The Weekly Sam: Honoring Sam Blumenfeld Who Would Have Turned 100 on May 31.
May 31, 2026 would have been my friend and mentor’s 100 birthday. Sam went to be with the Lord on June 1, 2015-a day after his 89th birthday. Sam’s last book which he co-authored with Alex Newman was Crimes of the Educators. A week prior to Sam’s passing, I called Alex and asked when he was planning on visiting Sam. They had not yet met in person but frequently met on conference calls. Alex said that he planned a summer visit. I told him that he most likely won’t be alive by then. We provided an airline ticket for him, and he flew to Boston on the following day, Thursday. I had hoped to videotape an interview of the two of them, but Sam’s condition had deteriorated, and it would have been an injustice to him. They interacted as if they were lifelong friends. Alex, like numerous others, is carrying on the work of Sam.
A number of years ago, Sam told me that he would work until he drops. True to his word, there he was on his deathbed handing out autographed copies of his book to visitors. Sam willed most of his papers, books, and recordings to us but asked that we take possession of them prior to his passing. We pledged to him that his works will influence future generations-more on that later. After the visit, we held a tribute to Sam at his request. Sam died five days later. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Bourne, MA.
Sam Blumenfeld was born on May 31, 1926, in New York City. His parents were Polish immigrants. His mother, who Sam adored, was illiterate. Sam attended a public school in the Bronx where he received an excellent education. Sam was a World War II veteran serving in an artillery unit in Italy. He participated in a prisoner escort where he took pity on a starving German soldier and shared his food with him. After the war, Sam graduated from City College of New York. He returned to postwar Europe visiting some friends he made during the war and returned to the U.S. to start a career in the publishing business. Sam was fluent in several languages. In 1963, he traveled to Madrid, Spain to interview Dr. Moise Tshombe, the pro-Western leader of Katanga who was ousted by the United Nations peacekeepers who committed atrocities against the civilian population and replaced by the Moscow trained Patrice Lamumba.
It was while he was an editor for Grosset and Dunlop when he got a request from a friend Attorney and Hall of Fame tennis player Watson Washburn to join his reading reform organization which he recently started. Sam was surprised by the request telling Mr. Washburn that reading was a basic thing you learned in elementary school. Mr. Washburn suggested that Sam read the book Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch. The book changed Sam’s life. Flesch pointed out that the look-say or whole word method was introduced to the nation’s schools in the mid to late 1930s. The Depression made it difficult for most schools to buy the new look-say books but by the mid-1940s most schools around the nation adopted this method of reading. It proved to be a disaster.
Sam initially believed that if the educators were convinced that the look-say method wasn’t working, the educators would revert back to intensive phonics. This is when he learned that America’s public schools were in the firm grip of the so-called progressive educators” who were disciples of John Dewey. Their goal was to promote Humanism, and socialism while destroying children’s faith in God. Sam was one of the first to warn Americans that our nation’s children were being deliberately dumbed down in government schools. Sam did an incredible amount of research on the subject writing books like Is Public Education Necessary and The NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education.
Sam coined the word menticide to describe what was happening in America’s government schools. Sam learned how the mind works, and how the teaching methods were causing dyslexia-an ailment that was extremely rare until the introduction of the look-say method of reading. Sam was more than a critic of government schools; he was a man of action. He travelled around the country helping local people start private schools. He helped to establish both the South Boston and Hyde Park academies during the height of forced bussing in Boston. Sam was also a pioneer in the modern day homeschool movement. He attended homeschool conventions around the nation where he would conduct lectures on the history of education in the United States as well as phonics workshops. Sam would routinely write letters to mayors offering to take their worst schools and turn them around in one year. He seldom got a response and when he did, it was a “thank you but no thank you” reply. One of the mayors was Corey Booker -now a U.S. Senator.
Sam was prolific writer authoring fifteen books, a monthly newsletter, and hundreds of articles in magazines and on-line media sources like World Net Daily. He even authored a book questioning the authorship of Shakespeare. His most important book was his simplest Alpha-Phonics, a 128 lesson workbook used to teach phonics. Thousands of parents, including my wife and I, used Alpha-Phonics to teach children how to read. Sam volunteered his time with a group called the WAITT-We Are All in This Together-House, an adult learning center in Boston’s Roxbury section where he taught functionally illiterate adults how to read.
My first meeting with Sam was at an event in Windham, NH in 1989. His first words to me were “Don’t let your children set foot in a government school” It was some of the best advice I ever received. Sam had an incredibly sense of humor. In his last years, he moved into a senior housing complex which he called “a temple of decrepitude.” I would pick him up to drive him to speaking engagements, and he would ask me to do my imitation of Rev. Jimmy Swaggert which greatly amused him. After his passing, I learned that Sam was a friend of Swaggert’s and had Sam on show on a few occasions. He also had a strong faith in God. When he was diagnosed with leukemia and the doctor believed that with treatment, he may live another year, the doctor asked Sam if he was afraid. He said no, he just didn’t think that it would be leukemia.
As mentioned above, Sam willed most of his books, papers, and recordings to us. It consisted of over 200 legal size boxes full of cassettes of his lectures, hundreds of notebooks, manuscripts both published and unpublished, and hundreds of letters of his correspondence with authors, publishers, educators, and politicians. Thanks to the efforts of Mark Affleck, who serves as our camp newspaper editor, and our webmaster Eric Conover, the Sam Blumenfeld Archive was created. Since its creation, hundreds of thousands of people from the Royal family of the Kingdom of Bhutan to educators in Zimbabwe and South Africa to hundreds of teachers to homeschool parents in the United States and around the world have used the archive.
The archive contains an on-line version of Sam’s Alpha-Phonics with all 128 lessons in either audio or video, courses on cursive, and basic arithmetic. It also contains PDF versions of most of Sam’s books, newsletters, hundreds of hours of Sam’s lectures in audio and video, manuscripts, and his correspondence. For unlimited free access to the archive, all we need is an E-mail address and a username. (Donations are, of course, greatly appreciated.) Here is the link to the archive: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
The Blumenfeld Archives
Sam loved Camp Constitution and over the years, he was an instructor at our annual family camp.
Town of Alton, NH Memorial Day Observation May 26, 2025
The Town of Alton, New Hampshire knows how to observe Memorial Day. This event was sponsored by the Claude R. Batchelder Post #72. Numerous community groups participated in this event including the Alton Community Church, Boy Scouts, Prospect Mountain High School Band, Alton Dance Academy, Alton Youth League, Alton Police and Alton and New Durham Fire Departments.
Pastor Casidy of the Alton Community Church opened in prayer then a short parade from Monument Square to Riverside Cemetary where a short service was held, and then back to Monument Square where short speeches and the Decoration of the War Memorials were made. It closed with the singing of God Bless America and Amazing Grace led by Alton Selectman Paul LaRochelle.
Memorial Day –Honoring American Heroes of Courage, Sacrifice, & Faith – American Minute with Bill Federer
Memorial Day in America, as an annual observance, can be traced back to the end of the Civil War, a war in which over a half-million died.
Southern women scattered spring flowers on graves of both northern Union and southern Confederate soldiers.
Many places claimed to have held the original Memorial Day, such as:
- Warrenton, Virginia;
- Columbus, Georgia;
- Savannah, Georgia;
- Gettysburg, Pennsylvania;
- Boalsburg, Pennsylvania;
- Waterloo, New York.
One such place was Charleston, South Carolina, where a mass grave was uncovered of 267 Union soldiers who had died in a prison camp.
On May 1, 1865, former slaves organized a parade, led by 2,800 singing black children, in which they prayed, read Bible verses, sang spirituals, and reburied the soldiers with honor as an act of gratefulness for their ultimate sacrifice which gave them freedom.
In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander of the Civil War veterans’ organization “The Grand Army of the Republic,” called for a Decoration Day to be observed annually on May 30.
An estimated 180,000 Black soldiers served in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Republican abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a Decoration Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in 1871:
“We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers.”
President James Garfield’s only executive order was in 1881 where he gave government workers May 30th off so they could decorate the graves of those who died in the Civil War.
In 1921, President Warren Harding had the remains of an unknown soldier killed in France during World War I buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery.
Inscribed on the Tomb is the phrase:
“HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.”
Since 1921, it has been the tradition for Presidents to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The number 21 being the highest salute, the sentry takes 21 steps, faces the tomb for 21 seconds, turns and pauses 21 seconds, then retraces his steps.
The number 21 is explained on the U.S. Army Center of Military History website (history.army.mil/index.html):
“Warriors … demonstrated their peaceful intentions placing their weapons in a position that rendered them ineffective …
Rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them once rendered them ineffective.
Originally warships fired seven-gun salutes–the number seven probably selected because of its astrological and Biblical significance … The Bible states that God rested on the seventh day after Creation, that every seventh year was sabbatical and that the seven times seventh year ushered in the Jubilee year.
Land batteries, having a greater supply of gunpowder, were able to fire three guns for every shot fired afloat, hence the salute by shore batteries was 21 guns …
Early gunpowder, composed mainly of sodium nitrate, spoiled easily at sea, but could be kept cooler and drier in land magazines. When potassium nitrate improved the quality of gunpowder, ships at sea adopted the salute of 21 guns.
The 21-gun salute became the highest honor a nation rendered …
Great Britain, the world’s preeminent seapower in the 18th and 19th centuries, compelled weaker nations to salute first …
Eventually, by agreement, the international salute was established at 21 guns, although the United States did not agree on this procedure until August 1875.”
On Memorial Day, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
“There can be no peace with the forces of evil. Peace comes only through the establishment of the supremacy of the forces of good.
That way lies through sacrifice … ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'”
The Memorial Day poem, “In Flanders Fields,” was composed during World War I, by a Canadian Expeditionary gunner and medical officer named John McCrae, who fought in the Second Battle of Ypres near Flanders, Belgium.
Describing the battle as a “nightmare,” as the enemy carried out one of the first chlorine gas attacks, McCrae wrote:
“For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds …
And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way.”
Finding one of his friends killed, McCrae helped bury him along with the other dead in a field.
Noticing the field covered with poppy flowers, he wrote:
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
Notable individuals who fought in World War I include:
- Sergeant Alvin York, who single-handedly took out 35 machine guns and captured 132;
- John J. Pershing, General of the Armies;
- Douglas MacArthur, Brigadier General;
- George S. Patton, tank commander;
- Leonard Wood, future Army Chief of Staff;
- Harry S Truman, artillery officer and future 33rd President;
- Eddie Rickenbacker, commander of 94th Areo Squadron;
- Quentin Roosevelt, a pilot, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was shot down and died;
- Charles Whittlesey, commander of the “Lost Battalion” behind lines;
- Frank Luke -“balloon buster”;
- Irving Berlin, composer of “God Bless America”;
- Edouard Izac, naval office captured on a U-Boat, who escaped;
- Henry Johnson of the “Harlem Hellfighters”;
- Dan Daly, Marine Sergeant charged and captured machine gun nests;
- Ernest Hemingway, author of A Farewell to Arms;
- J.R.R. Tolken, British author of The Lord of the Rings;
- C.S. Lewis, British author of The Chronicles of Narnia.
One soldier was Orval William Epperson.
Born on a rugged Ozark farm near Anderson, Missouri, he fought in France, being assigned to the 338th Machine Gun Battalion 88th Division.
Upon returning to America, he married Therese DeBrosse, and had three children: Joan, Orval Wilford, and Tirzah, the mother of the author of this article.
Orval and Therese’s only son was Orval Wilford “Billy” Epperson.
He served in World War II as a bombardier on a B17 Flying Fortress, 525th Squadron, 379 Bomb Group A.P.O. 550 (#0-768946).
23-year-old “Billy” Epperson flew from Camp Crowder in southwest Missouri to Kimbolton, England.
He had written a Mother’s Day note to his mom, tied it with a handkerchief to a small weight and dropped it from the plane as it flew over his hometown of Neosho, Missouri.
A neighbor got it and brought to his mother, who lived at 344 S. Hamilton.
Little did either know that that would be the closest they would be again, as Billy was shot down by the Nazis over the English Channel near Holland on July 9, 1944.
His name is on the monument near Omaha Beach, at the Cimitière Amèrican de Normandie (in Colleville-sur-Mer, France) at the Killed in Action Wall (“Tablet of the Missing”).
On June 6, 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt offered a D-Day Prayer, which is now part of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., thanks to the effort led by Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance, as documented in his book For Their Honor:
“My fellow Americans: … I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God, Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization …
Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces …
We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph … Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.”
In 1958, President Eisenhower placed soldiers in the tomb from World War II and the Korean War.
In 1968, one hundred years after the first observance, Memorial Day was moved to the last Monday in May.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan placed a soldier from the Vietnam War in the tomb.
DNA test later identified him as pilot Michael Blassie, whose A-37B Dragonfly was shot down near An Loc, South Vietnam.
He had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970, and prior to that, graduated from St. Louis University High School in 1966, ten years before the author of this article.
In 1998, Michael Blassie’s remains were reburied at Jefferson Memorial Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.
In 2000, Congress passed The National Moment of Remembrance Act (Public Law 106-579), whereby on each Memorial Day, at 3:00pm, citizens should pause for a moment of prayer:
“Congress finds that … it is essential to remember and renew the legacy of Memorial Day … to pay tribute to individuals who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States …
Greater strides must be made to demonstrate appreciation for those loyal people … whose values, represented by their sacrifices, are critical to the future of the United States …
and to encourage citizens to dedicate themselves to the … principles for which those heroes of the United States died …
A symbolic act of unity … to honor the men and women of the United States who died in the pursuit of freedom and peace … as a day of prayer for permanent peace.”
Memorial Day grew to honor all who gave their lives defending America’s freedom in every war, including:
- Revolutionary War (1775-1783) 25,000;
- Barbary Wars (1801-1805; 1815) 45;
- War of 1812 (1812-1814) 20,000;
- Mexican-American War (1846-1848) 13,283;
- Civil War (1861-1865) 625,000;
- Spanish-American War (1898) 2,446;
- World War 1 (1917-1918) 116,516;
- World War 2 (1941-1945) 405,399;
- Korean War (1950-1953) 36,516;
- Vietnam War (1955-1975) 58,209;
- Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 258;
- Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (2001-2014) 2,356;
- Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2012) 4,489; and
- subsequent wars against Islamic terrorism, securing our borders, and in Ukraine.
At the Memorial Day Ceremony, May 31, 1993, President Bill Clinton remarked:
“The inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier says that he is ‘Known but to God.’
But that is only partly true. While the soldier’s name is known only to God, we know a lot about him.
We know he served his country, honored his community, and died for the cause of freedom. And we know that no higher praise can be assigned to any human being than those simple words …
In the presence of those buried all around us, we ask the support of all Americans in the aid and blessing of God Almighty.”
Charles Michael Province, U.S. Army, wrote the poem:
“It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.
It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.”
Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary stated in its definition of “MEMORIAL”:
“That which preserves the memory of something … A monument is a memorial of a deceased person, or of an event. The Lord’s supper is a memorial of the death and sufferings of Christ.”
Memorials are important in Scripture. The Lord told Moses in Exodus 12:
“Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel …
In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house … Your lamb shall be without blemish … And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day … and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses … For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and … execute judgment … and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you …
And this day shall be unto you for a MEMORIAL … throughout your generations … an ordinance for ever.”
Memorial is mentioned in Joshua, chapter 4:
“When all the people were clean passed over Jordan … Joshua called the twelve men … out of every tribe …
And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder …
… That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?
Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan … and these stones shall be for a MEMORIAL unto the children of Israel for ever.”
In his Memorial Day Address, May 31, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge said:
“Settlers came here from mixed motives … Generally defined, they were seeking a broader freedom.
They were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance to the principle of self-government …
It has been said that ‘God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness.'”
Coolidge was citing an Election Sermon given in Boston, April 29, 1669, by Massachusetts Governor Judge William Stoughton, who described the Puritans fleeing persecution in England to settle in the New World:
“God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.”
Henry W. Longfellow used a similar line in his classic Courtship of Miles Standish:
“God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.”
This was explained further in Benjamin Franklin Morris’ classic The Christian Life and Character of The Civil Institutions of The United States (1864):
“The persecutions of the Puritans in England for non-conformity, and the religious agitations and conflicts in Germany by Luther, in Geneva by Calvin, and in Scotland by Knox, were the preparatory ordeals for qualifying Christian men for the work of establishing the civil institutions on the American continent.
‘God sifted’ in these conflicts ‘a whole nation that He might send choice grain over into the wilderness’; and the blood and persecution of martyrs became the seed of both the church and the state …
It was in these schools of fiery trial that the founders of the American republic were educated and prepared for their grand Christian mission …
They were trained in stormy times, in order to prepare them to … establish the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty and of just systems of civil government.”
Concluding in his Memorial Day Address that America’s republic is worth preserving, President Calvin Coolidge stated May 31, 1923:
“They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of piety, righteousness, liberty, and obedience of the law …
Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence?”
Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962:
“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image …
No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.”
—
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
(Reposted with permission from The American Minute.)
I want to go into the “not raising hogs” business next year.
This is a classic. We are not sure of its origination, but it clearly points out the how wasteful government programs have been over the years.
Honorable Secretary of Agriculture
Washington, D.C.
Dear Sir;
My friend, Ed Peterson, over at Wells Iowa,
received a check for $1,000 from the government for not
raising hogs. So, I want to go into the “not raising
hogs” business next year.
What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the
best kind of farm not to raise hogs on, and what is the
best breed of hogs not to raise? I want to be sure that
I approach this endeavor in keeping with all
governmental policies. I would prefer not to raise
razorbacks, but if that is not a good breed not to
raise, then I will just as gladly not raise Yorkshires
or Poland Chinas.
As I see it, the hardest part of this program will be in
keeping an accurate inventory of how many hogs I haven’t
raised.
My friend, Peterson, is very joyful about the future of
the business. He has been raising hogs for twenty years
or so, and the best he ever made on them was $422 in
1968, until this year when he got your check for $1000
for not raising hogs.
If I get $1000 for not raising 50 hogs, will I get $2000
for not raising 100 hogs? I plan to operate on a small
scale at first, holding myself down to about 4000 hogs
not raised, which will mean about $80,000 the first
year. Then I can afford an airplane.
Now another thing, these hogs I will not raise will not
eat 100,000 bushels of corn. I understand that you also
pay farmers for not raising corn and wheat. Will I
qualify for payments for not raising wheat and corn not
to feed the 4000 hogs I am not going to raise?
Also, I am considering the “not milking cows” business,
so send me any information you have on that too.
In view of these circumstances, you understand that I
will be totally unemployed and plan to file for
unemployment and food stamps.
Be assured you will have my vote in the coming election.
And a video of this letter read by Peter Grace:
Education Options New Hampshire: An Interview with Jody Underwood
We had the opportunity to interview Jody Underwood, President of Education Options New Hampshire Home – EdOpt Since last summer, Jody’s group holds two-to-three-hour expositions around New Hampshire. These expos are usually held in a public library or a local church. Attendees at these expos are offered alternatives to government schools from homeschool cooperatives, private schools, Christian schools, on-line resources like our Sam Blumenfeld archives http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm a as well as extra-curricular activities including day and overnight camps. These expos are also an excellent place to network. At the Weare expo held earlier this week, members of a local homeschool cooperative asked us to speak to their group.
From Ed Opt’s website:
Our mission is to provide information, support, and connections to families who want to explore education options. To do this, we hold expos in different regions around the state, connect people to the resources that will help them, and support families in their efforts to educate their children.
EdOpt is a 501(c)(3) non-profit education organization. We accept tax-deductible donations to help us with our mission.
Is There White Genocide in South Africa?
Last week, the Trump Administration allowed abut fifty White South Africans who claimed that they were targets of government sanctioned persecution. Some of the Left took strong exception to the White South Africans presence in the United States and their claims of persecution.
In 2019, Camp Constitution’s chaplain Rev. Steve Craft was in South Africa and interviewed Hanna, a White South African who discusses the persecution that White South Africa farmers and their families are facing including murder and torture:
Net Zero Makes No Sense: Study Questions Role of Human Emissions in Climate Models and Policy
This is a news release from Camp Constitution instructor Professor Willie Soon:
A groundbreaking study published in Science of Climate Change challenges the validity and reliability of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models, the projections from which underpin the Paris Climate Agreement and the adoption of “Net Zero” policies.
The research by Dr. Kesten C. Green—a forecasting expert at the University of South Australia and co-author of The Scientific Method: A Guide to Finding Useful Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, 2022)—and astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon of the Institute of Earth Physics and Space Science, Hungary, found models that included the IPCC’s anthropogenic (human causation) variable failed badly in temperature forecasting comparisons with models that included independent measures of variation in the Sun’s radiation, and even with forecasts that the temperature would be the same as the historical average.
The study, titled “Are Climate Model Forecasts Useful for Policy Making? Effect of Variable Choice on Reliability and Predictive Validity,” tested alternative hypotheses on causes of temperature change in the form of models that included the IPCC anthropogenic variable—mainly carbon dioxide emissions—with and without the IPCC preferred solar variable, and two models with independent solar variables. The models were used to forecast annual Northern Hemisphere land temperature averages with and without urban temperatures—the latter to avoid heat island effects—for various subsets of temperature data from 1850 to 2018.
The results were striking: Models using the IPCC anthropogenic and solar variables produced forecast errors as large as 4°C in forecasting Northern Hemisphere land temperatures that had not been used in estimating the models, and as large as 20°C in forecasting rural temperatures. The independent solar variable models’ errors were mostly much less than 1°C in forecasting the all-land temperatures, and almost always much less than 1°C in forecasting the rural temperatures.
The authors found that while the independent solar variables individually exhibited relationships consistent with physical causality—temperatures tending to increase as solar irradiance increases—that was not the case with the IPCC variables. The IPCC solar variable hardly changed over the 1850 to 2018 period, and higher temperatures were associated with lower irradiance from 1970, a time when fears of a new ice age were replaced by fears of global warming. In a challenge to physics, the IPCC anthropogenic variable similarly failed to exhibit a relationship with temperature prior to 1970 but displayed a strong positive relationship thereafter.
Dr. Green emphasized the policy implications: “Our findings suggest that IPCC modelling fails to support the hypothesis that human carbon dioxide emissions have a meaningful impact on global temperatures. Uncomfortable as it may be for policy makers, unpredictable and uncontrollable variations in radiation from the Sun and volcanic eruptions will continue to determine changes in the Earth’s climate. Policies that deny that reality cannot avoid imposing great costs on the many, to the benefit of very few”.
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The Weekly Sam: The National Education Association Trojan Horse in American Education
Author and homeschool pioneer Sam Blumenfeld gave this presentation shortly after his book exposing the NEA was published
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2025-05-17T16_09_59-07_00
This audio is from the Sam Blumenfeld Archive:
http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
The Blumenfeld Archives
Actor says abortion of his son ‘eats at my soul’
‘I don’t know what else to say about it except I wonder what he might have done in life’
In his recently-published memoir, “Karen: A Brother Remembers,” actor Kelsey Grammer revealed that two of his preborn children were aborted — experiences that appear to have greatly affected him. While society parrots the idea that abortion is solely a woman’s issue, Grammer’s story of abortion regret underscores the reality that men are also impacted by the killing of their preborn children.
‘The abortion of my son eats at my soul’
According to People, Grammer wrote that in 1974, a former girlfriend aborted their child. Though Grammer said he was “willing” to keep the baby, he “did not plead with her to save his life,” and instead “volunteered to have my son’s body vacuumed out of his mother’s.”
“I regret it. That’s all I meant to say,” he said, adding, “I know that many people do not have a problem with abortion, and though I have supported it in the past, the abortion of my son eats away at my soul.”
Grammer also railed against the abortionists responsible for killing preborn children, saying, “The doctor, or so-called doctors, who have executed generations of children in this manner — I have no idea how they call themselves doctors. Something about the ‘first, do no harm’ thing. But I offer no controversy.”
The topic also came up during a recent interview with Parade magazine, in which he spoke of his aborted son, saying, “It’s a lingering regret. Yeah, it lingers. I don’t know what else to say about it except I wonder what he might have done in life and how much potential existed.”
Years later, Grammer experienced abortion a second time when doctors convinced him and his wife Kayte that aborting their son was necessary so that the baby’s twin, Faith, might live. In explaining what happened, it’s clear that Grammer understands that abortion is the killing of a preborn child.
“We killed our son so Faith might live. We wept as we watched his heart stop,” Grammer wrote. “It is the greatest pain I have ever known. Kayte’s scream was enough to make a man mourn a lifetime.” Faith is now 12 years old, and Grammer has seven born children in all.
Though these experiences appear to have had a profound impact on his life, his views about abortion seem unclear.
“I supported the idea that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her own body. I still do,” he wrote. “But it’s hard for me. Still is.”
Grammer and his wife Kayte actually attended the March for Life in 2016, and the National Right to Life Convention the year prior. His wife Kayte posted to Instagram after the March, “There are better ways to avoid pregnancy than abortion. We advocate those. We can respect a woman’s right to choose and respect a child’s right to life at the same time. They do not need to stand in opposition. We need never kill another innocent life. Respect life.”
Grammer has even been criticized for proudly wearing a pro-life t-shirt — making it difficult to decipher his remarks (and hers).
Men regret abortion too
Regardless of whether or not he supports abortion, it’s clear that Grammer — like countless other men — has experienced post-abortion grief and trauma. In sharing his story, he is helping other men impacted by abortion, affirming that they are not alone in the pain they feel.
A study from Support After Abortion found that “one in seven men may be coping from negative impacts from abortion.” The study report explains, “Men in the study reported depression, sadness, guilt, regret, anxiety, anger, thoughts of what could have been, emptiness, substance abuse, a sense of lost fatherhood, and other emotions.”
Live Action News has shared some of those men’s stories, including in its Can’t Stay Silent campaign.
(Reposted with permission from World Net Daily.)
Armed Forces Day – Saluting Our Defenders! by William Federer
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