Nov 29 2006
Fly BY 11/29/06
I used to do “Flybys” a lot, which are nothing more than a compendium of quick hits on recent news items. I think I will need to get back into the habit given my upcoming work load. So let’s take a Flyby of some important stories (as opposed to much of the news media’s products).
We have another myopic liberal judge out there who has decided they will determine whather we are at war or not, even though such a determination is clearly unconstitutional. The judge has struck down the President’s basic authority to designate a group of terrorists as enemy combatants so that US tax dollars are not funneled to our enemies so they can use our mney to kill us. Hopefully sanity will reign again in the appeal process.
The US dollar is down, which is not the emergency the hysterical news media like to make it. One thing that could ease our problems with our export inbalance is having closer parity on currencies so that goods from outside cost us a bit more and our goods are a bit cheaper to the world. Also note that the trigger event was a housing market which mirrors 1993 – a period that presaged one of our largest economic booms. Face it, the economists seem to share the same skiddishness as the global warming crowd – they both fall into their Chicken Little modes the minute there is any change in any direction.
Speaking of the Global Warming corwd, one key factor in the lack of hurricanes this season (which may repeat itself next season) is the fact the Atlantic actually cooled a half degree. For the Gobal Warming theories this is a bunker buster. The Atlantic Ocean, everyone should agree, is an enormous body of water. For the Temperature to fall a half degree is a huges change. The truth is the Gobal Warming crowd demonstrated perfectly how lousy their science is when they came out and predicted a tough hurricane season for this past year. That was the expected result of their theories. If the result is wrong the theories are wrong – period. You will note in the linked reference some of these folks never learn to focus on quality verses alarm level. More here on other signs of cooling, which might bring back the theories of a pending ice age again. There are lots of possible reasons for the warming – including the fact we went through a very energetic peak of the Sun cycle and maybe we are just now cooling down (like food fresh from a microwave).
And finally we come to the difference between Bush Conservatives and the self destructing Republicans in the form of one true idiot – Tom Tancredo. Right now the parity of the Presidential elections between Dems and Reps is the large anchor states each side has in their columns. The Dems have NY and CA with four senators combined from these states. The Reps have Texas and Florida, with only three Senators from their core states. Tancredo’s dumb ‘third world’ comment was directed at Florida. It was directed at the presence of people from south of our border. The majority of immigrants in Florida are actually LEGAL! Many are voting Americans. The new RNC head, the one Republican Senator from Florida, represents this large population of immigrants from south of our border which Tancredo clearly indicates is why Florida is like a ‘Third World Country”. Sadly, the sutpid Tancredo insult to a large population of legal immigrants and naturalized citizens could be applied to Texas as well – since a similar population from south of our border is there as well. And again, most of that population is legal. Jeb Bush was being kind when he called Tancredo “naive”. The guy is walking disaster and the epitome of why the Reps lost the House and Senate – deservedly so. If the Reps keep Tancredo as the face of their causes count me out for 2008. No Tancredos types will get my vote. We need constructive solutions, not immature insults.
And yes, I will be getting back to my current obsession, the Litvinenko contamination. Stay tuned.
Hi AJ,
Thanks for the “quick hits”. I read your blog daily and find your comments insightful.
Re global warming. Don’t forget the news item regarding states who are suing the federal goverment to designate CO2 a ** pollutant ** (so it can be regulated)!! As a PhD with a degree in engineering and computational analysis, I have concluded that much of the global warming “science” is nothing more then idle speculation, and like the Mann “hockey stick” plot, fails under close scrutiny. I think we could keep the climate forecasters more profitably occupied if we simply asked them to forecast ** next years climate **. That’s right – I’m a farmer in Iowa – please tell me if there will be a drought, too much rain, above average temperatures etc. during May – September 2007. If they tell me there will a drought then I won’t plant – it’ll save me a lot of money. The sad fact is that climetologists cannot provide a forecast like this with any useful accuracy – yet, it would seem to be a much ** easier ** problem that predicting global climate change 50 years from now. Initial conditions are known more precisely (heck you can use January 2007 as the initial condition if you want) and the forecast period is relatively short (5-6 months). Should be a piece of cake for people who are so sure that sea levels will rise by 5.721564 meters by 2100!
Or they could tell me if my coastal community will be hit by a hurricane…err…oops…they tried that already!
With regard to global warming, we’re having one of the warmest late Novembers in recentl memory — 7 straight days of high 50’s and low 60’s (63 forecast today). But it’s rural northeast Indiana, so in our case I think most of it can be attributed to cows farting, not humans.
Seriously, it is one of the most fun topics to debate with Liberals. It shows, more than any other issue, just what a glass-half-full mindset Liberalism is. They will seek out any evidence that calamity is just around the corner, and totally ignore any evidence to the contrary. Anthropogenic global warming is being debunked almost as fast as the theory is being advanced, but the alarmists are getting virtually all of the mainstream press. The condescending attitude of Libs on this issue is truly something to behold: anyone who doesn’t believe in the doomsday scenario is just stupid or ignorant, or both.
One of the best sites I’ve found for honest, well-researched posts on global warming is World Climate Report.
Archtop since AJ declared this an open thread and you debunked Al Bore then perhaps I can broach a subject that can be viewed as considered revelation or demented enough to gag a maggot depending on your view.
But hey, that is what debate is all about.
My premise is that socialism or communism or any similar ism is a self destructing engine responsible for it’s own demise.
Just for grins, let us assume AJ and his significant other are highly productive members of our society and attach the same label to you.
So if Aj and his other are properly rewarded for their contribution he and she achieve compensation at some multiple of the mean compensation of all striving to earn a living. You also being an achiever earn compensation at an above average rate.
As for me, I am the lowest of the low. I earn my keep as a professional day trader. I provide no product, no result at the end of a fixed term contract. I do not make directly widgets for the country to consume.
So lets take for example AJ makes 2 to 3 times the norm due to his good efforts. Assume you make a similar margin. Then lets make me the villain and assume I am at some higher multiple, especially with the view that I am so non productive.
Well then lets look at that socialist entitlement society that some wish to work for.
If you conclude that some are less than capable of earning their multiple and should be subsidized by those that exceed theirs this may work when first applied but like a population bomb it is doomed to overwhelm.
If some work , study and apply themselves and thru that accomplishment are awarded higher multiples and thus have to contribute to those of lower multiples it works in the initial short term but is self disposing in the long term.
After all despite our “overpayment” for our accomplishments we are now deemed to be the source of revenue to support those who somehow achieved less. The rub comes when even given our overcompensation ratios are used to raise up the lesser, how many of those can you, me and AJ contribute to support. Yes we can do our bit. Would it work magic for 3 families, 5, 8 , 10 or even 20. Who knows it is such an ill defined quantity. Eventually the drag of the transfer makes it a no win situation to achieve. Why do good in school, why go thru the higher education maze if all you get is to contribute to those who didn’t. Some could consider who is the wiser the person who achieved or the one who sat back and just racked in the dole.
The only way the system can work is if the extraction level of the doers is below the pain threshold. But clearly there is no way long term to assure that end. By simple growth of non producers there always will be the requirement of funding levels that will eventually exceed the pain level.
That is when the hard reality sets in. And the adjustments are never pretty.
Strata
Please stay on your area of expertise, Litvinenko-type
issues. Refrain kindly from posting on immigration wherein
you display a fashonably liberal escapism from reality.
Everyone is aware to most American “Anglos,” Miami has
a distinctly negatively exotic aura, what with its heavy
Hispanic and retired Northeastern amalgamation.
Tancredo’s attitude can help mobilize the Majority, which
doesn’t need polite minced words on the road to Balkanization
to lullabye it to sleep.
To racial and cultural egotists,
Words like “balkanization” and “amalgamization” of peoples betray an ignorant mind. I refer such victims of ignorance to “The Journey of Man” by geneticist, Spencer Wells.
Europhiles forget that they wandered into Europe from central Asia in the last 50,000 years or so.
Its in the DNA .
Gee Macker, I guess that means the violent fissure of Serb, Bosnian,
and Croat was just a fantasy for ignornat people. Better to prepare
Americans for reality which actually happens, that reality involving a cross-section of college-educated, and high school degreed, just like
in Yugoslavia.
I reccomend “Race and Evolution” by geneticist Phillipe Rushton as an answer to Wells.
Ken,
Weak reference. Mr. Rushton is not a geneticist, rather a psychologist. I’m familiar with the University of Western Ontario,and it’s a fine institution, but that doesn’t transfer to this man’s pseudo science.
Ignorance is one of the impediments to cultures getting along.
Macker
Life is not lived chiefly to “get along” which itself is a liberal
premise. Life is lived to be ones’ self,that imperative having
a mysterious as well as logical derivation, and that principal
applicable to groups working in concert as well as individuals.
Remember this…The global warming scientists are the same people who gave us the Alar in the apples scare. Before The Alar hysteria was exposd to be a calculated fraud, one of the national activists who was promoting the mass hysteria told me, “If you think what we did to the apples was bad, just wait till you see what we are going to do to the tomatoes. ” Thankfully when their Alar hoax was exposed they dropped the campaign to scare the wits out of people about the tomatoes. All of this begs an answer to one question…Why didn’t they capitalize on the recent E Coli in the Spinich tragedy. They could have milked that for a bunch of publicity and donations to save us all from the nasty………. Who were the nasties who contaminated the spinich?
Macker, are you engaging Ken tongue-in-cheek, or do you actually understand what he’s trying to say. I read his last comment several times and disected it word by word, and, as with the majority of his comments, I still haven’t the faintest idea what he’s trying to say. I think he’s trying to sound intellectual and failing badly. He sounds like a cross between Pat Buchanan with Noam Chomsky.
Retired Spook,
I’m betting that Ken believes in some kind of racial”purity.”
And his philosophy includes “being himself.” I guess I’m “not myself.” (said with a smile.)
Macker
You said “ignorance” keeps cultures from getting along. But I bet you believe Germany was chiefly responsible for starting World War
Two. Germans had the highest education of any European country
at the time.
But then it would be your “ignorance” which ascribed the chief
war guilt to Germany anyway, so I guess your exonerated…
halfway.
Ken,
Germans did, indeed, have high “education” levels. But they knew a lot that wasn’t true (ie racial superiority and myths of “fatherland”).
Any fair reading of history would ascribe “blame” to Germany and not to the WWI settlement or the misunderstanding of Germany’s need to invade its neighbors.
There are many, many well-read, educated, and articulate people who are ignorant, and worse. Jimmy Carter is one prime example, and someone who’s name begins with Ken …
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v05/v05p446_Stimely.html
Macker should read the works of App, Barnes , Irving and
AJP Taylor’s “Origins of the Second World War,” for
“fairer” readings of history.