Welfare always breeds contempt.
Mark Steyn
Saturday, February 27, 2010
While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care “summit,” thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen — because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.
What’s happening in the developed world today isn’t so very hard to understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they’ve reached the next stage in social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 — or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids — ie, the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 “lowest-low” fertility — the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.
So you can’t borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don’t have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when ten grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?
By the way, you don’t have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian “public service” of California has been metaphorically face down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book America Alone, I put the then–Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public-pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent: in other words, head for the hills, Armageddon outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn’t going to have a 2040 — not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.
Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” Which is true enough. But there’s an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn’t big enough to get you to give any of it back. That’s the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people’s response is: Nuts to that. Public-sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months’ work: For many of them, the work day ends at 2:30 p.m. And, when they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?
We hard-hearted small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government: Once a chap’s enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn’t give a hoot about the general societal interest; he’s got his, and to hell with everyone else. People’s sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.
The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the Greek government’s austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It’s General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the UAW — everything’s on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a “European” bailout will be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects: How dare you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off.
Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it’s over 40 percent. And for the ever-dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there’s precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that’s before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year of Greeks who retire at 58.
Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn’t pay. You’ll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the entitlement state, because in the end it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they’ve run out Greeks, so they’ll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
How to Stifle Speech
Cliff May
Thursday, February 25, 2010
There's an old Soviet joke in which an American tells a Russian: "In my country we have freedom of speech. I can stand in front of the White House and yell, ‘Nixon is an idiot!' and nothing will happen to me. The Russian replies: "In my country, we have the same freedom. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘Nixon is an idiot!' and nothing will happen to me either.
Updated for the 21st century, the joke might go like this: A Christian tells a Muslim: "In the West, we have freedom of speech. I can go to the Vatican and yell ‘Christianity is a crock!' and nothing will happen to me." The Muslim replies: "We have just as much freedom in the Muslim world. I can go to Mecca and yell: ‘Christianity is a crock!' and nothing will happen to me either.
The fact is very few Muslim-majority countries are free countries. A Muslim who wants to speak his mind without fear, practice his religion as he chooses, and vote for or against politicians in fair elections is better off living in the West than in any of the more than four dozen nations that hold membership in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
But even in the West, freedom is an endowment, not an entitlement. Generation after generation must have the courage to defend what we used to call, without embarrassment, "the blessings of liberty."
That means recognizing that a war is being waged against what we used to call, also without embarrassment, the Free World. This war is being waged by an enemy many are reluctant to name: Islamists. They are fighting not only with AK-47s and I.E.D.s in such places as Afghanistan and Somalia. They also are fighting with actions, ideas and laws in such places as Europe and America. They are fighting a pitched battle against freedom of speech -- the right without which other rights cannot be protected.
And, at this moment, the West is putting up a feeble defense. We are accepting government prohibitions on the thoughts we may express, we are allowing extremists to shout us down and shut us up, and we are self-censoring out of fear or faux-sensitivity. A few examples?
Start with the Dutch government's prosecution of Geert Wilders, a Member of Parliament who has expressed unfavorable opinions of the Islamic faith and the Koran. Such views may cause offense. But they cannot be criminalized in any country that values freedom.
Would anyone consider prosecuting a Muslim or an atheist for making hostile comments about Christianity or Jesus or the Bible? In 1987, Andres Serrano offended many people with "Piss Christ," his photograph of a crucifix submerged in a container of urine. Not only was he not prosecuted - he was awarded a prize in a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (which speaks volumes not only about American freedom but also about the tastes of the "arts community").
And when Louis Farrakhan, after a visit to Libya, called Judaism a "gutter religion" was there anyone - no matter how outraged - who proposed sending the Nation of Islam leader to prison?
Those who defend the prosecution of Wilders contend that his statements amount to "hate speech." And that, they assert, is dangerous and therefore must be outlawed. They point to the existence of "hate crimes" in the United States and say it's more or less the same thing.
But it's not. The idea behind "hate crimes" is that the law should differentiate between someone who hits you on the head because he wants your wallet, and someone who hits you on the head because you're black, or Jewish, or Muslim or homosexual. The latter, it is argued, is worse than the former and so merits additional punishment. I have always been doubtful about that proposition. But more to the point: There has been from the start the concern that hate crimes would lead where they have led in the Netherlands and elsewhere: to justifying the criminalization of thought and expression -- even in the absence of any act of violence.
Meanwhile, as Mark Steyn notes, a film titled "The Assassination of Geert Wilders" has been produced and promoted - by a Dutch government-funded radio station. No one is being prosecuted for hate speech as a result of that.
Another battle against free speech was called to my attention by Ali H. Alyami, Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. He sent me a video of Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., at the University of California, Irvine. Alyami suggested I watch it because, he said, it represents a "threat to our freedom of expression."
It shows a lecture hall in which Oren is to give a talk. A group of students, many but not all foreign and Muslim, have taken seats around the hall. Every few seconds one rises and begins to shout at Oren. Guards lead that individual out. Oren begins again - and another individual stands up, shouts and is led out. The goal is to prevent Oren from completing a single thought - and prevent the audience from hearing what he has to say.
University officials insist such behavior is intolerable - but do you think they'll actually take the tough measures necessary to prevent such brown-shirt tactics in the future? And what do such episodes say about the values the students are learning from their professors? Is there any reason to believe they - the students or their professors - understand anything about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
One more battle to consider before I let you go: Last year, Yale University Press published The Cartoons that Shook the World, a book about the controversy over the 12 drawings ridiculing Islamist terrorism which were published in a Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, in 2005.
Soon after, the OIC demanded that the United Nations impose international sanctions on Denmark and it circulated a dossier that contained not just the cartoons but examples of other European insults - most of which were fabricated. Especially memorable was a picture of a man wearing a pig mask, captioned: "Here is the real image of Mohammed."It was eventually revealed that this was a photo of a Frenchman at a pig-squealing contest; nothing to do with Mohammed. Nevertheless, coupled with the cartoons, it enraged Muslims in many countries, some of whom took to the streets, rioting, setting fires, assaulting anyone who looked European. More than 100 people were killed.
With this as backdrop, Yale decided to exclude the cartoons from the book on the cartoons, and to omit, as well, any images of Mohammed, including those by the 19th century French artist Paul Gustave Doré and the 20th century Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Was that because Yale's executives feared violence? Or, as Roger Kimball has suggested, was it out of deference to Saudi Arabian donors? Either way, it's hard not to view Yale's decision as an act of pre-emptive surrender.
The OIC, in its 1990 "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam," declares that "Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely -- but then adds: "in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia," which is to say Islamic law as interpreted by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other despotic members of this international religious/political alliance.
Theirs is not a different view of freedom of speech: It is a death sentence for freedom of speech. And it is what they intend not only for the lands they now rule but globally. What does it tell us that they are finding so many people in the West willing - indeed, eager -- to assist them?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
There's an old Soviet joke in which an American tells a Russian: "In my country we have freedom of speech. I can stand in front of the White House and yell, ‘Nixon is an idiot!' and nothing will happen to me. The Russian replies: "In my country, we have the same freedom. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘Nixon is an idiot!' and nothing will happen to me either.
Updated for the 21st century, the joke might go like this: A Christian tells a Muslim: "In the West, we have freedom of speech. I can go to the Vatican and yell ‘Christianity is a crock!' and nothing will happen to me." The Muslim replies: "We have just as much freedom in the Muslim world. I can go to Mecca and yell: ‘Christianity is a crock!' and nothing will happen to me either.
The fact is very few Muslim-majority countries are free countries. A Muslim who wants to speak his mind without fear, practice his religion as he chooses, and vote for or against politicians in fair elections is better off living in the West than in any of the more than four dozen nations that hold membership in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
But even in the West, freedom is an endowment, not an entitlement. Generation after generation must have the courage to defend what we used to call, without embarrassment, "the blessings of liberty."
That means recognizing that a war is being waged against what we used to call, also without embarrassment, the Free World. This war is being waged by an enemy many are reluctant to name: Islamists. They are fighting not only with AK-47s and I.E.D.s in such places as Afghanistan and Somalia. They also are fighting with actions, ideas and laws in such places as Europe and America. They are fighting a pitched battle against freedom of speech -- the right without which other rights cannot be protected.
And, at this moment, the West is putting up a feeble defense. We are accepting government prohibitions on the thoughts we may express, we are allowing extremists to shout us down and shut us up, and we are self-censoring out of fear or faux-sensitivity. A few examples?
Start with the Dutch government's prosecution of Geert Wilders, a Member of Parliament who has expressed unfavorable opinions of the Islamic faith and the Koran. Such views may cause offense. But they cannot be criminalized in any country that values freedom.
Would anyone consider prosecuting a Muslim or an atheist for making hostile comments about Christianity or Jesus or the Bible? In 1987, Andres Serrano offended many people with "Piss Christ," his photograph of a crucifix submerged in a container of urine. Not only was he not prosecuted - he was awarded a prize in a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (which speaks volumes not only about American freedom but also about the tastes of the "arts community").
And when Louis Farrakhan, after a visit to Libya, called Judaism a "gutter religion" was there anyone - no matter how outraged - who proposed sending the Nation of Islam leader to prison?
Those who defend the prosecution of Wilders contend that his statements amount to "hate speech." And that, they assert, is dangerous and therefore must be outlawed. They point to the existence of "hate crimes" in the United States and say it's more or less the same thing.
But it's not. The idea behind "hate crimes" is that the law should differentiate between someone who hits you on the head because he wants your wallet, and someone who hits you on the head because you're black, or Jewish, or Muslim or homosexual. The latter, it is argued, is worse than the former and so merits additional punishment. I have always been doubtful about that proposition. But more to the point: There has been from the start the concern that hate crimes would lead where they have led in the Netherlands and elsewhere: to justifying the criminalization of thought and expression -- even in the absence of any act of violence.
Meanwhile, as Mark Steyn notes, a film titled "The Assassination of Geert Wilders" has been produced and promoted - by a Dutch government-funded radio station. No one is being prosecuted for hate speech as a result of that.
Another battle against free speech was called to my attention by Ali H. Alyami, Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. He sent me a video of Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., at the University of California, Irvine. Alyami suggested I watch it because, he said, it represents a "threat to our freedom of expression."
It shows a lecture hall in which Oren is to give a talk. A group of students, many but not all foreign and Muslim, have taken seats around the hall. Every few seconds one rises and begins to shout at Oren. Guards lead that individual out. Oren begins again - and another individual stands up, shouts and is led out. The goal is to prevent Oren from completing a single thought - and prevent the audience from hearing what he has to say.
University officials insist such behavior is intolerable - but do you think they'll actually take the tough measures necessary to prevent such brown-shirt tactics in the future? And what do such episodes say about the values the students are learning from their professors? Is there any reason to believe they - the students or their professors - understand anything about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
One more battle to consider before I let you go: Last year, Yale University Press published The Cartoons that Shook the World, a book about the controversy over the 12 drawings ridiculing Islamist terrorism which were published in a Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, in 2005.
Soon after, the OIC demanded that the United Nations impose international sanctions on Denmark and it circulated a dossier that contained not just the cartoons but examples of other European insults - most of which were fabricated. Especially memorable was a picture of a man wearing a pig mask, captioned: "Here is the real image of Mohammed."It was eventually revealed that this was a photo of a Frenchman at a pig-squealing contest; nothing to do with Mohammed. Nevertheless, coupled with the cartoons, it enraged Muslims in many countries, some of whom took to the streets, rioting, setting fires, assaulting anyone who looked European. More than 100 people were killed.
With this as backdrop, Yale decided to exclude the cartoons from the book on the cartoons, and to omit, as well, any images of Mohammed, including those by the 19th century French artist Paul Gustave Doré and the 20th century Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Was that because Yale's executives feared violence? Or, as Roger Kimball has suggested, was it out of deference to Saudi Arabian donors? Either way, it's hard not to view Yale's decision as an act of pre-emptive surrender.
The OIC, in its 1990 "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam," declares that "Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely -- but then adds: "in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia," which is to say Islamic law as interpreted by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other despotic members of this international religious/political alliance.
Theirs is not a different view of freedom of speech: It is a death sentence for freedom of speech. And it is what they intend not only for the lands they now rule but globally. What does it tell us that they are finding so many people in the West willing - indeed, eager -- to assist them?
Olbermann's "Federal Debt Budget" Blunder - the Countdown
Larry Elder
Thursday, February 25, 2010
MSNBC's "Countdown" show host, Keith Olbermann, recently claimed that today's "federal budget debt" is "far less than it was throughout the Reagan administration." He also said it is "about the same as it was in 1970." Is he right? Tonight's countdown:
10) What is a "federal budget debt"? No researcher, intern or night security guard told him that there is no such thing? No one fact checked him before he went on-air? Add this to the ever-growing catalog of Olbermann's greatest hits kept by the indispensable NewsBusters.org.
9) There is a federal (or national) debt. There is an annual federal budget deficit.
8) Let's assume he meant the "federal debt" -- the amount of money the government owes. This number can be stated in dollars. It can also be stated as a percentage of gross domestic product (total value of goods and services we produce in a given year).
It makes more sense to talk about these numbers as a percentage of GDP. Consider two scenarios. Suppose you make 10K per year. You also owe 10K on your credit cards. Now suppose you make 100K per year. But, again, you owe 10K. In the second case, your debt is far less of a big deal because -- as a percentage of your earnings -- your debt went from 100 percent to 10 percent. Our economy usually grows every year, so stating debt as a percentage gives a better idea of its impact.
Either way -- as dollars or a percentage of GDP -- Olbermann was wrong about the debt.
At the end of 1988, the final full year of the Reagan presidency, the debt stood at $2.6 trillion. As a percentage of GDP, the debt stood at 52 percent.
Now examine President Barack Obama's first year in office. It is part former President George W. Bush's and part President Obama's. (But as senator, Obama voted for the 2009 budget, which included the TARP bank bailout, since expanded.) In 2009, the debt was over $12 trillion. As a percentage of GDP, the debt was over 83 percent.
Obama's first-year debt, therefore, is higher than the debt of any Reagan year by far -- both in dollars and as a percentage of GDP. And 2010 is projected to continue this upward spiral.
7) Assume Olbermann didn't mean "federal debt," but meant "budget deficit" -- the annual gap between what the government takes in and what the government spends.
During the Reagan presidency, the year in which he incurred the largest deficit in dollars was 1986. The deficit was $221 billion. That year, the deficit, as a percentage of GDP, was 5 percent. Reagan's deficit in 1983 was less in dollars -- $207 billion -- but it was 6 percent of 1983's GDP, the highest percentage under his administration.
The 2009 deficit was $1.4 trillion -- 9.9 percent of GDP.
Obama's first-year deficit is higher than the deficit of any Reagan year by far -- both in dollars and as a percentage of GDP.
6) Now examine Olbermann's mind-boggling assertion that Obama's "federal budget debt" is "about the same as it was in 1970." In 1970, the deficit was 0.3 percent of GDP, or a total of almost $3 billion. The debt was 37.6 percent of GDP, or $380 billion. Whether compared with today's deficit or debt, the 1970 numbers were microscopic.
5) Olbermann asserts that "federal budget debt" (assuming we understand what he means) is "a good thing." Case closed? If a country runs up bills largely to fight a war to protect national security, one could argue that it is a good thing. If a country spends primarily on domestic programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and/or "stimulus" -- one could argue that a "federal budget debt" is a bad thing.
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Thomas Hoenig, calls the current and projected deficits "stunning." He says they run the risk of igniting inflation. He urges a reduction in spending, along with a call to increase revenue. The slippery slope of the housing bailout, he warns, could lead to demand to bail out other weak sectors of our economy. Where will it end, and at what cost to our standard of living and productivity?
4) Suppose Sarah Palin offered a wildly inaccurate take on the "federal budget debt"?
3) Viewers, at least some of them, now falsely believe Obama's debt and deficit are about the same as Reagan's. Since vile "right-wingers" love Reagan, they are, goes the argument, committing hypocrisy by complaining about today's debt and deficit. Olbermann frequently accuses people of lying, something that requires an intention to mislead. Was he lying? Was he just ignorant? Anyone can have a bad show. It doesn't make him -- as he calls others -- "the worst person in the world."
2) How will Olbermann handle this blunder? A retraction? A correction? Ignore it and hope nobody notices because almost nobody watches?
1) Jon Stewart, at least, is funny.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
MSNBC's "Countdown" show host, Keith Olbermann, recently claimed that today's "federal budget debt" is "far less than it was throughout the Reagan administration." He also said it is "about the same as it was in 1970." Is he right? Tonight's countdown:
10) What is a "federal budget debt"? No researcher, intern or night security guard told him that there is no such thing? No one fact checked him before he went on-air? Add this to the ever-growing catalog of Olbermann's greatest hits kept by the indispensable NewsBusters.org.
9) There is a federal (or national) debt. There is an annual federal budget deficit.
8) Let's assume he meant the "federal debt" -- the amount of money the government owes. This number can be stated in dollars. It can also be stated as a percentage of gross domestic product (total value of goods and services we produce in a given year).
It makes more sense to talk about these numbers as a percentage of GDP. Consider two scenarios. Suppose you make 10K per year. You also owe 10K on your credit cards. Now suppose you make 100K per year. But, again, you owe 10K. In the second case, your debt is far less of a big deal because -- as a percentage of your earnings -- your debt went from 100 percent to 10 percent. Our economy usually grows every year, so stating debt as a percentage gives a better idea of its impact.
Either way -- as dollars or a percentage of GDP -- Olbermann was wrong about the debt.
At the end of 1988, the final full year of the Reagan presidency, the debt stood at $2.6 trillion. As a percentage of GDP, the debt stood at 52 percent.
Now examine President Barack Obama's first year in office. It is part former President George W. Bush's and part President Obama's. (But as senator, Obama voted for the 2009 budget, which included the TARP bank bailout, since expanded.) In 2009, the debt was over $12 trillion. As a percentage of GDP, the debt was over 83 percent.
Obama's first-year debt, therefore, is higher than the debt of any Reagan year by far -- both in dollars and as a percentage of GDP. And 2010 is projected to continue this upward spiral.
7) Assume Olbermann didn't mean "federal debt," but meant "budget deficit" -- the annual gap between what the government takes in and what the government spends.
During the Reagan presidency, the year in which he incurred the largest deficit in dollars was 1986. The deficit was $221 billion. That year, the deficit, as a percentage of GDP, was 5 percent. Reagan's deficit in 1983 was less in dollars -- $207 billion -- but it was 6 percent of 1983's GDP, the highest percentage under his administration.
The 2009 deficit was $1.4 trillion -- 9.9 percent of GDP.
Obama's first-year deficit is higher than the deficit of any Reagan year by far -- both in dollars and as a percentage of GDP.
6) Now examine Olbermann's mind-boggling assertion that Obama's "federal budget debt" is "about the same as it was in 1970." In 1970, the deficit was 0.3 percent of GDP, or a total of almost $3 billion. The debt was 37.6 percent of GDP, or $380 billion. Whether compared with today's deficit or debt, the 1970 numbers were microscopic.
5) Olbermann asserts that "federal budget debt" (assuming we understand what he means) is "a good thing." Case closed? If a country runs up bills largely to fight a war to protect national security, one could argue that it is a good thing. If a country spends primarily on domestic programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and/or "stimulus" -- one could argue that a "federal budget debt" is a bad thing.
The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Thomas Hoenig, calls the current and projected deficits "stunning." He says they run the risk of igniting inflation. He urges a reduction in spending, along with a call to increase revenue. The slippery slope of the housing bailout, he warns, could lead to demand to bail out other weak sectors of our economy. Where will it end, and at what cost to our standard of living and productivity?
4) Suppose Sarah Palin offered a wildly inaccurate take on the "federal budget debt"?
3) Viewers, at least some of them, now falsely believe Obama's debt and deficit are about the same as Reagan's. Since vile "right-wingers" love Reagan, they are, goes the argument, committing hypocrisy by complaining about today's debt and deficit. Olbermann frequently accuses people of lying, something that requires an intention to mislead. Was he lying? Was he just ignorant? Anyone can have a bad show. It doesn't make him -- as he calls others -- "the worst person in the world."
2) How will Olbermann handle this blunder? A retraction? A correction? Ignore it and hope nobody notices because almost nobody watches?
1) Jon Stewart, at least, is funny.
In Praise of Saying No
George Will
Thursday, February 25, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Today's health policy "summit" comes at a moment when, as happens with metronomic regularity, Washington is reverberating with lamentations about government being "broken." Such talk occurs only when the left's agenda is stalled. Do you remember mournful editorials and somber seminars about "dysfunctional" government when liberals defeated George W. Bush's Social Security reforms?
The summit's predictable failure will be a pretext for trying to ram health legislation through the Senate by misusing "reconciliation," which prevents filibusters. If the Senate parliamentarian rules, as he should, that most of the legislation is ineligible for enactment under reconciliation, the vice president, as Senate president, can overrule the parliamentarian. This has not happened since 1975, but liberals say desperate times require desperate measures.
Today's desperation? Democracy's majoritarian ethic is, liberals say, being violated by the filibuster that prevents their enacting health legislation opposed by an American majority.
Some liberals argue that the Constitution is unconstitutional, for two reasons, the first of which is a non sequitur: The Constitution empowers each chamber to "determine the rules of its proceedings." It requires five supermajorities (for ratifying treaties, endorsing constitutional amendments, overriding vetoes, expelling members and impeachment convictions). Therefore it does not permit requiring a sixth, to end filibusters.
The second reason filibusters are supposedly unconstitutional is that they exacerbate the Senate's flaw as "inherently unrepresentative." That is, the Founders -- who liberals evidently believe were dolts or knaves -- designed it to represent states rather than, as the House does, population.
Liberals fret: 41 senators from the 21 smallest states, with barely 10 percent of the population, could block a bill. But Matthew Franck of Radford University counters that if cloture were blocked by 41 senators from the 21 largest states, the 41 would represent 77.4 percent of the nation's population. Anyway, senators are never so tidily sorted, so consider today's health impasse: The 59 Democratic senators come from 36 states containing 74.9 percent of the population, while the 41 Republicans come from 27 states -- a majority -- containing 48.7 percent. (Thirteen states have senators from each party.)
Since there have been 50 states, Republicans have never had 60 senators. There were 60 or more Democratic senators after seven elections -- 1960 (64), 1962 (66), 1964 (68), 1966 (64), 1974 (61), 1976 (62) and 2008 (60, following Arlen Specter's discovery that he is a Democrat, and the protracted Minnesota recount). But both parties have been situational ethicists regarding filibusters.
In 2005, many Republicans, frustrated by Democrats blocking confirmation votes, wanted to ban filibusters of judicial nominees. They said such filibusters unconstitutionally prevent the president from doing his constitutional duty of staffing the judiciary. But this is not just the president's duty; the Senate has the constitutional role of consenting -- or not -- to nominations.
"Great innovations," said Jefferson, "should not be forced on slender majorities." Hence Barack Obama recently embraced a supermajority mechanism: The 18-member commission he created to recommend measures to reduce the deficit requires that any recommendation be endorsed by 14 members.
Filibusters are devices for registering intensity rather than mere numbers -- government by adding machine. Besides, has a filibuster ever prevented eventual enactment of anything significant that an American majority has desired, strongly and protractedly?
Liberals say filibusters confuse and frustrate the public. The public does indeed mistakenly believe government is designed to act quickly in compliance with presidential wishes. But most ideas incubated in the political cauldron of grasping factions are deplorable. Therefore, serving the public involves -- mostly involves -- saying "No." The Bill of Rights, like traditional conservatism, effectively pronounces the lovely word "no" regarding many possible government undertakings -- establishment of religion, unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.
The fiction that government is "paralyzed" by partisanship is regularly refuted. Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush reached across party lines in 1986, 1996 and 2001 to pass tax reform, welfare reform and No Child Left Behind, respectively. The $700 billion TARP legislation and the $862 billion stimulus were enacted with injudicious speed.
Liberals are deeply disappointed with the public, which fails to fathom the excellence of their agenda. But their real complaint is with the government's structure. And with the nature of the politics this structure presupposes in a continental nation wary of government and replete with rival factions. Liberals have met their enemy and he is the diminutive "father of the Constitution," of whom it was said that never had there been such a high ratio of mind to mass: James Madison.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Today's health policy "summit" comes at a moment when, as happens with metronomic regularity, Washington is reverberating with lamentations about government being "broken." Such talk occurs only when the left's agenda is stalled. Do you remember mournful editorials and somber seminars about "dysfunctional" government when liberals defeated George W. Bush's Social Security reforms?
The summit's predictable failure will be a pretext for trying to ram health legislation through the Senate by misusing "reconciliation," which prevents filibusters. If the Senate parliamentarian rules, as he should, that most of the legislation is ineligible for enactment under reconciliation, the vice president, as Senate president, can overrule the parliamentarian. This has not happened since 1975, but liberals say desperate times require desperate measures.
Today's desperation? Democracy's majoritarian ethic is, liberals say, being violated by the filibuster that prevents their enacting health legislation opposed by an American majority.
Some liberals argue that the Constitution is unconstitutional, for two reasons, the first of which is a non sequitur: The Constitution empowers each chamber to "determine the rules of its proceedings." It requires five supermajorities (for ratifying treaties, endorsing constitutional amendments, overriding vetoes, expelling members and impeachment convictions). Therefore it does not permit requiring a sixth, to end filibusters.
The second reason filibusters are supposedly unconstitutional is that they exacerbate the Senate's flaw as "inherently unrepresentative." That is, the Founders -- who liberals evidently believe were dolts or knaves -- designed it to represent states rather than, as the House does, population.
Liberals fret: 41 senators from the 21 smallest states, with barely 10 percent of the population, could block a bill. But Matthew Franck of Radford University counters that if cloture were blocked by 41 senators from the 21 largest states, the 41 would represent 77.4 percent of the nation's population. Anyway, senators are never so tidily sorted, so consider today's health impasse: The 59 Democratic senators come from 36 states containing 74.9 percent of the population, while the 41 Republicans come from 27 states -- a majority -- containing 48.7 percent. (Thirteen states have senators from each party.)
Since there have been 50 states, Republicans have never had 60 senators. There were 60 or more Democratic senators after seven elections -- 1960 (64), 1962 (66), 1964 (68), 1966 (64), 1974 (61), 1976 (62) and 2008 (60, following Arlen Specter's discovery that he is a Democrat, and the protracted Minnesota recount). But both parties have been situational ethicists regarding filibusters.
In 2005, many Republicans, frustrated by Democrats blocking confirmation votes, wanted to ban filibusters of judicial nominees. They said such filibusters unconstitutionally prevent the president from doing his constitutional duty of staffing the judiciary. But this is not just the president's duty; the Senate has the constitutional role of consenting -- or not -- to nominations.
"Great innovations," said Jefferson, "should not be forced on slender majorities." Hence Barack Obama recently embraced a supermajority mechanism: The 18-member commission he created to recommend measures to reduce the deficit requires that any recommendation be endorsed by 14 members.
Filibusters are devices for registering intensity rather than mere numbers -- government by adding machine. Besides, has a filibuster ever prevented eventual enactment of anything significant that an American majority has desired, strongly and protractedly?
Liberals say filibusters confuse and frustrate the public. The public does indeed mistakenly believe government is designed to act quickly in compliance with presidential wishes. But most ideas incubated in the political cauldron of grasping factions are deplorable. Therefore, serving the public involves -- mostly involves -- saying "No." The Bill of Rights, like traditional conservatism, effectively pronounces the lovely word "no" regarding many possible government undertakings -- establishment of religion, unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.
The fiction that government is "paralyzed" by partisanship is regularly refuted. Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush reached across party lines in 1986, 1996 and 2001 to pass tax reform, welfare reform and No Child Left Behind, respectively. The $700 billion TARP legislation and the $862 billion stimulus were enacted with injudicious speed.
Liberals are deeply disappointed with the public, which fails to fathom the excellence of their agenda. But their real complaint is with the government's structure. And with the nature of the politics this structure presupposes in a continental nation wary of government and replete with rival factions. Liberals have met their enemy and he is the diminutive "father of the Constitution," of whom it was said that never had there been such a high ratio of mind to mass: James Madison.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Better Here Than There
Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
"I have been over into the future, and it works."
Lincoln Steffens, the muckraking journalist, offered that review of the Soviet Union on his return from a fact-finding mission there. For decades, conservatives invoked that line as proof that a generation of progressives were Soviet fellow-travelers. Conservatives were far from entirely wrong, but the focus on communism obscured a more enduring dynamic: The left loves to press its nose against the window on the world and talk about how things are better "over there."
Indeed, a year earlier, Steffens had gone to fascist Italy and came back praising Il Duce's miraculous accomplishments. Before that, the cream of America's intellectuals were obsessed with emulating the "top-down socialism" of Bismarck's Prussia. Later, the New Deal was understood as part of the "Europeanization of America," in historian William Leuchtenburg's phrase. Liberal economist Stuart Chase, who coined the term "the New Deal," remarked: "Why should the Russians have all the fun remaking the world?"
In the 1980s, some economists, like Lester Thurow, and non-economists, like Robert Reich, Chalmers Johnson and James Fallows, argued that we needed to emulate Germany or, even better, Japan. "The Cold War is over," proclaimed Johnson. "Japan won." American liberalism's infatuation with Japan's industrial policy -- "Japan Inc." -- should be remembered as one of the great embarrassments of recent intellectual history.
But no, like butterflies always looking for a prettier flower, these intellectuals keep flitting to the next "proof" of America's shortcomings. For some, like New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the prettiest flower out there right now is China. For others, it's France or Canada. For the truly demented, it's Cuba.
The problem with all such efforts is that they look abroad solely for what they wish to see at home. For instance, in an effort to push its green agenda, the Obama administration likes to tout the farsighted vision of Spain, which has invested heavily in windmills and other renewable technology. Never mind that today, Spain's economic crisis is just slightly less dire than Greece's, and politicized bets on green technology contributed to their problems.
Meanwhile, France's generous health-care system is widely hailed as so much more enlightened than America's. What Francophiles usually leave out is the fact that France's per-capita income is 30 percent lower than America's. Such a disparity, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Ed Prescott, is the difference between economic prosperity and economic depression, and it's explained by France's much higher taxes.
Friedman has gone so far as to wish America could be "China for a day" and to suggest that its "enlightened" regime is preferable to our own. It's not that Friedman wants to abolish democracy, jail dissidents or force abortions. He's more like a drunk looking for his car keys where the light is good. He sees a nation doing things he thinks America should be doing, but doesn't look for what he doesn't want to see: the pollution, the cruelty, the lies and basic evil that are just as central to China's methods as its "enlightened" investments in this or that.
What unites all of these people is a form of power worship. These foreign governments and their experts have control over citizens and economics -- sometimes through democratic consent, sometimes not -- that the state doesn't have in America. Thus proving American backwardness.
Perhaps we're not backward at all. Maybe America simply values economic freedom over economic security more than most countries.
Regardless, the track record of such control, over the long haul, is abysmal, particularly in comparison to America's more unplanned approach (indeed, the world's planned economies often feed off American innovation to survive). The Soviets are in the dustbin of history; Japan Inc. is in its second "lost decade"; Europe is in an economic crisis; China's problems are hard to see because Beijing likes it that way. We have our own problems, but history shows the solution to them is not to be found in more centralized planning.
Politicians and planners have a tendency to lock into their idea of what works, long after it doesn't work anymore. If our government had China-like power in the 1970s, we would have banned natural gas. If it had such powers in the 1830s, we would have stuck with canals long after railroads were viable.
The future can't be found on a junket, and it never works until you get there.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
"I have been over into the future, and it works."
Lincoln Steffens, the muckraking journalist, offered that review of the Soviet Union on his return from a fact-finding mission there. For decades, conservatives invoked that line as proof that a generation of progressives were Soviet fellow-travelers. Conservatives were far from entirely wrong, but the focus on communism obscured a more enduring dynamic: The left loves to press its nose against the window on the world and talk about how things are better "over there."
Indeed, a year earlier, Steffens had gone to fascist Italy and came back praising Il Duce's miraculous accomplishments. Before that, the cream of America's intellectuals were obsessed with emulating the "top-down socialism" of Bismarck's Prussia. Later, the New Deal was understood as part of the "Europeanization of America," in historian William Leuchtenburg's phrase. Liberal economist Stuart Chase, who coined the term "the New Deal," remarked: "Why should the Russians have all the fun remaking the world?"
In the 1980s, some economists, like Lester Thurow, and non-economists, like Robert Reich, Chalmers Johnson and James Fallows, argued that we needed to emulate Germany or, even better, Japan. "The Cold War is over," proclaimed Johnson. "Japan won." American liberalism's infatuation with Japan's industrial policy -- "Japan Inc." -- should be remembered as one of the great embarrassments of recent intellectual history.
But no, like butterflies always looking for a prettier flower, these intellectuals keep flitting to the next "proof" of America's shortcomings. For some, like New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the prettiest flower out there right now is China. For others, it's France or Canada. For the truly demented, it's Cuba.
The problem with all such efforts is that they look abroad solely for what they wish to see at home. For instance, in an effort to push its green agenda, the Obama administration likes to tout the farsighted vision of Spain, which has invested heavily in windmills and other renewable technology. Never mind that today, Spain's economic crisis is just slightly less dire than Greece's, and politicized bets on green technology contributed to their problems.
Meanwhile, France's generous health-care system is widely hailed as so much more enlightened than America's. What Francophiles usually leave out is the fact that France's per-capita income is 30 percent lower than America's. Such a disparity, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Ed Prescott, is the difference between economic prosperity and economic depression, and it's explained by France's much higher taxes.
Friedman has gone so far as to wish America could be "China for a day" and to suggest that its "enlightened" regime is preferable to our own. It's not that Friedman wants to abolish democracy, jail dissidents or force abortions. He's more like a drunk looking for his car keys where the light is good. He sees a nation doing things he thinks America should be doing, but doesn't look for what he doesn't want to see: the pollution, the cruelty, the lies and basic evil that are just as central to China's methods as its "enlightened" investments in this or that.
What unites all of these people is a form of power worship. These foreign governments and their experts have control over citizens and economics -- sometimes through democratic consent, sometimes not -- that the state doesn't have in America. Thus proving American backwardness.
Perhaps we're not backward at all. Maybe America simply values economic freedom over economic security more than most countries.
Regardless, the track record of such control, over the long haul, is abysmal, particularly in comparison to America's more unplanned approach (indeed, the world's planned economies often feed off American innovation to survive). The Soviets are in the dustbin of history; Japan Inc. is in its second "lost decade"; Europe is in an economic crisis; China's problems are hard to see because Beijing likes it that way. We have our own problems, but history shows the solution to them is not to be found in more centralized planning.
Politicians and planners have a tendency to lock into their idea of what works, long after it doesn't work anymore. If our government had China-like power in the 1970s, we would have banned natural gas. If it had such powers in the 1830s, we would have stuck with canals long after railroads were viable.
The future can't be found on a junket, and it never works until you get there.
Global Warming Update
Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Private industry and governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars in the name of saving our planet from manmade global warming. Academic institutions, think tanks and schools have altered their curricula and agenda to accommodate what was seen as the global warming "consensus."
Mounting evidence suggests that claims of manmade global warming might turn out to be the greatest hoax in mankind's history. Immune and hostile to the evidence, President Barack Obama's administration and most of the U.S. Congress sides with Climate Czar Carol Browner, who says, "I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real."
The scientists whom Browner references are associated with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Let's look some of what they told us. The 2007 IPCC report, which won them a Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high" as a result of manmade global warming. Recently, IPCC was forced to retract their glacier disappearance claim, which was made on the basis of a non-scientific magazine article. When critics initially questioned the prediction, Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC's chairman, dismissed them as "voodoo scientists."
The IPCC also had to retract its claim that up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests were at risk from global warming and would likely be replaced by "tropical savannas" if temperatures continued to rise. The IPCC claim was based on a paper co-authored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), two environmental activist groups.
England's now-disgraced University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been a leader in climate research data. Their data, collected and analyzed by them, have been used for years to bolster IPCC efforts to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Climatologists, including CRU's disgraced former director Professor Phil Jones, have been accused of manipulating data and criminally withholding scientific information to prevent its disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
Professor Jones, considered to be the high priest of the manmade global warming movement, has been in the spotlight since he was forced to step down as CRU's director after the leaking of e-mails that skeptics claim show scientists were manipulating data. In a recent interview with the BBC, he admitted that he did not believe that "the debate on climate change is over" and that he didn't "believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this."
Long denied by the warmers, Professor Jones admitted that the Medieval Warm Period (800 A.D. to 1300 A.D.) might well had been as warm as the Current Warm Period (1975-present), or warmer, and that if it was, "then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented." That suggests global warming may not be a manmade phenomenon. In any case, Professor Jones said that for the past 15 years, there has been no "statistically significant" global warming.
During the BBC interview, Professor Jones dodged several questions: why he had asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report and ask others to do likewise; whether some of his handling of data had crossed the line of acceptable scientific practice; and what about his letter saying that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in tree-ring temperature data?
Given all the false claims and evidence pointing to scientific fraud, I don't think it wise to continue spending billions of dollars and enacting economically crippling regulations in the name of fighting global warming. At the minimum, we should stop the Environmental Protection Agency from going on with their plans to regulate carbon emissions. Companies should resign from the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobbying group of businesses and radical environmentalists. Dr. Tom Borelli, who is director of the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project, says that BP, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Marsh, Inc. and Xerox have the common sense to so already.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Private industry and governments around the world have spent trillions of dollars in the name of saving our planet from manmade global warming. Academic institutions, think tanks and schools have altered their curricula and agenda to accommodate what was seen as the global warming "consensus."
Mounting evidence suggests that claims of manmade global warming might turn out to be the greatest hoax in mankind's history. Immune and hostile to the evidence, President Barack Obama's administration and most of the U.S. Congress sides with Climate Czar Carol Browner, who says, "I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists. These people have been studying this issue for a very long time and agree this problem is real."
The scientists whom Browner references are associated with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Let's look some of what they told us. The 2007 IPCC report, which won them a Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high" as a result of manmade global warming. Recently, IPCC was forced to retract their glacier disappearance claim, which was made on the basis of a non-scientific magazine article. When critics initially questioned the prediction, Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC's chairman, dismissed them as "voodoo scientists."
The IPCC also had to retract its claim that up to 40 percent of the Amazonian forests were at risk from global warming and would likely be replaced by "tropical savannas" if temperatures continued to rise. The IPCC claim was based on a paper co-authored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), two environmental activist groups.
England's now-disgraced University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been a leader in climate research data. Their data, collected and analyzed by them, have been used for years to bolster IPCC efforts to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Climatologists, including CRU's disgraced former director Professor Phil Jones, have been accused of manipulating data and criminally withholding scientific information to prevent its disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
Professor Jones, considered to be the high priest of the manmade global warming movement, has been in the spotlight since he was forced to step down as CRU's director after the leaking of e-mails that skeptics claim show scientists were manipulating data. In a recent interview with the BBC, he admitted that he did not believe that "the debate on climate change is over" and that he didn't "believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this."
Long denied by the warmers, Professor Jones admitted that the Medieval Warm Period (800 A.D. to 1300 A.D.) might well had been as warm as the Current Warm Period (1975-present), or warmer, and that if it was, "then obviously the late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented." That suggests global warming may not be a manmade phenomenon. In any case, Professor Jones said that for the past 15 years, there has been no "statistically significant" global warming.
During the BBC interview, Professor Jones dodged several questions: why he had asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report and ask others to do likewise; whether some of his handling of data had crossed the line of acceptable scientific practice; and what about his letter saying that he had used a "trick" to "hide the decline" in tree-ring temperature data?
Given all the false claims and evidence pointing to scientific fraud, I don't think it wise to continue spending billions of dollars and enacting economically crippling regulations in the name of fighting global warming. At the minimum, we should stop the Environmental Protection Agency from going on with their plans to regulate carbon emissions. Companies should resign from the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobbying group of businesses and radical environmentalists. Dr. Tom Borelli, who is director of the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project, says that BP, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Marsh, Inc. and Xerox have the common sense to so already.
Climate Change Debate Over? It's Just Begun!
Ken Blackwell
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Ronald Reagan used to say of the Soviets they liked the arms race a whole lot better when they were the only ones in it. The same could be said of Al Gore and Global Warming—oops, excuse me: Climate Change. Mr. Gore was very much happier to dash around the world in his water vapor-powered personal jet to preach the green gospel of environmentalism. He would tell us which truths were inconvenient. Any dissenters were shouted down as “deniers.” No Pope would ever make claims as far-reaching, as extravagant, as all-embracing as Saint Al did.
But now comes the pushback. Just before the World Summit on Climate Change at Copenhagen last December, several hundred emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were leaked. It appeared that Dr. Phil Jones had urged colleagues, including some at Penn State University, to “hide the decline” in world temperatures and encouraged others to do some of their usual “tricks” to get the right result from ambiguous data. A huge scandal erupted, instantly dubbed “ClimateGate.”
Jones stepped down as director of CRU and even went so far, he confessed to the Times of London, as to contemplate suicide. God forbid. Truly, these are serious questions and we have serious objections to what Dr. Jones and his colleagues were caught doing, but we want no one involved in this affair to become so despondent as to take his own life. Dr. Jones says his hope for his five-year old granddaughter is what helped him to banish thoughts of self-destruction. “I wanted to see her grow up.” Dr. Jones, I pray you will.
If Al Gore has not become any humbler, it’s at least good to see Dr. Jones somewhat chastened by the revelations that some of his data may not be as reliable as we have been led to believe. And it is not only the reading public that may have been misled. Dr. Jones’ CRU is one of the primary institutions responsible for feeding data to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It was this IPCC that shared with Al Gore the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. (Note: They did not win the Nobel Prize for Science.)
The Left is wringing its hands over the “failure” of the World Climate Summit at Copenhagen to approve a binding treaty. But perhaps they should thank God (or Gore) for that fact. That’s because the mere threat of job-killing Cap and Trade legislation has been enough for independent voters in the U.S. to abandon left-leaning politicians in droves.
Along with stiff carbon taxes and straight-jacket regulations comes, inevitably, population control. At Copenhagen, China’s Peggy Liu—chair of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy—bragged about Beijing’s brutal one-child policy. That policy, said this winner of Time Magazine’s “Hero of the Environment” award, “reduces energy demand and is arguably the most effective way the country can mitigate climate change.”
Soviet Communist Party boss Joe Stalin would be proud. “You have a problem with a man. If you get rid of the man, you get rid of the problem,” said the top Communist of the Twentieth Century. (Come to think of it, Uncle Joe Stalin even topped Peggy Liu. He was named Time’s Man of the Year not once, but twice—1939 and 1942.)
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times hails China’s one-child policy as “reasonably enlightened.” He likes the fact that Beijing’s rulers—unburdened by those pesky voters voting out their betters—can “impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in 21st century.” Friedman’s best-selling book is titled The World is Flat.” (And liberals accuse us of being the Flat Earth Society?)
Isn’t it really funny how all the “errors” made by the climate scientists seem to fall on one side of the debate? If the glaciers of the Himalayas are all going to melt by 2035, that’s a real problem. But if they’re not expected to melt until 2350, it’s another matter. Guess which date the IPCC chose to publish? Just a typo?
What if the globe is indeed warming but the warming is part of a cyclical pattern of warming and cooling? That’s the thesis of Dr. S. Fred Singer. Dr. Singer and co-author Dennis Avery write in Unstoppable Global Warming that “evidence from North Atlantic deep-sea cores reveals that abrupt shifts punctuated what is conventionally thought to have been a relatively stable Holocene [interglacial] climate. During each of these episodes, cool, ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland were advected as far south as the latitude of Britain. At about the same times, the atmospheric circulation above Greenland changed abruptly….Together, they make up a series of climatic shifts with a cyclicity close to 1470 years (plus or minus 500 years). The Holocene events, therefore, appear to be the most recent manifestation of a pervasive millennial-scale climatic cycle operating independently of the glacial-interglacial climate state (emphasis added.)”
Dr. Singer has been abused by Left-wing bloggers, called a denier, and denounced as a tool of industry. He earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, worked with NASA for decades and is thoroughly conversant with satellite measurements of earth’s climate. And he taught Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for twenty-five years. Dr. Singer might be wrong. He might be seriously in error. But so far, no one has demonstrated that his arguments are wrong. Reviling him, calling him names, trying to shut him up and close him down—none of this is a reasoned argument. It is nothing more than—in the words of Al Gore—an assault on reason. Stay tuned, folks. The earth may be warming—but not as fast as the debate over climate is heating up.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Ronald Reagan used to say of the Soviets they liked the arms race a whole lot better when they were the only ones in it. The same could be said of Al Gore and Global Warming—oops, excuse me: Climate Change. Mr. Gore was very much happier to dash around the world in his water vapor-powered personal jet to preach the green gospel of environmentalism. He would tell us which truths were inconvenient. Any dissenters were shouted down as “deniers.” No Pope would ever make claims as far-reaching, as extravagant, as all-embracing as Saint Al did.
But now comes the pushback. Just before the World Summit on Climate Change at Copenhagen last December, several hundred emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were leaked. It appeared that Dr. Phil Jones had urged colleagues, including some at Penn State University, to “hide the decline” in world temperatures and encouraged others to do some of their usual “tricks” to get the right result from ambiguous data. A huge scandal erupted, instantly dubbed “ClimateGate.”
Jones stepped down as director of CRU and even went so far, he confessed to the Times of London, as to contemplate suicide. God forbid. Truly, these are serious questions and we have serious objections to what Dr. Jones and his colleagues were caught doing, but we want no one involved in this affair to become so despondent as to take his own life. Dr. Jones says his hope for his five-year old granddaughter is what helped him to banish thoughts of self-destruction. “I wanted to see her grow up.” Dr. Jones, I pray you will.
If Al Gore has not become any humbler, it’s at least good to see Dr. Jones somewhat chastened by the revelations that some of his data may not be as reliable as we have been led to believe. And it is not only the reading public that may have been misled. Dr. Jones’ CRU is one of the primary institutions responsible for feeding data to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It was this IPCC that shared with Al Gore the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. (Note: They did not win the Nobel Prize for Science.)
The Left is wringing its hands over the “failure” of the World Climate Summit at Copenhagen to approve a binding treaty. But perhaps they should thank God (or Gore) for that fact. That’s because the mere threat of job-killing Cap and Trade legislation has been enough for independent voters in the U.S. to abandon left-leaning politicians in droves.
Along with stiff carbon taxes and straight-jacket regulations comes, inevitably, population control. At Copenhagen, China’s Peggy Liu—chair of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy—bragged about Beijing’s brutal one-child policy. That policy, said this winner of Time Magazine’s “Hero of the Environment” award, “reduces energy demand and is arguably the most effective way the country can mitigate climate change.”
Soviet Communist Party boss Joe Stalin would be proud. “You have a problem with a man. If you get rid of the man, you get rid of the problem,” said the top Communist of the Twentieth Century. (Come to think of it, Uncle Joe Stalin even topped Peggy Liu. He was named Time’s Man of the Year not once, but twice—1939 and 1942.)
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times hails China’s one-child policy as “reasonably enlightened.” He likes the fact that Beijing’s rulers—unburdened by those pesky voters voting out their betters—can “impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in 21st century.” Friedman’s best-selling book is titled The World is Flat.” (And liberals accuse us of being the Flat Earth Society?)
Isn’t it really funny how all the “errors” made by the climate scientists seem to fall on one side of the debate? If the glaciers of the Himalayas are all going to melt by 2035, that’s a real problem. But if they’re not expected to melt until 2350, it’s another matter. Guess which date the IPCC chose to publish? Just a typo?
What if the globe is indeed warming but the warming is part of a cyclical pattern of warming and cooling? That’s the thesis of Dr. S. Fred Singer. Dr. Singer and co-author Dennis Avery write in Unstoppable Global Warming that “evidence from North Atlantic deep-sea cores reveals that abrupt shifts punctuated what is conventionally thought to have been a relatively stable Holocene [interglacial] climate. During each of these episodes, cool, ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland were advected as far south as the latitude of Britain. At about the same times, the atmospheric circulation above Greenland changed abruptly….Together, they make up a series of climatic shifts with a cyclicity close to 1470 years (plus or minus 500 years). The Holocene events, therefore, appear to be the most recent manifestation of a pervasive millennial-scale climatic cycle operating independently of the glacial-interglacial climate state (emphasis added.)”
Dr. Singer has been abused by Left-wing bloggers, called a denier, and denounced as a tool of industry. He earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, worked with NASA for decades and is thoroughly conversant with satellite measurements of earth’s climate. And he taught Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia for twenty-five years. Dr. Singer might be wrong. He might be seriously in error. But so far, no one has demonstrated that his arguments are wrong. Reviling him, calling him names, trying to shut him up and close him down—none of this is a reasoned argument. It is nothing more than—in the words of Al Gore—an assault on reason. Stay tuned, folks. The earth may be warming—but not as fast as the debate over climate is heating up.
"Broken" Government: When Liberals Lose
Brent Bozell
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
When Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana announced last week he wasn't running for re-election, he didn't state what may have seemed obvious. He couldn't say he wanted to avoid the embarrassment of losing, or that he worried he'd never achieve national office if that happened. Instead, he launched into a lecture about what was wrong with everyone else. The government is "dysfunctional" with "brain-dead partisanship."
It's "Groundhog Day." This scenario repeats itself every time the Democrats take control.
Bayh's bleats hardened quickly into the media's conventional wisdom. Why can't the politicians hold hands in a "Kumbaya" circle and get "something" done? Translation: When Obama and a Democrat-dominated Congress can't nationalize the health care system and force everyone to drive a Prius, suddenly government is "dysfunctional." When gridlock is holding up the liberals' agenda, Washington should know "the people" sent them to pass massive ultraliberal bills.
These media mathematicians clearly have thrown their polling calculators out the window. When Newsweek recently asked independents if they supported the Democrat health proposals, 26 percent were in favor, and 62 percent were opposed. But the "wisdom" in town says Democrats must pass these health bills or get crushed in November. Now who can't seem to acknowledge, to borrow from Stephen Colbert, that "reality has a conservative bias"?
Reality tells you many Democrats are political toast, thanks to ObamaCare. Hence, bye-bye, Bayh. But our journalists put on their choir robes and continue to sing the sad song in unison: Why do we have a "Broken Government"? CNN actually launched an entire series of reports with that title.
Suffice it to say this is not the kind of media mantra we heard during President Bush's second term. Back then, this was the sound of CNN: commentator Jack Cafferty lamenting the alleged lack of partisanship in 2007: "They've already said they won't impeach President Bush. They've already said they won't cut funding for the war. ... It's time for the Democrats to walk the walk, and there are some early signs they might be coming down with leg cramps." He asked viewers: "How much faith do you have that the Democrats can stop the war and rein in President Bush?"
We're now mired in Year Two of Barack Obama's quagmire of "health reform," and no one on the left wants withdrawal. What they want is a socialist surge. Compare that to 2005, and the Bush administration's attempt to reform Social Security. It died ... about three months after the inauguration. CBS anchor Bob Schieffer repeatedly asked on April 26, 2005: "Is it already dead?"
In a way, you can understand his impatience. He and his colleagues had been trying to kill it from the moment of political conception.
Everything President Bush did was painted as a stunt. After the 2005 State of the Union, when there was an emotional hug between an Iraqi voter and the mother of a Marine killed in Iraq, MSNBC's Chris Matthews just had to politicize it by seeing it as a Social Security ploy: "Do you think President Bush used this to push his numbers on Social Security reform, just to get his general appeal up a bit?"
In March 2005, Matthews joked with Al Sharpton that Bush was piling up a mountain of debt we would owe China and Japan: "Why don't they just start paying people in their Social Security checks with yen, because we're getting money from them to pay the older folks their regular check?" Sharpton said he was going to start using that partisan line.
When Hurricane Katrina unfolded with deadly force, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift found a silver lining: "If there's an upside to Katrina, it's that the Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government programs is over."
Today, Clift is raining fire on Republicans for "harming" the country in the short term for their own partisan gain in the fall. Liberals don't have brains expansive enough to imagine that conservatives might think the greater good of the country -- politically, financially, morally -- rests in fighting the nationalization of our health care system, as well as the first steps toward government-funded abortions.
Instead, our media parrot the DNC talking points about a "Party of No" who aren't offering "solutions" of their own. This argument ignores (a) the idea of Nancy Pelosi passing a Republican alternative is too ridiculous to consider, and (b) a "no" vote could be a constructive vote on the people's behalf.
These reporters and anchors never hit Pelosi or Reid for having no plan for victory in Iraq. They never dismissed them as the "Party of No" for opposing Social Security reform. But when liberalism is on the national menu, the snobby waiters of our "news" media don't really want to take the people's order. They want to force-feed the American people what they "need."
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
When Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana announced last week he wasn't running for re-election, he didn't state what may have seemed obvious. He couldn't say he wanted to avoid the embarrassment of losing, or that he worried he'd never achieve national office if that happened. Instead, he launched into a lecture about what was wrong with everyone else. The government is "dysfunctional" with "brain-dead partisanship."
It's "Groundhog Day." This scenario repeats itself every time the Democrats take control.
Bayh's bleats hardened quickly into the media's conventional wisdom. Why can't the politicians hold hands in a "Kumbaya" circle and get "something" done? Translation: When Obama and a Democrat-dominated Congress can't nationalize the health care system and force everyone to drive a Prius, suddenly government is "dysfunctional." When gridlock is holding up the liberals' agenda, Washington should know "the people" sent them to pass massive ultraliberal bills.
These media mathematicians clearly have thrown their polling calculators out the window. When Newsweek recently asked independents if they supported the Democrat health proposals, 26 percent were in favor, and 62 percent were opposed. But the "wisdom" in town says Democrats must pass these health bills or get crushed in November. Now who can't seem to acknowledge, to borrow from Stephen Colbert, that "reality has a conservative bias"?
Reality tells you many Democrats are political toast, thanks to ObamaCare. Hence, bye-bye, Bayh. But our journalists put on their choir robes and continue to sing the sad song in unison: Why do we have a "Broken Government"? CNN actually launched an entire series of reports with that title.
Suffice it to say this is not the kind of media mantra we heard during President Bush's second term. Back then, this was the sound of CNN: commentator Jack Cafferty lamenting the alleged lack of partisanship in 2007: "They've already said they won't impeach President Bush. They've already said they won't cut funding for the war. ... It's time for the Democrats to walk the walk, and there are some early signs they might be coming down with leg cramps." He asked viewers: "How much faith do you have that the Democrats can stop the war and rein in President Bush?"
We're now mired in Year Two of Barack Obama's quagmire of "health reform," and no one on the left wants withdrawal. What they want is a socialist surge. Compare that to 2005, and the Bush administration's attempt to reform Social Security. It died ... about three months after the inauguration. CBS anchor Bob Schieffer repeatedly asked on April 26, 2005: "Is it already dead?"
In a way, you can understand his impatience. He and his colleagues had been trying to kill it from the moment of political conception.
Everything President Bush did was painted as a stunt. After the 2005 State of the Union, when there was an emotional hug between an Iraqi voter and the mother of a Marine killed in Iraq, MSNBC's Chris Matthews just had to politicize it by seeing it as a Social Security ploy: "Do you think President Bush used this to push his numbers on Social Security reform, just to get his general appeal up a bit?"
In March 2005, Matthews joked with Al Sharpton that Bush was piling up a mountain of debt we would owe China and Japan: "Why don't they just start paying people in their Social Security checks with yen, because we're getting money from them to pay the older folks their regular check?" Sharpton said he was going to start using that partisan line.
When Hurricane Katrina unfolded with deadly force, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift found a silver lining: "If there's an upside to Katrina, it's that the Republican agenda of tax cuts, Social Security privatization and slashing government programs is over."
Today, Clift is raining fire on Republicans for "harming" the country in the short term for their own partisan gain in the fall. Liberals don't have brains expansive enough to imagine that conservatives might think the greater good of the country -- politically, financially, morally -- rests in fighting the nationalization of our health care system, as well as the first steps toward government-funded abortions.
Instead, our media parrot the DNC talking points about a "Party of No" who aren't offering "solutions" of their own. This argument ignores (a) the idea of Nancy Pelosi passing a Republican alternative is too ridiculous to consider, and (b) a "no" vote could be a constructive vote on the people's behalf.
These reporters and anchors never hit Pelosi or Reid for having no plan for victory in Iraq. They never dismissed them as the "Party of No" for opposing Social Security reform. But when liberalism is on the national menu, the snobby waiters of our "news" media don't really want to take the people's order. They want to force-feed the American people what they "need."
Obama Discovers Iran's Preconditions
Austin Bay
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Iran's wicked conditions prior to Barack Obama's fanciful "no preconditions" now present themselves -- with the mullahs' rogue nuclear program 13 months closer to producing a bomb.
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton focused attention on the Iranian regime's powerful and tentacled radical militia, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG). "Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," Clinton said. "The trend with this greater and greater military lock on leadership decisions should be disturbing to Iranians as well as those of us on the outside."
Trend? IRG power is old news, and one of a multitude of wicked conditions candidate Barack Obama rhetorically obscured amidst his promises of hope, change, "smart" diplomacy and decisive negotiations with the robed dictators sans preconditions.
For three decades, the Iran's Khomeinist clerics and their "armed wing" (the IRG) have entwined so tightly it's tough to separate the snakes. In the mid-1990s, the IRG, having supplanted the Iranian Army as the regime's primary military force, became demonstrably influential in foreign affairs. As the ire of the Iranian people rose, spurred by corruption and a failing economy, the IRG's domestic clout increased.
When public anger with the regime spilled into Tehran's streets last year, IRG commanders monitored local police to ensure "reliability" and prepared to crack down. The Khomeinist street militias that continue to attack pro-democracy demonstrators have IRG ties.
The regime that dubbed Israel a "one bomb state" seeks nuclear weapons. The IRG, via its spies and special forces, links to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran also wages war on Iraq's emerging democracy.
For these and other loathsome prior conditions, differentiating between the IRG and the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is difficult.
Yet Obama extolled president-level negotiations with this Siamese-twin thugocracy. Obama's less-fossilized apologists may now defend his initiative as naive, but when he made it many of us called it what it was: stupid because it gave a brittle and brutal regime a political success without a price. It also played into the regime's game of strategic delay. The regime gives a little when sanctions loom, slides when Europeans fret, hugs Chinese oil brokers when America rattles sabers but always keeps the uranium centrifuges spinning.
Obama's "no preconditions" pitch was part of a cynical campaign ploy a fawning press corps trumpeted. Recall Obama promised "smart diplomacy" and accused the Bush administration of failing to use diplomatic means.
What blarney. Ambassador Ryan Crocker's congressional testimony in September 2007 addressed Iran's diplomatic intransigence. After Gen. David Petraeus told Congress that "militia extremists" in Iraq were directed "by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps' Quds Force," Crocker provided his insight.
When Rep. Tom Lantos, in a dismissive and arrogant tone, asked Crocker if the U.S. would pursue diplomacy with Iran, Crocker replied that he had talked with the Iranians, and "the conclusion I came away with after a couple of rounds was that the Iranians were only interested in the appearance of discussion, of being seen at the table with the U.S. instead of actually doing serious business."
Crocker provided Obama and his media entourage with a teaching moment -- but it was ignored, or worse, castigated as propaganda, to the detriment of Iran's own oppressed people and everyone seeking to avoid a nuclear war in the Middle East.
Is Obama finally educable? Does he understand the threat presented by Khomeinists with nuclear arms? Does he understand a summit with an American president is a political coup for dictators, and granting one should require concessions from noxious regimes? Until the thugs make them, keep direct discussions at low or unofficial levels -- like George W. Bush did.
Clinton's hype of old news does provide cover for a policy shift by the administration.
Let's hope that change is coming. Petraeus, following Clinton's statement, said the U.S. has put Iran on a "pressure track." Good. The Green Movement opposition needs support. Sanctions that truly sanction are difficult without Russian and Chinese blessings. That means Obama must prepare for military strikes on nuclear sites.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Iran's wicked conditions prior to Barack Obama's fanciful "no preconditions" now present themselves -- with the mullahs' rogue nuclear program 13 months closer to producing a bomb.
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton focused attention on the Iranian regime's powerful and tentacled radical militia, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRG). "Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," Clinton said. "The trend with this greater and greater military lock on leadership decisions should be disturbing to Iranians as well as those of us on the outside."
Trend? IRG power is old news, and one of a multitude of wicked conditions candidate Barack Obama rhetorically obscured amidst his promises of hope, change, "smart" diplomacy and decisive negotiations with the robed dictators sans preconditions.
For three decades, the Iran's Khomeinist clerics and their "armed wing" (the IRG) have entwined so tightly it's tough to separate the snakes. In the mid-1990s, the IRG, having supplanted the Iranian Army as the regime's primary military force, became demonstrably influential in foreign affairs. As the ire of the Iranian people rose, spurred by corruption and a failing economy, the IRG's domestic clout increased.
When public anger with the regime spilled into Tehran's streets last year, IRG commanders monitored local police to ensure "reliability" and prepared to crack down. The Khomeinist street militias that continue to attack pro-democracy demonstrators have IRG ties.
The regime that dubbed Israel a "one bomb state" seeks nuclear weapons. The IRG, via its spies and special forces, links to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran also wages war on Iraq's emerging democracy.
For these and other loathsome prior conditions, differentiating between the IRG and the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is difficult.
Yet Obama extolled president-level negotiations with this Siamese-twin thugocracy. Obama's less-fossilized apologists may now defend his initiative as naive, but when he made it many of us called it what it was: stupid because it gave a brittle and brutal regime a political success without a price. It also played into the regime's game of strategic delay. The regime gives a little when sanctions loom, slides when Europeans fret, hugs Chinese oil brokers when America rattles sabers but always keeps the uranium centrifuges spinning.
Obama's "no preconditions" pitch was part of a cynical campaign ploy a fawning press corps trumpeted. Recall Obama promised "smart diplomacy" and accused the Bush administration of failing to use diplomatic means.
What blarney. Ambassador Ryan Crocker's congressional testimony in September 2007 addressed Iran's diplomatic intransigence. After Gen. David Petraeus told Congress that "militia extremists" in Iraq were directed "by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps' Quds Force," Crocker provided his insight.
When Rep. Tom Lantos, in a dismissive and arrogant tone, asked Crocker if the U.S. would pursue diplomacy with Iran, Crocker replied that he had talked with the Iranians, and "the conclusion I came away with after a couple of rounds was that the Iranians were only interested in the appearance of discussion, of being seen at the table with the U.S. instead of actually doing serious business."
Crocker provided Obama and his media entourage with a teaching moment -- but it was ignored, or worse, castigated as propaganda, to the detriment of Iran's own oppressed people and everyone seeking to avoid a nuclear war in the Middle East.
Is Obama finally educable? Does he understand the threat presented by Khomeinists with nuclear arms? Does he understand a summit with an American president is a political coup for dictators, and granting one should require concessions from noxious regimes? Until the thugs make them, keep direct discussions at low or unofficial levels -- like George W. Bush did.
Clinton's hype of old news does provide cover for a policy shift by the administration.
Let's hope that change is coming. Petraeus, following Clinton's statement, said the U.S. has put Iran on a "pressure track." Good. The Green Movement opposition needs support. Sanctions that truly sanction are difficult without Russian and Chinese blessings. That means Obama must prepare for military strikes on nuclear sites.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Amnesty International: Not Much of a Reputation To Lose
Mona Charen
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Amnesty International has been a handmaiden of the left for as long as I can remember. Founded in 1961 to support prisoners of conscience, it has managed since then to ignore the most brutal regimes and to aim its fire at the West and particularly at the United States. This week, Amnesty has come in for some (much overdue) criticism -- but not nearly so much as it deserves.
During the Cold War, AI joined leftist international groups like the World Council of Churches to denounce America's policy in Central America. Yet human rights in Cuba were described this way in a 1976 report: "the persistence of fear, real or imaginary, was primarily responsible for the early excesses in the treatment of political prisoners." Those priests, human rights advocates, and homosexuals in Castro's prisons were suffering from imaginary evils. And the "excesses" were early -- not a continuing feature of the regime.
In 2005, William Schulz, the head of AI's American division, described the U.S. as a "leading purveyor and practitioner" of torture and recommended that President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking American officials face trial in other countries for their crimes. "The apparent high-level architects of torture," he added, "should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998." Schulz's comments were echoed by AI's Secretary General, Irene Khan, who denounced Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times."
When officials from Amnesty International demonstrated last month in front of Number 10 Downing Street demanding the closure of Guantanamo, Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee who runs a group called Cageprisoners, joined them. Begg is a British citizen who, by his own admission, was trained in at least three al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, was "armed and prepared to fight alongside the Taliban and al-Qaida against the United States and others," and served as a "communications link" between radical Muslims living in Great Britain and those abroad.
As for Cageprisoners, well, let's just say it isn't choosy about those it represents. Supposedly dedicated to helping those unjustly "held as part of the War on Terror," it has lavished unmitigated sympathy on the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, confessed mastermind of 9/11; Abu Hamza, the one-handed cleric convicted of 11 charges including soliciting murder; and Abu Qatada, described as Osama bin Laden's "European ambassador." Another favorite was Anwar Al-Awlaki, the spiritual guide to Nidal Hasan (the mass murderer at Fort Hood) and underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Anne Fitzgerald, AI's policy director, explained that the human rights group allied with Begg because he was a "compelling speaker" on detention and acknowledged that AI had paid his expenses for joint appearances. Asked by the Times of London if she regarded him as a human rights advocate, she said, "It's something you'd have to speak to him about. I don't have the information to answer that." One might think that would be a pretty basic thing about which to have information.
This level of collaboration didn't go down well with everyone at Amnesty. Gita Sahgal, the head of Amnesty's gender unit, went public with her dismay after internal protests were ignored. "I believe the campaign (with Begg's organization, Cageprisoners) fundamentally damages Amnesty International's integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights," she wrote to her superiors. "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment. ... Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights."
For this, Miss Sahgal was suspended.
There have been a couple of voices raised on her behalf on the left. Christopher Hitchens (if we can still locate him on the left) condemned Amnesty for its "disgraceful" treatment of a whistle-blower and suggested that AI's 2 million subscribers withhold funding until AI severs its ties with Begg and reinstates Sahgal. Salman Rushdie went further: "Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong."
Rushdie is right. His only error is in believing that Amnesty's loss of innocence is recent.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Amnesty International has been a handmaiden of the left for as long as I can remember. Founded in 1961 to support prisoners of conscience, it has managed since then to ignore the most brutal regimes and to aim its fire at the West and particularly at the United States. This week, Amnesty has come in for some (much overdue) criticism -- but not nearly so much as it deserves.
During the Cold War, AI joined leftist international groups like the World Council of Churches to denounce America's policy in Central America. Yet human rights in Cuba were described this way in a 1976 report: "the persistence of fear, real or imaginary, was primarily responsible for the early excesses in the treatment of political prisoners." Those priests, human rights advocates, and homosexuals in Castro's prisons were suffering from imaginary evils. And the "excesses" were early -- not a continuing feature of the regime.
In 2005, William Schulz, the head of AI's American division, described the U.S. as a "leading purveyor and practitioner" of torture and recommended that President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking American officials face trial in other countries for their crimes. "The apparent high-level architects of torture," he added, "should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998." Schulz's comments were echoed by AI's Secretary General, Irene Khan, who denounced Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times."
When officials from Amnesty International demonstrated last month in front of Number 10 Downing Street demanding the closure of Guantanamo, Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo detainee who runs a group called Cageprisoners, joined them. Begg is a British citizen who, by his own admission, was trained in at least three al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, was "armed and prepared to fight alongside the Taliban and al-Qaida against the United States and others," and served as a "communications link" between radical Muslims living in Great Britain and those abroad.
As for Cageprisoners, well, let's just say it isn't choosy about those it represents. Supposedly dedicated to helping those unjustly "held as part of the War on Terror," it has lavished unmitigated sympathy on the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, confessed mastermind of 9/11; Abu Hamza, the one-handed cleric convicted of 11 charges including soliciting murder; and Abu Qatada, described as Osama bin Laden's "European ambassador." Another favorite was Anwar Al-Awlaki, the spiritual guide to Nidal Hasan (the mass murderer at Fort Hood) and underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Anne Fitzgerald, AI's policy director, explained that the human rights group allied with Begg because he was a "compelling speaker" on detention and acknowledged that AI had paid his expenses for joint appearances. Asked by the Times of London if she regarded him as a human rights advocate, she said, "It's something you'd have to speak to him about. I don't have the information to answer that." One might think that would be a pretty basic thing about which to have information.
This level of collaboration didn't go down well with everyone at Amnesty. Gita Sahgal, the head of Amnesty's gender unit, went public with her dismay after internal protests were ignored. "I believe the campaign (with Begg's organization, Cageprisoners) fundamentally damages Amnesty International's integrity and, more importantly, constitutes a threat to human rights," she wrote to her superiors. "To be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment. ... Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights."
For this, Miss Sahgal was suspended.
There have been a couple of voices raised on her behalf on the left. Christopher Hitchens (if we can still locate him on the left) condemned Amnesty for its "disgraceful" treatment of a whistle-blower and suggested that AI's 2 million subscribers withhold funding until AI severs its ties with Begg and reinstates Sahgal. Salman Rushdie went further: "Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong."
Rushdie is right. His only error is in believing that Amnesty's loss of innocence is recent.
Ideology to Die For
Mike Adams
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
It is a truism to say that there are many anti-gun ideologues among our educational elites. But few are as honest as Doug Van Gorder – a math teacher at Brockton High School. He admits that he would rather lose a child than exercise his right to defend himself with a gun. In the wake of a recent school shooting, he wrote this in a Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe:
There are actually a lot of Doug Van Gorders in the world. In fact, there are whole organizations of them. The Brady Campaign for Gun Control is the first that comes to mind.
The Brady Campaign for Gun Control provides a scorecard on how states are doing in regard to gun control legislation. If you don’t have enough gun control laws you get a low score from the Brady bunch. For example, West Virginia receives a score of 4 out of a possible 100. Utah actually scores zero.
Right now, there is a post by a blogger named Don Surber circulating widely around the internet. Don has cleverly compared the homicide rates in some of the states getting low Brady scores with states getting high Brady scores. Consider the following comparison:
*Utah, the state with a zero rating, has only 1.5 homicides per 100,000 citizens. Less than half of those homicides are firearm related.
*California scores the highest according to the Brady report with a whopping 79. But they have 5.83 murders per 100,000, which is a rate nearly four times higher than Utah. Over 2/3 of the homicides in California are firearms related.
I can just hear liberals saying “People in Utah don’t need guns. There’s hardly any murder in their state.” Few probably make the connection between lawful gun ownership and low crime rates. Remember, these are the people who, in the 1990s, said that “despite the low crime rate, prison populations are higher than ever.” Back then they just could not connect the dots and figure out that crime was down because the criminals were locked up.
It all goes back to ideology. Liberals refuse to believe in deterrence theory because to do so admits to the fallen nature of man. To them, man is inherently good, not evil. Moreover, he is perfectible. The liberal is willing to die to preserve his vision of himself and others. And he wants you to die for his vision, too.
Don Surber’s comparison is clever but not dispositive. The data he examines is cross-sectional so its use is limited. What we really want to see is what happens after the laws the Brady Campaign opposes are actually put in effect.
Fortunately, we know the answer when it comes to concealed carry laws. Sixteen peer-reviewed studies show that allowing citizens to lawfully carry reduces violent crime rates. Ten peer-reviewed studies are inconclusive. But there are, to date, no peer-reviewed studies reaching the opposite conclusion; namely that allowing citizens to lawfully carry increases violent crime rates.
Nonetheless, the Brady bunch continues to fight for laws that will cause themselves and others to remain helpless in the face of criminal assault. They would sooner lay your child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.
The anti-gun lobby must realize that law abiding citizens need guns in a society that cannot ensure that criminals will not have them. But even if guns could be kept from criminals they would find other means to kill. After all, passengers without guns have flown airplanes into buildings.
The gun control extremist has at least two things in common with the Islamic extremist. He has a willingness to die for his fundamental beliefs. And he has the sanctimony to demand that others go with him.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
It is a truism to say that there are many anti-gun ideologues among our educational elites. But few are as honest as Doug Van Gorder – a math teacher at Brockton High School. He admits that he would rather lose a child than exercise his right to defend himself with a gun. In the wake of a recent school shooting, he wrote this in a Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe:
Some propose overturning laws that made schools gun-free zones even for teachers who may be licensed to securely carry concealed firearms elsewhere. They argue that barring licensed-carry only ensures a defenseless, target-rich environment.Morally speaking, I have no problem with anti-gun ideologues who wish to place themselves in peril by waiving their rights of self-defense. You almost have to respect someone who is willing to die for his beliefs. But when he decides that others should also die for his beliefs the real trouble begins.
But as a progressive, I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.
There are actually a lot of Doug Van Gorders in the world. In fact, there are whole organizations of them. The Brady Campaign for Gun Control is the first that comes to mind.
The Brady Campaign for Gun Control provides a scorecard on how states are doing in regard to gun control legislation. If you don’t have enough gun control laws you get a low score from the Brady bunch. For example, West Virginia receives a score of 4 out of a possible 100. Utah actually scores zero.
Right now, there is a post by a blogger named Don Surber circulating widely around the internet. Don has cleverly compared the homicide rates in some of the states getting low Brady scores with states getting high Brady scores. Consider the following comparison:
*Utah, the state with a zero rating, has only 1.5 homicides per 100,000 citizens. Less than half of those homicides are firearm related.
*California scores the highest according to the Brady report with a whopping 79. But they have 5.83 murders per 100,000, which is a rate nearly four times higher than Utah. Over 2/3 of the homicides in California are firearms related.
I can just hear liberals saying “People in Utah don’t need guns. There’s hardly any murder in their state.” Few probably make the connection between lawful gun ownership and low crime rates. Remember, these are the people who, in the 1990s, said that “despite the low crime rate, prison populations are higher than ever.” Back then they just could not connect the dots and figure out that crime was down because the criminals were locked up.
It all goes back to ideology. Liberals refuse to believe in deterrence theory because to do so admits to the fallen nature of man. To them, man is inherently good, not evil. Moreover, he is perfectible. The liberal is willing to die to preserve his vision of himself and others. And he wants you to die for his vision, too.
Don Surber’s comparison is clever but not dispositive. The data he examines is cross-sectional so its use is limited. What we really want to see is what happens after the laws the Brady Campaign opposes are actually put in effect.
Fortunately, we know the answer when it comes to concealed carry laws. Sixteen peer-reviewed studies show that allowing citizens to lawfully carry reduces violent crime rates. Ten peer-reviewed studies are inconclusive. But there are, to date, no peer-reviewed studies reaching the opposite conclusion; namely that allowing citizens to lawfully carry increases violent crime rates.
Nonetheless, the Brady bunch continues to fight for laws that will cause themselves and others to remain helpless in the face of criminal assault. They would sooner lay your child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.
The anti-gun lobby must realize that law abiding citizens need guns in a society that cannot ensure that criminals will not have them. But even if guns could be kept from criminals they would find other means to kill. After all, passengers without guns have flown airplanes into buildings.
The gun control extremist has at least two things in common with the Islamic extremist. He has a willingness to die for his fundamental beliefs. And he has the sanctimony to demand that others go with him.
Blame the Media for the Birther Movement
Nick Rizzuto
Monday, February 22, 2010
As President Obama's approval numbers continue to spiral downward, the left has purposefully tried to tie the increasingly popular small government conservative movement to the largely fringe "birthers". In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not a birther. I happen to believe that President Obama was born in Hawaii and was therefore eligible to be sworn in as President of the United States on inauguration day. That being said, I can't help but feel a little bit of sympathy for the birthers. Ultimately, the rise of the birther movement is the fault of a deficit of curiosity about Barack Obama on the part of the media.
As a result of his lack of experience in both the private and public sectors, coupled with his relative youth, President Obama's personal records are extremely thin. There are huge gaps in what we know about Barack Obama, whereas previous presidents have been open books. The media normally seems to revel in uncovering the seedy and controversial side of every political figure, but they have never exhibited the same interest in President Obama. Every president has had embarrassing issues arise from their past, but President Obama's level of secrecy, meant to maintain his squeaky clean veneer, only serves to fuel speculation.
Since day one Barack Obama has maintained an extreme amount of control over his image. One of the most important elements of that image has been the narrative of his past. To this end Mr. Obama has written two book that serve as the primary basis for this narrative. The media, whose very purpose is to be inquisitive, seems all too willing to accept it without question. Both Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of hope received scant scrutiny or fact checking. For comparison, the Associated Press devoted 11 reporters to pore over every word of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.
Another example of the difference in inquisitiveness that the media has shown for this president as opposed to previous ones can be seen by the 2004 investigation of President George W. Bush's military records. The search for dirt on President Bush was so fevered that some seemed willing to throw journalistic standards to the wind in pursuit of something that would stick. Distinguished careers were destroyed in the attempt to uncover details about President Bush’s past.
At the time Bush began his stint in the Air National Guard, he was 22 years old. When Obama was 22, he was still a student at Columbia University. An investigation along the same lines as the Bush Air National Guard investigation would be impossible because Obama has not allowed the release of his college records. Unfortunately, the media seems to be perfectly content with this lack of access to key events in our presidents past and for all intents and purposes considers the matter to be a non-issue.
The birthers are naturally being drawn to and are fueled by the alternative media because nearly all of the negative press Barack Obama has received, including his controversial associations from his past, has originated with these sources. While most of the media treated us to puff pieces during the 2008 election, investigations into Obama associates like Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers percolated and exploded almost exclusively out of traditionally conservative outlets and the blogosphere. Mainstream sources on the other hand fiercely fought to discredit these stories, even when these controversies deserved scrutiny and provided a rare insight into candidate Obama.
President Obama's secrecy about his past and the media's apparent lack of interest in it does not assume that they are colluding to cover something up, but it does leave plenty of room for people who are conspiratorially inclined to fill in the blanks. Seeing as the left increasingly sees the birther movement as an albatross to tie around the neck of their enemies on the right, we can most likely chalk up the media’s lack of curiosity to good old-fashioned left wing bias. But even if bias is to blame, it's only natural that some would confuse their lack of investigation to be evidence of malfeasance.
Presuming the media’s love affair with President Obama continues, we can assume that their lack of curiosity will as well. For those who profess such admiration for the President but don’t seem to care much about whom he was prior to his emergence on the public stage though the question remains: Are you scared of what you'll find?
Monday, February 22, 2010
As President Obama's approval numbers continue to spiral downward, the left has purposefully tried to tie the increasingly popular small government conservative movement to the largely fringe "birthers". In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not a birther. I happen to believe that President Obama was born in Hawaii and was therefore eligible to be sworn in as President of the United States on inauguration day. That being said, I can't help but feel a little bit of sympathy for the birthers. Ultimately, the rise of the birther movement is the fault of a deficit of curiosity about Barack Obama on the part of the media.
As a result of his lack of experience in both the private and public sectors, coupled with his relative youth, President Obama's personal records are extremely thin. There are huge gaps in what we know about Barack Obama, whereas previous presidents have been open books. The media normally seems to revel in uncovering the seedy and controversial side of every political figure, but they have never exhibited the same interest in President Obama. Every president has had embarrassing issues arise from their past, but President Obama's level of secrecy, meant to maintain his squeaky clean veneer, only serves to fuel speculation.
Since day one Barack Obama has maintained an extreme amount of control over his image. One of the most important elements of that image has been the narrative of his past. To this end Mr. Obama has written two book that serve as the primary basis for this narrative. The media, whose very purpose is to be inquisitive, seems all too willing to accept it without question. Both Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of hope received scant scrutiny or fact checking. For comparison, the Associated Press devoted 11 reporters to pore over every word of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.
Another example of the difference in inquisitiveness that the media has shown for this president as opposed to previous ones can be seen by the 2004 investigation of President George W. Bush's military records. The search for dirt on President Bush was so fevered that some seemed willing to throw journalistic standards to the wind in pursuit of something that would stick. Distinguished careers were destroyed in the attempt to uncover details about President Bush’s past.
At the time Bush began his stint in the Air National Guard, he was 22 years old. When Obama was 22, he was still a student at Columbia University. An investigation along the same lines as the Bush Air National Guard investigation would be impossible because Obama has not allowed the release of his college records. Unfortunately, the media seems to be perfectly content with this lack of access to key events in our presidents past and for all intents and purposes considers the matter to be a non-issue.
The birthers are naturally being drawn to and are fueled by the alternative media because nearly all of the negative press Barack Obama has received, including his controversial associations from his past, has originated with these sources. While most of the media treated us to puff pieces during the 2008 election, investigations into Obama associates like Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers percolated and exploded almost exclusively out of traditionally conservative outlets and the blogosphere. Mainstream sources on the other hand fiercely fought to discredit these stories, even when these controversies deserved scrutiny and provided a rare insight into candidate Obama.
President Obama's secrecy about his past and the media's apparent lack of interest in it does not assume that they are colluding to cover something up, but it does leave plenty of room for people who are conspiratorially inclined to fill in the blanks. Seeing as the left increasingly sees the birther movement as an albatross to tie around the neck of their enemies on the right, we can most likely chalk up the media’s lack of curiosity to good old-fashioned left wing bias. But even if bias is to blame, it's only natural that some would confuse their lack of investigation to be evidence of malfeasance.
Presuming the media’s love affair with President Obama continues, we can assume that their lack of curiosity will as well. For those who profess such admiration for the President but don’t seem to care much about whom he was prior to his emergence on the public stage though the question remains: Are you scared of what you'll find?
Obamacare: Socialism By Any Other Name
Matt Patterson
Monday, February 22, 2010
Recently, President Barack Obama addressed a gathering of House Republicans at their annual retreat in Baltimore. This effort at cross-party outreach was somewhat marred when Obama accused the gathered Republicans of maliciously poisoning the public against his health care plan, complaining that they had portrayed it as a "Bolshevik plot."
Obama's address to the GOP retreat was a philippic, an accusatory and condemnatory speech. Obama said in essence to his political adversaries:
"The public would like my plan and it would succeed - if only you would stop lying about it." One common feature of these kinds of addresses is hyperbolism, the deliberate exaggeration of your opponent's point of view so as to paint it with ridicule.
"Bolshevism" is an antiquated term almost exclusively associated with the events and persons surrounding the 1917 October Revolution in Russia.
However, the political and philosophical fellow travelers of Bolshevism, socialism and Communism, are still very much with us: the United States even has a self-described 'socialist' serving in the Senate (Bernie Sanders of Vermont). And certainly, the President's health care plan has come under criticism for being socialist in intent and scope.
And not for nothing, one might add. In 2003, then state senator Obama was videotaped telling an audience "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program...A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see." Of course, now that he is president of a country half the population of which are virulently opposed to any such thing, Obama has wisely refrained from repeating such extreme sentiments.
"Single-payer" of course means "government payer." Universal health care by definition can only be imposed by government fiat; in a free market, there will always be some segment of the population who are unable to afford or unwilling to purchase private health insurance. Only government can afford to be a 'single payer' ¬ with public monies, of course. And it must be noted that the health system instituted by the Bolsheviks under the Soviet Union was a 'single payer,' and like most such systems was a bureaucratic nightmare characterized by shortages, rationing, and substandard care.
So how do you get to a single-payer system in America? Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was singularly honest when he confessed, "I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer and that is the best way to reach single payer." Both the House and Senate versions of ObamaCare contained a public option (though this was stripped from the Senate version at the insistence of moderates). Barney Frank knows, as the President surely must, that a public option would squeeze private insurance out of existence until government is the only game in town. ¬ Voila single-payer!
When discussing Obama's health care plan, it is wise to recall the President's economic philosophy as explained to Joe Wurzelbacher on the campaign trail in 2008: "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Obama here clearly revealed his belief that "wealth" is not private property earned and owned by individuals, but the government's ¬ the collective's ¬ to distribute as they deem fit and fair.
If this is not socialism, then what is?
A Bolshevik is an early 20th century Russian revolutionary; a plot is a plan hatched in secret. Obama is not the former and has not engaged in the latter. However, the President and his allies have openly strived to socialize significant aspects of American society through health care reform. By fabricating a bogus "Bolshevik" charge, Obama cleverly avoided addressing the actual - and legitimate - charge of socialism.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Recently, President Barack Obama addressed a gathering of House Republicans at their annual retreat in Baltimore. This effort at cross-party outreach was somewhat marred when Obama accused the gathered Republicans of maliciously poisoning the public against his health care plan, complaining that they had portrayed it as a "Bolshevik plot."
Obama's address to the GOP retreat was a philippic, an accusatory and condemnatory speech. Obama said in essence to his political adversaries:
"The public would like my plan and it would succeed - if only you would stop lying about it." One common feature of these kinds of addresses is hyperbolism, the deliberate exaggeration of your opponent's point of view so as to paint it with ridicule.
"Bolshevism" is an antiquated term almost exclusively associated with the events and persons surrounding the 1917 October Revolution in Russia.
However, the political and philosophical fellow travelers of Bolshevism, socialism and Communism, are still very much with us: the United States even has a self-described 'socialist' serving in the Senate (Bernie Sanders of Vermont). And certainly, the President's health care plan has come under criticism for being socialist in intent and scope.
And not for nothing, one might add. In 2003, then state senator Obama was videotaped telling an audience "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program...A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I'd like to see." Of course, now that he is president of a country half the population of which are virulently opposed to any such thing, Obama has wisely refrained from repeating such extreme sentiments.
"Single-payer" of course means "government payer." Universal health care by definition can only be imposed by government fiat; in a free market, there will always be some segment of the population who are unable to afford or unwilling to purchase private health insurance. Only government can afford to be a 'single payer' ¬ with public monies, of course. And it must be noted that the health system instituted by the Bolsheviks under the Soviet Union was a 'single payer,' and like most such systems was a bureaucratic nightmare characterized by shortages, rationing, and substandard care.
So how do you get to a single-payer system in America? Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was singularly honest when he confessed, "I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer and that is the best way to reach single payer." Both the House and Senate versions of ObamaCare contained a public option (though this was stripped from the Senate version at the insistence of moderates). Barney Frank knows, as the President surely must, that a public option would squeeze private insurance out of existence until government is the only game in town. ¬ Voila single-payer!
When discussing Obama's health care plan, it is wise to recall the President's economic philosophy as explained to Joe Wurzelbacher on the campaign trail in 2008: "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Obama here clearly revealed his belief that "wealth" is not private property earned and owned by individuals, but the government's ¬ the collective's ¬ to distribute as they deem fit and fair.
If this is not socialism, then what is?
A Bolshevik is an early 20th century Russian revolutionary; a plot is a plan hatched in secret. Obama is not the former and has not engaged in the latter. However, the President and his allies have openly strived to socialize significant aspects of American society through health care reform. By fabricating a bogus "Bolshevik" charge, Obama cleverly avoided addressing the actual - and legitimate - charge of socialism.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Time for a New Generation of Black Americans
Star Parker
Monday, February 22, 2010
Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10%, and well over 16% among blacks, doesn’t make for much of a festive mood.
But if the mood is not festive, shouldn’t it be reflective?
Certainly, there’s reason for pride in black achievement in the forty plus years since the Civil Rights movement. We’ve now got a couple black billionaires and a black president. The percentage of blacks with college degrees is three times greater now than in 1970.
But black household income is still just 62% of white households. And the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960’s.
Blacks should be asking hard questions when, over this period of time, many immigrants from different backgrounds have come to this country with little and moved into the middle class in one generation.
The accumulation of considerable black political power – black mayors, governors, a 42 member Black Congressional Caucus, and now a black president - has made hardly a difference. It should be clear that black economic distress is not a political problem.
Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background.
Now consider that in 1970, 62% of black women were married compared to 33% today. In 1970, 74% of black men were married, compared to 44% today.
Or that in 1970, 5% of black mothers were never married compared to 41% today.
The Civil Rights movement was, of course, a religiously inspired and led movement. It made liberal use of the biblical imagery of the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
Taylor Branch called his trilogy about Dr. King and the movement he led “Parting of the Waters”, “Pillar of Fire”, and “At Canaan’s Edge.”
To the misfortune of blacks who put great hope in the redemptive powers of that movement, their leaders prematurely closed their bibles.
The story of the liberation of the Israelite slaves did not end with their release from their Egyptian taskmasters. That was the beginning. They then proceeded to the mountain in the wilderness to receive the law to take with them and live by in the Promised Land.
When it was clear that the former Egyptian slaves were not up to the task, they were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness so that a new generation would arise, enter the land, and build the nation.
Let’s recall that the law they received was about family (honor your parents), about property and ownership (thou shalt not steal), and about being concerned about building your own and not what your neighbor has (thou shalt not covet).
Rather than seeking redemption through this law, post-Civil Rights movement black leaders sought redemption in politics. The welfare state, entitlements, transfer payments, and the politics of differences and envy. Should we be surprised by the result?
The New York Times recently reported that from 2004 to 2008, the political and charitable arms of the Congressional Black Caucus raised more than $55 million from corporations and unions. According to the Times, most of these funds were “spent on elaborate conventions…a headquarters building, golf outings,…and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.”
More was spent on the caterer for the Caucus’s Foundation annual dinner - $700,000 – than it gave out in scholarships.
It’s now over forty years since the Civil Right movement. Enough wandering in the wilderness.
It’s time for a new generation of black Americans to step forward. A generation to turn to the truths that will rebuild black lives, black families, and lead blacks to the freedom that Dr. King and all blacks have dreamed about.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Black History Month 2010 is not a great time for a party. Unemployment at almost 10%, and well over 16% among blacks, doesn’t make for much of a festive mood.
But if the mood is not festive, shouldn’t it be reflective?
Certainly, there’s reason for pride in black achievement in the forty plus years since the Civil Rights movement. We’ve now got a couple black billionaires and a black president. The percentage of blacks with college degrees is three times greater now than in 1970.
But black household income is still just 62% of white households. And the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960’s.
Blacks should be asking hard questions when, over this period of time, many immigrants from different backgrounds have come to this country with little and moved into the middle class in one generation.
The accumulation of considerable black political power – black mayors, governors, a 42 member Black Congressional Caucus, and now a black president - has made hardly a difference. It should be clear that black economic distress is not a political problem.
Studies show that it’s family and education that produces success in America. Income correlates with education and education correlates with family background.
Now consider that in 1970, 62% of black women were married compared to 33% today. In 1970, 74% of black men were married, compared to 44% today.
Or that in 1970, 5% of black mothers were never married compared to 41% today.
The Civil Rights movement was, of course, a religiously inspired and led movement. It made liberal use of the biblical imagery of the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.
Taylor Branch called his trilogy about Dr. King and the movement he led “Parting of the Waters”, “Pillar of Fire”, and “At Canaan’s Edge.”
To the misfortune of blacks who put great hope in the redemptive powers of that movement, their leaders prematurely closed their bibles.
The story of the liberation of the Israelite slaves did not end with their release from their Egyptian taskmasters. That was the beginning. They then proceeded to the mountain in the wilderness to receive the law to take with them and live by in the Promised Land.
When it was clear that the former Egyptian slaves were not up to the task, they were condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness so that a new generation would arise, enter the land, and build the nation.
Let’s recall that the law they received was about family (honor your parents), about property and ownership (thou shalt not steal), and about being concerned about building your own and not what your neighbor has (thou shalt not covet).
Rather than seeking redemption through this law, post-Civil Rights movement black leaders sought redemption in politics. The welfare state, entitlements, transfer payments, and the politics of differences and envy. Should we be surprised by the result?
The New York Times recently reported that from 2004 to 2008, the political and charitable arms of the Congressional Black Caucus raised more than $55 million from corporations and unions. According to the Times, most of these funds were “spent on elaborate conventions…a headquarters building, golf outings,…and an annual visit to a Mississippi casino resort.”
More was spent on the caterer for the Caucus’s Foundation annual dinner - $700,000 – than it gave out in scholarships.
It’s now over forty years since the Civil Right movement. Enough wandering in the wilderness.
It’s time for a new generation of black Americans to step forward. A generation to turn to the truths that will rebuild black lives, black families, and lead blacks to the freedom that Dr. King and all blacks have dreamed about.
Deep Thoughts in Plain White English
Mike Adams
Monday, February 22, 2010
Dr. Adams,
My name is Claire. I am working on a story for the school newspaper, The (UNCW) Seahawk, about Dr. Maurice Martinez and his philosophy regarding Black English in his classroom. I would appreciate the opportunity to ask you a few questions on your views about this issue. I have read your column for Townhall.com and I am very interested in hearing your side of the debate about Black English. Please take some time to think about these questions and get back to me as soon as you have time. Thank you for your time.
Hello Claire. I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that I do not do interviews with the school newspaper because it has a 100% rate of error in representing my opinions. This is not because the reporters tend to be stupid. It is because they tend to be liberal and, therefore, tend to suffer from severe moral rather than intellectual hernia. For example, the last time your paper ran a story on one of my opinion pieces it was insinuated that I wished to bomb gay bath houses in San Francisco although there actually aren’t any gay bath houses in San Francisco. Thankfully, the paper stopped short of accusing me of attempting to rape a unicorn.
But there is good news. I am going to respond to all five questions you have submitted by making them the subject of my Monday column on TownHall.com. That way, the paper will not be able to misrepresent my views as they have in the past. TownHall.com is the premier conservative political website in America. So when university administrators try to attack my views it is sort of like Michael Jackson trying to attack Mike Tyson. It also keeps the university newspaper honest.
1. What is your response to Black English being taught in a UNCW classroom? What purpose does it serve to you?
My response is that I am developing a new course proposal to be submitted directly to UNC Wilmington Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo. It will be called EDN 201 “White English.” I’m going to spend an entire semester differentiating White English from Black English and see how long it takes for me to be removed from the classroom.
While I am on leave I will write a book about my experiences. I plan to call it Redneck Jihad: The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping. So my response to your question about “what purpose” this is serving me is simple. I plan to make money off the stupidity of far left professors just as I’ve been doing for years. I plan to use the profits from their stupidity to buy more firearms and go on more hunting trips.
2. Dr. Martinez teaches that one reason for implementing this philosophy is so children who speak this dialect won't be "condemned" for the way the [sic] speak; are his teaching methods an appropriate way to address "No Child Left Behind"?
No, absolutely not. The best way to address “No Child Left Behind” is to repeal it. The Republican Party leaders had it right in the 1980s when they considered eliminating the Department of Education. The federal government has had no business interfering with local schools since we had to send in the National Guard in the 1950s to stop racist Democrats from keeping little black kids from attending the public schools in Arkansas. I think we should get rid of the Department of Education after we first repeal “No Child Left Behind.” That program just proves that George W. Bush was really a big-spending liberal posing as a conservative.
3. Black English is a social dialect that has been defined by sociolinguists, and many claim that more knowledge could be learned to bridge the gap between social dialects and Standard English to help students in school; does this bring validity to Dr. Martinez and his claims, or is his "street talk" best left to the streets?
No, it does not bring validity to Dr. Martinez and his claims. Dr. Martinez was asked to defend his teaching of Black English in the wake of my column last week. This was done at a Black Faculty meeting. Afterwards, a black faculty member who was clearly angry with Martinez called my office. He claimed that Martinez had told them that in his class there were only a few pages of notes on Black English. I sent him the entire 75 page power point presentation. Now, that black faculty member is even angrier with Dr. Martinez.
Dr. Martinez has suffered a very severe and self-inflicted blow to his credibility.
4. Controversy has stemmed from the naming of this dialect: is it racist to label Black English as "Black"?
It is not really racist but it is offensive. But I find the United Negro College Fund to be more offensive. Not to mention the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Oh yes, and the Black Faculty meetings at UNCW are offensive, too. Maybe Chancellor DePaolo could reinstate the “white” and “colored” restrooms in the name of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion.
5. In your column, you stated that many parents should request their tuition money back. Why do you feel that Black English is a waste of funds?
Well, thanks for asking about my feelings. I like talking about my feelings. But my feelings about Black English require little elaboration. Black English just makes me feel filthy when I repeat it. Kind of like when the feminists chant the c-word in The Vagina Monologues. In White Redneck English we say “At (not “dat”) just ain’t right.”
By way of analogy, imagine that you see a large pile of dog manure in your front yard. There’s no need to walk over to the pile and pick it up to know it is manure. There’s no need to rub it on your face or take a bite out of it to know it is manure. You do not have to “immerse” yourself in it or in any way analyze it to know it is manure. You just need to scoop it off your lawn before someone steps on it and tracks it into your hizzie.
It’s the same way with Black English. It is self-evident that it is simply pseudo-intellectual manure. It has no place in higher education.
Thank you again for your time, I appreciate your responses.
No, thank you! I enjoy talking about this. It’s fun to make coins while girding your loins. It’s even better than making scrilla while keeping it rilla!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Dr. Adams,
My name is Claire. I am working on a story for the school newspaper, The (UNCW) Seahawk, about Dr. Maurice Martinez and his philosophy regarding Black English in his classroom. I would appreciate the opportunity to ask you a few questions on your views about this issue. I have read your column for Townhall.com and I am very interested in hearing your side of the debate about Black English. Please take some time to think about these questions and get back to me as soon as you have time. Thank you for your time.
Hello Claire. I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that I do not do interviews with the school newspaper because it has a 100% rate of error in representing my opinions. This is not because the reporters tend to be stupid. It is because they tend to be liberal and, therefore, tend to suffer from severe moral rather than intellectual hernia. For example, the last time your paper ran a story on one of my opinion pieces it was insinuated that I wished to bomb gay bath houses in San Francisco although there actually aren’t any gay bath houses in San Francisco. Thankfully, the paper stopped short of accusing me of attempting to rape a unicorn.
But there is good news. I am going to respond to all five questions you have submitted by making them the subject of my Monday column on TownHall.com. That way, the paper will not be able to misrepresent my views as they have in the past. TownHall.com is the premier conservative political website in America. So when university administrators try to attack my views it is sort of like Michael Jackson trying to attack Mike Tyson. It also keeps the university newspaper honest.
1. What is your response to Black English being taught in a UNCW classroom? What purpose does it serve to you?
My response is that I am developing a new course proposal to be submitted directly to UNC Wilmington Chancellor Rosemary DePaolo. It will be called EDN 201 “White English.” I’m going to spend an entire semester differentiating White English from Black English and see how long it takes for me to be removed from the classroom.
While I am on leave I will write a book about my experiences. I plan to call it Redneck Jihad: The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping. So my response to your question about “what purpose” this is serving me is simple. I plan to make money off the stupidity of far left professors just as I’ve been doing for years. I plan to use the profits from their stupidity to buy more firearms and go on more hunting trips.
2. Dr. Martinez teaches that one reason for implementing this philosophy is so children who speak this dialect won't be "condemned" for the way the [sic] speak; are his teaching methods an appropriate way to address "No Child Left Behind"?
No, absolutely not. The best way to address “No Child Left Behind” is to repeal it. The Republican Party leaders had it right in the 1980s when they considered eliminating the Department of Education. The federal government has had no business interfering with local schools since we had to send in the National Guard in the 1950s to stop racist Democrats from keeping little black kids from attending the public schools in Arkansas. I think we should get rid of the Department of Education after we first repeal “No Child Left Behind.” That program just proves that George W. Bush was really a big-spending liberal posing as a conservative.
3. Black English is a social dialect that has been defined by sociolinguists, and many claim that more knowledge could be learned to bridge the gap between social dialects and Standard English to help students in school; does this bring validity to Dr. Martinez and his claims, or is his "street talk" best left to the streets?
No, it does not bring validity to Dr. Martinez and his claims. Dr. Martinez was asked to defend his teaching of Black English in the wake of my column last week. This was done at a Black Faculty meeting. Afterwards, a black faculty member who was clearly angry with Martinez called my office. He claimed that Martinez had told them that in his class there were only a few pages of notes on Black English. I sent him the entire 75 page power point presentation. Now, that black faculty member is even angrier with Dr. Martinez.
Dr. Martinez has suffered a very severe and self-inflicted blow to his credibility.
4. Controversy has stemmed from the naming of this dialect: is it racist to label Black English as "Black"?
It is not really racist but it is offensive. But I find the United Negro College Fund to be more offensive. Not to mention the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Oh yes, and the Black Faculty meetings at UNCW are offensive, too. Maybe Chancellor DePaolo could reinstate the “white” and “colored” restrooms in the name of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion.
5. In your column, you stated that many parents should request their tuition money back. Why do you feel that Black English is a waste of funds?
Well, thanks for asking about my feelings. I like talking about my feelings. But my feelings about Black English require little elaboration. Black English just makes me feel filthy when I repeat it. Kind of like when the feminists chant the c-word in The Vagina Monologues. In White Redneck English we say “At (not “dat”) just ain’t right.”
By way of analogy, imagine that you see a large pile of dog manure in your front yard. There’s no need to walk over to the pile and pick it up to know it is manure. There’s no need to rub it on your face or take a bite out of it to know it is manure. You do not have to “immerse” yourself in it or in any way analyze it to know it is manure. You just need to scoop it off your lawn before someone steps on it and tracks it into your hizzie.
It’s the same way with Black English. It is self-evident that it is simply pseudo-intellectual manure. It has no place in higher education.
Thank you again for your time, I appreciate your responses.
No, thank you! I enjoy talking about this. It’s fun to make coins while girding your loins. It’s even better than making scrilla while keeping it rilla!
Illegal Immigrants or Public Employees: Who’s the Bigger Problem?
Bruce Bialosky
Monday, February 22, 2010
Recently I delivered a speech that reviewed the first year of the Obama Presidency. While I tried to cover all the relevant topics over the past 12 months, a friend who attended later wrote me to express surprise that I had not spoken about illegal immigration.
He stated that he felt it was the nation’s most critical issue, and wondered why the subject seems to have been put on the backburner by many Republicans. I replied with sympathy for his position, but ultimately I’ve come to the conclusion that the most critical issue facing America – and the one driving our budget problems at the local, state and federal level – is public employee unions and their related costs. The debate began.
There is no question that the issue of illegal immigration has multiple aspects to it, many of which give rise to significant costs to the taxpayers. First, there is the overarching fact that even though laws are clearly being broken, our government passively condones the illegalities with very little enforcement. Second, illegal immigrants generate enormous public expenses: Public hospitals are stretched by emergency rooms being flooded with illegal immigrants, our school systems are fiscally challenged to educate their children, and our prisons are disproportionally populated by “undocumented” criminals. Finally, we seem to be unwilling to address the issue of anchor babies, which corrupts the concept of how to define an American citizen.
Despite all that, I still believe that public employee unions are still the greater threat to our society and our financial future. This country has been absorbing immigrants – legal and illegal – for decades, and we have generally adapted our economic realities and public expenditures in an appropriate manner.
But let us remember that it was not until 1958 that New York Mayor Robert Wagner signed into law the right of New York’s public employees to unionize. President Kennedy quickly followed, allowing federal employees to form their own unions. And now – 5 decades later – the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2009, for the first time, public employees comprise over half (51.4%) of all union members.
This shows that private employees have been rejecting unions for the past 50 years. Yet our public employees, who enjoy the protection of civil service, have been joining unions at a rapid clip. In 2009, thousands of private-sector union members were losing their jobs. At the same time, public union members were not only protected by the government, but the percentage of public employees who were unionized went up from 36.8% to 37.4%. That means they were getting jobs while private-sector employees were losing theirs.
The public employee unions and their excessive salaries and fringe benefits are crushing budgets across the United States. Nowhere is it more evident than in our largest state – California – whose budget has been out of balance for about ten years. Every time they supposedly reach a budget deal it goes haywire in short order, yet there is never an attempt to scale back the level of employees because too many state legislators are beholden to the public employee unions that fund their campaigns.
About 85% of California public employees are unionized. Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate for governor, recently asked her staff to analyze the last state budget whose revenues were at the present, recession-reduced level. They found out that it was five years ago, and at that time there were 40,000 fewer government employees. While private businesses would have scaled back their number of employees to balance their budget, the Legislature flatly refuses to do that and proposes to either raise taxes, borrow money, or get money from the federal government (which has to borrow the money themselves).
Los Angeles recently had an all-day City Council meeting to consider cutting back city employees. Not surprisingly, and largely due to the fact that at least 13 of the 15 members were elected with union money, they postponed addressing the estimated $200 million shortfall for 30 days and then proposed a series of tax increases. Mayor Villaraigosa, who is also supported by the unions, stepped into the breach and announced he was cutting 1,000 positions. That’s 1,000 positions – not 1,000 jobs – because he then stated that 360 of the employees could be transferred to departments unaffected by the budget crisis. Only in the bizarre world of union-controlled government could such a ludicrous proposal be made with a straight face.
Instead of confronting the bloated public payrolls and excessive medical and pension benefits, our elected officials continue to appease the employees who turn around and provide more money and workers at election time. Check your children’s classroom on Presidential Election Day and see how many teachers have called in sick to protect their investment in the Democratic candidate.
Our politicians just gloss over the issue. In his State of the Union Speech, President Obama proposed a new college loan program, and suggested that if students had not paid their loan in 20 years, they should be relieved of the remainder of the debt. As preposterous as that proposal seems, he then recommended that students who went into public service should be relieved of their debt after ten years – despite the fact that public employees have higher salaries, better medical plans and significantly better retirement programs. Mr. Obama needs to be reminded this is not the 1950’s, when people chose to work for the government to get more job security, but received lower pay.
Yes, illegal immigration presents challenges, but what the public employee unions have done to our government at all levels over the past 50 years makes the challenges of illegal immigration pale in comparison. Illegal immigrants do not fund and elect entire city councils, school boards, legislatures, Congressman, Senators, and even Presidents. When that happens we really will have to pray for America.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Recently I delivered a speech that reviewed the first year of the Obama Presidency. While I tried to cover all the relevant topics over the past 12 months, a friend who attended later wrote me to express surprise that I had not spoken about illegal immigration.
He stated that he felt it was the nation’s most critical issue, and wondered why the subject seems to have been put on the backburner by many Republicans. I replied with sympathy for his position, but ultimately I’ve come to the conclusion that the most critical issue facing America – and the one driving our budget problems at the local, state and federal level – is public employee unions and their related costs. The debate began.
There is no question that the issue of illegal immigration has multiple aspects to it, many of which give rise to significant costs to the taxpayers. First, there is the overarching fact that even though laws are clearly being broken, our government passively condones the illegalities with very little enforcement. Second, illegal immigrants generate enormous public expenses: Public hospitals are stretched by emergency rooms being flooded with illegal immigrants, our school systems are fiscally challenged to educate their children, and our prisons are disproportionally populated by “undocumented” criminals. Finally, we seem to be unwilling to address the issue of anchor babies, which corrupts the concept of how to define an American citizen.
Despite all that, I still believe that public employee unions are still the greater threat to our society and our financial future. This country has been absorbing immigrants – legal and illegal – for decades, and we have generally adapted our economic realities and public expenditures in an appropriate manner.
But let us remember that it was not until 1958 that New York Mayor Robert Wagner signed into law the right of New York’s public employees to unionize. President Kennedy quickly followed, allowing federal employees to form their own unions. And now – 5 decades later – the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2009, for the first time, public employees comprise over half (51.4%) of all union members.
This shows that private employees have been rejecting unions for the past 50 years. Yet our public employees, who enjoy the protection of civil service, have been joining unions at a rapid clip. In 2009, thousands of private-sector union members were losing their jobs. At the same time, public union members were not only protected by the government, but the percentage of public employees who were unionized went up from 36.8% to 37.4%. That means they were getting jobs while private-sector employees were losing theirs.
The public employee unions and their excessive salaries and fringe benefits are crushing budgets across the United States. Nowhere is it more evident than in our largest state – California – whose budget has been out of balance for about ten years. Every time they supposedly reach a budget deal it goes haywire in short order, yet there is never an attempt to scale back the level of employees because too many state legislators are beholden to the public employee unions that fund their campaigns.
About 85% of California public employees are unionized. Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate for governor, recently asked her staff to analyze the last state budget whose revenues were at the present, recession-reduced level. They found out that it was five years ago, and at that time there were 40,000 fewer government employees. While private businesses would have scaled back their number of employees to balance their budget, the Legislature flatly refuses to do that and proposes to either raise taxes, borrow money, or get money from the federal government (which has to borrow the money themselves).
Los Angeles recently had an all-day City Council meeting to consider cutting back city employees. Not surprisingly, and largely due to the fact that at least 13 of the 15 members were elected with union money, they postponed addressing the estimated $200 million shortfall for 30 days and then proposed a series of tax increases. Mayor Villaraigosa, who is also supported by the unions, stepped into the breach and announced he was cutting 1,000 positions. That’s 1,000 positions – not 1,000 jobs – because he then stated that 360 of the employees could be transferred to departments unaffected by the budget crisis. Only in the bizarre world of union-controlled government could such a ludicrous proposal be made with a straight face.
Instead of confronting the bloated public payrolls and excessive medical and pension benefits, our elected officials continue to appease the employees who turn around and provide more money and workers at election time. Check your children’s classroom on Presidential Election Day and see how many teachers have called in sick to protect their investment in the Democratic candidate.
Our politicians just gloss over the issue. In his State of the Union Speech, President Obama proposed a new college loan program, and suggested that if students had not paid their loan in 20 years, they should be relieved of the remainder of the debt. As preposterous as that proposal seems, he then recommended that students who went into public service should be relieved of their debt after ten years – despite the fact that public employees have higher salaries, better medical plans and significantly better retirement programs. Mr. Obama needs to be reminded this is not the 1950’s, when people chose to work for the government to get more job security, but received lower pay.
Yes, illegal immigration presents challenges, but what the public employee unions have done to our government at all levels over the past 50 years makes the challenges of illegal immigration pale in comparison. Illegal immigrants do not fund and elect entire city councils, school boards, legislatures, Congressman, Senators, and even Presidents. When that happens we really will have to pray for America.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Where's Al?
Ken Connor
Sunday, February 21, 2010
“I’m like Punxsutawney Phil, but do you know what it means when I see my shadow? It means the earth is dying. Have you been outside today? It’s 60 degrees in late November. I mean there’s a Christmas tree in front of this building and guys are wearing flip-flops. You can’t say this isn’t real.” -Al Gore on Saturday Night Live, November 2009
It was all laughs for Al Gore last November when he hit the media circuit to promote his new book and educate the ignorant masses about the imminent threat of catastrophic climate change. He had the rapt attention of the politicians and the pundits and the celebrities. He’d won an Academy Award! The former Vice-President and presidential hopeful had built a new career as the voice of the Green Movement, and business was booming. What a difference three months makes.
In the face of the embarrassing Climategate scandal and an unprecedented winter season that has for the first time ever delivered measurable snowfall to all 50 states, Al Gore’s absence from the public stage has been conspicuous. Perhaps he’s taken a page from Punxsutawney Phil’s playbook and is hibernating in hopes of a sunnier forecast come April.
All kidding – and snowstorms – aside, recent events have caused many to doubt the veracity of Al Gore’s award-winning claims about man-made global warming and the “settled science” behind climate change. In the aftermath of “Climategate” – in which several e-mails revealing manipulative and unethical behavior by some of the main scientists responsible for gathering and analyzing global temperature data were exposed – the scientist at the center of the controversy has admitted that his method of handling the raw temperature data used to compile climate reports is “not as good as it should be,” and furthermore has conceded that there has been no “statistically significant” warming of the earth in the last 15 years. This is a fascinating revelation, considering that global warming alarmists have been prophesying the imminent ruin of Planet Earth for over three decades.
The bottom line is that intelligent, responsible people are getting tired of being made to feel guilty for every carbon credit consumed and every mile-per-gallon burned, especially when it’s becoming more and more clear that the current climate change hysteria is being fueled less by solid scientific evidence than by an extreme Green ideology that – much like Agent Smith in the Matrix movies – views humanity as a virus, a plague upon the earth that must be contained and ultimately eradicated. For the extreme enviro-ideologues, mankind’s devastating impact on the earth is a foregone conclusion; the appeal to “science” is simply a clever public relations tactic.
There aren’t many fields of scientific inquiry where the level of negligence, irresponsibility, and carelessness that characterizes the study of global climate trends would be allowed to prevail. Scientists take pride, above all, in their dedication to The Method. In order for a hypothesis to gain any traction, it much be researched, tested, replicated, and analyzed. Any 8th-grader will tell you that sloppy work in setting up your experiment, failure to account for relevant variables, or insufficient presentation of data will get you an F on your end-of-semester project. Yet somehow the entire globe has been taken captive by an ideology driven by shoddy science.
Meanwhile, the number of people who would claim that mankind has made zero impact on the environment in the last century is understandably small. Most reasonable, sensible individuals – regardless of their party affiliation or their penchant for Birkenstocks and IMF protests – will agree that there are many ways in which we can do better. Investing in renewable energy technologies, modifying our personal habits to diminish our impact on the environment, and supporting efforts to achieve energy independence are all worthy and achievable goals.
Instead of hyper-politicizing the issue and promoting sloppy, unproven science, why not recast the issue in light of the human vocation of stewardship? When God created human beings in His image and gave us dominion over the beast of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, He did not install us as despots, entitled to consume all the earth’s resources for ourselves. He bestowed upon us a sacred trust. We are “stewards” – mere caretakers of creation – with the responsibility of managing the earth’s resources not only for ourselves, but for future generations.
One day we will render an account for our stewardship. Here’s hoping that we will be found faithful.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
“I’m like Punxsutawney Phil, but do you know what it means when I see my shadow? It means the earth is dying. Have you been outside today? It’s 60 degrees in late November. I mean there’s a Christmas tree in front of this building and guys are wearing flip-flops. You can’t say this isn’t real.” -Al Gore on Saturday Night Live, November 2009
It was all laughs for Al Gore last November when he hit the media circuit to promote his new book and educate the ignorant masses about the imminent threat of catastrophic climate change. He had the rapt attention of the politicians and the pundits and the celebrities. He’d won an Academy Award! The former Vice-President and presidential hopeful had built a new career as the voice of the Green Movement, and business was booming. What a difference three months makes.
In the face of the embarrassing Climategate scandal and an unprecedented winter season that has for the first time ever delivered measurable snowfall to all 50 states, Al Gore’s absence from the public stage has been conspicuous. Perhaps he’s taken a page from Punxsutawney Phil’s playbook and is hibernating in hopes of a sunnier forecast come April.
All kidding – and snowstorms – aside, recent events have caused many to doubt the veracity of Al Gore’s award-winning claims about man-made global warming and the “settled science” behind climate change. In the aftermath of “Climategate” – in which several e-mails revealing manipulative and unethical behavior by some of the main scientists responsible for gathering and analyzing global temperature data were exposed – the scientist at the center of the controversy has admitted that his method of handling the raw temperature data used to compile climate reports is “not as good as it should be,” and furthermore has conceded that there has been no “statistically significant” warming of the earth in the last 15 years. This is a fascinating revelation, considering that global warming alarmists have been prophesying the imminent ruin of Planet Earth for over three decades.
The bottom line is that intelligent, responsible people are getting tired of being made to feel guilty for every carbon credit consumed and every mile-per-gallon burned, especially when it’s becoming more and more clear that the current climate change hysteria is being fueled less by solid scientific evidence than by an extreme Green ideology that – much like Agent Smith in the Matrix movies – views humanity as a virus, a plague upon the earth that must be contained and ultimately eradicated. For the extreme enviro-ideologues, mankind’s devastating impact on the earth is a foregone conclusion; the appeal to “science” is simply a clever public relations tactic.
There aren’t many fields of scientific inquiry where the level of negligence, irresponsibility, and carelessness that characterizes the study of global climate trends would be allowed to prevail. Scientists take pride, above all, in their dedication to The Method. In order for a hypothesis to gain any traction, it much be researched, tested, replicated, and analyzed. Any 8th-grader will tell you that sloppy work in setting up your experiment, failure to account for relevant variables, or insufficient presentation of data will get you an F on your end-of-semester project. Yet somehow the entire globe has been taken captive by an ideology driven by shoddy science.
Meanwhile, the number of people who would claim that mankind has made zero impact on the environment in the last century is understandably small. Most reasonable, sensible individuals – regardless of their party affiliation or their penchant for Birkenstocks and IMF protests – will agree that there are many ways in which we can do better. Investing in renewable energy technologies, modifying our personal habits to diminish our impact on the environment, and supporting efforts to achieve energy independence are all worthy and achievable goals.
Instead of hyper-politicizing the issue and promoting sloppy, unproven science, why not recast the issue in light of the human vocation of stewardship? When God created human beings in His image and gave us dominion over the beast of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, He did not install us as despots, entitled to consume all the earth’s resources for ourselves. He bestowed upon us a sacred trust. We are “stewards” – mere caretakers of creation – with the responsibility of managing the earth’s resources not only for ourselves, but for future generations.
One day we will render an account for our stewardship. Here’s hoping that we will be found faithful.
Blinded by Science
George Will
Sunday, February 21, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Science, many scientists say, has been restored to her rightful throne because progressives have regained power. Progressives, say progressives, emulate the cool detachment of scientific discourse. So hear now the calm, collected voice of a scientist lavishly honored by progressives, Rajendra Pachauri.
He is chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 version of the increasingly weird Nobel Peace Prize. Denouncing persons skeptical about the shrill certitudes of those who say global warming poses an imminent threat to the planet, he says:
"They are the same people who deny the link between smoking and cancer. They are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder -- and I hope they put it on their faces every day."
Do not judge him as harshly as he speaks of others. Nothing prepared him for the unnerving horror of encountering disagreement. Global warming alarmists, long cosseted by echoing media, manifest an interesting incongruity -- hysteria and name calling accompanying serene assertions about the "settled science" of climate change. Were it settled, we would be spared the hyperbole that amounts to Ring Lardner's "Shut up, he explained."
The global warming industry, like Alexander in the famous children's story, is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Actually, a bad three months, which began Nov. 19 with the publication of e-mails indicating attempts by scientists to massage data and suppress dissent in order to strengthen "evidence" of global warming.
But there already supposedly was a broad, deep and unassailable consensus. Strange.
Next came the failure of The World's Last -- We Really, Really Mean It -- Chance, aka the Copenhagen climate change summit. It was a nullity, and since then things have been getting worse for those trying to stampede the world into a spasm of prophylactic statism.
In 2007, before the economic downturn began enforcing seriousness and discouraging grandstanding, seven Western U.S. states (and four Canadian provinces) decided to fix the planet on their own. California's Arnold Schwarzenegger intoned, "We cannot wait for the United States government to get its act together on the environment." The 11 jurisdictions formed what is now called the Western Climate Initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, starting in 2012.
Or not. Arizona's Gov. Jan Brewer recently suspended her state's participation in what has not yet begun, and some Utah legislators are reportedly considering a similar action. She worries, sensibly, that it would impose costs on businesses and consumers. She also ordered reconsideration of Arizona's strict vehicle emission rules, modeled on incorrigible California's, lest they raise the cost of new cars.
Last week, BP America, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar, three early members of the 31-member U.S. Climate Action Partnership, said: Oh, never mind. They withdrew from USCAP. It is a coalition of corporations and global warming alarm groups that was formed in 2007 when carbon rationing legislation seemed inevitable and collaboration with the rationers seemed prudent. A spokesman for Conoco said: "We need to spend time addressing the issues that impact our shareholders and consumers." What a concept.
Global warming skeptics, too, have erred. They have said there has been no statistically significant warming for 10 years. Phil Jones, former director of Britain's Climatic Research Unit, source of the leaked documents, admits it has been 15 years. Small wonder that support for radical remedial action, sacrificing wealth and freedom to combat warming, is melting faster than the Himalayan glaciers that an IPCC report asserted, without serious scientific support, could disappear by 2035.
Jones also says that if during what is called the Medieval Warm Period (circa 800-1300) global temperatures may have been warmer than today's, that would change the debate. Indeed it would. It would complicate the task of indicting contemporary civilization for today's supposedly unprecedented temperatures.
Last week, Todd Stern, America's Special Envoy for Climate Change -- yes, there is one; and people wonder where to begin cutting government -- warned that those interested in "undermining action on climate change" will seize on "whatever tidbit they can find." Tidbits like specious science, and the absence of warming?
It is tempting to say, only half in jest, that Stern's portfolio violates the First Amendment, which forbids government from undertaking the establishment of religion. A religion is what the faith in catastrophic man-made global warming has become. It is now a tissue of assertions impervious to evidence, assertions which everything, including a historic blizzard, supposedly confirms and nothing, not even the absence of warming, can falsify.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
WASHINGTON -- Science, many scientists say, has been restored to her rightful throne because progressives have regained power. Progressives, say progressives, emulate the cool detachment of scientific discourse. So hear now the calm, collected voice of a scientist lavishly honored by progressives, Rajendra Pachauri.
He is chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 version of the increasingly weird Nobel Peace Prize. Denouncing persons skeptical about the shrill certitudes of those who say global warming poses an imminent threat to the planet, he says:
"They are the same people who deny the link between smoking and cancer. They are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder -- and I hope they put it on their faces every day."
Do not judge him as harshly as he speaks of others. Nothing prepared him for the unnerving horror of encountering disagreement. Global warming alarmists, long cosseted by echoing media, manifest an interesting incongruity -- hysteria and name calling accompanying serene assertions about the "settled science" of climate change. Were it settled, we would be spared the hyperbole that amounts to Ring Lardner's "Shut up, he explained."
The global warming industry, like Alexander in the famous children's story, is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Actually, a bad three months, which began Nov. 19 with the publication of e-mails indicating attempts by scientists to massage data and suppress dissent in order to strengthen "evidence" of global warming.
But there already supposedly was a broad, deep and unassailable consensus. Strange.
Next came the failure of The World's Last -- We Really, Really Mean It -- Chance, aka the Copenhagen climate change summit. It was a nullity, and since then things have been getting worse for those trying to stampede the world into a spasm of prophylactic statism.
In 2007, before the economic downturn began enforcing seriousness and discouraging grandstanding, seven Western U.S. states (and four Canadian provinces) decided to fix the planet on their own. California's Arnold Schwarzenegger intoned, "We cannot wait for the United States government to get its act together on the environment." The 11 jurisdictions formed what is now called the Western Climate Initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, starting in 2012.
Or not. Arizona's Gov. Jan Brewer recently suspended her state's participation in what has not yet begun, and some Utah legislators are reportedly considering a similar action. She worries, sensibly, that it would impose costs on businesses and consumers. She also ordered reconsideration of Arizona's strict vehicle emission rules, modeled on incorrigible California's, lest they raise the cost of new cars.
Last week, BP America, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar, three early members of the 31-member U.S. Climate Action Partnership, said: Oh, never mind. They withdrew from USCAP. It is a coalition of corporations and global warming alarm groups that was formed in 2007 when carbon rationing legislation seemed inevitable and collaboration with the rationers seemed prudent. A spokesman for Conoco said: "We need to spend time addressing the issues that impact our shareholders and consumers." What a concept.
Global warming skeptics, too, have erred. They have said there has been no statistically significant warming for 10 years. Phil Jones, former director of Britain's Climatic Research Unit, source of the leaked documents, admits it has been 15 years. Small wonder that support for radical remedial action, sacrificing wealth and freedom to combat warming, is melting faster than the Himalayan glaciers that an IPCC report asserted, without serious scientific support, could disappear by 2035.
Jones also says that if during what is called the Medieval Warm Period (circa 800-1300) global temperatures may have been warmer than today's, that would change the debate. Indeed it would. It would complicate the task of indicting contemporary civilization for today's supposedly unprecedented temperatures.
Last week, Todd Stern, America's Special Envoy for Climate Change -- yes, there is one; and people wonder where to begin cutting government -- warned that those interested in "undermining action on climate change" will seize on "whatever tidbit they can find." Tidbits like specious science, and the absence of warming?
It is tempting to say, only half in jest, that Stern's portfolio violates the First Amendment, which forbids government from undertaking the establishment of religion. A religion is what the faith in catastrophic man-made global warming has become. It is now a tissue of assertions impervious to evidence, assertions which everything, including a historic blizzard, supposedly confirms and nothing, not even the absence of warming, can falsify.
Some Republicans "Get It" - and Some Still Don't
Austin Hill
Sunday, February 21, 2010
“I spent the weekend in Vancouver. As always, the Olympics were inspiring. But in case you didn’t hear the late-breaking news, the gold medal in the downhill was taken away from American Lindsey Vonn. It was determined that President Obama is going downhill faster than she is…”
So began former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, as he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC)” last Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Great line, great joke. And nobody - not even the most devout of his supporters - disputes the fact that in a variety of different ways, President Obama is, at least presently, headed “downhill.”
But who, really, understands why President Obama has fallen into such disfavor? How is it that Americans’ collective perception of their President has morphed from that of “messiah” to “pariah” in only a year?
Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts used four powerful words – “We Can Do Better” – to capture the hearts and minds of his fellow bay-staters during his recent campaign. And Senator Brown’s statement should bring about a question for Republicans nationwide- we can do “better than what?”
Some answers to that question should be obvious. We can do better than a government that seeks to meddle with and control the most personal areas of our lives (Obamacare’s egregious insertion of bureaucrats into the doctor-patient relationship has driven this point to the forefront). We can do better than a government that crafts policy in the dead of night, behind closed doors, and – as Senator Brown has been fond of saying – in “backroom deals.”
And we can do better than a government that funds failure (bailouts for financially troubled corporations and individuals), while punishing success (higher taxes on “the rich”); a government that makes a mockery of human merit, and instead seeks to choose winners and losers in our economy according to the preferences of politicians; a government where “leaders” regard their roles as a matter of dictatorship, rather than of servant hood.
Each of these concerns is a “moral” concern. They speak to our nation’s fundamental sense of fairness (those who assume that America is in “moral decline” should take note – our moral sensibilities have been awakened and alarmed in the era of Obama). Yet these issues are also fundamentally economic, as well. And the “ruling party” in Washington has so horribly mismanaged our money and violated our collective sense of fairness that, at this point, most of us have been left thirsting for “more freedom,” and less government entanglement.
Do Republican leaders get it? America needs leadership both in the spirit of Ronald Reagan, who elevated the private sector to unimaginable heights, but also in the spirit Margaret Thatcher, who as Prime Minister of England actually decreased the entanglement of government in private affairs. With state and local governments teetering on bankruptcy and federal deficits dangerously high, Americans have never in my lifetime been more ready for this kind of change. Let the “thatchering” begin.
Fortunately, Governor Bob McDonnell is keeping his campaign promise to close Virginia’s $4 billion budget gap. Similarly, Governor Chris Christie declared a “fiscal state of emergency” in New Jersey, and issued an “executive order” to slash $2.2 billion from his state’s budget. Even the Reuters news agency noted that Governor Christie is responding to “a public recognition that something radical is needed…”
In the west, Governor Butch Otter is responding to Idaho’s budget woes with the only rational approach – cutting state spending – and in response to weakening state funding projections, has proposed even deeper spending cuts than were originally included in his January “state of the state” address.
Yet some Idaho Republicans are moving in the opposite direction of Otter, seeking to expand government with an “employer sanctions law” that penalizes Idaho business owners caught employing illegal immigrants.
Such legislation may satiate voters’ desires to “get even” with “illegals” (Arizona and Tennessee passed similar laws last decade). But balancing the federal government’s failure to manage immigration on the backs of small business owners does not lead to prosperity, or fairness.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is pushing a statewide sales tax increase as a means of fiscal recovery. Yet after calling the legislature into “special session” six times in the past year, Arizona remains nearly $2 billion in the red with no “recovery plan” in sight. Meanwhile, the Republican legislature garners headlines for pushing legislation that will put the Ten Commandments on display in the capitol.
And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, long rumored to be negotiating an “Obama bailout” for bankrupt California, recently signed the nation’s first law restricting the energy consumption levels of television sets.
America presently has no use for government that can’t manage our tax dollars, yet spends them promoting the Bible and saving the planet from big screen TV’s. This is as distasteful as bailouts, mandated healthcare, and privileges and exemptions for Obama’s cronies.
We can do better. But if Republicans won’t “get it” – who will?
Sunday, February 21, 2010
“I spent the weekend in Vancouver. As always, the Olympics were inspiring. But in case you didn’t hear the late-breaking news, the gold medal in the downhill was taken away from American Lindsey Vonn. It was determined that President Obama is going downhill faster than she is…”
So began former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, as he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC)” last Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Great line, great joke. And nobody - not even the most devout of his supporters - disputes the fact that in a variety of different ways, President Obama is, at least presently, headed “downhill.”
But who, really, understands why President Obama has fallen into such disfavor? How is it that Americans’ collective perception of their President has morphed from that of “messiah” to “pariah” in only a year?
Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts used four powerful words – “We Can Do Better” – to capture the hearts and minds of his fellow bay-staters during his recent campaign. And Senator Brown’s statement should bring about a question for Republicans nationwide- we can do “better than what?”
Some answers to that question should be obvious. We can do better than a government that seeks to meddle with and control the most personal areas of our lives (Obamacare’s egregious insertion of bureaucrats into the doctor-patient relationship has driven this point to the forefront). We can do better than a government that crafts policy in the dead of night, behind closed doors, and – as Senator Brown has been fond of saying – in “backroom deals.”
And we can do better than a government that funds failure (bailouts for financially troubled corporations and individuals), while punishing success (higher taxes on “the rich”); a government that makes a mockery of human merit, and instead seeks to choose winners and losers in our economy according to the preferences of politicians; a government where “leaders” regard their roles as a matter of dictatorship, rather than of servant hood.
Each of these concerns is a “moral” concern. They speak to our nation’s fundamental sense of fairness (those who assume that America is in “moral decline” should take note – our moral sensibilities have been awakened and alarmed in the era of Obama). Yet these issues are also fundamentally economic, as well. And the “ruling party” in Washington has so horribly mismanaged our money and violated our collective sense of fairness that, at this point, most of us have been left thirsting for “more freedom,” and less government entanglement.
Do Republican leaders get it? America needs leadership both in the spirit of Ronald Reagan, who elevated the private sector to unimaginable heights, but also in the spirit Margaret Thatcher, who as Prime Minister of England actually decreased the entanglement of government in private affairs. With state and local governments teetering on bankruptcy and federal deficits dangerously high, Americans have never in my lifetime been more ready for this kind of change. Let the “thatchering” begin.
Fortunately, Governor Bob McDonnell is keeping his campaign promise to close Virginia’s $4 billion budget gap. Similarly, Governor Chris Christie declared a “fiscal state of emergency” in New Jersey, and issued an “executive order” to slash $2.2 billion from his state’s budget. Even the Reuters news agency noted that Governor Christie is responding to “a public recognition that something radical is needed…”
In the west, Governor Butch Otter is responding to Idaho’s budget woes with the only rational approach – cutting state spending – and in response to weakening state funding projections, has proposed even deeper spending cuts than were originally included in his January “state of the state” address.
Yet some Idaho Republicans are moving in the opposite direction of Otter, seeking to expand government with an “employer sanctions law” that penalizes Idaho business owners caught employing illegal immigrants.
Such legislation may satiate voters’ desires to “get even” with “illegals” (Arizona and Tennessee passed similar laws last decade). But balancing the federal government’s failure to manage immigration on the backs of small business owners does not lead to prosperity, or fairness.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is pushing a statewide sales tax increase as a means of fiscal recovery. Yet after calling the legislature into “special session” six times in the past year, Arizona remains nearly $2 billion in the red with no “recovery plan” in sight. Meanwhile, the Republican legislature garners headlines for pushing legislation that will put the Ten Commandments on display in the capitol.
And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, long rumored to be negotiating an “Obama bailout” for bankrupt California, recently signed the nation’s first law restricting the energy consumption levels of television sets.
America presently has no use for government that can’t manage our tax dollars, yet spends them promoting the Bible and saving the planet from big screen TV’s. This is as distasteful as bailouts, mandated healthcare, and privileges and exemptions for Obama’s cronies.
We can do better. But if Republicans won’t “get it” – who will?
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