Dakota Beacon

Over the years The Passing Scene discussed the El Niño – La Niña weather phenomenon and its effect on the US. This year the US will experience a Super El Niño.

A Super El Niño refers to a potentially strong warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which could trigger widespread global weather disruptions and record-high temperatures.

But first, “What is El Niño?”

Over the years The Passing Scene discussed the El Niño – La Niña weather phenomenon and its effect on the US. This year the US will experience a Super El Niño.

A Super El Niño refers to a potentially strong warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which could trigger widespread global weather disruptions and record-high temperatures.

But first, “What is El Niño?”

“In democracies the main alternative to majority rule is not dictatorship, but markets.” In markets, millions of people typically make rational choices, and the good choices significantly outweigh the bad ones. If Caplan is right that the rational voter is a myth, then he admits that a great deal of published research based on a rational voter is wrong. In any case, the best choice would be that ignorant people refrain from voting rather than voting and imperil the culture and the rest of us with foolish policies by incompetent elected officials.

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t wasn’t that Mamdani was promising to rob Peter blind to pay Paul and then send both home to rent-frozen apartments on a free bus. It was that I understand the Luciferian Beauty Principle.

Now, you can take the following as metaphor if you’re not a theist. In Christian theology, Lucifer chose pride over God, rebelled and became the purest manifestation of evil: Satan. But he also was something else: As Lucifer, whose name means “light bringer,” he was known as the most beautiful of angels.

There is an all-important lesson there. It’s not just that evil doesn’t appear comic-book style, with a pitchfork and horns; it masquerades as something beautiful and impressive. Rather, it’s also that the malevolent know how easily humans are seduced by what pleases the eye and ear. We see this, for example, whenever a man is deceived by a comely gold-digger.

There is no question that the West could never be what it has become without mass migration from the third and fourth worlds - Morocco, Syria, Pakistan, subsaharan Africa and perhaps Afghanistan.  Without them where would we be?  Where would America be without Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, China?  Why, we’d be plodding along in the 50s, wouldn’t we?  Back in that staid era of front porches, trolleys, gazebos in the park, band concerts and Main Street shop windows.  Boring.  Thank God for our new cosmopolitan milieu.  Imagine people celebrating their team’s win with a cold beer and a brat on the patio or pub?  

In the end their is objectively classic beauty, there is objective valor.  Neither is appropriately represented here.

Clean-up week is past us but Edward Morris can nevertheless be seen taking the latest Christopher Nolan movie, The Odyssey, to the curb, and the sooner the City comes and hauls it off to the garbage dump where it belongs, the sooner we can all get on with the rest of our summer without its blight contaminating our eyeballs.

Walter Issaacson, born of a Jewish father and a mother with Christian roots, was baptized by evangelical aunts and received more Christian religious education than Jewish. He does not align with a specific faith, describes himself as secular and voices a humanist philosophy. He has stated that “Religion was at its best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma” and views different religions as “different doors to the same house”.

Past work as president of the left-leaning Aspen Institute (Kamala Harris, Gloria Estefan), chairman of CNN (Rachael Maddow), and managing editor of Time magazine (Time’s 2023 “person of the year” was Taylor Swift…) reveal a decidedly (self-described) secular humanist slant in his approach to his work.

Why work? Good question. When fifty percent of the American population pays no taxes and the other fifty percent support them, this begs the question: Why work? Why not live modestly and join the ranks of supported people? This choice offers free time for all.

Resourceful individuals with moderate tastes and a keen awareness of the social and economic environment figured it out long ago. These folks left the work force fleeing stress and hassle. Others will figure it out eventually.

Why work? As a society, we’ve finally arrived at the glory of a one-party system -- the Government Party – replete with a Democrat wing and Republican wing.

On Memorial Day we honor our men and women who served their country in the military and who have passed on to their final reward.

Following September 11, 2001, a new era was ushered in, and another generation of veterans were recognized for making the ultimate sacrifice. We are in a protracted conflict like no other that has continued for centuries. Islamic fanatics from many nations wish to harm the West in general and the United States in particular.

We need to be extremely careful about whom we allow to enter the US and be brutally honest about the threat to our own country and culture if we fail in this.

populations. It focuses on measuring and analyzing characteristics such as population size, age structure, distribution, and changes over time, especially through births, deaths, and migration.

Second comes an introduction to Mark Steyn, a polarizing public figure widely read by supporters for his critiques of Western culture and demographics. Mark Steyn is a Canadian author, columnist, and broadcast commentator best known for his work in political and cultural commentary. He was born in 1959 in Toronto, Canada and has worked primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Steyn began his career as a music, theater, and film critic. He is the author of several books, including America Alone, After America and Lights Out. He has been a frequent guest host and commentator on various media programs including The Rush Limbaugh Show and Fox News.

Try these challenges --

Name the famous jazz artist kidnapped at gun point and forced to play music at Al Capone’s birthday party.

Name the composer who wrote a new piece of music each year for his dog’s birthday.

Which music critic incurred the threat of physical violence from a US President?

Each of these little known but interesting anecdotes -- and more -- make up a remarkably unique devotional book assembled by Dr. Patrick (d. 2018) and Barbara Kavanaugh titled appropriately “Devotions from the World of Music” (Cook, 2000).

This “technology” that we are told to worship at the expense of common sense is a tool.  Look at one of the most popular programs - “Grammarly”.  This wonderful little app will not just clean up your minor errors, put commas and semi-colons in the right places and check your spelling.  It will rephrase your sentences.  It will make them “better”, more “professional”.  It will re-write what you tried to write.  In the end, Grammarly just wrote your paper, your report, maybe your book or article.  And students and parents think this is a great help.  It is helping its users to dependency and basic illiteracy. 

In 2026, Artemis II carried the first crewed mission beyond low earth orbit to the moon since Apollo 11 landed astronauts on the moon in 1969.

Fifty-seven years elapsed on the space frontier between Apollo 11 and Artemis II. There have been other Apollo moon landings (12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 ) and 12 astronauts have walked on the moon. The first space station was placed in orbit (Skylab, 1973) followed by the orbiting of the International Space Station in 1998.

Humans extended their presence among the stars in the last century and glimpsed where no eye had seen before. We stared like spectators into unknown corners of the universe from the vantage point of the Hubble Space Telescope. Exciting times, these.

May Day! News brings stories of Marxist rioting and hooliganism in cities around the world. Cities like Moscow where Communism found its roots still hold massive celebrations. Communist leaders wanted to structurally change the foundation of society – and then export the revolution to the rest of the world.

A century later, who wants to structurally change the foundation of America? Activist groups with ties to No Kings protests, deadly Antifa, and an array of leftist organizations seek a political revolution and an overhaul of the American system.

What better way to make their point than on May Day – the day Marxists and Communists claim as their own.

Americans have become too inclined to seek the easiest one-move kind of verification but it comes at way too high a cost.  

Over the years Judicial Watch performed a valuable service to America in part by bringing lawsuits against states over their failure to keep correct voter registration lists. The lawsuits and other legal actions have been filed under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). As a result, nearly 6 million ineligible registrations were removed from the voter rolls in 8 cities and states.

These are the principles Judicial Watch runs under. Only eligible American citizens should be allowed to vote in US elections. It supports state efforts to require the use of voter ID and opposes efforts to weaken or abolish traditional honest-election safeguards. It employs the NVRA to compel states to follow federal law by keeping voter rolls free of ineligible voters. The Act also allows private groups like Judicial Watch to review voter registration lists for poor maintenance and voter fraud.

What follows are opponents of the Judicial Watch support for the NVRA.

Here is a little gem from A-I:

“The Law of Cause and Effect states that every action (cause) produces a specific reaction (effect) and every effect has a specific cause.  Often called the “Iron Law” of human action, it posits that nothing happens by chance; rather, success, failure and circumstances are directly created by previous choices and actions.”

No Kings became an international event when a massive crowd of people gathered in London in support of the American left’s No Kings protest. England, who literally has a King, protested America who does not. You cannot make this stuff up.

Continuing our story, No Kings activists dressed up in costumes. Some dressed up in inflatable frog costumes and danced in protest of Trump and his administration. I am not sure that this reinforced their point. Nonetheless, this silliness is entertaining to see just how freakish and ghoulish Trump’s opposition can be. And it will only get worse.

So goes the street theater of the No Kings circus.

Could a meme based on a cartoon/game accomplish what Britain's best thinkers and heroes have been unable to do?  Coule Amelia be the Joan of Arc that will lead the British back "home"?

There is no substitute for Christ living His own life through believers. We are meant to function as dead men -- dead with Christ. He is meant to be the Resurrection and the Life within us. We can try to love better, pray harder, and read our Bible more, but these efforts are hopeless without the Life of Christ filling us. It is only the Divine Nature that pleases God. We are at odds with God if we are trying to live up to biblical standards without Christ. He is not just our helper and healer. Sooner or later, we realize that we are not the central focus of God’s plan. Christ is. God’s desires rest with Christ His Son as the True Vine, and we are His intimately joined branches. If this is good news to you, then you will discover a fulfilling way of relating to God.

No one should take offense. May the reality of the indwelling Christ be genuine this Easter in the life of all believers.

Let’s talk about voter fraud. A bill titled The SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) is a U.S. federal elections bill introduced into the 119th Congress in January 2026. It changes how people register and vote in federal elections by amending the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives after delays and grousing by Democrats. Senate consideration comes next. Most, if not all, Senate Democrats oppose it and the bill may well go down to defeat.

The reticence and foot-dragging by Democrats opposing the bill comes as no surprise. Let’s review the bidding.

In recent decades, “Climate Alarmists” and “Class Envy Marxists” seemed to have overtaken “End-of-times” Religious Fundamentalists in our ongoing Fear-Mongering Olympics.

The attempted destruction of the US fossil fuel industry that began with the blocking of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and was continued with the cancellation of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline within the United States (after the Canadian portion had been all but finished) represented two major examples of severe setbacks to United States Energy Independence.

I think Steyn is wrong in the bigger picture here, although he has brought up some excellent points and some worthwhile history to ponder.  But in the end, I disagree with his assessment of the Iranian situation.  This could all go horribly wrong, however, if Trump does not play this perfectly.  

Books offer more than entertainment and information. The written word imparts understanding for the reader. I knew a man who engaged his books in “conversation.” After “conversing” with a book he not only knew the author’s point of view, but he could explain the subject and why the author wrote what he did. The book imparted enlightenment and understanding.

Book lovers are in a world of their own. Bibliophiles, the technical term for these gentle, bookish folks, have unbridled affection and unquenchable thirst for the printed word. The history of books reveals some startling accounts of bizarre behavior shown by book lovers on the fringe. Some book lovers have found their affection addictive. As with other areas of human behavior, bibliophilia has its dark side. What happens when the desire to obtain, own, store, and read books goes awry?

As an undergraduate in college, I took part in a School-to-Work project for one of my professors. He assigned a bibliographic essay on a particular topic. A bibliographic essay is a type of academic writing that analyzes and evaluates the existing literature on a specific topic. Instead of arguing a new idea, a bibliographic essay maps out what scholars have already written. What follows is a greatly modified bibliographic essay of books in my library on the topic of Islam.

Publisher's Note: If he were still with us,Joe Sobran would be celebratinghis 80th birthday.Below is one of his columns recounting his 60th birthday.

The root of this mental illness can perhaps be best explained in a hypothetical example. As a married couple’s daughter is contemplating leave home for college at age 19, her mother abruptly decides she no longer loves her father and wants an open marriage. But why?

Western globalists insist that civilizational clashes aren’t real. Even after President George Bush’s failed “nation-building” gambit; even after the exposure of Muslim rape gangs trading local girls as sex slaves in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France; even after communist China’s saber-rattling regarding Taiwan and promises of world domination; Western globalists insist that civilizational clashes aren’t real. Huntington begs to differ.

Years after writing “The Clash of Civilizations” Huntington has been vindicated. Entering the second quarter of the twentieth century, we will see a renewed reality of civilizational conflict. In the real world, values matter, culture matters, religion matters, the past matters. As one wag put it, “In the real-life bullets fly faster than words. In the real world, people fight, cultures compete, and civilizations clash”.