FINALLY, Turnbull Government ministers are waking up to a frightening thought: are our universities muzzling global warming sceptics?
Three ministers have now expressed concern about the latest apparent example: the sacking of marine scientist Professor Peter Ridd.
And so they should.
Ridd was fired by James Cook University last week after questioning alarmist claims that man-made global warming is destroying the Great Barrier Reef.
You should be outraged by this, too, even if you’re a global warming believer. We cannot get good science if we cannot debate. And nowhere do we more need that debate than with the great global warming scare.
We have had climate scientists convince politicians that our emissions of carbon dioxide are heating the planet dangerously. This is why our politicians are destroying our cheap and reliable electricity system by driving coal-fired power stations out of business.
Former James Cook University Professor Peter Ridd. Picture: Cameron Laird
You can see the cost in your big electricity bills and in the factories forced shut by power prices that have more than doubled.
Now Leftist politicians want to shut down coal mines, too.
When we are doing something so horrendously expensive, we must be certain that the science our politicians rely on stacks up.
But does it? Abroad, scientists point out that we haven’t actually had the warming that was predicted.
Nor have we seen the predicted disasters. We’ve had fewer cyclones, not more. We’ve had bigger crops, not smaller. Most atoll islands are growing, not drowning.
Yet in Australia, academics who say such things take a terrible risk — not just the risk of losing the massive grants that government give to alarmists.
The late Professor Bob Carter was one of the first scientists in the world to note that warming had, in fact, paused for most of this century.
He then lost his position as professor emeritus at this same James Cook University. Cost- cutting, it claimed.
Prof Ridd said claims the Great Barrier Reef was being destroyed were exaggerated.
Then there was Professor Bjorn Lomborg, once listed by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Two Australian universities refused grants to host Lomborg’s famous Copenhagen Consensus Center because he’d argued — correctly — that a lot of global warming schemes waste money without changing the climate.
Angry academics and students at Flinders University and the University of Western Australia insisted Lomborg’s views made him a pariah and embarrassment, and the university administrators caved.
All this is was shocking enough. It told academics who question global warming catastrophism to keep their mouths shut.
But Peter Ridd wouldn’t and has paid the price.
His nightmare started last August on Sky News when he said claims that the Great Barrier Reef was being destroyed by global warming were exaggerated.
“The science is coming out not properly checked, tested or replicated,” he said.
“We can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine''.
Science, even things like the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.”
He may be right, he may be wrong. This is a vital question that must be answered with arguments.
Instead, the James Cook University gave Ridd the don’t-argue. It attacked him for bucking groupthink — for “failing to act in a collegial way” and “not displaying responsibility in respecting the reputations of other colleagues”.
It also ordered him to shut up about the steps it was taking against him.
Ridd refused. And now he’s been fired. But sadly, most academics are too cowed, indifferent or ideological to protest against this assault on scientific debate.
Luckily, many Australians aren’t and in just days raised all the $260,000 Ridd asked for on his GoFundMe page to fund his legal case against his university.
Politicians are now also speaking up. On Monday, former prime minister Tony Abbott (below) defended Ridd’s right to challenge the warming scare and warned: “If we can’t have debate, we can’t have true science.”
Former prime minister Tony Abbott says there must be a debate. Picture: AAP
On Tuesday, Assistant Minister for Science Zed Seselja told me he was troubled by Ridd’s sacking: “What I think is really important is the issue of intellectual freedom, the issue of academic freedom when it comes to scientific endeavour.”
He said Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg shared his concern, and Education Minister Simon Birmingham said “any university should be encouraging their researchers and students to ask questions, not shutting down debate”.
The Way I See It....but will the government now force James Cook University to back off?
It may be up to people power instead. So speak up. Tell the university that debate must be defended.
Dissent must not be crushed if science is to advance.
Last Monday, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released a new batch of emails that appear to show top brass in the Obama administration coordinated with CNN to run a hit piece on President-elect Donald Trump.
The emails were released by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and show that fired FBI Director James Comey, fired Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (all below) colluded with CNN to run a story on the dossier.
The damaging report was aimed at spreading the anti-Trump dossier throughout the media and laying the foundation for the Trump-Russia collusion theories.
The emails also show the Obama-era officials used coded language when referring to the dossier, a clear attempt to cover their tracks.
Here’s the timeline of events and communications, which are outlined in the committee’s letter:
1. January 6, 2017, 9:44 a.m. FBI Chief of Staff Jim sent an email to unspecified recipients stating, “the director is coming into HQ briefly now for an update from the sensitive matter team.”
2. January 6, 2017, afternoon. Director Comey met with President-elect Trump.
3. January 7, 2017. Director Comey memorialized his discussion with President-elect Trump via an email to senior FBI leadership. Director Comey wrote, “I said there was something that Clapper wanted me to speak to PE [President Elect] about alone or in a very small group.” Director Comey wrote, “I then executed the sessions exactly as I had planned,” and “I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook.”
4. January 8, 2017, 12:08 p.m. Then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sent an email to senior FBI leadership with the subject line “Flood is coming.” Mr. McCabe wrote, “CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story… The trigger for them [CNN] is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.”
5. January 8, 2017, 12:55 p.m. Mr. McCabe emailed then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and then-Principal Deputy Attorney General Matthew Axelrod with the subject line “News.” Mr. McCabe wrote, “Just an FYI, and as expected, it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting.”
On Jan. 10, 2017, just two days later, CNN published its story about the dossier despite none of the salacious and disgusting claims in the dossier being verified.
To date, there is no public evidence that the FBI ever investigated the leaks to media about the briefing between Trump and Comey. When asked in a recent interview by Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, Comey scoffed at the idea that the FBI would even need to investigate the leak of a secret briefing with the incoming president.
McCabe then e-mailed Sally Yates and her deputy at DOJ, "Just as an FYI, and as expected, it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting." How did McCabe come to know so much about CNN's internal reporting plans?
Clapper abruptly directing Comey to meet with Trump to brief him on the dossier and the leaks to CNN is what ignited the Russia collusion theories.
When Comey briefed Trump on the dossier, it gave the collusion theories validity, meaning the Intelligence Community — led by Obama officials — could claim they were all on the “same page” and wanted to spread the dossier.
When Clapper, Comey, and McCabe fed information to CNN about the dossier, they were laying the groundwork for the Russia hysteria that dominates the media’s narrative today.
How Do We Know They Were Setting Up Trump?
Comey wrote in his memos that he informed Trump he was not under any criminal investigation. Yet, Comey has refused to this day to admit that publicly.
Why won’t he admit to the public and media that he told Trump in private, on multiple occasions, that he was not under investigation?
The Way I See It......rather than being honest with the American people and media, Comey refused to admit what he was telling Trump and instead colluded with Clapper, McCabe, and CNN to kick-off the Trump-Russia collusion theories.
A public park advocacy group is suing former President Barack Obama for a “con game,” accusing the former president in court of pulling a “bait and switch” and “illegal land grab.”
In 2015, the Chicago City Council approved an ordinance allowing a portion of the parkland to be released to the Obama Foundation for the purpose of housing Obama’s official presidential center.
However, Obama began making major changes to the terms after he received the ordinance. Now, Obama is planning to unveil a $500 million personal museum and monument dedicated to — you guessed it — himself.
The lawsuit argues public parkland is guarded by law and that a private entity, such as Obama and his foundation, cannot use it for private use. The deal approved by the city leaders thought it was going to be a presidential center.
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But, Obama’s gigantic center will feature a museum of the egotistical couple, a test kitchen, an activity-center, basketball court, yoga centers, and many other items that were not agreed to in the 2015 deal.
Obama got the approval, and then arrogantly changed everything without informing the city at all.
The massive center is nothing more than a $500 million project for the Obama’s to glorify themselves.
In the process, they are completely screwing over the city and reneging on the original terms that everyone originally agreed to.
Also, what did Obama accomplish that is worth celebrating?
The Way I See It......a judge ruling in favor of Protect Our Parks could result in a delay in construction and push the completion date back even further.
It could also result in the Obama’s being forced to return to the original agreement, which would mean their entire plan for building a half a billion dollar shrine of themselves would be thwarted.
This lawsuit has the potential to ruin everything for the former president.
In 2016, the Australian Election Study found that 49 per cent of voters wanted immigration to be reduced. By August 2017, the Australian Population Research Institute found that 54 per cent wanted lower immigration, and by an April 2018 Essential poll, that figure had risen to 64 per cent.
So why do the political elites continue to ignore voters’ unhappiness? One answer is that politicians ignore voters because they can. They believe that voters have nowhere else to go, except for minor parties such as Sustainable Australia or One Nation.
The 2016 AES Candidates study provides evidence for elite indifference. Of candidates, 60 per cent wanted even higher immigration, including 67 per cent of Labor candidates. Labor candidates were much closer to Greens candidates and Greens voters than to their own supporters.
But there is a second answer to the question of why voters are ignored. Taking their concerns seriously risks breaking a rule stronger than politeness. It risks courting immorality.
It stems from elite origins in the growing class of university graduates, a class imbued with progressive [sic] values.
A clear majority of professionals working in the media want even higher immigration, as do 49 per cent of university academics and teachers. Politicians and professionals are drawn from a similar pool of graduates, many of whom embrace progressive values including enthusiasm for cosmopolitanism, globalism, diversity and social justice.
Within this world view, scepticism about high immigration easily equates to racism. For example, Greg Jericho writes in the Guardian Australia that “because there are many desperate to hate — (the subject of immigration) must be treated with extreme care by politicians and journalists”.
This helps the greedy to pose as the virtuous:
The Way I See It.......that reflex helps to silence critics. It also gives the business lobby a free pass to enjoy the benefits its narrow constituency gains from population growth. As property developers bank their profits, they can claim to be on the side of virtue or, if that is too far a stretch, they can safely deplore any opponents as xenophobes.
Thursday night on Fox News, Sara Carter dropped a bombshell on Sean Hannity. (above)
The already corrupt and troubled FBI seems to be in a world of trouble if this story proves to be totally true.
In the midst of an ongoing battle between the FBI and DOJ against Congress, Sara Carter said “there’s concern the FBI actually had a spy within the Trump campaign.”
Sara Carter was referencing a Wall Street Journal report accusing the FBI of potentially spying on the Trump campaign.
On Thursday, the DOJ lost to the Congress, allowing the House Intelligence Committee access to classified documents into the rigged FBI investigation of the Trump campaign. Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (below) has been requesting critical details on one of the FBI’s secret sources, who now appears to likely have been an FBI agent working for the Trump campaign in an attempt to spy and take down Donald Trump.
The FBI and DOJ have been deliberately hiding the details of the bombshell revelations from the House Intel Committee. Meanwhile, Nunes has been fighting for answers.
House Speaker Paul Ryan even admitted the questions and details Nunes has been pressing the FBI for are “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.”
We know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.
The Mueller investigation, the Trump campaign being wiretapped, and now potentially an FBI spy in the Trump campaign yet there’s still no evidence of any crimes or collusion committed by the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Earlier today, Rush Limbaugh (below) said, “I would not be surprised if, in fact, the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign in order to try to prove this Russia collusion business.”
Limbaugh continued, “And the story says the ‘role of the intelligence source’ could further provoke Republicans who have accused Justice and the FBI of engaging in ‘misuse of their surveillance power,” and, here we go, ‘hinting that the government may have used the source to snoop on the Trump campaign’”
“There it is. So it’s a pretty safe bet that the FBI planted an informant in the Trump campaign. Nunes wants to know who it is; the DOJ says, ‘No way, Jose!’” he stated.
Limbaugh then brought the hammer down, “If they had an informant in that campaign who was supposed to find the collusion and they still don’t have it? I mean, look at what we’re learning. They had an informant in the campaign, and they still don’t have any evidence!”
The Way I See It.......one thing is for sure, the FBI is in for a rough time when what they’ve been hiding is exposed.
The never Trumpers must surely now reconsider him as likely to be America’s greatest ever President. For those who still have a preference for Obama and Clinton please consider this:
When the Obama Administration sat down to construct a deal for Iran to have nuclear weapons within the decade (seven years now left) Obama and Kerry ignored American hostages being held by Iran. As we now know, Iran does not recognise dual citizenship, so it refuses to allow even a consular visit to those being held.
At least five Americans were still being tortured and/or condemned to hard labour while the Iran deal was being wrapped up by John Kerry and his associates.Those hostages didn’t even make it to the bargaining table.
It was only after this shocking deal was finalised that Obama “swapped” Iranians America was holding without trial for American hostages in an unrelated arrangement.
The difference between how Obama sees the world and how Trump sees it, is that the three hostages held by North Korea have now been released before anyone has even decided on where the table is to be sited.
Trump is welcoming them home at the Andrews Joint Airforce Base at 2AM today.
It will be interesting to see how the Washington Post and CNN spins this one. Media still haven’t come to terms with a President who does what he promises to do…it is so un-Clinton and so un-Obama.
Trump is rebuilding US foreign policy to where it is no longer treated as a joke by nefarious States and European nations and still the mad Left refuses to acknowledge anything he has done, except a porn star.
Meanwhile the Senate is conducting a confirmation hearing on Trump’s nomination for CIA Director, Gina Haspel (above). The desperate Democrats, in the belief that Trump cannot do anything constructive, have set about tearing her down. It isn’t working…she will be confirmed!
Interrogator Feinstein
An example of Democrat questioning: “Have you ever been alone in the Oval Office with President Trump?”
The Way I See It....... just want to say that I now believe there is at least one woman in a high place who is the equal of, and probably better than, any man.
I have said this before and you can tear me to bits again; “There is nothing more sexy than a highly intelligent woman of any age (even 61) and any shape.”
HERE’S a simple example of how our reckless immigration intake is used by politicians to fool you into thinking they’re smart.
In January last year, we had 726,000 Australians out of work — a scandalous waste of talent. And just think of all those frustrated dreams and hopes!
But by year’s end, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was boasting that he’d created, this clever man, enough jobs for more than half of them.
Yes, he announced,“403,000 jobs created in the last year, 403,000 — the equal longest run of monthly job growth in Australia since 1978.”
And Turnbull and his ministers have since talked endlessly of this jobs “creation” as if it had really made a difference to the voters they’re trying to impress.
Treasurer Scott Morrison was still at it just last week: “Under this government, over the last year there’s been more than 1000 jobs created every single day.”
But hang on. You can add and subtract, can’t you? You can’t be fooled so easily, can you?
So try working this out. How can the government start last year with 726,000 unemployed Australians, then “create” 400,000 jobs yet still end the year with almost as many unemployed people as before — 720,000 in all?
Turnbull and his ministers have since talked endlessly of this jobs “creation” as if it had really made a difference to the voters they’re trying to impress. Picture: Kym Smith
And why are we now with even more unemployed than ever — 735,000, according to last week’s figures?
How? Because this is just one more way the government uses immigration to trick up its books.
You’re the victims of a hoax that was exposed in the fine print of a deceitful Treasury document that Morrison released last week to claim he was right not to want fewer of the immigrants who are already choking our cities and forcing up house prices.
Treasury confessed to this massive pea-and-thimble trick in just a single damning paragraph — that the vast majority of these jobs “created” by Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott were actually given to the immigrants now pouring in.
“Recent migrants accounted for two-thirds (64.5 per cent) of the approximately 850,000 net jobs created in the past five years,” Treasury said.
“For full-time employment, the effect is even more pronounced, with recent migrants accounting for 72.4 per cent of new jobs created.”
Most of the rest of the extra jobs, of course, went to the younger Australians now entering the market and needing work.
What a sick joke. The government should be creating jobs for Australians, rather than jobs for immigrants.
But this is just one more way that it pretends to be Doing Something by letting in more people last year than live in Hobart, but without building a new Hobart to house them.
This trickery doesn’t stop at the government creating “record” jobs without actually cutting the number of Australians on the dole.
This huge immigration intake — now double the average we had until just 15 years ago — is also used by Morrison and Turnbull to fiddle their books.
Malcolm Turnbull with treasurer Scott Morrison. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
More immigrants means more taxes, and the Turnbull Government desperately needs that $1 billion a year or more to keep its promise to finally balance the books in two years, after 12 consecutive Budget deficits.
But that’s just another con. While the feds get the cash, it’s the states who end up with the bill. It’s the state governments that must build the new roads, trains, schools, police stations, dams and power supplies that these immigrants need.
The rest of us also pay. As the Treasury document conceded, we don’t actually get much richer from mass immigration, per head of population.
But voters must pay by having their bigger cities turned into rabbit warrens, and by having to sit in traffic jams so bad that Infrastructure Victoria now warns that Melbourne motorists risk spending 20 per cent more time in their cars by 2030.
Then there’s the fall in our already frayed social cohesion, as we’re joined by ever more people with no shared history or cultural ties to this country.
There will come a time when there is no “us”.
This cannot end well, so why are we doing it to ourselves?
The Way I See It.......at least we now know why the federal politicians are doing it. They can import hundreds of thousands of people each year to balance their books, and then boast of the jobs they’ve artificially “created”.
Even sweeter, they get to cut the ribbon of yet another costly road project, looking like saviours when, in fact, those extra roads had to be built to handle the chaos they themselves unleashed.
I live up to my name and speak frankly and for the silent majority so as to counter-balance the leftist, political correctness that pervades my country. I do not hold any legitimate racist feeling against anyone but I will always try to put crossed-referenced information on current events in a proper perspective that will allow for better understanding and discussions among people. My use of colourful language only adds to getting my point across. It's still a free country as far as I can see.
To put more it directly:
Freedom of speech is the paramount freedom. Without it, we struggle to exercise our other freedoms. With it, we can fight for those freedoms. It may be offensive, insulting and make some governments uncomfortable, but if this is the price to be paid for living in a society where all claims are open to question, then it is a price worth paying.
Feel free to join the I.P.A., the Institute of Public Affairs to help preserve the ideal of freedoms we are now enjoying.
Please note: Feel free to make a comment if you find it interesting and/or entertaining.
Interrogator Feinstein
