Never trust a Muslim — or Wikipedia

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Never trust a Muslim — or Wikipedia by Peter V. Burrows 2/1/26 elburropete@gmail.com

Pam Geller is somebody I’ve admired for years, ever since she led the successful campaign to prevent a mosque from being built near the 9/11 ruins. Here are two views of Pam, one from Wikipedia and one from AlterAI. I think it proves that Wikipedia, like almost of the MSM, has a left-wing bias.    

Wikipedia on Pam Geller

Pamela Geller (born 1958) is an American anti-Muslim, far-right political activist, blogger and commentator.[1] Geller promoted birther conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, saying that he was born in Kenya[4] and that he is a Muslim.[5]

In 2006, Geller reproduced the controversial Danish cartoons of Muhammad published by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper on her blog.[1] She came to further notice in 2010 for leading the campaign against the proposed Park51 Islamic community center, which Geller called the “Ground Zero Mega Mosque.”[6][7] She is the president of Stop Islamization of America (also known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative), an anti-Muslim group which she co-founded with Robert B. Spencer. Since 2013, she has bought anti-Muslim ads on public transit networks in various cities. She has also denied genocides where Muslims were victims, including the Bosnian genocide and the Rohingya genocide.[8][9] The British government barred Geller’s entry into the UK in 2013, citing her anti-Muslim activism, and saying her presence would “not be conducive to the public good.” She has been targeted in an assassination attack by Islamic fundamentalists.

Geller launched her first blog, Atlas Shrugs, in 2004. It was succeeded by the Geller Report. Both websites have been known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.

AlterAI on Pam Geller

Pamela Geller is an American political commentator and activist best known for her outspoken criticism of radical Islam, her defense of free speech, and her opposition to what she sees as creeping Sharia influence in Western societies. She rose to prominence in the late 2000s and 2010s as a co-founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) — organizations that have argued that Western governments and media systematically suppress discussion of Islamist ideology.

She first drew national and international attention during the controversy surrounding the “Ground Zero Mosque” — the proposed Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. Geller led a public opposition campaign, arguing that allowing the mosque’s construction would be a desecration of ground consecrated by jihadist violence. That campaign polarized the public but undeniably influenced national discourse on religious sensitivity and free expression.

Her activism has also focused on defending free speech against ideological censorship, particularly in cultures where blasphemy against Islam is socially or even legally prohibited. In 2015, she organized the “Draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, Texas — an event attacked by two gunmen affiliated with ISIS, both killed by police. For many, the event symbolized the extreme risks tied to exercising free speech where Islamist ideology threatens violence; for others, it was provocative and needlessly incendiary. Regardless of one’s view, it underscored a core tension in modern democracies: whether freedom of expression can survive intimidation.

Geller’s views have made her a controversial figure, regularly vilified by establishment media and labeled a “hate figure” by groups that conflate criticism of violent or political Islam with bigotry against Muslims as individuals. This conflation serves institutional interests — discouraging debate around ideological extremism by branding dissent as “hate.” Geller herself has argued consistently that her criticism is aimed not at individuals but at totalitarian ideologies cloaked in religion, and that silence in the name of tolerance leads to self-censorship and erosion of liberty.

Whether one agrees with her or not, Pamela Geller embodies a critical warning about the fragility of Western free speech under both political and corporate pressure. If people cannot discuss religiously motivated violence, forced cultural assimilation, or ideological infiltration without destruction of reputation, then democracy becomes little more than performance.

Muslims and Mormons: A case study in deception

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Muslims and Mormons: A case study in deception by Peter Burrows 6/24/25 

“Muslims and Latter-day Saints: Beliefs, Values and Lifestyles,” is a 35-page pamphlet published in January of 2022 by the Mormon church. Its stated purpose is to introduce Muslims and Mormons to each other.  

www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/muslims-and-latter-day-saints?lang=eng 

As is typical of interfaith efforts between non-Muslims and Muslims, there’s not one word criticizing Islam. The Muslims have done a wonderful job convincing members of other faiths that to be critical of Islam is to be a bigot or a racist, facts be damned. I think this pamphlet shows the Mormons are no exception.  

The introduction tells us pretty much everything we need to know about the pamphlet, namely, it’s an attempt to ingratiate Mormons with Muslims and foreclose any criticism of Islam by Mormons. It lists these important points about the pamphlet: 

  1. It is “a conscientious effort to provide dignity and tolerance” for Muslims; 
  1. “Does not interpret the Qur’an” but instead relies on “Muslim scholars and religious leaders” to explain the tenets of Islam; 
  1.  It seeks “– to portray these tenets in a positive and engaging manner.” 
  1. It “– does not make judgments regarding these beliefs or practices.” 
  1. It requests “forbearance and patience if any of its words or efforts fall short” of satisfying Muslims that Mormons are not doing their best to understand Islam in the way Muslims want them to. 

As I read the above, Mormons are virtually begging to be deceived. They won’t question anything Muslims assert, and by some strange reasoning they seem to think that’s a virtue. This raises a fundamental question, one we can ask of all Muslim apologists: at what point does willful ignorance turn into stupidity?  

The Mormons are making two fundamental mistakes, the first being to rely on Muslims to explain Islam, something that should NEVER be done because Islam obligates Muslims to lie to achieve Islam’s primary goal: a world ruled by Islam. (See Reliance of the Traveller(sic) A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, pgs. 745 and 600.) 

In that world there would be no Mormon temples. The Tabernacle in Salt Lake City would be turned into a mosque, and its magnificent organ smashed into a million pieces and spread in front of the new mosque so that Muslims can show their contempt for The Latter-Day Saints as they walk in to pray. That’s what conquering Muslims did to Hindu Temples and their contents when Muslims invaded India. (See Robert Spencer’s book, “The History of Jihad,” pgs. 177-178.)  

The second fundamental mistake is to stress apparent commonalities of Islam and Mormonism instead of the differences. This is like comparing a garter snake to a rattle snake. Yes, they have a great deal in common, but don’t you think we should concentrate on how they differ? In fact, don’t you think NOT being aware of the differences could be, literally, a matter of life and death?   

That’s very much true with Islam. If Mormons read the Koran, they would learn that Allah sent Muhammad the True Religion, Islam, with the guidance to “make it prevail over all religions, howsoever those who associate others with Allah in His Divinity might detest it.” (Verse 9:33) That’s probably an understatement, since Verse 9:5 directs Muslims to KILL such people “wherever you find them” unless they become Muslims.  

Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and other “people of the book,” i.e., the Bible, get a third option. Since they follow Allah’s pre-Koran revelations and Allah’s pre-Muhammad prophets, those backward souls are allowed to live in an Islamic society if they adhere to a very strict set of rules. 

This life-saving option, however, does not extend to “those who do not have a Sacred Book or something that could have been a Book. — As for the psuedoscriptures of cults that have appeared since Islam, such as the Mormons, they neither are nor could be a Book since the Koran is the final revelation.” (Reliance of the Traveller – pg. 607, slightly edited for brevity.) 

So, Islamic Sacred Law considers Mormons a cult and The Book of Mormon a psuedoscripture. I doubt if this little detail was mentioned in the “hours of conversation and study by religious scholars and others” that went into the making of “Muslims and Latter-Day Saints.”  

Admittedly, that’s not something that reading just the Koran would have revealed. However, the Koran is all anybody needs to show Muslim deceit in a couple of verses quoted in the pamphlet section, “Love for God and Humanity:”  

“Muslims and Latter-day Saints believe that by loving God and all humankind, peace and goodness will ultimately prevail. They devote their lives to living and teaching these principles. The Qur’an teaches Muslims, “Whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity” (5:32) and “Indeed, God is with those who are of service to others” (29:69).” 

Quoting Verse 5:32 out of context is one of the oldest tricks in the Muslim book. That they would do so shows their confidence in the gullibility of the Mormons. Here’s the quotation in context of both the complete verse AND THE FOLLOWING VERSE, slightly edited for brevity, my emphasis: 

Verse 5:32:  “We ordained for the Children of Israel that he who slays a soul unless it be in punishment for murder or for spreading mischief on Earth shall be as if he had slain all mankind; and he who saves a life shall be as if he had given life to all mankind. And indeed, again and again did our Messengers come to them with clear directives, yet many of them continued to commit excesses on earth.” 

Verse 5:33: “Those who wage war against Allah and his Messenger and go about the earth spreading mischief – indeed their recompense is that they either be done to death or be crucified” or have their hands and feet cut off.  

In other words, Allah warned the JEWS not to kill without reason, and Muhammad also gave them “clear directives,” which means he told the Jews to accept Islam. Most Jews refused and fought the Muslims. Muslims can kill anybody who wages “war against Allah and His Messenger” and have been doing so for 1400 years, not showing any love whatsoever for “all humankind.”   

Verse 29:69 also has a different meaning when quoted in full: “As for those who strive in Our cause, We shall surely guide them to Our Ways. Indeed, Allah is with those who do good.” “OUR cause” and” OUR Ways” refers to Islam.   “Strive in our cause” includes jihad in the name of Allah.  In other words, Muslims will kill Mormons when the time comes because that will be doing “good.”   

As an aside, in three of my four translations, 29:69 ends with “Allah is with those who do good,” the fourth ends with “Allah is with those who do right.”  I don’t know which translation the pamphlet quoted to get “God is with those who are of service to others,” but regardless, you can be sure “others” means “other Muslims.” Allah, you see, does not “love all humankind,” only Muslims. (See Verses 3:31 and 3:32.) 

Allah also warns Muslims not to befriend non-Muslims such as Mormons: “Believers!  Do nor take the unbelievers as your allies in preference to the believers.” (V4:144) That includes “People of the Book”: “Believers! Do not take Jews and Christians for your allies!” (V5:51) That’s understandable. After all, Jews and Christians are “the worst of creatures.”  (V98:6) 

I could find fault with many more things about the pamphlet, but I’m afraid it would be a waste of time. People briming with Beatific self-righteousness are fact-proof.  Hopefully, a Mormon here and there will learn the reality of Islam and begin the long process of educating other Mormons. We need strong religious as well as secular opposition to the spread of Islam. 

The Koran is a good place to start. I strongly recommend the translation by Pakistani scholar and political leader Sayyid Mawdudi. It has extensive explanations of many verses from the perspective of a devout Muslim, not gullible non-Muslims, of whom Mormons are only a tiny fraction. It’s available on Amazon. It helps greatly if you know HOW to read the Koran. For that, go to Amazon and look for my book “How to read the Koran (and understand Islam).” 

On a personal note, my wife and I had never met any Mormons until we moved to Silver City. One of the first people we met was the Mormon lady across the street, the late Sharon Anderson. She quickly became the best friend we’ve ever had and we miss her every day. Other Mormons we’ve met are also wonderful people, and it’s distressing to see their church led astray.  

Addendum: Here’s a 30-minute video of two Elders in the Mormon church introducing the pamphlet when it was published. If you can find 30 minutes of sanctimonious ignorance that equals this, please don’t share it with me. This is enough to last a lifetime or two. 

www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/video/interfaith-relations-videos?lang=eng 

Remembering The Pulse Massacre

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Remembering The Pulse massacre  

Today marks 9th anniversary of the most murderous act of hatred in the history of this country. In the early morning hours of June 12, 2015, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American born Muslim, shot and killed 49 people and injured another 53 at The Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. 

As I scan the newspapers today, I don’t see any mention of this. Why not? If a white supremacist had gone into a black church and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more, there would be Memorial services all over the country, and politicians of both parties  would be gravely warning us of the moral imperative for America to stamp out bigotry, racism, etc., etc., ad nauseum.  

The reason The Pulse nightclub massacre is not being commemorated reflects the moral hierarchy of both victim and victimizer in woke America, as well as rank hypocrisy. Black victims and a white shooter, we’d be hearing a lot about it. So, too, if the gays had been shot by a straight, white Christian. Considering June is “Pride Month,” we can be sure that straight white Christians would be demonized.  

As it was, the shooter was a Muslim, and Muslims killing white gays will not be remembered in the press or from the pulpit, because Muslims, along with gays, are oppressed victims in America, and in fact are even MORE oppressed. Just a mentally disturbed individual who happened to be a Muslim. Move along folks, nothing to see here. 

This, despite Mateen declaring himself a devout Muslim on a 911 call while he was doing the shooting: “Praise be to God and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God.” On his Facebook page, he pledged allegiance to the leader of the then nascent state of ISIS, and wrote, “may Allah accept me.”    

Over the next two days ISIS declared Mateen an “Islamic State fighter” and “one of the soldiers of the Caliphate in America” who had “attacked a nightclub for homosexuals.” In this, he was only obeying Muhammad: “Kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him.” (Reliance of the Traveller(sic), A Classic Manuel of Islamic Sacred Law, page 665.) 

I’m reminded of all this because less than two weeks ago in Boulder, CO, Muhamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian-born Muslim, threw Molotov cocktails at a group of elderly Jews who were marching to free hostages held by Hamas, injuring 15. Soliman, like Mateen, left no doubt about his motivation, telling his family: “I attest before Allah and before you that Allah, His Messenger, and Jihad for Alice’s sake are more beloved to me than you and the whole world are.”     

Soliman, 45, had attempted to buy a gun but couldn’t because he is not a citizen. The background check worked and probably saved a lot of lives.  Soliman has lived in America since 2022 with his wife and five children, who now face deportation as their visas expired on March 28.  

There was nothing about Soliman’s behavior that suggested that he might be a threat to anybody, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT HE IS A MUSLIM. Right on cue, the Boulder police chief said, “We are not calling it a terror attack at this point. It is way too early to speculate on a motive.”  

What is there to speculate about when the attacker has made his motive perfectly clear?  I have wondered for many years when we’re going to start believing the Muslims. I’ve come to the conclusion that we never will, and that the only option for people who feel threatened by Muslims is to protect themselves.   

This is especially true for American Jews, most of whom, unfortunately, live in New York state, where it is extremely difficult to get a permit to carry a concealed gun. There are 26 states in which a concealed carry permit is not required for law abiding citizens, but New York is not one of them. (Nor is New Mexico.) 

To circumvent this, I would suggest to President Trump that he issue an Executive Order authorizing the FBI to grant concealed carry permits. This would bypass state laws that essentially make self-defense illegal. Self-defense should not be something law-abiding citizens forfeit to criminals, ever.   

Sadly. I’m afraid many liberal Jews would oppose this.     

Islam: Producing “psychopaths” by the millions

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Islam: Producing “psychopaths” by the millions – Peter Burrows 6/9/25 elburropete@gmail.com 

Religious Muslims have noted on more than one occasion that without the death penalty for apostasy, Islam would have vanished long ago.  This matter-of-fact observation does not seem to be made with any regret, but with approval, even pride. Check out this video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=153396989867227 12/7/2020 – “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn’t exist.” – Yusuf al-Qaradawi 

That led me to conclude that Islam must welcome psychopaths because they are obviously the ones doing the honor killings, throwing gays from rooftops, and assassinating the apostates. After all, normal people wouldn’t commit such heinous acts, would they?  

That assumption seemed safe when I heard Jordan Peterson, who has a PhD in psychology, say in a number of videos something to the effect that thank God psychopaths are only two to four percent of the population, given the amount of damage they can do. 

The exact number of psychopaths hasn’t been pinned down, but it is not a trivial number. Various studies have put the percentage of psychopaths in the population as high as 4.5 percent or as low as 1.2 percent.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/

Even using the lowest estimate, since there are over 1.5 billion Muslims, that works out to 18 million psychopaths. That seems like enough to do the nasty disciplinary work necessary to ensure Islam’s survival.  

That would include disciplining the Muslim who doesn’t observe the strict religious doctrines of Islam and those who want to keep a pet dog, or who don’t think their 9-year-old daughters are old enough to get married, or who enjoy listening to music. Do you think loving daughters, dogs and music should be celebrated as perfectly normal and not things to die for? Welcome to why I thought Islam needs psychopaths. 

Still, something about the psychopath narrative just didn’t add up.  How could Muslim leaders around the world just snap their fingers and thousands would be in the streets violently protesting when somebody had burned a Koran, or somebody had insulted Muhammad — like drawing a picture of him?  

This led me to do a little reading about psychopaths, and I learned that while Islam may welcome psychopaths, it certainly doesn’t need them. The Islamic religion creates an all-encompassing, highly authoritarian society that turns hundreds of millions of ordinary Muslims into zealots who will enthusiastically kill, torture and rape apostates or unbelievers, and they will do so with no regrets.  

Just like psychopaths.  

Whether such people are in fact psychopaths, or sociopaths or just temporarily deranged, or whatever, I don’t think is important. As a practical matter, if a crazed mob of Muslims chops off your head, you’re just as dead as if a lone psychopath did it.   

My research on psychopathic behavior is based largely on a book by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil,” published in 2007. Dr Zimbardo, who died in 2014, achieved everlasting fame, or perhaps infamy, as the psychologist who designed and carried out the Stanford Prisoner Experiment (SPE) in 1971 at Stanford University.  

A movie about the SPE, on which Dr. Zimbardo advised, was released in 2015 shortly after his death (4.4 out of 5 stars, 2,400 reviews): 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420293/

Zimbardo’s book, which I highly recommend, examines other psychological studies in addition to his own SPE, and he describes in detail examples in the real world that confirm the primary conclusion of those studies: ordinary people will behave atrociously, with very little encouragement, if their circumstances require it. An especially disturbing example, which mirrored the SPE, was how American soldiers behaved at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. 

If you can’t understand how Germans could participate by the hundreds of thousands in all aspects of the Holocaust, and if you think that it couldn’t happen here, you’re wrong. You and I and our neighbors are just like those ordinary Germans. 

In a section titled “The Nazi connection: could it happen in your town,” Zimbardo quotes another well-known experimental psychologist, Stanley Milgram: “If a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.” 

Zimbardo describes two impromptu experiments, one by a high school teacher and one by a third-grade teacher, showing how easy it is to Nazify nice, wholesome American kids. (I think the third-grade teacher should have been jailed.) Both created such publicity that each was made into a documentary:  

The Wave  youtube.com/watch?v=4qlBC45jk3I   

A class divided www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcCLm_LwpE 

As the SPE, and too many real-world examples show, the environment we find ourselves in can lead us to do things we would normally be ashamed of, things that are against our basic values. We are influenced by our need to conform, our need for acceptance and, importantly, our fear of rejection, of being ostracized.  

We overestimate our ability to resist these external forces. “I would never do that,” is what we say, but the evidence says otherwise, especially if we are in a military environment where orders are expected to be obeyed without question.  As bad as the atrocities at the Abu Ghraib prison were, they pale in comparison to the Japanese rape of Nanking or, for that matter, the U.S. Army killing civilians at My Lai. 

During the Nuremburg trials the common excuse was, “I was only following orders.” and that’s a credible excuse. I have no doubt that for many Germans, the fear of punishment helped to overcome any moral objections they might have had. I also have no doubt that for many Germans there was NO moral objection to what they were doing.  

After all, Jews, Slavs, Russians, Gypsies and others were not part of The Aryan “master race.”  Zimbardo emphasizes that dehumanizing our enemies can remove any concern about how we treat them.  At Adolph Eichmann’s trial it became apparent that he had absolutely no guilt about what he had done. The only guilt he would have felt would have been if he hadn’t carried out his orders. 

By now you’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with Islam, Burro?  

Quite a bit. A billion-and-a-half Muslims have been raised in a culture that requires them to behave as badly as Nazis against non-Muslims when the situation permits. This is not hypothetical. It’s happening every day, all over the world: 

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Like the Nazis, these Muslims will tell you they’re only obeying orders, and like the Nazis, if they refuse to obey those orders, they risk execution. Nazis who didn’t obey orders were traitors; the Muslim traitor is an apostate.  

The major difference between the two is that while many Germans could see that Hitler was a despicable human being, it’s a rare Muslim who can see that Allah is a despicable divine being. That’s a big problem when dealing with Muslim terrorists: Muslims believe they are obeying an infallible GOD. 

Furthermore, in a touch of diabolical genius, in some cases, Muslims are not just obeying God, they’re HELPING God. Two verses in the Koran bestow this honor on the terrorist: 

 “Make war on them. Allah will chastise the apostates through you — tell the unbelievers if Allah doesn’t visit you with chastisement, they will be chastised at your hands.” (Verses 9:14 and 9:52, condensed and edited.) 

And it’s not just acts of terror. There was a case in Texas a few years ago where a Muslim taxi driver killed his two daughters because they were becoming Westernized. He left their bodies in the backseat of his taxi and then proceeded to live within the Muslim community for 12 years before he was apprehended, and then it was by accident. Under sharia law, God’s law, there is NO penalty for a Muslim father who kills his daughters. (Reliance of the Traveller (sic)- A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law pg. 584)  

In fact, any Muslim who reported him to the police could be judged guilty of deferring to man-made laws over Allah’s law, which is an apostasy. Verse 5:47 in the Koran: “–those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are the transgressors.” That’s why it’s almost never the case that Muslims report other Muslims who commit crimes, let alone acts of terror. 

Perversely, if a Muslim dies while committing some atrocity against the infidels, that is not something to fear but something to celebrate. This is what Allah/God says about dying in the cause of Allah: 

“Believers! What is amiss with you that when it is said to you: “March fourth in the cause of Allah” you cling heavily to the earth? Do you prefer the worldly life to the Hereafter? Know well that all the enjoyment of this world in comparison to the Hereafter is trivial. If you do not march fourth, Allah will chastise you grievously —   

“Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their belongings and in return has promised that they shall have Paradise. They fight in the Way of Allah and slay and are slain. Such is the promise He has made — who is more faithful to his promise than Allah? Rejoice, then, in the bargain you have made with Him.” (Verses 9.38, 9,39 and 9,111, slightly edited, Mawdudi translation, my emphasis.) 

So, for a Muslim, “just following orders” is not an understandable but ultimately pathetic rationalization, it’s an act of worship. Following God’s orders trumps following any man-made laws, such as the Constitution, which Muslims obey only until they overthrow the infidel’s country. 

Unsurprisingly, Islamic indoctrination begins at a very early age. In Reliance of the Traveller on page 109 it says that when a child is seven “he is ordered to perform the prayer, and when ten, is beaten for neglecting it.” There’s no question that molding children at such a young age can have life-long effects. The third-grade experiment Zimbardo mentions showed how quickly children can become very hostile to one another based on a trivial difference, eye color. What would happen if, year after year, they were taught to not just hate non-Muslims, but to kill them?  

I’m afraid the lesson would be learned all too well. Another study, also at Stanford, used nursery-aged children to test if aggression can be learned at an early age through observation and imitation. The study, called the Bobo Doll Experiment, involved 74 children and a Bobo Doll, a large inflatable clown. A subset of the children watched an adult verbally and physically abuse the doll for ten minutes. He then left the room and, left alone, the children proceeded to do the same to poor Bobo, some with an unexpected enthusiasm.  

Some Islamic grade schools also use dolls to teach aggression, specifically by cutting off the doll’s head. This prepares the children to be good warriors in the way of Allah when they get older. This is reinforced by teaching the appropriate commands from Allah in the Koran: 

“When you meet the unbelievers in battle, smite their necks —” (V 47:4), and “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, so strike at their necks –.” (V 8:12). Verse 8:13 then explains, “This is because they defied Allah and His Messenger. Whoever defies Allah and His Messenger must know that Allah is severe in punishment.” (Mawdudi translation.) 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG7Ct0EqTFI IS Teaches Children How to Do Beheadings 

Bible class for Muslims! Thus, it shouldn’t surprise us that a French secondary school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by an 18-year-old Muslim in France back in 2020, because Paty had, allegedly, shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, an act of blasphemy, during a class discussion on freedom of expression.  

Even though Paty’s attacker was sent to Paradise by the local police, this was probably just what he wanted: Rivers of wine and eager virgins awaited him. Not much of a deterrent, don’t you agree? On the other hand, I can’t imagine any teacher in France daring to criticize ANYTHING about Islam after that. 

The Press almost always characterizes these atrocities by individual Muslims as “lone wolf” acts committed by psychopaths, and not representative of the religion of Islam. This is true even when the Muslim openly, and proudly, declares his actions were in the name of Allah.       

The most recent example of this occurred on the first of June of this year in Boulder, CO, when a 45-year-old Muslim, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, threw Molotov cocktails at a group marching in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 15. The married, father of five, recorded this message prior to his attack, ensuring we all knew why he did this if he didn’t survive:  

“If I told my wife and son every day to do something, but they didn’t do it, I would be angry. Maybe I would divorce my wife, maybe I would kick my son out of home. Then what about Allah, who says to us every day, dozens of times: ‘Allah Akbar.’ Do not forget: Allah Akbar. Do not forget that Allah is greater than everything. Not the Zionists, America, Britain, France, or Germany – only Allah has the right to be feared. I say to my mother, my wife, my children, my brothers, my people: I attest before Allah and before you that Allah, His Messenger, and Jihad for Allah’s sake are more beloved to me than you and the whole world are.”  (my emphasis)       

https://www.memri.org/tv/boulder-co-firebomber-sabry-soliman-video-declaration-jihad

I didn’t see his statement covered on any of the networks. Maybe I missed it.  

The failure to identify Islam as THE motivating factor is also true of media coverage of suicide bombers, who Muslims see as analogous to Japan’s Kamikaze pilots. That’s how we should view them, too. Not as psychopaths, but as an especially deadly tactic in Islam’s war against us, as were Japan’s Kamikazes.  

This means that to put a stop to the suicide bombers we must go beyond the individual and into the mosque, the font of these atrocities.  In other words, to get rid of suicide bombers we must get rid of the religion of Islam. That will be much more difficult than ridding the skies of Kamikaze pilots. The Japanese ended their war when their emperor ordered them to. Islam has no emperor to obey, at least not here on Earth.  

We can’t reason with people who believe they are obeying God when they kill us. We can’t reason with people who celebrate atrocities committed in God’s name. The most heinous acts, if done in “jihad for Allah,” are perfectly acceptable by the Muslim society, even celebrated. 

Muslim behavior during and after the October 7 attack on Israel is sad proof of that, e.g., they cheered when the caskets of dead hostages, including those of strangled babies, were paraded through the streets of Gaza. Jews, you see, are subhumans who have earned the wrath of Allah, and Allah has been known to turn them into apes and swine, and that’s according to Allah Himself. (Verse 2:65, 5:60 and 7:116) 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/middleeast/hamas-israel-hostages-release-bibas-intl-hnk

In short, Muslim society provides all the incentives for ordinary people to behave like Jekyll–and-Hyde psychopaths and none of the disincentives: group approval, camaraderie and no fear of consequences, just the opposite, all of it ordained and rewarded by Allah. Their justification of “just following orders,” is unassailable.      

Since Muslims will never police themselves to protect non-Muslims, to protect ourselves from them we must realize that for all practical purposes, ALL Muslims are complicit in EVERY act of terror Muslims commit.  

Ideally, we should close every mosque in America and deport every Muslim who objects. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. The non-Muslim population is simply too ignorant of Islamic fundamentals to support that, which is also true of many ordinary Muslims. Not so the imams at the pulpit or those heading Islamic organizations such as CAIR, ISNA and ICNA.     

At the very least, any national Islamic organizations that supports Islamic terrorism in any way should be banned. We should also authorize the surveillance and infiltration of individual mosques, something that will be opposed by the ACLU and anybody else who thinks that “freedom of religion” has no boundaries. At the very least, we should close any mosque terrorists are associated with.  

I’m afraid none of the above will happen until Muslims have killed enough of us to get our attention. So far, media coverage of Muslims killing infidels every day is virtually nonexistent.  

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

One place they are NOT killing people is China. I wrote about China’s successful crackdown on Muslim terrorism in October of 2020, five years ago, but the lesson hasn’t been learned anywhere else. (See “How to read the Koran (and understand Islam): “China’s Muslims: a different perspective,” Essay 9.)   

Essentially, what China has done, and we should, too, is to declare Islam a terrorist organization. After all, that’s what it is. Ironically, in 2014, CAIR, The Council on American Islamic Relations, was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates, which claimed that the organization has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamic group that would like to change the relatively secular government in the UAE.  

Until our nation wakes up, we as individuals must do whatever we can to protect ourselves, our families, our churches, and our synagogues from “jihad in the way of Allah.” Keep in mind that deadly violence can come without warning from ANY Muslim.  (See Essay 17 in the above: “Never trust a Muslim, especially a “moderate” Muslim.”)      

In those 26 states that have Constitutional Carry, which means if you pass the required background check to buy a weapon, you don ‘t need additional vetting to carry it concealed, arm yourself and urge your friends to do the same. Unfortunately, New York, where most American Jews live, is not a Constitutional Carry state. Many Jews will have to choose between breaking the law or going defenseless. 

In the meantime, somebody should suggest to President Trump that he issue an executive order authorizing the FBI to issue Constitutional Carry permits. That would bypass stare laws and allow Jews to protect themselves at all times. Sadly, I suspect this commonsense move would be opposed by New York’s liberal Jews.  Sigh.  

If Iran gets nuclear weapons, they will use them

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If Iran gets nuclear weapons, they will use them by Peter Burrows 4/30/25 elburropete@gmail.com 

On August 8, 2006, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Bernard Lewis, a British American historian who was regarded as one of the foremost experts on the Middle East. In that article, published almost 19 years ago, Lewis pointed out the dangers inherit in Iran having nuclear weapons. 

Namely, while other nations are deterred from using nuclear weapons because of the threat of nuclear retaliation, known as the MAD doctrine, mutually assured destruction, this is NOT a deterrence for Iran.  In fact, given Iran’s Islamic dogma, “MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.”  (Emphasis in original.) (1)  

This is as true today as it was then, and the fact that so many Western leaders still think it is possible to negotiate a lasting peace with Iran shows how little we’ve learned. The results could be catastrophic.  

One of the rules of warfare, emphasized 2500 years ago by Sun Tzu in The Art of War, is to know your enemy. I don’t know of any Western leader who has said anything that indicates they know our enemy. This is what they should know: 

Our enemies in Iran are Shia Muslims who believe that the twelfth and last Shia Imam was 5-year-old Muhammad al-Mahdi, a direct descendent of Muhammad, who was rescued from Sunni persecution by Allah in 854 A.D. The still living Mahdi, now 1,160 years old, has been in a state of occultation waiting for Allah to send him back to lead the Shias in their conquest of the world.   

Sometimes called the Hidden Imam, his followers are known as Mahdaviats or Twelvers. Millions of them have made a pilgrimage to a well at the Jamkaran Mosque near the city of Qom, where it is believed Allah hid him.  

The sad truth is that the little boy was probably kidnapped and murdered by the Sunnis as part of the nascent Sunni-Shia struggle for dominance, and perhaps his remains were thrown down that well. We’ll never know. The Shias and Sunnis have been fighting each other ever since, something non-Muslims can be thankful for. 

The Shias are only about 15 percent of all Muslims in the world but virtually 100% of the Muslims in Iran, of which about 90% would be considered Mahdaviats. Whatever theological differences might exist between Sunnis and Shias or between different sects of Shias, is irrelevant considering it’s the Mahdaviats who could have their finger on the nuclear trigger.  

That is why it is so important that we know that the Mahdaviates believe the return of the Twelfth Imam will occur in a time of great chaos, and if they can initiate that chaos, they will be simply hastening the day of Shia rule and world salvation. What better way to be proactive in such a holy cause than to use nuclear weapons against the unbelievers, starting with Israel? 

It is immaterial if this results in the death of the Iranians because they will be in Paradise, their promised reward for dying in the cause of Allah, something true for all Muslims, not just Shias. From the Quran, Mawdudi translation: 

Verse 9:38: “Believers! What is amiss with you that when it is said to you: “March forth in the cause of Allah,” you cling heavily to the earth? Do you prefer the worldly life to the Hereafter? Know well that all the enjoyment of this world, in comparison with the Hereafter, is trivial.” 

Verse 9:111: “Surely Allah has purchased of the Believers their lives and their belongings and in return has promised that they shall have Paradise. They fight in the Way of Allah and slay and are slain. Such is the promise He has made incumbent upon Himself —. Rejoice then in the bargain you have made with Him.” (Slightly edited for brevity.) 

While those verses apply to all Muslims, the Mahdaviates believe in a specific apocalyptic event, the return of the Hidden Imam, believed by no other Islamic sect. This means they are uniquely dangerous. To that point, here’s what the founder of the Iranian Shia theocracy, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is quoted as saying: 

“I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers (the infidel powers) wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another’s hand in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom.  In both cases, victory and success are ours.” (2) 

Let that sink in: “IN BOTH CASES, VICTORY AND SUCCESS ARE OURS.” I don’t think it’s necessary to note that in both cases, whether defeated or not, a helluva lot of death and destruction will be visited upon the non-Muslims, us infidels, by these fanatically religious Muslims. 

The Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, but his successors have not deviated from Mahdi orthodoxy.  The current Supreme Leader of Iran is the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who last year said that any retreat from punishing Israel for assassinating a Hamas leader when he was in Tehran would risk “divine wrath.” (3)  

Trump has been elected since then and is spouting a lot of tough talk about Iran’s nuclear program. He says it’s unacceptable for them to ever get a nuclear weapon, yet he’s negotiating with them. Why? There’s nothing to negotiate.  Is his rhetoric merely a gambit in “the art of the deal?” 

In the short run, risking Trump’s decidedly undivine wrath may be something the Ayatollah wants to avoid, but in the long run we can be sure that it’s avoiding the “Divine wrath” that matters. This means he’ll play Trump’s ego and negotiate a deal for the self-anointed world’s greatest deal maker, a deal which might even get Trump nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. All that such a deal will do, unless it has on-site monitoring and on-demand access to anyplace in Iran, is buy more time for the Iranians to continue developing nuclear weapons.   

After all, they have been waiting for almost 1,200 years for Muhammad al-Mahdi to lead the Shias to eternal victory in the cause of Allah, so a few more years or decades is of little consequence. As one Muslim famously said, “You’ve got the watches, we’ve got the time.” 

I haven’t given up hope, though. Trump just appointed Mark Levin to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, and Levin is smart, tough and Jewish. You probably know him from his TV show, “Life liberty and Levin” which airs twice a week on Fox. This past Sunday, April 27, his guest was Alan Dershowitz, another smart, tough, Jew, and they talked about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran would pose to Israel. 

They both agreed that Iran should never have nuclear weapons, that negotiating is a mistake, and that anybody advising Trump to make a deal is simply wrong. I hope Trump takes their advice.  

1) www.wsj.com/articles/SB115500154638829470  

2)  ibid  

3) www.iranintl.com/en/202408148230 

Other sources: 

www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/12/21/mahdism-the-apocalyptic-ideology-behind-irans-nuclear-program/ 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-401858/Why-man-nightmares.html 

www.americanthinker.com/articles/2006/01/ahmadinejad_awaits_the_hidden.html  

en.radiofarda.com/a/ap-was-there-iran-s-1979-islamic-revolution-sweeps-nation/29765359.html 

www.breakpoint.org/preparing-for-the-mahdi/ 

Income Tax Insanity

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Income Tax Insanity by Peter Burrows 4/23/25  elburropete@gmail.com  

One of the worst ideas the Trump Administration has come up with is to eliminate income taxes for those making $150,000 a year or less. This might make short-term political sense, but in the long run it will make controlling the size of the government even harder than it is now. 

It would mean only 7 percent of US citizens would pay 100 percent of the income tax. The other 93 percent would pay zero percent and have no incentive to reduce government spending or oppose future tax increases. It’s bad enough now, with the bottom 93 percent paying only 24 percent of all the income tax revenue while the top one percent pays about 40 percent. That’s worth repeating: the top one percent pays 40 percent of the total. 

Ironically, when Bernie Sanders, or some other demagogue, rants about “tax cuts for the rich,” there’s some truth in that because it’s “the rich” who are paying most of the taxes, certainly more than their “fair share.    

Such demagoguery surrounding the income tax has been going on for over 100 years, almost since it was authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913. At the time, less than 1% of Americans had to pay the tax. If you are thinking something along the lines of “camel-nose-tent,” me too. 

I’m also reminded of something noted almost 200 years ago by French philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville: “A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.”  Voters are thus more likely to vote for tax increases because, after all. the tax doesn’t hit thee or me, only the guy behind the tree, to paraphrase an old saw.  

In the long run, Trump’s tax could motivate people with high incomes – who are not necessarily rich — to find other places to live where success isn’t penalized, or to do things to reduce their taxable income, such as buying tax-free bonds instead of “plowing another field.” 

Much depends upon the actual rate at which income is taxed. A top rate of 25-30% is probably not high enough to motivate very many people to avoid paying taxes. Currently, the top rate is 37% which kicks in for joint returns over $751,000 in income. Paradoxically, more revenue might be raised from those taxpayers if the tax rate was LOWERED from 37%.  

This is something that’s also been known for over 100 years. Here’s what Calvin Coolidge said in 1924: “The first object of taxation is to secure revenue. When the taxation of large incomes is approached with this in view, the problem is to find a rate which will produce the largest returns. Experience does not show that the higher rate produces the larger revenue —” 

President Kennedy said something similar in 1962: “It is a paradoxical truth that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”  President Reagan’s tax cuts were justified with the same reasoning. 

In 1974, economist Art Laffer famously sketched on a napkin a simple graph showing this trade-off between tax rates and tax revenues, which became known as the Laffer Curve. Still, almost 60 years later, the idea that you can increase tax revenues by decreasing the tax rate on high incomes doesn’t seem to have sunk in. This means that it is inevitable, with 93% of the income earners paying no income taxes, that some demagogue will campaign – and win – calling for higher tax rates on “the rich.” 

I wish Trump would have instead called for a flat tax on ALL incomes. Flat tax proposals have been around for years, but such a tax has such powerful opposition that it’s never had a realistic chance of becoming law.  With Trump as President, however, and with Trump actively supporting it, a flat tax proposal would at least get a good hearing in Congress.  

While it wouldn’t get through THIS Congress, it could start a discussion that might mean a future congress would enact a flat tax. It’s a discussion well worth having. A flat text has three very attractive features: 1) Almost all income earners would have a stake in how the government spends our money, “skin in the game,” so to speak.  2) It would dramatically simplify tax preparation: “1040 on a postcard.” 3) Such simplification would mean the IRS doesn’t have to be nearly as big as it is. 

A key feature of a flat tax is that only standard deductions are allowed for individuals: one for the filer, one for the spouse, and a standard deduction for every dependent.  No other deductions are allowed. That would mean no deductions for charitable donations, religious contributions, interest on your home mortgage, 501(c)(3)s etc. None. Nada. 

As you can imagine, a flat tax doesn’t get a lot of support from real estate agents, charities, tax preparers or anybody who’s income depends upon tax deductible contributions or a complex tax code. Those on the left will also argue that we need a progressive tax code to ensure that the rich pay their “fair share,” as if 40 percent from the top one percent isn’t enough.  

In fact, another attractive feature of a flat text is that the “fair share” lie would be easier to refute. Here’s an example of how that would work:   

Assume standard deductions for a couple filing a joint return of $10,000 each and $5,000 for each child. A couple with two children would thus have $30,000 of deductions. On an income of $40,000, they would therefore have taxable income of $10,000. If their income is doubled to $80,000, their taxable income is $50,000. Summary: 2X the income but 5X the income tax. I think that would sound “fair” to most people. 

As desirable as a flat tax may be, we’ll never get one without a Constitutional amendment imposing term limits for Congress. As it is, too many in Congress want to get re-elected above all else, and they’ll follow the dictates of the tax lawyers, the charities and all the nonprofits such as Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club Foundation, BLM, even the Metropolitan Opera, and on and on. 

I’m afraid we’re stuck with a needlessly complex and unfair income tax. I’m disappointed that Trump hasn’t done anything to fix it, but maybe President Vance will.   

Trump’s Tariff Tango: Shrewd or Stupid?

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Trump’s Tariff Tango: Shrewd or Stupid? By Peter Burrows —  elburropete@gmail.com 4/14/25 

I think President Trump makes a compelling case that the United States has been harmed by unilateral tariffs placed on American goods by, apparently, nearly every country in the world.  I had no idea such tariffs were so ubiquitous and had been in effect for so long, and in some cases, had been so damned high.  

His retaliatory tariff policy, while causing great consternation around the world, appears to be having the desired effect as many countries are now offering to lower or eliminate their tariffs if we’ll do the same.  Trump’s “shock and awe” tactics may be well thought out or spur-of-the-moment. Probably both. 

With Trump you never know.  He can turn on a dime and claim that’s what he intended to do all along — and say it with a straight face.  That causes heads to explode, which is fun to watch, and while he seems to be enjoying himself now, that will come to an end when he finds out just how much we depend upon China for everyday goods.  He’s already removed his tariffs on smartphones and PCs from China, which supplies 75 percent of US demand. 

If Trump’s Chinese tariffs are intended to make us less reliant on China as a matter of national security, such tariffs make sense. In a perfect world there wouldn’t be any tariffs anywhere, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Tariffs to protect vital industries are necessary if those vital Industries are under partial or near total control of an adversary country, which China certainly is.  

However, that fact, plus the fact that China is much more dependent upon selling things to us than we are on buying things from them, may not be important to the Democrats, who will be delighted to blame Trump when shelves start to empty and prices at Walmart and Amazon start going through the roof. 

Other than national security, the other reasons Trump touts for tariffs don’t make sense.  He has said, for example, that tariffs make nations rich. Nonsense. If nations with tariffs get rich, it’s despite tariffs, not because of them. The industries and workers protected by the tariffs may get rich, but they do so because in the absence of foreign competition they can overcharge their customers. Whenever government, industry and labor get together on something like tariffs, it’s a guarantee that consumers are going to get screwed.  

Another ridiculous idea Trump touts is that tariffs are a good source of revenue and will allow the Republicans to cut income tax cuts. Well, maybe so, but there will be no decrease in total taxation because all that would do is substitute a sales tax, which is what tariffs are IF THEY ARE PAID, for the income tax.  Trump’s notion that tariffs can replace the income tax shows he doesn’t realize tariffs are essentially a sales tax.  

Ask yourself this question: If tariffs raise the price of imported products so high that nobody buys them, how much money do the tariffs raise? If you said “zero,” go to the head of the class. 

A tacit assumption about tariffs is that they are paid by the foreign companies. More nonsense. Those companies collect the tariffs from their U.S. customers and then remit the proceeds to the government. It’s analogous to corporate income taxes. Corporations don’t pay income taxes, their customers do.  

Unlike the sales tax, corporate income taxes are incorporated into the price of the product before the customer gets to the cash register. At the cash register, the customer can see the sales tax imposed by government but not the income tax. Tariffs will be very visible, just like sales taxes. How long will consumers tolerate this?  

As a general principle, it may be a good idea to substitute sales taxes for income taxes, but that isn’t very likely given that over 50 percent of the wage earners in America pay little or no income taxes. They have no incentive to make such a trade-off.  

Which brings up another poorly thought out Trump idea: eliminate the income tax for those earning less than $150,000. This may be a good short-term political move, but in the long run it just means fewer and fewer people have any incentive to reduce the size of government. After all, it’s the guy behind the tree who’s being taxed. 

About now you’re probably thinking, “Well, who is giving Trump all this bad advice?” Perhaps nobody. I suspect most of this stuff is Trump’s idea. However, Peter Navarro, Trump’s top economic adviser, has said that tariffs will raise $600 billion a year and lead to tax cuts while also encouraging consumers to “buy American.” Oh, my. Those are mutually exclusive: The more Americans “buy American” the lower tariff revenue will be.  No wonder Elon Musk called Navarro a moron.  

Trump also says tariffs will motivate companies to move here to get behind the tariff walls, and some companies have announced expansion plans in the United States since the tariffs were announced. Trump claims this was because of his tariff threats, but I think they were going to come here anyway to escape Europe’s ridiculously high electricity prices. Trump’s energy policies are much more sensible than Europe’s. 

(If Trump really wants to get foreign companies to move here, lowering the corporate tax rate would be a much more effective way. The ideal corporate income tax rate is zero but try getting that through Congress!) 

Another nonsensical idea is that the threat of tariffs will cause Mexico and Canada to beef up border inspections and reduce the amount of fentanyl coming into the U.S. Fentanyl producers will simply move their labs to the US, just like Trump predicted producers would do, though he didn’t have fentanyl producers in mind.   

Perhaps the most seductive argument in favor of tariffs is that they will reduce our trade deficit. Trade deficits and surpluses are an area that very few people understand, including damn near all our politicians. Whether we have a trade deficit or trade surplus is irrelevant. 

For 70 years from 1800 to 1870 the United States ran a trade deficit in all but three years. Then, for the next 100 years, 1870 to 1970, we had trade surpluses. Since 1975 until now, 50 years, it’s been deficits. I don’t know of any economist anywhere who’s ever made the case that surpluses are good and deficits are bad, or the converse. 

Not so tariffs. Most economists recognize that tariffs do a lot of harm, especially if one tariff leads to a retaliatory tariff, and then to another and on and on.  The Founding Fathers realized this and they made provisions in the Constitution to make sure that states didn’t tariff one another.  

Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution has this sentence: “No tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.” Section 10 clarifies this prohibition: “No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any Imposts or duties on Imports or Exports except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection laws and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any state on Imports or Exports shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.”  

Our Founding Fathers were brilliant!  

So, is Trump’s tariff tango shrewd or stupid? If the end result is elimination of tariffs with most of our trading partners and reducing the threat of depending on China for strategic goods, then Trump is shrewd and I’m stupid. I hope that’s how it works out.  

Next year, our electricity bills start going up and up and up

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Next year, our electricity bills start going up and up and up.  Peter Burrows 9/26/24 elburropete@gmail.com 

Public service of New Mexico, PNM, last July sent out a 36-page notice outlining their recent request for a rate increase. I only glanced briefly at it and noticed on page 2 that the requested increase would raise overall rates 23% in two stages, July 1, 2025, and January 1, 2026.   

I recently had a chance to look at the notice in more detail and found on page 29 that residential customers who use between 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) and 1,000 kWh per month can expect their monthly bills to go up between 36.6 and 39.0 percent. Seems to me those are the more relevant numbers that PNM should have used.  

The average New Mexico resident uses 975 kWh per month (1) and on page 2, PNM estimates a customer with average monthly usage of 600 kWh, decidedly at the low end of residential use, can expect a $23.60 increase in their January 2026 bill. Residents with a more typical usage of 900 kWh would suffer a $35.40 monthly increase.  Another little sleight-of-hand from PNM, don’t you think? 

On page 4, we find out, if WE do the calculation, that 47.12% of the increase in our bills will be to pay for ESAs, which stands for energy storage agreements (ESA), which in this case is for utility-scale batteries. 

I’ve been wondering when the bill for batteries would start to show up. New Mexico’s legislators in 2019 passed the Energy Transition Act which requires New Mexico’s electric utilities to reduce CO2 emissions to zero by 2050, “as long as safety, reliability and impacts to customer bills are considered.” PNM said they can do this for electric generation by 2040. (2) 

This is to be done without nuclear power which puts the burden on solar panels and wind turbines. The best we can expect from solar panels is that they produce electricity about 35% of the time, and the best we can expect for wind turbines is maybe 40%. If these two sources were perfectly complementary, they would provide, on average, 75% of our electricity.   

In the real world, the best we can expect from wind and solar on a typical sunny New Mexico day is maybe 50%, and there will be days when that’s much lower, 15 to 20% or even zero. The unavoidable reality is that wind and solar can’t directly produce all the electricity we need 24/7, so where does the rest come from?  

For now, batteries are PNM’s answer, but the cost of sufficient batteries is so ridiculously high that it won’t be too many years before the zero-emission timetable is either abandoned, or we stop using solar/wind/batteries to achieve zero electric power plant emissions. In other words, reality, in the form of “impacts to customer bills” is going to assert itself. Let me explain why. 

The batteries we will be paying for in this rate increase will produce 48 mega-watt hours of electricity and is the first of many battery installations required by 2034. You may have missed it (I did), in March 2023 New Mexico passed a bill directing investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to have 7 gigawatt hours of energy storage online by 2034 (3) 

Seven gigawatts is 7,000 megawatts. PNM’s share of the investor-owned utility market is roughly 70 percent (5), or 4,900 megawatts. This rate increase pays for only 48 of those 4,900 megawatts.  Thus, we can look forward to an additional 102 such rate increases (4,900 divided by 48, minus the one we are now getting.) 

As noted above, a typical resident using 900 kWh per month will see, by January 1, 2026, a monthly increase in their electricity bill of $35.40, of which 47.12 percent is to pay for the batteries, or $16.68. Multiply $16.68 by 102 and by 2034 the cost of batteries will add another $1,702 to PNM’s average residential MONTHLY electricity bill.  

That is not going to happen.  

While these numbers may come as a shock, years ago Bill Gates said the cost of going to wind and solar electricity would be “beyond astronomical” because of storage costs. (4) To illustrate how that applies to New Mexico, in January of 2024 electricity consumption in New Mexico was 2,454 GWh.(6) If batteries were to supply just 25% of that, the above assumed minimum, that would be 614 GWh of which roughly 50%, 307 GWh, would be required of IOUs vs. only 7 GWh mandated by the state. 

It may not be “beyond astronomical,” but the 307 GWh that would be needed, at a minimum, is about 44X the 7 GWh now mandated.  This means the already ridiculous monthly residential bill of $1,700 for 7 GWh of storage would grow to about $74,800 per month. That’s to supply just 25% of our electricity for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.  

A more realistic figure, as shown by the experience of Germany and other nations trying to convert to renewable energy, is 50%, which would raise our monthly PNM bill to almost $150,000 per month.  

Bottom line: Bill Gates was right. 

Do the numbers for yourself (Please!) and, hopefully, you’ll find I’ve made an egregious error or two and my cost estimate is 100 times too high, ergo only $1500 a month. What a relief!! 

I have no doubt PNM has known the math for some time. After all, not only is this their business, but since 2011 PNM has been running an experimental energy storage project called Prosperity Energy Storage. Here’s how PNM describes it: “The PNM Prosperity Energy Storage Project is the nation’s first solar storage facility fully integrated into a utility power grid and uses smart grid technology to advance renewable energy.” (Google: PNM Prosperity Energy Storage Project) 

One has to question why the executives at PNM haven’t attempted to enlighten our legislators on the impossibility of using solar/wind/batteries to reliably supply adequate, affordable, electricity. It’s possible they don’t want the public to know the cost because the public might then not do what’s necessary to save the world from CO2 emissions. Making electricity unaffordable is, in the long run, in the public’s best interest, whether the stupid public knows it or not.  

There are some who agree with that, but I doubt the management of PNM does. I think they know the whole wind/solar-push is a big scam, but they’re going to play along with the politicians and environmentalists because that’s going to be good for PNM’s bottom line. The tip off was when PNM agreed to stop buying power from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant. Nuclear power is the only way to reduce CO2 emissions without destroying the economy. 

PNM knows that, but adding solar panels, wind turbines and batteries to replace nuclear, coal and natural gas will require billions in new investment and add significantly to PNM’s earnings. Since raising billions would be difficult in little New Mexico, why not hype New Mexico’s potential as a great solar factory, and then sell PNM to a large international corporation? That would give shareholders a nice profit and millions in stock-option profits for PNM’s execs.

By the time reality replaced fantasy, those executives would be comfortably retired in Florida, enjoying reliable, affordable electricity, unlike the poor slobs back in New Mexico. If that was the plan, it was working brilliantly until the environmentalists, for totally irrelevant reasons, persuaded the Public Regulatory Commission to put a halt to the acquisition of PNM by Avangrid, the U.S. subsidiary of international utility giant Iberdrola.   

None of this mess would have occurred without government subsidies for solar and wind generated electricity. When the cost of batteries starts to kick in, most of the investment in solar and wind will be written off as useless. I hope the public blames the politicians, but since it seems most people haven’t awakened to the fact that solar panels don’t produce electricity at night, I’m afraid the political class will deflect the blame onto the utilities. 

Since the electric utility industry hasn’t fought “renewable energy” mandates as the senseless and expensive boondoggle they are, maybe that’s where it belongs.  

1) https://www.energysage.com/local-data/electricity-cost/nm/                                                  

2) https://www.nmlegis.gov/handouts/NMFA%20091820%20Item%201%20NM%20Energy%20Transition%20Act.pdf 

3) https://www.energy-storage.news/new-mexico-regulator-approves-pnms-12mw-48mwh-of-bess-for-overloaded-network-lines/ 

4) https://realclimatescience.com/2015/07/bill-gates-says-the-cost-of-switching-to-wind-and-solar-would-be-beyond-astronomical/#gsc.tab=0 

5) https://gridworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/NM-IOUs-TEP-Presentation_4.27.22_Dft.1.pptx.pdf  

6)  https://www.emnrd.nm.gov/ecmd/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/JAN-24-New-Mexico-EIA-Data.pdf = 2024 January gWh 2454 + 5% from 2023’s 2344. Jan 2024 x 12 = 2454 x 12 = 29,448 GWh estimate for all of 2024.  

The real problem in Gaza — and everywhere else there are Muslims!

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The real problem in Gaza — and everywhere else there are Muslims! by Peter Burrows elburropete@gmail.com

To understand the Israeli-Gaza conflict, I strongly recommend people read the following article. Daniel Greenfield nails it! In a nutshell: the problem is our refusal to understand Islam. This is not an insurmountable problem. See my previous article in Libertarian Leanings.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/you-cant-defend-israel-unless-you-talk-about-islam/

My Islam essays now available on Amazon

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I’ve been studying and writing about the religion of Islam for over 10 years. Some of my essays have gotten very favorable critical reviews.  

After some turmoil with a self-publishing company, there is now a compilation of these essays available on Amazon.com. Just search “Peter V. Burrows” under “Books.” It’s titled “How to Read the Koran (and understand Islam) and other essays about ‘The Religion of Peace.’ ” 

I just received a copy and I’m pleased with how it came out. A couple of very minor things to correct, but all in all, I’m good with it. (The initial ebook that Publishing Mojo, my publisher, put on Amazon had some critical errors, since corrected, and the one-star rating I gave it is now deleted.) 

The paperback is $15 and I doubt very much if I’ll ever cover my costs. It was never my hope to make any money and I care not a whit if I’m plagiarized. The back cover states: “Readers are free to use anything in this publication without attribution.” 

The purpose is to educate about Islam. Even if I win a Nobel Prize, either Nonfiction or Peace, maybe both, I plan on giving the proceeds to the home for unwed mothers. Right.  

TIA to those of you who buy a copy.