Terrorists? What Terrorists?

The news over the weekend was freighting - a group of home-grown terrorists were planning to ignite the pipeline that feeds fuel to JFK airport. If things had gone as they hoped, the entire airport would have been destroyed as well as part of Queens. JFK was targeted in part because of its name. One of the plotters was quoted as saying, "If you hit that, the whole country will be in mourning. It's like you can kill the man twice."

A bit of reality - their plot would not have worked. There are safeguards to keep a fire from spreading through the pipeline. The most they could have actually accomplished would be to blow up a storage tank or two. That would have been significant but nothing compared to what they wanted to do. The real issue is the goals of the would-be terrorists. They wanted to cause more destruction than 9/11.

There is a logical disconnect in the left when it comes to terrorism. They don't believe it exists. This pattern has been repeated many times. When a group of people was arrested in Miami for planning to buy guns and start shooting people, the left insisted that they were just teenagers talking big (most of them were in the same age range as army recruits). When Britain announced a plot to blow up airplanes with binary explosives, the left insisted that there was never any danger and suggested that the Bush administration had made up the entire plot to distract people from the real news of the day - Ed Lamont winning a primary.

So how did the left react to this newest revelation? The New York Times buried the article on page 30. John Murtha insisted that the plot was inspired by Bush's invasion of Iraq and that no terrorist would every want to hurt Americans had it not been for Bush's war.

Posters at Huffington went further. David Goldstein picked up on a comment from the New York Times article, " off the record, a federal law-enforcement official admits that the suspect seemed more like a "sad old guy who's got a lot of spit and vinegar in him." but admitted that there might be something to it in which case it would be best left to the police. Nora Ephron went a step further, suggesting that there was never a plot int he first place. A paid informer invented it in order to keep getting paid.

The common thread here is that we don't need to worry about terrorists. Why? Because the real enemy is Bush, of course! Bush invented the War on Terror in order to distract us as he set up a fascist dictatorship. The distraction was so successful that we haven't noticed it. As an additional distraction, Bush allowed the Democrats to take over Congress (the Republicans control the voting machines so they must have manipulated the election) and, for some reason, they expect BusHitler to turn over power at the end of his term.

Like I said - a logical disconnect. They are too busy worrying about conspiracies that don't exist to acknowledge the real ones.

Confused About CO2

A lot of people are totally confused about what CO2 is. Take this example from Joseph Palermo writing on the Huffington Post:

I live in the heart of California's largest valley. On a clear day I can see the majestic snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada. But on brown, sooty, smoggy days I can't even see past the horizon. Luckily, the local news tells us when we're having a bad smog day so the elderly know they should stay indoors. Not far from my home is the intersection of four major freeways, a perennial haze hovers over the elevated concrete interchanges. On hot days you cannot roll down your car window or you'll be overcome by the CO2 entering your lungs.

Here is someone who has no idea what CO2 looks like or what makes up air pollution. Carbon Dioxide is colorless and tasteless. You can verify this for yourself - just exhale. Except for cold days when the moisture in your breath condenses, you cannot see your breath. You can smell components of it (last night's garlic pizza) but not the CO2.

What Palermo is describing is a combination of ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter (tiny specks). That's what makes up smog and what can be seen in large quantities.

It is not surprising that Palermo is confused. Al Gore and the news confused him. When they talk about CO2 emissions they show a graphic of a smokestack belching visible clouds. There might be some CO2 along with the smoke but you will never see it. But TV and PowerPoint presentations demand graphics so they show something visible.

For those who are not paying attention, this gives the impression that you can see the carbon dioxide building up.

As for being overcome by the CO2, that can't happen either, at least in the amounts found in California. You can test this one, also. Just breath into a paper bag for a while. It will not take long for the levels of CO2 in the bag to exceed anything found in California but you will not be overcome. You may calm down a bit. You might even cure the hiccups. If you put a tight plastic bag over your head you will eventually die, but from lack of oxygen, not from CO2.

So how can anyone have a rational conversation with Palermo when he misunderstands the basics?

Bush and Warming

President Bush revealed his new anti-global warming plan today. It involves talks between the top emitters, sharing technology, and allowing nations to set their own strategies. It is unlikely to go anywhere for a few reasons. A big one is that Bush is a lame duck and none of the Democratic challengers are going to support Bush's plan. A second reason is that most of the world prefers the Kyoto Protocols.

The world has good reason to prefer Kyoto. China and India get a pass on doing anything. That leaves the US to make the cuts. If we had signed it, we would be expected to make 60% of the cuts. We do not emit anything near 60% of the world's CO2 but we would have to shoulder the lion's share of the cuts.

That's why Congress voted unanimously (with a few abstentions) on a resolution warning President Clinton (this was long before Bush) not to even bother submitting the treaty.

Kyoto was flawed from the start. It was meant as a down payment on CO2 cuts with stricter cuts to follow. It is implemented through a cap and trade scheme which totally failed. Countries were asked how much CO2 their industry emitted and were issued credits for that much minus the cuts. In order to save themselves pain, most countries in Europe exaggerated how many credits they would need. As a result, no one needs any credits and the credit market collapsed.

Even if everything had gone as planned, the amount to be cut is meaningless. This is especially true since China and India are allowed to expand their emissions under the treaty.

Bush's proposal stands a good chance of actually making cuts in emissions. Kyoto will not. Guess which one will win?

Cindy Finally Get It

Cindy Sheehan celebrated Memorial Day by retiring from the anti-war movement. On her way out she posted a scathing rebuke to the Democrats. Her complaints include that they were mainly interested in her while she was attacking the Republicans. When she started doing the same to the Democrats they lost interest in her. She even noticed that the "Democratic Underground" is partisan.

No kidding. Cindy originally got attention when she camped out near Bush's farm. She was demanding that he meet with her and explain what grand reason her son Casey died for. The press gave her a lot of coverage and the left drooled over her. Here was someone who came across as an ordinary woman motivated by understandable outrage. Pundits announced that she had moral authority over the President. She quickly became the face of the anti-war movement.

Then the Summer ended. Camp Casey was dissolved. Cindy had served her purpose. She no longer had the press lining up to cover her.

Worse, her real politics came out. An old email surfaced indicating that she was anti-Israel and possibly anti-semitic. She started hugging anyone who was anti-Bush including neo-communist Hugo Chavez. By this point she was no longer someone who helped the Democrats.

Then the Democrats took over Congress. This is where they broke completely with Cindy. She is anti-war. They are against "Bush's war" but they also have to look at the bigger picture. If they pass an immediate surrender resolution they will lose a lot of support.

The surprising thing is that it took until now for Cindy to recognize all of this.

Plus, Cindy discovered that the anti-war movement is as much about personalities as anything. Again, this is true of any ideological movement.

It is probably a measure of Cindy's devotion to her cause that she managed to ignore reality as long as she did.

This, along with the recent compromise on the emergency funding bill, is good news for President Bush. For the last three years the anti-war movement made common cause with the Democrats on the basis of Bush hatred. Now that is no longer enough. The anti-war Democrats are not strong enough to force an end to the war. The anti-war people cannot forgive them for this. The anti-war movement is collapsing on itself. That makes Bush stronger.

Possibly it will give him enough time to actually win the war, or at least make enough progress as to make withdrawal undesirable.

A Free Press?

There were protests this weekend in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez pulled the broadcasting license from the nation's most popular TV station because it consistently spoke against him.

The Senate Foreign Relations committee has passed a resolution condemning this action and, to their credit, both senators Clinton and Obama voted for it.

One wonders how the senators feel about freedom of the press in their own country? For some time the Democrats have been hoping to revive the Fairness Doctrine. This required that equal time be given to both political sides. Under this, a radio station could lose its license for carrying Rush Limbaugh unless it also carried an equal number of hours of Air America programming.

Liberals say that this is needed to bring balance back to AM radio. At least, that's what they say in public. In private they call this the Flush Rush Act and admit that their aim is to break up a conservative power base.

How is this different from the actions of Hugo Chavez? In both cases, a political party is taking action against broadcasters for giving a voice to the opposition. Granted, the Fairness Doctrine has not actually passed yet and is not likely to survive a presidential veto. On the other hand, if the Democrats take the White House and hold onto Congress then this measure is a near certainty which brings us back to Chavez.

They should think twice, maybe three times, before foisting this on the public. As the Heritage Foundation points out, the original Fairness Doctrine was used by both sides to silence their opponents. Neither side should be trusted with this much power. It is too likely to be abused.

Olbermann Over the Top

MSNBC Countdown's Keith Olbermann is easily outraged. When this happens he does a special commentary, often with bits of spittle flying from his mouth and often containing the words, "How dare you?" A few weeks ago he launched one of these at Condi Rice after she made a Nazi reference to Saddam Husein. Olbermann pointed out that Iraq was no Nazi Germany. Ok, Condi's off-the-cuff statement was a bit of a stretch although not on the scale Olbermann would have it.

Dr. Rice spoke 42 words. She may have made more mistakes in them, than did the President in his State of the Union Address in 2003.

There is, obviously, no mistaking Saddam Hussein for a human being, but nor is there any mistaking him for Adolf Hitler.

Invoking the German dictator who subjugated Europe; who tried to annihilate the Jews; who sought to overtake the World -- is not just in the poorest of taste, but in its hyperbole, it insults not merely the victims of the Third Reich, but those in this country who fought it. And, defeated it.

Saddam Hussein… was not Adolf Hitler.

More recently he wrote about Congress's compromise on the emergency funding resolution for the troops in Iraq. After more than three months of posturing, Congress passed a measure that does not end the war. Everyone should have seen this coming from the beginning. Bush made it clear that he would not accept any bill that set a timetable for withdrawing the troops and the anti-war Democrats do ot have enough votes to override a veto. Congress only had three possible resolutions - continue to stall and be accused of abandoning the troops, refusing to pass legislation without a demand for withdrawal (which again would open them to accusations of abandoning the troops) or to pass the law that Bush asked for from the beginning.

Olberman must have seen this but instead he did a commentary accusing the entire government of betraying the American people.

The interesting part is here:

"We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame," Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich accords with Germany in 1938. "My feeling is that we shall choose shame, and then have war thrown in, a little later…"

That's what this is for the Democrats, isn't it?

Their "Neville Chamberlain moment" before the Second World War.
All that's missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee "peace in our time," but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.
The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.
Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impugnity.

If I read this right, Olbermann is saying that the deal with Bush is comparable to Chamberlain's agreement with Hitler.

I could launch into a "Mr. Olbermann, how dare you?" but the whole Bush/Hitler thing is so widespread that he isn't the slightest bit original. A poster of Bush as Hitler poster was hanging in a BBC newsroom for months.

Never the less, Olbermann's objections to Condi apply to Olbermann himself. Saddam killed thousands of political opponents, some with poison gas and  killed millions more in his war with Iran. Bush has  He openly admired and emulated Hitler. If it is an insult to compare Saddam to Hitler then how can Olbermann compare Bush with Hitler?

It's not all about Bush

Jimmy Carter recently claimed that Bush was the worst president ever, in part because of international relations. Obama is insisting that he is the person to rebuild the international trust that Bush shattered. The rest of the Democratic candidates are saying similar things.

But is there anything to all of this? Not really, for several reasons.

When liberals talk about international relations, they usually mean two countries - France and Germany. Interestingly, both France and Germany have changed governments and now have more US-friendly people in charge. This was especially true in France where the opposition labeled Sarkozy as the "American" in order to discredit him. Instead, he embraced the title.

Canada changed governments a couple of years ago and went from anti-US to pro-US. In their last elections, both Britain's Blair and Australia's Howard had to run in elections that were seen as referendums on their pro-US and pro-Iraq war policies. Both won.

Even China has warmed since Bush took office in 2001.

So what's going on?

Some of this is a failure to distinguish between anti-American rhetoric and actual policies. The US is too big for the rest of the world to go off in a snit.

Some of it was France's Jaque Chirac. He dreamed of elevating a French-dominated Europe as a counter-weight to America's status as the world's only remaining super-power. This started years before Bush came to office.

Then there is the Kyoto treaty. Supposedly we lost the respect of the world when we failed to ratify the treaty. The fact that it was never submitted under Clinton is always overlooked and Clinton is never criticized.  Everything is laid at Bush's doorstep.

A common complaint is that we had the world's sympathy on 9/11 but lost it because of Bush. Again, this is untrue and unfair. Yes, the world was shocked and expressed sympathy for the US (except for groups like the Palestinians who were shown dancing in the street). This didn't really change anything. Within days, most of the world had returned to normal.

The problem is a side-effect of the well-documented Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). People suffering from BDS tend to view the entire world as fellow-sufferers. Since Bush drives them crazy in general and the war in Iraq makes them particularly loony, they assume that this reflects the rest of the world's priorities.

The MSM which as a profession is heavily infected with BDS tends to slant coverage on foreign nations to match their expectations. This is reinforced by foreign intellectuals who, like their domestic brethren, do despise Bush. As the elections I quoted make clear, this attitude is not shared by the majority of the population, at least not enough to tip an election.

The point is that not everything is about Bush or Iraq. The Democratic candidates think that all they have to do for foreign policy is to not be Bush. If one of them wins, he will be in for a surprise. The rest of the world may dislike Bush's Iraq war but they strongly prefer his trade policies to anything the Democrats are floating.

Worst President?

Last week Jimmy Carter suggested that George Bush is the worst president. This is ironic when Carter's own administration is examined.

Carter is best remembered for the peace he negotiated between Israel and Egypt. While this was significant, he was the least important of the three involved. Also, the peace has held to the extent that no Egyptian tanks have tried to invade Israel but most of the violence in Gaza is committed with arms smuggled in from Egypt, a fact that the Egyptian government does little to stop.

What else happened in the world during 1977-1980? Three million people died in Cambodia. South America became generally unstable due to communist rebels and coups. Many of these were inspired by Catholic missionaries who taught "liberation theology". This held that Christ was the first Marxist and that his talk if heaven was actually a call to create a secular heaven on earth through communist revolution. Carter did nothing to stop any of this.

Then there were two events whose repercussions are still with us. The first was the Iranian revolution. This was in two parts. The first part overthrew the Shah and created a democratic government. This was in 1978. In January, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini announced that he was returning to Iran. The new government ordered the army to stop him but, at Carter's insistence, Khomeini was allowed in the following month. The democratic government collapsed immediately and the current theocratic government was created. In a few months and with Carter's encouragement, Iran went from a pro-US government to an anti-US one.

A major news story over the weekend was about violence between the groups Fatah and Hamas. Violence between the PLO and Hamas has been going on in Gaza for the last few weeks, also. This is relevant because Hamas was created and is funded by Iran

Then there was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Carter's only response to this was to boycott the Moscow Olympics and to cancel a said of grain to the USSR (which hurt US farmers more than the Russian army). The invasion of Afghanistan started a chain of events that led directly to 9/11. Many liberals have tried to blame President Reagan for supporting the Islamic groups that eventually created the Taliban but Carter was the first to aid them.

No discussion of the Carter years would be complete without mentioning the US economy. Inflation was the highest in my lifetime - around 12% annual with monthly surges of 1.5% (18% annual). Inflation has been below 3% for so long that people forget how devastating high inflation can be to a lifetime's savings. Productivity was at a low point and unemployment was high.

It is hard to think of a president who had so many failures during his administration and whose successes have been so mixed. Carter's current reputation as the best ex-president comes mainly from his work building houses for Habitat for Humanity. His recent book "Peace not Apartheid" and his recent comments about Bush show that the years have not increased his understanding of world affairs.

Jamestown and Christianity

I did a Google News search on Jamestown a couple of days ago and I ran across a complaint about the festivities (actually there were several but most were from Native Americans). This site WorldNetDaily complained that President Bush had ignored Christianity in his speech about Jamestown.

A friend of mine refers to some people as "perpetually outraged". These people are already upset over something and spend their time looking for justification. WorldNetDaily spends time and energy looking for slights to Christianity.

This is a case where there is no slight. Jamestown was founded by private investors with the goal of making money. Along the way they were given a list of goals including spreading Christianity (specifically the Church of England) but this was not a priority nor was it practiced until years after the colony was founded.

This does not mean that the colonists were not religious. They were. Their first act when they reached the Chesapeake was to plant a large cross. Shortly after deciding on Jamestown Island, they constructed a make-shift church from a large piece of canvas which they held a service in. Short services were held daily and long services were held on Sunday. There were harsh penalties for missing a service.

Despite these actions, they were slow to try to convert the Indians. When some natives asked why they had nailed a cross to a tree (it was meant to mark the English territory) they told an outrageous fiction about the arms of the cross symbolizing the meeting of the two cultures.

Because the best-known colonists were the Pilgrims, there is a tendency to see all English colonists as extensions of that group. Even the Pilgrims were not as religious as is often believed. Only half of the Mayflower passengers were Separatists. The rest were Church of England people who wanted to seek their fortune in America. The Pilgrims never made a serious attempt to convert the Indians. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay did include an Indian school as part of Harvard which was to teach interested Indians about Christianity.

Like the New England colonies, Maryland was founded on a religious basis but it was intended to be a refuge for English Catholics.

The French were probably the most serious about bringing Christianity to America (rather than just bringing Christians). Catholic missionaries were given control of the fur trade through the 1660s. They used this to finance a series of missions. Other missionaries branched out from the missions.

Even here, there is a little question about motives. Many of the missionaries were hoping to become martyrs. One sure way of doing this was to be killed while spreading the word of God. This led some of them to take great risks, often meeting a grisly end.

In the meantime, the English at Jamestown were more likely to display Indians than convert them.

America at 400

400 years ago a group of Englishmen on three small ships were looking for a place to settle. On the 13th they settled on a swampy but defensible island and started building a fort. The settlement was originally called James Fort but as it grew the name was changed to James City or Jamestown.

Our government is a direct result of this settlement.

It is unfashionable today to speak of American exceptionalism. According to modern multicultural thought, no nation is better than any other and anyone who says otherwise is a nationalist which is first cousin to being a racist.

I don't accept this. I think that America is unique and is better in most ways than other countries. A lot of this comes from our unique heritage.

When the English landed in 1607 they had no concept of religious freedom, freedom of speech, or the other freedoms that make upp the Bill of Rights. They didn't come here to found a new nation or even for religious freedom. They came here to make money.

At first they didn't The colony lost money for years. By the time John Rolf bred a form of tobacco that would grow in Virginia but was mild enough to smoke, the King had revoked the charter and made it a royal colony.

While John Smith and Pocohontas make a good story, nether was around very long. In fact, most of the colonists died within months of when they arrived. Those who did come usually sold themselves as indentured servants for seven years to pay for their passage. Once that period was worked off, they often had to sign up for another seven years in order to earn land.

By the 1650s, the urge to leave England for new lands had passed. Virginia needed a constant supply of new farmhands so they started importng them from Africa. Within a couple of decades there were so many Africans that it started to change the ethnic balance. To keep the status quo, they stopped treating the Africans as servants and kept them as slaves.

Through all of this, they still thought of themselves as English and stayed current on English thought.

By the 1770s several new ideas were popular in England. A big one was that the government should be responsive to the people. The colonies learned from England's mistakes as well as its successes. Freedom of speech, religion, press, and assembly were considered fundamental rights.

Our government reflects the structure of the English government as it existed in the 18th century. Where it had a king and two strong houses of Parliament, we set up a president and two houses of Congress. We also added a separate judiciary.

In many ways I think that our system is better than when the English system evolved into. At its best, the parliamentary system gives a great deal of power to a single ruling party. At its worst, there is no ruling party, just a weak coalition government. Our separation of the White House and Congress  smooths over a lot of the lurches back and forth that the parliamentary system is subject to. In fact, our electorate seems to prefer dividing power between the parties.The Democrats held the House for most of the  20th century while the Republicans held the White House most of the time following FDR. The Senate has shifted back and forth several times.

The American system has avoided or minimized many of the problems that have crippled the rest of the world. Our version of the European social contract may seem harsher but the economy it produced is the envy of the world. Corruption in the US is minor and punished when found. In most of the world, it is the way things are done. Up until the last decade, we assimilated our immigrants and we continue to do a better job at it than Europe.

Slavery may have been a stain on American history but we ended it a century and a half ago. It continues on many countries to this day. Other nations may decry American racism but many of them have a permanent underclass.

The English, dying of hunger and foreign disease 400 years ago had no idea that their sacrifice would eventually build something the world had not seen before.

Why I Don't Trust the IPCC

I was reading a new climate blog hosted by Nature Magazine. One of the early entries is about examination of the Hockey Stick. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in the process of releasing their fourth assessment report. The Hockey Stick was the center piece of their third report.

I started studying history, especially 17th century history, in detail in the 1980s and I was rather surprised to find out how variable climate has been. The world was in a warm state a thousand years ago. Starting around 1400, a long-term cooling period began. Known as the Little Ice Age, it lasted into the middle of the 19th century.

This is one reason that I have always been very skeptical about global warming. It isn't proving much to say that the world is the warmest now that it has been in the last 600 years if most of that period was colder than normal. It is like becoming alarmed because July is so much hotter than the previous six months.

Then the IPCC released their 3rd assessment report with the Hockey Stick. According to the new figuring, the Little Ice Age was just a localized phenomena limited to the northern Atlantic. When considered on a global perspective, it faded into the background. According to the new figures, the world's climate was amazingly stable until industry ramped up in the mid-19th century. After that, the world's temperature rose like the blade on a hockey stick.

Global warming was proved by the Hockey Stick. The IPCC was so impressed with their new graph that they featured it on the cover of their report and even on their letter head.

But people started questioning the hockey stick. Where had it come from and how did it go from obscurity to icon in a few months? Who did the peer review on it? What about conflicting evidence?

For a time these questions had to be asked quietly because no one would publish them. Finally the dam broke and the detractors had their say.

It turned out that the hockey stick was basically someone's doctoral thesis (specifically Michael Mann). It was never given a vigorous peer review. It was simply adopted.

The IPCC has stopped using the hockey stick as a symbol. Their newest assessment now uses a blended temperature chart.

The IPCC gains some of their credibility from their association with the UN but most of it comes from its reputation as a gathering of scientists interested in truth. The sad truth is that they are just people. While scientific method is supposed to provide a buffer to keep personal opinion from coloring results, it has to be applied.

When Mann presented his temperature reconstruction to the IPCC, they were so enchanted by the results that they didn't stop to check it. They needed it to be true and it confirmed their prior beliefs so they gave it a cursory check and made it their centerpiece.

This leads to the big question - how often have they done the same thing with other studies? How often have they accepted work that verified their mission or rejected something at odds with their pre-defined results?

The thing about trust is that once you know it has been abused, you are less likely to trust again. That's my position on the IPCC.

Campaign Coverage

The Democrats running for president seem to be getting a lot more coverage than the Republicans. I'm not just talking about coverage generated by their first debate. That is understandable. It's that they are getting more coverage in general.

I'm depending on a summary of wire-service reports on MyWay and on MSNBC and things might be different on other news sources but I don't think so. This fits previous patterns.

In the last few days there have been featured stories about Barack and Clinton, both criticizing Bush. Biden got a story on Iraq. There was also a story about McCain trying to convince a Republican convention that he really is conservative. In addition, Keith Olbermann posted one of his scathing "how dare you sir?" editorials about a speech that Giuliani gave. I didn't see the speech itself covered. If it was, it scrolled off of MSNBC's headlines a long time before Olbermann's editorial did.

Keep in mind that there are more Republicans than Democrats running. They are out there making speeches. They just aren't getting any coverage.

Why? The normal reason given is that Republicans are so orderly that there is little to cover compared to the raucous Democratic primaries. This isn't the real reason but it is what reporters tell us when asked.

There are a several factors that really affect coverage.

The first is that reporters prefer covering Democrats. They are Democrats themselves and they are interested in who they will be voting for, November 2008. This is not only true for the reporters covering the Democrats but also for the editors who decide which stories will get links, and, for that matter, which stories are even posted.

Then there is the assumption that the Democrats will win so the Republicans are just going through the motions. The assumption is that the 2006 election represented a permanent shift in voting patterns (or at least one that will last through 2008). Ohio is considered especially important. All the Democrat needs to do is win the states Kerry won plus Ohio to win the White House. Since Democrats won the Governor's office and a Senate seat, the assumption is that Ohio will go to the Democrat.

The final reason is that editors like the message that the Democrats are giving. They are criticizing Bush. Few reporters or editors like Bush. It is against editorial ethics to directly criticize the President day after day except in the editorial pages but they can get around this by quoting someone else as criticizing Bush. In fact, unless the candidates spend their entire speeches attacking Bush, the reporters and editors are going out of their way to pull anti-Bush quotes.

So does this matter? Yes. This is the first open election in my lifetime (unless you count Hillary as being a continuation of Bill's presidency). By over-covering one side, it gives the Democrats an aura of inevitability.

The big question is if a Democratic victory is really inevitable? Not according to the polls. Several polls have Republican front-runner Giuliani beating both Hillary and Barack. In fact, as things stand right now, he has a good shot at willing both Ohio and picking up Pennsylvania.

This means that fair coverage is important. The election is not a forgone conclusion. Not that this will make any difference to the MSM.

The good thing here is that the press might over-cover the Democrats. The Republican candidate may well seem fresh by the time the nomination is settled.

Surrendering for Votes

A few days ago I expressed the opinion that the electorate will turn against the Democrats if they are seen as surrendering in Iraq. The next day I saw a poll that showed around 57% of the population does support a quick pullout from Iraq. I also saw a quote indicating that Senate Majority Leader Reid's private pollster had come up with similar numbers.

That explains why Reid has done such a turn-around. Not long ago he was assuring people that he was not pushing for an immediate pull-out (there's no other way to describe a pull-out that starts in five months).

I still think that the Democrats will regret this and that they will regret it even more if they prevail. There were similar conditions in the early 1970s. A Democratic Congress acted against an unpopular president and cut funding for an unpopular war. There were loud voices insisting that our presence was only making things worse and that a pull-out would bring peace.

Things didn't work out so well in Viet Nam. The short-lived peace turned into slaughter. Many anti-war activists apologized for their part in ending the war.

But that's just stuff that happened to foreigners. Liberals have a long history of ignoring atrocities committed by communists. More important (to the Democrats), the American electorate lost faith in their ability to lead in a crisis. From the 1980s through the 2004 election they kept asking why the voters didn't trust them in a war. The simple answer is that they don't believe in war. They think that everything can be solved through "continuing dialogs", addressing "root problems" and, as a last resort, using law enforcement. Many liberals insisted at the time that the reaction to 9/11 should have been a law enforcement issue. More of them insist that now. It is the accepted opinion of the left that 9/11 was hardly worth noticing and that Bush seized on an excuse to implement his authoritarian (some call it fascist) agenda.

So, if we pull out in October, 2007 or January, 2009 and things get worse in Iraq, who is the public going to blame?

Several events are likely. Iraq will erupt into a full-fledged civil war; Iran and possibly Syria and Turkey will get involved and annex portions of Iraq; and things will get worse in Afghanistan - a lot worse. The Taliban will know for certain that they can win against America if they just keep the casualty count high enough.

All future wars will be tougher, also. Right now we are trying to prove that Viet Nam was the exception and that Americans are tough enough to win an occupancy. Failure in Iraq will prove that a small force that fights dirty enough can always outlast Americans.

And the public will blame the Democrats. They may win the presidency and increase their majority in Congress in 2008 but it will catch up with them soon enough and it will stick for decades.

Dropping the F-Word

No - not THAT F-word. I mean Fascist. Naomi Wolf thinks that America had a fascist takeover but somehow she's the only one to notice.

Her proof? She starts out with this list:

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody. hey were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

I have yet to see armed soldiers in my neighborhood, the press is still firmly in private (and anti-Bush hands), etc. Regardless, she goes on to give a ten-point list of things that have happened in America. I'm not going to copy the whole column, just points:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger; of course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey the nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain - which has also suffered violent terrorist attacks - than it is in America.

Her logic here is strained. She admits that there is a threat but she ignores that the US is the designated enemy of Islamic terrorists. Spain thought that they were too small to be a target then assumed that they were immune because they changed governments. America does not have that luxury. We have been a target since the 1980s, across four presidents. As with many liberals, Wolf pretends that all we have to do is dump Bush and Israel and the terrorists will love us. Any language to the contrary is fascist.

2. Create a gulag
Name a war in the last 200 years that didn't have some place to keep POWs. With a very few exceptions, the people in the prisons she lists are foreign combatants caught under arms. No, we are not granting them the full rights of Americans in court. This is an impossibility with POWs. They have been held for years without a hearing because liberals held the hearings up in court.

What we do not have is a system of prisons for holding political dissidents. If we did then there wouldn't be anyone left to spew venom on Kos.

3. Develop a thug caste
Most of this point is just silly. Near the end it gets outright offensive.

Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000.

There were a lot of questions about how the Gore people conducted the recount. Bush supporters staged a demonstration against this and Wolf inflates this into brownshirts. Contrast this with the people on the left who think it is ok to trash a city for daring to host a meeting of the WTO.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system
We are at war in several different ways. Surveillance to look for terrorists is not the same as snooping on political foes.

5. Harass citizens' groups
The IRS was actively used to harass the Clintons' political enemies. Wolf gives a few isolated examples that happened under Bush. If this is fascism then it got better when Bush took office.

She also complains about protest groups being infiltrated. Considering how many protests are organized by communist-affiliated groups and the level of rhetoric, I hope that the government is keeping an eye on these people. This is nothing new nor is it unique to America. All governments keep potentially violent groups under surveillance.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
The TSA's watch list needs reform but it's a long way from the arbitrary arrests she describes in actual fascist countries.

7. Target key individuals
She doesn't have much to offer here. Academia actively represses conservatives. An independent conservative movement to bring balance is misrepresented. A few other examples are given but not accurately.

8. Control the press
Obviously she has not read the New York Times or watched Olberman on MSNBC or watched any network news.

9. Dissent equals treason
She goes out on a limb here. The President has the authority to declare citizens enemy combatants. From there they still get a trial. She is sure that this will change. Her proof? Well.. she's really sure.

10. Suspend the rule of law
One of the reasons that it took too long for aid to reach Louisiana after Katrina was the difficulty in declaring martial law. The response to that is given as evidence of a fascist takeover.

All of this is a example of the well-documented Bush Derangement Syndrome. The left is sure that Bush is evil. After the 2004 election they insisted that the Republicans had taken over the elections and that they would never allow the Democrats to win again. That was forgotten after the 2006 election.

Wolf could have made the same case against Clinton. The left was sure that Reagan was going to take over the government to say nothing of Nixon's planned coup.

There will be a new president elected in 2008. Bush will leave office quietly in 2009 and a new set of conspiracy theories will start.

Democrats Gone Wild

As I have pointed out before, the Democrats ran their 2006 congressional campaign on "a new direction in Iraq" and fiscal responsibility. Between the election and taking office, Speaker-elect Pelosi promised that she would keep a lid on direct attacks on the President. The goal was to show that the Democrats are ready to govern the country.

Less than five months after they assumed control of Congress and things are a mess. Committees are investigating the Attorney General and now one is investigating the claim that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake. uranium and is planning to subpoena Secretary of State Rice.

Articles of impeachment  of both the President and the Vice-President are being prepared.

On Iraq, the House originally tried to appear fair by giving Bush a year and a half to stabilize Iraq before withdrawing the troops. The Senate called for a less-than-reasonable 12 months. The compromise calls for a pull-out starting in five months and ending in 11.

In order to pass the Iraq deadline, the Democrats abandoned all pretense of fiscal restraint.

Speaker Pelosi herself went to Syria to offer a "Democratic-alternative foreign policy".

This will end badly for the Democrats. They are paying too much attention to Bush's approval rating and not enough to their own. While Bush's ratings are low, there is nothing to indicate that the country is thrilled with the job that the Democrats are doing, either.

Congress is considering a bill co-sponsored by Barack Obama that would allow people to sue for comparable worth.

Here's where they are going wrong:

They may yet get the head of the Attorney General, but their investigation into the yellowcake claim is futile. The British already investigated this and found that there was credible reason to assume that Saddam tried to purchase some. Even Ambassador Wilson admitted this when under oath.

The Democrats  may have enough votes for impeachment but they are a long way from enough for a conviction. They have no cause except spite and too many years of listening to their own propaganda. The attempt to impeach Clinton helped him and made the Republicans look petty. It is unlikely that this will come out any better.

Republicans are starting to quote troops in the field as saying that Congress's antics hurt them. The Democrats in Congress are unwilling to get progress report from the generals in charge. They are leaving themselves wide open to the charge that they cannot be trusted with the nation's security. I suspect that many Democrats are supporting the five month pull-out because they know it will will be vetoed and they need to satisfy MoveOn. There is no way to interpret the five-month pull-out as anything but a non-binding surrender by Congress.

Foreign policy is set by the President and the State Department. The House has no say at all in the process.

Finally, comparable worth never gained traction when feminists first pushed it. The idea of having a trial judge set your pay strikes at the heart of free-enterprise. Even most feminists gave up on it as study after study proved that women make less because they value other employment factors over pay.

I will be very surprised if any of this goes anywhere. Most likely it will turn into a train crash that the Republicans can use in 2008.

I wonder if Karl Rove is behind it?

Sheryl's "Joke"

Last week Sheryl Crow suggested that one piece of toilet paper should be enough.

Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.

Her little suggestion got world-wide coverage. Now she says that it was just a joke.

Was it? Granted it was inane but so was everything else she posted during her tour. Maybe the whole thing was a joke?

Then there was the run-in with Karl Rove.

Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow?

Obviously he read Sheryl's blog and was concerned about what else that hand had touched.

There is a certain irony in Sheryl and Laurie's encounter with Rove. Early in the tour Laurie was upset that someone dared to question her view of reality yet she does not allow anyone else the same privilege. After all, she produced An Inconvenient Truth in which Al Gore declared that the discussion is closed. As is Laurie's mind.

Or maybe they were having another joke.

Who to Blame?

The normal human response to a tragedy such as last week's shootings at Virginia Tech is to find someone to blame. A lot of criticism was directed at the school administrators for not going into lock-down immediately. Given that it first appeared to be a simple domestic dispute with the wrong assumed suspect, there was little reason for a lock-down. It is also questionable how much good an earlier email would have done.

Video games were quickly blamed for inciting Cho to violence. This is unlikely as he did not seem to even own a game console.

Easy access to guns has been given as a reason. There are several problems with that. Last week was the anniversary of two other major tragedies - Columbine when two students tried to explode a bomb in a lunchroom and Oklahoma City where a crazed person did explode a bomb. Clearly someone who is bent on murder does not need firearms.

One part of the debate has been glossed over when talking about Cho's background. Over a year ago he was declared a danger to himself and others which should have disqualified him from firearms purchases. The part that no one seems to be talking about is that he could not be held because of how difficult it is to institutionalize someone involuntarily. If Cho had been locked up and getting treatment then he could not have killed anyone. This should be part of the national dialog but is not.

Everyone who knew him talks about how quiet he was. After hearing the videos he sent to NBC I can see why. He was ashamed of his thick Korean accent. Some accounts say that kids used to make fun of this. Clearly this was a major factor.

This raises a new set of questions. Cho came to America at the age of eight. Why didn't he speak better English? I know someone whose parents only spoke Chinese. He entered Kindergarten without knowing a word of English but when I met him as an adult he had no accent. Possibly Cho was enrolled in a Korean-language class for years and only learned English later.

Drudge put a copy of one of Cho's plays on-line. It is very disturbing. A well-meaning but not too smart Dick McBurger is trying to make peace with his step-son. The step-son accuses McBurger of awful things until Dick finally kills the step-son.

As far as I know, Cho was not adopted so where did the issues with an adopted father come from? My guess is that Dick McBurger was symbolic of Cho's adopted country. Seen in this light, Cho was predicting his own death by his adopted "father".

When all is said and done, the responsibility rests with Cho. Lots of people had a tough childhood without resorting to murder. It is not satisfying for the rest of us. We want someone to punish but the person really at fault is dead by his own hand.

Can Climate Change be Predicted?

Most of the case for global warming comes from computer models. The question is, if computer models have trouble predicting the weather a week from now then can they predict the climate fifty years from now?

RealClimate has an answer to this here. This is an influential climate blog. Al Gore recommends it and it has a relationship with Michael Mann, the creator of the Hockey Stick paleo-temperature reconstruction.

To summarize what RealClimate says, weather prediction is hard but climate is easy. Summer and winter are predictable. You can predict that it is cooler at high altitudes. Some local areas have distinct climates such as Northern Europe. Also, the greenhouse effect is demonstrable and carbon dioxide is known to absorb heat.

So - case closed? Not in the least. Yes, the seasons are predictable but this is nothing but statistical averaging. It is not a model that uses all known factors and computes the climate. It is not testable - you cannot roll it forward and backward and compare it to actual measurements (because that's all it is). And you cannot predict change with a statistical average.

It is also possible to predict the same climate using an invalid model. In the Middle Ages philosophers spent a lot of effort computing how the world worked but they started with the assumption that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

For that matter, a 10-year-old could make the same predictions based on nothing but his own experience.

What RealClimate was trying to say and many of the comments say is that local weather is subject to too many random fluctuations to be reliably predictable but these tend to cancel each other out when figured over a large enough area (a hemisphere for example). This allows a simplification in climate models so that it can be reduced to basic forcings. Since CO2 is a forcing, all we have to do is add in the heat gain from additional CO2 and we have the future climate.

Is this true? No. If it was then temperatures for the 20th century would show a smooth climb. Instead there is a climb through the 1930s, a dip that lasted into the 1970s, and a climb again.

The truth is that there are significant unknowns. Not all forcings are known nor is their effect. There are a numerous substances being released into the atmosphere constantly, both from nature and human-derived. These have different effects, some canceling out others.

There are also natural rhythms that are not well-understood. Both the Atlantic and Pacific have multi-decadal oscillations that warm and cool the oceans. El Nino and la Nina cycles are not at all understood but have a major effect. The effects of solar variations may be underestimated.

Then there are what Donald Rumsfeld called "unknown unknowns". If you push a car down a hill and measure it's speed over the first hundred feet you will see it accelerating. From this you would conclude that it would continue to accelerate. In fact, the faster the car goes the more friction is generated. Eventually the friction balances the acceleration and it reaches a stable speed... until you run out of hill.

Unless the driver pops the clutch and the engine starts, speeding the car up even more.

Water vapor and the effect of clouds are the unknown unknowns here. Global warming theory holds that as temperature increases, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere will increase until it reaches a tipping point. This would be equivalent to popping the clutch. Or it might cause more clouds, trapping even more heat which would also correspond to popping the clutch.

On the other hand, more clouds might reflect heat, stabilizing the temperature, corresponding to friction.

Or there might be other warming factors that have not yet been discovered but are subject to cycles. That would be running out of hill.

So, climate projection is possible if you know all of the forcings but impossible if you don't.

Do we know all of the forcings? No. That's where being able to roll the models forward and backward is important. If the models are accurate then they will match historic climate. They don't. The programmers have never solved this. They have forced their models to match the real world but that means that there is no guarantee that they will continue to match when predicting the future.

Missing From the News

Yesterday while we were waiting for word about who the Virginia Tech shooter was, my wife mentioned that he was Asian. "What?" I asked. I had just read an updated wire service account and it said nothing nothing about his ethnicity.

It turns out that this was suppressed. The Asian American Journalists Association issued this advisory:

As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people.

They are wrong about the race and ethnicity not having anything to do with the story. I'm sure that many people's first thought was that this was the work of a terrorists. The fact that the authorities withheld any information for so long gave the impression that something was being covered up. It's happened before. At least three Moslems have either attempted or succeeded in mass murder in the last few years. In these cases, the authorities have downplayed the attacker's religion until it was determined that he was "not a terrorist" (defined as not being affiliated with terrorist groups).

Those people who didn't assume that the shooter was a terrorist probably assumed that he was a white guy. By suppressing the actual ethnicity of the shooter, the AAJA temporarily reinforced the stereotype that he was white. Thanks AAJA.

Of course the truth came out this morning. The shooter was Korean.

A different bit of news that has been dropped is so subtle that you probably didn't even notice it. Which party does New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine belong to? This is normally given any time a politician is in the news with one exception - it is dropped when a Democrat does something that might reflect poorly on the party. Just try to find a reference to Corzine's party in a news account. Now, do you think that this would be dropped if it had been a Republican governor?

So, yes, it was relevant.

Columbine Revisited

We don't know enough about the awful slaughter at Virginia Tech to make any intelligent conclusions. At this point we don't even know the name of the murderer. Regardless of this, the left is already calling for a new round of gun control.

Since we don't know much about Virginia Tech, I'm going to review the last major school shooting which happened eight years ago at Columbine.

Most people haven't bothered to read the sheriff's final report report on the tragedy. I have and what transpired is not what was planned.

The two killers wanted to go out with a big splash, taking as many people as possible with them. Their original plan was to hijack an airplane and crash it into a tall building (and this was years before 9/11/2001). They gave up on this as impractical and decided to blow up their school instead.

They built a bomb out of a propane tank and hid it in the cafeteria. They carefully timed lunch periods in order to figure out when the room would have the most people in it - over 1,000. The library was on the next floor and the bomb was likely to cave in the ceiling, killing or injuring people there, also.

They set their bomb and waited. They planned on killing as many survivors as they could with their guns and pipe bombs. They even set off a bomb on the other side of town in order to lure the police away.

Fortunately, their bomb failed to go off. After giving it some extra time, they decided to trigger it manually. This is when they entered the school and killed people they encountered. They barricaded themselves in the cafeteria and tried to set off the bomb. Failing that, they finally killed themselves. While the final result was terrible, what they had planned was 100 times worse.

The lesson here is that these guys wanted to kill themselves and as many others as possible. Guns were not their primary weapon.

The only similarity I can see with Virginia Tech is a marbid determination to kill people before dying. While this killer depended on guns, without them he might have resorted to bombs or other lethal weapons.

Who Cares More?

After some setbacks on their attempts to end the war, Democrats are aking a new que from John Murtha - caring for the troops. Specifically, they care about troops who are about to be deployed. They care about them so much they want to stop deployment.

The way this works is to announce that the troops in question are not properly trained or equipped. Murtha posted on Huffington a few days ago and his comments are being echoed by other caring, responsible Democrats (AKA partisan hacks). Ohio's new governor Strickland and new senator Brown quickly joined in the chorus (joined by Ohio's nanny-in-chief, Voinovich who might be worried about keeping his job).

How serious are these concerns? he equipment part is nothing but a smokescreen. It is true that many units are not properly equipped. The reason for this is that they leave a lot of equipment behind in Iraq when their tour of duty ends. Poorly-equipped units will find equipment waiting for them in Iraq.

Training is a bigger issue but it is not a simple one. First of all, we are talking about units that have already had 1-3 tours in Iraq so they are not green troops. The training is for specialized missions and for tactics that have changed since their prior tours.

I accept that it would be better if all troops going into combat received all planned training before they went. At the same time, I recognize that staffing needs may not leave enough time for this. Is it better to make the front line troops wait while replacements and reenforcements receive better training? It's a tough trade-off to me but it seems like cutting training time will help more people.

To the Murtha crowd, there is no trade-off. Keeping troops out of Iraq is a goal, not a problem. If they could demand a five-year training period they would. The point is to keep the Surge from working by starving the commanders of troops. At the same time, they want to sound caring. It's not that they want to hurt the front-line troops. It's just that they want to protect the troops who are about to be deployed.

Touring for Hypocracy

It's difficult to imagine an anti-war tour that includes killing people or an AIDS concert that includes having unprotected sex with someone who is HIV-positive. So what are we o think of the Sop Global Warming Tour? Here are a bunch of people who are convinced that CO2 induced global warming is real and their solution is to generate more CO2 in an effort to raise consciousness.

The tour is not the only culprit. Al Gore's huge, carbon-burning house has been well documented. There is just no way to swuare hat house with his message. Personally, I think that he should live like the Unibomber in a small plywood shack without power. Since that isn't likely, he could sill live fairly well by following the examples of Ed Begley jr. and Dennis Weaver. Both of these TV stars built low-impact houses as examples of how others should live.

Then there is the example of Prince Charles flying across the Atlantic to accept an environmental award or the worse example of John Travolta flying one of his private jets of England to lecture about the evils of CO2. That one trip created more CO2 than an ordinary family does in a year.

The message in all of this is that he rest of us should change our ways. Once we do, possibly the elite will consider changing their own lifestyles. In the meantime, even if global warming is the greatest threat to ever face humanity (to quote Gore), we cannot expect the rich and powerful to actually do anything personally.

On-air rants

Ok, Imus said something racist and offensive and people are demanding his termination. He is going to be suspended and might yet lose his job.

I have no problem with that. It would be fine with me if they fired all of the shock jocks.

But there is no serious talk of firing Rosie who accused the British of engineering an international incident in order to justify an invasion (which didn't happen) and accused the US government of killing 3,000 people in order to justify something.

Someone's priorities are mixed up.

This endless Winter

February made the list of the ten coldest winers on record. We are only ten days into April but i has already been declared the second coldest on record. We've had snow flurries five days in a row. Around 70 cities set cold records on Easter.

Back during a heat wave in December and early January we kept hearing that the warm temperatures were because of global warming and we had better get used to it - it was going to be like that from now on. Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Thomas Friedman quoted his wife as saying that she needed a global warming wardrobe - winter colors in summer weight.

I wonder how she's doing with that now? Friedman never said. In fact, none of the columnists who said that the December warm spell was a sign of things to come have had anything to say about the temperatures since then. Seriously, after hearing that refrain multiple times in January I keep waiting for someone to say that the current cold snap is indicative of the future and we had better get used to it.

According to the logic they used just four months ago, the weather in February through April must be a predictor of a new ice age. Maybe Friedman's wife needs a wardrobe with summer colors in winter weight.

All of this is silly. Temperatures vary. 20 years ago we have major snowfall in both April 1 and April 4. Just a week ago it hit 80. None of this means anything. It's long-term changes that matter, not day-to-day variations.

But there is a new religion in town - Global Warming. We have to sacrifice our civilization to it, the god (or is that a goddess?) demands it. Any time the temperature is slightly above normal or anything bad happens i is because the Global Warming God is angered. If things are normal or temperatures are 30 degrees below normal - well, it happens.

In the meantime, Europe is two years into a cap and trade scheme. It is working exactly as they should have expected although according to this article the results caught people by surprise. Basically, electricity costs rose 25% and construction is being moved to 3rd world countries were Kyoto is not in effect. Also, some companies have figured out how to game the system and others are lobbying for regulations that will benefit them rather than the world at large.

But none of that will save them when the glaciers come back.

Rosie's Rant

A couple of weeks ago Rosie O'Donnell had a bi tof a meltdown. She started by accusing the British and possibly the Americans of somehow causing the Iranians to hold 15 soldiers hostage. Next she said that the confessed 911-planner known as KSM was railroaded. When asked is she though that the government was in on 911, she replied with a disingenuous, "No, but his was the first time in history that fire melted steel."

A lot of people have jumped on that line but Rosie was right in sort of a half-assed way. Steel has a very high melting point. You cannot melt it in a normal fire. It takes a blast furnace. On the other hand, as any blacksmith can demonstrate, you can heat steel in a fire until it is red hot at which point it loses much of its strength. This isn't a secret, it's science.

Rosie posted some further "proof" on her web site but somehow missed this bit of basic science.

There have been calls for her to be fired. She is employed by The View which is produced by ABC News. When she starts spreading around false information, it reflects badly on the entire news staff. Rosie is allowed her own opinions bu she has to provide solid documentation for them when she presents them on The View. She has accused the US and British governments of staging an international incident and of killing thousands of people yet her proof requires a fundamental mis-statement of the physical properties of steel.

I have seen Rosie's defenders point out that Ann Coulter wasn't fired after accusing the 911 widows of profiting from their husbands' deaths. There are significant differences between the two.

1) Coulter said something hurtful. She did not accuse anyone of conspiracies.

2) Coulter's remarks were obviously opinion. Rosie presented hers as provable fact.

3) Coulter's remarks were in a book. Rosie's were given on the air. As the author of the book, Coulter gets full responsibility. Since Rosie was on something vaguely billed as a news show, it is implied that her statements of fact have been checked by the news department.

So, should she be fired? It wouldn't be out of line. Dan Rather was forced off the air after defending forged documents. While Rosie and The View are much lighter-weight than Rather, the accusations are serious enough that, at the least, ABC should issue a statement that they do not support this iew.

The Imperial Congress

For years the Democrats have complained that Bush operates an imperial presidency - exceeding his constitutional authority and working without proper oversight from Congress. Now that the Democrats control Congress, they are acting rather imperial themselves.

First there was the bill that specified what troops can and cannot do. This seems to be in direct contradiction with the President's constitutional role as commander in chief.

Then Pelosi wen to Syria in order to show them that the Democrats have an alternate foreign policy.

Under the constitution, there is only one foreign policy. It is directed by the State Department which is under the control of he Secretary of State who in turn reports to the President. Congress's role in this process is to confirm the Secretary of State and treaties. Even this is done by the Senate, not the House so Pelosi has no constitutional standing to be discussing alternate policies with foreign leaders.

Even during the Viet Nam War, we never saw the Speaker of the House go to the USSR in order to open a dialog for peace.

What of the visit by House Republicans shortly before Pelosi's visit? Why didn't anyone take note? Probably because they did not go with the stated goal of circumventing  their country's foreign policy.

I'm not going to say that the Democrats hate Bush more than Nixon but the Democrats in power gave Nixon more respect.

The 20 Billion Dollar Question

Democrats are insisting that the country is behind their attempts to end the war. If this is true then why did they need to tack $20 billion in unrelated spending into the bill? President Bush is asking this, also.

The Democrats have themselves boxed in. Their base is expecting a withdrawal from the war but the way they are doing it is likely to come across as not supporting the troops.

Even if everything works out the way they want as it did 30+ years ago when they de-funded Viet Nam, it will still bite them. They made out pretty well in the late 1970s, taking the White House and gaining a big majority in Congress but much of this was a reaction to Watergate rather than the war.

By the early 1980s, resentment over the way the war ended was boiling up. The movie Rambo brought it to a head. The new common wisdom was not that we were defeated in Viet Nam but that our leaders in Washington hadn't let us win the war.

Since Democrats ended the war and had associated themselves with the peace movement, people stopped trusting them with national security. This still cost them as recently as 2004. If they force a pull-out from Iraq and things go as bad as expected without us stabilizing the country, it might be another 30 years before anyone trusts Democrats with national defense (Clinton won on domestic issues during the period of peace between the end of the Cold War and recognition of the Long War).

The Return of the ERA

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is back. There is an effort to re-introduce it.

For those too young to remember, ERA was intended to grant equal rights for women. It was first introduced 35 years ago and seemed on the fast track to ratification. Then is faltered as opposition to it gathered. It came up during one of the Carter/Reagan debates. Carter accused Reagan of planning to kill ratification. Reagan responded, pointing out that under Clinton no states had ratified it and two states rescinded their ratification. It eventually died in 1982 after the Supreme Court ruled that the ratification period could not be extended.

In the meantime, nearly everything that the original supporters could have hoped for in 1972 has come to happen. Most women work. The majority of college and university populations are women. Woman's pay runs around 98% of men's, when compared for equivalent jobs with equal experience. Women clergy and astronauts are common as are women in the military. The Speaker of the House and the Secretary of State are women and many people expect the next president to be one.

So why do we need he ERA?

When it was first introduced, the ostensible reason was to have women's rights written big so all could see. When pressed, the supporters admitted that the real reason was that they regarded it too difficult to push their agenda through Congress and fifty legislatures. They wanted women's rights raised to constitutional status so that they could take their case directly to the Supreme Court.

I was against the ERA when it was first introduced for two reasons. First, I think it is wrong to by-pass the legislatures and have the judiciary dictate law. More important, the amendment is worded loosely enough that it could lead to changes in society far beyond the stated goals. Both of those objections continue today.

The biggest goal still on the feminist agenda is pay equity between men and women. Since the current inequity exists because of choices that women make (taking jobs that allow more time with the family, taking off 1-4 years to raise young children, etc.) this would require a government take-over of the economy unseen since the fall of he Soviet Union.

Of course, there is a second group that would profit from the ERA - Gays. The language of the ERA would instantly legitimize gay marriage and remove any lingering laws or customs considered anti-gay. This is no coincidence. The National Organization of Women (NOW) has always been lesbian-friendly (in all possible ways).

My own position has not changed in the last 35 years. I don't think that issues as central to society should be passed on to the courts to decide.

There is one reason for the ERA that I don't think is being discussed. With the current influx of Moslem's coming to America, we suddenly have a large population that has a history of oppressing women. Even by the standards of the pre-feminist 1950s, things such as forced marriage and genital mutilation are beyond the pale. Feminists might make the case that current advances need to be enshrined to make backsliding difficult.

Strangely, this is a major bind spot among feminists.

What are the Democrats up to?

By passing bills calling for troop withdrawal in the nex 12-18 months, Democrats seem to have decided that their only purpose is to defeat the enemy at home (Bush). In order to do this, they gave up on all the other lofty goals they campaigned on.

The bills passed are a strange mixture with something for every faction. For the anti-war crowd, there is a demand for a pull-out. For the moderate Blue-dogs, the pullout will not take place until next year. For everyone else, there is $20+ billion (with a "B") in earmarked funds.

The Democrats played hardball on this one. They slipped in appropriations for Congressmen without even being asked to. If a Congressman was still hesitant to vote for the bill they issued an instant press release saying that the congressman had turned his back on his district.

For those with short memories, these are the same Democrats who campaigned last year on a platform of fiscal responsibility and who promised to end earmarks. As I already said, none of those goals are as important to the Democratic leaders as handing Bush a defeat.

This also means a defeat for our troops. How can it be taken otherwise when it calls for a withdrawal at an arbitrary time regardless of what is going on at the time.

This does raise a number of questions:

If, as Rep. Murtha claims, we are making things worse by staying then why wait? Probably the biggest reason for the delay is that an immediate withdrawal would be seen by the American people as the surrender it is. By giving President Bush several more months to wage the war they can claim that it is up to him to win it in that time. This appears to be an attempt to shift blame.

Why October. 2008? That's the dae the House set. The Senate went for March 31. Is this an attempt to end the war before the election? Are Democrats worried that the 2008 election will become a referendum on the war with their candidate calling for an immediate retreat and the Republican calling for us to win? This is an interesting theory because it implies that the Democrats are afraid of what the people actually want (remember, they didn't run on retreat from Iraq, they ran on a "new direction").

Then there is the biggest question - is this meant to be anything more than an other non-binding resolution? The Democrats know that Bush will veto the bill. He's already started making noises about them abandoning the troops. They don't have enough votes to override a veto. Soon they will be in the same position that the Republicans were when they shut down the government under Clinton. Clinton won that one and no soldier's life was at stake because of Congressional inaction.

Faced with that reality, the whole thing could just be a big show to placate MoveOn.

Mr. Gore goes to Washington

Al Gore is testifying before joint committees of Congress today on Global Warming. According to statements made before hand, he is going to say that Global Warming can be reversed but we need to take drastic action. He is calling for a 90% across-the-board cut in greenhouse gas emissions  by 2050. For the calendar-challenged, that is less than 43 years from now. Gore is calling for more than a 2% cut per year in greenhouse as emissions.

Now, I could probably lie with the first year or two of that. Depending on how cold the winter and how warm the summer, this might even happen on its own. It might not even be noticeable in the general economy.

After that, the cuts would start to pile up. I seriously doubt that civilization as we know it can exist on 10% of today's carbon emissions.

To put it in perspective, around half of current energy use is private and the biggest portion of those go to heating and air conditioning. After that comes cooking and lighting. Computer use is in there somewhere but varies a lot per family.

So, in order to cut your personal use by 90% you would have to cut back on heat, forget air conditioning, forget TV, PCs, and game consoles. Radios will probably be ok. You can get radios powered by hand-cranked generators that will run for a few hours between cranking.

Lighting will be reduced to possibly one compact fluorescent bulb for a few hours per day.

It is sort of a march back to the 18th century except we cannot burn wood for heat or candles for light because they also emit CO2.

That's how personal cutbacks will be in 40 years. It's hard o see manufacturing doing any better. Solar, wind, hydro-electric, and nuclear power can provide some power but this will become more and more expensive. Nuclear power is the only one of these options that does not have severe built-in limits and it takes a lot of tie and money to build a nuclear plant.

It's hard to see how there will be enough energy for much beyond food production and transportation.

All of this brings us to the biggest question - even if we assume that Global Warming is for real and that the worst of the IPCC predictions will come to pass, is it worth it to mitigate Global Warming? Gore is still talking as though it will be easy to cut back. Just stop new coal-fired power plants, change the type of light bulb we use, establish cap-and-trade, and let the market do the rest. He is lying. 90% cutbacks will be wrenching, causing tens of thousands of deaths from lack of air conditioning and cold alone.

And that's assuming the worst happens if we do nothing.

None of this is part of the global debate but it should be front and center. What will mitigation cost and is it worth it?

Common Wisdom and the Election

Common wisdom says that the Democrats will take the White House in 2008. This is based on three things - the White House usually switches parties when one party holds it for eight years; public dissatisfaction with Bush and the war will translate into a rejection of the Republicans, and the 2006 election showed that the country has moved to the Left.

Let's look more closely at these, especially the first one. It is true that the other side has won most times that a party has held the White House for eight years. This happened in 1952, 1960, 1968, 1976, 1992, and 2000. It did not happen in 2004 because Reagan had already defeated Carter in 2000. The 1988 election is particularly interesting in this discussion. In that one, Bush (41) ran as a continuation of the Reagan administration and won. It is also interesting because his opponent, a liberal from New England, offered a clear difference to Bush and went down to a decisive defeat. Four years later Clinton, a moderate from the South, was able to defeat Bush.

An important point to remember is that when the White House changed hands with no incumbent in the White House, the sitting Vise-President was running as a continuation of the current administration. Vise-presidents are seldom a good stand-in for their president. They are normally chosen specifically because they are different in order to broaden the president's appeal. Even Gore who, like Clinton, was a southerner, came across as a Washington insider in contrast with Clinton, "the man from Hope". It is difficult for someone who was chosen because he is different to run as a continuation candidate. When Bush ran in 1988 he started by recanting all of his positions from 1980. After spending wight years in the Reagan White House, he had learned the errors or his ways.

There is also a strong element of fatigue at play. After eight years, the electorate is tired of the same old faces and policies. A president usually does most of his accomplishments during his first term. It is tough for a vice-president to make the case that the current administration needs four (or eight) more years in order to accomplish its goals. In 2000 there was talk of Clinton Fatigue. Now it is Bush Fatigue.

This election is different. The slate is completely open. That eliminates much of the "fatigue" factor. In addition, Hillary faces some residual Clinton fatigue. Similarly, Edwards may suffer from having already been on the ticket in 2004. The election may go to the candidate who feel "freshest".

As far as the other two points of common wisdom - that dissatisfaction with Bush will sink the Republican candidate and that the 2006 election signaled a shift to the right, neither has a lot of merit. The country may be dissatisfied with Bush but Congress continues to poll lower than Bush.

Has the country moved to the left? The Democrats think so. The main three candidates, Clinton, Barack and Edwards, are all far to the left of Bill Clinton or the image that Kerry projected in 2004. This may be their undoing. In 2006, voters were angry with corruption in Congress and frustrated that the war in Iraq was still going on. Even with that, the Democrats' wins were comparable with the opposing party in the sixth year of other administrations, even Reagan. This was not an overwhelming vote of support for a liberal agenda. Most of the winning Democrats weren't even running as liberals. They were recruited as pro-military centrists who could win close elections against Republicans. Now that they are in Congress, they have organized as the "Blue Dog Democrats" and they have prevented the older, more liberal Democrats from implementing their agenda.

The current slate of presidential candidates is not going to appeal to the people who voted in the Blue Dogs.

So, in spite of common wisdom, the election is still wide open.

Global Warming Winers and Losers

This interview ties in nicely with my last post about companies lobbying to become winners in global warming legislation.

Enron was the pioneer, pushing Kyoto before there was a Kyoto, after acquiring the world's largest windmill company and a half-share in the world's largest solar panel company; these are financial black holes without massive subsidies and mandates, which is precisely what the Kyoto agenda promises.  Enron had the world's second-largest gas pipeline network, the cost of space on which would be dearly expensive once coal was regulated out of viability.  They set up a trading floor to play bookie to millions of sales of carbon dioxide "credits".  All of these elements of the agenda would cost our economy dearly by piling on inefficiencies, as it is in Europe now, with no environmental benefit. This is the world's second-oldest profession, "rent-seeking", that is trying to gain millions from government favors that they could not earn in the marketplace.

GE has Enron's windmills and some of their pipeline assets, BP has the solar panels.  DuPont got out of the nylon business and for reasons peculiar to that decision would have about a half a billion dollars in CO2 equivalence "credits" to sell others who want to keep using energy in the event a Kyoto-style scheme is imposed domestically.  Lo and behold, suddenly they strike a "responsible" pose of hand-wringing over Congress' failure to impose this albatross around the economy's neck.  Certain cynical power companies have varying motivations, including a desire to be paid to replace aging coal-fired capacity with new gas plants that they have to build anyway; some nuclear providers want to be paid for not emitting CO2 but only water vapor.  And the list goes on.

What each of these companies share in common is a belief that their pals in government will stop before they go too far and actually fully implement the Kyoto agenda, but will only go just far enough to provide windfall profits of money for nothing.  It is a remarkably cynical and very dangerous game.

All of these companies get the public relations benefits of being for legislation to prevent global warming and all stand to profit quite a bit. The legislation itself will be a meaningless show piece (one hopes) that will cause enough discomfort so that people know that their government is doing something but not so much discomfort that people actually question the legislation.

Even states such as Minnesota which is considering a draconian reduction of 80% in the next 43 years has the real pain being felt long after the politicians will have retired. See here for the details of their scheme. While wonderful advances in technology are possible, energy use has climbed steadily for centuries. I really wonder how the people of Minnesota will survive on 20% of today's energy use?

DSL and Global Warming

DSL (Daylight Savings Time) came three weeks early courtesy of an amendment to the energy bill passed years ago. The change was intended to save energy but there are real questions about its effectiveness this early in the year. My wife complains that she will be back to leaving for work at dawn. That means that any energy saved in the evening will be lost in the morning. The sponsors of the bill announced that the change will not be evaluated to see if it did any real good.

This is typically what happens when politicians decide to solve a problem. It does not really matter if the solution does any good or if it actually makes things worse. The important thing is to be seen solving a problem.

As with most government solutions, there are winners and losers. The winers are candy companies. With DSL now ending in November, they hope that kids will Trick-or-Treat longer, selling more candy. They had lobbyists who made sure that they got their way.

The losers were airlines and companies with computers. Millions of dollars were spent in the last few weeks changing schedules and patching computers, all for questionable results.

Which brings us to global warming. The costs of DSL changes were minor compared with carbon reductions. The winners will win big. The losers might go out of business. The public will end up covering the tab. A number of large companies are already lobbying in case Congress does pass some form of cap and trade on carbon.

Four Unspeakable Untruths

Slate has four unspeakable truths about Iraq. They are: The war was a mistake, the soldiers are victims, the war dead were wasted and the war is lost. The big question here is, are these "truths" really true?

The first one is now a matter of faith among the left. With Saddam dead and gone, it is easy to forget what the circumstances of the war were. First, Saddam had already started two wars and was likely to start more as soon as he re-armed after the sanctions were lifted. He was already bribing other countries to push for lifting the sanctions. The left ignores it but it was well-documented that he planned to re-establish his weapons programs as soon as possible. The sanctions were the main reason that he had not already rearmed. We had also spent over a decade in open hostilities with Saddam. An unbiased observer with a long memory has to admit that a war with Saddam was very likely. The big question was if it would be on his terms or ours?

If the war was not a mistake then it is hard to insist that the war dead were wasted lives. Even if the war was a mistake, most of the dead have come from the insurgency. Everyone this side of John Murtha admits that our troops are the only thing stopping a bloody civil war - something much worse than the low-level conflict going on now. The wasted lives argument holds that a single American life is more important than dozens of foreigners.

The soldiers as victims argument just doesn't match reality. It holds that recruits are forced into the military by poverty. This was thoroughly disproved after Kerry's "joke".

The final point - have we already lost? This is not the real question. Unfortunately, insurgencies last a long time. It could take a decade to really pacify Iraq. The real question is if we have the resolution to stick it out? If not then we have lost. Unfortunately, this is the most likely "truth". The real lesson of Viet Nam is that the left will mobilize against any war that lasts longer than a few weeks or has more than a handful of casualties.

What Does it Mean?

Several items have come up in the last week or so. Their significance is debatable.

Gore's House
As has been widely reported, Al Gore's house consumes more energy in a month than a normal family's house does in a year. Gore's representatives have defended him pointing out that he has installed compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) and other energy-saving technology. He also buys green credits from a company that he chairs.

What does it mean?
Gore has been telling people that curbing global warming is as simple as changing to CFLs and buying green credits. Since his house still requires a ton of energy, it is not this simple. In addition, Gore's green energy company is getting some overdue scrutiny.

Cheering the Taliban
When news reports were posted of a failed attempt on Vice-President Cheney, many people posted comments on Huffington, KOS, and DemocraticUnderGround expressing disappointment that the attempt failed. Ariana removed the comments and complained that they didn't mean anything.

What does it mean?
Dozens of people prefer the Taliban over the current administration. What's more, they were sure that the audience they were posting to would be supportive of this. They were right. I am not aware of anyone replying to these posts to point out that the Taliban is against nearly everything that these people believe in.

Hiring the Bloggers/Attending the Convention.
A few weeks ago the Edwards campaign got in trouble for comments his official campaign bloggers have made in their own blogs.

Over the weekend conservatives held a convention. Most of the presidential candidates attended as did Ann Coulter. At least a few liberals complained that this was a double standard.

What does is mean?
Nothing. There is a big difference between hiring someone who is outspoken and being in the same room with such a person. I doubt that liberals really want to be held to the "being in the same room" standard. Besides, Coulter made it clear that she does not approve of front-runner Rudy Giuliani and Mit Rhomney is lukewarm about her endorsement.

The Press and Rudy
Nearly every article on Giuliani mentions that he is at odds with conservatives on most social issues. It often seems that the press is trying to remind conservatives that they should not be supportive of him.

What does it mean?
Two things. First, liberals have been complaining for years that the Republicans are a bunch of bigots controlled by Christian fundamentalists. For Rudy to do well with this group is a shock to liberal's world-view. We saw they same thing when they kept asking Dick Cheney if he still loved his daughter, even though she is openly gay. They just can't wrap their minds around the concept of tolerant Republicans.

Second, I am sure that they have noticed that Rudy does very well in early polls. If he ran today against Hillary he would win in a landslide. This may be the press's attempt at trying to derail a Republican victory.

McCain and the War
Last week McCain announced his candidacy on Letterman and made a comment about lives wasted in Iraq. He has been backtracking on this ever since.

What does it mean?
I don't know. When Barack made his slip there was little doubt that this was his real opinion. McCain has been a war supporter all along. It is troubling that his private opinion may be at odds with his public support.

The Jesus Tomb

I only watched a bit of the Discovery Channel's special on the Tomb of Jesus. It was enough. I saw some talking heads telling us that it had to be Jesus's tomb because the names matched his family. In particular, his brother's unusual nickname was found in the tomb along with lots of other names that matched his ancestry but were very common.

I'm not buying it. The proofs presented depended on a lot of precise details in the Bible being correct except for the ones that contradicted their thesis. They ignored details such as Jesus's family being too poor to own such a tomb or the implication that the family of Jesus of Nazareth might be from Nazareth instead of Jerusalem.

On the other hand, I don't think that this was an attack on Christianity. Last year's special on the Gospel of Judas was a genuine historical look at early Christianity and it made a lot of money. On TV, any time something makes money it will be imitated. That's all that this was. Just a bit of early history linked with Jesus in order to generate some controversy in order to bring in the viewers.