Cleaning Out the Climate Science Cesspool

Cleaning Out the Climate Science Cesspool
Paul Driessen
Saturday, November 28, 2009

As legions of scientists, activists, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians prepare to embark for Copenhagen, a predictable barrage of climate horrors has been unleashed, to advance proposals to slash hydrocarbon use and carbon dioxide emissions, restrict economic growth, and implement global governance and taxation.

CO2 has reached a new high (0.0385% of the atmosphere), we’re told, because of cars and “coal-fired factories of death.” Rising seas are forcing families to “flee their homes.” Oceans are becoming “toxic.” Climate change is driving Philippine women into prostitution. Higher temperatures will “increase the likelihood of civil war in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “bring human civilization to a screeching halt.” The Associated Press, BBC and other “mainstream” media dutifully regurgitate every press release.

However, the planet and science are not cooperating with the fear-mongering. There has been no statistically significant global warming for over a decade, despite steadily increasing CO2 levels – and for several years average annual global temperatures have actually declined.

Carbon dioxide plays only a minor role, many scientists now say, and our climate is still controlled by the same natural forces that caused previous climate changes: periodic shifts in ocean currents and jet streams, water vapor and cloud cover, evaporation and precipitation, planetary alignments and the shape of the Earth’s orbit, the tilt and wobble of Earth’s axis, cosmic ray levels and especially solar energy output.

Far worse for the Climate Armageddon movement, newly released emails from its leading scientists reveal a cesspool of intimidation, duplicity and fraud that could rock Copenhagen and the alarmist agenda to their core. The emails cast deepening suspicion over global warming data, science and models.

They reveal an unprecedented, systematic conspiracy to stifle discussion and debate, conceal and manipulate data, revise temperature trends that contradict predictions of dangerous warming, skew the peer-review process, pressure scientific journals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to publish alarmist studies and exclude dissenting analyses, and avoid compliance with Freedom of Information requests.

British Climate Research Unit (CRU) chief Phil Jones to Penn State climatologist Michael Mann, of Hockey Stick infamy: “Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and Briffa’s suspect tree-ring data]. Keith will do likewise.”

Jones to Mann: “If they [Canadian researchers Ross McKitrick and Steve McIntyre] ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”

(These actions appear intended to avoid Freedom of Information inquiries. Jones had previously told a researcher, “Why should I make the data available, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” Drs. J&M, that’s the scientific method – to ensure that research and experiments are honest, accurate and replicable. Deleting files and data also raises serious ethical, scientific and legal issues.)

Jones: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth, lead author of two IPCC reports] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” (Thereby excluding non-alarmist peer-reviewed papers and skewing the IPCC process.)

Jones: “I’ve just completed Mike [Mann’s] trick of adding in the real temps to each series, to hide the decline [in average global temperatures] .…” (Maintain a warming trend, despite contrary evidence.)

Climate scientist Tom Wigley to Mann: “If you think [Yale Professor and Global Renewables editor James] Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” (Saiers was subsequently dismissed. The American Geophysical Union is a once professional society that has likewise gotten into the censorship, intimidation, climate alarm and money train business.)

These are the very tip of the melting iceberg. To gauge the scope, depth and depravity of the conspiracy, visit Bishop Hill, ClimateDepot.com and An Elegant Chaos on the web.

These supposed scientists built their careers and reputations on conjuring datasets, computer models, scenarios and reports – all claiming that modern civilization’s use of hydrocarbons is about to destroy the planet, and all financed by well over $100 billion in US, UK, EU and other taxpayer money.

Realist climate experts have long smelled a rat. The alarmists’ data didn’t match other data. Their models never worked. Their claims of “consensus” and “unprecedented” warming had no basis in fact. Too many grant and publication decisions were decided by which side of the issue someone was on.

Now, finally, the rat has been flushed from its sewer – by a hacker, whistle-blower or someone who carelessly left “secret” files where a website visitor could find them … and reveal them to the world. Now, finally, even the “mainstream” media can no longer ignore or whitewash the scandal.

The stakes are incredibly high. This bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify expensive, intrusive, repressive, abusive treaties, laws and regulations. The new rules would undermine economies, destroy jobs, close down companies and entire industries, impoverish families and communities, roll back personal freedoms and civil rights – and enrich the lucky few whose lobbyists and connections enable them to corner markets for renewable energy technologies, carbon offsets and emissions trading.

For the most destitute people on the planet, the repercussions from this fraud are even higher. These people – 750 million in Africa alone – do not have electricity, cars, modern homes, jobs or hope for a better future. They die by the millions from malnutrition and lung, intestinal and insect-borne diseases that would be dramatically reduced with access to dependable, affordable energy.

But the alarmists’ bogus, biased “science” is being used to justify building a Climate Wall between these desperate people and the modern, energy-rich world. To justify perpetuating misery, disease and death.

Jones, Mann, Briffa, Trenberth, Wigley, IPCC chief Rajenda Pachauri, White House science advisor John Holdren, CRU scientist Tim Osborn, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Ben Santer and others implicated in this growing scandal should do the honorable thing – and resign their posts. If they refuse, they should be put on paid administrative leave, until every aspect of this collusion and junk science scandal can be thoroughly investigated. Dismissal or other appropriate action should follow.

They should not be allowed to represent their governments or organizations in Copenhagen.

Institutions that received climate alarm grants should be disciplined and removed from future grant conduits, if they knew about these actions – or would have known, had they exercised due diligence.

The entire IPCC and peer review process needs to be repaired. The alarmists and self-appointed censors who have corrupted the system must be replaced with scientists who will ensure honest inquiry and a full airing of all data, hypotheses and perspectives on climate science, economics and policy.

Most importantly, the United States, Britain and all other responsible nations should slam the brakes on every proposed “climate crisis” treaty, agreement, bill, regulatory proposal and endangered species action – until we get to the bottom of this scandal, and determine which data and claims are honest and accurate, which are bogus and unfounded. President Obama should cancel his trip to Copenhagen, and his plans to lobby for a new climate treaty and commit the US to slash its carbon dioxide emissions to a job-killing 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.

It is time to clean out the climate cesspool, and bring integrity, transparency and accountability back to science, law and public policy.

United Nations - One World Government

The United Nations

Liberal democrats such as Barack Obama and others speak with reverence about the United Nations. Obama wants to give the U.N. billions of our tax dollars to help solve the world’s problems; after all it’s easy for many politicians to be generous with other people’s money (especially liberals). John Kerry was always telling us that we needed the U.N.’s permission to defend ourselves against Islamic-fascism. Bill Clinton called the U.N.’s human rights agenda: the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights one of the most important documents in human history.

For most of its history starting in 1945, the United Nations has been involved in a larger conflict known as the “Korean War” and later has often been occupied with what it calls “peacekeeping missions.” What a success story they have been – the truth is that more recently UN peacekeepers are more likely to be involved in the rape and plunder of the nations they are supposed to be stabilizing than trying to combat those who would disrupt the peace. Let’s list some of the places where the UN has kept the peace – Rwanda, Somalia, Darfur, triumph after triumph. Then there’s the infamous UN oil for food program in Iraq. How many millionaires did that one create?

In fairness the United Nations, largely with the financial assistance of U.S. taxpayers, has done a rather good job of monitoring and addressing potential health crises in various parts of the Third World. That’s about it. That’s how they escape being labeled a 100 percent pure, unadulterated failure.

Let’s examine one of the most important documents in human history according to Bill Clinton, the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here’s the opening paragraph of its Preamble…

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.

It sounds pretty good so far – it’s a good start. It goes on to list some of the other rights that we as citizens of the world are entitled to – some of these rights sound like they came right out of our own Constitution:

• Human rights should be protected by the rule of law.
• The right to life, liberty, and security of person.
• The right not to be held in slavery.
• The right to protection from torture or cruel, inhuman, or
degrading punishment.
• The right to a presumption of innocence.
• The right to privacy.
• The right to freedom of movement within the borders of your own state.
• The right to own property.
• The right to freedom of opinion and expression.
• The right to peacefully assemble.
• The right to marry.
• The right to social security.
• The right to work.
• The right to protection against unemployment.
• The right to equal pay for equal work.
• The right to rest and leisure.
• The right to a paid vacation.
• The right to an adequate standard of living.
• The right to enjoy the arts.
• The right to an education.

The right to rest and leisure? The right to enjoy the arts? The right to a paid vacation? Whatever! We could argue the merit and validity of any of these rights and it would be a complete waste of our time. Why? Because every single one of the rights listed above is nothing but vapor. They’re invalidated by an escape clause so outrageous it should be considered its own crime against humanity. Check it out…

Article 29(3) of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

After giving us the human rights mentioned above to which every human being is entitled, in one twenty-word sentence it takes all those rights away. Think about it. There you were enjoying your rights to freedom of expression, to freedom of movement, to own property, to be presumed innocent before a court of law. Maybe even exercising your wonderful God-given right to enjoy the arts! What happens if the United Nations comes up with some “goal or purpose” that would be inconvenienced by your exercise of these rights?

They’re Gone!

Read 29(3) again. Apparently, if the UN decides that your right to free speech, or to own and remain in your home, stands in the way of some UN goal (say, seizing your home), you’re out of luck. Here’s the sobering truth: If the United Nations comes up with some grand scheme that would require seizing you and placing you into slavery, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights offers you no protection whatsoever. In fact it positively affirms that the UN’s own rights trump your own.

Under our Constitution the federal government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. That means the government gets its powers from us. The United Nations sees things a different way. Under their hideous human rights declaration, the people derive their rights – their power – from the United Nations, and when the United Nations adopts some goal or purpose that’s inconsistent with our exercise of these rights, the rights go right into the toilet.

Peace is worthless without liberty, and justice is when someone gets what he or she deserves. Bill Clinton believes, for instance, that the U.S. Constitution gave us our rights. Those of us who didn’t believe everything government schools taught us probably have a different view. To me this is one of many clues (or red flags) about what liberal democrats want for us and our country. They want our power and almost half (maybe more) of us are willing to give it to them. They are looking out for themselves and not for us I assure you.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights can only appeal to three groups…

1. Those who love government.
2. Those who love tyrants.
3. Those educated in government schools.
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Here Comes the Judge?

Posted by: Carol Platt Liebau at 12:19 PM
11-27-09

Given Hillary Clinton's stated regret that the United States is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court, there is a real possibility that the Obama administration intends to allow American soldiers in Afghanistan to be tried in the in the Hague.

This is not only terribly wrong, it is gravely dangerous to US security. If America -- which has some of the world's strictest rules of engagement, and already punishes those who trangress them -- agrees to subject its soldiers to inherently selective international prosecution, no one could blame young people for declining to join the military. What's more, it allows a bunch of international judges effectively to define the permissible limits of the warfare conducted by Americans, and offers an opportunity for them to wield enormous (and unjustified) authority over our troops, our strategy and our defenses -- a clear violation of our sovereignty.

Soldiers' hands are already being tied enough -- and their ability to defend themselves constrained enough -- by the new, PC era in the Obama armed forces. Subjecting them to international jurisdiction would be the last straw.

Think of the irony: If this treaty went through, in Obamaland, terrorists who attack our country would be entitled to all the protections of American justice in our homeland; the brave men and women who defend us would be handed over to the tender mercies of the (often anti-American) international bureaucrats in the Hague. Outrageous.

Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right

Kill the Bills. Do Health Reform Right
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 27, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The United States has the best health care in the world -- but because of its inefficiencies, also the most expensive. The fundamental problem with the 2,074-page Senate health-care bill (as with its 2,014-page House counterpart) is that it wildly compounds the complexity by adding hundreds of new provisions, regulations, mandates, committees and other arbitrary bureaucratic inventions.

Worse, they are packed into a monstrous package without any regard to each other. The only thing linking these changes -- such as the 118 new boards, commissions and programs -- is political expediency. Each must be able to garner just enough votes to pass. There is not even a pretense of a unifying vision or conceptual harmony.

The result is an overregulated, overbureaucratized system of surpassing arbitrariness and inefficiency. Throw a dart at the Senate tome:

-- You'll find mandates with financial penalties -- the amounts picked out of a hat.

-- You'll find insurance companies (who live and die by their actuarial skills) told exactly what weight to give risk factors, such as age. Currently insurance premiums for 20-somethings are about one-sixth the premiums for 60-somethings. The House bill dictates the young shall now pay at minimum one-half; the Senate bill, one-third -- numbers picked out of a hat.

-- You'll find sliding scales for health-insurance subsidies -- percentages picked out of a hat -- that will radically raise marginal income tax rates for middle- class recipients, among other crazy unintended consequences.

The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.

Then do health care the right way -- one reform at a time, each simple and simplifying, aimed at reducing complexity, arbitrariness and inefficiency.

First, tort reform. This is money -- the low-end estimate is about half a trillion per decade -- wasted in two ways. Part is simply hemorrhaged into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of extravagantly rich malpractice lawyers such as John Edwards.

The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals undertaken solely to fend off lawsuits -- resources wasted on patients who don't need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who really do.

In the 4,000-plus pages of the two bills, there is no tort reform. Indeed, the House bill actually penalizes states that dare "limit attorneys' fees or impose caps on damages." Why? Because, as Howard Dean has openly admitted, Democrats don't want "to take on the trial lawyers." What he didn't say -- he didn't need to -- is that they give millions to the Democrats for precisely this kind of protection.

Second, even more simple and simplifying, abolish the prohibition against buying health insurance across state lines.

Some states have very few health insurers. Rates are high. So why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn’t, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter.

And the answer to the resulting high Wisconsin orange prices wouldn’t be the establishment of a public option -- a federally run orange-growing company in Wisconsin -- to introduce "competition." It would be to allow Wisconsin residents to buy Florida oranges.

But neither bill lifts the prohibition on interstate competition for health insurance. Because this would obviate the need -- the excuse -- for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic Party sees (correctly) as the royal road to fully socialized medicine.

Third, tax employer-provided health insurance. This is an accrued inefficiency of 65 years, an accident of World War II wage controls. It creates a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenues -- the largest tax break for individuals in the entire federal budget.

This reform is the most difficult to enact, for two reasons. The unions oppose it. And the Obama campaign savaged the idea when John McCain proposed it during last year's election.

Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method -- a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency.

The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one -- tort reform, interstate purchasing and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2,000 -- and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking both U.S. health care and the U.S. Treasury.
____________________________________________
ObamaCare By the Numbers

Posted by: Meredith Jessup at 3:55 PM

5.5 million — Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer

$729.5 billion — Total new taxes on small businesses, individuals who cannot afford health coverage, and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage that meet federal bureaucrats’ standards

$1.055 trillion — New federal spending on expanded health insurance coverage over the next ten years, according to a Congressional Budget Office preliminary score of the bill

0.7% — Percentage of all that new spending occurring in the bill’s first three years-representing a debt and tax “time bomb” in the program’s later years set to explode on future generations

$88,200 — Definition of “low-income” family of four for purposes of health insurance subsidies

114 million — Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage under the bill’s government-run health plan, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group

43 — Entitlement programs the bill creates, expands, or extends-an increase from H.R. 3200

111 — Additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies the bill creates over and above the entitlement expansions-more than double the number in H.R. 3200

3,425 — Uses of the word “shall,” representing new duties for bureaucrats and mandates on individuals, businesses, and States-also more than double the number in H.R. 3200

$60 billion — Loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare fraud, according to a recent 60 Minutes expose; the government-run health plan does not reform the ineffective anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs for two decades

Zero — Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access to life-saving treatments

$634 Billion — Amount that could be saved by denying individuals access to treatments that are not “cost-effective,” according to a report by the liberal Commonwealth Fund; Section 1160 of the bill gives bureaucrats in the Obama Administration virtual free rein to develop a new “high-value” reimbursement system for Medicare by May 2012

2017 — Year Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted-an entitlement crisis exacerbated by the bill, which according to the Congressional Budget Office will increase the federal budgetary commitment to health care by $598 billion in its first ten years alone

$2,500 — Promised savings for each American family from health reform, according to then-Senator Obama’s campaign pledge-savings which the Administration’s own actuaries have confirmed will not materialize, as the Pelosi health care bill would increase the growth of health care costs
Source: HRC

Thanksgiving Links between the Internet and Freedom

Thanksgiving Links between the Internet and Freedom
Janice Shaw Crouse
Thursday, November 26, 2009

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the Internet and the opportunity it affords for free expression. Granted, filth is just a click away, but the opportunity to exercise free will in ways that bring harm has been present since the Garden of Eden. Time will tell whether the Internet’s positive contributions will outweigh its negative ones, but I’m betting that it will. The omniscient Creator obviously knew there were problems ahead when He made us in His own image with the ability to make free, independent choices. But God in His infinite wisdom determined that freedom was an enterprise worth the evil it would make possible. So I’m going with God on the value of freedom.

I’m no authority on sports and I don’t know what it takes to put together a winning team. But apparently billionaire Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Redskins for the last 10 years, doesn’t either. Despite all the millions he’s spent, the Redskins are a losing team. What particularly interests me — since the games are a lost cause — is the impact that television and the instant replay have on the game.

Many fans miss a lot of the action in real time; we depend on the instant replay in slow motion to see what really happened. What amazes me is hearing the commentators say even as the play is unfolding who is running with the ball, who made the tackle, who caught the pass, or who got slapped with a penalty. Then comes the instant replay, and in a high percentage of the cases, the play-by-play announcers with their years of experience and trained eyes saw what I was not able to see as a sometime fan.

John Madden, the ex-coach who turned commentator (until his recent retirement), took things a step further by superimposing a diagram of the play on the instant replay and thereby further educated millions of fans in the tactics being employed by the offensive and defensive coaches. The trouble is, the more educated the fans became, the less tolerant they were of bad game-changing calls by officials. It took awhile, but the pressure eventually became irresistible for a system whereby coaches could challenge an official’s call, forcing them to consult the instant replay and evaluate what the camera had already revealed to the fans.

It seems to me that we are already beginning to see the Internet do for politics and government something akin to what the instant replay has done for the officiating of pro-football. And in the arenas of politics and government, the need is so much greater and the stakes are so much higher.

Liberals have established iron control over most of our institutions of learning from kindergarten to graduate school and have turned them into propaganda mills where only politically correct ideas are allowed and speech codes enforce conformity; most ironic is the fact liberals do this while cloaking their actions with a gospel of tolerance and diversity. Much the same can be said of most the media where, with a few exceptions, free speech and freedom of the press were suffocated long ago. Objectivity and unbiased reporting have been replaced by cheerleading for liberalism’s latest fads and pet projects to use the power of big government to force the public to accept some utopian scheme that increases the power of the ruling elite at the expense of the public’s freedom.

If there is anything that may halt the advance of this juggernaut, it is the power of free expression on the Internet.

The Internet and its offspring, YouTube, are much like the instant replay. These technological advances are making it possible for ordinary citizens to replay the factual record of what political leaders say and do within moments of their occurrence. Moreover, they give us tools to search the historical record and compare what is currently offered up with previous statements and promises made; in addition, we can now easily make comparisons of their claims with the actual facts to gauge the accuracy and veracity of their statements.

But there is yet a further aspect of this that is going to change the way the political game is played. Thanks to the development of the Internet, the major media no longer has a monopoly on the dissemination of the news; today a new generation of political commentators — whose skills are such that they can educate the public about politics much as John Madden and others educated fans about football — have an opportunity to voice their opinions via the Internet at a very low cost.

Consider the most recent case of Attorney General Eric Holder’s defense of his decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in federal court in New York. To the untrained listener (i.e., most of us), Holder’s defense of his decision before the Senate committee may have sounded very compelling when he argued that trying KSM before a judge and jury according to the procedures mandated by the U.S. constitution would be a vindication of our system of justice.

But trained attorneys saw what many others did not. John Hinderaker (of the Powerline blog) walked us through an instant replay of Holder’s responses to Senator Kohl. When Kohl asked what would happen if the defendants were not convicted, Holder responded, “Failure is not an option. This — these are cases that have to be won.”

“Failure is not an option! Let’s hope that’s true, in the sense that if a jury acquits KSM or fails to reach a verdict, he would be kept in custody anyway. But, that being the case, isn’t the criminal prosecution fundamentally fraudulent?” Hinderaker then makes a comparison of a parallel statement of President Obama (immediately available on Breitbart through the power of the Internet):


Obama speaking of those offended by the legal privileges given to Muhammed by virtue of getting a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal: they won’t find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.”
Realizing the implications of his statement, Obama immediately tried to backtrack by saying he did not mean he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed’s trial.

Hinderaker dissects this by asking, “Can you imagine any other context in which the President of the United States would assure the public that a criminal defendant is guilty; that he will be convicted by a jury; and that he will be executed? Such comments make a mockery of the ‘rule of law’ as normally understood ... if only one jury verdict is acceptable; if the President is willing to assure the American people of conviction; if acquittal or a hung jury is “not an option;” if, assuming such a result, the defendant would be returned to prison anyway — then it is ridiculous to say that we are going through this charade in order to ‘vindicate the rule of law.’”

If the major media — which is little more than a propaganda arm of the current administration — had its way, the general public would never receive the education such an instant replay affords. But thanks to the Internet, public officials now have to contend with the instant replays and objective assessments that the “pajamas media” affords immediately, directly, and indirectly via e-mails that are transmitted across the country and around the globe by ordinary citizens who have come to a better understanding of “what in the world is going on in Washington.”

The political replays and objective assessments on the Internet give me hope for the future of our country, and for this I am very grateful this Thanksgiving.

Obama’s World and Welcome to It

Obama’s World and Welcome to It
by Burt Prelutsky

Many people were offended to see Barack Obama once again bowing to a foreign dignitary, the Emperor of Japan. For my part, I was actually relieved that at least this latest breech of protocol didn’t involve his kowtowing to one of America’s sworn enemies.

As most people are well aware, I have nothing but loathing for Obama’s policies, but even I am amazed by his reluctance to handle what I regard as the easy part of his job; namely, carrying off his responsibilities to be a figurehead, to be the proud symbol of this great and generous nation.

Instead, he tours the world on our dime apologizing for our alleged failings and transgressions. He goes to Denmark in order to lobby for the Olympics, in order that his corrupt Chicago cronies could cash in on crooked land deals, but he doesn’t go to Germany to help commemorate the falling of the Berlin Wall. Next, instead of expressing the grief that every decent American felt over the slaughter of American soldiers and an unborn baby by an Islamic terrorist, this bozo gave a partisan shout-out at a Native American shindig. Then, for good measure, he warned us not to jump to the conclusion that the Islamic terrorist was an Islamic terrorist.
If someone set out to show his utter contempt for this country and his disconnect from anything smacking of patriotism, including donning a lapel flag, pledging allegiance to the flag or covering his heart at the playing of our national anthem, he’d find it impossible to out-do our president.

I’m sure that a lot of us still recall the silent messages that American POWs sent us in photos taken by their North Vietnamese captors. They would hold their fingers in different ways to express their defiance of the enemy. I often find myself wondering what messages Barack Obama is sending, and to whom.

Recently, a friend sent me an email in which it was proposed that the Constitution be improved with a 28th amendment. It read: “Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and the Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”

I think that in 2010, any senator or representative, Republican or Democrat, who doesn’t sign on to co-sponsor the amendment should have to start looking for another job. I would also press for my wife’s 29th amendment, which states that when America’s economy takes a nosedive, the salaries of our elected officials are decreased to the same degree. After all, they’re not supposed to profit from their own corruption or incompetence. I mean, these goofballs work for us, not AIG or Goldman Sachs.

This past week, a reader sent me an email in which he referred to me as a philosopher. Even though I knew he intended it as a compliment, I denied it. A philosopher, it seems to me, is a person whose main preoccupation is figuring out why man exists and, whereas I believe the obvious answer is to keep the dogs fed, housed and bathed, the best he can come up with is that man exists so that he can ask why man exists.

Speaking of email, I often receive stuff that’s been floating around in cyberspace for years. I used to get annoyed when someone would send me something I’d already been sent 10 or 20 times, but, after finding that I’d passed along such things myself, I realized that if something was new to you, you had no way of knowing it had whiskers on it. Therefore, I suggest that whoever is the first person to send out these things should time-stamp it so that when it finally reaches me in 2015, I’ll know it’s been floating around for several years.

Getting back to Obama, how is it that there are still people around who regard him as a great orator instead of just a cheese-head who requires a teleprompter just to say “Hello,” and, for good measure, has this really annoying habit of turning…….every sentence into two distinct parts? But perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, apparently there’s a sizable segment of the population that is unable to tell that a can of beer is cold unless it turns blue.

I’m also aware that there are a lot of people who refuse to believe that Obama is anything but a regular Yankee Doodle Dandy, as American as Mom’s apple pie, in spite of the fact that in “Dreams From My Father,” he wrote that in college, “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. Those friends,” he wrote, were “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

He also wrote about venturing into the East Village for “the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union.” Then, in search of additional inspiration, “I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia.”

The fact is that even after college, he was still cherry-picking his friends. As we all know, they included such various Marxists, Maoists and Mau Maus, as, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, Frank Davis, Anita Dunn, Louis Farrakhan, Raila Ordinga, Sass Sunstein, Andy Stern and Rashid Khalidi.

Frankly, I think he would have come up with a more savory circle of friends if he had made his selection from Wanted posters adorning the walls of the local post office.

That group should tell you all you need to know about this menace who manages, simultaneously, to be a narcissist, a Marxist and as humorless as Joseph Stalin on a bad hair day.
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.

MSNBC Exclusive: Fort Hood Never Happened!

MSNBC Exclusive: Fort Hood Never Happened!
Ann Coulter
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

It's been weeks since eyewitnesses reported that Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted "Allahu akbar" before spraying Fort Hood with gunfire, killing 13 people.

Since then we also learned that Hasan gave a medical lecture on beheading infidels and pouring burning oil down their throats (unfortunately not covered under the Senate health care bill). Some wondered if perhaps a pattern was beginning to emerge but were promptly dismissed as racist cranks.

We also found out Hasan had business cards printed up with the jihadist abbreviation "SOA" for "Soldier of Allah." Was that enough to conclude that the shooting was an act of terrorism -- or does somebody around here need to take another cultural sensitivity class?

And we know that Hasan had contacted several jihadist Web sites and that he had been exchanging e-mails with a radical Islamic cleric in Yemen. The FBI learned that last December, but the rest of us only found out about it a week ago.

Is it still too soon to come to the conclusion that the Fort Hood shooting was an act of terrorism?

Alas, it is still too early to tell at MSNBC. For Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews -- at least two of whom would be severely punished under Shariah law -- the shooting of George Tiller was an act of terrorism, no question. The death of a census taker in Kentucky was also an act of terrorism. (We learned this week that it was a suicide/insurance scam.) But as to Maj. Hasan, the jury is still out -- and will be out for many, many years.

Actually, according to Keith, the Fort Hood massacre may not have happened at all. He has argued persuasively, on several occasions, that it is impossible, literally impossible, to commit mass murder at a military base.

Like many on the left, Keith loved to sneer at all terrorist plots allegedly foiled by the Bush administration. He was particularly contemptuous of the purported plan of six aspiring jihadists to sneak onto the Fort Dix army base and kill as many soldiers as they could.

On Nov. 11, 2008, he explained why the Fort Dix terrorist plot was a laughable fraud, saying the "morons" apparently didn't realize that "all the soldiers have these big guns."

Keith, the moron, apparently doesn't realize that on military bases on U.S. soil only MPs have guns. (Special authorization is required for soldiers to carry a firearm, which can be granted only in the case of a specific and credible threat against military personnel in that region. Thank you, Bill Clinton.)

Again on May 21 this year, Olbermann ridiculed the Fort Dix terror plot, pointing out that the six alleged terrorists seemed to be "forgetting that every man there was armed."(Curiously, even though ROTC was offered at the ag school Keith attended, he appears not to have investigated it.)

But it was not until Aug. 21 of this year that Olbermann hit upon the true reason for the Bush administration's hyping of this implausible terror plot. According to Keith -- and I'm not kidding -- it was to distract from Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' announcement that her state had been unable to respond adequately to a tornado because Bush had diverted the National Guard to his crazy war in Iraq!

The Bush administration, you see, had revealed the arrest of the Fort Dix conspirators the day after Sebelius' world-reverberating bombshell about Kansas' decimated National Guard! Eureka!

This little theory of Keith's, adorable though it is, has problems apart from his insistence that it would be impossible to kill army personnel on "a closed compound full of trained soldiers with weapons." The other problem is Gov. Sebelius was full of crap.

First, Sebelius wasn't in much of a position to know how well Kansas responded to the tornado, inasmuch as she had been partying at New Orleans' Jazzfest the day after the tornado hit -- while Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts and both local congressmen were on the scene, helping the rescue efforts.

Second, the manager of the actual rescue team soon contradicted Sebelius, saying: "We have all the staff that we need and can manage at this time. If we had more people right now, it would just start being a cluster."

The Kansas National Guard had 352 Humvees, 72 dump trucks and more than 320 other trucks, which would seem to be sufficient for the town hit by the tornado, Greensburg, Kan., population 1,574. That's almost one National Guard truck for every two people. (This is the same tornado that Obama claimed had killed 10,000 people. He was off by 9,988.)

Third, it turned out that Gov. Sebelius had rejected offers of additional help from neighboring National Guard units.

Consequently, the day after her dramatic cri de coeur for more National Guard resources, Sebelius' office completely reversed course, telling The Associated Press that the rescue efforts were going "just fine."

What the governor had meant, her office explained, was that Kansas' National Guard might be stretched thin if, hypothetically, another natural disaster were to strike immediately after the tornado.

Keith, unfortunately, was unaware of Sebelius' humiliating about-face, as it was not carried on Daily Kos.

Last December, five of the Fort Dix plotters were found guilty by a federal jury of conspiring to kill American soldiers. The sixth had already pleaded guilty.

Still, compare the macho posturing of the Bush administration over thwarting the Fort Dix terror plot to the masterful handling of domestic terrorist plots since the angel Obama has taken the helm. Why, the Obama administration managed to capture and arrest Maj. Hasan without violating a single American's civil liberties!

The Global Warmists' Deceit

The Global Warmists' Deceit
Emmett Tyrrell
Thursday, November 26, 2009

WASHINGTON -- I assume all readers of this column are aware of polite society's theory of global warming. According to the theory, anthropogenic (once known as "man-made") gases waft into the atmosphere, causing worldwide temperatures to soar and our imminent doom.

Yet how many of you are familiar with my theory of Kultursmog? According to it, our culture is polluted by political ideas, prejudices and false pieties advocated by the soi-disant liberals or progressives or people of conscience or whatever the hell they are calling themselves nowadays. They keep changing their designations, and every designation they opt for becomes an honorific, at least for them. Liberal, indeed -- they actually favor government coercion and regimentation. Progressive, indeed -- they are for a political system that was recognized as archaic late in the last century, when socialism was found to be obsolete even by the Indians and the Chinese.

At any rate, my theory of Kultursmog has just been buttressed by some 3,000 e-mails of cold probative evidence that Kultursmog is real. That the e-mails come from the global warmists is most gratifying. I always have suspected that they are leading contributors to the smog. That is to say, they are leading polluters of our culture. The Environmental Protection Agency should take note.

The way the Kultursmog works, liberal elites through their undemocratic dominance of cultural institutions -- the media, the universities, government bureaucracies -- create beliefs, problems and bugaboos by studiously ignoring disagreement and by ceaselessly repeating deceits and distortions. Last week, hackers (I think of them as selfless public-spirited hackers) broke into the electronic files of one of the leading global warmist research centers, the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the U.K., and posted some 3,000 of the warmists' conspiratorial e-mails for all the world to see. To my ineffable gratification, the e-mails displayed the global warmists sedulously engaging in just what you would expect in the Kultursmog: deceits, distortions and the suppression of dissenting points of view. Here we have a comprehensive view of Kultursmog in the making.

Our friends in the editorial sanctum sanctorum of The Wall Street Journal pored over all the damning e-mails. They found dissenting scientists (global warming skeptics, as they are called) being blacklisted and suppressed. For instance, Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, e-mailed like-minded global warmists advising them to isolate and ignore scientific journals that publish the views of the skeptics. "I think we have to stop considering 'Climate Research' as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal," he wrote, going on to urge the encouragement of his "colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal." Now that is how Kultursmog taints the debate.

Then there was Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia project. He e-mailed Mann and asked him to "delete any emails" he "may have had with Keith" regarding indelicate references to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report. Another e-mail from Jones to a co-conspirator asked that he "change the Received date! Don't give those skeptics something to amuse themselves with." The Journal also quotes an unnamed scientist's e-mail that said to "hide the decline" of temperatures in data that might cast doubt on global warming.

Well, I can understand. The fact is that for almost a decade, there has been no global warming, contrary to the global warmists' computer predictions. In fact, since 2005, there has been global cooling.

Well, as I say, thanks to the work of these patriotic hackers, we now have plenty of evidence that the global warmists are dishonest bullies. Moreover, I now have a perfect educational model to demonstrate how Kultursmog works. But this discovery is not without its melancholy aspects, too. There once was a day when scientists were empiricists believing in reason and fair play. Those who have been exposed in the global warming hoax are mere propagandists.
___________________________________

Why Are We Thankful This Year? Cap-And-Trade Hasn't Passed!
11-25-2009
Posted by: Townhall.com Staff at 1:11 PM

Todd Hollenbeck at Americans for Tax Reform gives us ten reasons we should be thankful cap-and-trade hasn't passed.

1. We don’t have to pay over $100 billion in additional taxes.
2. We don’t have to pay an additional $3.6 trillion in gas taxes.
3.We won’t lose 1.1 million jobs between 2012 and 2030 and 2.5 million each year after that.
4. We haven’t made new industries that are dependent on government handouts for their survival.
5. We don’t have a new bureaucracy in place to allocate and sell carbon credits that will increase corruption and favoritism in Washington, DC.
6. Our energy costs will not go up by $1500 per year for a family of four.
7. We won’t have our national debt increase by 26 percent by 2030. An increase of $116,600 for a family of four.
8. We won’t have protectionist tariffs to create trade wars and cause increased prices and shortages on the goods we need.
9. We won’t have a reduction in GDP of $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2030.
10. We won’t have a 58% increase in gas prices.

Politicizing Medicine, Medicalizing Politics

Politicizing Medicine, Medicalizing Politics
Ken Blackwell
Thursday, November 26, 2009

I’m not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. Nor is Steve Pearlstein a doctor. Pearlstein is the respected business columnist of the Washington Post. His weekly column scorched President Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for her decision to override an impartial expert panel’s advice on mammograms.

He wrote: “Sebelius did a marvelous job...of undermining the move toward evidence-based medicine with her hasty and cowardly disavowal of a recommendation from her department's own task force that women under 50 are probably better off not getting routine annual mammograms.”

How does Steve Pearlstein know which advice is better for women--an HHS panel of medical experts or the Secretary of HHS? He doesn’t and I don’t. One thing is clear, we’re going to get this kind of back-and-forthing every week from now until the day we die unless the government takeover of health care is stopped.

President Obama’s chief adviser on health care is Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. Dr. Emmanuel thinks the problem with burgeoning health care costs is that pesky Hippocratic Oath. Too many doctors are too concerned about their own patients; they’re not looking at the bigger picture. In a world of scarce resources, wouldn’t it be better to take our chances that some women 41-50 will get breast cancer than to devote a disproportionate share of society’s total resources to MRI’s for them. We could treat a lot of diabetics for what it costs to save a few women from breast cancer. Do the math. That’s the Zeke approach.

It’s probably really convenient that Zeke and Rahm are brothers. That way we can apply Chicago-style politics to your health care needs. You won’t have many choices under ObamaCare. But you don’t have many choices for Mayor in Chicago, either. And they like it that way.

One thing not being mentioned in this week’s battle over early detection for breast cancer is the abortion-breast cancer connection. Abortion can increase the likelihood of a woman developing breast cancer. So can use of the contraceptive pill.

These are not things you are likely to hear in this debate. Why? Because the fight to defend human life has already politicized medical care in this country.

Drs. Joel Brind and Angela Lanfranchi are highly educated medical and researchers. They head the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. Note their emphasis on prevention. It’s a word we rarely hear in politicized discussions of breast cancer.

President and Mrs. Obama placed a giant pink ribbon outside the White House last month. It was breast cancer awareness month. Is there anyone in the U.S. who is not aware of breast cancer? And liberal blather about how men just don’t get it, just don’t care about breast cancer is nonsense. Men have mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters whom we love. (Men, by the way, can get breast cancer, too.)

We need to pay greater attention to prevention strategies. Drs. Brind and Lanfranchi offer common sense recommendations, including these: 1. Reduce exposure to estrogen (such as that included in birth control pills, patches and injectable or implantable hormones). 2. Don’t smoke. 3. Exercise. 4. Maintain early body weight. 5. Have children earlier in life. 6. Breast feed your children. 7. Avoid induced abortion. 8. Avoid induced premature deliveries.

You can get more detailed information from the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute at 1.866.622.6237 (1.86NO CANCER) or by going online to www.bcpinstitute.org. Most of the debate over ObamaCare has focused too narrowly on some select issues--subsidies for abortion, the so-called public option (government health care), or coverage of illegal immigrants.

These are important questions, to be sure, but they’re only three of the hundreds of reasons why we should resist ObamaCare. We need to see how politicized medicine is simply bad medicine. We need to understand that politics is not the best place for decisions about your health care needs. We need to encourage those doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who uphold the Hippocratic Oath. They are not working for all of society. They hold their obligation to you, their patient, as a sacred trust. Isn’t that what you really want in a health care provider?
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Katie Rhymes for Health Care 'Reform'
Larry Elder
Thursday, November 26, 2009

CBS "news anchor" Katie Couric recently whipped out her "reporter's notebook" and closed her newscast with a pro-"health care reform" poem:

"Twas just weeks before Christmas, and what do you know? Senate Democrats are once again praying for Snowe.

"They won 60 votes to start the debate, but they're back to square one ... and they just have to wait.

"Wait for blue dogs like Nelson and Lincoln ... who say a public option would mean the economy sinkin'.

"Wait for Joe Lieberman ... who says it won't pass ... and hope Mary Landrieu can change her mind fast.

"The Republican votes right now total zero ... but a trigger could make one woman a hero.

"The moderate who hails from the land way up north ... could save Harry Reid's Christmas with a deal she brought forth ... urging government plans for when private ones fail.

"To think: both sides happy? Can both sides prevail?

"At this point no compromise looms within sight ... that means after Thanksgiving ... it's on with the fight.

"Enjoy your turkey and know we'll be here ... to help make this tough topic ... just a little more clear."

Good grief! What a relief that we have nonpartisan "journalists" like Couric to help us navigate this "tough topic."

Couric's "poem" explicitly supports "health care reform." She clearly wants the sides to come together and produce something. She never questions the presumed need for "reform," much less suggests it wrong -- indeed unconstitutional -- for the federal government to take money from taxpayer A and give it to B (who may or may not be a taxpayer or, for that matter, even a citizen) because B lacks health insurance.

President Barack Obama promises to reject any health care "reform" that "adds one dime" to the federal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan and generally respected by both sides of the aisle, estimates that the health care plan now under debate in the Senate would, indeed, achieve this objective.

In the classic Mel Brooks comedy "Blazing Saddles," the hero warns an alcoholic gunslinger, played by Gene Wilder, that if he continues to drink, he will die. To this, Wilder replies, "When?" As to the alleged "budget neutrality" and the CBO's corroborating estimate, one needs only ask, "When?"

The CBO looks at the cost of ObamaCare in the first decade. What's the problem? The spending begins in 2013. But the ObamaCare "revenue" -- from taxes and supposed cuts in Medicare -- begins right away. So for four years, money comes in and builds up, with none going out. For the next six years, "revenues" continue, but then payouts begin.

By limiting the cost estimate of ObamaCare to only its first decade, we -- voila! -- achieve Obama's objective of not adding a "dime" to the deficit. The following decade and the decades beyond are when ObamaCare blasts off toward deficit-exploding costs, not even remotely "paid for."

Today the number of viewers watching nightly network news shows continues to decline, but Couric's "CBS Evening News" broadcast still attracts some 6 million daily viewers. And CBS works very closely with the influential New York Times. What appears on the front page of the Times often finds its way into the CBS newscast that evening. The two organizations even do joint polling. While the Times considers itself a nonpartisan conveyer of news, its editorial page inevitably sides with liberal, pro-Democratic Party positions on virtually every issue of significance.

President Barack Obama owes his election, in no small part, to the major media's cheerleading on his behalf. "Reporters" favor government-provided universal health care, Big Government and the corresponding belief that government exists to "redistribute" money and goods to the "deserving" -- in essence portraying Americans as insufficiently charitable to take care of the needy without government (although this was the intention of the Founding Fathers).

The mainstream media not only are "pro-choice" on abortion but also believe that it is backed by a constitutionally protected right. Notwithstanding the election of the first black president of the United States, who defeated an odds-on favorite female contender for the nomination, the major media still believe racism and sexism remain big problems. They support "racial and ethnic and gender diversity" -- and government's use of power to achieve it. They consider peace the absence of war -- especially if the war began during a Republican administration. They have a naive trust in diplomacy even as our enemies grow more aggressive, a reluctance to recognize evil, and a respect for "world opinion" above our own national security. They consider Republicans and conservatives not just wrong but sinister.

As we "journalists" like to say, that's a wrap.

Science Doesn't Say Anything - Scientists Do

Science Doesn't Say Anything - Scientists Do
Frank Turek
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

You can’t put honesty in a test tube.

“Science” doesn’t say anything—scientists do.

Those are a couple of the illuminating conclusions we can draw from the global warming e-mail scandal.

“You mean science is not objective?” No, unless the scientists are, and too often they are not. I don’t want to impugn all scientists, but it is true that some of them are less than honest. Sometimes they lie to get or keep their jobs. Sometimes they lie to get grant money. Sometimes they lie to further their political beliefs. Sometimes they don’t intentionally lie, but they draw bad scientific conclusions because they only look for what they hope to find.

Misbehavior by scientists is more prevalent than you might think. A survey conducted by University of Minnesota researchers found that 33% of scientists admitted to engaging in some kind of research misbehavior, including more than 20% of mid-career scientists who admitted to “changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.” Think of how many more have done this but refuse to admit it! (The researchers said as much in their findings.)

Outright lies and deception certainly seem to be the case with “Climategate.” The exposed e-mails reveal cherry picking; manipulating data; working behind the scenes to censor dissenting views; and doubting what the measurements say because they don’t fit their pre-determined conclusion. Matt Drudge headlined this yesterday as the “Greatest scandal in modern science.”

I actually think there is another great scientific scandal, but its misrepresentations are not quite as obvious. In this scandal, instead of outright lies, scientific conclusions are smuggled in as philosophical presuppositions. Such is the case with the controversy over the origin of life and new life forms. Did natural forces working on non-living chemicals cause life, or is life the result of intelligent activity? Did new life forms evolve from lower life forms by natural forces or was intelligence needed?

Dr. Stephen Meyer has written a fabulous new best-selling book addressing those questions called Signature in the Cell. Having earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the philosophy of science, Dr. Meyer is at the top of the science food chain. In our August 8th radio interview, he told me he’s been working on his 600+ page book—which isn’t short of technical detail—for more than a decade.

What qualifies a man who has a Ph. D. in the “philosophy of science” to write on the origin of life or macroevolution? Everything. What some scientists, and many in the general public fail to understand is that science cannot be done without philosophy. All data must be interpreted. And much of the debate between Intelligent Design proponents (like Dr. Meyer) and the Darwinists (like Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins) is not a debate over evidence—everyone is looking at the same evidence. It’s a debate over philosophy. It’s a debate over what causes will be considered possible before we look at the evidence.

Scientists look for causes, and logically, there are only two possible types of causes—intelligent causes or non-intelligent causes (i.e. natural causes). A natural cause can explain a geologic wonder like the Grand Canyon, but only an intelligent cause can explain a geologic wonder like the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore. Likewise, natural laws can explain why ink adheres to the paper in Dr. Meyer’s book, but only an intelligent cause can explain the information in that book (i.e. Dr. Meyer!).

How does this apply to the question of the origin of life? Long after Darwin, we discovered that “simple” single-celled life is comprised of massive volumes of DNA information called specified complexity—in everyday terms, a complicated software program or a really long message. Richard Dawkins admits that the information content of the “unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoeba” would fill 1,000 volumes of an encyclopedia!

What’s the cause of this? Here’s where the philosophy comes in. Dr. Meyer is open to both types of causes. Richard Dawkins is not. Dr. Meyer’s book explains why natural forces do not appear to have the capacity to do the job, only intelligence does. However, Dawkins and his Darwinist cohorts philosophically rule out intelligent causes before they look at the evidence. So no matter how much the evidence they discover points to intelligence (as a long message surely does), they will always conclude it had to be some kind of natural cause. In other words, their conclusion is the result of their philosophical presupposition.

While Dawkins has no viable natural explanation for life or the message contained therein, he says he knows it cannot be intelligence. That philosophical presupposition leads to what appears to be an unbelievable conclusion: To believe that 1,000 volumes of an encyclopedia resulted from blind natural forces is like believing that the Library of Congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop. I don’t have enough faith to believe that.

“This is a ‘God of the gaps’ argument!” Dawkins might protest. No it isn’t. We don’t just lack a natural explanation for “simple” life—1,000 encyclopedias worth of information is positive empirically verifiable evidence for an intelligence cause. Consider the cause of the book The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, for example. It’s not merely that we lack a natural explanation for the book (of course we know that the laws of ink and paper couldn’t have written the book). It’s also the fact that we know that messages only come from minds. Therefore, we rightly posit an intelligent author, not a blind natural process.

Why is it so hard for Dawkins and other Darwinists to see this? Maybe they refuse to see it. Maybe, like global warming “scientists,” they have their own political or moral reasons for denying the obvious. Or maybe they’ve never realized that you cannot do science without philosophy. As Einstein said, “The man of science is a poor philosopher.” And poor philosophers of science may often arrive at false scientific conclusions. That’s because science doesn’t say anything—scientists do.

We Pay Them to Lie to Us

We Pay Them to Lie to Us
John Stossel
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician.

President Obama insists that health care "reform" not "add a dime" to the budget deficit, which daily grows to ever more frightening levels. So the House-passed bill and the one the Senate now deliberates both claim to cost less than $900 billion. Somehow "$900 billion over 10 years" has been decreed to be a magical figure that will not increase the deficit.

It's amazing how precise government gets when estimating the cost of 10 years of subsidized medical care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill was scored not at $850 billion, but $849 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her bill would cost $871 billion.

How do they do that?

The key to magic is misdirection, fooling the audience into looking in the wrong direction.

I happily suspend disbelief when a magician says he'll saw a woman in half. That's entertainment. But when Harry Reid says he'll give 30 million additional people health coverage while cutting the deficit, improving health care and reducing its cost, it's not entertaining. It's incredible.

The politicians have a hat full of tricks to make their schemes look cheaper than they are. The new revenues will pour in during Year One, but health care spending won't begin until Year Three or Four. To this the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner asks, "Wouldn't it be great if you could count a whole month's income, but only two weeks' expenditures in your household budget?"

To be deficit-reducers, the health care bills depend on a $200 billion cut in Medicare. Current law requires cuts in payments to doctors, but let's get real: Those cuts will never happen. The idea that Congress will "save $200 billion" by reducing payments for groups as influential as doctors and retirees is laughable. Since 2003, Congress has suspended those "required" cuts each year.

Our pandering congressmen rarely cut. They just spend. Even as the deficit grows, they vomit up our money onto new pet "green" projects, bailouts for irresponsible industries, gifts for special interests and guarantees to everyone.

Originally, this year's suspension, "the doc fix," was included in the health care bills, but when it clearly pushed the cost of "reform" over Obama's limit and threatened to hike the deficit, the politicians moved the "doc fix" to a separate bill and pretended it was unrelated to their health care work.

Megan McArdle of The Atlantic reports that Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin asked the Congressional Budget Office what the total price would be if the "doc fix" and House health care overhaul were passed together. "The answer, according to the CBO, is that together they'd increase the deficit by $89 billion over 10 years." McArdle explains why the "doc fix" should be included: "They're passing a bill that increases the deficit by $200 billion in order to pass another bill that hopefully reduces it, but by substantially less than $200 billion. That means that passage of this bill is going to increase the deficit."

From the start, Obama has promised to pay for half the "reform" cost by cutting Medicare by half a trillion over 10 years. But, Tanner asks, "how likely is it that those cuts will take place? After all, this is an administration that will pay seniors $250 to make up for the fact that they didn't get a Social Security cost-of-living increase this year (because the cost of living didn't increase). And Congress is in the process of repealing a scheduled increase in Medicare premiums."

Older people vote in great numbers. AARP is the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. Like the cut in doctor's pay, the other cuts will never happen.

I will chew on razor blades when Congress cuts Medicare to keep the deficit from growing.

Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole. Yet the Democrats proudly cite Medicare when they demand support for the health care overhaul. If a business pulled the accounting tricks the politicians get away with, the owners would be in prison.

OUR GOVERNMENT "EXPLAINED"

The 2 commentaries below do a great job of explaining how our government currently is...

One Father's Lesson on Freedom, Free Enterprise and Fair Taxes
Terry Paulson
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Son: “It’s obscene to see these executives get huge bonuses when its government money that kept their companies from going bankrupt.”

Dad: “I’m with you on that one. They had earned bankruptcies, not bonuses. When you are truly free to succeed, you are also free to fail. No one is really ‘too big to fail.’ Just like the airlines, bankruptcy allows them to restructure their business, learn their lesson and come out stronger and a bit wiser.”

Son: “Who cares about executives when there are over 10 million people out of work. The gap between the rich and poor just keeps growing! The rich keep making millions; most workers are lucky if they just have a job! I’m glad Obama is going to tax the rich. ”

Dad: “It may sound good to take more from the rich to help the poor, but economies don’t work that way. When the rich do well, they invest in starting new companies and hire people to make them work. They’re success means jobs and good salaries for workers. When the rich do poorly, the poor only get poorer.”

Son: “That’s the same old trickle-down theory Republicans always talk about.”

Dad: “Would you believe that President John Kennedy was the one that said ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ and lowered taxes on the ‘evil’ rich? I think we need to have a little conversation about how free enterprise has and always will work.”

Son: “Workers deserve a higher pay.”

Dad: “If they can earn more somewhere else, they should take that job or start their own company! Life is difficult; it isn’t fair. Because you were born in America, you have a bedroom that’s bigger than homes in most poor countries. You’re lucky life isn’t fair, or you’d probably be living in a hut somewhere. Want to trade?”

Son: “No, but just giving half of a rich executive’s salary to those in need would make a real difference.”

Dad: “So you want to give their money, not yours.”

Son: “They have more than anyone could need!”

Dad: “That would seem true, but that’s for them to decide. Those ‘rich’ people donate the majority of the funds charities need. Bill Gates not only made billions with Microsoft; he’s made a difference with his billions.”

Sean: “Not all rich people give.”

Dad: “That’s their loss. When you invest in giving, the payoff isn’t in money. It’s in meaning. Good guys do finish first. If people don’t realize that, they don’t know what the finish line is.”

Son: “The poor are left behind!”

Dad: “In a world where rewards are distributed unequally, everyone is challenged to use their gifts to do something in a better, faster or unique way that people value enough to pay for. That’s why people create; that’s why they work hard, go to school, learn a craft or start their own company.”

Son: “Some have dead-end jobs!”

Dad: “Some politicians work to keep them there. They hate poverty so much that they reward it! Whatever you reward you get more of! So if my response to your entry-level job is to raise your minimum wage beyond its market value, you’re more likely to stay in that dead-end job. Why go to college or learn a new skill if you can get more money settling for a job with minimum skills? Capitalism is tough love. It fosters competition because it cares enough to challenge you to better yourself. A robust, free-market economy rewards achievement, service and good products and penalizes anything less.”

Sean: “Some people can’t get better!”

Dad: “Few can’t; many don’t. We need a safety net for the poorest of poor, but Obama is bankrupting America by turning a safety net into a cradle-to-grave hammock. Most Americans who politicians classify as “poor” have cars, multiple TVs and DVD players! Government studies show that only 5% of citizens remain chronically poor. Most are between jobs; many who were at one time poor become quite successful. It’s true that there are more out of work now because of the recession, but we should still reward people for achieving success, not for remaining poor.”

Son: “Obama is creating jobs.”

Dad: “The president’s plan involves printing more money or taxing some Americans, taking a cut to feed the government bureaucracy and then creating some short-term jobs that won’t last. He may be creating some jobs, but the money taken from Americans to pay for those jobs can’t be used to fund new companies. That’s why income and corporate taxes should be kept low and government spending cut! That stimulates the economic growth we need to generate wealth and create lasting jobs.”

Son: “The rich don’t pay their fair share!”

Dad: “Really? After the ‘unfair’ Bush tax cuts, the top 20% percent of income producers went from paying 81% to 85% of the total income taxes? The bottom 40% of Americans went from paying nothing to getting a subsidy! When President Obama goes after the top 5% of Americans; they already pay 61% of the income tax. That’s not fair; that’s what I call criminal.”

Son: “Criminal?”

Dad: “Okay, it isn’t a crime, but it should be. America can’t afford to keep punishing success in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The success of the rich helps everyone! I want everybody to get richer—the rich and the poor! I’m glad Bill Gates makes enough to give billions away! Even more important, his company has created jobs that support many families. With the Internet as the highway, his software advances have enabled many more to create unbelievable wealth all over the world. Microsoft’s success has also made good returns for investors. Just because someone becomes rich doesn’t make anyone else poor. In fact, in expanding economies, the more rich people there are, the more profits are created, the more people spend, and the more jobs are created.”

Son: “They should still pay more.”

Dad: “They do, and they will. But since you make more money monthly in your part-time-job than many of the world’s workers make in a year, should politicians take 40% of your paycheck to subsidize them?”

Son: ‘No way!”

Dad: “Exactly! It’s more caring to help people earn their own money than to give them money. Too many Politicians make it sound like it’s caring to take from one American to and give to others. That’s not caring; that’s socialism.”

Son: “That’s name calling!”

Dad: “Ask liberals what they don’t like about socialism, and see how they squirm. One of the basic dictums of socialism is "from each according to their ability; to each according to their need." Sounds a lot like the president’s tax plan!”

Son: “Isn’t giving the Christian thing to do?”

Dad: “Interesting! As a matter of faith, the Ten Commandments aren’t suggestions! It’s still a sin to covet the possessions of others. It’s a sin to take from others or to have someone do the taking for you. Jesus didn’t call on the government to care for the poor; that’s everyone’s job. The Good Samaritan didn’t tell the government to care for his neighbor; he paid for it himself. When you vote for politicians who will take more from your neighbor than what they take from you, I don’t call that Christian or noble.”

Son: “What are you doing now?”

Dad: “Writing a check to the Republican Party. This conversation is giving me all the motivation I need to support true hope and change in 2010. And before you vote or donate anything to the Democrats, you might think twice. Your generation is the one that is going to have to pay the bill for the deficits the Democrats are creating now!”
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Solving Whose Problem?
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems-- of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

Many of the things the government does that may seem stupid are not stupid at all, from the standpoint of the elected officials or bureaucrats who do these things.

The current economic downturn that has cost millions of people their jobs began with successive administrations of both parties pushing banks and other lenders to make mortgage loans to people whose incomes, credit history and inability or unwillingness to make a substantial down payment on a house made them bad risks.

Was that stupid? Not at all. The money that was being put at risk was not the politicians' money, and in most cases was not even the government's money. Moreover, the jobs that are being lost by the millions are not the politicians' jobs-- and jobs in the government's bureaucracies are increasing.

No one pushed these reckless mortgage lending policies more than Congressman Barney Frank, who brushed aside warnings about risk, and said in 2003 that he wanted to "roll the dice" even more in the housing markets. But it would very rash to bet against Congressman Frank's getting re-elected in 2010.

After the cascade of economic disasters that began in the housing markets in 2006 and spread into the financial markets in Wall Street and even overseas, people in the private sector pulled back. Banks stopped making so many risky loans. Home buyers began buying homes they could afford, instead of going out on a limb with "creative"-- and risky-- financing schemes to buy homes that were beyond their means.

But politicians went directly in the opposite direction. In the name of "rescuing" the housing market, Congress passed laws enabling the Federal Housing Administration to insure more and bigger risky loans-- loans where there is less than a 4 percent down payment.

A recent news story told of three young men who chipped in a total of $33,000 to buy a home in San Francisco that cost nearly a million dollars. Why would a bank lend that kind of money to them on such a small down payment? Because the loan was insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

The bank wasn't taking any risk. If the three guys defaulted, the bank could always collect the money from the Federal Housing Administration. The only risk was to the taxpayers.

Does the Federal Housing Administration have unlimited money to bail out bad loans? Actually there have been so many defaults that the FHA's own reserves have dropped below where they are supposed to be. But not to worry. There will always be taxpayers, not to mention future generations to pay off the national debt.

Very few people are likely to connect the dots back to those members of Congress who voted for bigger mortgage guarantees and bailouts by the FHA. So the Congressmen's and the bureaucrats' jobs are safe, even if millions of other people's jobs are not.

Congressman Barney Frank is not about to cut back on risky mortgage loan guarantees by the FHA. He recently announced that he plans to introduce legislation to raise the limit on FHA loan guarantees even more.

Congressman Frank will make himself popular with people who get those loans and with banks that make these high-risk loans where they can pocket the profits and pass the risk on to the FHA.

So long as the taxpayers don't understand that all this political generosity and compassion are at their expense, Barney Frank is an odds-on favorite to get re-elected. The man is not stupid.

What is stupid is believing that politicians are trying to solve our problems, instead of theirs.

As for the FHA running low on money, that is not about to stop the gravy train, certainly not with an election coming up in 2010.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is also running low on money. But that is not going to stop them from insuring bank accounts up to a quarter of a million dollars. It would be stupid for them to stop with an election coming up in 2010.

A National Nightmare, Indeed

A National Nightmare, Indeed
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

In a Democratic fundraising speech in Iowa over the weekend, Vice President Joe Biden told party loyalists that opponents of the Obama administration's agenda "should be worried about us, for we are their worst nightmare." Duh.

Finally we can agree on something, Joe. Even the liberal New York Times reports that at the current level of federal spending, the annual interest on the national debt will exceed $700 billion by 2019 -- compared with $202 billion this year. Some forecasters predict it will be much higher. This additional half-trillion dollars a year in interest is more than our current combined expenditures on education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Oh, and the Times isn't even factoring in the cap-and-trade nightmare you and Barack have in store for us, Joe -- you know, that urgent legislation to catapult the nation back into Third World status based on hysteria generated by fraudulent science and corrupt zealots and politicians.

Nor is the Times including in its calculations the additional debt that would result from Obamacare.

Joe, when The New York Times is sounding the warnings over the exploding national debt, you and Barack insist not only on not reversing your disastrous course but also on making it worse. How can reasonable people assume anything other than that you are trying to run this nation into the ground financially?

Don't dare keep telling us your hyper-ambitious spending is a necessary evil required to deliver us from a financial crisis you inherited. Whatever crisis we face is debt-related, purely and simply. Everything else is manageable. Yet you all are deliberately increasing our indebtedness as far as the eye can see, without the slightest pretense of scaling back in this millennium. In fact, you are laboring to establish further entitlements and institutional changes that would generate exponential burdens on our debt and would be enormously difficult for any responsible and financially sane successor to undo, much less reverse.

Adding insult to injury, you are spending this money not to improve ("stimulate") the economy -- which even the most politically and economically illiterate should now realize -- but to restructure American society, dismantle our free enterprise system and impose in its place a command-control economy and political system -- in which life's decisions, including over our private health care, are dictated from Washington.

But while you and Barack are hoisting your wrecking ball, could you please spare us the pseudo-sanctimony and transparent populism in telling us that it will take "grit and determination" to outlast the "special interests" on Wall Street and the insurance industry to pass your destructive agenda?

You both know better. When you have to bribe Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., with a larcenous $300 million addition to your Senate bill (I know, you're pretending it's just Harry Reid's bill) that's specifically earmarked just for her state -- at the expense of the rest of the states and the national interest -- something smells to high heaven. You could at least have the decency to admit this provision to raise the bill's cost by increasing Medicaid subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster" is not even motivated to help Louisiana, but to buy Landrieu's vote. And you want to talk to us, Joe, about the corruption of special interests?

Special interests, Joe? Is that how you describe 56 percent of the American people, who now oppose Obama's plan? And that's without even knowing the half of it. Or maybe you would describe them as dangerous protestors or domestic terrorists?

But, Joe, I do applaud you for your candor in telling your fawning supporters, "I can tell you with absolute certainty: (Barack's) resolve has never waivered for one instant."

Bull's-eye, Joe. You and Barack believe you know better than the American people what is good for them, and you only care what they think to the extent that it makes your job more difficult when they oppose you.

But if you told the truth about your plan -- that it would cost dramatically more than you pretend (especially considering that the benefits wouldn't begin to be paid until 2014 and that taxes would increase almost immediately); that the public option would subsume private care; that the federal government would ration care; that medical choice would be drastically reduced; that you are still trying to secure federal funding for abortion; that you intend to cover currently illegal immigrants; that after all your hype about promoting this bill to achieve universal coverage, millions would remain uninsured and penalized, to boot; that medical quality would be seriously reduced; and that overall costs would increase -- your support for the bill would be in the single digits.

So keep chanting it, Joe; you are indeed a national nightmare.