What do Al Gore and “Fighting” Global Warming have to do with Peace?

I have long pondered what the Nobel Peace Prize had to do with peace.

Yasser Arafat received one, for what? For encouraging terrorism and the destruction of Israel in Arabic, and talking about peace in English? The last time I checked the news, Gaza was a terrorist platform to rain rockets down on Israel, and most of the money the Palestinians received to relieve their suffering was squirreled away in numbered Swiss bank accounts for the benefit of Yasser’s comely widow and friends.

Oh, right, she married him for love, not the money.

Silly me.

Jimmy Carter received one too, apparently for getting cozy with all the world’s totalitarian megalomaniacs. Jimmy never met a dictator he didn’t think was a better world leader than any Republican president. The Kims of North Korea, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, et al.

Mohamed ElBaradei. What did he do to win his Nobel Peace Prize? Does anybody know? Stopped India and Pakistan’s nuclear programs? Prevented North Korea from testing its nuke? Got Iran to quit nuclear enrichment?

Oh, I know.

He criticized President Bush.

Slam dunk, as far as the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is concerned.

Kofi Annan and the United Nations? Oh, yeah, they mismanaged the Oil for Food program, and made Saddam the wealthiest dictator who didn’t have enough sense to take the money and run when he had the chance.

Saddam, even an idiot like Idi Amin knew when it was time to boogie out.

Isn’t that the same United Nations, and isn’t he the same Kofi Annan who was in charge of the UN peacekeeping forces during the 1994 Rwanda genocide? The consequences of that “peacekeeping” are still fueling violence, particularly against women, in the Congo, Uganda, Somalia, Burundi, and even Kenya.

What did the UN and Kofi Annan do after Rwanda to earn a Nobel Peace Prize? Again, only the Nobel Peace Prize Committee knows.

And now Al Gore gets a Nobel Peace Prize.

Before we get to the question of what Al Gore did to win it, shouldn’t we ask the question what does climate change have to do with world peace?

I will be the first to admit that the world has known a lot of warfare.

I will also admit that the world has experienced hundreds of periods of natural, dramatic climate change, just as it is now.

What I won’t admit is that any scientist, historian, or etc. has proven any previous wars were due to climate changes.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee doesn’t even try:

In awarding the prize Friday to climate campaigner Al Gore and the intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-sponsored network of scientists, the Norwegian committee said the stresses of a changing global environment may heighten the "danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states."

Those … who study the issues point particularly to the impact of drought and altered climate patterns on food and water supplies, leading to shortages that could spur huge, destabilizing migrations of people internationally.

A 2003 report commissioned by the Pentagon warned that abrupt climate change "could potentially destabilize the geopolitical environment, leading to skirmishes, battles, and even war due to resource constraints."

(Highlighting added by me to emphasize the “may” and “could” aspects of the award, and the total absence of “has” or “would.”)

I will, however, admit that many wars have been caused by poverty and living lives of unremitting misery, degradation, and deprivation.

However, that lack of historical perspective hasn’t stopped the Nobel Peace Prize Committee from supposing climate change could cause strife, and then supposing that what Al Gore has done could solve an as-yet nonexistent problem.

All the Nobel Peace Prize Committee offers is a paean to the precautionary principle; if something may possibly occur that might have significant consequences, then everything should be done to prevent its occurrence, unless the problem was identified by a Republican.

According to the Nobel’s interpretation of the precautionary principle, the impoverished of the world should be maintained in their miserable circumstances if there is the slightest chance that the energy consumption necessary to increase productivity and alleviate their suffering might cause climate change. However, apparently the precautionary principle does not take into account that increased economic productivity alleviates human suffering, and that a vain fight against climate change only prolongs that suffering.

Just one of many instances of that sort of economic misery already has caused a lot more warfare and human suffering than all past climate changes combined.

You doubt me?

Past economic hardship primarily resulted from political oppression, not climate change. Those periods of oppression caused political upheavals, which in all but the rarest circumstances (the American Revolution), resulted in even more political oppression. This in turn culminated in the phenomenon of citizens primarily being killed by the actions of their own governments.

Such democide has been far more prevalent than people have believed, even several times greater than the number killed in all of this century's wars. Just consider that alone 61,911,000 people were murdered by the Soviet Union, 38,702,000 by the Chinese communists, 10,214,000 by the Chinese Nationalists, 17,000,000 by the German Nazis, and 5,890,000 by the Japanese militarists during World War II. This does not even exhaust the list of this century's mega-murderers, which also would include the past governments of Turkey, Cambodia, Pakistan, Yugoslavia; nor does it include the lesser killers responsible for hundreds of thousands of corpses each, such as past governments of Uganda, Indonesia, Albania, Burundi, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Hungary, Romania, Spain, and Vietnam. Then there are the numerous third-class murders who have "only" killed in the tens of thousands. In sum well over 100,000,000 people have been murdered by their governments since 1900, several times greater than the 35,654,000 battle-dead from all the foreign and domestic wars fought in these years, including World Wars I and II.

Therefore, Al Gore should be applauded for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He fits right in with the incompetent and ineffectual leaders, primarily fixtures of the United Nations, that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee honors in its quest to register its animosity towards President Bush and the United States.

The United Nations long ago degenerated into a forum to give legitimacy and a platform to undemocratic regimes.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has done the same.

Instant China Expert

Shanghai by Night

Alice and I just returned from three weeks in China, and as you might expect, I am now an expert in matters Chinese (at least as how China will impact the future).

The first point is that China is not going to risk or provoke war with the United States, for the simple reason that China has nothing to gain, and everything to lose. To paraphrase Kris Kristofferson, “Freedom (to take risks) is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Where is my proof?

One word. Shanghai.

Our incredibly competent, hard working, and industrious (entertaining, too) tour director, Comrade David (a Party member), informed us that the city bird of Shanghai was the crane – the construction crane. In twenty years Shanghai went from a city with its tallest building 26 stories high, to a city with over a thousand buildings over 26 stories. Most of the building boom, which continues, occurred between 1995 and 2000, causing a world-wide shortage of construction cranes.

More proof needed? Beijing, Chongqing, Xi’an, Guilin, Hong Kong, Macao, and hundreds of places in between and around. Places I’ve heard of, more that I hadn’t, and a huge number that I still know nothing about, and all of them putting a “Chinese face on socialism.”

As Alice gently chided David, the Chinese socialist face looks decidedly capitalist.

David, his modest salary augmented by generous tips (which he richly deserves), smiled inscrutably.

The old state-owned businesses, many owned and operated by the People’s Liberation Army, have failed or are failing. Many Communist Party bosses are known more for ineptness and corruption than enlightened management. So who or what is responsible for China’s spectacular growth?

Quite simply, the Chinese people.

They have a remarkable capacity to work hard at difficult jobs. China’s rapidly growing per capita GDP of about $2,000 is still very low (in the bottom half) among world economies, but the private sector already produces 70% of the total and its share is steadily increasing.

Of course, Chinese growth is not occurring in an economic vacuum. Those high rises on the Shanghai waterfront house banks and businesses with familiar international names. The Chinese economic miracle is built on foreign investment, and exports to fill the West’s demands to consume prodigiously, but inexpensively.

The Chinese themselves are reluctant consumers, just as the Japanese were during their brief period of seeming economic invincibility. Chinese reluctance to spend is understandable. David grudgingly agreed with Alice that the United States fits the model of socialist welfare state much better than China. Chinese government pensions are and will continue to be nasty jokes on China’s elders that thought Communism would reward their sacrifices and provide for them in their Golden Years.

(Most of the old State-Owned Enterprises are operating at a loss, and can barely meet their obligations to pay current retirees. When inflation is added to the picture, the payments to current retirees are rendered meaningless.)

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Right?

Old people have diminishing abilities coupled with increasing needs. So how does Communist China take care of them in their Golden Years? By passing a law that children must support their parents (and parents can sue if they don’t). Of course, prior to passage of this law, Communist leaders also passed a law that basically limits each couple to one child (with some exceptions, so don’t nit pick me). So now you have two elderly parents depending on one child (who, with a spouse, is also supporting themselves, a child, and the spouse’s elderly parents).

The typical Chinese young working couple is also paying into a pension fund, which is being eaten by inflation while being squandered though corruption and mismanagement.

No wonder all but the wealthiest Chinese save all they can, and why Chinese consumption alone can’t power economic growth until the Chinese can see that their savings and investments will secure their futures.

The Chinese will have Privatized Social Security long before we do, and for the right reasons – principally, economic necessity. And while they’re doing the thing right, our bankrupt Medicare system will be joined in a decade by our already actuarially bankrupt Social Security system, and ruinous tax increases, benefit cuts, financial means testing, and rationing of medical care will be required in a vain attempt to avert total government-funded retirement system failure.

However, the tax increases and benefit cuts necessary to attempt to salvage Social Security and Medicare will only kill our economy and make matters worse.

To bring it all down then, in three short weeks I learned that China is not a military threat, but thanks to the West is an economic juggernaut. I learned that China will not sacrifice the economic progress of its predominantly impoverished citizens on the altar of environmentalism – every place we went in China had air pollution worse than Los Angeles at its smoggiest.

Things I knew before the trip – China has Pandas, the United States has pandering politicians.

The Chinese are doing all they can to save their endangered Pandas.

Our industrious citizenry are continuing to create and grow our incredibly strong economy, but our politicians are not doing anything to prevent it inevitably drowning under a sea of unsustainable social welfare expenditures.

Long before natural global warming floods our coastal cities, we’ll drown under a sea of red ink.

When Al Gore was VP, he didn’t do anything to forestall future disasters, and he still isn’t.

The fact that he was an inept leader uniquely qualifies him, in the eyes of the Nobel Prize committee, for its Peace Prize.

Just as the Nobel previously saw fit to award the corruption of Yasser Arafat, and the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter.

In China, Chairman Mao is turning over in his mausoleum.

Chairman Mao: “If inept leadership is all it takes, I deserve one for the Cultural Revolution. One decade of Cultural Revolution set back Chinese industrialization two decades. Not even Jimmy Carter could screw things up that bad.

Kim Jong-Il deserves one.

Fidel deserves one too.

Jimmy Carter has the credibility in the inept leadership realm to write the nominating letters.”

Note to the Nobel Prize Committee. You should award Chairman Mao posthumously. He would graciously share it with Fidel and Kim Jong-Il.

Dead totalitarians are very accommodating.

Biofuels Harm the Environment

It has long been obvious to all except those from the Land of the Small Brains – politicians and environmentalists – that biofuels are a terrible idea whose time will never come.

Make a list of major problems the world faces – water shortages, food shortages, farming of marginal lands by conversion of timberlands and wilderness areas, water pollution through agricultural runoff, expensive taxpayer subsidies to agriculture and energy producers, to name just a few of many.

The supposed benefits of biofuels are reducing energy reliance, boosting farm revenues and helping fight climate change.

Will biofuels accomplish these goals, or just trade parts of some problems for much larger problems in related activities?

Will biofuels reduce energy reliance? Worldwide energy from biomass makes up about one percent of total energy production, and yet the small biomass energy increases in the past decade have come at a very high price, and the percentage of total energy needs provided by biomass has shrunk.

For example, China is adding one new coal-fired generating plant big enough to supply a city the size of San Diego every ten days.

At the same time, competition with food supplies caused by ethanol production is driving up the costs of tortillas, meat, soft drinks, and all the other products that consume corn in their production.

Is there anyone who truly believes that energy production from biomass will replace a significant part of the 86% of the world’s energy needs provided by oil, natural gas, and coal? Doubling the world’s biomass energy production would scarcely make a dent in the 40% provided by oil, but would add significantly to the misery of the world’s poor.

Considering oil and its high cost and limited reserves reminds me that water soon will become the oil of the Twenty-First Century – essential in just about everything, and increasingly scarce and expensive.

Will biofuels increase farm revenues? Perhaps. Some commodity prices will go up, but the costs of production will go up too. More fertilizer will be needed, and producing it will burn up a lot of natural gas. More water will be needed, and to increase its supply more water storage must be built, more water treatment added, and in many areas desalinization will be necessary.

All of this will be necessary anyway, given the world’s increasing population and economic progress, but far more will be needed in addition to support increased biomass energy production.

Many of the world’s rivers no longer flow to the sea, their waters totally diverted long before they join the ocean’s waves. Many lakes are a small fraction of their former size. More of the world’s wild rivers will be tamed behind dams, and pristine valleys turned into reservoirs.

And farmers may profit.

Or be generously subsidized.

Of course, there’s always the fight against climate change to be won. Just exactly how adding a bit of ethanol to gasoline, clearing a lot more land for crops – the current level of food production will have to be maintained, you know, so more land will have to go into production - and producing fuels from biomass through the liberal application of electrical energy from coal-fired plants – how that will significantly reduce greenhouse gases and climate change is one of the fundamental mysteries of life.

I think I know how biofuels solve the problem.

“And then a miracle occurs!”

That’s what’s sorely needed to make biofuels anything but an expensive and wasteful exercise fueled by environmentalists fevered beliefs that somehow, if they want it badly enough, the fundamental laws of physics will be altered to answer their prayers.

It’s ironic that the Left, loud critics of religious believers, are the most anti-science true believers of all, to think that in some miraculous way the piddling production of energy from "renewable" resources will ever be more than a wishful exercise in wasting resources.

Rush to Judgment - Democrats Prejudge Gen. Petraeus

To prejudge an issue is to judge beforehand, especially without sufficient evidence. Those who prejudge issues are rightfully called prejudiced.

Once again, the Left has rushed to judgment, exposing their prejudices.

In the case before us, their prejudice is against allowing a clear, open discussion of the current situation in Iraq.

Before General Petraeus had an opportunity to make a statement, or answer a question about Iraq, MoveOn.org ran a full-page ad in the New York Times condemning him as General “Betray Us.”

Their outrageous statements about General Petraeus before he even said a word makes me wonder what they could possibly add to their commentary after he testifies.

(In the interest of attaining and maintaining the highest of journalistic standards, as epitomized by CBS News, all the quotes in this post were made up by me. Following in the tradition of Dan Rather, my quotes, although complete fabrications, conquer the peaks of truthiness that can’t be climbed by mere factual quotes. As Dan Rather might say: “They may be false, but they illustrate an essence of truth that real ones can’t.”)

MoveOn.org: “We agree with what we already said about General ‘Betray Us’ before he answered any questions, and none of his blatant lies changed our minds.”

Question to MoveOn.org: “You already accused him of lying before he said anything. Doesn’t that mean you prejudged him? That you’re prejudiced?”

MoveOn.org: “That’s the stupidest question we have ever heard. Don’t you
know that by definition it is impossible for any Leftist to be prejudiced? What hole did you just crawl out of?”

The Democrats, who don’t believe in preemptive strikes against organizations preparing to attack the United States, are not above mounting a preemptive strike against anyone they suspect may say something they don’t want to hear.

Democrat spokesperson: General Petraeus, isn’t it true that you falsely testified tomorrow that we haven’t already lost the Iraq war? Democrats know that no one should believe anything you ever said or will say, because you work for President Bush.

Democrat spokesperson: And that includes all you lying military bastards! It wasn’t so long ago that you had President Clinton, Vice-President Gore, Senators Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and almost all of the top Democrat leaders falsely convinced that Iraq had WMD.

Democrats won’t let you get away with that crap again.

General Petraeus: Please allow me a point of clarification. It was the CIA under President Clinton, and the intelligence services of the United Kingdom, France, and many others, plus the United Nations, that thought Iraq had WMD. In fact, they were so sure of it they passed sanctions against Iraq, and threatened military action if the sanctions didn’t work.

Democrat spokesperson: General ‘Betray Us,’ (cough) er, General Petraeus, have you no shame? Now you’re trying to justify the lies you told tomorrow by perverting the history of the sacred rule of President Clinton. You must be another of those history perverts who ignore the hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis President Clinton saved from slaughter in 1994, or the courageous actions he took to prevent Al Qaeda bombings of our African embassies, the Khobar Towers, and the Cole.

All right-thinking peoples know that if President Clinton had his rightful third term through his surrogate Al Gore that you bastards stole, that 9/11 would never have happened.

Shame, shame, and double shame, General.

You should be ashamed serving in the military of the United States that our revered President Clinton so loathed.

When called upon, He honorably dodged the draft. Were you too stupid to do the same?

General Petraeus: No, I wasn’t drafted, I volunteered.

Democrat spokesman: We already knew you’re a liar, and now we know you’re a stupid one. So just shut up, resign, and drop dead, like a good soldier. The longer you talk, the more you delay the surrender.

(pause)

Ms. Sheehan, did we forget anything?

"Dumbest Government Study" Award

A GAO study, requested by the “Two Johns,” Kerry and McCain, easily wins the award for “Really Dumb Government Study of the Year.”

According to a congressional investigative report to be released this week:

The federal government needs to do a better job addressing how climate change is transforming the hundreds of millions of acres under its watch…”

The 184-page Government Accountability Office report, which Sens. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., requested in 2004, highlights the extent to which global warming already is affecting the nation's parks, forests, marine sanctuaries and monuments.

Since 1850, the glaciers in Glacier National Park have declined from 150 to 26; climate-triggered coral bleaching in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is eroding the area's tourist appeal.

Non-native grasses are fast replacing native shrubs in the Mojave Desert, where the grasses also are fueling hotter and longer-lasting wildfires. Even pinyon pines hundreds of years old that have survived droughts before in the Southwest are dying off.

All of this is very interesting. To some it is probably even alarming.

But what is the management of the nation’s parks, forests, marine sanctuaries and monuments going to do to stop the effects of the global warming which has been occurring naturally since 1850?

Is there something they could have done, or could do now, that would reverse the decline of glaciers in Glacier National Parks that began in 1850?

What could that be?

Since the glaciers started declining when the Little Ice Age ended in 1850, I guess the park managers should restart the Little Ice Age to reverse the decline.

What do you do to stop climate-triggered coral bleaching in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary?

I suppose they could do what they did thousands of times during the past millions of years to reverse climate-triggered coral bleaching.

You know what that was, don’t you?

Nothing.

Coral bleaching is a natural process. As reported in National Geographic News:

Coral colonies, when confronted with dramatic environmental changes, may purge themselves of existing algae to make room for other algae more capable of thriving in the challenging conditions. Bleaching, then, may not signify coral's imminent demise, but its ability to tough out new conditions.

In one set of experiments, marine scientist Andrew C. Baker of the New York Aquarium found that corals that undergo bleaching after being exposed to sudden environmental change are more—not less—likely to survive in the long run.

"This counters conventional wisdom that bleaching is detrimental from all perspectives," Baker said.

So do the Two Johns think that national park managers should do something to stop a natural process that has allowed coral to cope with climate changes for millions of years?

Next we have the problem of non-native grasses replacing natural shrubs in the Mojave Desert. What are the national park managers going to do about that?

When they figure out how to stop the infringement of non-native grasses, I hope they will let the rest of us know how they did it. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but we here in Northern California have had invasion after invasion by non-native plant species, and nothing has worked to stop the invasions.

We have Scotch broom, Pampas grass, ice plant, you name it. One characteristic of all our invasive non-native plants is that they grow far better here, in our salubrious Northern California climes, than they ever did in their native lands.

Maybe the national park managers will be able to design and put up fences that will stop the invasion of the non-native grasses.

I hope their fences are more effective at stopping the invasion of non-native grasses, than our current fences in Southern California are at stopping other invasions.

As far as the problem of the non-native grasses fueling hotter and longer-lasting wild fires, the national park managers are probably doing what national park managers all over do, and that is practice forest mismanagement through fire suppression and allowing fuel buildup.

The national park managers at South Lake Tahoe and Los Padres National Forest, among many recent examples, may have finally learned some useful lessons to pass on to others.

Finally, there are the piñon pine dying of drought.

Again, there is an obvious solution that national park managers can easily adopt: do nothing.

In the military, a joke with many variations is told about a Second Lieutenant who, when informed that a surprise inspection team was on its way, shouted to his subordinates, “Don’t just do something, stand there!”

In retrospect, the lieutenant did the right thing. If, when something important is about to happen, the only thing you can think of is to “do something” - clearly giving an invitation to chaos – it's probably best that you just calmly sit back and make a thoughtful analysis of your circumstances.

Since there is abundant evidence that climate change has occurred naturally hundreds of times previously, and that no actions of man will stop Nature from doing what comes naturally, the prudent national park manager takes note of this and prepares informative displays conveying this information to the interested public, and to the ignorant government inquirers.

It won’t change anything. Nature will continue its natural ways, and government inquirers will continue to labor in ignorance, but at least the park employees will be spared doing all sorts of wasteful, ineffective, and useless things to try to stop the inevitable.

Inevitable natural forces:

1. Climate change
2. Ignorant government agency inquiries

Some things just can’t be stopped.

It's The Principle That Counts

I parked at the Gualala Union 76 gas station and let the tank fill as I picked up mail at the Post Office. Then I drove the four miles north on Highway 1 to the Banana Belt Properties office in Anchor Bay. With about a mile to go to Anchor Bay, I passed a California Highway Patrol (CHP) car going the other way. I reflexively glanced at the speedometer. It was just over 55, and I was in a 55 mph zone.

“Better slow it a bit,” I thought.

Just as I reached the south side of Anchor Bay, the CHP was behind me with his lights on. I thought he wanted to pass, so I pulled into the first part of the Anchor Bay parking lot and slowed, then stopped when he pulled in behind me. I was surprised when he stopped behind me, then got out of his patrol car.

“Darn,” I thought, “he’s going to ticket me for speeding, probably three or four miles per hour over the speed limit.”

Instead he said he was ticketing me for not wearing my seatbelt.

“I was wearing my seatbelt. I always wear my seat belt,” I replied.

“You are now, but you weren’t when I passed you,” he countered.

He then took my driver’s license and vehicle registration, and walked to the rear of my car to write the ticket.

When he came back, he said: “I could have got you for speeding, but that’s a moving violation, so I’m letting you off light just ticketing you for a seatbelt violation.”

(These quoted remarks, including my own, are actually paraphrased, but are accurate to the best of my recall.)

I protested again, and mentioned that I was a retired Air Force officer, and that in my over 21 years of service it was a military requirement to wear seatbelts at all times, and that I always did then, and always have since.

He said: “Then I’ll see you in court.”

And I said (I think): “I’ll be there.”

I’ll go to court because it’s a matter of principle. I may have been speeding slightly, but he didn’t ticket me for that. I was wearing my seatbelt, and I won’t say I wasn’t and pay a fine just because that’s easier than going to court.

When we go to court, there can be only one issue, and it’s very simple. The CHP officer will say I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and I’ll say I was.

My position will be that the CHP officer was mistaken, and could not see me well enough to notice that I had my seatbelt on.

The only position available for the CHP officer is to say I’m lying.

Neither of us can prove the other wrong, or prove that we were right.

When the judge decides, he will have no idea if he was right or wrong.

Neither will the CHP officer.

But no matter what the verdict, I’ll know.

Update: I had my day in court, and won! The officer was there, and said, among other things, that he could see the metallic buckle (or at least a reflection from it) over the top of my shoulder. I showed six photographs, similar to the one below, including one enlarged to 8 by 10.5 inches, that showed that all you could see was my hands on the steering wheel, and that the reflection of the high overcast off the windshield blocked the view of everything else on the driver's side.


If the CHP officer could even see me, let alone whether I have my seatbelt on, he must have X-ray vision.

Modern Polar Bears are Wimps

Where are the polar bears of yesteryears?

I read an Associated Press article in the San Francisco Chronicle headlined: Polar Bear Population Seen Declining, By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer, Saturday, September 8, 2007.

According to the article, “Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.”

What’s wrong with our modern polar bears? Just when they had recovered from the hunting – now banned – which had cut their numbers by the 1960s to half their population today, government scientists now forecast their doom from global warming.

What did their polar bear ancestors do during the numerous periods of natural global warming?

What?

You didn’t know that polar bears have survived many prior periods when Arctic ice was reduced as much, or more, than is currently forecast?

Apparently you’re not alone in your ignorance. Among others, you’re keeping company with government scientists.

According to a Swedish study in 1993 of the fossils of Arctic algae: “Gunilla Gard of the University of Stockholm believes that several times during the past 7000 years warm spells have melted large parts of the central Arctic Ocean.”

The uppermost algae fossils appeared to be associated with the Medieval Warm Period of AD 800 to 1200, and other fossils come from the past 7,000 years, when it was sometimes warmer than today.

Gard found similar fossils deeper down in the sediment cores, indicating that the Arctic ice partially cleared at various times from about 128,000 to 71,000 years ago - a period covering the latest interglacial and the early part of the latest ice age. However, the age of the older fossils is also uncertain. Other studies indicate that the peak sea level during the latest interglacial was a few metres higher than today, implying that peak temperatures were higher.

Obviously, polar bears existed then, and somehow survived those earlier periods when peak temperatures were higher, and Arctic ice was greatly reduced.

Why can’t modern polar bears do the same?

For hundreds of thousands of years the Earth has experienced dramatic climate changes, and polar bears somehow adapted and survived.

Other animals were not so fortunate, were not so adaptable.

Why did the saber-toothed tiger, the mastodon, the wooly mammoth, the horse in the Americas, and many other animals perish without the benefit of man-caused climate change?

Could it be possible that natural climate change was enough to cause their extinction, but that the polar bears were more hardy and adaptable, and survived?

Since Arctic ice in recent periods has been greatly reduced, and the polar bears survived, I’m betting they’ll make it through this period too, and be all ready for the coming Ice Age.

When the ice sheet over Chicago is a mile thick, as it was 18,000 years ago, I’ll bet polar bears will be enjoying seal feasts somewhere between New York and Virginia shores. Or if they’re lucky, and we have an ice age like some previous ones where the Earth almost became a white ball, polar bear feasting may extend to Florida.

And athletes need only train for the Winter Olympic Games.

Dental Implants in Hungary

UPDATE: Unfortunately, my implant holiday in Hungary did not work from a dental point of view. The upper left implant fell out a month after our return, and when I contacted The Implant Center, they mailed me a screw to be inserted while they repaired the implant and mailed it back to me. The screw was too big. By the time they mailed me the correct size, the hole in my gum had grown closed.

Then my dentist gave me more bad news. "The two upper right implants are mobile. They've failed, and it's just a matter of time before you lose them too."

I gingerly checked them, and they moved a lot side to side. So did the bottom right impant. "They should be very firm, not mobile like that," my dentist said.

The bottom line is that concerning my teeth, I'm worse off now than before I got the implants. It won't be long before all I have are the anchors embedded in my jaws, with no implants in them. Also, the anchors are not compatible with any fixes or repairs I could get in the United States, and there is no reason to believe I could get the dentists in Hungary to make them work any better than they do now.

Now with each bite I expect an implant to pop out.

Sometimes saving money can get mighty expensive.

“There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home. (Click, click)”

Alice and I love travel, and we love being home. The part of travel that makes it so easy to love our home in Gualala so much is the beginning and end of each trip. We usually stay a night or two, going and coming, with Alice’s two lovely daughters and their delightful families in Walnut Creek.

However, we can’t magically teleport from one place to the next, so we take our only practical option, and drive. So do millions of San Francisco Bay Area residents and commuters. We all congregate on the freeways, and see how successful we can be at not getting anyplace in a reasonable period of time.

When we got back from our Hungary trip on Friday, August 31, and checked into our hotel in South San Francisco, we heard an announcement that the Bay Bridge was closing for three or four days to complete repairs to a section. The next day our thirty minute trip to Walnut Creek took three hours.

The Hungary trip was a dental holiday. About a year ago I saw an item on the Internet about the high quality and low cost of Hungarian dentistry. The article caught my attention because I had just lost another two teeth as a late payment for the sins of growing up poor far from dental practitioners. By the time Point Arena got a dentist in the late 1950s, I was sixteen years old and needed many fillings and one molar extracted that was too decayed to save. As the years passed, I lost another seven teeth for a total of eight missing, five upper rear and three lower rear.

As luck, and dental neglect would have it, the teeth I lost did not lend themselves to logical or easy replacement via bridges or dentures. When that realization sunk in, then the thought of implants arose. I went to a specialist in Santa Rosa and found him eager to put in three implants for about $15,000, and then let a regular dentist add the crowns for another $2,800.

It would cost me $17,800 to get one implant upper right, one upper left, and one lower right. That would still leave a significant gap upper right. A fourth implant would close the gap, but add about $5,000 to the cost for a total of almost $23,000.

That’s when the article about high quality, inexpensive Hungarian dentistry grabbed my attention.

Why is there high quality dentistry in Hungary? One reason is that good dentistry is a Hungarian tradition, and their dentists train longer, and more comprehensively, than in neighboring European countries like Austria. Then they charge about 20 to 25 percent of what Austrian, German, British, etc., dentists cost. As a result, their volume of business, and the competition for business, produces excellent, low cost dentistry.

Of course, it also helps that the European Union makes its dentists in developed countries charge very high prices, which drives most of their customers to Hungarian dentists. The European Union (EU) defends this practice by saying it protects dentists from ruinous competition.

Right. It protects EU dentists so well, that many Austrian and German dentists go to Hungary for their own dental treatment. And can barely attract enough customers to continue in dental practice in their homelands.

We arrived in Budapest on the evening of Thursday, August 23, after spending two nights in Brussels.


Alice viewing Brussel's famous Monsieur Pis, an activity apparently indulged by all Brussels visitors.

Monsieur Pis entertains us - apparently we're not a demanding audience

My suitcase, obviously not happy to be in the Capitol of the (socialist) European Union, skipped Brussels but rejoined me in Budapest. Our two-night stay in Brussels without my suitcase motivated me to rethink all the things I have been putting in my checked luggage because of restrictions on what can be in my carry-on bag. I had gotten into the habit of putting my entire shaving kit in my checked bag because of its liquids and razor. Henceforth I will take it with me filled with small bottles of essentials, and larger bottles for longer trips in my checked luggage. Plus I’ll put a more generous allocation of underwear and socks in my carry on.

And my umbrella.

The Implant Center (also referred to as Smile Savers of Hungary) had a car and driver, Thomazh, meet us at the Budapest airport and drove us to our excellent hotel, the Hotel Gellert in Buda on the shore of the Danube near the (now under repair - the photo shows it before repairs started) Freedom Bridge.


The Freedom Bridge over the Danube, with Hotel Gellert


The Hungarian Gypsy band at Hotel Gellert serenaded Alice almost every night


The Hotel Gellert spa had several large pools, including three natural thermal ones in addition to this covered swimming pool at room temperature


Hotel Gellert outdoor wave pool

The next morning, promptly at 8, Thomazh’s older brother Lazlo picked me up at the hotel and drove me to the clinic. Both brothers spoke excellent English, since they both had attended high school in Bethesda, Maryland, while their father was working in the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, DC.

After a short wait, just long enough for me to admire the pretty ladies who manned (decorated?) the reception lounge, one of them took me to the X-ray room and made a panoramic scan of my teeth. Then back to the reception lounge to resume admiring, but not for long for soon it was time to begin serious dentistry.

Dr. Attila Kaman MD, DDS, greeted me and escorted me into a nice, modern clinic office and into a dentist chair. Dr Kaman is the head of the clinic, and would do my implant surgery. According to his web site, Dr. Kaman is “One of the most experienced specialists in implantology in Europe if not the world having placed 9,000 successful implants in the last 6 years.” For the next two hours every thing he did convinced me that his reputation was well deserved.

My procedure was painless, and each step of the process flowed smoothly and precisely. Dr. Kaman began with the left upper rear implant. After numbing, he opened the gum and drilled the first hole using successively thicker drill bits. Then he inserted processed cow bone material into my sinus cavity (the “sinus lift”) to build up the bone thickness, after which the implant anchor was screwed into my jaw, and the incision closed with stitches.


My X-ray showing how the implant (CamLogs) would be placed. The shaded areas above the upper implants show the sinus lifts

Dr. Kaman repeated the procedure and implanted two anchors in my right upper rear jaw.

The last implant, in my right lower rear jaw, went very quickly because the bone there is thick and no procedure similar to a sinus lift to build up the bone was needed.

Total cost for the sinus lifts and four CamLog anchors, $6,304.

Remaining expenses when I go back next year to get four crowns fitted to complete the implants, $1,408, for a total cost of $7,712 and a savings of over $15,000. I could reduce the savings by about $3,000 to account for the cost of the trip, but we enjoyed the trip so much that it doesn’t seem fair to add it to the cost of the dentistry.


This X-ray shows how my teeth will look when the four caps are fitted next year

We love to travel, we loved the trip, it was time for a vacation, and we’re already looking forward to returning next year.


Alice was impressed by the statues with buff buns


We had a long climb ahead of us, but I didn't know it yet, so I'm smiling (the cheek with the most swelling from the implants is in shadow, so I look almost normal)

And looking forward to spending almost a week in Turkey then.

I’m already reviving my almost forgotten Turkish phrases in my mind (phonetically):

Mir haba, akadash (Hello, friend).

Nasil sen? (How are you?)

Kash para? (How much does it cost?)

Chok para! (Too much!)

As long as I remember that no matter what price I’m given, it’s too much, I should be OK.

Chok te she kara darum. (Thank you)

Al Gore – Eco-Warrior on Luxury Private Jet!

"Do as I say, not as I do."

So said cigarette smokers trying to discourage me from smoking as a teenager in the late 50's. I, of course, ignored their excellent advice, but finally had the good sense to quit after sixteen years. Pop ignored his own advice, and died of throat cancer at age 68.

Pop and most smokers knew they were harming their own health, but they never thought that quitting smoking was necessary to save the world.

However, many prominent leaders of the Democrats are firmly convinced that reducing the production of carbon dioxide is all that can save the world, and are tirelessly traveling the globe preaching the world's desperate need to go on a low-energy diet.

Right now.

Time's a wastin'.

In light of Democrat leaders' tireless (and tiresome) proselytizing about the evils of man-caused global warming, it's interesting to see their personal contributions towards saving the planet.

Per the Drudge Report:

As former Vice President Al Gore waits to hear if he has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless effort on climate change, a new video will air this weekend capturing Gore on a fuel-guzzling private jet!



FOXNEWS host Sean Hannity is set to unleash the damning video this Sunday night, network sources reveal.

Then there's this.

When Al Gore is not jetting all over the world, creating one of the largest carbon footprints on Earth, he returns to relax at his modest Nashville home, one of the two listed below. (vetted as true by a Snopes investigation of Urban Legends):

HOUSE # 1: A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home.

This house is not in a northern or Midwestern 'snow belt,' either. It's in the South.

HOUSE # 2: Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every 'green' feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system.

Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (The 20-room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as 'the Texas White House,' it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment?

Yet another story you WON'T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it's truly 'an inconvenient truth.'

Home of John Edwards, equally as environmentally sensitive as Al Gore's.
(Consider all the carbon offsets - also known as trees - that were killed to clear this space for and around the Edwards edifice. It seems all these Democrat leaders have edifice complexes.)

Of course, Al Gore is not the only environmental hypocrite leading the Democrats. John Edwards has his 28,000 square-foot mansion, which he says is “carbon neutral” because he purchases carbon “offsets.”

Carbon offsets? Aren't those like the Indulgences Catholics could buy to wipe away sin?

Actually, no.

Indulgences wiped away sins already committed and forgiven, but did not give the sinner license to continue his sinning ways.

However, carbon offsets allow the "sinner" to keep on "sinning" with a clear conscience, just as long as he keeps practicing "pay-as-you-go" sinning. Atmospheric carbon dioxide still increases, but the conscience of the sinner is salved by the prospect that, in some future time, something he paid for may remove the damage done.

At least in theory.

Amazingly, this is the same John Edwards who wants businesses to operate under firm carbon caps, and to require businesses to make draconian cuts in carbon dioxide generation. For businesses, carbon offsets are not good enough. For John Edward’s personal needs, carbon offsets are just fine.

For those who aren't rich enough to buy forgiveness for destroying the planet, you get to make the sacrifices demanded by Al Gore and John Edwards.

Al and John don't sacrifice anything except a relatively small portion of their vast wealth.

Incidentally, their burden of sacrifice is made lighter because it's either tax deductible or paid from campaign contributions.

How nice to have taxpayers and supporters subsidize your sinning!

The Coach and Horses

When we arrived in England in January, 1970, I reported for duty as Budget Officer at the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, UK, and my sponsor, Captain Troxel, had reserved temporary lodging for us in The Coach and Horses Inn, Melton. Our two rooms were upstairs above the Pub, one in the front of the Inn, the other in the back. Bruce, 7, and Scott, 4, got the front room, and Marilynn and I, and one-year old Jeffrey, took the back.

Both rooms were small, and since the Earth had experienced a quarter-century of global cooling, the rooms also were cold. That winter, all of England seemed cold and dreary. The UK was just then beginning to exploit its North Sea gas fields, and almost all of England was still using coal-fired fireplaces and furnaces for warmth.

Our rooms had small electric heaters, fueled by the shilling coins we fed into them.

We had breakfasts in our room. We set a box outside the window, and it stayed cold enough to keep the milk, cheese, bread, condiments, and a few other perishable items fresh. I had lunches on the base, and Marilynn and the boys would join me or have sandwiches in the room. Marilynn and I had almost all our dinners in the restaurant of the Coach and Horses. Before having our dinners, we would order dinner for the boys and feed them in their room, then go to the restaurant for a quiet, relaxing meal. I worked my way through the menu top to bottom (several times), but Marilynn had halibut every night.

I rode the bus to the base and back for several days, then bought a used 1962 Morris 1100 automobile.

On most winter days a noon walk was like an evening walk. The Sun, never seen, provided a feeble glow through the thick overcast, and brought little warmth. In the far northern latitudes of the UK, the Sun apparently rose after 9 am, and presumably set about 3 pm. The black of night briefly was interrupted by the dull grey of day.

The air was redolent of coal smoke, and the exteriors of buildings were grimy with soot.

I loved it.

My wandering soul was home. I had found where I belonged.

In retrospect, my reactions to England were probably what you would expect from someone who loved reading the adventure classics of English literature, and watching movies like “Twelve O’clock High,” “Mrs. Miniver,” and “Ivanhoe.” Even “The Quiet Man,” set in Ireland, made my heart yearn for an English home I had never known. Just a picture of a John Constable painting of the English countryside made my chest ache in longing to return to a place I had never been.

Marilynn, although not as smitten as I was with England, adapted quickly and enjoyed our new adventure, just as she had in Turkey six years earlier.

Our temporary stay in the Coach and Horses began to have the feel of permanence. Our arrival in January, 1970, followed the arrival of the 67th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, which had just been kicked out of Wheelus Air Force Base, Libya, by “Colonel” Muammar Gaddafi “Duck” in late 1969. Every house I hoped to rent had already been found and rented by someone from the 67th. While I was tied down working twelve-hour days, seven days a week, preparing the Fiscal Year 1971 budget – I arrived the same week its preparation began – the 67th AARS personnel and their families had plenty of spare time and resources to be very formidable house-hunting opposition.

One day I skipped lunch to drop in to the Base Housing Office to see if, by some miracle, something had popped up and gotten past the 67th bird dogs. Just as I reached the office door, I heard profanity muttered by an Air Force Chief Master Sergeant who was getting out of his car in the parking lot. Among the expletives (deleted) I heard him say something about how !@#%&*! it was that the Air Force would make a senior NCO and his family move again after they had just found a home and moved in a few months before.

“Excuse me, Chief,” I said, “could I beg a few moments of your time?”

I guess he noticed my 27-year-old face didn’t go with my 2nd Lieutenant bars, so he cordially explained he had just received reassignment to RAF Upper Heyford, near Oxford, to be the aircraft maintenance nanny for the F-111, a versatile swing wing tactical bomber due to arrive at Upper Heyford in September, 1970.

He had found a big, four-bedroom farmhouse in Saxmundham a few months before, was all settled in, and now he was going to Base Housing to let them know it would soon be available to rent.

“That won’t be necessary,” I assured him. “I’ll rent it.”

“Don’t you want to look at it?” he asked.

“No, it’s perfect,” I replied, and arranged to contact the owner.

The owners, the Underwoods of Bury St. Edmonds, seemed happy with the arrangement. I was happy to find the Underwoods would charge us the same rent as the Chief’s family, 52 pounds ($125) a month. The Underwoods assured me they would be delighted to continue driving to Saxmundham once each month to pick up the rent in pound notes, no checks please.

The Chief and his family were packed quickly by the Air Force and moved to Upper Heyford, and our household goods, which were sitting in storage at the Felixstowe docks, were delivered immediately.

We moved into The Street Farm, Saxmundham, the 16th of February, in the middle of the strongest (and only) snowstorm we experienced the five years we were in England.

The Street Farm was at the top of Street Farm Road, just a block off the A-12 highway (at that time; the A-12 has since been rerouted), behind the telephone building operated by the General Post Office, and past the office of the Suffolk Constabulary.

The Street Farm itself was a large, two-story farm house with four bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, two living rooms, a kitchen, dining room, pantry, bathroom, bonus room, and utility room downstairs. It had a large fenced yard with a garden in back, overlooked a pasture, and beyond it was barns, stables, and an old dairy no longer in use. On the other side of Street Farm Road was a smaller house for the farm’s caretaker and his family.

We lived there for four wonderful years.

(Please click on the highlighted text to bounce to the next installment about my baptism into Base Budgeting at RAF Bentwaters)

Globalonly - Now Mapmakers Stoke Global Warming Hysteria

Today another shameless article appeared that trumpeted the horrors of man-caused global warming.

Except that the article's headline did not match what was actually presented.

Dramatic pictures that show how global warming is changing world maps, Daily Mail, September 3, 2007

The effects of global climate change are clear to see on the latest world maps.

In the four years since the last edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World went on sale, cartographers have been forced to redraw coastlines and reclassify types of land.

It all sounds pretty convincing that global warming is being documented in redrawn maps, until you actually read the article and find that the examples are of vast changes caused by poor water management. Almost all the changes are to lakes and rivers, not because of the effects of global warming, but because water has been diverted primarily for agricultural purposes.

The only examples of sea level concerns are the usual: Tuvalu, low lying islands in the Pacific; Bangladesh, where many factors, including subsidence from ground water extraction and other causes could be involved; and a shrinking sea shore at a remote village in Alaska.

From 1949 to 1960, and from 1998 to present, I have lived near Point Arena on the Northern California coast. In that 58-year period, I have often visited places along this coast that appear now to be just as they were then. Why are rising seas such a problem elsewhere, when there is no evidence of significant change here?

Why is Tuvalu always in jeopardy? Since most scientific studies show that Tuvalu is not being inundated by rising seas, it appears that the Tuvaluans are grasping at the profit potential of claiming global-warming victimhood, which is probably greater than their current primary souces of income: domain name hosting, and postage stamps.

The good people of Tuvalu were probably devastated when recent studies actually found a drop in their sea level. They may be stuck on Tuvalu for a long time.

The article voices concern that sea levels could be rising 3mm per year in the vicinity of Bangladesh.

Sea levels rising 3mm per year? They have been rising at that rate, or much higher, since the end of the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago. For the uninformed, total sea level increase in that period is over 400 feet, or an average of over 7mm per year. And all that was without any help from mankind, apart from an occasional overcooked mastodon steak. Mankind has created far more sea intrusion from over pumping ground water causing subsidence - over 20 feet in some places like the California Central Valley - than could ever be attached to mankind's paltry addition of about two percent to naturally created CO2.

Look at the examples given in the article, and ask yourself if it doesn’t seem the problems are caused by poor water use practices, not global warming due to mankind's contribution to total greenhouse gases.

Global warming has always been a natural phenomenon that the Left has been looking to blame on economic development and increasing prosperity.

The Left worships absolute control over human activities, as evidenced by their love of totalitarian governments. The Left has never been comfortable with economically free individuals having personal property rights, and looks at increased regulation to stop “man-made” global warming as their last, best hope to regain the control over individuals lost when dicatatorships and monarchies were swept away by democratic institutions.

Surf Fishing at Alder Creek

Pop used to take Ron and me, and Puddles, and sometimes Mom would come along in our old International Harvester pickup, to the beach at Alder Creek to catch surf fish with a dip net. Back then, in the early 1950’s, Alder Creek formed a lagoon that lapped against the low cliff on the south side. We didn’t know it then, but the reason for the cliffs on either side of Alder Creek was that this was where the San Andreas fault entered the Pacific. The concrete abutments of the old bridge destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake provided a good visual to locate the fault line. 

The water lapping against the cliff meant that Mom, Ron, and I had to take a trail from the parking lot over the hill and then down to the beach. Pop and Puddles went through Alder Creek, in typical Pop fashion. When they reached the shore of the lagoon, Pop put his gear – six pack of Bürgermeister beer, gunny sack for the fish, dip net, and Puddles – into a galvanized steel washtub (which was also our bathtub), and waded across the lagoon pushing the washtub with Puddles proudly standing lookout. When they reached the opposite shore, Puddles jumped out to run in the sand, and Ron and I carried the washtub to a large drift log on the beach, where we gathered driftwood and started a fire while Pop checked out whether any day fish (smelt) were running. 

There are two types of smelt that spawn on the Alder Creek beach. The day fish are about six inches long, and come in to spawn at high tide. There are several ways to find if they are “running” (coming in to spawn). None of the ways are guaranteed or fool proof, but one of the best is to watch for sea birds “working” (diving to feed on fish near the shore). Another way is to watch for fish in the waves. Unlike grunion, the surf fish stay in the wave instead of lying on the sand waiting for another wave to come in and take them back out. That makes seeing them in the waves difficult, but when you do see them, you know you’ll get some fish. The way Pop would usually find fish was just start dipping his net into the waves. Often he would catch fish when there was no indication that they were running.

Michael Vick is Finished

As the gruesome, barbaric tale of Michael Vick’s involvement in dog fighting unfolds, I have already read of expectations that he will plea bargain, pay a price, and return in a year or two to quarterback the Atlanta Falcons.

Who would cheer for such a monster if he returned to the NFL? What sort of heartless beasts of fans support professional football players, no matter what atrocities they commit?

As I read of the horrors dog fighting enthusiasts inflict on dogs, I look at Buddy and give him a tummy rub. Buddy is so gentle, so trusting, that the idea of someone using Buddy for their own monstrous entertainment makes my heart ache.



Since Michael Vick’s crimes became public, I’ve read reports of dog fighting trainers who get stolen pets and use them to train their dogs to fight and kill. I look at Buddy and imagine a nightmare, that his jaws are taped and he’s thrown into a pit with a fierce fighting dog. Buddy would wag his tail, the same as when he meets other dogs, because he dearly loves to play with them. Buddy would be totally defenseless as the other dog ignored his trusting friendliness with a vicious charge and savage bites.


Alice and I, Buddy showing where the infected thorn was removed, and Buddy's little sister Duchess.

Maybe it’s not Buddy being sacrificed to train vicious killers. It could be a child’s beloved pet, his dear friend and companion, being torn apart pitilessly under the approving eyes of Michael Vick and his dog fighting and gambling friends.

Michael Vick will go to prison, then he will come out, and his fans will say he paid his debt to society and that now it’s time to let him play football and to earn his millions again.

Perhaps they’re right that by serving time in prison Michael Vick will have paid his debt to society for the crimes he committed.

Maybe the NFL commissioner will overlook that Michael Vick gambled, associated with criminals and gamblers, lied to the commissioner about his gambling and criminally cruel acts, and declare him rehabilitated.

But they’re wrong that he will ever again be quarterbacking an NFL team.

What he did is more than a violation of a law.

He violated standards of decency such that he can never pay a high enough price to wash the stains of his cruelty and sadism from our hearts and minds.

Hearts and minds.

The highest courts of all.

More CBS Partisan Reporting

From Fishbowl DC, courtesy of the Drudge Report:

As Karl Rove embraced President Bush today following an emotional farewell announcement on the South Lawn, the solemnity of the moment was shattered by Bill Plante of CBS, who bellowed to Bush: "If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?"

Apparently this is what passes for journalism today.

Maybe this is Mr. Plante’s standard, non-partisan question he asks of all presidents when they lose Congress.

It’s just that no one heard him when he called it out to Bill Clinton when he lost Congress in 1994 by a lot more seats in both the House and the Senate than President Bush lost in 2006.

Or a variant of the question: “President Clinton, if you and your wife are both so smart, why did you appoint her to do Health Care Reform (Hillarycare), and why did she make such a mess of it that you lost Congress?”

For those who are historically challenged, which includes most journalists and all Democrats, in 1994 the Clintons’ lack of smarts resulted in a swing of ten Senate and 54 house seats to Republicans.

In contrast, the first mid-term election for President Bush saw the Republicans pick up two seats in the Senate, and six in the House. This was one of only four mid-term elections in the past hundred years where the party holding the presidency picked up seats.

If Bill Plante is such a smart journalist, how come he asks such stupid, partisan questions? And does it in such a boorish manner?

Oh, that’s right. He works for CBS.

D’oh!

Abolish the Electoral College

It would be great to have California divide its electoral votes on the basis of the ratio of votes for president.

The reason I applaud this proposed change is simple, and selfish.

A Republican would be elected president in 2008.

Probably in 2012 too, even if Democrats caught on and by some miracle were able to get all states to change to proportional division of electors by popular vote.

The reason the Republicans would continue winning is simple: the power of incumbency.

I have another “selfish” reason for wanting the change besides future Republican victories. I’m a Republican in the Northern California Democrat fiefdom. It would be nice to have my vote for president mean something. In my district, instead of “one man, one vote,” it’s “Republican? Why vote?”

The Electoral College got us a win in 2000. Without the Electoral College we might have won anyway, because without it voting patterns would change, and the changes might have brought out more Republicans in places, like Northern California, where voting in presidential elections seems futile.

Some say that doing away with the Electoral College, and going to direct popular voting for president would favor the big states.

Why?

Because that’s where most of the people live.

OK.

One man…excuse me, one person, one vote.

What’s wrong with that?

It Suddenly Got Hotter – In the 1930s!

Stop the cotton-picking presses!

Extra!

Extra!

Read all about it!

Temperatures adjusted up!

In the 1930s.

Temperatures adjusted down.

In the 1990s and 2000s.

Actually, as reported in Noel Sheppard’s Blog, 8/9/07: “A change in climate history data at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently occurred which dramatically alters the debate over global warming. Yet, this transpired with no official announcement from GISS head James Hansen…”

The change? Reporting as if commenting on a golf match, Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit, had looked at NASA’s report “Contiguous 48 U.S. Surface Air Temperature Anomaly”, which displays average annual mean temperatures from 1880 through 2006, and found:

“Four of the top 10 are now from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only 3 of the top 10 are from the last 10 years (1998, 2006, 1999). Several years (2000, 2002, 2003, 2004) fell well down the leaderboard, behind even 1900.”

Since the American climate data collection system is the finest on the planet, I wonder when the inevitable revisions to world temperature “records” will be made, and whether they will be quietly adjusted, with no media fanfare, as NASA’s records for the contiguous 48 American states.

I don’t wonder.

I know the answer.

For several years we were told that 1998 was the hottest year on record. Frequently that statement didn’t include the qualifier that it was so hot because it was an El Niño year, one of the two strongest of the past century.

The year of Katrina, 2005, was only tied for 15th warmest of the past 127 years. In contrast, 2006 was the fourth warmest in that period, but was virtually hurricane free.

Yet we read all about man-caused global warming causing the highest temperatures of the past century, of the past millennium, even since the birth of Christ.

Then NASA quietly changes the American records.

They didn’t want to causes headlines about any “inconvenient truths.”



A “Strong Ox” Post Script

Recently a warming trend in Nevada, which to me corresponds very closely with the phenomenal recent growth in Nevada’s population (creating “urban heat islands”, which like the heating trend in Nevada, are characteristically much warmer at night), was breathlessly reported as a wake-up call for Nevada politicians “to do something.”

What the “something” Nevada’s politicians were supposed to do to combat global warming was not even hinted at in the article.

I suggested they do like California politicians, only more so, and sharply increase taxes and greatly tighten regulations on development and business activities. That will discourage businesses and people from moving to Nevada, and when the taxes get really high and the casinos, and businesses and employees that depend on the casinos, start to fold, it will even discourage tourists from going there.

I'll bet that the temperature, as well as prosperity, will come down and make the Democrat politicians happy.

California’s politicians haven’t succeeded in killing California’s population and economic growth yet, because the small group of Republicans in the California Senate can still block ruinous legislation and thwart the desires of the majority Democrats and Governor Schwarzenegger.

The Democrats won't stand for that much longer.

Making The Army Of Reconquista

“Maria, it is your patriotic Mexicana duty to make a baby with me tonight.”

“Jose, you already have esposa y ocho niños in Mexico. You send them all your dinero except for what you spend on yourself y los prostitutas. I know why you want to go to bed with me. But why do you want to make a bebé?”

“Maria, you think I am just a peón, but I am a Reconquistadore, a gallant soldier in the Army of Reconquista. And tonight I want to enlist you in this noble cause”

“Last night Juan wanted me to go to his room too, but he didn’t say he wanted to ‘enlist’ me. He used a different word.”

“Juan is a selfish pig. He told you he would use a condom, so no bebé, verdad, is that not so? He wanted you for his pleasure only, I want you to show my patriotism.”

“Jose, last night I think Juan showed me a bigger patriotism than yours.”

“Maria, la Reconquista must have babies, mucho bebés. Very soon, maybe 15 years, the babies will be big, and they will have mucho bebés. Then, in 15 more years, mucho, mucho bebés! Comprende, Maria? In 50 years California will be just like Mexico!”

“Jose, are you loco? We came to California to get away from Mexico. What will we do when California is just as bad?”

“Maria, then we will go to New York. You will like it. For now, show me your patriotism.”

Media Biases, and Other Sins

Surprise and shock about the Pew Research Center finding that the American public sees the news media as biased, inaccurate, and uncaring are not two of the emotions I felt. Having just posted "More Newsweek Lies," and other posts concerning the abysmal standards of reporting on Plamegate (which should have been nicknamed "Uncovertgate"), and the reporting last year from Lebanon, I would have been surprised and shocked if the American public didn't share my low opinion of the news media.

Another recent example, The New Republic publishing fabricated tales of American atrocities supposedly written by a GI in Iraq.

Then there was the unreported death of affirmative action.

There's always the hypocrisy of the New York Times and their Liberal herd.

As the Left whines loudly and continually about Fox News, the public is aware that NBC, CBS (with its ongoing "60 Minutes" jounalistic atrocities), ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the SF Chronicle, and most of the other major news organizations have their own liberal versions of "truth."

No wonder the public thinks as badly of the news media as they do of the Democrat-controlled Congress, also now at an all-time low in popularity.

More Newsweek Lies

Recently there have been articles that compare the United States economy with Europe, and conclude that Europe is doing better. Intuitively, that doesn’t seem possible, given the almost zero population growth of Europe, its rapidly aging population, its high tax rates, and smothering regulations.

I would think one sign of economic strength would be the growth of a county’s economy, so I wanted first to check and see how the US was doing. In the past ten years the US GDP grew almost five trillion dollars (1997, $8.2 trillion; 2006, $13.0 trillion). In fact, the US GDP grew $3.0 trillion in just the past five years.

To put these numbers in perspective, the growth alone in US GDP in the past ten years is larger than the entire GDP of the second largest economy, Japan, and the growth in the past five years is greater than the entire GDP of any nation besides Japan, including China.

So far it doesn’t seem the United States is falling behind surging European economic juggernauts.

Last year an article in Newsweek International (Europe: The Great Job Machine - Despite its laggard reputation, Europe continues to grow faster, and create more jobs, than America, by Emily Flynn Vencat) trumpeted that the European job growth rate was greater than the US (0.9% vs. 0.7%) since the beginning of the decade. Since the US unemployment rate has fallen steadily, and is now at about a rock-bottom 4.5%, I surmised that the European rate must be even lower.

What a shock to find the overall European rate hadn’t fallen below 8% for over a decade, and that for the four largest mainland European economies -- Germany, France, Italy, and Spain – the unemployment rates have been 10% or higher for that same period. In addition, the duration of unemployment in Europe tends to be very long. For example, in Germany and Italy, more than half of the unemployed have been that way for more than one year.

I’m not too sure just what the robust job growth in Europe statistics mean. Europe's population is expected to decrease by 2050 due to declining birth rates. By that time the population of Europe will be 18 million smaller than the United States. Europe already registers the world's lowest population growth rate at 0.03 percent. In the region of Eastern Europe, population growth is -0.2 percent.

Any Newsweek writer expecting to dig good economic news for Europe out of these population statistics is desperate indeed to convince readers that the United States should follow the European lead.

According to Newsweek:

“In America's roaring 1990s, the average annual job-growth rate was a whopping 1.4 percent, compared with Europe's 0.4 percent. But then, at the beginning of the decade, America's GDP growth halved from 4.4 to 2.2 percent, which hit jobs hard.”

How hard did America’s GDP growth fall? In 2003 GDP went up 2.45%, in 2004 up 3.1%, in 2005 up 4.4%, and in 2006 up 3.2%.

How does that compare with the Newsweek glowing comparison of Europe to the United States? Interestingly, I found “the United States ranks first in economic growth (compared to Canada, Japan, and the European Union) with an average annualized seasonally adjusted real GDP growth rate of 2.7 percent from the first quarter of 2001 through the third quarter of 2005.”

How did the European Union do? Their GDP growth rate for the same period was 1.5%, close to half of the United States growth rate.

The United States and the European Union (EU) both added five million jobs in that period. Since the US population is smaller than the EU, simple math shows the US had a higher rate of job growth for the almost five-year period starting in 2001.

The European unemployment rate was 8.8% vs. 5.4% for the US during that period, and the US rate has since fallen to 4.5%.

More from Newsweek:

“Europe was buoyed by the fact that its high-cost, high-value work model began to produce jobs in cutting-edge fields like IT, environmental technology and R&D. In the United States, by contrast, permanent losses in manufacturing, among other factors, made an easy rebound impossible.”

How does that square with the United States having a higher rate of GDP growth, and far lower unemployment? Or a 4.6% increase in industrial production compared to an EU increase of 1.2% for the almost five-year period?

American productivity -- output per employed person -- rose 9.4% vs. 3.2% for the EU during the period 2001 through 2005.

But enough of beating on hapless Newsweek and their socialist dreams.

What is obvious from even a casual review of these statistics is that the generous European welfare state health and pension systems are doomed to failure, and to failure soon. Already the average European is 35 years old, by far the oldest in the world. The older age groups in Europe are larger than the younger, and are increasing steadily in proportion.

However, all the statistics showing the positives for the United States, and the negatives for Europe, won’t stop or even slow down the Democrats and Main Stream Media from urging us to embrace socialism.

As you can see from the Newsweek International article, they are not going to stop at selective reporting and analyses of statistics (also known as lying) to try to lead us down the failed paths of the European nanny welfare states.

So remember that the magazine that brought us false tales of Korans being flushed is not above spreading falsehoods about how better off we would be if we just had higher taxes and more regulations.

Their messages have the full support and approval of the Democrat Party.

Index of Posts Except Political

(Please mouse click on the red, underlined link titles to be magically transported to the articles described. I'll be glad you did. How you will feel about the process may be something else entirely, but go ahead, take a chance!)

Link to Political Posts - Politics is funny, especially when Liberals get serious.

The Galapagos Island cruise and Ecuador trip, January 2006

It's the Family After All - That is no stranger hanging on the cross.
Finding Real Beauty in the Galapagos Islands - A human mind can be beautiful too.

Point Arena Stories, 1949-1960

Big and Smart - Mom, Pop, the Runt and I
Eight-Man Football at Point Arena High - The more you goof off and take things easy, the longer you get to do them.
Jesus Saves, and the Little Red Truck - A thoughtful message from a friend I never met.
Point Arena Apprentice Poker Players - One day we thought we would be the big boys.
The Great Point Arena Fire of 1954 - Everyone likes to help
After the Summer of 1954 - You can't do a "kiss and tell," if you didn't do the kiss.
Pete Bjornavik, a Point Arena character - Fun to be around
Gopher Capital of the World? - There's a bit of larceny in all of us
1960 NCAA Basketball Championships - Thanks, "Chub" Ohleyer - A very generous man
Sweethearts Dance 1960 - Bad weather makes a special memory
Number, Please? - Personal connections before the dial telephone
Puddles the Pup - A big part of the best childhood in the whole world
You Gotta Ring Them Bells - Some wedding nights you don't forget, but you try!
After The Summer of 1954 - 7th and 8th grade, 60 students, one great teacher
The House We Built - Brother Ron and I dug the basement in 1954, with help from "Prince"
The Old High School - When we came to Pt. Arena in 1949, we lived in one big room of an abandoned high school building.
A Capsule Summary of My Life - So far, so good.
Humboldt State Lumberjack Reporter - The beginning of a nine-year, seven-college odyssey.

The Air Force Years, 1962 to 1984

You're in the Air Force Now - A very tiny thing can change a life.
It's a Gig - Sometimes the hard times are the best.
Sober Reflections on Memorial Day - Trying to find my place in Memorial Day.
They Also Served - Marilynn and our three sons were in the front lines.
England, 1970 to 1975 - My best job at my best base.
Traveling with a Water Bed - It's not often your guests bring their own.
Why Planes Break Down in Christchurch - Not just mechanical parts can delay a mission!
The Pineapple Express - Jimmuh and me have something in common.

Life in Gualala, 1998 to present

Our 2006 Christmas Letter - A Christmas letter is like a box of chocolates.
Europe Bicycle Trip of a Lifetime - When you haven't biked much, a four-month trip on bikes through Europe is a natural choice to celebrate retirement.
We Arrive in Europe - Our bike hike, continued.
Klein Gumpen, Here We Come! - Our bike hike, continued.
Uncle Jack - You're never to old to teach or to learn.
The Dublin to Tralee Train, and how Alice stopped it!
Running - Now Buddy keeps me going.
Same Time Next Year - Finding out how the other half live.
Excitement in Anchor Bay - Big doin's in a one potty town.
Mixed Company - When Alice and I stepped in, the company became mixed.

Tales of Alice

Feliz Ano Nuevo! - Wish your friends a new one! Just don't tell them what "it" is!
Alice and Vulcan Incorporated - Only in America
"Heartless" Capitalism is the Most Compassionate - Alice succeeds while France fails.
Alice's Project Complete! - It is worth it
Great Expectations - The tale of our whirlwind "story book" romance, featuring me picking Alice from a book.
The Dublin to Tralee Train, and how Alice stopped it!
Alice, the California Can Carrier - I think the Italian men liked the way she carried her can.
A Burning Desire - How lust landed me on the ski slopes
Murder by Wasabi - Was watching Monday Night Football a capital offense?
The Strong Woman Myth - In conclusion, a tribute to Alice and her daughters
Christmas Letter, 2005 - Alice had a busy year
A Fool Such As I - In a letter to the editor of our local paper, someone called me a fool. Alice didn't like that, and replied.

Some Observations

Almost Fetch With Buddy - It's a great game
Science Fiction - Where's the Science? - UFO's don't exist, and won't ever show up here. Why would they?
Really Dumb Football Players - NFL players are getting bigger, stronger, faster, and a whole lot dumber!
Garcia vs. Owens - Class Against No-Class - Jeff Garcia has class and the courage, Terrell Owens has neither
My Ancestors Owned Slaves - And I haven't.
Country and Western, Telling Life's Stories - Songs for adults.
Making the Army of Reconquista - There's more than one way to build an army of conquest!
Pardo's Push - Bravery, ingenuity, loyalty. It was an honor to serve with guys like these.
The Devil Made Me Do It - When you mess up, you have to blame someone.
Revolutionary Jesus - Seeking Truth at Christmas - It’s time for weak-kneed agnostics to stand up and be counted!
Free Will or Preordination? - Amen
Of Mensa and Me - No excuse for doing dumb things.
For Veterans Today, And Tomorrow - "For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot"
The Deadly Bigotry of Low Expectations - It's easy to live down to expectations
If I Received a Love Poem - An expanded view of love.
Greatest Baseball Player of All - Willie and the Babe, forever number one.
Fight to get Your Virginity Back! - Once you lose it, abstinence won't get it back.
Cargo Cults, Reparations, and Casinos - The dreams are alive!
Review of Global Warming, What You Need to Know - I was happy to be chosen to review Tom Brokaw's special.
Keep it Simple, Simplifiers - There are two types of people in the world, simplifiers and complicators, and you know who you are.

The Global Warming Suite (Global Warming is science, not politics, according to Liberals, so it can go in this index)

Al Gore and his Merry Band of Global Warming Deniers - In denial that global warming is natural.
Preacher Al Gore and the Global Warming Fundies - "Brothers, let me hear you say 'Hot!' Sisters, let me hear you say 'Real Hot!' What have we got!? "A lot a' hot brothers and sisters! Turn on the air conditioning!"
Global Warming Consensus is not Science - At one time scientific consensus was the earth was flat; now it's global warming is man-made.
We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period! - If Al Gore can't get rid of it, his "science" is toast
Harvard Study Disproves Unprecedented Global Warming - And Harvard is not a right-wing stronghold
Global Warming - A Stroll Through the European Countryside - Liberals should be very careful as they stroll, since they can't look down and see signs of the Medieval Warm Period. With any luck they'll fall off the "man-made global warming" cliff.
A Sign of the Coming of the Global Warming Plagues - The Gospel according to Preacher Al Gore
Science Opposed to Global Warming Theory - An Index - If you still believe in Preacher Al Gore's Global Warming after you read these articles, you really got the faith!
Ain't No Big Thing - My advice to Al concerning rising sea levels.
Chilling Out Global Warming Hype - A pre-review of Tom Brokaw's Global Warming, What You Need to Know
Review of Global Warming, What You Need to Know - Presenting the other side.
Bring On Global Warming! - Please! Before we freeze!
The Four Whorsemen Of Global Warming - There are more than four now. Maybe I can add a few by having them ride double.
Hypocrisy of New York Times and Liberals - The champions of personal liberty and freedom of the press look the other way when the Left is doing the violating.

Please click on the labels below to see all my articles on each topic.