Palin and the White Working Class

Jack Kemp

From Amer. Thinker.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/palin_and_the_white_working_cl.html

May 31, 2011
Palin and the White Working Class
By Christopher Chantrill

Sunday May 29 and Rolling Thunder marked Sarah Palin's first incursion into "enemy territory" since 2008, according to Politico's Molly Ball. The US Northeast is the region that's "least friendly" to the Tea Party favorite.

Molly might have written that, with her Tea Party base all sewn up, Palin is already reaching out to the Northeast, a target-rich environment full of the white working class that has been up for grabs in recent elections. But then, Molly is writing for Politico, not the Wall Street Journal.

There's a good reason why the white working class is up for grabs. It is the "the most pessimistic and alienated group in American society," according to Ronald Brownstein in the National Journal. That is no wonder, for "the average high-school-educated, middle-aged man earns almost 10 percent less than his counterpart did in 1980."

There's only one problem, according to Brownstein. Minorities have suffered in the recession and have experienced the same wage squeeze as the white working class. But minorities are optimistic about their future.

We know why. Time was that the white working class was the darling of the liberals. But then the liberals soured on them. In the 70s working-class whites were bigoted Archie Bunkers; in the 2000s, "bitter clingers." Liberals decided that all along they had really loved women and minorities, and they became the darlings of the liberals, extolled and boosted in the university, the halls of Congress, in stock photos, and on stage and screen.

Of course, the white working class has only itself to blame. Put not your trust in princes, says the Good Book. Back in the 19th century the working class had built its own authentic social institutions, the labor unions, the fraternal associations, the Methodist and Baptist Churches, from scratch. But then the liberals came calling with flattery and free money. There's a line for that too: The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

When you are living in the Garden of Eden, the darlings of the liberals, life is peachy: good jobs, good wages, benefits, health care, pensions. But when the liberals decide to change you out for a newer model, then it's back to the real world, only now the unions are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party and the fraternal associations have withered away into irrelevance. But for the "pessimistic and alienated" in this fallen world, there is God and guns and Sarah Palin.

You can see why the party professionals don't take Palin seriously. The way people talk, you'd think Sarah Palin was a political newcomer, rather than a 20-year veteran of elected politics.

But there is another, bigger reason why the Republican insiders find it so difficult to take Palin seriously. Their game is political chess, a game of movement, and Palin plays Chinese Go or weiqi, a game of position, where you put down counters and never move them. With Going Rogue, she put down a counter that positioned herself as a "commonsense conservative." With America by Heart she positioned herself as a "commonsense constitutional conservative." Now, with her "One Nation" bus tour, she is mounting a "campaign to educate and energize Americans about our nation's founding principles, in order to promote the Fundamental Restoration of America."

That's the new counter that Sarah Palin is placing on the board as she moves up the Northeast corridor: the "Fundamental Restoration of America." It has quite a ring to it. It is just the line you would want to take if you were running for president against Barack Obama and his czars, his crony green capitalists, his waivers-for-friends ObamaCare, his regulatory blizzard, his jobless recovery, and his 1967-borders foreign policy. With "Restoration," Palin appeals to the patriotism of the white working class without getting into tricky economic details.

But what about women and minorities? Isn't Palin going down a cul-de-sac bidding for the white working class, a demographic slice in decline? It could be, but don't forget that the day will come when women and minorities will no longer be the "darlings of the liberals" either. Women might wake up one day and decide that they believe in marriage and children; minorities might opt one day for jobs, jobs, jobs, instead of debt, debt, debt.

A warning to you women and minorities: Stand up to your liberal "partner" on these issues and you too will soon recall in your lonely pessimism and alienation the old injunction. You'll say: forget the princes. Put not your trust in politicians.

Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his usgovernmentspending.com and also usgovernmentdebt.us. At americanmanifesto.org he is blogging and writing An American Manifesto: Life After Liberalism.
Comments on "Palin and the White Working Class"

Indian Bumper Crop; Global Warming Pause

Timothy Birdnow

India has had a record crop this year, in complete contradiction to global warming alarminsts who claim warming is causing famine.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-30/news/29598798_1_rice-crop-cotton-prices-food-shortage

From the article:

"There is a bumper wheat and rice crop. In Andhra Pradesh, India's rice bowl, production is up 30%. Millers are offering only Rs 8 for a kilo of paddy though the MSP is Rs 10.30. Angry farmers last week threw paddy into the Krishna river. The state government has borrowed Rs 550 crore from RBI for procurement. The FCI can do little. After buying 50 million tonne wheat and rice this season, added to 44 million tonnes left from last year, it is exhausted."

End excerpt.

What does this say? It says that a people committed to free enterprise can produce a bounty, and that the hated evils of capitalism are the best means available to bring wealth from poverty. Socialism brings poverty from wealth, and our flirtation with it here in the U.S. is a large part of our economic woes. Ditto Japan.

It also says that AGW has miraculously stopped in India. I'm not sure how, given that India has been developing economically and the Subcontinent is pumping all sorts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - including cow flatulence. Remember, cows are sacred in India and so allowed to break wind as much as they please.

Isn't this a typical leftist trap? Claim that free enterprise does not work, then blame it for global warming, then blame global warming for the failure of free enterprise, a failure engineered by your own anti-global warming regulatory quicksand. Never does the liberal think to look to his own policies; it must always be somebody else at fault. Like the rise in gasoline prices must be price gouging, not the refusal to allow more drilling and refining.

Well, the Indians aren't playing ball with the modern Luddites. Good for them! They are showing the bankruptcy of the modern Progressive movement.

Votes have consequences

Dana Mathewson

Minnesotans have been attempting to ensure that election fraud is minimized in our state. "No More Frankens" might have been our rallying cry, and our legislature -- GOP-controlled, finally -- passed a Voter ID bill that would require voters to show ID when voting.

Not surprisingly, Governor Mark "I'm really a mental health case" Dayton vetoed it. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/05/029110.php

I'm not quite sure how we'll punish him for this, but I am hopeful that we will.

A Veteran gives a tour at The American Airpower Museum

Jack Kemp

"I was twelve years old, listening to a radio like that when they announced Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I asked my father what that meant and he told me it meant we were at war."

Speaking was my guide, Air Force veteran Bob Romeo, pointing to a display of a typical 1940s home with a cathedral shaped table radio. We are in the small but growing American Airpower Museum at Republic Field in Farmingdale, Long Island, http://www.americanairpowermuseum.com/Website/EventsGallery.aspx in the heart of World War plane manufacturers' factory locations of Republic Aircraft and Grumman Engineering. The old hangar had been designated an historical site, saving it from becoming an extension of one of Republic Field’s runways. In World War II, it had been a final assembly site for fighter planes, taking up to weeks to finish the last steps but rolling out one finished plane every 15 minutes.

Walking over to the photo and diorama exhibit of the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Hawaii, Bob Romeo tells me that Congress had, in recent years, passed a law allowing those that served on the U.S.S. Arizona to have their remains buried – or their ashes spread – at the Memorial. I tell Mr. Romeo about the time I was returning from Las Vegas in early December with my dad, changing for an earlier standby flight. One of the Pearl Harbor veterans who had gone there that week for a convention noticed us sitting apart and gave up his seat so that we could be together. In more ways than one.

Bob Romeo had entered the Army Air Force at the end of the War and was going to go to pilot training. But after his preliminary training, the atomic bomb ended the war and the military had a surplus of pilots from both the Pacific and European Theaters, so they stopped training new ones.

“They were nice enough to ask me what I wanted to do in the Air Force, so I became an aircraft mechanic.”

We walked on to enter a reconstruction of an actual ready room for World War II bomber missions. The place where they held briefings, it contained a map of Europe, a blackboard and some benches.

“They’d wake the crews up at two a.m. and tell them what their target was. They would take off at sunrise. To climb into a formation would take about an hour and the plane before you, which you couldn’t see, had to get high enough. Once in formation, spread out over multiple altitudes, the gunners’ fire overlapped and covered the planes. But the biggest cause of bomber losses in Europe was the FLAK, the German 88 guns which could fire a shell up to 35,000 feet and then explode near or inside a bomber in pieces of shrapnel.”

Bob took a flyer’s flak jacket off a wall hook an handed it to me. It consisted of steel plates sown into a shirt-vest. It was quite heavy. He explained that there were also flak pants made, but no one could walk around a plane with all that weight. The crew often took off the flak jacket and placed it along the exterior wall of the plane where they were working. They also had an electric suit, kind of like a modern electric blanket that plugged into different outlets around the airplane. With all this and leather clothing – and the minus 50 degree Fahrenheit temperatures – if a flyer got hit with shrapnel or a fighter plane’s shells, they could not remove the clothing because the crew member would freeze to death. The often applied a tourniquet and in some desperate cases dropped them out of the plane with a parachute so that the German hospitals would treat (that did happen). Flying in World War II was a lot less glamorous than we would now think. A bomber crew was most often in a non-pressurized plane that typically flew at 25,000 feet. Depending on the bomber, they flew at speeds ranging from 175 to 275 miles an hour, making it was a relatively slow moving target. The German fighter planes were considerably faster. And even with the later development of the P-51 Mustang fighter escorts, which didn’t have to turn back quickly to England, the biggest problem were the German 88 guns which could take deadly aim at the bombers over the target.

We walked to a diorama of the Ploiesti oil field raids in Romania, where American planes suffered huge losses and five bomber pilots were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Bob Romeo called it “a suicide mission.”

"Around 30,000 members of the 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, and 15th Army Air Forces died in the ETO / MTO" (European and Mediterranean Theaters in World War II), according to one website. http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8aflosses.shtml Others have estimated higher figures.

“All over Germany there were synthetic oil plants that were not bombed. Churchill insisted on bombing the cities because of the German bombing of English cities (roughly 50,000 people lost their lives in England from those bombings).”

I mentioned some details known years later, namely that Russia suffered 8 million military deaths and 12 million civilian deaths in World War II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#USSR Stalin insisted on bombing civilian targets in Germany as well. In 1944, American planes in England, were able to fly to targets over Germany, fly on to a landing field in Russia, then reload with fuel and bombs to hit other Eastern European targets on a flight to US bases in Italy and then make a similar more western bombing run on the way back to their bases in England. Stalin insisted on a veto and choice of targets for planes going to and from Soviet bases because of the horrendous losses Russia suffered before the Allies invaded Europe. This information – and many other amazing details of the War, can be found in Donald Miller’s definitive book “Masters of the Air.”

We went on to a P-40 Flying Tiger plane that was flown by American volunteers in Chang Kai Shek’s Chinese Air Force in 1940, before America officially entered the War. Pilots were paid an incentive of $500 in gold for every Japanese Zero they shot down. At $35 an ounce, that is 14.285 ounces – or the equivalent of around $21,428 in today’s dollars. The Curtis P-40 Warhawk was an inferior plane to the Japanese Zero, so special tactics were devised to attack the Zeros from out of direct sunlight and in a high speed dive.

Bob Romeo told me that The Airpower Museum offers rides in some of their planes for tax-deductible membership donations, such as a simulated D-Day paratrooper drop where the participants are outfitted in a WW II paratrooper’s uniform and flown in an actual C-47, complete with military markings, to a staging area out over Long Island where a uniformed historical reenactor portrays a jump commander until the drama ends without leaving the plane. I’d been in the Museum’s C-47 when it was on ground display and sat on its tin bench of seats. With the roar of the engines and no temperature controls, it would be quite an experience to relive the easy part of a D-Day jump. Bob told me that The Museum’s C-47 had not been in D-Day but had taken part in "Operation Market Garden" in Holland (the subject of the movie "A Bridge Too Far") and had later been sold to the Israeli Air Force. Speaking of that, one of soldiers who did jump on D-Day was a West Point graduate military lawyer who didn’t want to sit out the war riding a desk. With no parachute training, Col. Mickey Marcus jumped behind enemy lines into the French countryside in the first wave of the D-Day assault. He would later go on to become the first General in the Israeli Army since the time of the Bible, killed in a mishap not knowing a Hebrew password and being shot by a guard. He is buried at West Point. But I digress – somewhat.

A woman and her sons left another guide and joined us. She asked Bob why some planes, such as a Grumman Navy fighter-bomber on display, had folding wings. He explained that is a requirement of carrier based aircraft, even today. It is done to make room on the elevators of air craft carriers and storage in the crowded lower decks.

Speaking of women, one of the aircraft motors on display had a mannequin of a woman working on it in a defense plant, as often happened on Long Island in World War II and around the country. There was also an exhibit of women who flew military aircraft from factories to delivery at Air Force and Naval bases around the country.

Many school groups visit this Museum to learn about what being in the Air Corp was really like during wartime. It is a lesson and legacy that we need to tell our youngsters – and ourselves – so that we remember why and how we have our freedoms and what many brave men and women did to ensure that in past years. I have only touched on part of what is on display at the American Airpower Museum, a museum that may move to a larger location in coming years.

On this Memorial Day Weekend, I salute you, Bob Romeo, and all the people whose efforts to keep this living memorial open and all the veterans who keep our country safe.

A Welcome and Some Notes

Timothy Birdnow

A few notes.

First, let us offer a hearty welcome to the great Alan Caruba as a new contributer to this website. I've always loved his writing, and have tried to model my own on his. As regular readers are aware, Ron De Haan loves him, too, and frequently posts his essays here.

I corresponded with Mr. Caruba recently when we had very similar articles appear at Canada Free Press at the same time, and he has graciously offered to send me his latest essays. While they will not be exclusive to this site, they may well appear here before anywhere else, so we may get the "scoop" on the big names. It's a thrilling development; he has his own Wikipedia entry, after all!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Caruba

It is a great honor to be able to post Mr. Caruba's work.

On another topic, I have to ask for some ideas; guys, we simply have to come up with a decent name for this website. Birdblog really doesn't work anymore, since I write only a portion of it these days. Any ideas? If we ever hit the big time nobody will know what to call us. It doesn't matter that I founded the thing; there are better writers than myself here, and we should come up with a name that includes us all. Preferably a pun (Jack and Dana love puns, too). Tom Joseph once suggested "Surfing Bird" because the Bird's the Word! I like it, but it's a bit California for my midwestern hillbilly tastes. (Anyone ever read the Richard Matheson story about Las Angelas being a plague, and the rest of the country becoming infected? Old women begin walking around in midriffs and hot pants, playing tennis and driving around in convertibles while wearing dark sunglasses and scarves; really scary stuff!) Suggestions for a name would be appreciated.

Also, one of these days I need to customize the site. A header would be nice. GM Roper kindly produced one for me using the Birdman of Cahokia, which would be fun. The Birdman was an ancient symbol of the once great city of Cahokia, an ancient capital for the Mound Builder culture. Jack Kemp has produced one using a cardinal, in honor of the baseball team here in the 'Lou. I would also consider putting a picture of the Ozark Hilton on the top; it does rather resemble the unibomber shack, and would doubtlessly give our liberal friends a fine tweak. Problem is, I just don't know how to do pictures, and experiments have failed me.

It's supposed to be about the writing anyway. I don't even bother to insert hyperlinks, as you all know. I DO know how to do that.

Perhaps it's time to make this site less amateurish. I rather like it amateurish; it gives it a kind of charm that is missing from the big guns. It's a sort of workman mentality; we put out raw, unpolished but solid stuff. I really don't want a slick site, but perhaps it's time to make it a bit more slick?

I am very proud of this site. We do not get many visitors, but we get visitors with some clout. I know of one particularly top rated talk radio giant who has visited here before; he borrowed my phrase "Max Headroom President" the very day I posted it! We are linked up at Commentaries website, too. We may not be big but we are influencial.

At any rate, keep a sharp eye for Alan Caruba's fine work here in the future!

Financial Terrorism

Dana Mathewson

Can you believe this? Well, these days you probably can...

"An astounding Department of Justice threat to cancel airline flights to and from Texas, in addition to underhanded lobbying by TSA representatives, has killed efforts in the state to pass HB 1937, a bill that would have made invasive pat downs by TSA agents a felony.

HB 1937, a bill that would have made it “A criminal act for security personnel to touch a person’s private areas without probable cause as a condition of travel or as a condition of entry into a public place,” was headed for an imminent Senate vote in Texas having already passed the House unanimously 138-0, before the federal government stepped in to nix the legislation."

http://www.infowars.com/financial-terrorism-tsa-holds-texas-flights-hostage/

A NOTE FROM TIM:

Why wouldn't the TSA simply tell Texas that any blood will be on their hands? Could it be that they fear there will be no blood, and that this law would show the futility of their agency? If enhanced security screening worked it would be easy to prove with one state out of the program; every terrorist would fly into Houston or Dallas first.

Me thinks someone wants the hands of Uncle Sam on our junk!

Texas should have gone forward and filed for an injunction at the same time. The old Texas spirit just ain't what it used to be!

600 More Days of Obama

Alan Caruba

As of May 30, 2011, America has 600 days more of rule by President Barack Hussein Obama.

He is the 44th President and, while we have had incompetent Presidents in the past, we have never had one determined to destroy the nation. It has taken more than two years for most sentient Americans to grasp this extraordinary threat. He has not solved problems. He has exacerbated them."

Granted the financial crisis began in 2008 as President George W. Bush was finishing his second term, but President Obama—aside from blaming Bush for everything that has occurred on his watch—literally tripled the national debt with dubious and failed “stimulus” programs, plunging the nation into debt that rivals all others in our history.

President Obama had a lot of help in getting elected and will no doubt get it in his effort to secure a second term. The mainstream media has utterly debased itself, sounding more like the state monopolies of fascist nations.

On June 6, 2008, a reporter for the Associated Press wrote an article, “These men are likely targets in an anti-Obama campaign”, naming Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, the former Weatherman domestic terrorist, among others. One of them, Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, an early Obama supporter, was convicted of mail fraud and money laundering the same week the article appeared.

By July 2008, Investor’s Business Daily took note of Obama’s “Stealth Socialism” when he addressed the NAACP using the code words “economic justice” four times to a cheering audience. IBD reported that “‘Economic justice’ simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It’s a euphemism for socialism.”

In October 2008, the Washington Post’s syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer, wrote “I’ll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory.”

With the election days away in November 2008, Sammy Benoit, posted on American Thinker.com, wrote, “Please take a look at these people allied with the Obama campaign. Some of them are anti-Israel; others are anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel.” He named Samantha Power who had “called for an invasion of Israel to impose a solution to the Palestinian issue.” Obama’s open hostility toward Israel in recent days demonstrates how prescient Benoit was.

Shortly after the election, Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post’s reporter on the media asked “Are the media capable of merchandizing the moment, packaging a president-elect for profit? Yes, we are.” Then he touched on the key role the media had played leading up to Obama’s election and afterward. “We seem to have crossed a cultural line into myth-making.”

“Whew! Are journalists fostering the notion that Obama is invincible, the leader of what the New York Times dubbed ‘Generation O’?” asked Kurtz.

In rapid succession, with some rejections, President Obama filled not only his cabinet posts, but added an astonishing level of advisors, quickly dubbed “czars”, to the White House. Their ranks included the true believers in the global warming hoax including a former Environmental Protection Agency director who had just resigned from a post as commissioner for the Socialist International Commission for a Sustainable World Society. Czars and cabinet members all represented the antithesis of moderation.

Moderation is not a word anyone would apply to the Obama administration. By February 18, 2009, political guru, Karl Rove, pointed out that “Less than 700 hours after taking the oath of office, President Barack Obama signed the largest spending bill in American history.”

His eligibility to hold the office was already an issue by February 2009 and it is not going to go away. Dr. Jerome Corsi’s new book, “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” is a New York Times bestseller, its sale buoyed by widespread and growing concerns that Obama, under the terms set form by the U.S. Constitution, was not and is not eligible. Not only are there questions about his alleged birth certificate, but his Connecticut Social Security number as well.

After “Obamacare” was literally reamed through the House and Senate on a strict party-line vote, the public began to have some serious concerns. The massive assault on Medicare would bring a million people to Washington, D.C., to protest it prior to the vote and would spark the Tea Party movement. By November 2010, control of the House would return to the Republican Party and Democrats had lost members in the Senate.

By early 2011, Wall Street Journal columnist, Daniel Henninger, commented on Obama’s dwindling “likeability gap” citing the passage of time. “Obama.2008 was engaging, patient, open, optimistic, and a self-identified conciliator. Obama.2011 has been something else—testy, petulant, impatient, arrogant and increasingly a divider.”

As voters begin to scan the November 2012 horizon, Henniger wrote “Never forget: That historic 2008 victory came with 52.9% of the total vote and 52% of independent voters. David Axelrod recently noted ‘how small the margin for error is.’”

By April 2011, Gallup reported that “Barack Obama’s approval among the poorest Americans dropped to an all-time low of 48 percent…leaving the president with less-than-majority approval among all income brackets reported in Gallup’s presidential approval surveys.” Rasmussen polling showed the same numbers.

On August 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon resigned the office of the presidency, the first to do so in the nation’s history. The sordid events dubbed “Watergate” forced his hand. Earlier, Lyndon B. Johnson had told voters he would not run for reelection after his pursuit of the war in Vietnam had turned them against him.

It is not beyond the realm of the possible that Barack Hussein Obama may find himself in increasing difficulty in the remaining 600 days of his first and likely last term in office.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Light Blogging

Timothy Birdnow

Folks, I may not post anything tomorrow; I have to go to the Ozark Hilton, to check for damage after the tornadoes ripped through Missouri. Hopefully all is well, but I may have some reconstruction work to do. Check back on Sunday if nothing is posted tomorrow.

Waiting for the Hammer and Sickle to Fall

Timothy Birdnow

There is much back-and-forth over the causes of the current budgetary nightmare. Democrats and their lackeys in the media try to blame it on taxes they say are too low. But what is the true story?

It's the spending, stupid!

Bill Wilson from Americans for Limited Govenment puts it in perspective:

http://netrightdaily.com/2011/05/dark-skies-ahead/

"After all, in just 2007, the total budget was just $2.728 trillion with only a $160.7 billion deficit. Now, in 2011, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the budget will be $3.771 trillion with a $1.597 trillion deficit. That’s a whopping 893 percent increase in the deficit in just four years. How can this be, when marginal tax rates are exactly the same as in 2007?

A part of the $1.436 trillion increase in the deficit has been the recession, when revenues plummeted from $2.567 trillion in 2007 to a projected $2.174 trillion for 2011. But that only accounts for $393 billion of the increased shortfall. The rest of it was $1.043 trillion in spending increases.

In other words, 72.6 percent of the problem is too much spending, meaning at least 72.6 percent of the solution must be dramatic spending reductions. In a recent piece for Forbes.com, Louis Woodhill writes that “[b]etween FY 1955 and FY 2008, federal revenues increased by 1.0 percent of GDP. However, federal spending increased by 3.4 percent, causing the federal deficit to increase by 2.4 percent of GDP.”

Specifically, the biggest driver of new spending has been “the rise of the welfare state”. As Woodhill notes, “‘Payments to Individuals’ (both direct and via grants to State and local governments) exploded from 3.6 percent of GDP to 12.7 percent of GDP.”

End excerpt.

And tax increases reduce economic growth, making the defecits even worse. Democrats used to understand this; John Kennedy reduced taxes to spur economic growth, reducing the top rates from 90 to 70% and saw a huge increase in revenue - from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates

Yet the position of their party is to increase taxes, because they have wedded themselves to the class warfare tactic and because they want high taxes and high spending, believing that ultimately all money comes from government and that the public holds their cash on loan, a sort of trust endowed by government. They are collectivists, and private ownership ultimately must be abolished. That can only happen through government control of industry, which can only happen through high taxation and high spending.

Cloward and Piven elucidated the battle plan best; overwhelm the system, break it down, rebuild it along socialistic lines.

The system is about to break down; we MUST make some very hard spending choices now, or face ruin. Already social security and medicare have seen their lives shortened; Medicare will fail by 2024 and Social Security by 2036. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2011/05/13/report_medicare,_social_security_going_broke_even_faster_than_expected These huge entitlements - the bulk of our fiscal woes - will mean an end to the United States as we know it if they fail. They must be reformed now, but the Democrats resist and demogogue any efforts to fix them. Partly they hope to benefit from the fear of changing the system, partly they hope to break it. Either way, they are absolutely despicable.

There really are only two terrible options if we continue to drift:

1. We default. Default means we never get any credit from anybody, and the nation will likely be partitioned as the individual states would have to stop doing business with a government that cannot pay their debts.

2. We print money to pay our debts, giving worthless script to creditors, thus cheating them. This would likewise be disasterous (Wiemar Germany used this option during the Depression) because, as in a default, nobody gets paid, except in theory. It's like paying with monopoly money. Credit dries up, faith dries up, the states have to fend for themselves.

One thing is certain; America is finis as a world power. We likely won't even be a regional power. We won't be able to pay for ships, planes, anything.

In any event, the likelihood of America surviving this catastrophe is dim; we must fix the problem NOW, not ten years from now. When America can no longer make Medicare payments in 11 years the public will revolt. Too often such revolts are the precursor to despotism.

But, then, perhaps that is what some of our friends on the Left have had in mind all along?

Zombie Climate Theory

Timothy Birdnow

Wesley J. Smith has a blogpost at Second Hand Smoke pointing out that the world's ice has failed to cooperate with global warming alarmism.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2011/05/26/global-warming-hysteria-polar-ice-still-here/comment-page-1/#comment-29815

From the essay:

"The problem is that some of the predictions hysterics have made that could be judged in our own times, have not come to pass, such as the one that UK children by now would barely know what snow is. Another is that the arctic ice will have melted by now."

[...]

"The snows are even returning to Kilimanjaro, which Al Gore wrongly claimed was losing its famous snow due to warming. Some Himilayan glaciers–you know, the ones that the IPCC once said would be gone by 2035–are actually growing. Oh, and the polar bear population is stable despite the ridiculous listing of them by our GHW bureaucrats as “threatened.”

In the face of these and other miscues, GWH’s now desperately seize at any severe weather event as proof of global warming. No snow? Warming! A lot of snow? WARMING! Flood? WARMING! Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes–WARMING! WARMING! WARMING! WARMING! And the ever compliant media dance to the tune, as in this Toles cartoon."

End excerpts.

I left the following comment:

"Arctic ice melt is not unusual; it happened in 1922, well before the great increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/

There are other explanations for ice melt, and the way the ice is melting does not fit with AGW theory.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/rumors-of-the-death-of-arctic-sea-ice-greatly-exaggerated/

End comment.

Sorry about tooting my own horn here, but I didn't want to rewrite something that was already written. The point is, if a theory does not fit reality it does not work.

When the Michaelson-Morley experiment failed to find a direction for the "ether" Einstein simply discarded that concept; it did not match reality. Anthropogenic Global Warming fails to explain reality; it's time it was discarded.

But AGW is like a zombie in a George Romero movie; it rises from the grave every night. It feeds on brains, too; many otherwise bright people fall for it. And the decaying corpse sure does have a bad smell...

Perhaps that should be the next movie in the "Night of the Living Dead" franchise?

The Biofuel Sleight of Hand

Timothy Birdnow

If anyone wants proof that the environmentalists want not just an end to fossil fuels but to restrict our energy usage, George Moonbat, er, Monbiot provides the evidence.

http://www.rense.com/general70/carb.htm

Monbiot essentialy argues that biodiesel, that penultimate of alternate fuels, is worse than oil and should be stopped by the full force of law. From the article:

"Last week, the chairman of Malaysia's Federal Land Development Authority announced that he was about to build a new biodiesel plant(4). His was the ninth such decision in four months. Four new refineries are being built in Peninsula Malaysia, one in Sarawak and two in Rotterdam(5). Two foreign consortia - one German, one American - are setting up rival plants in Singapore(6). All of them will be making biodiesel from the same source: oil from palm trees.

"The demand for biodiesel," the Malaysian Star reports, "will come from the European Community.... This fresh demand...would, at the very least, take up most of Malaysia's crude palm oil inventories"(7). Why? Because it's cheaper than biodiesel made from any other crop.

In September, Friends of the Earth published a report about the impacts of palm oil production. "Between 1985 and 2000," it found, "the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia"(8). In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5m in Indonesia."

End excerpt.

This echoes complaints about sugar cane growth in Brazil; it takes up land better used to grow food crops.

In point of fact, the sky-high price of conventional fuels has led to a rash of grease theft.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24729484/ns/us_news-environment/t/used-cooking-oil-stolen-biodiesel-pirates/
Where once restaurants had to pay waste companies to haul their used cooking oil away, now they have to lock up their grease to avoid it being pirated by people who will turn it into fuel.

People are unwilling to go backward; nobody is going to choose to ride the bus or train when they have a perfectly good automobile in their driveway. The environmentalists want them on those trains and buses (despite the inconvenience) because they want them under control. See my essays here http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/political_power_flowing_from_t.html and here http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0708/0708drillingconsright.htm

And to force them onto those public conveyances they have to find a way to get people to stop driving. How? Make private vehicles too expensive to operate.

The sad fact is that alternative energy is no more wanted than fossil fuels; if they show enough promise they will be demogogued to death. What is wanted is a less energy-intensive lifestyle, a world where people stay put, where people eat what they are told, do what they are told. It is a world where people do not use air conditioning, where people use light sparingly, where Man can return to that pastoral paradise of which the gang green dreams. It is the opinion of many in the environmentalist movement that civilization has alienated Man from nature, and that nature is inherently good, so Man's suffering is caused by his civilization. Break it! Once the evil western lifestyle is destroyed Man can rebuild on a foundation in tune with the natural.

Of course, the natural was not and will never be there for Man's benefit; we are fitted to it, it is not fitted to us. How many starry-eyed adventurers have wandered off into the bush to live off the land, only to die of starvation or from exposure to the elements? Take the famous case of Chris McCandless; a young and angry man, he spent time tramping around America for several years before heading into the wilderness in Alaska. He was found dead from starvation in an abandoned school bus.
http://www.christophermccandless.info/

McCandless had survived in the lower 48 states as a parasite, feeding off of the refuse of civilization and the kindness of strangers. Once in the true wilderness he found the going not so easy. Nature did not care about him one way or another. There was no natural paradise.

He made a natural mistake; he believed what he read by liberals. A huge devotee of Thoreau and Jack London, McCandless believed the liberal utopian vision (London was a communist, although he did portray Alaska as brutal) and had it in his mind that he was "destroying the false being within" which is nonsense to the natural world. But his unhappiness in the world of his parents led him to seek paradise in the world, something that nobody will ever find. He left civilization, which is the world created by men to protect them from the really bad things that nature entails, and met his end.

He is hardly alone in this; people have been finding it impossible to survive in the wild for a long time.

There was a guy named Dick Proenneke who went to live in isolation in Alaska and succeeded - and he became a folk hero to the back to the land movement. But they were shocked by the fact that he hunted animals to survive; they thought surely he must be vegan, or at least vegetarian. But man cannot survive in the wilderness - especially that far north - without killing and eating animals. Nature is sharp of tooth and claw, and Man must be the sharpest or he will perish. There is a reason why Homo Sapiens is the only surviving member of the species hominid. Even Neanderthal Man, a very bright and capable species, is extinct (although it is believed they interbred with Cro-Magnon, so many of our liberal friends are likely decended from them). Humans are pretty incompetent in nature; we need the tribe around us, which means we need some sort of civilization. Life in the wild without it is painful, uncomfortable, hungry, cold, hot, and short.

But Proenneke was different; he was friends with a brush pilot who came on a regular basis, delivering supplies without which Proenneke would have starved. Proenneke needed all manner of things, and received them on a regular basis. He used tar paper and polyethelyne for the roof of his cabin. He used gasoline for his lights. He imported bullets for hunting. He purchased clothes, tools, canned goods, bulk food items. He was a part of civilization; he just hid himself. He did not try to go it alone.

McCandless and many others tried to do this and failed.

So, Man needs civilization. If nothing else, civilizations protects us from predators including other people. Yet the fundamental goal of the Greens is to dismantle that civilization on the theory that things were better under the tyranny of nature. This utopianism bespeaks a fundamental sense of paradise lost. The Apostle Paul spoke of this when he said that man was condemned regardless of being told about God, because nature speaks to us; there is a moral code, as C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, and that code cannot be said to derive from any natural causes (read the book to read the arguements; I don't have time for it here). At any rate, the utopian left feels in their gut that something is fundamentally wrong with us and our condition, but instead of seeking answers in religion they seek it in a quasi religion, in a form of nature worship. Even the atheistic left does this, worshipping science as God because they BELIEVE there must be answers somewhere. They simply cannot accept that there is a judge, and they won't accept that nature is so unkind.

The only answer the Gang Green can find is in the Nature that has so spurned us; if man is inherently good and perfectible, it must be our civilization that is bad. They simply will not question that fundamental assumption. Christianity says Man is not inherently good, nor is nature.

But that way lies either God or madness, so the liberal will not face it. He prefers to live in a fiction, a world of his own making, one where his labors eventually bear the fruits of the Garden of Eden, only this one without God or the serpent. An eden of his own making. He has to "destroy the false being within" and to do that he has to destroy the false being without.

The process of becoming can be awfully destructive.

But getting back to the subject of biofuels, there is no more desire for them than for oil or gas among liberals; it was a will-of-the-wisp designed to trick the masses into abandoning our current fuels. Once those fuels are gone the bios will be targeted. This is about control, nothing more.

Rabbit Police

Mike W.

The next time you hear of an e-coli outbreak you can sleep better knowing the USDA has spared no expense in chasing down and apprehending magicians without a license to handle rabbits. It is also after anyone who sells rabbits and makes more then $500in said sales. The fine for such an outrageous and grievous act can go as high as $90,000.
http://bobmccarty.com/2011/05/25/usda-rabbit-police-stalking-magicians/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=usda-rabbit-police-stalking-magicians

As is well. The USDA is on the job!!!

The Angel of Death Visits Missouri

Timothy Birdnow

"That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses."

Ex11:27

There may not have been any Smitten Egyptians yesterday, but there was certainly a smoting, and this passage is entirely mete. The Angel of Death passed over us yesterday here in St. Louis. He came in many guises and from many directions, a legion of destruction marching through our city from the south, the north, and the west, ever eager to reach across the great river to visit death and destruction to those of the prairies of Illinois.

Last Sunday an F-5 tornado formed directly on top of the city of Joplin in the southwestern corner of Missouri, demolishing Joplin like a child demolishes a cities of tinker toys. On Good friday last month we were visited by a band of tornadoes here in St. Louis, and large swaths of the metropolitan area - particularly around Lambert St. Louis International Airport - were destroyed in their fury. My own father, working as a security guard in an office building in Bridgeton, was spared what would likely have been death; a tornado went right down the street, destroying homes on the other side of the street and sparing his building. He sits at the guard station in front of the great wall of glass...

Yesterday looked to be even worse.

They came on like avenging angels, or demons escaped from the Bottomless Pit, in a series of waves. Hail, from pea sized up to softball sized and larger, plummeted from the skies, breaking windshields and windows. One news channel had a photograph of four pairs of arms holding a hailstone larger than a basketball. Lightning was visible, although not our main concern; too much of the storm's energy was diverted to the tornadoes. Rain fell sporadically. The skies lightened then darkened until day turned to night.

I was in Dutchtown when I saw it. Dutchtown is a crumbly old section of south St. Louis, a place formerly inhabited by German immigrants (now long gone; it's part of the ghetto). I was there to show an apartment, and the woman who made the appointment was late. She called the office and they asked me to wait, although it was clear she had no idea where this was located. (They often don't.) I waited, against my better judgement. Radio reports made it clear that a tornado had been seen in Arnold, a suburb due south of the city, and a funnel cloud was moving north along I55 through Affton - headed straight for me. When hail began to drop I decided it was time to go.

There it was; moving at 35 miles per hour and coming from the southeast; a funnel cloud. Angry black with a swirl and a tail nipping at the ground, it walked along the Earth like some great monster from prehistory. I was torn; I wanted to SEE it and yet knew the sensible thing was to seek shelter immediately, because that thing could spawn a demon tornado, but I so wanted to get a good view of it. I had a camera; perhaps a photo of a tornado being born would present itself? I thought to stop the car and watch it pass, but caution overrode my wrecklessness. Men who fail to listen to their instincts end up dead. I drove on, giving the beast a wide berth.

But it was heading directly north, and was likely to shake hands with my mother. I called her, warning her to get into the basement and stay there. It took a while for the beast to leave the north county area, but it never turned into the tornado everyone feared. We were spared.

In fact, much of the metropolitan area was spared. Like the Angel 0f Death, this murderous storm seemed to pass us over.

But I fear for Illinois; it was warm and sunny, and southern Illinois is a wide, flat prairie (except in the far south, the "Little Egypt" area, where Illinois' Ozark Mountains will give them some protection) and perfect ground for tornadoes. Indiana offers little better, and so was likely scraped like an icy windshield by these terrible storms.

Joplin is still searching through the rubble for survivors; 1500 people are missing. Fortunately, the storm front did not choose to damage this place any further.

Barack Hussein Obama took a moment out of his busy schedual of drinking Guinness and pretending to be an Irishman (I'm of the Connamara O'Bama's, don't ye know!) to send condolences. He has sent FEMA to the scene, although it's unclear whether he has formalized a national state of emergency for the community. He's likely to be a bit more responsive to Joplin than to the communities in Mississippi and Alabama; Missouri is a swing state, and he has to take care of some Democrats - such as Claire McCaskill - who are in tough re-election bids. Also, Joplin was a community that tended to vote Democratic. Now, if this had happened in Joanne Emerson's solidly red district in Southeastern Missouri...

George Bush was criticized fiercely for not returning to Washington on August 30, the day the Levees in New Orleans broke, yet here Obama is enjoying himself in Europe for a solid week, and the media makes no mention of the fact. Why didn't he return immediately? Why not after two days? Bush overflew the affected area on Friday, three days after the disaster; Obama can't seem to be bothered. He'll visit Joplin on Sunday, a solid week after the catastrophe. His visit is counterproductive; security will clog up streets and block access to emergency services. Large digging machines are trying to sift through the rubble to rescue trapped people. All this activity will constitute a security risk, so doubtless these rescue workers will be pulled off the job to protect the President. Better he should stay home, but the anointed one will not miss this photo-op.

At any rate, Obama's presence in Joplin is much like the flies buzzing around the destroyed buildings looking for corpses (yes, Mr. President, you DO pronounce that corpses in this case); he's just another carrion eating parasite. Better he remain in Europe, where he feels comfortably at home anyway.

We have dodged a major bullet in Missouri yesterday. One must wonder at this; was it pure luck, or did the prayers of the faithful spare the city? Was this a warning for Americans to repent? We have certainly changed the incorruptible God for corruption in all forms, and may be reaping the penalty thereof. America has decline morally, and too many people saw nothing wrong with that. Remember Bill Clinton? People thought his immorality was humorous, and re-elected him knowing he was a shameful man. America voted for Obama, not bothering to acquaint themselves with his support for partial birth abortion because they wanted someone to restore the economy i.e. they cared nary a wit about placing a mass murderer in office if he could fix their 401K's. For years we have not cared about what is righteous, but what is pleasant to us. Perhaps we are receiving a warning; repent or have God's protection withdrawn? We have seen our economy collapse, and now nature is punishing our land. Entirely natural, of course, as I have made the case repeatedly, but supernatural, perhaps?

Mysticism aside, we have a lot of hard work cleaning up, and we will have to fight the cockroaches on the Left who will use this disaster to their advantage. We are much like Nehemiah, who had to post guards on the walls of Jerusalem to protect the workers who were rebuilding the city. We'll have to rebuild the physical structures, and fight the liberals who will try to seduce the public with claims that this is a result of global warming, and demand that we centralize everything. It's a tough road ahead.

But as for me, I offer a prayer of thanksgiving, for the Angel of Death has passed over. We have been spared. At least for now.

TANJ - Al Roker Blames Joplin Tornado on Global Warming

Timothy Birdnow

Sometimes I despair of this world; the most ignorant people seem to rise to the top, a sort of reverse cream effect. Take, for instance, Al Roker...

Somebody please take Al Roker - as in away in a straightjacket.

The likable television meteorologist from the Today Show has blamed the recent spate of tornadoes on, drumroll please, Global Warming!
http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/23/nbcs-al-roker-climate-change-bringing-tornadoes-to-urban-areas/

Now, Mr. Roker is a meteorologist (a profession far more skeptical of "climate change" than their climatological cousins) and should know better. Tornadoes are not caused by warm air but by cold air, and in this instance by La Nina spinning cold air off the Pacific. If one wishes to blame climate change in any capacity one can say it is global cooling, not warming, that is the cause of these tornado strikes. Be that as it may, Roker surely must understand that a strong La Nina cannot be construed as proof that the globe is warming.

The reality is, there has been no statistical warming since 1995, and even if one wants to claim that the cold air is meeting unusually warm air the case cannot be made. What case can be made is we are at the peak of a 40 year cycle, and that this seems unusual to us because we have gotten used to a quiet tornadic season; the last fifty years have been very quiet, while humans have been busily building up areas that would have been rural backwaters. Naturally we are seeing high death tolls, because we have more people in the path of these storms.

Global Warming fails as a theory; the projected hot spot in the troposphere is not there (and all models require this), the oceans are not really heating up, the planetary ice balance is not down (yes, it's down some places and up in others), the oceans actually DROPPED last year, and we have not witnessed any long term increase in the rate of sea level rise. That all the measurable metrics have paused cannot be accounted for by CO2 as the primary forcing. We also now know that the temperature record is horribly corrupted. There has been purposeful manipulations by insiders of the data sets (CRU).

Roker should know this.

Roker should also know that coincidence is not causality, and that weather is not climate. Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn predicted this very spate of tornadoes based on solar activity:
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=347&c=5

"MAJOR TORNADO OUTBREAK: NWS ISSUED OVER 110 TORNADO WARNINGS SO FAR TODAY; OVER 45 TORNADO REPORTS **OVER 30 REPORTED DEATHS**

75% #Joplin Destroyed http://t.co/96xmJ1w in 4th #tornado swarm of year.
Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist of WeatherAction.com said: "May's tornado count was below normal up to this date so we are very pleased with this dramatic confirmation of our explicitly forecasted dangerous and tornado swarm which has come in the regions we predicted when we said to within a Day. This continues our 100% success rate in EXTREME EVENT / tornado USA warnings in April and May which is so far 11/11 (7/7 for April* & 4/4 for May so far). We successfully predicted all 4 of the major tornado outbreaks / swarms so far this season.
Our sympathies go to all those who have suffered in this dangerous deadly outbreak and hope that in future the Authorities can use our forecasts to be better prepared for such dangerous weather events.
* See http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews11No7.pdf & bit.ly/mMXcEm (for Earthquakes)"

End excerpt.

This was not based on increases in greenhouse gases, mind you, but observations of the sun. The sun is the principle forcing of the climate. Surely Roker understands that?

Apparently not.

On the Martin Bushir show, Roker:

"Roker also offered a theory on why tornadoes are seemingly touching down in more urban areas as of late. His answer: Climate change.

“And you know look – yesterday, or the day before yesterday, we had the tornado in Minneapolis,” Roker said. “We have had these tornadoes and earlier this week we had a tornado in Philadelphia. And so, you know our weather, or climate change is such now that we are seeing this kind of weather not just in rural parts of our country, but in urban centers as well.”'

End excerpt.

And this fellow is on national television as a meteorologist?

Science fiction writer Larry Niven coined a term for it TANJ or There Ain't No Justice. It applies here; Roker should be doing readings at weather stations or filing data in some backwater office, not misinforming millions of people.

TANJ is right!

A Popular Delusion and the Madness of Climate Science

Timothy Birdnow

Here is a good piece by William Happer that gives a general overview of what is wrong with Global Warming theory - and climatology as it is currently defined.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-truth-about-greenhouse-gases

From the beginning of the article, a quote from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds:

"The object of the Author in the following pages has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics which have been excited, sometimes by one cause and sometimes by another, and to show how easily the masses have been led astray, and how imitative and gregarious men are, even in their infatuations and crimes,” wrote Charles Mackay in the preface to the first edition of his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I want to discuss a contemporary moral epidemic: the notion that increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, will have disastrous consequences for mankind and for the planet. The “climate crusade” is one characterized by true believers, opportunists, cynics, money-hungry governments, manipulators of various types—even children’s crusades—all based on contested science and dubious claims."

End excerpt.

Global Warming is an attempt to stampede people. As Happer points out:

"I began with a quotation from the preface of the first edition of Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and it is worth recalling now a quotation from the preface of the second edition: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”'

And that about sums up the generation-long War of the Worlds scare nicely.

Liberal Doomsday Predictions just as Nutty

Dana Mathewson

This article tells it like it is. The MSM and the rest of the left is beating up on that poor old Rev. Harold Camping, who merely said the end of the world was gonna be last weekend, based on faith-based mathematics. Prager says that "science-based" predictions from the left over the years are much more ridiculous. http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2011/05/24/when_it_comes_to_doomsdays,_the_left_shouldnt_laugh_at_the_religious

And, of course, he's correct.

(A note from Tim; the end of the world happens every day for someone. Why do we need an apocalypse to force us to take stock of things?)

The Apocalypse in Joplin

Timothy Birdnow

Let us all pray for the city of Joplin, Missouri, which was recently destroyed by a terrible twister.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/23/liveblog-tornado-destroys-most-of-joplin-missouri/

The tornado, which may be as strong as a category 5, touched down directly on top of Joplin, for those who are not aware.

I cannot imagine the horror of such a thing. I am sorely tempted to go there to see it, but then the best thing I can do for them is to NOT go and gawk; they need clear roads and routes for the supplies.

President Obama is going to give a speech there on Sunday http://m.ibtimes.com/joplin-tornado-obama-to-visit-missouri-151399.html, from what I am given to understand, and the surviving residents aren't pleased; he could have given them comfort right away, but now he is going to come in with a huge staff and lots of security, tying up the facilities these people need to survive, solely to make a political statement. And people complained about the slow response of George W. Bush to Katrina...

My friend 7lb Dave lived in Joplin for several years, and I've been there a few times. It's a city, not just a town, and there was an older downtown area that was ripe for destruction; old buildings not especially well maintained. It was kind of a shabby place, really, although the southern outskirts was full of well-to-do residents with nice homes. Had the feel of a college town in those parts because of Missouri Southern State University, I guess (a small college, but a college).

It really is an astonishingly awful thing. There is a lot of concern here and throughout the state, so I suspect it's not going to resemble Katrina and New Orleans, but with Obama putting his grubby hands in it you never know. The town is fairly well served in terms of roads and does not have the problems New Orleans had with levees and the like. As long as the roads remain clear help will get through.

Which brings up an interesting tidbit; yesterday on our local conservative radio they were interviewing a guy who runs a tree service (Jeff Hansen, of Hansen's Tree Service) who wanted to bring heavy equipment down to Joplin to help dig out. These big digging machines are used to remove whole trees, the big ones, but they cannot be moved on roads without a special permit. The permit office closes on Friday afternoon and reopens Monday morning - so they had to wait until the wheels of bureaucracy began to turn to send rescue equipment. Just more proof that the government acts to restrain the enterprise of the people.

At any rate, the official death toll is 116, although radio reports have it as high as 300, with as many as 1500 missing. http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2011/05/breaking-8-year-old-child-found-alive-in-joplin-wreckage-shingles-wedged-in-his-abdomen/ That Reverend Camping fellow may have been dead wrong about the end of the world, but it sure looks like he was spot in Joplin; the city is decimated. As Dana Mathewson so plaintively asks, what could they possibly have done to deserve that? It is horrible.

Donations can be made to the Salvation Army www.salvationarmy.org, the American Red Cross www.redcross.org, or any other worthy organization. The residents will need money, food, water, clothing, just about everything. Please be generous; these people have lost it all.

And prayers; these will be a most precious relief that can be given. The poorest among us can at least make THAT donation. Nonbelievers can pray by discussing this with others, asking them to help.

Such disasters make us understand the fragility of this proud civilization we have built.

Desperate Compound Wives

Dana Mathewson

OBL's three wives are in custody, of course. And they aren't getting along very well, it seems. Gee, I'm surprised. Aren't you? http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20VI/MAY%202011/23.WIVES.HTML

FTA:

THE three widows of Osama bin Laden are turning on each other in custody, with two older Saudi women blaming a much younger Yemeni wife for leading American intelligence to their hideout.
"It's vicious," said a Pakistani official briefed on the interrogation of the widows. "The older wives think the younger one tipped off the Americans or was tracked when she came to join him."

[...]

Pakistani officials who have been debriefing the women portray life in the compound as an Islamic version of Desperate Housewives.

"It's a well-known fact that when you have two older wives and then this young one comes along half their age, they don't like it," said one.

Alan Caruba Echoes Tim at Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

Alan Caruba has a piece at Canada Free Press that dovetails with my own. See mine here http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/36794 and his here http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/36808

From the article:

"To be a nation, it has to have been founded and it has to have specific borders. It has to have a capitol, major cities, an economy and currency of its own, and a stable government. It has to be recognized as a nation by other nations. None of these factors exists for the so-called West Bank and Gaza.

If the so-called Palestinians deserve their own state, why not the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey, and many other groups that could be deemed equally deserving?

What is referred to as Palestine is the wholly-owned creation of the United Nations through its UN Relief Works Agency, a strange invention that has existed solely to maintain the Arabs in the two areas mentioned as permanent refugees for generations. Sustained by millions in “relief” after the areas in question were lost in wars perpetrated against and lost to Israel in 1948 and 1967

There is never any mention of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who, over the course of the wars against Israel, became real refugees, forced to flee to Israel from Arab nations. In 1948, 140,000 fled Algeria, 75,000 fled Egypt, 135,000 fled Iraq, and 265,000 fled Morocco, along with others from Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. They were absorbed by Israel.

The West Bank and Gaza, historically part of Israel, are myths created to regain territory lost in the wars waged against Israel by Jordan and Egypt. In the 1967 war, Jordanians were driven out of Judea/Samaria and out of Jerusalem. The Gaza Strip had been occupied by Egypt. The Golan Heights had originally been ceded to Syria by a British-French agreement and likewise was lost to Syria in war.

The suggestion that Israel “return” to its 1967 borders is ludicrous. Obama might just as well suggest that Texas, the Southwest and California be returned to Mexico. All were prizes of war. All constituted parts of the North American continent settled by British and European immigrants to the New World."

End excerpt.

Goes to show great minds think alike! Also, it illustrates that anyone who BOTHERS to learn a little history should be able to see clearly that this whole fiction of a Palestine is ludicrous.

Be sure to read them both.

Commander Barack

Timothy Birdnow

This fits Barack Obama perfectly:

- The World of Commander McBragg

This is the World of Commander McBragg
Your hair will curl in the World of McBragg.
He fights monsters galore
And then asks for still more
Or so says the brag of McBragg.

When on the hill the marines plant a flag
They may be led by Commander McBragg.
With a cannon in hand
He can beat any band
Or so says the brag of McBragg.

Fencing and fighting and round table knighting
And slaying of dragons, too.
Shipping and sailing and great harpoon whaling
There's nothing McBragg can't do.
Hunting and trapping and gold miner mapping
And flying to Timbuktu.
Roping and riding and Indian guiding
Commander McBragg comes through.

This is the World of Commander McBragg
Your head will whirl in the World of McBragg.
He can do anything
In his world he's a king
Or so says the brag of McBragg.

End

This was the theme song to Commander McBragg, a cartoon from the old days. It was with the old Tennessee Tuxedo, Jay Ward's (of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame) Hoppity Hooper, and other cartoons from around 1963. Commander McBragg was a stuffed shirt Englishman with shaggy eyebrows who harangued a poor member of his gentleman's club with tall tales of his derring-do. He generally performed superhuman feats.

The show always opened with a spinning globe and McBragg, pipe in mouth, forcing an unwilling man to listen to his ridiculous boasting.

After Bambi's "most courageous decision of any president ever" assassination of Osama Bin-Laden, we have been treated to braggadoccia that makes McBragg pale in comparison. Maybe we should start calling him Commander Barack?

Svensmark is Right; Experiment Shows Cosmic Rays Create Clouds

Timothy Birdnow

Cosmic rays can indeed increase cloud cover and reduce planetary temperatures, according to new research at Aarhus University and the National Space Institute.
http://science.au.dk/en/news-and-events/news-article/artikel/forskere-fra-au-og-dtu-viser-at-partikler-fra-rummet-skaber-skydaekke/

From the article:

"With the new results just published in the recognised journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists have succeeded for the first time in directly observing that the electrically charged particles coming from space and hitting the atmosphere at high speed contribute to creating the aerosols that are the prerequisites for cloud formation.

The more cloud cover occurring around the world, the lower the global temperature – and vice versa when there are fewer clouds. The number of particles from space vary from year to year – partly controlled by solar activity. An understanding of the impact of cosmic particles – consisting of electrons, protons and other charged particles – on cloud formation and thereby the number of clouds, is therefore very important as regards climate models."

End excerpt.

As anyone who has followed the Global Warming debate knows, Heinrick Svensmark theorized that the warming observed in the latter half of the 20th century was driven by an active solar period; the solar wind was strong, sweeping cosmic rays away from the Earth. In a period of low solar activity those rays would contribute to cloud formation, and these clouds would reflect sunlight, cooling the planet. The sun just finished a Grand Solar Maximum http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/700/2/937%20, and has moved into a very quiet period.

We now have evidence that Svensmark was right.

Calculations on solar forcing suggest that solar energy output is inadequate to explain the temperature rise of the 20th century, and greenhouse forcing is used to explain the difference. Using satellites, Nasa calculated Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) at 1.366 kilowatts per square meter (kW/m²) although that has been revised down to 1361 W/m2 (perhaps because of the ending of the Grand Maximum?)

Between 1910 and 1940 there was an increase in TSI from 1365.5 to 1366 Wm-2

But much of the warming has occured in the latter half of the century, and the increase in irradiation cannot account for it. There is to be expected a lag time as the great mass of the planet slowly warms.

Svensmark's theory suggests that the sun can affect planetary temperatures in ways other than through direct solar forcing. Cosmic rays, he thinks, can drive the formation of clouds, and a strong solar wind can cause a dearth of them; the planet is cooler when clouds are heavy and warmer when they are absent. We are using a baseline that assumes the planetary albedo (reflectivity) remains constant, and Svensmark argues that is not the case. A lower planetary albedo means a warmer world.

By the way, the Russians are predicting a deep minimum for the TSI around 2055 and a cold period as a result.
http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/e_Abdussamatov.html

At any rate, Svensmark's theory about cosmic rays have no been validated in the lab. What other forcings are we missing? The Earth's magnetic field is tethered to the Suns, and it ebbs and flows as a result of internal activity in the Sun. Does that affect planetary temperature? What about micro meteor bombardments as the Earth moves through cluttered sections of space?

There is an awful lot we do not know, and a lot that is not in those dandy computer models. I discussed a good deal of this at American Thinker a while back.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/07/the_thunder_and_the_firecracke.html

The problem with models is that they have limited variables input, and so much of what we are learning is not input. Imagine if you will a model train set with no wheels; it won't move, and someone who doesn't know what a train is would conclude that they are stationary objects. One small change can make a huge difference.

But, then, an even greater difference can be made if the model maker is purposefully leaving things out, or purposely adding them. We know this has been happening; "hide the decline" from the CRU e-mail scandal shows that at least some scientists have been actively trying to distort the models.

But the Truth will out. Let's hope.

The Line of the Week

Jack Kemp

From Terry Paulson at Townhall.com
http://townhall.com/columnists/terrypaulson/2011/05/23/time_for_truth_telling_and_common_sense_solutions/page/2

Are we the country of “Yes I Can” or “Yes the Government Can?”

Paulson continues:

We need a candidate that will echo the populist message of Ronald Reagan’s optimism—“It’s the people who make America great!” Big government has worked hard to destroy individual responsibility and opportunity, because it is dependent citizens who keep liberals in power. It’s time for smaller government and more empowered citizens. If we’re to remain the land of the free and the home of the brave, candidates must champion the American Dream and challenge workers, entrepreneurs and investors to create their own economic recovery and more private sector jobs.

Columnist echoes Dana's friend's idea

Jack Kemp

Dana Mathewson's friend Barry Mitchel had an idea, posted at this website, about rolling back America's borders much like Obama wants Israel to roll back theirs. Now Mike Adams at Townhall.com has essentially the same idea.


Here is a link and the opening lines from Adam's article.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2011/05/23/time_for_america_to_roll_back_its_borders

Mike Adams
Time for America to Roll Back Its Borders
Dear President Obama:


I am writing today with a somewhat unusual request. Actually, it is a series of requests. First and foremost, I will be asking that you return America to its August 20th, 1959 borders so that Hawaii is no longer a state and you are no longer a citizen. I make this request because I don’t like your policies and I don’t like you. If I sound like I’m asking for too much just be patient. I’m only getting started.


I am also asking that you sell the State of Washington to the Canadians. I’ve only been to Washington twice – once to Seattle and once to Spokane. The former was full of liberals and the latter was full of the most aggressive panhandlers I’ve ever seen. It rained on both of my trips to Washington and I really have no use for rainy places.

E.J. Dionne pulls a Boehner over Catholic Doctrine

Timothy Birdnow

E.J. Dionne wades into the issue involving John Boehner and the Catholic academics who slammed him over the budget.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lessons-for-the-media-the-bishops-and-john-boehner/2011/05/22/AFQx5L9G_story.html

I send him the following e-mail:

Dear Mr. Dionne,

I fear your colleagues understood this situation better than you; they were wise not to make an issue of the attack by these academics.

First off, being a teacher at a Catholic University does not even require that you be Catholic, much less well versed in Church doctrine.

Second, these liberal academics chose to make this public, meaning they intended this to be a political attack, not an attempt to seek Mr. Boehner's repentence (they would have been duty bound to approach him privately first if that were the case).

It should be pointed out that Democrat Catholics Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, the late Ted Kennedy, and others did not seem to bother these loyal defenders of the faith despite opposing the Church on a fundamental matter of Faith and Morals - abortion. Abortion is clear cut. HOW we perform acts of charity is a matter of private conscience, and it can be argued that government forcibly taking money from one citizen to give to another is not Christian in any way, shape, or form. They simply cannot claim the mantle of Catholic dogma here, and I suspect your media friends understood that fact.

Perhaps you should read my article in The American Thinker about this topic.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/05/the_cruelty_of_caesars_charity.html

Best regards,

Timothy Birdnow

I'm curious if he'll respond.

This is vintage for liberals, who seem at a complete loss over Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, but are quick to use it as a tool for political advancement. Not bothering to see what the Catholic position on these matters really are, many rush headlong into the fray because they believe what self-styled "experts" say. There really is nothing better than to think for yourself, to do your own homework, yet too many in the establishment media think proof-reading for typos is the biggest challenge to writing. It always annoys me, because they make their living by churning out mindless, effortless works while many excellent and dilligent conservative writers scribble away in their homes for no money.

A man of Mr. Dionne's stature should have understood that there wasn't a whole lot of media fanfare because this was too easy to refute.

But, then, it's always easy to live in the liberal micro-verse, the black hole cut off from the universe at large.

Palestinians? What Palestinians! At Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

Who are the Palestinians? Are they the ancient inhabitants of the land, the original Canaanites? Are they decended from the Phillistines, as many of them claim? What legal claims to the land do they hold? I examine all of this in a new piece at Canada Free Press.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/36794

As a Real Estate guy, I am mindful of the legal definitions of ownership of real property - and Palestinian claims to ownership of the land is weak, while Jewish claims are strong. Read all about it!

Palestinians? What Palestinians! At Canada Free Press

Timothy Birdnow

Who are the Palestinians? Are they the ancient inhabitants of the land, the original Canaanites? Are they decended from the Phillistines, as many of them claim? What legal claims to the land do they hold? I examine all of this in a new piece at Canada Free Press.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/36794

As a Real Estate guy, I am mindful of the legal definitions of ownership of real property - and Palestinian claims to ownership of the land is weak, while Jewish claims are strong. Read all about it!

Once in awhile Hillary does something right

Dana Mathewson

According to William Katz, this time she did it 100% right. And I agree. She refused to meet with Jimmy Carter. Good on her, I say. http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20VI/MAY%202011/17.RIGHT.HTML

This group, called "The Elders," and consisting of Carter, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Irish President Mary Robinson, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland, Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi, sounds to me like it ought to be organizing classes in flower-arranging -- or perhaps trips to concerts by Peter, Paul and Mary (or Pete Seeger).

Helicopter Landing

Dana Mathewson

This is the kind of thing "our boys" get good at. Wouldn't you love to see just one Washington bureaucrat, who thinks he's so damn smart, riding in a seat in this chopper and managing to keep his lunch down?
--

Subject: Fwd: Helicopter Landing

I thought it was rather interesting landing on a CV/CVS, but this sure is a real challenge.

Imagine catching up to a ship moving into the wind at 20kts with a gusty 30 knot headwind and gusts moving over the cabin at 50+ gusting to 0 or Stopping and pitching up and down 15' or more, these pilots have their work cut out for them syncing these movements is just about nuts, and this is just a test to see if the machine is capable. MOVIE ONLY: NO SOUND!


http://www.prismdefence.com.au/index.htm

Panetta tells the CIA to stop talking about Bin Laden raid

Dana Mathewson

... or face legal action. But has he told Zippy? He's the one going on his "summer I Killed bin Laden tour," as one of the posters on Lucianne.com calls it.

I'm sending the link to the specific item on Lucianne.com, including the discussion thread. It's one of the most intelligent you'll encounter so far, of course. http://www.lucianne.com/thread/?artnum=616426

The actual AP article is found at http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cia-director-tells-workforce-to-stop-talking-about-bin-laden-raid-_-or-face-legal-action/2011/05/18/AFlP3k6G_story.html

If you ask me, this is a case of too-little, too-late, since Zippy has been going around claiming all sorts of credit. Before long I fully expect to hear him say that he was there and fired at least one of the fatal shots.

(Tell me -- doesn't Panetta's name translate to "Little Bread?")

Diplomatic Cable Discusses North American Union

Timothy Birdnow

Wikileaks has found a smoking gun correspondence between Washington and Ottawa making plans for a North American Union.
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2005/01/05OTTAWA268.html

Here is an excerpted part of the cable (Thanks to World Net Daily):

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 OTTAWA 000268

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE FOR WHA/CAN - BREESE AND HOLST

WHITE HOUSE/NSC - SHIRZAD

STATE PASS USTR FOR CHANDLER

USDOC FOR 4320/OFFICE OF NAFTA/GWORD/TFOX;
3134/OIO/WESTERN HEMISPHERE

TREASURY FOR IMI

GENEVA FOR USTR

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ETRD EINV CA
SUBJECT: PLACING A NEW NORTH AMERICAN INITIATIVE
IN ITS ECONOMIC POLICY CONTEXT

REF: (A) 04 Ottawa 3431 (Regulatory agenda)

(B) 04 Ottawa 066 (Canadian trade policy)


SUMMARY/INTRODUCTION
--------------------

¶1. THIS MESSAGE IS SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. NOT FOR
DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE USG CHANNELS.

¶2. (SBU) An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks
for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain
the most support among Canadian policymakers. Our research
leads us to conclude that such a package should tackle both
"security" and "prosperity" goals. This fits the
recommendations of Canadian economists who have assessed the
options for continental integration. While in principle
many of them support more ambitious integration goals, like
a customs union/single market and/or single currency, most
believe the incremental approach is most appropriate at this
time, and all agree that it helps pave the way to these
goals if and when North Americans choose to pursue them.

¶3. (SBU) The economic payoff of the prospective North
American initiative - in terms of higher incomes and greater
competitiveness - is available, but its size and timing are
unpredictable, so it should not be oversold. Still, a
respectable economic case has been made for such an
initiative, and this message spells it out. We believe
that, given growing Canadian concern about "border risk" and
its effects on investment, a focus on the "security" side
could also produce the most substantial economic/trade
benefits.

End excerpt.

The ruling class and media have laughed off suggestions that there were plans to build this socialist european-style entity, yet here we have proof they are plotting this behind our backs. This is treason, and should be treated as such.

Here is the rest of the Wikileaks excerpt:

CANADIAN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE
-----------------------------

¶4. (SBU) Canadian economists in business, academia and
government have given extensive thought to the possible
options for further North American integration. Nearly all
of this work assumes that each of the three countries is
pursuing standard economic policy goals - growth,
productivity and competitiveness (rather than more specific
concerns raised by Mexican analysts such as migration
management, regional development, or environmental
protection). Since 9/11, Canadian economists working in
this area have generally endorsed a comprehensive initiative
with the United States on security, trade, and immigration.
Following is our summary of the professional consensus:

PROCESS: At this time, an "incremental" approach to
integration is probably better than a "big deal"
approach. However, governments should focus on
choosing their objectives, and not on choosing a
process.

BORDER VS. PERIMETER: Even with zero tariffs, our land
borders have strong commercial effects. Some of these
effects are positive (such as law enforcement and data
gathering), so our governments may always want to keep
some kind of land border in place. Canada and the
United States already share a security perimeter to
some degree; it is just a question of how strong we
want to make it.

BORDER RISK: The risk that business will be obstructed
at the border by discretionary U.S. actions, such as
measures to defend against terrorism or infectious
disease, in addition to growing congestion, have become
major risks to the economy, inhibiting investment in
Canada. For small businesses, the complexities of
navigating the border are apparently even more
intimidating than the actual costs. Reducing this risk
is Canada's top motive for pursuing further
integration.

LABOR MARKETS: Many Canadian economists point to labor
markets - both within and among countries - as the
factor market where more liberalization would deliver
the greatest economic benefits for all three countries.
They advocate freeing up professional licensing laws,
and developing a quick, simple, low-cost work permit
system, at least for U.S. and Canadian citizens.

REGULATION: Canadian economists agree that Canadian
regulations (if not their standards, then their
complexity) are needlessly restricting foreign
investment and impeding food, communications and other
industries. (Inter-provincial differences are
important here, since Canada's federal government does
not have the benefit of a U.S.-style "interstate
commerce" clause). While much of the problem is
domestic in nature, an international initiative could
help to catalyze change.

CUSTOMS UNION: A common external tariff, or a customs
union which eliminated NAFTA's rules of origin (ROO),
is economically desirable. NAFTA's ROO are so
restrictive that importers often prefer to pay the
tariff rather than try to prove North American origin.
However, economists differ on the size of the benefits
available and on whether these would justify the effort
of negotiation. One study estimated that a full
customs union which eliminated ROO would only raise
national income by about one percent.

CURRENCY UNION: Canadian economists are split on
whether a return to a fixed exchange rate, or adopting
the U.S. dollar, would benefit Canada in current
circumstances. (Canada last tied its dollar to the
U.S. dollar from 1962 to 1970). The central bank
governor has taken the position that "monetary union is
an issue that should be considered once we have made
more progress towards establishing a single market."


NORTH AMERICAN INTEGRATION: WHAT WE KNOW
-----------------------------------------

¶5. (SBU) Past integration (not just NAFTA but also many
bilateral and unilateral steps) has increased trade,
economic growth, and productivity. Studies suggest
that border efficiency and transportation improvements
(such as the lower cost and increased use of air
freight) have been a huge part of this picture.
Indeed, they may have been more important to our
growing prosperity over the past decade than NAFTA's
tariff reductions. Freight and passenger aviation are
critically important to our continent's
competitiveness, and businesses are very sensitive to
the timing, security, and reliability of deliveries -
hence the "border risk" which so concerns Canadian
policymakers.

¶6. (SBU) A stronger continental "security perimeter"
can strengthen economic performance, mainly by
improving efficiency at land borders and airports. It
could also facilitate future steps toward trilateral
economic integration, such as a common external tariff
or a customs union, if and when our three countries
chose to pursue them. Paradoxically, the security and
law enforcement aspects of the envisioned initiative
could hold as much - or more - potential for broad
economic benefits than the economic dimension.
WHERE'S THE UPSIDE?
-------------------
¶7. (SBU) Some international economic initiatives (such
as FTAs) produce across-the-board measures that
generate broad benefits for a country's industries and
consumers on a known time-line. This was true of NAFTA
but it is less likely to be true of the economic
aspects of the NAI. Non-tariff barriers such as
standards and regulations generally must be tackled one-
by-one. This is a piecemeal process and the ratio of
payoff to effort is likely to be lower than with across-
the-board measures. Governments naturally focus on
resolving the problems which their firms or citizens
bring to their attention. While this approach has
merits, it tends to deliver the payoffs toward
particular interests. If there are hidden costs, there
might be little impact on national performance. As we
move toward a list of barriers to tackle, it will
remain important to balance those interests. For
example, some Canadian economists have suggested that
NAFTA fell short of expectations with respect to
increasing consumer choice in Canada; that may be a
theme we should stress as efforts to promote further
integration take shape.

¶8. (SBU) In contrast, cooperative measures on the
"security" side, a critical focus of current bilateral
efforts, can deliver substantial, early, and
widespread economic benefits. Security and law
enforcement within North America have evolved rapidly
since 9/11, leading to many less-than-perfect processes
for handling legitimate international traffic.
Collaboration to improve these processes could yield
efficiency improvements which would automatically be
spread widely across the economy, leading to general
gains in trade, productivity, and incomes.


A NOTE OF CAUTION
-----------------

¶9. (SBU) There is little basis on which to estimate the
size of the "upside" gains from an integration
initiative concentrating on non-tariff barriers of the
kind contained in NAI. For this reason, we cannot make
claims about how large the benefits might be on a
national or continental scale. When advocating NAI, it
would be better to highlight specific gains to
individual firms, industries or travelers, and
especially consumers.

CELLUCCI

The Energy Crisis Stinks; an Innovative Solution

Timothy Birdnow

It's coming! A new energy source, one that likely has vast supplies, and lies in a largely unusable part of the world. And in the process we can get rid of some of that pesky carbon dioxide that has the Greens in such a tizzy. What is this wonder fuel? Methane.

You heard that right; swamp gas (a fundamental component of flatulence) lies frozen underground in the Arctic and can be extracted by pumping carbon dioxide into the permafrost, forcing the methane out. (Methane hydrate, or methane frozen in a matrix of ice.) Methane can be used in a fashion similar to natural gas.
http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/05/19/pilot-technology-sequesters-co2-as-it-extracts-natural-gas/

While such research may not pass the smell test, it certainly offers us new prospects for the 21st century; there may be more methane hydrate frozen in the permafrost than all of the other fossil fuels combined in the Earth. A methane economy could turn Alaska, Russia, Greenland, Canada into the new (albeit stinky) Saudi Arabias, with extractions being more "green" than other forms of drilling.

Now, bear in mind, burning methane produces carbon dioxide and water, so we end up with a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere - except that the bi-product can be pumped back into the permafrost, giving us a relatively stable fuel. Granted catastrophic global warming is a fiction, but we ARE changing the atmosphere and perhaps it would be better to avoid that then to trust to luck, and this method would get us out of that particular trap. Also, the models predicting catastrophic global warming all depend on this same methane; the melting of the Arctic permafrost is predicted to release this methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas - more powerful than CO2. Why not put that methane to work?

Well, the exchange of gases could be harmful to some microorganisms, and we don't know what that could mean in the long run. But it seems likely to be minimal, and we simply cannot afford to worry about minor ecological changes in light of a burgeoning population and a need to increase the standard of living for the poor worldwide. Without energy growth there is no future, folks. We MUST increase our energy output - and that necessitates tapping new sources. If that means using a catheder on Mother Earth to draw off some Gaian farts, so be it!

Until someone invents cheap fusion we are stuck with fossil fuels; we will never produce enough with fission reactors or solar panels. This looks to be a pretty good source of fuel; let's get on with it.

Just be thankful they'll be drawing this stuff in the Tundra - Pew!

Kagan Crafted Obamacare Defense

Timothy Birdnow

Obama appointed Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan crafted the legal defense for Obama's health care reform scheme.

Ed Morrissey has this to say;

"Just so we’re straight on the timeline here: On March 21, the day ObamaCare was passed, Katyal is inviting Kagan to strategy sessions about the new law. On April 9, John Paul Stevens resigns and speculation erupts about Kagan succeeding him. On May 17, Katyal is suddenly telling people that Kagan’s never been involved in anything — even though she is, in fact, the solicitor general of the United States and even though he explicitly invited her to a meeting about the law less than two months earlier — and Kagan is warning people via e-mail to make sure everyone has their story straight on what she knew by “coordinating.” Is that about right? I want to make sure we’re all square on this nonsense for when the mandate challenge finally reaches the Court and we’re told by her office that everything is magically copacetic."

End excerpt.

And Kagan has no intention of recusing herself from any challenges that come. On the contrary, efforts are underway to claim Clarence Thomas should recuse HIMSELF for some very dubious "conflict of interest" in that Jinny Thomas worked for the Heritage Foundation. She was not directly or indirectly involved in planning court challenges, yet Kagan was clearly intimately involved.

Read the e-mail exchange at Hot Air to see just how intimately involved - and to see how the libs at DOJ plotted to cover her involvement (lie) when her name was floated to succeed John Paul Stevens.

We all know liberals are about power, and what power they can steal; they are true devotees of Machiavelli, or his lefty disciple Saul Alinsky, at any rate. This offers more proof of that assertion.

Shaved or Creosoted

Brian forwards this. It's a fundraising piece, but gives a nice rundown on Obama's economic failures:

[http://news.newsmax.com/images/30224/lavheader.jpg]

Dear Reader:
“Welcome to the Recovery!”
Remember when Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner trumpeted this
condescending blast to Americans in the New York Times last August?
I don’t know about you, but I found it simply infuriating.
Here’s what Geithner said:
The economic rescue package that President Obama put in place was essential to
turning the economy around…
Actions since the fall of 2007 of the Federal Reserve, the White House and
Congress helped save 8.5 million jobs and increased gross domestic product by
6.5 percent relative to what would have happened had we done nothing…
Government action delivered a powerful bang for the buck…
We have put the American economy on a firmer foundation for future growth….
We now know Geithner’s spin was only a stalking horse for Obama’s latest bid to
convince Americans recovery is just around the corner.
But the fact is, recovery in NOT just around the corner. America’s economy is in
deep, deep trouble.
Whistling past the grave yard, as wild government spending and liberal policies
dig the grave deeper by the day, is no economic plan.
It’s a recipe for economic disaster!
What’s more, the national media will never tell the truth about Obama’s failed
economic record.
In fact, they’re hell-bent determined to perpetuate Obama’s fairy tale of
economic recovery, a massive fraud of the highest order.
They want Americans to believe the economy is on the up-and-up, new “green” jobs
just around the corner, and the doubling of the price of gasoline only Big Oil’s
fault.
And the national media gladly echo Obama’s latest tale: full recovery will “take
us several years… we're moving in the right direction.” Stay the course.
But to stay the course would be national suicide. Here are the facts about
Obama’s record on the economy:

* At Obama’s Inauguration, the price at the pump for gas was $1.83. It has
more than DOUBLED since and now some say it could even TRIPLE to $5 or $6 a
gallon!

* The official U.S. unemployment rate has jumped back up to 9%. But this
pathetic number only puts a smiley face on the real misery. Unemployment spikes
to a whopping 15.9% when one counts Americans who’ve grown so discouraged
they’ve given up even looking for work or those who’ve settled for part-time
work (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

* According to Zillow, home prices have plummeted “at their fastest rate
since the Lehman collapse.” Now called “zombie homeowners” because they’re
financially walking dead, an all-time record “16.3 million families are
upside-down on their home loans.”

* A study by the New America Foundation finds “8.5 million people receiving
unemployment checks and over 40 million receiving food stamps. At the current
pace of job creation, the economy won't return to full employment until 2018.”

* Wal-Mart’s CEO says its customers are “running out of money” with purchases
“dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year"

* The Wall Street Journal says “the dollar today is lower than at any time
since major currencies began floating in 1973. It is 13% lower than it was 30
years ago and 28% below its 2002 recent peak.”

* Standard & Poor’s, the independent credit rating agency, downgraded the
outlook for the United States to negative from stable, saying within two years
there's at least a one-in-three chance it could lower its long-term rating.

The fact is, Obamanomics are a disaster – the meltdown after the earthquake.
That’s why it’s so important for you and the League of American Voters to tell
every American the truth about Obama’s failed record on the economy.
This is the inconvenient truth Obama’s so desperate to hide. And the League is
preparing to launch a national campaign effort to educate millions of Americans.
We believe every American deserves the honest truth about Obama’s REAL economic
record, and how his liberal policies are digging the grave deeper by the day.
The League’s national campaign will expose the lies and reveal the truth about:

* How Obamacare raises taxes by half a trillion dollars, while devastating
the highest quality healthcare the world has ever known.

* Why Obama’s failed stimulus plan was nothing but a political slush fund for
bloated public employee unions.

* How many jobs Obama’s stimulus really “saved or created.”

* How Obama’s fantasy of “green” jobs and hatred of “Big Oil” are really to
blame for $4 dollar gasoline.

* Why Obama’s dithering and refusal to FULLY extend the Bush tax cuts nearly
sent America into an economic depression.

America must learn the truth about the REAL Obama economic record. The national
media won’t tell them. So the League will.