Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Monday, June 30, 2008

Regardless of what one thinks about AGW, it is clear that the UN's IPCC methodology is deeply flawed, and that the statement that the 2500 scientists involved agree with the IPCC's conclusions are clearly deceptive. Here is a discussion of the deception of the IPCC and those who support the AGW hypothesis:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7553

Nothing written in the newspaper or presented on TV should be believed without independent verification. It is obvious that the newsmedia are not simply unbiased reporters anymore. Instead, they often stive to make the news rather than reporting it. It appears to me that some of the media are completely unreliable. NBC is bad as are ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN and MSNBC. Among news agencies Reuters is totally unrelaible, and AP is pretty bad. The famous Dan Rather story about George Bush and the Texas Air National Guard is an example. This story was so bad that a former air force officer told me it was fake after he heard about it on the radio, before all of the problems with the font on the forged letter was revealed. The situation with reporting from the middle east, particularly Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan cannot be believed because the information mostly comes from stringers who at least fear for their lives if they irritate al Quaeda, if they are not downright hostile to the USA. (The same thing happened in Vietnam where the news agencies unknowingly relied on communist sympathesizers for information.) The al-Dura affair is an example of how Arabs stage events to get their propaganda distributed in the West. Here is a good story about the whole sorry al-Dura affair.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/284xawsb.asp

Saturday, June 21, 2008

THe AGW proponents make all sort of claims about unusal weather being the result of global warming, like more hurricanse, more cyclones, more droughts, more floods, ect. These claims are mostly deceptive, and do not stand scrutiny. Historically weather has been less extreme during warming periods than during cooling periods, so it is not surprising that there was not much extreme weather during the latter part of the twentieth century. Here is a discussion of a report that shows that this was the case, though the report doesn't exactly say that.

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001462what_the_ccsp_extrem.html

Many people outside of the AGW cabal think that the earth is entering a cooling phase. Scientists in India, China, and Russia subscribe to that view, maybe because it is the political position of the leaders of those countries. Scientists in the US, EU, and the rest of the west may embrace AGW because of the politics in their respective countries. If cooling happens, it is usually worse for the world than warming. There is more extreme weather, more crop failure thus more hunger, and more need for energy. Here is a paper discussing this.

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200806181211/global-warming/as-the-earth-cools-what-does-it-mean-for-the-energy-industry.html

Obama does not want to meet with Iraqi leaders or with General Petraeus, preferring instead to contemplate meetings with enemy dictators whom he will charm into becoming America's friends. My guess is that he doesn't want to meet with Petraeus because he sees him as a potential rival for President in 2012. Early on I read that Petraeus was a Democrat, but I suppose he could still challenge Obama no matter which party he favors. I remember from when I was young that everyone thought Eisenhower was a Democrat. As I recall Eisenhower had never voted. Certainly FDR thought Eisenhower was a Democrat, or at least was apolitical, or he would never have made him Supreme Commander in Europe. FDR certainly didn't want his ambitious distant cousins Douglas MacArthur or Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. getting a lot of press. MacArthur had a lot of political influence, so was hard for FDR to handle, especially since their other distant cousin Winston Churchill thought MacArthur was the best general in the war. General Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. was the only American General who landed on Omaha Beach on 6 June 1944 but no one knew since FDR ordered that his name couldn't be mentioned in press releases, etc. Even green politicians like Obama know that you have to keep the lid on successful military leaders. (Note: Roosevelt, MacArthur, and Chuchill were related through their mothers, and all apparently were all Mayflower decendants: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/1996-09/0843494030. My ancestors arrived in Jamestown, Virginia before the Mayflower got to Plymouth Rock. Being a Mayfloer descendent is apparently better.)

Friday, June 20, 2008

I listened to Nancy Skinner spin about Barack Obama's policy on oil drilling, and she was lame. She says Barack doesn't want to contiue the "same old failed policies of George Bush." I wonder what policy she is talking about since we clearly have not been drilling. She says that drilling is deceptive becasue it will take years to have an impact. (I think people know that, but they also know that if we don't start now we won't have oil enough oil in a few years.) Obama wants to spend the money on "green renewable energy" that will create a lot of jobs for Americans. I have three problems with that statement: first, drilling will create a lot of jobs for Americans, second, what "green renewable energy" is Obama talking about? He needs to be specific. Is it electric cars? Is it hydrogen fuel cells? Governments have not been good at selecting winners and losers in the marketplace. And third, it will take a long time for any of the wonderful green technologies to make it to the marketplace, so that won't have any near-term effect on gasoline prices. She says Obama wants to use the money required for drilling applied to green technology. The money for drilling would come from oil company profits. Apparently Obama plans on taking the money from oil compamies with his ill-conceived excessive profits tax.

I know that for liberals George Bush is the anti-Christ and is the cause of all things bad in the world. This was borne out the other day when Lou Dobbs on CNN came out for impeaching Bush over the salmonella in tomato outbreak. It may just be me, but Dobbs seems to be getting looney like Olbermann. O'Reilly is sometimes hard to take, but I can watch him without changing the channel most of the time. But CNN and MSNBC are so inconsistent, so partisan, and so hysterical that they annoy me. And Chris Mathews is off the wall. All of those guys are in love with the sound of their own voice, and barely let guests get in a word.

Here is a good discussion on the limitations of climate models by Roger Pielke (my impression is that Pielke is not a global warming denier, but rather is cautious about the catastrophic scenarios promoted by Hnasen and Gore which makes him a heretic in their eyes):

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/06/17/overheated-claims.aspx

Here is an article about alternative energy. I don't know about the possibility of growing switchgrass to produce 1000 gallons of ethanol per year per acre. One correction I would make to the article is that ethanol only has about 2/3's as much energy as gasoline, so we would need 50% more ethanol than gasoline. It is a bit of a nit compared to the big picture I guess, but running pure ethanol is not very practical in automobiles (hard to atart in cold weather) so probably E85 is what would actually be used. (A car designed to run only E85 would be more efficient than a gasoline engine because the higher octane of ethanol lets a higher compression ratio be used). Here is the article:

http://brookesnews.com/081606obamagreens.html

Barack Obama and the Democrats say that more drilling will not solve the current high price of oil because it will take 10 years to get the oil, and another few billion barrels per day will not reduce the price, citing the Bush Administration's numbers. They do not seem to recognize that conservation and alternative energy also won't make much impact for many years. For example, legislation to mandate auto fleet efficiency of 35 mpg won't have any effect at all for 3 to 4 years, and will only gradually reduce gasoline consumption after that; this is certainly not anything that will reduce the price of gasoline in the near term. Yesterday Robert Reich said that an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day wouldn't reduce the price of gasoline but by a penny or so, based on Bush Administration numbers. I don't know if the Bush Administration actually said that, but if so, it was a dumb thing to say. (The Democrats continue to tell us that the Bush Administration is totally inept, unreliable, and downright evil so why should I be impressed by their supply and demand analysis.) It seems to me that in 10 years we will want oil prices to be lower than they would otherwise, so we need to drill now. My question is, why can't we have both drilling and development of alternative energy sources and conservation? Our real need is for transportation fuel, and there we are a long way from anything that will replace gasoline. I have done a little analysis on alternative energy sources, and none of them appear to be mature enough to make a significant impact in the near term. Wind power is now being implemented at about as fast a pace as practical, and will never be the major source of electric power. A lot of nuclear power plants will be needed if we switch to a lot of plug-in electric cars. We can get the plug in cars faster than we can get the electric generation power to re-charge them. This gasoline price crisis has no easy solution, so it is tough for politicians since it is too complicated to address in "sound bites."

There is not much on the news about Iraq these days. That the MSM has lost interest is an indicator that things are going well. Democrats are invested in failure in Iraq, so they still repeat their Mantra that all is lost. Here is a piece by Charles Krauthammer that details some of the things that have gone well recently.

Make the Election About Iraq

By Charles Krauthammer

In his St. Paul victory speech, Barack Obama pledged again to pull out of Iraq. Rather than “continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians,... [i]t’s time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future.”

We know Obama hasn’t been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground? Here is the “nothing” that Iraqis have been doing in the past few months:

1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi Army and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias.

2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki’s direction confronted them and prevailed in every town—Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah—from Basra to Baghdad.

3. Without any American ground forces, the Iraqi army entered and occupied Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold.

4. Maliki flew to Mosul, directing a joint Iraqi-U.S. offensive against the last redoubt of al-Qaeda, which had already been driven out of Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala provinces.

5. The Iraqi parliament enacted a de-Baathification law, a major Democratic benchmark for political reconciliation.

6. Parliament also passed the other reconciliation benchmarks—a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenue is being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget.

7. With Maliki having demonstrated that he would fight not just Sunni insurgents (e.g., in Mosul) but Shiite militias (e.g., the Mahdi Army), the Sunni parliamentary bloc began negotiations to join the Shiite-led government. (The final sticking point is a squabble over a sixth cabinet position.)

The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their “narrative of defeat and retreat” (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed.

It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq war the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war.

But McCain’s case is simple. Is not Obama’s central mantra that this election is about the future, not the past? It is about 2009, not 2002. Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he’ll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success.

The choice could not be more clearly drawn. The Democrats’ one objective in Iraq is withdrawal. McCain’s one objective is victory.

McCain’s case is not hard to make. Iraq is a three-front war—against Sunni al-Qaeda, against Shiite militias and against Iranian hegemony—and we are winning on every front:—We did not go into Iraq to fight al-Qaeda. The war had other purposes. But al-Qaeda chose to turn it into the central front in its war against America. That choice turned into an al-Qaeda fiasco: Al-Qaeda in Iraq is now on the run and in the midst of stunning and humiliating defeat.—As for the Shiite extremists, the Mahdi Army is isolated and at its weakest point in years.—Its sponsor, Iran, has suffered major setbacks, not just in Basra, but in Iraqi public opinion, which has rallied to the Maliki government and against Iranian interference through its Sadrist proxy.

Even the most expansive American objective—establishing a representative government that is an ally against jihadists, both Sunni and Shiite—is within sight.

Obama and the Democrats would forfeit every one of these successes to a declared policy of fixed and unconditional withdrawal. If McCain cannot take to the American people the case for the folly of that policy, he will not be president. Nor should he be.

Give the speech, senator. Give it now.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post Writers Group

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Obama has said he will not accept public money for the Presidentail campaign, even though he previously said he would. (The reason is that accepting public money caps spending and Obama has found that he can raise more money than McCain.) How do you know a politician is lying? When his lips are moving.

There is an attack on free speech in the so-called free world. In the US liberals want to restrict freedom of speech, and want to silence conservative talk radio. Here is an article on the subject:

http://colossus.mu.nu/archives/266573.php

Barack Obama say he has time to meet with communist and terrorist leaders without pre-conditions, but has no time for Iraqi leaders. This is from the blog "Cheat Seeking Missiles:"

No Iraqi Endorsement For Obama (Natch!)

"The Iraqis are really fearful about some of the positions the Democratic Party has adopted. If the Democrats win, they will be withdrawing their forces in a very rapid manner. Are we going to tell [Iraqis] that the game is over? That the Americans are pulling out?"
-- Sheik Ahmed Abu Rishah, Iraqi Awakening Movement



Who knows more about the possible effects of Obama's cut-and-run promises for Iraq: Dem campaign operatives or Iraqi leaders?

Barack Obama isn't available to answer this question because he "was unable" to meet with a group of visiting Iraqi leaders last week. According to Bret Stevens in WSJ, the leaders, who were able to meet with McCain, included Abu Rishah, Mamoun Sami Rashid al-Alawi, the governor of Anbar province, and Hussein Ali al-Shalan, a Shiite from Diwaniyah.

Says al-Alawi of that aborted Obama meeting and their visit to Walter Reed:


The governor tells a moving story about their visit to Walter Reed hospital, where they were surprised to find smiles on the faces of GIs who had lost limbs. "The smile is because they feel they have accomplished something for the American people."

But the Iraqis came away with a different impression in Chicago, where they had hoped to meet with Mr. Obama but ended up talking to a staff aide. "We noticed there was a concentration on the negatives," the governor recalls. "The Democrat kept saying that Americans have committed a lot of mistakes. Yes, that's true, but why don't you concentrate on what the Americans have achieved in Iraq?"


The visitors were even more flabbergasted -- Sunni and Shi'ia alike -- by Obama's willingness to negotiate with their bloodthirsty neighbors to the east, asking Stevens, "Do you Americans forget what the Iranians did to your embassy? Don't you know that Ahmadinejad was one of [the hostage takers]?"

Of course we remember. Of course we know. But it seems to have slipped Obama's mind, and in continuing his refusal to honestly assess Iraq, our visiting Iraqi friends weren't able to remind him.

It is amazing to me that the AGW "true believers" think they can project what will happen 100 to 200 years into the future, not only with respect to climate, but also with regards to economics. Does anyone think that the wise men of the 1790's could have predicted what the current world would be like? It is pretty arrogant of our current politicians to think they can visualize the world of the future. The climate projections are speculative at best, but the economic are ludicrous. Here is an article by an economist who points out that climate change skeptics should be taken seriously, if no other reason than that history has shown that the environmental and economic doomsayers are always been wrong. The article also points out that the IPCC is flawed because skeptics are not allowed to participate, and that those calling for the draconian action are invested in that action.

http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Robinson-2008.htm

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Here is more about unusual weather, in this case the earliest arrival of the monsoon in India with unusually heavy rainfall. The following article does not attribute this unusual weather to global warming for a good reason: this is contrary to what the IPCC's Global Circulation Models project. The projection is that there will be less rainfall in the summer, not more. Those projections have been so widely proclaimed that not even the devoted warmists would now claim that the early and heavy monsoon is a result of global warming. Actually it could be a sign of cooling, which is, of course, what is actually happening now.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4149860.ece

Here is another story about how global warming is the cause of everything bad that happens in nature. It's amazing that global warming is the cuse of colder weather and more snow. The Earth's temperature is falling due to global warming. This is becoming a bad joke.

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/weather/291552

It is a curious fact that today ever unusual climatic event is attributed to global warming. Today while I was working out at cardiac rehab I saw a segment on Fox News about how global warming is reducing the amount of oxygen in the Pacific Ocean. No scientific information was given. It was just asserted that ocean temperatures are increasing, and that this causes the amount of oxygen in the ocean to decline. This leaves me with some serious questions that I would like to have answered. Since the Argos sea buoys were deployed there has been no increase in ocean water temperature, and, in fact, the data indicate a slight decrease that the warmists insist is just a problem with the data since they know that temperatures must increase. In any event, if temperature has not gone up a perceptible amount, how can temperature increase have caused a decline in absorbed oxygen? The Gulf of Mexico gets quite warm in the summer, but it doesn't seem to affect the aquatic life. Is the warming of the water different in the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico? It seems to me that this story is just another example of media hype in which whatever happens in nature is attributed to global warming.

Here is an article about politics, science, and consensus from New Zealand. (New Zealand is a small nation of committed socialists who have bought into the Kyoto farce to the detriment of the country for no appreciable gain for the world at large.)

http://www.nzcpr.com/midweek28.htm

One of the problems for climate modellers is that much that affects the climate is not only unknown, but is in fact unknowable. That this is true, no matter what James Hansen, Al Gore and others is obvious when we consider that no one knows what causes the Earth to periodically enter ice ages (about 20 in the last two million years.) One such factor that influences temperature on Earth is interstellar dust. Here is a piece about interstellar dust that I got from "Greenie Watch." (The author suggests that educated sensible governments should call for investigation of interstellar dust; that rules the US and Europe out.)

INTERSTELLAR DUST AS A CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

An email from Andy Nimmo [andynimmo@yahoo.com] below

The [much cited] 1939 paper, "The Effect Of Interstellar Matter On Climatic Variation" by Fred Hoyle and R.A.Lyttleton, in the Proceedings of The Cambridge Philosophical Society, which showed that when our Solar System passes through an interstellar dust cloud, the percentage of our Sun's radiation increases in direct proportion to the density of the dust and inversely according to the cube of the difference in velocities of the Solar System and the dust cloud, has almost certainly been mentioned in previous messages. Among other things they showed that very slight changes in these effects could bring about changes in radiation of from 1% to a 1,000%. They said whether there is an ice age or a heat age such as the Carboniferous, would depend on the relative velocities, lower velocities giving heat and higher velocities, ice. While there would be mass changes, these would be minimal.

Readers will recall that in 1977 NASA reported that both their Pioneer probes had found hydrogen and helium (10 particles per cc) flowing into our Solar System from ahead of the Sun's path in space at 72,400 kph and I understand the Voyagers also reported this so it hasn't come as much surprise that reports of global climate change have begun to come in since then.

So far as I'm aware, this hydrogen and helium is still flowing into our system - or has it ceased to do so and I've simply missed the report? Apart altogether from hydrogen and helium though, there seem to be some indications from recent analysis of dust captured by various probes in interplanetary space that at least some of this is carbonaceous and much denser than either hydrogen or helium. Do we know for certain that all such has been in our Solar System since its birth and that none of this more dense material is still flowing in?

Some now say our world is warming and some that we are cooling. Perhaps for political reasons born maybe out of jealousy of what they see as wicked industrialists and/or of envy of wealthier folk than themselves flying off to Spain or further for their holidays, rather than for scientific reasons, a large proportion of the warming lobby insist that this is caused by human CO2 emissions and that Earth's own environment has nothing or little to do with it. Clearly though, any such belief must result at least partially from ignorance as Earth's own space environment must scientifically affect our environment on the surface in some manner however small.

Accordingly it seems that Hoyle and Lyttleton have been correct to at least some extent whereby if hydrogen and helium and just maybe something else, are still flowing into our Solar System it must be in our interest to determine how much of what have entered our system, how much is still likely to do so, where in our system this is likely to accumulate and what effects this may have on our future? If our Solar System is entering an interstellar dust or gas cloud, how large is this and how long will we be in it?

While I am in no way trying to maintain that Hoyle's and Lyttleton's thesis is the sole cause of any change that may be taking place it does seem likely to be relevant to at least some extent so the above questions do need to be answered or the effect as more and more accumulates, perhaps between us and the Sun, may be much greater in the future without our having been properly forewarned. In view of this, might the expertise of a number of CCNet readers between them be able to come up with at least some of the necessary knowledge? Perhaps some are already trying to check the answers to these or similar questions?

I would expect that educated sensible Governments have already ordered that such research be undertaken. If not, I do very much wonder why not? It seems strange to me that the media don't seem to have mentioned this aspect of climate change at any time.

In America all identifiable groups of individuals except straight white males are victims designated as "minorities." This is interesting to me since straight white males are clearly not the majority of people in America. I see a lot written about how straight white males are responsible for all of the world's ills. Still, it seems that most people in the world would like to come and live in the horrible America that has been built by the evil straight white males. Here is an interesting comment about this:

“Katie Couric said the coverage of the Hillary Clinton campaign shows the accepted role of sexism in America. Other critics of the coverage cite liberal peer pressure to support a black man. Both sides agree something must be done about America being the world’s only superpower, the sad legacy of the straight white male.” —Argus Hamilton

One enduring myth is that of the "noble savage." This myth originated by Rousseau has been promoted by modern ecosocialists using their usual "lying to get the truth out" approach. Here is an article about the alleged environmental stewardship of American Indians:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2008/06/18/first_americans,_first_ecologists?page=full&comments=true

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Democrats have a new political ad that shows a woman holding a baby she says is named Alex. She says John McCain can't have Alex to send to Iraq. I suppose this sort of tripe works with some people, but the ad is dishonest in two regards:

1) the US military is voluntary, so McCain could not send Alex to Iraq unless he volunteered to be in the military. Does the woman think Alex should not be free to do as he chooses?

2) Alex looks to be about one year old. McCain could only be President for 8 years, at the end of which time Alex will still be in elementary school. It is likely that McCain, who is the same age as I am, will not be alive in 20 years when Alex is old enough to join the military.

A liberal editor from the New Republic debunks the myth that President Bush lied us into war in Iraq, based on the recent Senate Intelligence Report that does not say what Democrats claim it says:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-kirchick16-2008jun16,0,7766785.story

Like most Democrats Obama thinks law enforcement rather than the military is the way to deal with Islamic terrorists. Here is what Obama had to say about it yesterday:

"And, you know, let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorists."

Obama seems unaware that Osama bin Laden planned the first attack on the World Trade Center, and when it failed, he started a new plan. The Clinton Administration took no action against Osama, even when offered the opportunity to apprehend him because they didn't have a good criminal case against him. John Kerry gave away the real Democrat agenda during the 2004 election when he said that instead of going after the Islamists, we should just "take the hits." Somehow, given that they may eventually get a nuclear device with which to hit us, that doesn't seem like a responsible approach to me. Democrats believe that only Republicans can be truly evil, so Islamists it is inconceivable to them that Islamists would nuke us.

Politicians are suddenly concerned about the current high price of gasoline. Republicans would like to do more drilling for oil. Obama and Democrat’s say “We Can’t Drill Our Way Out of It.” This implies that more drilling won’t help the current gasoline price at the pump. There is an argument that the intention to drill would dampen the speculation in oil futures prices. But, even more importantly, this implies that we won’t need more oil five to ten years from now, while it is obvious we will. So starting to drill now is a good idea; we should have started fifteen years ago. The Democrats plan is to institute a windfall profits tax on oil companies, and to invest the proceeds in unidentified transportation fuel “alternative energy sources.” This obviously will do even less to reduce the current price of gasoline than the Republican drilling plan for two reasons:

1) It will raise gasoline prices now because the tax will reduce the current oil supply (taxing something always results in there being less of it), and
2) It will take more than five to ten years for this magic “alternative energy source” to make a significant impact in the transportation fuel marketplace.

(Note: For those who haven’t heard, Obama’s windfall profit tax idea is a 20% tax on the price of oil above $80 per barrel. Exxon Mobil sells about 5 million barrels of oil per day. Of that they produce about 2 million barrels of oil per day, and they buy 3 million barrels per day from foreign sources at the market price. If they have to pay a tax of 20% on the differential between $80 and the market price, they will lose money on the 3 million barrels per day. Since they are not in business to lose money, they will simply stop importing 3 million barrels per day. Other companies will do likewise. The supply of oil in the USA will drop from the current 20 million barrels per day to 7 million barrels per day, since we will no longer be importing 13 million barrels per day. Actually the oil companies have long term contracts for some oil at lower prices, so the entire 13 million barrels won't disappear immediately, but a significant amount will. This clearly will not result in a reduction of gasoline prices in the USA.)

My wife and son were surprised to hear Obama say that he had no problem with $4/gallon gasoline, but was surprised at how quickly the price went up. The Democrats have long advocated higher gasoline prices, even as they blame Bush for the price increases. Her is a discussion of the issue:

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080611113014.aspx

Monday, June 16, 2008

The IPCC is a fundamentally corrupt agency of the fundamentally corrupt UN. Maurice Strong, a rich Canadian fascist, wants to destroy the standard of living of the West. He has stated that the industrialized civilization must be destroyed to save the planet. Under Strong's direction the IPCC was set up with the mission of establishing that man, through CO2 emissions, is responsible for a global warming that will lead to catastrophe for the earth. The IPCC is not interested in determining whether or not global warming is happening (there hasn't been any for the last 10 years) or, if it is happening, if there are natural causes. The IPCC uses scientists who are appointed by governments, so by nature are not impartial, and uses a flawed scientific methodology which ignores those who have other ideas. They also issue reports reputed to be scientifically rigorous that are edited by politicians who make certain the report stays on message. The IPCC uses climate models and economic models that have not been validated, and which clearly have not accurately predicted the current climate. Here is a detailed report on the flaws of the IPCC AGW hypothesis (from Greenie Watch):

http://www.paulmacrae.com/?p=51

Here is a discussion of the flaws in the economic models of the ecosocialists that claim to show that stopping use of fossil fuels will have no effect on the standard of living of the USA and Western Europe (also from Greenie Watch):

http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/article_view.php?article_id=3936

Sunday, June 15, 2008

It is difficult to get the true picture about the potential for oil drilling in the USA. I saw a Democrat interviewed on Fox News who said there is no significant amount of oil reserve available in the US; as proof, oil companies have a lot of government leases on which they are not drilling. Then a Republican comes on and says the oil companies are not drilling on the leases they have because the can't get drilling permits. He didn't explain why, but presumably it is because environmentalists have filed lawsuits to prevent drilling. It is hard to tell what the story actually is since news networks don't do any unbiased investigation. One thing I noted this week in the newspaper regarding this is that Exxon is mounting a major effort to drill off-shore in the Phillipines. There must be some reason they are drilling in the Phillipines rather than the US. It could be that they can't get permits here, or it could be that they think the potential return is greater there.

It is clear that Democrats do not want to have more drilling for oil in the USA. Recently Obama said that he expected the price of gasoline to go above $4 per gallon, but he just didn't expect the pric to go up so rapidly. Democrats are doing a delicate balancing act; they take action to cause the price of fossil fuels to go up so much that alternative energy becomes competitive, then they blame the incrase in price on Republicans. They get away with this hypocricy because of MSM bias.

One thing about the amount of oil reserve that is available in the uS is that the amount depends entirely on the current market price of petroleum. It is clear that not much oil is still available that can be economically lited from the ground at a going price of $10 per barrel. But at $130 per barrel there is a lot. THis partly explains why there is such a wide disparity in the estimates of the amount of oil available in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, from 4 billion barrels to 500 billion barrels. Based on what I can glean from oil company financial reports, the oil in the Bakken Shale currently costs less than $10 per barrel to recover. THe horizontal wells drilled in the Bakken recently appear to have Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR) of 700,000 to 1,000,000 barrels per well. THe potential is probably for four of these wells per square mile. The 500 billion barrel estimate is probably optimistic, but at $130 per barrel wells with an EUR of only 100,000are attractive, so the 4 billion barrel estimate is probably very low.

Shale oil in the Rocky Mountain area is also economical at a price of $130 per barrel. Environmentalists are eager to prevent the development of shale oil of course. They object to the amount of water used to recover the shale oil. THey seeem to not realize that even more water is needed in the conversion of corn to ethyl alcohol. THe shale oil can probably only be produced at a rate of 5 million barrels per day because water availability. At that prodcution rate the shale oil would last for 1000 years. In 2004, John Kerry said that an additional 5 million barrels per day wouldn't have any impact on price. Like most Democrats he doesn't seem to understand the law of supply and demand.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Gasoline prices are at an all time high in the USA. Here is what Nancy Pelosi said during the 2006 election.

"With skyrocketing gas prices, it is clear that the American people can no longer afford the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress and its failure to stand up to Republican big oil and gas company cronies. Americans this week are paying $2.91 a gallon on average for regular gasoline – 33 cents higher than last month, and double the price than when President Bush first came to office.

“With record gas prices, record CEO pay packages, and record oil company profits, Speaker Hastert and the Majority Congress continue to give the American people empty rhetoric rather than join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now.

“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”

I wonder why the Democrats didn't implement their commonsense plan. Or did they, and it didn't work. The alternative fuel thing hasn't worked out. The alcohol initiative has pushed up the price of food even as the price of gasoline continued to go up, a double whammy on the American people. Then there is that price gouging thing. It is working so well for Exxon Mobil that they are abandoning the retail gasoline business. The price of the stock went up on the news. Maybe price gouging wasn't paying off.

Exxon Mobil sells about 5 million barrels of oil per day. They produce about 2 millkion barrels per day, and buy the rest from countries that don't like America at the market price. So they basically don't make a profit on 60% of the oil they sell. Barack Obama, the economic genius, says he wants to put an excess profits tax on the price of oil above $80 per barrel. That would effectively prevent Exxon Mobil from selling the 3 million barrels of oil per day that they buy from other countries since they would lose money on each barrel sold. (And other oil companies are in a similar situation.) THe USA uses 18 to 20 million barrels of oil per day, and about 13 million barrels come from other countries, bought at the market price. Obama's plan would result in the US having perhaps 7 million barrels of oil per day. It is hard to predict how much gasoline would cost under this program. And, of course, the economy would grind to a halt. Obama's plan sounds like something Hugo Chevez would try.

It appears that Irish voters have rejected the new EU Constitution. Under the rules all 27 nations in the EU must approve the Constitution for it to go into effect. Much has been made that Ireland only has 1% of the population of the EU, and so the Irish voters rejected the Constitution for the 99% of the population. To me the curious thing was that Ireland was the only country to put it to a vote. The other 26 countries had it approved by their legislatures. From what I have read it is likely that if other countries had been allowed to vote on the issue, it would have been trounced. The EU seems to be structured so that unelected bureaucrats can make laws without having to face the voters, a most undemocratic system. But then, the Europeans are not much in favor of democracy. They still like kings and dictators. Liberals in the USA also seem to like the idea of a super government that is not responsible to voters. They favor things like the UN's effort to take over the economies of the world with the IPCC Anthropogenic Global Warming scare. I expect a President Obama will try to cede more power over the US to the UN.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

John McCain says he would no more be in favor of drilling for oil in ANWR than in the Grand Canyon. I've seen the Grand Canyon and I've never been to ANWR, but I have seen movies of it. I think it is unlikely that we will see tourists flocking to a place as ugly, with bad weather and infested with mosquitoes as ANWR. It is hard for me to embrace McCain as a candidate for President. He claims to be an environmentalist, but he doesn't seem to know much about it. I think most people are aware that ANWR is no Grand Canyon, and that objections to drilling there are part of a political agenda rather than a matter of environmental protection.

Regarding drilling for petroleum, I live in Pantego, Texas, surrounded by Arlington, and two or three miles from Fort Worth. There are hundreds of gas wells being drilled in and around this urban area. Most people are unconcerned about it, are appreciative of the $15,000 TO $25,000 per acre lease signing bonuses, and are eagerly awaiting royalties. Personally, I got satisfaction from the knowledge that the drilling activity irritates liberals. Based on the drilling activity here, it is impossible to believe that drilling in ANWR would cause any damage to the environment. (Note: the Barnett Shale under Fort Worth and much of North Central Texas contains about 150 billion cubic feet of relatively dry natural gas per square mile, of which 30 to 50% is recoverable with recently developed technology. The Haynesville shale covering Southwestern Arkansas, Northwestern Louisiana and East Texas appears to contain a similar amount of natural gas plus some oil.)

Today I heard a fragment of an Obama comment on the price of gasoline. He said something to the effect that he expected the price of gasoline to go up a lot, but he didn't expect it to happen so rapidly. Raising the price of gasoline has long been the long range goal of the Democrats, as they engage in all means possible to prevent drilling for more oil in America. That is why it was hypocritical of them to run for Congress in 2006 on the platform of reducing the price of gasoline. As history shows, they were no more serious about that than they were regarding the other plank in their platform; that was leaving Iraq immediately. Here is a comment on gasoline price from the blog "Powerline:"

The soaring price of gasoline represents a golden opportunity for the Republican Party. While most of them don't say it out loud, the Democrats have long wanted higher gas prices as part of their desire to remake America into a land of granola, mass transit and windmills. Most Americans, however, don't share the Democrats' indifference to economic decline and would turn out in droves to vote for a party that pledges to get the economy going again, and relieve the pain at the pump, by drilling for oil.

Some have suggested that the world take measures to off-set the temperature increase that the IPCC projects will happen as atmospheric concentration of CO2 increases. These folks realize that severely limiting CO2 emissions in the near term will in itself be a catastrophe for much of the population of the world, something that liberals either don't accept, or that they realize but are willing to accept. To me there is a risk in taking active measures to reduce temperature unless we are absolutely certain that that the average temperature of earth is going up. The risk is in the fact that lower temperatures are worse for the world than higher temperatures. Here is an article about measures that could be taken to reduce the average temperature of the earth.

http://reason.com/news/show/126943.html

Exxon Mobil has announced that they are getting out of the retail gasoline business because it is losing money. I wonder what Bill O'Reilly and Congress think of that? Exxon Mobil owns most of their service stations, and the real estate is quite valuable. Exxon Mobil can make more money by selling that property and investing the money in finding and developing more oil and gas supplies. It will also get them out of the public eye so they will not get so much criticism as gasoline prices go up. If Obama is elected President, I would expect they would move their headquarters out of the USA, as Halliburton has done. Who needs the grief of dealing with the stupid members of the US Congress.

In the meantime, the corn crop is failing this year due to cold, wet weather. That is going to push up the price of gasoline, now that gasoline has to have 10% ethanol in it.

Britain faces an electricity shortage because they have hamstrung themselves to such an extent that they must close existing power stations, and can't build new ones. We need to pay attention because the same thing is happening in the USA, it is just that we are a few years behind Britain. This is the future Democrats desire, and Republicans are not strong enough to prevent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025586/FUEL-CRISIS-Forget-warnings-panic-pumps-Thanks-decades-government-neglect-Britain-set-lose-nearly-half-electricity-years.html

Roy Spencer resigned from NASA because of pressure from the Clinton Administration regarding testimony to Congress on climate change. Governments have shaped the public perception of Anthropogenic global warming and climate change by intimidating or isolating those who do not support the position that fossil fuels are destroying the planet. Here is an article by Roy Spencer on Bad Science, and how there has always been a lot of it around, particularly when politics is involved.

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OTY4NWVjYjc1NjJhZDRjNGVhMDhiOGJjZmUxNGI2NDI=

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Here is more discussion about freedom of speech and the lack thereof in Canada and most of the world. This is important and people should be paying more attention because the Liberals in America want to end freedom of speech here (of course they call it ending "hate speech"):

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/11/key-points-senate-select-committee-on-intelligence-phase-ii-investigation-report-on-pre-war-intelligence-regarding-saddams-iraq/#more-5562

Jay Rockefeller and his fellow Democrats have released an Intelligence Report that purports to show that Bush misled Congress and the people in runup to the Iraq War. As usual the Democrat's eport is itself misleading and untruthful. Here is a review of the errors in the report from the blog "Flopping Aces:"

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/11/key-points-senate-select-committee-on-intelligence-phase-ii-investigation-report-on-pre-war-intelligence-regarding-saddams-iraq/#more-5562

Here is more about the Nazi-like Canadian Human Rights Commission:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-kafkaesque-show-trial-of-mark-steyn/

Liberals complain a lot about excessive government powers that they allege Bush has assumed. They can't find anyone Bush has mistreated, but that doesn't matter. I think the real fear is for when a Democrat is in the Whitehouse. They have a record of using the Secret Service, the FBI, and the IRS to intimidate their political opponents. If a Republican used the power of the government against individuals in the way JFK, LBJ, and Clinton did the outcry would be tremendous. (In fairness, Nixon used the government against Democrats, who he thought were traitors, and Truman and Carter did not use power against individuals.) But when Clinton did it after the Nixon era increased sensitivity to it, Democrats defended him. Canada has an example of what Liberals favor in their Canadian Human Rights Commission. This is a kangaroo court that enforces politically correct speech. The truth is not a defense in that court. Liberal Canadians say that freedom of speech is a quaint American idea. Liberals in America would love to have their own version of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I expect a serious attack on freedom of speech in the USA if Obama is elected President, or if Democrats get a veto proof majority in Congress. (The foregoing is enough to get me in trouble if I ever venture into Canada again.) Here is a discussion of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, something not enough Americans are aware of:

http://ezralevant.com/2008/06/chrc-employee-sends-private-in.html

One of the disturbing aspects of the AGW hypothesis is the creation of the temperature history of earth. A lot of cretivity has gone into this key aspect of showing that there has recently been unprecedented warming. A lot of people with no involvement in the debate (which never actually happened) have had questions about the past temperature record, which has been generated with a lot af adjustment to the raw record. One disturbing aspect has been the reluctance of the various authors to share data, and the fact that peer review of papers did not include examination of the data. Researchers like those at NASA/GISS contiually revise the temperature record, with all of the changes going in the direction of supporting the AGW hypothesis, as unlikely as this should be statistically. This has been a red flag for a lot of scientists. The IPCC procedures in particular did not follow the accepted scientific method. Now there are some allegations of outright fraud. Here is an example:

http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2008/06/climate-fraud-allegations.html

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Here is one from the blog "junkscience." Malloy doesn't think much of this report. Note the comment from the IPCC at the end where it is admitted that climate models are tricky, and are not well understood. It astonishes me that politicians are willing to enact draconian laws that will adversely affect the lives of poor people based on models that have such poor reliability.

We're sure everyone knows this has been published: Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States - A Report of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources National Science and Technology Council

I've been back on deck since Saturday and trying to read through this since. Unfortunately it is a seriously painful collection of weasel words and outright horseshit. Why anyone would bother to publish it is a mystery to me because it contains exactly zero useful information and a great deal of blatant misinformation. The modeling exercises are complete rubbish and it even throws in the old ozone chestnut (in case you don't know stratospheric ozone is largely irrelevant due to Earth's 20% oxygen atmosphere limiting UV penetration to ground level and the tropics receive as much irradiation on any given day as allegedly 'depleted' regions receive throughout the year -- guess where life thrives?).

I get the impression it is the result of a committee effort with members from Greenpeace, Sierra, NRDC, UCS and other misanthropic Gaia nuts. Excellent example of exactly what is wrong with what currently passes for 'climate science'.

Key point: even the IPCC admits "The climate system is particularly challenging since it is known that components in the system are inherently chaotic; there are feedbacks that could potentially switch sign, and there are central processes that affect the system in a complicated, non-linear manner. These complex, chaotic, non-linear dynamics are an inherent aspect of the climate system. ... We simply do not fully understand the causes of climate drift in coupled models."

The "butterfly effect" is always fun to consider. That is the proposition that a butterfly flapping its wings in Siberia causes a hurrican in Florida. THe fact is that weather is a non-linear, chaotic dynamic system. Modelling weather to the extent that future climate is accurately predicted is difficult: Al Gore thinks people can do it, but I don't think it is likely that the modellers have it nailed yet. One of the problems is error growth of the numerical solutions. I have had some experience with that in large models of heat transfer systems. Here is an interesting discussion that the IPCC should consider, and should exhibit a bit more humility.

Error Growth Beyond The Hapless Butterfly
Filed under: Guest Weblogs — Roger Pielke Sr. @ 7:00 am
Climate Science is fortunate to have another guest weblog by the internationally respected scientist Professor Hendrik Tennekes [see also his excellent earlier guest weblogs].



Weblog: Error Growth Beyond The Hapless Butterfly by Henk Tennekes





In the minds of the general public, the sensitive dependence on initial conditions that many nonlinear systems exhibit is expressed vividly by Ed Lorenz’ description of a butterfly which, merely by flapping its wings, might cause a tornado far away. It is unfortunate that Lorenz’ poetry has been taken too literally, even by scientists. As far as I have been able to determine, Lorenz meant to illustrate error growth caused by data assimilation and initialization errors, not the possible upscale propagation of errors. In my mind, an undetected small-scale disturbance cannot cause an unexpected large-scale event. Even a million Monarch butterflies taking off from their winter roost in Mexico cannot cause a tornado in Kansas. Also, it takes considerable time for small-scale calculation errors to propagate toward the large-scale end of the energy spectrum, especially when, as in all turbulence, the flow is strongly dissipative. Errors that creep in through subtle deficiencies in the codes employed are most effective when they invade the large scales of motion directly. Aliasing between neighboring wave numbers is a good example. Also, the upscale transfer of error “energy” in the subgridscale realm is ruled out by parameterization. Whenever individual eddies are replaced by a parameterized estimate of the subgrid scale motion, the issue of sensitive dependence on small-scale errors in initial conditions is moot. Lorenz’ butterfly deserves a more intelligent treatment.



The matter of sensitive dependence on initial conditions addresses what might happen to individual realizations. Once ensembles are formed, as by averaging over time and/or space, one encounters the core of the turbulence problem: the dynamical properties of averages differ substantially from those of individual events. Error growth in ensembles is unlikely to parallel error growth in individual realizations. Turbulent pipe flow, for example, is stable in the mean, even if the individual eddies are not. Much further study is needed, but progress in this area is impeded by the conveniences offered by General Circulation Models as applied to climate projections. These are run in a quasi-forecasting mode and imitate features like cyclogenesis on average rather well, even if the timing and pathways of individual storms are poorly represented. It is unfortunate that no robust theory exists of the dynamics of the general circulation. Such a theory would offer a conceptual framework for the study of the many varieties of error growth in GCMs. Climate forecasting is far from being mature. No systematic work on the admittedly very complicated dynamics of error growth has been done. Even the relatively straightforward matter of estimating the prediction horizon of climate models has received no attention to speak of. If a reliable method for calculating the effective prediction horizon exists anywhere, it must have slipped past me unawares, though I have been anxiously waiting for it these past twenty years.



In view of the manifestly chaotic behavior of the weather, one should be suspicious of claims about the stability of the climate system. The idea that the climate might be well-behaved, even if the weather is not, is not supported by any investigations that I am aware of. The very claim that there exist no processes in the climate system that may exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions, or on misrepresentations of the large-scale environment in which these processes occur, is ludicrous. Just think of the many factors that promote the birth of a hurricane. It is not just the sea water temperature that may trip such an event, but also the presence or absence of wind shear, the upper atmosphere temperature field, and so on. In short, the climate would be stable if there exists not a single potential “tipping point”. I consider that inconceivable.



In the absence of a theoretical framework, one has to investigate all possible causes of error growth. Data assimilation and initialization errors are but one source of trouble. What to think of errors caused by the unavoidable shortcomings in the parameterization of the “physics”? Parameterization always involves simplification and smoothing; in a complex nonlinear system like the climate one cannot assume offhand that these tricks will not lead to unexpected kinds of error growth. Also, any error in this category is not triggered by a single impulse at startup time. Instead, it is aggravated by new impulses at each time step in the calculations.



Let me illustrate this with the simple model Ed Lorenz used to popularize nonlinear behavior. The repeated iteration



x(n + 1) = x(n)^2 – 1.8



is sensitive to initial errors, but it is also sensitive to other kinds of mistakes. One might imagine that the exact value of the coefficient in front of x-squared is unknown, or that the additive term 1.8 is subject to a small parameterization defect, so that it is taken to be 1.82, a mere 1% off the “true” value 1.8. Now determine what will happen. If the iteration is started with x(0) = 1 and the additive constant equals 1.8, we obtain the sequence



1, -0.8, -1.16, -0.4544, -1.59352, 0.73931, and so on.



But if the additive constant is 1% off, we get



1, -0.82, -1.1476, -0.50301, -1.56698, 0.63542, and so on.



In just five steps, the 1% “parameterization error” has grown a factor of sixteen!



One can vary this theme in many ways. Imagine, for example, that one cannot be sure of the exponent in the algorithm. It is taken as two, but what would happen if one has to accept a 10% uncertainty because of inadequate knowledge of the “physics”? In climate modeling, several processes are modeled with parameterizations of questionable accuracy. The difference between clouds in the atmosphere and cloudiness in a model involves several conceptual simplifications of dubious reliability, including the lack of attention to the difference between the behavior of ensembles (“cloudiness” is an ensemble) and that of the clouds that pass my window at this moment. The standard trick of making models behave “realistically” by adding an overdose of numerical viscosity is, to put it mildly, unprofessional. The viscosity dampens unwanted behavior, but decisions as to what is wanted and what is not are made subjectively. If such choices are not open to public scrutiny, the science involved is probably substandard. I maintain, as I have for many years, that it is up to climate modelers to demonstrate by which methods the accuracy, reliability, and forecast horizons of their model runs can be assessed. Good intentions aren’t good enough.



Ed Lorenz is also famous for the attractor in his three-variable model for deterministic, nonperiodic flow (1963). That attractor has a shape vaguely reminiscent of butterfly wings, which was of great help in spreading the butterfly fairytale. In the youthful enthusiasm of the early years of chaos theory, many people were hunting for the dimension of the climate attractor. Numbers around nine were mentioned with some frequency. These days we know better. The climate attractor is incredibly complex; its multidimensional landscape of hills, valleys and “tipping points” has not yet been charted with any accuracy. Future generations of climate scientists will have to study the possible sensitive dependence of each feature in that landscape on assimilation, initialization, and parameterization errors. I dare to venture that they will find so many conceivable “tipping points” that they may decide to throw their hats in the ring and give up on the idea of climate forecasting altogether. I did so many years ago, when I realized that sensitive dependence on initial conditions is not nearly as dangerous as the unwillingness to explore possible sensitive dependence on shortcomings in the codes employed and in the data assimilation software.



Let me conclude. I adhere to the Lorenz paradigm because I do not want to forget for a moment that small mistakes of whatever kind on occasion have large consequences. As far as I am concerned, the climate of our planet continuously balances on the verge of chaos. In my opinion, optimistic pronouncements about the stability of the climate system are unwarranted and unprofessional. I prefer modesty.

James Lovelock, the founder of the Gaia movement, has a new book out. He discusses the need to reduce the population of the world to 1/2 billion people. Many people in the eco-environmental movement deny it, but the leaders of the movement from Lovelock to Gore are anti-people. Here is the book review:

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=0608-gardiner

Monday, June 09, 2008

Here is a curious quote from the Washington Post:

"The world has clamored for U.S. leadership on climate change. Yet for seven years the Bush administration denied and dithered while the planet warmed." [emphasis added]

Actually the earth's temperature, by all reliable accounts (that leaves out James Hansen and NASA/GISS), has gone down since Bush became President. So, it would be more correct to say Bush did nothing, and that was successful in reducing temperature. Now even the fervent warmists are hedging their bets by saying that the temperature will probably decline for the next 20 or 30 years. Can Al Gore, the Democrats, and the rest of the socialists in the world continue to scare people if the temperature goes into a long term decline? Their powerful propaganda machine includes the MSM and they can stifle dissent so they may be able to do it.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Political Correctness could easily destroy America as we permit our enemies to use our tolerance against us. Regarding Islam, I guess it makes sense that political correctness would not allow "inconvient truths" about it to be told to students.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1429570~Council__Mongtomery_schools_cave_to_pressue_with_Islam_book.html?cid=temp-popular

Most young people have probably never heard of the scientific fraud, Lysenko. Some people see parallels between AGW and Lysenko. Hopefully, not as many people will die because of AGW activists as died as a result of Lysenko's phony science.

http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/parallels-between-lysenkoism-and-agw/

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Here is a piece I got from the Betsy Newmark's blog, Betsy's Page:

Obama - Lightworker


Some of us Republicans just haven't been bitten by the Obama bug and are both amused and dismayed to listen to those who seem to see Obama as some sort of messianic being sent to save us poor benighted Americans. Think I'm making this up? Read what one San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Mark Marford, put into print about his musings about the Chosen One.


No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.

Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.

Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.

Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.

Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up.

Let me be completely clear: I'm not arguing some sort of utopian revolution, a big global group hug with Obama as some sort of happy hippie camp counselor. I'm not saying the man's going to swoop in like a superhero messiah and stop all wars and make the flowers grow and birds sing and solve world hunger and bring puppies to schoolchildren.

Please. I'm also certainly not saying he's perfect, that his presidency will be free of compromise, or slimy insiders, or great heaps of politics-as-usual. While Obama's certainly an entire universe away from George W. Bush in terms of quality, integrity, intelligence and overall inspirational energy, well, so is your dog. Hell, it isn't hard to stand far above and beyond the worst president in American history.

But there simply is no denying that extra kick. As one reader put it to me, in a way, it's not even about Obama, per se. There's a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that's been held back by the armies of BushCo darkness, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod, is now effortlessly self-organizing around Obama's candidacy. People and emotions and ideas of high and positive vibration are automatically drawn to him. It's exactly like how Bush was a magnet for the low vibrational energies of fear and war and oppression and aggression, but, you know, completely reversed. And different. And far, far better.


This fellow Mark Marford who wrote the previous drivel must be young. He clearly is unaware of what JFK was all about. A peacemaker he wasn't. Nor was he against the "war machine." After all, he tried to have Castro assassinated, and he had the leader of South Vietnam assassinated shortly before he was killed. Marford obviously gets his view of history from Oliver Stone. That's dangerous because Stone's view is distorted beyond belief. And, I detest Kennedy's and do not regard them as "American Royalty," though they do match the British Royal family in weirdness. Marford seems to be describing Jesus, but he already lived. Maybe he thinks Obama is the 12th Imam.

Today I read that Democrats say that the US government ceasing putting 60,000 barrels of oil per day into the strategic reserve will drop the price of gasoline 53 cents/gallon at the pump. Not long ago Senator Schumer said that an additional one million barrels per day of oil from ANWR wouldn't drop the price of gasoline but 1 cent per gallon. Democrats have a hard time with that supply-demand thing.

Here is a good piece, with good graphics, from Flopping Aces about which political party is most responsible for high gas prices in the US. (Hint: it's not Republicans.) Democrats have wanted high gas prices for a long time. Kerry said that in the last Presidential election. The Democrats cause the prices to be high and blame it on Republicans. They don't call Republicans the "stupid party" and Democrats the "evil party" for nothing.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/07/placing-blame-for-the-price-of-gas/#more-5528

Here is advice in choosing which candidate for President to vote for

FRED KAGAN:


For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success. Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.

Those people who desire to see the US lose at everything have a clear choice in Obama. That is why he is favored by Castro, Chavez, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Also by most of Europe. Those people expect Obama to fail as President. They could be wrong, of course, but there is not much reason to think he will succeed based on his comments and the close advisers he selects.

Obama has put Eric Holder on his committee to select a Vice-Presidential candidate for the Democrats. This is the same Eric Holder who was slated to be Attorney General under President Gore. Holder's most notable achievement was getting a pardon for the fugitive tax cheat Marc Rich. It is of course why Clinton gave a pardon to such a notorious figure, though some unkind people have pointed to the ex Mrs. Rich's donations to Democrats and the Clinton Library. I suppose we can assume that under a President Obsma with Attorney General Holder, justice will be for sale. That is a change from the present, but is also a revision to the past. Here is what they always humorous Henry Waxman had to say about the Rich pardon:

Rep. Henry Waxman declared that it was a “bad precedent, an end run around the judicial process, and appeared to set a double standard for the wealthy and powerful” and that had a Republican president “presided over a pardon process that resembled the chaotic mess that seemingly characterized the final days of the Clinton administration, I would be outraged and would criticize it.”

In other words, Republicans couldn't get away with stuff like that. But, in case a Democrat does it, Henry can't be expected to say much. There is no doubt that under Democrats there is a double standard for the rich and powerful. Anyone who doubts that should ask himself why most of the rich and powerful are Democrats. It seems unlikely to me that very many of those who did whatever it took to get rich suddenly became altruistic.

Barack Obama says he wants to give every child in America an opportunity to get a college education. He appears to want the government to pay for it as a "right." This is troubling to me on several levels. First, not everyone is a candidate for a college education. It is hardly fair to pay for higher education for those who are qualified, since not all people are smart enough to benefit from a college education. It is clear that, on average, the smarter people do better in life economically. It seems unfair to me to have those people who less intelligent pay for those who are more intelligent. The more intelligent already have a huge advantage in our society. College has gotten more expensive, particularly at the prestigious schools. Obama and his wife seem concerned about the expense of their Ivy League educations and the large loans they apparently took out while in school. (In their case, the education appears to have paid off, given that Mrs. Obama was making over $300,000 per year, and last year their combined income was over $4 million.) It is possible to get a good education at community colleges without incurring such enormous expenses. I paid my own way to community college and had no debt after I got a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering. I never found it difficult to get a job, and did not find myself at a disadvantage from the standpoint of skill compared to graduates from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Rice, etc. Guys from those schools did have an advantage in going for managerial jobs, and they knew more famous people. But for technical work they had no advantage, and I think management is aware of that.

But considering the proposition that everyone should have a college education. According to information I have been able to find, it takes an IQ of about 106 to be successful in college in any field, and for law, medicine,engineering, math and science it takes an IQ of around 120. (Obviously these are averages, and some individuals may with lower IQ's may succeed by dint of hard work, unique skills, etc. At the same time some with sufficiently high IQ's may fail because they are lazy, have other interests, etc.) The average IQ in America is about 100, so less than half of the population is likely to succeed in college. Liberals like Obama do not like to consider than any human trait is genetic (except homosexuality) so they do not consider that IQ is important. But, whatever one thinks IQ is, it is a good indicator of academic success. If I take the IQ of different groups of Americans from the non-peecee book The Bell Curve by Herrstein and Murray and apply the Bell Curve to get the likelihood of success for the different groups of the population I get the following table (I used a standard deviation of 15 for all groups, but I'm not sure that is correct for groups other than white):

Group Avg IQ College, % Law, Medicine, Eng. etc.,%

African American 85 8 1.1
Hispanic 89 13 2.25
White 103 42 12.9
East Asians 106 50 17.6
Jewish American 113 68 31.9

I tried to find some data to check the plausibility of my analysis. The results were interesting. About 28% of the population over 25 have a bachelors degree. That seems reasonable, since not everyone wants to go to college (and many who go do not graduate for one reason or another). About 7-8% have advanced or professional degrees. Again, that seems reasonable. I did find one breakdown by group on bachelor's degrees that surprised me a little; African American, 17.6%, Hispanic, 12.1%, White, 30.6%, and Asian, 49.4%. I didn't find a number for Jewish Americans, but anecdotally, I would expect it to be higher than any other group. So, my analysis looks good, except for African Americans. Either there are a lot of over achievers in that group, or the average IQ or standard deviation (or both)for the group is wrong.

My point in all of this is that Obama seems to have his priorities wrong. It appears that, except for Hispanics, most people who are qualified for college are already graduating. To me the correct question is what do we do about those people who are not intellectually qualified for college? Sending them off to do something for which they are not suited seems cruel to me. It seems to me that the nation needs people in a lot of jobs that do not require a college education. Those are honorable jobs that pay well, and the nation needs to fill them. I think that providing training for those jobs would do more for the people who aren't qualified for college, or just are not interested in it, than wasting their time and money on college. The people who are smart enough to become Doctors or Lawyers can take care of themselves without government support.

There are many people who agree that the earth has warmed (and haven't had time to fully digest the recent rapid decrease in temperature) but do not agree that an increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is the cause. One problem with the James Hansen-Al Gore hypothesis is that it requires a uniform increase in temperature at both poles. That has not been happening for many years, including the interval after 1979 when the Warmists claimed CO2 caused all of the observed temperature increase. One possible explanation for the reduction in Arctic ice was soot in the atmosphere. Soot increases the absorption of sunlight by snow and ice. There is a lot more soot in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere, much of it originating in India and China. Reducing the level of soot is a lot less expensive and destructive to society than reducing the emission of CO2 in energy production. I suppose that is why Al Gore is not focused on soot. This is curious to me since environmentalists should want to clean up the air, and soot is detrimental to humans, animals, and plants while CO2, in the low concentrations projected for hundreds of years from now if all fossil fuels were burned, is not harmful to humans or animals, and is beneficial to plants. Here, from Greenie Watch, is a word about soot in the atmosphere.

SOOT, POLAR BEARS & COST-EFFECTIVENESS

An email from Lee Rodgers [sregdoreel@yahoo.com]

I've been keeping an irregular blog on the climatological effects of tropospheric soot. Contrary to conventional opinion, tropospheric soot has been shown in real field data to cause a net heating effect with up to a 40 percent role in temperature anomalies across the vast Pacific region (alone that'd be 12 percent globally), possibly 35 percent worldwide. Likewise the ice-melting effects of snow-darkening soot in the boreal environment is believed to have caused most of the sesquicentennial thaw in the region, accounting for nearly 20 percent of all global warming in the past two centuries.

Pressing this point have been the parallel efforts of two very conventional climate researchers: Drs. V. Ramanathan and Charlie Zender. Dr. Zender has essentially stated this: That with the albedo-blunting effects of soot being equal to that of extant CO2 warming the benefits of significant soot mitigation in the Arctic would be like cutting CO2 levels by a two thirds (or more). The magnitude of global warming in the Arctic approaches that of 20 percent of all sesquicentennial global warming, and amending the Arctic melt through soot abatement has a far greater impact than mitigating CO2 emissions in an equivalent region elsewhere in the world.

Dr. Ramanathan makes similar points that the the efficacy of soot mitigation is such that societies could broaden the window of opportunity up to 20 years against climate change by simply cleaning up various sources of soot. The higher concentrations of aerosol pollutants in the Northern Hemisphere may be reflected in a notable bias of temperature anomalies north of the equator. Soot mitigation has an immediate effect as opposed to waiting 50 years for the effects of an equivalent reduction of CO2 to finally have an effect.

People from all walks of life are beginning to realize that the AGW scare is mostly hype, and not based on solid science. American politicians are a bit behind the curve, and are beginning to attempt draconian action to increase government power just as people are beginning to realize that there is no urgency. The American political system produces some really lame leaders. Here is a sportswriters take on the situation. I like the Thomas Paine quote at the end of this article:



What price liberty
Dan Sernoffsky

What price liberty?

Apparently a lot more than most are willing to pay. Although Al Gore lost the presidential election of 2000, it is beginning to look more and more like he won thanks to the incessant drumbeat of one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated upon the American public.

The hoax is man-made climate change, nee global warming, which is now threatening to destroy what has become the last bastion of freedom in the world.

According to the global warmists who vehementally contend that their unproven hypothesis is "proven science," there is no need for debate. They, after all, know best, and from their elitist position, they and their followers will dictate to the masses what they will drive, where they will live, what they can eat, where they can go, what they can do. Those who question that hypothesis are quickly, and summarily, denigrated, castigated as being the "willing tools" of the energy industry. Overlooked, of course, is the fact that many of the "climatologists" who have signed on to the hypothesis are, in fact, being funded by organizations that are simply using the global warming hoax as a means of further establishing their control of society.

Recently, some 31,000-plus scientists, 9,000 of whom hold doctorates in scientific fields, signed a petition noting "There is no convincing evidence that human release of CO2, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will cause, in the foreseeable future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." A considerably small number, 2,500, was used to claim the "scientific consensus" by the U.N.'s famed climate change panel.

Even the global warmists, in the face of evidence they seek to ignore, that "natural variations" occur in the climate, are doing their best to hedge their bets, suggesting that global warming may stop for the next 10-12 years before resuming. In other words, when facts stand in the way of a predetermined conclusion, revise the conclusion to better escape the facts. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the highly-touted computer models that the global warmists so desperately cling to as their evidence are based on the faulty information entered into those computers. It is perhaps for that reason that the global warmists choose to ignore the historic evidence of the natural variations in climate that about 1200 years ago led to a thriving colony in Greenland and advanced mining operations along the Alps, enterprises that came to an end with what is now called the Medieval glaciation period.

There has finally emerged a major voice not only questioning, but condemning, the environmentalist attack on the free world. That voice belongs to Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic. In a recent address to a U.N. committee, he rhetorically asked "Can we allow certain political movements that want something other than liberty to profit from a hysteria which has been born?"

Klaus understands the totalitarianism inherent in the enviromentalist agenda. It was the same totalitarianism under which he grew up, when Eastern Europe was under the control of the old Soviet Union and Josef Stalin. Klaus has also expressed a complete willingness to debate Gore. Gore, not surprisingly, has ignored that offer, and every other offer put forth by anyone who might credibly question his hypothesis.

The irony in the man-made global warming hoax is that the agenda behind the environmentalist movement is becoming increasingly more transparent, a transparency that is creating concern. The environmentalists who for years promoted higher prices -- and higher taxes -- on commodities like food and fuel are finding their agenda coming under closer scrutiny, and being rejected. In England, a growing revolt against the environmentalist tyranny is being played out by voters, who are rejecting the policies that are creating record energy and food prices, and are destroying the economy.

Still, thanks to Al Gore and the pseudo-science he has been able to promote because of his high profile, the totalitarianists have been able to use the drumbeat of environmentalism to mask their true motives, a further separation of government from the governed in an effort to establish their version of the kind of controlled society that existed for a dozen years in Germany, and for the better part of the 20th century in the Soviet Union. The pseudo-science the global warmists have espoused is no different that the pseudo-science of their predecessors, like Rachel Carson, who led the fight to ban DDT, which in turn has led to the deaths of millions, like Paul Ehrlich, who predicted mass starvation and other disasters by the end of the 20th century while actively supporting genocidal policies to prevent it.

That climate change exists is fact. That man has anything to do with it, or can stop it, is not. Although some of the global warmists may, indeed, have only the best of intentions, the very concept is little more than hubris, and the real impetus behind the movement has nothing to do with environment and everything to do with control. As Thomas Paine so succinctly put it, "The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes."

And at the cost of liberty.

###

Dan Sernoffsky is an award-winning sportswriter and political columnist for The Lebanon Daily News in Lebanon, Pa. A career journalist, he is a graduate of Ottawa University, Ottawa, Ks., and attended graduate school at Central Michigan University. The father of four grown children, he and his wife reside in Lebanon.

dsernoffsky@yahoo.com

The AP is usually not reliable when reporting on the war and defense issues in general, but this story is probably correct. Obama says this system doesn't work, and says he will cancel it after he is elected.

Military shoots down missile in test off Hawaii
By AUDREY McAVOY – 1 day ago

HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. military intercepted a ballistic missile Thursday in the first such sea-based test since a Navy cruiser shot down an errant satellite earlier this year.

The military fired the target, a Scud-like missile with a range of a few hundred miles, from a decommissioned amphibious assault ship near Hawaii's island of Kauai.

The USS Lake Erie, based at Pearl Harbor, fired two interceptor missiles that shot down the target in its final seconds of flight about 12 miles above the Pacific Ocean.

The target was shot down about 100 miles northwest of Kauai in its final seconds of flight, about five minutes after it was fired.

The test showed Navy ships are capable of shooting down short-range targets in their last phase of flight using modified missiles the service already has, the military said.

The Navy and the Missile Defense Agency have already demonstrated that ships equipped with Aegis ballistic missile defense technology can intercept mid-range targets in midcourse of flight.

The Lake Erie in February shot down a U.S. spy satellite that had lost power and become uncontrollable. Military commanders worried the satellite would break up and spread debris over several hundred miles if it fell to Earth on its own.

The shootdown was the Aegis ballistic missile defense program's first real-world mission.

Rear Adm. Brad Hicks, the program's director, told reporters in a conference call after Thursday's test that the Lake Erie fired two interceptors to increase the probability of interception.

The Navy does that when a target is close to hitting the surface, he said.

Over the next 20 months, the military plans to install terminal-phase missile interception capability on all 18 Navy ships equipped with Aegis ballistic missile defenses, Hicks said.

He said the technology would give commanders more options to defend against missiles, particularly if the Patriot missile defense system — a land-based technology designed to shoot down missiles in their final phase of flight — was unavailable.

"If I don't have a Patriot nearby on a shore station to do a short-range threat, near the defended area, I have nothing," Hicks said. "The flexibility of having a ship to complement the Patriot, or to be there when it can't be, is very high on a warfighter priority."

In the last Aegis missile defense test, in November, the Lake Erie fired two interceptors to destroy two ballistic missile targets simultaneously in space.

That marked the first time the U.S. missile defense system shot down two ballistic missiles at once in space.

In December, a Japanese naval vessel equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system shot down a missile target off Hawaii. Japan became the first U.S. ally to intercept a missile from a ship at sea in that test.

Muslim countries usually deny human rights, particularly to women. Iran is no exception, as this article indicates.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/irans-brutal-morality-police-are-growing-in-power-warns-nobel-prizewinner-842090.html

Friday, June 06, 2008

Here is a view of global warming by a San Francisco TV Meteorologist:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/06/global_whining_vs_the_truth.html

I would add one thing to his critique: the climate modellers make an assumption regarding the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere for which there is no theoretical basis, the assumed water vapor increase results in a positive feedback as temperature increases slightly due to an increase in atmospheric CO2. The data from the recent Aqua satellites show that the basic assumption is, in fact, wrong.

It looks like Al Gore was right to be concerned about Polar Bears, but for the wrong reason. Here is a story about the demise of a Polar Bear as a result of there being too much ice rather than too little. It is rare for there to be enough ice for Polar Bears to make it all of the way to Iceland. Polar Bears have really good press, but they are not the cuddly creatures as they are depicted, but rather are dangerous to humans. They are opportunistic feeders, and will try to eat you get close. (They are faster and stronger than you, so your chances are not good if you get close.)

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/polar-bear-shot-in-iceland-icy-spring-may-have-led-it-there/?ex=1213329600&en=8c3f95d6dc387c67&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Thursday, June 05, 2008

One of the curious facts about the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate is that the NASA/GISS temperature record shows that the earth is warming while other records do not. Then, as I have mentioned before, there is the curious fact that NASA/GISS keeps revising the temperature record so that earlier periods keep getting colder while the recent past keeps getting warmer. One thing I have commented on before is that I read that pine beetles in the southeastern US are getting more active, yet the temperature record shows that the temperature in the southeastern US declined during the twentieth century. So, how did the beetles know to get more active. No doubt they have some special insect sense that told them Al Gore had declared a state of global warming. Here is a site that has interesting data showing the divergence of the NASA/GISS data and other temperature records (for those who don't know, James Hansen works at NASA/GISS and Al Gore worked with that agency on Global Warming while he was VP):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/print.html

Is there chicanery, or just an honest disagreement? It is hard to say, but it is interesting that NASA/GISS, run by the nost ardent supporters of AGW, is the outlier data set.

James Hansen is once again claiming that the evil George Bush is preventing him from giving interviews warning about Global Warming. Given the number of interviews Hansen gives, it is hard to see how he could give more and still get any work done for NASA. Here is a comment from Dr. Roy Spencer who resigned from NASA because of censorship by the Clinton Administration. Note that Spencer didn't complain, he resigned. This is from Spencer's blog:

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

3 June 2008: A NOTE ON NASA'S JAMES HANSEN BEING MUZZLED BY NASA

I see that we are once again having to hear how NASA's James Hansen was dissuaded from talking to the press on a few of the 1,400 media interviews he was involved in over the years.

Well, I had the same pressure as a NASA employee during the Clinton-Gore years, because NASA management and the Clinton/Gore administration knew that I was skeptical that mankind's CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming. I was even told not to give my views during congressional testimony, and so I purposely dodged a question, under oath, when it arose.

But I didn't complain about it like Hansen has. NASA is an executive branch agency and the President was, ultimately, my boss (and is, ultimately, Hansen's boss). So, because of the restrictions on what I could and couldn't do or say, I finally just resigned from NASA and went to work for the university here in Huntsville. There were no hard feelings, and I'm still active in a NASA satellite mission and fully supportive of its Earth observation programs.

In stark contrast, Jim Hansen said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to the press and congress during that time. He even campaigned for John Kerry, and received a $250,000 award from Theresa Heinz-Kerry's charitable foundation -- two events he maintains are unrelated. If I had done anything like this when I worked at NASA, I would have been crucified under the Hatch Act.

Does anyone besides me see a double standard here?

-Roy W. Spencer
The University of Alabama in Huntsville

I hear a lot about the “consensus” among scientists on global warming, and that 2500 scientists support the IPCC conclusion that the world faces a crisis because of emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. I have studied this subject a lot, and as far as I can tell there is “consensus” on two points; first, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and second, the average temperature went up during the twentieth century. There is certainly no consensus that agrees with James Hansen, Al Gore, or the IPCC regarding imminent disaster due to CO2 emissions. It is disconcerting that the IPCC will not identify the 2500 scientists who allegedly agree with the IPCC’s position, and that many scientists who say they are part of the 2500 also say they do not agree with the IPCC’s position. I’m not the only one who has made these observations. Here is a link to an article by Lawrence Solomon that explores this situation:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2ZiMDc3ZjIxMzEzZjE1ZTg3YzEwYmI3NTBkM2Y4OGI=

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Politicians say some really stupid things, and most people, including interviewers on TV are unaware of it. For example, Democrats are currently saying that it would do no good in terms of reducing gasoline prices to drill for more oil, or to develop shale oil, etc. because it would take ten years for the new oil to reach the market. (This is not true, but never mind that.) Instead the Democrat's want to implement new higher automobile gas mileage requirements. The Democrats seem oblivious to the amount of time it would take for higher mileage standards to reduce gasoline consumption. It takes three or four years to design the higher mileage cars and get them to market. Then, consider that there are about 250 million cars on the road in the USA, with about 17 million new cars coming on the road each year. So, it would take at least 17 years to replace the entire fleet. (I assume that not even the Democrats want to just destroy all of the existing cars representing about $2.5 trillion in capital; but, on reflection, maybe they do.) Obviously it will take a long time for the higher mileage cars to make a significant reduction in fuel consumption.

Another question that no one asks is this: the two courses of action are not mutually exclusive, so why don't we both improve mileage and increase supply?

Obama made a speech yesterday in which he talked a lot about victims. I guess that is to be expected, since the Democrats are the party of victims. Their ideal state seems to be one in which everyone is a victim; everyone is a client of the state. I don't think that would be a prosperous state, and it is not what I would like to see for the United States.

Tonight on the Larry Kudlow TV show Senator McConnell described the Democrats as the party "Taxation, Regulation, and Litigation." I guess the litigation thing is what keeps them from being out-and-out socialists. In Totalitarian States there is not much neeed for lawyers.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

I would guess that most people in Texas have never heard of the Marxist New Party branch of the Democratic Party. Given that it is a Marxist organization operating in Illinois, it is no surprise that Obama is, or was, a member.

http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/barack_obama_sought_the_new_partys_endorsement_knowing_it_was_a_radical_left_organization

Tonight's news is that Obama had now become the first African-American to secure the nomination for President from a major Party. He is also the first Marxist to have the nomination of a major Party.

I read that Obama claims he can unify the country. Unless he changes his view on a lot of things, which seems unlikely, he will be unable to get my support, or I suspect, the support of most conservatives any more than Bush was able to get the support of Liberals (and I suspect Bush tried harder than Obama will). If Obama is elected, then I will be in dissent. Recently the Democrats have proclaimed that dissent is the highest form of Patriotism, so I'll be even more of a Patroit. I'm certain that their position on dissent will change if Obama is elected President. But, the Democrats are lucky because Conservatives will not become traitors if the country is in a war, as some elected Democrats have done.