Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Face of Defense: Real Estate Agent Chooses to Serve
A little more than two years ago, Juliana Rizzo was a real estate agent living in Long Island, N.Y., with her two children, Angelo and Amanda, when she decided it was time to fulfill her childhood dream. That dream was to join the United States Army.
“As a little girl, I always wanted to join the Army, because my father and grandfather spent several years in the military and served their country proudly,”
“When we were in (Hohenfels, Germany) going through ‘Iron Warrior’ training, she went up to the Iraqi role players and started talking to them in their own language,” said Army Command Sgt. Maj. Chad Cuomo, “Nobody knew that she spoke Arabic, and it especially shocked the role players; she was definitely the hero of the battle out there.”
Rizzo was promoted to specialist shortly after arriving in Iraq and went to the sergeant’s promotion board four months later.
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The Men in Black vanish and Basra Comes to Life
Basra - Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again. All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military. The gunmen’s reign had enforced a strict set of religious codes. (Snip) “All these men in black [who imposed the laws] just vanished from the university after this operation,” said Ms Ahmed.
Raids are continuing in a few remaining strongholds but the Iraqi commander in charge of the unprecedented operation is confident that his forces will soon achieve something that the British military could not – a city free from rogue gunmen...
['stepping up' happens a step at a time. Here's one.]
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Iran upping support for militants in Iraq, top US officer says
Washington - Iran has been increasing its support for militants in Iraq and terrorism throughout the Middle East, the top US military officer said Friday. Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that Tehran has failed to live up to previous commitments to stop supporting Shiite militants responsible for attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces. (Snip) Iran's elite al-Quds force has continued providing weapons to militants and trains Iraqis on Iranian soil to fight and kill US and Iraqi soldiers...
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The Director of National Intelligence Speaks
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell gave his annual national security threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.
--
Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland. We assess that al Qaeda's Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.
--
... al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and materials (CBRN). We assess al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ these weapons and materials -- some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible, in our judgment.
[and that's the kicker, so 'distasteful' nobody wants to talk about it: the bad guys are right now working on acquiring WMD, and they'll use them when they get them, and as suicide bombers can't be deterred - they'll need to be be interdicted. To do that, our intelligence communities must be doing anything and everything to that end. I.e., progressive attempts to ham string their efforts technically or in the courts is literally placing many American lives at risk.]
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House Passes Diluted Terror Surveillance Package, Does Not Grant Immunity to Telcos
[reminder]
The House on Friday [March 14] approved a Democratic bill that would set rules for the government's eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails inside the United States.The bill, approved as lawmakers departed for a two-week break, faces a veto threat from President Bush. The margin of House approval was 213-197, largely along party lines. Because of the promised veto, "this vote has no impact at all," said Republican Whip Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri.
[incorrect: it delayed, once again, reimplementation of this authorization which is currently expired ...]
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Police have foiled 15 terror plots in Britain since the 7/7
Fifteen planned terrorist attacks in Britain have been foiled since the 2005 London bombings, Met chiefs said today. The revelation came as Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair warned that the country was being threatened by dangerous extremists who were emerging from "left field" to attempt terrorist attacks. Sir Ian added that some suspects were moving "very fast" to carry out their plots, forcing police to make pre-emptive arrests to protect the public...
['preemptive', as in learning of it before hand and acting. interdiction, via intelligence. fifteen ]
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Brown's Global Ideals Threaten U.S. Sovereignty
It's a good thing that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's U.S. visit was upstaged by the dramatic reception Americans gave Pope Benedict XVI. Brown might have been booed if he hadn't delivered what aides called his "signature" speech within the cloistered walls of Harvard's Kennedy Center. Brown's tedious, hour-long speech impudently demanded that we issue a "Declaration of Interdependence" in order to submit to global governance. That's another way of calling on the United States to repeal the Declaration of Independence.
The redundancy of Brown's outrageous semantics was oppressive. His speech used the word global 69 times, globalization 7 times, and interdependence 13 times. Brown rejected the traditional concept of national sovereignty, which means an independent nation not subservient to outside control, telling Americans to replace it with "responsible sovereignty," which he defined as accepting what he calls our global "obligations." Hold on to your pocketbook... [snip]
Brown even slipped in an attempt at thought control: "Americans must learn to think inter-continentally." He declaimed, "We are all internationalists now." Using the rhetorical device of inevitability, Brown warned Americans that his vision of the globalist future is "irreversible transformation." He wants to "transcend states" and "transcend borders" as he builds the "architecture of a global society."
Brown wants to increase the power of the United Nations to become the source of "an international stand-by capacity of trained civilian experts, ready to go anywhere at any time," and even be able to exercise "military force." Americans do not intend to cede such authority to the corrupt United Nations... [snip]
No thanks for the advice, Mr. Brown. Brave Americans rose up and rejected Britain's royalist rule in 1776, and we've gotten along mighty well without trans-Atlantic interference in our government for more than two centuries. We certainly don't want to reinstate any foreign supervision today.
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The hot air cult
[you want to talk about special interest money?]
One of the traits of a cult is its refusal to consider any evidence that might disprove the faith. So it is doubtful the global warming cultists will be moved by 400 scientists, many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore, for publicizing doubt on a "scientific consensus" that human-caused global warming endangers the planet. [snip]
Like most cultists, the true believers struck back, not by debating science, but by charging that a small number of the scientists mentioned in the report have taken money from the oil industry. A spokeswoman for Al Gore said 25 or 30 of the [400] scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobile Corp. Exxon Mobile spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the claim, saying, "The company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories." [snip]
The pro-global warming cultists enjoy a huge money advantage. Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter, who has testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, noted in an EPW report how much money has been spent researching and promoting climate fears and so-called solutions: "In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $50 BILLION on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one," he wrote on June 18, 2007.
The $19 million spent on research that debunks the global warming faith pales in comparison.
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Undoing America's Ethanol Mistake
In recent weeks, the correlation between government biofuel mandates and rapidly rising food prices has become undeniable. At a time when the U.S. economy is facing recession, Congress needs to reform its "food-to-fuel" policies and look at alternatives to strengthen energy security. [snip]
The best way to lower energy prices, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, is to accelerate production of all forms of domestic energy. Expanding biofuels while refusing to take other measures, such as lifting the ban on oil and natural gas production in Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf, is counterproductive.
We should be tapping into a broad portfolio of energy options, including clean coal, nuclear power and wave energy. The key is increasing energy supply. By taking these measures, we can enable biofuels to be part of the energy solution, instead of contributing to the energy problem.
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Will Media Remember Gore's 1994 Tie-breaking Vote Mandating Ethanol?
As the international disaster of ethanol begins taking its toll on the planet -- and, maybe more important, as press outlet after press outlet finally begins recognizing it -- will media remember that Vice President Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate requiring this oxygenate be added to gasoline?
After all, regardless of recent reports blaming ethanol for world hunger problems, rising food costs, and increased greenhouse gases, it seems highly unlikely green media will want to tie any of these problems to Nobel Laureate Gore.
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Bill on tap to dry up ALL drinking, driving
A Taunton representative wants to make Massachusetts the first state to declare driving under the influence of alcohol - even one green beer - flat out illegal.
Rep. James Fagan’s legislation would slash the current .08 blood-alcohol limit recognized nationwide as the standard for being legally drunk to .02. Federal government research indicates a 160- to 240-pound man would register .02 sipping one glass of wine over the course of an hour.
He simply believes that allowing people to imbibe and drive up to a point encourages “legalized alcohol gambling” by those raising a bottle to their lips and guessing when enough is enough - if at all.
[we letting governments become our parents]
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Reuters Worries About 'Diplomacy' with News of North Korea-Syria Nuclear Cooperation
In their April 24 article, "U.S. lays out Syria intelligence, may harm diplomacy," reporters Arshad Mohammed and Paul Eckert seek to lay blame at the feet of the Bush administration should "diplomacy" fail and/or Syria grow belligerent towards Israel:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States laid out intelligence on Thursday it believes shows North Korea helped Syria build a suspected nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel last year, a step that may complicate its diplomacy both on the Korean Peninsula and in the Middle East.
While the disclosure may make some diplomatic initiatives more difficult for the Bush administration, that this is the angle of the story is rather telling. After all, doesn't the nuclear proliferation, pose greater problems?
In breaking its official silence on the mysterious September 6 Israeli air strike, the Bush administration is taking the risk that Syria could be angered by the public disclosures and could seek to retaliate against Israel.
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Keating: Engagement With China May Clarify Its Military Intentions
“We have expressed to them our concern for their development of certain kinds of weapons: aerial-denial weapons and satellite technology and the growth of their submarine force, for example,” he said. “They counter by telling us they only want to protect those things that are theirs.”
“We at Pacific Command seek not just transparency, but clearer intention, expressed by our Chinese colleagues,” he said. “And it is our firm desire and intention to continue the dialog with our Chinese colleagues so as to develop an even better understanding of their intention.”
“They profess to seek a peaceful rise and harmonious integration,” he said, quoting Chinese leaders’ own words. “We are all for that. But they have to show us, in our view, how they intend to achieve that while developing these certain weapons. We think there is some contradiction in the stated goals vs. the practices we are observing.”
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Britain hit by mass strikes
London - Britain has been hit by the most wide-ranging wave of work stoppages in a decade, with more than 100,000 public sector employees, from teachers to coastguards, striking against the Labour government. Today's strikes were another blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown after he was forced by party rebels into a humiliating policy reversal over tax cuts yesterday. The industrial action comes a week ahead of local elections that will be his first major test at the ballot box.
['public sector employees' - government 'civil servants'. We're headed down the same path]
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Gazprom and the Kremlin, Inc
The Kremlin has made little secret that its energy policies are unlikely to change in the wake of the 2 March presidential poll. Russia's president-elect Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly pledged to sustain what he has described as political "continuity." The first deputy prime minister still serves as chairman of the board of natural gas monopoly Gazprom and has tended to defend the gas giant against what he has called unfair criticism by the West, including claims of "energy blackmail." From 3 March, Gazprom cut gas supplies to Ukraine by 25 percent, and the following day it again limited gas supplies...
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Russia says has no plans to cap carbon emissions
MOSCOW - Russia will not accept binding caps on its greenhouse gas emissions under a new climate regime, currently being negotiated to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, top officials said on Monday. Kyoto puts a cap on the average, annual greenhouse gas emissions from 2008-12 for some 37 industrialized countries, including Russia.
[of course not, their scientists are saying we're on the brink of another ice age. Why don't they say so publicly? We're about to garrote ourselves economically via this scam - why exactly should they point that out to us?]
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Russian scientist says Earth could soon face new Ice Age
... According to the scientist, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has risen more than 4% in the past decade, but global warming has practically stopped. It confirms the theory of "solar" impact on changes in the Earth's climate, because the amount of solar energy reaching the planet has drastically decreased during the same period, the scientist said.
"However, the thermal inertia of the world's oceans and seas will delay a 'deep cooling' of the planet, and the new Ice Age will begin sometime during 2055-2060, probably lasting for several decades," Abdusamatov said. Therefore, the Earth must brace itself for a growing ice cap, rather than rising waters in global oceans caused by ice melting.
[5 year window - isn't he good. Point: who the hell knows - let's not spend TRILLIONS and throw all our liberties out the window to boot]
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Canadian Scientists Fear Global Cooling
Investor's Business Daily is reporting something we haven't seen much of in the media since the 1970s: concerns about global cooling. You read that correctly: cooling. Kenneth Tapping, a researcher at Canada's National Research Council, wants to look for evidence of increased sunspot activity:
"The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century."
A "solar hibernation" in the 17th Century "corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715.
"Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe."
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THE REAL COST OF TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE
Many environmentalists claim that nothing less than an 80 percent reduction in emissions by the year 2050 will suffice to combat global warming, says Steven Hayward, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
These targets would send us back to emissions levels last witnessed when the cotton gin was in daily use:
• In 2006 the United States emitted 5.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or just under 20 tons per capita, according to the Department of Energy.
• An 80 percent reduction in these emissions from 1990 levels means that the United States cannot emit more than about one billion metric tons of CO2 in 2050.
The United States last emitted one billion metric tons around 1910; but in 1910, the country had 92 million people, and per capita income, in current dollars, was about $6,000.
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Less Gas at the Pump
This week, American truckers staged protests against the rising cost of diesel fuel while members of the U.S. House of Representatives competed to see who could do the best job of hectoring oil-company executives -- on-camera -- about the high price of gasoline.
Also this week, the House voted to double the size of two national marine sanctuaries off of the Northern California coast, which now are permanently protected from offshore-oil drilling. This is the same House that has supported a ban on new offshore drilling off the entire California coast and opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
It's a mystery of modern life that educated voters can grouse about the high price of gasoline, yet see no nexus between rising prices and dwindling domestic supply...
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Opec says oil could hit $200
Opec’s president on Monday warned oil prices could hit $200 a barrel and there would be little the cartel could do to help. The comments made by Chakib Khelil, Algeria’s energy minister, came as oil prices hit a historic peak close to $120 a barrel, putting further pressure on global economies.
[ready to drill yet - or are we going to wait until the 200$ mark?]
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Overzealous government at Tigers game lands son in foster care
... And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television. If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade. [snip]
Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars". The 47-year-old academic says he wasn't even aware alcoholic lemonade existed when he and Leo stopped at a concession stand on the way to their seats in Section 114.
"I'd never drunk it, never purchased it, never heard of it," Ratte of Ann Arbor told me sheepishly last week. "And it's certainly not what I expected when I ordered a lemonade for my 7-year-old."
But it wasn't until the top of the ninth inning that a Comerica Park security guard noticed the bottle in young Leo's hand.
"You know this is an alcoholic beverage?" the guard asked the professor. "You've got to be kidding," Ratte replied. He asked for the bottle, but the security guard snatched it before Ratte could examine the label... [snip]
Mistake or child neglect?
An hour later, Ratte was being interviewed by a Detroit police officer at Children's Hospital, where a physician at the Comerica Park clinic had dispatched Leo -- by ambulance! -- after a cursory exam.
An ER resident who drew Leo's blood less than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats detected no trace of alcohol. "Completely normal appearing," the resident wrote in his report, "... he is cleared to go home."
But it would be two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte's wife, U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home, and nearly a week before Ratte was permitted to move back into his own house...
[we are turning the government into our parents]
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Bet on the Homeschoolers
The California Court of Appeals judge who ruled recently that parents "do not have a constitutional right to home-school their children" probably thought the point was obvious. He lives in California, where liberalism is still a flourishing belief system, and where parents are widely regarded as simply the mechanism whereby new generations of youngsters are created and turned over to the state for polishing.
But he is a loser nonetheless, as he will discover when his ruling is overturned on appeal or, failing that, struck down by the legislature or, if necessary, by an amendment to the state constitution. The parents of California are not about to surrender the right to decide what fundamentals their children shall be taught.
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[let's hope. better: let's act]
CA Governor > http://gov.ca.gov/interact
CA State Legislators > http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html
Smoking bans stoke global warming?
Fewer cigarettes get lit indoors in bars and restaurants because of smoking bans from California to Ireland but something else is going up in smoke from a sidewalk in central Oslo – about $100,000 a year in extra outdoor heating bills. The heated pavement, installed at a cost of about $400,000, may be the most extreme example of an environmental side-effect of smoking bans: rocketing power use...
[like I've always said, everything started with the smoking bans!!! {that was for LH}]
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2008/04/28/smoking-bans-stoke-global-warming/
Monday, April 28, 2008
"For much of its 47-year existence, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has been a cartel in name only. It could not control oil prices because many of its members regularly breached the production quotas that were intended to regulate the market. So OPEC followed oil prices up and down, as supply and demand shifted. But now OPEC may be the real deal: a cartel that works. If so, that's bad news for the rest of the world."
— Robert Samuelson, Newsweek and Washington Post
.
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Why We Serve: Captain Helps Americans Relate to Troops
The captain said he wants to talk with audiences about life in the military and life overseas. “There are many people who don’t know anyone in the military,” he said. “It’s important for them to know what we do and why we do it.” The American people need to understand that servicemembers are all volunteers, “and that we’re normal people,” he said.
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Navigating the Numbers
[snip] defense spending -- even with war costs factored in -- is well below the historical average -- Today we’re spending less than 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. That’s only 1 percentage point higher than we were spending at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. And it’s still below the 6.2 percent of GDP we were shelling out for defense during the waning years of the Cold War in the 1980s -- and significantly less than the 9.5 percent we spent in the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War...
[ Recommended >]
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Back to Basra: Challenging the Blunderbusses
Remember the Iraqi government's Basra offensive, launched a month ago and quickly declared a failure by an overwhelming majority of the talk show and editorial commentators? "Basra Blunder" was the headline of a column that received wide distribution; the column described Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as an inept, impulsive figure "in way over his head."
Today, Maliki and Iraqis in general have earned the right to sneer at such instant and shallow media negativism, for Knights Charge (code name for the anti-Shia gang offensive in Basra) is proving to be an extraordinarily significant political and military operation with rather heady long-term payoffs. [snip]
Knights Charge, however, was much more than a confidence-building measure; it may be the most decisive example of a country-building measure we have seen since Saddam fell in April 2003. A democratically elected prime minister who happens to be a Shia ordered his nation's troops to strike a Shia gangster. The Iraqi government took the initiative -- amd now stands to reap several impressive political benefits...
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The Airline Bomb Plot
[that was so nearly the 'Airline Bomb-ing']
...Here's another hypothetical: Would this conversation be different today if in August 2006 seven airliners had taken off from Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport, bound for the U.S. and Canada and each carrying about 250 passengers, and then blew up over the Atlantic Ocean? [snip]
The view that 9/11 "changed everything" did not hold up under the weight of our politics. Divisions re-emerged between Democrats and Republicans, in office and on the streets. These fights reignited over the Patriot Act, Guantanamo and the warrantless wiretap bill (or "FISA" revision). These arguers stopped to stare momentarily at their televisions when Islamic terrorists succeeded in mass murder in the 2004 Madrid train bombing and the 2005 London subway bombing, but quickly returned to partisan grandstanding...[snip]
The arrests of the men [before they could execute their crime {suicide bombers are not deterable, they must be interdicted}], who say they are innocent, was the result of broad and prolonged surveillance. For months, the suspects were bugged, photographed and wiretapped. Here in the U.S., our politics has spent much of the year unable to vote into law the wiretap bill, which is bogged down, incredibly, over giving retrospective legal immunity to telecom companies that helped the government monitor calls - originating overseas...[snip]
Philip Bobbitt, author of the just released and thought-provoking book, "Terror and Consent," has written that court warrants are "a useful standard for surveillance designed to prove guilt, not to learn the identity of people who may be planning atrocities."
Planning atrocities is precisely the point.
[Recommended >]
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Parenting the Palestinians
Golda Meir said, ''The Arabs will stop fighting us when they love their children more than they hate Jews.'' This quote provides the key to unraveling the question of why the Palestinians persist in attacking their neighbors the Israelis, rather than emulating them. A people goes much farther in emulating those more functional than themselves than they do in relentless blame and hatred. Witness the Japanese, conquered in World War II, studying and improving upon the structures of American industrial might.
[the key here is education. Ideas born in radical Egypt, printed in Saudi Arabia or Syria, are taught in Gaza and the west bank - from birth. Until we step up to confronting the continuing indoctrination to the ideology of hate and death, militant Islam will produce an inexhaustible supply of murderers. Rumsfeld was/is right: we need fight the war of ideology; it's what's fueling everything. ]
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[FLASHBACK:
Friday, January 25, 2008
The War of Ideas Should Be Engaged
http://netizennewsbrief.blogspot.com/2008/01/war-of-ideas-should-be-engaged.html ].
Plutonium on the Euphrates
The press is now reporting, that the Administration will confirm that Israel bombed what the U.S. believes was a nascent plutonium-producing nuclear reactor being built with North Korea's assistance.
The State Department has already given up on holding North Korea to its promise to disclose all of its nuclear activities. But now it appears that Foggy Bottom and President Bush are prepared to forgive North Korea for telling what the U.S. now agrees were lies about the North's nuclear proliferation to a Middle Eastern autocrat who is an enemy of America. At the same time, Bush Administration officials are saying that it is good policy to trust Kim Jong Il's declarations on his stockpiles of plutonium.
So: Israel had to risk war with Syria to destroy a nuclear facility built with the help of lying North Koreans. But no worries, the U.S. says it can still trust North Korea to tell the truth about its current programs. This makes us wonder if the unofficial U.S. nonproliferation policy is to have Israel bomb every plutonium facility that the North Koreans decide to sell...
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Esteem for US rises in Asia, thanks to Iraq war
THE US war in Iraq has strengthened its strategic position, especially in terms of key alliances, and the only way this could be reversed would be if it lost the will to continue the struggle and abandoned Iraq in defeat and disarray.
The US's three most important Asian alliances - with Australia, Japan and South Korea - have in his view been strengthened by the Iraq campaign. Each of these nations sent substantial numbers of troops to help the US in Iraq. They did this because they believed in what the US was doing in Iraq, and also because they wanted to use the Iraq campaign as an opportunity to strengthen their alliances with the US.
More generally, in a world supposedly awash in anti-US sentiment, pro-American leaders keep winning elections. Germany's Angela Merkel is certainly more pro-American than Gerhard Schroeder, whom she replaced. The same is true of France's Nicolas Sarkozy. More importantly in terms of Green's analysis, the same is also true of South Korea's new President. Lee Myung-bak, elected in a landslide in December, is vastly more pro-American than his predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun.
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'Nanny state' cramps Europe's style
Europe started 2008 with a raft of new laws against smoking, air pollution and even junk food adverts, but some grumbled that the New Year's resolutions from the "nanny state" cramped their style. (Snip) While many accepted the new rules as reasonable*, some bristled at what they called the state's overreach and the creeping end of the Euroean way of life.
[reasonable: other people should be forced to act as I would. This is the model some Americans want to emulate?]
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Reducing greenhouse gases harder than we thought
Reducing carbon dioxide will be far more challenging than society has been led to believe, local scientists wrote in an article published in this week's edition of Nature. Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado and Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research examined one of the reports released last year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and concluded that it was overly optimistic.
[not optimistic in the IPCC's doom & gloom forecasts, but optimistic in mankind's ability to affect climate {which by definition includes 'change'}]
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When Political Correctness Becomes Conventional Wisdom
... Climate change scientists have no evidence for their theories that cannot be refuted by experts of equal or greater stature. Bill Gray, for example, is the world's most famous authority on hurricanes. Working in the atmospheric science department of Colorado State University, he predicts the number of hurricanes each tropical storm season will produce. A towering figure in his field, he has trained dozens of scientists over the years.
Gray has testified on global warming before Congress. He has given speeches, written articles and done all he can think of to get his message out. Yet, he has been ostracized by his colleagues, cut off from government funding and invested more than $100,000 of his own money to keep his research going — all because he contends that global warming is a fraud.
“I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people,” he says. “I've been in meteorology over 50 years. I've worked damn hard, and I've been around. My feeling is some of us older guys who've been around have not been asked about this. It's sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing.”Unfortunately, it appears that the yuppies have won and their political correctness has now become conventional wisdom. Welcome to the 19th Century.
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Senate Keeps Focus on Polar Bear
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the Department of Interior has been "foot-dragging" on listing the polar bear as an endangered species and has asked the department's secretary to appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.[snip]
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the committee, however, said, "Unfortunately, the polar bear is simply a pawn in a much bigger game of chess.
"It has become clear that listing the bear as a threatened species is not about protecting the bear but about using the ESA to achieve global warming policy that special interest groups cannot otherwise achieve through the legislative process,"
"Implementation of ESA should be driven by science, not litigation," Inhofe said. "As we have heard in testimony before the committee, all too often the act's strict timelines make it nearly impossible for the scientists to do their job."
Dale Hall, director of FWS, recently testified before the Committee that he needed extra time to review additional science before making the final decision on the listing of the polar bear.
[have you thought through how much this political subterfuge is going to cost you at the pump?Pelosi > http://speaker.house.gov/contact/ (202) 225-0100YOUR Senator http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfmPresident > president@whitehouse.gov
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
EARTH DAY 2008: PREDICTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER WERE WRONG
Another Earth Day has passed, so this is a good time to look back at predictions made on the original Earth Day about environmental disasters that were about to hit the planet, says the Washington Policy Center (WPC). Most Earth Day predictions turned out to be stunningly wrong.
In 1970, environmentalists said there would soon be a new ice age and massive deaths from air pollution. The New York Times foresaw the extinction of the human race. Widely-quoted biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted worldwide starvation by 1975. More predictions of impending disaster:
- "...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind," biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
- By 1995, "...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct." Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
- Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor "...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born," Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
- "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
- "By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..." Life magazine, January 1970.
- "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
Source: Press Release, "Earth Day 2008: Predictions of Environmental Disaster Were Wrong," Washington Policy Center, April 22, 2008.
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“What is at risk is not the climate but freedom. I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.”
—Czech president Vaclav Klaus
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Why We Serve: Sailor Shares Deployment Experiences
Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Emily K. Klinefelter said she volunteered for the deployment because, as a leader, she knew she would have to one day ask her sailors to deploy, and she wanted to have the experience first. “It was really not a hard decision for me to make,” she said.
Klinefelter re-enlisted for another six years while she was in Iraq, and she hopes to become a warrant officer shortly after being promoted to chief petty officer next year, she said. For now, her goal is to spread the message that the Navy is involved in the war on terror right alongside its fellow services, and that troops around the world are proud to serve their country.
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The Afghanistan success story
... I have shown that statements from NATO leaders have gone almost completely ignored when they do not sustain the "losing in Afghanistan" narrative. I remember one article in which the writer declared that the Taliban had "vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas." The truth of the matter was that NATO forces had pushed the Taliban out of the towns and villages and into the wastelands...
Last week at a NATO/International Security Assistance Force summit in Bucharest, ISAF leaders reaffirmed their commitment to Afghanistan and released a report which supports my argument. The report, Progress in Afghanistan, belies the current media dictum in its' very name. But the revelations in the report shred the media template to the point of making it incontestable that the American public is the victim of journalistic malpractice concerning Afghanistan.
The report begins with this salient foreword:
The conclusion we draw from this report is simple: this broad international effort to help Afghanistan build a more stable and secure future is achievable, and it is being achieved. Of course, real challenges remain, and this will be a long-term effort; but the information contained in this report gives reason for optimism.Yet all of this good news goes nearly unreported in the American media in favor of a "resurgent Taliban" narrative. At some point, media consumers must not only question the media narrative but the cause of this distorted reporting. We can only conclude that the disparate nature of the facts from the reporting points to nothing less than purposely biased reporting at America's journalistic institutions.
We are now experiencing another Tet Offensive in Afghanistan, not from the enemy forces, but from an enemy media that seeks to put a Democrat in the White House by discrediting anything our military has accomplished, as long as the Commander-in-Chief is a Republican.
[Recommended >]
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Attack Wing: Glider Makes Waves With Stealth and Speed
It weighs only 30 pounds and can be fully weaponized for assault and rescue. It has a 6-foot jet-wing that is steered with handheld rotary controls connected to its rudder. And it can hide more than 100 pounds of combat gear in a built-in compartment. The Gryphon attack glider, designed to penetrate combat zones at 135 miles per hour, could revolutionize the art of parachuting. (Snip) A vision straight out of "Batman," the carbon-fiber stealth glider quadruples the speed of similar craft...
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Palestinian 'Moderates' Ensure Extremism
“Rice Wins Concessions from Israel,” read the Washington Post headline after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s recent visit. Rice herself told reporters her goal was to further Israel-Palestinian Authority (PA) talks by getting Israeli concessions to “improve the quality of life” for Palestinians. She listed ten different Israeli concessions including: removing 50 roadblocks, easing checkpoint procedures, increasing travel and work permits, backing economic projects, letting 700 U.S.-trained PA security men deploy, and giving the PA armored vehicles and night-vision goggles. Rice claimed success, saying talks are now "moving in the right direction."
Are they? Will these concessions make the PA more stable or moderate? No. One wonders if we’ll ever see the headline: “Rice Wins Concessions from Palestinians.” I doubt it...
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Hamas rejects Israeli recognition
[now who could have seen that coming...]
Mr Carter had said Hamas was prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbour next door in peace".
[...everybody but Jimmy...]
Speaking in Syria, where he lives in exile, Khaled Meshaal said that this did not mean recognising Israel, but he said: "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as an alternative to recognition."
[...after which they'll resume the war - just closer and better entrenched]
"The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved," - said Carter.
[right: Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and it's... Israel and America's fault.]
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Report: Russian bombers intercepted off Alaska
Moscow - NATO forces sent jets to escort two Russian long-range air force bombers patrolling neutral skies near Alaska on Wednesday, Russian news agencies quoted the defense ministry as saying. (Snip) Accompanied by two Il-78 refueling tankers, the two Tu-95 Bear bombers flew for 15 hours over the Arctic and Pacific oceans, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying.
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Bush a Master Diplomat Strengthening U.S. Relations All Over
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"The world owes President Bush a debt of gratitude in leading the world in our determination to root out terrorism," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a man whose recent elevation to office was supposed to denote a "cooling" of relations with the U.S. and a tilt toward Europe. But Europe isn't really "cooling," either.
France is now led by a man elected as "le Americain." Like Brown, President Nicolas Sarkozy had nothing but good things to say about Bush. [...]
In Italy, all we can find is another enthusiastically pro-Bush prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who won high office this week in a landslide. "What I did counted in my relationship with Bush," he said this month in his campaign.
In Germany, led by conservative and U.S.-friendly Chancellor Angela Merkel, the sentiment has also gone pro-American, as it has in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Canada.
Outside of Western Europe, the reviews are even warmer because there's a focus not just on terror-fighting but standing up for democracy— as ties with Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Albania show. [...]
Bush has also boosted ties with strategic Asian countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore, and broken new ground with some very big players globally, like Brazil and India, both of whose leaders have the most cordial of relations. [...]
So what was that again about Bush alienating 'the world'?
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Financial markets global-tax could aid world’s poor
A tax of one-hundredth of a percentage point on global financial transactions could provide hundreds of billions of dollars for developing countries facing the challenges of soaring commodity prices and climate change, the United Nations heard this week. The food price crisis that has sparked unrest in some of the world’s poorest countries.
[one-hundredth of a percent - for now - are we really foolish enough to allow the one-world-government folks to take what funds they deem 'necessary'?]
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Climate change claims exaggerated: Minchin
A KEY federal opposition frontbencher has voiced his skepticism about climate change. Opposition defense spokesman, and leader of the opposition in the Senate Nick Minchin said there were still doubts on the science used to back up claims about climate change.
"I do think that the claims being made in relation to climate change generally are often very exaggerated," he told ABC Television.
"And even Ross Garnaut in his report makes it clear that there are many, many scientists who doubt the voracity of the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) findings, and he called for greater debate about the scientific evidence...
[greater what? whatzat - 'debate'? {it's still occurring in other countries}]
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Global Warming Petition Project
More than 19,000 scientists have signed a petition which 'urges':
"The United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. "
And states:
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
The complete of signatories can be seen at www.oism.org/pproject.
[that's 19K scientists in addition to the over 4000 from 106 countries which signed the Heidelberg Appeal in 1992, those that signed the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change in response to Kyoto's drafting {forgot count, apologies}, and the meticulously vetted Oregon Petition begun in 1998 that now has in excess of 20K signatories itself. Ok, suspect there's some overlap in signatories and no, I'm not going to parse 'em - point is it's yet another association of predominantly climate related scientists that dwarfs the few thousand of the IPCC and else where - but which is routinely ignored by the MSM - why?]
BACK TO THE '70S?
Wasn't it two years ago that then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed, if her party took over Congress, to cut energy prices -- especially gasoline? Since then the cost of energy is up more than 70 percent. Under Pelosi's "common-sense plan," Congress has achieved nothing. Actually, less than nothing, considering that what little has been done has hurt, rather than helped the United States to become more energy self-sufficient:
- This year alone, we'll spend $431 billion to buy 3.7 billion barrels of imported oil to run our economy.
- And in so doing, we are enriching some of the world's most unsavory regimes.
- At least 10 billion barrels in Alaska's National Wildlife Reserve. [Caribou could trip on a rig; off limits]
- 30 billion or so offshore. [not in sight of my beach house; off limits]
- 1.2 trillion in Rocky Mountain oil-shale. [classified 'alternative' fuel, carbon footprint must be less than liquid oil, isn't; off limits]
Democrats have focused instead on a global warming plan that would cost $1.2 trillion. Meanwhile, subsidies and other breaks for biofuels have helped send food prices soaring. As in the 1970s, this is a human-made crisis -- one that has solutions. But it's the Democrats, along with a few equally misguided Republicans, who steadfastly refuse to implement them.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Nixon's daughter supports Obama
Julie Nixon Eisenhower, a daughter of former Republican president Richard Nixon, is supporting Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential bid.
[quite the scoop CNN. {what bias?}]
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Soldiers Re-enlist to Commemorate 100th Army Reserve Anniversary
“In places like Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines and Latin America, Army reservists are bringing their warrior skills and their civilian trades to the fight,” Petraeus said.
“As everyone here knows,” Petraeus told the citizen-soldiers, “that combination is particularly effective in the exceedingly complex environments we face today -- environments that require our troopers to be not just warriors but also diplomats, builders, trainers, advisors, intelligence gatherers, service providers, economic developers and mediators.”
“Citizen-soldiers perform these diverse roles expertly, and in so doing, they demonstrate the critical role members of the Army Reserve play in safeguarding freedom at home and defending it abroad,” the general added.
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America Supports You: Community Sends Girl Scout Cookies to Troops
“Our U.S. troops in Iraq have sacrificed so much for our country's freedom so it was a wonderful feeling for me to have the opportunity to be able to give back to them,” said Marisa Pike, one of the seventh-graders who participated. “It's great to be part of a school that encourages students to serve others in their need.”
[In addition, the foundation has focused efforts on providing financial support for the families of wounded and disabled soldiers in Cincinnati and across the country - please visit >
>'Contribute' right end of banner bar]
Gen. Petraeus is garnering a place in history
There he was, this generation's equivalent of George Marshall, the brilliant proconsul testifying before Congress to underline the improbable but now indisputable victory over al Qaida. In military history, the turn-around David Petraeus has commanded in Iraq rivals MacArthur's surprise landing at Inchon... [snip]
An earlier and more attentive generation might have idolized Petraeus. This one barely grasps his victory and has no idea who he is. The Pew Research Center reports that 55 percent of the public cannot even recognize his name — roughly the same percentage as those who wish the war would just fade away... [snip]
Petraeus may eventually take his place in history as neither a Marshall nor a MacArthur but instead as an Eisenhower. However that may turn out, it was embarrassing this week to see just how profoundly the military institution outclasses and outperforms its political masters...
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IRAN'S BUSTED IRAQ BID
BASRA 'RISING' WAS TEHRAN'S OP
That's how analysts in Tehran describe events last month in Basra. Iran's state-run media have de facto confirmed that this was no spontaneous "uprising." Rather, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) tried to seize control of Iraq's second-largest city using local Shiite militias as a Trojan horse. [snip]
The Iranian plan - developed by Revolutionary Guard's Quds (Jerusalem) unit, which is in charge of "exporting the Islamic Revolution" - aimed at a quick victory. To achieve that, Tehran spent vast sums persuading local Iraqi security personnel to switch sides or to remain neutral. [snip]
Initially, Quds commanders appeared to have won their bet. Their Special Groups and Mahdi Army allies easily seized control of key areas of Basra when more than 500 Iraqi security personnel abandoned their positions and disappeared into the woodwork. Soon, however, the tide turned. Maliki proved that he had the courage to use the new Iraqi Security Force, even if that meant confronting Iran...[snip]
The Iran-backed side lost more than 600 men, with more than 1,000 injured. The ISF lost 88 dead and 122 wounded.
Some analysts suggest this was the first war between new Iraq and the Islamic Republic. If so, the Iraqis won.
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“Tehran tried to test the waters in Basra and, as an opportunist power, would've annexed southern Iraq under a quisling administration had that been attainable at a low cost. Once it became clear that the cost might be higher than the Quds force expected, Tehran opted to back down.
“Yet this was just the first round. The struggle for Iraq isn't over.”
— Amir Taheri, New York Post
Intercepted al-Qaida Letter Reveals Tactics, Strategy
"Use silenced guns to kill coalition forces at Iraqi security checkpoints, smuggle weapons in gradual shipments to reduce the risk of detection, and poison Iraq’s water supply with nitric acid to spread disease and death."
Such tactics were fleshed out in a terrorist letter intended for Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the foreign-born leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. But the document never reached Masri. Instead, coalition forces lifted it from the body of a terrorist they killed last month during an operation 30 miles northwest of Baghdad.
In addition to outlining extremist combat methods, Safyan advocated waging economic and psychological warfare, and his roadmap for success hinged on “continuous conflict” between Iraq’s Shiite government, Sunni members of “Awakening Movements” and Kurdish nationalists.
[like Tet, expect a terror surge as we lead up to the election - also like Tet, it could be the terrorists swan song: they're paying more dearly for every attack with each passing day, to win we need only stand firm in our commitment to do so]
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Twofer...
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Muslim Groups Take Issue With McCain's Vocabulary
A coalition of American Muslim groups is demanding that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain stop using the word "Islamic" to describe terrorists. The Washington Times reports Islamic Society of North America's secretary general wants McCain to use something he calls "more acceptable to the Muslim community." (Snip)
[McCain spokeman:] "The reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is."
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“______” Terrorism
Yesterday, Muneer Fareed, head of the Islamic Society of North America, called for John McCain to cease using the terms Muslim or Islamic in describing–Mohammedan?–terrorism. Here’s Fareed, as quoted in the Washington Times:
"You want to call them terrorist criminals, fine. But adding the word ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ certainly doesn’t help our cause as Americans . . . It paints an entire community of believers, 1.2 billion in total, in a very negative way."In fact, it does no such thing. The modifiers “Islamic” and “Muslim” are critical in helping to identify the methodology, motivation, and personnel working against us. What does paint the moderate Muslim community “in a very negative way” is Fareed’s evident refusal to face up to a blunt fact: people calling themselves Muslims have waged a war against people they’ve labeled infidels...
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A FOOLISH OVERREACTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Over the past five years the scaremongering of the climate alarmists has led the governments of Europe to commit themselves to a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, regardless of the economic cost of doing so, says Lord Nigel Lawson former British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In fact, given that warming produces benefits as well as costs, it is far from clear that for the people of the world as a whole, the currently projected warming, even if it were to occur, would cause any net harm at all. By contrast, slowing down world economic growth, by shifting to much more expensive non-carbon sources of energy, would be massively costly and by extension do great harm - especially to the world's poor.
That is one good reason why the sought-after global agreement to cut back drastically on carbon dioxide emissions, embracing China, India and the other major developing countries, is not going to happen.
But a very real danger remains: Europe's intention to start a global trade war by imposing trade barriers against countries that don't accept a mandatory cut in their emissions, as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and others are already urging...
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Europe Turns to Coal
At a time when some are crying that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, what we're told is the dirtiest fuel on earth.
Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.
And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are slated to build about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years...
[How very interesting. Of course the US, as the "Saudi Arabia of coal", Has naturally all but put the resource off limits for any expanded role as an energy source - to the contrary, congress is busy drafting additional punitive legislation against its use. Are you ready to mine yet?]
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Increasing demand for biofuels could be detrimental for women
Increasing demand for liquid biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel, the conversion of agricultural land for their production and increased use of natural resources could be detrimental to women in rural areas, a new United Nations study warns.
The study, released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), calls on the member States to adopt measures to ensure that women have the same opportunities as men to benefit from the increased production of biofuels.
"Unless policies are adopted in developing countries to strengthen the participation of small farmers, especially women in biofuel production by increasing their access to land, capital and technology, gender inequalities are likely to become more marked"...
[ Note that they're defining 'harm' to women not as their losing something, but in not gaining additional benefit in equal measure to men. The world is beginning to starve, and these idiots are lecturing on gender-farming-inequality. What could be more foolish? A: biofuels are causing the starvation. UNsalvageable.]
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Angry driver waves gun, shoots self, faces charges
TEMPE — A man accidentally shot himself in the stomach after waving his gun in anger at a fellow driver in Tempe, and police say he will face charges. Tempe police spokesman Brandon Banks said Monday that David Lopez, 33, is expected to survive and could face charges including disorderly conduct, reckless display of a firearm and felony flight from police in the Friday night incident.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/235425.php
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The World Food Crisis
[brought to you by the war-on-warming]
Most Americans take food for granted. Even the poorest fifth of households in the United States spend only 16 percent of their budget on food. In many other countries, it is less of a given. Nigerian families spend 73 percent of their budgets to eat, Vietnamese 65 percent, Indonesians half. They are in trouble.
Last year, the food import bill of developing countries rose by 25 percent as food prices rose to levels not seen in a generation. Corn doubled in price over the last two years. Wheat reached its highest price in 28 years. The increases are already sparking unrest from Haiti to Egypt. Many countries have imposed price controls on food or taxes on agricultural exports.
Last week, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, warned that 33 nations are at risk of social unrest because of the rising prices of food. “For countries where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption, there is no margin for survival,” he said.
The rich world is causing this situation by supporting the production of biofuels. The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years. This elevated corn prices. Feed prices rose. So did prices of other crops — mainly soybeans — as farmers switched their fields to corn, according to the Agriculture Department...
[again: dumbest idea in the history of this {or for all we know, any} planet - yet watch how long it takes our 'leaders' to admit it and undo it]
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Global Warming 101: Professor Carter Explains Climate Realism
For years the foreign press outlets have been doing a far better job of covering both sides of the manmade global warming debate than American media. Friday was a perfect example as New Zealand television's "Nzone Tonight" broadcast an interview with Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University, Queensland, Australia.
As you watch the video embedded to the right [follow link], notice the respect and courtesy Carter is given by host Allan Lee as he calmly and methodically explained the position of climate realists without being insulted or referred to as a "denier."
Compare that to the disgraceful job ABC's Dan Harris did last month when he interviewed Dr. S. Fred Singer on "World News" in a segment entitled "Welcome to 'The Denial Machine'" that actually began:
"One of the most influential scientists in what's been called "The Denial Machine," for decades, Fred Singer has argued loudly that global warming is not dangerous despite the vast majority of scientists who agree it is. His critics say Dr. Singer has helped create the mirage of a scientific debate which has preventing the American public and American politicians from taking action."With this in mind, I challenge American television news outlets to reciprocate, and begin interviewing climate realists on the air, with courtesy and decorum, so that the citizenry can better understand all the intricate facets of the real science involved in this matter...
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Congress Picks a Loser
Congress doesn’t trust consumers to make the right decision when it comes to selecting the right source of energy. Congress knows better. That’s why legislation out of Capitol Hill is all about weaning us off oil and putting us directly on a “renewable energy” diet.
Witness the energy tax bill the House passed in February that slaps $18 billion in taxes on oil production to fund wind, solar, biofuels, and other “alternative” sources.
Witness the new energy law passed in December mandating that Americans increase the use of ethanol and other biofuels at the pump to 36 billion gallons by 2022, up from 7 billion gallons required now. And witness the new farm bill that gives corn growers $10.5 billion in subsidies over the next five years, no matter how fast the price of corn rises—which, incidentally, has gone from $3.50 a bushel to a record $5.50 over the past three months.
The problem is that Congress, unlike consumers who make decisions based on price and availability rather than political pressures, gets it egregiously – and damagingly – wrong...
[and then defends their ideas to death. a 57% increase to corn prices in three months, producing 7B gallons/yr. - what's it going to be like in 2022 at 36B gallons/yr.? this is insanity - which you are going to pay for ]
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COMPETITION SOLVES HEALTH CARE
For all the rhetoric of "change," this election is a contest between two very old, and very important, competing visions of government.
Free-market thinkers have a clear and compelling case that the problems in our health care system do not represent a failure of markets, but a failure of government. For example:
• While government's role in health care has expanded -- one out of two health care dollars is now spent by the government -- health care has become more expensive, less efficient, and less accessible.
• Health insurance premiums have nearly doubled since 2000 while inflation grew at 18 percent and wages grew by 20 percent.
A market-based system that would unleash the power of innovation and competition in health care is within reach - a key reform would involve transferring health care tax benefits to individuals rather than employers:
• McCain's plan would do that by providing every American with a tax credit of $2,500 per individual ($5,000 per family) to buy their own insurance plan.
• Switzerland, hardly a bastion of conservatism, has used a similar individual-based model where costs are 50 percent less than in America, with better outcomes.
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The World Bank now believes that some 33 countries are in danger of being destabilised by food price inflation, while Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said that higher food prices risked wiping out progress towards reducing poverty and could harm global growth and security. Why has this happened so quickly? What caused the prices to rise?
Bob Watson, the chief scientist at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, puts the rise in the price of commodity crops such as wheat down to a number of factors: higher demand for grain to feed livestock in China, where increasing affluence means more people want to eat meat; drought in Australia for three years, meaning it has had to import wheat; market jitters brought on by the sight of several countries stopping exporting grain; speculators seeing a chance to make money; and, of course, the sudden extra demand for food crops such as maize for use in biofuels, in both Europe and the United States.
A few years ago, he points out, no one could have predicted that we would be aiming to produce five to 10 per cent of our petrol and diesel from crops.
[note who's talking - chief scientist at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, yet what's missing from the list of causes? Global Warming (we had a heavy rainfall year except for Australia). Isn't that strange. Well - it's kind of there - our war on warming looks to have its first true casualties (and they aren't bears)...][BTW: genetically modified food holds the best promise to feeding the world, but alas, that's not allowed either - for equally scientific reasons {bad policies have bad consequences}]
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