Flipping “The Bird” in America’s Face!

Flipping “The Bird” in America’s Face!
The Abomination at Ground Zero!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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We knew the minute the first reports hit the wires concerning the building of an Islamic mosque on a site so near Ground Zero in New York City, that it would be approved. All one had to do was consider the liberal government of New York City.

Liberals are nothing, if they are not predictable. We American conservatives have known that for, oh, about two and half centuries. Our enemies know it, too. And they take advantage of it.

The most current example of intimidating a liberal government into giving them what they want is the mosque at Ground Zero.

Yes, the NYC government is pathetic. I can think of no other word to better describe their actions. Well, actually, I CAN, but they are unprintable here.

As a conservative, I have grown deeply weary of being expected to continuously bail the liberals out of trouble in order to save our country. We have done it for so long, now, that they seem to expect us to be on stand-by every minute of every day to rescue them. I have often wondered if we simply stopped bailing their butts out, it would force them to be a bit more circumspect with the security of the nation. But elitism, and arrogance are powerful drugs, especially to liberals and progressives, and I suspect it would take another 250 years for them to realize they are on their own and actually responsible for the welfare of the US.

Look, New York was played like a Stradivarius. Those behind that mosque knew all they had to do was play the part of a poor, put upon, minority – and a religious one at that, and it would so intimidate the leaders of New York, one of the most liberal cities in the world, they would melt like a skewered marshmallow over a girl scout’s camp fire. And of course they did just that. May we suggest that New York City drop the use of the nickname, “The Big Apple,” and immediately adopt “The Big Marshmallow” because it is far more accurate in its description of the reality that is today’s New York City.

Our politically correct leaders have so bought into the BS about diversity, and inclusiveness, until it has become a sickness. We have forgotten the scriptural warning that “a little leaven leavens the whole lot.” We have embraced political correctness until we have devolved from a crucible to a melting pot to a sewer.

The mosque at Ground Zero, just 600 feet from our national wound, is only the latest evidence of the limp-wristed fecklessness of our dangerously naive leaders -- at all levels of government.

If any more evidence is required, look only to our southern border. How much longer will our government look away while an insurgency takes over our southern neighbor, Mexico? At some point, the US will be required to invade Mexico and TRY to set things aright. All the while Mexico’s citizens are streaming north into America and into the waiting arms -- and pocketbooks -- of the clueless citizens of sanctuary cities.

The hard core of America has been diluted by inclusiveness and diversity. Our leadership is hopelessly naïve, clueless, and pathetically incapable to lead the US as a world power – let alone a world super power.

The mosque at ground zero is nothing more that an “in your face” insult to the American people. It is grandstanding. It is an “end zone dance” celebrating a victory over the infidels of the Great Satan, America! It is adding insult to injury.

New York’s government has brought shame not only on New York, not only on the families of those who lost their lives on 9/11, but on the entire country. What they did is immeasurably disgusting.

J. D. Longstreet

Change the 14th Amendment! No More Anchor Babies!

Change the 14th Amendment! No More Anchor Babies!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told “The Hill” on Monday that Congress “ought to take a look at” changing the 14th Amendment, which gives the children of illegal immigrants a right to U.S. citizenship.

There is growing support within the GOP for the controversial idea, which has also recently been touted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Senator McConnell said: “I think we ought to take a look at it — hold hearings, listen to the experts on it,” McConnell said. “I haven’t made a final decision about it, but that’s something that we clearly need to look at. Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform, I don’t think anybody thinks that’s something they’re comfortable with.”

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has said: “There is a constitutional provision in the 14th Amendment that has been interpreted to provide that, if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what. … And so the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?” Kyl went on to say: “We should hold some hearings and hear first from the constitutional experts to at least tell us what the state of the law on that proposition is.” Kyl’s Remarks were made on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last Sunday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has said: “birthright citizenship is a mistake.” We should change our Constitution and say if you come illegally and you have a child, that child is automatically not a citizen.” Read the entire article here:("THE HILL")

If you are a regular reader of our rants, then you know we have been calling for an end to the practice of “Anchor Babies” for a good long while now.

Anchor babies are children born in the United States to illegal alien parents. “These children may instantly qualify for welfare and other state and local benefit programs. Additionally with the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, the child may sponsor other family members for entry into the United States when he or she reaches the age of twenty-one (See also Chain Migration). The sheer numbers are staggering. In Stockton, California (2003), 70 percent of the 2,300 babies, born in San Joaquin General Hospital’s maternity ward were anchor babies.” (From FAIR The Federation for American Immigration reform. You may read the entire article here: SOURCE)

Section one, of the 14th amendment, was written to ensure that former slaves would enjoy full citizenship in the US. But, it has been stretched to encompass the babies of those who have entered this country illegally. Once that baby is born, they have their “anchor” here and, at age 21 that now “grown” baby, can petition the government to bring his family into the US as well.

It is estimated that 300,000, or more, anchor babies are born each year in the United States. The US is now the only country, which allows this practice. Ireland did, for a while, but quickly changed the law when it became obvious that pregnant immigrants from Africa were flooding their country every year. The Anchor Babies instantly quality for a host of federal, state, and even local benefit programs. All of this happens as a result of the way the courts decided to interpret the 14th amendment to the US Constitution.

One must remember that at the time the 14th amendment was passed, the United States had no immigration policy at all. The amendment was added to our Constitution as part of the reforms (after the Civil War), which were intended to address injustices to African Americans. It states: "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States." It was worded in that manner to stop any state government from denying citizenship to anyone born in the United States.

Look closely at the wording of the amendment. Notice the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The intention of that phrase was to exclude from automatic citizenship American-born persons whose allegiance to the United States was not complete.

It is the belief of many in the US, today, that illegal aliens (who are in the US unlawfully, remember) have little, if any, allegiance to the US. At the very least that allegiance is “incomplete. Therefore, it logically follows that any children born of them, within the US, are NOT automatically United States citizens.

Action by Congress is needed, and needed desperately, to make clear, once and for all, that the 14th Amendment did not intend for children of illegal aliens, born in the US, to automatically become citizens.

It is time to lean on our Congresspersons and Senators and let them know how you feel about "Anchor Babies." Let them know you want it stopped. Let them know you want the US borders sealed, and secured, and the illegal aliens already within the US deported – and -- you want the 14th Amendment changed to put a stop to Anchor Babies once and for all.

J. D. Longstreet

Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque ... Alan Caruba

Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque
By Alan Caruba
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In the August 3rd edition of The Wall Street Journal, in the Greater New York section, the lead article was “9/11 Memorial Pledged as Part of Mosque Plan.”

There already is a 9/11 memorial. It is called Ground Zero and will be incorporated into whatever structure that eventually gets built on the site.

If one continued to read the story, however, you had to jump to page A21 where side-by-side with the mosque story was one titled, “Verdict in JFK Bomb Plot”, subtitled “Jury Finds Two Guilty in Conspiracy Charges for Plan to Ignite Fuel Tanks.”
The two men found guilty were Abdul Kadir and Russell Defreitas. A third defendant, Kareem Ibrahim, was ill and didn’t go to trial with them and a fourth, Abdel Nur, took a plea deal and faces up to 15 years in prison. At no time in the body of the article is there any mention that these men are Muslims though that fact was critical to their plot.

It was noted that “the men tried to get help from al Qaeda operative Adnan Shukrijumah who was recently indicted in federal court in a plot to attack the New York City subway system with suicide bombers.”

How many Muslim plots to kill thousands of New Yorkers does it take before the plotters are identified as Muslims?

The reason why there should be no mosque built where the debris and dust of the Twin Towers showered down on the very spot is obvious to any American. It would be an obscenity.

It is obscene to wish to build a mosque within sight of where 2,700 people lost their lives in an act of Islamic terrorism, an act of war, a jihad.

How this simple fact escapes the notice of Mayor Mike Bloomberg defies understanding, but this same Mayor originally thought the failed Times Square bomb could have been placed by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

No, it could not be “anything”! Of the many plots hatched since 9/11, it is likely that 99.9% have been by Muslims, whether native born or immigrants.This is not about tolerance. In New York, every Friday in several locations through the city where there are mosques that cannot accommodate all who wish to enter for prayers, the overflow fills the surrounding streets between 2 PM and 4 PM. They block traffic in ways no other group of religionists would ever be permitted. It is surreal.

There is something especially abhorrent about Mayor Bloomberg’s dazzling ignorance because as a Jew he seems to have not absorbed the lessons of history and, in particular, the Holocaust that killed six million Jews and five million Christians; nuns and priests, Lutherans, gypsies, and others swept up by the Nazi death machine. Hannah Arendt attended the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi charged with rounding up and killing Europe’s Jews. Her book, “Eichmann and the Holocaust”, was published in 1963 and enshrined the phrase, “the banality of evil” in our modern lexicon.

For Arendt, Eichmann was a “new type of criminal, who commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or feel that he is doing wrong.” Not so new because the crimes of Islam against all who are not Islamic (and some who are thanks to the Shiite-Sunni schism) are very old and fill the headlines of today’s newspapers.

The Muslims who flew commercial airliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did not think they were doing wrong. They were doing what the Koran and almost every imam with the breath to preach told them to do; they were killing infidels.

This is why a mosque within steps of Ground Zero is so inherently wrong. It says that the intended victims of Islamic domination are simply too blind to envision their fate, too fearful to confront evil, to ready to get on the next train to Auschwitz.

Alan Caruba

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Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.© Alan Caruba, 2010

Will Raising Taxes On The Rich Threaten Your Job?

Will Raising Taxes On The Rich Threaten Your Job?
Poor People Don’t Provide Jobs!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Rich people provided every job I have had in my life. I expect the same is true of your work history.

One of the truisms in life is this: “If You Bought Something, Someone Worked to Make It; If You Have Something that Requires Service, Someone Is Servicing It; If You Have A Lot of Money, It Is Working Somewhere.” (SOURCE)

Today in America unemployment is hovering near the ten percent mark. Well, that is the figure supplied the public by the government. Honestly, I am not comfortable with the unemployment figures provided us by the government. I have heard reports from private organizations that the REAL national unemployment figures are closer to 22% than 10%.

How can that be? Because the government plays all sorts of “tricks” with the numbers to get a, shall we say-- more favorable figure for the administration in power at the time. A true accounting would very likely result in a figure closer to 22% than that ten percent we have been offered for sometime now.

Let’s say we split the difference and agree that the real unemployment rate in America today is around 16% to 17%. That is still a whopping chunk of the American workforce out of work.

Why are there no jobs, then? Well, that takes us back to the point I made at the beginning of this piece. Wealthy people provide the jobs in America.

Yes, the wealthy still have money. Maybe not as much as they had before the recession hit us so hard, but they still have an ample supply. But they are not spending it on plant expansions, new operations, purchasing new equipment, building up their inventory, etc, etc. When that money they are sitting on is static, when it is not working, then it is not creating jobs. As a result, Americans can’t find jobs.

For the most part, rich people are not fools. They did not get rich by doing stupid things. Risking their fortunes on an American economy on the threshold of being regulated into oblivion by a President and a government on the cusp of completely embracing socialism and fascism would, indeed, be stupid.

Wealthy Americans are nervous. They are sitting on their money waiting, and hoping, for better times, when they can again put their fortunes to work creating jobs for the American work force and making lots more money for themselves. That’s the way business works.

I don’t know where the idea that -- business is in business to do you and I a favor -- originated. But I tell you as strongly as I can, that it is untrue. Business is in business to make money, to make a profit, for the owners and the stockholders of that business.

Bludgeoning the wealthy with even more taxes is certainly not going to make them take what’s left of their fortunes and blow it on “make work” jobs creating “stuff” the public doesn’t have the money to buy because they don’t have the jobs with which to earn the money it takes to purchase that “stuff.”

If anything, increased taxes will result in the wealthy holding even tighter to their fortunes and spending even less of it. It will also result in corporations looking for countries around the globe that have a ready workforce, willing to work for much lower wages, and a government that is willing to provide a tax friendly environment within which that corporation can operate at a substantial profit. The latter is happening even as America is beginning the long road back from the recession.

Corporations have seen where the American government is going with their regulations and taxes and they are not stupid enough to sit here on American soil and allow the new American socialism to take over their corporate investments. They are getting out – sooner, or later -- and they are taking their companies offshore to countries that welcome the jobs they bring to that country’s people with open arms.

So, the answer to the question I posed above is – yes. Higher taxes, on the rich, do threaten your job. There is no question about it.

We haven’t even touched on the whether, or not, the government’s taking over half of what a wage earner makes to redistribute to those who make less, is even moral. I didn’t bother to spend much ink on that topic because the answer is so obvious. NO, it is NOT MORAL. It is, in fact, thievery. When a government does it -- it is called taxing. When an individual does it, it is called robbery.

In the next few weeks, we Americans are going to hear and see a lot of debate about raising taxes on Americans, and on American business. Raising taxes will prolong the recession, and make the unemployment figures continue at unacceptable highs. It will also drive many large corporations away from America and stop those considering locating in America to look elsewhere. In short, higher taxes will crush what is left of the American economy.

With Election Day approaching we ask that you observe which political party is pushing those higher taxes, and remember them when you cast your vote in November.

J. D. Longstreet

EPA morphs into the 'Blob'

(Published here with permission from TYSK NEWS.)

EPA morphs into the 'Blob'

From TYSK News

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Remember the old Sci-Fi flick The Blob? The Blob engulfed everything in its path.


“A mysterious creature from another planet, resembling a giant blob of jelly, lands on earth. The people of a nearby small town refuse to listen to some teenagers who have witnessed the blob's destructive power. “In the meantime, the blob just keeps on getting bigger.” [source]

Not content with declaring the air you exhale as a pollutant – a.k.a. carbon dioxide – the EPA is now considering the regulation of dust!!

Specifically, the dust generated by the evil practice of ... farming.

EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust

OKLAHOMA CITY — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators [21 Senators – link for letter] have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history." It further states, "We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether its livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event."

Many in the Oklahoma farming industry are opposed to the EPA's consideration. One farmer said the possible regulations are ridiculous.

"It's plain common sense, we don't want to do anything detrimental," said farmer Curtis Roberts. "If the dust is detrimental to us, it's going to be to everybody. We're not going to do anything to hurt ourselves or our farm."

Roberts, a fourth generation farmer and rancher in Arcadia, said regulating dust in rural areas will hurt farmers' harvest, cultivation and livelihood.

Full article here: http://tinyurl.com/295xhpg

Effort Already Underway to Repeal ObamaCare

Effort Already Underway to Repeal ObamaCare
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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It is “not getting much press,” as they say, but the repeal of ObamaCare is very real in the US House of Representatives. “More than three-quarters of the needed members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed onto a measure to have a new vote on Obamacare that essentially would allow the chamber to withdraw its approval of the law and begin the process of banishing it from American shores.” (From World Net Daily. For more go HERE.)

Well, that’s interesting, what? Hadn’t heard about it – had you?

Are you surprised?

You shouldn’t be. With the mainstream media in the tank for Obama, they seem ready to sweep under the rug, look the other way, or completely ignore, in this case, one of the biggest stories leading up to the Democratic Party massacre in the Mid-Term Election just a few weeks away.

Ok, so what’s going on with the efforts to repeal ObamaCare, anyway?

According to WND, the discharge petition has already obtained 162 signatures of the 218 it will need. Under the provisions of the discharge procedures in the House, the signatures of 218 members, a majority, of the 435-member chamber is needed before it can move forward. As the 218 signatures IS a majority of the House membership, it is near certain to be approved once it reaches the point of advancement. With a majority signing onto the discharge petition, Speaker Pelosi cannot stop it.

You may remember that all of the Republicans and 34 Democrats opposed Obamacare when it was passed on a narrow 219-212 vote earlier this year. That should mean that at least 212 members of the House should be ready to repeal ObamaCare since they were against it, and voted against it, just a few months ago. If it turns out that way, those pushing the discharge petition will only need a handful (roughly a half dozen) of democrats for the petition to advance.

Now, all of this activity on the repeal of ObamaCare has been going on, successfully, in the face of massive opposition from Speaker Pelosi and the hardcore Obamacrats in the U. S. House.

You may remember that Pelosi said they’d have to pass ObamaCare before we could find out what was in it, right? Well, they passed it, and we read it, and the majority of the electorate is P.O.ed that the US Congress would foist such a statist, socialist, piece of bovine scatology on the American citizens. As a result, the Democrats in the current “Kamikaze Kongress” are facing the worst defeat at the polls in the modern history of the United States.

This November, a slew of Democrats are going to have to answer to their constituents for having voted for socialized medicine and saddling those same voters with massive tax increases, and even more government intrusion in their lives.

If there are any two things Americans hate, it is taxes and government meddling in their private lives.

Here’s the wording on the petition: "Pursuant to clause 2 of rule XV, I, Steve King of Iowa, move to discharge the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, Education and Labor, the Judiciary, Natural Resources, Rules, House Administration and Appropriations from the consideration of the bill (H.R. 4972) to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was referred to said committees on March 25, 2010, in support of which motion the undersigned Members of the House of Representatives affix their signatures."

So, the effort to repeal ObamaCare is underway and your help is needed. If you want to see this law, which was dragged from the sewer of socialism, repealed -- and a spike driven through its heart so that it can never be revived -- then we suggest you contact your congressperson right away and tell them you want them to sign on to the discharge petition TODAY! With your help it is not impossible to overturn ObamaCare during THIS SESSION of Congress!

Congressman John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, is recently reported to have said: "While rushing their massive government takeover of health care through Congress, President Obama and congressional Democrats promised it would create jobs, lower costs, reduce the deficit, allow Americans to keep their health care, protect seniors' coverage, prohibit taxpayer-funded abortion and, of course, gain the support of the American people…” Boehner continued: "It isn't just that none of these promises or predictions have turned out to be true. In every instance, Obamacare has made matters worse."

Boehner went on to say: "The American people remain squarely opposed to this government takeover of health care that has already failed to live up to specific promises made by President Obama and Washington Democrats.

"Republicans are listening to the American people, and fighting to repeal Obamacare so we can replace it with common-sense reforms focused on lowering costs and protecting jobs…"

There is much to be done to ensure the repeal of ObamaCare and the sooner we begin -- the sooner we will be rid of this abomination from the depths of hell.

There is an online petition to support the repeal of ObamaCare you may wish to sign HERE.

It is time to take your life out of the hands of the government. We begin by repealing ObamaCare.

J. D. Longstreet

Mrs. Madoff exonerates Michael Mann ... Paul Driessen

Mrs. Madoff exonerates Michael Mann
Yet another investigation makes Tom Sawyer proud – and promotes alarmist climate legislation
Paul Driessen

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Pennsylvania State University recently released a report summarizing its final “investigation” into whether one of its employees had committed scientific misconduct. The report exonerated Dr. Michael Mann of all charges, although he did receive a tap on the wrist – for sharing unpublished manuscripts with third parties without first getting the authors’ permission!

The result was hardly unexpected. Most experts who question climate disaster claims had assumed Penn State would produce a whitewash. PSU stood to lose significantly in reputation and dollars if it found that Dr. Mann had cheated on research and engaged in other conduct unbecoming of a university professor. What was surprising is the reason it gave for its “not guilty” finding.

Dr. Mann could not possibly be guilty, the report averred, because his “level of success in proposing research and obtaining funding” was possible only because he had “met or exceeded the highest standards of his profession.” Indeed, his research was consistently “judged to be outstanding by his peers.”

Mann’s innocence was further proven, said Penn State, by the awards and recognition he has received. For example, his “hockey stick” temperature graph for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change played a significant role in the IPCC receiving the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Had his “conduct been outside the range of accepted practices, it would have been impossible for him to receive so many awards and recognitions,” the report argued.

Such a circular tautology would earn an “F” in introductory college reasoning courses. It is eerily similar to views taken by starry-eyed investors and SEC officials before they realized Bernie had Madoff with billions in client money. The Penn State report is akin to what Mrs. Madoff might issue following her “investigation” of his conduct, “investment” strategies, “standards,” accolades and awards.

Dr. Mann and many of his “peers” were implicated in the Climategate scandals, obstruction of legitimate FOIA requests via deletion of emails, manipulation of global warming temperature data and research, and the politicized funding system that kept them and their institutions awash in government/taxpayer dollars. They conferred awards and recognition on each other, excluded skeptical scientists from “peer reviews” of one another’s papers, and conspired to blackball editors who permitted the publication of professional papers by Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, Patrick Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer and other climate experts whose work challenged the Mann-made global warming disaster thesis.

In so doing, Mann and his colleagues promoted laws, treaties and regulatory schemes that imposed higher prices and greater government/activist control over energy use, economic growth, and virtually everything modern societies eat, drive, make, ship and do. They, their institutions, and a host of politicians, bureaucrats, bankers and corporate executives thus had a direct stake in the science, politics and “renewable energy future” supported by billions of dollars in annual research grants – and in ensuring that no investigation upset this convenient golden apple cart.

It is these “accepted practices” and “highest standards of the profession” that are being protected here. It is for this reason that the “investigation” was conducted solely by Penn State – which permitted no contradictory evidence, no adverse witnesses, and no cross-examination of Dr. Mann or anyone knowledgeable about his research, funding and alleged misconduct.

Penn State’s Tom Sawyeresque report says far more than the university could possibly have intended about the “highest standards” prevailing today in climate research arena, and the way universities circle the wagons, protect their “rainmakers” and continue taking our money, while throwing “manmade climate disaster” skeptics under the bus or shipping them off to academic Siberia.

One could accurately (and sadly) say there is nothing new under the sun.

A 1988 NOVA program on PBS investigated the causes and extent of cheating in academia. “Do Scientists Cheat?” interviewed several scientists who discussed how easy and tempting it was to lie and falsify research. Indeed, observed JAMA senior Editor Bruce Dan, while peer review “is a wonderful process for throwing out garbage, I can’t see that [it] can detect fraud, except in a few lucky chances.”

The show focused on two high-profile cases – John Darsee and Robert A. Slutsky, convicted perpetrators of scientific misconduct. Both researchers were well-funded, had numerous publications, won prestigious awards, and were on the fast-track to academic stardom. Both were brought down when other scientists suspected fraud in their work. Investigators concluded that most of their papers were either questionable or demonstrably fraudulent. Many of their co-authors were implicated and their reputations tarnished.

Ironically, one of the NOVA interviewees was Professor Rustum Roy, head of the Materials Research Lab at – Penn State University. He said cheating often occurs because researchers are under intense pressure to publish, win awards, and raise more money each year just to keep their labs going, employ research assistants and provide their academic institutions with 40-50% of each grant for “overhead.” Hard cheating, Roy explained, occurred when a scientist concludes he can get away with compromising or cutting corners a little bit, so why not take it a step further?

Thus, those who have big research fiefdoms, are prolific publishers and win many awards have the most to gain by misconduct. They are also most likely to get away with it, partly because of their reputation –and partly because academia has too many incentives to look the other way and avoid taking actions that could bring disrepute on the university and cut off the financial gravy train.

This translates into a high degree of moral apathy toward scientific misconduct, the PBS program argued. Academics are much less outraged than one might expect, even when confronted by obvious fraud. This, of course, undermines the integrity of science, and the ethics of its practitioners.

Perhaps more importantly, the program demonstrated that whistleblowers who exposed fraud were more likely to be the target of investigations than the alleged perpetrators. This sends a chilling message to anyone who might raise academic misconduct questions, and further insulates guilty parties.

The NOVA program also included excerpts from a House Committee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on academic misconduct. “Unfortunately, few universities, when confronted with the task of investigating misconduct, have conducted as thorough or candid a self-appraisal” as they should have, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI) noted.

In fact, universities that conduct investigations of their own scientists were like the “fox actively investigating the chicken coop. The university gets first crack at the data and witnesses, and gets to frame the issues…. There is a natural tendency to limit the damage.”

The program ends with the question: “Does the scientific community really want to expose misconduct?”

Unfortunately, the answer seems to be, No. Worse, over the last 20 years, the problem has only gotten worse, while the stakes have become infinitely higher.

Vastly larger sums of money are involved: $9 billion in 2009 for climate change and renewable energy research alone. Phony studies of melting Himalayan glaciers, disappearing Amazon rainforests, etc etc etc continue to garner attention and praise in IPCC reports, news stories and congressional statements.

The bogus science is used to justify energy and environmental policies, laws, treaties, court decisions and subsidies that will enrich some, bankrupt others, control our lives, and send millions of jobs overseas. Meanwhile, the investigation by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is heatedly denounced by the very academics and institutions that refuse to conduct honest investigations of their own.

And you thought Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll and Jonathon Swift had good material to work with!?!

Paul Driessen

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.cfact.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.