I have good news for you, Mr. Obama!  You don't have to worry about "climate change" being the "greatest national security threat our country faces" anymore!  In your Coast Guard Academy speech on May 20, you said that "severe drought helped to create the instability in Nigeria that was exploited by the terrorist group Boko Haram."  You can retract that now - because the latest evidence, published yesterday (6/02), is that northern Nigeria and the entire area of the southern Sahara Desert is getting greener because of more CO2 in the atmosphere. Yes!  Rising greenhouse gases -- all that CO2 which we've been pumping into the atmosphere that's been frightening you so much - has caused rains to return to the "Sahel" or southern Sahara from Senegal to Sudan, Aren't you overjoyed?  Absolutely thrilled for those Africans who've been starving, scraping a marginal and precarious living on the edge of the desert?  What's that?  You're not?  You think this is terrible news - because it threatens your narrative of climate change as a national security threat bogey-man?

Despite a generation in which radical anti-crime policies such as enforcing the law and locking up criminals slashed murder rates, there's still plenty of debate over whether anti-crime policies work. But no one can argue over whether pro-crime policies work. 108 people were shot in New York, Baltimore and Chicago over this past weekend. Many of the casualties were thus saved from that terrible "school-to-prison pipeline" that bedevils promising young crack dealers and instead went straight to the morgue. Baltimore has just racked up its deadliest month since 1999. The fascist pigs no longer go down to the ghetto to hassle misunderstood youth who are just protesting police brutality by shooting each other. When they do, they're confronted by angry mobs brandishing ObamaPhones set to record outrageous police misconduct such as arresting career criminals and drug dealers like Freddie Gray. The Baltimore cops got Obama's message loud and clear. So did the gangs.

History is full of instances where a rising power, aggrieved and dissatisfied, acts aggressively to obtain new borders or other international concessions. In Russia today we see a much more unusual case: This increasingly menacing and ambitious geopolitical actor is a state in decline. Notwithstanding Russia's nuclear arsenal and its vast territories, the distinguishing feature of the country today is its striking economic underdevelopment and weakness. For all Russia's oil and gas, the country's international sales of goods and services last year only barely edged out Belgium's - and were positively dwarfed by the Netherlands'. While Russia's childbearing patterns today look entirely European, its mortality patterns look Third World - and in some ways worse. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, a 15-year-old youth has worse survival chances today in Russia than in 33 of the 48 places the United Nations designates as "least developed countries," including such impoverished locales as Mali, Yemen and even Afghanistan. Russia's "high education, low human capital" paradox also shows up in Russia's extreme "knowledge production" deficit. Long-term economic progress depends on improving productivity through new knowledge - but this is something Russia appears mysteriously unable to do. In the modern era, the ultimate source of national wealth and power is not natural resources: It is human resources. And unfortunately for Russia, its human-resource situation is almost unrelievedly dismal - with worse likely in the years to come.

If you are reading this before breakfast, please consider having an egg, yolk included. Any day now, the US government will officially accept the advice to drop cholesterol from its list of "nutrients of concern" altogether.  A sixty-year torrent of bad dietary advice is coming to an end. The evidence has been building for years that eating cholesterol does not cause high blood cholesterol.  It's not some vile poison but an essential ingredient of life, which makes animal cell membranes flexible and is the raw material for making hormones, like testosterone and estrogen. Your liver manufactures most of the cholesterol found in your blood from scratch, and adjusts for what you ingest, which is why diet does not determine blood cholesterol levels. Lowering blood cholesterol by changing diet is all but impossible. From the very first, the studies that linked the ingestion of cholesterol and saturated animal fats to cardiovascular disease were not just flawed, but fraudulent.

Last week (5/19), Mary Anastasia O'Grady commented in the Wall Street Journal on The Pope's Embrace of Castro. She noted that "The Holy Father is a native of 20th-century Argentina, ideologically defined by nationalism, socialism, corporatism and anti-Americanism. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that this influences his views toward the U.S. and the island 90 miles from its shores." Yet there are many Argentines who are not so influenced and who can think for themselves.  As a life-long devout Catholic, it pains me to observe this is not the case with Francis.  As a result, he is a papal fraud.  In matters of the cloth, good Catholics always seek a vision of Saint Peter's earthly successor as a man of goodness and spirituality -- as God's anointed emissary on earth goodwill will be done. Sadly, this is not always true. There are many realities past where the Pope simply was neither devout in his vows nor divinely blessed to do God's will on earth for all mankind. Today we have such a man who is radical to the traditions of the church, and instinctively biased against the teaching and strength of character of his two predecessors, Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II.

Obama can't defeat ISIS with soft power, though ISIS could beat him with soft power assuming its Caliph ever decided to agree to sit down at a table with John Kerry without beheading him. Iran has picked up billions in sanctions relief and the right to take over Yemen and raid ships in international waters in the Persian Gulf just for agreeing to listen to Kerry talk for an hour. And that might be a fair exchange. As bad as having your capital or ship seized by Iran is, listening to John Kerry talk is even worse. So far ISIS has preferred the classical approach of killing everything in its path. The approach, deemed insufficiently nuanced by masters of subtlety like Obama and Kerry, has worked surprisingly well. For it's hard to destroy something if you don't know what it is. And it's hard to know what a thing is if you won't even call it by its name or name its ideology. The left loves root causes, but the root cause of ISIS isn't poverty, unemployment or a lack of democracy.  It's...

A ranking Iranian political figure, Issa Kalantari, recently warned that past mistakes leave Iran with water supplies so insufficient that up to 70 percent, or 55 million out of 78 million Iranians, would be forced to abandon their native country for parts unknown. Many facts buttress Kalantari's apocalyptic prediction: *Once lauded in poetry, Lake Urmia, the Middle East's largest lake, has lost 95 percent of its water since 1996, going from 31 billion cubic meters to 1.5 billion. *What the Seine is to Paris, the Zayanderud was to Isfahan - except the latter went bone-dry in 2010. *Over two-thirds of Iran's cities and towns are "on the verge of a water crisis" that could result in drinking water shortages; already, thousands of villages depend on water tankers. Nor are Iranians alone in peril; many others in the arid Middle East may also be forced into unwanted, penurious, desperate exile. With one unique, magnificent exception, much of the Middle East is running out of water due to such maladies as population growth, short-sighted dictators, distorted economic incentives, and infrastructure-destroying warfare. Some specifics:

Chanceries, political elites and business federations across Europe, regardless of whether they are on the Left or the Right, are hoping the Conservative Party loses today's (5/07) general election. All the better if a motley Labor government is strapped to a bloc of triumphant Scottish Nationalists, guaranteeing a double-lock against any further flirtations with Brexit (Britain's exit from the European Union). Or so goes the argument. They should be careful what they wish for. A Labor-SNP arrangement would be inherently weak and unstable, like the string of Gladstone governments dependent on the swing vote of the Irish Home Rule movement in the late 19th century. A Tory defeat would flush out the last EU dreamers and leave a post-Cameron party with even less tolerance for the posturing of Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, who this week accused the Anglo-Saxon world of trying to destroy the euro and vowed to stop Britain imposing its "exclusive agenda on all the other member states of Europe." In other words, Brexit and the doom of the EU is either on the horizon or just beyond it.

[This is the text of Robert Spencer's address at the Mohammed Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland Texas on Sunday, May 3rd, just hours before two Moslem terrorists were gunned down trying to murder the attendees.] A very good friend of mine told me right before I left for this event that - you're just poking them in the eye, you're trying to provoke them.  You know, why are you doing that?  You're the one that's being offensive.  And this was a friend, you know, and I was kind of taken aback.  And I had to stop and think - well, what exactly is wrong with that? And what's wrong with that is that this is only offensive because Moslems have made it offensive.  Okay, so we have to not draw Mohammed, because that'll poke them in the eye and offend them.  And then we have to not be Jewish, because that will poke them in the eye and offend them.  And then what?  Okay, I guess pork and alcohol are out.  Okay, and then what? The Islamic State - the Islamic State is beheading people and taking sex slaves, and subjugating the Christians under the hegemony of the Islamic law.  And they're doing it all on the basis of Koranic directives.  And so that's all Islamic.  So I guess we can't say a word about that.  Because that would poke them in the eye and offend Moslems. You see, step by step by step, we're ending up going in the direction of accepting Islamic law.  Let's put it this way: Every Western media outlet that refuses to publish the Mohammed cartoons is accepting Islamic blasphemy law. I say it's time for a little cultural self-assertiveness.

Amazing scenes from Baltimore: rioters throwing bricks at police, looting and burning down a CVS pharmacy and other stores, stomping on police cars and setting them on fire. The rioting followed the funeral of Freddie Gray on Monday (4/27), a black man who died in police custody in uncertain circumstances. The next day (4/28), National Guard in camouflage patrolled the streets, and a curfew was imposed. The rioters also burned down a housing project for seniors and a community centre, a $16million investment by the Southern Baptist Church that was due to open in six months. It was meant to be a sign of hope in a blighted area. And yet, despite the evident self-destructiveness, some were claiming that the rioters were "uprisers" that represented a "rebellion". Morehouse College professor Mark Hill Lamont told CNN that the turmoil in Baltimore was "resistance to oppression" rather than rioting.  Salon commentator Benji Hart called the rioting a "legitimate political strategy" But there was nothing "political" in the rioting and looting. In fact, in political terms, destroying one's neighborhood is a big setback for those who want to have legitimate concerns about policing addressed and effect other changes.  Liberals seem to not care less.

In what is probably the silliest comment on climate since Harry Reid blamed global warming on the Koch brothers, a green journalist opined of the refugees currently dying in the Mediterranean: "This is what climate crisis looks like . . . We know there is evidence that the violence triggered by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 were in part fuelled by protests over soaring food prices." The soaring prices were actually exacerbated (as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN confirmed) by the diversion of much of the world's farmland into making motor fuel, in the form of ethanol and biodiesel, for the rich to salve their green consciences. Greenie climate policies were a far greater contributor to the Arab Spring than climate change itself. Without abundant fuel and power, prosperity is impossible. Nearly 700 million Africans rely mainly on wood or dung to cook and heat with, and 600 million have no access to electric light. As the International Energy Agency recently put it in a recent report, "increasing access to modern forms of energy is crucial to unlocking faster economic and social development in sub-Saharan Africa". Africa is awash with fossil fuels - but not the capital to build plants to turn them into electricity. Greenie activists and politicians in the West -- what I call the Green Taliban -- are determined to deny them that capital.  Why?

I'd like to give all TTPers - both those who will be attending the Vegas Rendezvous this weekend and those unable to do so - an intro to what I'll be talking about. First, though, I need to get something off of my chest. I have become very, very tired of reading standard conservative media. Frankly, the gelded whining gets to me. Detailed arguments aplenty, explaining why the latest Leftist power-grab or exploitation is wrong. Or why their latest hate speech is unfair. So. What. Newsflash: the other side doesn't care. They've made it crystal clear that power is the only goal, that they enjoy using power to enrich themselves and hurt others, and that there are no limits of law or decency that restrain them. If you're looking to standard conservative media for hope or change, I recommend Prozac as a mandatory Plan B.   Economics? Once, this was their spearhead. Now? They'd need a high-power telescope to see even Zero Hedge ahead of them; meanwhile, the global economic order makes ticking sounds. Popular culture? Never a strength - and now it's the main front of the Left. External enemies? This, they still get. But not the internal ones, who are statistically much more likely to murder you (yes, Virginia, liberals are more lethal than terrorists). Like so much of the conservative movement, they keep trying to approach the 21st century with the worldview and infrastructure of 1980. Not. Working. The cold hard truth is that liberty's future is arising without them - and may not need them. What's needed are the bright spots of the new conservative counter-culture.  Here they are...

President Obama has made a not-so-subtle attempt to personalize his administration's war on "climate change" by linking it with his daughter Malia's asthma. Nice try, Mr. President. But the evidence just doesn't stack up.  It's one more farce for the Climate Fascists. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the EPA's Gina McCarthy and the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy have lent their ‘expert' support to the ‘global warming means more asthma' thesis  -- all a classic case of doing their masters' bidding. Problem is, despite this impressive show of concerted ‘expert' strength, the connection between climate change and asthma is flimsy on stilts. This becomes evident when you examine the claims made by the CDC website. It certainly sounds authoritative. (How could America's leading national public health institute possibly get it wrong where health issues are concerned?) But none of them bears close scrutiny. Let's examine them one by one.

China's approach to international energy and environmental policy can be summed up very simply: tell the idiot yang guizi whatever they want to hear - then carry on doing what China wants, regardless. Fortunately for the prospects of the US economy, it would appear that not every US politician has fallen for the risible line, heavily promoted by the Obama administration and its amen corner in the environmental movement, that China cares every bit as much as the West does about the allegedly urgent need to curb global CO2 emissions. Two who very much haven't are Republican senators Roy Blunt of Missouri and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma who have just launched a challenge to the bilateral climate change "agreement" reached by Mr. Obama with China last year, whereby both countries have supposedly made a commitment to reducing their "greenhouse gas" emissions. In addition, there is, as this ACCF policy research special report notes, a good deal of further legal trouble ahead for Obama and his eco-fascists at the EPA.  Mr. Obama may yet be prevented from being China's Useful Green Idiot - however much he wants to be.

The United States has handled its economic diplomacy with shocking myopia. The US Treasury's attempt to cripple the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) before it gets off the ground is clearly intended to head off China's ascendancy as a rival financial superpower, whatever the faux-pieties from Washington about standards of "governance". Such a policy is misguided at every level, evidence of what can go wrong when a lame-duck president defers to posturing amateurs in Congress on delicate matters of global geostrategy. Washington has enraged Britain by trying to browbeat Downing Street into boycotting the project. It has forced allies and friendly countries across the Far East to make a fatal choice between the US and China that none wished to make, and has ended up losing almost everybody. Germany, France, and Italy are joining. Australia and South Korea may follow soon. The AIIB is exactly what the world needs.  Here's why...

The power to make laws rests wholly in Congress - at least that is what the Constitution says.  Yet who makes the "laws" in our federal system today?  Vast amounts of legislative power have been "delegated" to independent federal regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission or to the president or his cabinet secretaries.  The sheer volume of these rules is mind-numbing.  Consider that in 2014, the year that just ended, 75,000 pages of new regulations were adopted by the Executive Branch, either by the Obama administration directly or through independent regulatory agencies.  This is in addition to the myriad executive orders the president gives to his various departments regarding how to administrate federal laws. The imagined need for these rules is that congressional legislation cannot anticipate every situation or change that requires new regulations.  That is true, of course, only if we accept the underlying premise that the federal government ought to be directly involved in almost everything we do.  Abolishing the completely illegal and unconsitutional scam of legislative delegation to unelected bureaucracies should be a major GOP campaign theme in 2016.