Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Al Gore tells us that glaciers are retreating due to global warming. People who actually know something about glaciers say that is not quite accurate, and that there are as many advancing as retreating. Here is an article from Dr. Jennifer Marohasy's blog on glaciers:

The Fox Glacier is Advancing
Posted by jennifer, November 25th, 2008 - under News.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change


Hi Jennifer,

I believed that all glaciers are in retreat due to global warming. But then I discovered, when I recently visited New Zealand, that I had been deceived.

In September we visited the Fox glacier on the West coast. We passed a sign some kilometres from its face telling us that this marked where the glacier was in 1750.

When we reached the face we were told that the glacier stopped retreating in 1985 and is in fact now advancing at the rate of one metre a week.

I understand that the nearby Franz Jeseph Glacier has a similar history.

So I wonder what has been happening to other glaciers in the world in the last few hundred years not just the last 100 years. Were they also in retreat as long ago as 1750?

Doug Killeen
Seymour, Australia

Dr. Jennifer Marohasy, an Australian, has a good blog on Climate Change. Here is an article from her blog on the state of wind power in Great Britain. Great Britain is among the best places in the world for successful development of wind power. But, the results of their significant investment in wind power are not good. This article illustrates why T. Boone Pickens likes wind power: it leads to a lot more use of natural gas fuel for gas turbine power generation since the utilization for wind turbines is very low.

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/11/wind-power-exposed-the-renewable-energy-source-is-expensive-and-unreliable/#more-3352

It is always a mystery to me why people think there is some magic innovation that is cheaper than fossil fuel, but has been blocked
by evil capitalists. I suspect that some of the alternative sources might be attractive at oil prices above $150 per barrel. At present the cost of oil for marginal producers is estimated at $75 per barrel by the Saudi's, who probably have as good a grip on the economics as anyone.

Here is a really bad idea that will no doubt be supported by the Obama Administration:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3530607/Lawyers-call-for-international-court-for-the-environment.html

This is a precursor to an international government that is so desired bu socialists and other collectivists of whatever stripe. This panel of 'climate change' experts. No doubt Al Gore will be a candidate to lead this group of witch hunters. It seems improbable to me that these environmentalists are unaware of the total failure of General Circulation Models to predict future climate over the past 20 years, or that the average temperature of Earth is about the same as it was in 1980. These folks are interested in power and control, and have no interest at all in facts.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

There is no reason to believe the IPCC given its history of presenting a brief for one side of a scientific argument while ignoring persuasive counter arguments, confirmation bias, and outright political activism. Here is a criticism citing some of the IPCC's shortcomings.

http://ross.mckitrick.googlepages.com/EPA-ANPRsubmission.pdf

The new Administration in Washington seems to have bought into the AGW hypothesis, and is planning on implementing a ‘carbon cap and trade’ scheme that is ripe for corruption, and will be harmful to the economy of the US (and ultimately the world).

This article by James A Peden, reproduced below, has a good description of atmospheric science. I would have included more discussion of the role of water vapor in the AGW hypothesis. As I understand them, James Hansen and the IPCC agree that CO2 itself does not have the potential to increase the Earth’s temperature much. Rather they think that a slight increase in air temperature, by the Clausius-Clapeyron equation, will increase the amount of water vapor in the air, thus further increasing temperature due to the greenhouse gas effect of water vapor. (I would wager that Al Gore would be unable to solve the Clausius-Clapeyron equation to show that the amount of water vapor the air will hold increases almost exponentially with temperature.) The further increase in temperature causes ice caps to melt, reducing the amount of solar flux reflected, thus further increasing temperature. Elaborate General Circulation Models (GCMs) are used to make projections of future temperature. Some important phenomena such as cloud cover, which obviously has a large effect on temperature, are not well modeled, so are parametrized. Basically, they use what those of us who make large numerical models call ‘fudge factors’ to characterize these parameters. The ‘fudge factors’ make the reliability of the models highly questionable. And, satellite data now being obtained by Spencer and others casts severe doubt on the accuracy of the GCMs.



It is amazing to me that a group of people with a socialist agenda were able to set up the IPCC and convince politicians around the world, who are mostly scientifically ignorant, that CO2 is significantly changing the climate of the world. Vaclav Klaus appears to be an exception, but I think that is more because he recognizes tyrants based on his personal experience than his scientific knowledge. Lord Monckton appears to have good scientific knowledge, but other politicians don’t pay any attention to him. I don’t understand how the US can adopt the policies that Obama espouses without a serious scientific debate on this subject that, as far as I can tell, has never happened anywhere in the world. The IPCC clearly does not follow the scientific principle, and cannot be relied on. Their position was founded on the Mann ‘hockeystick’ which has been shown to be bogus, but they have never acknowledged the simple fact that the base of the AGW hypothesis has collapsed.

Here is Peden's editorial:

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I ran across a Canadian blog (small dead animals) that has a story about wind power generation in Texas. It seems that the wind power generators are paying people to use the power generated by wind turbines. It cosy them money to stop and start the turbines, but the reason they pay customers to use the power is because of the subsidy that they get from the government. It is curious that I have seen nothing about this in newspapers here in Fort Worth, but read about it from Canada. This suggests that the MSM filter the news and feed the peasants only what they need to know.

Y2Kyoto: Wind Power Prices "Below Zero"

Before reading on, just consider for a moment what the term "negative pricing" might mean in plain English.

Ready?


During these negative price periods, suppliers are paying [Electric Reliability Council of Texas] to take their power. Consumers (at least at the wholesale level) are getting paid for using power, and the more power consumers use the more they get paid. These prices are a big anti-conservation incentive. You could, as a correspondent put it to me, build a giant toaster in West Texas and be paid by generators to operate it.

Infrequently, a power plant might choose to bid below the short term marginal price in order to stay in the market and avoid shutting down. It can be economically rational for operators of less responsive generation units to offer negative prices in order for it to avoid the costs of shutting down for just a few hours and then start up again when load increases - think coal-fueled or natural gas steam turbine. When energy load is very low, near zero or negative prices can result.

This isn't the case in West Texas. Instead, the negative prices appear to be the result of the large installed capacity of wind generation. Wind generators face very small costs of shutting down and starting back up, but they do face another cost when shutting down: loss of the Production Tax Credit and state Renewable Energy Credit revenue which depend upon generator output. It is economically rational for wind power producers to operate as long as the subsidy exceeds their operating costs plus the negative price they have to pay the market. Even if the market value of the power is zero or negative, the subsidies encourage wind power producers to keep churning the megawatts out.

Here is an excellent article by Thomas Sowell. The problem I have with executive pay is not how much they are paid good performance, but rather how much they are paid for terrible performance. Based on my experience in Industry, I think performance should be evaluated over many years, not just one year.In the case of the recent failures of financial institutions, it is obvious that some CEO's who had departed with huge sums of money had left ticking time bombs that eventually blew up.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/11/26/ivan_and_boris_again?page=full&comments=true

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Here is a good description about how Wall Street greed brought down the financial markets. Actually the greed went further than Wall Street, since people who selling houses to other people who had no chance to pay for them. We all knew that, and that alone should not have caused the catastrophe that has occurred. The problem seems to have been that the shrewd operators basically created mortgages out of thin air and sold them. Basically these were naked short sales. Why did the financial institutions go along with this. It appears that they are either crooked or stupid. Most of them have ridden into the sunset with their ill-gotten fortunes.

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?print=true

Some Democrats in Pennslyvania don't care about the Constitution, at least when it comes to the the right to control guns.

http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/11/25/penn-democrat-who-really-cares-about-the-constitution/

Monday, November 24, 2008

Some think the media did a terrific job during this year's election:

http://shotsacrossthebow.com/archives/003205.html

One of the major problems with the global warming debate is that the media like to report on catastrophes and impending peril. I think the public have figured out that there is a lot of exaggeration in the media. The media really love things like shrinking glaciers, shrinking ice fields, and drowning polar bears. They don't point out things like the fact that glaciers have been shrinking for about two hundred years,, there's more ice at the north pole than average (which average only goes back to 1979) and that the polar bear population is expanding rapidly. (Regarding glaciers, they probably don't even know that Hannibal's crossing the Alps with his war elephants wasn't as impressive as we were told in elementary school because there were no glaciers in the Alps back during the Roman Warm Period.) Here is a discussion of
this mis-reporting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/23/do2310b.xml

The Global Warming issue is actually quite ambiguous. It is very hard to separate any signal that CO2 is causing climate change from all of the noise in the temperature and other weather data. The IPCC and the proponents of greenhouse gas induced climate change have caused a lot of the vigorous disagreement because of their attitude that opposing viewpoints should be suppressed, and that draconian action is required due to their adherence to the "precautionary principle." Here is a rational discussion of the issue in an interview of climatologist Dr. Robert Balling, Jr.

http://dotearthaction.wordpress.com/our-actions/talking-back-to-inactivist-on-call-in-radio/transcript-of-dr-robert-c-balling-jr-call-in-part-i/

Walter Williams is one of my favorite economists. He is able to put things into concrete terms as opposed to the abstractions used by many economists:

"Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about socialism. Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment? I'm hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow's lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I'd say that there is little difference between the mandates. While the mandate's mechanism differs, it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another. Probably most Americans would have a clearer conscience if all the neighbors were forced to put money in a government pot and a government agency would send the widow a weekly sum of $40 to hire someone to mow her lawn. This mechanism makes the particular victim invisible but it still boils down to one person being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another. Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive. This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one's fellow man." --George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Many people have written that President Bush's attempt to install a democratic government in an Arab country was doomed. The reasoning, which I have read a lot of places, particularly by liberal authors, is the idea that Western democracy only works in northern European countries, or countries founded by people from those countries, such as Canada, Australia, and the United States. It is often pointed out that democracy has not worked well in southern Europe in countries such as France, Italy, and Spain. Such thoughts as these caused me to have concern about President Bush's policy in Iraq. I am also concerned about the future of the US as a democracy, given that, due to unrestrained immigration, the country will soon have a significant majority of people who are not of northern European descent. Is the US destined to become an unstable democracy similar to that in many South American and other third world countries? It is interesting that Democrats proclaimed Bush's initiative ill advised because of their view that Arabs are not suited to democracy, but they encourage immigration of large numbers of people into the US who, while likely to vote Democrat, would also be deemed unsuitable for democracy. Longer term, I think the Democrats believe in what Mrs. Kerry said in a speech in 2004 which I would paraphrase as "vote for us peasants, and we will take care of you." As I recall, they didn't have her make any more speeches, but that was not because what she said didn't represent their true views.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Here is another critique of the AGW hypothesis by a real scientist.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/global_warming_bring_it_on.html

It is hard to see how Al Gore and the IPCC manage to keep the politicians and the MSM convinced that the AGW hypothesis is valid, given all of the data now available that disprove the hypothesis. It may be that those folks are using AGW to advance an agenda, and are not interested in whether or not the hypothesis is valid. For most of them the end justifies the means.

After 103 years experiment has confirmed that Einstein's equation e=mc**2 is correct.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081120/sc_afp/sciencephysicseinstein_081120235605

Obama is appointing Eric Holder to the position of Attorney General. Holder is well known for his opposition to the second amendment to the Constitution. He has proposed that the government shut down gun shows, the Federal Government license gun owners, etc. Holder was also involved in the last minute pardons to 16terrorists and to a tax evader whose ex-wife donated a lot of money to Clinton. He was also involved in the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez by the Federal Government, a lawless act that has never seemed to bother liberals at all. (It seemed a lot more of an infringement on the Constitution than anything Bush has ever done) Here is a discussion of Holder from the blog Macsmind:

by SierraTimes.com, April of 2000:

Clinton and Reno just made their final mistake. They think they have gotten away clean from the murders of men, women, and children at Waco with lethal CS gas, bullets from the back of the building, and fire. Clinton thinks he has gotten away clean from impeachment and from selling our military secrets to China. But what Clinton and Reno have done now is so blatant that it can not escape the notice of the American people and therefore can not escape the notice of our vote-hungry politicians.

Elian Gonzalez was abducted at gunpoint by a Border Patrol swat team and INS agent Mary A Rodriguez without a court order, arrest warrant, or any lawful authority for the abduction. Using Gestapo tactics, the feds blatantly and unlawfully took what they wanted.

On Saturday, April 22, Eric Holder, second in command under Reno, had the following to say:

——————————————————————————–

Saturday April 22, 2000

Legal Analysts Comment on Raid

NEWSMAX.COM - Andrew Napolitano, legal analyst for Fox News and a constitutional scholar had this exchange today on Fox with Eric Holder, Reno’s second in command at Justice:

Napolitano: Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy?

Holder: Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own.

Napolitano: You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy.

Holder: We didn’t need an order.

Napolitano: Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?

Holder: [Silence]

Napolitano: The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it.”

Based on the people he is appointing to office Obama is not bringing as much change as he promised. It is becoming clear why he was supported by the elites Warren Buffett. He is putting in place a lot of the old Clinton group, which Buffett and others in the super-rich class thought did an excellent job of running the country. And, Obama is clearly preparing for his re-election campaign. Here is a description of Obama's elite team:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opinion/21brooks.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

Here is the reason why Al Gore is now concerned about 'Climate Change' rather than 'Global Warming.' After all, it would sound silly to blame whales trapped in ice on 'Global Warming.'

http://www.cheatseekingmissiles.com/2008/11/21/a-whale-of-a-global-warming-alert/

Here is a French soldier's impression of American soldiers in Afghanistan. (He's impressed.):

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/11/21/french-soldiers-awed-by-american-soldiers/#more-12795

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Bill Ayers has had a lot of influence on Obama, and is having influence on the transition of the Presidency. Obama is going to insist on white people paying the "debt" to black people for centuries of oppression. From what I read, Obama doesn't like white Southerners very much. I suspect they don't like him very much either. But, he doesn't like them because they are white: they don't like him because of his collectivists politics. Here are some comments about Obama's and Ayers' plans for teaching "social justice" in public education.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/ayres_influence_on_obamas_educ.html

The climate of the Earth has changed considerably throughout history. It seems intuitive that something besides the activity of man was driving the wide variations in temperature, which varied widely from no ice at the poles to most of the surface being above 40 degrees latitude being covered with ice. It seems likely that the sun must somehow be involved in these large temperature changes. The UN IPCC projections based on the hypothesis that atmospheric concentration of CO2 causes a significant increase in temperature have now been shown by recent data to not be accurate. Here is a discussion of another theory that does successfully explain the past as well as current temperature trends.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0811/S00028.htm

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Reports are that Obama is going to make Penny Pritzker the Head of the Commerce Dept. Her bank went bust a few years ago. Subprime loans didn't work out. She was one of the leaders in the subprime loan business. More recently she handled finances for the Obama campaign. She is another rich socialist from Chicago with a definite fascist philosophy. It is ironic that real fascists accused Republicans of being fascists who were about to trash the constitution are now taking control of the government with the intent of trashing the constitution.

Consider the situation in California where the Supreme Court is considering whether or not an amendment to the constitution is constitutional. We are entering an era where the Courts no longer find new rights in the Constitution never before perceived; now the courts are going to stop any pretense about not legislating from the bench. It won't matter what is written; they will just make up the law as they go along. That is standard procedure for fascist states.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Most of the media and many people accept the catastrophic global warming hypothesis of the UN IPCC. But, it is obvious to any scientist that the methodology of the IPCC is flawed regardless of what one thinks about the global warming hypothesis. For example, consensus plays no role in science, and nothing in science is ever "settled." Most people do not understand the scientific method; the article referenced below gives a good description of the method and how is is not being properly applied by the UN IPCC.


http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/451/the-futile-quest-for-climate-control

If a person points out that black people on average have an IQ almost one standard deviation lower than white people (87 compared to 100), something that is factually correct, then liberals would proclaim that person a racist., However, if one were to point out that Jews have on average an IQ about one standard deviation higher than other white people (112 compared to 100) of than Northeast Asians have an average IQ of 106 compared to 1000 for white people, that would be OK. Considering this one might reasonably conclude that liberals are racists who discriminate against white people. Given these numbers it is no surprise that Jews have earned so many Nobel Prizes in the sciences despite their small numbers, while few blacks have made such achievements despite their relatively large numbers. There is a fundamental problem here that policy makers have been unable to deal with. Blaming white people for the plight of black people seems to be the preferred policy of liberals, a policy that has obviously failed. Here is a comment on this by Walter Williams, one of my favorite commentators:

"The fact that the nation elected a black president hopefully might turn our attention away from the false notion that discrimination explains the problems of a large segment of the black community to the real problems that have absolutely nothing to do with discrimination. The illegitimacy rate among blacks stands at about 70 percent. Less than 40 percent of black children are raised in two-parent households. Those are major problems but they have nothing to do with racial discrimination. During the early 1900s, illegitimacy was a tiny fraction of today's rate and black families were just as stable as white families. Fraudulent education is another problem, where the average black high school senior can read, write and compute no better than a white seventh-grader. It can hardly be blamed on discrimination. Black schools receive the same funding as white schools and most of the teachers and staffs are black and the schools are often in cities where the mayor and the city council are mostly black. Crime is a major problem. Blacks commit about 50 percent of all homicides and 95 percent of their victims are blacks. Tragically, many black politicians and a civil rights industry have a vested interest in portraying the poor socioeconomic outcomes for many blacks as problems rooted in racial discrimination. One of the reasons they are able to get away with such deception is because there are so many guilt-ridden white people." --columnist Walter Williams

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Obama said some things during the election campaign that one would have thought that McCain would have exploited. Here is an example:

http://minx.cc/?post=278181

I respect him, but I never liked McCain, and feel he did not try very hard to get elected. McCain should have pointed out that one of the first things dictators do is get an army that is loyal to then rather than the nation.

My son went to a gun show today. He said it was crowded and they were about sold out of ammunition. Obama has made some gun owners nervous.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Here is an article by Melanie Phillips about how Great Britain has entered the age of barbarism. Great Britain is ahead of us, but with Barack Obama and the Democrats we have reached the tipping point (not that McCain was much better in regard to political correctness and multiculturalism).

http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/melaniephillips/2680221/an-age-of-barbarism.thtml

President Bush will soon be out of office, and then we will begin to learn the truth about Iraq that has been suppressed by the media.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/11/13/cia-agents-confirm-al-queda-was-in-iraq-in-before-invasion/#more-12516

When a Republican gets in trouble for some sex thing it is a major news story. When it is a Democrat the media deem it to not be newsworthy. (Censoring the news for us is one of the reasons they make the big bucks.) Now another one of Barbara Boxer's current aides is in trouble over child pornography. Her former chief is about to go to prison for the same thing. These are Democrats, so ho-hum, move along, there's nothing to see here.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/11/14/democrat-staffer-arrested-for-child-porn-media-quiet/

Rahm Emanuel has apologized for his Dad's remarks. (His Dad was a Mossad agent, so I guess it is no surprise that he doesn't like Arabs. Too bad that Rahm had to say anything. Bill Clinton could have done it for him; Bill loved to apologize for things he had nothing to do with, like slavery: but not for things he actually did. I don't think we should apologize to people who chant "Death to America." Liberals say that the Muslims don't really mean it. I suppose it is just because I am a Texan, but when someone says they want to kill me, I believe them.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/emanuel_apology/2008/11/13/151128.html?s=al&promo_code=713A-1

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Delta Force strikes again:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/military_air_rescue_110708WEB/

I wonder if this sort of thing will continue under Obama. I'm certain that his liberal supporters would like it stopped. They would just pay the ransom. They wouldn't be liberals if they believed that you get more of what you reward and less of what you punish. We can hope that Rahm Emmanuel, who's Dad was a Mossad agent, understands how to deal with terrorists. At least his background gives us some reason to hope.

One of the biggest problems with the Big 3 American automakers is that they have to deal with the UAW, and their managements have consistently given in to ridiculous union demands. Union rules require that more workers than needed be used on assembly lines, based on the number of workers used by Toyota and others automakers in the US. Then, workers at GM get paid 50 to 100% more than what workers in comparable jobs earn, and on top of that GM pays large numbers of employees at closed plants to show up and do nothing at all. Here is a discussion of this. Can the government save the Big 3without changing their employment practices?

http://mises.org/story/2124

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The reports that Sarah Palin didn't know the parties in NAFTA or that Africa is a continent and not a nation are obviously lies. At the same time, who would believe that Joe Biden, he with an IQ of 146, would have thought that FDR was President in 1929, or that he believed there was commercial television that year. Or, that Katie Couric was also unaware that these things were not true. In Katie's case, I guess we can cut her some slack since she is a TV personality, not a real journalist. But, we should expect better from a guy who has been in the Senate as long as Biden. But, perhaps the media cut Joe some slack also since he sometimes confuses his biography with that of Neil Kinnock.

Obama says that he would like to spend $150 billion over ten years to create 5 million "green" jobs. This is obviously bogus to anyone who can do some simple math. If the jobs pay $80,000 per year, then over ten years the payroll for five million jobs would be $2 trillion. There is probably an assumption that all of those people are going to produce something useful that would be sold to generate income. That could be true, but there would also be a capital requirement to produce energy or whatever the "green" product is. The capital investemtn for green stuff is around $5000 per kW at a minimum. (Actually, in Great Britain the cost of "green" energy is about 10 times what was originaly estimated. But I assume that all of the clever people Obama will employ will figure out how to be competitive with capital requiremnets for conventional energy sources.) If Obama wants to replace 20% of the US electricity generation capacity, a number that I have seen mentioned, that is about 200,000 MW. So, the capital cost would be another $1 trillion. Assume that it would take five years to get any of this capacity installed, and ten years to get all of it installed, so about 2.5 years of of total output could be expected. "Green" power is usually not online but about 30% of the time at best. So, if the power were sold at $0.10 per kw-hr, the income would be $131 billion. Maybe Obama plans on starting with just a few people and building up to five million over time. Even with that assumption, the cost would be almost $2 trillion over ten years. So, if we assume Obama is not just flat out lying, their is some sort of political double-talk involved. But, it is a safe bet that the public doesn't undertsand the economics, so what the heck.

Here is an article that discusses the issue. The environmentalist quoted here doesn't believe Obama's number either, but doesn't think the number is important. It is the thought that counts. This is typical liberal stuff. It feels good; it doesn't matter what the outcome is.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/11/obamas_plan_to_create_green_jo.html

The Democrats and their media allies have managed to demonize President Bush, a thoroughly decent man. In doing so they have damaged the standing of the United States in the opinion of most of the world. In doing so they damaged the relationship of the United States with most nations of the world for no good reason but domestic political gain, which is not a good enough reason in my view. Fortunately for the United States, Republicans are less eager to harm the United States in order to harm the Democrat Administration.

Here is a view of Bush, Obama, and change for the sake of change from across the pond.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/ten_years_of_change_in_the_uk.html

I read that one of Obama's first acts will be to ban off-shore drilling for oil. It seems to me that the price of oil started falling back when the ban on drilling was lifted back in September. Without the threat of increased supply, I suspect speculators will drive the price back up. Obama and the Democrats sometimes admit that the would like to see the price of gasoline at $10/gal. so banning drilling helps meet their goal. And, they know that as long as oil is relatively cheap, their alternative energy schemes are not economically viable. Having the price of gasoline fall $2/gal. saves Americans about $300 billion per year which would help lower income people a lot more than higher income people.

Obama is also opposed to nuclear energy, which would help provide clean power to the public at a reasonable cost. Here is an article about small nuclear reactors:

http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/atomic/

Monday, November 10, 2008

I saw the head of Obama's transition team (her name is Valerie Jarrett, and I think she was born in Iran, and is part of the Daley Chicago machine)interviewed on TV. She said Obama would be ready to rule on Day one. I wonder about her choice of words. Should she not have said "govern" instead of "rule?" I suspect Obama and his team believe that they will rule, that Obama will be the dictator. He certainly sounds like he thinks that as he talks about laws he is going to pass immediately.

He is also talking about bringing the prisoners from Gitmo to the US to be handled in secret "Special Courts." Once he gets those "Special Courts" set up, I suppose he will be able to put his political enemies on trial in them as well. He is a Chicago politician so anything is possible. Maybe he will have his political enemies arrested by his national police force which he envisions as being larger and better funded than the army. All would-be dictators establish a separate army loyal to him personally rather than to the nation. Hitler did it, Stalin did it, and Hugo Chevez has tried it. I suspect Obama will try to use ACORN as the foundation for his national security force. Those ACORN thugs should be good at rounding up political enemies for trial in the secret courts. I am not the only person concerned about this. Here is a comment from a Republican Congressman who has noticed Obama's dictatorial tendencies, and is concerned.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iRxZox4GFoIweckPDP1oRhKBlHOwD94CCDU00

Democrats liked to claim that President Bush was trying to become a dictator, but nothing he ever said or did supported that concern. Obama is a different kettle of fish altogether.

A while back Obama said that Hamas supporter and critic of Israel Robert Malley would not be part of his Administration. He also said the country only has one President at a time. Now Obama has sent Malley to Syria and Egypt with the message that he wants to consider their concerns. So much for Obama's promises (but we already knew that he does not keep his word). We know what the Muslims want because they have told us. They want us to become Muslims. Obama is clearly able to make the sale to many Americans. I wonder if he can sell Islam to the country. I suspect times are about to get hard for Israel as Obama works to turn Israel over to the Palestinians.

One characteristic of liberals is that they do not believe in IQ scores, except for their own exalted score, of course. (Does anyone except Joe Biden believe that Joe Biden's IQ is 146?) Liberals expect to make policy on the basis that the average IQ of all identifiable groups of people is not the same. They think that there should be as many black or Hispanic nuclear physicists as Asians, but that is just not going to happen in the real world. It takes an IQ of at least 106 to be successful in any major in college. Given that the average IQ of whites is one standard deviation (15 points)higher than black, and Asians average IQ is almost one and one-half standard deviations higher (21 or 22 points) there just aren't going to be as many black doctors and scientists percentagewise as Asiatics and whites. Politicians have a hard time dealing with this reality. Our country will suffer until they come to grips with this issue. Here is an informative discussion of this by Steve Sailer:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/11/who-says-social-sciences-arent-sciences.html

The other day I read where some British Politician opined that the United States is no longer a white nation. He seemed happy about that, as are many American liberals. Whites are still the majority, but their percentage of the population is shrinking fast. Mexicans are coming in fast, and will soon be the majority in Texas. Within a few years, Mexicans will be the majority in the entire country. This pleases the liberals, who, along with blacks and Hispanics and Arabs, dislike white people. I wonder if these people have thought about this some; can they name a successful country that is controlled by blacks or Latin Americans? I can't think of one. There were some successful countries in Africa while they were run by whites. Now even South Africa is sinking into chaos. Liberals appear to be get what they have wanted in the US. I wonder if they will like it in 30 or 40 years.

I have been reading some of the exit polls from last Tuesday, and it is hard to see how McCain got 46% of the vote. It is estimated that 96% of blacks voted for Obama. And over 70% of Hispanics voted from Obama. And Jews overwhelmingly voted for Obama. Then under 30 year old went 70% for Obama. And white women went for Obama by 56 to 44%. Even white men went for Obama by a slight margin. Finally, 20% of Republicans voted for Obama. I realize that these is duplication between these groups, but just looking at the numbers, it is hard to see who McCain got 46% of the vote. It could be that someone didn't tell the exit pollsters who they actually voted for.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

A lot of the people who brought about the sub-prime loan fiasco have a new scam. This time it the carbon cap and trade system being pushed by Al Gore and Maurice Strong. The system has been in effect in Europe and is failing. But, it offers great opportunity for investment bank houses and other rent-seeking scammers including a lot of major corporations. Actually a lot of extreme environmentalists don't like carbon cap and trade because they recognize that it actually does little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions. George Bush would never go along with the cap and trade scam, but most Democrats including Obama seem to be on board. I expect Obama to issue regulations requiring cap and trade soon after taking office. This will be the final nail in the coffin of the US economy. Look for a deep depression followed by re-emergence of the dark ages. Here is an article describing the situation. The mainstream media are failing to investigate this situation at all.

http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1185475433.pdf

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Back in 2001 Ken Lay wanted to stave off collapse of Enron by getting trading in carbon credits started. Bush refused to go along, and Enron collapsed. Now it appears that the Democrats will finally get to institute the carbon trading scheme. This thing will make Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac look good. This is the most toxic commodity ever conceived. It is a great opportunity for rent seekers and other assorted knaves who love the opportunities for huge gains without doing much work, and nothing useful. For those who were awed by toxic mortgage instruments, credit swaps, and all of those other financial instruments that no one understands, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Here is an article discussing this impending scam:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/11/07/lawrence-solomon-green-market-risk.aspx

The Democrats are up to their usual antics stealing elections. They get a lot of ineligible people to vote, but that doesn't amount to anything unless the race is close. After the voting is over, if it is close, but they are behind, that is when they put their plan into motion. During the recount thier candidate gets more and more votes, while the Republican doesn't get any new votes. Then, if need be, at the end they suddenly find enough votes to put their candidate over the top. They are doing that now in Minnesota in a close vote.

See this Powerline blog for some details:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022030.php

They did this in Washington in 2006 in the election for governor. They just kept recounting until their candidate had the most votes: then, as always, the recount stopped. They tried that in the Presidential election in Florida in 2000. In that case they wanted to have a recount only in Democratic precincts where they could stuff the box; they knew that in a statewide recount the Republicans were aware of what was happening, and they could also stuff the box. That is why the election was over when the Supreme Court upheld the Florida law requiring a statewide recount, which had been overturned by Gore's appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. After the election in 2000 impartial parties did a recount, and Bush had the most votes. The reason Democrats felt they were cheated is becasue they were denied what they feel is their god-given right to stuff the box in recounts. Democrats should be really proud of how they can steal elections. They know that Republicans are uneasy about such illegal activities, so they can only operate in an ad hoc manner in recounts. But the Democrats plan ahead on how they will stuff the box if the election is close. Notice how in Minnesota the equipemt didn't work as planned to electronically transmit the results, so the election judge has to hand carry the ballots, tallies, etc. in to election headquarters. Al Franken apparently picked up a few hundred votes on the way. Back when I was a Democrat (before I was asked to get lost) I saw how numbers were transposed to give the good guys more votes and the bad guys fewer votes, all for God and country.

Friday, November 07, 2008

One aspect of the environmental movement is that many of the members of, say, the Sierra Club are opposed to all energy development. The logical extension of their agenda would be to take civilization back to the middle ages. Here is an example of attempts to stop transmission lines from bringing "green" power into California.

http://www.cheatseekingmissiles.com/2008/11/06/enviros-win-round-in-battle-against-alternative-energy/

Some of the folks in the media are now beginning to voice their concerns about Barack Obama. I think Obama may be an act; what you see is a part he is playing. Marilyn Monroe comes to mind as another person who had a public persona that was completely different from what she actually was. Her real name was Norma Jean, and she would refer to Marilyn Monroe as if she were a different person. Obama appears to the same sort of personality to me. Evan Thomas of Newsweek has expressed his concerns. Here is a transcript of a Charlie Rose show discussing this.

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/11/06/newsweek-editors-obama-a-creepy-deeply-manipulative-creature/

Thursday, November 06, 2008

It is interesting that Democrats such as Paul Begala and others are saying that the way Bush was treated was bad, and that it harmed the nation by aiding our enemies. They suddenly figured this out after Obama won the election. I guess they read Ann Coulter's column in which she says she will give Obama the same loyalty and respect that Democrats gave Bush. So, Democrats have suddenly realized that it is bad for the opposition party to continually undermine the policies of the President. They figured that out just as they take over. Why shouldn't the Republicans undermine the Democrats for domestic political advantage just as the Democrats have done for the past 8 years? It would be bad for the country, but that didn't concern the Democrats. Republicans are expected to act as Patriots, but Democrats apparently are not.

The Global Warming hypothesis is one of the most important issues of our time, along with the attack on the west by Islam. Politicians in the west seem incapable of dealing with either of these issues. Courts and politicians do not understand science, and are incapable of dealing with the ambiguity in science rather than their child-like anticipation of certainty. A lot of smart people do not believe in AGW. But, politicians like it because it gives them an excuse to increase their control over all activities. Here is a piece on this issue from the blog Powerline.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022014.php

Here is an article marveling at how global warming became "politically correct" and then became "conventional wisdom." The Obama plans for controlling carbon emissions are truly mind-boggling. The author ends with "welcome to the nineteenth century." I think he has it wrong: the environmentalists are looking back further than that. At least back to Rousseau I'd say.

http://brookesnews.com/080310pc.html

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

There are a lot of weird things happening these days. In California it was necessary to pass a Constitutional Amendment to the effect that marriage is between a man and a woman. This is something that is well established in our civilization and is also obvious in nature. Tonight I heard that Democrats in New York plan on passing a law that says that two people of the same sex can be legally married. I suppose that they can pass such a law, but that won't make same sex unions real marriages. I wonder if the people in New York can pass Constitutional Amendments?

Obama says he wants to end partisanship in Washington. But, I think he doesn't actually mean that, given his selection of Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff. Emmanuel is the most partisan person in Washington, far more so than even Karl Rove. It is possible that the selection of Emmanuel was to appease the Jewish vote. But, I think his intense hatred of Republicans was also a factor in Obama's selection of him.

Rumors are that Obama is going to make Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. the head of EPA. I have watched this Kennedy a lot on TV, and he is an incoherent ideologue who is not very smart. He will at least attempt to totally destroy the economy of the US. As head of EPA he will try to shut down the electric power industry in the US, except for the small amount produced by "renewables." He probably doesn't even like hydroelectric power. And, when he discovers what gases are released in the manufacture of solar cells, he won't support photovoltaics.

One of life's mysteries is how conventional wisdom can persist despite no supporting evidence. Global Warming is one such phenomena. Most people are convinced it is happening even though there is no indication that it is. And politicians are willing to severely damage the economy of the nation to combat something that is not happening. Life is getting better all of the time; the air is cleaner, the water is better. (The air quality was terrible in London during Shakespeare's time, and when I was young the air was killing people in Pennsylvania.) People in the recent election are convinced that they are worse off than they were a few years ago. But here is an interesting factoid; during the 2004 election 3% of the voters made more than $200,000 per year. In 2008, 6% of the voters made more than $200,000 per year. (And, there were more voters in 2008, so there are more than twice as many people making over $200,000 per year.) I think most people were doing better, but conventional wisdom dispensed by the media made them feel like they are worse off than they are. But, back to global warming; the supporters of the global warming hypothesis are actually reactionary in that they are Rousseau-type Romanticists who want to go back to a primitive age. (Something that some of them admit will require a smaller population in the world.) Here is a good article discussing this phenomena:

http://www.frontpagemag.com./Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=69129807-D8D6-4986-B6DC-FC772A431C8B

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

If McCain loses today in a close election, the after-the-fact analysis will no doubt include speculation that his goofy campaign finance reform (McCain-Feingold) was the cause of his defeat. (Along with Obama's trickery in reneging on his agreement to use public financing.)

With the election happening today, it is good to reflect on how the candidates and political parties try to manipulate us. Here is a little clip from the movie "A Face in the Crowd" that reminds us of what is actually happening, which is basically that we have no idea what the candidates are actually like, or what they actually intend to do. (I got this clip from the blog "Powerline.")

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/021981.php

Monday, November 03, 2008

Here is a Mother Jones interview on global warming with Roger Pielke Sr. Pielke believes there are a lot of environmental issues that are more important than CO2 emissions (I agree with that.) He also believes that energy policy should be separated from climate policy (I agree with that, also.)

http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/11/sustainability-interviews-roger-a-pielke.html

Sunday, November 02, 2008

The bankrupt coal comments of Obama that just came to light bring to mind another question: how many other similar comments has he made that the news media are suppressing. There is the tape that the LA Times has in which Obama salutes Rashid Khalidi, the one time spokesman for the murderous thug Yassar Arafat and the PLO. The LA Times says they will release the tape after the election. I am convinced that if the public knew Obama's actual position on issues, he would be unelectable. He is beyond any doubt a collectivist of some stripe: socialist, communist, fascist, or whatever. At present that position on issues, if known, makes one unelectable in America at large. In a few years we will no doubt go socialist as the percentage of western European descent citizens declines, and citizenship is given to the huge number of illegal African and Latin immigrants. The only way Obama can be elected now is if his true beliefs are suppressed and hidden from the public. The Democrats and their media fellow travelers were willing to damage the US effort in Iraq for domestic political gain, and are no doubt willing to deceive the citizens in order to win the upcoming Presidential election. As I listen to Democrats, they say in effect that they can can control Obama. I say why take a chance?

Severaql bloga are talking about possible Iranian nuclear bomb tests. I haven't seen anything about it is the regular media. It is not possible that this is correct since Democrats assure us that their intelligence shows that Iran stopped their nuclear bomb program in 2003. Of course, our intelligence agencies haven't been right very often regarding nuclear weapons. They didn't know North Korea, Pakistan and India were about to do tests, and it turned out that Saddam wasn't very far along. So their record is poor. Here is some info on this from the blog "Flopping Aces:"


1 Nov

Iranian Scientist Claims Earthquake is Second Iranian Nuke Test


UPDATED
True or not, this is exactly how it will happen; sketchy, uncertain reports backed by minimal scientific data, precluded by rhetoric from Iran and rhetoric from Israel, and at a time of maximum American political instability.

In any event, true or not, it seems abundantly clear that diplomacy has failed with Iran. Senator Obama says he’d talk to Iran, that more sanctions would work (as if even possible given Russian and China’s near lovefest w Iran). Well, if the good Senator really believed that, then he’d have already opened backdoor talks himself, or quietly met w an Iranian ambassador at a friendly, neutral embassy.

Iran is making nuclear bombs
Diplomacy has failed
If this report is true, then there are nukes near the Straits of Hormuz-ready to be used against 25% of the world’s oil shipping, against hundreds of thousands of Americans in the area, or to be put on a ship and sent to a target city.

Sober up people. America’s at war. Do we need a warrior or a lawyer? Do we need a man who can’t fit his the long list of resume accomplishments into a single book, or a man who has zero national accomplishments on his resume, and barely 100 y/n votes in his entire lifetime? You decide which will deter Iran. Meanwhile, the bombs are near the ships, and they’re already in the shadows.

Israel Insider exclusively reports that a seismic event this weekend in southern Iran may in fact have been a massive underground nuclear bomb test. According to the USGS, the tremor measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale took place Saturday night, October 25 just before midnight Iran time, with its epicenter at 26.70°N, 55.02°E, just north of the strategic straits of Hormuz, opposite Abu Dhabi.
Zoomable map source: Google Maps.

The claim that the tremor was in fact a nuclear test came from an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project. A report published by Israel Insider on Friday, October 24 included a captionless map that portrayed the area of the seismic event that occurred the following night, based on location information previously provided by the Iranian source.

Israel Insider’s source reports that the test is in fact the second in a series. A 4.8 Richter scale event occurred on October 21 with an epicenter (26.70N, 54.96E) within 5 km (3 miles) of the October 25 tremor

link

UPDATE
North Korea’s nuclear tests were actually announced just before they happened so as to prevent any military response. However, they were conducted in October of 2006 (just before a US election at a time of maximum American political instability), and they were confirmed by seismic data. They were also conducted relatively close to the coastline.

Whether the reports about Iran are true or not…the UN’s IAEA claims that Iran might already have a nuke. They at least have hundreds of ballistic missiles that could devastate any city in the Middle East, and they have enough radioactive matl to make those warheads dirty.

There is a very real threat from Iran-according to Senator Obama (who has also said there is no threat from Iran; duplicitous as usual). In a matter of hours, we’ll know how America will deal with them.

The World Series recently ended after waiting a few days due to inclement weather in Philadelphia. It seems to me that baseball needs to shorten the season some so that the World Series is over around the first of October. Baseball is a game meant to be played in warm weather. I don't think a baseball game played in near freezing temperatures reveals the best team. Baseball has some other issues it seems to me. The games simply last too long. I think this started when games began to be televised. The players started lollygagging about when the sides changed because the commercial was being played. I suppose the owners like the longer games since more hot dogs and beer get sold. And they like the TV money. Naturally the players don't mind since most of them are making millions per year. Who cares about the fans anyway; after all, they are still attending the games and watching on TV. But, it seems to me that the fan base for baseball is shrinking. It doesn't appear to me that people are as interested in baseball as they were when I was young. This is particularly true of younger people. So, I think that baseball has a longer term problem. But, I suppose their management has the same attitude as the CEO's of financial institutions: I'll get mine and get out before the collapse.

Here is more about Obama's view of coal. And, since he talks about greenhouse gases, this would also apply to natural gas fired power plants. It would also have an impact on automobiles. Basically this policy would shut down the economy of the United States. I can't imagine that Democrats could be dumb enough to implement such a policy. Obama may be and probably is too ignorant of science and economics to understand, but surely some of his advisers that they might not survive the revolution that such a policy would cause. It is interesting that, despite all of the data available now showing that the greenhouse gas induced catastrophic warming hypothesis is simply not valid, politicians still operate as if it were true. Here is another story about Obama's statement.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/blogs/fortyfourthestate/show_comments.php?entry_id=3471

During this election cycle the media have not reported what Barack Obama says to the public, and for reasons that I don't understand, McCain has not pointed out much of what Obama stands for. Back in January Obama said he intends to tax the coal industry out of existance, including coal fired power plants. The US gets 40% of its electric power from coal fired power plants. His position is obviuosly known to the media, and those deep thinking journalists probably agree with Obama. I wonder how the public will react when the lights go off? Obama also wants gasoline to cost much more. He and the Democrats are hypocritical enough to blame Bush for high gasoline prices while planning to drive prices even higher. Presumably McCain would be better in this regard than Obama, but he also has bought into the catastrophic global warming hoax. Here is an article about Obama's policy statements that have not been widely reported.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/shocking-new-audio-obama-promises-to.html

With the Democrats setting up to stuff the ballot box in the Presidential election this year, whether or not they need to, it brings to mind the 1960 election. Whether or not the Democrats actually stole the election that year is unknowable at this time. But, there is no doubt that "Johnson's good old boys" in Texas and Joe Kennedy's mafia friends in Illinois stuffed the ballot box for Kennedy. Other people have thought about the parallels. I think this year is different because the Democrats have put into place a permanent mechanism for stealing elections. Here is an article on the subject:

http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2008/11/stealing-election-1960-and-2008.html

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Politics in Chicago have been crooked all of my life. The Daley machine has run the city for all of that time. Chicago was famous as the home of gangsters, and should be still. Obama is a product of that corrupt system. Here is a description of the situation in Chicago (where more Americans have been murdered this year than have been killed in Iraq due to offensive action as well as accidentally). Not the high tax on gun owners in Illinois that is intended to put gun ownership economically out of reach for most people. This is what we can expect under Obama.

http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/fsalvato/2008/10312008.htm

In my memory we have never had a President who had close family members who are citizens of another country. The case of Obama's aunt is really strange. According to a London newspaper she is an illegal alien on living on welfare in public housing in Boston. And, she has made an illegal contribution, presumably from her welfare payment, to Obama's campaign. As President will Obama bring all of his relatives to the US? Since his father was a Muslim and had many wives, there may be a lot of relatives. I wonder if Obama knows them all. Personally I don't like the idea of a President who has close family members who are citizens of another country. It seems to me it might make for divided loyalty. Obama has exhibited some of that in his autobiography.

One constant in American politics is that Democrats call Republicans fascists while they are the ones who act as fascists. Joe the plumber reveals this. Ohio officials are checking into Joe because he asked Obama a question that elicited an inconvenient honest answer. (This was a classic gaffe, meaning an incident in which a politician inadvertently says what he really believes.) Obama and the Democrats launch investigations into people who embarrass them. Obama kicks reporters from newspapers that don't endorse him off of the campaign plane. Democrats threaten the license of TV stations that run advertisements critical of them. Bill Clinton had people who made obscene gestures at him detained by the secret service. (The first President Bush laughed about people who made obscene gestures at him and said, see, they're saying we're number one.) The Democrats accused the current President Bush of being a fascist and of shredding the Constitution because he monitored phone calls of suspected terrorists, though, as far as I know, no one but actual terrorists were ever affected by this. (Some newspaper reporters claimed they were damaged because their terorist contacts would no longer speak to them. Poor babies. If the reporters are loyal Americans, why are they talking to terrorists thereby aiding and abetting enemies of the country?)