Hizb'Allah, Syria And The Forces Of War.

This may be a hot summer in the middle east.

See: Israel warns Syria over Hezbollah attacks

Israel has delivered a secret warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad that it will respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese-based Islamist group, by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself.

If Syria delivered SCUD Missiles to Hizb'Allah in Lebanon as reports in the media indicate, then we may be looking at a summer war, with Israel going up against Hizb'Allah in Lebanon and the Syrian Government itself.

Peace between Israel and its neighbors now hinges on the restraint of Hizb'Allah. Can Hizb'Allah sit there with their new SCUDs and not fire them into Israel?

What will Obama do when the shooting starts? Who will he support? Who will he condemn?

Understanding Poland, Russia And The Horrors Of The Katyn Forests.

Chance and happenstance are sometimes very difficult to accept.

There will be conspiracy theories put forth to explain this terrible tragedy. It is unfortunate. It will not be helpful.

We live in an age where conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen. People seem to find comfort in the thought that bad and terrible things happen because someone or some group of people “conspired” to make them happen.

That bad and terrible things can happen for just plain inane, stupid, or silly reasons, or worse, no reason at all, means that chance and happenstance have more of a role in the currents of history than many people can stand.

For many, simple pilot error will not, can not, be enough. This is too monumental an event. It's timing and location are too significant to be just a mater of simple pilot error.

Sometimes, very bad things happen for no good reason. Sometimes, these things happen in what turn out to be the worst possible circumstance, at the worst possible place, and at the worst possible time - by no one's design. Sometimes, life is just like that. This is one such example.

Chance, Happenstance and cruel reality.

The crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and so many of Poland's top tier political leaders is a monumental catastrophe. It could not have happened on a worse patch of Russian ground.

The Katyn Forests are the site of a terrible event in Polish and Russian history. In that dark place, over a half century ago, Russia massacred about 22,000 Polish prisoners of war. The prisoners were largely Polish military officers and police officers. Among them were also many Polish political prisoners held by the Soviets. This terrible place, this horrible forest of death, this killing ground of Poland's best and brightest of the 1940's, is a sore and festering wound in the Polish psyche. It still haunts Poland's relations with modern day Russia.

To lose Poland's present day political leaders in this forest now is very terrible. It is terrible for Poland, and terrible for Russia.

Vladimir Putin is a not a nice man. Putin is trying to stay in power, trying to keep Russia from failing and trying to keep Russia relevant and important on the world stage. He is a brutal and thuggish leader of a nation in decline.

The Russian birth rate is so far below replacement rate that it's population is likely to be halved before the end of this century.

Russia is surrounded by hostile nations to the west that resent having been ill treated under the iron boot of the Soviet Empire.

To Russia's south are hostile Islamic nations, Chechnya included, that would love to feast on the rotting corpse of an enfeebled and weak Russia. They are hungry and they have growing populations. Russia will not be able to resist them much in the later part of this century. Russia simply won't have the numbers. When Russia loses the will and the means to hold off the wolves to it's south, they may be able to keep Moscow, if they are lucky. The Rest of Russia will be in dire peril.

Putin has been playing a hard game with the former east block states. He has worked very hard to weaken their resolve and to deny them the means to defend themselves against Russia. It has made relations between Russia and the former east block states unpleasant. But so long as nothing really terrible happens between Russia and the east block states, keeping them militarily weak is worth the price to the Russians of a few harsh words and the hurt feelings of the former east block states.

Then that plane crashed in the worst possible place.

Putin immediately knew that the crash was a terrible event. His quick action to declare himself the head of the investigation into the crash is his attempt to put Russia's best face forward on this disaster. He knows that it has the potential to strain already difficult relations with that former and very resentful east block state. Putin knows that the Poles have little reason to have anything but hatred and contempt for Russia. Now he has their dead President and most of Poland's leaders lying freshly dead in a new smoldering hole in the Katyn Forest.

Keeping the former east block states in check is difficult enough in normal times without having a stark and vivid reminder of how badly they have all fared at Russia's hands in the not so distant past.

I would imagine that in his memoirs, Putin will say that this was one of his worst days.

Russian Air-Crash Kills President of Poland

Many prominent Polish leaders were on the plane with him. There were no survivors.

See: Polish President Lech Kaczynski dies in plane crash

See: A nation in mourning: Poland's president and wife among at least 88 dead as their plane crashes in Russia

See: Poland in shock as president dies in air crash

Can The Federal Government Mandate That You Buy A Private Product?

Washington State's Attorney General will be making the argument that it can't. A surprisingly supportive editorial from the left of center Seattle Times editorial board explains.

See: AG Rob McKenna has a case to challenge the health-care law's individual mandate

The main challenge here is on one point — whether the federal government can require people to buy a private product: health insurance.

The argument centers on the U.S. Constitution's commerce clause, which gives Congress the power "to regulate Commerce ... among the several States ... " The lawsuit argues that requiring a citizen to buy insurance goes beyond regulating commerce. It is, says McKenna, "forcing people into the stream of commerce."

The law calls its mandate a tax. But if you comply, your money goes to the insurance company. You pay the government only if you don't comply — which means, McKenna says, "It's not a tax. It's a fine."

We think McKenna has a good case, and one the progressives who condemn him ought to appreciate. These critics are so often right about the dangers of corporate power, and particularly the rapacity of insurance companies.

Click on the link – Read the whole editorial.

I am hopeful that Rob McKenna and the other states Attorney Generals will make a good case before the Court.

The Coming Commercial Real Estate Crash

You may have noticed a lot of empty store fronts in your neighborhood strip malls. If those empty spaces give you any kind of uneasy pause or sense of concern, your instincts are sound. Something terrible is happening in the quiet corners of the nation's economy.

Commercial Real Estate is about to become big news. Very big news.

Lets look at a news article that appeared recently in the Seattle Times.

See: Columbia Center misses mortgage payment

The Columbia Center is Seattle's tallest skyscraper. It is the city's flagship office tower. A tall slender structure of black glass and steel, it rises high above all of Seattle's other offices buildings.

And nearly half of it is now available for rent.

Bottom line!: The new owners of the building are totally screwed.

When Beacon bought the Columbia Center in April 2007 it was 89 percent leased. The firm paid $621 million, according to county records, and borrowed a total of $480 million to help pay for the tower.

Its assessed value now is $380 million.

"There are many buildings in a similar position where the loan is greater than the value of the building," said Craig Kinzer of Seattle-based Kinzer Real Estate Services.

That is a world of butt-hurt.

That is also only one of many of the large office towers in this city.

The office towers are not alone in their problems. Residential rents in the Seattle area are at historic lows.

See: Renters, rejoice: Apartments are cheap and the iPod is free

After peaking in 2006 and 2007, rents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties tanked over the course of last year by nearly 4 percent, according to Scott. He expects rents will continue to plummet this year by 5 percent, and again in 2011, but less dramatically.

In Seattle, property managers say that trend has been more pronounced, with some rents dropping as much as 15 to 20 percent last year. In general, higher-priced units have had biggest rent reductions. Bart Flora, co-owner of Cornell & Associates, which manages 6,500 properties in the city, said some, in-city, one-bedroom apartment now rent for $800 to $850, instead of roughly $1,000 two years ago.

"It's the steepest drop I've ever encountered in 25 years, certainly in my career," said Flora. He added that he believed the market - at least in Seattle - appears to have hit bottom and is stabilizing.

(Stablizing? Not even close buddy. There is a whole lot more bottom to hit.)

Now think about what all of that means, not only to the landlords of both the office towers and the apartment buildings, but also about what it means to the municipal coffers. When there is no money to tax . . .

Seattle is screwed.

And its not alone.

Look around.

What do you see happening in your city?

See: Half of Commercial Mortgages to Be Underwater: Warren

By the end of 2010, about half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater, said Elizabeth Warren, chairperson of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, in a wide-ranging interview on Monday.

“They are [mostly] concentrated in the mid-sized banks,” Warren told CNBC. “We now have 2,988 banks—mostly midsized, that have these dangerous concentrations in commercial real estate lending."

As a result, the economy will face another “very serious problem” that will have to be resolved over the next three years, she said, adding that things are unlikely to return to normalcy in 2010.

Soon, the quiet corners of our economy are going to come screaming down around all of our ears.

HT: 3Wood at CC

Dying For A Glass Of Water

See: Dying Patient Was Refused A Glass Of Water

Ruth Sauter, the patient's daughter, said she was disgusted by the treatment her father had received.

She told The Daily Mail: "His condition was not life threatening, and nurses had specific instructions to keep close tabs on him.

"'But their appalling lack of care, and cruel behaviour killed my father...It's so much worse knowing that he died alone, thirsty and scared on that ward."

After being admitted in the morning, he was given antibiotics and oxygen, but was later forced to ring his wife to tell her that he was not allowed any more water as he had earlier knocked over a cup.

After ringing the switchboard, a doctor was called to the ward, only for a nurse to tell him that the patient was "overreacting".

This is a product of the English socialized medicine scheme.

It is important to keep in mind that in a socialized medicine scheme, the patient is not the customer. The real customer is the political-class that runs the socialized health-care administrative bureaucracy.

The patient is little more than a notation in a budget allocation.

Trusting your health to the benevolence and competence of politicians and bureaucrats is insane.

~~~
[Update]

FinallyFree at CC Found another article on the same subject. It goes into a little more detail then the one that I found.

See: Dying hospital patient phoned switchboard begging for a drink after nurses said 'No'

Global Warming Activists And The Rising Sea Level Lie

One type of Environmental Scientific Charlatanism is to hype Anthropogenic Global Warming as a cause for some notable environmental change when another far less frightening and very natural cause might actually be the source.

We can see an example of this in a report on the sinking of New Moore Island.

See: New Moore Island Sinks From Global Warming

New Moore Island has been sinking for 30 years. However, the island itself, known as New Moore, is no more. In fact, it's now completely submerged under water.

Scientists used satellite imagery to prove their point. Moreover, sea patrols have confirmed that New Moore Island has sunk. Now the Global Warming experts say it's because of Climate Change.

However, the fact is, the island has been sinking dramatically during the past decade. Global Warming experts claim that the sea level is rising in accordance with rising temperatures. The island is about two square miles.

The island itself could be the first of many islands to soon disappear. Reports say that around 10 other islands are at risk of being submerged by rising waters. It is either caused by rising sea levels or the island itself might be sinking in mud.

Note how even the headline for article at this link declares Global Warming to be the cause of the island's sinking.

It is bullshit. More to the point, it is a lie.

There is something very interesting about New Moore Island that is alluded to only in passing in that article, as if it shouldn't be given much thought. The key to understanding what is happening to New Moore Island gets an oblique half sentence mention in the fifth paragraph of the article " . . .or the island itself might be sinking in mud." In another half sentence, several paragraphs later, the island's “geological instability” is sited as the reason why neither India nor Bangladesh established permanent settlements on the island.

Sinking in mud?

Geological instability?

The article gives the truth of the mater the most casual and off hand treatment. Global Warming is hyped hysterically but the importance of the geological makeup of the island and its role in the the life of the island is all but ignored.

New Moore Island is a sandbar. The Island is made up of alluvial silts and muds flowing out of the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta. In other words, it is not the kind of island that should be thought of as a stable land mass. New Moore Island is just sinking under its own weight, which is within the norm for sandbars. Sandbars are by their very nature, ephemeral structures, existing for fleeting geological moments at the whims of nature's tides, waves, winds and storms.

While the sea level itself may also rise and fall of its own accord, it would be irresponsible if not outright ignorant or deliberately deceptive to claim that the sinking of New More Island was primarily a product of Global Warming and a concurrent rise in the sea level.

It shouldn't take a rocket scientists to figure out that if the sinking of New More Island was solely due to global warming induced rising seal levels, we should be able to see the equivalent sinking of coastlines all around the world. That no such corresponding global coastline sinking is occurring all over the world should have given the writer and the editors responsible for that terrible piece of journalism a bit of pause. It didn't.

They left the truth out there to just sink in the mud.

See Also: Bengal Island succumbs to global warming nonsense – AP gets nutty over the loss of a sandbar
Wattsupwiththat critiques another news article on the same subject. They also have pictures and charts on the subject.

See Also:AP Lies: Island Sunk By Global Warming
Sweetness & Light goes after the same AP article as Wattsupwiththat.

Rushing The Sale. A Look At An Environmentalist Propaganda Technique.

With the Cap and Trade bill comming up again, there will be many examples of crude environmentalist propoganda to highlight.

Here is one that claims that Anthropogenic Global Warming will cause the sea-levels to rise and destroy a coastal city.

See:How global warming might transform Vancouver’s shoreline

Rather typical of one of the most dishonest forms of Anthropogenic Global Warming propaganda, the article starts out by suggesting a picture of a well known place transformed (as if in an instant) into a devastated landscape of watery ruin. Many of these propaganda scare stories use this technique to induce an emotional response in the reader.

Granville Island, Kitsilano and Jericho beaches, the Stanley Park seawall, the Downtown Eastside, and the port all help to define Vancouver in the eyes of the world. But try to imagine what this city would look like if all of these local landmarks were underwater.

Ridiculous, you say? Perhaps. But it’s not so far-fetched if all of Greenland’s glaciers were to disappear, causing sea levels to rise—and if Vancouver didn’t take steps to ameliorate the effects.

Of course it is ridicules. It is an extreme picture painted in the most frightening and immediate terms possible in order to rush people into accepting a ready made prescription.

The AGW activist have a solution readymade. You are to transform your life, from everything that you are allowed to do and even everything that you are allowed to think. You are to surrender your body and soul to their benevolent guidance.

If you resist or ask troubling questions, you will be called a “denier,” akin to the insane people that deny the holocaust. With this type of rhetorical slight of hand, they will try to make troublesome AGW doubters into social and political pariahs.

Asking questions will not be allowed in the beautiful future they offer.

"Serve the state" you will be told. "Be happy. Surrender all of your cares and worries to those that can better manage you and the world around you."

And in whispers they will ask - (You aren't a “denier” are you?)

~~~

Climate change is real. The planet's climate is not static. It never has been. It never will be.

AGW is politics. It is a scheme to frighten enough people with something as natural as the rising and the setting of the sun to force the whole world's population to surrender to statist totalitarianism.

It's a Brave New World that the AGW activist are going to bring about. Their paradise of universal totalitarian chattel slavery will do nothing to freeze the climate. The climate can't be made static. Only the mad and the evil would try to shape people's lives on the AGW premise that the climate can or even should be made static. Unfortunately, there are mad and evil people in the world.

Social Security In The Red

In the wake of the passage of the Democrat's Health Care Rationing Scheme, News comes out that our nations Social Security system has reached a point were it will be paying out more then it takes in.

See: Social Security Payouts to Exceed Revenue This Year

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.

" . . . unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances?"

How, pray tell, can "Congress strengthen the program’s finances" without raising taxes, cutting benefits, or some combination of both?

When the Democrat's health-care rationing scheme runs into problems, won't they have to raise taxes, cut benefits, or some combination of both?

Why would we want a government that can't manage a simple retirement plan to be put in-charge of rationing our health-care?

If the Democrats break Social Security, people will just be broke. If the Democrats break their health-care rationing scheme, people will die.

Did Democrats Lie About Racist Slurs?

There were reports during the vote for the Democrat's health-care rationing scheme that Tea Party protesters had hurled racial slurs at members of the Black Caucus.

See: Tea party protesters use racial epithet against Georgia's John Lewis

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol , angry over the proposed health care bill, shouted "nigger" Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis , a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.

When I heard the first reports of the slurs, I was afraid they were true, but struck by the fact that there was no sound or video being played in the media.

If it really happened, we should have heard and seen the evidence of it played over and over again a-la Rodney King.

There were video cameras everywhere.

No sound or video has surfaced that supports the claim that racial slurs were directed at the Black Caucus members. None.

None at all.

Was it all a lie?

See: MEDIA FRAUD– More Proof That the Leftist Media Lied About Racist Attacks On Black Reps While They Ignored Vulgar Attacks By Lib Politicians

See: Third Video of Tea Party Protest of Black Congressmen Reveals No Racial Taunts

Your friends and family on the left may bring this up in the coming days. Challenge them for proof. They don't have any. Then ask them "Was it all a lie?"

HT Amy Ridenour and Pi Guy @ CC

The Myth Of The Pro-Life Democrat

Bart Stupak sucker-punched the pro-life movement.

In the end, the power that the Democrats would gain by giving themselves the ability to ration health care was more important to Congressman Stupak than was the pro-life stance that he had claimed to hold.

You can hear Stupak try to explain as Megyn Kelly rips him a new one.



He had 4 votes. Enough to kill the bill.

Stupak sold out. (and cheaply at that.)

See also: Schlafly: Health Care Vote Set to Expose the Myth of the 'Pro-Life Democrat'

"Any formerly pro-life Democrat who casts a 'Yes' vote for this Senate health care bill tonight will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."

"Mr. Stupak and his Democrat followers have now clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat. If abortion was truly their biggest issue, they wouldn't willfully align themselves with the Party of Death."

I think that Phylis Schafly makes a strong argument. When tested, Stupak valued life less then he valued the Democrat Party's accrual of political power.

Fighting Back

Two things to do without delay.

1. Send a Republican a campaign contribution. It does not have to be a large amount. It just has to be something.

I will be sending some money to SarahPAC tonight.

2. Send a Thank You email to everyone that voted against that abomination tonight, even the Democrats that voted against it.

These people need our thanks. They fought the valiant fight.

The Count

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 165

H R 3590 RECORDED VOTE 21-Mar-2010 10:49 PM
QUESTION: On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments
BILL TITLE: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Democratic
Ayes 219, Noes 34

Republican
Ayes 0, Noes 178

TOTALS
Ayes 219, Noes 212

For the full list of names, See: FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 165

Republicans Score A Huge Victory For The Constitution

In the battle over the Democrat's Health Care Rationing scheme, the Republicans have won a huge victory against the Democrat's consideration of using a shady and frankly unconstitutional gimmick to pass the bill in the house without a direct vote, with a slight-of-hand trick called the Slaughter Solution.

The Slaughter Solution is now dead.

See:House Opts Against 'Deeming' Health Care Bill Passed

House Democrats on Saturday decided against using a controversial tactic to pass the Senate's version of the health care bill,  a senior House source confirmed to Fox News.

The decision capped an ongoing discussion on whether to use a so-called "deem and pass" strategy that would allow House members to approve the Senate version of health care bill without an actual vote before casting votes on a second "fix-it" resolution, known as reconciliation.

This is a big win for Republicans.

Now the Democrats will have to put their names on the Yea's and Nay's of their plans to ration health-care. Now we can hold them accountable for this monstrosity without them being able to pretend that they did not vote for the damnable thing.

See also: Rules Committee meeting descends into chaos

HT: JCM, PiGuy & CC

The Democrat Health-Care Rationing Scheme Legislation As A Vote Winner

Can the Democrats really believe that their Health-Care Rationing Scheme will be good for them in the Midterms and beyond?

In a word, Yes.

See: EXCLUSIVE: Biden Says White House Getting Earful from Nervous Lawmakers Over Health Care

Biden said once these provisions take effect and the American people feel the impact, lawmakers who vote "yes" will reap the benefits.

"They're going to see right off the bat the horrible [things] aren't real and there are some very good things that become apparent immediately," Biden said. "Once the American public realizes that ... [legislators are] going to be rewarded."

Can the Democrats really believe that?

Yes they can.

We are talking about true-believers.

Many on the left believe that the rightly guided (god) state can make for a paradise on earth. To us, that is a madness, but to them it is in the realm of the possible.

In fact, our oppositions to their efforts to bring about thier new and inherently benevolent god-state is seen by them as proof our meanness and selfishness.

Sure, they understand that some of the things that they will do will make some people unhappy for a time, but they believe that the paradise of the god-state that they are ushering in is worth a few minor discomforts that some may experience. They believe that once the god-state is in place, that everyone that was discomforted will realize that it was selfish of them to complain of their discomforts and come to support with the whole of their heart and soul the greatness and the glory of the benevolent new god-state.

Can they really believe that the ends justify the means?

I think that they really do believe that they are doing a right and good thing. They believe that they are doing a good thing worth every effort and with an end so worthy that any means to bring it about can be justified.

We have seen the Democrats seriously entertain the Slaughter Solution. I think that made it clear that they really are based in a "the ends justify the means" world-view.

They are only held back by the limits of what they can get away with.

.

We are about to embark on a brave new future.

FIghting The Democrat's Health-Care Rationing Scheme The Idaho Way

Idaho points the way.

See: Idaho challenges national health care proposal; more states may follow

Washington (CNN) -- Idaho on Wednesday became the first state to pass a law saying no thanks to part of President Obama's health care proposal.

The Idaho Health Care Freedom Act says in part, "every person within the state of Idaho is and shall be free to choose or decline to choose any mode of securing health care services without penalty or threat of penalty."

Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, a Republican, said Wednesday he signed it because he believes any health care laws should ensure people are "treated as an individual, rather than as an amorphous mass whose only purpose in this world is to obey federal mandates."

The Democrats are not just a federal party. They operate on the State and local levels as well. They should all be made to feel the heat from the Federal Democrat's attempt to ration Health-Care.

The Democrats at the State level need to feel threatened by the blow-back from what their partners are doing at the federal level.

One way to do this is to contact your State government Representatives and ask them to pass a bill like Idaho's.

No Democrat should feel safe, no mater how low or obscure the office they hold. All Democrats need to know that they will be held accountable for the Federal level Democrat's attempt to screw the citizens of the United States.

Call your local state representatives and ask them (politely) to follow Idaho's lead.

There is no time to hesitate or wait. Call them today.

Just How Stupid Is Democrat Congressman Patrick Murphy?

It may be that he just thinks the voters in his district are stupid enough to accept his weird rationalization for voting for the Obamacare abomination.

See: Murphy supports health overhaul

The 8th District congressman said the measure, if passed, will result in the "largest middle-class health care tax break in our country's history."

Calling it the "largest middle-class health care tax break in our country's history," Congressman Patrick Murphy said Tuesday he will support health care legislation, and the process by which it becomes law doesn't concern him.

What planet does Congressman Patrick Murphy(D) live on?

[Additional - added at 11:45am]

Democrat Congressman Patrick Murphy has a press release on his website that offers his rationalization for voting for the Obamacare abominations.

See: Patrick Murphy Announces Support for Long Overdue Health Insurance Reform

Health insurance reform is deficit-reducing, a condition that Congressman Murphy, as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, stressed was critical to his support for any health insurance reform measures. In fact, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office, all of the current legislative proposals reduce the deficit. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and other industry groups, who will see millions of new customers under this legislation, are contributing hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for insurance reform.

How can effectively nationalizing what amounts to about one sixth of the US economy reduce the deficit? Is it possible that he really believes what he is saying?

Rationing Health-Care By A Procedural Slight Of Hand.

By hook or by crook, the left-wing extremist that run the Democrat Party are going to get their "Health-Care" bill onto the President's desk one way or the other. The Slaughter Trick is beyond the pale. They will set them selves up to ration your healthcare if they have to rape the Constitution to do it.

See: House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

We are down to the wire. Now is the time for you to do something.

Here are two toll-free phone numbers to the Capital Switchboard.

Try these ones first
877 762 8762, 866-877-4455 (Should work for both the House and Senate.)

800 965 4701 (House)
800 828 0498 (Senate)

As always, be civil and polite.

When you call these numbers, you will reach an operator. Ask the operator to transfer you to your congressman's or Senator's office. You will need to know your critter's name. Don't rely on the operator to know who your congress critter is. If you don't know, try this website. Enter your zip-code and your State. It will give you your congress critter's name and contact information.

This is important.

It is a game changing.

This is a watershed moment in our nation's history.


~

And here is one that needs to hear from all of us.

Nancy Pelosi - Phone (202) 225-4965, Fax (202) 225-8259

Will The Democrats Slaughter The Constitution For Socialized Medicine?

Nancy Pelosi is expressing confidence that the Democrat's Health-care bill will pass. Her confidence may be well founded. The Democrats are contemplating a maneuver that has been dubbed The Slaughter rule. Named after Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), Chair of the House Rules Committee.

See: The House Health-Care Vote and the Constitution

Under her proposal, Democrats would pass a rule that deems the Senate's health-care bill to have passed the House, without the House actually voting on the bill. This would enable Congress to vote on legislation that fixes flaws in the Senate health-care bill without facing a Senate filibuster, and without requiring House members to vote in favor of a Senate bill that is now politically toxic.

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution may pose a problem for the Democrats, but since the Health-care bill is an “all the marbles” play for them, I think that they would be willing to risk a constitutional chalenge, thinking that if in the off chance the court rules in their favor, they will own the whole of the Republic outright.

Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

M. Connell explains in the Wall Street Journal Article cited above:

As the Supreme Court wrote in Clinton v. City of New York (1998), a bill containing the "exact text" must be approved by one house; the other house must approve "precisely the same text."

Again, I think that the Democrats may be willing to gamble that the present makeup of the Supreme Court could possibly rule in their favor.

If they lose, its back to the status quo with a loss of a few seats in congress. The voting publics notoriously short memory will help them regain the lost seats in a few election cycles. No real penalty will be paid.

However, if they were to win at the Supreme Court, they will have made everyone in the Republic dependent on them for their health-care.

Lose a little versus win the whole damn enchilada.

(See also: Slaughter Solution Unconstitutional)

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine

See: Vladimir Lenin: “Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.”

See: The story of Medicare

HT : Design Czar at CC

Democrats Screwed If They Do And Screwed If They Don't

There is an important article in the Friday edition of the Washington Post.

Its available on-line now. Most every Democrat in congress will read it. You should too.

The article is written by two long time pollsters for the Democrats. It is an oracle of doom.

See: If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly

First, the battle for public opinion has been lost. Comprehensive health care has been lost. If it fails, as appears possible, Democrats will face the brunt of the electorate's reaction. If it passes, however, Democrats will face a far greater calamitous reaction at the polls. Wishing, praying or pretending will not change these outcomes.

Yep. The Democrats are screwed blue and true.

I did not think it possible for the Democrats to make such a disaster of things. They have made such asses of themselves that they now risk repeating the same congressional blowout that Clinton suffered after his over-reaching attempt to socialize health-care. It was a lesson that the Democrats did not heed. It may well be one that they can not fully grasp. They will blame others. Again.

Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen are very worried that the Democrats will suffer an “unmitigated disaster” in the midterms. They argue their case ably and well.

The links in the article are worth looking at too.

A Climate Alarmist's /dev/null Debate Strategy

After the alarmists have politicized the science in a way that would make even Trofim Denisovich Lysenko blush, some are arguing that the best way for them to deal with those that have doubts about the credibility of AGW science is to just refuse to discuss it with them in public forums.

See: How Best to Debate Climate Deniers on TV? Simple: Don't.

The solution to the climate debate crisis is simple.

Since the Peer Review process is no longer credible, open source the data. If the data can stand on its own, it will stand. If it can't, it won't.

The email leak from the CRU proved that the much of the data and the whole of the Peer Review process must be reexamined and reformed.

No more secret data.

No more secret software.

Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it"

Pelosi on why the health care bill should be passed.



Would you give a Democrat a blank check?

Elections have consequences.

The Political Lesson Of The Massa Scandal

Pick your staff carefully, with loyalty being paramount.

Massa's sin was in choosing his staff poorly. One of them betrayed him.

See: Massa Details 'Salty' Comment That Led to Resignation, Slams Dem Leaders

But Massa said the staff member "never said to me that he felt uncomfortable" and "never went to anybody." 

Rather, he said "somebody went to another staff member who was uncomfortable for him. It was a third-party political correctness statement."

 

The cruel truth is that everyone has a price. For some, the price is so impossibly high that you can trust your life to them. Others will drool for a mere thirty pieces of silver.

You need to know your people's price. What are their limits? What are their concerns? What are their weaknesses? What can make them fold on you?

In politics, when you select your core and your support staff, you must know these things.

Especially if you are a Democrat going up against Rahm Emanuel and the Obama Administration.

Republicans are not safe. While it is very unlikely that any Republican would "Massa" another, the Democrats would do it to you in a heartbeat.

Know your staffers.

Know them better than Rahm knows them.

American Troops Begin Withdrawel From Haiti

We have been very fortunate that American troop presence in Haiti has thus far been remarkably trouble free. With UN troops taking over, American troops can pull out and leave Haiti to the UN and the people of Haiti to rebuild after that terrible earthquake destroyed what little that there was to wreck in that poverty stricken nation.

See:American troops withdrawing en masse from Haiti

Soldiers are not best suited to aid work. Putting American troops in a position where they might have to shoot and kill civilians in riot situations was very risky. The downside risks in this operation were tremendous. It is good that we have dodged this bullet.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak To Undergo Gallbladder surgery.

It may not seem like much of a thing to take note of but think about what it could mean for Egypt and the world if something were to go wrong.

See: Egypt president to undergo gallbladder surgery

He is 81 years old.

He has been the President of Egypt since 1981. Now he is in his eighties. When he passes, Egypt may return to the strife and turmoil that preceded Mubarak's rule. The Muslim Brotherhood is a potent force in Egypt. They and a other factions will seek advantage and power in a post Mubarak Egypt.

Mubarak maintained stability in Egypt for almost 30 years.

His race is almost run.

What next then for Egypt?

UPDATE[19:53 March 7th, 2010] Operation Declared A Success.

He is still alive. But at 81 years of age, how long can we count on him to remain?

Pentagon Shooter A Truther Loon

It won't be up for very long so click quickly to J Patrick Beddell's Page on Wikipedia.

User:JPatrickBedell

This guy's mind was broken.

He was a nut along the lines of Theodore (Ted) Kaczynski and Joseph Stack.

UPDATE[00:25 March 5th, 2010]:The Wikipedia link is down.

It didn't take long. At midnight tonight, it was taken down.

Democrat Union Stooge, Sander M. Levin, To Chair Ways & Means

The Ways and Means Committee is the power center of the House of Representitives. It has the power to destroy. Taxation and the byzantine regulatory nightmare that details its applications are made here. If you run afoul of the Barrons and Lords that rule this thing, they can make your life a nightmare, and your business a wreck.

If you have ever wondered why businesses give money to anti-business Democrats, consider the tax-gun that these guys on the Ways and Means Committee are holding to their heads.

See:Levin to Replace Rangel as Ways and Means Chairman

Mr. Levin, a champion of organized labor who represents suburban Detroit, was elected in 1982 and is serving his 14th term. Emerging from a caucus meeting Thursday morning, he said that he would serve as “acting chairman” and appeared to have mixed feelings about the circumstances that led to his appointment.

With a Union puppet set to rule at Ways and Means, expect the Union agenda to become all but unstoppable.

Detroit, Levin's congressional district, is the model for the America of Organized Labor's dreams.

Mort Zuckerman Bails

Mort Zuckerman has decided not to run for Senate.

See: Mortimer Zuckerman announces he will not run for the Senate

In my opinion, Mort Zuckerman would have been good for the country running as a Democrat. There was some speculation and indication that had he decided to actually run, he would have run on the Republican ticket.

As a Democrat, Zuckerman could have stood as an example of what a sane and rational Democrat would look like as opposed to the far left extremist that now dominate the Democrat Party. The Democrats and the country need more sane and respectable Democrats.

I don't think that Zuckrman, an otherwise life long Democrat, would have been a good team player as a Republican. I have doubts that Zuckerman is sufficiently committed to the Republican vision of citizen primacy over the government. The Republican's need to elect more people to office that believe enough in their mission to actually fight for it while they are in office. We don't need anymore weak Republicans who are more interested in making friends with the Democrats then in fighting for the rights of citizens against a rapacious and ravenous government.

Party politics is a team sport. Mavericks that are looking to govern from the middle destroy team cohesion.

Record Levels Of Welfare, Unemployment And Other Government Benefits

See: American reliance on government at all-time high

Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.

Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.

[emphaisis is mine]

All of that is paid for somewhere. Watch your wallet.

Fun times ahead.

Investing The Souls Of Children In A Deep Evil

One of the worst things about evil is that all too often, those that are the principle actors of evil, believe that they are doing a good thing with the best of intentions.

Take for example the teachers that had their students send letters to the Israeli Ambassador to Spain in Madid that asked "Mr. Ambassador, how many Palestinians did you murder today?"

See: Israel Demands Explanation from Spain on Letters

This is a deep evil that has been done to these children. It invests them personally in the hatred by making them participants.

Everyone wants to believe that they are good. They also want to believe that the people that they love and respect are good. Now that these children have participated in this, they will have to confront their participation in something that is not good. A thing that they have been persuaded to participate in by people that they love, trust and respect.

The personal struggle that they will have to confront will be too much for many if not most of them. "How" they will reason "can people that I trust and respect goad me into evil? If they are good and deserving of my respect and my love, then what they have made me do must not be evil."

The teachers and others involved in this project surely believed that what they were doing was right and good.

What these teachers have done was a deep evil.

Who can repair the damage done to these children?

Hat Tips Weasel Zippers,
RealWest & Kosh of C2

The Looming Commercial Mortgage Debt Crisis

With California, New York, and some of the other large states on the verge of default, a problem with commercial property debt may push them that much closer to the brink.

See: Commercial Mortgage Default Rate in U.S. More Than Doubles

The default rate for commercial property mortgages held by U.S. banks more than doubled in the fourth quarter and may reach a peak of 5.4 percent at the end of next year, according to Real Capital Analytics Inc.

We may have rough seas ahead of us.

The timing of the midterm elections will make all of this that much more interesting.

Democrats Will Destroy California

The Democrats are inherently incapable of stopping themselves from destroying California.

See: California is a greater risk than Greece, warns JP Morgan chief

Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank's annual meeting that "there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

California however poses more of a risk, given the state's $20bn (£13.1bn) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.

I have serious doubts about California coming to grips with it's debt problem. The Democrats own that state's legislature lock, stock and barrel. Even if Arnold Schwarzenegger were inclined to be a fiscal conservative, there is damn little that he could do to stop the Democrats from running the state smack into the ground.

The Democrats will not become fiscal conservatives. It just won't happen. Their very reason for existence is to create an ever expanding welfare state. It's what they promise to get elected and it is what they believe is right and good.

Given the Democrat's visceral hatred and fear of the concept that lowering taxes increases tax revenue, and their willingness if not eagerness to raise tax rates for both revenue collection and for social engineering purposes, what can we foresee them proposing to get themselves out of the mess that they have spent themselves into?

Can we really imagine for a moment that Democrats will seriously even entertain the notion of tax cuts and social spending reductions?

Tax cuts and social spending reductions, real tax cuts and real reductions in social spending, just won't happen.

Unfortunately, California is such a large part of our nations economy that when they hit the wall, the rest of us will feel it.

Obama Backer George Soros And The Collapse Of The Euro

See: Man who broke the Bank of England, George Soros, 'at centre of hedge funds plot to cash in on fall of the euro'

A secretive group of Wall Street hedge fund bosses are said to be behind a plot to cash in on the decline of the euro.

This may be an interesting summer.

Hillery Clinton's Risky Rhetoric On Pakistani Taxation Policies

See: Hillary urges rich Pakistanis to pay more tax

“The very well-off” in Pakistan “do not pay their fair share for the services that are needed, in health and education primarily,” she observed.

It's one thing to talk to Pakistanis about the Taliban but why does she think that she has license to lecture them on internal tax policy in regards to building up a welfare state?

Does she really believe that this kind of officious rhetoric helps us?

She has done this before.

Democrat Gov. David A. Paterson To Withdraw Campaign.

It's not a done deal yet, but likely will be in a few hours.

See: Paterson to Drop Out of Governor Race

Gov. David A. Paterson, his administration caught up in a whirlwind of allegations about its intervention in a domestic violence episode involving a top aide, is set to announce that he is suspending his election campaign and will not run in November, according to a person told about the plans.

Mr. Paterson is expected to make the announcement this afternoon. It would end his campaign less than a week after it officially began, with an angry speech at Hofstra University on Long Island. There, on the campus where he had gone to law school, the man who had been the state’s top official for 23 months — and a state senator for more than 20 years before that — presented himself as something of an outsider tiliting against special interests in Albany.

The New York Times is even acknowledging that Paterson is a Democrat in this article.

The New York Times Hides The Most Damning Truth About The New York Gov. David A. Paterson Scandel!

In a huge article detailing the corruption and abuse of political power at the heart of the scandal that threatens to bring down the Governor of New York, something is missing. It is not a mistake. It is a damning truth that can only be missing in an article of this length if this fact was omitted deliberately with knowing intent.

Take a look at the article for yourself.

See: Questions of Influence in Abuse Case of Paterson Aide

Have you spotted it yet?

The body of the article, that is everything from the first word after the byline to the last word at the bottom consists of about 2,031 words.

What is missing?

Hint: What is the Governor's Political Party?

Out of 2,031 words about a horrific scandal that threatens to knock a sitting Governor out office, Democrat is not used in the article even once.

Clearly, the truth of Gov. David A. Paterson's Democrat Party affiliation is a fact so damning, that it needed to be left out.

In fact, the only Political Party mentioned in the whole of the 2,031 words used in the NYT article about a present day political scandal involving corruption and violence is . . . Republican.

Go Figure.

Is Wall Street Switching Sides?

The times, they are a chang'en.

See: Democrats: Say Goodbye to Wall Street?

The securities and investment industry gave 2 to 1 to Democrats in early 2009 but sent nearly half its donations to Republicans by year's end, according to data complied by the Center for Responsive Politics for the Post.

The commercial banking industry and its employees gave nearly twice has much to Republicans during the last three months of 2009, the newspaper reported.

It may be that some of the Wall Street Execs and employees have figured out giving money to Democrats was like giving guns to gangsters.

The report cited JP Morgan Chase, headed by Obama supporter Jamie Dimon, as having scaled back its giving to Democrats.

"The bank and its employees, who doled out nearly $500,000 in federal contributions last year, went from giving 76 percent of the money to Democrats in the first quarter to giving 73 percent to Republicans in the fourth," the newspaper said.

Look for Democrats to start complaining about the need for more campaign contribution reform in the near future. I would not be too shocked if they start pushing hard for public financing of campaigns again.

Gasoline Prices Going Up In A Down Economy?

Gas prices are set to rise soon.

See: Experts: Gas prices in Chicago to top $3

What's pushing prices higher is the crude oil that's used to make motor fuel, said Fred Rozell of the Oil Price Information Service. Crude is an international commodity that has become ever more expensive as demand grows in China. As crude prices increase, so do gas gas prices.

Don't be shocked if the price per gallon goes up well over the $3 dollar mark,

In the not too distant future, some dumb and/or dishonest Democrats will be raising a stink about the rising price of gasoline (petrol) at the pump. Being economically challenged from their starting point, the complexities of supply and demand are not something that the Democrats care much about nor do they know how to cope with them save to use them to engage in class-warfare rhetoric.

The markets are rational. There is an increasing demand for certain types of crude. Other buyers are now on the market. The commodities markets, particularly the oil markets, are less and less directly tied to the American economy.

There is also the additional influence of the changing value of the dollar to account for. As the value of the dollar falls due to the actions of the Democrats and the Obama Administration, the dollar price of the commodity will also rise.

Shit will happen. Democrats will promote class-warfare. And the sun will also rise.

Greedy Democrats Lusting For A Tax On Gold

Democrat greed knows no bounds. Hungry for revenue from any source that She and her fellow Democrats can think of, the Governor Of Washington State is lusting for a sales tax on gold and other precious metals.

See: Is Washington's tax exemption on bullion a gold mine?

Gov. Chris Gregoire repeatedly has singled out the bullion tax break since she ran for her first term in 2004 as an example of the sort of preferential treatment that ought to end.

The governor followed through this year, proposing to start taxing bullion sales as part of her budget proposal to the Legislature. State-employee unions, interested in staving off job cuts, have come out in support.

The State-employees unions are the most powerful lobbies in the state of Washington. They have the Democrats by the short hairs. What they want, they get.

Unfortunately, the real world will not cooperate as slavishly as the Democrats and their State-employee union puppet-masters would like.

The association estimates there are now at least 100 coin and bullion dealers in the state — small coin shops and larger dealers who also sell gold as an investment for retirement accounts. Their businesses would be in jeopardy if the state reinstitutes the sales tax, Robinson said.

As an added blow, national coin-dealer trade shows no longer would consider meeting in Washington.

Because the price of gold is set like a stock on a national market, dealers operate on only a 1 to 3 percent markup, said Karen Feldman, who owns Tacoma Mall Blvd Coin Stamp & Jewelry.

Gold is selling at more than $1,000 an ounce, so if Washington dealers had to tack on a sales tax of nearly 10 percent, it would add about $100 to the price of a 1-ounce gold Krugerrand, Feldman said. Customers simply would buy gold on the Internet or in Oregon and Idaho, which don't tax bullion sales.

A tax on precious metal trades in Washington State would just move the transactions somewhere else. It is a predictable result. The Democrats are just too possessed by greed to give a tinker's damn.

HT: Fenway Nation

See Comment in Do You Deserve To Have Your 401k And Your IRA Confiscated?

Do You Deserve To Have Your 401k And Your IRA Confiscated?

If you plan on voting for Democrats, the answer is Hell Yes! Its your party pushing this abomination from hell so by all rights, you should suffer the worst from it.

See: Retiree Annuities May Be Promoted by Obama Aides

The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.

I have some comments that I will be sending their way. I will politely suggest that they forget about this crazy idea. I would encourage you to do the same and to suggest that everyone that you know do the same as well. I will also forward a like missive to my local Congress-Critter and my state Senators. This is the kind of horrifically bad idea that will get passed through a Democrat controlled Congress and White-House in the dead of night if we aren't aggressively vigilant.

If this thing can't be stopped, I will liquidate my 401k's and my IRA's rather then give those scum sucking, bottom dwelling, excrements any more control over my retirement then they already have. Its my money. I earned it. I am going to spend it however I see fit. I would rather take the tax hit for liquidating everything then give the Democrats anything else to hang over my head.

Voting to put Democrats in office is no different then voting to put thugs and thieves in charge of safeguarding your rights and your money. Only bad things will come of it.

See also:Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

See also:Are the Democrats Coming After Your Savings?

HT: JCM at CC

Disproving The Nightmare Lie Of AGW

The Lysenkoism of Anthropogenic Global Warming will continue until like a Vampire, a wooden stake is driven through its heart.

See: The AGW Smoking Gun By Gary Thompson

The science behind the AGW hypothesis is that increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere (that humans produce by burning fossil fuels) will block more outgoing long-wave IR radiation (OLR) from exiting the atmosphere and thereby warm the surface. It is well-known that IR radiation causes CO2 molecules to vibrate, but only at very specific wavelengths (wavelengths are the distances between peaks of each wave), and that wavelength is 15µm. (Fifteen µm means that each wavelength crests at a distance of 15 millionths of a meter.) As was discussed above, this vibration of the molecule causes it to heat and then radiate IR radiation back toward the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth. If the solar activity is taken to remain constant, more CO2 in the atmosphere will trap more of the OLR, and thus cause a net heating of the planet.

So what type of experiment could be performed to test this AGW hypothesis? If there were satellites in orbit monitoring the emission of OLR over time at the same location, then OLR could be measured in a very controlled manner. If, over time, the emission of OLR in the wavelengths that CO2 absorbs decreases over time, then that would prove the AGW hypothesis (i.e., that OLR is being absorbed by CO2 and heating the planet instead of being emitted from the atmosphere). But what if, over time (say, over thirty years), the emissions of OLR wavelengths that CO2 absorb remained constant? That would disprove the hypothesis and put the AGW argument to bed.

As luck would have it, that experiment has actually been performed! Three journal papers report the data from three monitoring satellites that have measured the OLR of 1997 and 2006 and compared those measurements to 1970, and they are located here, here, and here.

HT to PaladinPhil and JCM of CC


~~~

(Carthago delenda est!)

The peer review process needs to be reformed.

No more secret data.

No more secret software.

Everything must be be out in the open and available for all to see.

Bad CPAC Kookiness

The straw poll results out of the CPAC meeting are a bit of bad news.

See: Rep. Ron Paul surprise winner of CPAC presidential straw poll

Ron Paul, the isolationist nutburger, won the Presidential straw poll. Romney placed second with Palin showing at third.

Ron Paul is not acceptable.

No fucking way.

What an embarrassment.

Environmentalists And The Change In The Climate

The environment for the Climate Change Alarmist is changing. More and more their critics are likening them to Chicken Little, or the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Unfortunately for them, those criticism are very apt.

See: Climate turning against kooky alarmists

The latest revelation is that there's been no significant warming for 15 years. One prominent climate scientist has acknowledged the current warming period may be no hotter than the medieval warming era (800 to 1300 A.D.) when the world lived green with nary a SUV or industrial smokestack around.

The devastating Hurricane Katrina of 2005 was cited as the harbinger of killer storms to come, spawned by a warming planet. Then came this winter's record snowstorms. Now the climate alarmists lecture us that one season's weather tells us nothing about climate change.

Actually, they've gone further to claim that the cold weather mess is in fact a product of a hotter globe. Their cause has come to resemble religion more than science -- it explains everything! One British Internet site, www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm, offers a list of articles linking global warming to a whole catalog of woes -- from the conflict in Darfur to the deadly 2007 Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse to more potent dope from poppies to higher waves off the Pacific Northwest coast to a boom in kitten litters in Toronto to the prevalence of acne.

It is not hard to predict that we will see more commentary like this in the future.

Testing Blogger Comments

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It is available in other browsers.

If you would like to comment on this blog, use just about any other browser besides FireFox. Try using IE, Safari, Chrome, Epiphany, Konqueror, etc.

I have tested the Blogger Comment feature using alternative browsers. With other browsers, everything works just fine. WIth FireFox, not so much.

If you are on a MS Windows system, try using Safari or Chrome.

Former IPCC Chairman: ‘Every error exaggerated the impact of change’

Professor Watson, a former IPCC Chairman, is calling for an investigation of what happened with the IPCC report. Professor Watson points out that that the errors are just too one sided to be easily excused as simple mistakes.

See UN must investigate warming ‘bias’, says former climate chief
‘Every error exaggerated the impact of change’

Professor Watson, currently chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that if the errors had just been innocent mistakes, as has been claimed by the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, some would probably have understated the impact of climate change.

The errors have emerged in the past month after simple checking of the sources cited by the 2,500 scientists who produced the report.

The report falsely claimed that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 when evidence suggests that they will survive for another 300 years. It also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim.

The Dutch Government has asked the IPCC to correct its claim that more than half the Netherlands is below sea level. The environment ministry said that only 26 per cent of the country was below sea level.

Professor Watson, who served as chairman of the IPCC from 1997-2002, said: “The mistakes all appear to have gone in the direction of making it seem like climate change is more serious by overstating the impact. That is worrying. The IPCC needs to look at this trend in the errors and ask why it happened.”

[Emphasis is mine - Syrah]

The "why" of it all is multifaceted. From the highly political nature of how Academia receives funding for research projects to the narcissistic desire of many in the environmental movement to save the world. The temptation of the dark side became too great for many of the well intentioned people in the environmental and climate sciences to resist.

They meant well. It is very important to understand that. They really did and really do want what is best. The did not wake one day and decide to be villains or monsters. Many fell into it unwittingly and with the best of intentions and the noblest of goals. They became caught up in something bigger than themselves, with their social and their financial lives caught up in a maelstrom of compounding errors and narcissistic conceits that became ever more impossible and dangerous to escape.

Much of their data was good and they could and did take refuge in that. Unfortunately, much of their data was just dead wrong, plain missing or even totally faked. Unsurprisingly, their conclusions suffered miserably from their impossible reality.

I recall being lectured as a young student of science about the sins of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. He was a man who began with the best of intentions, the noblest of goals, and he was also terribly wrong. His error led to the deaths and imprisonments of those that challenged his ideas. His ideas had become the "settled science" of the party and were enforced by the guns and the bludgeons of the state.

Trofim Denisovich Lysenko's ideas became the scientific "consensus" of his nation. That consensus did not make his ideas any less wrong. That consensus did not prevent people from starving or from being shot or from being imprisoned because they were wrong.

The horror of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko's sins are truly monumental.

Every scientist and probably every politician should bow their heads in prayer every day, earnestly beseeching whatever God they pray to, that they do not become so full of themselves that they end up committing the same sins as Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.

~~~

(Carthago delenda est!)

The peer review process needs to be reformed.

No more secret data.

No more secret software.

Everything must be be out in the open and available for all to see.

Professor Jones: for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The foundations of the AGW movement has taken another serious blow, this time, one delivered by one of their principles.

See Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

It has all been nothing but bafflegab and flumadiddle designed to help the power mad fleece the public treasuries. Tons and tons of money have been burned to foment this fraud. Countless laws and regulations have been passed and enforced to prevent something that mankind can neither start nor stop.

And it had all the scientific credibility of the Piltdown Man.

The peer review process needs to be reformed. (Carthago delenda est!)

No more secret data.

No more secret software.

Everything must be be out in the open and available for all to see.

The IPCC, Sea Levels and Flooding - An Underlying Credibility Issue

The IPCC is acknowledging that they erred when they stated that 55% of the Netherlands is below sea level.

See U.N. climate panel admits Dutch sea level flaw

The 2007 report included the sentence: "The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea level rise and river flooding because 55 percent of its territory is below sea level."

"A preliminary analysis suggests that the sentence discussed should end with: 'because 55 percent of the Netherlands is at risk of flooding'," the IPCC note said.

So what drove the need to have the original erroneous sentence in the initial IPCC report?

Was it included because like the Himalayan Glacier Melt farce, it was meant to advance a political agenda?

Given all of the other problems that the IPCC report has been shown to have, given the revelations from the CRU email dump that brought to light the attempts to manipulate data and rig the peer review process, how can we believe that it was anything other than politics?

The whole peer review process needs to be reformed. No more secret data. No more secret software. If they can't tell us how they arrived at their conclusions including showing us the raw data and the underlying programing that they used to derive them, then they should not be taken anymore seriously then we should take the Discovery Institute "Intelligent Design" creationist.

Its time to scrap the IPCC in its entirety and start from scratch with data and programing that they can show us.

Zuckerman Versus Obama

Zuckerman is rumored to be considering a run for the Senate.

If he does, it looks like it will be a candidacy that is a reaction to Obama's extremism.

Read Zuckerman's own words: He's Done Everything Wrong

Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him. The fact is he had 49.5 million listeners to first speech on the economy. On Medicare, he had 24 million. He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other political figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things.

I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.

One business leader said to me, “In the Clinton administration, the policy people were at the center, and the political people were on the sideline. In the Obama administration, the political people are at the center, and the policy people are on the sidelines.”

I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately.

There is talk that if Zuckerman decides to run for the Senate, he will do so as a Republican or as an Independent.

I could respect Zuckerman as an Independent. I would have a hard time trusting him as a Republican. He really should run as a Democrat. The Democrats need a few sane people in their Party. Mort could help them reduce the influence of the kooks in the Democrat Party and still stay true to his political ideals.

Is Zuckerman A Republican Or A Democrat?

He will have to decide if he is going to run for the Senate.

See Zuckerman Said to Mull Run for U.S. Senate

Mr. Zuckerman, 72, is known as a Democrat, , but if he runs, it would likely be as a Republican or independent, to avoid participating in a costly primary.

In doing so, Mr. Zuckerman would be following the path of his close friend and fellow media executive, Michael R. Bloomberg, who switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican to run for mayor of New York City.

What is he?

I do not like candidates that choose their political party affiliation by sticking a wet finger to the wind. They are suspect from the start. They cannot be trusted. One day they may be with you, the next they are against you.

Enableing Savagery.

The following is a security-cam video of a savage beating that took place in Seattle a few weeks ago.

Warning. This is brutal.



This is what an emasculated culture devolves into.

The thugs become the De Facto rulers of the city.

The guards will not protect you. The bystanders will do nothing, especially if there are guards their doing nothing. Guards in uniform. Guards looking all the world as if they are there to prevent this kind of savagery from taking place. Guards guarding nothing.

The victim of the attack in the video thought that the guards could protect her.

See: Girl, 3 men charged in tunnel attack

The 15-year-old girl who was beaten and robbed in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel as security personnel watched said she had headed straight for the guards because she thought they would help her.

"I went to the security and told them that these kids were trying to jump me," the girl wrote in a statement to King County sheriff's investigators. "I know that I am about to get jumped and I am hanging around the guards to try and get protection. ... I thought the security guards would defend me."

But the girl was wrong.

The guards were following "policy."

According to the Sheriff's Office and King County Metro, the guards followed policy by not intervening in the Jan. 28 attack. Instead, they alerted transit officials, who summoned police.

The attack has prompted Metro to discuss contract changes with Olympic Security Services, whose guards were in the tunnel during the attack. It also has sparked widespread anger at the guard policy and with the suspects accused of the attack and robbery.

It was policy? Policy to not intervene?

What kind of madness puts such a policy in place?

What kind of madness requires adverse publicity from a video like this being released to make a change to that policy?

Do you believe that if this video had not been released that any change would have been made to their "policy."

Madness.

IPCC's African Rainfall Reduction Claims Prove Unsupportable.

The IPCC report continues to fail under scrutiny.

See Africagate: top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility

The most important is a claim that global warming could cut rain-fed north African crop production by up to 50% by 2020, a remarkably short time for such a dramatic change. The claim has been quoted in speeches by Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, and by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.

This weekend Professor Chris Field, the new lead author of the IPCC’s climate impacts team, told The Sunday Times that he could find nothing in the report to support the claim. The revelation follows the IPCC’s retraction of a claim that the Himalayan glaciers might all melt by 2035, dubbed 'Glaciergate' by commentators.

Someone should remind all of the responsible persons involved in putting together the now much-discredited IPCC report of the old tale about the little boy who cried wolf. The story ends badly for all involved, except for he wolf. The wolf does alright. But the boy, the sheep, and the villagers, not so well.

Audi, Eco-Nazis and the Green Police

Audi fucked-up.

You have to wonder what would posses a German corporation to sponsor an ad like this.



The Green Police?

Fucking Eco-Nazis!

Towards A More Productive And Useful Understanding Of North Korea

Christopher Hitchens reviews B.R. Myers' The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters.

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners—even black American soldiers, or so he'd heard to his evident disgust—and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity.

I was struck at the time by how matter-of-factly he said this, as if he took it for granted that I would find it uncontroversial. And I did briefly wonder whether this form of totalitarianism, too (because nothing is more "total" than racist nationalism), was part of the pitch made to its subjects by the North Korean state.

When Christopher Hitchens is good, he is very good. His review of B.R. Myers' book, flavored with his own personal in person observations of North Korea, make it clear that the oft ignored and shunned little crazy kingdom of North Korea may be far too dangerous to just ignore and shun.

I think I will head on over to the bookstore this weekend.

Hat Tip To FinallyFree at Correspondence Committee

An Example Of How Climate Change Hysteria Hurts Everyone

Soil erosion is a very serious problem. As the world's population increases, the importance of good soil conservation practices increases in pace.

The US had an early attention getting experience with why good soil management is essential. The Great Dust Bowl was impossible to ignore. We learned a lot from it. There is still more that we can learn to help us protect and better manage our soils.

However, confusing soil science with the discredited AGW hysteria will do more to hurt the advancement of good soil management practices than it will do to help it.

See: Britain facing food crisis as world's soil 'vanishes in 60 years

Fertile soil is being lost faster than it can be replenished and will eventually lead to the “topsoil bank” becoming empty, an Australian conference heard.

Chronic soil mismanagement and over farming causing erosion, climate change and increasing populations were to blame for the dramatic global decline in suitable farming soil, scientists said.

[Emphasis is Mine]

Due to climate change?

Bullshit.

Bad farming practices yes. Climate change? Give me a fucking break.

This is the kind of bullshit that discredits science. Every kind of environmental calamity that is discussed, some idiot comes along and claims that "climate change" is the cause or part of the cause.

In this case, climate change is not a factor. Deep tilling and the failure to let a field lay fallow after a season can destroy the soil. Rotating crops and protecting the soil from the wind can do a lot to remedy this very serious problem. Fretting over a non-existent climate crises won't help at all and will actually make the problem worse by distracting people and resources away from things that could actually help.

Blaming soil erosion on climate change? When the "scientist" include that drivel in these kinds of reports, they make a mockery of science, or at the very least, make it appear as if they can't really be taken seriously. If they are including climate change in this kind of report without any real or credible evidence, then how can we trust the other claims that they make in their report?

Soil erosion is a very serious issue. It should be discussed and treated by the scientific and political community as a serious issue. Attempting to tie soil erosion to anthropogenic climate change is dangerous and stupid.

Dutch Call "BullShit" On IPCC Report

The hits just keep coming. Holland issued another blow to the IPCC report, challenging the grossly exaggerated claim it made that more than half of the country was below sea level.

See:Netherlands adds to UN climate report controversy

IPCC experts calculated that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level by adding the area below sea level -- 26 percent -- to the area threatened by river flooding -- 29 percent -- Vallaart said.

"They should have been clearer," Vallaart said, adding that the Dutch office for environmental planning, an IPCC partner, had exact figures.

Correcting the error had been "on the agenda several times" but had never actually happened, Vallaart said.

The spokesman said he regretted the fact that proper procedure was not followed and said it should not be left to politicians to check the IPCC's numbers.

The Dutch environment ministry will order a review of the report to see if it contains any more errors, Vallaart said.

The CRU Email dump has unraveled the IPCC report. The more that the report is critically examined, the more crap that is found in it.

The CRU Email dump and the consequent unraveling of the IPCC is proof that the whole of the "Peer Review" process needs to be reexamined. At present, "Peer Reviewed," means squat.

The Secular Religion Of Global Warming

Michael Barone has an amusing article in the Boston Herald.

Some decades hence, I suspect, people will look back and wonder why so many elites were taken in to the point that they advocated devoting trillions of dollars to a cause that was based on flagrant dishonesty.

The secular religion of global warming has all the elements of a religious faith: original sin (we pollute), ritual (must recycle), redemption (renounce economic growth) and the sale of indulgences (carbon offsets).

People in the grip of such a religious frenzy evidently feel justified in lying, concealing good evidence and plucking bad evidence from any flimsy source.

The Global Warmist are on a quest to save the world. Anything that stands in the way of their quest to save the world threatens the world, even it is just data that does not conform to their preconceived notions. For the Global Warmist, the stakes are so high, there is so much at risk, they cannot permit the inconvenient truth to stand in their way.

They believe with a powerful belief. Their Crusade is not yet over. For them, these recent setbacks are minor. They also have many willing allies in the government and in the media that have profited in both power and money from the global warming hysteria of the last three decades. They will give each other succor and rejoin the fray with even more bitterness and hatred for "the evil" that has set them back.

It is incumbent upon us, the enemies of the anti-human luddites of the environmental movements, to heed the ancient old ways of battle. When you have shattered your enemies ranks and knocked your enemy to the ground, when you have winded him, shriven his shield, broken his sword, and splintered his lance, you keep hitting him. Do not stop till he is dead. You can show your enemies mercy only after they have fully and completely surrendered, not before, and even then, you must not be too eager to let the hurts they have caused you to be forgotten.

Fun times.

Hat tip: Kosh'sShadow at Correspondence Committee