Perils of commercial beekeeping ... Paul Driessen

Perils of commercial beekeeping

Honeybees pollinate crops but endure stress, parasites and disease. Solutions are coming. 

Paul Driessen 

One of America’s earliest food crops – almonds – is also one of the most important for commercial beekeepers. Almonds depend on bees for pollination, but the explosive growth of this bumper crop taxes the very honeybees the industry needs to thrive.

California’s Central Valley produces over 80% of the world’s almonds, valued at over $4 billion in 2012. The boom is poised to continue, with new food products and expanding overseas markets increasing demand to the point that no young almond trees are available for purchase until 2016. 

Demand for almonds translates into demand for pollination. So every year commercial beekeepers transport some 60% of all US honeybees to California’s almond groves in February and March, when it’s still winter in most other states. It’s one of their biggest challenges. 

For one thing, bee colonies, especially those from northern states, lack sufficient time to emerge from their heat-conserving winter clusters. Some beekeepers thus maintain 20,000 to 30,000 hives. Each one requires careful inspection for diseases and parasites – a meticulous, Herculean task on such a scale. 

Complicating the situation, beekeepers are trying to work within a large-scale agricultural system, using an insect whose husbandry practices have changed little since the nineteenth century. The larger the commercial beekeeper’s stock, the harder it can be to tend them and recover from financial setbacks in the form of lost bees. 

Almond growers will need 1.5 million hives this year, estimates Colorado beekeeper Lyle Johnston. “It takes almost all the commercial bees in the United States,” to pollinate the almond crop, he says. The payoff can amount to half an individual keeper’s yearly profit.

However, bees can come back from California “loaded with mites and every other disease you can think of,” beekeeper Ed Colby explains. That can often mean bee colony deaths. Last year, US beekeepers experienced an average 30% overwinter bee loss; some lost 10% to 15% of their hives, while others lost much more. It’s a normal cost of doing business, but it can be painful. 

Last year’s rate was higher than normal, and higher than any keeper would want. But it was not the “bee-pocalypse” that some news stories claimed. The real story is that efforts to identify a single unifying cause for higher-than-usual losses have failed. Scientists are discovering that multiple issues affect bee health. 

Urban, suburban and agricultural “development has reduced natural habitats, clearing out thousands of acres of clover and natural flowers,” a 60 Minutes investigative report observed. “Instead, bees are spending week after week on the road, feeding on a single crop, undernourished and overworked.” 

The migration itself is stressful, notes Glenwood Springs, Colorado Post-Independent reporter Marilyn Gleason. “First, there’s the road trip, which isn’t exactly natural for bees, and may include freezing cold or scorching heat. Bees ship out of Colorado before the coldest weather, and drivers may drench hot, thirsty bees with water at the truck wash.”

The convergence in almond groves of so many commercial bees from all over the country creates a hotbed of viruses and pathogens that can spread to many hives. The varroa destructor mite carries at least 19 different bee viruses and diseases, causing major impacts on bee colonies. Parasitic phorid flies are another problem, and highly contagious infections also pose significant threats. The intestinal fungus nosema ceranae, for example, prevents bees from absorbing nutrition, resulting in starvation.

The tobacco ringspot virus was likewise linked recently to the highly publicized problem known as “colony collapse disorder.” CCD occurs when bees in a colony disappear, leaving behind only a queen and a few workers. The term originally lumped together a variety of such “disappearing” disorders recorded in different locales across hundreds of years, as far back as 950 AD in Ireland. Thankfully, as during past episodes, these unexplained incidents have declined in recent years and, despite all these challenges, overall US honeybee populations and the number of managed colonies have held steady for nearly 20 years.

These days, perhaps the biggest existential threat to bees is campaigns purporting to save them. Extreme-green groups like the Center for Food Safety and Pesticide Action Network of North America are blaming an innovative new class of pesticides called neonicotinoids for both over-winter bee losses and CCD. 

Allied with several outspoken beekeepers, the activists are pressuring the Environmental Protection Agency, Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency and government regulatory agencies to follow Europe’s lead – and ban neonics. Instead of protecting bees and beekeepers, however, their campaigns will likely cause greater harm – because they ignore the multiple threats that scientists have identified, and because a neonic ban will result in farmers using pesticides that are more toxic to bees. 

The European Union’s political decision to suspend neonic use came because France’s new agriculture minister banned their use. That meant French farmers would be at a distinct disadvantage with the rest of Europe, if they were the only ones unable to use the pesticide, noted British environmental commentator Richard North. They could lose $278 million per season in lost yields and extra pesticide spraying.

So the French agricultural ministry sought an EU-wide ban on all neonicotinoids. After several votes and a misleading report on the science, the European Commission imposed a ban, over the objections of many other EU members, who note that the evidence clearly demonstrates the new pesticides are safe for bees. 

Years-long field tests have found that real-world exposures have no observable effects on bee colonies. Other studies have highlighted other significant insect, fungal, human and other issues that, singly or collectively, could explain CCD. Having analyzed scores of 2007-2012 bee death incidents, Canadian bee experts concluded that “…very few of the serious bee kills involve neonicotinoid pesticides. Five times as many ‘major’ or ‘moderate’ pesticide-related bee kills were sourced to non-neonic chemicals.”

In Canada’s western provinces, almost 20 million acres of 100% neonic-treated canola is pollinated annually by honeybees and tiny alfalfa leaf-cutter bees. Both species thrive on the crop, demonstrating that neonics are not a problem. Large-scale field studies of honeybees at Canadian universities and a bumblebee field study by a UK government agency found no adverse effects on bees. 

Last October, a team of industry scientists published a four-year study of the effects of repeated honeybee exposure to neonic-treated corn and rapeseed (canola) pollen and nectar under field conditions in several French provinces. The study found similar mortality, foraging behavior, colony strength and weight, brood development and food storage in colonies exposed to seed-treated crops and in unexposed control colonies. This also indicates low risk to bees.

At least two more major, recently completed university-run field research projects conducted under complex, costly scientific laboratory guidelines (“good lab practices”) are awaiting publication. All indications to date suggest that they too will find no observable adverse effects on bees at field-realistic exposures to neonicotinoids.

Meanwhile Project ApisM., a partnership of agro-businesses and beekeepers, has invested $2.5 million in research to enhance the health of honeybee colonies. Switzerland-based Syngenta has spent millions expanding bee habitats in Europe and North America, through Project Pollinator. Bayer has built bee health centers in Europe and the United States, and Monsanto’s Beeologics subsidiary is developing technology to fight varroa mites. 

None of that matters to the anti-pesticide activists. They are using pressure tactics to make Canada and the United States copy the EU. That would be a huge mistake. Science, not politics, should prevail. 

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

Americans are Drowning in Lies ... Alan Caruba

Americans are Drowning in Lies

By Alan Caruba

In the April 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal, an editorial took note of President Obama’s announcement the previous day that sign-ups for Obamacare had passed seven million.

“Suddenly ObamaCare is a roaring success, happy days are here again and liberals are euphoric, or claim to be. There are more than a few reasons to doubt this new fairy tale, not least the behavior of Senate Democrats running for re-election this year.”

I usually don’t quote from other newspapers for the simple reason that most just repeat Obama’s lies. To an old journalist, that’s very depressing.

It’s depressing, too, to contemplate the list of Obama administration scandals, not the least of which is the September 11, 2012 attack on our Benghazi consulate that took the life of a U.S. ambassador and three security personnel. The claim that it was a spontaneous response to a video has been completely discredited.

“The Benghazi  Report” of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been published by Skyhorse Publishing. It documents a complete lack of truth and morality regarding the event and it has cascaded through the entire administration from the day Obama first took office in 2009. It was summed up by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s now classic response, “What difference does it make?”

What historians will likely find astonishing is the way Hillary Clinton is the only person mentioned as the Democratic Party candidate for President in the 2016 elections. I find it distressing that former Governor Jeb Bush is being touted as the Republican choice. With the exception of Obama who defeated Hillary in the 2008 primaries, the U.S. has had a Bush or Clinton as President since 1989.

We fought a Revolution to rid ourselves of such monarchies or in this case political dynasties.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with such lines of succession, but worse is the notion that the Democratic Party would even consider someone—Hillary Clinton—whose character, let alone her policies, have been so seriously flawed and documented for so long.

The most current and obvious demonstration of the lies with which we have been living since Obama was first elected is Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act that was passed solely by Democratic Party votes and by legislators that never even read it. This has been compounded by the now famous lies of the President concerning it.

Obamacare is so toxic that Democrat candidates up for election or reelection in the November 2014 midterms have fleeing their votes or support, now claiming that it merely needs revision, not repeal. Even the Republican Party has taken this position and both are wrong to do so. It puts the government in control of one sixth of the economy and the lives of all Americans. Some will die as a result.

Most revealing is Sen. Dick Durbin’s April 1^st statement that “The free enterprise system is a strong system” but that it “created unfairness and injustice when it came to health care, which we are addressing with this Affordable Care Act.” Free enterprise is what made America the most powerful economy in the world. There is no system anywhere that does not suffer from some degree of unfairness because all are the product of human invention. Life is not fair.

The only “injustice” Durbin could be addressing is whether one could afford the health care insurance plans formerly available from many sources. Now the injustice is embodied in a government that requires its citizens to buy something they may not want and threatens to fine them if they don’t. This is so monumentally unconstitutional that the Supreme Court had to define Obamacare as a tax to enable it. That too is a lie.

We used to be able to depend on the U.S. Constitution to guarantee our freedoms and maintain the nation’s moral values but it has been interpreted to permit the murder of the unborn since the 1970s. There are lawsuits before it to protect the freedom of religion because of Obamacare. The assaults on our freedoms and moral values never end.

And now the nation is drifting toward the legalization of marijuana, a gateway drug to harder ones. We have a President who was a former “pot” smoker. If driving while under the influence of alcohol is sufficient to kill thousands annually, this new intoxicant will increase those numbers.

Epitomizing the lies with which we are living these days—other than Obama’s—is the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, who has reached the point of lying about his lies even though there are ample videotaped examples of them. Adding to this is his claim that those relating horror stories about their loss of health care insurance are all lying. Reid is one of the most powerful figures in our government these days and utterly devoid of the truth.

One has to have some confidence in one’s government, but that feeling is in decline and that is well worth worrying about.

© Alan Caruba, 2014
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 3.2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

 

I am not an African American: words have meaning ... Sylvia Thompson

I am not an African American: words have meaning

Sylvia Thompson

Sylvia Thompson

An "African American" is someone who immigrated to the United States by choice and chose to become an American citizen. I am here as the result of my ancestors being brought here; they did not immigrate. And their citizenship was conferred by an act of Congress, which grants me citizenship. I am therefore, an American of African descent. I have never been a citizen of an African nation nor any other nation besides America. It is the place of primary emphasis in my heritage, so it takes prominence in any characterization of where I belong.

A few people have asked me what they should call blacks in America. They seem to be baffled by the many different names out there for black folks, and I understand their confusion. I do not speak for black people or any other people, for that matter. But I do speak for myself, and I will not allow elements of a godless, corrupt culture to dictate the words that I can and cannot use.

What I prefer to be called is an American black (or simply "black"), as distinct from, say, an American white. I am equally comfortable with "an American of African descent," because that is a fact. Or even, an "American Negro." That is, after all, the classification given on my official birth certificate – female Negro. That birth certificate, by the way, is a legal document, unlike the one that Barack Obama presented to the American people.

Words are my trade, and they have meanings that serve to provide effective communication for the dominant language in which they are spoken. The Left has done a good job of skewing English words to give itself dominance over how meaning is communicated. The most pernicious examples of this tactic come from homosexual activists. Instead of the clinical term for the aberrant and sinful condition of homosexuality, homosexuals and all whom they have bullied into following their lead insist that they be called "gay." There is nothing gay about the condition. It is, therefore, ridiculous for those of us who oppose their agenda to subvert a perfectly decent term "gay" (primarily meaning "happily excited") to suit their demands.

This Christian does not and will not refer to a sinful condition (as defined by Scripture), which is at the forefront of the moral degradation of this country, as anything but what it is, homosexuality, whose practitioners are homosexuals. Nothing gay about it.

The same applies to the word "marriage." It is from Almighty God and it defines the institution that He established to give the first human pair the most exquisite of relationships known to humankind. It is that relationship between a man and the woman who is his wife. The companion who was expressly designed – physically, psychically, and spiritually – to complement him. Any sordid, degenerate variations on that fact, are just that – sordid, degenerate variations, which no true believer in Scripture has any obligation to recognize. And the government that imposes a recognition of such vileness deserves revolt.

Another example of the Left's penchant for dictating how we must speak is the term "pro-choice" to describe those who support the killing of humans in the womb. No matter how you couch this behavior, killing of the unborn is still killing of an innocent being, whatever its justifications. But it certainly gives the behavior an air of respectability if all are forced to call it "pro-choice." It is interesting that medical science has proven that an unborn fetus is by DNA a distinct being from the woman in whose womb it resides. Whose choice then is it to end this person's life? It is certainly not the choice of the human fetus, because we do not ask. It is often not even the choice of the male involved, without whom there would be no human fetus. In our rotted culture, feminism has deemed that only the female carrier can dictate life or death. Can we get any more twisted than this?

People who support abortion will forever be in this Christian's mind, people who kill unborn humans. I have no interest in appeasing leftists and speaking in ways that give them comfort. Contrary to some (including professed Christians) who tip so lightly around the subject that you hardly know that they are there.

Further we have the leftist race mongers (black and white) who attempt to bully all black people into a certain "black speak," particularly regarding what blacks are to be called by white folks. If you want me to respond to you, I suggest that you call me what I see myself as, and not what leftist agitators dictate that I am.

My point in this little discourse is to move people who are fed-up with this madness to follow my example. Speak the words that are truth to leftists. They are, after all, just a particular brand of bully who will forever cause you grief if you do not put your foot down and say, "Enough!" As they steamroll you, you steamroll back. It is called being a Christian with a backbone, and it has nothing to do with your ability to love. It is an indication that you do not embrace willful (and I stress, willful) sinners or their sin. They are one and the same.

---

Sylvia Thompson is a black conservative writer whose aim is to counter the liberal spin on issues pertaining to race and culture.

Ms. Thompson is a copy editor by trade currently residing in Tennessee. She formerly wrote for the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley California Newsletter and the online conservative blog ChronWatch, also out of California.

She grew up in Southeast Texas during the waning years of Jim Crow-era legalized segregation, and she concludes that race relations in America will never improve, nor will we ever elevate our culture, as long as there are victims to be pandered to and villains to be vilified. America is better served without victims or villains.

© Copyright 2014 by Sylvia Thompson
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sthompson/140331

Noah -- OR -- "No Way?" ... J. D. Longstreet

Noah -- OR -- "No Way?"
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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As a subscriber to the Judeo-Christian faith, in particular the Christian theology, I must tell you that movies such as the latest Hollywood rendition of The Flood, and Noah's story, worry me.

There was a time in America when the populace was Bible literate. 

Sadly, and to our everlasting shame,  we no longer are. 

In fact, we are even more ignorant of the Holy Scriptures than we are of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and even the names of our own US Senators and Representatives in the US House of Representatives.

We Americans are truly an ignorant lot.

You know what that makes us?  It makes us ripe for the picking -- and any evidence you may need that what I have just said is true is borne out by the fact that B.H. Obama was elected as President of the United states, not once, but TWICE. 

Intelligent people would not have done that. 

Intelligent people learn from their mistakes -- and correct them -- and then take great pains to see that they don't make the same mistake again.

Its not just "low info voters" who are the primary danger to America.  It is the entire low IQ citizens who make up the great majority of the nation.  We're sorta like low hanging fruit for those whose greatest desire in life is to grasp all the power over us they can possible embrace.

I grew up in an America where people took great pride in education -- getting as much of it as they could and making an effort to retain that learning and expand upon it for their entire lifetime. 

I once had a grammar school teacher who admonished the class by saying:  "There's no shame in being ignorant.  The shame is in remaining that way."

The danger presented by movies such as the one mentioned above is that movie goers, most of whom will have zero experience with the Holy Scriptures, will absorb the movie -- and assuming it is from the Bible -- will leave the theater believing they have just had a religious experience by way of a lesson in Scripture. 

That is, of course, false.  

Having not seen the movie and having no plans to do so, I will not pan the movie here.

Judging from what I have read,  about the only similarity between the story in Genesis (The first book of the Old Testament in the Bible) and the movie -- is the word "Noah."

Leading creationist Ken Ham, who recently debated Bill Nye, says that the new blockbuster, starring Russell Crowe, is an insult to Christians: "Ultimately, there is barely a hint of biblical fidelity in this film. It is an unbiblical, pagan film from its start" -- SOURCE:  http://time.com/42274/ken-ham-the-unbiblical-noah-is-a-fable-of-a-film/

Mr. Ham goes on to say in the same article:  "Also, while the extreme wickedness of man was depicted, the real sin displayed in the film was the people’s destruction of the earth. Lost within the film’s extreme environmentalist message is that the actual sins of the pre-Flood people were a rebellion against God and also man’s inhumanity to man." -- SOURCE:  http://time.com/42274/ken-ham-the-unbiblical-noah-is-a-fable-of-a-film/

Consider this:  "Unfortunately, Noah’s first week box office, after being engulfed in controversy, will also encourage them to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at faux Biblical stories that have the effect of subverting the core messages of the sacred texts of the Judeo-Christian belief system that underlie American culture."  -- SOURCE:  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/03/31/noah-vs-god-not-dead?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I can assure you that if you read the story from the Bible you will quickly see that God destroyed man, not because man was unkind to the earth, but because man was unkind to man and mankind was evil to the core in such intensity that the very earth itself was corrupt. 

Noah, compared to other men of his time was a "relatively" righteous man (He was perfect in his generations.) ... ergo ... he was chosen by God, along with his family, to be the sole survivors of this calamity.

The selection of Noah follows the pattern of God choosing men to do his bidding who were what we would call today "real men."   They were cussing men, fighting men, fellows you'd want at your side -- and your back -- in a fight.

There were even a few murderers chosen by God. One, King David, whom God even remarked was a "Man after his own heart," was an adulterer and an a murderer.

Moses, you may recall, was wanted in Egypt for the murder of an Egyptian overseer of some rank. Even Saint Paul's hands were drenched in the blood of the early saints. He literally hunted down Christians -- and killed them.  And Saint Peter, he of the hot temper, lost it -- and cut off the High Priest's servant's ear.  Then, after Christ was arrested, cursed and swore that he had no idea who that Yēšūă' (Jesus) fellow was -- THREE TIMES!  He later repented, of course, and some church tradition has it that Christ founded his church upon Saint Peter ... the Rock.  That is open for debate -- but -- that is a commentary for another day.

The point is,  the meek need not apply for God's work.

So, I have no problem with portraying Noah as a bad a**.  He probably was. Judging from God's record of choosing real men, Noah would seem to fit the mold.

My concern is the corruption of the scriptures by such presentations as Noah.  It misleads people.

Look.  I am a southerner, a descendant of numerous Confederate soldiers.  I live, every day, with the lies of rewritten, revised, history about my family -- and -- my extended Confederate family. It IS painful.

That's one thing.  But to deliberately revise or rewrite the Holy Scriptures to promote some modern day fantasy about man destroying the environment, and  further the propaganda of global warming, is unforgivable.

Look. I'm not advising you to NOT see the movie.  In fact, I'll probably see it sooner or later.  What I WILL advise, however, is that you read the original story from the Bible BEFORE you go spend your hard earned money for a movie ticket.  You'll find Noah's story, the story of the Great Flood, in Genesis (The first book of the Bible)  beginning with chapter 6, verse 9, and continuing through chapter 8, verse 19. 

Is the story of Noah and the Great Flood true?  Well, allow me to answer socratically:  Why does every major civilization on the planet have a similar story as that of Noah in Genesis?

J. D. Longstreet

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Lions Led By A Sheep? ... J. D. Longstreet

Lions Led By A Sheep?
Wolf Bait
A Commentary By J. D. Longstreet
*******************

Someone once said something that sounded a lot like this: "A nation of sheep led by a lion is more to be feared than a nation of lions led by a sheep."  That "someone," as it turns out, was Alexander the Great.  At least the attribution I found for it says it was Alex as quoted in "The British Battle Fleet: Its Inception and Growth Throughout the Centuries to the Present Day (1915)" by Frederick Thomas Jane.

Howsomever, who said it is not as important as the message it encompasses.

There can be no doubt that America is currently led by a sheep, nay, a herd of sheep when one includes the limp-wristed cohort of progressive/Marxists in the US Senate and US House of Representatives to the big sheep sitting in the Oval Office (or out on a golf course somewhere!).

That is the real reason America was plastered with egg on it's face when Obama and Kerry tackled Russia's Putin over the Crimea incident. Putin is a lot of things but a sheep is NOT one of them.

A little over a year ago I wrote:  "As I survey modern day America, I see a nation of sheep led by — a sheep.

If you know anything about sheep, you know that a trained goat is used to lead the other sheep to the slaughter house. Thus, the name “Judas goat.” Why use a goat rather than another sheep? Simple. A goat is smarter than a sheep. The sheep are slaughtered while the life of the Judas goat is spared.

Having a nation of sheep led by another sheep tells one everything one needs to know about that nation — dumb, easily led, and headed for the slaughter.

Sadly, America is being fleeced along the way to the slaughter house. It’s sort of akin to paying an admittance price to one’s own slaughter. How sick IS that?

But that’s where we are as a nation today.

It is depressing being a member of the “can do” generation observing the “can’t do” generation destroy nearly two and a half centuries of hard work creating a nation unlike anything the world had ever seen.

If my generation made a grand mistake, it was our having faith that following generations of Americans would have, at least, the same love of freedom and liberty, the same degree of self reliance, self respect, and pride in the American experiment that we did. In that, dear reader,  — we were totally mistaken.

The great melting pot has finally boiled its contents down and those contents have coelesed into something quite alien to the aspirations of the original founders of the country. Unlike the old Americans the new Americans yearn for the return of the shackles, yokes, and chains of lords and masters. And rest assured — they SHALL have them." --SOURCE:  http://www.saveamericafoundation.com/2013/01/22/america-a-nation-of-sheep-led-by-a-sheep-by-j-d-longstreet/

As I observe the Obama administration "negotiating" with Putin I recall something Thomas Fuller, a 17th Century English churchman and historian, once said:  "It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf."

In Judge Andrew P. Napolitano's book:  "A Nation of Sheep" the judge frankly discusses how the federal government has circumvented the Constitution and is systematically dismantling the rights and freedoms that are the foundation of American democracy.  He challenges Americans to recognize that they are being led down a very dangerous path and that the cost of following without challenge is the loss of the basic freedoms that facilitate our pursuit of happiness and that define us as a nation.

Judge Napolitano reminds readers what America is all about, that the purpose of government is to protect freedom, and freedom is the ability to follow your own free will and not the will of government bureaucrats.  He asks the simple question, which are YOU, a sheep or a wolf?  Do you blindly follow behind where you are led, or do you challenge the government at every pass, forcing it to make decisions that will protect our freedoms?

Judge Napolitano asks the questions that no one else will, challenging readers to rethink why they are blindly following a government that has only its own interests in mind.  He asks:

    Why is the government using the war on terror as an excuse to sidestep the Constitution?

    Why are Americans not challenging and questioning the government as it continues to limit more and more of our freedoms?

    What part of "Congress shall make no law..." does the government not understand when it criminalizes speech?

    Whatever happened to our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that are proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, guaranteed by the Constitution, yet ignored by the governments elected to protect them?

    Why does every public office holder swear allegiance to the Constitution, yet very few follow it?

  Don't we have rights that are guaranteed and cannot be taken from us?"

 A Nation of Sheep by Judge  Andrew P. Napolitano is available at Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Sheep-Andrew-P-Napolitano/dp/B002N2XHVW

My broadcasting idol, Edward R. Murrow, once said:  “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”  How right he was!

Today America is overrun with sheep and wolves with very few lions in evidence.

I hold my breath day to day to see if our Sheep-in-Charge will make the single fatal mistake that will collapse the greatest country ever known to man.

America's lions have been either muzzled or caged.  The wolves, inside and outside the walls, have gathered and wait with salivating jaws for America to stumble. 
I hail from a long line of hard scrabble farmers.  My father once told me that as a lad he had cared for sheep... fed them, watered them, fleeced them, and butchered them.  He once volunteered:  "Son, there is no dumber animal on God's green earth than a sheep." 

Sheep are so skittish that often the shepherd will have to dam-up a small flowing stream to create those "still waters" spoken of in the 23rd psalm just to entice the sheep to drink because -- they fear the sound of running water!

Is that where we are as Americans today?  Are we so skittish that the sound of freedom frightens us? 

Look.  Maintaining freedom is an ongoing struggle.  We can't just win our freedom and then relax.  There are always those waiting to strip us of our freedom and return us to chains.  Remaining free requires eternal vigilance and the courage to rise to any challenge and defend that precious liberty.

And yet today, elements of our government are violating our constitutional rights every single day -- and we do nothing!  Like sheep we cringe when someone utters the word "IMPEACH!"  And each day we lose a little more of that precious freedom.

As brutal as it at first sounds (and it really IS brutal) tarring and feathering worked pretty well for our ancestors. Toss in a rail for the miscreant to ride upon and that completes the set.  The fact is, they made their point.  The malefactor never dared inciting the wrath of the citizenry again.

Our forefathers were anything but sheep.  We are not descended from sheepish Americans.   So, our behavior today is of an aberrant kind.  I contend it is learned behavior.  We placed our trust in out government to educate our children and instead they indoctrinated them in socialism and communism. 
Our young graduate from college dumb as posts.  One is led to believe that without Google, Wikipedia, and cut and paste, there would be few graduating classes at our colleges and universities this Spring.

Pitifully, our young have never known real freedom as some of us old fuddy-duddies have, therefore they have no idea what they have lost.  They believe this is normal!  Another generation lost.

"Have we held power to account? Do our elected officials fear the populace, which Thomas Jefferson said indicated liberty, or is it otherwise – where the people fear the government, a situation Jefferson postulated would lead to tyranny?"  --SOURCE:  http://www.ummahpulse.com/2011/11/sheep-led-by-wolves/

Today, in America, there is no doubt that the people fear the government.  The nation that rebuked a tyrant at its founding now accepts, and feels comfortable with, tyrannical rule.

How utterly sad!

J. D. Longstreet
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Scaring the World about its Climate ... Alan Caruba

Scaring the World about its Climate

By Alan Caruba

Ever since the creation in 1988 of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it has engaged in the greatest hoax of modern times, releasing reports that predict climate-related catastrophes as if the climate has not been a completely natural and dynamic producer of events that affect our lives.

The IPCC was set up by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program. It has enlisted thousands of scientists to contribute to its scare campaign, but as Joseph Bast, the president of The Heartland Institute, noted in a recent Forbes article regarding the vast difference in the assertions of the IPCC scientists and those of its puckishly named Nonintergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), “What is a non-scientist to make of these dueling reports? Indeed, what is a scientist to make of this?”

“Very few scientists are familiar with biology, geology, physics, oceanography, engineering, medicine, economics, and scores of other more specialized disciplines that were the basis of the claims…” The IPCC has depended on the ignorance of those scientists outside their particular disciplines and recruited them to be involved in the UN hoax. The rest of us look to them to provide guidance regarding issues involving the climate and, as a result, have been deliberately deceived.

The NIPCC, anticipating the latest IPCC addition to its climate scare campaign, has just issued a new addition to its “Climate Change Reconsidered” reports. The first volume was 850 pages long and the latest is more than 1,000 pages. It represents the findings of scores of scientists from around the world and thousands of peer-reviewed studies. At this point they represent some twenty nations.

I have been an advisor to The Heartland Institute for many years and have been exposing the climate change lies since the late 1980s. A science writer, I have benefited from the work of men like atmospheric physicist, S. Fred Singer, a founder of the NPCC who has overseen five reports debunking the IPCC since 2003.

The Heartland Institute has sponsored nine international conferences that have brought together many scientists and others in an effort to debunk the UN’s climate scare campaign.

I have always depended on the common sense of people to understand that humans have nothing to do with the climate except to endure and enjoy it. We don’t create it or influence it.

The global warming campaign is based on the Big Lie that carbon dioxide (CO2) traps the Sun’s heat and warms the Earth, but the fairly miniscule amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (0.038%) does not do that in a fashion that poses any threat. Indeed, it is the Sun that determines the Earth’s climate, depending where you happen to be on the Earth. Next to oxygen, CO2 is vital to all life on Earth as it is the “food” on which all vegetation depends. More CO2 is good. Less is not so good.

The IPCC has depended in part on the print and broadcast media to spread its Big Lie. It also depends on world leaders, few of whom have any background or serious knowledge of atmospheric science, to impose policies based on the Big Lie. These policies target the use of “fossil fuels”, oil, coal and natural gas, urging a reduction of their use. The world, however, utterly depends on them and, in addition to existing reserves, new reserves are found every year.

One reason the IPCC has been in a growing state of panic is a new, completely natural cooling cycle based on a reduction of solar radiation. As James M. Taylor, the managing editor of Heartland’s “Environment & Climate News”, pointed out recently, “Winter temperatures in the contiguous United States declined by more than a full degree Celsius (more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit) during the past twenty years.” He was citing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. “The data contradicts assertions that human induced global warming is causing a rise in winter temperatures.”

In addition to the recent extremely cold winter, there have been others in 2000-2001 and 2009-2010. There will be more.

The IPCC report is full of claims about global warming, now called “climate change” since the world is obviously not warming. In March, Taylor rebutted an IPCC claim that crop production is falling, noting that global corn, rice, and wheat production have more than tripled since 1970. In recent years, the U.S. has set records for alfalfa, cotton, beans, sugar beets, canola, corn, flaxseed, hops, rice, sorghum, soybeans, sugarcane, sunflowers, peanuts, and wheat, to name just a few.

The Earth would benefit from more, not less, CO2 emissions, but the Obama administration has been engaged in imposing hundreds of new regulations aimed at reductions. It targets the development and expansion of our energy sector. The President has repeated the lies in his State of the Union speeches and we have a Secretary of State, John Kerry, who insists that climate change is the greatest threat to mankind and not the increase of nuclear weapons.

Every one of the Earth’s seven billion population are being subjected to the UN’s campaign of lies and every one of us needs to do whatever we can to bring about an end to the United Nations and reject the IPCC’s claims.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2014/04/scaring-world-about-its-climate.html

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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 3.2 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

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VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Insight-on-Freedom/   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!) 

Insurers Driving Insured Into Arms Of Drug Dealers? ... J. D. Longstreet

 Insurers Driving Insured Into Arms Of Drug Dealers?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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I know a man who suffers chronic pain.  He also has an auto-immune disease which comes complete with its own myalgia (chronic pain).  On top of that, the autoimmune disease has triggered fibro myalgia.  So, let's just say he deals with a heck of a lot of pain every day, 24 hours a day.

For decades my friend has taken an opioid drug for pain relief. It does not take away the pain, but it does allow him to function.  He has come to rely upon the relief that drug affords him. 

He is also aware that he is most certainly physically addicted, even if he is not psychologically addicted, to the drug.  But, in order to be able to function as a nominal human being, he must take the drug every day to be able to handle the pain.

Along comes Obamacare.  His insurance company sends him the dreaded letter that as of December 31st of 2013, he would no longer have insurance.

Not being one to procrastinate he managed to re-insure with a nationally known insurance company.

However, so much has changed under the new Obamacare (so-called affordable Care Act) rules that he has been blindsided by many new rules and regulations that make if far more difficult for the insured to actually benefit from being insured.

If you haven't paid close attention to the drug formulary of your insurance policy, we suggest you do so, and not casually.  Study it intensely. For even if you are healthy now, eventually you will become ill and you will require medications for treatment.

Today, the main function of a prescription formulary is to specify particular medications that are approved to be prescribed under a particular insurance policy. The development of prescription formularies is based on evaluations of efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of drugs. 

Understand, dear reader.  Insurance companies are not in business to do you or me a favor.  They are not in business to heal the sick no matter what their expensive PR firms may say.  They are in business for one reason and one reason only: to  make money.

Now, I'm a capitalist.  So, I have no problem with a company, any company, making a profit.  In fact I applaud it.  But I draw the line when human pain and suffering is the result of a business decision.

My problem with all this is the point at which an insurance company's drug formularies and common sense clash.

For instance, my friend, under his new policy, must now have a "prior approval" to get the same drug he has been taking strictly by his doctor's direction and under his doctor's supervision, for decades.  He told me it infuriates him and results in him feeling as if he were suspected of being a junkie.  

He said the angrier he became the more tempted he was to forgo a prescription entirely and visit the neighborhood drug dealer who stocks the exact same drug and no prior approval and no prescription is required.

Well. that got me to thinking.  Where my angry and frustrated friend was just blowing smoke and ranting, I have to wonder -- how many Americans are doing just exactly what my friend threatens to do?

In another case, an acquaintance told me of a situation in which he had been taking an old sulfa drug for decades.  It is an old formula, very inexpensive, and very effective for his chronic problem.  But, he said his  new insurance company won't pay for it.  They WILL, he said,  pay for a far more expensive drug, that he doesn't need and doesn't want.  So, he said,  he ended up paying for the sulfa drug, out of pocket, in order to continue the extremely effective treatment it has rendered over the decades.

I, too, am frustrated and angry at where the insurance industry in America is headed.  The bond of trust between the insurer and the insured is eroding at an alarming rate.  The face of the insurance company is morphing into the face of Obamacare, which is to say -- into the face of government.

THAT is why the insurers are losing their customer's trust and respect. They have become just another bureaucratic branch of the strong central Leftist government of Obama.

In four years Obamacare has deconstructed  the world's finest healthcare system and remade it into a healthcare system to rival any in the third world.
The tentacles of Obamacare have so entangled themselves into America's healthcare and insurance system that they can do longer be defined separately.  They have, all three, become one and the same and hated by the very people they purport to serve.  

So, what's to be done? 

Repeal Obamacare -- completely.  Rid this country of the cancer of Obamacare or the so-called Affordable Care Act.  Don't make an attempt to repair it,  as a group of Democrats (whose days in office are numbered as a result of their total support of Obamacare when it passed in the US Congress -- with not a single Republican vote)  They are pathetic in their attempt to cover their collective derrières with their obviously insincere attempt to "fix" Obamacare.  They are mostly from "red" states and every last one of them will, most likely, be in the unemployment line after this November's elections.

And they ought to be.   

The damage they and their cohorts have done the people of America will take decades to repair and some of it will NEVER be fixed.  Even after Obamacare is repealed the scars will remain.

The GOP's mantra of Repeal and Replace is pure Bovine Scatology ... plan and simple!

Look. We know the Democrats are hoping for a "repeal and replace" movement in Congress because they have the replacement already drawn up and ready to plop into the hopper in the Senate and the House.  It is a Single Payer system much like that so hated in Great Britain today.  Yeah, that's where some insured are extracting their own teeth with their pliers!  Uh-huh!  How great a system is that?  

 My point is:  Obamacare is bad enough.  It's replacement will be worse.

Let the marketplace recreate a uniquely American healthcare system while the government stays the heck out of it! 

Two things:  Being the bully that it is, the government WON'T Stay out of it,  and so much damage has been done our healthcare system by Obamacare, I seriously doubt we will EVER be able to create a system that even approaches the quality of care and the efficiency of the original American Healthcare System BO. (BO = BEFORE OBAMACARE)

All of this is a part of the decline of America. A decline the Left wanted so much!  Otherwise they would be left with egg on their faces. So, if America did not decline on it's own, which it did not, the Left made darn sure they would cause it to decline.  I refer you to the Cloward-Piven plan for crashing America.

This nation must be free of Obamacare.  It MUST be repealed -- completely!   Repeal can't happen as long as the US Senate remains in the hands of Democrats.  Only a veto proof Congress or a complete takeover of the US government (Senate, House, and Oval Office)  by the GOP will result in repeal of Obamacare. We can begin the  transition this November. 

America deserves better than this -- MUCH better!

J. D. Longstreet 

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VISIT J. D. Longstreet's "INSIGHT on Freedom" Face Book Page!!:   (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)