Political Angst In America

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Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The President of Honduras tried to trash the Constitution of the country and make himself President for life. The country's Congress and Supreme Court stopped the coup and ousted him. Obama has called for "the rule of law." It appears that the rule of law is what happened, since the guy trying to ignore the law lost. Why does Obama come down on the side of the thuggish dictators every time? Rush Limbaugh has the solution. I don't like listening to Limbaugh, but he does have good insight into the thinking of Democrats. Obama does appear to think he should be President for life.

I have noticed for some time that most Democrats do not believe in free speech. They really don't think their opponents should be permitted to criticize them. Here is an example. Of course, they should be permitted to say anything they like about their opponents, including outright lies. That is one of the many political views they share with Islamists and other fascists.

Last year Democrats like Nancy Pelosi said dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Now Democrats say dissent is terrorism. Does that mean that they think opposition to Bush makes you a patriot while opposition to Obama makes you a terrorist? Even with Obama in the White House Democrats refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Monday, June 29, 2009

People are wondering why Liberals are demanding the resignation of Gov. Sanford for having an extramarital affair, something immoral but not illegal. Of course, they did not think Bill Clinton should be removed from office for a similar indiscretion, and he broke the law when he lied about it under oath, something Sanford has not done. The reason for the difference is simple: Clinton is a Democrat, so he can lie, but Sanford is a Republican so he cannot make the slightest slip.

There are some unexpected consequences that would result from the energy legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives. One result will be an increase in the price of gasoline by an estimated $0.77 per gallon. The price of imported gasoline will go up by $0.10 and the price of domestically refined gasoline will go up by $1.00. It seems logical that this will result in more imported gasoline and less domestically refined gasoline. Is that really an unintended consequence? I think not. I think the Democrats and the environmentalists know that, and want that to happen. The result will be that domestic refiners will cease operations. The jobs of those who work in those refineries will disappear. Obama likes to talk about creating "green" jobs. He does not talk about the jobs that are lost as he eliminates fossil fuel. I wonder why Obama doesn't talk about jobs lost? Here is some discussion on this issue.

The ill-conceived energy bill recently passed by the House would require carbon dioxide emissions in the US to be reduced to about 2 tons per year per citizen by 2050. That is going to be a significant challenge since an adult person emits about 0.4 tons of CO2 per year just by breathing. If the person has a horse for transportation he will exceed his allotment, since the horse breaths out over 2 tons of CO2 per year. Many Democrats and environmentalists think that "renewable" energy can rather easily replace fossil fuel. In that they are totally mistaken, for reasons discussed here. The long range solution is a transition to nuclear power, probably initially thorium breeder reactors (for which there are centuries of fuel available), and ultimately to fusion power. There is plenty of fossil fuel available for making a smoother transition over a century than the abrupt transition that Obama envisions. (AGW is a red herring, of course, as is obvious if you listen carefully to Democrats, who clearly indicate that AGW is just an excuse for doing what they want to do. If that argument is inadequate for you, consider that they admit that their legislation is not going to reduce temperature according to their own analysis.)

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I have long suspected that the supporters of the AGW hypothesis, who control the average global temperature data, have manipulated it to support their cause. The most egregious of these was NASA/GISS, no doubt heavily influenced by James Hansen. Their data was curious because, as is well documented, they kept adjusting past temperature down and current temperature up. Personally I have severe doubts about the validity of the temperature record and don’t think it reliable or accurate enough to prove anything. The only reliable data we have is from satellites, and that record only goes back to 1979, so is too short to prove anything. It does, however, indicate that temperature is now the same as in 1979, within the accuracy bounds of the data. Here is an examination of the temperature adjustments applied in the United States. This was done in Australia; apparently scientists in the US are too afraid of the government controlled scientific establishment to do such an analysis. (The Mann hockeystick fiasco, which I don’t believe any logical person would accept as fact, was proven to be in error by Canadians, for example.)

Personally, based on about 50 years of experience in heat transfer analysis, I have doubts that the record of the average of daily maximum and minimum temperatures at a specific locations could be used to prove anything in regards to global warming, but that is another fairly complicated issue.

Democrats usually like Marxist dictators, and especially those in Latin America. The Honduras army just removed the unpopular Marxist President of Honduras when he tried to get himself elected for another term even though that is illegal under Honduras law. Naturally this upsets Obama, and he wasted no time in calling for "the rule of law." Here is a comment on the situation from "Flopping Aces." Maybe Obama is worried about the bad precedent this sets before he tries for the third term he thinks he is entitled to (on the way to President for Life). I suspect Obama is trying to figure out how to blame Bush (and maybe Ollie North) for the coup.

Obama has uttered some of the stupidest remarks I have ever heard a President make. And the Media chooses not to challenge whatever he says, no matter how wrong it is. Consider these remarks he made about carbon being a pollutant in water and in the air. He seems to not know that plant and therefore human life on Earth could not exist without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that soft drinks are loaded with carbon dioxide. He also says "polluters" will pay for the climate change legislation. Does he not realize that people exhale carbon dioxide? Does he not realize that power companies will pass along increased costs to consumers? He apparently thinks the people of America are incredibly stupid. Maybe he bases that on the fact that almost all of the media support him without question, and over half of the people voted for him.

Back during the Bush Administration there were claims that research supporting global warming was being suppressed. Not much proof of that ever showed up. Recently Joanne Simpson retired from EPA and said she was glad she could finally speak her mind about global warming, and it turns out she is something of a skeptic. James Hansen claimed he was being censored but his travels around the world with his message of impending doom continued unabated. At the same time, there was evidence that Al Gore had censored scientists during the Clinton Administration. As I recall Roy Spencer left NASA because he was censored. Now we find that the Obama Administration is suppressing EPA reports that do not support the Global Warming Hypothesis. This is no surprise. The Democrats actually say that they are doing what they want to do, and it doesn't matter whether or not burning fossil fuels harms the environment. Once again we find that Obama lied when he said he would have the most transparent Administration in history, and that he would restore science to its proper place. Apparently that place is to support his policy positions regardless of the physics.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

The curious thing about the UN IPCC is that the Report for Policy Makers is written by politicians rather than scientists, and it is often reported that the report by scientists does not back up the politicians report. Here is a comment by a member of the UN IPCC science body that I completely agree with. Note his comments on the predictive value of untested computer models. Based on my experience, the UN IPCC climate models are not only unvalidated, they cannot be validated. The Earth's climate system is a chaotic non-linear system with a vast number of variables, many of which are unknown and some of which are unknowable. Note the comments about cooling. No one wants the Earth to be colder. In the history of mankind warmer has been better than colder. Living in an ice age would be no fun at all.

I see indications that the Obama Administration is beginning to use fascist techniques to control the population. About six weeks ago I wrote a lot about the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, and how recent data does not support it. Then I got a notice that this blog had been identified as a potential spam site. Today I read in Dissecting Leftism about another blog that got the same notice after writing critically about the Obama Administration's AGW legislation. Here is that notice, which is identical to the one I got:

Hello, Your blog at: http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at [link]. Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected. We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577 Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts. Sincerely, The Blogger Team

Back during the Clinton Administration there were a lot of examples of Federal Agents taking unwarranted lethal action. Waco and Ruby Ridge are two examples where Clinton took action to intimidate the hated "right-wingers." (For those who didn't follow the Congressional hearings that revealed the incompetence of the Clinton Administration, the Texas Rangers testified that, if the Federal Government had asked them to arrest David Koresh, they could have done it without bloodshed. But, of course the Clinton Administration wanted bloodshed to provide an example.) The force used in the Elian Gonzalez case was also unwarranted. Does anyone recall a similar situation to either Waco or Ruby Ridge under Bush? Bush was accused by Liberals of attempting a fascist takeover of the government, but I don't know of any case where he ordered Federal agents to use force in the way Democrats routinely do. Another case of Liberal projection. I predicted that Obama would resume Clinton's practice of unnecessary and excessive force against groups Democrats don't like. Here is an example of how the Obama Administration deals with right-wing zealots. The 2010 election will be critical; if the Republicans do not make at least a partial comeback, then the Obama Administration will be increasingly heavy-handed, and will increasingly suspend civil rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Obama is basically an African. Robert Mugabe is the model for how Obama will eventually govern if Democrats are not voted down.

Friday, June 26, 2009

I am astonished at the reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. I am disappointed that Fox News has devoted most of their airtime to the story. America has really been dumbed down. It has proven easier to reduce the academic performance of the majority whites than to improve the performance of blacks and Hispanics. And this has brought us to the state we are in now. Here is a view of the situation from James Lewis.

Obama and Angela Merkel don't appear to agree on much. She thinks that the Obama economical policies will lead to a high rate of inflation in the US that will be destructive to the whole world. (She also likes George Bush, which doesn't make Obama like her any better.) Obama does not like Europeans much because of his colonial African heritage. It is pretty sad for me to see an American President who is politically to the left of a European leader.

I saw Warren Buffett, an Obama supporter, interviewed on CNBC this week, and he also predicts a lot of inflation in our future. Buffett says the Obama Administration is monetizing the national debt, something that inevitably leads to significant inflation. (I see Democrats on TV spinning like a whirling dervish as they proclaim that Obama is not monetizing the debt. They have embraced the "Big Lie" theory.) One of the Democrat spinners said that Buffett had endorsed the Obama policies in the interview. He and I didn't have the same impression of the interview. Buffett said the Bush Administration did a good job in preventing the total collapse of the financial system last year. He also doesn't like the carbon cap and trade legislation, which he thinks will reduce GDP and cost the US jobs. (A lot of the news anchors and talking heads on NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS are Democrat spinners.)

I heard on TV about the Republican's latest dirty trick. The Democrats came up with a 1200 page carbon cap and trade bill last night, and wanted to vote on it today before anyone has actually read it. The Republican leader is wasting everyone's time by reading the bill to the House. The Democrat's are all going to vote for it, and Republicans are all going to vote against it, so the media feel like it is just a waste of time to actually read it. Obama promised that no bill would be passed until it had been available on the internet for 72 hours so the American people could read it and comment on it. Just another broken promise I suppose. The Democrats don't understand why anyone would think they should actually read the bills they pass.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

I am amazed that Fox News has devoted all of its programming today to the death of the rock star Michael Jackson. This despite the fact that tomorrow the House plans to vote on the carbon cap and trade legislation that will destroy the economy of the United States while accomplishing nothing in terms of the climate change issues the legislation purports to address. It says something bad about America that the death of an aging pop musician is more important to the only objective news agency than the economy of the country. The AGW hypothesis on which the need to control carbon dioxide emissions is based is looking worse to objective analysts all of the time. Of course the Obama Administration, which claims to be putting science back in its proper place, is unwilling to debate the science of the issue. So much for real science. The Administration doesn't care about science; they care about passing what would be the largest tax increase in history.

I have written a lot about how I think Obama intends to become a dictator, and finish Jimmy Carter's efforts to turn America into a third world nation. Here is an African-American who shares my view, and provides some insights into Obama's culture, which is African rather than Afro-American.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I'm not the only person who thinks that Obama does not like the US Constitution nor the rule of law. He clearly wants the rule of man rather than the rule of law. He has already demonstrated that with his illegal takeover of GM among other actions. Here is some discussion of this matter. I have no confidence that the Republican opposition will be up to the job of stopping Obama's coup. revolution.

We can expect that the Obama Justice Department will not prosecute Acorn, the New Black Panthers, and other black organizations that routinely engage in illegal activities. Here is an article about the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.

Now it seems that the Obama Administration has fired three Inspector Generals. This is an illustration of what we can expect from the Obama Administration's Chicago-style politics. Anyone who questions Obama and his Democrat cronies looting the treasury will be viciously attacked. Obama won the election, and to the victor goes the spoils.

The Obama Administration has issued a new "climate change" scare report. The Obama Administration says they are returning science to it proper position, but this report is decidedly non-scientific. Dr. David Deming has commented on the report, which predicts that sea levels will rise by a meter (about 40 inches) during the 21st century. (There hasn't been any increase in the long term rate of rise (about 6 inches per century) so far this century, so they really expect an acceleration in the future. Here are Dr. Deming's comments.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Here is an excellent article by the economist Walter Williams. In it he discusses Mark Steyn's talk, "Live Free or Die." That is, of course, the motto of the state of New Hampshire where the Canadian Mark Steyn now resides. It appears to me that America no longer longer has many people who believe in the motto of New Hampshire. I expect that by the start of Obama's third term as President individual liberty in America will be a thing of the past. By the way, how many know the motto of Texas? It is "friendship." The name Texas is derived from the Spanish version of the Caddo word "Tejas," which means "friend."

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

In his speech in Cairo where Obama once again criticized the United States for everything that ever happened, he also talked about Jews moving to Israel 60 years ago. I thought that was curious because here in Texas I learned in Sunday school that Jews moved into Israel during the time of Moses, about 3000 years ago. I suppose the Ivy League schools Obama attended discounted Biblical myths, and were more nuanced than a bunch of red-neck Texans. Obama also failed to mention that Mohammad lived during the seventh century, a long time after Moses.

Here is an interesting article discussing parallels between Johnson's war in Vietnam with Obama's was on free enterprise. I'm not as optimistic as the author that the Democrats will lose in 2010, at least lose seats even if they don't lose control of Congress. If the Democrats do win in 2010 then I think Obama will succeed in establishing the US as a fascist state. Obama represents a sort of revolution, and the type of collectivism that he will install cannot be reversed without a revolution.

A survey shows that New York City has the most aggressive drivers, followed by DFW. That is not a surprise to those of us who live in the DFW area. People here speed up to cut off people entering the freeway, and they often pass me and immediately slow down to make a turn. And, there are a lot of people who follow the "Lucy Rule." That is from the "I love Lucy" show in which a policeman asks Lucy what the yellow traffic light means. Her answer, "Speed up, because the red is coming."

Obama promised, as all politicians do, to have the "most open administration in history." He seems to be falling short. Not only does he have "czars" who are not approved by the Senate making policy, some of whom, like Carol Browner, deliberately don't keep records of meetings, but now he has denied access to the list of visitors to the White House. He is also breaking a law that he voted for in 2008. That law was to prevent the President (in that case Bush) from firing people for political purposes. Now he has fired an Inspector General, whose job is to ferret out fraud involving government money, for doing his job. The problem was that the crook was a Democrat crony of Obama. The Obama justice Department is refusing to prosecute the crook, of course. Obama is bringing Al Capone style Chicago Politics to Washington. Hope and change, indeed.

It appears that climate change is having an impact on the world's food supply. As I have pointed out in the past, cooling is more of a threat to mankind than warming. Warming increases the growing season in northern latitudes, but doesn't much affect the lower latitudes. Now cold weather in the north is reducing the food supply. I expect the government spinners to proclaim that the recent cold weather "proves" the AGW hypothesis.

Here is an interesting article from the Huffington Post. Is this an indication that some on the left are beginning to have doubts about the UN IPCC's agenda?

Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Obama Administration is committed to a green agenda that has not worked in Europe. The carbon cap-and-trade system has not reduced CO2 emissions, and the Spanish "green jobs" initiative has been a disaster with far more jobs lost than created, and gross misallocation of resources that has seriously damaged the economy. Here is a discussion about what is happening as statists try to take over the economy of the world. (Years from now conservatives will write books about how the green agenda was a major facor in the economic collapse of 2008, and liberals will write books saying that is nonsense.)

I have written a lot about how environmentalists have embraced romanticism and completely abandoned realism. They have decided that man is a cancer that is destroying earth. Here is a view similar to mine.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Obama Administration wants to concentrate people in physically smaller cities to make public transit feasible and reduce auto travel. As reported in England, they also would like to have well-off people living in the midst of public housing. I don't think I would want to buy a house in such a neighborhood. Why does no paper in America report on Obama's Utopian plans?

The AGW hypothesis is looking less and less likely to be true as more data are collected. Of course the politicians are proceeding as though CO2 emissions were putting the Earth into imminent danger of collapse. Currently snow is falling in the northern US and Canada, and in Australia at the same time. Skeptics are growing stronger as prestigious climatologists are entering the fray with books shedding more light on the AGW hypothesis.

I wonder if the world needs an inexpensive notebook computer. If so, this may be the ticket.

President Obama does not feel any necessity to follow the law, as he has made clear in his short time in office. Now he has "fired" an Inspector General (not a political appointee) who had the nerve to investigate one of Obama's cronies, who appears to have acknowledged his wrongdoing, but will not be prosecuted by the Obama Justice Department. This is the type of behavior that should be expected from Chicago Thug Politicians. Here is the story from Powerline. It will be interesting to see if the MSM report this at all, and if they do, how they "spin" the story. Most of the MSM are "spinners" for the Obama Administration.

The Texas legislature has once again turned back the plaintiffs bar's quest to establish a jackpot legal system. Thus Texas remains the freest place in the Universe. Fortunately there are still a lot of conservative Democrats in Texas. With Obama in the White House individual liberty is under attack everywhere in the US. Hopefully Texas will be able to hold out until there is a new order in Washington. It will be a challenge, especially if Republicans don't stage a comeback in 2010. If Obama gets to put a few more justices like Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court, then the US Constitution will be meaningless. The Republicans are a bunch of sad sacks, but they are all that those of us who favor individual liberty have. It may well be that the demographic changes in the United States have doomed individual liberty. There is no place to go for those of us who want individual liberty, which is sad, so we have to make a stand in Texas. Republicans need another tough guy like Reagan as opposed to super nice guys like the Bushes. The Democrats treat politics like total war; they intend to destroy the other party, persecute their supporters, put them in jail. The Bushes were patricians who fought like gentlemen while their opponents were street toughs.

Friday, June 12, 2009

The world needs a good fusion energy source. One that could power the world for millions of years. So far, fusion devices have not produced much if any net power. But there is always hope. Here is another concept. I haven't researched it, but it sounds like it has promise.

I continue to be amazed at how the AGW hypothesis has become part of the conventional wisdom. People who have not a clue about science or the climate accept the concept, and refuse to even discuss the issue. Of course, they refuse to discuss it because they have no understanding of the issue. But, why do they believe it? They have some mindset that man is destroying the earth and making it worse for people. They believe that despite all of the contrary evidence. There seems to be so sort of suicide impulse. Consider these comments by the head of Caterpillar, for example. There is not much evidence that CO2 is adversely affecting the climate of earth, and much evidence that the general circulation models used as the foundation of support for the AGW hypothesis have failed to accurately predict the current climate. People need some instruction on the scientific method.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Yesterday Obama had 15 or 16 "czars" but today I read that there are 21 "czars." It is hard to keep up with how many of these "shadow" cabinet members there are, or how their responsibility interacts with that of the actual Cabinet members. Cheat Seeking Missiles has more on the "czar" situation. Carol Browner is a good example of what is wrong with the Democrat's new governmental organization. It is doubtful that she could have been approved by the Senate, given the things she did during the Clinton Administration. For example she destroyed all of the emails from her office as she departed, in violation of the law. The Bush Administration took no action against her, of course. She continues in her secretive ways to destroy the economy of the United States.

Larry Kudlow is excited about the amount of money the Obama "czars" donated to Obama and the Democrats. This is no surprise to me, and I doubt there is anything untoward about it, except that has the appearance of impropriety. After all, the czars are mostly millionaires, and they are Democrats, so it is not surprising that they gave a lot of money to Obama.

I am not the only person who has noticed that the Democrat's "Czar" system puts a lot of power in the Executive without any Congressional oversight. Jennifer Rubin has noticed. I wonder how long it will take Democrats in Congress to figure it out.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The fear of inflation is causing a lot of financial advisers to recommend TIPS. Those are government bonds that guarantee a small interest added to the inflation rate. That sounds good, but I see a flaw in the plan. Suppose that inflation goes up to 10% as it did under Carter. The yield would be 12%. But, the marginal rate on income tax is 39%. So the net yield after taxes is 7.3%. But, inflation is 10%, so the bond owner loses 4.7%. That is better than owning the regular treasury bond paying, say 4%. After taxes the owner would lose a whopping 9.1% considering inflation. TIPS look like a smart move for the government especially if they are planning on inducing a high inflation rate. (Democrats like inflation; they like paying off debt with cheap dollars. If the inflation rate under Bush had been 6%, then the recent credit crunch would not have been so severe since home values would have continued to rise. But eventually rising interest rates would have bitten those with ARMs, but the crash would have been delayed until a Democrat was President. Republicans are not good long run strategists like the Democrats.)

An 89-year old man shot a guard at the Holocaust museum. He is being described as a "right-winger" in the MSM. That is curious since he is a registered Democrat, has written that he despises both Bush's, and hates neocons. But, the MSM has a stereotype that anti-Semites are right-wingers. In reality Progressives have been Anti-Semites since before FDR. In a similar vein the MSM always described American Nazi's as right-wingers even though they loudly proclaimed that they were socialists, as their idol Hitler was.

Here is a story that says Obama is ordering that people captured in Afghanistan (and, I suppose, Iraq) be read their Miranda rights. During the recent election Sarah Palin said that Obama would do this. The Democrat spinners laughed at her. It is hard for me to understand why Democrats want to conduct a war as a criminal matter. I guess the Democrats are consistent in that they think that everyone in the world has Constitutional rights, at least the right to come to America. Then there is the matter that Obama doesn't like the Constitution. But, he is so god-like that there is no surprise that he can hold two incompatible beliefs at the same time.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

One good question now is, why do the Chinese continue to buy the debt of the United States? THe Chinese are establishing a second petroleum reserve and are going to buy $80 billion of gold. The must be expecting devaluation of the dollar. That is probably a good guess since it appears that the US is going to have to borrow much more than the $1.8 trillion that has been advertised. I think that more money than projected will be needed in future years because Obama's tax increases will not poduce the revenue that the government projects.

Back during the Clinton Administration the Democrat deep thinkers lamented loss of control of Congress because it thwarted their plan to get the inflation rate back to where it belongs in their view, at 6% per year. I think they can rest easy now because the Obama spending plan will devalue the dollar so that we will be lucky if the inflation rate is only 6% per year in about two years. I think the likely outcome by the end of Obama's current term will be either stagflation at best, or hyperinflation at the worst.

Democrat Party deep thinkers developed a plan to create a new level of department heads below Cabinet level to run the government's regulatory system. This new level of department heads would apparently be responsible rather than the Cabinet Secretaries, but would not have to be approved by the Senate. This would allow the government to be run by people too radical to get Senate approval, something greatly desired by the Democrats. Obama is following the plan as he appoints more and more "czars." This is a first step to establishing the fascist government that controls all aspects of the economy. This system basically removes control further from Congressional influence. I would have thought that Democrats in Congress would be concerned about their loss of power. But, I guess they have accepted that Obama is THE ONE, sort of a god, as expressed by Evan Thomas of Newsweek.

Monday, June 08, 2009

Here is a video done in response to ruminations of Maureen Dowd explaining to her why Reagan was a better President than an Intellectual would be. I wonder if "trekkies" will like this video. Most engineers and military folks I know are conservative, but I have always suspected that "trekkies" were liberal.

Most people do not realize that "liberty" and "equality" are opposite sides of the same coin. The United States has dealt with the apparent contradiction of promising both liberty and equality by defining "equality" as "equality of opportunity." Obama and the Democrats would like to change the formula to "equality of outcome." Obviously, "equality of outcome" means that there is no "individual liberty." Also, state imposed equal outcomes is some form of socialism.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Maurice Strong and Al Gore have gotten the Anthropogenic Global Warming (aka Climate Change) train rolling full speed ahead, and the end is almost in their grasp. This Fall in Copenhagen the UN will give the IPCC more power, and will be, they hope, the incipient world government. There is little time left to stop the madness. Lord Moncton has confidence that the US, the last, best hope of the world, will kill the AGW movement since Europe and China won't. I am less optimistic given that the US is now governed by Obama and the Democrats, and they also desire a fascist world government along the lines of the EU.

Friday, June 05, 2009

I continue to be astounded by the world reaction to the Apocalyptic Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis. The projections of future temperature by the IPCC and others have not come true, the assertion that warming occurred at an unprecedented rate during the twentieth century is clearly not true, and there is little unambiguous data that supports the hypothesis. The hypothesis is primarily based on the output of over twenty separate general circulation models that are not validated, do not correlate with each other, and fail to accurately predict local climate events, or long range trends for the entire earth. Nevertheless, despite lack of even minimal proof of validity of the hypothesis, governments around the world are enacting policies that will severely damage the economies of the world, and will significantly reduce the standard of living around the world. Skeptics have formed a Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, and have released a report disputing the hypothesis. Here is an article about this.

The Obama Administration talks a lot about energy self sufficiency for the US, but doesn't want to use fossil fuels for that purpose. They have taken steps to increase the cost of drilling wells by changes to IRS rules. They speak a lot about the use of wind turbines to generate electricity. They need a lot of new electricity capacity given that they plan to replace the current fleet of automobiles with electric cars. The idea of generating most of the electricity through the use of off-shore wind turbines is mind boggling, and would cost an enormous amount of money. Here is some discussion of the subject.

In today's Ft. Worth Star-Telegram I read that it will cost $40 to park at the new Dallas Cowboy stadium in Arlington. I checked on the internet, and it appears that the cheapest seats for regular season Cowboy games cost about $100. And, at the game a coke costs $7. There haven't been any games played in the new stadium yet, but apparently it is expected that 80,000 people will show up for the games. It appears that for a family of four it will cost over $500 to attend a Dallas Cowboy game (and much more if they sit in the better seats). A game that can be watched and seen better on free TV at home. I hear political commentators on TV say that the nation is now in a depression that is as bad as during the 1930's. That talk causes me to have a cognitive disconnect since I remember the depression of the 1930's and people couldn't have spent $5 to take their family to a ballgame. And, there was no TV on which to watch for free. If the country is in such terrible shape now, with people unable to pay their bills, how can families be spending so much money to go to a ball game?

I wonder how many people ever heard of the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce established on 23 January 2009? Obama has made it a domestic force in that people can serve in it to replace military personnel assigned to overseas duty. Burt Prelutsky describes the situation:

It is scary that this former community organizer and leftist friend and ally of Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Machine and ACORN, has revised Bill Clinton’s 1992 Defense Department Directive 1404.10, which initially dealt with the overseas deployment of civilian personnel. In its current form, it states that the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce “shall be organized, trained, cleared, equipped, and ready to deploy in support of combat operations by the military; contingencies; emergency operations; humanitarian missions; disaster relief; restoration of order; drug interdiction; and stability operations.”

A well-armed, highly trained group of Americans to deal with unspecified contingencies, emergencies, stability operations and the restoration of order? It would seem to me that between the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Red Cross, Homeland Security and the various police forces and sheriffs’ departments, we already have such things pretty well covered. What is Obama so worried about? That one of those future Tea Parties will get out of hand? That law-abiding citizens who take the Second Amendment seriously might not agree to surrender their firearms? That some conservative writers and commentators might not be willing to knuckle under to the Left? That Republicans will have the audacity to actually run against Democrats in the 2010 elections?

I think a reasonable person might ask one or two reasonable questions of President Obama. One: Who does he have in mind to run this paramilitary organization now that Hermann Goering is no longer available, and, two, what color shirts will they be wearing? Black or brown?


One characteristic of dictators is that they establish a paramilitary force that is loyal to them personally rather than to the state. The reason is that the nation's traditional military may be unwilling to take action to forcefully resolve domestic political disputes. Hitler and Mussolini had their Brownshirts and Blackshirts, respectively. The Roman Emperors had the Praetorian Guard. Hugo Chevez recently tried to establish a paramilitary arm in Venezuela. This is normal operating procedure for dictators. Obama has Acorn, but he needs to establish a means for arming them. Hitler went through a similar process of disarming the public and arming the Brownshirts during the 1930's. Most people find it unthinkable that Obama could be a budding dictator. Germans probably felt that way about Hitler. To avoid alarming the public it is necessary that the would be dictator proceed in a stealthy manner. The time to stop budding dictators is before they get absolute control, while they can still be stopped by simply calling attention to their activities. Sadly, the MSM in America is no longer up to the job, as was the situation in Germany and Italy prior to WWII. Think about this: had you ever before heard of the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce?

Thursday, June 04, 2009

I have read that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is a Republican. He must be a liberal Republican, otherwise known as a RINO. He has famously said that we have to "coerce people out of their automobiles." Obama wants to give a subsidy to people who "turn in" their older cars. Senator Dianne Feinstein has some sort of bill to pay people to sell their "clunker" and buy a "green" car. This is to be expected from Obama's fascist government with its vision of a "command" rather than a "free market" economy. Here is a discussion of the fallacy of coercion economics. I particularly like the comment to the article which suggests that all elected officials and political appointees in Washington DC should be required to take public transportation to work.

The FCC claims to have the right to do a warrantless search of your property if you have any sort of RF device like a cordless phone, a remote door opener, or a wireless router. Who knew they had they power? The question is, will the Obama Administration make use of that power to harass their political enemies? Obama does seem far more interested in expanding Federal power than Bush was, despite the Democrat's accusations. Obama is trying to figure out how to detain people without charging them with a crime. No doubt he has in mind "domestic terrorists" like "gun nuts" or abortion protesters rather than Islamic terrorists (he is trying to figure out why we just can't get along with the latter). Here is a comment from a guy who is concerned about Obama's grasp for more power.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Richard Lindzen, an MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science, has a presentation on Global Warming. He doesn't agree with Al Gore. He thinks the climate is much less sensitive than the scientifically challenged elites on the East and West Coasts of the US. (Despite their environmental activism, I don't think movie stars or politicians know anything at all about climate science.)

I was a bit surprised when Obama announced that the United States was no longer a Christian nation. But I am seriously shocked now that Obama has announced that the United States is a Muslim nation. It is hard to figure out what Obama's agenda is since he must know that about 80% of the population are Christians and less than 1% are Muslims. What does he hope to gain by these pronouncements? Is he trying to get the world to think the United States is a Muslim nation? I am pretty sure that he would like for the United States to be a Muslim nation. Personally I think that Islam should be declared a political rather than a religious system, and should be outlawed from the United States because it calls for the overthrow of the government.

Democrats like Senators Kennedy, Durbin, and Kerry have strongly criticized the US for the conduct of the prison holding terrorists at Gitmo. Durbin referred to the US soldiers as being like Nazi's. They say the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo causes our enemies to treat prisoners poorly. At Gitmo the prisoners watch TV, play games, and eat a special Islamic diet that costs twice what is spent for food for our soldiers. Al Qaeda doesn't fool with all that stuff; they behead captives. It certainly seems like it would be better to be a prisoner at Gitmo than a captive of al Qaeda. How much worse could al Qaeda treat captives if we were really harsh;, say if we treated terrorists the way people in Federal Prisons are treated?

Obama is billed as a Constitutional Law Professor. (Actually he was a Lecturer; I was a Lecturer in Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer, but I don't refer to myself as a Professor.) But, Obama has made it clear that he doesn't like the Constitution. The reason he doesn't like it is not so much that it was written by a bunch of old dead white guys, but because of its philosophy. Ayn Rand described the reasons cogently:

"Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals -- that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government -- that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government." --author Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

Obama and other Liberals do not like limitations on the power of government. They also believe that individuals are not capable of managing their own affairs, so the government must take care of them: to them the Nanny State is a necessity. When I was a boy, people in America could do anything that was not specifically prohibited: in other countries people could only do what was specifically permitted. Obama and the Liberals clearly have an agenda of increasing government power and restricting individual liberty. They claim that are are for individual liberty because they support unlimited abortion and gay marriage, which most conservatives oppose. But, they are opposed to all forms of economic freedom and property rights.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Obama soundly criticized George Bush for allegedly dictating to foreign countries. I actually saw little indication that the accusation was accurate. But, as usual, Obama is proving to be a hypocrite. He is clearly trying to create a rift between America and Israel. He reveals his Muslim leanings with his partiality to Arabs who are our enemies. He now says it is OK for Iran to develop nuclear technology that could be used to make a bomb. Obama's advisor Samantha Power has advocated that Israel be occupied by the UN. I think Obama has in mind the eventual elimination of the Israeli State. I am mystified as to why American Jews supported Obama. I thought they supported Israel, but I may have been wrong. Perhaps they are as prone to suicidal national security policies as other Liberals.

Liberal Democrats do not like to hear Obama's policies described as socialism, and they deny that Obama's taking control of banks and the auto industry amounts to nationalization. Obama says he doesn't want to run banks or auto companies, but he clearly does not want to relinquish his control over banks as indicated by refusal to allow them to return government bailout money. After all, his control of the banks makes it easier for him to roll over bondholders, confiscating their property without due process, and taking over auto companies. Democrats say that Obama will only control things until the economy improves. I doubt that. Obama operates as a Chicago-style politician, so he will use his control to reward supporters and punish opponents. I expect that he will soon take control of more of the means of production in the US. I would think oil companies would be high on his nationalization list. Obama wants to get his socialist agenda through Congress quickly so he can start concentrating on the 2010 election. He needs to have an election success that year in order to solidify his gains. If he loses control of Congress in 2010 then his plan to turn the US into a socialistic fascist state will be jeopardized. If he can win in 2010 then when his failure in running the businesses he has nationalized becomes obvious to voters it will not matter because he will have total control by the 2014 election. Of course Democrats expect that Americans will eagerly buy the cute little "green" cars that Obama will produce. Jennifer Rubin has doubts.

Last night I saw Democrat Spinner Bob Bechel on Hannity's TV show on Fox News. Bechel said he has no sympathy for the Chrysler and GM bondholders who had their property taken from them by Obama's government. He expressed the thought that it was necessary to save the UAW jobs, and the "rich" bondholders can afford the sacrifice. I was disappointed that no one asked Bechel how he feels about the rule of law. I gather that he thinks we are in extraordinary times and that extraordinary measures are required. That is Obama's position. But, is it true, or is it a crisis manufactured by the government to justify their actions? It would be logical to infer that Bechel believes that the end justifies the means. That is a position that Democrats, along with Jesuits and communists, have long held.