Apricots in Poland

A short one today. The photo is that of a farm in Greenland.

First, Global Warming, assuming it exists, has no affect on So Cal fires - LA TIMES quoting Journal of Science study and other input: LINK

Second, Al Gore's lowest grade in college was a D in a natural science course.

Finally, following up on an reference from Irene Wolfson, I did some Googling and Asking about tree lines in the Sudeten (you recall, the place the NAZI's wanted) and found studies about "Oh my God, what will climate change do...." One study had a premise that contained the climate will "probably" get drier and it went on happily from there. The study went all the way back to 1992!

So, why look at treelines?

Treelines are indicators of climate. If it is too cold, trees run down hill. The study I mentioned above was worried about the treeline moving up and then running into drought. All nice and good, if the earth began in 1992. However, let us put things in context - is a quote from David Frum's blog:

...There seems zero doubt that Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and the coast of Labrador were far more congenial places in the year 1300 than they are today. On the way home, I began Norman Davies' two-volume history of Poland, God's Playground. I had visited Poland this summer; the climate reminded me very much of southern Ontario, ie, fall was noticeably commencing in late August. According to Davies, however, Poland's climate used to be much more benign. Oops, sorry, much more dangerously warm.

From p. 43 of Volume 1

Research in the Karkonosze Mountains has shown that the tree-line was no less than 600 feet higher in the fourteenth century than in the twentieth, and that vines, apricots, and melons were grown in valleys where they can no longer be produced.

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Since I don't know how to get back to the left margin, I drew a line. This is me, now.

The point of the quote is that the earth was vastly warmer in the 1300's, before the little ice age. Greenland had farming villages. It really was warm - the treeline in the Sudeten was some 600 feet higher!

Then, I guess, humans began to make scotch whiskey and print books, so they caused the cooling of the earth.

The only other option is that we should stop making up facts and timelines that mean nothing. Or, stop designing algorithms that no matter what random numbers you enter will result in a hockey stick graph.

Not long ago, as I mentioned, I listened to a TV scientist, who was making believe he studies the earth by standing on a shore once covered by ice talking to himself. He said in all seriousness the glacier was "unhealthy." It was losing size because of the water running off below it (which run off all glaciers have done forever).

He was referring to a glacier that was not there in the time of Eric the Red. At the point of being redundant, this is getting silly.

Someone please tell me what is "normal" for the earth, not what has changed or what the twenty year trend is. As I covered long ago, we are directly on the median North American temperature, right now, for the last few hundred thousand years.

Worst fire season: 1936

A Look Back At Hot Winds

I just heard our friends Senators Boxer and Reid trying to articulate something about "Global Warming" (i.e. Bush) caused this year's extensive seasonal fires, I am serious.

Barbara Boxer, clearly trying to remember talking points, mumbled something which contained, "half our equipment...is...Iraq." You could tell she didn't even no what she was talking about. Perhaps, we should bomb the forest. Also, it is her state that is on fire - her area of responsibility.

Since no one really pays any serious attention to these caricatures, I won't bother with them. You learn, growing up in NYC, to never argue with the insane - it is dangerous in subtle ways.

In addition, I hear there is talk of arson, which I suspected immediately regarding the locations of the fires. A terrorist with a matchbook can do more damage than any stealth bomber in Iraq. The Japanese knew that and worked on their fire causing balloons, which actually reached the U.S.

When I lived in Simi Valley, I was introduced to the "fire season" in Southern California. Indeed, I recall a post card for sale: LA's Four Seasons: Earthquake, Riot, Mid Slide, Fire. The drawings were pretty clever.

If you prevent the fires from burning, when they do burn, and they will, the fires will be worse as there will be more fuel. There is a lose-lose scenario to living in the LA outback.

After the fires clear out the brush, this is when mud slide season starts as there is nothing left to hold onto the soil. Wait three months - you will hear horror stories about how Bush (or is it the lack of bush) caused mud slides in these areas.

I was also introduced to the notion that insurance is a major factor in human stupidity. This must be so, because no normal person would build on a brush covered hill in a desert. It is almost as absurd as living below sea level or in a town one foot above the Mississippi. There is a good reason for the principal of caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. You can't stop people from being stupid by saving them over and over from their own folly.

It must have been 1987 or 1988 that I had to find a new way to home in Simi Valley as the 101 was closed. Closing the 101 Freeway is akin to closing the Hudson River. The rim fire on the hills, I have to admit, was beautiful against the night sky. A few years later, massive fires took swaths of Orange County, especially the Laguna area.

The Santa Ana winds are something to behold. A pilot friend told me he once came over the mountains toward LA and the winds, as they descended, drove his plane headlong toward the ground. He had heard about this, so properly reacted and dove with the wind toward the ground. To fight the wind is like fighting a rip tide. Don't fight it. The plane soon encountered the compressed air near the ground and was fine.

If you try to drive to Vegas through a the Santa Ana's, you will learn about sandblasting the unfortunate way - your car will be brutally pitted. Other than these problems, the winds are fascinating.

Anyway, the condition of fire and wind is nothing new; what is new is the number of in move into the hills and build wood houses. In the 1990s builders learned of Vermont roofing slate, so that helps going forward, but many homes have WOOD SHINGLE for roofing material!

Regarding the fires, from a recent Reuters artice:

"...It's a natural phenomenon, just part of Mother Nature's way of cleaning out the forest," California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant said. "Sometimes we hear, 'This is the worst fire season ever.' But its really an ongoing thing."

If there was a "worst fire season" in the last century or so, Berlant said, it would probably be 1936 -- when flames swept across more than 1,250 square miles (3,235 square km) of California, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island.

Three years earlier, in 1933, 29 men died battling a blaze in the city's landmark Griffith Park -- which was scarred by a wildfire again this month. The 1933 fire was the deadliest in the city's history.

Iconic Los Angeles crime writer Raymond Chandler published "Red Wind," his short story about the Santa Anas, in 1938. The following year, West, possibly inspired by a fire in the Hollywood Hills, came out with "The Day of the Locust" -- with a main character who works obsessively on a painting titled "The Burning of Los Angeles."

In 1970, 10 people were killed and some 400 houses destroyed when a 20-mile (32 km) wall of fire burned over a mountain ridge toward the town of Malibu and the sea.

Those issues and the fact that California is in the grip of a severe drought, part of a cycle that experts say can last for decades, according to a Reuter's story, have prompted Los Angeles officials to eye 2007 warily.

Shia "assassin" tradition: terrorism as a duty

Assassin Founder Sabah: Nothing is true, everything is permitted

Alphonse Karr: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

The news from Pakistan is that, as a result of the recent attempted assassination of Ms Bhutto, the government is battling militants based in the northwest, where it sent 2,500 troops into a remote valley Wednesday to combat followers of a militant cleric calling for Taliban-style rule. But the cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, appeared to be unruffled, and thousands of his supporters gathered to hear him speak just a few miles from where the soldiers were deployed.

Authorities have accused Fazlullah of links to Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, which was stormed by army commandos in July in an operation that left more than 100 people dead. That incident and the deployment of army reinforcements to Swat and the North Waziristan region touched off a wave of violence that has left more than 1,000 people dead.

I thought it would be interesting to look back into history to understand the culture of the "assassin," which is an Islamic tradition, originally Shia and based in Syria. You will see nothing has changed regarding the religion of peace and how it spreads power, sorry faith.

Click on the title to do to the lexicorient.com source.

Assassins
Arabic: hashshāshīn, plural of hashshāsh

Sect inside Shi'i Islam, more specifically the Nizari Isma'ilis, in the period from the 11th to the 13th century. Most significantly, the Assassins are famous for their fearless murders especially during the times of the Crusades.
There are many legends connected with the Assassins, and many are of dubious origin, more a result of medieval European story tellers' fantasy than facts (among these story tellers is Marco Polo). The main theme is that the Assassins performed their deeds under strong intoxication from hashish, resulting in their own deaths, but with the promise of immediate entry to paradise — a paradise that had been staged for them during their training at the Alamut, a paradise of sweet food and wine and beautiful and willing women.
These stories have never been confirmed by any investigations of contemporary Isma'ili sources, and there is good reason to believe that such a shortcoming is a clear indication that such stories are fabrications.
From the original sources, we learn that the Assassins changed the original Isma'ili doctrine, so that terrorism became a religious duty. Growing out from their centre in Kazvin, the Assassins built a number of strongholds all over Iran and Iraq.
The idea of a paradise constructed around Alamut was probably based upon the sayings of imam al-Kahir, where he talks about a Paradise that man has already entered. However, al-Kahir's paradise was meant as a spiritual one.
They had a system of terrorists as well as secret agents positioned in enemy camps and cities. The Assassins often worked closely with certain leaders of Muslim states, as their services were attractive: no one else was better able to kill important persons in enemy states. They were for long periods allied with the Christian crusaders, not because the Christians sympathized with them, but because they had common enemies.
One of the most important Muslim allies of the Assassins was the Seljuq ruler of Aleppo, Ridwan. Through this cooperation, they were able to establish themselves in the Syrian mountains, where several fortresses were erected. Without being recognized in the same way as other temporary states, the Assassins had in reality, their own state here. But the Assassins's influence over Aleppo came to be immense, and they effectively ruled the politics and economy of the city and its surroundings for a couple of decades.
Even Saladin came to treat the Assassins as allies, although he intended initially to eliminate them. The reason for this alliance, was that Saladin, following two assassination attempts, feared for his own life, and had more imminent enemies.
The Assassins were ranked according to intelligence, courage and trustworthiness. They underwent intense education as well as physical training.
When the Assassins were out on mission, they generally worked alone. Rarely did two or more of them work together. They dressed up as tradesmen or ascetic religious men, and spent a good deal of time in a city, in order to get well-acquainted with the houses and streets, as well as the daily routines of the future victim. The actual murder was performed with a dagger and in public, often inside the mosque on a Friday. By doing it all in public, the information about the deed was soon well known, and people were frightened. In general, the Assassin murderer himself was killed immediately thereafter by guards of the victim.

HISTORY
1071: Hassan-e Sabbah moves to Fatimid Egypt, as the Shi'i orientation in Islam is no longer tolerated in his native Persia.
1070's: A movement in opposition to the weak Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir is headed by the caliph's son, Nizar. Hassan joins the organization, and becomes central in planning how the caliphate shall be rejuvenated with Nizar as caliph.
1090's: Hassan captures the hill fortress Alamut near Kazvin in Iran, whereupon he forms the organization soon to be known as Assassins.
1092: The famous Seljuq vizier Nizam al-Mulk is murdered by an Assassin in Baghdad. He becomes their first victim.
1094: Al-Mustansir dies, and Hassan does not recognize the new caliph, al-Mustali. He and his followers transferred their allegiance to his brother Nizar. The followers of Hassan came to be at odds with the caliph in Baghdad too.
1113: Following the death of Aleppo's ruler, Ridwan, the Assassins are driven out of the city by the troops of Ibn al-Khashab.
1110's: The Assassins in Syria change their strategy, and start undercover to build cells in all cities around the region.
1123: Ibn al-Khashab is killed by an Assassin killer.
1124: Hassan dies in Alamut, but the organization lives on stronger than ever.
— The leading qadi Abu Saad al-Harawi is killed by an Assassin killer.
1126 November 26: Emir Porsuki of Aleppo and Mosul is killed by an Assassin killer.
1131 May: Buri, the atabeg of Damascus, is seriously wounded by two Assassins. He dies 13 months later.
12th century: The Assassins extend their activities into Syria, where they received much support from the local Shi'i minority as the Seljuq sultanate had captured this territory.
— The Assassins capture a group of castles in the Nusayriyya Mountains (modern Syria). The most important of these castles is the Masyaf, from where the "The Old Man of Mountain", Rashideddin Sinan, would come to rule practically independent from the main leaders of the Assassins.
1164: Hassan, the Assassin leader, declares that a new millennium had started, and that his followers were freed from the Sharia, thereby also Islam. He allowed all exesses, and had his followers turn their backs on Mecca while praying.
1173: The Assassins of Syria enter negotiations with the king of Jerusalem, with the aim of their converting to Christianity. But as the Assassins by now were numerous and often worked as peasants, paying high taxes to local Christian landlords, taxes that Christian peasants were exempted from, their conversion was strongly opposed. In this year the Assassin negotiators were murdered by Christian knights, resulting in the end of talks of conversion.
1175: Rashideddin's men make two attempts on the life of Saladin, the leader of the Ayyubids. The second time, the Assassin came so close that wounds were inflicted upon Saladin.
Early 13th century: The new Assassin leader, Jalal ad-Din retracts the expressing independence of Hassan, bringing the Assassins officially back to the fold of Mulims.
Å1256: Alamut fortress falls to the Mongols under the leadership of Hülegü. Before this happened, several other fortresses had been captured, and finally Alamut becomes weak and with little support.
1257: The Mongol warlord Hülegü attacks and destroys the fortress at Alamut. The Assassin library is completely destroyed, hence eradicating what would have been a crucial source of information about the Assassins.
Around 1260: Assassins seek support from the Christian Crusaders, offering to convert to Christianity, but this is refused by the Knights Templar.
Around 1265: The Assassin strongholds in Syria fall to the Mumluk sultan Baybars 1.

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Where are the Mongols when you need them?

Inconvenient Truth can't be shown without advisory notes

A recent report on High Court ruling in London. I noticed that most of the papers in the world online had the same stories. Interesting how one story can be "the news" all over the world. Anyway:

British court pokes holes in Gore's environmental 'truth'

Judge rules former U.S. vice-president's Inconvenient Truth documentary filled with 'alarmism, exaggeration'

Lewis Smith, The Times, London

Published: Thursday, October 11, 2007

LONDON - Al Gore's award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.

An Inconvenient Truth won plaudits from the environmental lobby and an Oscar from the film industry, but was found wanting when it was scrutinized in the High Court in London.

Justice Michael Burton identified nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate's documentary, as he assessed whether it should be shown to schoolchildren. He agreed that Mr. Gore's film was "broadly accurate" in its presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change, but said that some of the claims were wrong, and had arisen in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration."

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In what is a rare judicial ruling on what children can see in the classroom, Judge Burton was at pains to point out that the "apocalyptic vision" presented in the film was politically partisan, and not an impartial analysis of the science of climate change.

The film, he said, "is built around the charismatic presence of the ex-vice-president, Al Gore, whose crusade it now is to persuade the world of the dangers of climate change caused by global warming.

"It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film -- although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion --but that it is a political film."

The analysis by the judge will have a bearing on whether the British government can continue with its plan to have the film shown in every secondary school. He agreed it could be shown, but on condition that it was accompanied by new guidance notes for teachers to balance Mr. Gore's "one-sided" views.

The government's decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from Stewart Dimmock, a school governor in Kent and a member of political group the New Party, who accused the government of brainwashing children.

The first mistake made by Mr. Gore, said Judge Burton in his written judgment, was in talking about the potential devastation wrought by a rise in sea levels caused by the melting of ice caps. The claim that sea levels could rise by more than six metres "in the near future" was dismissed as "distinctly alarmist." Such a rise would take place "only after, and over, millennia."

A claim that atolls in the Pacific had already been evacuated was supported by "no evidence," the judge ruled, while to suggest that two graphs showing carbon dioxide levels and temperatures over the last 650,000 years were an "exact fit" overstated the case.

Mr. Gore's suggestion that the Gulf Stream, which warms up the Atlantic ocean, would shut down was contradicted by the International Panel on Climate Change's assessment that it was "very unlikely" to happen.

The drying of Lake Chad, the loss of Mount Kilimanjaro's snows and Hurricane Katrina were all blamed by Mr. Gore on climate change, but the judge said the scientific community had been unable to find evidence to prove there was a direct link.

The judge also said there was no proof to support a claim that polar bears were drowning while searching for icy habitats melted by global warming. The only drowned polar bears the court was aware of were four that died following a storm.

Similarly, the judge took issue with Mr. Gore for attributing coral bleaching to climate change.

Despite finding nine significant errors, the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science.

The Hidden Agenda

I know I owe a few folks a response re recent entries, but permit me to address another curiosity quickly, so I can take the duct tape off my head, thereby relieving the pressure. Forgive any hasty writing.

First, let me posit a starting point via Galloway of the Huffington Post called Pelosi's Hamfisted Turkey Move

Pelosi's Hamfisted Turkey Move

Posted October 16, 2007 | 10:26 AM (EST)

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Despite howls of protest from Turkish officials, Nancy Pelosi seems intent on bringing to the floor a resolution condemning Armenian genocide nearly 100 years ago. The debasement and massacre of hundreds of thousands of people clearly merits attention.

But the timing of this resolution is a bit sub-optimal. Why target a genocide which occurred 100 years ago, and not offer a similar resolution against the Japanese for genocide that occurred in World War II, half a century ago? Could it possibly be related to the fact that nearly 70% of all air cargo destined to supply the troops in Iraq passes through Turkey, who thus far have been a reasonably reliable ally?

The Turkish government has indicated they might revoke our ability to send supplies, including new mine-resistant vehicles, if Pelosi follows through with her non-binding resolution. So why now? To complicate Bush's life? You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Even Barney the Dinosaur could figure out that Pelosi is trying to be too clever by a half with the timing (not the content) of this resolution, and if Barney can, so can a good deal of the American public. I was once criticized on the Jon Stewart show for opining that Americans are smart enough to think for themselves. They are.

It's this type of tactical dissonance that has made Pelosi's first nine months such a rousing failure, if congressional approval polls are to be believed. The Democrats need a leader who plays chess, not hopscotch. Where's Francis Urquhart when you need him?

So, here we see the left is confused, as well as the right. Put aside the notion that the Constitution does not have any provision for legislative pontification, especially in foreign affairs, there is something else afoot.

Mr. Galloway figures that this move is some sort of anti-Bush, anti-success move thoroughly designed to piss off Turkey (the Ottoman Empire is long gone) into slicing the hamstring of our troops in Iraq (who are also on the verge of being in the front line against Iran). For this assertion to be true, one would have to grant unto Pelosi some subtle intelligence and depth of understanding of world cultures, something even Pelosi herself would not dare claim. Thus, there must be another answer.

Let us do what the left does and follow the money. Hedge funds and leverage speculators, such as George Soros, the man the Democrats rely on and Republicans fear, are heavily invested in seeing oil up, gold up, US dollar down. Recall Soros made his fortune by following and pushing the British pound downward. Here is an excerpt from a Soros NFP about his history:

In 1956, Soros immigrated to the United States. He worked as a trader and analyst until 1963. During this period, Soros adapted Popper's ideas to develop his own "theory of reflexivity," a set of ideas that seeks to explain the relationship between thought and reality, which he used to predict, among other things, the emergence of financial bubbles. Soros began to apply his theory to investing and concluded that he had more talent for trading than for philosophy. In 1967 he helped establish an offshore investment fund; and in 1973 he set up a private investment firm that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund, one of the first hedge funds, through which he accumulated a vast fortune.

For the clever investor, one who sees bubbles and profits, it is an easy task, where one is without borders, wealthy, and powerful, to create bubbles for profit. To be honest, one should say the tendency to do that is well within our human nature. Few of us could resist such an easy way to make money. This would be true especially where one has a strong belief system, such as Soros' "open society," that can be fed by the profits generated from bubbles.

A quote from a Bank for International Settlement's white paper:

...The longest standing [concern] has been that hedge funds could contribute to macroeconomic crises by enabling the protracted build-up and rapid unwinding of asset price misalignments. The most readily available examples come from the foreign exchange market. Thus, George Soros’s Quantum fund was clearly implicated in the ERM crisis of 1992 (though many viewed this as a desirable equilibrating process), while hedge funds were repeatedly accused (but never convicted) of precipitating the Asian crisis. While we have seen fewer speculative attack episodes in recent years, thanks to the more widespread use of floating exchange rates, hedge funds do seem to have played a role in the tendency for the exchange rates and asset prices of smaller high yield countries to be buffeted by the waxing and waning of the carry trade. We can find evidence for this in the fact that the flow of money into certain styles of hedge funds (global macro and fixed income arbitrage) seems highly correlated with movements in Yen and Swiss franc interest rates.

When it was clear the "surge" was having a positive affect, oil and gold were settling downward in an orderly fashion, and the the U.S. sub-prime challenge was being absorbed without chaos, any vast investment in gold, oil, and against the U.S. dollar would be in jeopardy.

If you follow the "follow the money" theory, there are some interesting explanations about odd things that are afoot.

If Mr. Soros made a call to Nancy Pelosi saying it is really too bad the Turks have not been made to take responsibility for the clear genocide in 1915 period and suggest that his desire is some sort of statement as to what happened should come from Congress, Ms. Pelosi would comply, as her party, per the words of MoveOn.org, has been bought and paid for. [See Investor's Daily series on Soros' curious 2006 machinations HERE.]

Since Pelosi is fine with interfering with the Executive's exercise of its delegated foreign policy powers, like visiting Syria, giving all manner of aid and comfort to the terrorist state while grinning like an idiot, she would listen to her master's voice. [The picture above is from her visit - I didn't make up the bizarre grin.]

Sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory? The problem is, it is the only theory left.

Consider today 72% of NYer's are against Gov. Spitzer's weird decision to give away licenses to any claimant. I am still driving under a Vermont license because I could not get a NY one last year - I needed a picture ID to get a picture ID.

Under Spitzer's "steam roller" edict, he will eliminate the NY license as a valid ID for all citizens. It will no longer be valid to board a plane under the Homeland Security laws. (So, we all have to go and pay for a passport.)

How does this political animal give the finger to 72% of NYers in the middle of the mini-crisis involving his office's treatment of Senator Bruno? The same way both houses in Washington tried to sneak through the Immigration Bill, that we were all too stupid to have explained to us. You know, the one that gave amnesty to, what, 30,000,000 illegal aliens? [I always favor using numbers rather than words - they tell the real story ----- 30,000,000. California, itself, has a legit population of 37,000,000!]

There was a virtual revolution when word got out about the fast-tracked bill that both parties supported. Congress people, afterwards, told us that they did not do a good job explaining the bill which we morons did not understand because of "talk radio." (But Democrats don't listen to talk radio!) What was not to understand? Rather than explain the bill, they still assure us that is was a good compromise. Yeah, Bush and Peolsi agreeing eye to eye. I think I even heard the last-ditch, hack justification, "It is for the children!"

Had either party come out strongly against the bill and for securing the borders, their candidates would have had a ten year advantage in coming elections. We are talking about 80% of voters being viscerally upset at the bill, not discontent, but pissed and bewildered at the obvious instanity. Even before this fiasco, Congress' rating was nearing single digits. Still, they valiantly sailed the bill into the gale of anger. The question is still begging - why?

The Congress, then, changed course once they saw they may actually lose elections over it, regardless of party affiliation. Still, there was not peep of conciliatory language from either party or the President - they will be coming back to the issue in their tried and true incremental manner.

So, back to the premise - what is going on that politicians are doing weird things that enrage the vast majority of voters? Where is Congress now? Is it 8% approval rating? And, still, the inflammatory and dangerous Turkey vote is coming?

The answer to the apparent weirdness is that it is not weird at all, in light of some other game being played behind the scenes, one where voters are annoyances - like having borders, states, and a Constitution. Our opinion only matters insofar as emotions can be inflamed at election time.

For my money, things start to clarify when you extend the big money folks desire for a more efficient and controllable market, such as the European Union, which is why we have signed on, without a vote in Congress, to establishing the North American Union, a new currency, and a new Court above the Supreme Court. One more argument on this - the unions are being ignored by the Democrats! This makes little sense without a new agenda behind the scenes.

Our governments not only don't care about securing the borders, they are actively watering down the U.S. culture so that it blends into the mess of unsophisticated voters in Mexico who are living back in the 1930's regarding class warfare.

You see behind all of this a shimmer of Soros' "open society" where the ruling class does not have to concern itself with the petty politics of a republic, as they go about making money and fixing the rest of us.

Ultimately, however, you can't blame people with self interests for following their desires. Our government was founded on that principal (Federalist Paper #10). So, who do we blame? The fault is not in our stars but in ourselves; we need to stop voting like drug addicts fawning over the pusher and vote for our national and personal survival.

We need to create a "none of the above" alternative and, as the motto Governor Dean stole from the last remnants of native Vermonters, who aimed it at him, the rich kid from Long Island, "Take Back America."

I don't see how we can trust any of the crowd in D.C. Mostly, of course, they are good-natured goof balls, superficial do-gooders, and old-fashioned power mongers, but they have in common the ability to do what they are told by leaders who are transmitting orders from elsewhere.

The other common trait is a skill at avoiding reflection, study, and honor. But, like I say, we put them in office, so you can't blame them for being dolts. They are what they are. It was Benjamin Franklin who answered a Mrs. Powel's question about what sort of government the convention had given "us." His reply, "A republic, if you can keep it."

Why I Do Buy the Economist

The sky isn't falling, but prophets still intrigue us. They can be dolts, no reference to Mr. Gore intended, but the mere fact something new is happening gets the attention of the helots and eloi, especially if it predicts the end of the miserable world they inhabit.

The problem with prophets, over history, is their true believers eventually turn on them. One has to careful about over-expansiveness and drinking one's own Kool Aid.

Only in the last year or so, are experts in climate, complex system analysis, and paleoclimatology putting up their professional markers distancing themselves from the IPPC view of the world. They need to distance themselves from the IPPC while not jeopardizing their grants and jobs.

Serious researchers, while in need of current money from the politically correct, are aware their good work may be dismissed as amusing by the next generation of scientists. Recall, the in-crowd today dismisses the science/NYT/Time Magazine of 1976 which stated - "Holy Crap, the Ice Age Is Coming!"

Below is a report from the Economist on the IPPC and Gore''s recent Nobel Prize. Note there is actually reporting of facts, unlike U.S. TV which forgot to mention the IPPC in their filtered view of the world. The facts are placed in a perspective that would be subjective of course, but the Economist is a magazine. Still, its editorializing is far less subjective than the NYT front page. Its "voice" is more of a bemused literary publication than a left or right propoganda machine.
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The Nobel Peace Prize

Peace man

Oct 12th 2007
From Economist.com

Al Gore and the IPPC win it

AFP

IF THE Nobel Peace Prize were awarded for making the world a more peaceful place, then this year’s winners—Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—would be a bizarre choice. But two out of the previous three peace prizes went to people and organisations who had nothing to do with peace. The 2004 winner was Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who plants trees, and the 2006 winners were Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, a Bangladeshi microcredit institution. (In 2005, in a radical departure from recent practice, the prize did actually go to a person and an organisation whose work has been designed to reduce the likelihood of global conflict—Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency.)

Evidently the committee has decided to redefine the award as the Nobel Prize for Making the World a Better Place in Some Unspecified Way. In that case, Al Gore and the IPCC seem pretty good—though controversial—choices. The IPCC has put together scientific knowledge on the subject in a form comprehensible to policymakers; Mr Gore has pushed the policymakers to take action.

Set up under the auspices of the UN to establish a scientific consensus on climate change, the IPCC has produced vast reports on the current state of knowledge on the subject every four years or so. Its latest came out earlier this year. Unlike Mr Gore, it has not struggled to make its work palatable to the masses. Its conclusions are therefore tentative, representative of the huge uncertainty inevitable in the study of a mechanism as complex as the climate. Its estimate for temperature change, for instance, ranges from a 1.1ºC rise to a 6.4ºC rise by the end of this century.

Even so, the IPCC has come in for some stick. Some scientists claim that sceptics about global warming get frozen out of the process. Some accuse it of alarmism. A prediction that warming would lead to the spread of malaria, for instance, was widely criticised on the grounds that malaria is correlated more closely with development than with temperature (it is present, for instance, in parts of central Asia, but not in the southern states of America).

Still, it would be surprising if a body studying such a vast and complex area did not get some things wrong. And, by and large, the IPCC does what it was supposed to do: it provides a robust scientific basis for politicians to get on with policymaking.

Mr Gore has been pushing them to do just that. The “former next president of the United States”, as he calls himself, tried to get America to ratify the Kyoto protocol to control greenhouse-gas emissions while he was Bill Clinton’s vice-president. Mr Clinton signed the protocol, but the Senate opposed the idea of America agreeing to a treaty that didn’t include controls on developing-country emissions, so it was never ratified.

After an agonisingly tight finish in the 2000 election, which he lost by a few Floridian hanging chads, Mr Gore refused to disappear into the political wilderness. Instead, he prowled the country in the guise of an Old Testament prophet with audio-visual aids, warning of the dangers of climate change. His slick, entertaining presentation was eventually made into a film, “An Inconvenient Truth”. That film, bizarrely for what was in effect a slide-show with lots of charts, did well at the box office and won two Oscars (although one was for a song).

Mr Gore has his detractors. His film is propaganda rather than documentary. A British judge this week ruled that it should not be shown to schoolchildren without a health warning, because there were several claims in it that were wrong: the ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica are not, for instance, expected to melt “in the near future”, but in millennia. Nevertheless, America is now generally expected to accept in some form the controls on emissions that it rejected when it turned down Kyoto, and Mr Gore has been instrumental in getting it there.

Happy Birthday Atlas

Thanks to Greg for reminding me about Ayn Rand. No comments today, just Ayn, the fugutive from the newly born Marxist Russia:

"For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors--between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it."

Why I Don't Buy The NYT

I still talk to people who read the New York Times. They seem confused by my refusal to buy it, my point being I should not feed the enemy. They seem unaware of the culture war going on.

This morning I went online to the paper's web site, being too lazy to work. It took less than two minutes to become distressed. So, rather than dismiss the rag in darkness, I decided share a few thoughts so that others may understand my mental state:

PM Gordon Brown said the other day that Britain would be scheduling to remove troops from their mission in southern Iraq. He said that since his campaign for PM.

The British had a slightly safer place to pacify and are, in some ways, better at the diplomatic side, though the U.S. is learning. Brown said it was time, basically, as the need was less, even mentioning since the surge had reduced violence. Of course, we would like to see them stay.

The NYT reports on this story below. Deep into the article was good stuff, but look how it starts:

Britain to Halve Its Force in Iraq

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: October 9, 2007

LONDON, Oct. 8 — Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons on Monday that he would remove half of the 5,000 British troops in Iraq by next spring, and left open the strong possibility that all British soldiers would leave Iraq by the end of 2008.

“The Iraqis are now able to take responsibility for the security themselves,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament

Mr. Brown said the cuts were possible because of what he described as the progress made in training Iraqi security forces. He described the situation in Basra in southern Iraq, where the British troops are based, as “calmer.”

Since President Bush has made clear that American troops will remain heavily committed in Iraq at least through his administration’s end in January 2009, it appears that the tight alliance on Iraq forged between Mr. Brown’s predecessor, Tony Blair, and Washington is fraying. Indeed, a hallmark of Mr. Brown’s three months as prime minister has been the relative distance he has established with the American president.

Huh? There is nothing in the story about anything fraying or distancing. There is nothing in what Brown said or says, either, about that. This is Jane's reactive knock Bush/US ASAP. Her spin on how England is running away from evil America after it finally rid itself of the Bush puppet Blair.

In the old days, reporters reported, now we have Columbia "journalists" telling us what they know to be true since Nancy Peolosi said so. [Gee, the NYT missed the story yesterday of how Nancy "prays" every day for George Bush. You see, they know she is full of refuse and is only issuing propaganda - a good thing to the NYT]

The important thing to note is virtually no one actually reads any paper. Most people, and they have statistics on this, read the headline. Some read the first few paragraphs - that's it. Hence, the traditional story format of jamming the who, what, etc into the first two paragraphs.

The whole story re PM Brown is not on page 1 of the web site, of course, so how did I get to it? From this link on the main page:

Britain to Halve Its Force in Iraq

By JANE PERLEZ

The move suggests that the alliance on Iraq forged between former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Washington is unraveling.

Double Huh?

The only suggestions as to any unraveling is from Jane, not from anyone in the article. Indeed, one pundit was quoted as saying the British were being forced out by RPGs. How come Jane did not say: "The move suggests the British don't like being killed." At least there would be some support in the article for the headline. The headline is the lynch pin of propaganda.

The story then opines that Brown made this announcement in a political move regarding future elections, to look good for the voters. NYT's writers seem to think all politicians are Clintonian 24/7- able to make major decisions of life, death, and security based upon winning the next election. Projection is an interesting tool to learn about those who give their opinions.

On p. 1 of the web, there is a smaller headline with no lead paragraph: Russia on Its Mind, Georgia Flexes Its Muscle in Iraq.

What is this all about? Lest you don't click through, let me rewrite the propoganda headline:

In an Act of Solidarity with America
Georgia Sending More Troops to Iraq

How odd. A lie headline about the British winding down in Iraq NEXT YEAR because of an "unraveling" gets all the play while the geopolitically strong story is buried in a vague headline. Click to the story and you see the spectacular picture above.

Confused, the Times finds their anti-Bush link - Georgia is only going to Iraq, as other nations pull out (I guess that means England in six months), because it is sucking up the U.S. for support in its bid to join NATO. Having created that postulate from thin air, the writer adds, being a subtle intellectual: "but neither nation has formally linked the deployment in Iraq with that." See, we NYT reporters knows the inside game and will tell you when to ingore the facts.

I find it amazing that the NYT cannot just quote participants, like Xinhua, the Chicom news agency which is vastly superior. If you want to read a good report of the Brown comments go to Xinhua HERE. That report will give you facts!

How is it the Chinese communists understand the difference between reporting and editorializing and the NYT does not? More from Jane:

Georgian officials play down the idea of even an informal quid pro quo. They say that after their initial decision to send troops in 2003, the current contingent reflects a commitment to maintaining security.

“We should show everyone that we are not stepping back and running away from a difficult situation,” Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said March 9 when he announced the troop buildup....

But it is hardly fear of Iran that impels the Georgians to contribute so significantly to the war. As the United States is searching for allies, so is Georgia, which aspires to NATO membership as a security guarantee against Russia.

“As soldiers here, we help the American soldiers,” Cpl. Georgi N. Zedguidze explained, peering past the sun-scorched checkpoint where he was guarding a bridge over the Tigris River. “Then America as a country will help our country.”

You see, the officials "play down" what the NYT knows to be true and is informing its trusting readers. They portray Georgia is a petty political hack like NYT's writers; they understand lying and posturing, so they think they see it everywhere. What Goergia says is "hardly" the truth.

The story later recounts interviews with soldiers who understand that the armed and dangerous Shiite nut jobs will become a problem for their own country. As usual, the Times story contradicts its own spin.

Here is a part that must really piss off the Times:

At a ceremony marking the formal start of their mission on Monday, soldiers knelt and were sprinkled with holy water by their Eastern Orthodox priest.

A great quote:

Sgt. Koba Oshkhereli, looking out of the dusty gate of Forward Operating Base Delta at the trash-strewn streets of Kut and all the danger it holds, put it this way: “The bear was sleeping. Now the bear is awake and stomping his feet.”

Here is a feature story that got good space on the main page:

Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight

By JANE GROSS

Elderly gay people in assisted-living centers and nursing homes increasingly report being mistreated.

This is front page news for the NYT! Aging gay discrimination. Both gay and old - a double discrimination worthy of being a litmus test for judges. I wonder if the Times does stories on how ALL AGING people in homes are treated like crap.

Down in the "World" links, there was a link to the most important story in the world - about students in Iran protesting the man who is about to bring war to the nation.

Gee, Bush may be right. Can't lead with that.

Berger Lives!

In 2005 a federal judge ordered Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, to pay a $50,000 fine for illegally taking classified documents from the National Archives by stuffing it in his socks by mistake, something that anyone of us could do.

Rather than be put in jail, as would you and I, he was told he could not see classified documents until 2008. Clearly, the oligarchy lives under different laws, as well as notion of decency. You see, Sandy is now an adviser to Hillary Clinton. Good paying job, I bet.

We will never know why the Attorney General, the one viciously attacked by the left, did not put the felon hack away. The way Berger strolled away from demonstrated espionage should be a red flag to the rest of us.

Until we force our "leaders" to live under the same set of laws that the rest of us have to follow, being serfs and all, all the rest of the political hoopla is theater.

If we can find out who is behind both the Republican and Democrat acceptance of tens of millions illegal aliens getting a free home, medical, education for no apparent reason, we will know who is pulling the strings.

No, it is not the GOP wanting cheap labor or the DEMS counting on new voters, the latest wave of illiterates who will vote for any handout. Those arguments don't hold up to analysism though the voter argument is, at least, mentioned by Democrats as it sounds plausible, as well as dastardly, which is hardly a concern.

The question of the day, in your travels have you ever met anyone, I mean anyone, personally who said, "I am in favor of illegal aliens settling in this country as they like?" I haven't. Not even from party-goers who repeat what they are told is this weeks mantra. No normal person wants increased crime and expense.

There is something else afoot. My guess is the manipulators want the North American Union and find diluting our culture and resources is the best way to reach that objective. Without dilution by waves of demanding illiterates, our culture could easily withstand the socialist neighbors to the north and south.

The labor unions are beside themselves at what the Democrats are doing to flood the county in low-level workers. It defies normal sensibility. The conservatives are creating militia to watch the borders confused over the Republican inability to put up a wall or articulate what the hell they are doing.

No, the party members are not behind this stuff; there is something else at work that even the run of the mill politicians don't see. They just see contributions.

Contributions from the likes of Soros who makes billions by creating instability and shorting the U.S. dollar and playing oil prices. [Right, I am just being silly.]

In NY we now have Governor Steamroller, in the midst of a scandal, ignoring the legislature, the Democrats and Republicans, the entire media, and popular opinion, forcing DMV to give illegal aliens driver's licenses - which negates the control the mind-numbing rules of the past few years have put into place.

The proposal will invalidate the license as a true I.D., so it will not be accepted by banks, etc. under the Homeland Security laws. So, if you want a bank account in NY better open it now. Without a passport, you will have no picture I.D.

New Yorkers are pretty well-heeled and travel frequently. After this edict from the emperor, they will all have to spend the time and money to get a passport. Perhaps, that is part of the game too - a national ID card just to get on a plane.

Oh, but let's not get all worked up over all this conspiracy stuff because we have to worry about how President Bush is causing chronic fatigue syndrome and see if Britany Spears will get her children back. Soon, there will be another war to fill up the news channels. So, let us not get distracted.

Snap shots via poll

Some poll information to mull over:

From D-3 Systems poll paid for by BBC, ABC, USA Today, ARD Germany TV [no right-wing folks here]:

Q. 5: Do you think your children will have a better life than you, worse, or about the same?


Better: 42%
Worse: 37%
Same: 21%
N/R: 0%

The poll in full - HERE

A quick summary: jobs, water and electricity are worse than the last two years. On security, things seem the same or better, 17% (I recall) think worse. 2007 shows a slip on positive items, which is understandable. I quoted the above numbers as I think that question is the one people would have to contemplate and the results would, to me, at least, have powerful meaning.

UPI Poll: Bush, Congress poor on Iraq

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush fared poorly among respondents to a UPI-Zogby International poll regarding Iraq but not as badly as the U.S. Congress.

Fully 96 percent of those asked said the Democratic Party-controlled Congress was either poor (71.3 percent) or fair (24.7 percent) on handling the war in Iraq. Some 2.5 percent said the legislators were "good" and 0.3 percent rated them "excellent."

Fully 96 percent of those asked said the Democratic Party-controlled Congress was either poor (71.3 percent) or fair (24.7 percent)

Bush's ratings nearly glow by comparison but were also low with 55.2 percent giving the Republican president a "poor" grade on Iraq and 15.8 percent rating him "fair." He was seen as "good" on Iraq by 21.8 percent of respondents and "excellent" by 6.6 percent.

A slim plurality -- not far outside the poll's 1.2 percentage-point margin of error -- said they had more confidence in the Republican Party to deal with Iraq. While 41.2 percent gave the GOP as an answer, 38 percent said the Democrats and 19.1 percent said "neither."

The Zogby interactive poll was conducted Sept. 7-10 with 7,081 U.S. residents responding.

Of course, only fools and despots run foreign policy based upon poll results, but it is important to get a sense as to what people are seeing on the ground via polls. There is a feed-back loop, but polls should not be justification to act or pander to voters.

No one can seriously think a Democratic president will pull the troops out of Iraq, so I am not a fan of the posturing (aka lying) during this election cycle designed to persuade independents and "idiota." [Ancient Greek term for citizens who don't participate in politics.]

Recall my recent entry about Congress, the Democratic one, is sending a over a billion dollar's worth of war materials, not defensive materials, to Israel. Obviously, things are heating up and we are moving our pieces around the board in preparation for the next battle in WW IV.

The Democratic leaders think it is better that the sandal people, the generic protesters, don't know what it going on and what the will do. The Republicans leaders tell us what they think we should do, but don't think we should hear the full story of what is happening now - or happened in the past few years.

For my part, I am going to lunch.

Coming Soon: the next battle in WW IV

Today, Congress, that rascal group, took some time off from singing their anti-war mantra long enough to approve a billion dollar sale of arms to Israel, including a gaggle of bunker buster bombs and $300,000,000 worth of jet fuel. The words and music don't seem to work together.

When you listen just to the music, you hear the tune. Its an ominous tune. What is more ominous is the way we make believe all this will go away if we just pretend to be England in 1938.

Russians leave Iran's nuclear reactor
Contributed by: Ed Deak

DEBKAfile - We start where the media stop

DEBKAfile reports: Russians employed at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor suddenly depart in a body, according to local Arab sources

October 1, 2007, 11:32 AM (GMT+02:00)

The Khorramshar News Agency, which is published by the ethnic Arab underground of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan, reported early Oct. 1 that the entire staff of Russian nuclear engineers and experts employed in building the nuclear reactor at Bushehr had abruptly packed their bags Friday, Sept. 28, and flew back to Russia. The agency’s one-liner offers no source or explanation. DEBKAfile have obtained no corroboration of its report from any other source.

The story appears to have originated with the ethnic Arabs who live near the reactor or who come in contact with its Russian staff. If true, DEBKAfile can offer three hypothetical scenarios to account for the Russians’ precipitate departure:

1. Another crisis has cropped up in the patchy Russian-Iranian dealings over the Bushehr reactor. This is unlikely because Russian president Vladimar Putin is due for a high-profile visit to Tehran on Oct. 16, when he plans to sign a series of nuclear accords with the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, Moscow, like Beijing, stands foursquare behind Iran’s efforts to delay harsher sanctions for its continued uranium enrichment. Only this week, the two powers gained Iran two to three months’ grace by forcing a delay in the UN Security Council session that was to have approved a third round of sanctions.

2. Moscow or Tehran has been tipped off that a US or Israeli attack is imminent on the Bushehr plant and Iran’s other nuclear installations and acted to whip Russian personnel out of harm’s way.

3. Moscow has learned that an Iranian pre-emptive attack is imminent against American targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf and/or Israel.

Aside from these hypothetical scenarios, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that the Khorramshar News Agency keeps its ear to the ground on happenings in Bushehr, because it is claimed by Khuzistan separatists as Arab land which they will fight to liberate from Iranian “occupation.”

One more look at low civic scores

So, Stanford University has tried to improve its student's knowledge of things like Yorktown was the last battle of the Revolutionary War, according to the case study listed the Civic Literacy web site quoted in the last blog entry. It did not like being No. 31, it seems. The result of its push by Professor Moe - no result. The Literacy Board suggests

One hypothetical explanation for this (poor result) merits deeper examination by Stanford faculty, administrators, alumni, and trustees. Ironically, evidence for this explanation can be found in the nature of Stanford’s “Education for Citizenship” requirement, which mandates students complete two courses in two of four designated subject areas, including Ethical Reasoning, the Global Community, American Cultures, and Gender Studies. Based on a listing of applicable courses offered in the Autumn quarter of 2006, a student could have completed half of this two-course requirement by taking either “Colonial and Revolutionary America” in the American Cultures category or “Sex and Love in Modern Society” in the Gender Studies category.

Yup, a course on sex and love taught by a Gender Studies academic to college students. Like I say, better look into Grove City.