Author: Papa Giorgio

Settler vs Native Killing from 1511-to-1890

Published by Papa Giorgio

I will excerpt the section I read this from, but the reason I am noting it is that I have come across similar studies. And while it corrects the thinking of those on the other side of the political aisle as myself. It also corrects my thinking that things were much-much worse [killing wise] during those time.

I will first post my stats collected and included in my Crusades Post, followed by these new ones.

Enjoy:

There was nothing wrong, in principle, with the Crusades. They were an appropriate (if belated and badly managed) response to the conquest of the Holy Land by Islam. Did marauding 11th century armies inevitably commit outrages? They certainly did. In fact, that still happens today. But the most unfortunate thing about the Crusades is that they failed. (POWERLINE)

CHRISTIANITY (Crusades)

  • 9 Total Crusades from 1095-1272 A.D;
  • The crusades lasted about 177 years;
  • About 1-million deaths – this includes: disease, the selling into slavery, and died en-route to the Holy land;
  • About 5,650 deaths a year.

ATHEISM (Stalin)

  • His rise to power in 1927 lasted until his death in 1953;
  • Stalin’s reign was 26-years;
  • Middle road estimates of deaths are 40-to-50-million;
  • That clocks in at about 1,923,076 deaths a year.

(Some put the death toll per-week by Stalin at 40,000 every week — even during “peacetime”)

ISLAM (killing Hindus)

  • 80-million killed;
  • 500-year war;
  • 160,000 a year.

(As an aside… about 5.714 [to be clear, that is: five-point-seven one four people] people were killed a year by the Spanish Inquisition if you take the highest number over its 350-year long stretch if you use the leading historian on the topic.)

Also, the next section is taken from my Religious Wars Post:

  • Not only were students able to demonstrate the paucity of evidence for this claim, but we helped them discover that the facts of history show the opposite: religion is the cause of a very small minority of wars. Phillips and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars lays out the simple facts. In 5 millennia worth of wars—1,763 total—only 123 (or about 7%) were religious in nature (according to author Vox Day in the book The Irrational Atheist). If you remove the 66 wars waged in the name of Islam, it cuts the number down to a little more than 3%. A second [5-volume] scholarly source, The Encyclopedia of War edited by Gordon Martel, confirms this data, concluding that only 6% of the wars listed in its pages can be labelled religious wars. Thirdly, William Cavanaugh’s book, The Myth of Religious Violence, exposes the “wars of religion” claim. And finally, a recent report (2014) from the Institute for Economics and Peace further debunks this myth.

Okay, the new stat added?

Between 1511 and 1890 were about 7,193 Natives who died at the hands of Europeans, and about 9,156 Europeans who died at the hands of Native Americans.

[….]

When you remember that we are discussing a period of some four centuries of conflict, then approximately ten thousand victims over four hundred years gives us an average of twenty-five massacred Indians per year, across an entire continent, over the entire course of colonial and American history. These massacres also tended to come in clusters, normally during outbreaks of war.

So, from 1511 to 1890 is 379 years, ergo…

  • Settlers killed by Injuns: 9,156 = 24.15 killed a year by Native-Americans
  • Native-Americans killed by Settlers: 7,193 = 18.97 killed a year by Settlers

Here is the section I got it from…

HOW FREQUENT WAS SETTLER-INDIAN WARFARE?

In the popular mind, as in Silverman’s telling, the history of New England-Indian relations was one of nearly continuous, racially motivated slaughter. A Wikipedia page of “Indian Massacres of North America” provides details for most of the violent incidents that took place between settlers and Indians, defining a “massacre” as an event in which five or more disarmed combatants or noncombatants were slaughtered. Among the most egregious slaughters of seventeenth-century New England were the Pequot or Mystic Massacre of 163 7 and the Great Swamp Massacre of 1675.

The Mystic Massacre took place in the context of the Pequot War. It saw a group of Connecticut colonists under Captain John Mason besiege a Pequot village containing between four hundred and seven hundred civilians. They shot anyone who tried to escape. In the end, the Connecticut colonists and their Indian allies stormed the fort, slaughtering all inhabitants including men, women, and children.

Some thirty-eight years later, the Great Swamp Massacre saw a group of Connecticut colonists and their Pequot allies slaughter hundreds of Narragansett women and children. They had been staying in a fortified village with a natural moat, but winter temperatures froze the moat, enabling the colonists and Pequots to storm the Narragansett settlement. In this case, however, the massacre was not entirely one-sided; the colonists lost some 70 killed and 150 wounded, in a struggle whose alternate name is “the Great Swamp Fight.”

Despite the relative rarity of such massacres in New England history, they feature prominently in popular articles on Thanksgiving. Such portrayals are distorted from multiple angles. First, they are spun to represent one-sided instances of colonist-on-Indian aggression. Secondly, they are spun to appear unprovoked. Third, they are spun as though they were motivated by racial hatred and a desire for ethnic cleansing above all else, based on an underlying greed for land. And finally, they are spun as though this sort of thing was happening all the time—as though they were typical of and “stand for” early New England history. All four of these interpretations are false, or at least misleading.

The charge of continuous warfare is a highly embellished view of colonial New England history. According to William M. Osborn, who incidentally is cited on the “Indian Massacres” page referenced above, the total casualties of Indian-settler massacres between 1511 and 1890 were about 7,193 Natives who died at the hands of Europeans, and about 9,156 Europeans who died at the hands of Native Americans.100 Osborn’s account might well be undercounting the number of Natives who died in the California Gold Rush era, as we will discuss in a later chapter. But it’s important to remember that for all this talk of massacre, the numbers involved were surprisingly small. Not only this, but Osborn’s numbers make plain that Europeans were at least as much victims as perpetrators in the grand scheme of things. When you remember that we are discussing a period of some four centuries of conflict, then approximately ten thousand victims over four hundred years gives us an average of twenty-five massacred Indians per year, across an entire continent, over the entire course of colonial and American history. These massacres also tended to come in clusters, normally during outbreaks of war.

Not only this, but often—as in the case of both the Mystic and Great Swamp Massacres—the perpetrators were colonists and their Indian allies. In many cases, it’s next to impossible for anyone to say whether the majority of killings were carried out by colonists or by Indian warriors thirsty for revenge against their enemies. We have already seen how hundreds of eyewitness accounts attest to the brutality of Indian revenge killings, which often resulted in the assimilation or literal genocide of neighboring tribes. And certainly, when Indians and colonists were working together as allies during a time of war, to imply that slaughters perpetrated by the allies were “racially motivated” is farcical. As the historian James A. Warren reminds us, King Philip’s War in the 1670s helped to destroy a “fascinating… bi-cultural experiment in Rhode Island that [the colonist Roger] Williams and the Narragansett leaders had worked so hard to maintain.”101

The Indian wars of the 1670s destroyed decades of patient work, which saw both Indian and colonial leaders lay the foundations for a multiethnic society across New England. To pretend that destruction and division was one-sided and routine is to completely ignore the “lived experience” of thousands of New Englanders who wanted to create a multicultural society even in the seventeenth century.

As to causality, James Warren is at pains to point out that “the causes of the Great Swamp Fight were varied and complex.” Warren explains that this was anything but simple colonist-on-Indian violence; it had much more to do with local power politics and the self-interest of various Indian chiefs than an overriding civilizational conflict. As to the question of whether the Great Swamp Fight was a battle or a massacre, Warren points out:

one could make a decent argument for either, and in a sense, it was both. The casualty figures among the Puritans confirm that the Narragansetts put up fierce resistance, which, to my mind, makes the engagement a battle. The Narragansetts had good reason to expect an attack, given the general turbulence that prevailed at that time in southeastern New England. The burning and the killing of non-combatants that followed after the Puritans [and their Indian allies] gained control of the fort, however, could certainly be called a massacre.

When war did break out, it often took the colonists by surprise. The largest scale colonial-Indian wars typically began with surprise attacks by Indians, which saw reeling colonists scramble to orchestrate a response.

In Virginia, the year 1622 saw the Powhatan Indians precipitate a war on the colonists, beginning with a surprise attack. The Virginians had settled in widely dispersed farmhouses, often very near Indian settlements, and the two peoples were used to trading and socializing with one another. This is why the English proved so vulnerable to ambush and massacre. In this case the Indians, whose intent was nakedly genocidal, managed to kill 347 people—one-quarter of the entire English population of Virginia. After signing a peace treaty, the Indians broke the peace again in 1644, managing to massacre some 400 colonists in the process. Another peace treaty was signed with them in 1646, and many of their descendants still live in Virginia today.

In the Pequot War of 1636-37, the Connecticut colony suffered months of raids on military forts and stockpiles without declaring an offensive war against the Indians. Only after the Pequots killed several women and children at Wethersfield did the colonists ally with local Indians to bring an offensive war to the Pequots. This campaign culminated in the above-mentioned Pequot or Mystic Massacre, when a force of some 77 Connecticut militia and over 250 Native allies attacked and massacred a Pequot stronghold.

King Philip’s War in the 1670s also began with a surprise attack by Indians. It too resulted in the massacre of a large number of colonists. Like the Virginia colonists earlier, several generations of largely peaceful relations had taught the colonists that they had nothing to fear from their Indian neighbors; so the Massachusetts colonists had similarly settled in widely dispersed farmhouses that were vulnerable to Indian attack. In the series of massacres perpetrated in 1675-76, the death toll to the colonists was fully twenty-five hundred people —approximately one-third of the total population of New England.102

Both the Powhatan Wars of Virginia and King Philip’s War in New England were calculated gambles on the part of powerful chiefs who hoped to deal a knockout blow to the English, thereby driving them from their territory forever. This was similar to how Indian chiefs dealt with neighboring tribes with whom they had a major grievance, when they believed they had a sufficient military advantage. The responsibility for the decision to go to war often lay with individual chiefs, and the logic they used made sense within the context of their social milieu.

After the 1670s, major conflict between the English and the Indians did not occur again until the French and Indian War of 1754-63—the better part of a century later. Hostilities once again began with Indian raids on widely scattered colonial farmsteads, resulting in the massacre and capture of colonists along long stretches of frontier. Many colonists were taken by surprise, because they were used to generations of peaceful relations and trade with the Indians who lived nearby.

While it is easy today to view this list of wars as an indication of continuous warfare, that is not how the frontier was experienced by the people of that era. For them, brief and intense conflicts were flashpoints that interrupted long, mostly uneventful decades of peace, trust, and trade.

FOOTNOTES

100 William M. Osborn, The Wild Frontier: Atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee (New York: Random House, 2009).

101 The Great Swamp Massacre, a Conversation with James A. Warren,” Rhode Island Historical Society, December 19, 2020, (Link to interview)

102 See Robert Cray, “‘Weltering in Their Own Blood’: Puritan Casualties in King Philip’s War,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts 37, no. 2, 106-124.  (PDF)

Jeff Fynn-Paul, Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World (Nashville, TN: Bombardier Books, 2023), 212-217.

Firestorms 3.0 (California Fires)

Published by Papa Giorgio

JUMP TO: Water Policy | California Coastal Commission | Fire Insurance | Articles | Forrest Management | My November 2, 2019 Post | My September 16, 2020 Post

BTW, I think the most important video below is the first video under “My September 16, 2020 Post” header, below. This “Cal Firestorm post” will deal with some of the players involved [their budgeting issues and why California has a water issue] as well as some of the biography of these players — or — participants in disaster [death].

FIRST – KAREN BASS

I wish to focus in on Karen Bass’ radical background. I was turned on to Errol Weber by Armstrong and Getty. Below the video I will post the videos description in full — as — it gives hints to WHY Karen Bass was in Ghana!

Armstrong and Getty discussed a bit of Karen Bass’ ties to extremely radical ~ anti-American Marxist ~ groups. They used an excerpt of Errol Webbers work, I grab the entirety of it, as, it is of high importance in it’s full context to hear. This is a wonderful addition to the understanding of the trainwreck happening in California.

ARTICLES:

  • “Biden VP Favorite Karen Bass’ Journey From the Radical Fringe” – TABLET MAG
  • (I wish to preface this with the thought that while I almost never reference InfoWars due to their conspiracy/whacky [and yes, dangerous at times] ideas, that said, this article of theirs has wonder links in it) “Must-Watch! Democrat LA Mayor Karen Bass Is A Radical Communist & Devout Marxist” – INFOWARS

So my natural thought was, after becoming aware of the above: “what was RADICAL Karen Bass doing in Ghana?” Here is a hint:

Socialist Movement of Ghana Congratulates President-elect John Mahama, Calls for Change

The Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) has extended heartfelt congratulations to John Dramani Mahama, the president-elect of Ghana, following his victory in the 2024 presidential elections.

In a statement issued by the General Secretary of the SMG, Kwasi Pratt Jnr, the movement emphasized that Mahama’s win reflects the deep desire of the Ghanaian people for a shift away from the existing political, economic, and social systems. The SMG argued that these systems have contributed to the nation’s underdevelopment, economic hardship, and exploitation by the forces of neo-colonialism.

Pratt highlighted that Mahama’s decisive victory signifies a call for a new direction. “Your victory is undoubtedly an indication of the yearning of the people of Ghana for change from the political, economic and social order responsible for our collective underdevelopment, misery, and exploitation,” Pratt said.

The statement also underscored the movement’s hope that the new administration will work with progressive forces to end the practices of neo-liberalism, which, according to the SMG, have led to the denial of social services to the working people, the dismantling of the state sector, and a dangerous dependence on foreign military interests.

Further expressing solidarity with the vision of Africa’s national liberation movements, Pratt noted, “The SMG shares the vision of the Founders of the national liberation movements in Africa for continental unity under the broad banner of socialism.”

The SMG voiced its commitment to collaborating with Mahama’s administration, with hopes of furthering these ideals and achieving greater unity and progress for Ghana and the broader African continent.

As Mahama prepares for the challenges ahead, including economic reform and navigating Ghana’s relationship with global powers, the SMG’s endorsement sets the tone for a potentially significant shift in Ghana’s political and economic trajectory under his leadership.

Mayor of L.A. was in Ghana to celebrate the election to office of a socialist [read here, Communist in reality] President, John Mahama. He is the head of National Democratic Congress (NDC), who has a brief “party bio” here:

The founder of the NDC is Jerry John Rawlings, who, according to WIKI was a Ghanaian military officer, aviator and politician who led the country for a brief period in 1979, and then from 1981 to 2001. He led a military junta until 1993, and then served two terms as the democratically elected president of Ghana. He was the longest-serving leader in Ghana’s history, presiding over the country for 19 years.

WIKI in another article goes on to fill in the blanks in my mind a bit, although for the real conservative sleuths you could find better sources:

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is a social democratic political party in Ghana, founded by Jerry Rawlings, who was Head of State in Ghana from 1981 to 1993. He became the President of Ghana from 1993 to 2001. Following the formation of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), which ruled Ghana following the military coup d’état on 31 December 1981, there was pressure from the international community to restore democracy. The NDC was formed as the ruling party ahead of elections in 1992, in which Rawlings was elected president, and in 1996 Rawlings was re-elected as the NDC candidate. Rawlings’ second term ended in 2001.

The NDC lost the presidency in the 2000 election, and it was not until the 2008 election, that they regained it with John Atta Mills as its candidate. They established the 1992 constitution of Ghana.

The NDC party symbol is an umbrella with the head of a dove at the tip. The party colors are red, white, green, and black, with the party slogan or motto as “Unity, stability, and development.” Internationally, the NDC is a member of the Progressive Alliance and Socialist International.

A full list of Socialist Party affiliations can be FOUND HERE… note GHANA. NOTE ALSO for more rabbit hole endeavors:

VIDEO THUMBNAIL GRAPHIC TAKEN [and edited] IS FROM BBC: Ghana opposition NDC stage ‘march for justice’ demonstration for Accra

Bombshell report: Incompetent LA Mayor Bass took 15 trips to Cuba in her youth, trained as radical (LAW ENFORCEMENT TODAY)

  • Bass has been slammed for being out of the country as her city burned, but what is sure to be even more infuriating for Los Angeles voters is why she was out of the country. TPV reports that Bass was in Ghana attending the inauguration of John Dramani Mahama, the Marxist-Leninist president of the country. 

LA Mayor Karen Bass Trained in Terror Tactics and Bomb Making Alongside Domestic Terrorists in Cuba (THE PEOPLES VOICE)

  • Adding fuel to the fire, it has come to light that Bass was out of the country during the critical first days of the Palisades fire—one of the worst disasters in Los Angeles history. Instead of addressing the crisis, Bass was attending the inauguration of Marxist-Leninist John Dramani Mahama, president of Ghana, further underscoring her deep ties to global leftist movements.

Here is an article of appointments by Ghana’s President that will surely lead to — with some digging, to other radical connections.

Some 2015 Posts on California Water Policy

Okay, I have been following the policies of California for a while relating to their water infrastructure and their [ours, the voters in the end] capitulation to environmentalists radicals. Otherwise known as “Eco-Fascists”

As a refresher to this history, I highly recommend my past posts on the issue of this capitulation, here are those three with a short excerpt from them:

Decades To Prepare ~ California’s Lost Opportunities

… But is the drought situation something new? Actually, not only the western portion of North America, but central and South America have apparently been experiencing these same cycles for as long as human beings have been around. One of the earliest recorded, but most massive examples was the curious disappearance of the million plus strong civilization of the Mayans more than a thousand years ago. What happened to them? Yep… a series of crippling, decade long droughts.

Identifying annual titanium levels, which reflect the amount of rainfall each year, the Swiss and U.S. researchers found that the pristine sediment layers in the basin formed distinct bands that correspond to dry and wet seasons. According to the scientists, there were three large droughts occurring between 810 and 910 A.D., each lasting less than a decade.

The timing of the droughts matched periodic downturns in the Maya culture, as demonstrated by abandonment of cities or diminished stone carving and building activity.

Experts say the Maya were particularly susceptible to long droughts because about 95 percent of their population centers depended solely on lakes, ponds, and rivers containing on average an 18-month supply of water for drinking and agriculture.

And according to the lake bed core samples they’ve taken, the drought which took out the Mayans wasn’t a one time event.

Scientists have found that the recurrence of the drought was remarkably cyclical, occurring every 208 years. That interval is almost identical to a known cycle in which the sun is at its most intense every 206 years. Nothing suggests the Maya knew anything about the sun’s change in intensity. …

California Dreamin’ of a Bygone Eras ~ Droughts vs. Politics

…. But since the 1970s, California’s water system has become the prisoner of politics and posturing. The great aqueducts connecting the population centers with the great Sierra snowpack are all products of an earlier era—the Los Angeles aqueduct (1913), Hetch-Hetchy (1923), the Central Valley Project (1937), and the California Aqueduct (1974). The primary opposition to expansion has been the green left, which rejects water storage projects [NOTE /PLACE-HOLD THIS LINK TO THE SACREMENTO BEE, I WILL POST A “TWI-X” AFTER] as irrelevant.

Yet at the same time greens and their allies in academia and the mainstream pressare those most likely to see the current drought as part of a climate change-induced reduction in snowpack. That many scientists disagree with this assessment is almost beside the point. Whether climate change will make things better or worse is certainly an important concern, but California was going to have problems meeting its water needs under any circumstances.

It’s not like we haven’t been around this particular block before. In the 1860s, a severe drought all but destroyed LA’s once-flourishing cattle industry. This drought was followed by torrential rains that caused their own havoc. The state has suffered three major droughts since I have lived here—in the mid ’70s, the mid ’80s and again today—but long ago (even before I got there) some real whoppers occurred, including dry periods that lasted upwards of 200 years.

[….]

But ultimately the responsibility for California’s future lies with our political leadership, who need to develop the kind of typically bold approaches past generations have embraced. One step would be building new storage capacity, which Governor Jerry Brown, after opposing it for years, has begun to admit is necessary. Desalinization, widely used in the even more arid Middle East, notably Israel, has been blocked by environmental interests but could tap a virtually unlimited supply of the wet stuff, and lies close to the state’s most densely populated areas. Essentially the state could build enough desalinization facilities, and the energy plants to run them, for less money than Brown wants to spend on his high-speed choo-choo to nowhere. This piece of infrastructure is so irrelevant to the state’s needs that even many progressives, such as Mother Jones’ KevinDrum, consider it a “ridiculous” waste of money.

[….]

This fundamentally hypocritical regime remains in place because it works—for the powerful and well-placed. Less understandable is why many Hispanic politicians, such as Assembly Speaker Kevin de Leon, also prioritize “climate change” as his leading issue, without thinking much about how these policies might worsen the massive poverty in his de-industrializing L.A. district—until you realize that de Leon is bankrolled by Tom Steyer and others from the green uberclass.

So, in the end, we are producing a California that is the polar opposite of Pat Brown’s creation. True, it has some virtues: greener, cleaner, and more “progressive” on social issues. But it’s also becoming increasingly feudal, defined by a super-affluent coastal class and an increasingly impoverished interior. As water prices rise, and farms and lawns are abandoned, there’s little thought about how to create a better future for the bulk of Californians. Like medieval peasants, millions of Californians have been force to submit to the theology of our elected high priest and his acolytes, leaving behind any aspirations that the Golden State can work for them too.

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[….]

[….]

Just as California’s freeways were designed to grow to meet increased traffic, the state’s vast water projects were engineered to expand with the population. Many assumed that the state would finish planned additions to the California State Water Project and its ancillaries. But in the 1960s and early 1970s, no one anticipated that the then-nascent environmental movement would one day go to court to stop most new dam construction, including the 14,000-acre Sites Reservoir on the Sacramento River near Maxwell; the Los Banos Grandes facility, along a section of the California Aqueduct in Merced County; and the Temperance Flat Reservoir, above Millerton Lake north of Fresno. Had the gigantic Klamath River diversion project not likewise been canceled in the 1970s, the resulting Aw Paw reservoir would have been the state’s largest man-made reservoir. At two-thirds the size of Lake Mead, it might have stored 15 million acre-feet of water, enough to supply San Francisco for 30 years. California’s water-storage capacity would be nearly double what it is today had these plans come to fruition. It was just as difficult to imagine that environmentalists would try to divert contracted irrigation and municipal water from already-established reservoirs. Yet they did just that, and subsequently moved to freeze California’s water-storage resources at 1970s capacities.

All the while, the Green activists remained blissfully unconcerned about the vast immigration into California from Latin America and Mexico that would help double the state’s population in just four decades, to 40 million. Had population growth remained static, perhaps California could have lived with partially finished water projects. The state might also have been able to restore the flow of scenic rivers from the mountains to the sea, maintained a robust agribusiness sector, and even survived a four-or-five-year drought. But if California continues to block new construction of the State Water Project as well as additions to local and federal water-storage infrastructure, officials must halve California’s population, or shut down the 5 million acres of irrigated crops on the Central Valley’s west side, or cut back municipal water usage in a way never before done in the United States.

Victor Davis Hanson, “The Scorching of California: How Green Extremists Made a Bad Drought Worse,” The City Journal, Winter 2015 (Vol 25, No. 1), 82.

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Here is the addition to thet “PLACE-HELD” Sacramento Bee article. And it is this Newsome inspired, self destructive destruction of existing water projects.

If you recall the recent election season for governor of California, Larry Elder ran on this being part of his platform… that is, underground water storage/capturer. But these should be in place first, and then Californians should consider dismantling current water capturing dams.

  • We learn that a crucial reservoir was down for maintenance during Santa Ana season, which left the fire hydrants dry. The latest reservoir was finished in 1979. Planning for the next one started in the 1950s and may break ground sometime allegedly in 2026. Gavin Newsom has taken down dams and patted himself on the back. (PJ-MEDIA)

It is similar to alternative energy projects. The eco-fascists and Lefties dismantle energy projects that work [fossil fuels] and insert green energy projects that do not work well at all. It is politicians jumping the proverbial gun.

Water Pulsing, Insane Policies Keeping California “Back-Woods”

There was a video from

….Correspondence between the National Marine Fisheries Service and Congressman Jeff Denham’s office shows the Bureau of Reclamation wants to flush as much as 15,000 acre feet of water down the Stanislaus River in order to “save” six fish.

In an email Sunny Snider of the federal fish protection agency sent to Denham Chief of Staff Jason Larrabee, it indicated a previous pulse flow in March that significantly raised water levels on the Stanislaus River through Ripon despite being in the middle of a severe drought had moved out 76 percent of  the out-migrating steelhead by March 30.

The email stated that National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) only expects 29 out-migrating steelhead a year and that their plan was to release 30,000 acre feet by the end of April to help them reach the Delta.

That means there are six steelhead left that the Bureau ordered South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District to release water this week to help on their journey. The 15,000 acre feet of water based on a statewide per capita use average could supply 174,301 Californians with water for a year to the combined populations of Tracy and Santa Barbara. Combined with last month’s pulse flow release, the 30,000 acre feet of water is the equivalent of the combined annual water needs of the cities of Stockton, Lathrop, Ripon, and Escalon….

Part of the water policies in California have been around the “Delta Smelt,” which are behind taking water from the farming and other uses [like fire fighting by filling reservoirs] industry in California, and dumping fresh water into the ocean. Dennis Prager has some good commentary on the issue:

CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION

SLO County court rules against Coastal Commission in favor of Cambria landowners (New Times is San Luis Obispo County | Pacific Legal)

The California Coastal Commission’s legal interpretation of San Luis Obispo County’s local coastal plan sealed two Cambria landowners’ victory in a lawsuit over coastal development permits.

The commission’s decision to deny their permits and the ensuing litigation set back property owners Alireza Hadian’s and Ralph Bookout’s retirement home builds by two-plus years.

“When a powerful state agency without having authority, arbitrarily decides which paying water customer in Cambria is entitled to his water and which one isn’t, you know it is not right,” Hadian said. “I worked hard and saved enough to be able to build my home, but I have no money left and no income, so the impact has been devastating financially.” …

Coastal Commission Surfari (POWERLINE)

… As Steve once noted, the commission combines Stalinist regulation with mafia-style corruption, a reference to coastal commissioner Mark Nathanson, packed off to prison for extorting bribes from Hollywood celebrities.

The CCC’s prime mover was Peter Douglas, a regulatory zealot of considerable ferocity. Douglas authored Proposition 20, the 1972 ballot initiative that created a temporary 15-member commission aimed at preventing disasters like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. Douglas also wrote the California Coastal Act of 1976, signed by governor Jerry Brown, which made the Commission permanent. The next year, Douglas became deputy director and in 1985 executive director, a post he held until 2011.

While running roughshod over property rights, the CCC prevents Californians from tapping their greatest asset, the vast Pacific Ocean. In 2022 the Commission voted unanimously to reject the Poseidon Water desalination plant in Orange County. As the California Globe noted, the plant was “decades in the works during a time when California needs more freshwater to combat a drought in the state.” The plant would have provided 50 million gallons of freshwater a day but the Commission wasn’t having it.

“The ocean is under attack from climate change already,” proclaimed commissioner Dayna Bochco, a television producer and president of Steven Bochco Productions, producer of shows such as “Doogie Kamealoha M.D.,” “Doogie Howser M.D,” and “Cop Rock.” As the Commission explains, “Dayna Bochco is an attorney and sits on the Board of environmental groups such as Heal the Bay and Natural Resources Defense Council’s Southern California Leadership Council.” And like the other 11 commissioners, Bochco is an appointee, beyond the reach of the people. …

FIRE INSURANCE WOES

California’s Wildfire Insurance Catastrophe (WALL STREET JOURNAL | ARCHIVE)

The state has refused to let insurers do proper pricing for risk. Homeowners and taxpayers will pay for the mistake.

….. Insurers had already scrapped hundreds of thousands of policies and limited coverage in wildfire-prone areas. Democrats blame climate change, which has become an all-purpose excuse for any disaster-relief failure. But the real insurance problem is that state regulators have barred insurers from charging premiums that fully reflect risks and costs.

California is the only state that heretofore hasn’t allowed insurers to incorporate the cost of reinsurance in premiums. Until this year, it had also prohibited insurers from adjusting premiums by using the standard industry practice of catastrophe modeling to predict a property’s future risk. Insurers could only assess premiums based on historical losses.

As a result, insurers are paying out $1.09 in expenses and claims for every $1 they collect in premiums. This is financially unsustainable, which is why many have pared coverage in areas at high fire risk with expensive homes. State Farm dropped nearly 70% of policy holders in one Pacific Palisades neighborhood where the average home price is $3.5 million.

FAIR now covers about half a million homeowners who can’t obtain private coverage. Its exposure has ballooned to $458 billion as of last September from $153 billion four years earlier, with $5.9 billion in exposure in the Palisades. Yet it has only about $700 million cash on hand to pay claims.

That’s because state regulators have required FAIR to cover higher-priced homes while rejecting its proposals for rate increases to account for rising risk and liabilities, just as it has for private insurers. As home prices and construction costs increase, so do liabilities. Building an “affordable” housing unit in California can cost $1 million.

FAIR President Victoria Roach testified to the state Assembly last year about the insurer’s precarious finances. “As those numbers climb, our financial stability becomes more in question,” she said. “We are one event away from a large assessment. There’s no other way to say it, because we don’t have the money on hand, and we have a lot of exposure out there.”

If FAIR fails, private insurers—meaning their policy holders—are supposed to cover its claims based on their share of the market. But insurance premiums for many homeowners are set to rise 20% to 40% this year and even more in the future, and that was before the current fires. To keep carriers from fleeing the market, California insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara last month said at long last that they could use catastrophe modeling and price in their reinsurance costs.

Such reforms were needed, but he also imposed costly regulations that may still cause some insurers to retreat, especially after the Los Angeles fires. Don’t be surprised if Gov. Gavin Newsom asks Washington to help pay for multimillion-dollar homes that have gone up in smoke.

Mr. Newsom can blame climate change all he wants, but that doesn’t absolve the state from the duty to adapt to its effects if he really believes this. Unlike the fires, California’s insurance catastrophe really is the fault of the Democrats who run Sacramento.

ARTCLES & Media w/EXCERPTS

The Infamous Delta Smelt Fish Has Not Been Seen in Nearly a Decade – California Allowed Its Cities to Burn to the Ground Over a Fish That They Can’t Even Find Anymore (GATEWAY PUNDIT)

A 2021 report by Dan Bacher in the Sacramento News revealed that there have been NO DELTA SMELT seen in the wild since 2012. They’re extinct.

For the seventh September in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has caught zero Delta smelt during its Fall Midwater Trawl Survey of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The last time Delta smelt – an indicator species for the broader ecological health estuary – were found in CDFW’s September survey was in 2015. Only 5 were caught by state biologists at the time.

After that, the only year that Delta smelt were caught during the entire four-month survey was in 2016, when a total of 8 smelt were reported.

The reservoir for Pacific Palisades has been dry for nearly ONE YEAR (RIGHT SCOOP)

  • … According to the Free Press, the reservoir has been empty since February of 2024 and is supposedly undergoing maintenance to repair the lid. But even knowing that the winds were coming, no one bothered to even attempt to refill the reservoir which currently doesn’t appear to be under construction at all. And they never communicated any of this from the Dept of Water and Power to the LAFD, especially it being empty for so long. …

Timeline: Bass Knew of Fire Risk Before Abandoning L.A. for Ghana Trip (BREITBART)

  • We have multiple reports Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass knew of the grave fire risk to her city before she abandoned it for a taxpayer-funded “diplomatic” trip to Ghana in Western Africa.

Karen Bass Slashed $17 Million from LA’s Firefighting Budget, With the Monies Cut Mostly from Fire Prevention. Here’s What Angelinos Got In Return. (ACE OF SPADES)

  • I think this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think Newsome, Bass, the Woke Lesbian Fire Brigade have now given millions and millions of Democrats the permission necessary to finally walk away from the party.

Leaked Memo: Karen Bass Demanded Fire Department Slash Budget by an Additional $49 Million… One Week Before the Wildfires Blazed (ACE OF SPADES)

  • The extra cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swathes of Los Angeles, would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department’s ability to respond to emergencies, sources said.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Warned That Mayor Karen Bass’s Budget Cuts Limited Wildfire Response: ‘At Risk of Reduced Effectiveness’ (FREE BEACON)

  • Just weeks before five wildfires engulfed the City of Angels, Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley warned that Mayor Karen Bass’s (D.) budget cuts to her department “severely limited” its response to wide-scale emergencies—including wildfires.

Blame LA fire horror on the woke religion bringing ruin to our cities (NEW YORK POST)

  • When the warnings started trickling in, days before the inferno, that LA might be looking at “the Big One,” Bass flew to Ghana to partake in some utterly meaningless bit of “diplomacy,” as if attending foreign inaugurations were part of an American mayor’s job.

Here Are All The Ways DEI-Crazed Officials Made The LA Fire More Deadly (THE FEDERALIST)

  • As relentless fires burn in Los Angeles, thousands of residents who fled their homes are just learning how poorly public officials prepared for such an event. Emergency response leaders following bad public policy have been too focused on sending firefighting equipment to Ukraine, keeping the homeless safe, protecting fish, and adopting green policies to focus on things like making sure there is enough water to feed fire hydrants and guaranteeing that the strongest, best-trained, most-skilled firefighters are leading operations.

It Keeps Getting Worse: L.A. Water ‘CEO’ Makes Unbelievable Salary and Claimed ‘Equity’ Was Top Priority (RED STATE)

  • As Jennifer Van Laar noted in her reporting, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is run by a woman named Janisse Quiñones. She previously worked for California power supplier PG&E and was hired by Bass in the spring of 2024. That’s where things get questionable.

The following “money box” is a combination of FORBES(2021) and PJ-MEDIA’s work. The Forbes article is a bit dated – but that means it is worse in the current times:

Naturally, I wondered who was in charge when Karen Bass went to Ghana amid dire Santa Ana wind forecasts. We needn’t have worried. There are plenty of deputy mayors at LA City Hall.

Here’s a partial list:

  • Deputy Mayor of Finance, Operations and Innovation
  • Deputy Mayor of Energy and Sustainability
  • Deputy Mayor of Public Works
  • Deputy Mayor of Community Empowerment
  • Deputy Mayor of Public Safety
  • Deputy Mayor of Community Safety
  • Deputy Mayor of Homelessness and Community Health
  • Deputy Mayor for Business and Economic Development.
  • Deputy Mayor of Neighborhood Services

They obviously weren’t doing their jobs.

The people who keep the water and power going at the traditionally corrupt Department of Water and Power in L.A. are not doing too shabbily either.

The load dispatcher makes more than $857,000 a year.

(above: PJ-MEDIA) So I naturally wondered, “How much do they make?” I got a slightly dated answer, as, the deputy mayor list has grown since (Below: FORBES):

Mayor’s Office – Mayor Garcetti cost taxpayers $269,375 in salary – $67,000 more than Gov. Newsom. Seven “deputy mayors” earned $1.44 million with individual salaries each exceeding $200,000. Chief of staff, Ann Guerrero, made $232,205– compensation out earning the mayor of Chicago ($216,000).

Garcetti has an executive staff larger than 48 of the 50 state governors. The mayor employed 261 people last year for $20+ million in salary cost.

[….]

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found painters making $113,943; “tree surgeons” trimming $207,058; police officers with an arresting $325,942; legislative analysts earning $399,631; firefighters hosing down $486,674; and “harbor boat pilots” swimming in $515,000.  

Gov. Newsom cut fire budget by $100 million months before horrific wildfires (RIGHT SCOOP)

  • Governor Newsom cut the fire budget in his state by over $100 million last summer. Specifically, he cut funding for wildfire and forest resilience just months before these devastating wildfires broke out.

There’s No Way an LAFD Assistant Chief Said This (TOWNHALL)

  • When responding to questions about whether women firefighters could physically do the job, like when she hears someone say, ‘you couldn’t carry my husband out of a fire,’ Larson said her response is “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.” 

Forestry Management

As an aside, I love this site: California Policy Center

Here is their few year old story on fire roads/breaks that were made by the logging industry – adding to the protection and access by fire departments. This came with clearing the underbrush to get healthy trees for future logging:

Environmentalists Destroyed California’s Forests

Millions of acres of California forest have been blackened by wildfires this summer, leading to the usual angry denunciations from the usual quarters about climate change. But in 1999, the Associated Press reported that forestry experts had long agreed that “clearing undergrowth would save trees,” and that “years of aggressive firefighting have allowed brush to flourish that would have been cleared away by wildfires.” But very little was done. And now fires of unprecedented size are raging across the Western United States.

“Sen. Feinstein blames Sierra Club for blocking wildfire bill,” reads the provocative headline on a 2002 story in California’s Napa Valley Register. Feinstein had brokered a congressional consensus on legislation to thin “overstocked” forests close to homes and communities, but could not overcome the environmental lobby’s disagreement over expediting the permit process to thin forests everywhere else.

Year after year, environmentalists litigated and lobbied to stop efforts to clear the forests through timber harvesting, underbrush removal, and controlled burns. Meanwhile, natural fires were suppressed and the forests became more and more overgrown. The excessive biomass competed for the same water, soil, and light a healthier forest would have used, rendering all of the trees and underbrush unhealthy. It wasn’t just excess biomass that accumulated, but dried out and dead biomass.

What happened among California’s tall stands of Redwood and Ponderosa Pine also happened in its extensive chaparral. Fire suppression along with too many environmentalist-inspired bureaucratic barriers to controlled burns and undergrowth removal turned the hillsides and canyons of Southern California into tinderboxes.

In 2009, after huge blazes wiped out homes and forced thousands to evacuate, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich observed: “The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today.”

In 2014, Republican members of Congress tried again to reduce the bureaucracy associated with “hazardous fuel projects” that thin out overgrown forests. True to form, the bill got nowhere thanks to environmental lobbyists who worried it would undermine the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law that requires thorough impact assessments ahead of government decisions on public lands.

In a blistering report published in the California Globe on how environmentalists have destroyed California’s forests, investigative journalist Katy Grimes interviewed Representative Tom McClintock, a Republican who represents communities in and around the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. McClintock has worked for years to reform NEPA and other barriers to responsible forest management.

“The U.S. Forest Service used to be a profitable federal agency,” McClintock told Grimes. “Up until the mid-1970s, we managed our national forests according to well-established and time-tested forest management practices. But 40 years ago, we replaced these sound management practices with what can only be described as a doctrine of benign neglect. Ponderous, Byzantine laws and regulations administered by a growing cadre of ideological zealots in our land management agencies promised to save the environment. The advocates of this doctrine have dominated our law, our policies, our courts and our federal agencies ever since.”

But these zealots have not protected the forests. They have destroyed them. The consequences are far-reaching.

Decimating the Timber Industry, Disrupting the Ecosystem

Few people, including the experts, bother to point out how overgrown forests reduce the water supply. But when watersheds are choked with dense underbrush competing for moisture, precipitation and runoff cannot replenish groundwater aquifers or fill up reservoirs. Instead, it’s immediately soaked up by the trees and brush. Without clearing and controlled burns, the overgrown foliage dies anyway.

A new activist organization in California, the “California Water for Food and People Movement,” created a Facebook group for people living in the hellscape created by misguided environmentalist zealotry. Comments and posts from long-time residents of the Sierra foothills, where fires have exploded in recent years, yield eyewitness testimony to how environmentalist restrictions on forest management have gone horribly wrong. Examples:

“I’m 70, and I remember controlled burns, logging, and open grazing.”

“With the rainy season just ahead, the aftermath of the Creek Fire will challenge our water systems for years to come. Erosion will send toxic debris and sediment cascading into streams, rivers, and reservoirs, reducing their capacity to carry and hold water. Dirty air, dirty water, and the opposite of environmentalism are on full display right now, brought to us by the environmental posers who will no doubt use this crisis to unleash a barrage of ‘climate change did it’ articles.”

“Many thanks to Sierra Club and other environmental groups. You shut down logging/brush removal and had a ‘don’t touch’ approach to our forests. You shut down access roads and let them get overgrown, so now they can’t be used for fire suppression and emergency equipment. You fought ranchers for grazing, which helped keep the forest floors clean. You made fun of Trump when he said we need to rake the forest. Trust me these forest rakes and logging would have prevented the devastating fires we see now.”

The economics of responsible forest management, given the immensity of America’s western forests, requires profitable timber harvesting to play a role. But California has no commercial timber operations on state-owned land. And since 1990, when the environmentalist assault on California’s timber industry began in earnest, its timber industry has shrunk to half its former size. Reviving California’s timber industry, so the collective rate of harvest equals the collective rate of growth, would go a long way towards solving the problem of catastrophic fires.

Instead, California’s environmentalists only redouble their nonsense arguments. Expect these fires to justify even more “climate change” legislation that does nothing to clear the forests of overgrown tinder, and everything to clear the forests, and the chaparral, of people and towns.

Expect these fires to fuel a new round of legislation containing urban growth while mandating suburban densification, with increased rationing of energy and water.

Expect the “climate emergency” to accelerate in synergistic lockstep with the pandemic emergency and the anti-racism emergency. Expect all three of these emergencies to become issues of public health, thereby eliminating inconvenient constitutional roadblocks to swift action. ….

How Red Tape Strangled California Forest Management Before LA Fires (NEWSWEEK)

  • The reason California hasn’t conducted more of these controlled burnings comes down to existing environmental laws in the U.S. that have posed bureaucratic obstacles to prescribed fires. It often takes years for proposals to go through reviews before any controlled burning can actually take place.

Modern Forest Management (California Policy Center)

Since the year 2000, according to the California Air Resources Board, wildfires have destroyed over 19 million acres, mostly forest and chaparral, over 30,000 square miles. At the same time, these wildfires exposed millions of Californians to smoke so thick and toxic that people were advised to stay indoors for weeks. Utility companies, attempting to prevent fires from starting, cut power during hot and windy summer days to millions more Californians, sometimes for several days in a row. During one of the worst fire seasons in recent years, in the summer and fall of 2020, it is estimated that wildfire smoke released 127 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, more than California’s entire electricity, commercial, and residential sectors combined.

A recent study by University of California researchers revealed that in 2020, wildfires produced more than double the amount of greenhouse gas emissions than all the reductions made in California between 2003 and 2019, combined. In fact, emissions from wildfires were the second highest source – behind transportation but ahead of the industrial sector, and ahead of all power plants put together.

The conventional explanation for these catastrophic wildfires is that climate change has led to longer, hotter, drier summers in California, creating conditions where small fires can more easily turn into ‘megafires’. In response, California’s politicians and government agencies have enacted a series of measures designed to achieve “net-zero.”, such that all economic activity in the state will either generate zero CO2 emissions, or whatever emissions are generated will be offset by activities that sequester an equal quantity of CO2.

But current climate policy, and public debate, has an enormous, gaping hole. It fails to take into account that one of the biggest sources of California’s carbon emissions – not cars, not electricity generation, but ‘mega’ wildfires – results from outdated, ideologically-driven forest management practices.

This is an enormous missed opportunity to develop positive, practical policies to combat climate change in a way that brings people together around common sense solutions, moving beyond polarized and divisive ideological extremes.

There are modern ways to manage California’s forests that would restore them to health, prevent recurring ‘megarfires’, and introduce practices that guarantee California’s forests are not only carbon neutral, but substantially carbon negative.

[….]

A century ago, in the 1920s, tactics to suppress forest fires were still in their infancy. But techniques and technologies steadily improved, along with firefighting budgets. By the second half of the 20th century, an army of firefighters could cope effectively with California’s wildfires. For a while, a combination of timber harvesting and natural fires prevented excess fuel buildup in the forests. But regulatory restrictions on logging that started in the 1990s, and increasingly aggressive fire suppression, laid the foundation for the problems we see today. 

During the 1980s (in 2020 dollars), CalFire spent an average of $28 million per year ($66 million in inflation-adjusted 2020 dollars) on fire suppression, and the average annual timber harvest in the state was 6 billion board feet. In 2020, CalFire spent an astonishing $1.7 billion on fire suppression, nearly 10 times more than in the 1980s after adjusting for inflation, while the annual timber harvest had declined to just 1.5 billion board feet. 

These two trends are of course directly related. The ‘megafires’ of recent years are the result of excessive undergrowth, which not only creates fuel for fires that are vastly more difficult and costly to control, but competes with mature trees for the sunlight, water, and soil nutrients needed for healthy growth.

This is why California’s forests are not only tinderboxes but are also filled with dying trees. Now Californians confront nearly 20 million acres of overgrown forests.

In a speech before Congress in September 2021, Representative Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) summarized the series of policy mistakes that are destroying California’s forests. McClintock’s sprawling 4th congressional district covers 12,800 square miles, and encompasses most of the Northern Sierra Nevada mountain range. His constituency bears a disproportionate share of the consequences of forest policies emanating from Washington, D.C. and Sacramento.

“Excess timber comes out of the forest in only two ways,” McClintock said. “It is either carried out or it burns out. For most of the 20th Century, we carried it out. It’s called ‘logging.’ Every year, U.S. Forest Service foresters would mark off excess timber and then we auctioned it off to lumber companies who paid us to remove it, funding both local communities and the forest service. We auctioned grazing contracts on our grasslands. The result: healthy forests, fewer fires and a thriving economy. But…we began imposing environmental laws that have made the management of our lands all but impossible. Draconian restrictions on logging, grazing, prescribed burns and herbicide use on public lands have made modern land management endlessly time-consuming and ultimately cost-prohibitive. A single tree thinning plan typically takes four years and more than 800 pages of analysis. The costs of this process exceed the value of timber—turning land maintenance from a revenue-generating activity to a revenue-consuming one.”

When it comes to carrying out timber, California used to do a pretty good job. From the 1950s to the 1980s, as noted, the average timber harvest in California was around 6.0 billion board feet per year. The precipitous drop in harvest volume began in the 1990s. The industry started that decade taking out not quite 5 billion board feet. By 2000 the annual harvest had dropped to just over 2 billion board feet. Today, only about 1.5 billion board feet per year come out of California’s forests as harvested timber.

Wildlife biologists and forest ecologists who spend their lives studying and managing these timberlands now agree that tree density in California’s forests has increased thanks to “non-climatic factors such as the prohibition of controlled burning, and legacies of fire suppression.”

The increase is not subtle. Without controlled and naturally occurring fires that clear underbrush and small trees, and without responsible logging, forests become overgrown. According to a study conducted in 2020 by UC Davis and USDA, California’s mid-elevation Ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests used to average 60 trees per acre, but now average 170 trees per acre.

This is not an isolated finding. Observations of excessive tree density are corroborated by numerous studies, testimony, and journalistic investigations. Roughly tripling the density of trees across millions of acres of forest leaves them stressed and starved for soil nutrients, sunlight, and water.

California’s excessive forest density not only results in overgrown, dried out and fire prone trees and brush. It also impacts California’s water supply and aquatic ecosystems. 

That’s because excessive forest density also causes excessive evapotranspiration, the process by which plants emit water through tiny pores in their leaves. And in this case, what goes up does not come down. Water lost to evapotranspiration is water that does not percolate into the ground to recharge springs and feed streams. Scientists affiliated with the National Science Foundation’s Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory have concluded that “forest thinning could increase water flow from Sierra Nevada watersheds by as much as 10 percent.”

[….]

Enhancing Community Safety

There are three layers of protection against fires for people living in forests, more formally referred to as the urban-wildland interface. The first, forest thinning, needs to involve multiple agencies cooperating based on community needs and land topography, rather than stopping at arbitrary jurisdictional boundaries. The second layer of protection requires removing combustible material along access roads, ensuring safe evacuation routes. Roads need to be wide enough to allow cars to evacuate one way at the same time as oncoming firefighting vehicles pass in the other direction. Third, homes themselves need to be hardened against embers, with brush and other combustible materials cleared away from the structures. With these conditions met, insurance against fires can remain affordable, because the risk of fire harming people and property in the forests is minimized. All three of these goals can be achieved by reviving California’s timber industry.

Revive Sustainable Logging

Turning land maintenance from what it has become – a revenue consuming activity – back into a revenue generating activity, starts with bringing annual timber harvests up to a level that matches the natural rate of forest regeneration. To accomplish this, California’s logging industry would need to roughly quadruple in size. The good news is that with decades of accumulated experience, logging using today’s best practices can significantly improve forest ecosystems. In forests owned and managed by some of the logging companies and public utilities in California, for example, owl counts are higher than in California’s federally managed forests.

An important element is a technique known as “clear cutting.” This is where a logging company removes all the trees in a designated area, ideally not more than 40 acres. Because it is done on a 60- to 100-year cycle, ‘clear cuts’ can benefit forests. By converting one or two percent of the forest back into meadow each year, areas are opened up where it is easier for owls and other predators to hunt, helping to maintain naturally balanced ecosystems. In addition, during a clear cut, needles and branches are stripped off trees and left to rejuvenate the soil. Water  runoff is managed as well, through ‘contour tilling’ which creates furrows that follow the topography of  hillsides. Rain percolates into the furrows instead of running off causing erosion – and these furrows are where replacement trees are planted.

But clear-cutting can only sustainably be performed on one to two percent of the land in any given year. There are other types of large scale, sustainable logging that can be used in areas deemed more ecologically sensitive. Southern California Edison (SCE) owns 20,000 acres of forest around Shaver Lake in Southern California where they practice what is known as “total ecosystem management.”

California’s worst fire season of this century was the summer and fall of 2020, when 4.1 million acres – over 6,000 square miles – burned. The Creek Fire was the largest, burning over 550 square miles in Southern California. But the 30 square mile island of SCE-managed forest around Shaver Lake was unscathed. This is because for decades, SCE has been engaged in timber operations they define as “uneven age management, single-tree selection,” whereby trees to be harvested are individually designated in advance, in what remains a profitable logging enterprise. Controlled burns are also an essential part of SCE’s total ecosystem management, but these burns are only safe when the selected areas are already well-managed through logging and thinning.

[….]

Obstacles to Modern Forest Management in California

The last two decades in California have included fire seasons of terrifying scope and ferocity, with four of the most recent years delivering the most area burned: 1.3 million acres in 2017, 1.6 million acres in 2018, 4.1 million acres in 2020, and 2.4 million acres in 2021. But experts (and, sadly, politicians) saw this coming – and more to the point, knew what had to be done.

In 1999, the Associated Press reported that forestry experts had long agreed that “clearing undergrowth would save trees,” and that “years of aggressive firefighting have allowed brush to flourish that would have been cleared away by wildfires.” But very little was done. And now fires of unprecedented size are raging across the Western United States.

“Sen. Feinstein blames Sierra Club for blocking wildfire bill,” reads the provocative headline on a 2002 story in California’s Napa Valley Register. Feinstein had brokered a congressional consensus on legislation to thin “overstocked” forests close to homes and communities, but could not overcome the environmental lobby’s disagreement with expediting the permit process to thin forests everywhere else.

Year after year environmentalist organizations including the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity sued  to stop efforts to clear forests through timber harvesting, underbrush removal and controlled burns, in the misguided belief that these efforts would protect ecosystems. In fact they made them weaker and more vulnerable. As natural fires were suppressed and the forests became more and more overgrown, the excessive biomass competed for the same water, soil, and light that a healthier forest would have used, rendering all the trees and underbrush unhealthy. 

One specific manifestation of this was the rapid advance of the bark beetle, a mortal threat to California’s forests. In a healthy forest, with a more natural density of trees, each tree gets enough water to produce the sap that is part of its defense against threats like bark beetles. With more trees, there is less water to go round, each tree produces less sap, and therefore cannot repel the beetles – which end up killing the tree. As a result, visitors to California’s forests in the Sierra Nevada often see not only the blackened trees and hillsides devastated by ‘megafires’ – but vast areas of dead trees that are the victims of disease and infestation. In the decades when the ideology of fire suppression dominated policy-making, it wasn’t just excess biomass that accumulated, but dried out and dead biomass. And what happened among California’s tall stands of Redwood and Ponderosa Pine also happened in its extensive chaparral. 

Fire suppression, along with too many ideologically-driven bureaucratic barriers to controlled burns and undergrowth removal, turned the hillsides and canyons of Southern California into tinderboxes.

In 2009, after huge blazes wiped out homes and forced thousands to evacuate, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich observed: “The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today.”

In 2014, Republican members of Congress tried again to reduce the bureaucracy associated with “hazardous fuel projects” that thin out overgrown forests. The bill got nowhere thanks to environmental lobbyists who worried it would undermine the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law that requires thorough impact assessments ahead of government decisions affecting public lands. And despite almost universal awareness that more thinning is the only way California’s forests will ever recover their health and resiliency, extreme environmentalists continue to throw up obstacles.

In June 2022, a group that calls itself the John Muir Project, joined by a small number of other state and local like-minded organizations, sued the U.S. Forest Service. The transgression? A proposal to thin 13,000 acres of forest near Big Bear Lake, in the heart of California’s San Bernardino Mountains.

We must overcome these barriers. The next section of this report will examine specific policy solutions that would save California’s forests, reduce carbon emissions, and create economic, social and environmental opportunity.

Structural reform that takes away the ability of anyone, anywhere to file lawsuits will be a critical element, because even when consensus is reached with reasonable environmentalists, it only takes one group or individual to file a blocking lawsuit to cripple progress. …..

Science says thinned forests are healthy forests (U.S, DEPT. of AGRICULTURE)

Forest Service science shows that thinning and fuels treatments work. Historically, many western forests were far less dense and extremely variable. Trees often grew in clusters of two to 20, interspersed with several small gaps. Pacific Southwest Research Station Research Ecologist Eric Knapp studies the ecology of western forests in relation to disturbance, particularly fire. He’s especially interested in landscape changes that have occurred in the absence of fire, including how resilient these forests are to drought or wildfire later. As part of this research, he evaluates the results of forest management alternatives designed to reverse some of these changes, including mechanical thinning and prescribed fire.

Ten years ago, Knapp and his colleagues began a study on the Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest in California. They thinned some areas in the standard way, with trees spaced relatively evenly. They also thinned other areas with a new prescription designed to restore variability, mimicking historical forest conditions. Finally, they left other units unthinned. Half of all the units were later treated with prescribed fire. Since then, he and his team have been measuring the trees, understory vegetation, and small mammal populations to evaluate how the different treatments perform over time.

What they found was that during a recent severe drought that killed over 147 million trees statewide, the two thinned treatments came through relatively unscathed, experiencing far less tree mortality than the adjacent unthinned areas. By reducing competition, the remaining trees had greater access to sunlight, water and the nutrients found in soils. They also found that the addition of prescribed fire is key to a more vibrant and diverse understory plant community, similar to what these forests once contained.

Knapp and his colleagues have shared these findings through field tours for land managers and other stakeholders representing a diversity of interests.

“It has been gratifying to see that many have found the ‘high variability’ thinning idea with prescribed fire to be an example worthy of scaling up to improve forest resilience and habitat value,” he said. ….

Thinned areas of forest showed nearly 26% greater growth than unthinned areas (U.S. FORREST SERVICE – PDF)

  • “scientists found that in the thinned areas, average growth was nearly 26 percent greater than in the unthinned areas, when adjusted for species, initial tree size, and crown class. Midstory trees and the understory also responded positively. The stand conditions prior to the most recent thinning influenced the magnitude of the growth. “Tree growth was greatest if the stand had not been previously thinned,” notes Harrington. This article goes into why variable density thinning, leaving a gap “here”, thinning moderately “there”, and leaving clumps of trees enables a healthier forest. In fact this article shows that “Tree growth in all stands (including those 60-80 years old) increased in response to thinning in a fairly short period.”

two of my past posts regarding this issue:

My November 2, 2019 Post

Chuck DeVore is interviewed by Larry Elder on these (and more) topics regarding California’s regulatory arm and environmental groups and the affect they have on forest health, power grids, and the rising cost for the poor. The conversation is based in large part on these two articles:

In the above two article (and the ones to follow) are detailed failures of our state legislature (a super majority in both houses are Democrats) to bring California into the 21st century.

These policies of pushing alternative energy goals retards the power grid, and hurts the poor the most where it counts — the pocket book:

These are important topics that SHOULD be looked into by Californians. However, the urge to FEEL “angelic” (on the side of angels) far outweighs the reality of the road we are paving. Here is the “CS LEWIS” of politics from a related post: “Deadly Altruism Marks the Left ~ Illiberal Egalitarianism and the NYFD“

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….“Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the proprietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men.†

* No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 12

My September 16, 2020 Post

(2018) California’s leaders are promoting the idea that the state’s in a “new normal” of more extreme wildfire, but fire scientists say it doesn’t have to stay that way, even in the face of a climate that’s getting warmer.

I posted previously on related topics for the interested:

(This is mainly a government issue – federal and state) John and Ken interview Congressman Tom McClintock (4th District of California) discussing the issue of forest mismanagement, and how since the 1980’s 80% less logging has been allowed.

Some good articles are these:

  • How Misguided Environmentalism Is To Blame For California’s Wildfires (THE FEDERALIST, 2018)
  • California Has Always Had Fires, Environmental Alarmism Makes Them Worse Than Necessary (FORBES, 2020)
  • Wildfires Caused By Bad Environmental Policy Are Causing California Forests To Be Net CO2 Emitters (FORBES, 2019)
  • The Same Old, Same Old California Suicide (NATIONAL REVIEW, 2020)
  • California’s Disastrous Forest Mismanagement (NATIONAL REVIEW, 2020)
  • Western Wildfires Are Due to Arson and Stupidity, Not Climate Change (AMERICAN THINKER, 2020)

PRAGER U

The following video is done by John Kobylt of the The John and Ken Show 640AM-KFI: “This is appalling. And not nearly enough people have been given this information.”

Corrupt politics overriding California wildfire prevention efforts, Republican John Cox says (SEE AT FOX NEWS)

 

 

 

 

The Crusades vs. The Three Caliphates (Moral Equivalence)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Originally posted September 2014

Other posts on similar topics:

As an aside, a great post to include in these studies is over at WINTERY KNIGHT and responds to these four myths:

  • Myth #1: The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world.
  • Myth #2: Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich.
  • Myth #3: Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives.
  • Myth #4: The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

There was nothing wrong, in principle, with the Crusades. They were an appropriate (if belated and badly managed) response to the conquest of the Holy Land by Islam. Did marauding 11th century armies inevitably commit outrages? They certainly did. In fact, that still happens today. But the most unfortunate thing about the Crusades is that they failed. (Powerline)

CHRISTIANITY (Crusades)

  • 9 Total Crusades from 1095-1272 A.D;
  • The crusades lasted about 177 years;
  • About 1-million deaths – this includes: disease, the selling into slavery, and died en-route to the Holy land;
  • About 5,650 deaths a year.

ATHEISM (Stalin)

  • His rise to power in 1927 lasted until his death in 1953;
  • Stalin’s reign was 26-years;
  • Middle road estimates of deaths are 40-to-50-million;
  • That clocks in at about 1,923,076 deaths a year.

(Some put the death toll per-week by Stalin at 40,000 every week — even during “peacetime”)

ISLAM (killing Hindus)

  • 80-million killed;
  • 500-year war;
  • 160,000 a year.

(As an aside… about 5.714 [to be clear, that is: five-point-seven one four people] people were killed a year by the Spanish Inquisition if you take the highest number over its 350-year long stretch if you use the leading historian on the topic.)

I have some maps to help make my case… and we know that conversion in these days was due to duress, like it is today. This first map puts a time-table to the 3-caliphates:

Around this same time (and you mentioned this in the convo I viewed) this was going on:

Defensive

…the Crusades were a defensive war, not an aggressive grab for land and loot. In fact, crusading was an expensive and costly endeavor. After the success of the First Crusade nearly all the Crusaders went home. Virtually none of them recovered the cost of crusading. If one wanted to get rich, crusading was definitely not the best route to make it happen. Many atrocities occurred in the Crusades.

Understandably, war can bring out the worst in people. Even during World War II some American soldiers committed atrocities, but this does not mean the war was conducted so soldiers could commit crimes. [me: nor does this mean the whole of the meta-good of the conflict is undone] (Sean McDowell)

[Like the video says: Islamic jihad was enslaving Kafirs, the Crusaders were freeing them — key distinction.]

▼ The Third Crusade (1188-1192). This crusade was proclaimed by Pope Gregory VIII in the wake of Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem and destruction of the Crusader forces of Hattin in 1187. This venture failed to retake Jerusalem, but it did strengthen Outremer, the crusader state that stretched along the coast of the Levant. (The Politically incorrect guide to Islam-and the Crusades, by Robert Spencer, pp. 147-148.)

The almost Political Correct myth is that the crusades were an unprovoked attack by Europe against the Islamic world are dealt with in part:

▼ The conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood as the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression, and Christians in the Holy Land faced an escalating spiral of persecution. A few examples: Early in the eighth century, sixty Christian pilgrims from Amorium were crucified; around the same time, the Muslim governor of Caesarea seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed as spies – except for a small number who converted to Islam; and Muslims demanded money from pilgrims, threatening to ransack the Church of the Resurrection if they didn’t pay. Later in the eighth century, a Muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the anti-religious tax (jizya) that Christians had to pay and forbade Christians to engage in religious instruction to others, even their own children. Brutal subordinations and violence became the rules of the day for Christians in the Holy Land. In 772, the caliph al-Mansur ordered the hands of Christians and Jews in Jerusalem to be stamped with a distinctive symbol. Conversions to Christianity were dealt with particularly harshly. In 789, Muslims beheaded a monk who had converted from Islam and plundered the Bethlehem monastery of Saint Theodosius, killing many more monks. Other monasteries in the region suffered the same fate. Early in the ninth century, the persecutions grew so severe that large numbers of Christians fled to Constantinople and other Christians cities. More persecutions in 923 saw additional churches destroyed, and in 937, Muslims went on a Palm Sunday rampage in Jerusalem, plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection. (The Politically incorrect guide to Islam-and the Crusades, by Robert Spencer, pp. 122-123.)

One person (my pastor at the time) said to paint a picture of the crusaders in a single year in history is like showing photo’s and video of Hitler hugging children and giving flowers to them and then showing photo’s and video of the Allies attacking the German army. It completely forgets what Hitler and Germany had done prior.

Well-known academic and go-to source for U.S. intelligence and military agencies, Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University, insists that nothing bad was happening during the “five centuries of peaceful coexistence” between Muslims and Christians prior to the First Crusade, which was launched by cynical and evil Europeans, forever turning Islam against the West. (PJ-MEDIA)

This second map show there were raids, violence, and rape that reached close to Paris itself:

So far, the Crusades being an “out-of-the-blue” event is not historical at all.

Rather, it was people in the West stopping the Muslim horde.

Literally!

Here is a 35-minute interview with Professor Clay Jones on the Crusades:

As well as a 6-minute section where Michael Medved was interviewing Robert Spencer. About half way through a call is taken… your typical “party-line”

Below is a comparison I used for a class at church comparing Muhammad and Jesus:

See my JESUS vs. Muhammad Post (Download my PDF Sunday school handout)

Not only that, but to say that the Crusades were immoral IS to borrow from the Judeo-Christian ethic. I make this point in a recent question/challenge sent to me by an atheist which I posted on here.

There is nothing in the pantheist worldview (Buddhism, Hinduism, Janism, Taoism, etc) which can account for people saying, “you [or ‘the church’] ought not have done that.” In fact, when I updated my chapter to reflect a recent event, I said this:

It is laughable that some defend this doctrine tooth and nail. However, if really believed, they would come to realize there is no real good or evil! The Inquisitions, the Mumbai terror killings at the hands of Muslims, as examples, were merely the outgrowth of the victim’s previous karmic lives. Therefore, when those here defend karmic destiny in other posts speak of the horrible atrocities committed by religion, they are not consistently living out their philosophy of life and death, which are illusory. The innocent victims of the Inquisitions, terror attacks, tsunamis, or Crusades then are merely being paid back for something they themselves did in a previous life. It is the actions said people did prior that creates much of the evil upon them now. So in the future when people who are believers in reincarnation say that Christianity isn’t what it purports to be because of the evil it has committed in the past, you should remind them that evil is merely an illusion (maya – Hinduism; sunyata – Buddhism) to be overcome, as karmic reincarnation demands.

(Reincarnation vs. the Laws of Logic)

And there is nothing in evolutionary naturalism either to denote an action being immoral. As the first of the links above clearly show. Only if you have the Judeo-Christian God in play do you have such a case to make. In other words you have to assume that which you wish to show false.

One last note on this differing direction of the convo. The Bible does not teach the horrible practices that some have committed in its name.

It is true that it’s possible that religion can produce evil, and generally when we look closer at the details it produces evil because the individual people [Christians] are actually living in rejection of the tenets of Christianity and a rejection of the God that they are supposed to be following. So it [religion] can produce evil, but the historical fact is that outright rejection of God and institutionalizing of atheism (non-religious practices) actually does produce evil on incredible levels. We’re talking about tens of millions of people as a result of the rejection of God. For example: the Inquisitions, Crusades, Salem Witch Trials killed about anywhere from 40,000 to 80,000 persons combined (World Book Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Americana), and the church is liable for the unjustified murder of about (taking the high number here) 300,000-women over about a 300 year period. A blight on Christianity? Certainly. Something wrong? Dismally wrong. A tragedy? Of course.

Millions and millions of people killed? No. The numbers are tragic, but pale in comparison to the statistics of what non-religious criminals have committed); the Chinese regime of Mao Tse Tung, 60 million [+] dead (1945-1965), Stalin and Khrushchev, 66 million dead (USSR 1917-1959), Khmer Rouge (Cambodia 1975-1979) and Pol Pot, one-third of the populations dead, etc, etc. The difference here is that these non-God movements are merely living out their worldview, the struggle for power, survival of the fittest and all that, no evolutionary/naturalistic natural law is being violated in other words (as non-theists reduce everything to natural law — materialism). However, and this is key, when people have misused the Christian religion for personal gain, they are in direct violation to what Christ taught, as well as Natural Law. (A condensing of Gregory Koukl’s, “The Real Murderers: Atheism or Christianity?“)

In fact, A recent comprehensive compilation of the history of human warfare, Encyclopedia of Wars by Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod documents 1763 wars, of which 123 have been classified to involve a religious conflict. So, what atheists have considered to be ‘most’ really amounts to less than 7% of all wars. It is interesting to note that 66 of these wars (more than 50%) involved Islam, which did not even exist as a religion for the first 3,000 years of recorded human warfare. Even the Seven Years’ War, widely recognized to be “religious” in motivation, noting that the warring factions were not necessarily split along confessional lines as much as along secular interests.

The above paragraph is an adaptation of sorts from these two sources:

  • Alan Axelrod & Charles Phillips, Encyclopedia of Wars, Facts on File, November 2004
  • John Entick, The General History of the Later War, Volume 3, 1763, p. 110.

John Quincy Adams is worth reading at greater length on the topic, as he provides some insight into what has been going on in Iraq now that Obama has prematurely removed our troops:

▼ In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, […..] Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST. – TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant … While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.

Winston Churchill deserves a longer hearing too:

▼ “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

Islam has not changed over the centuries. All that has changed is that never before have we been ruled by people who take Islam’s side against us. That is why the Marines were created in fact… the Barbary Wars. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (ECC 1:9). While other religions has entered modernity and rejected claims by men to get closer to their founding doctrine. Like what Jesus ACTUALLY teaches versus the guy in the pulpit… which was why it was illegal to own a Bible in parts of Italy all the way to 1870. Those in charge didn’t want the words of their Founder to be read.

People like Luther and Calvin read it, and read it well.

Price Gouging During Emergencies | Are There Benefits?

Published by Papa Giorgio

Updated Today, originally posted March of 2020

Reposting for recent story.

FIRST, here is the article Larry Elder referenced in the audio above regarding the Chicago fire: “Lessons from the Chicago Fire.” WALTER WILLIAMS gives an excellent example of the benefits of price “gouging” (supply and demand) in helping families:

…Here’s a which-is-better question for you. Suppose a hotel room rented for $79 a night prior to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. Based on that price, an evacuating family of four might rent two adjoining rooms. When they arrive at the hotel, they find the rooms rent for $200; they decide to make do with one room. In my book, that’s wonderful. The family voluntarily opted to make a room available for another family who had to evacuate or whose home was destroyed. Demagogues will call this price-gouging, but I ask you, which is preferable: a room available at $200 or a room unavailable at $79? Rising prices get people to voluntarily economize on goods and services rendered scarcer by the disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina struck, gasoline prices shot up almost a dollar nearly overnight. Some people have been quick to call this price-gouging, particularly since wholesalers and retailers were charging the higher price for gasoline already purchased and in their tanks prior to the hurricane. The fact of business is that what a seller paid for something doesn’t necessarily determine its selling price. Put in a bit more sophisticated way: Historical costs have nothing to do with selling price. For example, suppose you maintained a 10-pound inventory of coffee in your cupboard. When I ran out, you’d occasionally sell me a pound for $2. Suppose there’s a freeze in Brazil destroying much of the coffee crop, driving coffee prices to $5 a pound. Then I come around to purchase coffee. Are you going to charge me $2 a pound, what you paid for it, or $5, what it’s going to cost you to restock your coffee inventory?

[….]

Politicians of both parties have rushed in to exploit public ignorance and emotion. Last week Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (Democrat) threatened to prosecute gas companies. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (Republican) is threatening legal action against what he called “unconscionable pricing” by hotels. Alabama Attorney General Troy King (Republican) promises to vigorously prosecute businesses that significantly increase prices during the state of emergency. The Bush administration has called for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to look for evidence of price-gouging, and Congress plans to hold hearings on oil company “price-gouging.”

There’s an important downside to these political attacks on producers. What about the next disaster? How much sense does it make for producers to make the extra effort to provide goods and services if they know they risk prosecution for charging what might be seen as “unconscionable prices”? Politicians would serve us better by focusing their energies on tax-gouging.

Economist Walter E Williams explains how what can appear as price gouging is actually the free market working to meet the needs of those in distress.

Larry Elder Eulogizes the Fruits of a Peanut Farmer

Published by Papa Giorgio

A devastating look at the fruit of the “peanut tree” via Larry Elder

Here are my “eulogy” posts on Carter (most are flashbacks):

Jim Jones and His Utopian Goals (+ Jimmy Carter)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(UPDATED 2020 and today [2025] – first posted late 2010)

Jim Jones was a hard-core atheist/socialist. It wasn’t a “religious cult,” rather, it was a cult in Marxian ideology. Here is one example from a sermon of his:

Remember, as NATIONAL REVIEW makes the point, “Willie Brown, Walter Mondale, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter ranked high among his [Jim Jones] supporters.” Continuing with the line of historical connections between “Leftism” and Jim Jones, NR also clearly reports that the media still gets their biased views mixed up with reality:

…But the first draft of history depicted the political fanatics as Christian fanatics, despite the group’s explicit atheism and distribution of Bibles in Jonestown for bathroom use. The words “fundamentalist Christianity” were used in a New York Times article to describe Jones’s preaching. The Associated Press called the dead “religious zealots.” Specials on CBS and NBC at the time neglected to mention the Marxism that animated Peoples Temple.

Beyond the ideology that inspired Peoples Temple’s demise, the media whitewashed the politicians who aided and abetted them.

Learning that San Francisco mayor George Moscone appointed Jim Jones to the city’s Housing Authority Commission, a body of which he quickly became chairman, piqued my curiosity, which led to my writing Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco. This revelation, particularly shocking in light of the fate of his tenants in Jonestown, led me to come across this: Willie Brown, who would become the speaker of the California State Assembly and then mayor of San Francisco, compared Jim Jones to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Harvey Milk described Jonestown as “a beautiful retirement community” helping to “alleviating the world food crisis.” California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally actually made a pilgrimage to Jonestown that led to a gushing reaction typical of ideological tourists.

The politically inspired delusions of San Francisco Democrats proved contagious. Jimmy Carter’s running mate, Walter Mondale, met with Jim Jones in San Francisco in 1976. Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, found Jones so impressive that she campaigned with him, ate with him, allowed him to introduce her during a campaign speech, telephoned him, and put him in touch with her sister-in-law, Ruth Carter Stapleton. Friends in high places suppressed investigations in the United States, misled officials in Guyana into dismissing allegations against the lunatic in their midst, and biased State Department hands into siding with Jones in his fight with outraged relatives of the captives in his concentration camp….

THE CITY JOURNAL has a short review of Daniel Flynn’s book, “Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco.”

17th Century American Genocide | Iroquois

Published by Papa Giorgio

“If anyone in seventeenth-century America can be consid­ered genocidal,
it should be the Iroquois, rather than the French or English.”
~ Jeff Fynn-Paul ~

The Brutality of Ancient American Tribe – The Iroquois and what tactics did they employ? This video explores the historical Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee, and their formidable strategies in warfare and diplomacy. Join us as we delve into the brutal and sophisticated methods used by the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes, along with the later addition of the Tuscarora.

Thomas Sowell discusses the Iroquois Confederacy.

I did some reading on vacation and wanted to excerpt a very small portion of what I read:

In North America, the history of Indian tribes shows a similar pattern of warfare with little evident “moderation.” On the contrary, victorious tribes often found it expedient to extermi­nate enemy tribes altogether, so as to avoid the problem of retributive attacks. Women and children of defeated tribes were carted off and enslaved to en­sure no continuation of enemy bloodlines and traditions.

Iroquois history begins with the tale of Hiawatha, a semi-mythical leader who was re­markable insofar as he was a peacemaker—the implication being that most other tribal leaders were not. The archae­ology of the period before Hiawatha has revealed many warrior skeletons riddled with arrows and/or hacked into pieces, indicating that violent warfare was normative in these regions before contact with Europeans.

The seventeenth century, the first for which we have written records, shows the Iroquois Confederacy maintaining an uneasy truce among its own membership, but only insofar as this enabled them to intensify warfare against their traditional enemies the Huron and the Al­gonquin. These so-called Beaver Wars lasted for many decades; they witnessed the destruction of the Wendat people, the Neu­tral Indians, the fabled Mohi­cans, and many other tribes.

Faced with the threat of what the modern Left should acknowledge as genocidal warfare, many of the Iroquois’ enemies were forced to flee to French, Dutch, and English settlements for protection, where their descendants eventually took up farming, converted to Christianity, or otherwise assimilated into the dominant culture. They gave up their vaunted “traditional” lifestyle because they preferred a peaceful life as a farmer to the omnipresent threat of death by tomahawk. Later in the eighteenth century, a few thousand Iroquois were to visit similar grisly fates on dozens of other neighbors, until only a handful of Native Americans remained in the entire territory circling the Great Lakes.

[….]

The same process occurred farther west in the Great Lakes region, where the Five Nations territory proved to be continu­ously in flux. The Five Nations group is thought to have been formed only a generation or two before French explorers contacted them, and the early years of French settlement in the region witnessed a number of horrific (dare I say “genoci­dal”) encounters. In 1649, the Iroquois took advantage of the weakened position of the Huron people to practically wipe them off the North American map.

“About twelve hundred Iroquois came,” a Huron remembered. “They took their anger out on the Fathers: they stripped them naked; they tore their fingernails off. They rained blows on their shoulders with sticks, on their kidneys and stomach and legs and face, and no part of their body was spared this torment.”

In the process of the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois “stole” land from the Hurons and other tribes equal in size to their orig­inal territory in New York State. Later on, the Iroquois continued their imperialist campaigns, ranging far to the south and west of their original territories. They destroyed the Erie Indians and the famed Mohicans, and conquered several other tribes. In the years around 1700, they ousted the Sioux Indians from West Virginia and Kentucky, who were forced by Iroquois aggression to vacate the land forever and to settle farther west on more marginal ground. The Iroquois thereafter claimed the Sioux hunting grounds for their own.

By 1780, the Iroquois Nation had stolen the equivalent of at least six times their original territory, all from neighboring tribes. From their original base in New York State, they had emptied much of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and much of southern Ontario of its former inhabitants. Whether or not one ascribes the Iroquois success to the presence of European firearms, the fact is the Iroquois, when given enough power, proved more than willing to permanently ex­tinguish every Indian tribe they could get their hands on—this despite the efforts of the French and English to protect many of the Iroquois’ victims.

If anyone in seventeenth-century America can be consid­ered genocidal, it should be the Iroquois, rather than the French or English. It is believed that the intra-Indian wars of attrition, which resulted in the expulsion of many tribes from the Great Lakes region, so fatally weak­ened Native populations in the area, that they had little choice but to abandon most of this land to American settler expansion in subsequent decades.

Farther west, groups such as the Apache are famous for displacing and dispossessing dozens of tribes from their ancestral lands within living memory of the whites’ arrival. The Apache are thought by ar­chaeologists to have originated in Alaska and then rampaged southwards. Conquering and intimidating as they went, like a group of New World Huns or Vandals, the Apache finally reached the region of Texas by the time the first Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century. From the Spanish, the Apaches received horses and guns, which enticed them to give up their semi-agricultural lifestyles and start hunting buffalo full. The irony is that many of these Indians only began hunting riding horses and buffalo because contact with Europeans enabled them to do so.

Meanwhile, shortly after 1700, a push by the Comanches dis­placed many Apache Indians, who in turn put pressure on the Pueblo Indians, raiding them and despoiling them of their own food supplies. The fierce Comanche went on to displace, assimilate, and/or an­nihilate dozens of other tribes and smaller groups in a series of well-documented attacks. Neighboring tribes feared them as a merciless scourge, and rightly so: like most other Native American tribes they routinely killed babies, tor­tured men, raped women, and enslaved children as they conquered.

Jeff Fynn-Paul, Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World (Nashville, TN: Bombardier Books, 2023), 141-142, 186-188.

The following video is pretty good. He falters a bit in some history, but the presentation and humor are worth it:

Join me on a journey to uncover the untold story of “The Beaver Wars” in this captivating historical exploration. Together, we’ll delve deep into the tumultuous period of North American history, revealing the causes, consequences, and lasting impacts of this little-known conflict.

During the 17th century, rival indigenous nations clashed in a struggle for control over the lucrative fur trade, igniting what would become known as “The Beaver Wars.” We’ll unravel the socio-political dynamics at play, the strategic alliances formed, and the consequences across the region.

From the initial skirmishes to the full-scale warfare that engulfed the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions, we’ll explore the complex web of alliances, betrayals, and shifting power dynamics that characterized this pivotal era.

Together, we’ll shed light on this often overlooked chapter of history, exploring the cultural, economic, and environmental ramifications of “The Beaver Wars.” Gain insight into the legacy of this conflict and its enduring impact on North America.

Don’t miss out on this enlightening journey through history. I encourage you to like, comment, and subscribe to my channel for more fascinating insights into the past. Your support helps me continue to bring these stories to life.

BLACK HILLS

Activists suggest that all “colonized” land should be returned to the previous owners. Is it really that simple? Michael Knowles has thoughts.

Here is a quick blurb by Dinesh D’Souza discussing the American Indian battles over territory (land). Gruesome warfare, rape, pillaging, etc., were all part of these “land-grabs.”

 

Biblical Scholar Wes Huff Politely Nukes Billy Carson

Published by Papa Giorgio

Joe Rogan Hosts Biblical Scholar Wes Huff After Billy Carson Debate

The debate between Wes Huff and Billy Carson that took place on Oct. 18th 2024 on ‪the Mark Minard Channel. Both Billy and Wes were notified 24hours before that we were scheduled to talk with each other, that it would be in a debate-style discussion format, and that we would be talking about Christianity and the Bible. The topic of discussion that was disclosed to all individuals involved the fact that we would be discussing Billy’s public and widely dispersed criticisms and critiques regarding the Bible and Historic Christianity. This recording is the unedited and unaltered raw footage from that interaction.

Now Billy Carson is suing people involved in this debate!? Crazy!

BTW, some crazy stuff happened behind the scenes after the debate. Wowza! New Age cult “stars” lose horribly when they are exposed.

  • This journey has been intense, and I [Mark Minard] chose to stay silent due to legal advice and to avoid unnecessary drama/conflict—especially since we’re neighbors and our families know each other. Your support for me and my family means the world during this challenging time. I am not a perfect Christian nor profess to be. But i do trust that God’s hand is at work, and the truth always comes to light. (YOUTUBE)

Here is my Billy Carson rabbit hole:

Jimmy Carter’s Failed Presidency and After

Published by Papa Giorgio

RELATED:

The below is with a hat-tip to NEWSBUSTERS. A must read article by NATIONAL REVIEW, titled, “Jimmy Carter Was a Terrible President — and an Even Worse Former President,” can be found HERE. As I saw it when I heard the news, is, we need to deal with Carter Presidency issues.

Which are:

  1. The giving over the Panama Canal to the Chinese.
  2. The Department of Education.
  3. And the mess in Iran.

Those are Carter’s legacies Trump will hopefully address well.

Jimmy Carter Dissected on CNN by Scott Jennings

Here is one topic excerpted from the NR article. Iraq War:

…. In his mostly sycophantic 1998 book on Carter’s post–White House career, The Unfinished Presidency, Douglas Brinkley gave a startling account of Carter’s behavior in the run-up to the 1990–91 Persian Gulf conflict.

Concerned by the looming threat of war after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, Carter pulled out all the stops — and then some — to try to thwart the president, George H. W. Bush. Carter’s efforts started off within the realm of acceptable opposition for a former president. He wrote op-eds, hosted conferences, gave speeches — all urging peace talks as an alternative to repelling Saddam with the use of military force.

But when that failed, he took things to an extraordinary level. Carter wrote a letter to the leaders of every country on the U.N. Security Council, as well as a dozen other world leaders, Brinkley recounted, making “a direct appeal to hold ‘good faith’ negotiations with Saddam Hussein before entering upon a war. Carter implied that mature nations should not act like lemmings, blindly following George Bush’s inflammatory ‘line in the sand rhetoric.’”

As if this weren’t enough, on January 10, 1991 — just five days before a deadline that had been set for Saddam to withdraw — Carter wrote to key Arab leaders urging them to abandon their support for the U.S., undermining months of careful diplomacy by the Bush administration. “You may have to forego approval from the White House, but you will find the French, Soviets and others fully supportive,” Carter advised them.

It is one thing for a former president to express opposition to a policy of the sitting president, but by actively working to get foreign leaders to withdraw support for the U.S. days before troops were to be in the cross fire, Carter was taking actions that were closer to treason than they were to legitimate peace activism.

Carter’s meddling was not limited to the first Iraq War or to Republican administrations. In 1994, there was a standoff between the U.S., its allies, and North Korea over the communist country’s nuclear program. ….

Here is an example of Jimmy Carter’s personal life and that of his professional:

Trump’s Beatitudes (Jimmy Carter Comparison): We Don’t Elect Pastors

A must read article as well can be found at RELIGION NEWS NETWORK. The JERUSALEM POST has an excellent piece on Jimmy:

[….]

Dark obsession with Israel

From a mere misreading of 242, Carter descended into a dark obsession with Israel, casting it as the source of all Middle Eastern instability and a world-leading violator of human rights. His 2004 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, though based on half-truths and outright lies, effectively legitimized Israel’s delegitimization.

Yet, while reviewing the book for the Wall Street Journal, what shocked me so profoundly was Carter’s not-so-subtle antisemitism. He lambastes secular Israelis for abandoning Jewish law and condemns National-Religious Jews for fulfilling it. Whether Right or Left, Jews can do no right by Jimmy Carter. The one-time peanut farmer from Georgia who spent a lifetime repenting for his earlier racism against Blacks, conveniently forgot that the KKK also murdered Jews.

CARTER WASN’T satisfied with merely libeling Israel. His final decades were devoted to whitewashing Hamas and presenting it as an organization opposed to terror and dedicated to peace.

That was the message he conveyed on the op-ed pages of The New York Times and in public appearances worldwide. While shunning meetings with Israeli leaders, he embraced Khaled Mashaal, Ismail Haniyeh, and other terror chiefs.

He supported the Goldstone Report that condemned Israel for committing war crimes during the 2008-09 conflict with Gaza and accused Israel of systematically starving Gaza’s civilian population. The terrorists’ attempts to bore under Israel’s border were, in Carter’s telling, “defensive tunnel[s] being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.”

Sanctimonious and prideful, Carter was never popular among his successors, Democratic and Republican alike, who generally shunned him. A story told me by an Israeli official who participated in the Camp David talks summed up the reasons for this aversion.

Visiting Israel in the ’80s, well after Begin’s resignation and physical decline, Carter asked this official to arrange a phone call. The conversation lasted a few minutes, at most, the ex-official told me, during which Carter talked endlessly and Begin said nothing.

That did not prevent Carter from immediately going to the press and reporting on how he and Begin discussed the peace process and other Middle East affairs. “It was a total lie,” the official told me. “A fiction.”

A tarnished legacy

That, unfortunately, is how many Israelis will remember Jimmy Carter, a person for whom the truth, especially about Israel, was easily discounted. A person who expressed not the slightest gratitude for the Israeli medical technology that successfully treated his melanoma or for the Israeli prime minister who assured him, inaccurately, “that you’ve inscribed your name forever in the history of… the people of Israel.”

Not a Cyrus nor a Truman, in the end, Jimmy Carter, but a Nebuchadnezzar who befriended Haman.

Equating Religious Faith To Government Confiscation and Redistribution

Published by Papa Giorgio

Some Carter Flashbacks: Originally posted November 18, 2013
— Some Updated Material at the end —

This is a posted pic from FaceBook, and here is my response to this all too often used mantra:

My (or others smarter than myself) two cents.

Programs initiated as part of the War on Poverty account for roughly 70 percent of all public assistance programs today. Estimates of the total cost of the War on Poverty over fifty years range between $15 trillion and $19.8 trillion in today’s dollars. This substantial investment appears to have yielded minimal benefits for poverty reduction. On the day Johnson introduced the war on poverty, the poverty rate in the US stood at roughly 14 percent. It is now approximately 16 percent and has never fallen below 11 percent. (Cornell University)

Also, this from a very old post of mine back when my blog was on a free site instead of my current .com

If you can remember back to the 2000 election here in the U. S. and the blue state, red state scenario of which voted for Gore and which voted for Bush, I’m sure you do, even if another country. Once in a while stats are done to see which part of the country (which states in fact) give more to charity per-capita than other states. Do you know which of the top twenty states gives the most to charity? You got it, Bush country! Every single one of the red states in that top-twenty are the middle-income fly-over states. Guess how many red-states got the lower twenty of giving? Two. Eighteen States that were in the lowest giving ratio to charity were Gore states. This is even more interesting with a few recent poles. Just under 66-percent republicans go to church one-to-two times a week. Just fewer than 66-percent democrats do not even go to church once a week. DRAT those nasty/greedy religious/conservatives!

So the question becomes this for the ineffable — damn near anti-Semitic — person pictured above… what does he consider Christian? 90% of one’s income to go to the government for redistribution? 80%? 70%? When does one stop being a Christian? Kinda a sliding scale (income giving) for those who define what being a Christian is… I mean, what is “is”?

And a civics 101 lesson, our government was set up to grind to a halt… the whole “checks and balances thingy.” I would hate for the parties to get along.

An after thought.

Keep in mind as well that every dollar given to, say, the Salvation Army, about 82-cents gets to the person in need. The exact opposite it true for government. About 30-cents of every dollar spent makes it to the needy individual.

So, would reducing the charitable giving write-off from 39.6% to what Obama would like to see (28%):

a) hurt the poor,
or b) help the poor?

Using Carter’s formula, then, would you be more of a Christian if you wanted to keep the status-quo, or, less of a Christian if you wanted to drop it to twenty-eight percent?

SOME UPDATES

Was Jesus a Socialist? | 5 Minute Video

Did Jesus support socialism? Do the teachings of Jesus Christ condemn the accumulation of wealth while pushing for the equal distribution of resources? Lawrence Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education, explains the misconceptions surrounding one of history’s greatest figures. (Read his eBook titled, “Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus A Socialist?” — for free)

FEE notes this in an article

  • Jesus did not even suggest a distribution. Instead, he warned against greed while declining to play the busybody.

Some Myths About the Rich and Taxes | Medved

(FLASAHBACK) A caller challenged Michael Medved on the “system” backing the rich… to which Michael responded with some counter-points. The conversation turned to taxes, and I learned a bit about the flat-tax and the “graduated” aspect of even it. Great call and great learning curve of a response.

“The Party of the Rich” (The GOP) | Prager

(FLAHBACK) This is an old audio*. Dennis Prager deals squarely with a mantra you often hear from the left. Enjoy. 

  • *My Vimeo account was terminated, this is a recovered audio from them. To wit, what is nice is that Vimeo — while noting I did not meet their clear marks of content — did send a list of videos with links to download them. With over 1,200 videos though… it will be a task (many are already on YouTube… so I just need to weed through them). But I still think that was VERY NICE of Vimeo. I would still recommend them for church’s who are looking for places to upload sermons and other original content.

Do the Rich Pay Their Fair Share? | 5 Minute Video

Do the rich pay their fair share of taxes? It’s not a simple question. First of all, what do you mean by rich? And how much is fair? What are the rich, whoever they are, paying now? Is there any tax rate that would be unfair? UCLA Professor of Economics, Lee Ohanian, has some fascinating and unexpected answers.

See my: “The “Evil” Rich Hide Their Money ~ Mantra“

Jimmy Carter Lies About His “Tea Bagging” (Flashback)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Some Carter Flashbacks: Originally posted December 2, 2010

NewsBusters has a story about a recent interview on NPR (11-30-2010) where Jimmy Carter said he never criticized the Tea Party:

REHM: Last question, very briefly, what do you think of the Tea Party movement?

CARTER: You know, I never have criticized the Tea Party movement because, strangely enough, I capitalized on the same kind of situation politically that has made the Tea Party successful — that is, an extreme dissatisfaction with what was going on in Washington. Because I came along right after Watergate and right after the Vietnam lost and right after the assassination of the two Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Jr., and so I capitalized on that, and I was elected over some very wonderful people who were U.S. senators and immersed in the Washington scene.

…(read more)…

In case you didn’t catch it, the interview/video at the top refutes this NPR interview.

So what about those signs that Brian Williams mentions? Not a lot of people realize this, but most of the signs with connections of Obama to Hitler are actually from what I term as a political cult. It just so happens this cult is a Democratic one. For instance, as a reminder, remember this exchange?

So, since most of these sign wielding nuts are actually Democrats, where does that leave Carter’s critique?

In 1979, LaRouche formed a Political Action Committee called the National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC). LaRouche has run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States seven times, beginning in 1980….

Read more at newer links: My Updated Post | Slate

 

What are all those signs about? Is there some sort of study of them done to find out if there is a percentage of them that are racially tinged?

UCLA study: Most tea party signs not racist

A study conducted by a UCLA grad student at the 9/12 taxpayer march on Washington contains some bad news for one of the mainstream media’s favorite narratives: the old ‘racist teabaggers’ meme.

Conversely, quantitative observation showed that the alleged racism was not prominent at the rally, at least not as far as signage is concerned. And to think Obamacrats wasted all those race cards for nothin’.

[….]

The investigation showed only 25% of signs expressing antagonism towards the President himself, only 5% touching on the President’s ethnicity or faith, and a piddly 1% promoting ‘Birtherism’.

I presume the 1% was newly anointed ‘birther’ Jake Tapper, respected journalist of ABC News – or once respected until he had the temerity to mention the President’s long form birth certificate the other day.

The teabag obsessed Obama apologists at MSNBC and the New York Times will no doubt be bitterly disappointed to learn that despite the breathless hype, racism no more typifies the tea party movement than honest unslanted analysis typifies their political coverage.

This study didn’t stop the questionable signs and ask if they were Lyndon LaRouche followers. Here is another story — old news, but needed for this recent news:

NEWSBUSTERS H/T:

NewsBusters reported Thursday, a UCLA graduate student has published a study debunking the myth that the Tea Party is racist.

On Monday, Gretchen Carlson invited the study’s author on “Fox & Friends” to do what every news outlet ought to, namely, tell the truth about what the movement that is radically changing the political landscape is really all about.

[….]

Isn’t it interesting how easily this study was done?

As Carlson asked Ekins, why haven’t any news outlets, apart from Fox News and conservative websites, done any investigation into the allegations of racism within this movement to see if they were at all true?

Yes, that was a rhetorical question, for media have been trying to either dismiss or demonize the Tea Party since its inception.

THE VIDEO IS GONE, BUT THE TRANSCRIPT IS BELOW:

GRETCHEN CARLSON, HOST: Well, Brian, speaking of the Tea Party, the movement has been under attack since it started. Liberal members of the media and politicians have come out calling it racist.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANEANE GAROFALO: They have no idea what the Boston tea party was about.

KEITH OLBERMANN: That’s right.

GAROFALO: They don’t know the history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. 

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: And you see folks waving tea bags around. 

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: Carrying swastikas, symbols like that to a town hall meeting on healthcare.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man. 

HBO’s BILL MAHER: The Teabaggers, they’re not a movement. They’re a cult.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: But is the racist label accurate? A grad student at UCLA just completed a study on the Tea Party and the signs that are carried at the rallies and she came up with a much different conclusion. Joining me now to share her finding is Emily Ekins. Good morning to you, Emily

EMILY EKINS, UCLA GRADUATE STUDENT: Good to be with you. 

CARLSON: So, you went to a rally. You decided to take photographs of about 250 signs, and what did you find out? 

EKINS:Well, what I did is I tried to take a picture of every visible sign I could find and I found that over 50% of the signs were about limited government and lower spending. And only about 6% of the signs were controversial in nature. 

CARLSON: How tough was it for you to go and take these photos and come up with that conclusion? 

EKINS: You know, it was actually pretty straight forward. I’m surprised more people haven’t done this. I just went to the rally, I walked in a systemic fashion, you know, row by row, took a picture of every visible sign and then I categorized them. And I should say that I was very conscientious that any sign that, you know, could be construed as controversial, meaning they had undertones about immigration or race or Islam, you know, I was sure to include those into these controversial categories. But frankly, they just, there weren’t that many, and so it added up to six. 

CARLSON: Why do you think that your test results differ from the perception of the mainstream media and those clips that we just saw? 

EKINS: Well, honestly, I think it has everything to do with your method and your approach. I think what often happens is people go to these events, these rallies, and they’re either attracted or repelled by various signs. And if you just cover a couple of signs no matter how objective you try to be, you’re just, you can’t generalize everybody that’s there by a couple of signs. And so the method needs to be systematic that when we go to these events we need to look at all the signs. We need to say, we need to see what all the signs are telling us. And I think that method revealed something very different than a method that just looks at a few signs. 

CARLSON. Here was a quote from NAACP Ben Jealous on the Tea Parties. “We take issue with the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there’s no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement.” I mean, I guess he’s speaking to the 6% of the signs that you found that were questionable, but you still say that’s a tiny percentage in what the overall message was. 

EKINS: Yes, I mean overwhelmingly, the message is about limited government. At this particular rally that I, that I did conduct the analysis at. 

CARLSON: I know that you want to do further studies, and I find it actually amazing that nobody else has done what you chose to do. So hats off to you. But I’m interested in knowing, you’re at UCLA. What grade did you get? 

EKINS: Well, actually I’m a PhD student, so grades work differently there. This is my research for my dissertation, and actually my advisors, you know, they’re very encouraging and seeking academic truth. So they were, they were pleased with kind of the new approach and they’re very encouraging. 

CARLSON: Well, that’s very good to hear. Congratulations to you, Emily Ekins, she is a UCLA graduate student. She decided to go to that Tea Party movement and decide see what the signs are really all about. Thanks for sharing your findings with us, Emily. 

EKINS: Sure. Thank you. 

So, is this merely another nail in the “worst one’s” irrelevance coffin? I say yes, but I am sure there are NPR fans out there that disagree with me.

REASON.COM did a bang-up job in dealing with the issue:

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the Tea Party movement is “struggling to overcome accusations of racism,” some of which has been perpetuated in its editorial pages. Yesterday’s New York Times, home to the most obsessively anti-Tea Party editorial page in America, was stunned to discover that “at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans, the biggest surge since Reconstruction, according to party officials.”

Previously, The Times reported that Tea Partiers are, on average, people with a high levels of education and higher than average incomes. So it would seem that they aren’t, as some editorialists and pundits contend, simply a gang of subliterate militia men or, as actress Janeane Garofalo recently told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, a subsection of the white power movement.

Wandering the recent Tax Day tea party in Washington DC with Reason.tv, we saw some stupid signs — though none that could be considered offensive or racist. We talked to some people that claimed President Obama was both a Czarist and Bolshevik. We spoke to a former star of Saturday Night Live who has previously claimed that president might, in fact, be the anti-Christ. Or a communist. Or both. There were those who fretted that the United States were morphing into a Stalinist state. And there were countless protesters concerned that the Obama administration was spending recklessly, interested in auditing the Federal Reserve, and seething about the General Motors bailout.

So did we find that the Tea Party was motivated by race, by the fact that we now have a black president? Did it seem as if their stated concerns about health care reform and a ballooning national debt simply a smokescreen, designed to concealing a racist agenda? Here is what we found.