Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Reality Winner Reveals Deep-State Rot ~ What she did was bad enough –(leaking classified data) but because she’s such an unapologetic, unhinged leftist, the fact that she was ever allowed anywhere near classified information is really troubling – and indicative of a much more unsettling problem ~

There is no greater threat to national security than an NSA run by unelected, wholly unaccountable zealots.

 
An underwater Irish canyon is sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere ~ Excellent! Climate change solved 🙂 ~ A mapping expedition from University College Cork (UCC) has discovered an interesting phenomenon at Porcupine Bank Canyon — a massive, cliff-walled underwater trench where Ireland’s continental shelf ends ~

Along the way, the researchers reported in a statement, they noted a process at the edge of the canyon that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere and buries it deep under the sea.

Of course the science reporter feels compelled to point out that this naturally-occurring activity is hardly enough to combat the evils of climate change (nothing ever will be). But it seems to me evidence that God, in His infinite wisdom, built mechanisms into all of creation to deal with any possible contingency.
 
Trump’s Rollback of CAFE Mandates Is a Big Win for Car Buyers, Consumer Choice ~ More welcome economic news the mainstreams won’t tell you about. CAFE standards were imposed when we thought we were running out of fossil fuels. We’re not ~

A 2016 Heritage Foundation analysis estimates the Obama fuel-economy mandates increased new-car prices $6,800 more than the pre-2009 baseline trend, and that eliminating the more aggressive standards would save 2025 car buyers at least $7,200 per vehicle […]
 
Consumers—not government bureaucrats—should make decisions about what cars they drive.
 
If consumers value saving money on gasoline, they will simply choose to purchase more fuel-efficient cars, and automakers will meet that demand without a federal mandate. If consumers value other attributes—vehicle weight, engine power, safety—Washington shouldn’t force automakers to ignore consumers’ preferences.

 
Emails Reveal High School Teachers Plotting To Hide Their Political Bias From Parents ~ Something to keep in mind as the kids head back to school; the teachers may not be on your side. Massachusetts H.S. principal calls for objectivity – history teachers (who oddly enough seem to have scant knowledge of actual history) “resist” ~

The Left is abusing American high school education in its struggle—not to do good, but to gain and retain political power. The ongoing trend of growing political intolerance and ideological bigotry among the newest American adults will continue, and nothing good will come of it. In the Soviet Union, I’ve seen what young people could be turned into, what I myself could be turned into. Trust me, America hasn’t seen anything yet.

Are We All Suffering From ADHD? ~ Is technology causing us to lose our ability to focus? (Yes! I just made three mistakes typing that last sentence! ) Dr. Michael Brown suggests it’s probably time for a break ~

Digital connectivity rules most of our lives. We are in constant communication with others via cell phone or tablet or computer. We live in a flood of texts and emails and updates and notifications. We have an endless stream of friends. We are linked to an ever-growing list of contacts. We are connected to a vast array of networks.

 
Illinois: Muslim leader says “Everything we represent goes in total contradiction to what the West represents” ~ Every once in a while they slip out of taqiyya mode, and we learn the truth ~

Speaking at Hizb-ut-Tahrir America’s annual Khilafa Conference, Ibn Thbait said that “we should be working within our own system, not democracy” and warned that “our children might prefer democracy to Islam.” “Can you imagine the Prophet of Allah standing alongside the LGBTQ community? Or with Pro-Choice? Or with… the Occupy movements?” […]
 
(W)hat we need to understand is that the battle between us and the West is an ideological battle… Everything we represent goes in total contradiction to what the West represents, because all of Islam is in opposition to secularism.

All of which begs the question, why are they here?

 
‘Big One’ talk swirls as 69 massive earthquakes hit the Pacific’s Ring of Fire in 48 hours ~ Hurricane Lane may not be the only threat facing Hawaii ~

Sixty-nine earthquakes, including 16 tremors registering 4.5 or above on the Richter scale, recently hit the area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which recorded the events but did not issue a warning […]
 
The Ring of Fire is a 25,000 mile horseshoe-shaped ring, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes, according to the USGS.
 
The region also contains 452 volcanoes, more than 75 percent of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes.

 
Another Greenie Bites the Dust. Aussie PM Forced out by Climate Policy ~ A promising development but, as James Delingpole points out, just a first step in the logical direction ~

Green energy has been a disaster for parts of Australia, notably in the state of South Australia which was brought to its knees by the policies of its environmentalist Labor government. Its drive towards 40 percent renewables led to blackouts and brownouts across the state, which hammered industry and smaller consumers alike. Eventually, the government was booted out by disgusted voters.

New HHS Documents Reveal that ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ Processed During Obama Years Included Violent Criminals, Drug Smugglers, and Human Traffickers ~ The mainstreams kind of missed all this during the halcyon years of BHO ~

“The Obama administration presided over a humanitarian and public safety nightmare in its handling of ‘unaccompanied alien children,’” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The incident reports also support the Trump administration’s contention that the UAC crisis, which continues, includes murderers, rapists, drug smugglers and human traffickers being routinely allowed into the United States.”

Welfare Ban for Immigrants Would ‘Help Out the American Taxpayer’ ~ President Trump has proposed a plan to keep foreign nationals who rely on welfare from permanently resettling in the U.S.. After all, where is it written that America is supposed to be the world’s welfare state? ~

“This isn’t some radical new change,” (RJ Hauman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform [FAIR]) said. “Public charge doctrine has existed in the country since 1882, the Immigration Act of 1882, which gave the government the ability to restrict entry of any person who is unable to take care of themselves without becoming a public charge.” […]
 
Such a plan would be a boon for American taxpayers, who currently spend about $57.4 billion a year on paying for the welfare, crime, and schooling costs of the country’s mass importation of 1.5 million new, mostly low skilled legal immigrants every year.

 
95% of plastic in oceans comes from just ten rivers ~ All those rivers are in Asia and Africa. Sorry California, your authoritarian plastic straw ban is futile.

 
Social Media Titans Holding Private Meeting To Coordinate Strategy For 2018 Midterms ~ To “coordinate strategy” for shutting up anyone who disagrees with them! This doesn’t infringe on our First Amendment rights at all does it? ~

If the coordinated takedown of Alex Jones, Infowars and those in his orbit is a taste of what’s to come, along with the aggressive “shadow bans” and “strikes” which are automatically triggered when activist groups swarm targeted accounts with complaints, it’s clear that regardless of what Jack Dorsey (Twitter’s CEO) claims – there is a clear mechanism for mass censorship of political opinions which is disproportionately punishing conservatives.

 
Oprah Winfrey Faces Huge Backlash After Promoting Campaign for Women Celebrating Their Abortions ~ Glad to see her fans haven’t drifted quite as far to the Left as she has ~

Aside from the most radical abortion supporters, most Americans do not think abortions are good or worth celebrating. Polls consistently find that most Americans oppose most abortions, and more think abortions are morally wrong than morally acceptable.

Oprah’s position is sad. Not just on the face of it, but because, as a single, childless woman, and someone who seems basically decent, it seems likely that she would truly have regrets about what might have been. 🙁

Wow. When did we ever see our previous president – you know, the self-professed “Christian” one – get tough with an Islamic dictator? Better yet, when did we ever hear him speak up in defense of any Christians? Yeah, Mr. Genuine.
 
That’s why it’s so awesome to see that Donald Trump is afraid to do neither! ~ Trump on US pastor jailed in Turkey: ‘We will pay nothing for the release of an innocent man’ ~

Turkey has taken advantage of the United States for many years. They are now holding our wonderful Christian Pastor, who I must now ask to represent our Country as a great patriot hostage. We will pay nothing for the release of an innocent man, but we are cutting back on Turkey!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2018

Fox News reported on the president’s remarks last Friday ~

“I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will now be 20% and Steel 50%,” Trump tweeted Friday. “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”
 
The Turkish lira weakened in value from 4.7 on the dollar to 6.4 on the dollar Friday, for the first time in history breaking the 6 mark […]
 
The Trump administration has threatened more sanctions if Turkey does not release Brunson.

I’ve been blogging about Pastor Brunson for months now (Here, here and here). Although he was finally allowed to leave the miserable prison he’d been confined to last month, he’s still under house arrest. It’s now been almost two years since he was first detained (Oct. 7, 2016).
 
Initially, I was worried that Trump didn’t quite realize what Erdoğan was up to – that is, ruthlessly trying to reconstitute an Islamic caliphate. But the president must have read my 4-20-17 post 😀 But he certainly has no illusions now ~

With Turkey’s economy already in a downward spiral, the president’s treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, announced more financial pressure is on the way if Turkey doesn’t release Pastor Brunson.
 
“As you know, we were very clear with our counterparts there, both Secretary (Mike) Pompeo and myself, on the release of the pastor. We’ve put sanctions on several of the cabinet members. Working with you, we have more that we’re planning to do if they don’t release him quickly,” Mnuchin told the president.

 
According to Business Insider, Turkey’s president threatened a major blow to the US — but Trump looks to have called his bluff ~

But with the US economy doing well and Turkey’s economy and prospects quickly tanking, Erdogan has little room to maneuver. He has plenty of reason to wish for mercy from the US, but little reason to expect it unless it falls in line with the US’s calls to release Brunson and drop the Russian missiles.

 
Let’s pray they’re right.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
Speaking of Turkey… (June 27, 2018)
“Turkey has turned into a veritable madhouse” (Nov. 10, 2017)
Turkey’s Islamist regression – Trump approves? ~ This was back in April, 2017. Clearly Trump now recognizes Erdoğan for the tyrant he is.

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Psychologists warn ‘Trump Anxiety Disorder’ is soaring ~ Unemployment is way down, the economy is booming, the ISIS threat in minimized, the world is a safer place… and the drones are losing it. On the one hand, it’s pretty humorous. On the other – these low-information folks are a smoldering powder keg. Who knows when they may blow?

Mental health professionals at the American Psychological Association (APA) revealed in its Stress in America: Coping with Change report that it has the numbers to prove that Trump is driving the nation into a mental crisis.

 
Comedy Threatens Liberalism So Liberals Want To Kill It ~ Kurt Schlichter explains how the Left’s intolerance has sucked all the humor out of entertainment ~

Back when comedy was funny, before it got woke, the left used to use it to undermine traditional culture. Now that they have the wheel of the cultural car, they are afraid that people pointing and giggling at their hypocrisy, venality, and stupidity will make them lose control and crash.

 
Australian university cancels speech by major critic of transgenderism ~ The campus thought police are actively suppressing free speech in Oz also ~

The University of Western Australia (UWA) has canceled a speech by a prominent critic of transgenderism just days after admitting that canceling the speech would set a negative precedent for academic debate.

The rise of Climate superstition: Droughts, heatwaves, random noise is “proof” of anything you like ~ JoNova points out how, by cherry-picking facts, climatists can make any particular weather phenomenon, no matter how brief, fit their pet theory ~

Now, thanks to the discovery of Unscience, any noisy, random short data is fair game to be declared undeniable climate change […]
 
In terms of scientific data analysis we don’t get that many droughts or six-day-August-heatwaves to analyze. They’re complex phenomena caused by multiple factors and we only have short records. This makes them ideal to be oversold to hapless folk as a “sign” of climate change.

 
Italy to restore ‘mother…father’ on website forms, replacing ‘parent 1…parent 2’ ~ Execellent, a return to sanity ~

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s Catholic Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, appears to be fighting to reestablish the prestige of the natural family while taking a swing at gender ideology.

Europe needs more leaders like this guy ~

Commenting on an attack from the Famiglia Cristiana magazine, which likened him to Satan for his hard-nosed approach to illegal migration, Salvini told La Nuova Bussola Quotidiano that many Catholic laity, priests and bishops have encouraged him to continue in that direction. “The best antidote to racism is migration under control,” he said.

 
Police raid addresses in Nottingham and Birmingham over Westminster ‘terror attack’: British suspect who WAS known to officers but not MI5 ‘used a Ford Fiesta bought two months ago to mow down 15 cyclists’ ~ More vehicular jihad in Londonistan. Fortunately no one was killed… this time.

 
Meanwhile, in Scandinavia ~ Sweden: Masked “youths” rampage in no-go zones, torch 100 cars, “extremely organized,” “like a military operation” ~ Muslim riots air-brushed out of most mainstream news ~

“Youths” is a frequent establishment media euphemism for Muslims. If they were in Britain, they’d be “Asians.”
 
This is indeed a military operation. It is part of the jihad to bring down the Swedish state and replace it with an Islamic government […]
 
Shocking video of fire engulfing numerous vehicles in Gothenburg spread on social media Monday evening with other footage clearly showing masked people in dark clothing intentionally lighting the blazes.

 
Reporter Catches CNN Attempting to Lie About Kermit Gosnell and Abortion ~ A new feature film about the abortionist/ murderer, “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” is scheduled for release in October. The mainstreams didn’t cover the shocking story when it unfolded back in 2013 and it looks like they’re determined to ignore the movie as well.
 

Food Donated To Puerto Rico Hurricane Victims Found Rotting In Parking Lot ~ But the bungled relief efforts after last September’s Hurricane Maria were all Trump’s fault? ~

Ten shipping containers filled with food, baby products, and over-the-counter medications like Tylenol — all supplies desperately needed in the days and weeks following Hurricane Maria — were found rotting in a Puerto Rico parking lot last week, never distributed […]

 
The items, Radio Isla reports, were all private donations made by non-profits. Those items were “collected at the election commissions offices, and then distributed to the National Guard,” who gave the items to struggling residents. After the crisis subsided, though, Puerto Rico’s government officials apparently gave up on distributing supplies and left them rotting, still in their trailers, just outside their offices in San Juan.

 
Hospital staff offer euthanasia to incurable Canadian man who wants to live ~ It’s the tragedy many of us warned about: Euthanasia + nationalized health care = death panels ~

“It is the real truth of what is going on in Canada regarding so many assisted deaths without appropriate safeguards, in combination with the lack of necessary care that is not being provided to persons who are suffering,” Foley says.

Massachusetts Republican beats trans driver’s license bill by forcing votes on all 73 genders ~ A creative solution to the trans-insanity. The Massachusetts senate approved legislation adding a “Gender X” option to driver’s licenses. Republican Rep. Jim Lyons foiled them in the state house by pushing their nonsense to its logical conclusion ~

“Since all Democrats must admit that the number of genders is endless, how dare the commonwealth lump all the new genders together as ‘Gender X’?” Carr writes, summarizing Lyons’ facetious reasoning. “Every gender, he declared, must be listed on Massachusetts driver’s licenses! That was Lyons’ non-negotiable demand. No justice, no peace” […]
 
Knowing that his liberal colleagues couldn’t rule any of the genders out of order without undermining the logic of transgender ideology, Lyons introduced each as a separate amendment to the bill the evening of July 31, each requiring 10 minutes of debate and three minutes to vote on.

Eventually they ran out of time; the bill was dropped. Common sense can prevail – even in dark blue states.

 
Aimless fighting in Afghanistan — while we bring Afghanistan to our shores ~ Daniel Horowitz at Conservative Review explains the futility of wasting lives and resources on a foreign quagmire ~

Here’s a novel idea: What if we focused on our own borders, stopped self-destructing through our front-door immigration policies, busted up terror financing networks globally and domestically, and disrupted the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical networks operating here at home?
 
Unlike China, Russia, North Korea, and potentially Iran, nothing that happens in these Sunni hellholes – from Somalia, Yemen, Niger, and Mali to Syria and Afghanistan – can harm us … unless we bring them to our country, as we did for years and are increasingly doing now. Yet our endless and aimless missions, chasing our tails in their sand dunes at a cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of precious U.S. lives, have depleted our resources and our resolve to deal with those who truly pose a conventional threat to our homeland, now or in the future.

The Constitutional Right to a Security Clearance ~ Mark Steyn’s take on the Left’s misplaced outrage over John Brennan’s divestment (w/video) ~

Brennan, a man psychologically unfit to be either CIA director or “former CIA director”, is now the darling of the left – the people’s spook, on whose behalf Senator Blumenthal is arguing that America’s founders had cannily foreseen the need for a security clearance.

 
‘It’s God. It’s All God’: Building Relationships and Sharing Christ in Predominantly Muslim Dearborn ~ Some very encouraging news that I had to learn about from CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) even though we’re only 20 miles away from Dearborn, MI ~

The church sits less than 10 minutes away from the Islamic Center of America, in the heart of a neighborhood that’s 97 percent Muslim.
 
“Jesus said, ‘I want you here.’ So we’re here,” Hancock said. “And what better place in the whole wide world to find people that don’t know Jesus, that need him and need what Jesus has to offer.”