Environmentalists eat their own

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I’ve been pointing this out for a long time now, but it bears repeating: all of the grand schemes for building “green energy” projects: solar farms, windmills, new transformer sites, power lines to bring off shore and wind power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed, etc. will be and are being blocked by other groups, equally fanatical, who oppose them. The story below actually involves, not a green advocate but two adjoining property owners with their own private agendas, but it’s a perfect illustration of how the environmental laws enacted over the past decades provide opponents the legal warfare tools to obstruct, delay, and block energy projects.

Have I mentioned the mines that will be needed to provide the minerals and ores necessary to build a new power infrastructure, let alone Trump’s plans to revive traditional ones? Forget them

Bay Area food bank move could be blocked by lawsuit citing ‘historic parking lot’

The Alameda Food Bank and the environmental startup Natel Energy would seem to have little in common.

One supplies grains and proteins and vegetables each week to about 1,200 Alameda households. The other has come up with new “fish safe” hydropower turbines that don’t kill or maim the eels and trout and catfish that swim through their blades.

But in the past two weeks [this rticle is from September 2024] the two organizations, both located among the eclectic and vibrant evolving neighborhood at the former Naval Air Station Alameda, were delivered similar bad news: lawsuits challenging plans to expand their operations. 

Behind the lawsuits are two longtime Alameda residents, Building 43 Winery owner Tod Hickman and Shelby Sheehan, a former Alameda Point resident involved in a rent dispute with the city. Using similar language, both lawsuits say the city violated state law by not requiring the food bank and Natel to complete full studies on how the projects would impact the environment.

“Critics say the lawsuits are extreme examples of how a couple of residents can weaponize the state’s well-intentioned California Environmental Quality Act law, known as CEQA, to block developments.”

“Who attacks a food bank?” said Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft. “They are using CEQA law and the judicial process to attack an absolutely essential service and an important environmental business. If they get away with this, what will come next?”

On a recent Tuesday, Alameda Food Bank Executive Director Teale Harden gave a tour of the nonprofit’s current home at 650 West Ranger. The building, a single cavernous warehouse, has no place for the food bank’s 1,200 weekly customers to wait, no offices in which to conduct business, inadequate refrigeration and nowhere for the 500 volunteers to take a break. Rain blows in through the roll-up doors in the winter. 

“We make a lot of effort to provide food in a respectful and dignified way, and that’s not possible here,” Harden said. “This building wasn’t designed to have people in it.”

As an alternative, the food bank purchased a smaller 5,000-square-foot building across the street on Ranger Avenue for $3 million and won city approval to expand it with a prefabricated 10,000-square-foot warehouse with walk-in refrigeration and plenty of space for food storage. Demolition of the existing building has already started, and the food bank was planning to be in the new facility by June. The lawsuit may make that impossible.

“It’s a very, very fast timeline, which is why this is so frustrating and urgent,” Harden said.  “We don’t have any wiggle room. If anything gets delayed, we are pushing into time that we don’t really have.”

A demolition crew works outside 677 W. Ranger Ave, a building where the Alameda Food Bank wants to move to. But the community food bank’s move is on hold after neighbors sued using the California Environmental Quality Act.

Both Hickman and Sheehan are well known around the neighborhood. Sheehan was evicted from a city-owned property after she stopped paying rent in 2020 over a dispute, according to court records. Hickman regularly speaks at City Council meetings and has been critical of the way the city has handled the redevelopment of the base. In a 2022 Chronicle story Hickman complained that the neighborhood was “in a state of disrepair.”

Hickman, on Friday, told the Chronicle he is a supporter of both Natel and the food bank but is objecting to what he characterized as the city’s “criminal violation of the second most important law after the First Amendment.”

“We are not suing anyone but the city of Alameda,” Hickman said. “The city did not follow CEQA law by issuing fraudulent notices of exemption.”

He said he plans on filing three more CEQA lawsuits in Alameda Point in the next 30 days, despite the fact that his targeting the food bank has generated “hundreds” of one-star reviews of his winery on social media. “I’m going to have to start going to the food bank, myself, because they have done a good job of destroying my business.”

….

In the lawsuit, Hickman and Sheehan argue that the warehouse would destroy a portion of “an in-use, historic parking lot” and called the proposed 35-foot tall prefabricated building “historically-offensive.” They said the city violated CEQA laws by not analyzing the project for its impacts on “noise, historic resources, water and quality, impacts to adjacent uses, traffic, and safety.” Hickman has also argued in public testimony that the food bank would be better off at a different location “down the road.”

….

Gregor Cadman, chief operating officer of Natel Energy, says the turbine company’s expansion is necessary to close two contracts “critical to the continuation of our business.”

Natel, which employs 33 people, developed its blunt-bladed turbines in the warehouse. Just outside the building’s roll-up doors is a “pumped hydraulic test facility,” a network of white tubes connected to a tank of water. It’s about the size of a play structure at a playground. 

“It’s pushing flow through the turbine so we know how much hydraulic power is going into the turbine and how much electrical power is coming out,” said Gregor Cadman, the company’s chief operating officer.

Cadman said the expanded testing equipment, which will not increase the height of the current facility, is needed to close two contracts “critical to the continuation of our business.”

Kate Stirr, vice president of external affairs for Natel, noted the irony of using a law meant to protect the environment to disrupt a business doing “critical environmental protection work.”

“We need to complete the expansion in order to scale this technology up,” she said. “The impact it could have on the global hydro power fleet is profound. It would transform the current fleet that kills fish into a hydro fleet that still provides the renewal energy we need … but to also reverse the biodiversity decline that we are seeing in fresh water fisheries.”

In the CEQA challenge, Hickman and Sheehan call Natel’s proposed expansion “the most recent egregious example of complete disregard for environmental and zoning regulations” at Alameda Point. 

They say the existing test equipment has caused “long term obstruction of scenic and historic vistas, violation of the Public Trust, degradation of the historic character of the District, and unknown negative impacts to the endangered California least tern, noise, water, and air quality and health effects and others that are unknown because they have not been disclosed or evaluated.”

….“Our neighbor across the street is motivated by the financial interest of his business,” Cadman said. “I can appreciate that. If we didn’t have to have the equipment here we would have it elsewhere, but due to fish and wildlife restriction with the least tern colony we can’t have the equipment behind the building.”

Cadman said the use of CEQA to block Alameda Point redevelopment projects “sets a concerning precedent.”

“I’m not sure how much further this could go. It could affect the city’s ability to have a healthy civic and economic development path,” he said.

Jews and other white liberals take note: they hate you as much as they hate the rest of us

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Prestigious private school diversity conference devolved into ‘festival of Jew hate’: outraged attendees

An “equity and justice” conference involving many of the country’s most prestigious private schools devolved into a “festival of Jew hate” that had scared students leaving in tears, according to outraged parents and attendees.

Speakers at last week’s National Association of Independent Schools’ annual People of Color Conference accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” and downplayed the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 Israeli civilians — prompting some frightened kids to hide their Jewish stars as they left early.

…. The NAIS — an organization of 1,300 independent schools that includes Manhattan’s Tony Dalton, Brearley, Collegiate, Trinity, Fieldston, and the Riverdale Country School — held the professional development and networking event Dec. 4-7 in Colorado along with its Student Diversity Leadership Conference. Approximately 8,000 students and adults attended.

Among the New York prep schools in attendance were the Brooklyn Friends School [when I attended Friends Meetings and the George School, they were Quaker institutions — how times have changed] — Ed}, Dalton and Horace Mann. A complete list of attendees was not immediately available.

On the second day, Dr. Suzanne Barakat, a physician and activist, claimed Israel was “founded on ethnocentric superiority and an inherently systemically racist framework,” according to transcripts obtained by The Post.

The Mideast conflict, she said, stemmed from a “strain” of Zionism created when Jews fled nationalism in Europe in the 1800s. Critics said she made support of the Jewish state sound like a disease.

“They began immigrating to Palestine as colonists,” Barakat said, calling it “ethnic cleansing.”

Barakat cited the far-left group Jewish Voice for Peace and recommended a book by controversial author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who once said he didn’t know if he would have been “strong enough’’ to not join the Oct. 7 massacre.

“To suggest that Israel is committing genocide, that this current conflict is the most documented genocide in modern history — which smacks of Holocaust denial — was like being punched in the gut,” said Sirida Graham Terk, a teacher and diversity and inclusion coordinator at Milken who attended.

….“Nobody could even bring themselves to say the word ‘antisemitism’ in the acknowledgement,” said Sarah Shulkind, Milken’s head of school.

“Most horrifying is that the thousands of educators that were in that room teach at the nation’s most elite schools . . . they stood and cheered,” Shulkind added. “It reveals to me two things: virulent, unapologetic Jew hate, and profound ignorance.”.

…. On the last day of the conference, Princeton Professor Ruha Benjamin donned Palestinian colors and earrings showcasing watermelons, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, as she addressed students and educators.

…. At the end of her speech, she launched into a presentation of Gaza “before the genocide” and Israeli “oppression.”

Hmmm. On the one hand, rich, woke white liberals who chose to attend a People of Color of Conference are fools, and deserved what they got; on the other hand, if it opened a few eyes to the reality of the people they’ve been considering allies and friends, maybe it was worth the airfare to Denver (especially is they got some skiing in while they were out there).

A humorous history of Christmas greenery, from Twitchy

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getting an early start on the holiday (courtesy of Chatbox AI — I’m beginning to enjoy this thing)

Over on Twitchy, a history of Christmas greenery (despite the headline, there really are ties to the German barbarians, but it’s … complicated)

Debunking the Myth: Your Christmas Tree Is Not Pagan

For almost every picture of a Christmas tree, there is a post from an atheist killjoy harping that there is no God and that Christmas is a pagan holiday.

Mostly, these folks are nuttier than fruit cake, and their Christmas pagan trope is just as stale. Misery enjoys company, and the atheist sect is as miserable as they come.

The two prevailing arguments for linking Christmas trees and Christmas itself to paganism are the holiday's proximity to the winter solstice and the fact that pagans used evergreens in their celebrations.

Both are true, and it's no coincidence. Old traditions were woven into the faith from St. Patrick to the Spanish missionaries in the Americas. It's where jack-o-lanterns and sugar skulls come from at Halloween. Communities gathered at the winter and spring solstice, which provided missionaries like St. Paddy with large groups of potential new converts to preach to. So, it makes sense that these times of the year remained important as Christianity grew.

Pagans did indeed use forms of evergreens in their celebrations. The Norse would decorate their homes with woven evergreen that may have resembled wreaths or boughs of holly. They even hung mistletoe near the winter solstice. There was probably not much kissing, as mistletoe was associated with the death of Baldur, the God of Light. There was nothing resembling what we would think of as a Christmas tree.

The evergreen also had a practical use. Winters were long and harsh, and being stuck indoors with no indoor plumbing could be unpleasant. A few well-placed wreaths could add color to a home and possibly have been an Iron Age air freshener.

The Romans and Celts had similar traditions.

Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon, farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.

In Northern Europe the Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The Vikings in Scandinavia honored the evergreen mistletoe for its role in the death of the Balder, a god of light.

“It would seem that the scented trees that hang from rearview mirrors are more connected to our pagan ancestors than Christmas trees.’

Modern-day Christmas trees originated in Germany but were not initially intended for Christmas. The trees, adorned with apples, were first used to represent the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden on the feast day of Adam and Eve, which is celebrated on December 24th. 

Martin Luther is credited with first adding candles to light Christmas trees.

It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. According to a common version of the story, walking home one winter evening, Luther was awed by the stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.

The belief of pagan connections to Christmas persisted. In 1659, Massachusetts made decorations and any observance of December 25th illegal.

…. In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the influx of German and Irish immigrants in the 19th century undermined the Puritan legacy.

Everything changed in 1846, thanks to Queen Victoria.

In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived.

Much more at the link, and well worth going over to the site to read the whole thing.

And it includes (real) pictures, like these:

Do you think Joe will get some Trump Cologne in his stocking? 

Wilted on the vine

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11 Vineyard Lane has sold, finally, for $9.8 million. The sellers paid $9 million for it in 2008 and in between rentals, have been trying to unload since 2011, when they began at $9.950 and eventually dropped to $7.995 in 2022. They pulled it off the market that year, tarted it up even more than the poor old house had suffered before (Video here), and tried again in 2023 at $9.995. And now it’s sold; if they new owners can strip away the lipstick, they’ll find a fine old house beneath.

Well, this doesn't sound good

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“And when you wake up, wilhelmina, your penis will be gone and your mother will love you”

SHE NEEDS TO GO: Trump Surgeon General Pick Parrots the Left's Gender-Bender Propaganda

I don't know where Donald Trump found the fancy TV doctor he chose as his surgeon general, but he needs to call back the nomination immediately. 

PJ Media has already documented how Dr. Janette Nesheiwat's views are out of line with most MAGA voters. Catherine Salgado wrote last week, "Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick not only expressed pro-abortion views in the past, but she was also an enthusiastic supporter of disastrous COVID-19 lockdown and vaccine policies — and censorship of all those who disagreed with her."

….

She passionately rambled, “This [Covid] affects our children. It affects adults… look at the recent measles outbreak, the biggest outbreak that we've had in decades, with measles, and that's no joke. Measles can cause brain inflammation and pneumonia and ear infections and hearing loss and death. So it's about time that they [Facebook] are taking action, and I hope and pray that other social media platforms will follow suit and do the same thing.” 

And in 2021, Nesheiwat tweeted in response to a post touting Joe Biden’s vaccine push, blathering about the importance of “eliminating Vaccine Hesitancy and misinformation.” [Emphasis added]

Ben Bartee wrote: 

She also fearmongered in 2021 on nominally conservative Fox News with no pushback from the “journalist” interviewing her about COVID “putting our children in the hospital in record numbers” and, as a result, hospitals were “running out of ICU beds.”

Both claims were lies...

... Shame on whatever pharma industry toolbag wormed their way into Trump’s ear and convinced him to make such a poor decision, one that amounts to spitting in the face of every one of his voters who elected him out of exhaustion and fury with the Public Health™ system — which is a lot, if not a vast majority, of them.

But that's not the half of it. Here she is on Fox News parroting the Left's false narrative about gender being "assigned at birth." 

"But when you have a child who's suffering from gender dysphoria, this is a disconnect, a mismatch between how they feel and what a doctor assigned them as a gender at birth, and it's a very serious and sensitive issue that has to be taken very seriously, because, specifically, there's a very high suicidal rate among transgender adolescents," she claimed.

Here's a novel thought: What if these mentally ill children have a higher suicide rate because they are... mentally ill? And what if affirming their illusions with this silliness about "gender assigned at birth" (sane people call it "sex," not "gender," but we're not allowed to say that anymore) only aggravates the underlying mental health issues? 

Just yesterday, Britain joined much of the rest of Europe and banned hormone blockers and other drugs used to “help” gender dysphoric minors. There’s nothing else I can think of where we should follow Britain’s lead, but this is one of them, and “Dr. Janette” is not the person to lead that change.

Because baby-rapers are just new friends we've only briefly met

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but Renaldo, you must come back‚ i wuv you!

California County Dems Move To Shield illegal aliens Charged With ‘Heinous Crimes’ From ICE

“We’re closing a loophole”.

San Diego County doubled down on its existing sanctuary policy by voting to further restrict local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, even in cases where migrants have been charged with “heinous crimes.”

In a 3-1 vote on Tuesday, members of the Democrat-controlled San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to further restrict local law enforcement’s ability to assist or communicate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents operating in the jurisdiction, which could include instances where a migrant has been charged with rape, assault, child abuse or other serious crimes. 

“While the California Values Act significantly expanded protection from deportation to California residents, it fell short of protecting all residents because it allowed agencies to still notify ICE of release dates and transfers individuals to ICE without a warrant in some circumstances,” Board Chairwoman Nora Vargas wrote in her proposed policy. “This loophole has allowed the transfer of some individuals to ICE and notifications to ICE of release dates, leading to the deportation of our community members and the separation of families in our region.”

[One might think that separating a rapist from his victims, who are so often the wives and children of the offender, might be a desirable goal, but not to proper-thinking, compassionate people like Miss Vargas]

The “circumstances” in which ICE could be notified included illegal migrants who’ve committed serious and heinous crimes, according to opponents of the new rule.

Supervisor Jim Desmond, the lone dissenter in Tuesday’s vote, framed the resolution as a “dangerous” measure that turns San Diego County into a “super” sanctuary jurisdiction.

“This reckless measure not only goes far beyond California’s already extreme Sanctuary State laws but actively endangers our communities by shielding illegal immigrant criminals from deportation. Consider this: under this policy, law enforcement is prohibited from notifying ICE about individuals, in custody, who have committed violent and heinous crimes, including: Rape and stalking, Assault and battery, Burglary, Child abuse and more,” Desmond said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The resolution calls for San Diego County to no longer assist the agency by not providing ICE agents access to any illegal migrant or allowing them use of county facilities for investigative purposes or other purposes, not responding to ICE inquiries or communicating with the agency regarding an illegal migrant’s release date, or otherwise help in any civil immigration enforcement matter.

The vote in San Diego County follows action by a growing number of Democrat-led cities and localities across the country that wish to place obstacles in front of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, despite the president-elect winning November’s election largely on a hardline immigration platform. Los Angeles approved an ordinance officially making it a sanctuary city, Boston lawmakers voted to reaffirm their city’s sanctuary status and a number of Democrat mayors and governors have come out publicly against the idea of helping the president-elect enforce his plans for mass deportations.

Like the story two posts down, another example of Democrats’ war against their own citizens.

Just one sale reported today; here it is:

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33 Richmond Hill Drive, $2.9 million on a $2.850 asking price. Much as I like wood finishes, this Adirondack feel might be a tad too much to live with full-time. But otherwise it’s a good looking house, and the fact that it went over ask is proof that at least two separate buyers don’t mind the look at all. (Or perhaps the buyer intends to use it as a weekend house?)

Call it the Deep State, or just the acts of poor losers, I see it as a war against America

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Christopher Wray Is Preparing to Sabotage Trump and Patel

PJ Media:

“If you assumed Christopher Wray’s resignation meant a quiet exit, think again. Reports suggest Wray is actively promoting loyalists within the bureau, embedding establishment figures even deeper into the FBI. The move appears to be a calculated effort to sabotage Kash Patel’s expected plans to overhaul the agency and implement meaningful reforms at the nation’s top law enforcement institution.”

Sources within the bureau said Mr. Wray has begun promoting employees among the senior executive service, those who serve within the bureau’s leadership. These sources described this as an effort to burrow establishment figures deeper within the FBI.

Sources said a plan is being formulated to delay the new FBI director’s entry into the agency for three to four months.

And this:

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen efforts to “Trump-proof” federal agencies. In fact, reports from August revealed that the Biden-Harris administration had utilized a little-known hiring mechanism to strategically place personnel in key divisions of the Department of Justice ahead of the 2024 election. The apparent goal was to shield the department from any future attempts at reform under a potential Trump administration.

And this:

Report: Biden is scrambling to auction off border-wall materials before Trump takes office

Videos obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent show unused sections of the wall being hauled away on the back of flatbed trucks from a section of the border just south of Tucson, a hotspot for illegal crossings during the Biden administration. The agent estimates that up to half a mile per day of unused border wall is being moved.

'They are taking it from three stations: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points,' the border patrol agent, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told The Daily Wire. 'The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas.'

Here are some of the listings: Biden’s handlers are selling for pennies what American taxpayers paid thousands for.