here.

“Sustainable development” is a UN program–it is not an American program. Americans have never had a chance to vote on it or any group implementing it. Giving the EPA any more power than they already have would be a drastic error in judgement. Please google “Agenda 21” for more information on what is behind the move toward sustainable development.

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What Sharia Law Really Means

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News24 reported yesterday that Gulnaz, an Afghan woman who had been jailed when she reported that she had been raped (yes, you read that right), has been pardoned and set free. She was jailed for adultery because she had been raped. She is now in hiding with her daughter, who was conceived in the rape.

An article in the U.K. Telegraph reported on Wednesday:

Violence against women in Afghanistan appears to be increasing rather than decreasing, despite billions of dollars of international aid which has poured into the country during the decade-long war.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.

Some 87 per cent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, according to figures quoted in an October report by the charity Oxfam.

Last month, the United Nations said that a landmark law aiming to protect women against violence in Afghanistan had only been used to prosecute just over 100 cases since being enacted two years ago.

This is the legacy of the Taliban-enforced Sharia Law. We have already had honor killings in America by Muslim men. We need to make sure that Sharia Law does not creep into our legal system. 

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Simulated Reserve and Corridor System to Protect Biodiversity

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I realize that this map is very hard to read. It comes from a website called Range Magazine. It is the map of the United Nations goal for the habitation of America. The only parts of the map that will be allowed to be used as places to live by ordinary citizens are the green portions. Notice that there is not a lot of green on this map.

Wildlands Map

An article at a website called Sovereignty.net relates the story of the treaty:

On June 29, 1994, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Biodiversity Treaty) by a vote of 16 to 3. Only Senators Helms, Pressler, and Coverdell voted no. Three months later, on September 30, Senate Majority Leader, George Mitchell, for the second and final time, withdrew the Convention from the Senate calendar. The Treaty was never voted on, and now languishes in the bowels of government awaiting the arrival of a more friendly Senate. The defeat of the Treaty in the 103rd Congress came as a stunning victory for the private property rights and natural resource providers community, and was an astonishing defeat for the administration and its army of environmental organizations which had carefully orchestrated what it thought was certain ratification. The events that led to the defeat of the Treaty have been grossly misreported by the environmental community and by the main-stream press. Here is an accurate account of the events as they occurred, compiled from the records of many of the people who were in the forefront of the battle.

For years I have listened to Rush Limbaugh state that the environmental movement was the new home of the Communists and Socialists who have been politically defeated in the last one hundred years. Investigating Agenda 21 and its related tentacles has convinced me that he is right. All Americans need to be aware that many of the freedoms we take for granted are under attack by our local, state, and federal governments.

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A Waste Of Time And Money Sponsored By The United Nations

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Yesterday the Washington Examiner reported on some of the plans of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The group is currently meeting in Durban, South Africa.

The article reports: 

Negotiators at the conference are considering “a new tax on every foreign currency transaction in the world,” according to the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). “Every time you travel abroad, you’ll have to pay a climate tax,” explains CFACT, the group that released the “Climategate” emails. “More importantly, every time we import goods, every time we export our fine products (think jobs) we will do so with a climate tax skimming off the top.”

The article states that President Obama is open to the idea, which will place most of the burden on Americans–Europeans will not have to pay the tax within the Eurozone and thus will avoid most of the expense.

The article concludes: 

CFACT suggests that Obama is open to implementing this tax and similar policies in the absence of a full climate treaty, which would require congressional approval.  “We have learned that while many have discounted this conference, knowing that a full climate treaty is difficult to achieve especially with a U.S. Senate that will not vote to ratify,” CFACT says. “Obama and his fellow climate travelers are working around the Senate and planning to stick America with the bill.”

Some perspective on this can be found at wattsupwiththat.com, where Anthony Watts posted a commentary by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. Lord Monckton concludes his article by stating:

As President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic pointed out at a recent climate conference in Cambridge, if we leave less wealth to our successors because we have wasted trillions on the non-problem of global warming, we harm future generations by denying them the full inheritance they would otherwise have received.

But don’t expect any of the delegates here to get the point. They are making far too much money out of the climate scam –at taxpayers’ expense – to want to do anything other than recite that The Science Is Settled. As the West goes bust, drowned under the sheer cost of the ever-expanding State, the UN, the IPCC, the UNFCCC, the UNEP and the WMO are luxuries we can no longer afford and will no longer pay for. Time to shut them all down and make their self-serving, rent-seeking bureaucrats go out into the real world and do a proper job.

This is one more reason for America to get out of the United Nations. If this is a conference of United Nations delegates, how much of a carbon footprint did they leave by meeting in Durban instead of closer to the United Nations headquarters in New York City?

 

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Northborough On December 12

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 Free Seminar

U.N. Agenda 21 …

A Threat to Our Constitutional Rights

 Monday, December 12, 2011, 7 pm

Northborough Free Library

____________________________________________________

 Subversion of property rights

Restructuring the family unit

Redistribution of wealth

Hand-cuffing industry

____________________________________________________

   ~ Sponsored by the Northborough Tea Party ~

  Public Welcome ~ Free Admission

 Information: John O’Mara, 508.393.2044

www.northboroughteaparty.com

           

                “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil  

             is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke

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Highland Park And New Brunswick Were Targeted By Anti-Semites On Tuesday Night

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Arutz Sheva today that at least five Jewish-owned businesses in Highland Park, New Jersey, were attacked on Tuesday night.

The article reports:

Vandals hurled bricks through the plate glass windows of a kosher restaurant, a kosher pizza shop, two Judaica stores, and a Jewish-owned hardware store.

At least three other Jewish-owned business in nearby New Brunswich were also targeted. Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1947 United Nations Partition Vote to create the Jewish state of Israel.

Local police issued the following statement:

“We would also like to briefly address the fear that these are acts motivated by anti-Semitism or that these are bias crimes,” the statement said. “The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office has been notified, but it is too soon to reach a conclusion.

“All of our officers are aware of the sensitivity of this situation and we will make every effort with patrols and surveillance to keep everyone safe. We would like to encourage you to communicate with your congregants and urge them to avoid speculation which could lead to unnecessary anxiety.”

Anyone care to guess if that statement would have been made had the victims been anything other than Jewish?

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Some Common Sense From The Wall Street Journal

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The cenotaph in Durban's central Farewell Square

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal posted an op-ed in its Review and Outlook column entitled “The Post-Global Warming World.” I’m not linking to the article as it is subscribers only.

The article reminds us that the United Nations annual climate-change conference will meet in November in Durban, South Africa (Do you ever notice that these conferences never take place in the low-rent district? When was the last time they had a conference in Newark?) The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is set to expire, and they are looking for the next step forward. There are, however, a few problems. India and China were not covered by the first pact to limit carbon emissions and now the United States, Russia and Japan have said that they will not agree to a new binding pact.

The article reports:

…Last week, EU Climate Action Director General Jos Delbeke told reporters that “in reality what may happen is that the Europeans will pronounce themselves politically in favor of the Kyoto Protocol” but won’t lock themselves into any new anticarbon pacts unless “other parties join the club.” 

The problem with going green is that as of yet the technology is not there. All that has been accomplished in countries that have attempted to go green is that they have seriously taxed their economies. Some of the facts that have emerged on green energy–wind mills need up to 90 percent of their capacity backed up (usually with coal or gas plants)  in order to prevent blackouts , and wind mills kill birds. Solar power involves lead batteries which release lead pollution. We simply did not have economical, successful green energy yet. We may have it in the future, but we don’t have it yet, and no amount of carbon restrictions or government subsidies is going to change that.

The article concludes:

The science on climate change and man’s influence on it is far from settled. The question today is whether it makes sense to combat a potential climate threat by imposing economically destructive regulations and sinking billions into failure-prone technologies that have their own environmental costs. The earnest people going to Durban next month may think so. The rest of the world is wearier and wiser.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Durban.

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An Interesting Aspect Of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Visit To The United Nations Last Week

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John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement to the United Nations last week that the September 11th attack on America was done by the Bush administration. Evidently, al Qaeda did not appreciate his remarks.

Power Line reports:

[T]he Yemen-based compiler of [al Qaeda’s] Inspire magazine wrote that President Ahmadinejad had appeared “ridiculous” when he questioned the origins of the attack that killed almost 3,000 people.

“The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the US government,” it said. “So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?”

There is nothing I can add to that statement.

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The Logo For the Permanent Observer Mission Of Palestine To The United Nations

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This is the logo for the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations. The Weekly Standard posted this picture yesterday.

Please notice that there is no Israel on this map of the area where Israel currently exists. That should tell us everything we need to know about the intentions of the Palestinians in regard to Israel. Do we really want to create another terrorist state in the Middle East? Aren’t there enough already?

Also, my favorite quote regarding Palestinian statehood is from Walid Shoebat:

“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”

If the United Nations ever wants to be a force for peace in the Middle East, they will vote down the Palestinian request for statehood, stop sending Palestine money, and tell the Palestinians to create a peaceful nation with infrastructure (rather than spending all their money on weapons) and then come back again. We need to remember that when Israel turned over the Gaza Strip to the Arabs, it was an economically viable area with a worldwide business of exporting flowers. The Arabs promptly destroyed the greenhouses and turned it into a poverty-stricken ghetto. Unless the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank show a desire and effort to create a functional, peaceful society, they should be shunned by the rest of the world. We don’t reward children when they behave badly and destroy things, we shouldn’t reward grown-ups who do that either.

 

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Israel And Palestine Made Simple

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A Field of Flowers and Mount Tabor

Image by Oregon State University Archives via Flickr

The struggle of the Jewish people to live in peace has gone on since the days of Ester. AntiSemitism seems to be something that shows up in the world periodically, and it is generally followed by bad things. Sometimes when we look at the events of the moment, we forget the history of these events.

Yesterday, Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a cartoon-style video detailing the history of the State of Israel and its negotiations with the local Arabs. The video is about ll minutes long, but it is worth watching to the end. There are a lot of facts in it that are currently not mentioned in the discussion at the United Nations.

 

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Be Careful Who You Believe When You Look For Fact-Checkers

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"The Honorable Rick Perry (front right), ...

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, a liberal reporter who now claims to be The Fact-Checker, and his fact checking of a recent Rick Perry speech. When asked whether there should be a Palestinian state, Rick Perry called for Palestine to denounce terrorism and to require that any Palestinian state be required to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Sounds pretty basic to me.

The Fact-Checker replied:

As part of the 1993 Oslo accords, in an exchange of letters between then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Palestine Liberation Organization met all of these conditions nearly 20 years ago. The letters are posted on the Web site of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Really? Is Mr. Kessler familiar with the term ‘Intifada?’ Mr. Hinderaker points out that Palestinian children are taught that Jews have no right to be in Palestine and the maps shown to these children show Palestine as including all of present-day Israel.

The article at Power Line concludes:

One last thing: Kessler thinks that Israel has nothing to fear because of a twenty-year-old letter from a dead terrorist. What is the PA’s real intention, as of today? Look no farther than this: as Scott reported earlier today, “Palestine” is represented in the United Nations by the heroine Latifa Abu Hmeid. What is her claim to fame? She is the mother of no fewer than four terrorist murderers, who together are serving a total of 18 life sentences. Is Rick Perry’s concern about whether the Palestinians and their leaders are really reconciled to the existence of Israel unfounded? Let’s be blunt: Glenn Kessler either is woefully ignorant of Middle Eastern history, or he is deliberately misleading his readers.

Palestine does not want a two-state solution–they want a one-state solution with Palestine as the state. Creating a Palestinian state at this time under the current Palestinian culture would be a recipe for war–not peace. Until the schools stop teaching hate and the state stops honoring terrorists and terrorism, we need to make sure Israel is armed to the teeth. That is the path to peace in the Middle East. A weak Israel is an easy target.

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Legitimizing AntiSemitism

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Street in Jerusalem Old City

Image via Wikipedia

I expect that sometime in the next few days, the United Nations will vote on whether or not to recognize a Palestinian State. There has never been a state of Palestine, although Jordan was originally established as a home for Palestinians, but the United Nations will be voting on one shortly. What would that state look like?

Haaretz reported on September 14th that:

Answering a question about the legal status of a Jewish minority in the future state, Areikat apprently rejected the issue, saying: “I believe, I still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated,” adding “I think we can contemplate these issues in the future.”

“After the experience of the last 44 years, of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interest that the two peoples should be separated,” Areikat added. 

USA Today reported on September 15th:

Habbash’s comments come after the ambassador for the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United States, Maen Areikat, said when asked Tuesday whether he could foresee a Jew being elected mayor of Ramallah, the capital of the West Bank: “I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future.”

Areikat, speaking at a breakfast for reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, continued: “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated first.”

These statements have been walked back slightly, but I believe the original statements are probably the truth. I would like to remind anyone too young to remember that prior to 1967, when the Arabs controlled the Old City of Jerusalem that Christians and Jews did not have access to their holy sites. In recent years, the Jews have controlled the Old City, and the area is open to people of all faiths. It seems to me that history tells us what a Palestinian state would be like.

There seems to be an effort on the part of some Palestinians to claim that Palestine would be a peaceful, equal-opportunity state. USA Today reports:

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have called for a secular, pluralistic Palestinian state, says Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine, which advocates a non-militarized Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The article in USA Today further reports:

Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, said he read Areikat’s comments to mean a ban on Jews.

“That’s the state that the Palestinians want to declare unilaterally, without negotiations, and have recognized by the U.N.,” Oren said

I think I agree with Michael Oren. I have a hard time believing that the large number of weapons currently being smuggled into the West Bank are for peaceful purposes.

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The Law Of Unintended Consequences At Work

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CNS News reported today on some of the unintended consequences of the Palestinian Authority’s decision to go to the United Nations next month and ask to be recognized as a state. The article points out that since 1975 the United Nations has recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” If the United Nations recognizes the Palestinian Authority as a state, the Palestinians’ representation will change from the PLO to a “state of Palestine.” All Palestinians living outside the boundaries of the “state of Palestine” will no longer be represented at the United Nations.

The article further points out:

Goodwin-Gill  (Oxford University professor of public international law Guy Goodwin-Gill, an expert on refugee issues) also cited problems relating to the ability of the P.A. to assume greater powers. (Established under the Oslo Accords as an interim body to administer the self-rule areas, the P.A. is not empowered to conduct foreign affairs, a role that was left to the PLO.)

The academic said in the brief that the P.A. is a subsidiary entity set up by the PLO with “limited legislative and executive competence, limited territorial jurisdiction, and limited personal jurisdiction over Palestinians not present in the areas for which it has been accorded responsibility.”

There is another issue–Palestinian representation in Washington, D.C. The article points out:

The PLO has been permitted to maintain an office in Washington since 1994. Because of the PLO’s long history of involvement in terrorism, presidential waivers have been required by law every six months to allow its continued operation.

“Would that waiver henceforth be permitted, or be exercised?” Abrams wondered. “But if the PLO office is closed, would the United States accredit an embassy for the State of Palestine? Obviously not, as it would be the American position that there is no State of Palestine, not yet anyway.”

I don’t support a Palestinian state until the Palestinians agree to the existence of Israel. I also don’t believe that the Palestinians are entitled to any part of Jerusalem–Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since King David–it should not be given away. The difficulties in creating a Palestinian state show that the idea has not been well thought out and might have results that are not good for anyone.

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