Still Turning

Last week I talked about the anti-ULEZ movement over in Londonistan.

But wait! There’s more!

Furious locals chased away a Ulez crew – some of whom were driving Sadiq Khan’s mobile ‘spy’ vans used to enforce the scheme. Footage of the incident shows angry locals ejecting the Ulez team from Sunningvale Avenue, in Biggin Hill, southeast London.

Activists opposed to Mr Khan’s flagship policy – which last month expanded to cover the entire city – have already attacked hundreds of static cameras prompting the London Mayor to roll out a fleet of vehicles to catch those flouting the rules.

But these too have become a target, with opponents to the Ulez – who call themselves ‘Blade Runners’ – slashing their tyres, spray painting cameras and smashing windows.

Anti-Ulez activists held a yellow high visibility jacket in front of one of the cameras while locals berated the Ulez workers.

Images show one of the Ulez vehicles with its windows and windscreen smashed, in the latest escalation by activists determined to thwart Mr Khan’s much-hated levy.

Next step for Burgomeister  Khan:  spy vans to see who’s harassing the spy vans?

My reaction:

So Much For Carbon Dioxide, Then

Over at American Thinker, Guy Mitchell concludes that the whole CO2 scare is a load of old bollocks.  Details here, but a succinct summary says, starting with the premise:

The basic premise in the man-made global warming hypothesis is that CO2 molecules in the lower troposphere, emitted by the burning of fossil fuels on Earth, absorb the LWIR photons emitted as the Earth cools. The CO2 molecules “trap” the heat energy in the photon, which causes the troposphere to warm. Then the CO2 molecule reradiates an LWIR photon of the same wavelength it absorbed back to the Earth’s surface, which warms the Earth’s surface. The more CO2 molecules that are emitted into the troposphere by burning fossil fuels, the more heat is trapped and reradiated back to the Earth’s surface, increasing atmospheric and surface warming in a never-ending cycle.

Conclusion (after a whole bunch of actual, you know, data and science and stuff, emphasis added):

Scientific analysis using publicly available data demonstrates that an LWIR photon emitted by a CO2 molecule in the Earth’s lower troposphere does not penetrate the oceans’ surface to a depth greater than 100 μm, thereby having no effect on the ocean’s temperature. The ARGO Float Program temperature measurements of the world’s oceans confirm those scientific analyses.

And:

Therefore, if the first principles of science and observational data on the ocean’s temperature indicates that CO2 emissions cannot heat the world’s oceans, why does the U.N. IPCC continue to promote the global warming hypothesis? The legal definition of fraud is intent to deceive.

Yeah, we all knew that.

Roost, Chickens Coming Home To

Well, well, well.  Here’s the macro event:

Hours after murder charges against a former Philadelphia police officer were dropped on Tuesday, large groups, mostly made up of teenagers, looted multiple stores in the city. 

Police started receiving calls around 8 p.m. Tuesday night about a large crowd moving into Center City, the main dining and shopping scene in downtown Philadelphia, NBC 10 reported. The crowd eventually turned riotous, ransacking a Foot Locker, Lulumelon, and an Apple store, among other businesses, before at least 20 were arrested. 

Note that Philly has one of those “Soros-style” prosecutors who distinguish themselves by not prosecuting anyone for crimes like this.  There’s also evidence that, far from being “spontaneous”, the raids are being coordinated and targets established via social media — almost the very definition of organized crime.

And speaking of targets, here’s a micro event:

Target is closing nine stores in major cities across four states, claiming theft and organized retail crime have made the environment unsafe for staff and customers – and unsustainable for business.

The big box chain is part of a wave of retailers – both large and small – that say they’re struggling to contain store crimes that have hurt their bottom lines. Many have closed stores or made changes to merchandise and layouts.

…which is likely to cause an epidemic of Schadenböners among conservatives because the Minneapolis retailer is easily one of the wokest corporations in the world.

The only good thing about the Philly situation, by the way, is that unlike the Portland OR police, some Philly cops are getting into the spirit of the thing.

Try to contain your guffaws of delight.  I couldn’t.

Do Something To Stop The Bastardy

A little while back I talked about how some refugee family (actual refugees) had fled Germany to homeschool their kids, because the German public school system is like our own, only worse, and they being Christian, thought they could find refuge Over Here and school their children according to their own beliefs and not in the godlessness of the public school system (as prescribed by German law).

So now they’re facing deportation because Gummint.

It’s bad enough that the German government was fucking them over — the State fucking people over has a long and storied tradition Over There — but now our Gummint is fucking them over despite the family not having broken a single U.S. law.

I urge you all to follow this link and sign the HSDLA petitionPlease.

And pass the link on to everyone you know who might support this family.  Every bit helps.

Quote Of The Day

From Glenn Reynolds:

“At some point, the government’s behavior is sufficiently illegitimate that people will start acting outside of the usual channels. We’re getting dangerously close to that point, and our feckless overclass either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, or actively wants that to happen.”

He’s talking specifically about the attempt to muzzle Trump for the 2024 election, but in fact you could apply it to pretty much everything they’re doing right now, whether it’s gun control, primary school education, destruction of the oil industry or [fill in the blank].

“Change Of Orders”

Here’s a “connect the dots” moment.  I’ve mentioned this sad case before.  First, courtesy of Annie Holmquist, some background:

Would you be willing to risk arrest by the government in order to choose the best education for your child?

That’s the situation the Romeike family faced a number of years ago when they lived in Bissingen, Germany. They chose to homeschool their young grade school age children even though homeschooling was illegal in Germany. The reason? Their children were bullied and scared about the violence they were facing in their local state school.

That choice resulted in a visit from police, and soon three of their children, ages six to nine, were hauled off in a police vehicle and forced to attend the official state school. Recounting the 2006 incident, father Uwe Romeike told one media outlet that he “felt very helpless,” going on to note, “My children were crying, the police were shouting.”

Faced with hefty fines, the Romeikes fled Germany for America in 2008, seeking asylum. Settling in Tennessee, the family continued homeschooling while they fought for protection from their German persecutors. In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security allowed the family to stay in the U.S. “under order of supervision and indefinite deferred action status,” according to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

The family—which has now grown to include two more children and two in-laws since the trauma in Germany—has continued to dwell in the U.S. for over a decade, living peacefully and homeschooling their children.

Until now. 

Let the Government bastardy begin.

On Sept. 6, 2023, the Romeikes went in for their annual immigration visit and were shocked when they were told they had four weeks to get their passports in order and self-deport to Germany. “The family had no prior warning, and was offered no explanation, other than that there had been a ‘change of orders,’” a Home School Legal Defense Association media posting explained.

What could possibly have caused this “change in orders”?  Let us now connect the dots, with this little statement from the Biden Cabinet Secretary of Education:

“I don’t have too much respect for people that are misbehaving in public and acting like they know what’s right for kids.”

Seriously?

Here’s the thing.  Tennessee is a homeschool-friendly state — i.e. the state government has no problem with people homeschooling their kids.  But:  immigration is a federal issue.  So if the Dept. of Education drops a little whisper in the ear of INS, the federal government can step in and fuck with people like the hapless Romeike family, essentially making Tennessee’s jurisdiction meaningless.

There is, of course, another interesting aspect to all this.  Since arriving in the U.S., the Romeikes have had two more children — and according to U.S. law, the two kids are U.S. citizens (yeah, they’re “anchor babies”).  So can the federal government deport U.S. citizens when in fact neither they nor any of their family have broken any American laws?

I hope the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSDLA) climbs into this with might and main — because this is precisely the kind of matter that is in their remit.

Read all of Annie’s article, because The Naked Communist  is clearly fast becoming part of official U.S. government policy.

In the meantime, let us think about the proper treatment for an unelected gauleiter government official who thinks that parents don’t know what’s best for their kids, but the government does.

Just to make my own position clear on this issue:  if I were being put in a similar position when homeschooling my own kids, I’d be making that difficult decision about calling in the HSDLA, or just going to the guns.  My kids belong to me, not to the State, no matter what the State thinks.


Oh, and Annie:  welcome back to Intellectual Takeout.  You have been sorely missed.