Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Friday, February 29, 2008

This is pretty funny, so I copied it from American Thinker. Basically the Australian "Greenies" are concluding that we are doomed, doomed. James Hansen had previously warned that if we didn't stop all CO2 emissions by 2008 we would have passed the "tipping point" from which we are doomed to burn up or drown. (That was before the temperature turned down; I have not yet read about the "Greenies" explanation of why the temperature went down.)

Here Come the Green Car-Jackers
By Marc Sheppard

No amount of energy efficiency will ever do the trick -- the only way to save the planet is to surrender your car altogether. That's the conclusion reached by a group of Australian energy experts from last week's partial release of Professor Ross Garnaut's long-awaited climate change report.


You may recall that this was the very analysis Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told last year's Bali conference he must await before embracing specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Well, the wait is over, the cherry-picked facts are in and the hysteria is in full bloom. As reported by The Age:


"Based on the latest science, the report warns that the world is speeding towards more dangerous levels of climate change than previously thought, levels that are a byproduct of increasing carbon dioxide emissions that are a consequence of unexpectedly high growth in the world economy, particularly China. This, [Garnaut] suggests, renders the Bali framework for tackling climate change inadequate and means that emission cuts will have to be deeper, and sooner. If nothing is done, it will be to the greater cost to Australia, and the world." [my emphasis]


Deeper and sooner seem to be the trend of late, as does the magic number 450 as the threshold we dare not cross.


But, based on the latest science? And they refer to anthropogenic global warming skeptics as the deniers?


For the record, here's the latest science.


Following a rapid rise between 1978 and 1998 corresponding to exceptionally high solar activity, global temperatures were flat between 1998 and 2006 and the planet has just experienced its coldest January in 15 years. China is suffering through its coldest winter in 100 years, the same winter which saw the first snow ever recorded falling on Baghdad. Antarctic ice is currently at record levels. New Englanders are digging out nonstop from record snowfall. And similar signs of a cooling trend are being reported worldwide.


Adding empirical measurement to scientific observation, intrepid Meteorologist Anthony Watts recently compiled the results of four "major well respected indicators" to arrive at a global average temperature drop between January 2007 and January 2008 of 0.6405°C. That figure represents the single fastest temperature change ever recorded in either direction.


And even though all of these "cooling" indicators coincide quite neatly with recently diminished solar activity, the Big Green Scare Machine continues its mission to control world economies by fomenting blind hysteria about manmade atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Okay, that last part was part science, part analysis.


Nonetheless, Monash University Associate Professor Damon Honnery takes Garnaut's warning to limit carbon dioxide emissions to 450 parts per million (ppm) in order to achieve a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by mid century, very seriously. "The car is doomed," he explained to news.com.au:


"People are going to have to fundamentally change the way they think about travel and make much more use of non-motorised travel such as cycling and walking."


Really? But surely motoring around in one of those cute little politically-correct greenie-adored hybrid cars would still be eco-dandy, right? Not so fast, warns the professor:


"Our calculations show that not even the best combination of fuel efficiency, hybrid and electric cars, alternative fuels and car pooling could provide the reductions needed to meet the 2050 targets for avoiding dangerous climatic change." [my emphasis]


But what about all those smug faces I'd see leering up at me from the seats of their Prius's - weren't they already doing their part to save the world from me and my SUV? Are these selfless earth-savers to now be told that the sacrifices that the UN, Greenpeace and other fellow greenies worldwide insisted they accept were ultimately for eco-naught?


And what of us non-suckers? Granted, some of these initiatives may ultimately pay off in consumer savings and "energy independence" down the road, but surely these are matters best left to market forces, not group-think fiat.


And yet we all pay for the disastrously wasteful "carbon debt" consequences of ill-planned eco-schemes the likes of ethanol initiatives. Didn't recent studies predict that the release of carbon through conversion of forests, grasslands, and food cropland into biofuel cropland may take decades or, perhaps, centuries to offset through biofuel usage? What's the point if they'll soon want our keys, too? And then there's that little matter of food shortages in developing nations caused by governments coercing farmers to grow biofuel crops rather than food in the interest of greed and green geopolitics.


Of course, if they really want our hand before we've even offered a finger, even green believers should wonder when they might come for the arm. Might a similarly duplicitous incremental bait-and-switch be in play with regard to electric plants or other supposed GHG producers? After all, the report repeats the tired dogma of blaming global warming on "unexpectedly high growth in the world economy." Mightn't carbon taxes, cap-and-trade exchanges and forced investment in currently non-existent carbon capture-and-sequestration also be intentionally designed to fail, in favor of even harsher regulation and socialistic control?


Fear not, you say, for they're obviously targeting cars because citizens have a slew of alternate modes of transportation available - right?


Did I neglect to mention that Honnery's colleague, Dr Patrick Moriarty, asserts that even a "near-total shift from the private car to public transport" would still not represent sufficient sacrifice? No, says he, in order to meet the emission targets recommended by Garnaut, we'll also need to put the kibosh on air travel:


"An overseas trip might become a once-in-a-lifetime experience rather than an annual event."


So then, suppose in a media-induced effort to save the planet from the ravages of global warming, you dutifully went out and traded that old gas guzzler for a fuel efficient vehicle, then further lowered your all-important "carbon footprint" by joining a car pool. You then happily switched to energy-saving appliances and light bulbs and resigned yourself to leading a happy, responsible, green life. But now, despite continued data suggesting a sustained downward trend in global temperatures as atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise, you learn that your efforts were simply not good enough. You need to do more. You need to give up your car and essentially forget about world travel.


And maybe that's enough - for now.


You still buying this?

Wake up, greenies -- you're being used as well-meaning pawns by those who have neither your's nor your planet's best interest at heart.


Marc Sheppard is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. He welcomes your feedback.

There is a lot of talk by politicians about "lost" manfacturing jobs. It is difficult to determine how extensive this job loss is, and what is responsible. Some of the loss is due to automation; more capital investment that improves production efficiency so that more output is achieved with fewer workers. There used to be a lot of planners and time-keepers on the factory floor that were classified as production workers who have been replaced by computers. Popular thought is that manufacturing jobs are "lost" to China. That may be true to some extent, but China has "lost" more manufacturing jobs over the past 10 years than there are in the United States. So, something else is happening, and it is automation. There is another subtle loss of manufacturing jobs to "outsourcing" that does not involve outsourcing to foreign countries. When I went to work for LTV 45 years ago, the custodians worked for LTV and were classified as having manufacturing jobs. After Loral bought LTV they outsourced the custodial work. Thus the custodians became "service" workers, even though they were doing the same thing the "manufacturing" workers they replaced had done. This sort of domestic outsourcing is widespread in industry.

Here is a book title that I suggest for any aspiring author who is reading this. (I'm assuming someone reads my rants.) The title of the book that I predict many will write is "The Fall of the House of Clinton." Copyright that right away, because many will want to use it. Or maybe, better yet "The Rise and Fall of the House of Clinton." A subtitle might be "Why the Old Media Turned on the Clinton's After Aiding and Abetting Them in Escaping from Scandals for 16 Years."

Hillary Clinton's campaign for President mirrors her failure to overhaul healthcare in the United States, and illustrates why no one as inept as she is should be elected President. The Clinton's also illustrate why we shouldn't elect anyone as slick as "Slick Willy." Obama is even slicker than "Slick Willy."

Barack Obama is as cynical as any politician seen recently. He campaigns in Ohio on the promise that he will end NAFTA. (Though it is debateable that NAFTA has anything to do with the economic decline of Ohio; taxes and excessive regulation being more likely candidates.) But, his advisors have privately assured the Canadian Counsel in Chicago that he doesn't mean it.

Barack is also trying to shore up his support amonst Jews, who are alarmed at the anti-Israel advisors he has. He says he barely knows Zbig Brzezinski. (So what was Zbig doing having meetings with Syria's Assad?) And he says Robert Malley is really not an adviser even though he is on a published list of Obama's advisers. Samantha Power is not discussed at all, I suppose becasue she left her job at Harvard to work on Obama's Senate staff. In the meantime, Obama is not getting much help from the Arabs. The UAE paper the Gulf News says that Obama will "integrate Israel into the Arab world" by ending US support to Israel in resistance to Hezbollah and Hamas. In other words, Obama will turn Israel over to the Arabs. It is easy to see why the Arabs would think that, given the animosity to Israel of Obama's advisers. Obama says publically that he supports Israel, but we know that he is cynical enough to say what it takes to get the Jewish vote regardless of what his true beliefs are.

I'm not the only one who has noticed that the MSM are not reporting the dramatic cooling of the earth over the past year. (The MSM has not noticed the unprecedented increase in Antarctic sea ice during the Southern Hemisphere Summer.) THe great writer Melanie Phillips has also noticed it:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/22A401E5-32CA-4E9A-872A-0E5EB9AE5FEF.html

Here is a comment I sent to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

I know you are not interested in anything that disagrees with the global warming hypothesis of the eminent theologian Al Gore, but here is an interesting report from a Member of the European Parliament, Roger Helmer, that indicates politician’s lack of interest in actual data. This is from:

http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/unwrapping-the-eu-climate-package/

Unwrapping the EU Climate Package
February 28, 2008, 8:00 pm
Filed under: Climate Change

I attended a European Policy Centre Breakfast Meeting on Feb 28th with Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. It was well attended with about 300 there: I sat at the top table with the Commissioner. He spent some time “unwrapping the EU Climate Package”.

When I had a chance to put a question, I spoke as follows:

“Is the Commission aware that 1998 was the hottest year in recent history, and that climate change now seems to have stalled? Is it aware that new data in recent days from four highly respected meteorological institutes shows that in recent months average global temperatures have dropped dramatically, far outside the range of recent years? Is the Commission aware of the exceptional snow-fall in China, in the Middle East, in parts of the USA?” (I could see that the American Ambassador, Boyden Grey, also at the top table, was following my question with interest). “Does the Commission know that sea ice cover in the Antarctic is currently the highest since records began? You may say that these are anomalies against the trend, but we seem to have an awful lot of anomalies and not very much trend.

“Isn’t it true that we are relying on predictions from computer models which are increasingly at odds with reality, and that based on those predictions we are putting in place policies which will do huge damage to European economies, and impoverish our grandchildren?”.

The guy from the WWF booed. Commissioner Dimas muttered a long reply which contained a lot about the IPCC and the Stern report, nothing at all about the actual climate data.


Helmer forgot to mention that there is now ice all of the way from Greenland to Newfoundland. Maybe he didn’t know because news organizations seem reluctant to spread that news. That is curious since they were so eager to report the absence of sea ice last summer. The poor polar bears are now in danger of starving because they are iced in, as opposed to drowning because there are no ice floes.

You know there are two schools of thought regarding global warming. One is that temperature is now driven by CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (never mind that past temperature variations were clearly not due to atmospheric CO2 variations). The other is that the sun drives the temperature on earth with the important variable being solar magnetic activity rather than solar intensity. The magnetic activity is indicatd by sunspots. When there is not much magnetic activity, there are not many sunspots. This lack of activity allows more cosmic rays (which are actually particles rather than rays) to reach the earth’s atmosphere where they cause cloud formation that reflects the sun’s energy before it reaches the ground. Sunspot activity correlates well with the temperaure history of earth since the last ice age. Recently sunspot activity has been low. Recently the earth’s temeprature has gone down a lot. Advantage to those who believe that the sun is the earth temperature driver as opposed to the Al Gore acolytes who believe that CO2 is the driver. Do politicians care about what is actually happening? As indicated above, they do not. They see global warming (which they now call climate change, since warming is not actually happening) as an opportunity to establish a socialistic world government and to end individual freedom in the West, and they intent to take the opportunity while they have the support of an uninformed public.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Here is an opinion of Obama's plans from a Lebanese newspaper (I got this from American Thinker):

February 27, 2008
Lebanese Newspaper: Beware Obama Menace!
Ian Rock

The excerpts below are from an op-ed by Hussain Abdul-Hussain recently published in Lebanon's The Daily Star entitled "Wake up Arabs, Obama may be a Menance."


A widespread impression increasingly evident in the Middle East is that the election of the Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the American presidential election will serve the Arabs' best interests. This is false. Any US president will have to tackle three main issues in the region. According to American priorities, these are Iraq, a nuclear Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.


The Daily Star dismantles Obama on three platforms, starting with Iraq:


On Iraq, Obama has so far promoted one idea, popular among Americans, though not necessarily wise: He plans to withdraw US troops from the country according to a predetermined timetable, regardless of realities on the ground. Americans have become exhausted with losing lives and treasure. Many Iraqis place "national honor" above anything else. Yet only a few on either the American or the Iraqi side actually support Obama's rigid withdrawal plan.


A majority of Iraqis, their elected Parliament and Cabinet also oppose a hasty American withdrawal. Realizing the dangerous consequences of a vacuum, Iraqis don't seem in a hurry to demand an American withdrawal, even if they are not enthusiastic about the US presence in their country.


Attacks continue on Obama's Iran plans:


On Iran, Obama has made it clear that he would reverse the current administration's policies by sending American officials to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program. But then what?


President George W. Bush's administration, despite its often aggressive foreign policy approach, has so far taken a backseat in dealing with Iran, restricting its pressure to diplomacy and sanctions coordinated with the Europeans, Russia and China. Just as it has been unproductive for the US to go to war alone, it would similarly be counterproductive for it to circumvent its partners through unilateral diplomacy.


If Obama talks to Iran alone, he might well end up handing it leverage to turn the international community against each other. As such, Iran's ayatollahs could inch closer to producing a nuclear weapon, the mere thought of which has so far terrified the Gulf states and their peoples.


Lastly,


In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Arab rationale favoring Obama's election has it that since Obama has expressed his willingness to engage in peace talks from his first day in office, this signals good times ahead. Where Obama stands on the issue of borders, on Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees is still unknown and probably undetermined, which makes all Palestinian arguments favoring his election as yet unfounded.


In sum, its a clear warning to the Arab world:


Arabs should look further than Obama's second name of Hussein or his family's Muslim roots. They should beware of his lack of experience in a region where even experts often fail to anticipate what comes next.

Here is Barack Obama stating his intention to disarm America. (I wonder why he doesn't mention China's nuclear armed missiles?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Some funny things are showing up in European newspapers now. They are beginning to realize that Barack Obama, essentially a European style socialist, is likely to become President of the US. And the propect is not appealing. Obama says he will dismantle the US defense establishment, will stop developing missile defense, any new programs, will get rid of nuclear weapons, etc. This freightens the Europeans because they want the US to protect them, while giving them someone they can rail against.

Obama says he wants to leave Iraq to go fight al Qeada in Afghanistan (and presumably in Pakistan). McCain reminds Obama that we are fighting al Qeada in Iraq. Obama says to McCain that al Qeada wasn't in Iraq before we invaded. That is a non sequitor: what difference does that make now. If Obama wants to defeat al Qeada, he needs to fight them where they are. Bush's policy is to fight them over there instead of over here. That's the best way to fight a war. Obama stikes me as not being ready for prime time. Sadly, he is a good campaigner, and seems to be able to mesmerize a large portion of the population. He is a socialist who is soft on communism and is unwilling to confront the Islamic tyhreat.

I generally agree with President Bush, but I think that recognition of an independent Kosovo was a serious error. I understand that Bush was simply continuing the policy of President Clinton, a courtesy that will not be granted to President Bush when a Democrat occupies the White House. I don't often agree with Russia's Putin, but I think it is obvious that creation of a Muslim state in Europe is a serious error. Kosovo will now become a base for Islamic terrorists. Islam is at war with the west whether we admit it or not. We have three choices: we can fight them as Bush is doing, we can ignore them until their actions become intolerable, or we can essentially surrender by continuing to allow them to infiltrate and gradually undermine democracy and our culture, as many Democrats seem wont to do.

Barack Obama has sponsered the "Patriot Corporation" law which would be a disaster for America, but which Democrats may pass. Here is the Wall Street Journal's analysis of the proposed legislation (taken from the blog Betsy's Page):

Obama's plan for American businesses


The Wall Street Journal covers a proposal that Barack Obama has put forth to give tax breaks to businesses that he determines are Patriot Employers.

Mr. Obama's proposal would designate certain companies as "patriot employers" and favor them over other, presumably not so patriotic, businesses.

The legislation takes four pages to define "patriotic" companies as those that: "pay at least 60 percent of each employee's health care premiums"; have a position of "neutrality in employee [union] organizing drives"; "maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in the United States relative to the number of full-time workers outside of the United States"; pay a salary to each employee "not less than an amount equal to the federal poverty level"; and provide a pension plan.

In other words, a patriotic employer is one which fulfills the fondest Big Labor agenda, regardless of the competitive implications. The proposal ignores the marketplace reality that businesses hire a work force they can afford to pay and still make money. Coercing companies into raising wages and benefits above market rates may only lead to fewer workers getting hired in the first place.

Under Mr. Obama's plan, "patriot employers" qualify for a 1% tax credit on their profits. To finance this tax break, American companies with subsidiaries abroad would have to pay the U.S. corporate tax on profits earned abroad, rather than the corporate tax of the host country where they are earned. Since the U.S. corporate tax rate is 35%, while most of the world has a lower rate, this amounts to a big tax increase on earnings owned abroad.

Put another way, U.S. companies would suddenly have to pay a higher tax rate than their Chinese, Japanese and European competitors. According to research by Peter Merrill, an international tax expert at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, this change would "raise the cost of capital of U.S. multinationals and cause them to lose market share to foreign rivals." Apparently Mr. Obama believes that by making U.S. companies less profitable and less competitive world-wide, they will somehow be able to create more jobs in America.

There is a lot of discussion about what to do about the collapse of the housing bubble. This is something that was bound to happen eventually, the only question being the timing of when it would happen. Speculators were buying houses on the idea that the house could be sold to "a greater fool." This principle works for some people who are lucky enough to sell out at the right time. Politicians either don't understand how things work, or cynically pretend that they don't. Most Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, want some sort of bailout for home buyers who now owe more on their home than they can sell the home for. Hillary would like to have bankrupcy judges adjuct the interest rate for those home owners, probably one of the worst ideas in history. Part of the housing bubble was caused by lending practices, encouraged by the government, such as no money down, adjustable rate mortgages, interest only mortgages, and no credit check on the borrower. Democrats and some Republicans want to find a way to bailout the home owners who are in default (one third of whom are speculators rather than persons living in the home they bought). Such a bailout is, of course, a punishment for those people who were rational and responsible in their home purchase. I suppose the bailout is attractive to Democrats because they really don't like people who are rational and responsible. They like people who see themselves as, and make themselves victims.

Here are some quotes from famous people about their feelings for Barack Obama:

“He walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere.” —actor George Clooney “I’ll do whatever he says to do. I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.” —actress Halle Berry “This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better. This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed... A black man with a white mother became a savior to us. A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.” —Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan

It is obvious that actors are not deep thinkers. Obama is quite a phenomena; Christians see him as the Messiah and Farrakhan sees him as the Mahdi. That makes me very nervous about what will happen if he is elected president. His mother was a communist and his dad was a Muslim. That is all I need to know to be opposed to him.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Here is some more info on "anthropogenic global warming:"

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10866

Our politicians do not seem to have noticed that Al Gore and James Hansen's temperature "projections" are not coming true.

The Southern United States has cooled over the last century. From
CO2 Science here is a temperature record:

Temperature Record of the Week
This issue's Temperature Record of the Week is from Lincoln, VA. During the period of most significant greenhouse gas buildup over the past century, i.e., 1930 and onward, Lincoln's mean annual temperature has cooled by 2.58 degrees Fahrenheit. Not much global warming here.

The rent seekers are getting interested in the profit potential in the "fight against global warming." Here is an input from "junkscience:"

Former RNC head goes ‘Benedict Arnold’ on climate

Former Republican National Committee chairman — and the man who reportedly advised President Bush in early 2001 not to regulate carbon dioxide — has switched sides and is now being paid to lobby for greenhouse gas regulation on behalf of the eco-activist group Environmental Defense.

According to Greenwire’s John Fialka (Feb. 21), ED board member and hedge fund tycoon Julian Robertson is putting up the cash to hire DC lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Mehlman and former Democratic congressman Vic Fazio will lead Akin Gump’s efforts. "Their first mission is to find the right political formula to attract the 60 votes necessary to overcome a likely filibuster threat [of climate legislation] in the Senate," reported Fialka.

In addition to advising Mr. Bush against CO2 regulation, during the 2004 presidential contest, Mehlman told the Toledo Blade (Aug. 31, 2004) that, "If the U.S. had ratified the Kyoto protocol to reduce ‘global warming’ as Mr. Kerry advocated, the U.S. would have lost 1.4 million industrial jobs."

The one thing that can be said for Benedict Arnold — as opposed to Mehlman – is that at least Arnold didn’t go traitor for the cash.

Lobbyists… yuck.


This reminds me about a conversation that happened at a global warming conference. A denier said to a rent seeker, "Do you really believe in this global warming hype?" The rent seeker replied, "Who gives a shit, there's a lot of money to be made." So, the train is leaving the station. Get on board. There is plenty of money to be made before the ignorant masses figure out it's a hoax.

Here is the "where's the warming, Al" video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRXd4KLDxlM

Actually average temperature peaked in 1998. Temperature went down about 1 F last year. That is simply not possible according to the global circulation climate modelers. (One of the major flaws in the models was the assumption that temperature increases starting around 1970 were all due to atmospheric CO2 concentration increases. That appears to have been a faulty assumption, casting severe doubt on all of the GCM results.)

Here are some thoughts about Obama. If Obama is elected President I'll have to leave the country quickly before he sends me to a re-eduacation camp to fix my soul.

Five More Thoughts About Obamamania

Publius Valerius Publicola

1. If Hillary Clinton is going to be effective against Obama, she needs to find a new voice. Currently, she is trying to do for oscillation what Bill did for triangulation. She first found her voice in New Hampshire, and then turned it over to Bill in South Carolina. Then she found it again after Wisconsin, saying she was honored to share the stage with Obama. Then she followed up by (a) accusing him of using Karl Rove tactics, (b) shouting "Shame on you, Barak Obama" and (c) dripping with sarcasm about his feel-good speeches.


She needs a consistent new voice that will make people smile. My suggestion: before every speech, inhale some helium.


2. The Democrats are about to nominate a man who has no experience, has had an undistinguished term of service in the Senate, invariably votes the liberal line on every issue, and thinks he is the change his wife has been waiting for (or something like that). His minister is a guy who honored Louis Farrakhan, and Farrakhan himself has virtually endorsed Obama. Perhaps Hillary is on to something: Obama may in fact be a creation of Karl Rove.


3. Obama's wife thinks we all need a new soul. According to her, "Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that [there is a hole in our souls], that before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation." When Mike Huckabee started talking like this, Democrats thought the separation of church and state was about to fall. There is in fact a good issue for Hillary here: someone is plagiarizing the ridiculous "politics of meaning." Unfortunately, Hillary is the one candidate who can't raise this issue.


4. If, as Michelle Obama asserts, we can't "work on the problems" before we "fix our souls," it may be a long time before the Obama administration can start to work on the problems. The change we can believe in may not come until the second term, at the earliest. Re-education camps might help, but their efficacy is even more problematic than vouchers.


5. Earlier this month, Obama voted in favor of an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence surveillance Act (FISA), seeking to repeal retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated in intercepting international communications relating to terrorism. Obama criticized the telecommunications companies who cooperated as "special interests." In unrelated news, there has been no attack on America in the six-and-a-half years since September 11.


Publius Valerius Publicola is a friend of the people who wishes to remain anonymous so he can continue to work within the system.

I forgot to give the reference to the article on Canada in the previous post. Here it is:

http://hotmedicalnews.com/bad_blood_in_canada.php

There are some problems with the Canadian Healthcare system. Why don't we see anything about about this in the news here in the US?

http://hotmedicalnews.com/bad_blood_in_canada.php

Political Correctness is often harmful. I suppose liberals would say that it is better that a few people die than that anyone be offended. At least that is what is said here in the US in regard to terrorism. As John Kerry said during the last presidential election, "Take the hits."

This article got me to thinking about one of the Democrat's biggest group of financial supporters, the trial lawyers. If we had a socialized medical system, who would they sue? That would seriously cut into the income of many trial lawyers, and might dry up a major source of money for the Democrats. Of course they would be able to bring criminal charges against doctors, as they are doing in Canada. Somehow I don't think that prospect would improve our healthcare.

Here is an article about the Obama cult of personaility.

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2008/02/20/the-cult-of-obama/

It does not appear to me that it is only the "non-thinking" portion of the population that are supporting Obama. It appears that many well-off whites support him, as well as almost all of what are called "intellectuals." Most college professors are Obama supporters. Of course, they are mostly left-wingers, and it may be that "non-thinkers" is an accurate description of most professors who are not in engineering or the hard sciences.

Take a look at comment 3. to this article. The list of what Obama favors is very long, and contains a lot that I am against. Obama is clearly a socialist, based on what he favors.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Here is an article about the source of some of Obama's funding, which happens to be one of Saddam Hussein's former buddies. A lot of Democrat fund raisers are in trouble for accepting campaign contributions from this former Iraqi who is now a British billionaire. There is nothing new in this; Democrats have gotten much of their funding from foreigners for years.

http://cheatseekingmissiles.blogspot.com/

This is from the blog of the Australian John Ray, and goes to my point of the kind of justice we will see in Barack Obama's America (at least, this is justice in Obama's Chicago, where the elite hobnob with terrorists like William Ayers and his wife):

Black Panther, Now Inspired by Barack Obama, Gets only 30 Days For 1969 Cop Shooting: "A former Black Panther Party member has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years' probation for the 1969 shooting of a Chicago police officer. Joseph Pannell spent years living in Canada, working as a researcher and raising a family under the name Gary Freeman. In 1969 as a 19-year-old member of the militant group, Pannell shot Terrence Knox three times in the right arm, wounding him. Pannell was arrested after the shooting but he ran after being released on bail in the early 1970s. He spent years fighting his extradition until voluntarily returning to Chicago this month and pleading guilty to an aggravated battery charge. The case began on March 7, 1969, when Mr. Knox, then 21, was patrolling near a Chicago high school in a squad car. Prosecutors said that when he pulled over and asked Mr. Pannell, then 19, why he was not in school, Mr. Pannell fired several shots at him. While on bail, Mr. Pannell fled to Canada. In 2004, he was arrested, but fought extradition. Last month he gave up that fight, saying he was inspired by the new political climate he saw in Chicago, symbolized, he said, by the support of Mayor Richard M. Daley and other political leaders for the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama."

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. - Winston Churchill

According to the MSM and the Democrats (I guess they are pretty much the same thing) George Bush is the Anti-Christ, and Obama is the Messiah. Quite a contrast.

Obama says in his speeches, "We are what we have been waiting for." Is that a Royal we? Apparently Obama holds himself in high regard. I may be out of step with America, but a racist fascist like Obama is not what I've been waiting for.

According to Mrs. Obama, America needs to have its soul saved, and Obama is going to do it. Personally my soul doesn't need saving, and if it did, Obama is not the one to do it. Of course, those who think he is the Messiah may think he can save their souls.

This election is shaping up like 1964 when the Republicans were soundly defeated by someone who was not what he promised to be. I recall talking to younger friends who said they were voting for Johnson because they didn't want to go fight in Vietnam. I was voting for Goldwater because I didn't want them to be fighting in Vietnam. Johnson won, and they wound up in Vietnam. JOhnson later said that he never said he wasn't going to escalate the fight in Vietnam; the MSM just assumed he was the peace candidate and he didn't correct them. Politicians do not say what they intend to do in the campaign to get elected.

Al Sharpton is a major player in the Democratic Party these days. It is curious to me that a racist such as Sharpton is important in the Democratic Party, and that Hilliary and Obama want to be photographed with him. From Tammy Bruce's blog here are some of the inspirational activities of Sharpton (this is correct according to my recollection):

Sharpton] came to national attention in 1987, accusing a Dutchess County assistant district attorney of being one of a gang of whites who purportedly raped black fifteen-year-old Tawana Brawley and left her smeared with excrement and swastikas. Her claims were found to be a hoax, and after the victim of his defamation won a lawsuit, a court ordered Sharpton and two co-defendants to pay $345,000. [...which he never paid; years later (in 2001), Sharpton's $65,000 portion of the judgment was paid by a group of fans including O.J. Simpson's lawyer, Johnny Cochran.]

In 1991, Sharpton spoke at the funeral of a black child in Brooklyn. The Hasidic Jews involved in the traffic accident that took the child's life, Sharpton preached, were "diamond merchants." Sharpton then led 400 angry demonstrators through the Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights, a marcher at his side carrying a sign reading: "The White Man is the Devil." A Kristallnacht of four nights of rock and bottle throwing at Jewish homes [the "Crown Heights Riots"] followed. A young Talmudic scholar, Yankel Rosenbaum, was surrounded by thugs yelling "Kill the Jew." He was stabbed to death, but before dying, identified the man who stabbed him. This young black, apprehended with the bloody knife in his pocket, was found not guilty by a racially mixed jury during the administration of Giuliani's predecessor, New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins. Dinkins' Police Commissioner, Lee Brown, declared that "Sharpton came close to the line of inciting [to riot] but did not actually cross it."

In 1995 in Harlem, when, during a tenant–landlord dispute, Freddy's Fashion Mart attempted to evict a black-owned record store, Sharpton organized protests against what he called a "conspiracy" by a "white interloper." It was, as one of Sharpton's lieutenants told protestors, a "Jewish department store." After one demonstration, a protestor ran into the store, gunned down several employees, and set it ablaze. Seven, including Hispanics and a black security guard, died.


Note that a black administration in New York would not prosecute Sharpton for obviously inciting a riot. I think that is what we can expect with Obama as President.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Here is a blurb from Victor Davis Hanson about Obama, and what Obama would try to do as President:

http://pajamasmedia.com/xpress/victordavishanson/2008/02/22/the_way_ahead.php

The Obama Message

I’ve now listened to almost every Democratic debate, watched at least three long Obama speeches on C-Span, and read his website. There are two messages I distill from all that.

One, he is an extremely good speaker, quick and humorous, perhaps the best natural orator and politician we’ve seen since Ronald Reagan and JFK—far better than Bill Clinton, inasmuch he rarely loses his temper or pouts on camera. So far, in Clinton fashion, he has not started shaking his finger.

I note in passing he almost never receives hostile questions. His debates have been limited to those with like-thinking liberal Democrats,. His political races were against other liberals or a weak conservative. And in general the press has bent over backwards to be considerate. Bottom line: we have no idea how he will react when crossed, although Hillary’s dig about his plagiarism in the Texas debate made him squeamish and moan.

Two is the message. Early last year, Obama started out as the post-racial candidate, a sort of liberal version of Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell. His handlers even worried whether he would solidify his African-American base (“not black enough?”) given Hillary’s liberal credentials, apparently sure-thing candidacy, and Bill’s honorific title as the first “black” President.

But sometime by December, the Obama candidacy had transmogrified, as his wife and Oprah, in style and substance, vouched for his African-American fides—and suddenly 90% of the black vote was unexpectedly won in many primaries. If his worry in the cauldron of Chicago politics was that he was too “white”, suddenly those fears were assuaged in the current election.

Second, at about the same time the hope and change message began to morph as well into a prophetic, near messianic sermon along the self-righteous lines of something like, “You, America, have a final chance to show that you are still good, after all, by voting for a brilliant African-American charismatic leader. If you don’t, then you are captive to race, and we were right all along about your America.”

The Racial Paradox

Racial solidarity or perhaps racial atonement is the subtext of Michelle Obama’s controversial speech, and the lame meae culpae that followed. So now we are in this Orwellian paradox of seeing Obama’s base turn out in record numbers on the basis apparently of race, but on the other hand the implied warning that if anyone else were likewise to consider that fact, then he would be racialist.

So is he an identity-politics candidate or a post racialist unifier? Or both? It all reminds me of the perennial complaints of the National Council of La Raza (the race) lecturing insensitive others about their unfair consideration of race in matters of illegal immigration. This is very disappointing, because lost in Obamania is the complete repudiation of his original promise precisely not to become a racial candidate.

Instead, in brilliant fashion, he has not only done so to secure his base, and out trump the identity politics of the possible first female nominee, but added a narcissistic and minatory twist that only by voting for someone who denies he is running on race do others have a chance to prove that they are beyond race. The country is soon to be in a position, thanks to the Obamas, that voting for a national hero, with three decades of governmental experience, and prior national campaign savvy over a half-term U.S. Senator is proof of being illiberal.

There are two general themes to his message that he has begun, to be fair, to articulate in more detailed fashion. At home, there will be an increase in taxes—income, estate, payroll—to fund more government health care, education, and general entitlement programs. The old Reaganesque notion that government subsidies can make one more dependent, angrier, and envious is forgotten, along with the notion that lower taxes stimulate economic growth and encourage risk-taking, innovation, and independence. I worry especially about the lifting of income caps (how far?) on social security taxes inasmuch as they were part of the original covenant justifying the caps on benefits paid out.

NAFTA and other free trade agreements would be repealed; illegal immigration would either not be an issue, or more a problem of finding the right way, with borders still open, to grant amnesties. Appointments would hinge on a belief in bigger government and the theme that the individual is currently suffering due to reactionaries in government and corporations, barely housed, fed, or educated, and deserves more federal dollars appropriated from others who either don’t need all their income or didn’t deserve the compensation they were given.

Abroad, there is a general argument that things are going terribly. Forget that the Taliban and Saddam are gone. Forget that we have not suffered another 9/11 attack. Forget that there is far more democratic promise in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Lebanon than was true in 2001. Forget that the Merkel and Sarkozy governments, along with Eastern European leaders, are more pro-American than their predecessors in 2001.

Instead, we are disliked by everyone, and for good reasons. The fact that Iranian mullahs, the House of Saud cousins, Hugo Chavez’s communists, European mullahs, and the Arab street don’t approve of America says more about us than it does them. The solution is to follow more the dictates of European Union and United Nations, where sophisticated internationalists can guide us through the maze of global power, instructing mostly ignorant Americans how and why we tend to cause so many of the world’s problems. Misunderstanding and our own obtuseness explain global tension, not the agendas of enemies who know exactly what they want and how to get it.

Our military is not so much an offensive force, designed to defeat and kill our enemies, that needs support and constant honing; better to see it as a large social organization that we must look at in terms only of proper rotations, health care, and benefits. We are to support the troops not in the sense of doing everything we can to ensure they win, and gain the proper recognition for their courage and sacrifice, but rather in consideration of their victimhood, offering proper sympathy and remediation for the defeat in Iraq, the unwise use of their skills, and the needless loss of their lives.

Hillary Clinto, Barack Obama, and most Democrats do not believe that Islam has the intent of conquering the West. Consier this fatwa issued by the popular Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi on 2 December 2002:

"Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and a victor after being expelled from it twice -- once from the south, from Andalusia, and a second time, from the east, when it knocked several times on the doors of Athens."

Go to this site to read an entire article.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/universal_islamic_blasphemy_la.html

It seems foolish to me to ignore over one billion people whose leaders are announcing their intention of subjugating or killing us. This is particularly true since they are agressively attempting to execute their plan.

At the blog "sweetness and light" there is a photo in Muslim garb on his trip to Kenys (paid for by the US) to help Raila Odinga establish sharia law in Kenya. Raila Odinga claims to be Obama's cousin.

http://sweetness-light.com/

Here is a parable about how our federal income tax system works (I got this from the blog "Flopping Aces"):

With both Hillary and Obama promising billions in freebies, who’s going to pay after they kill the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs?

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten is $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings) .
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.


Democrats are aware of the possibility that the rich guy may leave the country at some time in the future. That is the reason that, during the Clinton Administration, there was discussion of a law that would prevent capital from leaving the US. I expect you will see such a law in the next Democrat Administration after their "soak the rich taxes" are in place. Of course Ted Kennedy will be unaffected since he already has his trust fund in Fiji. I would expect most Democrat politicians to have their money safely out of the country before they enact their capital transfer law. (Such a law is probably unconstitutional but one or two Supreme Court appointments will solve that problem.)

Bloggers are likening Hillary Clinton to Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And, Barack Obama to Chauncy Gardiner (that is, Chance the Gardner) from Being There. Somehow I don't think anyone will liken John McCain to Forrest Gump.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Here is a comment by David Thomson to a blog by Roger L. Simon.

"Between Tony Rezko, Obama's financial godfather, who is set to go on trial soon (so who knows what will hit), and William Ayers, the American people are going to be asked to make an assessment about Barack Obama's judgment to be president and commander in chief. If past is prologue, the Republicans are set to make Ayers Barack Obama's Wille Horton. But evidently, that's a gamble many Democrats are willing to take."

Ayers and his wife are buddies of Barack Obama, some of the large group of unsavory people who are friends of Barack. For those who don't know Ayers and his wife were in the Weathermen terrorist organization back around the late 60's and early 70's. They were involved in a bombing of the Pentagon. Ayer's now says they didn't bomb enough. Naturally Ayers and his wife are University Professors now instead of being in prison where they belong.

I have always found it curious that outside of the United States, Herbert Hoover is regarded as one of the great men of the twentieth century. In his own country he is not so highly regarded because FDR and the Democratic party were successful in demonizing him. Hoover was a far better man than FDR, not only in intelligence and character, but also in compassion. Mrs. Hoover was the first American woman geologist, and was also an exceptional person. Here is a view of Hoover from an Australian.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/a_tribute_to_herbert_hoover_th.html

I heard an Obama radio ad in which he said he was going to reduce the cost of healthcare for a typical family by $2500 per year. In 2006 the cost of healthcare in the US was $2 trillion, or about $6700 per person. The insurance premium for an individual was $4200 and for a family of four was $11,500. In most cases an employer paid a large share of that. Considering these facts, it is hard to tell what Obama is actually proposing. My guess is that some aide came up with the number on the back of an envelope, aand there is no serious analysis behind the claim. For example how is a typical family defined? And is the cost reduction in their insurance premium or in their medical expense that is covered by insurance? It may be that he is talking about a poor family, and he is going to have the government pick part of the cost of their insurance by "taxing the rich." I suspect that is what he is actually talking about. If he is taling about reducing the actual healtcare cost then he would be claiming that he can reduce health care cost by approximately 12.5% (assuming a typical family is three people). The people who want socialized medicine usually claim they can reduce overall expenditures, and they can by limiting access. Their idea is that they are fair because in theory they limit access for everyone; in reality this doesn't happen because the really rich, the guys socialists claim to hate, can go to India for care. I suspect Obama is talking about soaking the rich to pay for healthcare in the near term, with full fledged socialised medicine with the intent of punishing the rich in the future. In reading about him and his writings, it seems to me that he really doesn't like white people, and is out for revenge (despite the fact that he and his wife make nearly $1 million per year).

Friday, February 22, 2008

Barack Obama's church appears to be a racist organization that is committed to collectivism. Personally I don't want a President who has a non-negotiable commitment to Africa (no. 4 in the list), or any other nation. JFK had a warm feeling for Ireland I'm sure, but I don't think he was committed to Ireland. The same goes for Ronald Reagan.

Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
(This is from their website.)

1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY

Latter-day Luddites like Al Gore and other "greens" oppose technology in all areas, not just in energy production. There has been much effort to stop development of genetically modified crops, particularly in Europe. (There seems to be no understanding that all food we eat has been genetically modified by clever people over a few thousand years.) These GM crops are needed to support the expanding population of the world, and will be crucial if the world's temperature continues to fall, as many knowledgeable people expect. Here is an article about the propaganda of those opposed to GM crops:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/125042.html

During the past year the average temperature of Earth has fallen almost 0.6 degrees C. This was not predicted by the global warming guru's, and in fact, is not possible if the greenhouse gas driven global warming hypothesis is correct. Thus, the hypothesis is in doubt. Here is a discussion of recent weather events. (Note that those who advanced catastrophic global warming, now talk about "climate change.") The article below is from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/iWeb/Global%20Warming%20Politics/A%20Hot%20Topic%20Blog/CA833EA3-57A0-4326-9520-B3DDC7C30E1F.html


[The January 2008 plunge in the world temperature anomaly: the full graph (1919 x 1085 pixels) is available here at Watts Up With That?]

For once, scientifically, the Daily Mail is onto something. As we know, its performance over the putative relationship between autism and the MMR jab was less than helpful, if not downright dangerous. Nevertheless, today the newspaper is rightly speaking out where other media have been notable for their resounding silence: ‘Global Cooling: Amazing pictures of countries joining Britain in the big freeze’ (Daily Mail, February 21):

“... it really is remarkable how little attention has been paid to the extraordinary weather events which in recent weeks have been affecting other parts of the world.

Across much of the northern hemisphere, from Greece and Iran to China and Japan, they have been suffering their worst snowfalls for decades.

Similarly freakish amounts of snow have been falling over much of the northern United States, from Ohio to the Pacific coast, where in parts of the state of Washington up to 200 in of snow have fallen in the past fortnight.

In country after country, these abnormal snowfalls have provoked a crisis.

In China - the only example to have attracted major coverage in Britain - the worst snow for 50 years triggered an unprecedented state of emergency.

Large parts of the country have been paralysed, as rail and road transport ground to a standstill ...”

The Mail report then goes on to note:

“We may ... be seeing the start of a period when temperatures reverse their generally upward trend over the past 30 years, as we did in those decades before 1978 known to climate scientists as ‘the Little Cooling’.”

“Global warming ‘sceptics’ ... are inevitably pointing to these record snowfalls as evidence that global temperatures are no longer rising as the CO2 theory predicts.” And,

“... one of the oddest features of this great freeze is how little it was predicted.”

Plunging Anomaly

Even odder, of course, is why so dramatic a plunge has not been more widely reported, especially when we observe that sea-ice has been returning with some vigour, and that polar bears have been starving because there is too much of the G & T chiller [see: ‘Too Much Ice: Polar Bears Starving’, February 15]. And, indeed, the change is dramatic, as Watts Up With That? records:

“The global surface temperature anomaly data from the UK Hadley Climate Research Unit [as plotted in the graph above] has just been released, and it shows a significant drop in the global temperature anomaly in January 2008, to just 0.034°C, just slightly above zero.

This caps a full year of temperature drop from HadCRUT’s January 2007 value of 0.632°C.

The ∆T for the past 12 months is minus 0.595°C which is in line with other respected global temperature metrics that I have reported on in the past two weeks. RSS, UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year.”

Causes And Consequences

What is even more interesting is that we can also guess at some of the climate factors which may be involved in this change, again as WUWT hints:

“We are in an extended solar minimum, we have a shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to a cold state, and we are seeing arctic ice extents setting new records and rebounding from the summer melt. While weather is defined as such variability, the fact that so many things are in agreement on a global scale in such a short time span of one year should give us all pause for consideration.”

Indeed it should. So, what does this cold reality check tell us?

(a) first, it is a timely reminder that climate is driven by hundreds of factors, not just by one politically-selected variable; and,

(b) secondly, the lack of media reporting demonstrates powerfully, yet again, how the ‘global warming’ grand narrative and myth works hard to exclude any facts, or science, which does not bolster the hegemony of the myth.

Luckily, however, climate itself doesn’t ‘know’ about the hegemonic ‘global warming’ myth, and so, as the Daily Mail article rightly concludes:

“To the millions of people whose lives have been seriously disrupted by this year’s freeze, the concept of global warming must seem awfully remote.”

Just so - and we are all watching ‘Solar Cycle 24’ with increased interest [see: ‘Spotty Science’, November 21]

According to David Archibald, anthropogenic global warming is real; it is also insignificant. In this paper Archibald correlates the Earth's temperature to solar activity. He estimates that greenhouse gas has added about 0.1 degrees C to the Earth's average temperature. (This is pretty much what all "global warming deniers" estimate.) Archibald predicts that the Earth is about to enter another cooling cycle that is going to seriously impact the world's food supply. Based on what I know about sunspot activity, I think that it is likely that the Earth is entering a cooling period. Archibald estimates that the "ideal" CO2 concentration level in the atmosphere is 1000 ppm(v), almost three times the current level. At that level plant growth rates will be significantly higher than now. We will need that increase if the Earth enters another little ice age. There is also the likelihood that we could enter another ice age within the next two or three hundred years, which would be catastrophic for humanity. Archibald thinks James Hansen with his "voodoo" science has done the world a favor by getting more scientists interested in climate. This may be true, but unfortunately, politicians, as usual, or a few decades behind and are prone to make bad laws and regulations based on bogus information.

http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf

In last night's Democrat debate Barack Obama supported the DREAM act which would provide in-state tuition for illegal aliens. He said he does not want two classes of citizen in the US. He does not seem to realize that illegal aliens are not citizens. Barack is bad for America in my view.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The NYT has an unsourced story that implies that John McCain had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist. (If he were a Democrat the story wouldn't be worth printing, but he is a Republican, so innuendo is appropriate.) The story appears to be just an excuse to bring up the Keating Five Scandal. A while back I wrote that the Keating scandal was really a Democrat scam, but the Democrats needed a Republican in it to make it non-partisan. Last night on Fox I saw Robert S. Bennett, a Democrat who defended Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky case, discuss the Keating Five. He was the congressional investigator in that case. He said McCain was totally innocent in that case, and that he recommended that McCain be dropped from the inquiry, but, contrary to all other cases he investigated, his recommendation was not followed. He said the reason was that the Democrats had to have at least one Republican under investigation so it didn't appear to be solely a Democrat scandal. (The Senate ethics committee Censored Senator Cranston and criticized all five Senators, but concluded that McCain and John Glenn were just guilty of bad judgement; they were the only two of the five who were re-elected to the Senate.)

One of the curious things that Bill Clinton did as he left office was the pardon of financier Marc Rich. Rich was a fugitive from the iRS who had been living in Switzerland for many years, and wanted to return to the US, but didn't want to go to jail. (This pardon waas opposed by the Justice Department.) Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich who may have gotten $500 million in the divorce settlement (but was already super-rich in her own right through inheritance and a successful career as a song writer), gave millions to Democrats and the Clinton's. Some people thought this may have bought her ex-husband a pardon. Now the Enquirer has a story that there may have been a romantic relationship between Bill and Denise. That Bill is a tough negotiator. When a good looking woman is involved, he wants more than money.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers are enough to make me campaign actively against him. Zbig Brzezinski was a disaster in the Carter administration. Everyone knows how well backing the Khomeni in taking over Iran worked out. Then there is Susan Rice, the Clinton adviser who turned down the offer to deliver Osama bin Laden to us because it would be a human rights violation. Anthony Lake is also a disaster in my view, as is Samanatha Power who seems to think that Israel should be given to the Palestinians, as does Robert Malley. All of Obama's foreign policy advisers seem to reject the notion that Islam is at war with us. I therefore suspect that Obama shares that view. THat disqualifies him for President as far as I'm concerned.

The key difference between conservatives and liberals is simply this: liberals focus on intentions and conservatives focus on outcomes.

Mrs. Obama makes some interesting speeches. I like this one because it clearly reveals that Obama is a fascist:

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

So much for individual freedom. I wonder how he plans on making us do what he commands? I am pretty much retired, but I guess I'll have to go back to work. Actually, I think I'll buy another assault rifle, and some more ammo.

I don't know if anyone has noticed it, but the conventional wisdom that the Democrats, probably with Barack Obama, are going to regain the presidency has put the stock market into turmoil. And I think is damaging the economy. The markets like divided government where the President and the Congress fight each other, and not many laws get passed. This is because most laws and regulations that are passed are poortly conceived, and do not advance people's rights or the economy.

I read the other day that people are leaving North Dakota. One reason may be that it is cold up there in the winter. From "Blue Crab Boulevard" here are some recent temperatures in the North.

* Grand Forks, N.D.: -63°
* Fargo, N.D.: -58°
* Park Rapids, Minn.: -41°

That is too cold for me.

Here is an assessment of Barack Obama's agenda. It is really just the same old Democratic stuff, with no attempt to effectively deal with the serious problems America faces. THe blog "Blue Crab Boulevard" likens Obama to software companies that promise an amazing new product that does everything, something that in the industry is called "vapoware." Obama's program is vaporware. This is from the Washington Post, not exactly a Republican bastion:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902336.html

A lot of Americans find it hard to believe, but one thing that happens in socialist countries is that it becomes illegal to defend yourself. This has happened in England. A few years ago two men broke into a home with intent to rob the owner. The owner confronted them with a shotgun. The men tried to grab the gun and one was shot and wounded. The burlars and the owner were sent to prison. Later the burglars were paroled, but the home owner was denied parole because the parole board said he remained a threat to burlars. Here is another case that happened recently:

Self-Defense In Britain: Not Allowed
Published by Gaius under Crime, World news


A shopkeeper in the British town of Skelmersdale, Lancashire, fought back against a career criminal who was in the process of trying to carjack the man. Despite being stabbed himself in several places, the shopkeeper, Tony Singh, managed to wrestle the knife away from Liam Kilroe, a wanted fugitive with warrants out for his arrest. Singh stabbed Kilroe, killing him.

The police then promptly arrested Singh and charges of murder are being considered.

Kilroe had been given bail last year despite pleas he remain in custody after his trial for the two earlier robberies collapsed.

Lancashire Police issued a warrant for his arrest last week because he failed to appear in court.

But days later, on Sunday night, he was still on the run and targeted Mr Singh's late-night corner shop in Skelmersdale, Lancashire.

Kilroe suddenly appeared at the shopkeeper's car window and smashed it with the butt of his knife before putting his arms in the car and demanding the takings.

Mr Singh refused to give up without a fight and they tussled for several minutes before Kilroe was stabbed in the chest.

Officers later found the shopkeeper in his car with stab wounds to his back and neck and the robber's dead body on the floor nearby.

They immediately detained Mr Singh on suspicion of murder and questioned him for hours after he had been given hospital treatment.

His knife was later recovered at the scene, but it is still not clear whether the shopkeeper told police he had stabbed the robber in self-defence or if it was an accident.

Mr Singh was eventually freed on bail after several eye-witnesses backed up his story that Kilroe had been trying to rob the shop and was stabbed with his own knife.

But Lancashire Police are now sending a file to the CPS for lawyers to consider whether murder, manslaughter or assault charges should be brought against him.

The Daily Mail reports that people who know Singh are outraged that the police are even considering charges against him. Let's hope they talk some sense into the authorities. But it is sickening that the police even arrested him in the first place.


In a nanny state, the police are supposed to protect everyone so citizens do not have a right to defend themselves. Of course the police cannot provide protection, so, if attacked a citizen has a duty to die with grace.

Dr. Vincent Gray is a member of the IPCC, and has been since it's inception. He thinks the IPCC is corrupt and should be disbanded. Here are his comments on problems with the IPCC. (I have come to think that the temperature record used by the IPCC is bogus, and have long thought that the global circulation models used to project future temperature increases are flawed based on my own experience with large thermal models which showed that validation of the models with test is necessary. The projections made by the IPCC mdels 20 years ago have simply not come true.)

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=1

Lord Monckton has released a DVD on why anthropogenic global warming is not a threat to humanity. Note the discussion of malaria and DDT. It is estimated that close to one million people per year died in Africa because of the ban of DDT, and it was known from the start that banning DDT was based on politics rather than science. This is important because the draconian measures that are being proposed to reduce CO2 emissions are also based on politics rather than science. There simply is no scientific basis for the catastrophic greenhouse gas global warming hypothesis. The catastrophic impact on humankind will come from the measures that are purportedly required to save us, just as happened when DDT was banned.

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002771.html

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The way the Presidential election is shaping up, it appears to me that the Democrats have to nominate Barack Obama. The Democrats rely on getting 90 to 95% of the black vote, and cannot win without it in most elections. If they fail to nominate Obama they will lose the black vote this election cycle, and perhaps into the future. If Hillary were to get the Democratic nomination, the political alignment of the United States will be permanently altered, and it will be difficult if not impossible for liberals to implement their socialist agenda.

Mark Steyn discusses the Islamic threat to the west through infiltration:

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20080214_96039_96039&page=3

Sadly the west does not recognize the threat from Islam because the liberals are so invested in diversity and multiculturalism.

The year of 2007 was exceptionally cold in the Southern Hemisphere, and the winter of 2008 is exceptionally cold in the Northern Hemisphere, although it has been warm in Texas. The amount of sea ice in the world is increasing. To Al Gore and James Hansen this is undoubtably further proof that greenhouse gases are about to cause catastrophic warming of the Earth. But, what if it is really the start of another little ice age? Maybe we should be stocking up on food in case the cooling continues. Here is a recitation of the cool temepratures this winter:

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming_or_cooling/2008/02/19/73798.html?s=al&promo_code=457E-1

Today Tammy Bruce has a picture message for Mexicans (and John McCain), a map identifying what is Mexico and what is the united States:

http://tammybruce.com/

I read that 90% of black people are voting for Obama because he is partially black (actually not so much since he is half-white and over one-quarter Arab). I'll bet that a sizable portion of white people will also vote for him because he is white. But, since black people vote for him just because he is black, why shouldn't white people vote for Hillary just because she is a woman, or just because she is white? It irritates me when liberals say that white people who don't vote for Obama are racists. But, I keep forgetting that only white people can be racists, at least according to liberals. Personally, I wouldn't vote for Obama or Hillary for the simple reason that they are socialists based on their proposed policies.

In a not surprising decision, the Supreme Court has refused to review the appeal of the ACLU wiretapping case. The ACLU case is bogus and its intent is to harm the United States. (A lot of people are unaware that the ACLU was founded by communists.)

Supremes Toss Challenge to Terrorist Surveillance Program
Rick Moran

In a victory for the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court threw out a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the government over the Terrorist Surveillance Program:


The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program.

The justices' decision Tuesday includes no comment explaining why they turned down the appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by the group and individuals over the warrantless wiretapping program.

An appeals court dismissed the suit because the plaintiffs cannot prove their communications have been monitored. The government has refused to turn over information about the closely guarded program that could reveal who has been under surveillance.
The next time someone asks you why it is important for the Telecoms who helped with this program receive immunity, you can point to this ruling. The fact is, the ACLU and other individuals and groups who want access to the information gathered by the NSA so they can see how the program works and who is targeted and how are not very interested in civil liberties and more interested in putting a stop to the program by exposing its inner workings. It is a dispicable, dishonest tactic and the court was correct in throwing their suit out.

This bodes well for other suits brought against the program by terrorist detainees at Guantanamo who wish to use the courts to prove they were entrapped or their "rights" were violated by the snooping. I suspect those will also end up in the Supreme Court wastebasket as well.

While I was in the hospital rcently I found out my blood type is A-positive. I looked up blood type on the internet, and found that A-positive is the second most common type after O. While reading about blood type I found that the blood type influences the enzymes in the stomach. This means that the diet most favorable for a person is influenced by blood type. I have always had trouble digesting milk products, and sure enough, that is normal for people with type A-positive blood. The recommendation is that people with type A-positive blood should be vegetarians and not eat beef or ham, but fish and fowl are OK. Maybe peope should know their blood type, so they can select the best diet for them to lose weight. (People with type O blood should eat meat, and maybe should cut back on carbohydrates.)

Recovering from coronary bypass surgery is a challenge. The doctor's operate in a slow reveal mode. I suppose they don't want you to be too depressed. My ejection fraction (the percentage of blood in the heart that is expelled on each beat)is 20%, compared to 60 or 70% normally. It took a while for me to figure out that the nasty medicine I'm taking, with the dosage being gradually increased, is to try to improve the ejection fraction. This week I found out, after some input from the cardiac nurse at rehab that clued me in on what question to ask, I found out that the doctor's goal is to get my EF up to 30%. That is the level at which a person can function normally. (I was hoping to get to a higher EF than 30%). After my heart attack in 1997, my EF was 45%, and the only difference I could tell was that I couldn't sustain running at the same speed I was capable of prior to the heart attack. One thing about my heart condition is that I don't have any pain or discomfort. I feel like I should be able to do anything I did before, but I do have a sort of feeling of fatigue. The doctor and the nurses keep telling me that I still haven't recovered, and that I'm doing too much. I went to the doctor yesterday, and I still have pneumonia. Today the doctor called me to check and see if I'm doing OK. They are making me nervous, especially since I know they are not telling me everything. One thing that bothers me is that I don't have many risk factors for heart trouble except gender and age, and I was somewhat overweight. It is apparent that the only risk factor I have control over is weight so the only thing I can do now is lose a lot of weight, get really skinny and stay that way. The doctors seem to think that it was great that I didn't need bypass surgery until 10 years after my heart attack in 1997. (Back then they gave me a 10% chance of living 10 years, in fact they seemed puzzled that I survived the heart attack, so I have been a success from their perspective.)

There is a lot being written about the subprime mortgage crisis, with a lot of blame being cast about. Democrats blame President Bush, of course, but that is hard to justify. (Democrats like Al Gore and John Kerry blamed President Bush for hurricane Katrina, so they are capable of being downright sill.) The subprime mortgage crisis is interesting because not many of the loans are actually in default, but, because of the decline in housing prices, the home pledged for many of those that are in default is now worth less than the loan amount. The crisis seems to have been caused by machinations of large banks that packaged and sold loans to investors. (These packages of loans were called Structured Investemtn Vehicles, or SIV's) At Citibank some genius who no doubt got a large bonus decided to guarantee to re-purchase the SIV's at the original price. This cost Citibank billions of dollars when the market crashed, and the buyers returned the SIV's. There are some estimates that the subprime mortgage crisis has resulted in losses of $400 billion. That seems incredible since few of the loans are in default, and even if the loans in default are "underwater" the houses are still worth something. But, with the market in freefall, it was judged that it was impossible to value the SIV's so regulations reguired that the banks write them off as total losses. Since most of the loans are still paying, and the houses in default are not worthless, sometime in the future the bank will make huge profits as the loans are repaid, or the re-possessed houses are sold. I suspect something crooked has happened here; it is hard for me to tell who profited, but I'm sure someone did.

There are some who think zoning laws and other local regulations had a part in the subprime mortgage mess. These laws and regulations artificially push up prices making it harder for people to buy homes, and causing more people to resort to subprime loans. Cities like zoning laws that push up the value of homes and land since much of their tax base is a percentage of the value of property. Real estate developers also like zoning and regulation since they can influence zoning commissions to increase the value of their property by changing zoning. (Senator Reid profited from such a zoning change: Interestingly enough Senator Reid's son was on the zoning commission. But, of course we must assume there was nothing untoward in that case, though it is interesting that the land was not in Senator Reid's name and he forgot to mention it in his financial disclosure statement to the Senate, just a technicality.) When I was a boy in Houston there was a bitter political debate about the need for a zoning commission. Some claimed that Houston, which then had about 500,000 citizens, could never grow without zoning. The voters defeated the issue, and they were correct since Houston now has 6 million citizens. And, curiously enough, Houston homes are among the cheapest in the nation. Here is a discussion about how zoning and regulations increase the cost of homes, and also increase volatility in home prices.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/02/17/land-use-regulation-and-the-credit-crisis/

The greenhouse gas global warming hypothesis says that there will be more warming at the poles than at mid-latitudes. Much was made of the decline in Arctic sea ice this past summer, but there is not much discussion of Antarctic sea ice. (The Arctic sea ice has returned to near usual levels this winter.) Here is a graph of the Antarctic sea ice anomaly (that is, variation from the average).

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg

From this graph it is obvious that the amount of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is increasing, not shrinking. One aspect of the extent of sea ice is that the record only goes back to 1979 when satellites started being used to monitor the extent of sea ice. Prior to that there were no good measurements. There is anecdotal evidence that the low level of sea ice in the Arctic was not unprecedented. Back in the 1930's there were years in which local observers recall seeing little sea ice during summers.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the house choose to recess without voting on the Patriot Act passed by the Senate. They did have time to hold a hearing on Roger Clemens. The true reason for not voting has to do with the influence (that is, the significant campaign contributions) that the plaintiffs bar makes Democrats. The trial lawyers see a huge payoff in suing phone companis for the help they gave to the government after 9/11. In addition to the trial lawyers, the Democrats hope that they can uncover some law breaking by the government so they can create a scandal. Of course it would be a case like when Al Gore was caught taking illegal campaign contributions in his office. As Gore said, "There is no controlling authority." But the MSM would not give a free pass to Republicans as they did for Gore.

Iran is again threatening to destroy Israel.

General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, has sent a letter of condolence to Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah following the assassination of the organization’s senior commander Imad Mugniyah, saying he believed “the cancerous bacterium called Israel” would vanish soon, the Iranian news agency Fars reported Monday.
According to Jaafari, “I am convinced that with every day that passes Hizbullah’s power increases, and in the near future we will bear witness to the disappearance of this cancerous bacterium, Israel, by the radiation of Hizbullah’s fighters.”

A lot of videos are showing up of Al Queada executing other Arabs; Firing squads shooting kneeling men, dousing men wih some flameable liquid and then pushing them into a buring pit. AQI seems to be proud of their work in killing people. Then there are the graves that have been dug up in re-captured territory that contain women holding childre who are holding dolls. Democrat politicians like Ted Kennedy rail about Abu Ghairab being the worst atrocity since the Holocaust. THat is hard for me to understand. I do not think that a silly girl putting a dog collar on a prisoner can in any way be compared to AQI murdering people in cold blood. Ted Kennedy and other Democrats who focus on Abu Ghairab have lost their moral compass, assuming they ever had one.

It is odd to me that Obama and Hillary have sent their advisors to meet with the Syrian terror masters. Zbig Brzezinski is Obama's foreign policy advisor and Hassan Nemazee is Hillary Clinton's advisor. Brzezinsli was a failure while serving the Carter Administration and hates Israel. Some cynics think the message given Assad was to hold off on terror attacks against the US because such an attack would help Republicans in the November elections.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/is_an_october_surrender_in_the.html

Some think that the Republicans are going to paint the corrupt socialist Obama as a corrupt socialist during the general election. They plan to show him as he really is, the most liberal member of the Senate who has had some shady dealings with corrupt (and under indictment) Chicago thugs. Boy, how low can they go:

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/02/election-shocker-republicans-will-paint.html

Those who believe in the Al Gore-Jim Hansen view of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, and politicians looking to increase government power are using Polar Bears to advance their cause. If they can get the Polar Bears designated as an endangered species as a result of global warming then they can use existing law to stop generation of carbon dioxide. (Humans generate about one kg of CO2 per day. It's not clear if Gore et al want us to stop breathing, but it is certain that a lot of "greens" would like to see fewer people in the world.) One problem for the "warmists" is that the Polar Bear population has increased dramatically over the last 30 or 40 years. And, this year the Polar Bears are having a hard time becasue of the cold. Here is a review of the subject:

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/4468/

Sunday, February 17, 2008

From the blog "small dead animals" by the Canadian Kate McMillan, here is how we can wind up with more Muslims in the country (American law is similar to Canadian law with regards to letting relatives immigrate):

More creeping sharia in Canada

"Long-distance telephone marriages can be dialled up under sharia law and then used to sponsor loved ones into Canada, Muslim leaders say.

"Two Muslim leaders have told the Toronto Sun telephone marriages are permissible under Islamic law and require two witnesses and imams here and abroad to conduct the vows, which may have the bride in Pakistan and the groom in Toronto."


And if these couples are first cousins, which is a commonplace in the UK, their chances of producing unhealthy children increases exponentially.


There is a Dutch politician who has the right idea on how to deal with Islam:

'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star

"The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'."

I'm not the only one who views Barack Obama as a leftist. Foreign newspapers see that also, and they like it since they are socialists. If either Hillary or Obama is elected President, they would be the most left President in history. Here is an article abour the view of foreign journalists from the blog Captain's Quarters:

Barack Obama, Leftist?

Two foreign newspapers introduce the notion of Barack Obama as a Leftist. The Times of London reports that Republicans intend on painting him as such in the general election, based on his voting record in the Senate and in the Illinios state legislature. La Jornada of Mexico celebrates Obama as potentially the first Leftist President in American history, and a harbinger of what awaits the hemisphere (via Memeorandum and TMV):

LEADING Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist. They are increasingly confident that his campaign could collapse by the time their attack machine has finished with him. ...
“It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary,” said Norquist. “Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don’t know him who he is.”

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House and Republican guru, recently described Obama as the “most leftwing candidate to run since George McGovern” – a reference to the anti-Vietnam-war Democrat who lost 49 states out of 50 to Richard Nixon in the 1972 election. Norquist believes Obama’s questionable Chicago connections will stir things further.


Luis Linares Zapata agrees, but he's a lot happier about it. In La Jornada, he writes that Obama has initiated the "most attractive electoral phenomenon in the recent history of the US":

Obama aims at modifying deeply the ways, habits and privileges of the politicians in Washington, and to destroy the knots that block or detrimentally affect the public programs. His priorities are socially oriented, including everyone and not leaving out, as is happening now, a great proportion of Americans from important benefits. But, above all, he has succeeded in imbuing people with the feeling that a profound change is unavoidable for the future of the country. He wants to transform not only politics, to make it a decent and responsible activity, but to change society itself to make it fairer, less excluding, and more unified.
The possibility that a colored man [perhaps a poor translation of "man of color"] will become the Democratic candidate, against all initial predictions, is growing as his movement gains impetus. Last Tuesday’s primaries show unequivocally his robustness. Despair is creeping into the opposing field. Everything signals an unsteady Hilary who has lost her way and even her composure to the point of changing her strategist. The coming Super Tuesday 2 will be the definitive confrontation, when states with numerous delegates participate. If Barack wins thereafter the presidency of the United States, he will be the first leftist politician in that country and another signal of the present and future times in this continent.


The foreign press certainly recognizes Obama as a Leftist. It's not outrageous that the Republicans see him the same way. Mexico's pundits have seen their share of Leftists promising Utopia, and Linares Zapata recognizes the strain of politics north of the border as well.

Take a look at Barack Obama's economic plan, for instance. It provides some specifics for Obama's stratospheric rhetoric, but really just gives us a series of proposals to further entrench the federal government as the nanny of the American family. For instance, Obama proposes to create a government-run savings program that provides matching funds on savings. In other words, Obama wants to collect tax money to redistribute it to savers, in a plan that works much the same as employer 401k plans. Why should the government pay people to save their money, especially outside the 401ks that work better and have much higher caps?

Do you like the IRS? Want to trust them to do your tax returns? Rather than simplify taxes, Obama instead wants to have the IRS prepare your returns for you and send them out for your signature. Since the IRS gets all of your income information already, he wants the IRS to calculate how much you owe, without apparently considering that most Americans itemize for deductions. It doesn't cut down on preparation time in any case, but merely transfers the cost to the federal government-- as well as more power to the IRS.

Let's also consider the workplace pension plan Obama will create. It will create a system of accounts that can follow a worker who moves from employer to employer, and will also provide for pensions when working for small and midsize companies that do not offer one. We already have this system; it's called Social Security, and it's slowly going broke. When George Bush tried to bolster it with private accounts -- integrated into SS, not a new parallel system as Obama proposes -- Democrats screamed bloody murder.

And what happens when the federal government sets up a competing pension system for American workers? Do you think that employers will continue to offer pensions, or do you suppose they'll shrug that off and let the government take up the slack instead? We will have created another massive new entitlement system, when we can't afford the ones we have now.

Under Barack Obama's vision for America, the federal government will run vast parts of the economy. Would that make him the first Leftist President? Only if he gets to the White House ahead of Hillary Clinton.

Members of the "Religion of Peace" continue to riot and burn cars and trucks in Denmark. They are mad because of some cartoons that depicted Mohammad. And Iran is threatening Holland over a movie that depicts Islam as tretaing women unfairly. Islam does not suppport freedom of speech. And they will kill anyone that says they are violent. Or anyone who does anything they don't like.

http://lawhawk.blogspot.com/2008/02/seven-nights-of-rioting-in-denmark.html

Arabs like Obama. Who would have ever suspected that? Maybe they think he is a Muslim.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/02/arabs_for_obama/

I have begun to think that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis might be a conspiracy after all, since it seems to be driven by a relatively small group of people. It seems to go back to Al Gore's tenure as Vice-President when he provided funding to Hansen at NASA/GISS to start climate modeling. A lot of the scientists involved came from "green" organizations. Others have noiced the same thing:

Not a conspiracy but ....

An email from Prof. Lindzen [rlindzen@MIT.EDU]

I would suppose that you are sometimes accused of thinking that the global warming issue is a conspiracy. Whenever such an accusation is made to me, I respond that no conspiracy is needed. However, increasingly it is evident that conspiracy has played a role.

For example, Tony Socci, who played a significant role in the Singer affair, is now the spokesman of the American Meteorological Society in Washington. John Firor, who was for many years the administrative director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, was also the chairman of the board of the Environmental Defense Fund. R. Napier, president of the World Wildlife Federation - UK, is also chairman of the board of the UK Meteorological Office (which includes the Hadley Center).

Jim Hansen is closely associated with Michael Oppenheimer who was long the Barbara Streisand Scientist at Environmental Defense, and, apparently Michael was on the EPA review panel that recommended the funding of Hansen to get into climate modeling (after NASA had cut funds for the New York lab). Oppenheimer, despite only being a minor author of 3-4 peer reviewed scientific papers on climate, is now a professor at Princeton University. It would be interesting to know who endowed his professorship.

There are many other examples of such interlocking relations between environmental activism (in political or organizational form) and seemingly authoritative academic bodies. I doubt that these relations are accidental.

Moreover, intentional slander seems to be a standard tactic. One matter which involved me was the accusation by Gelbspan that I had lied about a debate in the UK with Bert Bolin. I informed Gelbspan that I had a tape of the debate. Gelbspan said that he wasn't interested. Much of this happened quite long ago, but the situation only seems to be getting worse. My hope is that this is simply a fever before the disease breaks.


Here is a reference to a DVD that descibes science not being considered by the catastrophic AGW advocates:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/video/ClimateCrisis.jsp

Here is a discussion of why some corporations are onboard with the CO2 is destroying the world groupthink. Hint: The reason is to write regulations that will harm their competitors and increase their profit.

http://tomdeweese.blogspot.com/2008/02/reward-hero-buy-gm.html