Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Today I played golf pretty well for me, and beat my age for the first time. I had 34-36 for 70 on a really short golf course (par 66). I was lucky and made six putts in the 15 to 30 foot range. (My best score ever on this golf course was 69, but that was years ago.)

The recent Southern California fires have been attributed to "global warming" by a lot of folks such as Senator Harry Reid and TV commentator Anderson Cooper. Those two are partisan Democrats, but apparently have little scientific training. Both say the fires "prove" the global warming hypothesis. Here is some interesting data that the commentators seem unaware of. The average high temperature on 23 September in Escondido is 79 F while this year the high was 84 F, but in 1929 the high was 102 F. So, how did the scrub brush in Southern California know that global warming was afoot, since it had been much hotter in the past? When I lived in Southern California back in the 1950's I remember watching the fires all around Los Angeles; there was a significant glow at night, and a lot of smoke during the daytime. One difference between then and now is the number of people living in the region. There are about six times as many people now, and people live out in the brush now in what was open space then.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

I have found what appears to be an explanation of the difference in the percentage of the so-called "greenhouse gas" effect attributed to CO2 between the "believers" and the "skeptics" of the global warming theory. (The "believers" cite 20% while the "skeptics" cite 3 or 4 %; this difference matters a lot in the anticipated effect on average surface temperature due to higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.)

A paper by J.T. Kiehl and K. E. Trenberth titled "Earth's Annual Global Mean Energy Budget" concludes that the CO2 effect is 20% of the total "in clear air." The point in the paper is that water vapor only contributes 60% when there are no clouds, the clouds containing liquid water rather than water vapor. This explains the 20% for CO2, but is a bit dodgy because the water in the clouds is always in the atmosphere. In fact, oceans are cloudy about 65% of the time while land areas are cloudy about 50% of the time according to my missile design handbook. It is a bit misleading to ignore the clouds. It might also be noted that the Global Circulation Models used for IPCC projections of future climate do a poor job of predicting cloud action.

The Kiehl and Trenberth paper has CO2 absorption centered at 15 microns, but has a CO2 absorption band of 12 to 18 microns. That is much wider than my missile design handbook, which only shows about a 1 micron band. The larger band seems to be predicated on the assumption that higher concentrations of CO2 will cause the molecular spin to change, causing the wider bandwidth. I've got to think about that one for a while. It has been 40 years since I did any work on the thermodynamics of matter. (I can accept that argument for the Venus atmosphere because it is much hotter than the Earth's atmosphere, so the CO2 molecules would have more spin action.)

Of course the "skeptics" case rests on more than just the level of CO2 absorption of infrared radiation. Basically, the argument is that radiation to the atmosphere is not the dominant mechanism for transfer of heat from the surface to the atmosphere. Convection heat transfer to the air due to wind, and latent heat (ie, evaporation of water on the surface and condensation at higher altitudes) are also major heat transfer mechanisms. There are some other major issues that I have not seen addressed, such as why the average temperature has not been going up with increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere as required by the CO2 warming theory.

Monday, October 29, 2007

The supporters of global warming, particularly the MSM who are mostly not scientifically literate, routinely fail to mention that water vapor is the primary "greenhouse gas." Here is a table showing the contribution of the important "greenhouse gases." (Note that water vapor provides 95% of the effect.) This is from the following site:

http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html


Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "GreenhouseEffect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) % of all %Natural % Manmade
adjusted for heat retention Greenhouse
characteristics Gases

Water Vapor 95.000 94.999 0.001

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618 3.502 0.117

Methane (CH4) 0.360 0.294 0.066

Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950 0.903 0.047

Misc. Gases (CFC's, etc.) 0.072 0.025 0.047

Total 100.00 99.72 0.28

If we assume that the total "greenhouse gas effect" on the Earth's average temperature is the usually accepted value of 60 F, then the addition due to manmade CO2 is about 0.07 F, and the total effect from all manmade greenhouse gases is about 0.17 F.

The IPCC seems to use a value of 20% for the greenhouse effect of CO2, which is part of the reason why the IPCC predictions indicate significant average temperature increases with predicted increases in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

The fact that water vapor is rarely acknowledged as the major greenhouse gas by supporters of the global warming dogma has always bothered me; it is a tipoff that they are acting in the manner of snakeoil salesmen. I suspect they would say that they don't want to confuse the ignorant masses.

Democrats are beating the drum now for socialized medicine. Most people in America do not realize how much better health care is in the US than in other countries, even for people with no health insurance. Here is something I got from Coyote Blog. A British National Health Service spokesman is bragging about how good NHS is in response to a comment that 70,000 Britons sought medical care ouside of Britain last year.

A Department of Health official said the number of patients seeking treatment abroad was a tiny fraction of the 13 million treated on the NHS each year.

Waiting times had fallen. Almost half of patients were treated within 18 weeks of seeing a GP. Most people who had hospital care did not contract infections.


Just think, over half of the people had to wait more than 18 weeks to see a Specialist after reference by a GP. This is a brag by the NHS representative. People in nations with socialized medicine actually think that is good while in America we think it is terible. Hillary and the others do not explain what socialized medicine really means. The claim is that lack of insurance restricts access to healtcare for some people. The solution of Hillary and other socialists is to make life more fair by restricting healthcare for everyone, except elites like members of Congress. For people like me, government control of healthcare will mean less access.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

This is from the blog of the Australian Tin Blair.

Lumberjack’s Law: Anything bad that cannot be directly linked to George W. Bush will be blamed on global warming.

Everyone has noticd this phenomena, but I haven't seen it called the Lumberjack Law before.

With Democrats in control, hate crime laws, one of their really bad ideas is being pushed. Most Democrats and a few Republicans like "feel good" laws such as hate crime legislation. The problem with these laws is that they criminalize "thought." If a black person kills a white clerk for no apparent reason while robbing a convenience store, a frequent occurence, liberals do not regard that as a "hate crime." But, if a white person kills a black person, something that is relatively rare, then liberals are certain that it is a hate crime. IN the blog Blue Crab Boulevard I found this editorial by Wendy Kaminer that discusses why hate crime laws are a terrible idea:

The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act is no exception to this rule. By invoking memories of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard's brutal 1998 slaying, it makes a sentimental bid for expanded federal hate-crime legislation covering violent crimes motivated by a victim's sexual orientation or "gender identity," as well as race, sex, religion, ethnicity or disability.

Its prospects are dimmed by the threat of a presidential veto, but last month the Matthew Shepard Act was attached to the Defense Appropriations Bill by a 60-vote majority in the Senate; a companion bill passed the House (with the support of 212 Democrats and 25 Republicans.) Naturally, the bill enjoys the enthusiastic support of civil-rights groups, including the historically civil libertarian American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU has withheld support from hate-crime legislation in the past but wholeheartedly embraces this bill, which applies only to acts of violence and has been carefully drafted to avoid criminalizing pure speech: It provides that evidence of a defendant's hateful speech or associations are only admissible at trial if they "specifically relate" to the offense charged. In other words, speech could be offered as evidence that a violent act was motivated by bias, but it would not be a crime in itself.


Still, distinguishing hateful bias crimes from other hateful acts of violence punishes ideas and expression, no matter how scrupulously the legislation is crafted. When someone convicted of assaulting one woman is subject to an enhanced prison sentence or a more vigorous prosecution because his assault was motivated by a hateful belief in the inherent inferiority of all women, then he is being punished for his thoughts as well as his conduct.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

THe Supreme Court of the United States has five liberal members who decided that CO2 is a pollutant, proving that they are dumber than a stump. I don't know much about the law, so I only questioned the scientific validity of their judgement. Here is an article that discusses both th law and the science. It appears that they are as ignorant of the law as they are of science.

http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/520.pdf

I recently wrote a blurb about why from simple engineering considerations, the CO2 induced global warming dogma is a fallacy. Here is a more scientific discussion of the reasons the dogma is flawed. This is probably too technical for Al Gore to understand. (One of the things that has always troubled me in papers by believers in the dogma is the representation of heat being radiated from the cold atmosphere back to the warmer earth. That is discussed in this paper.):

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf

Friday, October 26, 2007

Here is an article that everyone interested in global warming should read. If you are a member of the global warming cult you won't believe it, but try to keep an open mind.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/Carbon.htm

Thursday, October 25, 2007

I haven't been able to figure out what is meant by the global average temperature that is increasing according to the news media, though not according to the actual data that is presented. It turns out the average is based on readings from scattered sites around the world. The average is simply the maximum reading for the day added to the minimum reading, and then divided by 2. That could in fact be the average for the day for that site, but in general is not. In the vast majority of cases, if the temperature were recoded continuously and then integrated to get the average, it would be different from the average of the highest and lowest measurements of the day. Here in Texas during the Summer I've seen days when it was 100 F from noon until midnight, with temperature falling to 75 F at 6 AM and then rising to 100 F by noon. The max-min average is 87.5 F, but the true average is 93.75 F. During the winter the actual average could be lower than the simple max-min average. It is not clear to me that the reported average temperature has any significance at all. Particularly when daily temperature swings are 25 to 30 F, and the change in average temperature is less than 1 F over a century. Near Wichita Falls Texas there was once a temperature of 100 F at noon, and 0 F at midnight, a 100 F change in 12 hours. In such a case it is hard to see how a 1 F change in the average could even be detected.

At this point it appears that the hurricane season is a bust for the global warming crew. Once again, just like last year, there have been far fewer hurricanes than predicted. It was predicted that 2006 and 2007 would have far more hurricanes than normal because of reported higher than normal sea temperatures and weak La Nina. But, climate predictions are difficult. My Grand-Dad relied on the Farmer's Almanac. It was as accurate as the weathermen were back then, and probably is as good for long range forecasts as today's climatologists.

Osama bin Laden has another message out appealing for help in fighting us in Iraq. Apparently Pelosi and Reid haven't gotten the word out to him that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with him or terrorism. MSNBC had a suggestion for the terrorists: a well placed bomb in the green zone is needed to get people here charged up on getting out of Iraq again. I guess the message is that if al-Qaeda doesn't start killing more people the MSM will not be able to effect a loss by the US.

There is a place in Las Vegas where you can shoot a machinegun. I got this clip from the Tammy Bruce blog. They don't say what the cost is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FZGJbvkL7A

When I was an active engineer I used to do back-of-the-envelope (BOE)analyses to check the output of large computer simultions. Often errors in the simulations were revealed. Once I needed to set design parameters immediately, but the results of the computer simulation would not be available for a year. I based the design on BOE analysis, and a year later the computer simulation found that the design was less than 3% of f of the optimum. Regarding global warming I see that Al Gore's buddies in the inherently corrupt UN's IPCC expect huge temperature increases in the future based on projections made with Global Circulation Models (which are large computer simulations). Others who don't agree with the IPCC project more modest temperature increases of maybe 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) due to large increases in the atmospheric concentration of CO2. I decided to try a BOE anaysis to see what I would project. CO2 absorbs radiation at about 2.7, 4.3, and 15 microns based on my missile design handbook. The attenuation of radiant energy in the atmosphere is about 2 dB/km at 2.7 micron, 30 dB/km at 4.3 micron, and 1 dB/km at 15 micron. Based on this, the atmosphere is currently absorbing all of the energy at 2.7 and 4.3 micron, and about 80% at 15 micron. (For a body at 520 degrees R, ie. 60 degrees F, there is not much energy radiated at the shorter wavelengths, but there is a significant amount at 15 micron. The wavelength of maximum radiant energy can be computed from this equation:

[wavelength in microns]*[temperature in degrees R] = 5215.6

so the maximum emission for Earth at 520 R is at about 10 microns)

The result is that a dramatic increase in CO2 in the atmosphere could only cause the absorption of an additional 20% of the energy radiated at about 15 micron. I calculated the amount radiated between 14.5 and 15.5 microns, which is about the interval indicated for CO2 absorption in my missile design handbook Based on that, the Earth's average temperature could go up slightly less than 1 F. This approach ignores the effect of evaporation and convection from the Earth's surface, which could reduce this temperature increase to some extent.

I think that at least some of the climate modelers agree with this assessmment of the impact of increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, but expect some other "forcing" to provide the additional increase in surface temperature. One of these forcings is a predicted increase in water vapor in the atmosphere due to the slight temperature increase due to the increased CO2 concentration. (Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas.) There is vague talk about other forcings but I haven't been able to tell what these are. Presumably these are changes in albedo (ie, reflected sunlight) due to icecaps melting, changes in cloud cover and other phenomena like changes in wind velocity.

There are some problems with the global warming hypothesis that are beginning to show up, such as the temperature now being about the same as it was in 1979 despite a 35% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Water vapor in the air is not following the script, the models do a poor job of predicting cloud cover and wind, and, despite melting of ice in the artic, the icecaps in Greenland and in the Antarctic are growing. It appears that no one is calling the IPCC to account for the failure of their projections to come true, and you are an evil fascist if you mention it. Instead the politicians are charging full steam ahead to get their program in place before everyone realizes that global warming is not happening. I notice that Al Gore's supporters now talk about "climate change" instead of global warmimg. They blame any unusual weather on climate change, even though there have always been unusual weather events. This works because the timescale of climate is much longer than the life of any individual, and is in fact much longer than the period for which we have reliable records, which is only about 100 years. Recent flooding in Great Britain was cited as being the worst in history, no doubt due to CO2 buldup in the atmosphere. Then someone checked and found that flooding was much worse back in 1875.

It is clear that the global warming story is based on politics rather than science. The politicians have marginalized the scientists who support the theory but not the cataclysmic warming Al Gore preaches, and are attempting to silence those who disagree with the hypothesis. We now have a situation similar to what the ancients experienced; high priests who claim to know secrets others are not privy to are demanding sacrifices to appease the gods. The ancients only wanted to kill a few babies or virgins; Al Gore wants to put modern civilization back into a dark age. It is a sad situation.

James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA) has had to retire after the outcry from peecee liberals because he said that it appears that IQ is at least partially genetic. All test data gathered anywhere in the world supports that position, but peecee demands that there be no racial component in IQ. Liberals don't want to even study whether or not there is any racial difference, or if there is a gender difference. Anyone who even suggests that there might be racial or gender differences in intelligence must be shunned, discharged from their job, and, in Europe, put into jail. This is unfortunate becasue, supposing there really is no difference, it would be good to know what causes the difference in results of IQ and similar tests between races. Not addressing the issue at all is ridiculous.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The welfare state seems to me to be one of the major cause of the illegal immigration situation. The wealth of the US is another attraction. Open borders would be acceptable to everyone if it were not for the welfare state and the immigrants essentially getting something for nothing. Life is clearly better for the unemployed in the United States than for those working in Mexico or many other third world countries. People who are citizens of the United States object to having to provide for people who come in for the free stuff. A lot of misinformation is put out about the contribution to the economy that illegal aliens provide. Generally they work at low paying jobs, and do not pay much in the way of taxes. Yet, they have a lot of children who attend public schools, get free medical care in emergency rooms, and so forth. The sheer numbers, in the tens of millions, have a negative impact on the infrastructure all the way from schools to highways, and even water supplies. (Water is in short supply in the arid areas of the West where most of the illegal aliens reside.)

Politician like to talk about the national debt, and how we are passing this burden to our children. Given that, one would wonder why a person would want to come to the United States to assume part of that debt. There are two possible reasons. First, the per capita share of the assets of America is about $500,000. And second, even better, the illegal immigrant gets the benefits of those assets, and, unless he makes a lot of money, doesn't have to pay any taxes to pay off the debt. For the illegal immigrant, coming to America is a great deal since he gets a lot for nothing. It is such a good deal that so many want to come that there is not room for all of them. We let some in legally, but there is no penalty for those who jump the queue, so why should they bother with legalities.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Here is a summary of the factual errors in Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie. The Academy Awards and the Noble Committee are not much impressed by the errors. People who don't agree with the conventional wisdom are "in the dark" according to CNN.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html

According to this article, I made a mistake when I reported that the Northwest Passage was open in 1902. Actually Amundsen went through the Northwest Passage in a sailboat in 1903 according to this article. I'm old, so my memory is not always good.

For those who don't know, Al Gore's company that sells carbon offsets is Generation Investment Management. I've seen estimates that this company will make Gore a billionaire. That's good since he has only made $200 million since he left office in 2001. When Gore accuses oil companies of being "deniers" to line their pockets, does he reveal his financial interest in the CO2 induced global warming hypothesis?

Carbon offsets are one of the stupidist ideas I have ever heard. The implementation will do nothing to reduce CO2 generation, but will result in enormous transfer of wealth from industrialized nations to third world countries, and especially to countries that were part of the Soviet Union. It will also make rent seekers like Gore, along with GE, Duke Power, and others very rich.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

It looks like the World Series will be between Colorado and Boston. The game between Cleveland and Boston is still going, but Boston is way ahead. I'm not a fan of any of these teams, so I'm going to bed before the game is over. The World Series is usually won by the team that is hot. Recently both Colrado and Boston have been hot. Maybe the World Series will be interesting this year, instead of a 4-0 blowout.

Here is a reading test I got from the blog "Club for Growth." I've seen this before, but it still is amazing that this can be easily read. I wonder if this works as well in a language other than English.

http://www.friends.hosted.pl/redrim/Reading_Test.jpg

Friday, October 19, 2007

Global Warming is destroying civilization. Here is something written in 1817 about the terrible effects of global arming. (Wasn't that before the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere supposedly started rising due to man's activities.? Oh, well.)

Arctic Ice Melt ! (21 Dec 2000)

"A considerable change of climate inexplicable at present to us must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been, during the last two years, greatly abated."

"2000 square leagues of ice with which the Greenland Seas between the latitudes of 74° and 80°N have been hitherto covered, has in the last two years entirely disappeared."

"The floods which have the whole summer inundated all those parts of Germany where rivers have their sources in snowy mountains, afford ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened ..."

This is not the latest scare story from the greenhouse industry, but extracts from a letter by the President of the Royal Society addressed to the British Admiralty, recommending they send a ship to the Arctic to investigate the dramatic changes.

The letter was written, not in the year 2000, but in 1817. History repeating itself.

Democrats want socialized medicine in America. Here is a piece from the great Melanie Phillips about how it is working out in Great Britain:

Daily Mail, 15 October 2007

How in God’s name have we come to this? In three hospitals in Kent, at least 90 patients have died from a superbug infection caused by filthy conditions with unwashed bedpans, staff ‘too busy’ to clean their hands and — most appalling of all — nurses telling patients with diarrhoea to ‘go in their beds’.

This unspeakable situation reveals not just callousness towards suffering and indifference to human dignity but a breakdown of some of our most basic civilised values.

Nor is this an isolated scandal. Last October, an internal memo warned the Government that virtually every NHS trust was reporting superbug infection. The health service, in other words, is institutionally polluted.
The Government’s response? To ignore this crisis, and then belatedly to bring forth Gordon Brown’s pathetic commitment to a sporadic hospital ‘deep clean’.

What has happened to the duty of care in our flagship public service? What has happened, indeed, to our sense of common humanity?
Two things have combined to cause this awful situation. The first is the Government’s Stalinist control of the NHS which directly conflicts with patient care. The Kent hospitals focused on meeting waiting time targets to the exclusion of just about everything else; and the NHS management’s byzantine structure ensures an almost total absence of accountability.
But that is far from the full explanation. Much more important is what has happened to the nursing profession, where there has simply been a collapse of that ethic of caring first promulgated by the inventor of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale.

Of course, it must be said that there are still many dedicated and caring nurses of whom Nightingale would be proud. But in general, her ethic has been all but destroyed.

Nursing is not a job but a vocation. That means it is governed by a sense of moral duty to the patient rather than by the self-interest of the nurse.
That sense of vocation lay at the heart of Nightingale’s vision. It was no accident that in her seminal Notes On Nursing, published in 1860, she wrote that ‘the greater part of nursing consists in preserving cleanliness’.
It was not just that cleanliness was essential for recovery and health. Keeping both hospital and patients clean meant the nurse needed to have the most elevated of motives to put the care and dignity of her patients first.

Accordingly, lowly functions such as washing, dressing and administering bedpans — where dignity was most fragile — were the functions that in nursing were invested with the highest possible significance. Simply, these were moral acts.

Accordingly, wrote Nightingale, if a nurse declined to do these kinds of things for her patient because she was so concerned about her own status, nursing was not her calling. ‘Women who wait for the housemaid to do this, or for the charwoman to do that, when their patients are suffering, have not the making of a nurse in them.’

Florence Nightingale belongs in the first rank of pioneering Victorian feminists. But the tragedy is that modern feminism has all but destroyed what she stood for.

In the 1980s, nursing underwent a revolution. Under the influence of feminist thinking, its leaders decided that nurses were treated like skivvies by doctors, who were mostly men. To achieve equality for women, therefore, nursing had to gain equal status with medicine. So nurse training was taken away from the hospitals and turned into an academic subject taught in universities.

This directly contradicted an explicit warning given by Florence Nightingale herself, that her ’sisters’ should steer clear of the ‘jargon’ about the ‘rights’ of women, ‘which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do.’
That, however, was exactly what the nursing establishment proceeded to do. Since caring for patients was demeaning to women, it could no longer be the cardinal principle of nursing. Instead, the primary goal became to realise the potential of the nurse, to deliver equality with the male-dominated medical profession.

In her book The Project 2000 Nurse, Ann Bradshaw, a specialist in palliative care, described how this agenda removed caring, kindness, compassion and dedication from nurse training. Student nurses now studied courses such as sociology, gender studies, politics, psychology, microbiology and management. They were assessed for their communication, management, problem- solving and analytical skills. ‘Specific clinical nursing skills were not mentioned,’ she wrote.
In short, nursing ditched its core vocation to care.

I wouldn’t have believed this possible had I not been forced to witness how my own mother was treated in a London teaching hospital a few years ago. She suffered under a wretched double burden of multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. In that pitiable condition, which meant she could barely walk, she broke her hip and was admitted for surgery to a fracture ward.

If I hadn’t been on hand every day, she would have starved. After surgery, she was unable to move at all in her bed. Yet the nurses made no attempt to help her to eat; nor did they even deign to move her pillow to make her more comfortable. Yet when I protested, I was told by the senior nurse on duty the bare-faced lie that an hour previously my mother had been ’skipping round the ward’.

It was then that I realised that all the excuses about NHS failure being caused by lack of money were a lie. It was then that I understood that there was, instead, a lack of something infinitely more profound — conscience, kindness, a sense of duty to others — and that the image of the NHS as the embodiment of altruism was a grotesque illusion. If you were old and incapable, it was an encounter to be feared.

The memory of my mother’s terrible experience still makes me cry; and I weep also for all those poor souls who have died at the hands of the NHS in Kent, and all those other frail and powerless patients who are being treated so abominably in hospitals up and down the country.

What’s happened in our hospitals surely reflects a still wider social breakdown. Our society seems to have turned into a Darwinian nightmare in which the fittest prosper mightily while the old and weak are tossed aside as of no value.

That’s why we starve and dehydrate some elderly people to death. That’s why we turn a blind eye to the dreadful conditions in so many old people’s homes. And that’s why nurses become managers, and preen themselves as expert professionals in meetings and seminars and conferences and away- days while patients in their hospitals are left to die in their own filth.
And what about the Labour Party, for which the NHS is the ultimate symbol of its own superior social conscience? Are Labour MPs agitating about the filth in our hospitals and the deaths it is causing?

Dream on. Labour MPs are currently wholly occupied with inspecting their own navel and analysing who is up or down in the Gordon Brown/David Cameron circus. And as for the Health Secretary, while patients are dying as the direct result of the system over which he presides, he appears to think that the biggest threat to the future of the very planet is that people are too fat.

Our NHS is now the symbol of a society that has lost its moral compass along with its heart and soul.

(OK, I like Melanie Phillips, but suspect that Democrats and other collectivists like Daily Kos don't appreciate her work.)

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The United States has lost about 4000 men fighting terrorists over the last six years. I saw Representative Pete Stark on TV today frothing at the mouth about our losses, which were for no good reason in his view. (From accounts I have read Pete Stark seems to be prone to ad hominem attacks.) In any historical perspective the US losses have been light. Consider some statistics. Today I heard that 40,000 people per year die from Staph infections. That would be 240,000 people in the last six years. There have also been over 240,000 killed in auto accidents over that period. And, in the US over 100,000 people have been murdered during that time. We have had nearly 1000 police officers killed in the line of duty over the past six years. The loss of military personnel in Iraq is a tragedy for the family involved, but is not statistically significant for the United States, a nation of over 300 million. Whether or not our incursion into Iraq was worth it or not will not be known for many years. If there is no major war with Islam, it will have been worth the cost.

Hostile activity in Iraq is down significantly, though not much is said about it in the media. This could be due to natural caution due to the fear that this is the quiet before the storm. That is possible. But there are some indications that al-Qaeda has given up on Iraq, and is now moving their activities to Pakistan. They have maybe one hundred million supporters in Pakistan, compared to just a million or so in Iraq. And, they don't have to confront the US military in Pakistan. I suspect they are having difficulty finding a lot of people who want to go to Iraq to earn their 72 virgins in Paradise. They thought they could win by killing a few Americans, something that would work if a Democrat was in the White House, but hasn't worked against Bush. And it has cost them thousands of men. Many Democrats claim that the US presence in Iraq created more terrorists than we killed. I think that is debateable. But, for whatever reason, there are not as many foreign terrorists coming to Iraq now. The main threat now is the large group of criminals who were released from prison by Saddam, and returned to their criminal ways. A lot of them have been killed, but some are still operating. We may have gotten to the point where the Iraqi's will turn on the criminals.

Benazir Bhutto went back to Pakistan, and sure enough, someone tried to kill her with a suicide bomb. They missed her, but killed dozens of innocent bystanders. Muslims seem to like to kill other Muslims. I haven't heard that any group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was probably al-Quada or the Taliban. Bhutto went to school in the US, and appears to actually be for democracy. That guarantees she will have a lot of enemies in the Muslim world. When she led Pakistan before, she had a sort of Hillary problem with her husband. In his case he stole everything he could get his hands on. It will be interesting to see if Bhutto and Musharaf can work out an agreement. Bhutto will probably take more action against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Northwestern Pakistan, assuming they don't manage to kill her. The Pakistan secret service has a lot Taliban supporters that will need to be purged if Bhutto is to survive. It is necessary to kill a lot of people before they kill you to govern a Middle Eastern state, something that Jimmy Carter and other Democrats seem never to have understood.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Randi Rhodes, a newscaster for Air America, slipped and fell yesterday while walking her dog. For some reason the left decided she had been mugged by a right winger who wanted to silence the voice of the left. It sounds bizarre, but apparently the left bloggers and broadcasters went crazy about this. I never heard of Randi Rhodes, maybe because she is on Air America, which, from what I've read, has a very small audience. My impression is that the right pretty much ignores Air America. Whatever, I hope Randi makes a quick recovery and gets back to trashing Bush soon.

Today I heard that 99% of lawyers give the other 1% a bad name.

Once a lawyer told me that any contract can be broken. I asked him how to proceed, given that knowledge. He said don't do business with people you can't trust.

Here is a test on knowledge of global warming. I got 10 out of 10.

http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/GWQuiz/Testindex.html

Here is a piece by a member of the IPCC that everyone interested in Global Warming should read.


Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter’s call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures. But Dr Gray goes further: calling for IPCC's abolition.

SUPPORT FOR CALL FOR REVIEW OF UN IPCC

Dr Vincent Gray, a member of the UN IPCC Expert Reviewers Panel since its inception, has written to Professor David Henderson, to support the latter’s call for a review of the IPCC and its procedures.

Dr Gray wrote:

Thank you for your latest article containing your analysis of the limitations of the IPCC and your belief that it is possible for it to be reformed. I have been an "Expert Reviewer" for the IPCC right from the start and I have submitted a very large number of comments on their drafts. It has recently been revealed that I submitted 1,898 comments on the Final Draft of the current Report. Over the period I have made an intensive study of the data and procedures used by IPCC contributors throughout their whole study range. I have a large library of reprints, books and comments and have published many comments of my own in published papers, a book, and in my occasional newsletter, the current number being 157. I began with a belief in scientific ethics, that scientists would answer queries honestly, that scientific argument would take place purely on the basis of facts, logic and established scientific and mathematical principles. Right from the beginning I have had difficulty with this procedure. Penetrating questions often ended without any answer. Comments on the IPCC drafts were rejected without explanation, and attempts to pursue the matter were frustrated indefinitely. Over the years, as I have learned more about the data and procedures of the IPCC I have found increasing opposition by them to providing explanations, until I have been forced to the conclusion that for significant parts of the work of the IPCC, the data collection and scientific methods employed are unsound. Resistance to all efforts to try and discuss or rectify these problems has convinced me that normal scientific procedures are not only rejected by the IPCC, but that this practice is endemic, and was part of the organisation from the very beginning. I therefore consider that the IPCC is fundamentally corrupt. The only "reform" I could envisage, would be its abolition. I wonder whether I could summarize briefly some of the reasons why the scientific procedures followed by the IPCC are fundamentally unsound. Some of you may have received more detail if you received my recent NZClimate Truth Newsletters (see under “Links” on this website). The two main "scientific" claims of the IPCC are the claim that "the globe is warming" and "Increases in carbon dioxide emissions are responsible". Evidence for both of these claims is fatally flawed. To start with the "global warming" claim. It is based on a graph showing that "mean annual global temperature" has been increasing. This claim fails from two fundamental facts 1. No average temperature of any part of the earth's surface, over any period, has ever been made. How can you derive a "global average" when you do not even have a single "local" average? What they actually use is the procedure used from 1850, which is to make one measurement a day at the weather station from a maximum/minimum thermometer. The mean of these two is taken to be the average. No statistician could agree that a plausible average can be obtained this way. The potential bias is more than the claimed "global warming. 2. The sample is grossly unrepresentative of the earth's surface, mostly near to towns. No statistician could accept an "average" based on such a poor sample. It cannot possibly be "corrected" It is of interest that frantic efforts to "correct" for these uncorrectable errors have produced mean temperature records for the USA and China which show no overall "warming" at all. If they were able to "correct" the rest, the same result is likely And, then after all, there has been no "global warming", however measured, for eight years, and this year is all set to be cooling. As a result it is now politically incorrect to speak of "global warming". The buzzword is "Climate Change" which is still blamed on the non-existent "warming"

The other flagship set of data promoted by the IPCC are the figures showing the increase in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. They have manipulated the data in such a way to persuade us (including most scientists) that this concentration is constant throughout the atmosphere. In order to do this, they refrain from publishing any results which they do not like, and they have suppressed no less than 90,000 measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide made in the last 150 years. Some of these were made by Nobel Prizewinners and all were published in the best scientific journals. Ernst Beck has published on the net all the actual papers. Why did they do it? It is very subtle. Brush up your maths. In order to calculate the radiative effects of carbon dioxide you have to use a formula involving a logarithm. When such a formula is applied to a set of figures, the low figures have a greater weight in the final average radiation. The figure obtained from the so-called "background figure" is therefore biased in an upwards direction. My main complaint with the IPCC is in the methods used to "evaluate" computer models. Proper "validation" of models should involve proved evidence that they are capable of future prediction within the range required, and to a satisfactory level of accuracy. Without this procedure, no self-respecting computer engineer would dare to make use of a model for prediction. No computer climate model has ever been tested in this way, so none should be used for prediction. They sort of accept this by never permitting the use of the term "prediction", only "projection". But they then go ahead predicting anyway. There is a basic logical principle that a correlation, however convincing, is not proof of causation. Most scientists pay at least lip service to this principle, but its widespread lack of acceptance by the general public have led to IPCC to explore it as one of their methods of "evaluating" models. The models are so full of inaccurately known parameters and equations that it is comparatively easy to "fudge" an approximate fit to the few climate sequences that might respond. This sort of evidence is the main feature of most of the current promotional lectures. The most elaborate of all their "evaluation" techniques is far more dubious. Since they have failed to show that any models are actually capable of prediction, they have decided to "evaluate" them by asking the opinions of those who originate them, people with a financial interest in their success. This has become so complex that many have failed to notice that it has no scientific basis, but is just an assembly of the "gut feelings" of self-styled "experts". It has been developed to a complex web of "likelihoods", all of which are assigned fake "probability" levels. By drawing attention to these obvious facts I have now found myself persona non grata with most of my local professional associations, Surely, I am questioning the integrity of these award-winning scientific leaders of the local science establishment. When you get down to it, that is what is involved. I somehow understood that the threshold had been passed when I viewed "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Yes, we have to face it. The whole process is a swindle, The IPCC from the beginning was given the licence to use whatever methods would be necessary to provide "evidence" that carbon dioxide increases are harming the climate, even if this involves manipulation of dubious data and using peoples' opinions instead of science to "prove" their case. The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable. The reason is, that the world will slowly realise that the "predictions" emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any "global warming" for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking behind it, is phony. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to be done by its influence before that happens

How many people have heard of the DREAM act that Democrats in Congress are pushing? This is a terrible piece of legislation that lets illegal aliens pay in-state college tuition rather than out-of-state tuition that Americans from another state or legal aliens have to pay. But that is the least of the problems with the DREAM act. It lets anyone who swears that he entered the US illegally before the age of 16 (no proof required) gets a green card immediately, and a fast track to citizenship. None of these iithings are available to aliens here legally. Typical Democrat stuff: if you play by the rules you are a sucker. Don't save money to send your kids to college. Just let them swear they have been in the US illegally since they were babies. Then the government will pay for them. Here is some discussion about this legislation, which is intended to provide an accelerated path to citizenship for illegal aliens and their relatives.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2007/10/15/time_to_bring_an_end_to_the_dream_act?page=full&comments=true

Monday, October 15, 2007

Back before the US invaded Iraq Saddam released all of the criminals in Iraq's prisons. Much of the unrest in Iraq is caused by these criminals. Imagine what the situation would be if the 2 million people in prison were released all at once. An unprecedented crime wave would ensue. Liberals like Brian Williams have not been able to figure out why the crime rate in the US has declined as the number of people in prison went up. (Williams once puzzled about that on a telecast.)

Here is another quiz to see which Presidential Candidate you most closely match.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/select_a_candidate/poll_results.php?race_id=13

I took the quiz, and matched up with equally well at 17 with Hunter, Romney, Tancredo and Thompson. The only Democrat I had any compatibility with was Richardson at 7. I didn't match at all with Hillary, Obama, Edwards, at 1, or 0 with Dodd and Kucinich.

Today on Fox News there was a story about a Federal Judge shutting down construction of part of the fence between the US and Mexico because the fence could interfere with the movement of lizards. This seems odd because the lizards are able to get through fences with ease. The judge acted in response to an action brought by an environmental group. This illustrates two problems in America; first, judges legislate from the bench, and second environmental laws are too general.

The homicide rate in Los Angeles county for black men is 176 per 100,000. That may be higher than the homicide rate in Iraq. Does that mean there is a civil war in Los Angeles?

Some data on the tax rates paid by different income groups show that the Bush tax cuts had more impact at the bottom. The top 5% of taxpayers are payin the same rate now that that group paid in 1990. On the other hand the rate paid by the bottom 50% is about half what it was in 1990. The Clinton tax increase had pushed up the rate for the top 5% from 23 to 28%, while the bottom 50% rate was about the same as in 1990.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

The IPCC likes to brag about the 2500 scientists who agree with the view that the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is causing unusual heating of the Earth. Many obsevrors have noted that many of the 2500 are not involved in physics or climatology. Here is a blurb from the blog Gates of Vienna on that subject:

Al Gore and other global warming enthusiasts are fond of reciting that 2,611 scientists have signed a letter stating that global warming poses a serious and real threat. Yet, only about one in ten of the so-called 2611 scientists had scientific expertise. And only 5 out the 2,611 so-called scientists had training in climate, weather or other atmospheric sciences. That is less than 1/2 of one percent. Excuse me, for being underwhelmed.

Perhaps more revealing is that Gore’s list of “scientists” included landscape architects, psychologists, lawyers, a philosopher, a dermatologist, a gynecologist, and a diplomat. On this flimsy basis, as only Al Gore can, he tells us that the “debate is over” and that there is complete agreement.

The truth is that more than 17,000 scientists (not landscape architects, dermatologists or diplomats) have signed a petition stating, in part, that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” This petition was circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, an independent research foundation that is not funded by industry. This petition was signed by more than 2,100 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, and environmental scientists and by more than another 4,400 scientists with expertise on carbon dioxide’s effects on plant and animal life.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

It is apparent that plantiff's attorneys have pushed the envelope on personal injury cases to the point that if a person is injured, whoever is near-by, and has deep pockets, has to pay. Of course the lawyers get 1/3 to 1/2 of the money awarded. We have seen instances where burglars who were injured during a breaki-n successfully sued the peoperty owner. Here is another silly case reported in "coyote blog."

Joe Meadows was drunk. Very drunk. 0.296 percent blood-alcohol content drunk, 12 or 13 beers worth. Fortunately, he didn't drive in that state. Unfortunately, he chose to sleep it off by resting under a parked 18-wheel truck. More unfortunately, the driver, Doug Rader, who didn't check to see whether there might be drunks lying under his truck at 1:40 a.m., ran over Meadows. Rader had EMT training, and was able to save Meadows's life, but Meadows lost a leg, and sued both the truck company and the store that owned the parking lot. A Kanawha County jury decided that Meadows was only a third responsible for his injury, which means he "only" gets two thirds of the three million dollars they awarded.

Here is a link to a good discussion of why most intellestuals and prefessors are leftists.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/10/intellectuals_f.html

My observation based on discussions with Democrats and other socialists is that they see life as a zero-sum game. If one person does well, that must be at the expense of someone else. That this is not true is obvious if one compares the situation of poor people now with their situation 70 years ago, when I was born into a poor family. The poor are better off now than the middle class, or even the wealthy, were back then by almost any measure. For example even the middle class didn't have telephones; now even the poor have cell phones. Or consider health care. Rich people died if they got pneumonia as a consequence of a minor ailment, and I recall many people who did die. Now it is rare for anyone to die of pneumonia unless they have some severe underlying ailment such as lung cancer or AIDS. THere are hundreds of other examples, but this illustrates the general idea.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The International Court in the Hague has decided that a Mexican who raped and killed two teen-aged in Texas in 1993 and was sentenced to death needs a new trial because the police did not inform him of his right to help from the Mexican authorities. The Bush Administration agrees with the International Court, and the case is now before the Supreme Court. Houston is a sanctuary city where the police do not inquire as to whether or not someone they arrest is a citizen or not. If the Supreme Court upholds the International Court's opinion then illegal aliens more or less have a "get out of jail free" card since if they do not tell the police that they are illegal, then they have a basis for appeal if convicted. The Mexican in this case laughed and bragged about his deed. It has been 14 years since the crime, and still this murderer has not been brought to justice. The Supreme Court decision won't come down until next Spring, so he will live at least another year. It is irritating that a Court in Belgium could override a Texas court. The United States needs new leadership, but their is no relief in sight. Hillary Clinton and the other Democrats vying for President would be even worse than the feeble bunch of Republicans.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

I wonder how many American's know who Saul Alinsky was. Not many I would bet. He was radical, nihilistic socialist who was admired by Hillay Clinton, and was her mentor early in her career. Alinsky had all sorts of plans to bring down the "haves" in America, and to replace them with the "have nots." The "haves" were defined as the middle class. Hillary is following Alinsky's plan. I suspect Americans would be really freightened if they knew anything about Alinsky and Hillary's connection to him. She also worked for the communists for a while, but that is another story.

After writing the above I ran across a reference to this while reading the blog "analphilosopher." This article discusses more about Hillary and Saul Alinsky, as well as Hillary and George Soros, another evil man. (Sorry, but I think a Jew who helped the Nazi's round up other Jews is evil, even though Soros justifies what he did by saying if he hadn't done it someone else would have.)

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/10/hillary_soros_alinsky_and_rush.html

I suggest that readers google "Saul Alinsky" to get more information on the ideas of this evil man and his plans to bring down America. .

Sandy Berger is now an advisor to the Clinton campaign. His security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. So he will get it back in time to work in the Clinton Administration. It is hard to believe that he is so astute that the Clinton campaign would be willing to take him on despite the criticism that is certain to come. The Clinton's must really owe Sandy for taking a hit for them. Whatever he stole and destroyed must have been really damaging to Bill Clinton. He has leverage since he could tell the world what he stole and destroyed and why he did it.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Here is a letter to the editor of the New York Times that I copied from the blog Analphilosopher. This pretty well sums up the healthare situation in America:

From Today’s New York Times

To the Editor:

Who cares what modern health care-delivery methods are called? The elemental problem is that more and more people feel entitled to vast quantities of high-quality health care paid for by someone else.

And politicians, ever lusting for office, are only too happy to conjure the ridiculous illusion that A will get top-flight service from B when C is forced by G to pay the bills.

Donald J. Boudreaux
Fairfax, Va., Sept. 28, 2007
The writer is chairman of the economics department, George Mason University.

Note from KBJ: Try to find common sense like that in a law school or philosophy department.

The progressive tax is pretty severe. Estimates are that the highest earning 1% of the people in America pay more income taxes than the bottom 95%. Of course, the bottom 50% pay no income tax, so they have no interest in tax reductions. My opinion is that most people should have to pay something for the privilege of living in the US, even if it is a small amount. Otherwise they don't have a stake in the country. (I guess that liberals like the idea of no personal responsibility for anything.) Democrat politicians really vilify that top 1% who make a lot of money. My impression is that Democrats would like to drive those nasty people out of the country. Communists have done that, or even killed them, in a lot of countries like Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba. It didn't work out well in those places, and some of them have reverted to free markets. Others, like Cuba didn't, and are very poor.

A new study says there are 38 million illegal aliens in the United States instead of the 12 million that the government estimates. The fact is that no one knows how many there are; not even close. I suspect there are far more than the official government estimate. About 34% of the people in the DFW area are Hispanic. That is up from 2% in 1970. This is even more startling when it is considered that there are also many more non-Hispanics than there were in 1970. In the City of Irving it is estimated that 49% of the people are illegal aliens. As Democrats sign up the illegals to vote, it is clear that the current Republican Party is finished. In a few years the Republicans will have to re-constitute as a socialist party with some sort of difference from the Democrats. The liberal Democrats do not like American culture, and even deny that it exists. With the addition of the Mexicans as voters, the liberals will gain permanent control of the US, and the current American culture will disappear. It is hard to tell what will evolve in its place. There is a high probablility that the white minority will rebel at some point.

Henry Waxman, the thuggish Congressman from California, has been investigating all aspects of the Bush Administration. Now he is going to start on private citizens, something I thought was illegal. Here is a blurb from Instapundit:


Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

"Limbaugh isn't the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio," says a House leadership source. "We don't have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we'll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail."

They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected, we'd see enemies lists, dossiers, and naked abuse of political and regulatory power in order to silence criticism and secure an unfair electoral advantage. And they were right!

If the Democrats win in a landslide next year we can expect to see a clampdown on free speech. If Hillary wins, we can expect to see her private investigators harrassing all who criticize her, and IRS investigations of her political opponents, as happened in Bill Clinton's term. Except she will be much more agressive than was possible while Bill was President. I also expect criminal investigation of all of her political opponents. She will attempt to re-institute the fascist agenda of Franklin Roosevelt (the NRA), that was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Justices she appoints to the Supreme Court will approve of the unconstitutional fascist government.

The Nobel Prize winers will be announced this week. On Friday the Peace Prize will be awarded. According to news reports Al Gore is expected to get the Peace Prize for his work in Global Warming. In my view it would be a travesty to give any sort of award to Gore for his alarmism, but the Nobel committee is probably favorable toward anything that advances the cause of socialism. The Nobel Prizes for scientific achievement are significant, but the Peace Prize is political and is a joke, given that it has been awarded to people who achieved nothing such as Yassar Arafat and Jimmy Carter. The real Award Presentations are made in Stockholm while the Peace Prize presentation is in Oslo.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

President Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill that would provide health insurance to children, and in some states adults, who make up to 300% of the so-called poverty level. The Democrats choose a 12-year old to tell his sad story of how he and his sister would not be here after being injured in an auto accident if it were not for the CHIP program. As usual, there is a lot of deceit in what the Democrats said. (Of course Democrat politicians wrote the kids comments.) It turns out that the kid's family is a good example of why there shouldn't be such a program as CHIP. Here is a writeup on the story by the blog 'Flopping Aces." (By the way, isn't it usual for auto insurance to have medical care coverage?)

The "Poor" SCHIP Kid

Posted by Curt on October 7, 2007 at 1:25 PM
digg_url = 'http://www.floppingaces.net/2007/10/07/the-poor-schip-kid/';

The latest liberal deception is their "tug the heartstrings" story which they rolled out nationwide by using a 12 year old kid named Graeme Frost from Maryland to give the radio response to President Bush. The kid was in a accident with his sister and were severely injured. The Baltimore Sun:
Graeme, a seventh-grader at the Park School, has a message for the president."If I could speak to him, I would say, 'You have to sign this bill,'" he told reporters yesterday during his first visit to the Capitol. "I'm guessing he wants this money for Iraq. Our future isn't in Iraq. It's here."

The blond, bespectacled youth rose at 6 a.m. in his family's home in the Butchers Hill neighborhood of Baltimore yesterday for the trip to Washington.Earlier in the week, two staffers from the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had called to ask Graeme about his health care experience.

Graeme and his 9-year-old sister, Gemma, were passengers in the family SUV in December 2004 when it hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree. Both were taken to a hospital with severe brain trauma. Graeme was in a coma for a week and still requires physical therapy.

Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work.

Having priced private insurance that would cost more than their mortgage - about $1,200 a month - they continue to rely on the government program. In Maryland, families that earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level - about $60,000 for a family of four - are eligible.

The Senate staffers wrote the script for Graeme.

So here are the facts as laid out by the Democrats. The kids parents only earn 45 grand a year and they receive no insurance through their work. Getting insurance on their own would cost 1200 bucks.

But the internet is an amazing thing. You can fact check stories like never before and this one was indeed fact checked by icwhatudo at Free Republic:
His sister Gemma, also severely injured in the accident, attended the same school prior to the accident meaning the family was able to come up with nearly $40,000 per year for tuition for these 2 grade schoolers. Confirmation both attended Park found here using edit-"find on this page"-Gemma. It will take you to an article in the schools newspaper about a fundraiser for Gemma class of 16, and Graeme class of 13.

Here are photos of the school's 44,000 square foot Wyman Arts Center: two galleries, an outdoor ampitheater, Meyerhoff Theater, Macks-Fidler Black Box Theater, practice rooms, rehearsal space, and ceramics, 3-D sculpture, woodworking, jewelry, painting, photography, digital graphics studios, recording studio, and keyboard lab.

In a Baltimore Sun article the family claims to be raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. "Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work."

What the article does not mention is that Halsey Frost has owned his own company "Frostworks",since this marriage announcement in the NY Times in 1992 so he chooses to not give himself insurance. He also employed his wife as "bookkeeper and operations management" prior to her recent 2007 hire at the "medical publishing firm". As her employer, he apparently denied her health insurance as well.

His company, Frostworks, is located at 3701 E BALTIMORE ST. A building that was purchased for $160,000 in 1999. The buildings owner is listed as DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CENTER, LLC whose mailing address is listed as 104 S Collington Ave which is the Frost's home. The commercial property he owns is also listed as the business address for another company called Reillys Designs which leads to the question of whether rental income is included in the above mentioned salary total
The current market value of their improved 3,040 SF home at 104 S Collington Ave is unknown but 113 S COLLINGTON AVE, also an end unit, sold for $485,000 this past March and it was only 2,060 SF. A photo taken in the family's kitchen shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass front cabinets

Lets do the math here. The value of their house is up over a half a million, the value of the commercial property would have to be close to 300 grand or so now, and the family may be renting some of the property out to another company for more income. Now we come to their mortgages which I'm sure cost a bit but this family was able to send two of their kids to a private school at 20 grand a piece, so the mortgage's couldn't be killing them.

About that tuition. Didn't the article state they only make 45 grand combined per year? So after sending their kids to school they take home 5 grand for the whole year. Riiiiight. I smell unreported income here or they received tuition assistance from the Park School which would mean a couple with four children have two of them attending a private school rather then a public school at the expense of taxpayers.

Oh, and one more thing, the cost of private insurance IS NOT 1200 bucks. Rather its 700.

A check of a quote engine for zip code 21250 (Baltimore) finds a plan for $641 with a $0 deductible and $20 doc copays.Adding a deductible of $750 (does not apply to doc visits) drops the premium to $452. That's almost a third of the price quoted in the article. Doesn't anyone bother to check the facts?

This is the family the Democrats chose to represent SCHIP? If there was a more perfect family why SCHIP should not be expanded its this one. They are doing quite well with their own business, a 3000 square foot house with a beautiful kitchen:

And on top of all that they send their kids to private school.Now this is what our tax dollars should be going to!

There are a lot of stories now about the mayor of Atlantic City who is missing. There is some issue apparently about his faking his war record to increase pension payments. Apparently that he was in Vietnam for two tours, and was awarded two broze stars is true. It is hard to tell what he lied about; it was something about him claiming the combat infantry badge when he didn't actually have it, or claiming to have been a Green Beret. None of the articles mentioned which political party he is in, so it is safe to assume he is a Democrat; if he was a Republican that would be noted in the headline. Most politicians in New Jersey are Democrats, and many of the ones in Atlantic City are in jail or are currently under indictment. This is no surprise since New Jersey is "Soprano" land, after all, where the mafia has a major presence.

Here is an interesting article about the physics of the longbow and the famous English victory at Agincourt.

http://www.stortford-archers.org.uk/medieval.htm

The author doesn't mention that at Agincourt the English had the high ground. It had been raining so the attacking French had a tough time going uphill in mud. The English King, Henry V, was essetially a professional soldier. He got on top of a wagon so he could see the entire battlefield so he had good command and control, and could direct his troops to where they were needed. The French leader was in the forefront of his men and was crushed and suffocated as the troops at the rear of the French column kept charging after the front ranks were stopped by the pile of dead men and horses. Thus the French effectively had no command and control. The French Marshal (a professional soldier) argued against attacking the English at Agincourt because of their strong defensive position, and his awarenes of the lethality of the longbow. But political leaders over-ruled him, and relieved him of command. The outcome is usually not good when politicians to take direct charge of military operations.

Some time ago I did an analysis for the sling similar to the analysis referenced above for the longbow. My conclusion was that David could easily have killed Goliath assuming David was accurate. David was about 50 feet from Goliath when he threw a stone with his sling. Imagine a baseball batter trying to dodge a 150 mph fastball thrown from 50 feet (instead of the normal 60 feet). Goliath was 8 feet tall, and probably wasn't very agile. Goliath probably assumed David wouldn't be accurate enough to hit him in the face, where he had no armor. In war it is always good to know your enemy's capability.

The British are having a court inquiry to determine if Princess Diana was killed in a conspiracy. Thereare a lot of people who see conspiracies in all public events. Many Americans believe that the moon landings were all government propaganda, and that there were gunmen all over the grassy knoll in Dallas when President Kennedy was shot. In the case of Princess Diana's death, the only plausible way it could have been a conspiracy is if the driver of her car was on a suicide mission. So, if Henri Paul was a Muslim it could be possible that it was a conspiracy. If he was a Muslim, an investiagtion might be in order; otherwise it is a waste of time and money. After all, a finding by the court that there was no conspiracy won't change the mind of those who believe in conpiracies. It will simply enlarge the group of people thought to be involved in the conspiracy.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

There is good news from a poll today. About 60% of Democrats would like to see the US "win" in Iraq. Only about 20% want the US to lose, and the other 20% are uncertain. About 50% of Americans are Democrats, so that means that something around 10% of Americans want us to lose. I wonder how many Americans wanted us to lose in World War II? I'll bet it was less than 1%. Something has gone wrong here, and I don't think George Bush is responsible. It is the whole movement of 'multiculturalism," "diversity," and political correctness.

I use the pronouns "us" and "we" referring to Americans even though opinion makers like Katie Couric are opposed to doing that. I wonder if she is one of the Democrats that want us to lose.

At the same time, the percentage of Muslims that think that jihad, killing civilians, and terrorism is a good thing is down to 25%. That leaves a lot of people who are OK with killing us.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Rush Limbaugh "phony soldier" story is really curious to me. I don't listen to talk radio, so I never hear Limbaugh. But I listened to a clip of the Limbaugh show that included the "phony soldier" discussion. It was clear that Limbaugh was not calling soldiers who didn't agree with the war phonies. I thought it was interesting that John Kerry and Tom Harkin are criticizing Limbaugh over this. Kerry's "winter soldier" testimony to Congress during the Vietnam War involved a lot of people who truly were phonies in the sense that the stories they told were untrue, and some had never been to Vietnam. Harkin claimed to have flown combat missions in Vietnam, something he had not done though he was a military pilot. I wonder about the Democrats and the public; are the Democrats correct in their assumption that people will take them at their word without investigating for themselves? If they really believe that then it is no doubt because the MSM will use their talking points without criticism.

Last night my wife and I went to hear a speech by the head of Morgan Stanley's asset allocation group. The talk was interesting, and the speaker didn't appear to be selling anything specific. He made a point I had not thought about before. He said that, while the government's estimate of inflation at 2 or 3 % is probably correct for people making the average salary of $40,000 per year, for the people at the talk the real inflation rate is more like 10% per year. The reason is that this group of people is interested in things like sending children to presigious colleges and health care, and these things are increasing in cost at a high rate.

He also talked about the likely increase in population of the world over the next 40 years, and that water is about to become a more important commodity than gold. I have seen estimates that the population of North Texas will double over the next 30 years, and increase of 6 million people. Most of the increase will be from Mexico, but there will also be some coming from places like California. If that many people actually come to North Texas, I wonder where the water they need will come from. This appears to be a major issue to me.

Monday, October 01, 2007

I have studied the theory of carbon dioxide induced global warming for 30 years, and am convinced that it is not now a serious concern. I think that James Hansen, Mann, and other supporters of the catacysmic global warming theory suffer from "confirmation bias." As a result they unconsciously massage data to verify what they believe is happening. Here is an example of that from the blog "flopping aces:"

In 2006, an article appeared in Science magazine reconstructing the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere back to 800 AD based on 14 smoothed and normalized temperature proxies (e.g., tree ring records). Osborn and Briffa proclaimed at the time that “the 20th century is the most anomalous interval in the entire analysis period, with highly significant occurrences of positive anomalies and positive extremes in the proxy records.” Obviously, concluding that the Northern Hemisphere has entered a period of unprecedented warmth is sure to make the news, and indeed, Osborn and Briffa’s work was carried in papers throughout the world and was loudly trumpeted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that publishes the journal Science.


A recent issue of Science contains an article not likely to receive any press coverage at all. Gerd Bürger of Berlin’s Institut für Meteorologie decided to revisit the work of Osborn and Briffa, and his results raise serious questions about the claim that the 20th century has been unusually warm. Bürger argues that Osborn and Briffa did not apply the appropriate statistical tests that link the proxy records to observational data, and as such, Osborn and Briffa did not properly quantify the statistical uncertainties in their analyses. Bürger repeated all analyses with the appropriate adjustments and concluded “As a result, the ‘highly significant’ occurrences of positive anomalies during the 20th century disappear.” Further, he reports that “The 95th percentile is exceeded mostly in the early 20th century, but also about the year 1000.” Needless to say, Gerd Bürger is not going to win any awards from the champions of global warming – nothing is more sacred than 20th century warming!

When I was a boy, my grandfather used to explain to me how Roosevelt and the Democrats were anti-capitalist fascists. Modern Democrats like Obama and Clinton are still fascists. If you don't believe that, just listen to their rhetoric as they say that individual rights must be subordinated to the common good, and call for more authoritarian policies. Most people don't seem to understand what a fascist is because of the successful Democrat and MSM characterization of Republicans as fascists. Historians are beginning to tell the truth about Roosevelt, as in Amity Shlaes book, "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression."

Here is a comment I got from "coyote blog:"

I have elaborated a number of times on the parallels between the National Recovery Act and Mussolini-style fascism, as well as the frank admiration Roosevelt had for what Mussolini was doing in Italy.

David Boaz goes into much more detail

Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices.…Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.”

The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”