Maybe She's Taken That Wonder Thing a Little Too Literally

Celebrities are like talking dogs. It's not that what they say is so great; it's that they speak at all. Take for example, Lynda Carter. Wonder Woman: Men Can’t Legislate Without Women

Actress Lynda Carter, the original Wonder Woman, called for some female senators to be added as members of the Senate healthcare reform working group that is currently crafting an Obamacare replacement.

Carter also said there should be “no conversation” about gender politics until America is “gender neutral.”

Whatever that means.

“That there are 13 men on the health panel and no woman is a goddamn shame. I have to say that maybe people don’t understand that I worry about my father. I worry about my brother. I am at an age where I see people who need help and we are half the world. You need the voices of women,” Carter said on Friday following a discussion at the Library of Congress as part of their “Library of Awesome” exhibit.

“If women outlive men, I think we need the voices of women,” she added. “And I would really hope the president and these people on this panel would have some reason and some intellect behind their decisions here and put some women on there.”

So maybe men need more representation on health since they obviously need more health care?

“We’re half the world. We are the mothers of all mankind. Hello? This is about, if you are thinking of a family, and you are thinking we all agree that raising a family, you really want to have two parents, you want to have a mother and a father, but you want to have co-parenting and you want to have the ying and the yang, why is it that we think that’s not purposeful and important in our government?” Carter said.

“It’s a supportive and another point of view, you know, because women are, I think, much less about hierarchy and more about community in general – that’s maybe an overstatement, but we don’t ask how big is it? I couldn’t help myself,” she added.

Thanks to the new Gal Gadot Wonder Woman movie, Lynda is enjoying another 15 minutes of relevance.

Carter was asked if she had Wonder Woman advice for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“Slippery slope – I have to say that we don’t want to be men, we just don’t want men telling us how to be women, that’s kind of the bottom line, isn’t it? How do you know how to be a woman? You know nothing about being a woman or what it’s like to have to deal with the things we deal with and you can’t legislate it. You need the ying and the yang,” she replied. “People talk about family values – we need two parents, we need this, but you think you can legislate without another voice, the voice of women. You cannot legislate without the other voices of half the nation of, you know, maybe they just don’t understand we really are the mothers of all mankind, that means you, in the nicest way.”

Men have legislated for the last couple of thousand years without women, and built a pretty decent civilization. Can you honestly argue that we've done better since women were allowed in the hallowed halls of Congress?

Wombat-socho chimes in with "Late Night With Rule 5 Monday: All-American Catgirl".

The Weekend Beach Report

We had bookend days at the beach this weekend. It's been warm, 85+, humid and mostly clear skies, with only light winds.

Good weather for butterflies. This Variegated Fritillary was spotted in the Kudzu vine. I also saw my first Black Swallowtail of the year there too, but it refused to cooperate with my attempts at photography.








We found lots of shark's teeth, but none very big and magnificent, so instead, I'm posting a picture of what I think must be the smallest Snaggletooth Shark's tooth I have ever found.

A good day for labs. We don't let Skye get that deep anymore, because her fur retains bay water for ever, and starts to stink

But she gets more pets than any other dog on the beach. She insists on it.

It's hard to see, because they're hard to see, but the infamous Sea Nettles are here early this year, and some combination of wind and tide has caused large numbers of them to wash in to some of the backwaters behind the groins.

More pets!

Reason #5581 That Trump Was Elected

Gen. "Mad Dog" Mattis: Mattis To Decide On Delay In Transgender Enlistment

The various branches of the United States military have once again asked for a delay in beginning to accept the enlistment of new recruits who “identify” as transgender. A previous request for a two year delay was shot down, but now the new Secretary of Defense, General James “Mad Dog” Mattis will be considering a six month pause. This has the usual list of suspects in the SJW community up in arms, but the various service branches are still pleading their case. (Associated Press)

Military chiefs will seek a six-month delay before letting transgender people enlist in their services, officials said Friday.
After meetings this week, the service leaders hammered out an agreement that rejected Army and Air Force requests for a two-year wait and reflected broader concerns that a longer delay would trigger criticism on Capitol Hill, officials familiar with the talks told The Associated Press.
The new request for a delay will go to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis for a final decision, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the internal deliberations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

No word yet on how Mattis is likely to go on this one, but more time for a decision of this magnitude can only be a good thing. The military is already dealing with the fallout from the Obama administration about letting current personnel “come out” as transgender and continue serving and we have very few details as to how that’s been going. The ban on current service members was only lifted last summer and we’re only talking about a couple of thousand people currently in the military tops. It also was not openly supported by the military for a variety of reasons. You’ll recall that when Ash Carter made the announcement last June he was alone at the podium. Such major policy announcements are usually made in the company of at least the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if not the heads of some of the military branches, but Carter stood by himself and Gen. Joseph Dunford did not attend. . .

I see no need for transgenders in the military. It's not like we're actually hurting for willing volunteers. But if they insist, bundle them all into a infantry battalion and throw them into the front lines of the next conflict. Maybe North Korea?

From last night's Greg Gutfeld Show:



Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links.

Midnite Music - "Skyrim (Dragonborn)"

Tina Guo:

Wombat-socho chimes in with "Late Night With Rule 5 Monday: All-American Catgirl".

Who's Zoomin' Who?

Who Does The FBI Work For?

If you work for any extended amount of time in Washington, you are likely to meet people who work within the intelligence and law enforcement communities. You learn to recognize potential sources and those who will never be. The bad sources love to tell stories, so many stories, with at least a veneer of truth. The good sources will tell far fewer stories, but only when it’s important. But the most frequent stories you will hear, from good and bad, are stories of internal dysfunction and irresponsible uses of power. This is not confined to one administration or another, but is a recurring and expected fact of life within the agencies that ought to be focused on securing our liberties and protecting us from threats, foreign and domestic, not spying on an ex, using taxpayer funds for professional gain, or preventing the return of a romantic rival by adding them to a watch list. Once you’ve heard enough of these stories, a realization may dawn on you: these institutions are as dysfunctional as all the others, with their own internal politics, defects, aspiring people, and conflicted forces that often cross the lines of law and ethics in pursuit of their goals. Not losing faith in them at that juncture is a difficult thing indeed.

One of the things I realized growing up is that most people don't, not really.

That brings us to yesterday’s FBI briefing on the shooting targeting Republicans in Alexandria, a briefing that could not be more bizarre in its content and its conclusions. Mollie Hemingway has more:

“The FBI admits that Hodgkinson: vociferously raged against Republicans in online forums, had a piece of paper bearing the names of six members of Congress, was reported for doing target practice outside his home in recent months before moving to Alexandria, had mapped out a trip to the DC area, took multiple photos of the baseball field he would later shoot up, three days after the New York Times mentioned that Republicans practiced baseball at an Alexandria baseball field with little security, lived out of his van at the YMCA directly next door to the baseball field he shot up, legally purchased a rifle in March 2003 and 9 mm handgun “in November 2016,” modified the rifle at some point to accept a detachable magazine and replaced the original stock with a folding stock, rented a storage facility to hide hundreds of rounds of ammunition and additional rifle components, asked “Is this the Republican or Democrat baseball team?” before firing on the Republicans, ran a Google search for information on the “2017 Republican Convention” hours before the shooting, and took photos at high-profile Washington locations, including the east front plaza of the U.S. Capitol and the Dirksen Senate Office.
“We know from other reporting that the list was of six Republican Freedom Caucus members, including Rep. Mo Brooks, who was present at the practice.
“So what does the FBI decide this information means? Well, the takeaway of the briefing was characterized well by the Associated Press headline about it: “FBI: Gunman who shot congressman had no target in mind.” The Associated Press reported the FBI: believes the gunman “had no concrete plan to inflict violence” against Republicans, “had not yet clarified who, if anyone, he planned to target, or why,” believes he may have just “happened upon” the baseball game the morning of June 14, and that the attack appeared “spontaneous,” are unclear on the “context” of Hodgkinson’s note with six names of members of Congress, does not believe that photographs of the baseball field or other sites “represented surveillance of intended targets,” and “painted a picture of a down-on-his-luck man with few future prospects.”
“In fact, USA Today went with “FBI offers portrait of troubled Alexandria shooter with ‘anger management problem’” for their headline, since that’s what the FBI emphasized in the briefing.”

There’s also this incredible tidbit, which somehow has received little to no attention: “Hodgkinson also visited the office of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose campaign he had worked on as a volunteer, and was in email contact with the two Democratic senators from his home state.” If this was a shooter who had worked for Ted Cruz and was in contact via email with both of the Senators from Texas, wouldn’t we know about it?

It's exactly the same as when they continue to the question of the last terrorist who mowed down innocent bystanders while shouting "Allahu Akbar."

Because I can't find a live performance with Aretha:



Wombat-socho chimes in with "Late Night With Rule 5 Monday: All-American Catgirl".

Reheated Obamacare Schadenfreude

The subject is heating up again as the Republicans get closer to trying to repeal and replace the original bad deal with one of their own. First some continuing failure, as Anthem pulls out of Obamacare markets in Wisconsin and Indiana for 2018. What if they gave a program and nobody came? National Review reminds us No, Obamacare Has Not Saved American Lives, as Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren all insist that trimming one hair on Obamacare's head will kill thousands.

Reviews of the Republicans plans are mixed, Avik Roy, a persistent critic of Obamacare, is optimistic:

Finished reading the Senate HC bill. Put simply: If it passes, it’ll be the greatest policy achievement by a GOP Congress in my lifetime.

— Avik Roy (@Avik) June 22, 2017

while the usually sensible Megan McArdle, brought to you as always via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 06.23.17" says Republicans' Health-Care Bills Boil Down to ... More Obamacare.  It just:

• Reduces the number of people eligible for subsidies. . .
• Reduces the values of the premium subsidies. . .
• Lowers the cap on total subsidy expenditure. . .
• Eliminates the individual and employer mandates. . .
• Restricts coverage for abortion. . .
• Ends the cost-sharing reductions. . .
• Give states a great deal more flexibility in the waiver program. . .
• Gets rid of a lot of taxes. . .
• Market stabilization funds. . .
• Winds down the Medicaid expansion funding . . .
• Converts Medicaid to a per-capita allotment rather than an open-ended entitlement.

and Matthew Walther called The Republican health-care plan Just Bad plagiarism. Ace:
Senate's Obamacare Bill Is Primarily Designed to "Fix," Expand Obamacare. But still it sounds like a good start, but just a start.

Scott Adams predicts The New Healthcare Bill Will Be a Loser

During the campaign, candidate Trump made some references to taking care of everyone. It sounded like universal coverage, but no one thought he meant it.

He did mean it.

He meant it because he understands the contrast problem. Any Obamacare replacement needs to cover more people than Obamacare, or else it is dead on arrival. Any skilled persuader would see that.

The current whip count appears to have 5 Republican defectors, enough to kill the bill, although that is subject to change, while John Kasich carries out a Campaign To Save ObamaCare. He really likes expanded Medicaid. Ben Shapiro disses Auntie Botox:

Weird, it's pretty much Obamacare https://t.co/V9uMc5TkuN

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 22, 2017

More from Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 06.23.17:

EBL: McConnellCare Is Coming?Da Tech Guy: Health Law Uncertainties Starting To Hurt MillionsJustOneMinute: Health Care That’s Always A ScareShark Tank: Crist, Cruz, Oppose New Senate Healthcare Bill

Reason #5580 That Trump Was Elected

At least partially fulfilling another campaign promise Trump Signs VA Reform Bill Into Law

President Trump signed a Veterans Affairs bill into law Friday which is designed to make it easier for the agency to fire problem employees. From CNN:

“For many years, the government failed to keep its promises to our veterans. We all remember the nightmare that veterans suffered during the VA scandals that were exposed a few years ago,” Trump said during remarks in the East Room of the White House.
“Veterans were put on secret wait lists, given the wrong medication, given the bad treatments, and ignored in moments of crisis for them,” he said. “Many veterans died waiting for a simple doctor’s appointment. What happened was a national disgrace, and yet some of the employees involved in these scandals remained on the payrolls. Outdated laws kept the government from holding those who failed our veterans accountable.”
“Today,” Trump said, “we are finally changing those laws.”

. . .The CNN report on problems at the VA is being released in the middle of the extremely contentious debate over repealing (or altering) of Obamacare. The VA is a completely socialized health care system, a step beyond single-payer, and it is an ongoing disaster. That ought to be part of the discussion about where our system is going, but for some reason, Democrats are never asked or expected to defend the VA even as they agitate for moving the entire nation in the direction of greater government control over health care.

The bill makes it easier to fire non-performing employees, or employees accused of malfeasance and strengthens protections for whistleblowers. Until now, it has been opposed by all left thinking democrats, under orders from their masters in the public sector employee unions.

Rule 5 Saturday - A Big Plus for Lauren Mellor

 This week's Rule 5 lovely is Lauren Mellor:

Lauren Mellor (born 29 December 1985) is a South African fashion model best known for appearance in South African and American Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition

 Mellor first signed with Star Model Management in Johannesberg, Storm Model Management in London, England, Outlaws Models in Cape Town, South Africa, and Modelwerk in Hamburg, Germany. Her first known work was the cover of Top Billing Magazine in April 2005. In 2007, Mellor landed a John Lewis campaign which caught the attention of several media outlets when the brand proclaimed they would only use healthy sized models. That same year, she graced the cover of FHM in South Africa and Essentials Magazine. Despite the initial success, Mellor focused on her studies and graduated from the University of Cape Town with a degree in psychology.

Looks healthy to me!

Beverly D'Angelo hosts GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (298th Issue) this week, along with plenty of far out planetary science and heaps of nifty vintage stuff! Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Guns In The Desert" and "FMJRA 2.0: Cords" up and running at The Other McCain.

Smith Island to Get Upgrade

Much needed jetty project a big win for Smith Island

Smith Island is scheduled to get  much needed helping hand from the government. The Army Corps of Engineers releasing a plan that would build jetty's among other things to help alleviate erosion problems at Rhodes Point and reduce the need for dredging.

The Army Corps released the plan for public comment Thursday, but people 47 ABC spoke with are already giving it thumbs up.

"Our dear lord had a big hand in this cause prayers has been answered, yes," said Maxine Landon, a life-long resident of Rhodes Point, a part of Smith Island.

Landon said she has been pushing for a jetty to be created for close to 40 years. She said now that there are plans in place for their creation she couldn't be more elated.

The plan in part would be to realign a portion of Sheep Pen Gut and create two jetties. The jetties would reduce the need for continual dredging, a process where sand is removed from the floor of the bay.

Landon said right now the sediment is so built up that ships cannot pass through without bottoming out.

"Our men that that have to crab can't go out that way , they have to go the whole way around the island to get out in the Chesapeake Bay and that takes a lot of fuel," Landon said. "My brother for one can't get in there to his crab house to put his pots on his wharf because there's so much sand there he can't get in there."

If rising sea level is such a problem, why are their waterways getting shallower instead of deeper?

Some Killer Whipped Cream

Fitness model killed in freak whipped cream accident

A French fitness model died in a freak accident with a whipped cream dispenser, according to her family.

Rebecca Burger, who has more than 156,000 followers on Instagram, was killed when a defective whipped cream dispenser exploded and struck her in the chest, according to a post Tuesday from her family. She was 33.

The BBC reported that she received medical attention but ultimately died of cardiac arrest.

Her family warned fans not to buy the dispenser from the French manufacturer, claiming there were thousands of faulty devices still being sold.

Burger was popular on social media, where she’d post photos of her toned body in bikinis and share tips on food and fitness. She also competed in fitness and beauty competitions all over the world.

I'm so old, I can remember when you made whipped cream with cream and an electric mixer. I never heard of anyone being killed that way.

 Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Guns In The Desert" up and running at The Other McCain.

Reason #5579 That Trump Was Elected

China opens gates to US beef imports

China opened its gates to US beef imports this week, giving American cattle farmers much sought-after access to the country's massive market following a 14-year ban.

Shipments of eligible US beef have been allowed to enter China since Tuesday, the General Adminstration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement.

Announced last month, the lifting of the beef embargo was one of the first concrete results of trade discussions that began when Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Donald Trump at the US leader's resort in Florida in April.

The agreement, seen as a sign of warming trade ties between the world's largest economies, also gives US natural gas and certain financial services access to China's market of nearly 1.4 billion people.

In return the United States will allow cooked Chinese poultry to enter US markets.

China imposed a ban on US beef imports following a case of mad cow disease in the United States in 2003.

If we can't have free trade, maybe at least we can have fair trade.

I just hope it doesn't raise the price of steaks too much. Gotta have that red meat!

Fish Pic Friday - Jack Crevalle

or Crevalle Jack:

The crevalle jack, Caranx hippos (also known as the common jack, black-tailed trevally, couvalli jack, black cavalli, jack crevale and yellow cavalli) is a common species of large marine fish classified within the jack family, Carangidae. The crevalle jack is distributed across the tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic Ocean, ranging from Nova Scotia, Canada to Uruguay in the west Atlantic and Portugal to Angola in the east Atlantic, including the Mediterranean Sea. It is distinguishable from similar species by its deep body, fin colouration and a host of more detailed anatomical features, including fin ray and lateral line scale counts.

It is one of the largest fish in the genus Caranx, growing to a maximum known length of 124 cm and a weight of 32 kg, although is rare at lengths greater than 60 cm. The crevalle jack inhabits both inshore and offshore waters to depths of around 350 m, predominantly over reefs, bays, lagoons and occasionally estuaries. Young fish dispersed north by currents in the eastern Atlantic are known to migrate back to more tropical waters before the onset of winter; however, if the fish fail to migrate, mass mortalities occur as the temperature falls below the species' tolerance limits.

The crevalle jack is a powerful, predatory fish, with extensive studies showing the species consumes a variety of small fish, with invertebrates such as prawns, shrimps, crabs, molluscs and cephalopods also of minor importance. Dietary shifts with both age, location and season have been demonstrated, which led some researchers to postulate the species is indiscriminant in its feeding habits. The crevalle jack reaches maturity at 55 cm in males and 66 cm in females, with spawning taking place year round, although peaks in activity have been documented in several sites. The larval and juvenile growth has been extensively studied, with the oldest known individual 17 years of age. The crevalle jack is an important species to commercial fisheries throughout its range, with annual catches ranging between 1000 and 30 000 tonnes over its entire range. It is taken by a variety of netting methods, including purse nets, seines and gill nets, as well as hook-and-line methods. The crevalle jack is also a revered gamefish, taken both by lures and bait. The species is considered of good to poor quality table fare, and is sold fresh, frozen, or preserved, or as fishmeal or oil at market. The crevalle jack is closely related to both the Pacific crevalle jack and the longfin crevalle jack, the latter of which has been extensively confused with the true crevalle jack until recently.

I caught a number of them when I lived in Florida. We weren't impressed with their flavor then, but they were OK smoked. Pound for pound they are one of the fighting fish around. They do come into Chesapeake Bay on occasion in summer, and one friend caught a monster out on the Middle Grounds.

 Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Guns In The Desert" up and running at The Other McCain.

Went Fishing Again

Another sunrise over the Upper Chesapeake Bay. Mike, Bob and I met Pete at 5 AM at a marina on the South River for a commercial hook and line fishing trip. We stopped briefly at Thomas Pt. Shoals Lighthouse (1 keeper, I caught it) and some dinks, and the Bay Bridge (dinks, no keepers)

 We found ourselves fishing for suspended fish up near the approach to Baltimore Harbor, where 4 of these sailed by in formation.

Bob caught this Channel Catfish on a jig. Fishing was tough, though best in the morning.

Finding fish wasn't that hard, but getting them to bite was, but ultimately we managed 42 keepers, up to about 30 inches long; enough that Pete won't lose money on the trip after paying for gas, but not a bonanza.  The life of a commercial fisherman is not always easy, even when you have free labor.

 5 PM found us back at Thomas Pt. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the Bay Bridge in the background, and . . .

Reason #5578 That Trump Was Elected

Report: As Many as 5.7 Million Non-Citizens Voted in 2008 Election

A report from the conservative/libertarian think tank Just Facts shows that up to 5.7 million people who cast their ballots in the 2008 presidential election were non-citizens. The group used data from a Harvard study as well as U.S. Census Bureau data to arrive at that conclusion.

Just Facts also estimated that up to 3.6 million non-citizens cast their vote in 2012.

Washington Times:

Just Facts’ conclusions confront both sides in the illegal voting debate: those who say it happens a lot and those who say the problem nonexistent.
In one camp, there are groundbreaking studies by professors at Old Dominion University in Virginia who attempted to compile scientifically derived illegal voting numbers using the Harvard data, called the Cooperative Congressional Election Study.
On the other side are the professors who conducted the study and contended that “zero” noncitizens of about 18 million adults in the U.S. voted. The liberal mainstream media adopted this position and proclaimed the Old Dominion work was “debunked.”
The ODU professors, who stand by their work in the face of attacks from the left, concluded that in 2008 as few as 38,000 and as many as 2.8 million noncitizens voted.
Mr. Agresti’s analysis of the same polling data settled on much higher numbers. He estimated that as many as 7.9 million noncitizens were illegally registered that year and 594,000 to 5.7 million voted.

With voter ID laws in so many states, how did the non-citizens get away with it?. . .

If you can get fake ID or a fake SS#, you can vote. Any determined teenager can get a fake ID, and many, if not most illegal aliens have them.

That's a pretty wide range, but let's take the central tendency, and assume, for argument, that only 4.4 million voted. What was Hillary's margin on the  popular vote? 2.8 million?  So really, Trump may well have won the popular vote when only legal votes, by citizens, are considered.

It's Tanlines Thursday Again!

 Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Guns In The Desert" up and running at The Other McCain.

How about some more celebrity tanlines?

Corn: Better in Your Stomach Than in Your Gas Tank

Study finds Corn better used as food than biofuel

. . . To compare the energy efficiency and environmental impacts of corn production and processing for food and for biofuel, the researchers inventoried the resources required for corn production and processing, then determined the economic and environmental impact of using these resources – all defined in terms of energy available and expended, and normalized to cost in U.S. dollars.

“There are a lot of abstract concepts to contend with when discussing human-induced effects in the critical zone in agricultural areas,” Richardson said. “We want to present it in a way that will show the equivalent dollar value of the human energy expended in agricultural production and how much we gain when corn is used as food versus biofuel.”

Kumar and Richardson accounted for numerous factors in their analysis, including assessing the energy required to prepare and maintain the landscape for agricultural production for corn and its conversion to biofuel. Then, they quantified the environmental benefits and impacts in terms of critical zone services, representing the effects on the atmosphere, water quality and corn’s societal value, both as food and fuel.

In monetary terms, their results show that the net social and economic worth of food corn production in the U.S. is $1,492 per hectare, versus a $10 per hectare loss for biofuel corn production.

A big gain versus a net loss? Gasohol  has been a bipartisan boondoggle, and it's time to end it.

The First Day of Summer 2017 at the Beach

1 PM came around, and Skye was hot to go for a walk, even though temperatures were 85 and still climbing. Georgia had to go elsewhere, so Skye and I soldiered on without her.

The bay was flat, and this couple were out fishing out of a canoe. I hope they got something, but I'm not overly optimistic.

This young lady discovered that despite the black outer fur, Skye's underfur is white, and loose.

 A pretty good Snaggletooth Shark's tooth lying at the high water mark.

A good day for tanning.

A Roundup Roundup

Another Left-wing Science Scandal

. . . glyphosate was remarkably benign from an environmental standpoint. In general, insecticides are toxic to humans because humans are quite a bit like bugs. Herbicides, on the other hand, are generally not very toxic to humans, because we aren’t a lot like plants. But even in this context, glyphosate stood out as a harmless chemical. It targets an enzyme that is found in plants, but not in humans or animals. Moreover, glyphosate breaks down easily and does not persist in the environment. It is pretty much the perfect herbicide (until resistance starts to develop, but that’s another story).

This sounds like a win-win situation–cheaper food, better health, longer lifespans–but some people irrationally hate genetically modified crops, even though the modification–in this case, making the corn or soybean plant tolerant of glyphosate–has nothing to do with its nutritional value. After decades of world-wide experience with glyphosate, it was accepted that the product was safe. So it was a bombshell when the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared, in March 2015, that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic,” based on tests on rodents.

Hundreds of cancer patients promptly sued Monsanto, claiming the company had concealed the danger of carcinogenicity, notwithstanding the fact that it would be hard to find a farmer who hadn’t been exposed to glyphosate. The European Union said it would consider IARC’s finding when deciding whether to continue to allow glyphosate to be used in Europe. “Environmentalists” had scored a major coup.

But the whole thing turned out to be a fraud. Reuters has investigated, aided by access to deposition testimony in one or more of the lawsuits against Monsanto, which evidently was not subject to a protective order. Briefly put, the author of the IARC’s carcinogenicity study, Aaron Blair, an epidemiologist from the U.S. National Cancer Institute, covered up his own research showing that exposure to glyphosate did not lead to a higher incidence of cancer in humans. The story, as reported by Reuters, is astonishing:

Previously unreported court documents reviewed by Reuters from an ongoing U.S. legal case against Monsanto show that Blair knew the unpublished research found no evidence of a link between glyphosate and cancer. In a sworn deposition given in March this year in connection with the case, Blair also said the data would have altered IARC’s analysis.

But the data were not considered by IARC because including them would have made the report too long. Or something. You can read the Reuters story, or even this surprisingly sane Mother Jones article, for the details.

It seems obvious that this is another case where left-wing “scientists” concealed data that would have refuted their theory–here, that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic.* Remarkably, despite exposure of the scandal, IARC “stands by its findings.” Politics above all.

When I was involved in measuring pollutants in various Maryland and Washington D.C. waterbodies and organisms, we didn't even bother with glyophosate because it just wasn't there.

Team Climate Admits Reality Fails to Conform to Models

This is actually a pretty big concession on their part: The New ‘Consensus’ On Global Warming – a shocking admission by “Team Climate”

A scientific consensus has emerged among top mainstream climate scientists that “skeptics” or “lukewarmers” were not long ago derided for suggesting — there was a nearly two-decade long “hiatus” in global warming that climate models failed to accurately predict or replicate. A new paper, led by climate scientist Benjamin Santer, adds to the ever-expanding volume of “hiatus” literature embracing popular arguments advanced by skeptics, and even uses satellite temperature datasets to show reduced atmospheric warming.

More importantly, the paper discusses the failure of climate models to predict or replicate the “slowdown” in early 21st century global temperatures, which was another oft-derided skeptic observation.

“In the early twenty-first century, satellite-derived tropospheric warming trends were generally smaller than trends estimated from a large multi-model ensemble,” reads the abstract of Santer’s paper, which was published Monday.

“Over most of the early twenty-first century, however, model tropospheric warming is substantially larger than observed,” reads the abstract, adding that “model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.”

It's a start. To fix your errors you have to admit you were wrong.

And just because it's funny:

Reason #5574-5577 That Trump Was Elected

North Korea: Otto Warmbier dies days after release from North Korean detention

Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea for nearly a year and a half, died Monday afternoon, days after he returned home in a coma, his parents announced.

Warmbier, 22, had been medically evacuated last week and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, did not specify the cause of death.

But they made clear in a written statement that they blamed North Korea for what happened. Their son was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to the isolated country.

“Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” the Warmbiers said.

Kim Jong-un nervous about assassination: NIS

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to feel “extremely nervous” about the allies’ possible clandestine operation to eliminate him, South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers Thursday.

Due to concerns over potential airstrikes and assassination attempts, the young tyrant prefers to move at dawn and uses his subordinates’ cars, such as a Lexus car, not his own Mercedes-Benz 600, the National Intelligence Services told a closed-door parliamentary session, according to Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the main opposition Liberty Party of Korea, who attended the meeting.

As he should be.

Left-wingers were nothing if not predictable.Otto Warmbier, Moral Perversion, and the Social Justice Left.

Larry Wilmore:

“It’s just tough for me to have much sympathy for this guy and his crocodile tears,” said former Comedy Central host Larry Wilmore amid what was billed as a comedic monologue on his now-cancelled show in March 2016. He noted that, according to reporting, Warmbier had committed the “international crime” of poster stealing as part of an initiation into his UVA fraternity. “You’ve got to read the fine print on your American frat bro warranty,” Wilmore noted mockingly. “It says, ‘Frat Bro Privilege not valid in totalitarian dystopias.’”

Huffington Post blogger La Sha blamed his “white male privilege.”

In Sha’s estimation, the accidents of Warmbier’s birth afforded him a “shield” from justice in the United States. His heterosexuality, white skin color, and male genitalia rendered him functionally above the law. “That kind of reckless gall is an unfortunate side effect of being socialized first as a white boy, and then as a white man in this country,” she wrote.