“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” - Frederick Douglas
Steve Green is in rare form. And Bill Whittle is his usual insightful self.
And the quote Bill Whittle unearthed from President Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex speech from 50 years ago rings true.
the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
And please consider subscribing to PJTV to keep it going. It is a valuable service, IMHO. $5 a month. Well worth it to me.
Via Gateway Pundit (right in my back yard).... There's video as well. In other news, from the same blog, Obama's approval rating is down to 33% in my state. I think we were technically a McCain state by a few thousand votes. So down from 49.999% to 33%.
"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" - Phil Jones, Director - Hadley CRU
Frankly, I doubt Ed Begley Jr. has a clue what "peer review" means. It's just a term AlGore's been throwing about lately, so Ed parrotts it.
If you get to define away scientists who disagree with you as non-peers, then peer review becomes meaningless. Well all the people who agree with us agree with us!!!
Haven't seen much from MIT's Richard Lindzen lately (probably by design ... what with the IPCC "scientists" and the media shutting out anything outside of the now clearly manufactured "concensus"), but he is the single scientific voice I respect the most on the subject.
This morning on Fox and Friends I was surprised to see a familiar face ... a face that I don't believe has been on Fox much if at all over the past several months during the White House's Anti-Fox News campaign ...
Robert Gibbs.
Gibbs appeared good natured, had well-worded, canned answers to the not incredibly light questions being asked of him ... almost as if he knew exactly what questions would be asked (this is probably fairly normal in the News Business these days especially for high-ranking White House officials from what I understand). In other words, he did his job.
I couldn't help but notice that at least twice he threw in very thinly veiled jabs at the Bush Administration. But that is, sadly, what we've come to expect from this administration (you know, the one that's getting us away from the politics of the past).
Anyway, if you're going to try to control the message, which is your job as Press Secretary ... there's no better way than to go on yourself.
Apparently none other than "Science Czar" John Holdren (you know, the guy who was going to return us to policy making based 'science and facts' rather than 'ideology') is complicit in this as well.
“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.”
Protecting free and open inquiry? Facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology?
"To get Senator [Mary] Landrieu's vote, just to proceed, just to go across the starting line, language was inserted in the bill that gives her state up to $300 million. To get Senator [Ben] Nelson's vote, [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] agreed to drop a request that you take away the antitrust exemptions for insurance companies...[Is healthcare reform] important enough to buy votes? "
Senator Sherrod Brown answered
I want to see this bill pass. Nobody likes these kinds of -- any kinds of deals. I think anything that's done needs to be in the best -- in the best interest of those states and this country. I think those probably helped, if that, in fact, really happened -- I have no way of really knowing if it did. I suppose that helped a lot of people in Louisiana that don't have insurance, and so I think we move forward.
Only 38% of the population supports this bill, the health care reform direction this administration & the Democratic congress is taking. They bought votes to get it to the floor for "debate" where hold the "nuclear" option in their back pocket to ram what they feel is in the best interest of [..] this country -- no matter what 62% of the country thinks. This is ruling class arrogance. I'll tell you what's good for you and you'll take it. And that's the way they'll run health care, too.
Because it's wrong to try him in a military tribunal as an enemy combatant?
So we can show the world our confidence in our fair civilian court system?
Because we are holding him to long without a trial?
Well, let's see, Obama stopped the military tribunals to address that first issue, which meant that we were going to hold him still longer without trial in contradicion to the third point. They got the civilian trial in New York, where Attorney General Holder is saying that he will be convicted, and failure is not an option, plus even if he is acquitted he'll never be set free because we'll then hold him as an enemy combatant, which blows point number two out of the water and puts us right back to point number one (not to mention number three again), meaning Bush was right in the first place.
They can't have that, so it's gotta be something else. And my guess it will be to put "torture" and Gitmo back out front and center for another round of Bush Administration flogging, because that's what got them elected and they've got nothing else -- and we're going into an election year.
But they've overplayed their hand, and the result of all of this, I think (besides serving up a large recruiting campaign for Islamist Terrorism and some Democratic fund raising) will be that the American people are pretty much going to throw this on the pile of the many reasons they are going to dump the Democrats in droves.
This is all very Alinsky, I hate to keep bringing this up ... but these are exactly the tactics they've used over and over and over again.
Ignore all criticism of your position.
Marginalize anyone who disagrees with name-calling ("deniers", "big oil stooges") or ridicule ("they're not published!")
Exert pressure on "authorities" to distance themselves from or refuse to recognize opponents.
You can also see from these e-mails the scientists' panic at any dissent appearing in the scientific literature. When another article by a skeptic was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Michael Mann complains, "It's one thing to lose Climate Research. We can't afford to lose GRL." Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted." That's exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that "The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there."
Not content to block out all dissent from scientific journals, the CRU scientists also conspired to secure friendly reviewers who could be counted on to rubber-stamp their own work. Phil Jones suggests such a list to Kevin Trenberth, with the assurance that "All of them know the sorts of things to say...without any prompting."
So it's no surprise when another e-mail refers to an attempt to keep inconvenient scientific findings out of a UN report: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow-even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Think of all of this the next time you hear someone invoke the authority of peer review-or of the UN's IPCC reports-as backing for claims about global warming.
:
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The picture that emerges is simple. In any discussion of global warming, either in the scientific literature or in the mainstream media, the outcome is always predetermined. Just as the temperature graphs produced by the CRU are always tricked out to show an upward-sloping "hockey stick," every discussion of global warming has to show that it is occurring and that humans are responsible. And any data or any scientific paper that tends to disprove that conclusion is smeared as "unscientific" precisely because it threatens the established dogma.
Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
It looks to me, from reading various articles on the net this morning, that the Hadley CRU folks are basically admitting that the emails and files are from them, that they are legit -- because it looks as though the tactic they're taking is to defend them or dismiss them rather than to deny them.
Good news is the London Daily Telegraph reports that this story is the top story being hit on their website, dispite, and perhaps because of, the MSM's refusal to critically cover the story -- displaying the kind of incuriousness they used to love to accuse G.W. Bush of having.
Let's see how well the MSM can smother it. Or if it's ready to wake up and smell the coffee. After all, they do SO love a scandal, and if they're forced not to ignore it (John Edwards) they actually kinda get into it.
Between the Thanksgiving break coming up and the KSM trial in New York and chasing Ricky Hollywood around with a mic & camera ... we'll see if the story gets buried.
It's important. "We" may be about to sign our soveriegnty away.
Hyperbole? "Fundamentally transform"? "We are the people we've been waiting for"? "Redistribuitive wealth"? Did you read "The Forgotten Man"? "Liberal Fascism"? Ringing any bells? Any bells at all?
If Fox News is an "arm of the Republican party", then what do you call this?
Here we have the quite lovely but obviously just as biased Nora O'Donnell, whom Chris Matthews refers to as a "hard news" reporter, telling us that the crowd "has a connection" to Sarah Palin, "and I think it's an emotional one." Sounds like opinion to me, however much truth there may be to it. Of course, what you're supposed to take away from it is that there's no basis for that emotional connection other than the fact that she's white and Christian ... keep watching.
Another interesting thing is that as an example of how clueless these Palin supporters were, she said they liked her because she was against "the" bailout (there were multiple bailouts, but let's assume she means TARP) when "in fact" Palin "supported" it. From which Salon editor in chief Joan Walsh jumps straight to "whopping lie".
Allahpundit over at Hot Air came up with a letter Palin wrote to the Alaska state legislature in January that evidenced her acceptance of the funds, but also, in the closing paragraph, clearly expressed her concerns about this kind of federal bailout and where they lead.
Although it is beyond my purview as Governor, I also urge you to consider how the economic stimulus package will affect the national debt and the future economic health of the country. The need for economic stimulus should not become an excuse for the continuation of the unsound policies of the past. The nation’s economy will never achieve long-term stability if we continue borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign countries, all the while Simultaneously sending huge amounts of money overseas to OPEC countries for oil that could be produced domestically. In this regard, I am astounded by amounts of a trillion dollars and more that are currently being discussed in some quarters.
I believe our nation is truly at an economic crossroads. Properly constructed, the economic stimulus package will greatly assist in sending our country down the right road. Without question, you will be called upon to make very difficult decisions on behalf of Alaska and the nation, and I want to assure you of the cooperation of my administration in achieving the best possible result.
In other words, I don't like this, but since it's happening, I'm willing to try to make the best of it. Sounds like the Palin I know. And I think what it exposes (for the eleventy jillionth time) is the echo chamber of the liberal press. Someone interpreted her acceptance as support, and said "you lie! Palin supported it!"... and it's become so accepted as fact that reporters don't feel the need to look into the veracity, dare I say, even nuances, of her position and just come out and boldly call her a whopping "liar". They like that word, "lie", I've noticed.
Matthews and the rest point out that the crowd is "white", "monocrhomatic" ... and say a few times not that there's anything wrong with that ... but they continue to repeatedly point it out as if there were.
This is a largely white, almost no minorities in this crowd. almost, eh? - ed
Well they look like a white crowd to me, not that there's anything wrong
but it is pretty, uh, monochromatic
No surprise in terms of the ethnic nature of the people showing up, nothing wrong with that
but it is a fact
I think there's a tribal aspect to this thing, in other words, white vs other people
(Would they even go there if they were reporting on a crowd that was monochromatically black?)
Cut to Palin saying it was a mistake to avoid "profiling" a Muslim soldier in our army who had on multiple occasions expressed sympathy toward the enemy's cause and terrorist tactics ... and then from Matthews
everybody knows what proviling means: it's driving while black
if you come from a middle-eastern country, keep your eye on this guy
Funny, I thought she was talking about Islamists (not a race, a belief, and one we're actively fighting against).
Again, I've been to Tea Parties. Nobody was there making sure you were white before they'd let you participate. And I've seen footage of Tea Parties and there have been blacks there right along with whites, in solidarity because what mattered was the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
The "nastiness". The attacks on the "little people" ... Steve Schmitt, Nocole Wallace. Yeah, little people. You know, you have lots of people who are prominent operatives at the highest level of a presidential campaign. They're your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers. "And at the same time [she says] she's looking out for little people."
Now Joan is not a hard news reporter, although she probably considers herself that -- goes down her talking points list, and you can actually hear her set them up, and then repeat them just in case we missed what she was saying. "She [Palin] is a very divisive, mean-spirited person".
Really?
She's fighting down (sic) with her 19 year old ex-future-son-in-law, who should really be ignored.
I'm sure she'd love to. Can we? Would the media stop covering that self-centered idiot and stop asking her questions about what he's saying to keep "Ricky Hollywood" in the spotlight? Is that a promise from Salon never to mention him again? I sure hope so.
When her supporters say they believe that she'll "defend the constitution", they're "babbling". For good measure, she adds "as if Obama won't." (Clearly, from what Obama has said on more than one occasion suggests that he considers the Constitution merely a "remarkable" historical document that "paved the way" to where we are today ... but -- the guy says he wants to "fundamentally transform" the United States of America. Since the Constitution defines The United States of America, it's not a huge leap to figure he's ready to depart from that definition significantly.)
Here's what you're supposed to come away with from this piece. Palin's fans are ignorant, white, Bible-thumping racists, and Palin is a "nasty", immature, mean-spirited, divisive liar who really isn't for the "little people" who the "general public" doesn't trust and sees this kind of "mean girl" persona that she's "never grown out of" which is why "she'll never be President." Be afraid. Those are the talking points.
I came home today to a column in our local newspaper by NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman. It was teased thus:
Don’t believe in global warming? You’re wrong, but I’ll let you enjoy it until your beach house gets washed away.
Thanks, Tom. Considerate of you to "let" me. Two things. One, I don't own a beach house. And judging by the Red/Blue political maps, I'd say that most people who do are not your "Drill, Baby, Drill" crowd. Further, unless your house is about 25 cm (IPCC number) lower than the lowest safe height above sea level, you have more to worry about from coastal storms than you do about rising sea levels. And that's IF the IPCC is right about what's going on. And it hasn't been so far. The models can't seem to predict climate at all, really. It's been quite embarrassing. Besides, you don't seem terribly concerned about it in practice. Take another page out of the Gore book of do as I say, not as I do?
If you follow the debate around the energy/climate bills working through Congress you will notice that the drill-baby-drill opponents of this legislation are now making two claims. One is that the globe has been cooling lately, not warming, and the other is that America simply can’t afford any kind of cap-and-trade/carbon tax.
And both are demonstrably true, though the cooling hasn't been much. Then again, neither was the warming. And I note that while you infer that these "claims" are ludicrous, you didn't take those arguments on, but went on to other things instead. Why? Because you can't take those claims on and win. They're true.
But here is what they also surely believe, but are not saying: They believe the world is going to face a mass plague, like the Black Death, that will wipe out 2.5 billion people sometime between now and 2050. They believe it is much better for America that the world be dependent on oil for energy — a commodity largely controlled by countries that hate us and can only go up in price as demand increases — rather than on clean power technologies that are controlled by us and only go down in price as demand increases. And, finally, they believe that people in the developing world are very happy being poor — just give them a little running water and electricity and they’ll be fine. They’ll never want to live like us.
(What? Black Death Panels???? They're not in the bill!!!!!)
Huh, and here I thought that they believe that as countries become developed and prosperous, their birth rates drop, and that the whole point of drilling was to tap our own domestic resources instead of buying it from countries that hate us, and that we love the idea of clean power and believe that the free market will take care of that on its own as the kinks get worked out of it. But who am I? Just one of those crazy people who think that when you vastly inflate your money supply, it becomes worth much less, effectively taxing your citizens by whatever percentage that devalues the dollar, ruins your credit, and puts you in a very tight position with ... oh yeah, countries that you counted on to buy the debt you printed up, exacerbated by the fact that you couldn't find buyers for all of it so you started buying it yourself. A tactic that has never, ever, ever worked and has always ended in disaster.
And THEN you plan on putting a further drag on the economy you want to tax by making energy much more expensive, making it more expensive to employ people, and tack an additional trillion or three of money we don't have onto the national debt for a road to nationalized, single-payer health-care which will be even more expensive and give most people less access to it. Yeah, we're freakin' idiots, aren't we Tom?
Thank God we have you here to tell us what we believe. As I recall, the Drill Baby Drill crowd was calling for an "all of the above" approach, not just "drill, baby, drill". The "Drill, baby, drill" bit was to counter the climate/enviro Chicken Little's position of continuing to buy so much of our oil from other countries -- or doing without and guaranteeing that the economy will crater.
The first is that the world is getting crowded. According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion ... passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050."
It's just about 2010. What was the world population supposed to be by this time by 20th century doom and gloom population bomb Chicken Littles? I'll go look that up and update later. Point being, why should I believe you? Did you see Al Gore's chart? What should global temperatures be by now?
The world keeps getting flatter — more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” — with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs.
Academics love linear extrapolation, don't they?
First of all, there are different cultural and market forces elsewhere in the world than there are here. Secondly, I don't know a single soul who is for abandoning clean and efficient energy development. Third, whoever does is going to make a metric sh*t ton of money ... unless the government takes 90% of it. In which case their incentive to do so will be significantly lower. Third, as I mentioned before, as nations become more developed, their birthrates drop. Fourth, market forces will force people to change their consumption habits as things become more scarce.
There is not a finite amount of wealth to "spread around". And there is not an infinite amount of wealth in government printing presses. Wealth is created, and it has a way of spreading itself around. Sure, more tends to stay near those who created it -- which is what gives them the incentive to create it.
For my speal on Anthropogenic Global Warming, please see my speals starting here.
Just for fun. Hey, it's one of the Community Organizers' "Rules for Radicals". "Ridicule is man's most powerful weapon." Or "potent". Or something. This was Morgan's brainchild, the propeller bit.
