The Noble Prize for the Biggest Scam of the Ages

The seams in Gore's global warming scam are being ripped apart as more and more people have a closer look at what this man is spouting (Robert Tracinski at The Intellectual Activist does an excellent job of covering this issue).

"If you must declare a debate over, then maybe it's not. And if you have to gussy up your agenda as "our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level," then it deserves some skeptical examination." (John Stossel)

"Gore also says in the film that 2005 is the hottest year on record. But NASA data actually show that 1934 was the hottest year on record in the U.S. — 2005 is not even in the top 10."

"Perhaps worse than the film’s errors is their origin. The BBC reported that Gore knew the film presented incorrect information but took no corrective steps because he didn't want to spotlight any uncertainties in the scientific data that may fuel opponents of global warming alarmism.

"An Inconvenient Truth" grossed about $50 million at the box office and millions more in DVD and book sales. Gore charges as much as $175,000 for an in-person presentation of his slide show that forms the basis for the film.

"Considering that a key 25 percent of "An Inconvenient Truth" is not true — and perhaps intentionally so — it seems only fair that Gore offer a refund to moviegoers, DVD/book purchasers and speaking sponsors. Where are the class action lawyers when you need them?" (Steven Milloy).

Michael Asher reports on the fact that the foundation of the global warming scam-the Greenhouse Gas theory-is under serious attack from new research funded by the US National Science Foundation.

Gore's rants about global warming is part of the whole environmentalist movement that hates modern life and uses the cloak of science to legitimize their goals of dismantling all that humans have accomplished over the centuries. Global warming is a fantasy and a wish based on the desire of these environmentalists' to live in nature and their deep down hatred of man and progress. But even deeper they hate reason the foundation for man's rise from Neanderthal to Homo Sapiens. Remember the unabomber Ted Kaczynski? He openly stated "I wanted to live like a Neanderthal".

We used to live "in nature" but as man painstakingly rose from bare existence to a technologically advanced civilization they did one thing that environmentalists do not do - use reason to solve problems and create a life filled with rewarding challenges and benefits.

"Tax His Land, Tax His Bed, Tax His Table, Tractor and Mule"

Thought you'd want to see all the taxes we are paying. These are probably not all of them but should be enough to give you heartburn. I am quoting from a "Letter to the Editor" in the Battle Creek Enquirer of 16 October 2007. I doubt the Democrats accomplished all this looting all by themselves without Republican help along the way. I separated out the 7 telephone taxes so that they stand out for you. Have fun and try not to swallow too much bile.

Accounts receivable tax, Building permit tax, CDL license tax, Cigarette tax, Corporate incometax, Dog license tax, Excise taxes, Federal income tax, Federal unemployment tax, Fishing license tax, Food license tax, Fuel permit tax, Gasoline tax (42 cents/gallon), Gross receipts tax, Hunting license tax, Inheritance tax, Inventory tax, IRS interest charges, IRS penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor tax, Luxury taxes, Marriage license tax, Medicare tax, Personal property tax, Property tax. Real estate tax, Service charge tax, Social Security tax, Road usage tax, Sales tax, Recreational vehicle tax, School tax, State income tax, State unemployment tax,

Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Utility taxes, Vehicle license registration tax, Vehicle sales tax, Watercraft registration tax, Well permit tax,Worker’s compensation tax.

The writer concludes: "Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago; our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt; had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. Do you know what happened? Can you spell "Democrat?"

Lying and Cheating in the Cause of Global Warming

The supposed scientific consensus of the Global Warming crowd appears to be coming apart. “Global Warming Delusions” is the title of a remarkable article by Daniel Botkin, a biologist and ecologist working on Global Warming (Wall Street Jr, 17 October 2007). It appears that some global warming scientists are scaremongering because they want us to change our ways. It’s so nice to have people so preoccupied with the earth that they are willing to do anything – lie, cheat and cause mayhem in order to achieve their irrational ends as evidenced in this article.

“Global warming doesn't matter except to the extent that it will affect life -- ours and that of all living things on Earth. And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.

"Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. …But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.

"We're also warned that tropical diseases are going to spread, and that we can expect malaria and encephalitis epidemics. But scientific papers by Prof. Sarah Randolph of Oxford University show that temperature changes do not correlate well with changes in the distribution or frequency of these diseases; warming has not broadened their distribution and is highly unlikely to do so in the future, global warming or not...

"I'm not a naysayer. I'm a scientist who believes in the scientific method and in what facts tell us. I have worked for 40 years to try to improve our environment and improve human life as well. I believe we can do this only from a basis in reality, and that is not what I see happening now. Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.

Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate…

"…Oddly, the forecasts of computer models have become our new reality, while facts such as the few extinctions of the past 2.5 million years are pushed aside, as if they were not our reality.

"A recent article in the well-respected journal American Scientist explained why the glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro could not be melting from global warming… That it couldn't be global warming directly (i.e., the result of air around the glacier warming) was made clear by the fact that the air temperature at the altitude of the glacier is below freezing. This means that only direct radiant heat from sunlight could be warming and melting the glacier. The author also studied the shape of the glacier and deduced that its melting pattern was consistent with radiant heat but not air temperature. Although acknowledged by many scientists, the paper is scorned by the true believers in global warming.

"We are told that the melting of the arctic ice will be a disaster. But during the famous medieval warming period -- A.D. 750 to 1230 or so -- the Vikings found the warmer northern climate to their advantage. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie addressed this in his book "Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000," perhaps the greatest book about climate change before the onset of modern concerns with global warming. He wrote that Erik the Red "took advantage of a sea relatively free of ice to sail due west from Iceland to reach Greenland. . . . Two and a half centuries later, at the height of the climatic and demographic fortunes of the northern settlers, a bishopric of Greenland was founded at Gardar in 1126."

"Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves." (Read).

Democrats Plunder Michigan

Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism.

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1851.

Is there any difference between the plunderers in Lansing and those of our history books? Today our politicians commit "legalized" plunder and the citizenry quietly and meekly takes it without so much as raising it's collective voice. At least the historical plunderers unabashedly knew what they were and what they were doing.

See if this makes sense. Michigan has a 1.75 billion dollar deficit caused by our politicians runaway spending. They just pass a "flurry of bills" that will bring in 1.35 billion dollars. So, 1.75 + 1.35 billion equals 3.1 billion dollars in taxes for Michigan citizens which will inevitably mean more job losses and emigration of the best and the brightest from our state.

"The House and Senate passed a flurry of bills in the hours before and after a midnight deadline, including an income tax increase, an expansion of the state’s sales tax and an emergency extension budget that would give lawmakers an extra month to eliminate the deficit." (Read)

"An 11.5 percent income tax increase and expansion of the 6 percent sales tax to a strange brew of services will close most of the $1.75 billion hole in the state budget year that began Monday.

"The tax on 23 new services -- which will generate $725 million over a full year -- means Michigan now taxes 49 services, according to the Treasury. The state already taxes some services, including storage and auto leasing. That puts the state at 27th in the country in the number of services taxes, up from 36th, Kleine said. "

"Another measure of tax burden is state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, with the national average at about 11 percent. Kleine said the new tax boosts mean Michigan edges up from slightly below 11 percent to slightly above 11 percent.

"But the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., which tracks such data, takes a different view of Michigan's ranking. The combination of the sales and income tax hike puts Michigan's tax burden at 11th-highest in the nation, up from No. 14, the institute says...

" 'Republicans refused to put up votes for anything,' said House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township. 'Basically, this entire package was delivered by Democrats.' "

This is downright corruption and ineptitude by our legislatures but especially the Democrats.

Another Idiotic Michigan tax - A Turtle Fence

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? Frederic Bastiat (1801-1851).

Michigan is in the sewer financially, our governor shut down the government recently (NY Times) and people are leaving our state by the droves because of poor job prospects for the young and incredibly high taxes so what are our legislatures wasting their time on this month?

"A congressman disputes the state's contention that it's worth $318,000 in federal money to keep turtles from becoming roadkill.

"Installation is expected to begin this week on a 2-mile-long fence along both sides of U.S. 31 in Muskegon, in west-central Michigan. It is intended to prevent hundreds of turtles, some of them protected species, from being killed as they migrate to nesting sites along the Muskegon River, which the highway crosses.

"Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., questions why the Michigan Department of Transportation did not consider using the money on other projects 'more related to the movement of people and products.'

"The 4-foot-high chain-link fence has been planned for two years. State officials consider it a relatively inexpensive solution to a problem that affects traffic safety and the environment of rare turtle species." (Read).

These politicians in Lansing should be held accountable for being idiotic and wasteful. No scheme for separating us from our money is too stupid.

A Crack in Aura of an Invincible Hillary Presidency

The Globe and Mail from Canada had a VERY interesting commentary by Camille Paglia a so called "firebrand writer" who teaches at the Philadelphia University of the Arts. She says that Clinton "has no vision" and "can't win the general election against any of the leading Republican presidential candidates".

"Hillary is having trouble with educated women of her generation. We seem to be the hardest sell for her right now because we've observed her, admired her, embraced her - and then become disillusioned. There's a sense that she doesn't possess core values. One feels she's uncentered in some odd way. And the chaos of her domestic life is not reassuring...

"She has tremendous powers of denial to block out what is going around her in her own family life. But she's also able to perceive herself as an ethical, God-fearing, Bible-reading Methodist who is quasi-saintly for her commitment to ethical causes. She will not admit a mistake. She has no power of self-analysis. She thinks all her problems are due to her enemies.
And we don't want a situation when Bill Clinton is acting as proxy president in the White House...

"There's something about Hillary that's anhedonic - the inability to take pleasure in the moment. Everything for her is this beady-eyed scheming for the future, combined with this mass of resentments for the past, the people who have done them wrong...

"We want to turn the page. We don't want to go backward into the Clinton years, which is what will happen if she's nominated...

Ms. Paglia's take on the inevitability of a democratic presidency is very interesting: "I don't know where people are getting the idea that the Democrats are a shoo-in. I don't see them gaining the White House unless there's a third-party spin off, like Ross Perot. I listen to conservative talk radio, because the callers really do give one a sense of where popular sentiment is at the moment. And I just don't see how any of the Democratic candidates is going to be able to present the national-security credentials that will be crucial in this election. The Republicans have [Mitt] Romney, [Rudolph] Giuliani, [Fred] Thompson, even [Mike] Huckabee - a series of candidates who would be way more credible than Hillary, if only because of the projection of strength they give." (Read)

Atlas Shrugged: The Movie (hopefully)

It looks like it just might happen - the stars are aligned in the skies for a movie production of a novel that totally influenced my life ATLAS SHRUGGED. For those of you who are not aware of this amazing novel written by Ayn Rand and published in 1957 there is a big hole in your life. This writer using the medium of a novel was able to explain philosophically and experientially how a society can go bankrupt financially and morally if the men of the mind, i.e., the thinkers and creators are not allowed to thrive. She explained how the intrusion of politics into the realm of economics and culture can stifle creativity and slowly rot a culture. Of course we have many examples of this occurring in the 20th century: The Soviet Union, China, Vietnam...the list is very long.

And guess who is playing Dagny Taggart? Angelina Jolie. The Director is Vadim Perlman (The House of Fog and Sand) and the script writer is Randall Wallace (Brave Heart). So there is hope that a decent job, at least, will be done (read and read).

It's hard to explain how absolutely eyeopening this novel was to me at a time in my life in my 20's when politics did not make sense, religion seemed to be a fraud and my question was why was Jimmy Carter wearing a sweater and telling us to do the same? Atlas Shrugged showed me that the arch enemy of the creators or the men of the mind throughout history have always been control freaks, power lusters and altruists. Their dominating way of controlling the able was to regulate and command them to sacrifice to those more needy.

The question that Ayn Rand raised in her novel was - why must the creators sacrifice on the altar of the needy? She caused a revolution in thinking that has and still is changing the way people view their lives on earth.

The Peace Prize for Al Gore???

It is now certifiable. The Noble Peace Prize is a farce and a joke because it was given to a lier. London's High Court scrutinized his film "An Inconvenient Truth" and found nine lies (Nine Untruths and Al Gore's Inconvenient Judgement). So many other deserving nominees out there and they give it to an environmentalist who is a wanna be President of the United States. How about Alvaro Uribe President of Colombia who has done a remarkable job of turning around this terrorist beleaguered nation. Mary Anastasia O'Grady at the Wall Street Journal does a good job of analyzing the immense problems President Uribe faces regarding drugs, terrorists and our democrats who do not want to sign the free trade agreement with Colombia but want to lift the trade embargo with Cuba headed by a dictator (Read).

Pretending by the Left

Multiculturalism is a philosophy built up of lies and self-deceits. And it is killing us as a nation both politically and socially. Andrew Claven (City-Journal.org) has a penetrating analysis of what the Left is willing to do in order to avoid the truth (Read "The Big White Lie").


The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to
lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to
declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to
say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions
are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is
a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that Islam means peace.

Of course, like everything, this candor has its price. A politics that
depends on honesty will be, by nature, often impolite. Good manners and
hypocrisy are intimately intertwined, and so conservatives, with their
gimlet-eyed view of the world, are always susceptible to charges of incivility.
It’s not really nice, you know, to describe things as they are.

This is leftism’s great strength: it’s all white lies. That’s its only
advantage, as far as I can tell. None of its programs actually works, after all.
From statism and income redistribution to liberalized criminal laws and
multiculturalism, from its assault on religion to its redefinition of family,
leftist policies have made the common life worse wherever they’re installed. But
because it depends on—indeed is defined by—describing the human condition
inaccurately, leftism is nothing if not polite. With its tortuous attempts to
rename unpleasant facts out of existence—he’s not crippled, dear, he’s
handicapped; it’s not a slum, it’s an inner city; it’s not surrender, it’s
redeployment—leftism has outlived its own failure by hiding itself within the
most labyrinthine construct of social delicacy since Victoria was
queen....

...And because we’ve allowed leftists to define the language of political
good manners—don’t say women are less scientific; don’t remark that black people
bear the same responsibility for their actions as whites; don’t point out that
the gunman was a Muslim, it’s not nice—the sort of person willing to speak the
truth isn’t always the sort of person you want to be seen with. It sometimes
takes, I mean, a Rush Limbaugh or a Sean Hannity to withstand the obloquy
attached to stating the facts of the matter. If these people in their public
personae seem harsh to more genteel conservatives, it may be because it requires
that extra dollop of aggression to shatter the silence created by the Left’s
increasingly elaborate sensitivities.

Still, mannerly as we would rather be, truth-telling continues to be
both compelling and ultimately satisfying. There is, after all, something
greater than courtesy. “Firmness in the right,” Lincoln called it, “as God gives
us to see the right.” We find ourselves at a precarious moment in an endeavor of
great importance: namely, the preservation of Western rationalism and liberty.
It does mankind no good to allow so magnificent an enterprise to slip away
merely for fear of saying the wrong thing.

Why Multiculturalism is Bad and Wrong

How did humanity survive without multiculturalism up until the late 20th century? And why does this dreadful idea-that all cultures are equally deserving of our respect and awe-linger in our colleges and news media when all can see how devastating it is when our soldiers have to fight "carefully" so as not to kill "innocent" Iraqis or target a mosque? I think this is the result of decades of neglect of American History and World History by our rotten public schools. Only history properly taught can give a people a sense of honor and pride in country. Do we deserve to honor the United States of America? You bet! Below is an article posted at Ciy-Journal.org by Bruce S. Thornton (READ).

Fighting at a Disadvantage
Bad cultural habits plague the West in the War on Terror.
Bruce S. Thornton 10 September 2007

...Let’s start with the ideology of multiculturalism, which has become pervasive, from university and grade-school curricula to Disney cartoons and the mainstream media. Don’t believe the spin that multiculturalism just recognizes the contributions of other cultures and ethnic minorities; the West has been doing that since Herodotus wrote admiringly about Egypt in 450 BC. In fact, multiculturalism attacks the West as uniquely oppressive and destructive, all the while idealizing the non-Western “Other” as more authentically human and humane, more in tune with nature, more communal, and less materialistic than all those repressed Westerners enslaved to technology and the “cash nexus.”

Even a cursory survey of world history explodes these romantic clichés and noble-savage fantasies. The West’s sins have been the sins of humanity everywhere. But the goods of the West—political freedom, consensual government, human rights, rationalism, and respect for the individual, to name a few—are unique to the West and account for its success. Just ask the millions of non-Western Others who every year risk their lives to migrate to Europe and America, even as virtually nobody goes in the other direction.

...In the post-9/11 context, and before it, multiculturalism predisposed many in the West to look on Muslims primarily as fascinating Others, victimized by Western racism, imperialism, and colonialism. We rationalize Islamic terror and place the blame for it elsewhere—on ourselves. We saw such self-flagellation in the days after 9/11, when numerous Western intellectuals, most notoriously ex–University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, blamed the terrorist attacks on American crimes and rationalized 9/11 as the “justice of roosting chickens,” as Churchill’s speech was titled.

The therapeutic sensibility that now dominates our public thinking reinforces this tendency to excuse Islamic terror. Unlike the old tragic vision of the classical West, which saw human suffering as the consequence of an imperfect human nature and our own bad choices, the therapeutic sensibility sees suffering as a temporary glitch caused by unjust social and economic structures. Evil is just a superstition, for people’s environments, not their own choices, cause destructive actions. The terrorists whom the unenlightened call “evil,” then, are themselves victims; we should assist them in reforming their unjust environments. Meanwhile, we ignore the numerous Islamists, from Sayyid Qutb to Osama bin Laden, who tell us very plainly why they want to destroy us: because we are infidels who must convert to Islam, live in submission to it, or die.

Such hypersensitivity compromises our fight against Islamic radicalism in a thousand ways, ranging from self-censorship—for example, the Washington Post’s recent refusal to run an innocuous installment of Berke Breathed’s comic strip Opus for fear of offending Muslims—to politically correct warfare that refuses to accept the brutality, destruction, and death that have always been the cargo of war. We have seen such self-defeating behavior repeatedly in Iraq, where the Army’s rules of engagement have made U.S. forces hesitant to fire on mosques even though terrorists frequently use minarets as firing platforms. To the extent that we remain unable to recognize both the precious goods of our own culture and the destructive dysfunctions of the enemy’s, we will continue to fight at a disadvantage. And 9/11 will be not just a bad memory of our past, but also the harbinger of our future. (Read)

Bruce Thornton is the author of Greek Ways and the forthcoming Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow-Motion Suicide (Encounter Books).

Stop the Disaster of Socialized Medicine

Ayn Rand Institute Press Release

It's Time to Jump SCHIP October 05, 2007

Irvine, CA--President Bush vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which was established to insure children whose parents did not qualify for Medicaid but who could not afford private health insurance. The expanded program would have covered an additional four million children from households that have yearly incomes as high as $83,000. Bush declared that while he "strongly supports reauthorization of SCHIP," he regards its expansion as a dangerous step toward socialized medicine.

"But by declaring his support for SCHIP," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, "Bush has already endorsed the perverse moral principle that is leading us toward socialized medicine.

"In trying to justify any government welfare program--whether social security, food stamps, or socialized medicine--advocates appeal to the fact that the intended recipients need the service but are unable to pay for it. Thus, the fact that some families 'need' health care but can't afford it entitles them to it--and so the government must institute programs like Medicaid and SCHIP to ensure that they get it. Such appeals count on the unstated principle that 'need' is the criterion of moral value and standard of just desserts.

"In her novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand exposes the viciousness of this moral principle, showing how it sacrifices the productive and successful to the incompetent and indolent. 'A morality that holds need as a claim, holds emptiness--non-existence--as its standard of value; it rewards an absence, a defeat: weakness, inability, incompetence, suffering, disease, disaster, the lack, the fault, the flaw--the zero. Who provides the account to pay these claims? Those who are cursed for being non-zeros, each to the extent of his distance from that ideal. Since all values are the product of virtues, the degree of your virtue is used as the measure of your penalty; the degree of your faults is used as the measure of your gain' (Atlas Shrugged).

"This moral inversion underlies the demand for socialized medicine, which says that some people's need of health care gives them the right to make slaves of doctors, insurance companies, and hospitals. If we are to avoid the destruction of our health care system promised by socialized medicine, we must reject the perverse moral principle at its root and restore freedom to America's health care system."

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

"Lee Bollinger's Disease"

William Smith is a satirist who writes hilarious political commentary at TCS. But there is a serious note in this article concerning people who are willing enablers of evil by giving them a platform on which to sound "reasonable".


Psychiatric Association Releases Final Report on "Lee Bollinger's Disease"
By William S. Smith : 03 Oct 2007


(SATIRENEWSSERVICE) The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) today issued its long-awaited, massive study on Intelligentsia Derangement Disorder (IDD). Known popularly as Lee Bollinger's Disease, IDD is characterized by profound disruption in cognition involving the most fundamental human attributes: language, thought, perception and desire for self preservation.
The disease has been found in epidemic proportions on university campuses. The WPA study, which included extensive case histories of every single academic in the United States and Western Europe, reports that 99.99999% of all, non-economist social science professors are affected as are almost all tenured members of the "Arts" faculties of universities throughout the developed world.
According to the Report's main author, Dr. Edith Erwachsenenwelt, M.D., Ph.D., the cognitive development of most sufferers of IDD ends in early adolescence whereas non-sufferers experience continued development of their cognitive capacities throughout adulthood. "The cessation of the process of adult cognitive development," said Dr. Erwachsenenwelt, "produces the following symptoms, all of which are exhibited by each and every IDD sufferer":

• an inability to distinguish between real and false threats to personal, cultural and societal safety;


• irrational beliefs about the role of universities in a free society (the WPA Report cites as examples all volumes of The Journal of the American Indoctrination Association);
  


• an obsessive need to make self-congratulatory statements about the perceived brilliance and enlightenment of irrational personal beliefs and thoughts;


• an uncontainable compulsion to support extreme forms of violence so long as such violence is explained as the manifestation of colonialism, discrimination, socio-economic disparity or indigenous religious belief (the Report cites all editions of the now defunct Soviet Peace Quarterly published by The Harvard University Press and Wahhabi Weekly published by a consortium of two hundred Middle Eastern Studies Departments;


• A simplistic understanding of various sophisticated concepts such as freedom of speech (the study cites, among numerous examples, "Khmer Rouge, Peaceful, Pastoral, Progressive", Academic Monthly, March, 1975 Vol 15, pp 215-240; and "9/11: an Issue of Free Speech for Jihadis", The Smart Sociologist, October 2001, Vol 27, pp 1445-2002);


• the obsessive and compulsive misuse of metaphors involving Adolph Hitler;
  a specific paranoid delusion involving a mythical demon known as "Bush!" who is ascribed extraordinary, supernatural powers (the WPA Report cites approvingly, the pioneering work that uncovered "Bush Derangement Syndrome", Krauthammer, Charles, M.D., American Journal of Progressive Delusions, 2003, Vol 902, pp 1435-2742 and 2005, Vol 1245, pp 4351-6572);


• an inability to express gratitude toward those who protect and sustain IDD sufferers (the Report cites the U.S. military and U.S. taxpayers) during the long duration of their illness; and, recurring hallucinations about Jews (the WPA cites the work of actual members of the intelligentsia, Mearsheimer and Walt in The Protocols of the Journal of Anti-Semitic Advocacy, July 2006, Vol 102,345,776, pp 1-1245; and the numerous delusional books and articles about Jewish conspiracies by such self-proclaimed members of the intelligentsia as Carter, J.E. among many others). READ the rest here.

Imagine a Culture of Reason

There have been many articles commemorating the 50 year anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged. But one paragraph caught my attention and my hopes for the future. Written by Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute it describes beautifully what kind of future we could have if we would commit ourselves to a culture of reason.


Imagine a future America guided by the principles found in Atlas Shrugged--a culture of reason, where science is cherished and respected, not banished from biology classrooms and stem-cell research labs--a culture of individualism, in which government is the protector of individual rights, not its primary violator--a culture in which markets are not just regarded as the most effective option of an imperfect lot, but in which laissez-faire capitalism is recognized and venerated as the only moral social system--a culture in which business innovators understand that ambition, productive effort, and wealth creation are not just practical necessities, but moral virtues--a culture in which such innovators, proudly asserting their right to their work, are fully liberated and their productive genius fully applied to the generation of unimaginable economic progress. (READ)

Ahmadinejad Scares Even Khamenei

The Aussie News & Views of October 1 had an interesting article on Ahmadinejad, our favorite comedian (did you know that there are no comedians in the Middle East?) about the nature of thugs like him. The article is by Barry Rubin (Global Research in International Affairs).

Ahmadinejad’s goals, then, are his control over Iran , Iran ’s control over the Persian Gulf area (especially Iraq ), Israel ’s destruction, Iranian leadership over the Middle East , the expulsion of Western (and especially American) influence from the region, and even world domination, in roughly that order.

Basically, Ahmadinejad is not a unique phenomenon in modern Middle East history. The role to be filled is that of the leader of the Arabs and Muslims as well as prime enemy of America , Israel , and the West. In this respect, he is comparable to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s; Iran ’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1970s and 1980s; Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and 1990s; and Usama bin Ladin during the period before and especially after September 11, 2001. Yet Ahmadinejad has also become a symbol for the radical Islamist challenge to everyone else in the world

What makes Ahmadinejad different? The key element here, and one due to his own words and behavior, is that he seems not to be held back by caution, a rational calculation of the balance of forces, even if judged by the standard of his predecessors aside from bin Ladin of course. In other words, Ahmadinejad seems capable of anything and consequently far more dangerous. This conclusion is not just a matter of Western projection. I’ll bet that at times he scares even Khamenei. Read

John Bolton Speaks His Mind On Australian TV

I love John Bolton for his courage and his no nonsense approach to the truth. He doesn't get bogged down with fads. He says it like it is - he's a straight shooter - and he was the only voice of reason in that den of iniquity the United Nations.

Transcript
TONY JONES: Now to our guest. John Bolton is the former US ambassador to the United Nations. Before that he was a principal advisor to President Bush as Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, a position he held from 2001 to 2005. He's now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and he joins us in our Washington studio. John Bolton, thanks for being there.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO THE UN: Glad to be here.

TONY JONES: Now you would have heard the French Foreign Minister saying - warning, in fact - that the world should prepare for war to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons. Do you agree with him?

JOHN BOLTON: Absolutely. Life is about choices, and if the choice is between a nuclear capable Iran and the pre-emptive use of force - I might say a limited use of force - to break their control over the nuclear fuel cycle, I don't think there's any question that's what you have to look at.

TONY JONES: At the same time, the BBC is reporting there's a firm belief in Tehran that the US, enmeshed as it is in Iraq, is in no position to attack Iran. Now, you get the impression, at least many do, that Iran is ready to call America's bluff.

JOHN BOLTON: Well the Iranian statement obviously reflects no comprehension of what our global disposition of forces is or our capabilities. If that's what they think, they are sadly mistaken. Nobody's looking to call anybody's bluff here. Nobody thinks the use of force is an attractive option. But let's come down to the real question: is the use of force as an alternative preferable to Iran having nuclear weapons? No question about it, in my view.

TONY JONES: Could you imagine a war with Iran and what the consequences of that would be?

JOHN BOLTON: Let's get this straight one more time. We're not talking about a war such as we had in Iraq. We're talking about, quite likely, a limited air strike against, for example, the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, or the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, or the heavy water reactor at Arak, that would prevent Iran from getting from uranium in the ground to highly enriched uranium in a nuclear warhead. That is the kind of attack that we're talking about. TONY JONES: But John Bolton, that assumes it would stop there, that the Iranians wouldn't do anything in response, for example they wouldn't do anything to destabilise the position even further in Iraq or Afghanistan or Lebanon, that they wouldn't use international terrorism, that they wouldn't threaten the West's oil supply?

JOHN BOLTON: You mean as opposed to what they're doing now? Look, if this regime can intimidate us with oil at $80 a barrel but without nuclear weapons, imagine what will happen if Iran gets nuclear weapons. If they can see their way clear to this kind of bluster at this point, what will happen after they actually have the weapons? What's your answer to that?

TONY JONES: Well General John Abizaid your former commander in the Middle East has in a sense answered that on your side of the Atlantic overnight. He said the US could live with a nuclear-armed Iran and indeed the West is living already with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

JOHN BOLTON: Well, I'm not very happy about living with a nuclear-armed North Korea because of the threat they pose not only in East Asia but even in the Middle East as we've seen, and facts are not fully clear yet but the possibility of nuclear cooperation between Syria and North Korea. The notion that living under the threat of a possible use of Iranian nuclear weapons is acceptable may appeal to some people but it's not the kind of life I want to live and I don't think it's the kind of life that people in Israel, for example, or other American friends and allies in the region are happy to live with.

TONY JONES: Do you think the United States would countenance an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities?

JOHN BOLTON: Well, I think again, we're not entirely sure of the details of the recent Israeli strike against Syria, but I don't hear any loud objections coming out of the Administration here in Washington to that and if the Israelis were able to accomplish something similar to what they did against Saddam Hussein's Osirak reactor the early 1980s I think the world would be a safer place.

TONY JONES: Yes, we've been reading and we've heard your response in the past few days to Israeli television about that story about the Israeli strike in Syria. Do you believe it is what unnamed US officials are saying? In other words do you believe it was a strike on a secret Syrian nuclear facility?

JOHN BOLTON: Let me just say for the third time, all of the details are not yet known. But I think it would be unlikely that Israel would risk the possibility of negative consequences from a strike inside Syria unless it was against a very high value target such as a facility involved with weapons of mass destruction. So simple logic points to the direction that this must have been considered an extraordinarily high threat by the Israelis for them to conduct such an operation.

Listen to the rest of the Video.

The Big Three Need To Be Confronted

In my view there are three big, enormous issues that are facing Americans today and which will have to be dealt with shortly if we want to survive as a nation that we recognize.

1. The terrorists states that have the end goal of destroying the west have to be dealt with by the use of FORCE and first on the list is IRAN. We have to confront it militarily not with sanctions and meetings. Remember Hitler. And if you don't know your history read up on WWII.

2. The path toward Nationalized Health Care a la Hillary has to be given the definitive blow of death otherwise it will end up a reality of our lives. If you don't know anything about this issue study what's going on in Canada or any other country with a nationalized system of health care.

3. Our system of public schools have to be totally dismantled and a breath of freedom and entrepreneurial spirit injected into this area. Our kids are graduating without even having a sense of what America is all about and what being American means. Our history and the major events of World History is a dark void cave in the minds of our young. And as the saying goes we are doomed to repeat our mistakes if we don't pass on that knowledge.

To learn more about these issues there is no better place to start than at
The Objective Standard.

Play Nicely With Ahmadinejad

It's like when you were little and the school bully made your life miserable. You confided in your mom but she said to try to make friends with him that maybe he was looking for a friend. You found out that what he needed was a good thrashing and after giving him one he never bothered you again. Read below from Robert Tracinski's Intellectualactivist.

"Why is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad so eager to speak at American universities and, it turns out, to host dinner parties for leading American journalists and academics? He knows that what most disarms the West is the illusion that tyrants and dictators are really reasonable fellows, to whom the proper response is dialogue and diplomatic persuasion.

"The Iranian regime particularly needs to convey that impression now, because their whole strategy is to drag out negotiations and diplomacy with the West long enough to give them time to acquire nuclear weapons.

"In short, they know they can have free reign to achieve their goals through force only if we agree to limit ourselves to achieving our goals through persuasion and diplomacy. "

The Nightmare of National Health Care-Coming To a Town Near You

Listen to this debate at BusinessWeek between Dr. Onkar Ghate (the hero) and Dr. Schwartz (the villain) and take sides because the Health Care wars will be fierce. Are you pro-freedom or do you want the government to control even your health?

Listen

The Life and Death Consequences of NOT Taking Ahmadinejad's Words Seriously

The New York Post had an article by Arthur Herman describing the profound disconnect between the world of ideas and actions or as TIA author Robert Tracinski writes:

"...who regard the realm of ideas as a kind of mental game detached for any concrete meaning—rather than a real-world struggle with life-and-death consequences."

The message we should all get from Hitler is that HE SAID WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO AND HE DID IT. The West did not believe him and we paid the price in blood and treasure. Will we do a repeat of the appeasement of 60 years ago? If Mr. Bollinger is any signpost it would seem - yes.

New York Post: 25September2007 by Arthur Herman

"Abject, squalid, shameless" is how Winston Churchill described the resolution passed by Oxford University's prestigious Debating Union in 1933 - the year Adolf Hitler came to power

And Columbia's event, like the 1933 Oxford resolution, sent (to quote Churchill again) a "very disquieting and disgusting message" to friends and enemies alike.

President Bollinger argues that a university is above all a forum for hearing conflicting views and opinions - as if Ahmadinejad were some controversial social theorist, not the leader of the world's leading sponsor of terrorism. In other words, this is a matter of "free speech."

Yet the real issue is not about words but actions - actions with consequences in an ongoing conflict in which American soldiers are being killed and Iranian dissidents are being beaten and tortured every day. And what Bollinger's actions (as opposed to his words) reveal is that Columbia somehow considers itself neutral ground in the War on Terror.

The left in this country concluded long ago that this is not a war between Islamic extremist fascism and Western civilization, but a fight between Islamic "militants" and President Bush. The events of 9/11 never changed the left/liberal view that the real menace to world peace is the Bush administration and what Sen. J. William Fulbright used to call "the arrogance of American power" - much as British leftists in the early '30s assumed that the real cause of war wasn't men like Hitler or Mussolini, but capitalism and arms merchants.

One of the signs outside yesterday's events summed this view up nicely: "We refuse to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and American imperialism."

In short, too many men and women at Columbia (and on other U.S. campuses) see the War on Terror as something that they are free to judge and criticize as if it doesn't involve them.
Just as President Bush has the right to make his case, so the reasoning goes (yet when was the last time an administration official was given a major public forum at Columbia?), fairness demands that Ahmadinejad have the same right.

The left assumes this neutral posture puts them in the middle and keeps them safe. In fact, it leaves them nowhere.

Because what is actually at stake is whether these United States can stand together to condemn the head of a state that sponsors terrorism around the world and is killing American soldiers in Iraq, to send a signal to the people of Iran (and of Iraq) that we will stand firm against a corrupt and murderous Islamo-fascist regime.

Adolf Hitler got the clear message of the 1933 Oxford Union debate: We will not oppose you. Regardless of Bollinger's "tough questions" yesterday, Ahmadinejad the Iranian president is bound to use his speech to a hall of "open-minded" Americans as a major public-relations victory - and to see it as a clear sign that his enemy is divided at its heart.

As Churchill said, "There is no place for compromise in war. That invaluable process only means that soldiers are shot because their leaders in council and camp are unable to resolve."
He added, "In war the clouds never blow over; they gather unceasingly and fall in thunderbolts." It was the falling thunderbolts of Nazi bombs that finally convinced the appeasers of the '30s that they had been wrong. New York City has already gone through its Blitz. What more will it take before Bollinger and his cohorts admit their squalid mistake?

Discoursing With Evil

The President of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger has decided to allow Ahmadinejad to give a speech to students on 24 September. He claims he his going to pose challenging questions to this fellow. Gee how nice. Let's see....he could challenge him on his support for terrorists, suicide bombers, the thousands of people he has in his prisons in Iran, his claim to wipe Israel off the face of the earth etc. etc. The list of evil committed by this man is endless.

But Bollinger is going to be tough - wow - I'm sure all of America is impressed with this foolish man's manliness. Is it any wonder that our Universities are no longer bastions of learning and thought? That is why we now have so many think tanks. Our universities do not know the difference between evil and good, right and wrong, or people worth listening to.

Inviting this man to such a "prestigious" university is cavorting with evil and there is only one result: the debasing of Columbia and the aggrandisement of this thug dictator.

Who was it that said:

"IN ANY COMPROMISE BETWEEN FOOD AND POISON, IT IS ONLY DEATH THAT CAN WIN. IN ANY COMPROMISE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL, IT IS ONLY EVIL THAT CAN PROFIT."

"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."

Ayn Rand

Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?

S. Fred Singer
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Vir-ginia, a distinguished research professor at George Mason University, and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. He performed his undergraduate studies at Ohio State University and earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University. He was the founding dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami, the founding director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, and served for five years as vice chairman of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. Dr. Singer has written or edited over a dozen books and mono-graphs, including, most recently, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on June 30, 2007, during a seminar entitled “Economics and the Environment,” sponsored by the Charles R. and Kathleen K. Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence.


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IN THE PAST few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that—should it occur—a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.

This is not to say that we don’t face a serious problem. But the problem is political. Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate, pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty. This misdi-rection of resources will adversely affect human health and welfare in industrialized nations, and even more in developing nations. Thus it could well lead to increased social tensions within nations and conflict between them.

If not for this economic and political damage, one might consider the present concern about climate change nothing more than just another environmentalist fad, like the Alar apple scare or the global cooling fears of the 1970s. Given that so much is at stake, how-ever, it is essential that people better understand the issue.

Man-Made Warming?
The most fundamental question is scientific: Is the observed warming of the past 30 years due to natural causes or are human activities a main or even a contributing factor?

At first glance, it is quite plausible that humans could be responsible for warming the cli-mate. After all, the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The CO2 level has been increasing steadily since the beginning of the industrial revolution and is now 35 percent higher than it was 200 years ago. Also, we know from direct measurements that CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” which strongly absorbs infrared (heat) radiation. So the idea that burning fossil fuels causes an enhanced “greenhouse effect” needs to be taken seriously.

But in seeking to understand recent warming, we also have to consider the natural factors that have regularly warmed the climate prior to the industrial revolution and, indeed, prior to any human presence on the earth. After all, the geological record shows a persistent 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling extending back at least one million years.

In identifying the burning of fossil fuels as the chief cause of warming today, many politicians and environmental activists simply appeal to a so-called “scientific consensus.” There are two things wrong with this. First, there is no such consensus: An increasing number of climate scientists are raising serious questions about the political rush to judgment on this issue. For example, the widely touted “consensus” of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scien-tific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC’s report. The As-sociated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report’s “Summary for Policymakers.”

Likewise, only about a dozen members of the governing board voted on the “consensus statement” on climate change by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Rank and file AMS scientists never had a say, which is why so many of them are now openly rebelling. Estimates of skepticism within the AMS regarding man-made global warming are well over 50 percent.

The second reason not to rely on a “scientific consensus” in these matters is that this is not how science works. After all, scientific advances customarily come from a minority of scientists who challenge the majority view—or even just a single person (think of Galileo or Einstein). Science proceeds by the scientific method and draws conclusions based on evidence, not on a show of hands.

But aren’t glaciers melting? Isn’t sea ice shrinking? Yes, but that’s not proof for human-caused warming. Any kind of warming, whether natural or human-caused, will melt ice. To assert that melting glaciers prove human causation is just bad logic.

What about the fact that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at the same time tempera-tures are rising? That’s an interesting correlation; but as every scientist knows, correlation is not causation. During much of the last century the climate was cooling while CO2 levels were rising. And we should note that the climate has not warmed in the past eight years, even though greenhouse gas levels have increased rapidly.

What about the fact—as cited by, among others, those who produced the IPCC report—that every major greenhouse computer model (there are two dozen or so) shows a large tem-perature increase due to human burning of fossil fuels? Fortunately, there is a scientific way of testing these models to see whether current warming is due to a man-made greenhouse effect. It involves comparing the actual or observed pattern of warming with the warming pattern predicted by or calculated from the models. Essentially, we try to see if the “finger-prints” match—“fingerprints” meaning the rates of warming at different latitudes and alti-tudes.

For instance, theoretically, greenhouse warming in the tropics should register at increas-ingly high rates as one moves from the surface of the earth up into the atmosphere, peak-ing at about six miles above the earth’s surface. At that point, the level should be greater than at the surface by about a factor of three and quite pronounced, according to all the computer models. In reality, however, there is no increase at all. In fact, the data from bal-loon-borne radiosondes show the very opposite: a slight decrease in warming over the equator.

The fact that the observed and predicted patterns of warming don’t match indicates that the man-made greenhouse contribution to current temperature change is insignificant. This fact emerges from data and graphs collected in the Climate Change Science Program Re-port 1.1, published by the federal government in April 2006 (see www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm). It is remarkable and puzzling that few have noticed this disparity between observed and predicted patterns of warming and drawn the obvious scientific conclusion.

What explains why greenhouse computer models predict temperature trends that are so much larger than those observed? The answer lies in the proper evaluation of feedback within the models. Remember that in addition to carbon dioxide, the real atmosphere con-tains water vapor, the most powerful greenhouse gas. Every one of the climate models calculates a significant positive feedback from water vapor—i.e., a feedback that amplifies the warming effect of the CO2 increase by an average factor of two or three. But it is quite possible that the water vapor feedback is negative rather than positive and thereby re-duces the effect of increased CO2.

There are several ways this might occur. For example, when increased CO2 produces a warming of the ocean, a higher rate of evaporation might lead to more humidity and cloudi-ness (provided the atmosphere contains a sufficient number of cloud condensation nuclei). These low clouds reflect incoming solar radiation back into space and thereby cool the earth. Climate researchers have discovered other possible feedbacks and are busy evaluat-ing which ones enhance and which diminish the effect of increasing CO2.

Natural Causes of Warming
A quite different question, but scientifically interesting, has to do with the natural factors influencing climate. This is a big topic about which much has been written. Natural factors include continental drift and mountain-building, changes in the Earth’s orbit, volcanic erup-tions, and solar variability. Different factors operate on different time scales. But on a time scale important for human experience—a scale of decades, let’s say—solar variability may be the most important.

Solar influence can manifest itself in different ways: fluctuations of solar irradiance (total energy), which has been measured in satellites and related to the sunspot cycle; variability of the ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum, which in turn affects the amount of ozone in the stratosphere; and variations in the solar wind that modulate the intensity of cosmic rays (which, upon impact into the earth’s atmosphere, produce cloud condensation nuclei, affect-ing cloudiness and thus climate).

Scientists have been able to trace the impact of the sun on past climate using proxy data (since thermometers are relatively modern). A conventional proxy for temperature is the ratio of the heavy isotope of oxygen, Oxygen-18, to the most common form, Oxygen-16.

A paper published in Nature in 2001 describes the Oxygen-18 data (reflecting temperature) from a stalagmite in a cave in Oman, covering a period of over 3,000 years. It also shows corresponding Carbon-14 data, which are directly related to the intensity of cosmic rays striking the earth’s atmosphere. One sees there a remarkably detailed correlation, almost on a year-by-year basis. While such research cannot establish the detailed mechanism of cli-mate change, the causal connection is quite clear: Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate.

Policy Consequences
If this line of reasoning is correct, human-caused increases in the CO2 level are quite insignifi-cant to climate change. Natural causes of climate change, for their part, cannot be controlled by man. They are unstoppable. Several policy consequences would follow from this simple fact:
> Regulation of CO2 emissions is pointless and even counterproductive, in that no matter what kind of mitigation scheme is used, such regulation is hugely expensive.
> The development of non-fossil fuel energy sources, like ethanol and hydrogen, might be counterproductive, given that they have to be manufactured, often with the investment of great amounts of ordinary energy. Nor do they offer much reduction in oil imports.
> Wind power and solar power become less attractive, being uneconomic and requiring huge subsidies.
> Substituting natural gas for coal in electricity generation makes less sense for the same reasons.

None of this is intended to argue against energy conservation. On the contrary, conserving energy reduces waste, saves money, and lowers energy prices—irrespective of what one may believe about global warming.

Science vs. Hysteria
You will note that this has been a rational discussion. We asked the important question of whether there is appreciable man-made warming today. We presented evidence that indi-cates there is not, thereby suggesting that attempts by governments to control green-house-gas emissions are pointless and unwise. Nevertheless, we have state governors calling for CO2 emissions limits on cars; we have city mayors calling for mandatory CO2 controls; we have the Supreme Court declaring CO2 a pollutant that may have to be regu-lated; we have every industrialized nation (with the exception of the U.S. and Australia) signed on to the Kyoto Protocol; and we have ongoing international demands for even more stringent controls when Kyoto expires in 2012. What’s going on here?

To begin, perhaps even some of the advocates of these anti-warming policies are not so seri-ous about them, as seen in a feature of the Kyoto Protocol called the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows a CO2 emitter—i.e., an energy user—to support a fanciful CO2 re-duction scheme in developing nations in exchange for the right to keep on emitting CO2 un-abated. “Emission trading” among those countries that have ratified Kyoto allows for the sale of certificates of unused emission quotas. In many cases, the initial quota was simply given away by governments to power companies and other entities, which in turn collect a windfall fee from consumers. All of this has become a huge financial racket that could someday make the UN’s “Oil for Food” scandal in Iraq seem minor by comparison. Even more fraudulent, these schemes do not reduce total CO2 emissions—not even in theory.

It is also worth noting that tens of thousands of interested persons benefit directly from the global warming scare—at the expense of the ordinary consumer. Environmental or-ganizations globally, such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund, have raked in billions of dollars. Multi-billion-dollar government subsidies for useless mitigation schemes are large and growing. Emission trading programs will soon reach the $100 billion a year level, with large fees paid to brokers and those who operate the scams. In other words, many people have discovered they can benefit from climate scares and have formed an entrenched interest. Of course, there are also many sincere believers in an impending global warming catastrophe, spurred on in their fears by the growing number of one-sided books, movies, and media coverage.

The irony is that a slightly warmer climate with more carbon dioxide is in many ways bene-ficial rather than damaging. Economic studies have demonstrated that a modest warming and higher CO2 levels will increase GNP and raise standards of living, primarily by improving agriculture and forestry. It’s a well-known fact that CO2 is plant food and essential to the growth of crops and trees—and ultimately to the well-being of animals and humans.

You wouldn’t know it from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, but there are many upsides to global warming: Northern homes could save on heating fuel. Canadian farmers could har-vest bumper crops. Greenland may become awash in cod and oil riches. Shippers could count on an Arctic shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific. Forests may expand.
Mongolia could become an economic superpower. This is all speculative, even a little face-tious. But still, might there be a silver lining for the frigid regions of Canada and Russia? “It’s not that there won’t be bad things happening in those countries,” economics professor Robert O. Mendelsohn of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies says. “But the idea is that they will get such large gains, especially in agriculture, that they will be bigger than the losses.” Mendelsohn has looked at how gross domestic product around the world would be affected under different warming scenarios through 2100. Canada and Russia tend to come out as clear gainers, as does much of northern Europe and Mongolia, largely be-cause of projected increases in agricultural production.

To repeat a point made at the beginning: Climate has been changing cyclically for at least a million years and has shown huge variations over geological time. Human beings have adapted well, and will continue to do so.

* * *

The nations of the world face many difficult problems. Many have societal problems like pov-erty, disease, lack of sanitation, and shortage of clean water. There are grave security prob-lems arising from global terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Any of these problems are vastly more important than the imaginary problem of man-made global warm-ing. It is a great shame that so many of our resources are being diverted from real problems to this non-problem. Perhaps in ten or 20 years this will become apparent to everyone, par-ticularly if the climate should stop warming (as it has for eight years now) or even begin to cool.

We can only trust that reason will prevail in the face of an onslaught of propaganda like Al Gore’s movie and despite the incessant misinformation generated by the media. To-day, the imposed costs are still modest, and mostly hidden in taxes and in charges for electricity and motor fuels. If the scaremongers have their way, these costs will become enormous. But I believe that sound science and good sense will prevail in the face of irrational and scientifically baseless climate fears.

Another Enemy - OPEC

Why are we so submissive to OPEC an oil cartel made up by a bunch of thug countries when we have oil right here in our own backyard? One word: Environmentalists and their crusade to turn America into a third world country.

Ayn Rand Institute Press Release
How to Truly Defeat OPEC
September 13, 2007

Irvine, CA--After some verbal wrangling between OPEC and Western countries over oil production, in which OPEC officials argued that "there is enough crude in the market," and in which the West claimed that oil production should increase to lower prices, OPEC has decided to allow a 2 percent increase in oil production.

"While some in the West might consider this a victory," said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, "every day that OPEC continues to wield such power over us is a loss. It is taken for granted that this despicable cartel of looter regimes who allow no truly private enterprise in oil, can manipulate our energy future on a whim. But such a state of affairs is completely unnecessary; it is a product of U.S. environmental regulations that strangle domestic energy production.

"In a free energy market, the response of competing producers to OPEC-influenced high prices would be to eagerly cultivate new oil sources in America--such as the many untapped sources of oil in Alaska and on America's coastlines--and to vigorously seek to produce truly practical alternative sources of energy, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Such actions would drive oil and energy prices down, and with them OPEC's ability to manipulate prices.

"However, thanks to environmentalist policies, America's energy market is anything but free. In the name of preserving pristine nature at human expense, our government has rendered huge oil and natural gas deposits off-limits, has strangled coal production for decades, and has demonized and practically prohibited the pursuit of nuclear power.

"It is only because America has for decades throttled domestic energy producers that the looting dictators of OPEC continue to wield major influence over our energy supplies. It is time for America to liberate itself from the shackles of OPEC by liberating energy production from the shackles of environmentalist policies."

The Business of "Global Warming"

More and more one reads articles challenging the Global Warming crowd and their accusations that humans are causing the warming. The Wall Street Journal (September 12) has a commentary by Mr. Akasofu, the former director of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska. Basically, what it says is that over the past 10,000 years warming and cooling trends have occurred. An exerpt from his essay follows:

In understanding the present warming trend, it is absolutely essential to learn more about climate change in the distant past -- or at least during the last 1,000 years. But many scientists, particularly younger ones, prefer to work only with data collected after 1975, when satellite data became available. With only 30 years worth of data, their results are little more than climatological snapshots of what is really a slow, long-term process. The latest accurate satellite images of sea ice distribution in the Arctic Ocean today can be obtained by clicking on a computer screen; but it is impossible to obtain such quality data for periods before 1975.

It is for this reason that only a minority of scientists are studying natural climate change, including multi-decadal oscillations and centurial climate change, which is the true realm of climatology. These areas have not been priorities for the IPCC.

They should be. During winter, England's Thames River would once freeze solid. This occurred on and off between 1400 and 1800 during a period called the "Little Ice Age" when temperatures dropped by as much as 1.5 degrees Celsius, which came after the medieval warm period around 1000. The anomaly of the Little Ice Age corrected itself, of course, through something called rebounding. The rebounding rate is estimated at 0.5 degrees Celsius per century. Since our present warming rate is roughly 0.6 degrees Celsius per century, the greenhouse effect caused by CO2 may represent only a 0.1 degree Celsius increase in temperature over the course of a century.

There is no doubt that global warming is in progress. But much of it can be attributed to the rebounding effect from the Little Ice Age. Recovering from a cool period is, of course, warming -- but it is nothing to panic about. Ice core data from the Greenland ice sheet show many periodic warming and cooling periods during the last 10,000 years. The present warming phase is far from the warmest.

It appears to me that so many people (dishonest ones?) have so much invested in this global warming hoax that rational people are going to have to stand up and be heard so that we're not bankrupted in this charade.

"The Only Thing Necessary For The Triumph Of Evil Is For Good Men To Do Nothing"

It always astounds me how some people can get it all wrong. I heard that the other day there was some sort of peace rally in Washington. Wow what a coup for the looney terrorists. Maybe the peaceniks should unite with the terrorists then they'll see what peace is really like. Sorry I digress... But thinking of the quote in this title attributed to Edmund Burke these peaceniks don't just do nothing but avidly disavow America and our need for self-defense!!

Osama bin Laden in his latest ranting mouths typical anti-American, Leftist stuff. We were just infidels before but now we're also the cause of global warming and sub-prime mortgages. Huh?

All I know is that when the good compromises with evil only evil can profit. As Ayn Rand once wrote:

"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."

"Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us."

Al Qaeda, Bin Laden and the rest of these maniacs are the evil of our time. Hitler was the evil of his time and almost accomplished his goal of European domination because there were leaders in America and Britain who could not see what this man truly was: a monster of Evil.

Let us not repeat the same mistake of doing nothing. We must recognize and fight evil when we see it: with or without the Democrats. We will win if we realize that this evil of our time.

Bush May be Winning the War of Opinion over the War Against Muslim Terrorists

In an interesting and detailed article by Frederick W. Kagan in the Weekly Standard he explains the origins of Al Qaeda and how we must defeat them.

"Al Qaeda is an organization pursuing an ideology. Both the organization and the ideology must be defeated. Just as, in the Cold War, the contest between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its captive nations was the real-world manifestation of an ideological struggle, so today, the global war on terror is a real-world contest between the United States and its allies and al Qaeda and its enablers. We can hope to defeat the ideology only by defeating its champion, al Qaeda.

"Al Qaeda's ideology is the lineal descendant of a school of thought articulated most compellingly by the Egyptian revolutionary Sayyid Qutb in the 1950s and 1960s, with an admixture of Wahhabism, Deobandi thought, or simple, mainstream Sunni chauvinism, depending on where and by what group it is propounded.

"Qutb blended a radical interpretation of Muslim theology with the Marxism-Leninism and anticolonial fervor of the Egypt of his day to produce an Islamic revolutionary movement. He argued that the secularism and licentious (by his extreme standards) behavior of most Muslims was destroying the true faith and returning the Islamic world to the state of jahiliyyah, or ignorance of the word of God, which prevailed before Muhammad. The growing secularism of Muslim states particularly bothered him. According to his interpretation, God alone has the power to make laws and to judge. When men make laws and judge each other according to secular criteria, they are usurping God's prerogatives. All who obey such leaders, according to Qutb, are treating their leaders as gods and therefore are guilty of the worst sin--polytheism. Thus they are--and this is the key point--not true Muslims, but unbelievers, regardless of whether they otherwise obey Muslim law and practice.

"But al Qaeda was only part of the story in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces that seized power in 1994 imposed a radical interpretation of Islam upon the population and attacked the symbols of other religions in a country that had traditionally tolerated different faiths and diverse practices. Like their AQI counterparts today, the Taliban tended to be ill-educated, violent, and radical. And they were just as necessary to sustaining al Qaeda in Afghanistan as the Iraqi foot soldiers of AQI have been to supporting that movement. Bin Laden provided essential support, both military and financial, to put the Taliban in power and keep it there. In return, the Taliban allowed him to operate with impunity and protected him from foreign intervention. The war began in 2001 when Taliban leader Mullah Omar refused to yield the al Qaeda members responsible for 9/11 even though the Taliban itself had not been involved in the attacks.

"Afghanistan's extremist thugs and misfits, once in power, facilitated the foreign-led al Qaeda's training, planning, and preparation for attacks against Western targets around the world, including the attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and 9/11. In return, al Qaeda's foreign fighters fiercely defended the Taliban regime when U.S. forces attacked in 2001, even forming up in conventional battle lines against America's Afghan allies supported by U.S. Special Forces and airpower...

"...we must break free of a consensus about how to fight the terrorists that has been growing steadily since 9/11 which emphasizes "small footprints," working exclusively through local partners, and avoiding conventional operations to protect populations. In some cases, traditional counterinsurgency operations using conventional forces are the only way to defeat this 21st--century foe. Muslims can dislike al Qaeda, reject takfirism, and desire peace, yet still be unable to defend themselves alone against the terrorists. In such cases, our assistance, suitably adapted to the realities on the ground, can enable Muslims who hate what the takfiris are doing to their religion and their people--the overwhelming majority of Muslims--to succeed. Helping them is the best way to rid the world of this scourge."

US Appeasement of Muslims Results In Emboldenment and More Fanatics

In order to win this war against Islamo-fascists we must totally defeat and crush them. The model to follow is not Vietnam where we went in with the same philosophy of altruism, i.e. sacrificing our men for some remote puny country that mattered nothing to our interests. The model to follow is world war II where we totally crushed and demoralized the enemy - remember? Now where are they? The Germans and the Japanese are our friends and part of the growing industrialized world! The following Op-Ed says it all very succinctly.

"Muslim Opinion" Be Damned: Hatred of America is Irrational and Undeserved
BY ALEX EPSTEIN
Op-Ed from the AYN RAND INSTITUTE


To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today, six years after 9/11, is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us.

"Whatever one's views on the [Iraq] war," writes a New York Times columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider . . . the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to the Abu Ghraib scandal several years ago, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism.

We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists.

All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East.

Or consider "Muslim opinion" over the U.S. handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States is accused of not being "hard enough" on Israel--a free nation with laws that protect all citizens, Jew and Arab alike--for Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinians. Yet "Muslim opinion" reveres the Palestinian Authority, a brutal dictatorship that deprives Palestinians of every basic freedom, keeps them in unspeakable poverty, and routinely tortures and executes peaceful dissenters.

So-called Muslim opinion is not the unanimous and just consensus that its seekers pretend. It is the irrational and unjust opinion of the world's worst Muslims: Islamists and their legions of "moderate" supporters and sympathizers. These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. They do not seek respect for the rights of the individual (Muslim or non-Muslim), they seek a world in which the rights of all are sacrificed to the dictates of Islam.

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them--especially those regimes that support terrorism and fuel the Islamist movement; as for the rest, we must politically ignore them and intellectually discredit them, while proudly arguing for the superiority of Americanism. Such a policy would make us safe, expose Islamic anti-Americanism as irrational and immoral, and embolden the better Muslims to support our ideals and emulate our ways.

President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as coalition partners.

Such measures have rewarded our enemy for waging physical and spiritual war against us. Condemn America, they have learned, and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands. Attack America via terrorist proxy, terrorist states and movements have been taught, and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love.

Every attempt to appease "Muslim opinion" preserves, promotes, and emboldens our enemies. Every concession to angry Muslim mobs gives hope to the Islamist cause. Every day we allow terrorist regimes to exist gives their minions time to execute the next Sept. 11. America needs honest leadership with the courage to identify and defeat our enemies--"Muslim opinion" be damned.

"Exploit The Earth Or Die"

A short statement that packs a lot of punch:

Exploit the Earth of Die. I love it because it's true. Every single creature on earth from the lowliest worm to the highest mammal has to exploit his environment in order to survive. Man is no different except in the fact that we can think about the best way to do the exploitation.

This coffee mug can be purchased at www.theobjectivestandard.com

How to Solve America's Terrorism Problem in 5 Easy Steps by Craig Biddle

Thursday, August 31, 2006 (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/)

How to Solve America's Terrorism Problem in 5 Easy Steps Posted by Craig Biddle at 12:20 PM

Here is how America could solve her terrorism problem in 5 easy steps:

1. Stop sacrificing American soldiers to bring "freedom" to savages in Iraq. Pull our soldiers out of that hell hole, and let the savages have their civil war. ( Iraq is not and never was the main source of terrorism against America. Iran and Saudi Arabia are.)

2. Declare war on Iran.

3. Obliterate, from high altitude and long distance, all known Iranian military assets, all Iranian government buildings, all Iranian mosques and madrassahs, and the residences of all Iranian leaders, imams, clerics, and government officials. Hit these targets when they are most likely to be occupied (e.g., mosques during the day and residences at night). Do not send soldiers in on foot, except as necessary to identify targets or gather intelligence. We do not need to send soldiers in on foot to fight, and it would be immoral to do so. We have many big missiles, fast planes, and good bombs, and we should use these liberally while building bigger, faster, and better ones. (As to innocent non-Americans, such as Iranian children, who would be killed in such a campaign, they are not properly the concern of our government. Nor would their deaths be the fault of our government. Such deaths are always the fault of the force-initiating regime—and of those who in any way support or enable it—whose actions necessitate such retaliatory measures.)

4. Airdrop leaflets across the Middle East explaining: "From now on, this is how America will respond to any and all threats to her citizens or allies. We look forward to the time when you decide to civilize yourselves, stop taking religion seriously, renounce the initiation of physical force, recognize the principle of individual rights, establish rule of law, and join the free world. Until then, we will be watching you from way up in the sky—higher even than Allah, by means of technology He cannot fathom—and if we see anything that we so much as feel might conceivably pose even a remote threat either to America or to our allies, we will annihilate it and everything in its proximity without further warning."

5. Notify the regime in Saudi Arabia that it got lucky and has the option of not being obliterated; that we are prepared instead to seize "its" oil fields and sell them to private industry, in part to pay for the campaign against Iran, and in part to return the fields to private industry where they belong; that it has 24 hours to turn the fields over to our agents; and that if it fails to comply or ignites the fields or does anything to thwart our program, its leaders, like those of Iran, will meet Allah sooner than later.

If we took these (or similar) measures, our terrorism problem would be solved. Sure, there would still be a few isolated instances of terrorism here and there in months and years to come; this much is inevitable given how long we have permitted the Islamists to plan and plot and establish cells. But, so long as we follow through as indicated above and immediately destroy anything that we think looks even remotely threatening, state sponsorship of terrorism against America would be over; the major threat to our lives would be gone.

Of course, we will not take such measures any time soon. Altruism will not let us. We will not take such measures until there is widespread understanding of the moral rightness of doing so—that is, until a substantial number of Americans understand that self-interest is moral and self-sacrifice is evil—and we are a long way from that. But such measures are morally correct—they are what we should do—and everyone who understands that they are should say so loudly and clearly. By placing such actions on the table for discussion, we create an opportunity to explain why they are morally correct—and that is what Americans (and westerners in general) most desperately need to learn.

"The Spiritual Emptiness of Faith" by Robert Tracinski (www.IntellectualActivist.com)"

Today, the Last Battle of the Vietnam War continues. Caroline Glick catches on to the fact that "something refreshing, and indeed, inspiring is happening today in America. There, a debate about the legacy of an unpopular lost war has recently begun in earnest." She finds it inspiring because Israeli culture is still immersed in deep evasion about the lessons of its recent loss in Lebanon—and the whole 15-year-long debacle of the "peace process."

Meanwhile, the man who is partly responsible for this re-opening of the Vietnam War debate, historian Mark Moyar, chimes in with a defense of his thesis that the Vietnam War was both winnable and in America's interests.

I haven't linked recently to any updates about the implosion of the Palestinian "Suicide Bomb Society," because it has all been more of the same. But here's a report that is new—and even more dreadful. Faced with a disaster brought upon them by the religious fanatics of Hamas, the Palestinians are turning to the guidance of…an even more radical Islamist organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir.

But of course, religion is supposed to have many spiritual consolations for the miserable and suffering. It is supposed to fill a spiritual void left by the prevailing secularism of the modern world—right? Except that it turns out it is the most ardent religious believers who actually feel a spiritual void, as revealed by the release of Mother Theresa's private letters, in which she confessed to feeling spiritual "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness," and "torture"—and feeling this, not momentarily, but for decades—even as she proclaimed publicly that "Christ is in our hearts."
But don't worry, says Jesuit priest James Martin in the New York Times: all Christian saints have felt "the 'dark night,' the time when a person feels completely abandoned by God."
As an atheist who believes in the reality of this world and of natural law—and who is thus surrounded every moment of the day by a flood of evidence for the things he believes in—I have never had occasion to feel this kind of metaphysical emptiness and doubt. So much for the superior spiritual consolations of religion.—RWT