headerphoto


BDS: An Analysis by SPME




Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com





Scholars for Peace in the Middle East has written a good analysis of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement against Israel on college campuses. It includes their recent and troubling tactics, which often resemble Brown Shirt methods of intimidation.

http://spme.org/boycotts-divestments-sanctions-bds/spme-bds-monitor-bds-activists-use-radically-new-approaches-including-nazi-imagery/17671/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bdsmonitor-10-BDS_campaigns_evolve

Community service




Tags: Making the world a better place To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

CAIR Attacking Sister of 9-11 Pilot Victim




Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Debra Burlingame wraps herself in the flag.jpg
Debra Burlingame

Debra Burlingame is the sister of one of the airline pilots who died on 9-11. Charles Burlingame was the pilot of the plane that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. Tonight Debra appeared on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show. Megyn Kelly is one of the most courageous cable news talk show hosts because she is unafraid to talk about militant Islam, and she is unafraid to stand up to the bullies at the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Ms Burlingame is also courageous because she is unafraid to speak out on the ideology that killed her brother and 3,000 other people on 9-11. As she said this evening, the terrorists who killed her brother and took down his plane were screaming, "Allahu Akbar" as they committed their heinous act.

Because Debra is unafraid to speak out, the Council on American Islamic Relations has attempted to pressure the 9-11 Memorial Museum to remove her from their foundation because she is an "Islamophobe".

How dare they?

This the museum has refused to do.

So is Debra "Islamophobic" as CAIR says? Since that term implies a certain irrationality, how do you say that one whose brother was murdered in the name of Islam is "irrational"?

By the same token, is an Egyptian Coptic Christian whose church has been burned down, whose daughter has been abducted and forced to convert to Islam, irrational if he or she fears Islam?

How about the husband of the Sudanese Christian woman who is under a sentence of death by hanging as we speak?

How about the parents of those 300 Nigerian schoolgirls, mostly Christian, who have been abducted by Boko Haram?

How about the Baha'i in Iran who have been persecuted by the Islamic regime?

How about the Syrian Christians who are being hunted down and killed by those rebels that we are supporting?

How about the Pakistani Christians who are being falsely accused of blasphemy, arrested, and put on trial for their lives?

How about the Jews in Europe who are being assaulted, insulted, and spit upon by young Muslim male immigrants to the point that they are emigrating in droves?

Irrational? Bigots?

If the bullies at CAIR want to confront hate, they need look no further than their own mirror.

For CAIR, which is a supporter of the US-designated terror group Hamas, to demand that Debra Burlingame be removed from the 9-11 Museum is tantamount to the SS Alumni Association demanding that Simon Wiesenthal be fired.

Learn to change the world-the positive lesson really start at home

"Life is an attitude. If a teenager starts off their adult life with the right attitude, they can overcome any difficulties that come their way. The Admiral knows the culture he needs to teach and enforce to make superior people. Make your bed."

Above from a Treehouse reader.

Now to the video and speech you MUST watch below. It is outstanding. One thought from me is this: What we learn starting at home and within our own families is where this all really begins. Changing the world is all fine and good but how do you or I get there? I have ALWAYS paid it forward, always.

Some people want to really change the world and I say may the good Lord watch over them and bless them with in this mission. Others, like me try to change the 'world' with kindness, acts of love and doing this, for me on the most local level as possible.

Watch, listen and learn and tell me if you did not find this a very positive speech. PatriotUSA

Hat tip from the treehouse

*****************

From the IJ Review and the review is also worth your time.
McRaven drew from his training to tell the students the 10 ways they could change the world.
 Here are just a few of them:
He started off by telling them to make their bed because:

“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.”

He described the importance of finding someone else to help you paddle:

“You can’t change the world alone—you will need some help— and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them.”

He let them know that SEALS do not check their privilege, saying:

“SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education and not your social status.”

Admiral McRaven covered seven other areas, as well. One thing’s clear from his outstanding speech: It may have been one of hundreds of commencement addresses, but it also doubles as some incredible life advice for anyone.





Tags: Making a difference, American exceptionalism, Admiral McRaven, It starts locally To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Land grab by the 'Feds' in New Mexico-it is never enough

One would think that we have have enough wilderness, national parks, monuments set aside right now.

This is PERSONAL. This is the region where I was born and this is where my Mom lived the last 20 years of her life. I know this region well. I know the Organ Mountains really well. I have hiked in these mountains a lot in my past, A LOT.

This is personal and proclaiming over 500,00 acres as a new monument and park with wilderness designation is nothing but a federally backed land grab. The drug cartels and smuggling operations must be drooling with anticipation. A 'paved highway' will be handed to them by the Obama administration. Perfect for them, a horrible dilemma for local law enforcement agencies and ranchers, not to mention a lot of people. Now this land will closed off to vehicles, mining, mineral and energy development. Illegal alien invaders will of course obey all the rules and regulations withing the new monument, right? Just like criminals will quit getting, using guns in crimes after areas become gun free zones or zones of stupidity. 

Impact from humans in this area is minimal to begin with so why rope off over 500,00 acres? Because the feds and environazis can, they will and they will continue to do so until we stop them. But wait, I get it. Of course, it is for the children. Right.......
PatriotUSA



Never enough for the land grabbing feds, pushed by the never happy environmental movement who want to see ever inch of free land locked up and gated closed to the American people.

Hat tip: LadyRaven

****************** 

Obama to claim half million acres today under ‘Monument act’ UPDATE


UPDATE:  Done.
“I’ve preserved more than 3 million acres of public lands for future generations. And I am not finished,” Obama declared before signing a proclamation naming the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.
Wednesday’s action marks Obama’s 12th use of the Antiquities Act to protect lands officials say deserve special treatment, and supporters are lobbying for the president to use his authority more often before he leaves office. Several Utah areas — including Cedar Mesa, the San Rafael Swell and Greater Canyonlands — have been touted as possible candidates for monument designations.
During his State of the Union speech earlier this year, Obama said he wants to work with Congress but would act on his own if it doesn’t move on this issue.
MORE AT  SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Of all places, the announcement today will give illegals an open pathway on the border with Mexico directly to the U.S. Bundy style, the BLM moves again. Back in 2010, a leaked memo indicated Obama had his eye on 13 million acres. Some monuments larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Much of it rich in gas, oil and other minerals.

President Obama on Wednesday will declare a national monument in southern New Mexico, delivering a win for environmentalists but angering ranchers and local law enforcement, who say the land restrictions will end up creating a safe haven for drug cartels to operate within the U.S.

Mr. Obama will declare about 500,000 acres as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. About half of that land is expected to be set aside as wilderness, meaning it will be closed to vehicles and construction.

Know that this is just the beginning. From an earlier post:

Another 13 million acres? When is enough, enough? 
 No legislation needed.
Upwards to 40 percent of the United States land is already under some form of government control or ownership — 800 million to 900 million acres out of America’s total 2.2 billion acres.A disturbing report out from Fox News this afternoon:
More than a dozen pristine landscapes, wildlife habitats and scenic rivers in 11 Western states, some larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, are under consideration by the Obama administration to become America’s newest National Monuments — a decision the administration can make unilaterally without local input or congressional approval.
According to internal Department of Interior documents leaked to a Utah congressman and obtained exclusively by Fox News, the mostly public lands include Arizona deserts, California mountains, Montana prairies, New Mexico forests, Washington islands and the Great Basins of Nevada and Colorado — totaling more than 13 million acres.
Many of the areas under consideration by the Obama administration are known to house rich deposits of oil and natural gas. 

For a list of monuments  he has in mind go to the link here at
Fox News
Now back to the latest so called Monument announcement today:

“This is about opposing so many thousands of acres that is going to create nothing more than a pathway for criminals to get into this country to do their criminal acts,” Dona Ana County Sheriff Todd Garrison told The Washington Times in a telephone interview Monday.


The monument would cover hundreds of thousands of acres right next to the Mexican border.

Only Congress can declare a national park, which stops most land uses. But under the 1906 Antiquities Act the president has the power to declare national monuments, which offer heightened environmental protections.

Read more: Washington Times

Source is here from BUNKERVILLE




Tags: America, eating their own, Federal land grab, Environmentalism gone wrong, Radical environazis, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Organ Mountains, Desert Peaks To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

George Galloway Sings the Praises of Hizbollah




Hat tip Creeping Sharia and Blazing Cat Fur


The ravings of a lunatic. George Galloway, friend of Saddam Hussein and his sons, friend of Bashar Assad, friend of Hamas, and now the friend of Hassan Nasrallah and Hizbollah. Watch this video as George sings the praises of Nasrallah and Hizbollah while defending their intervention in Syria at the side of Assad (George's friend).



http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/video-george-galloway-praises-hezbollah/

Is this guy certified, or is this guy certified?

Here is a similar piece of oratory from another crazy guy that I dug out of the archives.



What Rudolf Hess is saying is, "Hizbollah is Nasrallah, but Nasrallah is Lebanon, just as Lebanon is Nasrallah. Nasrallah-Sieg Heil!"

Hizbollah has been designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization. They were involved in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

Fact: George Galloway, British Member of Parliament, is a supporter of both Hamas and Hizbollah. He is a supporter of Islamic terrorists.

Sweden goes insane-Pat Condell

Sweden is an insane place. Criticize or insult anyone or thing that the far left progressives hold dear, especially their failed policy of 'Asian, Muslim' immigration or attacking Islam and you will be arrested, fined and quite possibly jailed for merely speaking the truth.

A really screwed up country beyond what any rational, moral, person can comprehend.



Tags: Pat Condell, Political correctness, Muslims, Asian immigration gone wild, Excessive diversity and multiculturalism To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Congressional Testimony on Boko Haram: Two Dopes




Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip Vlad Tepes


Here is a short clip of Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs Robert Jackson testifying before Congress on Boko Haram and the kidnapping of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls. He is answering a question from Senator Jeanne Shaheen, (D-NH). This is a fascinating exchange.



No, Senator. We don't want to get confused, do we?


Robert Spencer in Jihad Watch has more on what Mr Jackson is telling the folks up on Capitol Hill.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/05/state-department-official-just-not-accurate-to-characterize-boko-haram-as-muslim


One person who (unlike Jackson and Shaheen) is not confused is the leader of Boko Haram, Abubaker Shekau. He knows very clearly why he is committing all these atrocities.

http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/boko-haram-leader-defends-attacking-christians-in-new-video-51249/


In the below video, he tells us who told him to abduct the girls.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/boko-haram-leader-says-video-114603897.html

Does that not speak for itself, Mr Jackson and Senator Shaheen? Or is there a misinterpretation in the video-another explanation perhaps as to who told him to kidnap the girls and kill all the Christians?


"Ollie told me to do it."




Why Liberty dies

Re-posted from Hyscience

From Barry Goldwater:

"Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."

********************

Why Liberty Dies

By Dr. Robert R. Owens

To understand why liberty is imperiled in our country today we must first state clearly and unequivocally what is liberty. Then and only then can we understand what is necessary for its preservation as well as see what is undermining it today. Liberty is the absence of coercion and the freedom to act upon your own will within the perimeters of not infringing the freedom of action of others. The only way that has been found among the societies of man to ensure, promote and protect liberty is through the rule of law.
 
The rule of law means that government is not allowed to coerce an individual except through the enforcement of a previously known and explicitly stated principle of limited government. This principle places a limit upon the power of government to legislate by calling into question what sorts of laws are legitimate and which is not. This looks beyond individual statutes to the very nature of legislation itself. This differs markedly with the modern notion of the rule of law that holds as long as all the actions of a government comply with the law it is meeting the standard. It is well to remember that under this definition both the Nazis and the Soviets operated under the rule of law.

This modern definition is actually an oxymoron. If a government passes a law which says that it can do whatever it wants than everything it does is legal. Hitler passed the Enabling Act and accomplished this in one fell swoop.

Because the rule of law is an absolute limitation on all legislation it cannot be a law of the same order as that passed by a legislature. No Legislator can effectively limit himself through legislation since he can always amend that legislation at a later date.

Constitutions can make the infringement of pre-decided basic principles more difficult; however, as we have seen in our own Progressive land of the Living Document limitations can be re-defined away through courts and tradition.

The rule of law can only prevail where its basic principles are an organic part of the culture of the people. They must be part of the commonly held beliefs and standards of a majority of the people or they will be jettisoned as soon as they restrain that majority from following the path of least resistance and living as they believe they should. For if the rule of law is the common belief it will be followed closely and guarded jealously. If it is seen as impractical or as an impediment to life as the majority wish to live it, it will be soon rejected and replaced. Such a society will gladly embrace tyranny and arbitrary rule as long as they are convinced that they can now live as they want to live.

In our nation we have built a rather impressive framework to restrain the government: our Constitution. Though it has been interpreted into meaninglessness in many ways it is still given lip service and is still the penultimate law of the land. However there is one glaring hole that is currently being exploited to make an end-run around its remaining provisions: the rise of the Federal Bureaucracy.

We have gone to great lengths to limit what powers the elected officials of our government possess and left open the door for appointed officials to run rough shod over our lives. The legislature passes vague thousand page laws and then the bureaucrats interpret them any way they desire with little or no oversight. Elected officials, even the perpetually re-elected gerrymandered creatures of today come and go. The bureaucracy lives forever. When the elected officials cannot find the power to impose the Progressive agenda they do it through the bureaucrats they have appointed.

When they couldn't pass Cap-N-Trade, they imposed it through the EPA. When they can't pass gun restrictions they have their bureaucrats buy up all the ammunition and make it almost impossible for the people to obtain any. When they can't pass amnesty they impose it through regulations and edicts. The control of private land is taken through wet lands regulations. Between the out of control legislators-for-life and their appointed regulators we are told to do everything from what kind of light bulbs to buy to how many gallons we can use to flush a toilet.

Liberty is being eaten away inch by inch and day by day, legislated, and regulated into oblivion. When our government can't pass laws or impose regulations they will utilize the IRS, the NSA or anyone of a hundred of their alphabet agencies to spy on us or intimidate us into silence. Common Core is coming for the kids. Amnesty is coming for the jobs. Political Correctness is coming for free speech.

Unless patriots stand-up the country will fall. It will still be called the United States of America. People will still say the pledge of Allegiance. They will still sing the national anthem and salute the flag but will it be the same country that our forefathers fought and died for? Will it still be the land of the free and the home of the brave? Or will it be something else: a place where the rule of law once protected its citizens from the rule of men until the laws of men overwhelmed the laws of nature and of nature's God?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of those who inspired the Framers of the Constitution, reminded us, "Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost."

Barry Goldwater said, "Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."

The enemies of freedom also speak of liberty. Vladimir Lenin said, "It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed."

Benito Mussolini said, "The truth is that men are tired of liberty."

The controllers of men may try to use the language of liberty to subvert liberty however, the God given spirit of man shall always strive to become what God meant for us to be, free people in a free world."

Norman Vincent Peale said, "Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America's problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God."

Winston Churchill told us, "If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

And every school child should know that Patrick Henry famously said, "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

Why does liberty die? Because the people allow it.

Source is here.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens' latest book Copyrite 2011 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.



Tags: War on the American people, Obama, Communism, Socialism, American tyranny, Liberal progressive regressive behavior, Freedom,Liberty, U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, Eminent domain To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

What Do Non-Palestinian Muslims in the US Have to Do With the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?





Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


Hat tip to my friend Ted


During this month's annual Nakba* Week at UC-Irvine (my term), my friend Ted happened to engage in a conversation with some members of the Muslim Student Union, which was sponsoring the week of anti-Israel events. Ted same that of three MSU members he spoke to only one identified himself as a Palestinian. He then asked the others exactly what stake they and other MSU students who were not Palestinian had in the conflict. Well, we know, of course that the standard answer is that the MSU is committed to social justice anywhere in the world and all that stuff. The question, however, is valid. If you are an American Muslim of Pakistani, Iraqi, Afghani, Egyptian, Syrian, Iranian, or any descent other than that which is called "Palestinian", why is this one issue so important to you-so important that you hold a week of anti-Israel events every year? Why all the BDS movements on one college campus after another to divest from companies doing business with Israel?

Even if you agree to the proposition that Israelis and Jews have no valid claim to the disputed land, please explain why you are all over this issue and not involved in protesting a whole sea of human rights abuses that are going on in the very lands your families immigrated from. I also apply this question to organizations like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, ICNA, and a host of other US Muslim groups made up of people from many diverse nationalities.

Why Israel? Why not protest the persecution of Christians in Egypt or Syria or Pakistan or the persecution of gays and Baha'i in Iran, for just a few examples? What about the constant horrors going on in Sudan? How about the horrors being perpetrated by Boko Haram in Nigeria? What about what Libyans did to four Americans in Benghazi? I have yet to see any university protests about that.

If it's "occupation" and "stealing land" you are worried about, why not protest Russia as it carves up Ukraine piece by piece? I have yet to see any BDS resolutions against companies doing business with Russia on any college campus. How about a boycott of Stolichnaya vodka?

Now I will answer my own questions. The reason is simple. The one commonality here between the Palestinians and American Muslims of so many different national origins is religion. The Palestinians are overwhelmingly Muslim. That is the connection.  The connection in the US and Europe is the same as it is in the Middle East. Israel is a Jewish state in a sea of Muslim nations that will never accept Israel existing as a Jewish state. Why? Read your history. Read the Koran and its many damning references to Jews (and Christians). Read the Hadith. Read about the life of Mohammad, the Prophet and warrior. Is it any coincidence that as we speak, Christians are being persecuted and driven from Muslim countries? They would be doing the same to the Jews except the Jews were already driven out of the Arab countries in 1948-1950 and are now largely in Israel-protected from Arab attack by a strong military-not to mention that ever so evil "Apartheid Wall" that keeps Israelis and Palestinian suicide bombers apart.

Do you really think that the surrounding Arab countries give a hoot about the Palestinians, whom they have kept cooped up in squalid refugee camps ever since the 1948 fighting? Hardly. They are considered a nuisance and troublemakers. They are useful only as permanently displaced refugees to use against Israel as propaganda in world forums. Why have these Palestinians (Arabs) not been allowed to assimilate into Arab countries as citizens (exception: Jordan)? Why is there to this day a permanent UN refugee agency for Palestinians only (UNRWA)?

It is all hypocrisy. The next time you talk to one of these people crying about the fate of the Palestinian people, ask them why they have no similar outrage for all the other conflicts going on in the world. Bottom line: This conflict is not about who owned which plot of land 70 years ago. It is about religion.

* Nakba- The Arabic word for catastrophe, which has been coined to refer to the creation of the state of Israel.

Jews Who Hate Israel




Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip Algemeiner


Edward Alexander has an interesting article in Algemeiner on the phenomena of Jews, largely and unsurprisingly to be found in academia, who have an unnatural hatred for the Jewish state of Israel, so much so that they join forces with those who are trying to destroy the country and replace it with something called "Palestine".

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/05/14/jews-against-themselves-the-bds-movement-and-modern-apostasy/

Being a Gentile, I try to avoid the term, "self-hating Jew", leaving that for Jewish people to sort out among themselves. Yet I find it fascinating how so many on the Jewish left are lending aid and comfort to those who would kill every last Jew on the planet if they could. I have encountered many of these characters on college campuses when they come to speak. Norman Finkelstein comes immediately to mind, a defrocked professor traveling the globe looking for a paycheck and meaning to his life.

I also remember a bizarre guy named Jeff Halper, an American who immigrated to Israel where he found work as an anthropology professor. He now travels the lecture circuit, funded (like the others) by God only knows whom, lambasting his adopted land. At UC Irvine a couple of years back, I watched and listened as this character told his student audience about "spectral dust', something that the Israelis supposedly invented. Programmed with a target's DNA and spread into an area (like Gaza or the West Bank, presumably), it can seek out, find, and kill said suspect. This is what a UCI professor named Chuck O'Connell dragged into UCI to lecture to his sociology class. I literally walked out of the room laughing.

What else can you say about characters like Judith Butler and Richard Falk, the latter of whom until recently bore the presumptuous title of Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, where, apparently he didn't pay much attention to what Palestinians are doing to other Palestinians. These days the self-fashioned 82-year-old bard is also on the university lecture circuit poisoning students' minds about Israel accusing it of human rights violations. Never mind that Israel is the only democracy in a region filled by corrupt, violent regimes where human rights don't even pretend to exist.

How does some psychologist figure out this kind of mentality? It is far beyond my capability.

Freedom or slavery-"human ignorance repeats itself"

"History does not repeat itself, human ignorance does."

Excellent statement, just an excellent statement and this is pulled from the comments on the post below.

May come back and add my thoughts to this but for now, please read and I am very burned out. My thoughts are not as important as sharing this post. PatriotUSA 


************************ 


Why Americans choose Slavery while the rest of the World begs to be Free…by Brittius

 

shining city on a hill 

Hat tip to Brittius for this most excellent commentary


Being a Patriot, is the obligation that goes part and parcel with being born to this nation and the only way to be certain that this nation shall, remain free. Those that do not understand this, are already, slaves.

I saw that with people in New York City in the 1960s envying the French and Bohemian life style. I spoke with a few former German soldiers, one an ex-Waffen SS trooper. I spoke to two women that were French and, were in Paris 1940.

Much of the strict laws were made lax, as the country was getting over the great Depression in 1940. My mother (still alive), says here, we had it until 1938/1939. The women said there was little to eat and absolutely nothing to waste. Not food, not anything. The government in Paris let the people live as long as nothing like murder was going on. The old German soldiers said pretty much the same thing. The Waffen SS trooper said, people, begged for something easy. Anything easy and getting over, without hard work or pain. People were poor and lowered themselves and became poorer. Females, he said, were willing to have sex for half bottle of wine and three cigarettes. Where did it get them? Only lower. Only more depraved. Then what? Hitler took Paris, and all the people were fleeing or hiding, except for a few partisan resistance people, and they gave the German troops a damned good fight. Everyone else ran, because it was easier to run.

People here, want the soft, lax life. A baby will always want the mother’s teat, until they are made to, start eating solid food. Sin is sweet. It is hard for people to migrate towards a slightly bitter hard scrabble life, so they seek what is sweet, sin.

I remember going through hamlets that were hot with firefights. NVA Regulars, not untrained VC. Fighting was brutal and also on occasion hand to hand. I recall the smoke cover, smells, at times slow motion of mayhem. Looking down the gun sights while moving, where your eye goes, so does that front sight. You think as you were trained. I’m only a teenager then, and suddenly, people run towards us, shouting in Vietnamese, they are naked. Their hands up and fingers spread as they run past us. A woman runs past holding a naked baby by one leg upside down, and all I see are human figures, I do not think like a teenager. Any one of them could try to kill us, my finger on the trigger. A shot from a hut and it draws fire. We were not teenagers, we were “terminators” for lack of a better word. The people wanted nothing to do with dying, bleeding, and suffering.

In America, people will run to whatever feeds them, clothes them, houses them, no different from any domesticated house pet. But who do we notice? The old beat-up Tom cat, the battered junkyard dog, or the animals that live in freedom. Even the lion in the zoo, seeks Freedom, because it is bred into them.

Brittius is a United States USMC/DaNang Vietnam Veteran and true American Patriot.




Tags: Freedom or slavery, 1st and 2nd amendments, Obama administration, Clinton Administration, WW2, Communism, Socialism, Tyranny, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

UCLA's Shameful "Pledge"





Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Hat tip The Blaze and Squid



This latest outrage from UCLA makes it clear that the brown shirts are taking over our campuses. At UCLA, candidates for student government office are being asked to sign a pledge that they will not takes trips to Israel funded by pro-Israel organizations.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/11/just-wait-until-you-hear-what-ucla-student-government-candidates-are-being-asked-to-sign/


1933 German shoppers take the pledge not to shop in Jewish stores


This is something that the chancellor of UCLA, Gene Bloch, should make a firm statement against. In all likelihood, he won't, however.

And a note to the Armenian Students Association: If you want to garner support for the recognition of the Armenian Holocaust on college campuses, this is not the way to do it.

Side note: I see that UCLA's Olive Tree Initiative appears to be left unaffected by this. Maybe it is because it actually favors the Palestinian side.

One fine rant on progressive liberals-Cry and Howl


Slowly getting gathering my marbles, or what I have left from the original set, back onto the pitcher's mound and I am starting to throw some heat. In other words, I am on my way back, whatever this may be worth. My absence has been extremely irritating but it also has been extremely necessary.

This is one fine rant, short, sweet and to the point that liberalism is a toxic disease. Nothing needs to be added by me. PatriotUSA

From Cry and Howl.

***********************

Saturday night rant by Steve

 Okay, this is it for me tonight folks.

Liberals have given us same-sex marriage. They’ve given us a military of limp-wrist homos, and placed our women on the front lines of combat to cover their gay asses. They’ve given us $17 Trillion in debt and a bisexual Negro president who hates his own race.  Liberals continually point out the nefarious acts of G.W. Bush and wonder why he wasn’t “investigated” for his alleged crimes. They had control of both the House and Senate since 2006. Maybe they should ask their Democrat Congressmen and women why they didn’t arrest Bush for his crimes. Maybe dumbass liberals should ask the Democrat majority in the House and Senate at the time why they didn’t put together a select committee to investigate Bush.

Wars and chaos, attacks on Christians and our kids in schools, shoving perversion down their throats. They’ve tried to make God like unto them. Sick, perverted, selfish, extremely hate filled trash who condemn everything good and decent in America. Benghazi, Fast and Furious, NSA spying, IRS targeting of conservative groups, massive vote fraud, war on women and children, racial divide not seen since the 1960′s, on and on with pushing upon us every ungodly, demented perversion known to mankind. Sports franchises afraid to not pick a homo to their team, even when the gay player is substandard.

My prayer to God tonight is for God to swiftly fulfill his promise that “The fear of the wicked will come upon him.”

Lord God, the wicked think you are like unto them. Show them they are deceived and are an abomination in your sight. Save those who would repent and sin no more. Consume in your firey indignation those arrogant reprobates who would slay the unborn whom you knew before conception. Consume those who pervert your word to mislead others into damnation. Demonstrate your intolerance for, sin yet love for the sinner who repents and sins no more.  The filth of their thoughts are not yours, yet through arrogance and pride they consider themselves equal to you. They aren’t even equal to the powers of darkness they follow to their own damnation.  And that damnation is just.

Source is here.


Tags: Cry and Howl, Liberal stupidity, liberal arrogance, Progressives are toxci To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

A very sad day for railroading-Commuter's bar car rolls into history

After the previous post I thought it best to get a little more serious and this is a very sad story indeed.

Take it from me who has passed a lot of time in the club car, tavern car,  bar car, Pacific Parlor car on the Coast Starlight, I find this quite a tragedy. My family traveled by train almost exclusively when I was very young and from age 3, I have traveled 98% of time by train. I have never ridden commuter trains to work and back but I have known people who have. I am sure if I lived in this region and rode any commuter train that had a bar car, that is WHERE you would FIND ME especially on the commute home. Seems that nothing is safe nor sacred anymore. PatriotUSA

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Last call for commuters’ bar car

Commuters in the bar car on the New Haven Line out of New York City, Feb. 29, 1968. The Metro-North Railroad retired what were thought to be the final bar cars in America on Friday, for decades an anachronistic haven for weary commuters looking for a drink or camaraderie.  Photo from Barton Silverman / New York Times News Service

By Matt Flegenheimer • New York Times News Service / 

 


There are those who sip discreetly on subway trains, reaching for the paper bags in their coat pockets, or pull flasks from their knapsacks in the darkened back corners of a city bus.

Such is the stigma of drinking in transit, where the sloshed are supposed to have boarded that way.

But for decades, passengers on the Metro-North Railroad have found a workaround amid the fake wood panels and lounge-style seating of the bar car — the space where everybody may or may not know your name, but none would dare cast a judgmental glare about that fourth beer before the Stamford station.

“The two words you don’t want to hear on the bar car,” said Steve Schleier, clutching his beer can en route to Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday evening. “Last call.”

And yet, for the last commuter-rail bar cars believed to be operating in the United States, it is indeed the end of the line. The last of Metro-North’s old car fleet, introduced in the 1970s, has aged out of the system; the 7:07 p.m. train Friday from Grand Central Terminal to New Haven was the bar car’s final ride before its retirement at the hands of a new, barless model.

Since before World War II, when rail was king and Prohibition was dead, the rolling saloon has been a national staple — its contents relied upon to make the strangers less strange, the commutes less interminable. At the end, there were only four bar cars left, according to the American Public Transportation Association, all on Metro-North.

On Thursday, the regulars were left to reminisce, toasting the traveling Christmas parties and medium-stakes sports wagers, softball league allegiances forged on the rails and love stories that owed their start to the spirits of the New Haven line.

“There’s also been affairs,” said Terri Cronin, chairwoman of the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council and a bar car veteran from the East Norwalk stop. “I’ve heard.”

Aboard the 5:26 p.m. train to Bridgeport, riders traded hugs, fist bumps, tales of golf course conquests.

Somewhere near South Norwalk, the bartender, Danny Wickline, 55, hushed the masses as they held cups aloft, interrupting a well-attended dice game on his countertop.
“You’ve taken very good care of me,” Wickline said, looking up and down the bar. “I appreciate it. I love you all.”

The people loved him back, they said, many forming a line to kiss the bartender on the cheek, mouth or both.

An unfamiliar quiet curdled, briefly.

“Back to work!” a rider shouted, adding a profanity, as the crowd roared anew.

Even to defenders, the car is a curious anachronism, culled from an era of liquid lunches and onboard cigars. Smoking was banned inside cars in the 1980s, over some rider objections, but the New Haven bar car has survived, outlasting vanquished drink service carts on other commuter rail operations in the New York area — Metro-North’s Harlem and Hudson lines, and the Long Island Rail Road.

At their peak, Metro-North said, there were 10 bar cars. As the number has dwindled, travelers have grown fiercely protective of the privilege, coordinating rides via emails and texts in recent years to ensure the cars would fill.

A website, BarCar.com, founded in 1997, has dedicated itself exclusively to celebrating “this social phenomenon that exists in limbo between work and home.”

An onboard cocktail, the site reads, is “the perfect antidote for the grind that is business in the 20th century.”

That no one bothered to change the date is telling. The bar car seems to have proved too much for this century, its romance bewildering to detractors who saw little but a rolling office party with overtaxed cup-holders and cushions absorbing wayward suds.
“Society has changed, DWI laws have changed, the relationships of men and women have changed,” said Mitchell Pally, a board member for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North. “You can wait the hour to get off the train and do what you’re going to do.”

The bar car’s less social descendant, the cafe cars of Amtrak, still sell beer and liquor amid the sandwiches and chips, but offer little in the way of kinship, with travelers often returning to their seats to imbibe in solitude.

Even the drink carts at Grand Central, where Wickline will now work exclusively, have been subjected to modern flourishes. Trail mix, protein bars and energy drinks are now available.

“It’s a rebranding,” said Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the transportation authority.
Many riders were adamant that the branding had been fine the first time. The bar car’s attraction was not the drinks, they said, but the people who hoisted them, all while respecting a strictly enforced code.

Extreme overindulgence was rare and diligently policed. Morning interactions were brief, if they happened at all, lest “you get a cup of coffee over your head,” Mark Ludlow, 43, from Fairfield, said.

Riders recalled a fistfight or two, but those in neighboring cars could most likely say the same.

Some residents had turned to the bar car to network between jobs, or conduct business with potential clients.

And the specter of impaired driving, travelers insisted, was never cause for concern.
“These are professional people,” said Jesse Foote, 48, an energy broker from Fairfield, who drank water Thursday. “Make sure your breath is good; drive right home.”

Many held out hope that the bar cars could return, despite the high cost of their custom design. Officials in Connecticut have summoned a team of consultants in a bid to conceive an affordable bar car that could be retrofitted on the new models, known as M-8s, though it is unclear if this is feasible.

Absent such an intervention, the regulars have designated an unquiet car, second from the head, as the de facto bar on each train, with promises of shared six-packs and undiminished cheer.

“They’re putting us out in the general population,” Paul Collins, 60, from Monroe, Conn., said by way of a warning.

Collins stepped out of the car, now filled with the empty cups and stale air of a fraternity party as it neared Bridgeport. Last stop, the speakers said moments later, last call. And then the bar car chugged away.




Tags: New Haven Railroad, Commuter bar car, Commuter tavern car, Club car, Metro-North Railroad To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

The asurredly stupid-The birder's world series or NBL

This is something I do not get at all, the world series for birder's? A serious WTH moment for me, who loves birds and I think this is just a bad idea and is being ruined by the latest in technology.

In a world that is growing increasingly impersonal and dumber by the day, thanks to the ease of technology, people relying on said technology and the loss of something so pure and simple as a conversation between people and a hand written letter, it has come down to this.

I say leave this 'sport' to the traditional way, learning from experience and research. Technology has no place here. Can you see it now. zebra stripped referees calling for instant replays of who spotted what bird first. Here is a bird for you:



Birding or bird watching is on the verge of becoming an 'extreme sports level' whatever that is. Can you imagine you and your friends gathering around the television, computer or tablet to watch a riveting, fast action paced couple of hours birding? What is next, the NBL or National Bird League?

From our local rock chuck wrapper

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At birders’ world series, controversy over tech 

By Corey Kilgannon and Emily S. Rueb / New York Times News Service 

 

Pete Dunne and Benjamin Van Doren are devout birders who share a passion for identifying rare species, recording their sightings and competing in birding events known as Big Days.

But as they prepared for the biggest Big Day of all, today’s World Series of Birding in New Jersey, their technological approaches could hardly be more disparate.

Van Doren, 20, a sophomore at Cornell, has a $2,500 camera setup and an iPhone stocked with digital field guides, apps that play recordings of bird songs and help him, with GPS, home in on where he might find certain species.

Dunne, 62, has been preparing a bit differently. He refuses to bring a camera and keeps his cellphone turned off. He eschews birding apps and digital libraries in favor of the handwritten journal he has kept since he was 7. The proliferation of digital photography and other technology alters the whole dynamic of birding, he said, “getting away from the art of field identification.”

It was all leading to a regrettable mindset, he added, of “Shoot first and identify later.”
Not long after professional baseball came around to instant replay, the booming world of competitive birding, once seen as a refuge from the clatter of the modern world, is debating how much it should embrace technology. It is as close as birding, long proud of its honor system, has come to an identity crisis, particularly over the issue of whether photography should be required to prove a spotting. In debates among birders, the encroachment of smartphones and digital cameras has become inseparable from another touchy issue, the matter of questionable sightings, known as stringing.

The world series is held every May throughout New Jersey, a major migration stop for birds heading north, and the event routinely attracts roughly 1,000 of the world’s top birders, who will race around the state from midnight to midnight, often in four-member teams, trying to identify as many species as they can. Their reward will be bragging rights and the Urner-Stone Cup, which resembles a miniature version of hockey’s Stanley Cup, although there are no cash prizes.

The competition, which also raises money for conservation, does not require photo evidence, and scoring remains on the honor system, although contestants who claim to have seen or heard rare birds can expect to be questioned by other teams about details. The rules do not allow the use of digital gadgets in the spotting or hearing of birds. Recorded calls cannot be played in the open, where they could inadvertently — or intentionally — induce birds to respond, for example. But birders are permitted to refresh themselves — in their cars, only — with recorded bird calls.

The pro-tech camp argues that it is silly to prohibit tools that educate birders, make birding more welcoming for novices.

“It is bringing a new breath of air into the competitions,” said Scott Whittle, a commercial photographer from Cape May, N.J., who has a $10,000 photo setup. He is helping develop an app called Bird Genie that recognizes and identifies bird calls in the field.

He said he began birding six years ago and photographed his sightings “because I knew I wasn’t a good enough birder for people to trust me.”

The verification of sightings and the fight against stringing — arguable sightings by inexperienced, overeager or simply cheating birders — are two of birding’s most pressing issues and form the main argument for the use of photos.

Birding’s popularity, fueled in part by the recent films, “The Big Year” and “A Birder’s Guide to Everything,” is approaching an extreme-sport level, with adrenaline-pumped teams putting in sleepless days.

The American Birding Association has begun discussions to revise portions of its code of ethics, said Jeffrey Gordon, the association’s president. The code serves as a guideline for birders, although competition organizers are free to make their own rules. Gordon said that what little there was in the code regarding technology — there is a mention, for example, of curbing the use of tape recorders — has likely gone unchanged since being established a decade ago, “before people were walking around with libraries of bird songs in their pocket.”

While the honor system remains paramount, Gordon said, photographs, provided they have not been altered, can offer “a higher standard of evidence,” especially for rare sightings, and for newer birders who have yet to establish reputations.
“I hear young birders joking around saying, ‘Photos or it didn’t happen,” he said. “The expectation is that if you report something rare, you’re going to need a photograph. And I only see that increasing.”

The association created a new category of competition: Photo Big Days. Last month, Whittle and Tom Stephenson, a Brooklyn-based birder, organized a Photo Big Day in Texas and competed as well, photographing 209 birds in 24 hours, which the birding association has recognized as a record for North America.

Even purists like Dunne, a New Jersey Audubon Society official who founded the world series, said any tool that made birding more accessible was welcome. But introducing them to competitions goes against the trust implicit in birding, the purists said, and turns what should be a contest of devotion and skill into a free-for-all where tech wizardry and expensive cameras become the de facto entry requirements.

Teams in the world series recruit members who can identify bird calls and can scout where targeted species are likely to be seen. To prepare for the event, Van Doren’s Cornell team has spent a week driving around New Jersey using apps to log where specific birds have been spotted. They are not allowed to use apps to acquire new information during the event, but they can use them to refer to previously gathered information.

Van Doren acknowledged that technology should have its limits. The day will come, he predicted, when binoculars themselves will be able to identify birds. “That would be lame from a birding perspective,” he said, “because it would take the skill out of it.”

Source is here.




Tags: Birding, Bird watching, WTH To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!

Threats and Intimidation by Hillel and Jewish Federation at UC Irvine




Gary Fouse
fousesquawk
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com


Anteaters for Israel forced to cancel speaking appearance by Nonie Darwish at I-Fest.


                                   "One person's hate speech is another person's education."

Hat tip Frontpage Magazine


Nicole Hungerford has an article in Frontpage Magazine describng how Hillel of Orange County and the Orange County Jewish Federation pressured Anteaters for Israel, a Jewish student group on the UC Irvine campus to withdraw a speaking invitation to Nonie Darwish.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/nichole-hungerford/uc-irvine-hillel-forces-cancellation-of-pro-israel-speaker/     

In response, Hilell's statements about Nonie Darwsih do not hold water. I have attended the last two appearances of Darwish to the UCI campus, and there was no security problem or incident. (Of course, she travels with her own security because of the threats on her life. Secondly, as a representative of Arabs for Israel, Darwish could have limited her talk to her support for Israel as a native-born Egyptian. How is that divisive?

In my last several years of confronting anti-Semitic hate speech on the UC Irvine campus, I have learned that Hillel is a useless organization at best and a big problem at worst. Of course, Hillel chapters, which are devoted to enhancing Jewish student life on campuses, vary from area to area, and I have no beef with those endeavors Presently, There is a great struggle going on as we speak between the new national leadership, which is against the involvement in Hillel of groups hostile to Israel vs several "open chapters", who want to accommodate anti-Israel Jews as well. Just to give you a taste of the flavor of Orange County Hillel, here is a piece I posted back in 2011 regarding this outfit.

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2011/04/interfaith-event-at-chapman-university.html?m=1

I may not have a dog in that hunt, but I do object when Hillel's lack of willingness to stand up to anti-Semitism when it comes from campus events pertaining to the Israel-Palestinian issue conflicts with my own efforts to address these issues at UC Irvine.

One thing I want to underline: I have no quarrel with Jewish students who choose not to get involved with these issues on campus. They have a variety of reasons to make that choice, and some of it may depend on their own level of religious devotion or their own attitudes toward Israel. Besides, a lot of these young people on campus just want to do their studies, get along with fellow students, and not be involved in contentious issues. I get that. That is their choice, and I respect it.

What I don't respect are the so-called adults in the Hillel leadership who advise Jewish students not to get involved in these particular issues and in some cases put pressure on these students not to get involved. This is just the latest example of Hillel and Jewish Federation doing just that.

I had the occasion to exchange a few words with one of those high-ranking officials of Orange County Hillel Monday-before-last on the first day of the MSU anti-Israel week of events. I am going to leave his name out of this, but I am going to relate the conversation as it was heard by two witnesses who were party to the conversation.

In discussing the event at UCI and the recent BDS vote-down at UCLA, this person mentioned that he had been meeting with students at UCLA during that controversy. He then went on to say that things were much better in this regard at UCI than in past years. He listed the usual things like the upcoming I-Fest and the various religious dinners they have held on campus for the students etc. He also took issue with those who came out to oppose the MSU's speakers saying that it just gave them undue attention.

One of my friends and associates took issue and told this individual about what had been going on at UCI prior to the recent arrival of this individual. He explained the work of the Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism at UCI.

I also jumped in and told him of the things I had seen and done in recent years at UCI. I told him of the times myself and others had shown up at the MSU events and documented what was being said and participated actively in q and a. I told him the two times I had stood face to face with Amir Abdel Malik Ali  after his speech and  told him why he was anti-Semite and his positions were wrong. I also told him that at times, I as a Gentile was wondering where all the Jews were while I was taking on Ali.

To all this this character said, "Well, I think that's counter-productive".

It was when my friend asked him who he was and he mentioned his position with Hillel, as well as the Rose Project, we both reacted, "This is the problem." "That explains everything" and walked away.

Again, it may be none of my business, but it is my opinion that Jewish students who wish to stand up to anti-Semitism on campus when it arises out of the Israel-Palestinian conflict need to find other sources of funding than Hillel, the Jewish Federation of Orange County, and its financial arm, the Rose Project. These organizations have a built-in conflict of interest. These people know that if Jewish students decide not to attend UCI because of perceived anti-Semitism, they are all out of a job.

Which they should be.

Feeding the golden 'cadillac' alligator-Obama's war on coal and before the rainbow

One of the very, very few promises Obama made and has kept is when he said the price we pay for electricity will necessarily skyrocket. With this he said he would make it so expensive for new coal plants to be built or old coal plants upgraded that they would have to close, and they have. Obama's war on coal has been all to real for those who worked in this industry and for those who depend on coal fired plants for power. Rather than trying to kill coal fired power plants or make the coal industry extinct, the Obama regime 'administration' should be working with Utility executives and companies to keep coal affordable and more importantly, keep Americans working at the power plants and in the mines. Much of the blame for the current war on coal can be directly attributed to Obama and his appointments to the EPA, which is not the friend of any American, period. If anyone thinks this does not all tie in with UN agenda 21, you are a deluded kool aid drinking fool and probably voted for Obama twice. What you are about to read is an excellent explanation of what has been going on within the Utility industry for years, long before Obama was disgustingly elected and then re-elected. You will find two links at the top of this article and I strongly encourage you to read them. The Supreme Court recently did us no favors either as you will read. Obama and his radical appointments to the EPA have made the war on coal and fossil fuels much worse.

You may ask why I am posting on this? Because this effects EVERY American who uses electricity, period. Rabid, radical, environmentalism is SLAVERY and all about control.

At the end you will find additional information to another article about General Electric and how they have their hand in the coal industry and it WILL be growing. That's right General Electric. No matter how stupid the USA is regarding letting radical environazis like Obama, the EPA and those who hate any and all fossil fuels, who cannot tolerate or imagine the continued use of fossil fuels to supply our(and theirs, stupid idiots) electricity, I have news for them. The rest of the developing world is using coal, building coal fire power plants and these countries like China, India will BUY our coal if we are so stupid as to not use it to help us become energy independent. These countries are growing their economies while we here in the USA and Europe are killing ours with needless and job killing regulations from the globalist environazis at the EPA and White House. Add to the above that some countries in Europe are shelving their green energy plans as they are finding out they are too expensive, green energy is a pipe dream and cannot produce the power needed to grow your economy or even keep your citizens warm or cool. New coal plants are now being built and planned in Europe because countries that have gone rabidly green have some of the most expensive electricity in the world.

"If I had but one sentence that I could plant in your mind it is this:
Environmental Control is not about the environment – it’s about control"
PatriotUSA


From WRSA.

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Another From Tesla’s Kid: The War On Coal


From a reader, apropos of this just-announced decision from the Supremes; more analysis here:

EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, No. 12-1182

War on Coal

I actually stumbled into the information on the BLM and solar. I wasn’t really looking for it, but I could connect the dots and figure out how it integrated and what the long term goal was/is.

So let’s talk now about the War on Coal. I present this not as an expert on coal plants, on environmental regulation, or the history behind them.

Just someone who can put it together.

If I had but one sentence that I could plant in your mind it is this:
Environmental Control is not about the environment – it’s about control.

Just the same as “Gun Control”.

For decades, coal plants were built and there were few, if any, back-end pollution controls. Same for cars and trucks. To me, one of the prettiest sights in the world is a thick cloud of black smoke from a locomotive engine or that beautiful Kenworth in ‘Smokey and The Bandit’.

The Clean Air Act was the camel’s nose in the tent. Utilities started installing electrostatic precipitators to capture a great deal of particulates and prevent them from being put into the atmosphere. They worked with ways to better control the combustion process and the mixture of air and pulverized coal that were burned. And then in 1999, something happened. The Clinton administration launched a lawsuit against basically every coal fired power generator accusing them of violating New Source Review (NSR) clauses in the Clean Air Act. The idea behind NSR is that if you make really big improvements to your plant, then you are supposed to likewise improve the environmental controls on your plant to the best available technology.

I had some hopes at the time that when a Republican president got into office, this lawsuit would be dropped and common sense might prevail. Silly me. George Bush did nothing to slow or stop this lawsuit and so it proceeded. And it was a dark cloud hanging over all of coal fired generation. When you consider the cost of compliance, the fines, and penalties, NSR had the potential to kill coal.

From about 1999 forward, coal fired plants began adding on a number of environmental controls. For example, Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCRs) – basically like the catalytic converter on your car. Some plants then made a fuel switch to use Powder River Basin (PRB) coal which primarily comes from the area around Gillette, Wyoming. The advantage to PRB coal is that it has a much lower sulfur content and can help you meet compliance requirements with respect to sulfur dioxide (SOX). The disadvantages are that you can really only get it from one place, you have to pay transport it from Wyoming to wherever your plant is in the Eastern US (a problem that’s even worse because rail is your only option and they know it.), even better is that there are only a few rail lines they use. Even better is that PRB coal can spontaneously combust much easier than eastern (Appalachian or Illinois Basin) coal.

Utilities installed Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) or “scrubbers” designed to remove NOX from flue gas. Unlike a simple catalytic converter or SCR added onto the back end of the plant, a scrubber is basically a chemical plant added to the back end of the existing coal plant. One of the hidden costs of the scrubber is that it consumes a ton of power to run. At one plant I know of, I think the station service load from the scrubber alone is something like 7% of the total output of the plant. And those are megawatts that you’ll never get back. Some scrubbers will produce gypsum as a byproduct of the chemical reaction which can be sold for use as drywall. Some unfortunate utilities probably had gypsum sales incorporated into their business model for the scrubbers. This hasn’t worked well for two reasons:
One, the economy has gone all Mugabe on us.

Two, you guessed it – the potential for lawsuits over drywall that might include gypsum created using coal plant flue gas.

The latest craze is for Baghouses, Activated Carbon Injection, or Bromine Injection to capture mercury from flue gasses. To put this in perspective, the amount of mercury captured is about the size of a sugar cube per ton of coal.

All told, some utilities spent as much on environmental controls as they did for the original construction of the plant itself.

But the war on coal is not just fought over stack emissions. It is also fought at the mine mouth-which no doubt helps to put miners in tiny coal mining communities in the hills of Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia out of a job. (I’m less familiar with these regulations, but you could go look them up and find the outcomes for yourself.)
The war on coal is also fought at the water’s edge. Water is key because nearly all power plants of any size use a steam turbine to turn a generator. Most of them also use cooling towers to condense that steam back to liquid form and therefore must draw a lot of water from whatever body of water they are near. Remember this phrase, “316b”. The EPA is looking to require industrial facilities to use enormous screens to prevent drawing in poor helpless, defenseless baby desert tortoise-like fish and wildlife that may or may not be endangered.

The war on coal is also fought at the ash pile. Coal fired plants produce ash from the bottom of their boilers. In December of 2008, the Kingston Steam Plant had what might be considered the Three Mile Island of ash pile accidents. You can look up the stories and results for yourself. In regulatory space, what we all knew was coming was a new tsunami of regulation. The potential exists for the EPA to declare coal combustion byproducts (CCBs) as hazardous waste. If they do this, then might mean that all coal fired plants would have to dig up all of that ash, then store it somewhere that it would be “safe”. Which may mean transporting it to somewhere that it would be safe. Which would mean transporting hazardous waste. Even better, many utilities sold their drier, higher quality ash (commonly called top ash) to places that mixed concrete. So if all those CCBs are hazardous waste – which is a largely arbitrary call by the EPA, then would it mean that all that concrete would have to be dug up and buried somewhere else? Again, consider how many roads are made with concrete. Consider that there’s probably a century of coal ash piled up at some plants and consider what this would cost. Thank you so much, TVA and Kingston Steam Plant for providing the EPA one more thing they could do.

The war on coal is very long on environmental regulations. All those serve to increase the cost of compliance and by extension, the cost/kWh for electricity generated at coal plants.

But the war on coal is not limited to just the environmental control aspect. Consider what has been happening in the last several years with respect to natural gas. In the world of natural gas, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has allowed us to get to an enormous quantity of gas that previously was inaccessible or impossible to get.

Some background: Electricity generated from coal plants was always cheaper than electricity generated from natural gas. Why? Because the cost of compliance was low for both, coal was cheaper than natural gas on fuel costs, and much more abundant than natural gas. For this reason, coal plants were traditionally built to be baseloaded (Run at or near 100% all the time) units. Natural gas units were combustion turbine (think jet engine with a generator on the other end of the shaft) or combined cycle units (jet engine with heat recovery steam generator to increase output and thermal efficiency) and they were designed to run as “peaking” units. When the price of power was high enough, you run the peakers.

The relationship between coal and natural gas prices became inverted somewhere around 2009 and suddenly, the combined cycle units-originally designed as peaking units were running all the time, non-stop. Meanwhile, the coal units-designed to be baseloaded sat on reserve shutdown. Even better is that many of those coal units which had already applied the latest and greatest technologies at a cost of billions (which again increased their cost/kWh to generate electricity) were now put on reserve shutdown.

Think about it – you just spent billions to put environmental controls on these units and now they hardly run. At one high-end coal plant where these controls were installed, they are projecting a capacity factor of somewhere around ~25% for the next decade. In other words, they might run 3 months out of the year. And if that’s happening at the Cadillac, flagship coal units, what do you think is happening at the older units where the age and output simply could not provide enough benefit to offset the cost of those controls? Right, they’re toast. You need only look at the news releases in state after state to see how many coal units are being closed.
Consider also that once the old “clunker” coal plants are gone, the Cadillacs of coal will be the only remaining targets left in the war on coal. Utilities have been closing the older coal plants-feeding them to the alligator in an effort to satisfy the appetite of that alligator and hopefully prevent the Cadillacs from being eaten also. Seems like Winston Churchill had a quote about that or something…

Right now, natural gas is doing great. But when enough coal units are retired, the EPA will begin to destroy natural gas as well. Bank on it. As an aside, a key difference in natural gas and coal is that you cannot easily stockpile natural gas.
With respect to wind and solar, where did all of this come from? Those two power sources were never cost-effective enough to warrant development on a large scale. Ah, but if you drive the cost of compliance up for coal-then by comparison to coal, it becomes more economical. Subsidies help too. So do ridiculous mandates for renewable energy in utilities’ portfolios.

It would be really easy at this point to simply blame the government for all our ills in the war on coal. But I’m going to tell you something that may jolt you. When it comes to onerous environmental regulation, utilities are only now starting to raise any serious protest. It’s true. For the last decade or so, they had absolutely no problem in spending billions on back-end controls to control this pollutant or that molecule.

Why?

There are two types of money in the budget – Operations and Maintenance (O&M) and Capital. Capital dollars are used to build new plants, back-end controls, transmission lines, etc. In order to get that capital, regulated utilities can go to the state public service commission (or equivalent) with the project that needs to be implemented. They’ll present an overall scope, schedule, and cost-which will be passed along to the ratepayers over long term-like 20-30 years. The beauty of capital spending is that once you have completed the asset and placed it into service, you can roll those costs into the rate base for your customers, thereby increasing your revenues.
Oh, and increasing your power bills.

So for many utilities, even the huge cost of the back-end environmental controls hasn’t been a really big problem until the coal/gas cost inversion that we’re in right now. Though they should have fought this crap tooth and nail 25 years ago, they went along with it. They “worked closely” with the regulators so that they could get some certainty about where the regulation was heading and thus, where they needed to be heading with their environmental controls programs. So long as they had decent relationships with the PSCs, they could get the SCRs, the FGDs, and the Baghouses approved without a lot of trouble.

I perceive that right now though, many utilities are in big trouble. Remember how I told you that even some Cadillac coal plants are looking at capacity factors of ~25% over the next decade? That’s if nothing else gets worse. But remember also that CCBs (ash) and 316b (water) have yet to be finalized.

So rest assured, it will get worse for coal.

What happens when those utilities figure out that sacrificing the clunker coal units wasn’t enough to satisfy the appetite of the alligator?

What happens when they have to sacrifice even the Cadillacs that they just poured billions into (and have not yet fully recovered their investment)?

Oops.

Why. . . it’s almost like it’s part of an intentional scheme to crash an entire industry and set the stage for more government oversight/regulation/intrusion/control.

Source is here.

For further reading and great insight on how stupid and evil Obama's war on coal may really turn out to be, please click on the link below to read an excellent article from TownHall.

GE crushes Obama's War on coal




Tags: Coal, Electricity, Obama's war on coal, PRB coal, Clean coal, EPA, SCOTUS, Radical environmentalism, UN Agenda 21, Social environmentalism and slavery of the American people  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!