You can't make this stuff up

The following is a pic from The Decemberists, who was the group that gave a free 45 minute concert at a May 2008 Portland, Oregon rally in support of Obama:




The Decemberists are named after the Decemberist Revolution, an 1825 uprising in Russia which their lead singer labels an attempted Communist revolution. The band often opens their shows with the Soviet national anthem.

What is happening to the dollar and why?

I read this article on Politico.com that references the Drudge Report's recent streak of articles about the weakening of the dollar. The flood of cash in the market together with out-of-control deficit spending is seriously devaluing our currency. What is the White House or Congress doing about it? Well, in short, nothing. A new stimulus package is being touted. Health care reform is being sold as deficit-neutral, but studies show that is not the case and even the Congressional Budget Office has admitted that its figures did not consider certain factors that would change their estimates considerably. The Federal Reserve Bank has done nothing to tighten cash flow.

Many experts believe that the Obama Administration actually wants to devalue the dollar? Why in the world would they want to do that? I found the following explanation on www.senseoncents.com:

"Going back to the G20 in London last Spring, the Obama administration has attempted to curry political favor with emerging economies, especially the BRIC nations, by ceding dollar sovereigncy as the preeminent international reserve currency in return for support of global economic stimulus programs. Why does Washington believe a weak currency serves our economic interests? A weak currency generates and supports the following:

1. Promotes inflation as imports decline. Washington would like some inflation, given the massive deflationary pressures presented by falling wages and declines in the value of commercial and residential real estate.

2. Promotes exports for corporations with a multi-national presence.

3. Supports labor by making it more attractive for companies to keep jobs here as opposed to opening factories or sending work overseas."

If we give the President the benefit of the doubt, then his plan is a potentially extremely costly gamble. Maybe it works out, but history is against it. I have read archived articles from Time Magazine that were written in 1971 where the author is promoting devaluing the dollar to decrease the trade deficit, for example. This theory was played out devastatingly during the years of the Carter administration.

I have learned that, with this administration, there are always multiple layers of agendas for everything they do or say. There is always the public reason which is what the President says he is attempting to accomplish. Then, there is the "real" reason - the agenda that the network news or CNN commentators "uncover." Then, there is the actual reason why he is doing something - the reason that you will only find on the Glenn Beck Show, Breitbart TV, or some other more inquisitive source of information.

So let's look at the reasons given on senseoncents.com, line by line:

1. Reverse the decrease in wages and real estate values.

Let's take this on its face value. Why would we want to artificially bump up real estate prices? Isn't that one of the reasons why we are in the current financial crisis? With regards to wages, sure, we would like to keep wages high, but it has to be done naturally. What good is it to keep wages high if there are no jobs? Why not focus on creating jobs and then let the demand for labor increase wages.

The second-level agenda, CNN will eventually tell you, is that artificially inflating wages will appease Obama's union support structure by getting their members higher pay.

The third-level agenda is that Valerie Jarrett and many of Obama's cronies have a lot of their money tied up in real estate, especially Jarrett the Slumlord. Anybody remember Tony Rezko?

2. Promotes exports for corporations with a multi-national presence.

We need to reduce the trade deficit. I have been saying for years that our economy is too service-based. A strong manufacturing-based economy creates value, and jobs, at all stages of the process: research and development, design, manufacturing, wholesale sales and marketing, retail sales and marketing, resales, etc.

Level 2: a greater demand for US exports means more jobs in the manufacturing sector which means more jobs go to union workers.

Level 3: GE and US car companies benefit extraordinarily which makes Obama a candidate for CEO of the year and creates even more jobs for union workers (and for Chrysler workers this means that their stock in the company - the stock the administration gave them - increases in value).

3. Supports labor by making it more attractive for companies to keep jobs here as opposed to opening factories or sending work overseas."

I think the first two words say it all. Hey, what do know? We finally see some transparency.

Now, at the risk of branding myself a complete conspiracy theorist, let me tell you about a 4th level agenda. I am reading a book called Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. The book, which was written in 1959, tells a tale of life in a small Florida town after a nuclear holocaust. One of the minor characters, Edgar Quissenberry, is the head of the local bank. Once the nukes start falling and the major financial mechanisms of the country and, indeed, of the world have been completely destroyed, Edgar realizes that all of the wealth he has accumulated - all of the cash, stocks, bonds, everything - is worth absolutely nothing. He laments: "How could life go on if dollars were worthless? How could anybody live without dollars, or credit, or both?" Frank was a Democrat and perhaps a little left-leaning, so this may have been a jab at capitalism, but what puts shivers down my spine is found on the next page (p. 122 in the HarperPerennial version if you want to check it out):

"He thought of all the notes outstanding that now would never be paid, and how his debtors must be chuckling. He scorned the improvident, and now the improvident would be just as good as the careful, the sound, the thrifty."

Quissenberry then puts a revolver to his temple and blows his brains out.

My friends, that is the redistribution of wealth. Once the currency became worthless, the "improvident," those who have according to Webster's online are "thoughtless, careless, imprudent, heedless, shiftless, thriftless, unthrifty, wasteful, or prodigal," were the equals of the wealthy, who had planned ahead, spent their money wisely, and saved for the future. I am reminded again of that lady saying that now she doesn't have to worry about her mortgage and Obama is going to make her car payment.

Now doesn't that sound like someone who "just wants to spread the wealth around" would want to do?

World Climate Control = Redistribution of Wealth

Is the world suffering from global warming? Is the gradual increase of the Earth's average temperature a threat to cause famine, pestilence, drastic weather events, an increase in the ocean's levels, and a host of other catastrophes? I don't know and I don't think you do either. The reason I believe that is that the scientists are not being scientists. If they were using the principles of science such as repeated testing and deductive reasoning, then we would probably know. Instead, I believe that scientists are being paid or, at least, pressured by external forces to reach certain results. For example, my last post contained an article by Richard Lindzen. Mr. Lindzen worked as a consultant for OPEC which, clearly, does not support the theory of global warming because the goal of reducing CO2 emissions would require a conversion from traditional petroleum based fuels to alternative "cleaner" fuels. So is his research result-oriented? Is he a shill for the oil companies? I don't know. Is Al Gore a hypocrite because he flies across the globe on a diesel-using jet and lives in an old mansion where he runs up monthly electric bills in the tens of thousands of dollars? Should we question his arguments when he owns considerable interest in and/or serves as an officer of companies that are in the business of green technology? Who should you believe?

One of the major problems with this issue is that both sides keep referring to consensus as if the question of how the earth works and whether or not we are damaging the environment can be based on a majority vote. You would think that there would be generally acceptable methods of testing and acquiring data that everyone could agree upon and that scientists - all scientists - could conduct exhaustive testing and come up with an answer. At the same time, these scientists would follow the scientific method: they take a hypothesis such as "human-generated carbon dioxide admissions contribute to the greenhouse effect which increases the global temperature" and, then, they would use every possible test to try to prove that hypothesis wrong. Once they have exhausted ALL possibilities that they can originate, and the data reflects a certain result, then we would know whether or not that was true. Instead, you have one side referring to one particular authority, document, study, or set of records to support one position, and then the other side does the exact same thing. Don't support it - TRY TO PROVE IT WRONG! That is the only way that we can know for sure.

That being said, and after admitting that I do not know the answer, I do not agree that we need to take drastic action to combat global climate change. The reason why we shouldn't is because WE CANNOT TRUST THOSE WHO ARE URGING US TO DO SO. Here's why:

Progressives come in all shapes and sizes, but, whatever form they take, they feed on crises and take advantage of them to take control and acquire power. If you and I, the nation, or the world believe that we are in an emergency situation, then we are much more willing to let the government act decisively, dramatically, extraordinarily, and unconstitutionally, in an illegal and unprecedented fashion even, because we are in a panicked state. We desperately want to feel that security again. This mindset allowed FDR to put Japanese-Americans in detention camps and seize private citizen's gold during World War II. During World War I, Woodrow Wilson had Committee on Public Information propaganda machine and the American Protective League, which was a group of civilians charged by the government with spying on their neighbors and weeding out or ratting out any dissent among the general populace. Sounds like the Gestapo, does it not? And Congress and the American People let them do it because there was a war going on, the Hun was out there ready to steal our babies, and once we had the hell sufficiently scared out of us, we willingly sacrificed our freedom and our constitutional rights just to have that feeling taken away.

The Obama Administration is full of crisis buzzards. After all, as Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, stated: "We will not let a good crisis go to waste." So we have the financial crisis (the banks are too large to fail, so we have to bail them out), the financial crisis part 2 (we have to push a $787 billion stimulus package through Congress without anyone reading the bill, the majority of which will not result in any spending until 2013 [oh, but we've gotta have it NOW!] that hasn't created any jobs except among unionized teachers and construction workers and contains a ridiculous amount of pork - I call it the Obama Campaign Financing Repayment Package), the automobile industry crisis (the car companies are too big to fail, so the government has to purchase a huge amount of their stock, fire their CEO, tell them what cars they can and cannot build, and give a huge portion of their stock to their unionized workers), the climate crisis (we have to ramrod cap and trade legislation through Congress before the bill can be properly debated because the world is dying and our new green economy will create jobs [I guess at the expense of non-green energy-related jobs] even though it will dramatically increase household energy costs at a time when so many are losing their jobs and businesses are closing), the health insurance crisis (people are, apparently, dying in the streets because they can't get health care, we have to have a government option because there isn't enough competition in the health care industry [so now we have a "competitor" who regulates the other guys and will tax them, yet cannot run its own health care systems, and now is going to tell them what to do] which, by the way, is going to cost taxpayers more money in health care costs [at a time of economic recession]), the swine flu crisis (get your children vaccinated NOW or THEY WILL DIE!), and a few other less significant crises. The Administration and their affiliated non-governmental (or some would say quasi-governmental) support groups (aka special interest groups) are chocked full of progressives and it shows.

Now, let's translate the progressive addiction to crisis to the global or international levels. The UN is also full of progressives (and communists and socialists for that matter). They are generally American-haters. Why do they hate us? Well, George Bush, of course. Ok, not really. They hate us because we have always been the rich bully on the block. We have the highest standards of living based on just about every accepted measure. We have the strongest military on the planet. And, until Obama came into office, we pretty much have not ever put up with crap. In short, they are jealous and see us as the source of evil: we and our European capitalist predecessors are the progenitors of all of the social injustice in the world and we must be stopped.

Up to this point, even when Jimmy Carter was in office, they could not do anything about it. Now, we have in the office a President who is a citizen of the world. He may not hate America, per se, but he hates our white history. He sees our culture as racist and replete with greedy, shameless capitalists. He hates our bourgeois middle class and our intolerant religions. He desperately wants the approval of the world and wants to return our country to its previous international standing - translation: we need to appease our enemies, apologize for doing what we thought we had to do, and agree to whatever radical position the international community adheres to in any given moment.

The global climate change crisis propaganda machine and the anti-American forces of the world have found their ultimate tool in Barack Hussein Obama and they are getting ready to unleash the perfect storm. We cannot trust this administration to do the right thing and we cannot allow the international progressives, embodied in the UN, to impose any system of control upon us and have access to our tax dollars. In my next post I will tell you why. I will also show how the whole idea of climate change and the push to take drastic action now has nothing to do with the environment itself, but, rather, the international redistribution of wealth and the permanent elimination of the USA as a global power.

Richard Lindzen, Climate of Fear

Here is a very interesting op ed piece that MIT Professor and climate expert Richard Lindzen wrote for the Wall Street Journal.

Climate of FearGlobal-warming alarmists intimidate dissenting scientists into silence.

by RICHARD LINDZEN Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:01 A.M. EDT

There have been repeated claims that this past year's hurricane activity was another sign of human-induced climate change. Everything from the heat wave in Paris to heavy snows in Buffalo has been blamed on people burning gasoline to fuel their cars, and coal and natural gas to heat, cool and electrify their homes. Yet how can a barely discernible, one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century possibly gain public acceptance as the source of recent weather catastrophes? And how can it translate into unlikely claims about future catastrophes?

The answer has much to do with misunderstanding the science of climate, plus a willingness to debase climate science into a triangle of alarmism. Ambiguous scientific statements about climate are hyped by those with a vested interest in alarm, thus raising the political stakes for policy makers who provide funds for more science research to feed more alarm to increase the political stakes. After all, who puts money into science--whether for AIDS, or space, or climate--where there is nothing really alarming? Indeed, the success of climate alarmism can be counted in the increased federal spending on climate research from a few hundred million dollars pre-1990 to $1.7 billion today. It can also be seen in heightened spending on solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol and clean coal technologies, as well as on other energy-investment decisions.

But there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis.

To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 30% over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming. These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.

If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.

So how is it that we don't have more scientists speaking up about this junk science? It's my belief that many scientists have been cowed not merely by money but by fear. An example: Earlier this year, Texas Rep. Joe Barton issued letters to paleoclimatologist Michael Mann and some of his co-authors seeking the details behind a taxpayer-funded analysis that claimed the 1990s were likely the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the last millennium. Mr. Barton's concern was based on the fact that the IPCC had singled out Mr. Mann's work as a means to encourage policy makers to take action. And they did so before his work could be replicated and tested--a task made difficult because Mr. Mann, a key IPCC author, had refused to release the details for analysis. The scientific community's defense of Mr. Mann was, nonetheless, immediate and harsh. The president of the National Academy of Sciences--as well as the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union--formally protested, saying that Rep. Barton's singling out of a scientist's work smacked of intimidation.

All of which starkly contrasts to the silence of the scientific community when anti-alarmists were in the crosshairs of then-Sen. Al Gore. In 1992, he ran two congressional hearings during which he tried to bully dissenting scientists, including myself, into changing our views and supporting his climate alarmism. Nor did the scientific community complain when Mr. Gore, as vice president, tried to enlist Ted Koppel in a witch hunt to discredit anti-alarmist scientists--a request that Mr. Koppel deemed publicly inappropriate. And they were mum when subsequent articles and books by Ross Gelbspan libelously labeled scientists who differed with Mr. Gore as stooges of the fossil-fuel industry.

Sadly, this is only the tip of a non-melting iceberg. In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

And then there are the peculiar standards in place in scientific journals for articles submitted by those who raise questions about accepted climate wisdom. At Science and Nature, such papers are commonly refused without review as being without interest. However, even when such papers are published, standards shift. When I, with some colleagues at NASA, attempted to determine how clouds behave under varying temperatures, we discovered what we called an "Iris Effect," wherein upper-level cirrus clouds contracted with increased temperature, providing a very strong negative climate feedback sufficient to greatly reduce the response to increasing CO2. Normally, criticism of papers appears in the form of letters to the journal to which the original authors can respond immediately. However, in this case (and others) a flurry of hastily prepared papers appeared, claiming errors in our study, with our responses delayed months and longer. The delay permitted our paper to be commonly referred to as "discredited." Indeed, there is a strange reluctance to actually find out how climate really behaves. In 2003, when the draft of the U.S. National Climate Plan urged a high priority for improving our knowledge of climate sensitivity, the National Research Council instead urged support to look at the impacts of the warming--not whether it would actually happen.

Alarm rather than genuine scientific curiosity, it appears, is essential to maintaining funding. And only the most senior scientists today can stand up against this alarmist gale, and defy the iron triangle of climate scientists, advocates and policymakers.

Mr. Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

President Obama and other Democrats discussing health care (before he was elected)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk

A new beginning...

Sometime in between football games this weekend, tune in to MSNBC. Watch Rachel Maddow or any show that still allows Keith Olbermann on it. Then, flip over to a rerun of the Glenn Beck show. You won't help but ask yourself: how can two news programs talk about the same topics from such diametrically opposed viewpoints? How can you tell who is telling you the truth? You may not feel as frustrated as I do about the current political milieu, BUT I HOPE YOU DO. These are strange and exciting times. When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I was very interested in politics and worked for George H.W. Bush's campaign and the campaigns of several Texas and U.S. Congressmen. Then, I went to law school, started working a real job, started a family, and had other things to do with my time. At some point during the last President's administration, I began to sense that something was wrong with our country and not just with the Bush administration. I was reminded of a poem by William Butler Yeats, my favorite poet. It is called The Second Coming and here is a portion of it:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Doesn't that sound a lot like what is happening now?

Then, something happened that brought me out of my complacency with regards to politics: the American people elected Barack Hussein Obama as President. I will admit that I admired the man's charisma, speaking ability, and that certain je non sais quoi (sp?) that he had. But, I knew something was wrong when I saw just about EVERYONE, viewing him as if he were the Messiah. The reactions to the guy were mind-boggling: remember the video of the lady who said that she didn't have to worry about her mortgage and that Barack was going to make her car payment? What????

Since the election, I have read a considerable amount of literature and materials on fascism, socialism, progressivism, and the background of those in the Obama White House and it is frightening.

This blog is about opinions, both my own, and those of the people who follow it. If you are an Obama supporter, you are more than welcome to participate. No one will be persecuted, excluded, or personally attacked because of their participation on this blog. I can say that because I have the power to control it (MUAAHAHAAAA!). Plus, I don't want a bunch of Glenn Beck clones spouting off stuff already know. So, challenge me...