Calling out a couple of leftist myths: Links 2, Dec. 14, 2018

1. Terrorist from Strasbourg was called from Germany before his crime

The alleged attacker from the Strasbourg Christmas market was called from Germany immediately before the crime, according to a media report. Cherif Chekatt, however, did not answer the phone, the rbb’s Inforadio reported on Wednesday evening, referring to intelligence services. It is unclear who called him and why. Chekatt had been sentenced to two years and three months in prison in 2016 for double burglary in Germany. One year later he was deported to France. He is said to have killed three people and injured twelve others in an attack at the Strasbourg Christmas market on Tuesday evening.

2. The inconvenient truth about the environmental impact of organic farming

(Oh look! Penn & Teller are right! But that’s easy to understand as the source was Norman Borlaug. An actual food scientist and geneticist.)

A new international study into the impact of agricultural land use on climate change has found organic food production is worse for the climate than conventional farming, due to the fact that it needs greater areas of land to grow produce.

 

The new research developed a novel metric for calculating the carbon footprint of specific land use. Called a “carbon benefits index,” this calculation measures the agricultural output of a given hectare of land in terms of volume of product and carbon dioxide emissions.

 

Homing in on the differences between organic food production and conventional food production, the study concludes that due to organic farming’s inefficient yields, it generally results in a greater environmental impact than conventional farming methods.

The following video was intended for the strident organic foodies.

3. Gilets Jaunes Won’t Stop Until Macron’s Gone

4. Belgian (Thought) Cops Arrest Driver of Hungarian Anti-migration Van

They’re usually called the Brussels police. Now some may call them the Thought Police. Whatever the case, they recently arrested the driver of a Hungarian-government-commissioned van — because they didn’t like the anti-migration message it bore. Welcome to 1984, effete social-justice-warrior style.

 

As EuroNewsreports, “Hungary’s government accused the Belgian capital of trying to censor it on Thursday after a van it commisioned [sic] to drive through Brussels with a billboard linking migration to terrorist attacks was stopped by police.”

 

“Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarian secretary of state for international communications and relations, made the accusation in a video posted on Facebook. He said the truck had been stopped by police on December 5 and that the driver had been arrested,” the site continued.

 

Brussels police did confirm that the action was taken, but wouldn’t reveal what charges, if any, were brought against the driver. Some may suspect, however, that the offense was a DWT: Driving While Truthful.

5. Fascinating longish account of an American girl pointlessly murdered in the Netherlands without a single word about who did it, even though the police have him in custody.

A young woman from the US who moved to the Netherlands to study after a family tragedy has been stabbed to death in her student complex in Rotterdam.

Sarah Papenheim, 21, was found dying in her lodgings in the city’s Kralingen district on Wednesday, and armed police later seized a suspect in another city.

She was studying psychology at Erasmus University, having been affected by her brother’s suicide some years ago.

Ms Papenheim was also a gifted drummer, well known on Minnesota’s music scene.

(It goes on like this for quite a while. And though its good that the victim gets the attention in a way, I suppose for the family who must be gutted by this, it does no one any favours if we cannot show it to our own daughters and family and say “this is why you do not get muslim roommates”.)

6. uranium One explained:

7. China Uncensored, the people who made the video above, gives persuasive evidence that Youtube is manipulating user counts and views dishonestly.

8. List of Yellow Vest protests upcoming in Canada:

9. Please read this account of a small town in Ontario, where municipal officials turned off the microphones when a preacher talked of Jesus at a Christmas fair, next to a Nativity scene.

Facebook video of what he said when all the mics were off, and he spoke to a crowd that moved in to hear him.

Thank you Richard, M., Wrath of Khan, EB., Johnny U., PC. and a long and familiar list of deeply appreciated people who contribute to this site, many every day.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

10 Replies to “Calling out a couple of leftist myths: Links 2, Dec. 14, 2018”

  1. 7 – He did a good job of explaining what happened when the Clinton Crime Family decided to commit treason.

    The Brit woman on declassified is doing videos on the Mueller witch hunt and on the Clinton crime family.

  2. 2.) “A new international study into the impact of agricultural land use on climate change has found organic food production is worse for the climate than conventional farming, due to the fact that it needs greater areas of land to grow produce.

    Despite his Nobel Laureate credentials (and like most industry shills), did Borlaug take into account such critical factors or hidden costs as:

    • Profound damage to soil biota caused by constant use of ammonium nitrate fertilizers

    • Diesel pollution and emissions from combines, tractors, other agricultural equipment

    • Maximized harvests that organic soils facilitate through intercropping vs mono-cropping

    • Increased biodiversity of flora and fauna that low-impact organic farming promotes

    • Annihilation of insect life (e.g., monarch butterflies) and corresponding insectivores (including beneficial predators) due to over-application of pesticides

    • Bulk agriculture’s use of potentially dangerous glyphosate chemically-based weed-control and GMO Roundup Ready® seed stocks (also see: terminator seed sterility)

    • River delta “dead zones” that impact commercial riparian and coastal fisheries being poisoned by agribusiness’s overuse of nitrate fertilizers. The resulting die-offs require fishing boats to go further off shore, thus causing more Diesel emissions and bilge water discharge pollution. Also, there is job loss associated with smaller fishery catches.

    • When force pumping of seawater (to preserve live catches or adjust ballast) occurs far from shore, there is an increased chance of vectoring harmful, non-native marine sea life (e.g., zebra mussels) or disease pathogens that already-weakened aquatic biospheres are less able to combat. The further devastation of riparian habitats in delta dead zones weakens natural defense mechanisms and heightens the risk of invasive species gaining a foothold.

    • Increased Food Miles* associated with with transhipment of bulk agriculture crops. The average distance traveled by food on the typical American dinner plate has traveled 1,500 miles before final consumption.

    * A SFSU study showed that a single food truck taco (including its aluminum foil wrapper) had traveled 64,000 miles (86,600 km) before consumption. Although items like tortillas and bauxite ore are shipped in bulk, that 64K miles is still more than twice around the entire Earth.

    • For every calorie of human nutrition ingested, the production, packaging, transportation, and intermediate storage of that food easily uses ten calories. While transportation represents only about 11% of emissions related to Food Miles (versus more energy-intensive production operations), the atmospheric pollution contributed by these various conveyances can affect sensitive environments such as high altitudes (jet cargo), adjacent wilderness areas, endangered habitats, and urban air quality.

    • Most organic farms, dairies or animal husbandry operations are in close proximity to end users. This represents a massive reduction in environmental impact and overall footprint.

    • Transported perishables (e.g., fruit and vegetables) can undergo 30–50% nutrient loss and have a shorter shelf life due to an average 5–10 days of shipping. Many produce crops are harvested before fully mature, sharply reducing nutritive value, flavor, and texture while promoting the use of artificial ripening chemicals (e.g., ethylene oxide).

    • Energy consumed by intermediate storage facilities for transshipped perishables

    • Decreased consumer health due to reduced nutritive content of bulk-produced foods. This, along with concomitant psychological side-effects can have unanticipated (and difficult-to-quantify) side effects.

    • The deleterious impacts on air or water quality caused by CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), along with slaughterhouse waste discharge and feedlot runoff into nearby waterways.This also needs to include advanced humane practices such as CO2 stunning.

    NOTE: As may be obvious, I’ve spent many hundreds of hours investigating this subject. Like the entire “Climate Change” dispute, there are scant reliable or comprehensive information sources on this topic. Fortunately, that is changing.
    ——————–

    Like a stopped clock, Liberals occasionally get things right. In this specific case, the concepts of Sustainability, footprint reduction, plus practices like farm-to-table growing and nose-to-tail slaughter have much in the way of empirical merit. The Great Warmening™ and “Climate Change” be damned. All humans are nonetheless obliged to be good environmental stewards.

    Without spending another half-hour reviewing Borlaug’s advocacy profile, it’s difficult to determine the extent and viability of his agricultural “Green Revolution”. He may have recognized all or a few of the above caveats. One thing is for sure: His receipt of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize has since been rendered meaningless by its abject politicization and having been awarded to the likes of Yasser Arafat, Al Gore, and (especially) 0bama.

    Readers may wish to do a little experimenting and compare farmer’s market (i.e., just picked) produce to their store-bought equivalents. Try a cut of grass-fed beef sometime. Yes, it can be insanely expensive—which is where I begin to take serious exception with organic foods—but, as can be seen, there are innumerable quality-of-life issues that unexpectedly spin off of this debate.

    PS: In my capacity as a professional chef, I’ve tasted a wide variety of native and organically sourced foods. Some of them are of such outstanding quality, flavor, and nutritive value that cost can become a secondary consideration.

  3. An Education on Political Islam with Bill Warner

    Aw, hell! I though that read, “TAKE A SEAT AND DRINK”. Warner almost had a new fan.