The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Shearing The Shrinking Sheep Myth

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An article from the French press recently made headlines by outlining the “case of the shrinking sheep“.  It seems that the wild Soay sheep in a little place called Hirta, in the St. Kilda archipelago in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, are defying Darwin and the evolutionists by becoming smaller in size as their population ages.

Hirta is a little storm-battered island only just over 2 miles square and when its last small settlement of human inhabitants finally left in 1930, taking their sheep with them, the only fauna remaining behind were the seabirds, seals, and the St. Kilda wood mouse.   The Soay sheep were introduced in 1932 to roam freely and the area eventually became a wildlife refuge.

The average person just doesn’t spend much time thinking about biological diversity and the reasons for it, and brave little sheep on a wind-swept isle in romantic Scotland make for wonderfully guilt-inducing photo ops.   But there is something wrong with this picture.

Every ecosystem has an inherent set of checks and balances and in the case of Hirta, what is missing from the traditional and expected picture is a natural predator of the sheep.  The wild Soay sheep on Hirta have lived with no pressure from anything except their physical surroundings and, naturally, this increases the chances of survival for the small and the weak.  But despite their unpressured existence, studies have shown the population fluctuates with “periodic population crashes, during which up to 60% of the population may die. The adult sex ratio is strongly female biased due to heavily male biased mortality during population crashes.” 

There is also the matter of inbreeding, and although one study shows Soay sheep to be less likely than other species to mate with close relatives, the inherent small numbers of the population and limited habitat naturally depresses the availability of genetic diversity over time.

The fear-mongers who beat the voodoo drums of global warming to conjure up their own future financial windfalls want you to believe that the wild Soay sheep are shrinking like a wool sweater because of being tumbled in a hot man-made dryer, but don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes.  Common sense looks for an explanation that actually meets the criteria of reality; because of my own work I know that there are numerous exceptions in this wonderful world to what is called “Bergman’s Rule”, a biological observation that says members of a species tend to be larger in the cooler part of their range.  When you look at the circumstances in which the wild Soay sheep live on Hirta their slightly smaller size today – a phenomena still unfolding – is far more likely due to a naturally-belated exception-to-Bergman’s-Rule response to the previous, slight warming trend the Earth has recently experienced, then combined with a previously-unneeded but hearty “small size” gene becoming dominent due to the naturally slow rate of inbreeding combined with the lack of natural predation.

And such exceptions do not conclusions make.  Unless, of course, you’re out to fleece someone.

A Call To American Patriots

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If you believe in America, if you believe She is the greatest country in the world, it’s time to show your colors.  Tomorrow we celebrate 233 years of unheard-of independence.  But that independence and our freedoms are now under greater attack than at any other time in our history for the enemy we fight is not without, the enemy has taken root within.

Americans, WE NEED YOU TOMORROW.  It’s time reclaim America’s independence and what better way to do it than by gathering with those who believe in FREEDOM.

There are Tea Parties being held all over America tomorrow.  If your heart beats in the rhythms of a true, red-white-and-blue Patriot, I urge you to GO TO ONE OF THEM.  Take your friends, take your family, especially your children, and raise your voices in peaceful protest against those who now seek to undermine the Constitution.  (You can locate one near you by looking HERE.)

You don’t need any preparation.  You already have what you need.  Sure, signs with astute, pithy phrases are always good, but what is most important is YOU – your presence – to show all the unrepresenting representatives that we, the people, do NOT want them subverting our rights for the ill-gotten gains of a few who seek only corrupted, egotistical and tyrannical power.  What those few keep forgetting is that there is strength in numbers.  Strength in numbers by Constitutional design.  It is high time for an overwhelming majority outcry against the traitors in Washington and a siren call for the return to common sense and sanity.

I have noted here before that the Tea Parties are amazing events.  If you’ve never “protested”, there is no reason to be shy.  To speak out in support of the Constitution is both your right and your duty.  In doing so beside hundreds or even thousands of ordinary folks – people just like you – you will find your weary heart filled with renewed hope and strength.  Along with voting, truly, this is one of the most important actions you will ever take in your lifetime.  Trust me when I say that you will be able to lay your head down tomorrow night with the honest comfort that you at least tried to do something to get America out from under the jackboots now stomping through Washington.

If there are those who wish to opine that the stars have somehow aligned, let them.  For they now align in favor of the Patriot.  The 4th of July, our most sacred celebration as a nation, falls on a Saturday.  What better day to pack up your family and your friends and honor our Founding Fathers than by standing up in support of and thanks for the ultimate blessings of the gifts they have given us?

I look forward to shaking your hand tomorrow, my friend.  May the spirit of the American Revolution live again.

Listen Well, Washington

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As America celebrates our Independence Day, it is only right to think about the beginnings of this great nation.  And this is always a good time to reread our Declaration of Independence.  But instead of bringing its usual comfort and that ever-present feeling of gratefulness for such wise actions taken on our behalf, today I find the Founding Fathers prophetically describing America in 2009.

Take a moment and read it with me.

“When…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another…they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.“

Breaking up may be hard to do, but in the interest of fairness, you always tell the other person why you are leaving.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This is the cornerstone, the solid and unmoveable foundation upon which everything else is built.  It is not some windswept pile of “shifting sand” and it does not guarantee that happiness – however you may choose to define it – will be attained.  Only that you, the individual, have the right to go after it.

…whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it….  Prudence…will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes…but when a long train of abuses and usurpations … evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

This is the guts of the relationship between a people and those they charge with the job to oversee their general welfare.  But opinion must not be confused with fact, and when opinions remove even a single stone from the foundation to place one single person over everyone else – no matter what weasel words are used to attempt to convince it is for the “greater good” rather than preserving the rights of the individuals – the people must get rid of the destroyers. 

The history of the present King  … is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny….

The problem in a nutshell.  The person trusted to oversee things from the highest perspective has decided that the perceived power of their position is more important than the foundation they were assigned to safeguard.  And they are acting out that perception, to the harm of the people.

So now, in the interests of fairness, let’s look at the Founding Fathers’ original complaints with the King of England in light of current events.

He has refused to pass other laws…unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

Here is where to consider that Obama and the administration see no problem with ACORN helping with the 2010 census.  A false 2010 Census count is intended to give the Obama administration more suck-up lackeys who will continue to help his push towards the socialization of the republic of the United States.  The group who is on trial for voter registration fraud in 14 states with evidence that fraud was on behalf of the Obama campaign, as well as the question of their apparently tangled misuse of donor funds, cannot be trusted to not distort the census on behalf of the Democrats and “progressive liberals”, but those in a position to stop their census participation or investigate them refuse to do so.

Also Obama’s direct involvement with Wall Street and Chrysler and GM, involvement that particularly in the cases of Chrysler and GM directly and blatantly ignored the laws of bankruptcy.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

Most recently, on behalf of the Obama agenda, the Speaker of the House threatened Representatives with mandatory attendance until such time as they passed the tax burden of cap & trade legislation.  And how about that 300-page middle-of-the-night amendment to the bill?  In fact, how about forcing votes on bills so big that no one even reads them?  (Though that could be prevented if Congress were not part and parcel of the relationship that needs to end.)

He has refused for a long time… to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Under this original grievance may be placed the long list of unqualified Obama cabinet nominees who would not make it through Senate confirmation hearings (and so excused themselves) but the long list of “czars” appointed by Obama who do not need such Senate confirmation continues.  It is also where to give pause and thought to the current bill, HJ 5, that proposes repealing the 22nd amendment that sets presidential term limits (albeit one in a long series of such proposals but dangerous nonetheless).

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

 Short list:  Expanding the powers of the Federal Reserve. The “GIVE” act.  The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  The proposed “cybersecurity” agency.  And how many “czars” so far?

HR 275 will give the “Department of Defense … authority to execute warrants, make arrests (with or without a warrant), and carry firearms … for any offense against the United States”.

Department of Defense Defense Directive 1404.10 establishes a “DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce” and rescinds a prior Clinton-era directive dealing with the emergency use of civilian personnel.  It is designed for such situations “as combat, contingencies,emergency operations; humanitarian and civic assistance activities; disaster relief; restoration of order; drug interdiction; and stability operations of the Department of Defense.” in the United States with orders coming from the Pentagon.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

Harold Koh, legal adviser to the State Department, documented transnationalist.  Continued support of the U.N.’s “Millenium Goals”. 

 A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

“I won.”

“President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.”

“Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.”

“I’m the president of the United States, and I’ll carry out my responsibilities the way I think is appropriate.”

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Here me well, Washington.  Here me well, America.  This American’s star-spangled banner yet waves.

No Choice With Health Care “Reform”

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The big buzz word being used to sell America on the idea of socialized medicine is “choice”.  But – surprise, surprise – the Senate’s release today of certain components of its plans to “reform” health care for Americans doesn’t include it.

How do I force thee?  Let me count the ways:

  1. Americans who make the personal choice to not purchase “affordable” medical coverage
    1. Could be hit with fines of more than $1,000
    2. Employees must buy medical coverage from their employer (if offered)
    3.  Families would be financially penalized more than individuals (that’s called “shared responsibility”)
    4. The IRS would be responsible for collecting the fines
    5. Hardship exemptions would be allowed
  2. Employers must provide health insurance
    1. Must cover 60% of the total cost per employee
    2. Will be fined $750 for each employee not covered
    3. Exempt if employing less than 25 people
    4. Eligible for a government subsidy to provide employee health insurance

All of this is bad enough, but of course the devil’s in the details and it’s in those details we begin to see how the administration is going to twist the screws to secure their ultimately fascist aims.  A health insurance premium that costs an employee more than 12.5 percent of his or her adjusted gross income would be considered unaffordable.  The bill would then let these employees drop their employer coverage to seek cheaper alternatives elsewhere. 

I’ll give you three guesses where that “cheaper alternative” will be found and the first two guesses don’t count.

Workforce.com reports:

A majority of employees already work for employers that pay 50 percent or more of their health care premium costs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2008 survey on health benefits. In 2008, the average covered worker paid 16 percent of the premium and families paid 27 percent, though those numbers vary sharply according to an employer’s size, employee salary and whether an employee is part of a labor union.

The latest draft from the Senate health committee does not specify what minimum employer coverage must look like, except that mini-medical plans would not qualify nor would plans with high out-of-pocket maximums. The out-of-pocket limit would be defined by Section 223 of the Internal Revenue Code used to determine what qualifies as a high-deductible plan.

That code specifies that, for 2010, a health plan’s out-of-pocket maximums (including deductibles, co-payments and other costs other than premiums) could not exceed of $5,950 for individuals or $11,900 for families.

The secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services would add more details to the kinds of health coverage that meet the proposed employer mandate.

This doesn’t even begin to address the costs to American taxpayers or how we’ll be expected to pay for it (but talk abounds about reductions to  Medicare and Medicaid and taxing all types of insurance policies).  The finance committees in both the House and the Senate are working on their own (more expensive) versions but the initial numbers aren’t at all encouraging.  Estimates right now from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for the Senate health committee’s version alone stand at $611.4 billion over 10 years; that’s just a few Starbucks lattes shy of $51,000 for each of the 12 million who will gain coverage.  Senator Dodd says he’s only counting legal residents but tack on the secret that Senator Menendez and La Raza don’t want you to know about adding 22+ million illegal immigrants and at that conservative CBO estimate per person, we’re looking at more like $1,120,900,000,000 right out the gate (yes, Virgina, that’s over a trillion dollars).

Right now, I don’t know what the answer is to “health care for everyone” except a strong, free market economy where people are working and removing the 22+ million drain on health care services provided to illegal immigrants (criminals).  But I do know that what is being planned – taking away Americans freedom to choose – ain’t it.

Health Reform La Raza Style – Giving Health Care To Non-Citizens

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As surely as that the wolf of socialized medicine wearing sheep’s clothing of health care reform means death to the elderly and others deemed not “cost effective” to treat, the legislation now brewing is going to be chock-full of pork and served with an enormous helping of spin, smoke and mirrors.  And of serious concern is the once-covert push to cover illegal immigrants.

At the forefront of this nastiness, prelude to adding 22+ million people to what is already a bloated and broken system, is the infamous La Raza.  It bills itself as “The largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, the NCLR works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans.”

Nice.  But in the land where equal opportunity is law, not necessarily necessary.  It’s just another way to draw attention to differences and establish a subculture of permanent victims instead of simply living the fact that we’re all Americans looking to create a good life for ourselves and our children.

But I digress.

La Raza is apparently in bed with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), one of the key people involved in drafting the Senate’s version of a “health care reform bill”.  Mark Levin had a caller on his show recently who attended a La Raza conference and here are their words:

…they started the conference out by saying “America does not need health care reform, but Latino immigrants need health care reform.”And they also said that 75% of the children who will be picked up in this will be non-citizens and that 44% of the uninsured are non-citizens and they can’t possibly allow the American people to know this.”

And someone from Menendez’ office promised that he would make sure that “the useless barriers of citizenship would not be in this bill” and that he would make sure that they would use keywords like “streamline”…

It was La Raza, the Childrens Defense Fund and Senator Menendez from New Jersey, a representative from his office…

They actually got up and said “Latino children need health care more than whites“. And then they would say things like “you must go out into your communities, use words like ‘streamline’, use phrases like ‘all workers’ and ‘all families’,” because they said — and I quote — “If the American people find out that this bill is about giving health care to non-citizens, they will rise up against it.”

…One of the quotes they said was, “We want to make sure we take care of barriers like verification, but we can streamline programs to the more affluent” and, quote, “Useless treatments for the elderly can be gone because we don’t need to spend money for people who are going to die anyway.”

That’s a direct quote from that meeting. They also said, “We are very concerned there will be an effort to include “the illegal immigrants in this argument, so “we must make sure that we focus this” to the American people that it’s looking like we want “health care for everyone”.

 Menendez’ office said that he’s going to make sure that “a family of four that makes $66,000 a year or less will pay nothing at all for the new health care. And he was the one who said he was going to get rid of specifics like “citizenship status” and focus on, quote, “equity for all workers”.

And he said he’s going to make sure that the Latino immigrants are the focus of the health care reform.

And La Raza said if they get this, they don’t even care about amnesty, because they’ve fixed it so that one family member can apply for all extended family members.

It’s time to let our Senators and Representatives know that we know what they’re up to here and tell them in no uncertain terms that including illegal immigrants – criminals – in anything paid for with our tax monies is wrong.

Everything Else Is Negotiable (Including Your Health Care)

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Having otherwise-intelligent liberal friends still hawking past-expiration-date Obama campaign Kool-Aid makes it easy to find the spin being put out by the administration and the media.  So-called “health care reform” is the next big attack looming over American freedoms and it was with interest I read a article sent to impress me and my friend’s other correspondents with the “efforts” of the current Chicago politicians holding Americans hostage from Washington.

These are some excerpts from the rather long article that ought to make everyone with common sense shudder: 

Rather than laying out an intricate plan and then trying to sell it on the Hill, as Clinton did, Obama’s strategy seems to be exactly the opposite — to sell himself to Congress first and worry about the details later.  As Emanuel likes to tell his West Wing staff: “The only nonnegotiable principle here is success. Everything else is negotiable.”

Obama’s aggressive courtship of Congress is plotted and directed by Emanuel…[and he] has taken an unusually personal role in handling Congress. One of the first things he did as chief of staff was to give out his cellphone number to every Democratic senator (and some Republicans too)…his social calendar is taken up by dinners with former House colleagues on both sides of the aisle, often at one of the trendy downtown restaurants he favors.

The second tenet of Emanuel’s theory is that the White House itself comes with strategic assets you can put to good use, if you allocate them properly. There’s the White House theater, where guests can watch movies and sporting events; formal state dinners; smaller gatherings in the first family’s residence, which spouses can join; tickets to the Easter-egg roll for kids; tickets to the White House tours that members like to give out to their constituents. …in Obama’s nascent administration, they are considered carefully and accounted for obsessively. Emanuel holds a daily legislative meeting at which aides discuss the status of pending legislation, and often they go over the distribution of White House assets during those sessions. “We have a tracking system,” Emanuel told me. “Who came to watch the football game? Who came to watch the basketball game?”

…friction between House and Senate Democrats now seems to have reached a point where they might want to build their own virtual fence down the middle of the rotunda.  [Obama] simply encourages the House to go wild, and then he relies on centrists in the Senate to do the unpleasant work of scaling back the legislation, which yields a more politically palatable bill…. And while House and Senate leaders may end up wanting to throttle one another, Obama gets to play the reluctant arbiter between the two, rather than actually having to challenge his base.

 It’s an impressive balancing act, but it may not be sustainable as the emotional debate over health care unfolds. Some House Democrats I talked to have already begun to wonder audibly why they’re the ones who always have to surrender in Emanuel’s middle-of-the-night negotiating sessions. They accuse Reid and his lieutenants of repeatedly placating Republicans to avoid a filibuster, rather than taking a stand on principle now and then. Why not force centrist Democrats to vote against their party and let Republicans filibuster the agenda on national television? What would the voters think then? Centrists in the Senate, meanwhile, have grown furious at some of Pelosi’s backroom maneuvering — most notably, the final negotiations over the stimulus bill, when she brazenly reinserted $50 million in arts funding that had been struck as part of an earlier compromise.

During his campaign last year, Obama took at least two positions on health care that he may soon find hard to maintain. First, in the primaries, he differentiated his plan from Hillary Clinton’s by refusing to back an “individual mandate” — that is, the provision that would require every American to obtain insurance. Then, during the fall campaign, Obama criticized John McCain for proposing to tax employer-based health benefits. If he were to offer a detailed proposal of his own right now, Obama might have to…reverse himself on one or both positions. But with Baucus urging him to leave the details to his committee, Obama can instead wait for a plan to emerge from the Senate and then, if need be, reluctantly change his mind in the interest of compromise. Thus he preserves the option of backing away from his previous anti-big-government stances, and he gets to appear statesmanlike and pragmatic in the process. 

[Senator] Baucus remarked … offhandedly that Obama “didn’t really serve in the Senate,” which seems to be the prevailing sentiment among senators who saw him for only a brief time before he took off to run for president.

Obama seems to have decided early on that his model for pursuing legislation would be something closer to Ronald Reagan, a president whose political savvy he has often expressed admiration for.

Though such machinations have been the unfortunate part and parcel of politics since the first caveman bartered a piece of meat for a lump of burning coal, I can only imagine that Ronnie is rolling over in his grave.  As a small but critical prelude to our upcoming focus on the dangers inherent in and lies surrounding the next Obama agenda item for his destruction of America, I think it fitting to let Ronald Reagan himself speak to us one more time about the topic of “socialized medicine”.  Words spoken while he was “just” another American citizen, like you and me:

“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

Let’s take a look at social security itself. Again, very few of us disagree with the original premise that there should be some form of savings that would keep destitution from following unemployment by reason of death, disability or old age. And to this end, social security was adopted, but it was never intended to supplant private savings, private insurance, pension programs of unions and industries.

Now in our country under our free enterprise system we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side, at the freedom the doctor loses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go some place else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being.  All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it is a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay and pretty soon your children won’t decide when they’re in school where they will go or what they will do for a living. They will wait for the government to tell them where they will go to work and what they will do.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can write to our congressmen and our senators. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms. And at the moment, the key issue is, we do not want socialized medicine.

Former Representative Halleck of Indiana has said, “When the American people want something from Congress, regardless of its political complexion, if they make their wants known, Congress does what the people want.”

So write, and if your representative writes back to you and tells you that he or she, too, is for free enterprise, that we have these great services and so forth, that must be performed by government, don’t let them get away with it. Show that you have not been convinced. Write a letter right back and tell them that you believe in government economy and fiscal responsibility; that you know governments don’t tax to get the money the need; governments will always find a need for the money they get and that you demand the continuation of our free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen even we believe that he is on our side to begin with. Write to strengthen his hand. Give him the ability to stand before his colleagues in Congress and say “I have heard from my constituents and this is what they want.”

Write those letters now; call your friends and them to write them. If you don’t, this program I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. Until, one day, as Normal Thomas said we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don’t do this and if I don’t do it, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.“

 

The Great & Powerful O…bama?

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Logic.  It’s a beautiful thing.  It’s also the stuff of which common sense is made.  Life is made up of continually connecting the dots and coming to a conclusion.  It’s not rocket science, though rocket science and, indeed, all science does basically this very same thing.

If….

Then….

Else….

When you fall off a horse and find yourself unable to move one of your arms without severe pain, you go see a doctor who will x-ray your hurting arm.  If it’s broken, then the doctor will set it so it will heal properly, else they will send you home with instructions to take pain medication and take it easy for a while.

When you’re driving down the highway at night and your car stalls, you pull over to the side of the road and look at the gas gauge.  If it’s on empty then you will call for help, else you’ll walk down the highway to the nearest exit (or sit there unhappily, hoping someone will notice your plight and stop).

There is a difference between “hard science” and what is often called “soft science”.  Hard science is the realm of mathmeticians, biologists, engineers, etc.  They work with hard facts (1 + 1 = 2) and conclusions are based on the ability to consistently repeat a scenario.  This is why your lights turn on when you flip a switch, how your doctor knows when to prescribe an antiobiotic and which one will work, and how man got to the Moon and back.  It is the source of your reading this font on your monitor screen.

Soft science, on the other hand, mimics hard science in its attempts to validate a conclusion but, very simply speaking, its conclusions are far more likely to be mere possibility than real probability because the number of variables is simply far too large to get easily from point A to point B.  Soft science is the realm of psychologists, sociologists, even astrologers.  For example, psychologists study human behavior and tell us things like people who torture animals as children are more likely to grow up to be something really bad, like serial killers.  Astrologers look at a “map” of the time of a person’s birth and tell us of things for which a person has the most affinity.  Because of its inherent element of chance (i.e. too many variables to calculate, often called “choice”), soft science has always been far more fascinating to a majority of people, as evidenced by the never-ending speculation on the predictions of Nostradamus, the Mayans (2012, anyone?), the Bible, etc., as well as documentaries about everyone who doesn’t live a “normal life”, from Jesus to Charles Manson to Michael Jackson. 

People often confuse the two, however, and this is when you find “hard” scientists mocking their “soft”-studying counterparts.  Personally, I believe both sides have a place at the table but it is important to understand what that place is, what it really means for each to be in their proper place, and only then place your bets accordingly.  Think of hard science like putting your money in a savings account.  You’re guaranteed to draw interest on it and come out ahead.  Soft science is like buying a lottery ticket or investing in the stock market.  You may – or you may not – come out a winner.

Confusing the two can also have deadly consequences.  One example is the Holocaust.  Scientists of the “soft” kind determined there was something wrong with Jews, insisted their “hard” counterparts prove their conclusions, and we all know how that worked for everyone involved.  (Well, everyone knows it except a handful of pinheads like Iranian President Ahmadinejad.) 

On the subject of global warming we find a mix of hard and soft science coming together in a way almost as terrifying as the Holocaust.  Hard science is telling us one thing (humans are having little to no effect on the cyclical climate of the Earth) but soft science is telling us something else.  Did I mention that soft science is more often than not influenced by the personal psychology of the scientist?  You can pick up a stone and put it in a bucket, then pick up another stone and put into the bucket, too, then look in the bucket and see two stones.  A hard scientist who calculated there would be three stones in the bucket sees the two stones as tangible proof their calculations were wrong and instead of denying what they see, go back to examine where they messed up (original premise? method? mathmatical equation?).  Then they repeat their experiment and eventually end up with a final, documented conclusion that putting one stone in a bucket, then another stone in the bucket will always give you two stones in the bucket.  In the case of global warming, though the calculations of (government-supported, meaning vested interest-personal agenda) scientists have found to be wrong, instead of going back to find the flaws in their premise, methods, or calculations, the sponsors of the hard scientists (driven by soft scientists) are insisting that they simply throw away any data that doesn’t support their mistakes.   The scientists are, in effect, being told that the speck of dirt left in the bucket because someone didn’t clean it out before they used it to hold the stones must count as their third stone. 

This is a case of hard science shifting away from its original purpose and thereby jumping with both feet into the murky pond of prognostication.  All for the personal gain of a select few.  Of particular amusement is the involvment of President Obama.  Apparently, attempting to usurp the second coming wasn’t enough, it sounds as if he also wants to usurp Nostradamus’ place in our National Enquirer-minded history.  Witness his fortunetelling:

“A long-term benefit is we’re leaving a planet to our children that isn’t four or five degrees hotter.”  (June 25, 2009)

His presidency would be “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”  (2008 campaign)

President Obama has also claimed he can snap his fingers and we’ll “block the Sun’s rays to end global warming.”

Simply because his one voice carries to the ears of the most Americans doesn’t change the truth.  The truth that what he says is wrong.  Wrong based on the hard facts of hard science.  So don’t confuse facts with “hopes”.  In the same way the Great & Powerful Oz was eventually revealed to be just a man, the stars might lie, but the numbers never do.

 

(Thanks to our friends at Climate Depot for this morning’s inspiration.)

What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?

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Nancy Pelosi would apparently do just about anything.  Closed-door strong-arming of Representatives in the Oval Office with not only the President but his whole family on hand Thursday night while Waxman frantically threw together another 300-page amendment, passing out Dove bars and other concessionary amendments to special interests, kicking Al Gore out of Washington so as not to remind folks that H.R. 2454 wouldn’t be on the table without the false premise of global warming, and forcing an ill-prepared House to a hasty vote as the truth begins to bubble up; all so she could say, “We passed transformational legislation which takes us into the future.”

Well, Nancy, I don’t think the future you’re envisioning, the one in which your stock in CLNE makes you even richer and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management makes him even richer (with the help of none other than Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson; just in case you ever wondered why Goldman Sachs didn’t do a Wall Street meltdown, too) is quite as sure a bet any more.

Friday’s House vote to increase American’s tax burden passed by a very slim margin.  As we’ve already noted, it swung on the political suicide votes of 8 Republicans who threw their constituents under the Obama short bus, and bodes ill for the 44 Democrats who did the right thing and voted against it.  (Votes which, ironically and also previously noted, were for a bill that didn’t even exist; I strongly suggest that, no matter where you live, calls be made tomorrow to the 8 Republican traitors telling them to change their vote since they have 5 days in which to do so.)  The gibbering House monkeys swing on their ropes much farther to the left than do the more conservative mindsets in the Senate so its less-than-stellar passage leaves the door open for what some are already acknowledging as its Senate defeat.

And such defeat certainly seems more and more possible as word gets out that turning pollution into a commodity, with trading managed by new companies formed by those with vested, political interests (Al Gore, GE, etc.) as well as Wall Street’s Geithner-overseen involvement, solely to “maybe” reduce the Earth’s temperature by 2/10 of a degree in some 50 years but significantly increasing the cost of everything touched by recession-struggling American hands today is, to quote sensible Ohio Representative John Boehner, “a piece of shit”.

This can’t be very comforting to the Polar Bear Specialist Group (a set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission), who is meeting right now to figure out how to further their own agenda.  An agenda that – how else? – hinges on monies coming from those who believe in the myth of global warming.

What is most telling is not who will be there, but instead, who will not.  Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a renouned Canadian biologist who has studied the polar bear for 30 years, was told his presence is not welcome.  Why?  Why wouldn’t a polar bear “specialist group” want the credibility of someone who knows polar bears inside and out?  Trust the British to give us the scoop:

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week’s meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor’s, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears:  “it was the position you’ve taken on global warming that brought opposition”.

Dr Taylor was told that his views running “counter to human-induced climate change are extremely unhelpful“. His signing of the Manhattan Declaration – a statement by 500 scientists that the causes of climate change are not CO2 but natural, such as changes in the radiation of the sun and ocean currents – was “inconsistent with the position taken by the PBSG“.

That’s right.  Dr. Taylor’s research disproves the global warming theory so he is now become persona non grata.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 – as is dictated by the computer models of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues – but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea.

 And it seems that those currents aren’t a long-term problem, either:

The average temperature at [Arctic] midsummer is still below zero, the latest date that this has happened in 50 years of record-keeping. After last year’s recovery from its September 2007 low, this year’s ice melt is likely to be substantially less than for some time.

Recovery.  Nice word, isn’t it?  I’m sure it’s a big relief to these poster children of Al Gore and all the environmentist groups who have used them to encourage you to part with your hard-earned dollars to donate in support their “fight global warming” efforts, too:

AmandaByrdPolarBearsSummer2004

 

But this amazing image isn’t what those who want your donations would have you believe.  It was discredited 2 years ago.  Al Gore and the “charities” in support of the global warming myth first used this photograph in their propoganda, saying it had been taken by “Canadian environmentalists”.  A big, fat, bald-faced lie.

The student who took the photograph…gives a slightly different account: ‘They were on the ice when we found them and on the ice when we left. They were healthy, fat and seemed comfortable on their iceberg.’

Amanda Byrd, an Australian graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), says she took the picture around three years ago – in the summer.  The photograph was not ‘taken by environmentalists’ but as part of a field trip with the university [ 2004].

Over the past few months the photo has been published widely as a snapshot of the dangers of global warming.

Byrd is clearly a little miffed that ‘the image you have seen around the world was distributed without my consent, and [with] the wrong byline’.

 I bring up this “old news” (at least I hope it’s old news to you) because it’s yet another clear demonstration of the lengths to which some, including Obama and the current administration (now including transnationalist State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh, who the Senate snuck into place while Americans were watching “breaking news” that Michael Jackson was still dead or trying to convince the House to squash the “Energy bill”), are willing to go to cram cap & trade down America’s throat.  It’s horribly sad that no one is safe from exploitation – not scientists, not students, not innocent polar bears – by those whose only goal in life is to get as much money and control over other people as possible. 

These people have got to go.

Why Character & Integrity Matter

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The news about South Carolina Governor Sanford’s extramarital affair is sad on many levels.  Certainly it is a heartbreaking matter for his wife and his sons; their family unit has been breached by an outsider and the source of the breach is the man whose responsibility it was to protect them.

The liberal press, as is their way, used it as a feeding frenzy; not in small part because it allows them to sling arrows instead of dodging them for the few moments that anyone is going to really pay attention to this.  And now that Governor’s admitted his infidelity, every shred of documentation that a grubby hand can snatch is being thrust into public view with snarky, knowing, holier-than-thou eagerness to gain ratings.  Kudos to his wife for having no part of it.

Pseudo-conservatives are wringing their hands over what is also a breach to the GOP’s perceived integrity and lamenting what is most assuredly the loss of one of their golden boys for the 2012 presidential election. 

You could almost feel the collective sigh of relief when the sudden death of pop star Michael Jackson diverted the media’s ever-fickle attention to even more juicier pickings.

While Governor Sanford’s actions deserve no more than a minute of our time in which to make note of them, there are elements here that are important.  I have always believed that what people do in the privacy of their homes and how they manage their relationships is their own business.  I do not believe in legislating morality but instead in choosing one’s friends and associates carefully, with an eye to their integrity and character.  You can, indeed, tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.  The old adage that birds of a feather flock together is A Truth; we are drawn to like minds and through our interactions we continually influence one another.   Whether we like it, admit it, or even realize it we draw lines and we choose to support – on many, varied levels ranging from emotional to material – those who hold and, most importantly, demonstrate similar beliefs and values.

So the question here is that of character and integrity.  Sure, we’re all human and we all make mistakes, but if you’re going to deliberately put yourself in a position of influence and take on the perceived authority of leadership, there is a price you must pay.  And that price does not include any baggage allowance for hypocrisy.  You may bring your vices, but your character must be sound and your integrity unquestionable. 

It is really none of anyone’s business that, like so many, many politicians, Governor Sanford chose to break his marriage vows, but I DO care – as should you – that by doing so he reveals himself to be just another garden-variety hypocrite.  He is on record voicing condemnations of Bill Clinton for his relationship with Monica Lewinsky yet now tearfully admits to equal lies without demanding equal consequences for himself.

When considering any issue, from health care to taxes, what is good for the goose must be good for the gander.  The most stellar feature of America is her systemic application of blind justice and I believe, as I dare say do most people, that consequences must apply equally in moral matters as in legal.  Moral matters may sometimes be more murky to bring to justice without the weight of someone being able to point to some last word,  “buck stops here” set down in wet cement, however, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.  For if we hold no firm line on what we consider to be moral and ethical, there can be no trust.  And in the end, it is the ability to trust that is paramount in both our personal relationships and in our business dealings.  The latter being the area in which people like Governor Sanford enter into the picture.

I believe it is valid to ask the question:  if Governor Sanford’s family – those closest to him – cannot trust him to uphold his responsibility to them, how can we, who are literally virtual strangers, trust him to uphold his responsibility to us? 

To me the answer is that we can’t.  Perhaps he has at last learned the lesson that there but for the grace of God go I, but I didn’t hear him apologize to Bill Clinton or anyone else during his public confession, did you?  Anyone who is willing to lie about something as important as their marital fidelity cannot be trusted to not lie about anything else important when it becomes necessarily convenient for them.  One big lie calls into question everything ever said and taints everything ever done with the poison of suspicion.  And once broken, trust is very, very hard to repair and it takes a very long time to do it.

Millions of Americans live their lives with character and integrity.  We may not agree with their opinions or with their choices but it can be said they are consistent, even as they evolve (as we all do).  There is no reason to not expect the same from those we elect to represent us. 

None.

Tax cheats, adulterers, and liars are not representative of me or my life.  Are they representative of you or yours?  If the answer is honestly no, then it is time to take a good, hard look at those in government and decide if what their character and integrity – especially the lack thereof – reflects upon us is worth keeping. 

I don’t know how the answer can be yes.

Insanity Wins Again

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It was close and there were even real doubts it would actually happen, but at the end of what felt like an eternal 15 minutes for the final vote, the House passed HR 2454 yesterday; its infamous energy cap & tax …errrr… trade legislation.  Despite being called out for the use of not only erroneous but governmentally-driven deliberately-skewed science, and despite there being not even one valid reason to throw the U.S. economy into a depression by taxing Americans for…everything, Nancy Pelosi achieved her goal of being able to pack her bag for Copenhagen, where she desperately wanted to be able to boast that the House is willing to step up to the delusion of global warming.

This was another case where very few (if any) had read the entire 1,200-odd page bill (including Henry Waxman, its primary sponsor), and a 300 page amendment was tossed onto the stinking, steaming pile at 2:30 a.m. Friday morning.  I suspect only John Boehner (R-OH) had given the amendment more than a glance; he actually led the House through a review of it before the final vote and it was heartwarming to hear him point out its insanity, point by point.

But insanity seems to be the norm these days and even spelling out the appalling consequences in plain English couldn’t trump it.

The vote was close:  219 – 212 with 3 not voting.  In the end, passage of this tyrannical legislation swung on 8 Republicans who voted to tax their constituents and the country into oblivion.  Here is the list of traitors; whether or not they are your own unrepresenting representative they need to understand America’s anger with the damage they’ve done so now is the time to (again) flex those 1st Amendment muscles and pick up the phone.  Let them know they have disgraced themselves by selling out all Americans to lies and special interests and they will receive no further support unless they make this right.   They have until July 2nd to change their vote so CALL THEM:

  1. Mary Bono Mack (CA) – (760) 320-1076 or (951) 658-2312
  2. Mike Castle (DE) – (302) 428-1902 or (302) 736-1666 or (302) 856-3334
  3. Steven Kirk (IL) – (847) 940-0202
  4. Leonard Lance (NJ) – (908) 518-7733 or (908) 788-6900
  5. Frank LoBiondo (NJ) – (609) 625-5008
  6. Chris Smith (NJ) – (609) 585-7878 or (732) 350-2300
  7. John McHugh (NY) – (315) 782-3150 or (518) 563-1406 or (518) 661-6486 or (315) 697-2063
  8. Dave Reichert (WA) – (206) 275-3438

While it was fascinating to watch the day’s events play out, I find this whole matter extremely maddening. Despite rumors this will never make it through the Senate, it’s more important than ever that those particular pantywaisted waffles understand – in no uncertain terms – that their job is to squash this like the poisonous bug it is.

UPDATE:  It was revealed today that this bill voted on by the House doesn’t even exist.  That’s right.  IT DOESN’T EVEN EXIST.  Apparently Friday’s late-night 300-page amendment has not yet been integrated into the final version of the bill.  The two big piles of paper are sitting side-by-side on a clerk’s desk waiting to be pieced together.

So not only did no one actually read the whole bill before voting on it, they couldn’t have read it even if they’d wanted to read it.

This, my friends, is YOUR hard-earned tax dollars at work.