Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Thursday, August 30, 2007

After reading about Senator Craig, it appears one should be careful when in a public restroom. I think I'll try to get in and out as quickly as possible, without looking around. I do wonder about a police Department that stations undercover officers in restrooms. Is that the best application for limited manpower? It seems unlikely to me that there is not more important work for detectives. For example, while waiting on a flight I recall a guy asking me to watch his bag while he went to the restroom. I thought that was odd since I would have just taken my bag with me. Now, after reading about Senator Craig, I learn that taking the bag with me could be mis-interpreted.

Republicans are naturally calling for Senator Craig to resign. If he were a Democrat, the Dems would rally around him. Apparently the Dems don't mind some flaws in their members. Tom Delay had to go when charged with something that may not have been illegal; the prosecutor says he knows there is a piece of paper that proves Delay is guilty, and he is still trying to find it. On the other hand Murtha, the unindicted co-conspirator, is still a leader of his party. And William Jefferson took money from the FBI in a sting, and his constituents in the dysfunctional city of New Orleans re-elected him. That is good enough for Dems.

Some are saying that Senator Craig is a hypocrite because he opposes Gay marriage. I don't understand that position, because I doubt that guys cruising public bathrooms have marriage in mind.

A beauty contest participant, Mrs. Tennessee, was bitten by a rattlesnake as she walked up the steps into the hall where the contest was being held in Tucson. She said it hurt worse than childbirth. That is interesting information. The lady is apparently recovering after spending the night in the hospital. The story didn't say whether or not she had to withdraw from the contest. I don't normally look for snakes when walking up steps into a building. There's something else to worry about.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Steve Sailer's blog today has an interesting table that indicates IQ of college students in various majors based on GRE scores.

http://www.isteve.com/

Mechanical engineers are fairly high with an average IQ of 126. They are better at math than verbal skills, as would be expected. I recall that I was an anomaly because I was better in verbal than in math, but was better than average in math. This table pretty much matches what I have read before, which is that most medical doctors, lawyers, and engineers have an IQ of around 120 or more, and that it takes an IQ of about 106 to graduate from college in any field. (Not in this table, but data I have seen indicates that it takes an IQ of about 87 to master high school work.)

I recently heard Hillary Clinton say in a speech that she wanted all children to go to college. But since the average IQ of the population is about 100, less than half of the people can master college work. It was not clear from her remarks how she planned to deal with this reality.

There were anti-gun protests around the country yesterday. Apparently the turnout for the protests were not large. Two guys showed up for the protest in Seattle. There were reported to be "dozens" in Philadelphia. And Jesse Jackson had three busloads of his usual paid protesters. I didn't see anything about these protests in the news.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Here is an interesting report from Iraq. This girl Alison sounds unbelievable. She enjoys gunfights with snipers! Her Dad is a soldier, which may explain it. The type of pregnancy she had produces cancerous cells, so the cancer she has is probably not life threatening.

http://wes-downrange.blogspot.com/2007/08/spec-alison-k-i-guess-ive-done-my-duty.html

Here is an informative article about the carbon cap and trade system that is in operation in Europe, and which politicians and rent-seeking corportions want to implement in the United States.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/NicoleGelinas/2007/08/26/an_inconvenient_solution?page=full&comments=true

One key thing about the cap-and-trade system that everyone needs to consider is this. Kenny-boy Lay of Enron notoriety had been meeting in the White House with Bill Clinton and Al Gore back in the late 90's. The carbon trading scheme would have saved Enron Lay thought. But the evil Bush got elected, and he refused to go along with Lay, and Enron collapsed. I think Enron deserved to die, and a scheme that would have saved it is probably not good for America.

What is sad is that politicians and their rent-seeker supporters don't care whether or not global warming is happening (which is in doubt because of the way supporters of the hypothesis have an interest in fudging the data that they generate; and they won't let others critique) or whether or not man is a factor. The politicians see opprtunity to ceate more regulations that will permit them to reward their financial supporters and punish those who oppose them. Many corporate leaders see opportunity for profit. They don't care about what happens to the poor people. In fact, increasing the number of people on welfare is a goal of Democrats, and has been since the days of FDR and LBJ. The politicians know that if they can get carbon cap and trade programs in place now, those programs will continue as global temperatures decline in the future (as I expect, and as I think many of the proponents of global warming also expect, which is why they are eager to strike now before cooling becomes obvious.)

I read a lot of goofy stuff by liberals about Oil companies opposing carbon cap-and-trade. That makes no sense because natural gas prices will increase in a carbon cap and trade environment since natural gas will beat coal since it produces less carbon dioxide, and the politicians won't allow building nuclear plants that generate no carbon dioxide. So natural gas prices will increase.

The same thing goes for oil companies and gasoline. Oil companies are not building new refineries because the government is mandating a reduction in gasoline use by increasing gasoline mileage requirements, and mandating the use of ethanol. So the price of gasoline will increase allowing oil companies to make more money off of their existing facilities. Substituting corn-based ethanol for gasoline does little to reduce carbon dioxide, increases the price of food a lot, and is a stupid idea that illustrates why we should keep the government out of markets.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

There is strange case of "zero tolerance" in Arizona where a 13-year old boy was suspended from school for drawing a picture of a gun. At least some thought it was a gun. I saw the drawing on TV, and it was hard to tell what it was. It was apparently some sort of futuristic ray gun, if it was a gun at all. Apparently the school perceived the drawing as a threat. This is another case of political correctness run amok. Something has happened in America that has caused us to lose perspective.

When I was in high school back in pre-historic times there were a lot of guns at school, but no one was ever threatened or shot. We had a rifle range where we practiced with 0.22 rifles. One kid brought in a 0.45 pistol and put a dent in the metal plate that deflected the bullets downward. Guys came to school in pickups with rifles in a rack in the rear window. The high school was all "Anglo" and I never felt threatened there.

In junior high school I saw a lot of "zip guns." Once a guy brought a 0.38 to school, and managed to discharge it in the hall which was empty at the time and the bullet hit high up on a locker, so didn't ricochet down the hall. (I saw the gun before school started, but didn't see the event so the story may not be true, but there was a hole in a locker.) I don't think the teachers ever realized what had happened because guys frequently shot off "baby giant" firecrackers that were quite loud. I did feel threatened in junior high because about half of the students were Mexicans, and they carried knives, which they threatened people with, and used to steal lunch money. They got my wallet once. Three Mexicans were killed by other Mexicans in knife fights in my three years in junior high school. The Mexicans had no interest in school and almost all of them dropped out, and didn't go to high school.

The amount of email spam I'm getting has recently gone up a lot. I'm getting 100 messages a day now. Many of the messages are identical, but have different originators. I suspect there is some sort of scam involved, but I never open any of the attachments so I don't know that for certain.

Here is a piece from julescrittenden.com that I think pretty well sizes up the economic situation in America, and it is all President Bush's fault!

Bush is making the economy too good

Cross-posted at Don Surber.

“But questions remain about how long the West can weather the problems that come with low unemployment.” — Matt Gouras of the Associated Press.

Damn that George Bush. He is making things too good for the American people.

Having the economy do well dries up the available labor pool. That increases wages. Increased wages mean incomes rise. Rising incomes will push income of the 46% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes (but they do pay FICA). Many of those in that taxless 46% will see their incomes rise to where they will have to pay federal income taxes — thus paying for that Tax Cut For The Rich.

That’s the evil plan: Make America prosperous to pay for those Tax Cuts For The Rich.

But have no fear, America. The Democratic Party will raise taxes on the rich to pay for all those social service programs such as unemployment compensation that we will need again, once Hillary Clinton is president.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Liberals and Democrats talk a lot about achieving strict equality in society. That is , of course, not possible in a free society. Kurt Vonnegut had an idea on how such strict equality could be achieved. People with high IQ or even average IQ would have to wear earphones that would frequently ring, to reduce their ability to concentrate, and thus reduce their mental advantage over idiots. People with athletic ability like professional athletes would have to carry extra weight similar to the way racehorses are handicapped. And attractive people like Hollywood stars would have to wear Halloween masks. Everyone would then be eually bad off, and society would collapse, like in a communist country.

Two years ago some scientists reported that over the past 50 years the North Atlantic has become less salty as a result of Global Warming. Now some other scientists report that the North Atlantic has become more salty over the past 50 years: the cause, Global Warming. The political left is always politically correct. Any change in climate is due to Global Warming. Everything bad thing that happens is the fault of President Bush, including Global Warming.

Monday, August 20, 2007

I just read an article about a Congressman who got into an altercation at an airport. Congressman Filner. The article didn't give his party affiliation, so it can be safely assumed that he is a Democrat. If he were a Republican his party affiliation would have been in the headline.

Reading about the Democratic Party Presidential Candidate debates lead me to think about the issue of Islamic Jihad and Iraq. It seems to me that there are four possible responses to the Jihadi challenge:

1) Ignore it, more than likely the movement will implode. Take the hits until then. That is just a risk of modern life. (This was John Kerry's position in the 2004 election, whether his supporters acknowledge it or not.)

2) If the Jihadi's do not implode and their attacks become intolerable, then smash them in a "war of civilizations."

3) Try to change their culture by forceably introducing democracy into the Middle East. This is George Bush's approach. (For those who say that democracy cannot be imposed by force, consider Italy, Germany, and Japan.)

4) Surrender (this seems popular amongst Hollywood actors. It is not clear if any Democrat presidential candidates favor this, but I think Edwards and Obama would eventually wind up here.)

I like Bush's approach the best. The Muslims are following the Muslim Brotherhood plan to take over Western Europe as a first step in world conquest. They do not make a secret of their plan, but it seems so perposterous to most Europeans that they ignore it at their peril. It is in our interest to have the Muslims efforts in Europe fail, and sadly, the Europeans seem incapable of defending their own culture. It is up to us to save them without any help from them. If the Bush approach fails, and the Jihadi's don't self-destruck then we will wind up in a major war. Many Europeans, Russia, and China would like to see the US crippled in a major war. Thsy would love to see nuclear attacks on some US cities. The Russians and Chinese are not worried so much about the Jihadis: they would have no qualms about crushing the Jidadi's should many of them survive a conflict with the US.

The September issue of Money Magazine has a quiz of what is riskier.

1) What are you more afraid of, a nuclear reactor or sunlight?

2) which is responsible for the greatest number of deaths each year?

- alligator
-bear
-deer
-shark
-snake.

I got both correct. The answers are:

1) The worst nuclear reactor accident in history, Chernobyl in 1986, was responsible for the deaths of less than 100 people by 2006. On the other hand 8000 Americans die from sun induced skin cancer each year. (I have skin cancer, and a good friend's wife just died of skin cancer. She was 57 years old.)

2)Deer kill about 130 people each year, more than all of the other critters combined. The deer aren't very agressive. Most of the deaths occur when the deer are hit by automobiles.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

On the global warming front there is a paper out now titled "Trouble in the Climate-Model Paradise," published in CO2 Science. It is pretty esoteric, but apparently there is a mismatch in the amount of precipitation predicted by the Global Circulation Models and the amount actually measured. This is another case where the model's predictions don't match real data. The article talks about having to make wind velocity decrease to have the models match the data, but in reality there has been a wind velocity increase. The cataclysmic temperature increase due to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere occurs because of an increase in water vapor caused by the small temperature increase caused by the CO2 buildup (no one claims that CO2 alone would cause a large temperature increase.) The models have a buildup in water vapor in the atmosphere because precipitation rates do not go up as much as the water vapor increase. But, inreality that is not happening. Other studies on precipitation indicates the same thing. Most people probably don't understand the issue well enough to appreciate what this means, but scientists should. One reason that the proponents of the cataclysmic global warming hypothesis such as Mann, et al wanted to show that the earth is warmer than ever is because if the temperature were indeed warmer around 1000 AD than now, then a good question is why didn't the Earth's temperature runaway upward then? There was no good answer to that question, so it became important to show that temperature had never been so high in the past as it is now. The attempts to show that temperature was not as high as now have been pretty much discredited, but the supporters of the global warming hypothesis apparently remain unconvinced.

Mark Steyn, who is a Canadian commented on the Canadian lady giving birth to quadruplets in Great Falls, Montana. It is probably a joke, but Steyn comments that in Canad there is a 10 month waiting period for the maternity ward. I also a similar story about socialized medicine in Great Britain. In that case the lady was in the hospital, but couldn't get help from the staff, so her Mother helped her give birth. In that case the baby died. My guess is that reporters could come up with more anecdotal failures of medicine in socialist countries than in the US. If they wanted to. Given the liberal bias of the media it is doubtful that they want to. Sometimes reporters are motivated by the hope for professional recognition such as a Pultizer Prize, and will investigate something regarded as being politically correct. But it is doubtful that any rewards would be expected for revealing deficiencies in medical care in other countries.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

For all of those who think socialized medicine is a good thing, and think the Canadian Healthcare system is great, here is some news to consider:

HELENA, Mont. — A 35-year-old Canadian woman has given birth to rare identical quadruplets, hospital officials said Thursday.

Karen Jepp of Calgary, Alberta, delivered Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia by Caesarian section Sunday afternoon at Benefis Healthcare Hospital in Great Falls, Montana, said Amy Astin, the hospital's director of community and government relations.

The Jepps drove 325 miles (523 kilometers) to Great Falls for the births because hospitals in Calgary were at capacity, Key said.

Imagine, the hospitals in Calgary, a major city, couldn't handle the case. They could probably have scheduled the babies' delivery in a few weeks. The politicians here like to talk about the lack of health insurance for a lot of Americans. But, there is not a lack of access to healthcare. In fact, people from Mexico come to Texas for healthcare. I have seen that myself, when my granddaughter was sick and had to be taken to the hospital at night. I asked about all of the people in the waiting room who were speaking Spanish, and had to have interpreters because they couldn't speak English. It turned out that many of the people were Mexicans who had chronic ailments and came to Texas to get care that was unavailable in Mexico. In fact, I have read about Mexican Officials complaining because the US hospitals don't have enogh Spanish speakers on staff.

I suspect the Canadian healthcare system would collapse if they were not close enough to the US system to handle overflow and difficult cases. I have read that a lot of Canadians have US health insurance.

Of course, another factor in this; the babies are now US citizens as well as being Canadians.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Here is a letter I sent to Newsweek about their recent "Global Warming" issue:

Congratulations on your latest issue. It is an outstanding example of yellow journalism. It is interesting that almost simultaneously with your publication’s release, one of those evil deniers managed to prove that the temperature history that James Hansen, Al Gore and their fellow travelers have cited to show that the world is getting hotter is in error. It seems that 1998 is no longer “the hottest year on record.” Now the record shows that five of the ten hottest years on record happened before World War II. (Your 1988 issue proclaiming that we need to get ready for hotter summers does not now appear prophetic.) Steven McIntyre, the guy who did this evil deed, is one of the group that proved the Mann Hockeystick showing that the temperature of the world was increasing to unprecedented level was just plain bogus. (The IPCC and government officials make it difficult to prove them wrong by refusing to share their data or methods, but those evil deniers are devilishly clever.)

It appears that you do not have a good grasp of the subject of global warming. Surely you are aware that climate change is always happening. And surely you know that much of the so-called evidence of global warming is bogus. For example it is known that the Chinese temperature data used to show that the heat island effect is minor is inconsistent (The sites were moved out of town as urbanization occurred, so the data are not a consistent set.) Of course for Liberals like yourself and CBS, “fake, but accurate” is good enough. It is sometimes necessary to distort facts to get the truth out. And you and Al Gore know the truth, so you don’t need any facts. You might be interested in knowing that water vapor, not CO2, is the dominant “greenhouse gas.” If CO2 were as important as James Hansen declares, then the CO2 level has risen enough over the last 30 years to make the resulting temperature increase obvious to anyone with a thermometer. But, that clearly has not happened. If there has been any temperature increase it has been no more than what occurs naturally. You are no doubt aware that the Global Circulation Models used to study air temperature near the surface do not handle clouds well. (Everyone can observe that clouds make a difference in temperature.) So the modelers make some assumptions. One assumption they make is that the amount of water vapor in the air increases due to the slight change in temperature driven by CO2. It is sad to report that no one can find evidence that the amount of water vapor remaining in the air has increased. So that assumption doesn’t look very good. They also assume that a lot more cirrus clouds develop cirrus clouds don’t reflect much sunlight, but absorb a lot infrared radiation. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be happening either. Then there is the fact that the global warming hypothesis says that the temperature increase caused by increased CO2 levels should occur primarily at higher latitudes. But recent investigations show that Greenland is colder now that it was in 50 years ago. (I know, Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer recently went to Greenland and saw “proof that global warming is happening.” How those two eminent scientists could determine that is a mystery to me, since Greenland is 3 or 4 degrees F colder than 50 years ago on the coast, and even colder that that in the interior. Then there is the South Pole: temperature there is falling every year. So, that doesn’t look very good for the hypothesis either. Now there is a theory that the brown smog covering China and India is causing warming. Do the GCM’s include that? I doubt it. There is another matter that bothers me, and should have bothered you, but obviously didn’t: The IPCC and the supporters of the catastrophic global warming hypothesis are not forthcoming with their data and methods. That is not the way science is done. Consensus is a political thing, and has nothing to do with science. The global warmers are acting more like snake oil salesmen than scientists.

One factually incorrect aspect of your story is that the global warming deniers are lavishly funded. According to Senator Inhofe governments and others have spent $50 billion supporting the global warming supporters, while the deniers have been funded at $19 million. That sounds like David versus Goliath. That business about offering $10,000 to write a paper was not impressive to me. I’ve written about two dozen, and they cost a lot more than $10,000 each. My com[pany had to pay more than that to get one published in an ASME journal.

I suggest that the next time you write about global warming that you get inputs from some of the evil deniers. Try some of these guys:

Richard Lindzen
Fred Singer
Roy Spencer
David Evans
Tad Murty
Roger Pielke
Freeman Dyson
Reid Bryson
Timothy Ball
David Bellamy
Hans Labohm
Chris Freitas
Tom Harris
Bruno Wiskel
Nir Shaviv
Ian Clark
Bruce Merrifield
Tom Segalstad

I don’t know whether there is any global warming or not, and I don’t think Al Gore or the IPCC do either. But, I am confident that catastrophic global warming is not happening. However, if you keep helping beat down the evil deniers, then maybe the UN will be able to take over our economy and Al Gore will make a billion selling carbon credits before it becomes obvious to everyone that the sky is not falling. Or, if we let them destroy our economy quickly enough, Al will be able to claim that he prevented the catastrophe.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Here is a letter I sent to the Ft. Worth Star Telegram today:

I haven’t seen it reported in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, but recently NASA revised the temperature history of the United States. The revision was made after a computer error was pointed out to them by Stephen McIntyre, one of the men who debunked the Mann “hockeystick” curve which purported to show Earth’s surface temperature for the last 1000 years. It is interesting that 1998 is no longer the warmest year on record; that distinction now belongs to 1934. The revised list of hottest years, starting with the hottest is: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, and 1939. Notice that nine of the ten hottest years have no longer occurred since 1995. In fact, five of the ten hottest years came prior to 1940.

James Hansen of NASA refused to provide McIntyre the algorithm by which they had determined past temperature, but after the error was pointed out others at NASA made the correction. Mann had also refused to provide his data to other researchers until he was forced to do so by Congressman Joe Barton. One of the disturbing characteristics of those who promote the hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is that they refuse to share their work for others to critique.

The supporters of the CO2 induced runaway temperature predictions for Earth will point out that the revised temperature history is only for the United States, not the entire world. But, if the record in the United States was in error, imagine what might be found in a closer examination of temperature history in primitive places such as Central Africa, Eastern Asia, and the Middle East. Now the prediction is that temperatures will runaway upward starting in 2009. Previously the runaway was going to start in 1990, but somehow natural processes got in the way. We’ll have to wait and see what actually happens. My guess is that natural processes will get in the way again.

Friday, August 10, 2007

A lot of people are incredulous when I tell them tha it against the law to defend yourself when being attacked or robbed in Great Britain. Here is an example I got from Blue crab boulvard.

Patrick Walsh, 56, awoke to find an intruder in his flat on Corkland Road in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester.
Police say "following an exchange of words" the 43-year-old suspect fell 35ft from the fourth floor window on to the pavement below. He suffered massive injuries from the fall, at around 6.10am on Monday, and died in hospital.

It is thought the pair got into an argument. A neighbour from a nearby property, who asked not to be named, said: "I was up at around that time, and I did hear a noise like a window being broken."

Another local said: "If the guy who fell out of the window was breaking into the property then why was the homeowner arrested?"

I liked the case where the homeowner armed with a shotgun confronted two burglars. One of them grabbed the gun which dicharged wounding his buddy. The homeowner was sentenced to prison while the burglars got off lightly. Later the homeowner was denied parole because he was deemed to be a threat to burglars. The name over there should be changed to Once-But-No-Longer Great Britain.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

The latest climate news is that the "hottest" year on record is now 1934 rather than 1998. It seems that there was a "software" glitch that caused the error. The same guy who found the error in the "Mann hockeystick" found this error. As in the previous case, it was difficult to get information from the global warming advocate (in this case the famous Dr. James Hansen, the man who goes on TV at every opportunity to say Bush has silenced him) about how the temperature was computed. It is odd to me that the global waming advocate scientists won't give their data or methods to other investigators. This is odd behavior for scientists, who usually publish all their data, not just their conclusions. That is one reason to doubt the global warming hysteria. Al Gore says the issue has been settled. I wonder when the free and open debate happened. Apparently only true believers were invited. At any rate, here is the NASA's new ranking of the hottest years; 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, 1939. Do you see a trend in that data? From what I've observed so far, 2007 is not going to be a hot year. I think that there is no doubt that man has had significant impact on climate through the centuries. I'm sure Hansen and friends are massaging the data to give Al Gore more ammunition for his attempt to put the world under control of United Nation bureaucrats. Even if I thought CO2 emissions were a significant threat to mankind, I'd be opposed to the vision of Gore, Hansen, and the IPCC. They are fascists who want state control of everything.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

According to the news, about 4000 people per week are leaving Great Britain. Most are young professionals or skilled workers. They are mostly going to Australia, Canada, and South Africa. The influx of third world (mostly Muslims), high crime, and high taxes seem to be the reason cited bu most. It looks more and more like Muslims will succeedd in taking control of Great Britain.

If the US continues to have the current rate of illegal immigration the same thing could happen in Texas in 30 years or so. I wonder if Australia will be willing to let Americans in when people want to leave here. They won't take old people like me anyway, and I won't be alive in 30 years anyway. But, I worry about my grand daughter.

Friday, August 03, 2007

A reporter in Oakland working on a story about Muslims was ambushed and sho dead. That makes sense. Muslims kill anyone who criticizes them. Muslims are unique in that they are the only religion that advocates killing those who criticize them.

As expected, Democrats are blaming the Minneapolis bridge collapse on President Bush. One Senator said it was because of the Iraq war. It happens that highway department funding for Minnesota has increased by 46% under Bush. But no matter, everything that goes wrong is Bush's fault. It appears that Federalism is ending. The Federal government is responsibe for everything. in the minds of Liberals. Washington knows best. We might as well dismantle city, county, and state governments.