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Home » The call to Copenhagen: Climategate who?

The call to Copenhagen: Climategate who?

The New Neo Posted on by

This Guardian editorial will be published in 56 newpapers around the world. It issues a clarion call to Copenhagen; did you realize we have only fourteen days to save the world?

And Climategate? Never heard of it.

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security….

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down ”“ with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance ”” and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles.

And on and on it goes…

Comments

The call to Copenhagen: Climategate who? — 126 Comments

  1. “…Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles.” If the danger is so severe, why the wait? Change your lifestyle NOW! (Oh, and leave mine alone.”


  2. Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges

    Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough.

    If AGW advocates were really the good guys here, I would expect some congruence between what they say and what they do. I wold expect them to:

    * Reduce their own carbon impacts. (How about some videoconferencing?)

    * Play fair with the science, i.e. no ClimateGate.

    * Be willing to engage their opponents in honest, open debate, i.e. Al Gore would debate and RealClimate wouldn’t be a kangaroo court for skeptics

  4. And, when too many do not respond to the demands of social justice, as will surely happen, what then?

    After all, the very survival of the planet is at stake!

    What means are not justified in service of that end?

    If humanity will not respond to Gaia’s needs voluntarily, then force must be used.

    When some resist force, death or the Gulag!

  5. The scientists involved in all this are incompetent. Their statistical work is garbage and their computer code is crap. 90% of their temperature stations in the US are in gross violation of their own scientific standards and the US network is the “best” in the world. Of course, it never occurred to any of them to bother to check their instruments. They don’t bother to check each other’s work and couldn’t if they tried because they don’t follow the scientific method regarding replication and transparency.

    I certainly wouldn’t expect more competence from the journalists who cover these bozos. If that is how bad the scientists are, what should we expect of the journalists?

  6. dded On December 7, 2009
    The head of the UN climate change panel discusses ‘climategate’ and how it’s trying to undermine the group’s findings.

    us.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2009/12/07/sot.climate.ipcc.ebs

    AMAZING… we are screwed..

  7. Key global climate talks begin in Copenhagen
    us.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/12/06/copenhagen.climate.talks/index.html

    “This is not the first report from the IPCC. It’s the fourth report and it’s consistent in the trend.”

    just ignore the facts.
    keep doing it till its too late for the schm*ks

    UNFCC is seeking $10 billion each year in 2010, 2011 and 2012 before the figures rise sharply.

    well, if you had a trillion coming to you over the years and such, you would want to establish a lie as truth.. no?

    “By 2020 and 2030 we’re going to need much more significant sums — to deal with mitigation and adaptation,” De Boer said.

    In the next two weeks, he said countries must agree on three layers of action: Fast action to mitigate and adapt to climate change from 2010, “ambitious” commitment to cut and limit carbon emissions and a long-term “shared” vision for a “low-emissions future for all.”

    “I know two things for sure: There will be many more steps on the road to a safe climate future but also few turning points. And Copenhagen must be such a turning point,” de Boer said.

  8. North Korea currency change sparks panic

    North Koreans are “devastated” following currency reforms that could wipe out their savings, reports say.

    they will do the same in the US soon.
    lots of coutnries are now divesting of dollars, while they are telling us its ok.

    Ordinary people are reported to be desperately trying to buy as many goods as they can with the old currency while it is still valid.

    The government told its people on Monday that it was knocking two noughts off the nominal value of banknotes.

    Experts say this will help tackle inflation and increase officials’ control over an already impoverished population.

    They say the Pyongyang government particularly wants to rein in the activities of free markets that have sprung up across North Korea.

    fun fun fun…

    North Koreans are thought to have until Sunday to change their old notes into the new currency.

    But there appears to be a limit on how much can be exchanged – one report says each adult can cash in only 100,000 won.

    and so instantly everyone is equal or below.

  11. They are just going to ignore the science of it. They are going to ignore the electorate.

    Look at how the EU ignored its own “electorate”. We are witnessing an international socialist/tranzi coup.

    I would not be too sanguine about reversing this in 20010. That election will be stolen outright, you can bet on it. I doubt that there is much we can do about it. Even if we take back both houses, we will not have enough to get around a veto. We are goi9ng to be stuck with this destructive nonsense for at least 3 more years. Say goodbye to the American middle class. Say hello to poverty and slavery.

    Many think that this is hilarious given Climategate, but they will not be laughing when it turns out that it does not matter.

    The EPA is now moving on carbon dioxide. They will just destroy middle class businesses in a matter of months with this. It is really just outright extortion, theft and destruction of the political opposition. It is outrageous. It shows just how vicious and without honorable principles this administration truly is. It shows that the Democrat Party are the enemies of this nation. What Bolsheviks they are. This is no different than the early years of the Russian Revolution, it is just done politically and not under force of arms (yet).

    This cast asides the very foundations of our Republic. They have end run the congress, they have end run elective, representative government.

    Looks pretty grim from were I sit. I doubt we ever get the Republic back, short of a civil war.

    Can you just imagine how they will be emboldened if they get away with this nonsense? Much worse is yet to come.

  12. huxley:
    Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges

    Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough.

    As Glenn Reynolds has been saying for years: I’ll believe it’s a crisis when those who say it’s a crisis start acting as though it’s a crisis.

    And if AGW has taught me anything, it’s this: I will never again take a so-called scientist seriously who says “the debate is over”. (I have even less respect for a Congresscritter who says so. Shutting down debate is anathema to science, but it comes close to blasphemy in a representative democracy.)

    The story has yet to be told in re who, exactly, leaked the East Anglia e-mails. (If the person’s identity were known today, he or she would no doubt be lucky to escape alive. In a few years, it may be safe to know.) I’d be interested to know if the leaks deliberately took place just before the Copenhagen conference. Regardless, however, the leaker has done us all a tremendous service.

    respectfully,
    Daniel in Brookline

  14. Huxley! Help! Hattip is reminding me of some of the exchanges you and I and some others had a while back, over whether or not the Constitution will protect us from what these guys are trying to do. You thought it will; I thought that they have contempt for the American people and the notion of self-government, and that what they can’t get through the Congress, they will get through regulation.

    And I think they mean to destroy this country, and once again I’m back to thinking there’s no way to stop them. I’m coming out of my optimistic, hopeful phase. It’s clear they don’t care what anyone thinks. They have as much as said so. Their program is fixed, inflexible, and in their eyes it’s inevitable. They have the will that we lack, because they have the unity that we lack, and they have the power that we don’t even seem to dream of. Shoot, the Republicans in Washington are still drooling and schlepping around hoping they can find something–ANYTHING! to agree with Obama on, and then he will repay them by giving them another good clout upside the head. He will no doubt flash them a toothy grin as he delivers the clout.

  15. Some of the Warmists are amoral, opportunistic fraudsters with a thirst for power. But it is the true believers who really scare me. They are devout; and they believe they are tasked with saving the world from imminent destruction. It is horrifying to imagine what colossal crimes they would capable of in service to that God!

  16. betsybounds: My point was that the Constitution (and the American citizenry) would protect us from an Obama dictatorship.

    I did not say that Obama and his minions wouldn’t do some damage before they Party On! to the ash heap of history.

    Wake me up if Waxman-Markey makes it out of Congress as more than a decoration.

  17. I’ve become seriously allergic to the term “social justice.” It comports well with the Reds’ proclivity to reverse the import of a term by prepending an apparently benign adjective to it. The second effectively means whatever the Reds want it to mean.

    requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it

    From each…to each…yada yada.

    As for global warming/climate change/ whatever they come up with next, I can hardly restrain the impulse to shout from a rooftop, “We’re not changing the effing climate, for Christ’s sake! So relax!”

  18. Sorry, please ignore the sentence starting “The second…” It’s a bit of detritus left over from something I decided not to include. My bad.

  19. Mitsu ! We need your expertise !!!

    As i’ve been studying this issue since 1991 and converted folks to free market solutions – I wish I had your brain to pick!

    You are so smart and informed (not).

  20. Huxley,

    No, you never said that they wouldn’t do some damage before they were finished. But I wasn’t so sanguine as that. I thought then, and I think now, that they intend tyranny–whether Obama specifically becomes the tyrant or not. And we did have several discussions over the utility of regulation to their schemes if legislation faltered.

    Oh well.

  21. betsybounds: At some level I do believe — partly because I once believed it myself — that Obama and progressives intend one world government, or at least taking the next steps towards thereof.

    Here’s a site, http://green-agenda.com/, which describes how that works vis-a-vis global warming.

    I didn’t realize that The Club of Rome was still in business, nor how far and how literally Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis is now taken by rather powerful people.

  22. Personally…. i feel for the corporations and entities who serve rich people and politicians. 🙂

    As these rich people and politicians are forced to NOT use private jets… the industry will collapse.

    The airports that aren’t used. The mechanics. The service staff. The BUILDERS of such airplanes.

    Jobs lost everywhere in every state. Jobs lost because of people who don’t know science and BELIEVE the hype and crisis mongering.

    Poor families of America shouldn’t take this lying down.

    Dear voters,

    Vote for free market oriented people. Liberals are NOT.

    Signed,

    A loving American who cares about people and the planet.

  23. Huxley:
    The left and the Democrats have been trashing the Constitution for 60 years,
    There is little left to it.

    You are kidding yourself. We have not been a constitutional republic for decades.

    Just an example: The SCOTUS upheld Affirmative Action just few years ago as “constitutional”, when it clearly is not. There reason was that is “served a purpose”

    I thought all were equally right? This EPA ruling comes out of a SCOUTS ruling. It is absurd. !) the constitution give no right for a body such as the EPA to even exist, and secondary they have no power to in effect enact legislation.

    Or take the “Brady Bill”. One can go on and on.

    Obama just seized GM and gave it to the Unions.
    This is constitutional?

    We said goodbye to the Constitution long ago during the New Deal.

    They have been whittling away at it for decades. Soon there will be nothing left at all. There is hardly any left now.

    Wake up and smell the coffee. We are headed down the road of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. The republic is through unless the people rise in anger and take it back.

    Fat chance of that.

    You really think that 2010 will be an honest election?

  24. Huxley: You did not realize tjhat the Club of Rome is still around? Who do you think is behind the EU?

    Geez, get with it.

  25. Maybe because it’s Monday and cloudy here in my part of New England. Maybe it’s the EPA doing what I always knew they would. Does seem like a ‘downer’ day for the good guys.

    I hope betsybounds is wrong, but sometimes I wonder.

  29. Is there anyone, anywhere, who truly looks at both sides of these goings on, that doesn’t at least THINK that what this looks like , is actually what it is? The constitution is now but a temporary annoyance, being chipped away a piece at a time.

    One world world. Socialism as the way of life. Everyone equally poor, except the dukes and duchesses.

    One half of America against the world.

  31. Oh get off it, Huxley. I am not partionizing you I am calling you on your nonsense
    What now, pouting? Address my issues or do not respond, but do not hide behind that “patronizing” garbage. Youa re just evading the issue (not to mention acting like a liberal).

    This struggle with the left is a real as it gets. If you cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Golly.

    My goodness, the EPA outlaws AIR and you are worried about you “feeling”. What nonsense.

    Makes me think i was right in the first place.

  32. NBC news tonight lead off with with climate panic “the clock has wound down to 0!”
    Then they covered the massive blizzard and winter storms to be crossing the US.
    “Neck snapping cognitive dissonance” is what I call it.

  33. We are, most of us, presumably familiar with Clausewitz’s dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other means. I can’t be the only person looking at our present situation who’s thinking that what we’re seeing can be described as the reverse: Politics is a continuation of war by other means. For I think we are in a war, except that the representatives of our side don’t seem to know it. The Democrats/Progressive Left are hitting on every front. I just heard a Republican Congressman refer to them as being “desperate.” They are not desperate. They are determined, and they are smelling blood and, yes, victory. Many conservatives at one time or another have referred to them as desperate. But they have been moving from one victory to the next. And the Republicans get slugged and then slugged again, and then get get in line to get slugged repeatedly again, and mocked into the bargain. Sure, the Left’s cap-and-trade bill is stalled, but the EPA is moving to implement by regulation that which they may not be able to legislate. In the end, there will be no difference. It resembles nothing so much as an attack on multiple fronts. They’ve taken over industries and are now involved in screw-tightening. Obama claims he doesn’t want to run car companies, but he hires and fires GM CEOs at his will or whim. ACORN has released the results of their investigation following the video-tape scandals, and ser-prahz ser-prahz ser-prahz, nothing was wrong or illegal about anything they did. They will emerge a bit bloodied but unbowed, and with their power intact, mark my words.

    I tell you, these guys are not put off one bit by the fact that opinion polls show their support tanking. They do not act as though they care. They are not modifying their distinctly unpopular agenda one whit. Now, why might that be? I find it difficult to believe it’s because they’re in some kind of denial. They may know something about what’s going to be either secured or nullified in November 2010.

    Highlander,

    I agree with you that the true climate change believers are fearsome. The thing I’m not clear on is who they are. Are they the movers or the shakers? By “movers,” I mean that the guys at the top, the strategists who are pushing the agenda in the courts of power, are the movers. Are they the ones who are the true believers, or are they merely cynically manipulating the shakers–the guys on the streets, in the blogs and the media, who actually do truly believe? I think there’s good reason to think that the true believers are merely serving as “useful idiots” in the case. The movers at the top believe in something, all right. But I’m not sure it’s global warming.

  34. While in my calmer moments I tend to hope that huxley and people who think as he does are right. But the truth is that in my head and my gut I think that the Constitution is being killed. Consider that (as I’ve read in multiple sources) most of us, during the course of our daily lives and without knowing it, violate one or another of the enormous binding laws contained in the federal registry. These are violations of law that can be honored in the breach any time these guys please. If they decide they want to charge you with something, they almost certainly can.

    Comforting, that.

  35. It will take a coup d’etat to save the country. The effort needed is bigger than what we peons can muster.

  36. Climategate has revealed that we don’t have objective measures of climate change, and without objective measures we will be, when legislation is passed and regulations imposed, in the same murky place as we are with the Stimulus Package’s “created or saved” jobs verbiage — with no logical defense against claims that legislation and regulation was effective in taming the climate change terror or at least preventing it from worsening. Every normal long and short-term climate fluctuation will be presented as evidence that politically-imposed solutions either tamed or at least calmed the beast. I say, however, that without an objective standard against which curative efforts can be evaluated, there is no engineering or scientific merit that may be claimed for the actions that are about to be taken.

    We will (soon) have a Climate Change Priesthood protecting us from an unknowable demon — Climate Change — and the Priesthood will be strict and even brutal in its mission to right the climate wrongs. I suspect that we are in for unhappy times.

  37. Huxley,

    I just re-read one of your posts above, where you said, “I did not say that Obama and his minions wouldn’t do some damage before they Party On! to the ash heap of history.”

    I have to laugh at that! It reminds me of General Buck Turgidson saying, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed! But I do say, no more than 20-30 million killed. Tops.” (Dr. Strangelove).

    What a wonderful movie that is. I love black humor, and it is sometimes most definitely appropriate!

  38. The wagons are circling around Carbonhagen,

    hattip Says:
    They are just going to ignore the science of it. They are going to ignore the electorate.
    Look at how the EU ignored its own “electorate”. We are witnessing an international socialist/tranzi coup.

    Agreed.
    In headlines elsewhere, the party line forms up, “Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson dismissed GOP calls to delay a critical finding on greenhouse emissions in light of hacked e-mails from climate scientists….
    “There is nothing in the hacked e-mails that undermines the science upon which this decision is based,” Jackson said in announcing the finding this afternoon. She said the controversial messages dealt only with a tiny fraction of the strong evidence of global warming.”

    Will they steel the 2010 and 2012 elections outright? Only if we let them.

    Betsybounds says;

    We are, most of us, presumably familiar with Clausewitz’s dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other means. I can’t be the only person looking at our present situation who’s thinking that what we’re seeing can be described as the reverse: Politics is a continuation of war by other means. For I think we are in a war, except that the representatives of our side don’t seem to know it.

    That has been the left’s playbook since Marx, Lenin, Gramsci(sp?) et al. It’s high time that those in the center and on the right began to fight back.

    As for the republicans. I don’t consider them too far different from the democrats with the exceptions being that they understand economics a tad better and they know a threat to our existence when they see it. Other than that, they agree with tightening restrictions on the internet (oh not now because it’s working in their favor, they believe) and other restrictive measures to increase and hold on to their political/financial power.

    Both parties are corrupt to their cores and owned lock, stock and barrel by their funders. The soft coup spoken of above is not just socialist trans-nationalist progressives, it’s the political class trying to cement the permanency of their rule.

    Does that mean that all republicans (or democrats) are bad? No, but most will spinelessly go along.
    Ordinary citizens must make sure that the election is not stolen and that the bums are thrown out. There’s nobody else to do it.

  39. Tim P,

    I don’t quite agree with you that the Republicans are just a sort of “Democrat Lite.” I think they are more witless than that. Oh sure, they like their corruption as well as the next guy, and they are very much not above enriching themselves at citizen expense, or seducing the willing mark. But I think they lack the sense of mission the Democrats possess in such monstrous measure. It’s been said that, in Washington, there are two parties: The Evil Party and the Stupid Party. It should be no mystery as to which is which.

  40. Perhaps neo can address the psychology of those who seem to need to struggle against an existential threat to feel really alive. This “climate change” hysteria is like being forced to watch the Lifetime channel 24/7 – we’re being tied to the train tracks by Simon Legree, and only those stalwart leftists can save from doom (doom I tell you!) as the train chugs ominously closer and closer…

    Seriously, what mentally balanced adult could possibly be taken in by this?

  41. Bill O’Reilly disappoints me on this topic. But then again that is the case with about 6 topics.

  42. O.B.,

    The question is, what is the existential threat? I don’t believe these guys really think they need to struggle against an existential threat called climate change. Their existence isn’t threatened by climate change so much as it is by those of us who think we should be free to make our own decisions about our own lives. I dobelieve, though, that they use those who do consider themselves threatened by climate change for their own ends, which include ruling every aspect of every person’s life. We should trust our betters, you see, who know what we need better than we, ourselves, do.

    Algore is the exception to just about every rule in the matter. He’s genuinely nuts (that’s what I think, anyway–I’d like to know whether Neo thinks so too). He believes the climate change nonsense, and has become a huge tool in this battle. He could profit from a good psych evaluation. And after that, he could profit from being locked away for some intensive treatment. The truth is, we could all profit from that treatment of him.

  43. I am reminded of that old Gary Larson cartoon about “Same planet, different worlds” when I think about the majority of us posting here who read alternative news sites or listen to talk radio or Fox and those who rely on ABCCBSNBC.

    The media is to blame for this. They pushed this lie over and over and over.

    Where are all those superstorms the media said were coming after Katrina because Bush didn’t sign Kyoto?

  44. I think the editorial is fascinating and disturbing. Here are my two cents, FWIW: Total Communist Claptrap.

    And it isn’t just the random phraseology we hear so often from communists, like “Social justice demands,” “more equitably shared,” “fairness requires,” “collective salvation,” all of which are used in this editorial.

    It seems to me that energy consumption and the productivity and prosperity of any society are closely linked. The more energy consumption, the more productive, sophisticated, and prosperous the society. Anyone in favor of “progress” should be in favor of increased energy consumption.

    Now check out this line from the editorial: “We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.”

    This has nothing to do with the environment. This is about control. One world government and population control. And why 1990 levels? What is so special about that year? Is that the year their corrupt and fraudulent “models” tell them is golden? Why not 1890? Wy not 1790? We can all go back to living in log cabins and burning whale blubber. Won’t that be paradise?

    In discussions with communists we always ask them how they are going to prosper if their system destroys incentives for invention, innovation, and production? And how are they going to efficiently allocate resources without the power of supply-and-demand and marginal utility? These things can only work if you have econimic freedom. Of course, the standard response to that is that within their egalitarian utopia productivity and prosperity will be increased because they will harness the power of the collective. They have a “Plan.”

    Now, check out this line from the editorial: But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives.

    Hmmm . . . sounds familiar. Less production. Less consumption. But, magically, we will be better off.

    Disturbing because we already know the results of this. Fascinating because they know the results too, but they keep pushing for it anyway. I believe Friedrich Hayek called this The Fatal Conceit.

  45. br549 said “One half of America against the world.’

    If the Epa goes thru with this CO2 regulation its all over economically for states like Texas and Louisiana. Texas is doing better than the national average but this will kill the things that are keeping us that way.

    Do they really want to push us Texans against a wall? Local Democrat politicians are leaving the Democratic party and switching to Republican (bet you are not hearing about that one).

    I am reminded of the speech of Rev William P. Smith on the eve of the Battle of Gonzales, October 1, 1835 , “…In numerical strength, the nation against whom we contend is our superior…”

  46. So I was just browsing through the comments over there. Something strange is happening. Why are there so many deleted comments? And the comments that remain all seem to be from believers. No dissenting opinion allowed?

    Here is an interesting comment from “SadOldFart” :Please remember how many people you have failed to convince. Unless you engage properly with recent issues and treat the unconvinced with greater respect, this editorial will have about as much effect as your stunt a few years’ back to influence US voting patterns.

    Now, I think “SadOldFart” is correct. However, even he will not admit what the “recent issues” consist of. Interesting.

  47. Betsy, I agree, the commissars aren’t so stupid as to take AGW seriously, but why does anyone? And more broadly, why do doomsday predictions so easily gain such currency? Every few years we’re all doomed by something, and yet the freeways get progressively more and more crowded… /g

  48. MikeLL,

    Exactly. It’s magical thinking: “Magically, we will be better off.”

    Sheesh. We are in such a pile of **it.

    jon baker,

    I’m not a native Texan, but I lived there for nearly 20 years. I married a Texan, and my children are both native Texans. I love Texas. I can’t imagine that Texas will stand for this. And I’m with her. Most of the significant events in my adult life took place there. Should it become economically possible for our family to make such a move, we’d be back there in a heartbeat. Home. Oh, yeah.

  49. Has anyone else here heard of Balint Vazsonyi? He was a Hungarian, nationalized American, and a concert pianist who served as the director of the Center for the American Founding at the time of his death in 2003. I remember seeing him interviewed several times on C-SPAN in the 1990s. He was impressive, and quite open about the left in this country, about recognizing their methods, and was clear about calling them “commissars.”

    Anyway, I’ve been thinking of him lately, and thinking we could profit from having him and his thoughts with us during these times.

    Well, for whatever that’s worth–which may be not much. But I think he was a great man.

  50. Socialism is a store where nothing is ever in, always soon to be shipped. Not original with me.

    In my advancing years, I find it much easier to extrapolate into the future. I see armed revolt as almost inevitable now. It seems our only solution. Otherwise we’ll all be frogmarched into oblivion.

  51. Anyway, I’ve been thinking of him lately, and thinking we could profit from having him and his thoughts with us during these times.

    I fear that given the nature of the situation, most wouldnt listen to him.

  52. Did you all see the opening video for Copenhagen?

    http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/

    It’s not exactly intellectually stimulating, which probably means that it hits the right note for attendees.

    Claudia Rosett at PJM discusses the the UN’s economic analysis of what we need to do to save the world. Obama wants us to surrender sovreignity to these idiots. Maybe we need a Copenhagen Tea Party. Or at least we could consider restoring part of Turtle Bay to its original aqueous state.

  53. Just stumbled onto your site. Read your Pearl Harbor day post. Now your bookmarked. Look forward to reading you again.

  54. betsybounds Says:
    December 7th, 2009 at 10:11 pm

    Has anyone else here heard of Balint Vazsonyi?

    YES!!! I have his book “America’s 30 Years War” and I have read it.

    I always said that it was a must read, but sadly, events have moved so fast that it almost seems dated now.

  55. expat,

    Wow. Thanks for the video link. I heard a partial audio of that ad this morning on NPR when I was driving to work.

    If the enviro-statists actually had a real, truthful, scientific basis for their arguments they would not have to hide behind children.

  57. Reading the FT today was depressing. Totally unconcerned about Climategate. Full of articles saying we’ve got to combat climate change and we’ve gotta do it now.

  58. From the latest in my humble little blog
    (“What’s this “Climategate fuss all about?”)

    …

    This is NOT just a scandal of a few purloined emails; it is the perversion of science to cold-bloodily create propaganda, to justify putting the government in complete totalitarian control of our industries, our economy, nearly every detail of how we live.

    …

    What’s at the bottom of all this?

    Pure naked power.

    –

  61. “There is nothing in the hacked e-mails that undermines the science upon which this decision is based,” Jackson said in announcing the finding this afternoon. She said the controversial messages dealt only with a tiny fraction of the strong evidence of global warming.”

    Notice that this is literally true, in that it refers specifically to the e-mails, not to the coding.

    From the HARRY_READ_ME file:

    ;
    ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
    ;
    yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904]
    valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,- 0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$
    2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor
    if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,’Oooops!’
    ;
    yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)
    ;

    Jackson must be a lawyer, because no one else could say that with a straight face?

  62. Various commenters express their concern, outrage, and even their certainty that there is very left to the US Constitution and that it will take coup d’etat to restore it.

    Others note that it seems like AGW advocates need an existential threat to feel alive.

    Personally I don’t see that much difference between the view that the US is over as a constitutional republic and the view that AGW is going to destroy the environment and civilization.

    Both views strike me as rather overwrought.

    Could such things happen? Sure, but we are a long way from either.

  63. Mitch Miller: Actually that code is not in HARRY_READ_ME.txt but in FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\briffa_sep98_d.pro.

    It looks more damning than it is, since the variable, yearlyadj, is only used in a line that is commented out, which means that, as the code stands, the
    “VERY ARTIFICAL correction” never runs and has no effect on the output.

    It could either be innocent scaffolding code that the programmer left in the source or, when uncommented, it could be used to cook the data for the graph. But we don’t know.

    At the very least it is sloppy and suspicious.

  64. AGW skeptics,

    Can you appreciate that the following two things are, in fact, two things?

    1 – AGW: the thesis that human activity is at least partly responsible for global warming.

    2 – Climategate: a small group of scientists who behaved very badly and who agree with AGW.

    The reason for the widespread editorial is that the newspapers’ editors understand the difference between these two things. They understand that a small group of scientists behaving badly with their data does not invalidate the body of evidence supporting AGW.

    I’d like to know why AGW skeptics believe there is a hoax happening. In other words: who stands to benefit from this hoax, and how will they benefit? Perhaps Neo could write a post explaining that. Then I could examine the arguments and begin making up my mind.

  65. Over the weekend, while browsing bookstores with a friend, I looked up Stewart Brand’s and James Lovelock’s recent environmental books dealing with the global warming crisis.

    Brand is the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, as well as a Stanford-trained biologist. Lovelock is an environmentalist and inventor of some reknown. His most famous contribution is the Gaia Hypothesis — that the earth and its biosphere form a homeostatic system that maintains stable climatic and biochemical sufficient for life. Brand was an early publisher of an article about the Gaia Hypothesis

    Currently Lovelock is about as pessimistic as can be — basically “Enjoy life while you can” because sooner rahter than later global warming is going to turn most of the globe to Saharan desert and crocodiles will once again swim in the Arctic waters.

    Brand follows Lovelock’s lead but not quite so pessimistically. Brand believes that by building nuclear power plants, moving to cities, and living smart sustainable lives we may be able to squeak through.

    Lovelock and Brand are not so bound by the usual Green party line, which I appreciate. And they can still scare me as good as Stephen King.

    But once I came out of the eco-apocalyptic trance with 80-90% of the human race dead and crocodiles gamboling merrily in the tropical polar regions, I considered that the earth’s climate is vast, complex and not nearly so well understood as many authorities make out.

    Predicting the future is a pretty tricky business in any field, and plotting the two or three most alarming points then extrapolating several decades ahead is usually not a reliable method.

  66. President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela has received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government’s military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia.
    “They are preparing a war against us,” Chavez said during a televised address, repeating a charge he has been making for months. “Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it.”

    Both Colombia and Washington deny having any plans to attack Venezuela, but Chavez argues they are plotting together a military offensive against Venezuela. Chavez says his government is acquiring more weapons as a precaution.

    how about getting ahead of the curve, rather than behind it? i mentioned the copenhagen thing was going to be serious more than a few months ago…
    its ignored, then a few months later its the big topic. i am now mentioning what is coming up next.

    there is no way to do anything if what your doing is always moping up and discussnig what happened, and is a done deal, rather than anticipating. this is why the false concept of reasonableness is so harmful. yeah they can hedge their bets and say they were discussing things and so were abotu to make that conclusion, but the truth is that the conclusion was always to be made after the situation, and that the speed with which they avoid committing to a side, is so slow, its always after its a moot choice.

    here is the clue as to whats coming next. it might not actually be there. but i said a long time ago, when we threatened the land bridge of weapons to africa, they needed a replacement. the easiest fall guy to do that, AND achieve other aims was venezuela. since i said that, africa has become the conduit for drugs and weapons… venezuela i said had just signed contracts to make dragunove sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and ak105s (or 107s… i cant remember even if its anotehr number).

    russia has re-estabiished the famous statue of the stalin era and has re born stalin as a hero. so watch out… and treaties of cross defense are being signed. threats and buildups are happening.

    and we are concerned with wailing about a situation in which all the chess pieces are in place and there is nothing we can do since we didnt realize it BEFORE the peices converged into their working arrangement. realizing the plot when the pieces move into place is losing.

    President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela has received thousands of Russian-made missiles and rocket launchers as part of his government’s military preparations for a possible armed conflict with neighboring Colombia.
    “They are preparing a war against us,” Chavez said during a televised address, repeating a charge he has been making for months. “Preparing is one of the best ways to neutralize it.”

    Both Colombia and Washington deny having any plans to attack Venezuela, but Chavez argues they are plotting together a military offensive against Venezuela. Chavez says his government is acquiring more weapons as a precaution.

    there is tons of other things happening too, but we dont want to pay attention to it in a look ahead fashion, we are so used to looking backwards and calling that forward thinking…

    Chavez also said Monday that Russian tanks, including T-72s, will be arriving “to strengthen our armored divisions.” Venezuela has bought more than $4 billion worth of Russian arms since 2005, including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets, dozens of attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. In September, Russia opened a $2.2 billion line of credit for Venezuela to purchase more weapons.

    2005… they are way way ahead…
    putin knows that if he takes georgia, or some other country, there is not going to be a response. if there is a response its going to be led by a bunch of people who can do little but believe they are omnicient (and whose play book is known in more detail than they know it).

    Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine create a joint military brigade
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatnews/6589547/Lithuania-Poland-and-Ukraine-create-a-joint-military-brigade.html

    so war by other means, moves to politics by other means (as betsy points out). [whiuch is why i said read the new docuyments from the chinese which postulate a new form of forever war (until commnuism wins), in using everything against the enemy and trying not to awaken them to the fact that what seems like accidents are intentional. like lead in childrens toys, electronic parts that will fail, etc]

    there is a lot going on… but this whole thing is a done deal… they are going to do what they are going to do, and nothign can stop or mitigagte that.

    the farce only had to last long enough to get a treaty… thats all… all tools are disposable, thats pragmatic, and allows freedom to move resources to other tools, and other things.

    cant wait to hear what the different countries say, but i am pretty sure that the ones that dont want to be a part, will just claim western malfeasance and disinformation… thats an angle no one is talking about… concerned abotu what science means to them, how about concerned at what science means in global policy and cooperation!

    and iran is yelling about the 12th imam..
    anyone here want to explain the implications of that one? the 12th imam in 2012?

  67. 1 – AGW: the thesis that human activity is at least partly responsible for global warming.

    2 – Climategate: a small group of scientists who behaved very badly and who agree with AGW.

    Patrick:

    (1) Most people at all scientifically literate accept the Greenhouse Effect and accept that increasing CO2 increases global temperatures.

    The problem is that CO2 is such a minor gas in the atmosphere that it is measured in parts per million. It is debatable that going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm is going to raise the planet’s temperature 4 – 6 degrees C.

    “Partly responsible” might be, in fact, a negligible factor and that the primary source of warming is some other factor, such as the sun.

    (2) This “small group of scientists” comprised the most prominent, elite scientists, whose work forms the backbone of the AGW movement. Their bad behavior taints, like it or not, the work of that movement.

    who stands to benefit from this hoax, and how will they benefit?

    Cui bono is not a hard game to play in this case.

    The scientists themselves, in the form of skyrocketing grant money and prestige. Governments looking for a big bump in tax revenues. Environmentalists looking to reduce the use of fossil fuels and renew interest in environmentalism. Lefitsts looking to expand government control of businesses. UN proponents looking to expand the UN’s influence in world affairs. Third world countries looking for grant and reparation money based on potential global warming damages. Those with anti-American sentiments who would look to see the American economy held back.

  68. Patrick,

    I don’t know what is happening with the climate. I am skeptical because I think one should always be skeptical about politically hyped controversies. My big problem is with the people who claim to have solutions. After seeing what happened with mortgage deriviatives, how can I believe that cap and trade won’t be scammed? After years of seeing greenies condemn new technology and propose thing that are scientifically and technologically ignorant, how can I want them to ruin our economy and destroy any chances for progress in energy production? I will resist this hype until sensible grown-ups start talking about sensible measures.
    Why are we not extracting more natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal? Because Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want any offshore extraction. Why are people not acknowledging that there will probably be lots of little solutions rather than the one big thing? Why are are these supposedly smart people letting a bunch of Hollywood types and aging hippies take control of the discussion? In short, I want to be talked to as a reasonably intellligent citizen with no desire to own my own jet or have a garage full of prestige cars or a wardrobe full of $500 designer bags. I have enough sense of who I am to not need the approval of the cool. I just don’t want to have to schlepp groceries or install solar panels on a primarily north-facing roof. I want real information about ways to save energy (and money) from people who know what they are talking about. I want flexible proposals that don’t punish people living in the country with no access to subways. And I don’t want to pay Russian oligarchs if I turn the lights on to read.

  69. Patrick,

    The problem with the “it’s just a small group of scientists behaving badly” isn’t the behaving badly part, although that is bad enough on its own. The problem with it is that the data they moved to alter or suppress goes some way towards disproving the case they’re trying to make. Given that science operates not by proving hypotheses with increasing amounts of supporting data, but rather by ruling things out with only one or two contradictory data bits, you could say that their theory has been ruled out–since NONE of the models these guys rely on to make their predictions, predicted the current decade-long neutral or cooling period. It’s also true that the reason they behaved badly in selecting their data sets, including its chronological extent, is that doing so allowed them to igonore both historical warming and cooling cycles that, by virtue of their timing, can have had nothing to do with human activity. In addition, when the cooling of the Little Ice Age is included, it becomes clearer that we’re currently in a warming cycle as part of the recovery from that, and the magnitude of the warming is grossly exaggerated by the AGW outfit, evidently to help them support their “cause.”

    Thanks (ahem) for pointing out that there are two things at issue here. None of us was smart enough to pick that up. And I am second to none in my admiration of those oh-so-brave newspapers.

    You can’t possibly be serious in wondering who might possibly benefit from AGW as hoax. How much money do you think is being funneled to those whose work pretends to support the idea? Can you count? How much power do you think is about to be granted to people who want to administer “remedies?” And of course those 2 points are just for starters.

  70. Thanks for your reply, huxley.

    Environmentalists looking to reduce the use of fossil fuels and renew interest in environmentalism. Lefitsts looking to expand government control of businesses. UN proponents looking to expand the UN’s influence in world affairs.

    I think ‘interest in environmentalism’ is growing pretty well anyway. Do you think that the environment is a scarce, valuable and nonrenewable resource that ought to be protected?

    If so, how could a tragedy of the commons (i.e. the exploitation and ruination of the environment) be prevented if not by government intervention?

    It seems to me that government intervention is precisely what is necessary in order to protect the environment from a tragedy of the commons. Furthermore, it seems to me that because the protection of the environment is a global issue, the effort to protect it has to be coordinated on a global scale — hence the U.N.

    So I don’t think that environmentalism, government control of business, and an expanded UN influence in world affairs, are bad things insofar as they serve to protect the world’s environment from a tragedy of the commons. In fact, I think they are necessary to do so.

    Third world countries looking for grant and reparation money based on potential global warming damages.

    If AGW is correct, global warming is caused mostly by rich, industrialised nations. But they can protect themselves from the effects. Poor, developing nations did not contribute so much to the problem, but cannot protect themselves from it. Don’t you think it’s fair to ask the rich to help save the poor from the damage that the rich have done?

    Those with anti-American sentiments who would look to see the American economy held back.

    A hypothetical UN-mandated change to the CO2-output of the world would affect all nations, not only the USA. Europe, China, India and other industrialised nations would all take an economic hit.

    However, most economists believe that this economic hit which would be suffered in the short-term in order to reduce CO2 to acceptable levels would be far, far less than the economic hit which would be suffered in the long term if we do not reduce CO2. (To say nothing of the things we would suffer, such as increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, harsher hurricanes, large-scale global population displacements, lack of fresh water, etc.)

    In fact, because the USA is a developed nation, it has much more flexibility to adjust to a green economy than poorer nations (oil-rich ones, such as Nigeria) which lack the capacity to find alternative revenue sources. So I think the argument that focuses on protecting the USA’s economy from this apparent threat simply has the wrong end of the stick on all counts.

  71. Neo, why don’t you sponsor a contest to submit the most nauseating drivel to come out of Copenhagen? First prize to be one copy of AlGore’s new book. Second prize two copies, and so on.

  72. “The constitution is now but a temporary annoyance, being chipped away a piece at a time”

    I agree: The left has only contempt for the actual Constitution, preferring its “living Constitution” in which the Constitution means whatever the left wants it to mean at the time.

  73. Reading Patrick is so discouraging. He does not, and will never get it. Sounds smart enough, but he is not worth the effort of trying to teach him anything. Put him in the useful idiot box.

  74. “Both views strike me as rather overwrought.”

    But note how the left has been chipping away at the idea of free speech, not to mention private property rights. The left is taking away our rights, in whatever small steps it thinks it can get away with.

  75. Patrick,

    What are the consequences for countries that sign on to CO2 reduction and fail to keep their promises. All we have to do is look at oil for food and technology transfers to Iran to see what happens when countries fail to keep their pledges. This blame America first thing has been overplayed. We didn’t dry up the Aral Sea. Climate change is also being used to distract us from the miseable ecologic balance of communist countries. It is a way of activists to defect attention from their own miseable judgement in the past.

  76. Patrick: You asked for the benefits gained by participants in the AGW movement, and I sketched out several. Whether those benefits are fair or not and according to whose judgment is another matter.

    Most of your response assumes that catastrophic global warming is “settled science.” In this discussion most of the commenters disagree. If there is no catastrophic global warming then reparations to the Third World. for instance, are not justified.

  77. “They understand that a small group of scientists behaving badly with their data does not invalidate the body of evidence supporting AGW.”

    “They” understand jack. The scientists are not just a “small” insignificant group. Their lying and their fraud is at the foundation of the entire theory and thus invalidates it. Have to start over again.

    In “science” as opposed to religion that’s what grown up minds do. Grow yours, Patrick.

  78. The left is taking away our rights, in whatever small steps it thinks it can get away with.

    Both the left and the right agree that there are limits to our rights. The left draws that line differently and works to move the US towards that line accordingly. This isn’t new. For instance, FDR considered that Americans had a right to adequate medical care and that was part of his idea of a Second Bill of Rights.

    You and others may see this as the end, or the beginning of the end, of the US as a constitutional republic. I don’t.

  79. well yeah…
    you wont until it does change, then your going to say you were on top of it after the fact, till then, ambiguity and hedge is the order of the day.

  80. when the chamber of commerce is described as a “right-wing extremist group”, is not invited to a jobs summit, among other things… then where are we going?

    you think that a constitional republic is not going to go, and we are telling you its GONE… affirmative action judgments insured that we are not equal in the eyes of the law. obama with the unions showed that contract law is broken, and no longer applies if they dont want it to. debtor prisons are back. the chamber of commerce is a right wing extremist group.

    hey… let me know if a constitutional republic would give out fisting kits to high school kids?

    Planned Parenthood fiends were passing out to children at a taxpayer-supported GLSEN workshop for high school students:

    The kits came complete with a rubber glove (it can get kind of icky up other kids’ rectums) and K-Y lubricant, and could also be used for calorie-free oral sodomy, thanks to instructions on how to create a “dental dam.”

    and of course in a constitutional republic that has free speech the parents are to be charged with hate crimes if they dont allow their children to participate..

    then again, we tazer children… pregnant women and the eldery (but fire a christian who refused to torture an old man).

    and dont forget… Santa clause is also gay!
    so now you CAN have a christmas tree!!!
    just leave rubbers in a dish instead of cookies.

    oh.. and dont forget the wonderful social justice where 36 men (and women?) were charged in 22 assaults. what where they doing? well as a movement out west they were filming their random assaults on whites and the spanish and putting them in the hospital.

    St. Paul police have arrested an adult and a juvenile in connection with a series of random attacks in Minneapolis and St. Paul that were recorded on video and posted on YouTube.

    Abdul Yusuf (A.K.A. Lil stain), Abdul Abdi (A.K.A. Badelo Badelo), Sharmake Muse (A.K.A. Shark), Bahnan Abdi (A.K.A. Gun Play), Ali Muse (A.K.A. Jig Saw), Mohamed Abdi (A.K.A. Marvin), Guled Guled (A.K.A. G) and Abdulahi Ali (A.K.A. Bighead) in “brazen and cowardly” attacks in St. Paul and Minneapolis.
    http://www.amren.com/videos/20091118somalis-in-mn/index.html

    all over the nation..

    Denver arrests may be part of trend of gangs videotaping attacks
    By Kirk Mitchell
    The Denver Post
    Racial attacks like the ones behind the arrest of 32 suspects in Denver are part of a trend spreading across the country, gang experts said Saturday.

    As part of the trend, black gang members videotape the assaults in trendy tourist districts and sell them on the underground market as entertainment.

    “They knock a young white guy out with one blow to see if his knees will wobble and surround them and take their money,” said the Rev. Leon Kelly, who runs a Denver gang-prevention program. “It’s a joke.”

    Denver police announced the 32 arrests Friday after a months-long undercover investigation into what authorities said were racially motivated assaults and robberies in Denver, including in the Lower Downtown entertainment district.


    http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_13843272

    these are not race crimes, they are oppressed attacking oppressors, which is justice in a constitutional republic. right?

    and we also know that innocence until proven guilty applies… right? like in family court… where the burden of proof is asymetrical, the punishments are asyumetrical, the outcomes are asymetrical… and yet, they are still not soviet fair…

    did we forget the columbia professor who didnt like white privelege argument he cold cocked a female he was talking with? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/nyregion/11columbia.html

    Akron police investigate teen mob attack on family
    http://www.ohio.com/news/50172282.html

    and in ny… they are also assaulting asians..
    Black students go on rampage at Philadelphia High School, beat 26 Asian students.

    “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.” — Robin Morgan

    let me know how my family oppressed them when my father became a citizen in the 70s?

    the constitutional republic is GONE ALREADY…

    to claim the end hasnt happened is to wait for them to clean up the streets after the ticker tape parade has passed..

  82. Well Huxley, I don’t know what to say that will make any difference to you. You seem determined to assume, as a default position, that nothing is changing unless we suddenly see soldiers rounding up citizens in the streets or I don’t know what all. You suggest someone should wake you if Waxman-Markey gets passed through the Senate. You think that both the left and the right agree there are limits to our rights, so hey, what’s the problem with that, no worries, right? And hey, FDR thought Americans had a right to adequate medical care too, so no big deal! You appear untroubled by EPA’s move to regulate CO2–CO2 for crying out loud! as an environmental poison. Maybe you don’t like it, but it sets off no alarms for you.

    Well again, I hope you’re right. But I’m not seeing any cause for comfort, no matter where I look.

  83. Patrick, you have an (please pardon my term) infantile view of the environment.

    As one who has studied things for 2 decades, you have to understand how WELL the earth’s system is balanced.

    Pollution in the air (non- CO2 particles in the air) don’t stay in the air. That is why we have much cleaner air now than the 1970’s.

    Pollution in the water doesn’t stay. Processes take pollution out – such as the sun, algae, bacteria. Fissures in the ocean floor put more oil in the oceans than tanker accidents. The oceans cleanse themselves.

    New species and new plants are created where volcanoes scorch many square miles.

    I’m not saying humans have license to TRASH the planet. What I’m saying is that your view of things is in the infantile stage. If you learn more you wouldn’t be asking questions like this, “Do you think that the environment is a scarce, valuable and nonrenewable resource that ought to be protected?”

    Patrick, of course the environment is valuable, and ought to be protected. The word nonrenewable is misplaced. The word scarce is misplaced.

    What we are talking about here are two things:
    1) Logic – Water Vapor is FAR more of a heat trapping gas than the CO2 found at the levels of parts per million. For the past 11 years the earth has not warmed. Scientists are trying to figure that out.

    2) Solutions – Free Market solutions are far more beneficial and create less misery and poverty and we conservatives (we care about the environment) want solutions oriented in the free market.

    We can ask you leading questions like:

    1) Aren’t you interested in NOT causing more misery and poverty and increasing energy costs for poor people around the world and in the U.S.
    2) Aren’t you interested in the free market driving costs down for solutions like led vs. cfl’s? Are you in favor of the government choosing winners and losers in the market place and why is the government choosing cfl’s vs. led’s?
    3) Do you know how many parts MORE it takes to build a Prius than an Echo? How much more CO2 is put in the air building and shipping those parts?
    4) Do you know that your computer is using energy?
    5) Short of nuclear, and hydro do you know of anything else that isn’t carbon based that can ACTUALLY move us away from carbon based fuels? Solar isn’t heating a house at night. Wind is not constant and I’m not interested in a rickety electrical grid that costs us 100 times more. Yes 100 times more. I’ve seen the research.

    If you can wrap your mind around the fact that conservatives care about the environment but we want free market approach to solutions without blow hards ramming down crisis mentality government picking winners and losers in the market place and doubling energy costs and killing jobs ….. we’d love for you to come to our side.

    We’ll be here waiting – to care about the environment with you.

    Good luck on thinking we don’t care. It doesn’t get you anywhere.

  84. I tend to believe much as huxley. The reason I do is that this country has been in far more danger from inside and outside factors in the past and has managed to muddle through. I also look at Chile, which was essentially destroyed economically by Allende back in the 70s. With far less in the way of institutions and human resources than we have, Chile has managed to reinvent itself.

    My primary worry is that our children are being brainwashed in our schools today. Too many are unable to make decent value judgments about issues. Patrick, in this thread, would be an example.

    Too few people are versed in Jefferson, the Constitution, and Adam Smith these days. But in spite of that the people are beginning to see the errors that the progressives are committing. If the Congress did not have a democratic majority, little of what has happened under Obama would have happened. The power of our vote is still enormous and must be used with care and consistency. The polls show that people are turning away from big, intrusive government with its tax and spend programs. The likelihood is that the dems will lose their majority in Congress in 2010. We must all work to make it so. That is what makes our system great. It can self correct.

  85. “Good luck on thinking we don’t care.”

    Did you see the New Yorker cartoon of the clipboard kid stopping a man on the street: “Do you have five minutes to save the environment, you selfish bastard?”

  86. You seem determined to assume, as a default position, that nothing is changing unless we suddenly see soldiers rounding up citizens in the streets or I don’t know what all…

    betsybounds: And from my vantage, your side seems determined to see everything as Chicken Little evidence that the sky is falling and ignore all opposing evidence.

    Speaking in terms of the climate and of the US Constitution there is always change, always struggle, but for the most part both endure on the scale in which you and I live.

    There will come a time when the climate lurches dangerously hot or dangerously cold — an Ice Age in fact is dead certain and we are overdue. There will come a time when the United States is no more.

    But for the next 20-30 years anyway, I consider the odds on my side. As a person who was once terrified of eco-apocalypse and of a fascist America, I’m no longer interested in the Chicken Little approach to future prediction.

  88. Artfldgr: as I believe I’ve said before, both to you and others here, sometimes my spam filter is overactive and bans certain comments for reasons best known only to my spam filter. But it does not mean the commenter is banned.

  89. I’d like to know why AGW skeptics believe there is a hoax happening. In other words: who stands to benefit from this hoax, and how will they benefit?

    Short answer:

    1930: “We need socialism to combat the Depression.”

    1970: “We need socialism to ward off the population bomb.”

    2000: “We need socialism to fight global warming.”

    None of this proves AGW is a hoax, or politically motivated. But it jacks the index of suspicion up through the roof. If the goal were really to combat AGW, rather than use climate hysteria to advance socialism, the left would be howling for nuclear energy. But…crickets. QED.

  90. Jimmy J.,

    I would like to believe as you and Huxley do, but can’t quite see the reasons that you obviously do to do so. Can you please point out to me a time in our history when we’ve faced greater internal dangers than we have facing us today? The only time I can think of that comes even close is the Civil War, and our survival intact as a result of that was both a very near thing and never certain until it was near to being over. Furthermore, one could argue that one of the biggest reasons we survived it was that no one thought oh well, no worries, no threats. Instead, they fought.

    I think there’s a wild card in your analysis, in that it rests on the coming elections. But some of us are aware that active subversion of the coming elections may be in the cards and may even already be past planning stages–are you prepared to rule that out? ACORN, state attorneys-general controlling recount and absentee procedures (the Dems have been working for some time to get fellow Dems into those offices), efforts to suppress overseas military votes, and other means have been underway for some time. I don’t say they’re going to succeed, but it would be foolish to discount the signs that they’re preparing to try. it doesn’t look very “Ho-Hum” to me.

  93. To me… the problems have grown worse over time.

    Less personal responsibility.

    More nanny state.

    More and more theft from our kids and grandkids….

    It can’t be sustained…

    Apathy and erroneously placed priorities (non personal responsibility mentality) is causing the Roman Empire part two.

  94. http://blog.american.com/?p=7951

    The top 1% of income tax payers pay more than the bottom 95% of income tax payers…

    See the gradual decline Huxley?

    Yes we can reverse this… But we haven’t even begun anytime in the last few decades..

    As I see it… It is pending Roman Empire part 2.

  95. betsybounds: Again, I’m not advising people to do nothing. Far from it.

    However, as I calibrate these things, we are a long ways from fascism, and I don’t think that all this talk about tyranny, coups, the end of the Constitution etc. helps.

    You keep asking what I see that works against all those dire scenarios. I keep saying, look around — Obama grows weaker and more buffoonish by the day and his followers likewise. The guy hasn’t caught a break in ten months. With each month Americans like him and his policies less.

    Republican’s and conservatives have high morale. We’re looking at a good 2010 election wave. Plus we’ve had these great windfalls like the ACORN videos and the CRU Hack materials.

    But that’s all invisible to you and the others who expect the US to end soon, if it hasn’t all ready.

    I don’t see much difference in that from my brother who kept going on a few years ago about how Bush was “shredding the Constitution.”

  96. neo: i figured.
    but had to ask..
    as i cant always go back to all threads i was in.
    after all, if i happened to transgress, and didnt know it, i would be putting in for nothing till allowed. and no way to know

    i know the spam filter is flakey..
    (and sometimes pc too).

    so sorry to waste your time in that question. 🙂

  97. betsybounds: One last thing — we are human and we have very limited ability to predict the future.

    If you are truly convinced that the US will cease to be a Constitutional republic soon, then do what you gotta do.

    I don’t know the future anymore than you do. All I can tell is that it doesn’t look that way to me. I can give you reasons, and I do, but when it comes to the future ultimately we are all on our own.

    Part of my solution is to live with faith that mostly things are all right and that I will know what to do as life unfolds.

    That’s no guarantee either, but I sleep better and I believe I make better decisions moment-to-moment than when I am fearful that life is about to change irrevocably and for the worse any day.

  99. betsybounds: Well Huxley, I don’t know what to say that will make any difference to you. You seem determined to assume, as a default position, that nothing is changing unless we suddenly see soldiers rounding up citizens in the streets or I don’t know what all………………

    your noticing it too…

    and i am not finding comfort in that i dont react i anticipate. and have been saying so, but no one is keeping score.

    let me add a bit of stuff on top
    in this case, this is international and related to the venezueala thing.

    right now, putin is returnign the country back to communism, as planned before. but no one is watching… (and no one is realizing that they have been experimenting for 40 years in how to beat our military)

    utin still has the ability to hire and fire local officials like governors and mayors, to populate an depopulate the national parliament, to name the pontiff of the Orthodox Church and to discharge justices of Russia’s supreme court at will.

    and he has been doing so. including reorganizing the miltiary. reoutfitting them. etc. they have changed their miltiary doctrine to one of first strike nuclear. they have abandoned the treaty that prevents them amasing arms and weapons. which is why lithuania, ukraine, and poland are linking up (after all, obama abandoned them).

    when Justice Vladimir Yaroslavtsev gave an interview to the Spanish daily El Pais and said that Russian security agencies control the country just as they did in Soviet times, and worried that “nobody knows what [the FSB] will decide tomorrow, there is no consultation or discussion,” he was immediately forced to resign. When his colleague Justice Anatoly Kononov came to his defense with an interview in the Russian paper Sobesednik, he too was forced out.

    so the KGB/FSB is back in OVERT control again. the result of no destalinizatin. the statues are back, including the newly refurbished man and collective farm girl.

    “the judiciary in Russia during the presidencies of Vladimir Putin and his successor Dmitry Medvedev had been converted into an instrument at the service of the executive powers that be” and that “the center of the adoption of [judicial] decisions is in the administration of the president.” Yaroslavtsev (and then he was gone… )

    assasinatinos aroudn the world and internally are once again the norm (but now borders are open).

    If there were any institution more untouchable by politics than the constitutional court, one would think that would be the church, but Putin has rolled his virtual tanks across that territory as well. He has a new bill moving rapidly through the Russian parliament which will make it illegal to discuss religion unless in possession of a Kremlin-issued permit. larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/editorial-the-end-of-freedom-of-religion-in-russia/

    so this i hope will wake up the religious liberals (yes there are many…). remember, we have been copying their laws

    Instead of wiping out all religion as in Soviet times, Putin has instead co-opted it; he’s installed a KGB operative as pontiff of the Russian Orthodox Church and is now moving swiftly to simply wipe out his competition.

    actually religion wasnt wiped out. but controlling the church was stalins gig.

    oh.. stalin is now a hero again..

    the media, like ours will be soon, is in complete control. i guess assainating 300 reporters will do that.

    Instead of wiping out all religion as in Soviet times, Putin has instead co-opted it; he’s installed a KGB operative as pontiff of the Russian Orthodox Church and is now moving swiftly to simply wipe out his competition.

    Ivan Safronov also went out a window

    students who stand up, end up out of school
    bloggers end up in prison, banrupted, or both
    (some put in mental institutions)

    OUR press hides this as they did things before, celebrates things as fi they were great, and helping to maneuver our state to the same conditions.

  101. Huxley,

    I deny that the things you mention are invisible to me. I see what’s happening to Obama’s ratings and all the rest. The thing that gets me is that these guys don’t seem to care. They do not reconsider their course or modify their agenda. I wonder why that is. Either they’re nuts or they have plans that render the opposition moot. I can’t think of any other possibilities. I have a hard time thinking they’re nuts, although it can’t be ruled out.

    Incidentally, the Roman Republic died and was supplanted by the Empire over a period of approximately 17 years.

  103. as I calibrate these things, we are a long ways from fascism

    then you dont know what fascism really is..
    even wiki and colleges get it all wrong
    they claim essential parts that are not essential
    and they ignore the essential

    so its no wonder that those who never lived through it, would not recognize a new or different form of it. i would be like getting a description of a pit bull, but leaving out the key details in favor of transitory things, like a spiked collar.

    Fascism, pronounced /ˈfé¦ÊƒÉªzÉ™m/, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism[1][2][3][4] with a corporatist economic system,[5] and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.[6][7][8][9][10]

    WRONG… natinoalism has nothing to do with it at all!!! its not essential… and the essential part, corporatism… IS what fascism is.

    which is why the big time corporation men wanted it, helped it, financed it, etc. they are willing to skirt the flame to get it too.

    the silliness gets more when you go to corporatism. to people like me, hilmar von campe, and others, we can see the lie that has been promoted… others dont even knwo that there are lies.

    just as we live in a clipped off spectrum that some how puts freedom between two totalitarian left ideologiesc alling one the right… we live in false definitions of the terms that would let us say.. HEY! thats fascism… and then be able to prevent it by doing so!

    got that key point? in order to do so much fascist type actions, they had to distract yo that what they were doing was not fascism, that it was something else, or you wont let them do it.

    just the same with obama. he doesnt say he is making a commnuist state. but to those who lived through it (some a few times!), we see exactly what they are making.

    just as an experienced chess player sees the maneuvers that a inexperienced does not see.

    as for chicken little, it is a bad analogy
    chicken little said the sky is falling
    we are saying that the president is doing what hitler did. and there is no left and right, there is just us people and the people who are employees converting to rulers and us slaves.

    in todays world fascist corporatism (which is kind of like saying tiny small things), is closest.

    however, its interesting that FASCISM had another name too.. it was also called the third way..

    and in the fake artificial spectrum… it was supposed to be communism and fascism with capitalism… (yeah sure).

    so you can turn to the DLC..
    democratic leadership council
    http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=128&subid=187&contentid=895

    and just like no one brings up that planned parenthoods first name was the negro project… and that hitlers people wrote to our people for advice in his programs!!!!!!!!!

    so to say we dont have fascism is a joke, much of it started here!!!!!!!!!!!! (when we forget)

    America and the world have changed dramatically in the closing decades of the 20th century. The industrial order of the 20th century is rapidly yielding to the networked “New Economy” of the 21st century. Our political and governing systems, however, have lagged behind the rest of society in adapting to these seismic shifts. They remain stuck in the left-right debates and the top-down bureaucracies of the industrial past.

    The Democratic Leadership Council, and its affiliated think tank the Progressive Policy Institute, have been catalysts for modernizing politics and government. From their political analysis and policy innovations has emerged a progressive alternative to the worn-out dogmas of traditional liberalism and conservatism. The core principles and ideas of this “Third Way” movement are set forth in The New Progressive Declaration: A Political Philosophy for the Information Age.

    Starting with Bill Clinton’s Presidential campaign in 1992, Third Way thinking is reshaping progressive politics throughout the world. Inspired by the example of Clinton and the New Democrats, Tony Blair in Britain led a revitalized New Labour party back to power in 1997. The victory of Gerhard Shroeder and the Social Democrats in Germany the next year confirmed the revival of center-left parties which either control or are part of the governing coalition forming throughout the European Union. From Latin America to Australia and New Zealand, Third Way ideas also are taking hold.

    and dont forget clinton was a soviet exchange student who avoided vietnam by siding with fulbright.

    that paragraph basically says that they are building a fascist state.. and are, like before wwii, are in battle with communist leftism to get them on board (which is why obama is pissing everyone off).

    The Third Way philosophy seeks to adapt enduring progressive values to the new challenges of he information age. It rests on three cornerstones: the idea that government should promote equal opportunity for all while granting special privilege for none; an ethic of mutual responsibility that equally rejects the politics of entitlement and the politics of social abandonment; and, a new approach to governing that empowers citizens to act for themselves.

    The Third Way approach to economic opportunity and security stresses technological innovation, competitive enterprise, and education rather than top- down redistribution or laissez faire. On questions of values, it embraces “tolerant traditionalism,” honoring traditional moral and family values while resisting attempts to impose them on others. It favors an enabling rather than a bureaucratic government, expanding choices for citizens, using market means to achieve public ends and encouraging civic and community institutions to play a larger role in public life. The Third Way works to build inclusive, multiethnic societies based on common allegiance to democratic values.

    ]
    see…
    its not top down control, like communism
    its not free market like capitalism
    its the third way, fascism.

    but, unless you were into reading the documents from then, and such you wouldnt know it.

    just like you and others think communism and socialism are different things. they are not. ever notice that the quotes i put up from derzinsky, beria, stalin, lenin, etc… almost never say communism, but always talk of socialism.

    again, dyinformatzia is how it works.

    in this way, hitlers third way becomes CENTRISM
    (or radical centrism)

    The Third Way is a term that has been used to describe a political position which attempts to transcend right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a synthesis of some right-wing and left-wing economic policies.[1] Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as representing a centrist compromise between capitalism and socialism, or between market liberalism and state socialism. However, proponents of third way philosophies point out that this would merely be ‘half-way’ between right-wing and left-wing on the Enlightenment-era one-dimensional political spectrum in contrast to a third way which is a 20th century synthesis of these older polar viewpoints, transcending while including both of its predecessors as components in a Hegelian synthesis, rather than simply a compromise between the first two ways.[2] This claim is embodied in the alternative description of the Third Way as the Radical center.

    dont belive me? well then look up third way with hitler instead of by itself.

    On November 14, 1998, while most of us were distracted by sex scandals, The New York Times quietly reported that, in response to the growing worldwide recession, “Mr. Clinton has proposed a `third way’ between capitalism and socialism.”

    Actually, Clinton has been touting the Third Way since 1992. But his evasive language prevented most people from figuring out what he meant by it.

    “We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer,” Clinton said in his 1998 State of the Union address. “My fellow Americans, we have found a third way.”

    Of course, most Americans didn’t even know we were looking for one. But now that we’ve found it, how does it work?

    Among other things, the Third Way calls for business and government to join hands as “partners.”

    “We are working with business to use technology, research and market incentives to meet national goals,” Clinton told the Economic Club of Detroit in February. “Some have called this political philosophy the third way.”

    What Clinton means by this gobbledygook is that Big Business will own the economy (as under capitalism), while Big Government runs it (as under socialism).

    Corporations will be bribed into obedience through subsidies, tax breaks, customized legislation and other special privileges.

    It all sounds very cozy. But what would life be like under such a regime? History offers some alarming clues.

    “National Socialist Germany has created a new economic doctrine,” boasted Adolf Hitler in 1939, “which views … the economy as the servant of the people.” Hitler exemplified the Third Way. He left industry in private hands, but appointed government bureaucrats to run it.

    Production goals were set and price controls imposed from Berlin. Jobs were created through public works, tax incentives and government credits.

    “Hitler … anticipated modern economic policy,” enthused liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith in 1973. “That a nation oppressed by economic fear would respond to Hitler as Americans did to FDR is not surprising.”

    so here you say you dont think its fascism..
    but you haven read the documents, the speeches, and more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    and THATS why you are calm…

    no, the sky is not falling
    it didnt fall in germany either.

    having a socilist leader appoint men in the stae to oversee huge statist corporations IS FASCISM.

    everything else is window dressing and variance, not really needed. that is they are not defining points.

    and before jonah goldberg was famous for happy fascism… anyone read Goss? Friendly Fascism by goss?

    “Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of this creeping fascism…” he wrote. “In America, it would be supermodern and multiethnic — as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards and apple pie. It would be fascism with a smile.”

    Most people would accept the new order without distress, Gross predicted. They would have fewer rights, of course, but more gadgets, perks and entertainments. Troublemakers would be blacklisted and discredited, but rarely jailed or killed. When violence became necessary, it would be done discreetly.

    “One can look forward to improved capabilities … for the use of … induced heart failure … induced suicide … and `accidental’ automobile fatalities,” wrote Gross.

    Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America 1980

    that long ago..

    who is gross?
    he wrote the full-employment bills of 1944 and 1945 //and the Employment Act of 1946

    and so, again, those with first hand experience or close up secdond hand, know whats going on..

    but note this. that if you tried to prevent things in the 60s, you were square, and thats impossible. in the 70s, you were just evil or a fascist for trying. in the 80s, despite gross and archives opening, your still a crank… then in the 90s, you became a tin hat super crank. then now in the 2000s, its still unreasonable to call them on it.

    why? because to you and everyone fascism is all the things its no, and not anything that it is

    and gross said this
    Gross realized that centralized power was, in fact, the linchpin of tyranny. “Big Business-Big Government partnerships …,” he wrote, “were the central facts behind the power structures of old fascism in the days of Mussolini, Hitler and the Japanese empire builders. … I see Big Business and Big Government as a joint danger.”

    again.. he lived through it

    This system has been called The Third Way, Communitarianism, Consensus Democracy, and neo-socialism — and all the labels fit. They all point to a network of global control. Local community groups (the social sector) — partnering with business (the private sector) — are manipulated like puppets on strings by governments (public sector), which pull those strings through financial incentives and global standards.

    this is fascism..

    and this was done to you by DIALECTIC PROCESS
    [here we call it dialoging to consensus], and hegelian dialectic is the main one.

    at this point i would tell you to read about JULIAN HUXLEY, huxely..

    Julian was head of Unesco.. right?
    here is waht he said
    The task before UNESCO… is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose. This is opportune, since this is the first time in history that the scaffolding and the mechanisms for world unification have become available…. And it is necessary, for at the moment, two opposing philosophies of life confront each other from the West and from the East….

    “You may categorize the two philosophies as two super-nationalisms, or as individualism versus collectivism; or as the American versus the Russian way of life, or as capitalism versus communism, or as Christianity versus Marxism. Can these opposites be reconciled, this antithesis be resolved in a higher synthesis? I believe not only that this can happen, but that, through the inexorable dialectic of evolution, it must happen….

    this is where diversity came from… multiculturalism, etc.. any one want to search unesco and obama and indonesia, and micro loans and so forth?

    and any one want to do the reading on unesco and kgb stuff?

    the less you know, the easier it is to feel save when the world around you is very unsafe.

  104. Artfldgr: It’s when we agree that I get worried…

    then lets hope i am VERY wrong…
    and you and i can hoist a brew, or wine, or milk and laugh about the only time in my life i went that far on a limb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  105. betsy b.,
    Ah yes, some instances that were worse than now. How about during the depression? Read “The Forgotten Man.” Learn about all the socialists and communists that were in our government. Learn about the Casa Grande project. Get acquainted with Harry Hopkins and many others who believed much of what the progressives of today believe. Look at WWII. We were caught with our pants down. For two years we were getting our butts kicked. Our victory in that war was no assured thing. It took blood, sweat, toil, and grit to enventually come out on top. Look at the U.S. between WWII and Korea. Military being demobilized, communist plants in our government. Many still believe Joe McCarthy was a demagogue, but he was right about the communists in our government, the unions and hollywood. We could have been kicked out of South Korea and lost our credibility as a defender of freedom. Look at the Jimmy Carter years. The oil embargoes, the unanswered challenge from Iran, an economy in stagflation, 15% interest rates, the dollar in terrible shape, a general malaise among the population. This country was on the ropes, thanks to Carter and Co. Perhaps you don’t see it that way. I lived through all of those things and I can tell you the Depression and WWII were no walk in the park.

    So, like Huxley, I’m an optimist, but I’m not one to advocate doing nothing. Political action is the way we change the country. Write to your elected representatives, write to your local newspaper, go to Tea Parties, support candidates both with money and votes. Send e-mails about the issues to your family and friends. We still have free speech, freedom of assembly, the right to vote. These are precious and powerful things in our system. The alternative media is getting more powerful and influential everyday. Basically, I think we can get this going the right direction, but it won’t be easy. And we have to be patient.

  106. Thanks, Jimmy. You’re right, of course, and I’ve been doing all those things. Actually I’m pretty relentless about contacting my representatives in Congress, and my family have gotten to where they run when they see me coming! I have a copy of The Forgotten Man, but haven’t gotten to it yet–working on Neo’s recommended Eleni right now.

    It’s true that I don’t remember the Great Depression or WWII–I’ve heard stories from my family, of course. I never picked up from them, though, any sense that they saw our own government as the threat back then. WWII was very real to my family–like many others. My dad left Pearl Harbor on Dec. 4, 1941, sailing on the Dutch luxury liner Blumfontein, he was on his way to China to join the Flying Tigers. When Pearl was attacked they were diverted south to Australia and he was inducted into the Army Air Corps, and spent the war in the Pacific, flying out of New Guinea most of the time. His 4 brothers were in Europe. When I was young and foolish (instead of old and foolish! :)) I talked to my dad about McCarthy, and he said to me that of course people forget that McCarthy was “a little bit right.” And he told me about some of the people who had infiltrated the government, Hiss and others. I wasn’t persuaded at the time, but later came to be.

  107. Sorry–I hit “submit” too soon!

    Anyway, thanks for you suggestions. I do tend to wring my hands a bit, and it’s nice to have you point to some saner points for me.

    Honestly, I should just go back to knitting full-time! 🙂

  108. Betsy,
    Wouldn’t we all like to go back to being apathetic and apolitical, secure that the nation was in the best of hands? There was a time when I was like that even though it wasn’t true. What is it about getting older that makes you more………responsible?? Or maybe just getting crotchety or having more time to think, read, and realize how precious, yet fragile, our way of life is.
    Anyway, I don’t anticipate ever being apathetic again. Not that I’m not going to quit enjoying many of the good things in life – like a neighborhood Christmas party that we’re having tonight. I may even smile, laugh at corny jokes, tell some myself, and act like all’s well with the world.

  110. Occam’s Beard Says:
    December 8th, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    1930: “We need socialism to combat the Depression.”

    1970: “We need socialism to ward off the population bomb.”

    2000: “We need socialism to fight global warming.”

    None of this proves AGW is a hoax, or politically motivated. But it jacks the index of suspicion up through the roof. If the goal were really to combat AGW, rather than use climate hysteria to advance socialism, the left would be howling for nuclear energy. But…crickets. QED.

    That’s pretty close to what I was going to say.

    For decades now the Socialists/Communists have claimed that:

    War is caused by capitalism.

    Poverty is caused by capitalism.

    Racism is caused by capitalism.

    Now capitalism is threatening the very Earth itself.

    Funny how the solution to all those problems is always the worldwide abolition of capitalism.

  111. rickl,

    Yes. And, as well, the world-wide imposition of socialism/communism.

    Indeed, funny about that. Frank Marshall Davis is alive and well–in Obama’s program.

    Ugh.

    Has anyone else here read any of The Black Book of Communism? There is a body count. . . .

  113. What JJ isn’t saying is we have never recovered from the wounds inflicted. We as a people have adapted, made do, but not have undone nor reversed the damages. I cite Social Security, Medicare, Vietnam, Iran, Community Reinvestment Act, Title 9 as a few painfully obvious examples. Government by Ponzi schemes slow to collapse; millions dead (50 million dead in utero) to no sustainably good purpose. And much worse is coming, nominally to rectify past errors. Betsy is utterly right to be scared out of her skin.

  114. I deny that the things you mention are invisible to me. I see what’s happening to Obama’s ratings and all the rest. /i>

    bestsybounds: You never mention it. You head straight to the OMG!, it’s all over for the US as a constitutional republic by 2010.

    Incidentally, the Roman Republic died and was supplanted by the Empire over a period of approximately 17 years.

    Then we’ve got 16 years to do something about it. Think that will be enough?

    Or do you want to roll over now?

    Do you really, really think Obama and ACORN are that powerful?

  115. “Do you really, really think Obama and ACORN are that powerful?”

    Do you really think it’s just Obama and ACORN?

  116. Huxley wrote, “Baklava: If we last as long as the Roman Empire, we will be doing pretty good, and we have a long time left.”

    Yep. I never thought it’d be 3 years or even 13 or 23…

    I didn’t put a time to it.

    However… It matters to me that my daughters will have a tougher time paying more as they will be responsible to people who choose to be less responsible.

  117. Huxley wrote, “Do you really, really think Obama and ACORN are that powerful?”

    You obviously didn’t see this link which spans decades…

    http://blog.american.com/?p=7951

    I don’t know what year Obama was born but the problem started long ago… the problem is getting worse.

  118. It’s not about Obama and Acorn.

    It’s not about personalities

    It’s about issues and policies… the issues and policies of:
    1) National Security
    2) Personal Responsibility
    3) Free Markets

  120. Baklava,

    Thanks for your reply. I’m sorry if I implied that you (or conservatives in general) don’t care about the environment. Of course you do. So do I. Where we disagree is how to best go about protecting it.

    Free Market solutions are far more beneficial and create less misery and poverty and we conservatives (we care about the environment) want solutions oriented in the free market.

    I’m highly skeptical of this. I agree that pure economic theory shows that free markets are most efficient for everybody. That might lead us to conclude that protectionism is always bad. But in practice, free markets have very serious shortcomings. One crucial shortcoming is that free markets have no way of accounting for the future costs of present actions: if something is profitable in the short-run, the market favors it. Therefore, since it is cheapest to burn coal and oil for fuel, free markets would do that, despite the fact that this would have catastrophic results for the environment: even if the long-term result was planet-death, a free market would choose this course. That is why an appropriate degree of government intervention is absolutely necessary.

    It’s also necessary to hinder the freedom of powerful corporations to act as they please. Otherwise, you have situations in which companies like Trafigura dump their toxic waste in poor African nations, which you can read about here and here.

    Both free markets and corporations are interested in profit above all else. They are not interested in the wellbeing of future generations; they have no way of accounting for this, and it does not interest their shareholders. The example of Trafigura serves to illustrate why free markets and unhindered corporations cannot be trusted to protect the environment. If anything, they can be trusted to ruin it.

    Aren’t you interested in NOT causing more misery and poverty and increasing energy costs for poor people around the world and in the U.S.

    Of course. We all are — we just disagree on how best that should be done. I believe that a relatively small sacrifice now will prevent really enormous sacrifices later on.

    5) Short of nuclear, and hydro do you know of anything else that isn’t carbon based that can ACTUALLY move us away from carbon based fuels? Solar isn’t heating a house at night. Wind is not constant and I’m not interested in a rickety electrical grid that costs us 100 times more. Yes 100 times more. I’ve seen the research.

    From what I’ve read, solar power can do more than just heat a house — it can fly a plane.

    There is an island in Denmark that has become totally carbon-neutral using offshore wind-power, ocean turbines, solar panels and biofuels.

    Here’s a page dispelling some common myths about wind power. It’s by a wind power company, so skepticism is appropriate — but it cites its sources.

  121. Let me make one more citation, as I think it’s very apt.

    From that article:

    …Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, delivered a major report on the economics of climate change to Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. Concluding that inaction would essentially reduce global GDP by at least 5 percent annually, he suggested that mitigation, by contrast, would use about 1 percent of global GDP annually. In a widely repeated warning, Stern said that climate change represents “the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.”

    (Bold text by me, to indicate that this guy knows what he’s talking about when it comes to free markets.)

    Would you like some more?

    …consider a closer inspection of Stern’s numbers. His calculations derive partly from 2001 IPCC numbers: he believes that business as usual is likely to “imply a rise of 4 to 5 degrees C or more above pre-industrial levels within the next 100 or 150 years.” The study suggests that will lead to an “average reduction in global per-capita consumption of at least 5 percent, now and forever.”

    But Stern’s objective was to find a range of possible outcomes, and 5 percent is at the low end. There are several things that number does not include. It does not take systematic account of “direct impacts on the environment and human health” — things such as mortality from extreme events like heat waves or tsunamis, for instance. Were these included, Stern says, they could push the cost of ignoring climate change higher, from 5 percent to 11 percent of global per-capita consumption.

  122. He also separately considers two other issues: increased “feedback loops,” the sort of catch-22 of climate change — for example, melting permafrost releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and the disproportionate impact on the poor. Adding these on, Stern pushes the global-consumption impact number up to 20 percent.

    As for the economic impact of mitigating climate change, Stern’s 1 percent of GDP calculation rests upon an assumption of stabilization of emissions in the next 10 to 20 years, which he says would make a temperature rise above 4 degrees Celsius unlikely. Even the 1 percent figure is an estimate: It derives from two economic models, one of which shows a range from a 3.5 percent loss of GDP to a 1 percent increase, and the other of which shows a range of a 2 percent loss to a 5 percent gain.

  123. patrick..
    you dont know what your talking about.
    thats the easiest way to go about refuting you.

    you cant see whats in front of you…

    look to the pollution and the level of it in russia, and china. go ahead… look up the 10 most polluted places on the planet. most are in communist socialist countries.

    here is where you go wrong… you think that capitalism is about short term gain. you have no concept of how it works. liability.. ever hear about that? ever hear someone sued years later becuase they didnt treat things right? thats not environmental law, thats plain old civil law…

    there is no place in the whole of the united states as bad as whats in russia… or parts of china.

    http://www.livescience.com/environment/061018_polluted_places.html

    Linfen, China
    Haina, Dominican Republic
    Ranipet, India
    Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan
    La Oroya, Peru
    Norilsk, Russia
    Rudnaya Pristan, Russia
    Chernobyl, Ukraine
    Kabwe, Zambia

    see any capitalist countries there? didnt your writings claimed that capitalism was short term? that we would filth up things?

    the cleanist cities?

    all in the US, canada, and europe…

    all western capitalist societies till recently…

    by thw way… if you took all the garbage that the USA has produced since it became a country…
    it would fit in a cube 25 miles a side.

    thats it.

    capitalism is HIGHLY efficient… VERY little actually goes to waste… but you dont see that since you do not care to even find out.

    in the systems your talking about… NOTHING gets done…

    what you dont understand is that GREEN is a bourgesie luxury…

    that is, only those who llive way above the subsitence line can choose to eat something that is more expensive cause its green.

    but poor people living at the minimum line. they dont give a crap at all… period…. they cant afford to.

    wait till you realize that the mercury from the cfls is going to be a HUGE problem

    what was wrong with environmentally save incandecents? the excess energy they use is at one point, it can be cleaned… it can be worked with..

    but how do you remove mercury distributed all aorund the world in minute amounts all over?

    by the way.. china is the largest producer of mercury… and they got lots of people.. so they dont care…

    increasing mercury usage to the point of an extra half billion bulbs a year world wide?
    yeah thats green…

    and in case you didnt notice. solar is only green if you dont look at how its made and how much energy it takes. takes more energy to make em, than they put out

    aint physics a bitch?

    by the way… if someone was able to do this and beat the current prices on any level, they would be richer than bill gates in a short order.

  125. huxley,
    Do you really, really think Obama and ACORN are that powerful?

    yes..

    Public Funding for ACORN Will Continue

    Tom Latham (R-IA) offered an amendment during deliberations on the Democrats’ massive year-end appropriations bill to clarify the prohibition on federal funds going to ACORN or its subsidiaries. That amendment was shot down on a 5-9 party line vote as Republicans sided with taxpayers while Democrats stood with ACORN.
    Rep. Latham’s amendment is necessary to prevent taxpayer money from going to ACORN because the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice has taken advantage of a legal loophole to allow ACORN to continue to receive federal funds – despite the passage of the House GOP’s Defund ACORN Act in the fall.

    still think they are not that powerful?
    well they are a child of the ford foundation networks…. they are as powerful as what the ford foundation and all its foudnations together want it to be.

    explaining the mechanics doesnt seem to work, so i wont bother. better for me to sit aroud and watch people flail ithe dark.. they yell at me when i try to turn on the lights anyway.

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