Global Warming Guru Says 'Put Oil Firm Chiefs on Trial"

James Hanson, NASA bigwig who leads the charge against those pesky CO2 molecules, has called for the chief executives of the large oil companies to be put on trial for 'spreading doubt about global warming'

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.
Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

Of course, we're not going to let something as insignificant as the First Amendment to get in our way when were all about to be immolated, are we James?

How about re-education camps for thickheaded bloggers like me who fail to see the light?

Redstone Ballistic Missile

These rockets have a proud history. First to lauch a live nuclear warhead. First to launch a U.S. satellite into orbit. Also launched the first two Mercury suborbital manned spaceflights.

I want one!

Most Brits Doubt Humans are Causing Climate Change

Government policy wonks and their allies on the left just hate it when regular people refuse to believe their nonsense. They believe we should follow them blindly, led around like a flock of innocent, trusting sheep, all the while bleating bromides like "climate change", "diversity", or "four legs good, two legs bad".

The entire idea of democracy was that governments exist with the consent of the governed. We are seeing that idea becoming increasingly turned on its head in both Europe and North America. There is a group that consider themselves entitled to run the government and tell the rest of us what we are supposed to do and think. They don't care what private citizens think and are sometimes quite frank about their disdain for our opinions. Recent examples of such asinine elitism include the attempts to force "comprehensive immigration reform" on the American people, even though most of us do not want to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Another example is the attempt to force the "Lisbon Treaty" on the Europeans, without ever asking any of them if they want it (except the Irish who rejected it.).

About one year ago, the despots in Washington were amazed at the popular uprising against the attempt to give amnesty to some 12 million illegal aliens. That showed how out of touch they are. They only pay attention to the leftist media and politically correct policy wonks. That is true even about the Republicans. Likewise, the goombas in Europe have been dismayed at the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, and become very flustered when asked to explain why they refuse to allow the citizens of the other 26 countries to vote on the treaty.

The notion that human CO2 emissions are causing 'climate change' is an article of faith among the chattering classes. And thus they are shocked and dismayed when a majority of ordinary blokes and sheilas don't fall for their religion, as shown by a recent poll taken by the Guardian among people in the UK:

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.
The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The findings come just before the release of the government's long-awaited renewable energy strategy, which aims to cut the UK's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next 12 years.

These jackasses in places like London and Washington want to turn democracy on its head. Instead of the people telling the government what it should do, the tyrants are telling us what they are going to do and how we should feel about it. It is no surprise then, that we are seeing extensive restrictions on freedom of speech and the press in Canada and Europe. The USA will probably follow soon.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

You knew this was coming. The report of the Bush Administration's U.S. Climate Change Science Program says that global warming is to blame for the floods in Iowa:

June 19 (Bloomberg) -- The chances for extreme weather in the U.S. such as the record rainfall and flooding in Iowa this month are increasing as worldwide temperatures rise, a government agency that researches climate change said.
North America may get more abnormally hot days and nights, heavier downpours and deadlier storms from global warming, today's report from the Bush administration's U.S. Climate Change Science Program said. Elevated temperatures in recent decades already have led to more intense rainstorms in the Midwest, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, said Thomas Karl, co-chairman of the report.
``The probability of heavy downpours is increasing, which leads to events like what we're seeing in the Midwest,'' said Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in an interview.
The Iowa disaster helped drive corn prices to a record high. Flood damage may exceed $2.7 billion, according to economics professors Mark Burton at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Michael Hicks at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
``We think that climate change is really a driver, not only in tropical storms but in other precipitation events,'' Eberhard Faust, head of climate risk analysis for Munich Re, the world's second-biggest re-insurer, said in an interview before the report. ``We can anticipate that many of these processes will get even worse, even stronger.''

Sometimes when I listen to clowns like these discuss global warming and its causes and effects, I feel like I am watching a pro wrestling match. The only difference is that none of the wrestlers actually believe they are really fighting.

Update: I received an email from Michael Hicks, whose research on the cost of floods is cited in the article. He pointed out to me that he has never made any connection between global warming and floods. I agree that he has been inaccurately associated with the global warming crowd.

CBS and AP Fall for More Global Warming BS


This would just be hilarious were it not for the fact that our nation's public policy is being made on the basis of voodoo science and irresponsible journalism like this.

CBS and AP recently published a hoax by Dr. Tom Chalko, an Australian 'scientist', that claims global warming is causing an increase in earthquakes:

MT BEST, AUSTRALIA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jun 17, 2008 -- New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago.

The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of "global warming" is comprehensively and urgently addressed.
The analysis of more than 386,000 earthquakes between 1973 and 2007 recorded on the US Geological Survey database proved that the global annual energy of earthquakes on Earth began increasing very fast since 1990.

Dr. Chalko's graph is accurate. But it is a classic example of data mining. Here is a graph of the earthquake energy going back to 1900:

This is typical of the type of research that is behind the global warming hoax. The problem is that there are many idiots out there who are simple minded enough to fall for it and enough politicians with ulterior motives who will support it.

Hat tip to Marc Sheppard at American Thinker and to Lucianne.com.

Meteorologist Calls Global Warming a 'Hoax'

As the 'scientific consensus' crumbles before our eyes, the leftist media and most politicians proceed as if anthropogenic global warming is a proven fact. Yet another meteorologist has spoken out:

A year and a half ago, James Spann questioned the money and the so-called scientific consensus pushing the idea that mankind is causing global warming. Today, he says it’s losing steam. Two imminent surveys of meteorologists may further complicate the climate debate.

Spann, a broadcast meteorologist for ABC 33/40, an affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., downplayed the future of the global warming movement in a June 13 appearance. He was interviewed by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council for its Washington Watch Weekly broadcast. Spann told Perkins:

“[Y]ou know, there was some great power in that movement back in January of 2007,” Spann said. “It’s pretty rapidly running out of gas and it just seems like every day more and more people are coming out with the fact that that’s pretty much a hoax. And these are Ph.D climatologists that are pretty much saying what I said all along.”

The left have much to answer for. Racist 'affirmative action' programs. Support for constitutional rights for foreign terrorists. Support for brutal dictatorships. What will these clowns say when the bell tolls?

Democrats Call for Nationalization of Oil Refineries

The modus operandi of the left follows a predictable pattern:

(1) Foul up some sector of the economy, or sometimes the entire economy, by inducing the government to interfere in some fashion.

(2) Blame the results on greedy capitalists or on Republicans

(3) Propose even deeper government intrusion, to "fix" the problem.

In the current energy crisis, we can see how this has played out:

(1) (a) The left have prohibited drilling for oil and gas on most of our coastline and parts of the land
(b) "Environmental" laws have prevented the construction of any new oil refineries in over 30 years
(c) More laws have prevented the construction of nuclear power plants
(d) Ridiculous substitutes like ethanol have been subsidized by the government, that have done more harm than good.

(2) The left are now blaming the problem on greedy oil companies

(3) And now Democrats are proposing to nationalize the oil refineries

House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.
Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.
They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow.
At an off-camera briefing, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said the same. And a senior Republican House Appropriations Committee aide adds that "there were multiple reasons for the postponement" including discussion on the supplemental. But the aide said there was the thought that Democrats may wish to avoid a debate today on energy amendments.
Here are the highlights from briefing
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling
1115
We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market

If you think we got problems now, wait until the Democrat-controlled government runs the oil refineries. I can already picture the likes of Senator Clinton and her husband licking their chops over how they get to decide which businesses get to buy or sell to the government-owned refineries and on what terms.

Its time that government got out of the energy business altogether. This includes subsidies for alternative energy sources. If it is truly feasible to utilize solar, wind, or biofuel energy, then huge profits await those who can exploit them efficiently. There is no need for government to waste tax dollars on things that won't help.

Hat tip to John Lott.

John Feffer: Socialist of the Week

The left are a talkative bunch and are constantly showering us with their words of wisdom. But it is rare that they give us an essay of the quality of this one at Asia Times. John Feffer, who is co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus (a think tank without walls) has bestowed upon us a leftwing brainfart of a transcendant order. A few choice quotes:

Gas prices in the United States are above US$4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a technical knockout, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks you're shelling out at the pump and the grocery store; but, unless policymakers begin to address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse.

Hmmmm..... where to begin? He doesn't give his source for the 39% increase in global food prices. I do know that in the USA they only increased by 4.9% in 2007. And given the fact that the US dollar depreciated against many foreign currencies during that year, it is unlikely that food prices increased by even 4.9% in other countries.

And of course, 'climate change' caused by carbon emissions is accepted by John as an axiomatic truth. He's not going to let the facts get in his way.

Just ask the North Koreans. In the 1990s, North Korea was the world's canary. The famine that killed as much as 10% of the North Korean population in those years was, it turns out, a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe - though few saw it that way at the time.

That small Northeast Asian land, one of the last putatively communist countries on the planet, faced the same three converging factors as we do now - escalating energy prices, a reduction in food supplies and impending environmental catastrophe. At the time, of course, all the knowing analysts and pundits dismissed what was happening in that country as the inevitable breakdown of an archaic economic system presided over by a crackpot dictator.

They were wrong. The collapse of North Korean agriculture in the 1990s was not the result of backwardness. In fact, North Korea boasted one of the most mechanized agricultures in Asia. Despite claims of self-sufficiency, the North Koreans were actually heavily dependent on cheap fuel imports. (Does that already ring a bell?) In their case, the heavily subsidized energy came from Russia and China, and it helped keep North Korea's battalion of tractors operating. It also meant that North Korea was able to go through fertilizer, a petroleum product, at one of the world's highest rates. When the Soviets and Chinese stopped subsidizing those energy imports in the late 1980s and international energy rates became the norm for them, too, the North Koreans had a rude awakening.

North Korea is only 'putatively communist', eh John? What would Kim Jong Il have to do to become really communist? And all that any country needs is mechanization and cheap fuel in order to have bountiful harvests? Then why have so many other communist countries had famines, including the Soviet Union in the 1930s and China in the late 1950s and early 1960s? Ever hear of the tragedy of the commons, John?

Lower food prices are generally a boon for consumers. But they are devastating for the subsistence farmers who make up the vast majority of the world's poor.

Low food prices do not affect subsistence farmers. They are, by definition, not selling any of their harvest.

However, over the past three years, according to the World Bank, food prices have increased 83%. That may be only an annoyance for wealthy shoppers, but for the poor, who often devote more than 50% of their incomes to feeding their families, such staggering rises can be the difference between life and death.

Since food prices only increased by a total of 9.7% in the USA for 2005 through 2007, it was even less of an annoyance than he thinks.

And now Sir John gets to the meat of the global warming problem:

Global warming, too, has had an impact. Drought in Australia and the eastern United States, severe flooding in China and Bangladesh, rising ocean levels and fresh water shortages throughout the world are all thought to be related to climate change, though climate scientists cannot prove that any given weather anomaly is caused by global warming.

Not only that, they can't prove that the earth is warming at all.

Climate scientists can be fuzzy this way about causality in the short term. Paradoxically, however, they often see the future more clearly. For instance, the top global food policy think-tank, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), predicts that global warming will be responsible for a 16% decrease in agricultural gross domestic product globally by 2020. The Center for Global Development argues that developing countries, in particular, will be hit hard by climate change: By 2080, India, its report argues, will see a staggering 30-40% drop in agricultural production and Senegal will plummet 50%.

You gotta love it! Climate scientists can't predict short-term happenings but they are confident they can predict what will happen 12 years from now and 72 years from now! It's too bad that the geniuses at the Center for Global Development won't be around in 2080 to accept their rewards for their clear visions of the future in India and Senegal.

And now John gets in his obligatory criticism of Bush's invation of Iraq:

Oil prices have been steadily increasing since 2004 as a result of rising demand. They have been helped along greatly by growing chaos in the Middle East, fed by the Bush administration's foolhardy invasion of Iraq.

Aren't you going to say something about his tax policy too? Didn't he steal the election from Al Gore in Florida? It's very easy to predict what the left will say. Much easier than predicting the weather.

Now a demonstration of John's mathematical prowess:

Like the North Koreans, we, too, have been trying to squeeze more food out of a limited amount of land: arable land per capita is declining at a steady rate.

It takes a genius like John to figure out that the quantity of farmable land on earth is fixed whereas the population is increasing. Thus, arable land per capita is declining. How do lefties get so brilliant!

The director general of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, Jacques Diouf, has called for a minimum of $30 billion a year for a global agricultural restructuring. It's not at all clear who will pony up such sums,

I don't know who is going to pony up the $30 billion either. But I am sure that many people who work at the UN are licking their chops over the prospect of getting their hands on some of it. Remember the Iraq oil-for-food scam?

Of course, free trade is also to blame:

as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico lost 1.3 million agricultural jobs, forcing many desperate small farmers to cross into the United States as migrant workers.

Isn't that awful, John? The Mexican consumers were forced to pay less for their food as a result of NAFTA? Just a couple of paragraphs previously, you were lamenting high food prices (and exaggerating the amount of the increases). Now you are whining about low food prices in Mexico. So what do you want: High food prices or low?

The quest for perfect markets usually conceals a global shell game in which wealth is redistributed from the many to the few. To even the playing field that markets constantly tilt in favor of the powerful, and to direct funds toward environmental sustainability, governments need to intervene in the economy.

After all, private enterprise is not going to invest in the large-scale improvement of rural infrastructure - the capital costs are high and profit margins far too low. More controversially, developing countries may need to maintain, or even reestablish, tariffs and subsidies to protect local producers. Since it is both sold and consumed, food should be considered a strategic resource, a matter of national security. It should be left out of trade negotiations in the same way that the "national security exception" allows governments to subsidize and protect their military industries as they please.

Ah yes, government control of agriculture will solve all our problems, won't it John? Just like it did in the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. We can't let those poor people in developing countries have any freedom of enterprise, can we?

More on the Greenhouse Effect and Radiative Forcing

Hans Schreuder at Icecap has some interesting comments about the global warming hoax:

Based on UN IPCC dogma and according to this Australian website for children, the greenhouse effect is "caused by gases in our atmosphere (especially water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane). They trap energy from the sun's light and reflect it back to Earth, so we just keep on getting warmer."

As Alan Siddons points out: "You might as well believe that your image in a mirror can burn your face". It is palpably absurd, and yet it is an accurate depiction of the theory that the IPCC has foisted on the public - a theory that IPCC critics won't even attack because, presumably, they believe it too.

Moreover, the actual trapping of heat cannot raise an object's temperature in the first place. It only slows down heat loss. For instance, a polar bear is a living thermos bottle. Its internal body temperature is much the same as ours. But its surrounding fat and fur are such that - and this is remarkable - a polar bear is virtually invisible to a thermal camera. Just like coffee in a thermos, you can't tell how hot the inside of a polar bear is by looking at it from the outside. But neither does coffee in a thermos get hotter because its heat is trapped. It just retains its temperature for a longer time. Otherwise, both the polar bear and the thermos would self-ignite.

In short, the earth absorbs enough energy from the sun to reach a certain temperature. Since it radiates the same amount, its temperature obviously isn't raised by carbon dioxide absorbing some infrared - for CO2 simply releases that energy at the same pace, as satellites attest. But even if CO2 did trap thermal energy, as insulation does (creating an emission discrepancy that would be quite observable to satellites), the earth's temperature could go no higher than what it began with. To repeat, coffee doesn't get hotter in a thermos."

That must be why the global warming zealots are so worried about polar bears. The poor animals must be self-igniting. I have heard rumors of spontaneous human combustion, but spontaneous polar bear combustion?

They're based on figures obtained directly from the Dutch Met Office, whereby the mass of our entire atmosphere is given as 5,300,000 gigatons and the total carbon dioxide in it as 3,000 gigatons.

5,300,000 gigatonnes of atmosphere require 0.24 x 1,010^10 kcal of heat to warm 1.0°C. 3,000 gigatonnes of CO2 would requite a warming to 5,300,000/3,000 x .24/.34 = 1247°C to have enough heat to transfer to the atmosphere for each 1°C rise in temperature.

Did you read that? Every single molecule of CO2 would need to be over a thousand degrees Centigrade to warm the rest of the atmosphere by one degree!! Yet by the magic of radiative forcing this will take place, according to the alarmists and based on the UN IPCC pseudo-scientific dogma.

Damn those CO2 molecules are hot! And each molecule is a virtual island, surrounded by a sea of nitrogen and oxygen. How do they get so hot when most of the air is a mere 25°C or so?

The view from my backyard. See why they call me Jungle Jim.

Wall Street Journal Smears Free Market Economists

The Journal's editorials usually contain savvy insights into the various issues. One notable exception concerns illegal immigration, for which they are completely clueless.

Their news articles, however, are written by journalists drawn from the same pool as those who work at leftist rags such as the New York Times and Washington Post, with predictable results. In an article published last Tuesday, Joel Millmand and Roger Thurow take a cheap shot at free market economists, even though these economists are advocating policies that are abviously not free market:

For decades, poor nations were discouraged from investing too much in agriculture, which was seen as a problem rather than a solution to fighting poverty. Many free-market economists came to believe that the reason billions of people are poor is because they are shackled to subsistence farming. The economists' solution: find something else for them in manufacturing, tourism or services so that they can make money to buy food instead of growing it.
Poor countries were discouraged from growing much of their own staples, such as rice and wheat, that are usually grown more cheaply in rich countries. Instead, they were told to focus on export crops that might fetch a higher price.
Now, with grain stocks depleted, China and India gobbling food as never before and food prices soaring, many poor countries are turning their back on the old ideas and installing government programs designed to support local farmers. These include cash subsidies to poor consumers, increased efforts to improve local seed varieties, and government-sponsored handouts of fertilizer and seeds.

The food crisis has also contributed to a major rethink among the advice givers. Institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are once again treating investment in poor farmers as a promising development strategy. Last week in Rome, World Bank President Robert Zoellick told an emergency United Nations summit on the food crisis that boosting developing country agriculture productivity and reducing hunger were top priorities for the bank.

Urged to redirect spending from local farming to areas like assembling underwear for export, Haiti's successive governments rarely spent as much as 3% of the country's annual economic output on food production, says the former agriculture minister, Mr. Mathieu.

Free market economists do not advise governments to subsidize or interfere in commerce in any way whatsoever. We advise them to keep taxes and government spending low and to restrict government involvement to such matters as enforcing contracts and prosecuting criminals.

I don't know where Millmand and Thurow get the idea that economists at the World Bank and IMF promote free market policies. The people I have known who have worked at these institutions have been some of the most anti-free market economists of all. Furthermore, even though the World Bank is headquartered in the USA and largely bankrolled by American taxpayers, they refuse to hire any American-born economists.

This entire situation is yet another example of how socialists foul up the economy and then blame the results on "free market" policies.

How Stupid is This?

Having been a university prof for several years, I am horrified but not surprised by this:

OCEANSIDE, California (AP) -- On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.

Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.
A few hours and many tears later, though, the pain turned to fury when the teenagers learned that it was all a hoax, a scared-straight exercise designed by school officials to dramatize the consequences of drinking and driving.
As seniors prepare for graduation parties Friday, school officials in the largely prosperous San Diego, California, suburb are defending themselves against allegations that they went too far.
At school assemblies, some students held posters that read, "Death is real. Don't play with our emotions."
Michelle de Gracia, 16, was in physics class when an officer announced that her missing classmate David, a popular basketball player, had died instantly after being rear-ended by a drunken driver. She said she felt nauseated but was too stunned to cry.
"They got the shock they wanted," she said.

Some of her classmates became extremely upset, prompting the teacher to tell them immediately that it was all staged.
"People started yelling at the teacher," she said. "It was pretty hectic."
Others, including many who heard the news of the 26 deaths between classes, were left in the dark until the missing students reappeared hours later.
"You feel betrayed by your teachers and administrators, these people you trust," said 15-year-old Carolyn Magos. "But then I felt selfish for feeling that way, because, I mean, if it saves one life, it's worth it."
Officials at the 3,100-student school defended the program.
"They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor Lori Tauber, who helped organize the shocking exercise and got dozens of students to participate. "That's how they get the message."
The plan was to tell the truth to the students at an assembly later in the day. But word that it was all a hoax began to spread before the gathering. Tauber said some counselors and administrators revealed the truth to calm some students who had become upset.
Oceanside Schools Superintendent Larry Perondi said he fielded only a few calls from parents, and the PTA chapter said it had not heard any complaints. Perondi said the program would be revised, but he would not say how. And he said he was glad that students seemed to have gotten the message.
"We did this in earnest," he said. "This was not done to be a prankster."

Why don't you clowns in public school administration try teaching the kids something, rather than pulling crap like this?

Irish Voters Reject EU Treaty

The European Union bureaucracy in Brussells, and the governments of the 27 countries who are members of the EU are trying to establish a new constitution that would transfer considerable authority from the 27 national governments to the EU government. So, one would think that with such an important change the voters of each country would be asked to ratify the move in a referendum? Here is a complete list of the countries who allowed their voters a say on the matter:

Ireland

The EU apparatchiks are afraid that the voters of the other 26 countries might not vote the way they want them to. Kind of reminds you of why the Castro brothers have not allowed free elections in Cuba for nearly 50 years. They are afraid that the voters might not keep them in office.

The Irish voted against the new constitution, and now the gnomes of Brussels are scratching their heads, trying to figure out how to foist this on the people of Europe without their consent. Perhaps they might find some good advice in Havana.

Hibernia Girl is celebrating.

Gates of Vienna has an interesting article about how the Irish were required to give their voters a say.

Boo Hoo: Taoiseach Brian Cowen says the result of the voting has created “considerable uncertainty and a difficult situation"

I'm surprised that the democraphobes in the EU didn't find a way to rig the election to make the pro-ratification vote win. The so-called Democrats here in the USA have no qualms about tampering with an election.

Is the USA Too Insular?


Not likely. Our population is composed of people from all over the world. In some cases, we even have more of certain nationalities than their home country does. This is particularly true of Ireland, Scotland, and Israel.


In spite of that, we are always hearing the beautiful people both here and elsewhere tell us how we are a bunch of inbred bumpkins who don't know jack about happenings beyond our little neck of the woods. To support their contention, they note the fact that only a small percentage of US citizens have a passport. This is a non sequitur, because until recently, US citizens did not need a passport to travel to Canada, Mexico, or most of the Carribbean countries.

From the Wall Street Journal, we hear of business leaders who decry our suspicion of sovereign wealth funds:

America is too insular and its approach to foreign investment is misguided until sovereign-wealth funds have more acceptance here. So say Americans–at least, several of the prominent ones who attended The Wall Street Journal’s Deals & Deal Makers conference.

In the USA, we don't allow our government to own businesses. The simple fact that commerce is in private hands is the source of our economic strength. Why should we allow foreign governments (sovereign wealth funds) to own US businesses? It makes no more sense.

I had to chuckle at this comment:

Blackstone Group’s John Studzinski, an American who now lives in London, said he is amazed by how much Americans see the world from the American point of view, particularly when it comes to suspicion of sovereign-wealth funds.

Oh my god! Americans see the world from the American point of view. That's just as bad as Lithuanians seeing the world from the Lithuanian point of view, or Mongolians seeing the world from the Mongolian point of view. I'm sure they are too cosmopolitan to stoop that low.

And then the article quotes Ubercosmopolitan Indra Nooyi:

Wednesday, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, an Indian-American, said her company considers as many as 30 acquisitions globally at any one time. Her advice for new graduates? “The world today is not as insular as it was 30 years ago when I left [India]. Do not view yourself as an Indian or Chinese or European. Think of yourself as a global citizen. Make sure to understand the world around you,” she said.

This is the same Indra Nooyi who made some choice comments about America at a commencement speech at Columbia University:

This analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents leaves the long, middle finger for North America, and, in particular, The United States. As the longest of the fingers, it really stands out. The middle finger anchors every function that the hand performs and is the key to all of the fingers working together efficiently and effectively. This is a really good thing, and has given the U.S. a leg-up in global business since the end of World War I.
However, if used inappropriately – just like the U.S. itself - the middle finger can convey a negative message and get us in trouble. You know what I’m talking about. In fact, I suspect you’re hoping that I’ll demonstrate what I mean. And trust me, I’m not looking for volunteers to model.
Discretion being the better part of valor...I think I’ll pass.
What is most crucial to my analogy of the five fingers as the five major continents, is that each of us in the U.S. – the long middle finger – must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand...not the finger. Sometimes this is very difficult. Because the U.S. – the middle finger – sticks out so much, we can send the wrong message unintentionally.
Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand – giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers – but, instead, scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.

Indra should make a music video. Here's some lyrics for her:

I'm.....too worldly for my shirt

Too worldly for my shirt

So worldly it hurts!

Gorelick's Big Paycheck from Fannie Mae

In the recent talk about O'Bama's campaign aide Jim Johnson, and his conflicts of interest when he worked at Fannie Mae, there was revealed this tidbit about former Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. She worked at FNMA from 1997 to 2003 as Vice-Chairman and earned a whopping $26,466,384. Not bad for six years of work.

Jamie can include this among her other accomplishments such as setting up a wall between law enforcement and intelligence agencies, that enabled the 9/11 terrorists to operate with impunity in this country for several months prior to the attacks. Jamie has a knack for getting herself appointed to posts for which she is clearly not qualified. She got appointed to the commission that investigated the 9/11 atrocities, when she should have been called as a witness to answer for her foulup. She has no training nor experience in finance, yet she was somehow qualified to be appointed to Vice Chairman of FNMA. During that time, FNMA developed a $10 million accounting scandal that has yet to be resolved.

And of course, Jamie is now representing Duke University in its defense against a lawsuit by 38 former lacrosse players. It seems like whenever and wherever there is a problem, you can find Jamie on the wrong side of it.

So what should be done? Both FNMA and Freddie Mac need to be reorganized from top to bottom. Even though they are theoretically private companies, they have an implicit guarantee of their debts by the federal government. This results in a strong possibility of moral hazard, and attracts outright crooks like Gorelick and Raines to the management of FNMA. The companies should either be fully nationalized, with management salaries in line with civil service standards, or they should be fully privatized and the federal government should announce that it makes no gurantee, either express or implied, of the companies' debts.

FNMA has been a part of the political spoils system of the Clinton Administration. Raines and Gorelick worked there to get their big payoff. The Wall Street Journal article shows how they did it:

Addressing the company's too smooth (and fraudulent) reported earnings growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Ofheo reported: "Those achievements were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the Enterprise's senior management with the aid of inappropriate accounting and improper earnings management . . . By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets, senior management maximized the bonuses and other executive compensation they received, at the expense of shareholders."

I don't see O'Bama nor McCain doing anything constructive about problems like this. Both of those jackasses are merely part of the machine that protects the Washington feed trough. And they put the interests of the citizens of the USA dead last.

None of the Above

I once thought I might vote for Bob Barr, Libertarian candidate for president. But after reading this, I definitely won't.

Bob Barr got back to his anti-war roots yesterday, calling the prospect of U.S. military action against Iran "unnecessary, counterproductive, costly and dangerous."In condemning the Bush administration's bellicose stance toward Tehran, the Libertarian presidential candidate was joined at a Capitol Hill press conference by a liberal roster that included Democratic Reps. Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee of California, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio. There was even an appearance by a contingent of activists from Code Pink, the distaff demonstrators infamous for their disruptive tactics.

Well Bob, what do you expect Bush to do? Should he tell the mullahs of Iran something like "It's ok with us if you get a nuke and threaten Israel with it"?

I have no one to vote for. Perhaps the only choice is to write in Fred Thompson.

Global Warming Zealots Become Even More Hysterical

If we don't stop pumping that nasty CO2 into the atmosphere, we're all doomed:

A timetable to fit power stations with carbon dioxide capturing technology should be agreed by next year to avoid "dangerous and irreversible" climate change, some of the world's leading scientists will say today.
Britain's Royal Society has joined with science academies from other industrialised nations and five further countries, including China and India, to issue the warning in documents that will set the agenda for climate discussions at the G8 summit in Japan next month.
In a joint statement, the scientists lament the slow progress being made in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and call on industrialised countries to step up their efforts by developing greener housing and transport. They urge the G8 countries to commit themselves to a timetable of power station upgrades designed to capture CO2 before it is released into the atmosphere.

The only 'leading scientist' they mention by name is the magnificent Martin Rees

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said climate change and the rising world population threatened to aggravate the food and water shortages that were already a "dangerous reality" in many developing countries.

Even if they admit to themselves that they are wrong (unlikely), people like Rees can't afford to give up their faith in global warming. Their careers are too highly invested in it.

Those ominous 387 parts per million that CO2 comprises of the earth's atmosphere constitute a mere 0.0387% of the total atmosphere, as compared with 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, and 0.93% argon. There is no laboratory evidence that carbon dioxide has any special radiation-capturing abilities.

The Evil George W. Bush

Mick at Uncorrelated has an interesting observation about the president:

I am reminded that if George W. Bush really were the tyrant that the various left-wing demagogues have made him out to be, he would have acted like a Democrat as it concerned the war on terror--meaning that he would have insured that various terror attacks occurred on a regular basis--like a low-grade infection, to keep people in a continuous state of fear. By actually solving the problem, he put himself and the Republican party out of a job. That is just bad bureaucracy, which exists to perpetuate the problems that justify their existence.

I agree wholeheartedly. Furthermore, if Bush were so dishonest as the left claim, he could have instructed the CIA or the military special forces to stash some poison gas or some uranium somewhere in Iraq after we conquered the country. And then announced with great fanfare "Look what we found!"

But he didn't do that. Bush has admitted that no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Thus subjecting himself to endless criticism from the left using bromides like "Bush Lied, People Died".

Scottish Girl Crippled by Vegetarian Diet

We're constantly hearing advice from 'experts' about how unhealthy it is for humans to eat meat, fish, eggs, or cow's milk. These experts are inevitably people with a political axe to grind, such as 'animal rights' activists, 'ecologists', or other modern-day Luddites such as ELF. (Any guesses as to what percentage of these people also believe that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming?)

From Scotland, we learn of a young girl who was raised on a strict vegetarian diet by some idiotic parents who fell for this nonsense spewed by the moonbats on the left:

A 12-YEAR-OLD girl in Scotland brought up by her parents on a strict vegan diet has been admitted to hospital with a degenerative bone condition said to have left her with the spine of an 80-year-old woman.
Doctors are under pressure to report the couple to police and social workers amid concerns that her health and welfare may have been neglected in pursuit of their dietary beliefs.
The girl, who has been fed on a strict meat and dairy-free diet from birth, is said to have a severe form of rickets and to have suffered a number of fractured bones.
The condition is caused by a lack of vitamin D, which is needed to absorb calcium and is found in liver, oily fish and dairy produce. Decalcification leads to the bones becoming brittle and can cause curvature of the spine.
Dr Faisal Ahmed, the consultant paediatrician treating the child at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow, declined to discuss the specific case. He said, however, that he believed the dangers of forcing children to follow a strict vegan diet needed to be highlighted.
One leading nutritionist, who asked not to be named, said: “In most instances, the parents who are imposing this very restrictive and potentially hazardous diet are not themselves brought up as vegans. They are imposing on their children something . . . which we do not know enough about to know it is safe.”
Jonathan Sher, head of policy at Children in Scotland, an umbrella group representing 400 organisations, said social workers should intervene where a vegan diet was putting children’s health at risk.
Last year, an American vegan couple were given a life sentence for starving their six-week-old baby to death. In 2001 two vegans from west London were sentenced to three years’ community rehabilitation after they admitted starving their baby to death.
Glasgow city council said the incident involving the 12-year-old girl had not been referred to its social work department.

If an adult wants to eat a strict vegetarian diet, that is his prerogative. But why can't they allow children to have a healthy diet? It is a well-established fact that small children need animal protein. Their mother's breast milk is only sufficient for the first year.

Can O'Bama Win?

I don't know. I see several reasons why he might win and several more why he might not.

In his favor:

(1) His base is energized and enthusiastic. They will work hard for him.

(2) Many of who should be McCain's core constituency are not so enthusiastic. I have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, and I'm not even certain that I will vote for McCain.

(3) The Republican incumbent in the white house is unpopular. (Although I believe the leftist media have obfuscated the reasons for his unpopularity.)

Against O'Bama:

(1) He is too far to the left. Most people don't want a socialist America.

(2) Republicans have an advantage in the electoral college. They can even lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote, as Bush did in 2000. Democrats simply are not competitive in the south, the great plains states, and the rocky mountain states. O'Bama will probably win the pacific coast states and most of the northeast. His problem is that McCain will probably do well in the midwest states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and perhaps even Pennsylvania.

(3) McCain is able to attract many independents and quite likely many Hillary supporters.

(4) O'Bama's ties with Wright, Pfleger, and the Trinity Church will continue to hurt him, as well as the perception of elitism.

This election will be a first for me. Since I am so put off by McCain I don't have a horse in this race. If the nominee were Thompson, Giuliani, or even Romney then I would be supporting the Republican ticket enthusiastically.

No Freedom of Speech in France

To the members of the political left in France, the USA, the UK, and many other places, the most important thing of all is the sensitivity of muslims. Their tender feelings must not be hurt, even if it means suppressing all human rights. For example, what recently happened to Brigitte Bardot:

Brigitte Bardot was convicted Tuesday of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing that Muslims are destroying France.
A Paris court also handed down a $23,325 fine against the former screen siren and animal rights campaigner. The court also ordered Bardot to pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP.
Bardot's lawyer, Francois-Xavier Kelidjian, said he would talk to her about the possibility of an appeal.
A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.
In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts."

Those poor little muslims. All they want is to be left alone so they can hijack planes and fly them into buildings.

Angelina Supports the Right to Bear Arms

I have always liked Angelina Jolie. I like her looks. I like her personality. And now I have discovered that I like her attitude towards gun rights:

Angelina Jolie has a gun - and she's not afraid to use it.
The pregnant mother of four told the U.K.'s Daily Mail that she owns guns similar to the ones she used in "Tomb Raider." Jolie and partner Brad Pitt are not against having weapons in their house for security reasons, she says.
"If anybody comes into my home and tries to hurt my kids, I've no problem shooting them," she said.

You would think that this would be common sense. That people shoud have the right to own and use guns to protect themselves and their families. But many politicians, especially those of the left, feel that we don't have any rights at all.

An Unhappy Clinton Supporter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KACQuZVAE3s

(I can't get the embed to work.)

"And they think we won't turn and vote for McCain. Well I got news for all of you. McCain will be the next president of the United States"

Gas is so expensive nowadays. Even 100 quintillion pengos might not be enough to fill up your tank.

Democrats Want to Nationalize Hurricane Insurance

As if the taxpayers don't already have enough to pay for already, the geniuses in the Democrat party want us to pay for national catastrophe insurance

WASHINGTON -- As hurricane season begins, Democrats in Congress want to nationalize a chunk of the insurance business that covers major storm-damage claims. The proposal -- backed by giant insurers Allstate Corp. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as well as Florida lawmakers -- focuses on "reinsurance," the policies bought by insurers themselves to protect against catastrophic losses. The proposal envisions a taxpayer-financed reinsurance program covering all 50 states, which would essentially backstop the giant insurers in case of disaster. The program could save homeowners roughly $500 apiece in annual premiums in Florida, according to an advocacy group backed by Allstate and State Farm, the largest writers of property insurance in the U.S.

Isn't that nice? All those wealthy retirees in Boca Raton and Punta Gorda get to save $500 per year, while the rest of us get more and more deducted from our paychecks.

Hey stupids: The people in Oklahoma and Kansas aren't lobbying for tornado insurance. The people in Alaska aren't lobbying for blizzard insurance. Let the Floridians pay for their own hurricane insurance and leave the rest of us alone.

Head of Northern Ireland Police Says We Must Negotiate with al Qaeda

Talk about stupid. Read what Hugh Orde, chief of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, has to say:

A police chief was slapped down by the Government yesterday for suggesting Britain could open talks with Al Qaeda.
Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said he knew of no terror campaign that had not ended with negotiation.
And he said his 30 years spent tackling the IRA had convinced him that security work and arrests were not enough to defeat terrorists.

What a raving idiot!

UPDATE: I have learned that Hugh Orde is a political appointment of the Labour party. He was sent to Northern Ireland to run the police service at the behest of Sinn Fein.