The Light Bulb on Climategate

Anyone out there still under the anthropogenic Global Warming delusion?

It may be difficult to come to terms with the fact you have been duped by some climate scientists, but as the Washington Post reports:

Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.

...In one e-mail, the [Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia's] director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.

And these are just a few examples for the public to wrap their heads around. Yes folks, the science is not only "not settled", it has had a huge hole blown in it by the simple fact that scientists were using every political means available to them to silence detractors, from intentionally keeping the data used for their research away from potentially skeptical researchers, to applying pressure to peer-review journals to keep the opposing research from being seen.

But don't feel bad. Here's the first Climategate joke from James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal:

Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.

Stop the country! I wanna get off!

Headlines from Drudge:

Climategate: 'Greatest scandal in modern science'...
Call for Congressional investigation...
Paper: Junk science exposed among climate-change believers...

And the pièce de résistance:

Obama: 'Step closer' to climate deal...

Can our glorious leader be any more clueless? NO HE CAN'T!

Global Warming and Prostitution

“Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection." - Suneeta Mukherjee, Philippine representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund

What is funny about the inherent stupidity of that comment, is the article (link here) which includes it actually gives the REAL problem causing the high levels of prostitution in the Philippines:

Of the 92 million Filipinos, about 60 percent are living in coastal areas and depend on the seas for livelihood, said former Environment secretary Dr. Angel Alcala.

Alcala said that “we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our marine environment."

But as the sea’s resources are depleted due to overpopulation and overfishing, fishermen start losing their livelihood and women are forced to share the traditional role of the man in providing for the family.

So explain how "overpopulation and overfishing" are caused by the myth of anthropogenic Global Warming?

Actually, I have figured out one side effect of Global Warming: It fries people's brains. Unfortunately, it is not the heat, but rather the inherent stupidity of the concept of Global Warming.

The American Principate

I was reading about the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus on Wikipedia, who was noted as the last emperor of the Roman Empire's Principate period. What struck me was the significance of the Principate period (from Wikipedia):

"The Principate is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of the Emperors to preserve the illusion of the formal continuance of the Roman Republic."

After the Principate, Ancient Rome went through nearly a century of upheaval, before it entered the period of the Dominate, which was the "despotic" last phase of Ancient Rome.

As I watch the United States government continue, with impunity, to erode the rights of Americans, it occurs to me we are living through the American Principate, where our government is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of our political oligarchs to preserve the illusion of the formal continuance of the American Republic.

Knowing the history of Ancient Rome, I have to wonder: Who will be the American "Alexander Severus"? Based on Alexander's biography, Obama certainly fits the bill in one respect:

"...when campaigning against...Germania, Alexander Severus apparently alienated his legions by trying diplomacy and bribery, and they assassinated him."

However, on the whole, Obama's reign doesn't resemble Alexander's:

"The luxury and extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; the lot of the soldiers was improved; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest."

All things considered, I suspect we have at least another leader or more to go before we reach the end of our government's pretense of republicanism. But with Obama's ineptitude, I may be surprised sooner.

Break America Now!

A simple question for everyone: Regardless of your political persuasion or ideology, regardless of where you live, regardless of your religious or personal philosophy, what do you think the odds are of the U.S. government doing what YOU believe is right, in your lifetime?

If you are liberal, do you honestly think the U.S. will stop fighting wars in oil countries? Consider the fact we have the most liberal president since Jimmy Carter in office now, and we are STILL in Afghanistan and Iraq. LBJ's "military-industrial complex" is alive and well, and will continue to be around for the rest of our lives.

If you are a social conservative, do you honestly think you will see a legal ban on abortion? Until Roe vs. Wade is overturned, it is not happening. You will never get enough votes for a Constitutional Amendment.

If you are a fiscal conservative, do you honestly think the U.S. government will ever show any kind of fiscal responsibility? Sorry to dash your hopes, but as long as there are sheep who will vote for any buffoon who brings home the pork, the government punch bowl will continue to overflow with other people's money, including yours. As long as we have a Federal Reserve which will happily enable our legislative spending habits, the party will continue, and you and your children will pay the tab.

If you are a civil rights liberal, I have one word for you: Guantanamo. And I bet you are loving the prospect of people being jailed for not having health insurance! I have some more news for you: These violations will not end, as our federal government gets more power.

If you are a socialist, you may get your dream of universal health care, but it will look more like Britain than some of the smaller European countries, simply because we don't have enough health care providers to take care of 300 million people. So you will get higher taxes, long waits, and STILL have poor quality health care. Since the wealthy will go outside the system for their health care, you STILL won't have "equality".

Frankly, unless you long for the good old days of the old Soviet Union, odds are you are not happy about something the U.S. government is doing. You can expect to be that way for a long time, because no matter what you want, there is someone else who doesn't want it. THAT is why state's rights are important.

THAT is why secession from the union is more important now than ever before.

Mulling "Rogue"

With the release of Sarah Palin's new book Going Rogue, I do have some thoughts on her.

Overall, there are some things I like about her (she seems to be a small government conservative), and other things I dislike (her fundamentalist beliefs make me question how fiscally conservative she truly is, since most fundamentalists have no problem with using government to their own ends, much like liberals).

During last year's election, I found it humorous how political pundits basically classified her as a rube, while promoting a presidential candidate with even less experience than Palin. I think we would do better with the rube in the White House, since the intellectually elitist Obama has proven to be a complete failure.

But that was never the choice, which is why the Republican ticket lost. John McCain had the taint of Washington on him, as he flip-flopped and nuanced his way to a loss. While Palin made plenty of mistakes, I can't look at them and say I wouldn't have made a few of them myself. McCain's mistakes were in their subtlety, whereas Palin's mistakes were more from her brutal honesty.

One can question whether Palin is smart enough to be president, and one can question her qualifications based on specific issues, but I don't think one can disqualify her based on honesty.

Marxism of the Night

I had "Marxism of the Day" before, so this was only appropriate...

From A Night at the Opera, the infamous contract scene:

Chico: Hey, wait, wait. What does this say here, this thing here?
Groucho: Oh, that? Oh, that's the usual clause that's in every contract. That just says, uh, it says, uh, if any of the parties participating in this contract are shown not to be in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified.
Chico: Well, I don't know...
Groucho: It's all right. That's, that's in every contract. That's, that's what they call a sanity clause.
Chico: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause!

(hat tip to Wikipedia)

The Death of Capitalism

A poll from the BBC signifies the end of free market capitalism, and the rise of centralized government power:

"Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well."

With the death of capitalism also comes the death of freedom. Perhaps not yet, but it is only a matter of time. Once government controls the means of production, and the world's people have forgotten that free market capitalism IS the means of production, then what is to stop the government from going further?

If I can make you work WHEN I want, HOW I want, and for HOW MUCH I think you should make, why should I stop there? Once I have this control over your life, what other controls can I apply to you?

Free market capitalism allows you to do ANY job you want and are capable of doing, and make however much money other people are willing to pay you for it. Now if I can make you believe THAT is a bad thing, I do believe I can make you believe anything!

Freedom of religion? Separation of church and state fixed that. We have a new religion in town: secularism.

Freedom of the press? The press is already dead. Heck, they LOVE this idea anyway!

Freedom of speech? We will need to control the internet. After that, we may have the perfect totalitarian state.

I know, you'll say "How does the death of free market capitalism lead to all this?" Just consider who will make ALL economic decisions? The government, of course. And since you have already allowed them to control your economic lives, why on Earth do you think they would stop there? Just because they used altruism to sell you this pile of manure, don't think they actually practice it!

I can hear the politician whispering the sweet nothings in your ear now, "You are fallible. You make mistakes. Let me take care of you. Life will be so much easier..."

Free Trade vs. Protectionism

"If Joe the American sells blankets to Mary the American for $15 each, and if an opening to trade allows Mary to buy Chinese blankets for $5 each, then three things happen:

1. Mary is better off by $10.
2. Joe is worse off by at most $10—because Joe can always match the Chinese price if he wants to, taking a $10 hit. On the other hand, he also has the option of getting out of the blanket business, which he’ll choose only if he prefers it to taking that hit.
3. Frieda, another American, who might not have been willing to pay $15 for a blanket, picks up a Chinese blanket for $5 and goes to bed warm tonight.

Of these, only the second effect is bad for Americans, and it’s got to be outweighed (or at least matched) by the first effect. The third effect is pure gravy." - from Steve Landsburg's website, thebigquestions.com

Using this example, the protectionist argument says we need to protect Joe. Unfortunately, protectionists only have two hammers for this nail: tariffs and "buy American".

Tariffs, as we have learned from the historic example of Smoot-Hawley, only lead to tariffs against us. In other words, we protect domestic production at the expense of exporting production. It is a classic case of cutting off one's nose to spite your face.

As for the alternative protectionist strategy of "buy American", it completely ignores Frieda, and forces Mary to spend more than she otherwise would have. Since we live in a free country, then "buy American" is a meaningless appeal to patriotism, which usually falls on deaf ears when a consumer is forced to make hard economic choices (i.e. spend $5 vs. $15) for two comparable products.

Instead, protectionists should look towards the roadblocks which our government has put in front of our manufacturing sector:

1. The Minimum Wage: Fortunately, dollar inflation is about to make the minimum wage irrelevant soon. But what purpose does it serve? No one would work for less money than they need to live. The minimum wage is a "feel good" law that only screws up the economy by artificially inflating wages.

2. Corporate Taxes: The U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rates in the world (only Japan has higher). Next time you want to complain about companies moving operations overseas, or complain about the death of American manufacturing, why don't you spend some time complaining about corporate taxes FIRST? On a related note, you do realize that corporate taxes only get passed along to consumers in higher prices?

3. Environmental Regulations: While I won't say that all environmental regulations are bad or unnecessary, can you honestly say you know and understand the environmental requirements of our corporations? Of course you don't. Like most voters, you simply assume that the government wouldn't make an environmental regulation if it wasn't necessary, or at the very least beneficial in some respect.

I won't say that any of the above three items is the only reason we can't compete, but you can't have all of them and expect to be able to compete with other countries who don't hamstring their manufacturing sectors like we do.

Money for Nothing

“I think the general broad principle is simply that people who are paying for their own expenses aren't subsidizing folks who simply choose not to until they need money and then suddenly they expect free money. That's -- that's basic concept of responsibility that I think most Americans abide by...penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their expenses.” - Barack Obama

Actually, Barack Obama did NOT say that. I took a quote of his (quote link here)about penalties for not having health insurance, and made it about money in general.

This does beg the question: Why is it appropriate to have penalties for lack of health insurance, but NOT lack of money? It would seem to me, in the grand economic scheme of things, you need to have money before you can have insurance, n'est pas?

Mind you, we ARE talking about health insurance, NOT health care, so don't go off on a tangent about denying people health care. This is about money.

But here is a thought for Obama. If you want penalties for not having health insurance, why not try the ultimate penalty: Denial of health care.

Marxism of the Day

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

You weren't expecting something from Karl, were you?

The Blank Wall

John Stossel nails the true meaning of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:

There was one bad thing about the fall of the USSR: We lost a very visible bad example of big centralized government.

With Washington now turning to central planning to “fix” healthcare, clean the environment, and “create” jobs, it’s helpful to have role models of failure. They remind citizens of the politicians’ arrogance.

For the young, the example of the Soviet Union resonates less and less.

On the bright side, Stossel does have this to say:

We do, however, still have North Korea, Cuba, State Motor Vehicles Departments, K-12 education, and the Us Postal Service.

That said, I don't have Stossel's faith that the young will recognize government incompetence when they see it. After all, there is still the problem of government education.

Separation of School and State

"Suppose that newspapers were run by government and funded by taxpayers, and that each American was assigned to read only the newspaper published in his or her local area. Clearly, the resulting quality of journalism would be atrocious.

Would anyone seriously suggest that this problem would be solved if only there were better schools of journalism, or higher pay for journalists, or more people who are “called” to journalism, or newspaper readers who take more active roles in digesting and interpreting the news? Surely not. All sensible people would understand that these fixes would all fail as long as newspapers faced no competition – indeed, as long as journalism is produced by the state." - Don Boudreaux

The above was a letter to the New York Times editor, on the subject of education. It is also one of the finest points I have heard made in the neverending discussion of how to fix our education system.

But reading it gave me an idea: We need a Constitutional Amendment, along the lines of the 1st Amendment, which will separate the federal government from ANY involvement in our schools. I would suggest something worded as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting any establishment or form of education, or abridging the rights of the people to acquire education in any manner. Congress is also restricted from providing any funds for the purpose of education.

I can hear the squeals of protest already, but think about it: If the federal government cannot provide funding, they cannot put strings on it either.

Also, do we really need to funnel money for college educations through the federal government? Last time I checked, there are still many people in the U.S. without a college education. So exactly how do federal scholarship funding and college loans actually help ALL of us? There are plenty of private scholarship funds out there which could do the same job as the federal government. If people believe in providing scholarships for college educations, let them donate their money to the private scholarship funds, rather than have their money taken from them under the implied threat of government force which supports our income tax system?

In addition, without having to send education money to the federal government, there will be more money available in the private sector to enable the EXACT amount of education funding we need, rather than the amount our legislators THINK we need.

Finally, in K-12 education, let the states and local school boards decide how education should be done, rather than having to promote some federally mandated curriculum, which has done nothing to help the state of education in this country. (Although I think the states should only be involved in education funding, NOT in the actual business of education. But that is a separate discussion.)

We have tried everything in public education, and NONE of it works. It is time to remove the federal government from the education system completely.

Quote of the Day

“I carry with me a personal conviction that nothing can be allowed to interfere with our determination and our resolve and our conviction." - Hillary Clinton

This begs the question: If something were to interfere with our conviction, would she still have the same conviction, or would she need a new conviction, or would she just change her conviction to fit the new situation?

I think my resolve is waning...


(Hat tip to Bloomberg.com)

Money and Gore

It is nice to see a leftist rag like the New York Times finally admit that Al Gore is making a fortune from Global Warming. However, I don't think it detracts from his message, any more than Global Warming sceptics lose credibility when they have oil company investments. While it might paint their messages in a different light, it does not take away from the inherent truth or lies contained therein.

The political tactic of "killing the messenger" does not work in scientific debates. Even if a person has an ulterior motive, their message must be taken at face value, and must be refuted on it's own value or lack thereof.

You don't need to attack Gore to debunk the Global Warming theory, which is still ignoring several important factors:

1. It fails to account for how changes in the sun impact our atmosphere. We have seen a correlation between sunspots and the Earth's temperature. Yet Global Warming theory places carbon dioxide as a more important factor on the Earth's atmosphere than our planet's PRIMARY source of heat?

2. During the period of the dinosaurs, Earth's atmosphere contained larger concentrations of carbon dioxide than it currently does, yet both flora and fauna flourished. If Global Warming is so horrible for the Earth, then how do they account for this?

You don't need to attack Al Gore to find the holes in his message.

Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism

According to Jesus Huerta de Soto (in his essay "Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism"), the great flaw in the Founding Fathers' thinking was "their ideal is theoretically impossible, as it contains the seed of its own destruction, precisely to the extent that it includes the necessary existence of a state (even a minimal one), understood as the sole agent of institutional coercion."

When you consider how the Founding Fathers viewed the differences between republics and democracies, you can see the flaw in their thinking. For example:

"The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended" - James Madison

As long as people view the government as some anomolous "other" entity outside of themselves, then any government is doomed to failure, regardless of whether it is a monarchy or a democracy or a representative republic.

Madison was right about one thing: The larger the government, the less connected to it will be the people under it. As long as people feel no responsibility for their own government, they will inevitably seek to use government towards their own ends. We see this today with the proliferation of special interests, ranging from the lowest welfare recipient to the highest CEO on Wall Street, with all of them seeking to get their cut from our government.

Another example:

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide" - John Adams

What Adams forgets is how the Ancient Roman republic devolved into dictatorship. Representation did not protect the people from the follies of poor representative leadership (which handed over dictatorial powers to Julius Caesar, and then Augustus Caesar), leading to the Empire, and the inevitable fall of Rome.

Jesus Huerta de Soto's essay does get the part right about how no government has ever succeeded over the long term, and the Founding Fathers were wrong to assume they could do what had never been done before. However, de Soto does fail to deal with one problem: other governments.

As de Soto describes it, anarchocapitalism does sound like a great idea, until you start to consider: How do you protect it from other ideologies, and more specifically other governments? Inevitably, some dictatorship will come along and use force to enslave an anarchocapitalist "government".

Unless anarchocapitalists are willing to live like the people in Afghanistan, which is really the only comparable system to what they propose that has actually shown an ability to defend itself along with an ability to maintain their political/cultural system, then anarchocapitalism is doomed to failure. The only difference will be that anarchocapitalism's failure will come from outside of itself.

No beef in global warming stupidity

From the timesonline.com:

People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Let us assume for the moment that Lord Stern is correct, and we follow his absurd advice.

Everyone stops eating meat from cows and chickens and other domesticated animals. Of course, based on Lord Stern's argument about these animals using too much water and creating greenhouse gases, I assume we will be discontinuing the consumption of milk and other dairy products, since their continued consumption would create no net reduction in water usage or greenhouse gases. So no more cheese, milk, eggs, etc.

After we go on our strictly vegetarian diet, what will become of all these farm animals? If we release them into the wild, most of them will die, although some might survive, continuing to use water and create greenhouse gases. No, we will have to slaughter all of them. Who knows which cow fart might lead to the end of the world as we know it?

Naturally, unemployment will rise as all dairy workers will be out of a job. On the bright side, Global Warming will be creating more arable land in currently cold climates, so there will be plenty of farming jobs available. We will need them too, since we will all be consuming more vegetation. However, if Lord Stern's plan works, even this avenue for employment might be closed. This also means there will be less food available for the world's current population. But the deaths of millions is fine, since they will also be creating fewer greenhouse gases. It might even solve the unemployment problem!

When all is said and done, assuming Lord Stern is correct, we will save the planet from Global Warming, but have fewer people and jobs, and all dairy animals will be extinct.

This reminds me of the old Sam Cooke song:

Don't know much about history,
don't know much biology.
Don't know much about a science book,
don't know much about the french I took.
But I do know that I love you,
and I know that if you love me, too,
what a wonderful world this would be.

Global Warmers like Lord Stern definitely "don't know much", but will they still be calling it a "wonderful world" after they get done with it?

Quote of the Day: Global Warming Edition

"We cannot predict weather accurately for more than a week, why should we allow the same predictions to be accepted for all of the future? The answer is we should not." - George Giles (from lewrockwell.com)

The perfect description of our government's current efforts:

"Things will get better-despite our efforts to improve them." - Will Rogers

Toss out the bums

It is time to toss out the bums. No, I don't mean our elected representatives, or the president. Rather, I mean the PEOPLE responsible for electing these morons and looters.

It is time to toss out the voters.

Before you say I can't do that, shall I remind you there is no such thing as a "right to vote"? While there are laws which prevent discrimination in voting privileges, there is no actual "right to vote" anywhere in the Constitution. Feel free to prove me wrong, because you can't.

So back to the idea of tossing out the voters. This is easily done: just ban everyone from voting. This also has the side benefit of eliminating the whining every four years that someone was denied their voting rights, since no one will be able to vote!

As Clint Eastwood would say, "I know what you're thinking...": Who would run the country? Not that it matters to any of you, since you ARE the people responsible for the mess we are in, but the exact same people who run the country now. You didn't seem to care when our elected officials were taking bribes (in the form of campaign donations) to support a financial system that made many people wealthy (not you, of course), so why would you care if they remain in power? Let's remove the pretense that any of our elected officials will actually lose in the next election, because the overwhelming majority of them won't lose. Re-election for incumbant legislators in in the 90th percentile of probability.

But here is the best part: If we make our current Congress and President permanent, they won't have to give us health care, and they can go about the business of actually attempting to fix what is wrong with this country, instead of handing out free candy like health care to try and make their jobs permanent. You didn't honestly think they were planning to give us health care out of the goodness of their hearts, did you?

No wonder you voted for these morons and looters...