Some pretty pictures of snow and ice that allegedly prove global warming

I am not going to reproduce any of the pictures as it is just typical Leftist cherry-picking.  You can pick pictures to show almost anything.  It is statistics you need if you are to generalize.  And, overall, polar ice has been INCREASING.

So how come all the pretty pictures?  Mainly because glaciers are always changing -- mostly in response to precipitation.  Glaciers that are getting more snowfall than usual will be advancing and glaciers getting less will be retreating.  And there are always glaciers doing both.  The Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand is a good example.  Up unti a few years ago was notable for its rapid advance.  Now it is retreating.

Kilimanjaro is another example.  Once it was almost bare of snow but it has since bounced back.  And it's only at the stage that suits their religion did the Warmists mention either of them

And their deception is not even clever.  For Kilimanjaro they show a comparison between 1993 and 2000.  But what about 2016?  For that see below:



More snow than ever. That shows you how they operate.  They are arrant crooks

And their logic is very strange. Their two pictures of flooding in Australia were taken only two months apart.  So does that prove global warming?  Did drastic warming happen over just two months?  Hardly.  All they show is that Australia's floods are short-lived, which all Australians know. Our chronic problem is drought

I guess I could go on to dismantle all their trickery but I am not going to give any more time to gross propaganda.  Just some of their text excerpted below.  Click SOURCE to see the pictures


They have been locked in ice for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but newly released images have revealed just how fast the landscapes of Antarctica and the Arctic have changed.

The incredible pictures, released by Nasa, show how melting, and flooding, have transformed iconic landscapes around the world.

While some of the images, taken years apart, reveal long-term impacts that have been attributed to climate change, others show changes on a shorter scale due to shifting seasons or storms.

The shocking image comparisons are perhaps at their most dramatic when picturing the glaciers in Alaska.

An image taken in the summer 1917 of the Pederson Glacier shows mountains of ice floating in water. Yet, a photograph taken in the same spot in 2005 shows green pastures and a sparse covering of snow and ice in the surrounding hills.

In another pair of images taken of Northwestern Glacier, in Alaska, almost all the ice can be seen to have melted within just 65 years. In the summer of 1940, the glacier glacier can be seen snaking down from the peaks into the water, where chunks of ice float.

By summer 2005, the picture is completely different. Where once there was white snow and ice, the dark grey and black of the rock, with the occasional hint of green vegetation, dominates while the water is completely clear. Just a few hints of snow remain hidden among the highest peaks in the distance.

The ice and snow on the top of Africa's tallest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, can be seen disappearing. On the left shows a thick cap of snow on February 17, 1993 and on the right it has reducted in February 21, 2000 Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa

Southern Australia, October 9, 2010Flooding in southern Australia December 12, 2010.  A series of thunderstorms led to flooding in southern Australia in 2010 affecting 200,000 people. The left image was taken on October 9, 2010 while the image on the right was taken December 12, 2010

Other images show dramatic changes caused by flooding and fire, urban development and deforestation.

SOURCE  

Good for you



A world health organisation (WHO based in Geneva, Switzerland) study shows that eating ham and salami while drinking at each meal a glass of good wine …reduces the risk of becoming an Islamic Terrorist by at least 100%

Wow!  Somebody who knows what he is talking about on coral bleaching

There is a long article on Watts that reviews the science of what is known of the coral reef life-cycle.  It has lots of surprises for people who have heard only the cries of disaster from Warmists.  The single fact that stood out to me was that coral bleaching is most often a response to COOLING, not warming.

The article gives particular attention to the utterances of Warmists like Hoagy and completely demolishes them.  It gives good grounds for regarding Hoagy as nothing but a fraud.

I have previously noted that coral bleaching is not coral death and that corals are very resilient to damage but this article gives chapter and verse of that.  Anyone interested in the health of coral reefs needs to read this article.  You will laugh at all future Warmist claims if you do.

Eighty children treated in hospital after outbreak of 'demonic possession' in Peruvian school



"Scores of children at a school in Peru have suffered seizures and described visions of a man in black trying to kill them in what locals say was a mass case of 'demonic possession'. Disturbing footage has emerged of up to 80 students convulsing, screaming and fainting at Elsa Perea Flores School in northern Peru's Tarapoto.

Experts are struggling to explain the hysteria that broke out at the school, which was reportedly built on a Mafia graveyard.

Dozens of youngsters have been experiencing the supposedly contagious 'condition' since it was first reported in April.  Children aged between 11 and 14 are reportedly fainting and having strong muscular convulsions. Shocking video shows pupils who are barely conscious, repeatedly screaming, and who appear to be delirious.

Doctor Antony Choy told national channel Panamericana TV: 'We don't understand how this has kept going on"

Source

British psychotherapist, 63, who told her clients to breastfeed from her and suckle 'mummy's milk' is jailed for series of bizarre sexual assaults on women



A Christian cult leader and psychotherapist who breastfed her clients by telling them to suckle 'mummy's milk' has been jailed for a series of bizarre sexual assaults on women.

Vanessa Clark, 63, manipulated her clients into paying thousands of pounds for 'skin to skin' contact - including breastfeeding - which she claimed had been approved by a priest to heal depression.

The court heard Clark massaged one victim until she became aroused before telling her this was her 'inner baby' coming out.

Another vulnerable client, who began shaking as she spoke about her childhood, was asked by Clark: 'Does baby want some milk?'

Clark has now been jailed for four years after 'wholly abusing' her position of trust as a psychotherapist.

The court heard how the former cult leader - who had been recommended to her victims by fellow Christians - admitted carrying out the abuse to feed her 'sadistic desires'.

In a confession letter written to her female partner, Clark said: 'I would breastfeed my clients and on one occasion took off my top and told her it was a special thing I would do only for her.

'It was entirely deceptive and manipulative. I subjected her to my sadistic desires.'

Prosecutor Henry James told Oxford Crown Court that the 'unusual and troubling' offences took place between 1996 and 2001 because Clark wanted to wield 'power' over her victims.

Clark had been recommended to her two victims by fellow Christians and invited them back to a flat in London to perform her 'therapy'.

One of the victims, who had been struggling to come to terms with abuse during her childhood, began having 'intense and personal sessions' with Clark, during which the abuse took place.

Mr James said: 'The victim was required to regress back to her childhood. Her hands and legs became fidgety and she was told that this was her body "trying to get mother to lactate".

'Ms Clarke then asked her client, 'does baby want some milk?' She then guided her victim towards her breasts who took them into her mouth.'

On another occasion, the same victim was encouraged to revert her mind back to this childhood state again. Clark then took off her top and said: 'Have some mummy milk.'

The court heard how the victim felt compelled to comply with the 'sadistic' demands.

A second victim, who came to Clark after suffering from depression, was encouraged to imagine Biblical imagery in the form of the story of Adam and Eve, the court was told.

Mr James said: 'The victim began to develop an intense relationship with the defendant during their once a week sessions, which she welcomed.

'The assaults began when Clark massaged the woman's back and over her bra, before she undid the bra.

'The woman became sexually aroused and Ms Clark reassured her this was her 'inner baby' coming out and "she needed this".

Clark's offending came to light when her partner contacted one of the victims. She said she had become frightened of Clark's conversational references to rape, murder and torture.

Clark then wrote a letter to her partner admitting the abuse which was read out in court.

The letter read: 'I was grooming them to get power over them. I set out to get under their skin so they would become fixated on me.

The court heard that Clark charged clients thousands of pounds over time to carry out the twisted 'skin to skin' methods which she claimed had been approved by a priest who had long since died.

Adrian Amer, defending, said that the defendant had recognised she had committed the offences, despite her being diagnosed with an incurable personality disorder.

Clark, of New Yatt, Oxforshire, admitted six counts of indecent assault on August 10 this year.

She sat silently shaking her head as the court heard of her unorthodox and sadistic methods.

Clark was jailed for four years and made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. She was also placed on the sex offenders' register for the rest of her life.

SOURCE  

They must have sold a lot of these keyboards, it is like every Warmist is using them!

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

Going to church could save your life: Women who worship once a week are '25 per cent less likely to die early'



"Going to church is not only good for the soul, it can also stop you dying young, a study claims. A weekly worship can slash your chances of dying early by a quarter if you are female. Attending just once a week was associated with a lower risk of death for women from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, the study which spanned over 20 years found.

Researchers believe optimism and a sense of community can combat the effects of stress and depression, resulting in longer life.

  Dr Tyler VanderWeele, a professor of epidemiology of Harvard's school of public health, examined attendance at religious services and subsequent death in women. It was assessed using questionnaires from between 1992 and 2012. Researchers used data from the Nurses' Health Study in the analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine."

Women who attended religious services more than once per week had a 33 per cent lower risk of death compared with women who never attended religious services"

Source

Australia: Mother of five caught having sex with 14-year-old boy

A Bendigo mother of five was having sex with a 14-year-old boy when his mate walked in on them, a court has heard.

The mother, who was 28 at the time, later told police the boy had been all over her "like a typical teenager".

The boy boasted to his mate how the sex with the woman had been "the best".

A Melbourne judge on Tuesday placed the woman, who gave birth to her sixth child last year, on a two-year community corrections order and ordered her to perform 200 hours of unpaid community work.

She had pleaded guilty to one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and was placed on the sex offenders' register for 15 years.

The judge, who cannot be named as it could identify the victim, said the boy had been under the care and supervision of the Department of Human Services since he was 12, and was living in residential accommodation in Bendigo.

The boy and his teenage friend, who had been going out with the woman's 12-year-old daughter, spent the night at the woman's home on September 16, 2013.

The boy later told police he had been drunk on the night and could not remember what had happened but that the sex had been consensual and he had no regrets.

The woman's daughter told police her mother had initially been reluctant to allow the boy to drink alcohol but eventually agreed and he was helping himself to alcohol in the fridge throughout the night.

As the boy became more intoxicated, he told the woman he wanted to date her and even marry her.

The woman's daughter pointed out to the boy the difference in their ages but he said he didn't care if he got into trouble.

He was later having sex with the woman when his friend, 16, walked in on them.

The woman denied knowing the boy was only 14, claiming she found out his age only after speaking to his mother, who had reported her son missing from his DHS accommodation.

She admitted making no real effort to find out how old the boy was and had given in to her desires to have sex with him.

The judge told the court the boy, now aged 17, had provided a victim impact statement which revealed he now realised the woman had taken advantage of him and the sex had not been a good or appropriate thing to do.

Detailing the woman's background, the judge said her mother had abandoned her when she was a baby and her adoptive father and brother had physically and sexually abused her.

The woman's first romantic relationship, when she was 14, was violent and she had given birth to her first child two years later.

She had had five children by 2008 and was suffering from drug and alcohol problems and mental health issues.

But the judge said the woman had since turned her life around, was in a positive relationship and had gone back to school to complete her Year 12 studies.

A psychological report revealed the woman, now aged 31, had no paedophilic tendencies and the chances of her re-offending were low.

SOURCE  

China and the East China Sea

There has been much heartburn lately over China's island building in the East China Sea.  Just about everyone disapproves.  I do not.  I realize that in saying so I am rather like the editor of the Skibbereen Eagle, when he warned the Tsar, but what I think will happen generally does happen so what I have to say on the matter may be a harbinger of things to come nonetheless.

For a start, I think island building is a good thing in general.  The climate of the area is a pleasant one and recovering land from the sea expands the human habitat.  The Dutch would of course agree with that, though Greenies would automatically talk of endangered marine creatures. And China has an enormous population so needs all the living space it can find.  So I hope that in due course there the facilities there will be greater  than the merely military.  Could there even be a tourist industry there one day?  Stranger things have happened

Living space is of course not the motive of the island building concerned.  The motive is a combination of military considerations and resource hunger.  China has a huge need for resources, energy sources in particular, so the prospect of oil reserves in the general area is hugely motivating. And it could  be argued that China deserves those resources in the light of its huge poplulation and that less populous nations have a lesser claim on them.  That is of course a socialist argument but China is officially a socialist country and we live in a socialist world.

And the military argument is orthodox. Many nations have sought and supported buffer states and the worldwide network of military bases maintained by the USA puts it in no position  to claim that China should not maintain bases at a distance from the homeland.

But in the end, the argument is over. China has clearly lost patience with the dithering and debate about ownership of the places concerned and has decided to settle the argument in its own favour in the traditional way, by conquest. And it has stated that it will defend its new bases so the message is basically "Up yours".  The world would do well to accept the new status quo.  It's not going to change. You don't argue with China

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Northern English woman, 58, denies 10 child sex offences against boy

A Sunderland woman has appeared in court charged with historical child sex offences against an underage boy. Carole Davis is accused of indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 16, 10 times over a four-year period.

The 58-year-old, of Greystoke Avenue, Tunstall, pleaded not guilty to all charges against her, when she appeared before a judge at Sunderland Magistrates’ Court.

District Judge Roger Elsey told her: “I am allocating this case to the crown court. “You must be at the crown court at Newcastle upon Tyne for a preliminary hearing, on June 7, at 10am.

SOURCE  

The Queen wins a shopping voucher



It's unlikely that she ever pops into the supermarket for a pint of milk, but the Queen might now be tempted after winning a rather un-royal prize. The monarch, 90, was presented with a Tesco voucher at the Royal Windsor Horse Show after her horse Barber Shop won the Tattersalls & RoR Thoroughbred Ridden Show.

Prizes for winners were a Kensington Ri-dry jacket and a £70 Tesco Voucher first to fourth places. She clearly saw the funny side as she was spotted laughing after tearing open a white envelope to reveal the enclosed voucher."

Source

Do Warmists actually think?

It sometimes seems not. This post is a reaction to the generally correct statement in the excerpt below to the effect that CO2 levels have been rising steadily for a long time now. The problem is the second statement: That increased CO2 levels cause warming. In combination, those two statements are inconsistent with the evidence. In particular, warming levels behave quite differently from CO2 levels. The two are simply not correlated. They don't covary. And without correlation there is no causation.

For instance, CO2 levels DID rise steadily in C21 but temperatures did not. It was only in 2015 under the influence of El Nino that temperatures rose. And as luck would have it, that was precisely the one year in which CO2 levels stagnated. 2015 CO2 levels at Mauna Loa just fluctuated up and down from month to month around the 400ppm mark.



The 4th column is the actual average CO2 level in ppm. So at no point in C21 did temperatures and CO2 levels rise at the same time. They were two independent phenomena.

The figures from Cape Grim showed more change but from August on the CO2 level was stuck on 398 ppm. And late 2015 was precisely the time when El Nino was most influential and the temperature rise was greatest. Putting it another way, any warming from August on (inclusive) was NOT an effect of a CO2 rise. That rather knocks out most of the warming as due to CO2. So again, temperature and CO2 did not mirror one another.



The Warmists below just don't see that a steady CO2 rise accompanied by no temperature rise is a problem.  They are robotic propagandists not scientists


Within the next couple of weeks, a remote part of north-western Tasmania is likely to grab headlines around the world as a major climate change marker is passed.

The aptly named Cape Grim monitoring site jointly run by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will witness the first baseline reading of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, researchers predict.

"Once it's over [400 ppm], it won't go back," said Paul Fraser, dubbed by CSIRO as the Air Man of Cape Grim, and now a retired CSIRO fellow. "It could be within 10 days."

The most recent reading on May 6 was 399.9 ppm, according to readings compiled by the CSIRO team led by Paul Krummel that strip out influences from land, including cities such as Melbourne to the north

Mark Butler, Labor's shadow environment minister, said the Cape Grim landmark reading was "deeply concerning".  "While the Coalition fights about whether or not the science of climate change is real, pollution is rising. And it's rising on their watch," Mr Butler said.

Cape Grim's readings are significant because they capture the most accurate reading of the atmospheric conditions in the southern hemisphere and have records going back 40 years.
With less land in the south, there is also a much smaller fluctuation according to the seasonal cycle than in northern hemisphere sites. That's because the north has more trees and other vegetation, which take up carbon from the atmosphere in the spring and give it back in the autumn.

So while 400 ppm has been temporarily exceeded at the other two main global stations since 2013 - in Hawaii and Alaska - they have dropped back below that level once spring has arrived because of that greater seasonal variation.

David Etheridge, a CSIRO principal research scientist, said atmospheric CO2 levels had fluctuated around 280 ppm until humans' burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests set in process rising levels of greenhouse gases almost without pause since about 1800.

"It's been upwards pretty much all of the time," Dr Etheridge told Fairfax Media. "This is a significant change, and it's the primary greenhouse gas which is leading to the warming of the atmosphere."

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Are Gabi Grecko's tits for real?

A bit too firm to be real, I think.  Nice, though.

NOTE FOR CENSORS:  This clip first appeared in a British family newspaper, The Daily Mail

Another finding that increased CO2 is greening the earth

Increased greening over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area


Greening of the Earth and its drivers  by Zaichun Zhu et al.

Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamicsof terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioningof the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services1,2. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition(9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau. LCC contributed most to the regional greening observed in southeast China and the eastern United States. The regional effects of unexplained factors suggest that the next generation of ecosystem models will need to explore the impacts of forest demography,differences in regional management intensities for croplandand pastures, and other emerging productivity constraints such as phosphorus availability.

SOURCE


Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

The effect of putting a tax on gold imports



At least three airline passengers have been caught smuggling bars of gold in their rectums in recent days, say authorities in Bangladesh. One man had eight gold bars concealed inside his body, while an X-ray revealed four bars inside a man who was in a great deal of pain, said customs officials.  In a fourth incident, officers found nearly £500,000 worth of gold bars in a plane’s toilet.

The latest arrest occurred today when customs officials detained a person who had eight gold bars hidden inside his body at Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, the Daily Star reported.  The man had just stepped off a flight from Dubai and admitted to carrying the bars after being challenged at border control. Later, at the airport toilet, he pushed out eight bars worth nearly £40,000.

On May 2, six bars of gold, weighing 600g and worth £26,500, were recovered from a passenger's rectum. The 32-year-old man who smuggled the six gold bars told customs officials he was paid £265"

Source

37-year-old woman charged with sexual assault of a minor



A 37-year-old woman is accused of sexually assaulting a teenager in a group home in York and ending up pregnant.

The 15-year-old told investigators with the Nebraska State Patrol that he was living at the Epworth Village group home in York when he and Jamie Bishop began having sex two to three times a week from January 2015 to July 2015, according to an affidavit for her arrest.

Bishop was a staff member of Epworth Village at the time of the alleged assaults and was suspended last summer and then terminated, officials at the group home said.

All sexual relations allegedly took place in the victim's room at Epworth Village, or outside on the facilities grounds.

Bishop and the boy were seen together several times on surveillance video and her Internet history showed she searched for the definition of degrees of sexual assault in Nebraska, consequences of lying to police and the age of consent in Nebraska, documents say.

DNA test results returned March 9 show the teenager fathered Bishop’s now 5-month-old son, documents say.

In Nebraska, children younger than 16 cannot legally consent to sex.

Bishop was arrested March 15 and charged with first-degree sexual assault of a minor Wednesday. York County Judge Linda Senff set her bail at $75,000.

SOURCE  

Global warming won’t just change the weather—it could trigger massive earthquakes and volcanoes (?)

There's a grain of truth in what he says.  Drastic warming would cause crustal uplift in circumpolar regions -- but all the rest is speculative, entirely dependent on CO2 causing warming.  That there is no correlation between the two seems not to bother him

Bill McGuire is not optimistic about humanity’s future. In his book, Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, he explains why.

By his estimation, carbon dioxide emissions from human activity since industrialization began have changed the trajectory of earth’s climate for the next 100,000 years. We are already experiencing the mayhem and destruction that these changes can wreak, and, in the long term, things are only going to get worse.

On the face of it, the hypothesis that a few degrees’ rise in the average temperature of the atmosphere can cause the earth’s tectonic plates to move sounds ludicrous. Yet, McGuire, professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London, shows through careful analysis of historical records that the relationship between the weather and the “solid” earth is incontrovertible.

We caught up with him recently to talk about his hopes and fears. Here’s an edited and condensed version of our conversation.

Q. How is that human activities in the last two centuries could have an effect on the earth’s climate for the next 100,000 years?

McGuire: The climate system takes so long to respond and return to normal. We had a period about 55 million years ago, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). It was a period of about 10,000 years, where global temperatures rose by about 6°C [11°F]. This is extremely rapid in geological terms. We had palm trees in Russia; crocodiles swimming in the Arctic ocean.

It sounds incredible, but the really scary thing is that we could now see our temperatures go up by 6°C in a few hundred years.

What we are doing now, and if we carry on doing it for the next few centuries, is raise temperatures in 1/50th of time it took to do the same in the PETM. The rate at which we are raising the global average temperature is simply unprecedented.

Q. But wasn’t there a time when the global temperatures were even higher, like 15°C higher than pre-industrial times?

What we’ve done now is that we’ve taken all the carbon from hundreds of millions of years, which has been locked up in fossil fuels, and we’ve stuck it in the atmosphere in a time of two hundred years.

Then there are the feedback effects that will kick in. Human-caused warming will trigger natural events, which will increase temperatures further. One of those is the release of methane permafrost, especially that stuck under the Arctic.

We don’t need to wait till 2100 to trigger that. People who are working on this say that we could see the release of this permafrost at any time. There’s potential for tens of billions of tonnes of methane to be released just like that [snaps fingers]. Some of these releases could bring global warming prediction ahead by as much as 30 years.

People don’t understand these events. They think it’s a gradual ramping up of the temperature. The real impacts are extreme events—storms, droughts, floods—but also potentially even more extreme events, like these methane outbursts.

Q. OK, so, say that happens. Temperatures go up. When do we then see the effects on the solid earth?

We could see that very soon. The big worry is Greenland. It has 2-3 km (1.2-1.9 miles) of ice on top of its lithosphere. That weight is pushing down the crust. Taking that ice off could trigger earthquakes.

We’re seeing that in Alaska. A lot of ice has been lost in the last 100 years, and the faults there are lot more active now. Previously, because of the weight, they couldn’t move but they were accumulating strain because of the earth’s movement.

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Alarming moment student tries to take his plaster face mask off in art class... but it's STUCK!



There's plaster in your eyes, nose and mouth and you're struggling to breath.  It's the stuff of nightmares, right?  For one man in America this became a horrible reality after an art class activity went wrong and his plaster face mask became stuck.

 He can be seen with his hands clasped to the mask, trying to remove it as others give him advice. 'Stretch your face into different facial expressions,' one lady says but he can be heard whimpering quietly behind the white plaster. 'You've almost got it,' a girl encourages, but another man is more realistic: 'Pull hard! It's not even moving dude.'

 'It's like pulling a band aid,' the first lady soothes as she moves forward to help him, 'Pull your skin away from the mask.' The woman too attempts to pull the mask off but can be heard saying, 'Oh no I broke it' as the video comes to an end"

Breaking it presumably got it off

Source

Woman, 26, is charged with molesting a female passenger after 'touching her breasts and genitals' during Alaska Airlines flight -- gets let off



An Oregon woman was charged with molesting a female passenger on a flight from Las Vegas to Portland.

Police said Heidi McKinney, 26, touched the woman's breasts and genitals without consent during flight 621 on Alaska Airlines on Sunday.

They arrested her at Portland's PDX airport after the plane touched down, according to an investigation report published by The Smoking Gun.

The alleged unwanted contacts happened while the plane was in Oregon airspace, the document states.

Police spoke with the other woman after the flight landed and later arrested McKinney.

The 26-year-old, of Banks, Oregon, was charged with misdemeanor third-degree sex abuse.  She was booked into the Multnomah County jail on Sunday and her bail was set at $2,500 according to The Smoking Gun.

Authorities released McKinney on Monday and a 'no complaint' disposition was filed in the afternoon according to KGW.

SOURCE

5 Years Later, Deaths Caused by Radiation Leak at Fukushima: 0

Good disproof of the Leftist contention that there is no safe level of radiation.  Moderate doses can even be beneficial

Since the horrific earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan on March 11, 2011, there have been no deaths directly caused by the radiation leak from the nuclear plant in Fukushima, which is located on the northeast side of Japan.

The latest update (in April) by the World Nuclear Association on the Fukushima disaster states, “there have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident.”

Also, in a May 11 e-mail to CNSNews.com, Jaya Mohan, information officer for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), said “no deaths directly caused by radiation exposure after the accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant have been reported.”

That conclusion corresponds with what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in August 2015, and what UNSCEAR confirmed in 2013 and projected for the future.

In its 2015 report, the The Fukushima Daiichi Accident, the IAEA stated, “No early radiation induced health effects were observed among workers or members of the public that could be attributed to the accident.”

The IAEA noted that the “latency time for late radiation health effects can be decades,” but said “given the low levels of doses reported among members of the public, the conclusions of this report are in agreement with those of the UNSCEAR to the United Nations General Assembly.”

The UNSCEAR had reported in May 2013, two years after the Fukushima accident, “Radiation exposure following the nuclear accident at Fukushima-Daiichi did not cause any immediate health effects. It is unlikely to be able to attribute any health effects in the future among the general public and the vast majority of workers.”

“No radiation-related deaths or acute effects have been observed among nearly 25,000 workers (including TEPCO employees and contractors) involved at the accident site,” reported the UNSCEAR.  (TEPCO is the acronym for the Tokyo Electric Power Company.)

“On the whole,” said UNSCEAR, “the exposure of the Japanese population was low, or very low, leading to correspondingly low risks of health effects later in life.. The actions taken to protect the public (evacuation and sheltering) significantly reduced the radiation exposures that would have otherwise been received.”

Three TEPCO workers were killed “directly by the earthquake and tsunami, but there have been no fatalities from the nuclear accident,” reported the World Nuclear Association in April 2016.

The earthquake on March 11, 2011, triggered a massive tsunami, which killed about 19,000 people and destroyed more than a million buildings.

A combination of factors caused by the earthquake and tsunami led three of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi to go into meltdown – the nuclear fuel rods could not be cooled and subsequently got too hot and started to melt, which led to several explosions and the release of radiation.

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Passengers board flights with pets as mass evacuation continues in wildfire-affected Canada



 "Calgary-based airlines Canadian North and WestJet have broken their own no-animals-allowed flying rules to help pets escape the catastrophic wildfires burning in the Canadian town of Fort McMurray. Close to 90,000 residents have been ordered to abandon the town as devastating fires — among the worst in Canada’s history — burn through an area larger than the US city of Chicago.

To assist with the mass evacuation, the two airlines allowed feline, canine and even reptile pets board flight cabins with their owners, turning the planes into flying Noah’s Arks. "Due to the unusual circumstances we were able to bend the rules to accommodate these animals,” a representative for Canadian North said. One Canadian North flight last week carried 19 dogs, including a Great Dane, five cats and two turtles alongside 130 human passengers.

“When we touched down, we got a standing ovation. It brought tears to our eyes,” flight attendant Wanda Murray told CBC"

Source

Perverted Jewish headmistress evading justice



A woman who was allegedly sexually abused at the hands of an ultra-conservative Jewish headmistress has spoken out for the first time.

She is one of at least eight girls that were allegedly abused by Malka Leifer while she was principal of Adass Israel School in Melbourne between 2003 and 2008.

Leifer, who is now under house arrest in Israel after she fled Australia, is wanted by Victoria Police on 74 child sex offences.

Rebecca said when she first spoke about the abuse she wasn't believed and was told to keep quiet. One of the woman she confided in told her: 'That didn't happen. Make sure you keep it that way.'

Eventually a second victim came forward, but within hours of the allegations being made, Leifer fled Australia with her family in the middle of the night

She was arrested and put under house arrest six years later, in 2014, following an extradition request from Australia.

Despite the charges facing her in Australia, Leifer has managed to skip seven court hearings for her extradition, due to ill health and panic attacks.

Her lawyers called for the case to be thrown out in February and have said they will fight extradition to the Israeli High Court.

A Melbourne woman was awarded $1.27 million in compensation for the abuse she suffered last year, and two former students have sued Leifer.

Victims have claimed the fugitive is manipulating the Israeli justice system and her extradition is long overdue.

SOURCE

Does RACISM explain the rise of Donald Trump?

An amusing lack of thought below.   The study concerned is methodologically weak (many more females than males;  no representative sampling etc.) but I believe its conclusions are mostly right.  Support for Trump IS mediated by racism:  Leftist racism. 

Mainstream  whites are discriminated against all the time by America's elites.  "Affirmative action" is nothing if not racist.  Leftist are the racists, not conservatives. And American whites don't like being discriminated against any more than blacks do.  It's only the brain-dead Left who think that the cure for discrimination is more discrimination.

And whites know that all sorts of minorities are privileged over them:  Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, homosexuals, the sexually confused, Greenies, welfare parasites etc.  So when reminded about the discrimination that they suffer, they become more favourable to those who are against favoritism:  The Donald and the Tea Party.  And that is exactly what the researchers found.

Being Leftists, the researchers seem to think that they have discredited Tea Party and Trump supporters in some way. They fail to see that mainstream whites have real grievances and that the Left is to blame for those grievances. White males in particular are both badly treated by government and often mocked, condemned and even demonized. The researchers seem to think that they should not be aware of all that. Trumpism is protest -- protest by ordinary decent people, nothing more. It is the Left who are responsible for the rise of Trump


Many white Americans now believe that their hierarchical standing is being threatened by minority groups, leading them to support political forces that would help ‘restore the status of whiteness,’ a new study claims.

Through a series of online experiments, a Stanford University sociologist found that heightened levels of racial resentment were tied to greater support for the Tea Party in white participants.

The study suggests that the perceived ‘decline of whiteness’ prompts some to align with platforms that condemn minority groups – and they say this mindset may be at play in the rise of Donald Trump.

According to Stanford professor of sociology Robb Willer, this trend began with the election of President Obama in 2008 and grew through the Great Recession, along with the rising political influence of minorities in America.

The team, which also included Matthew Feinberg of the University of Toronto and Rachel Wetts of the University of California, Berkeley, conducted five survey-based online experiments involving 1,329 participants.

In the first, white participants were shown altered photos of President Obama.

Those who viewed an artificially darkened picture of Obama were more likely to express their support for the Tea Party, at 22 percent, compared with those who were shown a lightened photo, at just 12 percent.

In another set of studies, white participants were either told that white share of the total U.S. population was decreasing, or that whites’ average income was declining in comparison to other ethnic groups.

Both groups showed greater support for the Tea Party, which the researchers say is partly explained by increased racial resentment.

This was also seen when the researchers emphasized the declining portion of whites in America.

In the last experiment, the researchers found that the participants reported stronger support for the Tea Party when they emphasized aspects of the platform that could have racial implications, including opposition to immigration and welfare, over libertarian ones, like government spending.

The researchers say this is the first study to demonstrate the link between Tea Party support and racial resentment.

WHAT THE STUDY CLAIMS

Since the election of President Obama in 2008, followed by the Great Recession and the rising political influence of minorities in America, some white Americans feel their ‘racial standing’ is threatened, the researchers say.

‘Together these factors could be viewed as a collective threat to the status of whiteness in the U.S., which provided fertile ground for the rise of a social movement that promoted a return to the way things used to be in America, including a set of policies that could restore whites’ position on top in the racial status hierarchy,’ Willer said.

The study suggests that this perceived ‘decline of whiteness’ prompts some to align with platforms that condemn minority groups, including the Tea Party and likely even Donald Trump.

These groups advocate restrictions on immigration, opposition to Obama, militant positions toward Muslim nations, and other policies which the researchers say would help to 'restore the standing of whites in America.'

‘Past work finds that economic downturns can exacerbate racial resentment by giving whites the sense that they have a shrinking piece of a shrinking pie,’ Willer said.

This, combined with the election of a non-white president and other factors in recent years, are leading some white Americans to feel more ‘threatened,’ the researcher explains.

‘Together these factors could be viewed as a collective threat to the status of whiteness in the U.S., which provided fertile ground for the rise of a social movement that promoted a return to the way things used to be in America, including a set of policies that could restore whites’ position on top in the racial status hierarchy,’ Willer said.

And, the findings don’t just apply to the Tea Party; the researcher explains that the growing trend is likely playing a role in the growing support for Donald Trump as a presidential candidate.

‘Donald Trump’s candidacy pulls support from much of the same base that the Tea Party did and has,' Willer said.

'And there is good reason to think that many of the same psychological forces propelling Tea Party support also propel support for Trump’s candidacy. Indeed, Trump’s statements probably go further in criticizing minority groups than the Tea Party did.'

‘What was largely implicit in the case of the Tea Party has become more explicit in the case of Trump’s candidacy’ Willer said.

According to Willer, the findings suggest the ‘threats’ to racial status have caused some to turn to support for the Tea Party, and likely Trump, based on their advocacy of certain policies, including restrictions on immigration, opposition to Obama, militant positions toward Muslim nations.

The researcher says these policies would help to 'restore the standing of whites in America.'

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

WTF

New Zealand schoolteacher is jailed after three years of indecently assaulting underage boy



For three years a Porirua school teacher kept her child abuse secret, manipulating her school boy victim with threats and lies. Talia Shadwell reports.

Stacey Reriti told the boy it was his singing that stole her heart. She was in her late 20s, he was just 10.

They swapped sexual messages on a phone she had secretly given him. She drove him to water side carparks and a motel for illicit sexual encounters. They told each other they were in love.

Their relationship persisted in secret until the boy was 12-year-old. Only another teacher stumbling across one of the text exchanges broke the silence.

The boy would later tell the court they were "like normal couples that text in the morning and say 'I love you' and stuff".

She told the police, and a jury, he was a "cunning liar".

Someone other "mystery" person had sent the boy explicit photographs. Someone else had threatened him if he revealed their relationship. Someone else had claimed she was pregnant with his child.

But in High Court in Wellington in October, the jury took just three hours to return a guilty verdict for the Natone Park School teacher.  She was convicted of the seven sexual abuse offences against the boy and, on Friday, Justice Mark Woolford sentenced her to 10 and half years in prison.

Throughout the trial, the jury would hear the extraordinary lengths Reriti would take to control her victim.

When he failed to respond to text, she would call him a "bad boyfriend" and threaten to call the cops on him.

While the boy was in the grips of a family tragedy, she threatened to out him for not contacting her.

She often texted the boy, telling him she felt sad, scared and alone, demanding he "send nice texts to her to make him feel good". She demanded his Facebook log-in so she could check whether he was messaging other girls.

The relationship start with her rubbing his cheek and confessing her love. They kissed in her car, parked up at the edge of the Pauatahanui inlet, gradually progressing to more explicit acts.

In February 2014, Reriti drove the boy to a Paraparaumu motel.

The jury heard how she made the 12-year-old hide in her car, so she could book them into a room without the motel staff seeing she was with a child. There, for the first time, she had sex with him.

Reriti - who maintained the boy was a cunning liar telling "disgusting" stories - shook her head and grimaced in the dock on Friday, as Woolford detailed what the boy said they did in there.

Women could not be charged with rape, Woolford noted. They can be charged with sexual violation offences, which carry the same penalties.

However, describing in graphic detail what happened in the motel room, Woolford remarked that it was,  "colloquially, if not legally, known as rape."

The boy was not in court to see Reriti jailed on Friday. However his family turned out to see her put behind bars.

Reriti's crimes had created a "scar" on their lives, Woolford said. The boy wished it had never happened. "Understandably he is angry at you, Ms Reriti, he feels that his childhood has been taken from him."

Police welcomed the sentence and said investigations into female child sex offenders were rare.

Caroline Burns, clinical leader at WellStop, said it was impossible to be sure how rare women offenders actually were, as there was a view among some men that any sexual advance should be celebrated.

"Victims might have the feeling they wouldn't be believed. As well, we know male victims of sexual assault find the reaction often is, 'well, lucky you.' "

Reriti's lawyer Stephen Iorns told the court on Friday that mental health issues and a troubled past had contribute to her actions.

When Reriti had been on track to be a "very successful" teacher her "career is over".

THE TRIAL

"It's disturbing. It wasn't me. I would never do that to a child, never," Stacey Reriti.

"[We were] like normal couples that text in the morning and say 'I love you' and stuff," the boy.

"Not one scrap of evidence puts them alone together, except for the words of a troubled child," Reriti's lawyer, Stephen Iorns.

"It was the evidence of a teacher that is unwilling to admit the enormity of what she had done," Crown prosecutor Dale La Hood

SOURCE  

The most dangerous hobby

The rise of the Donald has got the Left scratching their heads. They need some explanation that will save them from admitting that a lot of what he says is right.  Out of that has come the essay below by academic Eitan D. Hersh.  He provides the explanation that Trump supporters are "hobbyists". 

I think Hersh does have a point in general and I think that "hobbyism" may well be part of the explanation for Trump support -- but I see the enthusiasm for Trump as too great to be explained fully that way.  I think a lot of Americans really are fed up with a GOP that repeatedly kow-tows to Leftist thinking, with all its double standards and lack of reality contact.

The way both sides of politics describe Islam as a "religion of peace" is truly astonishing.  What do Muslims have to do in the name of their religion for it to be described as a religion of hate? And The Donald is the only one who has said anything negative about Muslims.

But I do think that the Obamamania of 2008 was a prize example of the "hobbyism" that Hersh describes




Something troubling has emerged on the American scene: Political activity has become a hobby. Voting, petitioning, partisan cheering, donating, watching infotainment news: The chief purpose for participating in politics seems to be self-gratification.

We are accustomed to thinking about participation in politics as motivated by civic duty or self-interest, not gratification. That has changed due to a combination of factors related to the nature of free time, the openness of the political process to mass participation, and a recent period of relative peace.

For Americans who are far enough removed from military service, economic hardship, and discrimination, political stakes can seem pretty low, especially in the quarter-century since the end of the Cold War when foreign threats seem less immediate. And so politics has become an erudite way to spend leisure time. But unlike softball or beekeeping, the stakes are actually high.

Donald Trump’s surprising rise sheds light on the perils of political hobbyism. It is clear that far too many people have been treating a high-stakes affair like a low-stakes one. That’s why they never saw Trump coming. When politics is treated like an unserious game, unserious candidates emerge.

TO UNDERSTAND POLITICAL hobbyism, consider three important forms of political participation: campaign contributing, activism, and voting. Today, all three activities are dominated by hobbyists.

Wealthy donors are pouring money into politics. Why? Our reflexive answer is so they can get something in return, like tax breaks or government contracts. But when political scientists study campaign finance, they mostly do not see self-interested donors. Most donations come from individuals, not corporate PACs. Most of these individuals (97 percent) give to only one party, which is not a savvy investment model for self-serving contributors. And donation patterns suggest that donors are less motivated by ideology than by pure partisanship.

So what are donors buying? Not policy, but time with their celebrity crushes. Donors want to attend cocktail parties, pose in photographs, and golf with candidates. They want to socialize with other donors. They want the candidates to solicit their advice. They want to be friends with their favored politicians.

Would a wealthy person really contribute thousands of dollars just for self-gratification? Yes, actually, the rich spend money to gratify themselves in ways that seem unfathomable to the rest of us. Politics is just one of those ways.

Here’s an example: Journalist Matea Gold recently noticed that wealthy donors have been traveling around the country to attend the presidential debates in person. The political parties were saving them seats. Why are donors traveling to watch the debates live? Because they are groupies. Republican donor Foster Friess told Gold, “It’s the same thing as going to a football game. If you’re in the crowd, you can hear the cheers, unfiltered by microphones. The chemistry is so much more exciting.’’ For the avid and wealthy hobbyist, a few thousand dollars is a small price to pay for a good show.

NEXT, CONSIDER ACTIVISM, a form of participation open to nonwealthy hobbyists. When a presidential campaign season is in high gear, millions of people engage. During the 2008 presidential contest, for instance, more than 13 million Obama supporters provided the campaign with their e-mail addresses, more than 3 million donated, and more than 2 million volunteered.

Obama’s campaign organization hoped it could channel this grass-roots energy into policy advocacy. Thus, the campaign morphed into Organizing for America, a group positioned to push the administration’s policy agenda through grass-roots mobilization.

It didn’t work.

The problem is that policy advocacy is much less fun than campaigning. Campaigning involves competition. Policy involves compromise.

In 2009, when Organizing for America began mobilizing support for its first big issue, the Affordable Care Act, only a fraction of campaign supporters took action. The organization tried to get supporters to town hall meetings where conservatives were a dominant presence. But the millions of campaign enthusiasts largely disengaged, even in the first year of Obama’s administration and even on his signature issue.

The demise of Organizing for America (and its reboot after the 2012 election, Organizing for Action) is hardly surprising. For most hobbyists, governing is simply less gratifying than campaigning. Measured by Google searches, almost nobody is interested in “Organizing for America’’ or “Organizing for Action” anymore, and they haven’t been for a while. Organizing for Obama? Fun. Organizing for Action? Meh.

Consider another example of hobbyist activism: online petitions, like those sent to the White House. Over 1,800 petitions (signed by 13 million individuals) were submitted in the first 20 months of the White House’s online petition program, which launched in 2011. Only 5 percent of these petitions addressed issues like health care, public education, taxation, paid parental leave — big issues that social scientists call redistributive. Most petitions either focused on minor issues (Recognize diaphragmatic hernia awareness day!) or addressed broad issues that were not directly related to economic well-being. Even when liberal groups like MoveOn.org and CREDO solicit petitions from their progressive base, economic issues are not particularly popular among petitioners. The most popular political petition that CREDO has ever circulated demanded funding for NPR.

Despite their enormous potential, online petitions are primarily tools for hobbyists. To hobbyists, large-scale economic issues are complicated and tiresome. And, frankly, these issues may not be a priority for hobbyists, whose lives are reasonably comfortable. They’d rather focus on issues that are gratifying and simple, or else just wait for the next exhilarating campaign season to begin.....

For citizens who are socially and financially comfortable, the risks seem low. They have a safety net. They do not fear military conscription. Their lives are stable. And so they do not approach politics with the solemnity appropriate for a high-stakes undertaking. Acting as if the stakes are low when they are high can be exceedingly dangerous.

More HERE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Extreme weather events have NOT become more frequent in recent times

Warmists never tire of claiming that global warming is causing more extreme weather events, particularly of the windy variety.  Skeptics in turn  point to statistics showing (for instance) that hurricane landfalls on the USA have in fact been much reduced in the last 10 or so years.

The authors below however rightly argue that if you are going to detect trends, you need as long a time series as possible.  What has happened over the last 10 or 20 years may not be typical.  So they go back to 1872 to get their data for analysis. And they devise methods of statistical analysis that take account of the relative rarity of such events.

So they divide their data into two halves, an early half and a later half.  And they find that there has been no change in the frequency of extreme events between the first half and the second half.  From 1872 to 2011, there was no  change in the frequency of extreme weather events

The prophecy that global warming would bring on more extreme weather events was always on fairly shaky theoretical ground  anyway.

The opening clause in their Abstract below would have been needed to get their article published


Need for Caution in Interpreting Extreme Weather Statistics

Prashant D. Sardeshmukh and Gilbert P. Compo

Abstract

Given the reality of anthropogenic global warming, it is tempting to seek an anthropogenic component in any recent change in the statistics of extreme weather. This paper cautions that such efforts may, however, lead to wrong conclusions if the distinctively skewed and heavy-tailed aspects of the probability distributions of daily weather anomalies are ignored or misrepresented. Departures of several standard deviations from the mean, although rare, are far more common in such a distinctively non-Gaussian world than they are in a Gaussian world. This further complicates the problem of detecting changes in tail probabilities from historical records of limited length and accuracy.

A possible solution is to exploit the fact that the salient non-Gaussian features of the observed distributions are captured by so-called stochastically generated skewed (SGS) distributions that include Gaussian distributions as special cases. SGS distributions are associated with damped linear Markov processes perturbed by asymmetric stochastic noise and as such represent the simplest physically based prototypes of the observed distributions. The tails of SGS distributions can also be directly linked to generalized extreme value (GEV) and generalized Pareto (GP) distributions. The Markov process model can be used to provide rigorous confidence intervals and to investigate temporal persistence statistics. The procedure is illustrated for assessing changes in the observed distributions of daily wintertime indices of large-scale atmospheric variability in the North Atlantic and North Pacific sectors over the period 1872–2011. No significant changes in these indices are found from the first to the second half of the period.

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

The crook Cook again

John Cook is a bald-faced liar and I would be delighted if he sues me for saying so.  He trots out below the old 97% myth when his own research showed that two thirds (66.4%) of climate scientists TOOK NO POSITION on global warming, which is what any skeptic would do in the present climate of censuring and censoring dissent.  The only 97% consensus was among the one third who DID take a position.

Check it for yourself. The abstract of his paper says:  "We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW". Anybody who can read can see what a crook Cook is  -- just from his own writings

Cook does however make an interesting admission below.  He says that discussing the climate facts is unlikely to persuade people of global warming, which is right.  There are NO scientific facts which unambiguously support global warming.  It's only a focus on that bogus 97% that might win people over

I live only about 15 minutes drive away from where John Cook works so I challenged him to meet me and discuss global warming in person.  He agreed.  But when I asked if he minded me recording our conversation, I heard no more from him. He knows that his claims cannot stand the light of uncensored publicity


Communicating climate change is hard. Debunking climate myths is even harder.

Take it from me, I’ve spent the last decade researching climate communication and the psychology of misinformation. So let me express my expert opinion on a Jimmy Kimmel comedy segment on climate change.

It’s one of the better pieces of climate communication I’ve encountered.

Not everyone agrees. Scientist/filmmaker Randy Olsen has criticised Kimmel for giving free attention to climate denialist Marc Morano. Olsen does have a point. Morano scores a win by getting mainstream TV attention. But there’s a bigger picture here. The main winner on the night is public perception of scientific consensus.

The average person has no idea just how strong the scientific agreement on climate change is. Multiple studies have found 97% agreement among climate scientists that humans are causing global warming. In contrast, only 12% of Americans are aware that the consensus is over 90%.

Why the huge gap between public perception of consensus and the 97% reality? Part of the answer goes back nearly two decades. In the late 1990s, a Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrote a now infamous memo, advising Republicans to maintain doubt about the level of scientific agreement on climate change. Luntz’s market research had identified that what people thought about expert opinion affected other views on climate change.

It turns out Luntz was ahead of his time in identifying the psychological importance of perceived consensus. Scientific studies from 2011, 2013 and 2015 have identified perceived consensus as a “gateway belief”, influencing a range of attitudes about climate change including support for climate policy.

As a result, social scientists have urged climate scientists to set the record straight on scientific consensus. As far as climate communication messages go, this one is relatively straightforward. You don’t need to explain the mechanism of the greenhouse effect or the nuances of the carbon cycle (although those are good to explain if you get the opportunity). To effectively communicate the reality of climate change, you just need to mention that 97% of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming.

So Kimmel nails it. His approach is entirely consistent with the advice of communication experts. My guess is this is probably due to his instincts as a professional comedian rather than a thorough familiarity with the psychological literature on consensus messaging.

Either way, along with President Obama, John Oliver, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and Bernie Sanders, Kimmel has provided another valuable contribution to closing the consensus gap.

SOURCE  

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

Social worker, 38, had sex with vulnerable boy, 16, in a hotel after sending string of 100 'graphic and sexually explicit' messages on Facebook  

A social worker has been struck off the register after engaging in a sexual relationship with a 'vulnerable' teenage boy. Claire Runkee, 38, was struck off the register of social workers after her relationship with the 16-year-old, during which she took him to a hotel for the night and sent him a string of explicit messages.

At a Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) hearing it emerged the boy - who was placed with his foster carers at the age of four and known as Child A - had to undergo therapy after the liaison was uncovered.

Ms Runkee was caught when the boy's foster carers saw more than 100 'graphic and sexually explicit' messages on Facebook.

She qualified as a social worker in 2012, and had been working with a children's safeguarding team for a year before developing 'a friendship' outside of work with Child A. The boy was vulnerable, had struggled at school and was under a care order.

His foster carers saw the Facebook messages from Ms Runkee between January 1 and February 13 last year, which showed she had 'placed pressure' on the boy not to reveal their relationship.

One message stated: 'Choose what you want to say and stick to it, don't rock the boat baby.  'Think about keeping your mouth shut as to deviate will cause us problems.'

The foster carers sent the messages to the council that had placed the boy in care and an investigation began.

The HCPC found that although she had expressed remorse, she showed no evidence that she 'fully acknowledged the degree to which her behaviour was wrong'.

The HCPC stated yesterday: 'The foster placement very nearly broke down as a result of these events.

'Sessions of therapy were organised and, more significantly, Child A was given professional help to understand the inappropriate nature of the relationship.'

The conduct and competence committee stated: 'Although the sexual relationship was consensual, the conduct was an abuse of power and trust which included deliberately attempting to conceal actions for personal gain.'

During interviews at Hull City Council, East Yorkshire, Ms Runkee said at first she believed the boy was 18 before admitting she knew he was only 16.

'She accepted that the relationship was inappropriate,' the ruling stated.

During one interview, she admitted booking a hotel and taking the boy there.

She said: 'I became aware of his age and entered into a sexual relationship with him. I should have ended it but I didn't.'

The committee, chaired by Gill Madden, stated: 'She placed a child at risk of emotional harm. 'This was a deliberate and reckless act with Child A.'

While she had not committed a crime and had no professional connection with the boy, the committee ruled she had breached standards of conduct, performance and ethics.

An email from Ms Runkee, sent to the committee last month, stated she had 'lost her integrity, her reputation and her self-respect, that she continues to manage her shame and anxiety on a daily basis'.

While she did not attend the hearing, the panel said there was no evidence she had recently reflected on the impact on Child A.

The panel concluded striking her name from the register was a 'last resort', adding: 'It was a significant breach of basic social work standards and risked bringing the profession into disrepute.'

Jon Plant, city children safeguarding manager at Hull City Council, said Ms Runkee was suspended when the allegations came to light and no longer worked for the council.

He said: 'We do not tolerate conduct that falls outside of the code of conduct and the professional standards for social workers, which we expect our staff to uphold at all times.'

Ms Runkee began working for Hull City Council in 2011 before qualifying as a social worker the next year.

SOURCE

Will Hitler be forever with us?

He will, as long as it suits the Left.  They use the evils he did in the name of racial differences to discredit all mention of race.  They think, rightly, that if they accuse someone of racism, people will think of Hitler's monstrous deeds and become very wary of the accused person.  So they need to keep memory of Hitler alive.  And they use the schools to do just that, leaving out all the inconvenient bits, of course.

So for better or worse we are stuck with old Adolf.  That being so, it pays us to know as much as we can about him and to tell everyone in politics as much as we can about him.  If it becomes widely known that he was in fact a fairly conventional Leftist of his day, all memory of him will suddenly be forgotten.  Which is a reason why WE should not let his memory die.

So about ten years ago, Michael Miller of North Carolina put together a library of information about Hitler, focusing on  things that Leftists "forget" about.  And he used my essay on Hitler to show that Hitler was a Leftist.  But he asks other questions too:  What was Hitler's attitude to abortion, to animal rights, and smoking etc.

Michael used a free hosting service offered by Lycos to put his material up.  And, after a while, when he bowed out, I took on the job of maintaining the site. Recently however the site has disappeared. Someone at Lycos obviously decided that they would -- in typical Leftist fashion -- do a bit of censorship and delete it.

But I am a cautious old conservative type so I had all the files backed up onto not one but two hard disks.  So I have been able to re-post everything.  Reposting did require a lot of alterations to links so it was a bit of work but I think everything now works again.  If there is anything missing I would be obliged to hear about it.  The new home is here

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).  

Teacher, 39, 'had sex with 18-year-old student, touched him sexually during class and showered him with gifts



A teacher has been accused of having sex with an 18-year-old student several times, touching him sexually during class and then showering him with gifts to keep him quiet.

Rose Limuli, 39, had an 'inappropriate sexual relationship' with the student at Upper Dublin High School, north of Philadelphia, from November 2015 until March this year, police said.

Students - including the alleged victim - would spend lunchtimes in Limuli's classroom because she would bring in cake and was 'cool', according to investigators.

After the student turned 18, he and Limuli allegedly swapped phone numbers and started messaging each other on Snapchat, ABC 6 reported.

In November, the English teacher picked up the student in her car and drove him to a park, where she performed oral sex on him, according to a criminal complaint.

She allegedly made sexual comments to the teenager in class and is even accused of touching him sexually during a lesson.

Limuli also allegedly went to the student's home in January and had sex with him, the Montgomery News reported.

Afraid of being caught, the teacher then showered the teenager in gifts, buying him a bicycle, sneakers, clothes and giving him $1,000 in cash, the complaint states.

Investigators also said Limuli gave the student access to her credit card and told him she would get in trouble if anyone found out about their relationship.

The pair are believed to have had 10 encounters outside of school between December and March, during which they spoke on the phone to each other more than 200 times.

Limuli, who had been a teacher at the school for more than two years, was arrested and charged with 12 counts of institutional sexual assault on Monday.

She was already on administrative leave after the police started their investigation on April 19.

The teacher has been released on a $50,000 bail and cannot contact any of her students. She will appear in court on May 16.

School district Superintendent Deborah Wheeler said Limuli underwent background checks when she joined the school which 'gave no indication of any previous criminal behavior'.

SOURCE  

Asbestos-laden building materials slipping into Australia as result of weak regulation, report finds

The whole asbestos scare is conventionally correct and worldwide but is utter nonsense.  There has NEVER been any proof of harm from asbestos in building and other products.  The only people harmed by asbestos were those involved in mining, fabricating and installing it.  There has never been any harm to the general public from products in their environment that incorporate asbestos.  I spent a significant part of my childhood living in a house lined with unpainted asbestos sheeting ("Fibro"), as did countless other Australians.  It was once a very fashionable building material.  And none of us came to any harm from it.  Asbestos is one of the many things that are harmful only if you are exposed to large amounts of it

Glaring weaknesses in regulations and border protection issues are allowing building products contaminated with potentially deadly asbestos into Australia, a Senate committee has warned.

In an interim report tabled late on Wednesday, the committee raised particular concern about "the ability of Australia's enforcement agencies to effectively police borders so that [contaminated products] are detected and prevented from entering Australia".

"At the moment, this area of enforcement appears to require substantial strengthening and should be a high priority for government," it read.

"The importation of banned materials, such as asbestos, raises very serious concerns about the capacity of Australian authorities to deal with this issue, particularly in light of our open and dynamic trade environment."

The report notes only two importers have been fined over asbestos-laced building material since tougher penalties were imposed in February 2014.

It said fines of up to $170,000 could be imposed, but only $64,000 in fines, penalties and costs had been issued since 2009.

The committee said the role of foreign governments in stopping contaminated products from leaving their shores should also be considered.

It has requested the inquiry be extended for a fourth time, to September 30, 2016, "due to the seriousness of the problem and the disjointed regulation of the use of building products, both manufactured in Australia and overseas".

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

England: Lesbian teacher, 29, is struck off after starting a sexual relationship with a teenage girl

A female teacher who pursued an 'inappropriate and sexually motivated' relationship with a teenage girl she unofficially mentored has been banned from the profession.

Tuesday Nathan, 29, formed a 'secretive' relationship with the Year 11 student at Leventhorpe Business and Enterprise Academy.

She was even caught hugging the 'loner' in a darkened classroom in in the school in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire.

Nathan, who had worked at the academy as a newly qualified teacher for six years, has been struck off indefinitely.

A National College for Teaching and Leadership misconduct panel, meeting in Coventry, West Midlands, found she brought the profession into disrepute.

They accepted allegations that she had an inappropriate relationship with the student, named only as 'Pupil A', by hugging her in a darkened classroom in December, 2014.

Nathan had been informally mentoring the teenager, who had 'friendship issues', since October 2013, at the request of the girl's form tutor but it was not a school sanctioned arrangement.

She admitted that she continued 'mentoring' the girl even after her manager warned her not to.

A teacher witnessed the pair in the dark room with their knees locked and embraced in a hug at around 8.25am before they 'quickly separated' when she entered.

Nathan accepted she hugged her saying the girl 'was upset so I naturally hugged her' but the panel declared it was inappropriate.

She also admitted giving the girl her personal mobile phone number and continued to speak to her outside of school, during weekends and school holidays.

Staff members raised concerns about their relationship and she told her manager in December, 2014, that they would no longer meet other than on Wednesdays in a public space.  But she continued to speak to her on the phone and even gave her a lift in her car.

Nathan, despite denying it, was found to have continued the relationship 'motivated by sexual desire'.

Jayne Millions, on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan, struck her off.

She said: 'She also continued the relationship with Pupil A in a secretive manner and was evasive during the academy's investigation about the level of contact she had with Pupil A.

'Ms Nathan had only given Pupil A her mobile telephone number and not any other pupils.'

There were 34 occasions between September 2014 - February 2015 when they communicated on mobile phones, the panel found.

A former colleague defended Nathan saying she was 'trustworthy, reliable and altruistic' and held in 'high regard' by her form tutor group because she 'genuinely cared' for every student.

But Ms Millions wrote: 'In light of the panel's findings against Ms Nathan, which involved inappropriate and sexually motivated conduct towards Pupil A, there is a strong public interest consideration in respect of the protection of pupils.

'Taking all of the facts into account I support the recommendation of the panel that Ms Nathan be prohibited. This seems to me to be proportionate and appropriate.

'This means that Ms Tuesday Nathan is prohibited from teaching indefinitely and cannot teach in any school, sixth form college, relevant youth accommodation or children's home in England.'

Nathan, who did not attend the hearing, was given 28 days to appeal the order.

SOURCE

More Freudian projection from the Warmists

There is no group in this wide world more immune to persuasion by the facts than the Green/Left.  They HAVE to be unaffected by the facts because their beliefs are so counterfactual.  Could anything be more absurd as statements of fact than classic Leftist slogans such as: "All men are equal", "Man is naturally good" or "All men are brothers"?  Yet the article below claims that it is conservatives and climate skreptics who tend to be immune to the facts.  Freud would understand.  Seeing your own faults in others is a common defence mechanism.

And Warmists NEED to believe that there is something wrong in the heads of their opponents.  Realizing that something which they see as obsessively important is seen as unimportant by most people creates cognitive dissonance in their heads.  How can so many be so wrong?  How can so many not see these obvious truths?  Are Warmists the only sane ones?  So to relieve that dissonance they have to dimiss any possiblity that their opponents might be right and instead find some defect in their opponents

The title of the original article is "Scientists are figuring out the keys to convincing people about global warming".  It was written by dedicated climate deceiver Dana Nuccitelli and appeared in the Leftist "Guardian".  Just an excerpt below from a whole heap of garbage


Can facts convince people about global warming?

Social scientist Dan Kahan has argued that ideological and cultural identity can be so strong that scientific evidence, facts, and information can’t break through it. Kahan thinks that on certain issues like climate change, ideological biases make many conservatives immune to facts.

In fact, conservatives with higher education and general scientific knowledge are often more wrong about climate change, in what’s been coined the “smart idiot” effect. This has led Kahan to conclude that on climate change, facts and knowledge can’t sway people. However, other research has found that climate-specific knowledge does correlate with acceptance of climate science.

In the new study led by Jing Shi, the authors surveyed a total of 2,495 people in Canada, China, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. They asked questions to evaluate the participants’ specific knowledge about the physical characteristics of climate change and understanding of its causes and consequences.

Critically, they found that knowledge about the causes of climate change was correlated with higher concern about climate change in all countries, and knowledge about the consequences was linked to higher concern in most countries.

"respondents from Germany and Switzerland had significantly higher scores on knowledge about physical aspects of climate change than participants from Canada and the US. Chinese respondents knew significantly more about the causes of climate change than the respondents from the other countries. German and Swiss respondents were most knowledgeable about the consequences of climate change. In contrast, participants from the US had the lowest level of knowledge about climate change among the six countries we surveyed, independent of the type of knowledge"

In short, as illustrated in the Yale/George Mason poll numbers, people who realize that humans are causing global warming are more likely to be concerned about the problem.

In Shi’s survey, the Chinese respondents had the most knowledge about the causes of global warming, with the German and Swiss participants most accurately answering the questions about its consequences. These nationalities also expressed the greatest concern about climate change. Americans showed the least climate knowledge and the least concern.

The keys to convincing people on climate change

Social scientists have identified several key pieces of knowledge that might convince people – even conservatives – about the need to tackle global warming.

Shi’s team showed that when people realize humans are causing global warming, they’re more likely to be concerned about the problem.

Social scientists at UC Berkeley have shown that when people understand how the greenhouse effect works, they’re more likely to accept human-caused global warming, across the political spectrum.

Research by teams led by Lewandowsky has shown that when people are aware of the 90–100% expert consensus on human-caused global warming, they’re more likely to accept that reality, and to support climate policies. Meanwhile, only 16% of Americans, including just 4% of Republicans, realize the expert consensus is so high.

This social science research shows that teaching people about the expert consensus and how the greenhouse effect works can increase their likelihood of accepting the reality human-caused global warming and potentially increase their support of policies to solve the problem.

It may be the case that ideology acts as a mental block preventing conservative Republicans from accepting facts like the 90–100% expert consensus on human-caused global warming. However, while there’s certainly a group who are unreachable due to ideologically-based science denial, they are a relatively small and dwindling segment of the population. For the vast majority of people who underestimate the expert consensus and don’t understand the mechanics of the greenhouse effect, this knowledge can make a difference.

As this research shows, if climate communicators can successfully inform people about how the greenhouse effect works and that humans are responsible for global warming, more will come to support climate policies, and it will become even more of a winning political issue.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).

Scotland: Woman who boasted about her lust for pop twins Jedward is jailed for two years after having sex with two 14-year-old boys



A 39-year-old woman obsessed with pop twins Jedward has been jailed for two years after having sex with two 14-year-old boys.

Kirstin MacRuary, 39, groomed the two teenagers over Facebook before inviting them over to her home to get drunk and watch films, before taking them upstairs for sex.

MacRuary been obsessed with Irish pop act Jedward and has posted of her need for 'Jedcest' with the 'hot' singers on her Facebook page - from when they were 12 years old.

But she was locked up for two years today after Ayr Sheriff Court heard she had shown no remorse for abusing the two boys.

At an earlier hearing she pled guilty to two separate counts of having sex with them. She groomed her 14-year-old victims online and invited them to her house in Dundonald, South Ayrshire, to get drunk and watch films.

On one occasion, MacRuary perched herself on the arm of a sofa before sliding down next to the first teenager before inviting him upstairs and had sex with him. The boy later said that it 'made him feel weird'.

MacRuary then made a move on the second 14-year-old boy, who had also been in her house watching a movie.

After MacRuary suggested the boy went upstairs for a nap she followed him into the spare bedroom, undressed him and had sex with him.

Police launched an investigation after the boy became anxious and made a dash from the house.  Officers checked her laptop and found a chat with the two boys in which she told one of them she missed their 'cute little face.'

Her teen victims cannot be named for legal reasons.

On social media MacRuary has shared countless photoshopped pictures of the Jedward twins.

In one Facebook post she says: 'I miss my Jeds, need some Jedcest now.'

And MacRuary refers to herself as Kirstin Grimes on the social media site - the surname shared by Jedward brothers John and Edward.

Defence solicitor Ian Gillies said: 'It is safe to say in my submission that this lady clearly needs supervision at the higher end of the scale.  'It is clear that she needs some assistance. There are concerns about her mental health.'

Sheriff John Montgomery said he no option but to jail her.

'You've pled guilty to two charges of having sexual intercourse with two boys aged between 13 and 16. They were both 14 years old at the time of the offences.  'I have read the report, and it's astonishing because you don't express any remorse.  'There is no alternative to a custodial sentence.

'On the first charge I sentence you to 12 months imprisonment. On the second charge I sentence you to 12 months imprisonment. To be served consecutively. Two years.'

SOURCE