Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Thursday, June 29, 2006

If I understand the Supreme Court ruling on Gitmo, we don't have to do have a trial for those guys until the GWOT is over. Since the war between the west and Islam has been going on for 1350 years, and is not likely to be over any time soon, those guys will probably die of old age while still in captivity.

The ruling seems to imply that al Queada is covered by the Geneva Convention. How does a non-government entitiy get covered by a treaty? Al Queada didn't sign the Treaty, and certainly doesn't abide by it, and, in fact, says that they are obligated to kill all non-believers. Does the Supreme Court now think it is empowered to decide what treaties the US is in? I tought the Senate did that.

The Estate Tax debate is interesting to me. Rich guys like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are opposed to eliminating the tax in the name of "fairness." But they plan to leave their billions to a foundation, so the government won't get their money. Their heirs will probably be on the board of directors of the foundation so they will still benefit from the money. (I've heard rumors that those who control billions of dollars always have a lot of influential friends, but I can't prove that.) I wonder if it might not be better to have the state take half the money, and give the rest to the heirs. The heirs might make some useful investments with the money thus creating a lot of jobs. Foundations tend to become liberal with time, eventually becoming socialistic. I don't see a lot of useful work done by most foundations. The combination of Buffett's and Gates's money will create a huge foundation that will rival some goverments in economic power. All of this brings to mind the Knights Templar, an organization featured in the recent movies "National Treasure" and the "Da Vinvi Code," as well as in the novel "Ivanhoe." The Knights Templar grew so rich that they were destroyed by the Pope and the King of France (though it seems they never found the money). I wonder how long it would be before the US government takes action against a super powerful Foundation such as the one Gates and Buffett envision?

Is there another civil war in the future of the US. Some on the left seem to think so, as this excerpt in the New Editor by Professor Mark Crispin Miller of NYU the New Editor suggests.

Professor Crispin (Miller) writes: (emphasis added)
Alright, let's pretend, just for the sake of argument, that the Repubs are right, as are most Democrats and the media, when they insist that the election was legitimate. Fine.

We're going to give them one more chance to hold elections that are credible. We're going to throw ourselves into this next election, getting out as many voters as we can....And so, when the Repubs win yet again, surprisingly maintaining their control of Congress, notwithstanding their subterranean approval ratings, we will be prepared to note all the anomalies and improprieties -- and, at long last, to SAY NO. As this will have been the fourth election cycle ravaged by Bush/Cheney since 2000, Americans must finally go Ukrainian, and just refuse to acknowledge BushCo's latest "win."

Where that may take us I can't say. But it is something that, it seems to me, we have to do, or else we don't deserve to call ourselves the citizens of a republic.

Monday, June 26, 2006

The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade in Palestine now claims to have chemical and biological weapons. I wonder where they could have gotten them? Surely not from Iraq. While that is an obvious guess, it must be kept in mind that the French or Germans would be happy to supply WMD to Arabs. Assuming the Arabs have enough money for the purchase.

I think it is likely that the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade would quickly become extinct were they to use WMD against Israel. Given their suicidal inclinations they just might do it.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Here is an interesting article about the alleged "shortage" of engineers in America.

Jobs Update: The Death of US Engineering
By Paul Craig Roberts
The May payroll jobs report released June 2 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms the jobs pattern for the 21st century US economy: employment growth is limited to domestic services.
In May the economy created only 67,000 private sector jobs. Job estimates for the previous two months were reduced by 37,000.
The new jobs are as follows: professional and business services, 27,000; education and health services, 41,000; waitresses and bartenders, 10,000. Manufacturing lost 14,000 jobs.
Total hours worked in the private sector declined in May. Manufacturing hours worked are 6.6 percent less than when the recovery began four and one-half years ago.
American economists and policymakers are in denial about the effect of jobs offshoring on US employment. Corporate lobbyists have purchased fraudulent studies from economists that claim offshoring results in more US employment rather than less. The same lobbyists have spread disinformation that the US does not graduate enough engineers and that they must import foreigners on work visas. Lobbyists are currently pushing, as part of the immigration bill, an expansion in annual H-1B work visas from 65,000 to 115,000.
The alleged "shortage" of US engineering graduates is inconsistent with reports from Duke University that 30 to 40 percent of students in its master’s of engineering management program accept jobs outside the profession. About one-third of engineering graduates from MIT go into careers outside their field. Job outsourcing and work visas for foreign engineers are reducing career opportunities for American engineering graduates and, also, reducing salary scales.
When employers allege a shortage of engineers, they mean that there is a shortage of American graduates who will work for the low salaries that foreigners will accept. Americans are simply being forced out of the engineering professions by jobs outsourcing and the importation of foreigners on work visas. Corporate lobbyists and their hired economists are destroying the American engineering professions.
American engineering is also under pressure because corporations have moved manufacturing offshore. Design, research and development are now following manufacturing offshore. A country that doesn’t make things doesn’t need engineers and designers. Corporations that have moved manufacturing offshore fund R&D in the countries where their plants have been relocated.
Engineering curriculums are demanding. The rewards to the effort are being squeezed out by jobs offshoring and work visas. If the current policy continues of substituting foreign engineers for American engineers, the profession will die in the US.

Congressman Markey from the socialist state of Massachusetts is concerned about the government's invasion of the privacy of individuals through the surveillance of international bank transfers. He reckons that citizens will be offended by this program. I wonder how many Americans he thinks make international bank transfers, or are even remotely concerned about surveillance of such. I suppose a lot of rich guys like Kerry and Kennedy could be concerned; Kennedy should be since he used to actively support the IRA, a terrorists group. I doubt that many of us average folks care one way or the other. Markey may well represent the attitude of people in his district in Massachusetts, but he has always seemed to be out of touch with average Americans.

I read in the Fort Worth Star Telegram the other day that the Earth's air is now the warmest it has been since the year 1600. Since the Earth was at the depths of the little ice age in 1600 that statement certainly makes sense. On the other hand it is meaningless with regards to man's contribution to warming. Check out the chart showing Earth temperature since 900 AD at this site.

http://antigreen.blogspot.com/

Saturday, June 24, 2006

The acknowledgement of the discovery of 500 or so artillery rounds (probably 155 mm) loaded with mustard gas and sarin has produced some interesting debates. Predictably the Republicans say it is proof that Saddam had WMD, and Democrats pooh, pooh the whole thing saying the weapons were old and had degraded so that they were harmless and prove nothing. Congresswoman Jane Harmon said on TV that they were no more dangerous than stuff under the kitchen sink. If not degraded the weapons would be quite lethal; reports are that Saddam's forces killed 5000 Kurds with just three sarin filled artillery rounds. It is true that sarin degades rapidly, probably within a few months. This is the reason that weapons designers use binary chemical concepts in which stable precursor chemicals are stored separately in the round, and are mixed as they are dispensed to create sarin. These weapons are lethal for indefinite periods. I don't know if the rounds found are the binary chemical type are not. Most countries wouldn't bother with a weapon with a shelf life of only a few months, but the Saddam regime was not rational, so they may have developed such a system. It is possible that the Iraqi's planned to mix the chemicals and put them into the round just prior to use. (This could be the explanation for the "chemical vans" found in Iraq, which were incredibly said to be used to support weather ballons. The possibility that this was the use concept is supported by the fact that many unfilled chemical rounds have been found in Iraq.) So, Congresswoman Jane Harmon could be correct if the rounds were not the binary chemical type. I haven't seen anything about which type they were. I have read of them being used in IEDs, and not being effective. I attributed this to the fact that binary chemical rounds need to be in flight to function properly, but maybe it was because the sarin was degraded. The mustard gas rounds are less ambiguous. World War I rounds containing mustard gas are still lethal, so there is no issue with regards to them.

Harmon seems to be more level-headed than most Democrats, which is a bit frightening in itself. She has said she didn't understand the NSA telephone intercept program when she was briefed on it because her science advisor was not permitted to attend. Maybe her science advisor knows that the sarin rounds found were not the binary type. I wouldn't bet one way or the other.

It is curious to me that the TV network that created the "Red State - Blue State" map used blue for the Democratic States and red for the Republican States. I supose the color selection was made because the more accurate use of red fro thr Democratic Staes would have been seen as perjorative.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

I just saw a blog that says Representative John Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal many years ago. I had forgotten that he was involved in that bit of egregious graft. As I recall John McCain was the only Republican involved in that scam. It seems that Murtha has more recently been funneling public money to various friends, including Nancy Pelosi's nephew. I think most everyone is aware that running on a platform that the Republicans are the party of corruption is a loser for the Democrats, given all of the skeletons in their closet. Nancy Pelosi should know that. After all, her Dad ran one of the biggest Democrat political machines.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Democrats seem to pose the greatest threat to the civil liberties of Americans, as explained in this article by Jack Kelly.

The liberal rush to judgment

THERE was anger, anguish, and incredulity in the fever swamps this week when Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made it clear he would not indict White House political guru Karl Rove in his apparently endless investigation of the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

This should remind us the greater threat to our civil liberties comes not from the measures the Bush Administration has taken to protect us from terrorists, but from prosecutors who abuse their power for political purposes.

Liberals wanted Mr. Rove indicted because he is a skilled political adversary.

The interest among liberals in an indictment of the person who actually told columnist Robert Novak about Ms. Plame (thought to be former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) is zero, because there would be no political gain from it.

Their efforts to criminalize policy differences stem from two related beliefs, both inimical to democracy.

The first is the belief that anyone who disagrees with me is evil and must be punished. It's hard to find people on the moonbat left who don't think this way.

The second is the belief that whatever I do to obtain political power is legitimate. Many Democrats who recognize belief No. 1 is a crock eagerly embrace this one.

Travis County (Austin) District Attorney Ronnie Earle indicted then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for a fund-raising practice that wasn't illegal under Texas law, and which he knew Democrats were using, too.

For more than two years, the state attorney in Palm Beach tried to indict conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for a felony because of his addiction to painkillers. Contrast this with the kid-glove treatment given Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.), whose substance abuse problems are more public.

For liberals, it's the accusation that matters, not whether or not it is true. Consider the liberal rush to judgment in the Duke rape case.

Duke University lacrosse players raped me, an exotic dancer claimed in March. Because the accuser is black and female, and the accused are white males, liberals needed no evidence to declare their guilt.

Among them was District Attorney Mike Nifong, who was weeks away from a hotly contested primary election.

Mr. Nifong indicted three Duke players based on a questionable identification from the accuser, despite the fact there was no DNA evidence linking them to her, and that at least one of the three had an alibi.

Mr. Nifong won his primary, but his case is falling apart. He'd concealed from the grand jury and the presiding judge that the accuser had told wildly different stories (she'd been raped by three men; she'd been raped by 20 men; she hadn't been raped at all), and that the nurse who examined her found no evidence of rape, or that she'd been beaten and strangled, as she claimed.

I suspect Mr. Fitzgerald didn't indict Mr. Rove because he doesn't want to be known as the Mike Nifong of federal prosecutors. But it may be too late.
Mr. Fitzgerald was appointed to determine whether the Intelligence Identities Protection Act had been violated. The answer was no, because the law applies only to those who are working undercover overseas, or who have done so in the five years preceding disclosure, and Ms. Plame had been manning a desk at CIA headquarters for longer than that.

Not deterred by the absence of a crime, Mr. Fitzgerald indicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., then the chief of staff for the vice president, for allegedly lying about his conversations with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper. But various drafts of Mr. Cooper's story about Ms. Plame suggest it may be Mr. Cooper who has the credibility issues.

Mr. Fitzgerald is a sloppy prosecutor who rushes to judgment, and then has to backtrack, charged Washington, D.C., lawyer Clarice Feldman.

In one recent high-profile case, Mr. Fitzgerald's staff mistakenly sent 16 cartons of classified documents to attorneys for the terror suspects he was prosecuting, she said. In another, Mr. Fitzgerald charged the victim in a financial fraud case instead of its perpetrators.

"Fitzgerald is good at creating elaborate facades which tart up the ramshackle huts to which they are affixed," Ms. Feldman said. "Once those facades are removed, it is obvious the cases behind them are rickety."
Journalists who do not wish to be cross-examined about when and from whom they learned of Ms. Plame's occupation want this case to go away. I suspect Mr. Fitzgerald does, too, but it's hard to dismount from the tiger he's riding.

Jack Kelly is national security writer for The Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Contact him at: jkelly@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1476.

Anyone interested in the science involved in "Global Warming," or planning on seeing Al Gore's movie should read this article to get a better understanding of the issue. Gore's movie is pure propaganda with no scientific basis.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

Friday, June 16, 2006

Here is an interesting article by a former Democrat. His reasons are good; the Democrats left him. I am also freightened by the propect of Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid running the country.

Why I Left The LeftBy Seth Swirsky
I used to be a liberal. I was in one of the first "open" classrooms growing up in very progressive Great Neck, New York, in the 1960s. In 1971, when I was 11, I wrote vitriolic letters to President Nixon demanding an end to the Vietnam War. My first vote, in 1980, was for Independent John Anderson, followed by Mondale, Dukakis, and Clinton-Gore. I read Thomas Friedman in the NY Times and tried to "understand" the "root causes" of the "despair" he said the Palestinians felt that drove them to blow up innocent Israelis. I wasn't an overtly political person - I just never veered from the liberal zeitgeist of the community in which I was raised.
But when I was about 27, in the late 1980s, cracks in my liberal worldview began to appear. It started with an uproar from the Left when Tipper Gore had the audacity to suggest a label on certain CDs to warn parents of lyrics that were clearly inappropriate for young people. Her suggestion was simple common sense and I was surprised by the furor it caused from the likes of Frank Zappa (and others) who felt their freedoms were being encroached upon. It was my first introduction into the entitled, selfish and irresponsible thinking I now associate with the Left.
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In 1989, I remember questioning whether Democrat David Dinkins was the best choice for Mayor of New York City (where I lived) over Rudy Giuliani. After all, Dinkins' biggest claim to fame was as a city clerk in the Marriage License Bureau while Giuliani, as a United States District Attorney, had just de-fanged the mob. But, racial "healing" was the issue of the day, Dinkins won, and the city went straight downhill. When Giuliani beat Dinkins in a rematch four years later - Surprise! - the crime rate plummeted, tourism boomed, Times Square came alive not with pimps but with commerce. Since 1993, the overwhelmingly liberal electorate in New York City has voted for Republicans for Mayor. Yet, to this day, many of my liberal friends refer to the decisive and effective Giuliani as a Nazi, even as they stroll their children through neighborhoods he cleaned up.
After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, I watched from the roof of my apartment building as the city burned after the Rodney King verdicts were handed down. I thought what those four cops did to King was shameful. But I didn't hear an uproar from my friends on the Left when rioters rampaged through the city's streets, stealing, looting, and destroying property in the name of "no justice, no peace." And it was impossible not to notice the hypocrisy when prominent Hollywood liberals, who had hosted anti-NRA fundraisers at their homes a week before the riots were standing in line at shooting ranges the week after it.
I watched carefully as Anita Hill testified during Clarence Thomas's Supreme Court nomination hearing, claiming Thomas - once head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - sexually harassed her after she rebuffed his invitations to date him. At the time, I rooted, as did all my friends, for Miss Hill, hoping that her testimony would result in Thomas not getting confirmed. In retrospect, I'm ashamed that I was ever on the "side" of people who so viciously demonized a decent, qualified person like Judge Thomas, whether you agree with his judicial philosophy or not. Condoleezza Rice, during eligibility hearings for both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, also had to deal with rude people like Barbara Boxer, who seemed not to be able to fathom that a black American could embrace conservatism.
I voted for Al Gore in 2000. When he lost, I was disappointed, mostly in my fellow Democrats for thinking that the election had been "stolen" and in having forgotten their American history. The Electoral College has elected three other Presidents in our history: John Quincy Adams in1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in1888. The rush to judgment by the now conspiracy consumed Left put me off. Where, I asked, were all the "disenfranchised" black voters who would have given Gore a victory in Florida? No one could produce a single name. And how exactly were the voting machines in Ohio "rigged" in 2004? I now refer to the Democrats as the Grassy Knoll party.
Still, I approached the 2004 primaries with an open mind. I was still a Democrat, still hoping that leaders like Sam Nunn and Scoop Jackson would emerge, still fantasizing that Democrats could constitute a party of truly progressive social thinkers with tough backbones who would reappear after 9/11.
I was wrong. The Left got nuttier, more extreme, less contributory to the public debate, more obsessed with their nemesis Bush - and it drove me further away. What Democrat could support Al Gore's '04 choice for President, Howard Dean, when Dean didn't dismiss the suggestion that George W. Bush had something to do with the 9/11 attacks? Or when the second most powerful Senate Democrat, Dick Durbin, thought our behavior at the detention center in Guantanamo was equivalent to Bergen Belsen and the Soviet gulags? Or when Senator Kennedy equated the unfortunate but small incident at Abu Ghraib with Saddam's 40-year record of mass murder, rape rooms, and mass graves saying, "Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under new management, U.S. management"? What Democrat could not applaud the fact that President had, in fact, kept us safe for what's going on 5 years? What Democrat - even those who opposed the decision to go into Iraq - wouldn't applaud the fact that tens of millions of previously brutalized people had the hope of freedom before them?
What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the '80s hadn't, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda and crushed them in short order. Although many on the Left claim to have backed the President's actions, the self-doubt leading up to it, crystallized my view of the Left as weak and terminally lacking in confidence.
I supported President Bush's hard line against the father of modern terrorism, Yasir Arafat, remembering that Bush's predecessor hosted Arafat at the White House 13 times, more often than any other world leader. I applauded Bush's unequivocal support for Israel, which every day faced (and faces) suicide attacks against its people. But I was most disappointed with liberal Jews who don't understand that their very existence is rooted in Israel's existence and that George W. Bush has been the best friend that Israel has ever had. But because they are less Jewish than they are liberal, they didn't reward Bush with their vote in 2004.
Finally, I supported President Bush's decision to oust Saddam and make possible the only democracy (other than Israel) in this crucial region of the Middle East. Post 9/11, we had to figure out a way to lessen the chances of more 9/11s. Democracy is a weapon in that war. If people are free to build businesses, buy homes, send their children to schools, pursue upward mobility, live their lives without fear, read newspapers of every opinion, vote for their leaders, resolve differences with debate and not bombs, they will have no reason to want to harm us.
In response, the Left offered bumper-sticker-type arguments like, Bush lied and thousands died. But Bush never lied. He, like Clinton and Gore and Kerry and the U.N. and the British and French and Israeli intelligence services affirmed that Saddam's WMD were a vital threat - a threat, that post- 9/11, could not stand. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for the war - but now the Left says they were "scared" into their votes by Bush. What does it say about Democrats if the "dummy" they think Bush is can scare them so easily?
Iraq is the "Normandy" of the War on Terror. The hope, once Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable, is that the nearly 70 million people in Iran will look at those countires (on it's left and right borders) and say: "Why do these people get to vote, send their women to school, and buy Nikes and we don't?" - and then topple their Mullah's dictatorial regime. The President understands the big picture -- that if the U.S. doesn't help to remake that volatile region, we will face a nuclear version of 9/11 within the next two or five or 10 years. He is simply being realistic in his outlook and responsible in his actions. Iraq is succeeding, slowly but surely, but that's not a sexy enough story to lead the news with: the relatively small amount of casualities are. Don't forget, we occupied Germany and Japan for seven years and we still have troops there, more than 60 years after World War II ended.
And what have the Democrats contributed to the war effort since 9/11? Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold has suggested censuring our president; Former President and Vice President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, while visiting foreign countries, have blasted President Bush - acts of unconscionable irresponsibility; Democrat Rep. John Murtha, has invoked a cut-and-run policy in Iraq, supported by Democrat Senate Minority leader Harry Reid and Democrat House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Do they think the Middle East and the World would be safer if we had cut and run, as Murtha's plan wanted us to do? Under that plan, our troops would have been out of Iraq by May 18th and al-Zarqawi wouldn't be dead, but pulling the strings in an Iraqi civil war. With these kinds of ideas and behaviors, I just don't trust Democrats when it comes to our national security.
And so, as any reader of this article can well understand, it became impossible for me to relate to the modern Democrat Party which has tacked way too far to the left and is dominated by elites that don't like or trust the real people that make up most of the country.
Although I haven't always agreed with President Bush, I proudly voted for him in 2004 (the only one of the 4-winning Electoral College - elected Presidents to win re-election). And I now fully understand Ronald Reagan's statement, when he described why he switched from being a liberal to a conservative: "I didn't leave the party - It left me!"

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Here is an interesting article about climate change in the past that I got from dissectleft. A lot of people are unaware of how climate has changed before man had any impact. I'm more concerned about the possibility of an earthquake in the Azores that causes a Tsunami that wipes out the coast of the United States. Al Gore's concern about Manhattan being flooded is more likely from a Tsunami than from rising sea levels (which are currently going up at a rate of 2 mm per year.

The Past is the Key to the Present: Greenhouse and Icehouse over Time

(Excerpts from an article by Professor Ian Plimer, School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne)

For 80% of time, planet Earth has been a warm wet greenhouse planet. Polar icecaps are rare, plants have only be on Earth for 10% of time and 99.99% of all life that has ever existed is extinct. Global atmospheric CO2 and CH4 have been variable over time and have decreased over time whereas O2 has been in the atmosphere for 50% of time, has greatly fluctuated and has increased over time. There have been 5 major and numerous minor mass extinctions of complex life, extinction opens new environments for colonisation and, because former terrestrial animals have become extinct, we humans now have a habitat.Sea levels have risen and fallen thousands of time by up to 400 metres, land levels constantly rise and fall and massive rapid climate changes derived from supernovae, solar flaring, sunspots, meteorites, comets, uplift of mountain ranges, pulling apart of oceans, stitching together of land masses, drifting continents, orbital changes, changes in the shape of Earth, ice armadas, changes in ocean currents and volcanoes. There is no evidence that life has changed climates. The major components of the atmosphere have been added by volcanicity and other components are added by life, principally from the organisms that have ruled and continue to rule the world (bacteria). The messages written in stone show that the lithosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and biosphere are constantly interacting on our dynamic evolving planet. There is no evidence to suggest that the future of planet Earth will be significantly different from its past. However, planet Earth is not a spaceship and the great environmental changes in the past have been related to rocky and icy visitors from space..... The zenith of the last glaciation was 18,000 years ago. Sea level was 130 metres lower than today, temperature was 10-15øC lower than today and there were very strong cold winds. The northern hemisphere was covered by ice to 38 §N with more northern areas such as Scandinavia was covered by 3 km of ice. The loading of the polar areas with ice changed the shape of the planet, the planet's rotation changed and as a result ocean currents distributing heat across the Earth were changed. Humans lived very short lives around the edge of ice sheets. Australia was scoured by anti-cyclonic winds that deposited sand dunes and carried sea salt spray to be trapped in the inland basins. Tasmania and parts of the south eastern highlands of Australia were covered in ice and sea level was so low that Aboriginals walked to Tasmania from mainland Australia. Rainforest disappeared with the Amazon Basin consisting of grasslands and copses of trees.The northern polar ice sheet started to melt 14,700 years ago. There were very rapid and major temperature fluctuations, sea level rose and fell and the total sea level rise over the last 14,700 years has been at least 130 metres. Land masses previously covered with ice started to rise. For example, Scandinavia is still rising and has risen more than 340 metres over the last 14,700 years. As a counterbalance, the Netherlands, south eastern England, Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark are sinking. The breaching of dams of melt waters filled the oceans with cold surface waters 12,000-11,000 and 8,500-8,000 years ago resulting in changed climates, an increase in sea level and changes to ocean currents. After these intensely cool periods, temperatures rose by 5-10øC in the space of a few decades. Sea level rise resulted in the breaching of the Mediterranean into the Black Sea Basin some 7,600 years ago and is probably the origin of the Sumarian, Babylonian and biblical stories of a great flood.One of the consequences of a massive sea level rise over the last 14,700 years is that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was no longer unpinned by the land. Two thirds of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed into the oceans and sea level rose 12 metres. The final third of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has yet to collapse to produce a 6 metre sea level rise as part of the dynamic post-glacial climate on Earth. Climate changes induced by changes in ocean currents cooled North Africa, grasslands changed to a desert, humans migrated and the great Mesopotamian cities were established.Sea levels were 1-3 metres higher in a greenhouse 6,000 years ago. There was 20% more rainfall. Cold dry periods, glacier expansion and crop failures between 5,800 and 4,900 years ago resulted in deforestation, flooding, silting of irrigation channels, salinisation and the collapse of the Sumerian city states. Long periods of El Nino-induced drought resulted in the abandonment of Middle Eastern, Indian and North American towns. In 1470 BC (?), Thira exploded and threw 30 cubic kilometers of dust into the atmosphere. The tsunami, ash blanket and destruction of Thira greatly weakened the dominant Minoans. This led to the rise of the Mycaeneans and Greeks. One volcano changed the course of western history.Global cooling from 1,300 to 500 BC gave rise to the advance of glaciers, migration, invasion and famine. Global warming commenced again at 500 BC, there was an excess of food and great empires such as the Ashoka, Ch'hin and the Romans grew. Contemporary records and Roman clothing shows that conditions were some 5øC warmer than today.In 535 AD Krakatoa exploded, as did Rabaul in 536 AD. The Earth passed through cometary dust in 536 AD. The dusty atmosphere reflected heat and darkness prevailed and, as a result, the climate cooled and there was famine and warfare. Changes in ocean currents resulted in the Medieval Warm Period from 900 to 1300 AD. The first to feel the change were the Vikings who were able to navigate the northern waters, colonized Newfoundland, colonized Greenland and established extensive trade routes as far south as the modern Gulf States. On Greenland, crops were grown and there were cattle. This would not be possible today. The warmer wetter climate of Europe produced excess crops and wealth which resulted in the building of castles, cathedrals and monastries. As with previous greenhouse events, there was great prosperity.In 1280 AD, volcanic eruptions on Iceland and a change in ocean currents started the Little Ice Age which finished in 1920. The North Sea froze in 1303 and 1306-1307, there was massive famine in 1315 and the plague pandemic attacked the weakened population in 1347-1349. There was massive depopulation and it took Europe 250 years to reach the population of 1280 AD. During the Little Ice Age, there were warmer periods associated with sunspot activity. During minimum sunspot activity (1440-1460, 1687-1703 and 1808-1821), the intensely cold conditions were recorded by the Dutch masters and King Henry VIII was able to roast oxen on the frozen Thames. There were food shortages. Short cold periods occurred after the eruptions of Tambora (1815) and Krakatoa (1883) respectively. In fact, 1816 was known as the 'year without a summer'. This was the time when Turner painted stormy oceans and skies full of volcanic dust, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein and Byron wrote Darkness.The twentieth Century and early 21st Century AD are times of natural post-glacial rebound. Ice sheets, a rare phenomenon in the history of time, still exist. Sea level is relatively low, as are global temperatures and atmospheric CO2. Between 1920 and 1945, there was a period of warming (0.37øC) and another that commenced in 1976 (0.32øC). In 1976-1977, global temperatures in the lower atmosphere jumped 0.3øC, sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific jumped 0.6øC, sea surface temperature during upwelling increased 1.5 to 3øC but there was reduced upwelling, the heat content of the upper 300 metres of the world's oceans increased, there was increased wave activity in the North Sea and the length of the day changed. The stepwise increase in temperature in 1976-1977 shows that there was a major re-ordering of the ocean heat transport coinciding with an orbital change expressed as a change in the length of the day. Maybe global warming of the 20th Century is just a measure of the variability on a dynamic evolving planet?To put such measurements into perspective over the history of time, changes in atmospheric temperature in the 20th Century can only be considered small and slow. A 24 year global coverage of satellite atmosphere temperatures shows only modest warming in the Northern Hemisphere and a slight cooling in the Southern Hemisphere. Temperature measurements from balloons agree with the satellite measurements for the period of overlap. Because greenhouse warming is a phenomenon of the atmosphere, significant changes should have been recorded. They have not.Science is married to evidence and bathes in modest uncertainty. The nature of science is skepticism and science encourages argument and dissent. Scientific evidence is derived from reproducible observation, measurement, experiment and calculation. Evidence in geology is interdisciplinary, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial and shows the complex and fascinating intertwining of evolving natural processes on a dynamic planet. Scientists engage in healthy argument about the veracity of evidence. On the basis of evidence, an explanation called a scientific theory is constructed. A scientific theory is the best available explanation of evidence, it may change with new evidence and it must be coherent with the existing body of knowledge. Scientists also argue about scientific theory. Scientific theories are testable and once the scientific theory has been tested over time, it becomes accepted into the body of knowledge. The word belief is not used in science because belief is untestable. This process has not taken place with the construction of what is popularly called the greenhouse effect. Furthermore, science is unable to make judgments about what is good or bad. These are judgments with vary with time and are based on contemporary politics, religion, aesthetics and culture.Underpinning the global warming and climate change mantra is the imputation that humans live on a non-dynamic planet. On all scales of observation and measurement, sea level and climate are not constant. Change is normal and is driven by a large number of natural forces. Change can be slow or very fast. However, we see political slogans such as Stop Climate Change or government publications such as Living with Climate Change demonstrating that both the community and government believe that climate variability and change are not normal. By using the past as the key to the present, we are facing the next inevitable glaciation yet the climate, economic, political and social models of today assess the impact of a very slight warming and do not evaluate the higher risk of yet another glaciation. Geology, archaeology and history show that during glaciation, famine, war, depopulation and extinction are the norm.In 1831, Admiral Sir James Robert George Graham had the Union Jack hoisted on a volcanic land mass that suddenly appeared near Sicily. It was called Graham Bank and was claimed by England. It was also claimed by the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies who called it Isola Ferdinandea, the French (L'Isle Julia) and other powers who variously named it Nerita, Hotham, Scicca and Corrao. In the subsequent dispute over ownership, France and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies almost came to war and England and the Two Kingdoms of Sicily had a diplomatic row. During the intense diplomatic dispute, the island quietly slipped back underwater. In 1987, US warplanes thought the dark mass 8 metres below sea level was a Libyan submarine and attacked it with depth charges. In February 2000 when the volcano again stirred, Domenico Macalusa, a surgeon, diver and the Honorary Inspector of Sicilian Cultural Relics, took action. He persuaded Charles and Camilla, the last two surviving relatives of the Bourbon Kings of the Two Sicilies to fund the bolting of a 150 kg marble plaque to the volcano at some 20 metres below sea level. The plaque pre-empted ownership if the volcano ever again rose above sea level. It was placed underwater in September 2001, by November 2002, person or persons unknown had smashed the plaque into 12 pieces. This rock is worth nothing, is of no use as a territorial possession and is of no scientific interest and yet the French and Bourbons nearly came to war 170 years ago and the English and Italians are still in dispute. Graham Banks serves to show that whatever political decisions we humans make, the land rises and falls, sea level rises and fall and climates change as they have done since the dawn of time.

The problem I have with Al Gore, aside from his ludicrous exaggerations, is that he offers a political solution to his perceived problem rather than a practical tehnical solution. He wants to punish all of us average folks, while the rich folks like him and the Hollywood crowd can continue their extravagant life style. Why doesn't he seek scientific solutions that do not destroy the standard of living for most people; in fact, his solution would take the lives of many people in impoverished countries. For example, we could fairly easily increase albedo (that is, solar reflection from Earth). We know we could do that rapidly since it has happened many times in the past after volcanic eruptions. But I don't think any of Gore's scientific buddies would want to do that until they were absolutely certain that warming is causing significant disruptions of life; the reason is that cooling rather than warming has been a bigger problem in the past. Gore and his followers are not willing to have a debate about this, and they actively attack anyone who disagrees with them. That is a major warning sign about the strength of their position. The article below is interesting.

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe

"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmist

By Tom Harris

Monday, June 12, 2006

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies."
This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.

So we have a smaller fraction.

But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.

Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."

Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems."

But Karlén clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karlén concludes.
The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.
Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."

Karlén explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. "For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karlén

Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."

Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance."

Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."

In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request.

Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company.

The problem I have with Al Gore, aside from his ludicrous exaggerations, is that he offers a political solution to his perceived problem rather than a practical tehnical solution. He wants to punish all of us average folks, while the rich folks like him and the Hollywood crowd can continue their extravagant life style. Why doesn't he seek scientific solutions that do not destroy the standard of living for most people; in fact, his solution would take the lives of many people in impoverished countries. For example, we could fairly easily increase albedo (that is, solar reflection from Earth). We know we could do that rapidly since it has happened many times in the past after volcanic eruptions. But I don't think any of Gore's scientific buddies would want to do that until they were absolutely certain that warming is causing significant disruptions of life; the reason is that cooling rather than warming has been a bigger problem in the past. Gore and his followers are not willing to have a debate about this, and they actively attack anyone who disagrees with them. That is a major warning sign about the strength of their position. The article below is interesting.

Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe

"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmist

By Tom Harris

Monday, June 12, 2006

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists, for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct their studies."
This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.

So we have a smaller fraction.

But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."

We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.

Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."

Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems."

But Karlén clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karlén concludes.
The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.
Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."

Karlén explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. "For several published records it is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karlén

Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."

Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance."

Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."

Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."

In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request.

Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and public policy company.

Monday, June 12, 2006

Here is a blog by Dr. Santy that matches my thoughts, and are expressed better than I could do. She's a psychiatrist, so thinks about delusional people more than I do.

NOT ANCHORED TO REALITY
In his article today, "The Left Promotes Assertions That Turn Out To Be False" , John Leo discovers a fundamental fact about the left's postmodern rhetoric: it is aggressive rehtoric in the absence of cognition.
But bitter surmise isn't proof. And according to a long and detailed analysis on Salon.com -- no hotbed of Republican thought -- the evidence Kennedy cites isn't new, and his argument is filled with distortions and the deliberate omission of key data.Why would Kennedy damage his credibility this way? This may not be breaking news, but if an assertion reflects a widely shared emotion, it can make great headway in this culture without any need to prove its truth. We have been through this many times. The 2000 election was allegedly stolen, though no credible investigation backed up the claim, not even the one by the Civil Rights Commission, which was then firmly in Democratic hands.The Katrina theory that blacks died because of racism wasn't true, but it fit both the emotions and the beliefs of the political and media establishments. The Duke rape case also unfolded along the lines of conventional liberal beliefs about privileged whites and allegedly dumb jocks. The leadership at Duke should be ashamed. As the facts emerge, ever so slowly, it is becoming apparent that the prosecutor should be disciplined for his shocking behavior.Assertion doesn't always beat facts, but it happens a lot.Indeed it happens far too much. Let us take such an assertion promoted by the left that is currently making the rounds, and observe how it is quickly becoming an undisputed fact --without the necessity of demonstrating any evidence, rational argument, or even the slightest suspension of judgement until those facts are in. The allegations of a massacre of innocents by Marines in Haditha are now being discussed on the left as if no reasonable person could believe the accusations false. Juan Cole, for example, in parading some newly surfaced accusations against the US-- specifically that Zarqawi was beaten by Americans before his ignomonious death-- makes this statement:
This story is implausible, but may gain purchase in the Arab world after the Haditha massacre and the news that Guantanamo prisoners were found hanged. (emphasis mine)There you have it. Just automatically inserted into a sentence as a matter of "fact". And even worse, the "massacre" (not even alleged) is cited to explain why people might naturally think of Zarqawi as just another "victim" of the US; and because of Haditha, all and any outrageous accusations made against Americans would be automatically believed.Well, he should know.Do you begin to understand why we keep hearing the same assertions over and over again by the left--long after they have been conclusively disproved or the distortions and errors "regretted"? They have fully and completely swallowed and metabolized the lies they have propagated, and no amount of evidence--even their own contrary assertions, previous statements, and counter-rhetorical ploys--is capable of making them see what is true anymore. Truth is only a matter of what is felt; language does not connect to reality; and cognition is irrelevant. In the artificial world the left is busy creating, only their feelings are real.It is important to realize that this rhetorical strategy that Leo excellently exposes in his editorial is being used to drive the left's politics, which are characterized by an incredible disregard for truth or even consistency in argument. For example, it has in abeen repeatedly asserted in the most sneering and sarcastic manner, that since the US has been unable to capture or kill either OBL or Zarqawi, it somehow "proves" that Iraq is a quagmire and the US cannot possibly win. Now, listen to left. With one voice practically, they now claim that killing Zarqawi means nothing; that his role was overinflated by the US to begin with etc. etc.Like the frankly paranoid individual, the death of Zarqawi is interpreted only in a manner that can best foward and give them reason to continue to believe their own delusions. Here are a few of the most common ones:-Zarqawi never really existed to begin with, the US just made him up as a foil to delude Americans-the timing of the death is obviously intended to redirect attention away from the Haditha "massacre"-Killing Zarqawi will only make things worse in Iraq-America is evil for killing Zarqawi in the manner they did (either it was "illegal", proof of American terrorism, or further evidence of how sick our society is

I could go on, but I find these attitudes disturbingly perverted. And I deal every day with people who are fast and loose with the truth and have little association with the real world.Most reasonable people can appreciate the fact that the war on terror is not over because one important terrorist is dead; and yet still be able to see the killing of that particular thug as a major victory in that war.What we see in the current Haditha meme that they have taken in as absollute truth is yet another of their delusions being carefully nurtured. Haditha merely confirms their belief that anyone in the US military is a savage oppressor.If the Marines are cleared of wrongdoing in Haditha, it will not matter to them. They can feed their delusions a thousand different ways (e.g., "cover-up", "the military is lying" etc. etc.). Truth is irrelevant. The rhetoric will stay the same since it is not anchored to reality to begin with.And, assertions that turn out to be false can merely be recycled later on when things die down to obtain additional political mileage from them.

I see a lot of criticism of President Bush with conventional wisdom stories that have been proven to be untrue. Here is an intersting item by John Leo.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/johnleo/2006/06/11/200735.html

One thing that hasn't been reported much by the media is the translations of Saddam's papers which indicate that Iraq did indeed have WMD up until a few months before the US invaded Iraq. Most of what I have seen reported discounts the accuracy of the papers. Why is that?

Here is an interesting article on the Haditha situation by Mary Katherine Ham. She doesn't mention the photo of Iraqi's that had been lined up and shot that appeared with some of the Haditha stories. It turned out the photo was of people who had been shot by terrorists a few months before the Haditha incident.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/MaryKatharineHam/2006/06/12/200752.html

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The Haditha Massacre story seems to be falling apart, and is appearing more and more to be a hoax. What is disappointing to me, no matter how it is finally resolved, is that Democrats such as John Murtha and John Kerry were so eager to believe the worst about Americans. Surely they are aware that the terrorists in Iraq, and in other places, like to set up situations where civilians are killed for the propaganda value, and are happy to sacrifice their own people. And, they must be aware that Haditha is a Sunni stronghold where the people are hostile to Americans, and to the new Iraqi government, and thus have motivation to lie. Why would Murtha and Kerry be so quick to believe our enemies rather than American Marines? One obvious conclusion is that they are willing to sacrifice our country's interest for their own political ambitions. It is sad. More recently one Iraqi has come forward to say that Americans beat the injured Zarqawi to death. I wonder if the Democrats believe him?

Saturday, June 10, 2006

This is pretty funny.

http://www.math.unipd.it/~favero/varie/ragazzauk.html

This item from the blog Strategypage is interesting. I would guess that it is good to make enemies think you have stuff that may not exist. I've read about "magic dust" for some time, but don't know how well it really works.

Smart Dust Stalked Zarqawi
June 10, 2006: For the last ten years, development of "smart dust" has moved right along. "Smart Dust" is basically very miniaturized electronic devices. This is similar to stuff like RFID, smart cards, EZ Pass and those rice grain size tracking devices you can have injected into your pets. But Smart Dust takes this all to a new level by being small enough to be disguised as dirt, the kind you can pick up in your shoes or clothing. Each bit of Smart Dust can be given a unique serial number that, when hit with an "interrogation signal" from troops on the ground, or aircraft overhead, is broadcast back. Some forms of Smart Dust are believed to be in use in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's also believed that Smart Dust played a role in the recent death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. In this case, if someone were able to sprinkle some Smart Dust on Zarqawi's clothing, it would have been a simple matter to track him with great precision. Iraqis have already heard of this stuff, but regard it more as "magic dust." Iraqis have a tendency to exaggerate American capabilities, especially when it comes to technology. But U.S. troops have learned to use this exaggerated reputation to their advantage, threatening Iraqis with magical capabilities that don't exist. That often works, just like smart dust.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Scott Ott has a funny line. He says the Democrats affirm that, despite the loss of al-Zarqawi, they will fight on in the war on the war on terror. I saw a press conference this morning on CNN in which the press seemed to imply that the US must have shot Zarqawi as he lay injured after the air raid. Some of the Democrat bloggers are into even wilder conspiracy theories. They imply that Bush had Zarqawi for a long time, and killed him at a politically opportune time. Another one said Zarqawi never really existed, but just a creation of the evil George Bush. It appears that the Democrats are trying to figure out how Zarqawi's demise can be twisted to damage Bush. As a coincidence, just after typing this I heard a commentator on MSNBC say that the Democrats are off-stride on this, and haven't figured out how to react yet.

Here is an interesting item about Che Guevera (who's real name was Lynch) from Dissectleft. (Che's father was an Irish engineer named Lynch.)

The British are whitewashing Che Guevara. London's famous Victoria and Albert museum is having an exhibition about him which describes him as "young, handsome, charismatic". No mention that he was a murderous totalitarian thug. (HT Astute Blogger).

Ted Bundy could also have described as young, handsome, and charismatic. It is not unusual for sociopaths to be charming. I wonder why left-leaning people deify murderous people like Che and Mao.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

I think California congressional candidate Busby's statement that "you don't need papers to vote" reflects the Democratic Party's position. If you don't agree, consider that the Democrats consistently oppose requirements for providing identification in order to vote. Why would they do that unless they think that the people who are not qualified to vote would vote for them? They favor giving the vote to people in prison, no doubt because polls show that about 90% of the criminals would vote Democrat. In the past, here in Texas people have continued to vote Democrat long after they dies. And, it has been shown that in some districts in Texas the people were so considerate that they voted in alphabetical order; and they all voted Democrat since it was in a Democratic primary. If you don't believe that look up the Senatorial primary between Lyndon Johnson and Coke Stevenson.

Here is an interesting discussion of the variance of carbon dioxide and average Earth temperature over geological time from the bog dissectleft. There doesn't seem to be much correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide level.

WHAT THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD SHOWS ABOUT CO2 AND TEMPERATUREBelow is a small extract from here -- including an inconveniently truthful chartAverage global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 22 degrees C (72 degrees F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12 degrees C (54 degrees F). As shown on the chart below, this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm -- comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!Earth's atmosphere today contains about 370 ppm CO2 (0.037%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth's history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.8 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 19 times higher than today.The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.

I couldn't copy the neat chart, which clearly shows that in the past there was no correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Miss Carnivorous, thanks for the comments. I didn't think anyone but my son in Montana reads this blog. I haven't been blogging much lately. I'm teaching a course in Tactical Missile Design for the first time, and am having to do some preparation. I'll be 70 in July, so I've forgotten some stuff I used to know.

Today I played golf at Lake Arlington. I warmed up with a radar gun measuring my clubhead velocity. My typical swing is only 80-85 mph now. That only puts the ball out 200 yards which is not enough. (Michelle Wie could knock the ball 300 yards when she was 12 years old.) So I tried to see how much clubhead velocity I could generate. By twisting like a pretzel I could get from 95 to 105 mph. I decided I would try that swing while I played today. The results were sort of mixed. I did make three birdies. But the drives only went about 220-230 yards. Better, but still a bit anemic. And some of them made huge left turns so that I had a hard time finding the ball. (This was odd since I usually hit a slice when I swing harder.) But my iron shots went 10-15 yards farther, and were more acurate, hence the birdies (two of them were 12 to 18 inch putts.) I'm going to work more on swinging faster.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

According to the news a Canadian terrorist group has been apprehended before they could execute their plan to destroy buildings in Canada. The left-wing blogs aren't saying much about this, of course. The news is that this group of terrorists was "home grown" in Canada. Since Canada is about the most politically correct, multicultural country in the world, it defies conventional wisdom that Muslims in Canada would be radicalized. No doubt it is George Bush's fault. Apparently Bush has shredded the Constitution in Canada, too. The RCMP apparently listens to phone calls, intercepts emails, and otherwise tramples on individual rights. Being politically correct the RMCP doesn't make much of the point that all of the terrorists are Muslims. To me, this is affair is just a further example that we are in a serious war with Islam, the "religion of peace," which instructs its followers that they have a duty to enslave or kill all of us who are non-believers, be we Jews, Christians, Hindus, or athiests. We are clearly in a World War (either WWIII or WWIV depending on your view of the cold war) at the choice of the Islamists.

Here is an interesting blog on Global Warming.

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2006/05/27/who-do-you-believe-on-global-warming/

It seems to me that the whole issue is like religion. Belief is based on faith, not facts. Everyone admits that the Global Circulation Models are not accurate, and have discretionary factors that can cause widely variable results; anything from another ice age to a tropical North Pole. But, it is a fact that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs heat at some wavelengths. What I don't understand is the emphasis on carbon dioxide reduction. It would be good, and will eventually be necessary to develop non-hydrocarbon based energy sources. But it is not necessary to do it tomorrow. If heating starts to be a problem, we could easily reduse temperature by injecting particulate matter into the atmosphere such as happens in a volcano eruption. We might want to be careful about that though. There have been occurrences such as "the Year with No Summer" following a volcano eruption. History does show that it would be easy to deliberately reduce the temperature on Earth. History also shows that people do better when it is warmer, so we might want to be careful about deliberate cooling.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

I think it is interesting that Congress is incensed over the FBI searching the office of Congressman William Jefferson. Jefferson has been under a cloud of suspicion for a long time. Congress has been aware that the Justice Department issued a subpoena for Jefferson's records nine months ago. In the meantime two people have pled guilty to bribing Jefferson. And it is reported that there is a video of an FBI informant giving Jefferson a $100,000 bribe, $90,000 of which was apparently found in Jefferson's freezer when the FBI searched his home. My question is, why hasn't Congress taken action to investigate Jefferson? The impression is that Congress feels that the laws they pass for the rest of us do not apply to them. The reaction of the Republican leaders is particularly disappointing since one of the tenants of the "Contract with America" that put them into power was that the laws they pass should apply to them as well as the people. I guess it is another case of "power corrupts."