The Lancet response to Bjørn Lomborg

A Bjørn Lomborg Wall Street Journal article (Climate Change and the Lancet’s ‘Heat Death’ Deception With COP27 approaching, {Lancet} claims rising temperatures have killed people but ignores that they appear to have saved far more.) criticized a Lancet study that found a increasing heat deaths among old people without adjusting for the fact that there are a lot more old people now, thanks to medical and environmental progress as a result of fossil fuel use.

Lancet then responded by going wildly off topic: "Behind this discussion lies an ethical conflict. Older generations have enjoyed enormous benefits from industrialization, mostly based on fossil fuels. But global heating from fossil-fuel greenhouse gases leads to extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, wildfires, reduced crop yields, increased risk of infectious disease, biodiversity loss and sea-level rise, all with effects on health and survival. We are putting our children’s future in the balance. The generational injustice can’t be ignored."

Now it's not the old people, who are actually doing better because of fossil fueled progress, but the young in a distant future who are threatened by climate change events that, with all the scrutiny today, still haven't materialized. In fact, this chart shows that our children's risks caused by climate change have declined dramatically over the past 100 years of rapidly expanding fossil fuel use.

Heat and cold deaths?

The Lancet is hoist on its own petard.

Droughts?

Floods and droughts?

Extreme weather events?

Wildfires?

Reduced crop yields?

 

Increased risk of infectious disease?

Apparently the Lancet physicians never heard of the pandemics that killed hundreds of millions in colder periods of past centuries: the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) that killed 200 million over six hundred years ago; Smallpox killed 56 million about 500 years ago; Spanish Flu killed almost 50 million only one hundred years ago; the Plague of Justinian killed perhaps 50 million 1,500 years ago; and AIDS/HIV so far has killed around 30 million. 

Of the roughly 259 pandemics spanning the past several thousand years, the probable link to climate change is rapid increase in population and cities after the end of the last glacial period (Ice Age) about 11,700 years ago.

Sea level rise?

Historic sea level higher for most of the past 3,000 years.

Honolulu sea level?

Honolulu rate of sea level rise is six inches per century and steady.

The key points of the Lancet response are all unsupported.

So I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal:

Editor

The Lancet response to Bjorn Lomborg’s article (Climate Change and the Lancet’s ‘Heat Death Deception’” was breathtaking in its deceptions. Its portent of fossil fuel doom didn’t acknowledge the 99% decrease in climate related deaths during the past 100 years due to wealth creation and development as a result of fossil fuel use. Placing the present in the context of the last 1,000 years, we find in the past greater weather events such as droughts and floods and over ten times the acreage burnt by wildfires annually. Rather than “reduced crop yields”, the world now produces record harvests without increased acres planted on an almost annual basis. Sea levels, now lower than during half of the past 10,000 years, are increasing at a rate of six inches per century with no signs of acceleration, per the world’s tide gauge records. 

 

The Lancet letter then goes off tangent about deaths caused by small particulate matter air pollution. Unmentioned by Lancet, these deaths are primarily due to burning wood and dung to cook and heat in enclosed spaces and have been since humans mastered fire. The growing use of natural gas and electricity generated from burning fossil fuels reduces these deaths dramatically.

 

“ Physician (Lancet), heal thyself!”

Unscientific Left

I am often called unscientific and a climate change denier by those who don’t even know about prior warmer periods: the Eemian, only 125,000 years ago, and the Holocene, Minoan, Roman, and Medieval within the past 10,000 years. 

I thought of the unscientific left when I read an article in the Press Democrat about Sebastopol opposing fluoride in drinking water. The American Dental Association says that water fluoridation is “the single most effective public health measure to prevent dental decay,” and world and US health organizations all support it. 

Also endorsed by prestigious world and US science and health organizations, and opposed by many northern California liberals: geneticallymodified organisms (GMO) and immunizations. 

Supported by those same liberals, although debunked by scientific and health organizations: natural supplements; organics; complementaryand alternative medicine such as homeopathy, acupuncture, and chiropractic. None of the purported benefits of these alternatives are supported by rigorous scientific studies. "There is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't." 

For example, a recent Stanford study found that organic food is no more nutritious than food grown using pesticides and chemicals – and won’t benefit your health. 

Fracking is moving the US towards energy independence, reviving manufacturing, and actually reducing CO2 emissions compared to non-fracking Europe. Nuclear energy, such as could be provided by liquid fluoride thorium reactors – which do not produce weapons-grade materials or long-life nuclear waste – would answer all the requirements for inexpensive, reliable, non-polluting energy that environmentalists desire, and which wind and solar won’t, yet liberals are afraid of a phantom, not the reality, of the next generation of nuclear energy. 

As they text while driving and sipping bottled water, causing accidents and environmental damage, they wallow in self-adulation.

Dallas Cowboys Happiness

I share a secret delight with many Americans, feeling joy watching the Dallas Cowboys lose. It all started when the Cowboys named themselves "America's Team," and I started meeting all sorts of Cowboys fans who knew next to nothing about football or the team they supported.

They reminded me a lot of Democrat supporters.

My oldest son's in-laws are all Cowboys fans. They're wonderful people, but they've never lived in Texas, let alone Dallas. My oldest son - actually my three sons and I - have been life-long 49ers fans, although since I was born in 1942 and the 49ers weren't created until 1946, I really become a 49ers fan when we bought our first TV in 1954 and I first saw them play.

Although we lived 140 miles north of San Francisco, everyone in the area was a 49ers fan.

The 49ers are considered to have had the greatest team of all time. It's just that it's impossible to determine whether the 1984 or the 1989 49ers was that greatest team. Certainly the 49ers success from 1981 through 1998, including 16 straight seasons when they won 10 or more games, was one of if not the longest period of sustained excellence in professional sports history.

Along the way the 49ers featured some of the greatest players of all time at key positions - Joe Montana at quarterback, Jerry Rice at wide receiver, and Ronny Lott at whatever defensive back position he was playing.

Tonight I enjoyed watching the Baltimore Ravens take the Cowboys apart in the last game to be played in the Cowboy's old stadium. As a special sweetner, Terrell Owens had an undistinguished game, and will soon probably destroy what little remains of Cowboy team spirit. To Owens, there is one big "I" in team.

The cowboys deserve TO, and they deserved tonight. May they long remember it.

UPDATE: Apparently the Cowboys are not as dumb as Jerry Jones acts. They let TO go, and now he is the Buffalo Bills' problem.

No Sanctuaries - Lessons Taught by Turkey and Israel

Turkey was right in striking Kurdish rebels in Iraq, because Iraq was incapable of stopping them from attacking across the border in Turkey.

No sanctuary!

Israel is right in attacking terrorists in Gaza because Palestinians are incapable of preventing Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli citizens.

No sanctuary!

Israel is right to attack the areas the rockets are fired from, even if Hamas is launching from populated areas, using civilians as shields.

No sanctuary!

Israel is also right to embargo Gaza to prevent armaments going in, and suicide bombers coming out.

Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon, and will have to do it again because Iran and Syria are rearming Hezbollah with rockets.

No sanctuary!

Columbia is right for killing rebels staging from Ecuador. Chavez is an idiot for thinking otherwise.

No sanctuaries!

Why is so hard for leftists to understand that it’s not OK for terrorists to attack with impunity from neighboring countries?

Even Obama seems to understand that's wrong, because he said we should attack Taliban in Pakistan if the Pakistanis won’t take care of the terrorists on its borders.

No sanctuary!

Sanctuaries can be built in many ways, for many reasons. During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam and Cambodia were sanctuaries for the Viet Cong and for North Vietnamese aggressors.

Why were they allowed sanctuary?

Because they were supported by the USSR and China, and we were afraid of escalating a regional war into an international one.

Obviously we hadn’t learned any lessons from the Korean War, where China (backed by the Soviet Union) provided sanctuary and prevented the military collapse of North Korea.

Sanctuaries exist all over. In the United Kingdom, France, and in most of Europe, Muslim communities give sanctuary to spewers of radicalism and hatred. Behavior is tolerated which normally would not be because the fear of abnormal violent reactions from Muslim communities causes authorities to look the other way.

This happens in America, too. When Danish and European publications struck a principled stand for freedom of the press and printed the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, the press of the United States took the coward’s way out and didn’t.

It is an abomination before our principles of press freedom that a nation that has no qualms about photos of a “Piss Christ” or a “Madonna Framed in Elephant Dung and Vulvas” cannot publish cartoons which are identifiable as Muhammad only by their captions.

The sanctuaries we gave Muslims are just like the ones of the Viet Cong and North Koreans – they exist because we were afraid to take them away.

Our fears license more sanctuaries, as they betray our principles.

The New Republic Editors are Dishonest

On page 10 of The New Republic article, Fog of War, in an attempt at standing by its “Baghdad Diarist” articles four pages before declaring they couldn’t, editor Franklin Foer lays out a defense of his editorial staff’s incompetence.

The following paragraph in his 14-page obfuscation of the fact that The New Republic was in a fact-checking fog illustrates the dishonesty that permeates his entire review.

Without new evidence to be gleaned, we began to lay out the evidence we had assembled. It wasn't just the testimonials from the soldiers in his unit. Among others, we had called a forensic anthropologist and a spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Nothing in our conversations with them had dissuaded us of the plausibility of Beauchamp's pieces.

What did they ask the spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles? Was it something along the lines of: “Can you kill a dog by running over it with a Bradley?”

I could speculate endlessly about what The New Republic asked “a spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles,” but I don’t have to, I know what they asked courtesy of the sort of fact checking that The New Republic editor said they did, but didn’t.

A blogger, Bob “Confederate Yankee” Owens, did the fact checking with the spokesman for the manufacturer of Bradley Fighting Vehicles that The New Republic purportedly did. From the Bradley spokesman, Mr. Owens found a great deal of information about Bradleys, their crews, and capabilities, and most significantly he did something The New Republic “fact checker” did not. He presented the spokesman with the text about the Bradleys’ alleged use in Iraq according to the “Baghdad Diarist” article.

The following is the spokesman, Mr. Coffey, responding to Mr. Owens’ questions:

I can't pretend to know what may or may not have happened in Iraq but the impression the writer leaves is that a "driver" can go on joy rides with a 35 ton vehicle at will. The vehicle has a crew and a commander of the vehicle who is in charge. In order for the scenario described to have taken place, there would have to have been collaboration by the entire crew.

The driver's vision, even if sitting in an open hatch is severely restricted along the sides. He sits forward on the left side of the vehicle. His vision is significantly impaired along the right side of the vehicle which makes the account to "suddenly swerve to the right" and actually catch an animal suspect. If you were to attempt the same feat in your car, it would be very difficult and you have the benefit of side mirrors.

Anyone familiar with tracked vehicles knows that turning sharply requires the road wheels on the side of the turn to either stop or reverse as the road wheels on the opposite side accelerates. What may not be obvious is that the track once on the ground, doesn't move. The road wheels roll across it but the track itself is stationary
until it is pushed forward by the road wheels.

The width of the track makes it highly unlikely that running over a dog would leave two intact parts. One half of the dog would have to be completely crushed.

It also seems suspicious that a driver could go on repeated joy rides or purposefully run into things. Less a risk to the track though that is certainly possible but there is sensitive equipment on the top of the vehicle, antennas, sights, TOW missile launcher, commander and if it was a newer vehicle, the commander's independent viewer, not to mention the main gun. Strange things are known to happen in a combat environment but I can't imagine that the vehicle commander or the unit commander would tolerate repeated misuse of the vehicle, especially any action that could damage its ability to engage.

Speaking from my over 21 years Air Force service as an airman, non-commissioned officer, and officer, I cannot believe that officers and non-commissioned officers would allow such joyriding, particularly of the type described by the “Baghdad Diarist,” which was certain to damage vehicles they were in charge of and for which they would be held responsible. And which, of course, would also reduce their fighting effectiveness and take them out of service until repaired.

Anyone who has sat through a military meeting as I have, listening to a maintenance chief going over readiness status, including why equipment was down for maintenance, when it would be back in service, and what was being done to increase ready time, would know that only someone with no knowledge of the military would think joyriding and damaging equipment is a laughing matter.

Strangely, Mr. Foer includes in his defense that he had talked with an officer who said that Bradleys sometimes accidently run over dogs, and clings to this bit of information like it was highly significant. Mr. Foer, for over six decades I have known that vehicles of all types accidently kill dogs, cats, skunks, deer, raccoons, fox, and occassionally to greater sorrow, people.

Later Mr. Foer admits, without ever addressing the issue that killing dogs as Beauchamp described is physically doubtful, and in my opinion, impossible:

But, after our re-reporting, some of our questions are still unanswered. Did the driver intentionally run over dogs? Did he record his kills in a little green notebook? We've never been able to reach the driver. And Beauchamp told us that he'd procure a page from the notebook, but that has not materialized. This is a plausible anecdote, and several soldiers in Beauchamp's unit had heard stories about dog-hunting, but only one had actually seen the driver Beauchamp wrote about intentionally hit dogs. He is one of Beauchamp's friends, and, over the course of a number of e-mail exchanges with him, our faith in him has diminished.

Apparently Mr. Foer believes that one liar vouching for another is more substantial evidence than physical proof that the killings as described by Beauchamp were implausible. What would a page from a notebook prove? I could put the wildest fantasies in a notebook, tear the page out, and claim I got it from a nameless someone else. Or keep promising that I would get the page and not do it, particularly if I didn't want to create physical evidence that could be subjected to forensic examination.

Mr. Foer, you say Beauchamp's fellow soldiers vouch for him, and yet you don't have any sworn testimony. Apparently none of them have substantiated the dog killing descriptions, each of which would have been witnessed by six or more soldiers, or you would mention more about them than noting that Bradleys sometimes run over stray dogs.

On the Army side, they have sworn testimony that the dog killing incidents and Bradley joy riding described by Beauchamp did not occur. As I mentioned above, such things only happen in barracks bull sessions, where all the restrictions on operating high-value military equipment are suspended for the duration of the bull slinging.

Obviously I’m not accusing anyone at The New Republic of having any knowledge of the military, even after their “fact checking.”

“When you don’t know anything, anything is possible.”

(I thank my Rotary buddy, Dick Soule, for providing me with this succinct summation which is a perfect description of The New Republic’s fact-checking exercise.)

The New Republic Lost in the Fog of a 'Baghdad Diarist'

Almost by accident I came across this The New Republic article on line: Fog of War, by Franklin Foer, apparently posted December 10, 2007, over four months after The New Republic published “Baghdad Diarist” articles written by Private Scott Beauchamp from Iraq. Since many aspects of the articles were so obviously fraudulent, I was amazed to find that they had passed The New Republic’s editorial muster.

At the end of 14 tortured pages, The New Republic editor, Franklin Foer, concluded:

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

In a weasel way, editor Franklin Foer admitted that The New Republic published garbage, but he never admitted that the critics – like me, among many – got it right from the git-go. (In the process, I beat up on the Los Angeles Times' crack columnist Timothy Rutten, the LA Times' Readers' Representative, Ms. Jamie Gold, and of course, the primary perpetrators of the unprofessional reporting, The New Republic.)

Foer never addressed the lies I pointed out about the implausible killing of stray dogs with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

Many of the stories told by Beauchamp seemed incredible, based on my knowledge of military procedures, but I couldn’t investigate or question all of them from my position here overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the northern California coast.

However, Beauchamp gave very detailed descriptions of witnessing a military driver enjoying using his Bradley Fighting Vehicle to kill dogs. I had a general mental picture of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and with a bit of Googling, I soon had a clear image of one. Then it was a simple process to compare Beauchamp’s descriptions of watching dogs killed by Bradleys with the dog killing capabilities of the Bradley.

It was so easy to sit at my computer and totally disprove Beauchamp’s stories that I was amazed that The New Republic editors hadn’t done the same.

I don’t read minds, but it occurred to me that The New Republic editors wanted to believe the stories because they wanted to cast American soldiers in Iraq in a very negative light.

Whether my mind reading is right or wrong, in any case The New Republic editors were extremely unprofessional, since they either didn’t catch the obvious lies in Beauchamp’s articles, or they ignored them in order to slander soldiers in Iraq.

Just one description of dog killing should have set off editorial alarms by anyone with the slightest nose for news – which I assume professional journalists possess as a minimum, and that editors possess in abundance.

I invite you to edit the following Beauchamp tales, armed with the following information which is readily available to any interested reader: the Bradley Fighting Vehicle has treads, not wheels, and each tread is about 21 inches wide; even a large dog like my Buddy (28-inch torso, weighing 64 pounds), would be crushed under a 21-inch tread. Now apply these facts to Beauchamp’s description of a dog killed by a Bradley.

A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.

How could that be possible? A dog does not get severed by a 21-inch tread attached to a 25-ton vehicle, it gets crushed.

Buddy demonstrates how much of a dog - Buddy is much larger than a typical stray dog, I might add - would be covered by a Bradley tread 21 inches wide.
(A blogger features this photo of Buddy on his "Happy New Year" post, but I think he missed the point, since he wrote that I was trying to prove a dog could not be run over by a tank. Since he also ran my argument that a Bradley tread would not sever a dog's body, but would crush it, I'm not quite sure what his point was. Maybe he's making a very inside, inside joke, since the rest of his comments and those of others have nothing to do with my post.)

(Go here and here to see Buddy not simulating road kill)


Beauchamp also wrote that the Bradley driver allowed a stray dog to overtake the Bradley from the right rear, then whipped the Bradley in such a way that it caught the dog in the tread and dragged it:

He (the driver) slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road.

If you look at the picture of the Bradley I helpfully provide below, you will notice that the driver sits low at the left front, and that he can’t possibly see a thing at the lower right rear side.

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle driver's head is barely visible in front of the hatch cover at the left front. He's in an impossible position to see a dog overtaking from the right rear.

If you find out a little more information about tracked vehicles, like the Bradley, you would also realize that tracked vehicles run over things, but don’t catch things in their treads and drag them. When a segment of a tread is on the ground, it stays on one spot until it is the rearmost segment, then it suddenly goes up and then forward. At no point does a tread drag anything, even in the unlikely circumstance that somehow, something gets caught in it.

By this time I’m sure that only The New Republic editors, and their die-hard loyalists, aka Democrats, still believe Beauchamp’s dog killing tales. However, I feel certain that these editors and die-hard loyalists remain convinced that proving some stories were lies does not prove all were lies, and that they stand by anything that can’t be proven incontrovertibly false.

However, the duty of an editor is to present the truth, not to present unsupported allegations as true until proven otherwise by others.

However, all The New Republic can present are purported statements by a few largely anonymous soldiers, which are not very reliable given that Beauchamp’s tales can be proven false in all instances where objective evidence is available.

But read The New Republic’s 14-page treatise, Fog of War, for yourself. It is a case study of half-truths, fudging the truth, and of mealy-mouthed equivocating.

And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

Then make a retraction, damn it!

Anything less is inadequate and unprofessional.

Michael Vick’s “Friends”

My thoughts about basic human decency included the assumption that Michael Vick’s cruel and inhumane treatment of dogs would disgust everyone who heard the details of their torture and gruesome execution. When I watched the Atlanta Falcons being drubbed by the New Orleans Saints, I saw just the opposite in the Atlanta stands and sideline.

Who were those people wearing the Michael Vick # “7” jerseys? Closet sadistic torturers?

What was in the minds of Vick’s former teammates when they decided to wear “free Michael Vick” t-shirts under their game jerseys, and paint “MV 7” under their eyes, and tape it on their helmets?

Don’t their minds comprehend the pain and suffering Michael Vick inflicted on those dogs? He didn’t just kill them, he tortured them to death. He watched them writhe in pain and agony as he killed them and they slowly died, and he enjoyed their suffering.

Do Vick’s Falcon teammates comprehend that Michael Vick was tried, convicted, and sentenced in a federal court for serious violations? Do they know that he still faces charges for violating state laws? Do they realize that these charges, convictions, and sentences are deserved, and are not an unjust persecution of Michael Vick?

I got the impression watching their sideline antics that his former Falcon teammates were making a show of supporting Michael Vick, and that they thought he had been unfairly prosecuted.

I could sense they were thinking, “They wouldn’t be doing this if Michael Vick was white.”

What human being knows what Michael Vick was found guilty of and then says “Free Michael Vick?”

What is this mindless loyalty to Michael Vick? Atlanta fans and his teammates were counting on him to make exciting plays and help the Falcons win. He was easily the Falcon’s best player, and he let them down completely. And for what?

For the sadistic delight of watching what could have been affectionate and loyal pets kill and maim each other? You know that’s what dog fighting is, don’t you? Do you think you can just deny the reality of what Michael Vick did to those dogs? Can you put it out of your mind that the whole point of what he did was to witness cruel and sadistic injury and death to dogs?

And to gamble on it.

That’s right. In all the outrage about the pain and suffering Vick and his criminal friends inflicted on the dogs, it should never be overlooked that illegal gambling was the key element that motivated the dog fighting.

What was Vick?

That’s right, a professional football player.

What was he doing?

Right again, illegally gambling.

What happens to professional athletes when they are caught illegally gambling?

They’re banned for life, aren’t they?

Why would Michael Vick’s fans and teammates expect him to be treated differently than Pete Rose? Who, by the way, is white. Pete Rose certainly has far greater stature in sports than Michael Vick ever had, or now ever will. Pete Rose was not just a Hall of Fame performer, he was one of the premier or iconic Hall of Fame performers, the record holder for most base hits and games played, among others, and played in six World Series and sixteen All Star games in a 23-year career.

But he’s not in the Hall of Fame.

Pete Rose gambled; Pete Rose was banned for life. The only way he can get into the Hall of Fame is to buy a ticket at the door.

And if justice is served, that will be the only way Michael Vick will ever be able to get into another professional football game.

If it was up to me, he would be banned at the gate.

I couldn’t stand being in the same stadium with such a cruel, sadistic, and inhumane person.

CNN - From Clinton News Network to Corrupt News Network

As much as it pains me, I must admit that the Los Angeles Times ran a very good article by one of their columnists, Timothy Rutten, titled: CNN: Corrupt News Network
A self-serving agenda was set for the Republican presidential debates.

Not long ago I had castigated the Los Angeles Times and Timothy Rutten for particularly inept reportage concerning a New Republic article.

As bad as Tim Rutten's commentary on The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist" was, in this report he is really good.

Is "Timothy Rutten" a team? Good Tim, Bad Tim?

At any rate, Rutten provided a much-needed perspective on what CNN's about. By the way they selected the debate "citizen's" questions, CNN was pushing their product, not providing a valuable service to their audience. CNN in effect shaped the debate through their choices of questions, selecting ones which were irrelevant or inane given the interests of the debate audience and the significant issues of these days and times.

Corruption and lack of integrity seem to be just the first of a long line of adjectives suitable for describing CNN's performance.

For years conservatives have referred to CNN as the Clinton News Network. Now as we enter the thankfully last phase of the Clinton era, we see CNN continuing down the slippery slope of journalistic irrelevance, sinking to the low of shilling for their own programming.

Those of us who think it is self-serving and tiresome for sports commentators, such as John Madden and Al Michaels, and all the Monday Night Football announcing teams of bygone years, to have a parade of celebrity guests adding inane comments as the game progresses as they pedal their latest TV series/movie/book/album – how bad is it that a so-called news network uses a presidential debate in the same way?

I could ask, “How low can they go?”, but I think the answer is they’re already in the slime covering rock bottom.

The only way they could go lower now is to merge with CBS.

MoveOn.org’s Jewish Problem

First MoveOn.org tried to defeat Joe Lieberman for reelection. Now they are trying to censure Dianne Feinstein. Who’s next? I bet on Chuck Schumer.

Do you see the pattern? The über-liberal wing of the Democrats doesn’t seem to like moderate Jewish Democrat senators. Obviously MoveOn.org is not anti-Semitic. Their ranks are full of liberal Jews. So what is the connection?

Support of Israel, of course!

Some of the most vicious attacks on Israel come from liberal American Jews, who are also often virulent supporters of the Palestinians. It’s a whole new dimension in self-loathing.

Democrats, of course, have always made strange bedfellows. For an example, one of many, Liberal Jews and Blacks have never been moved to censure one-time Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Byrd, even when information came out that he had a very long association with the Klan.

In 1945, concerning integrating the military, Byrd wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo, of Mississippi, vowing never to serve in an integrated military:

Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

Earlier he had written Bilbo "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side". Robert Byrd was true to his word, and never served in the military no matter who was at his side, finding it much more congenial to spend the war as a welder.

Although Byrd said he left the Klan in 1943, in 1946 or 1947, when he was 29 years old, he wrote a Klan Grand Wizard that: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the nation.”

Along the way, now Senator, Byrd participated in the 83-day filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As an encore, he also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

Robert Byrd has the distinction of being the only senator to vote against the Supreme Court confirmations of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas.

A man true to his principles.

Unlike Senator Trent Lott, who lost his position as Majority Leader of Senate Republicans because of an innocuous remark at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, former Klansman Byrd served twice for a total of seven years as Democrat Senate Majority Leader, and six years as Minority Leader.

Of course, even as recently as 2001, in an interview with Tony Snow, Byrd talked about how people who hate won’t go to Heaven, that there are “white niggers.”

I am fascinated how MoveOn.org and liberal Democrats can be so virulently opposed to moderate Jewish senators who support Israel, and so accommodating of a “reformed” racist like Byrd. It reminds me of the old Communist appellation, a “fellow traveler,” or another, a “useful idiot.”

Now to try to figure out which one is the idiot.

And wait to see what they do to Chuck Schumer.

LA Times Joins The New Republic in Humiliation

Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times penned an article Drudge, New Republic battle over 'Baghdad Diarist', that provides a textbook illustration of the time-honored approach to discussion, the “red herring.”

Mr. Rutten does nothing to advance an argument or to make a point, but merely uses the device of listing question after question. The questions have nothing to do with allegations that the 'Baghdad Diarist' articles are untruthful, but are only raised to divert attention from the articles.

It is as if Mr. Rutten thinks that raising questions about the role or motives of Drudge in reporting the allegations that ‘Baghdad Diarist’ stories are false somehow substantiates the stories.

Mr. Rutten, the only thing that would or could substantiate the 'Baghdad Diarist’ stories are the facts contained in the stories, not the pedigree of an aggregator of news stories who selected them for inclusion in his blog.

But as long as we’re asking questions, why not some of you?

Mr. Rutten, why in your Los Angeles Times article did you write that (Army Pvt. Scott Thomas) Beauchamp described "… attempts to run over stray dogs with Bradley fighting vehicles…”?

I assume you actually read the article and noticed that Private Beauchamp described observing another Army private, the driver of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, killing two dogs with the Bradley, and that Private Beauchamp described both killings in great detail.

Remember?

He (the driver) slowed the Bradley down to lure the first kill in, and, as the diesel engine grew quieter, the dog walked close enough for him to jerk the machine hard to the right and snag its leg under the tracks. The leg caught, and he dragged the dog for a little while, until it disengaged and lay twitching in the road.

You do remember that, right Mr. Rutten?

How about?

A dog that was lying in the street and bathing in the sun didn't have enough time to get up and run away from the speeding Bradley. Its front half was completely severed from its rear, which was twitching wildly, and its head was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.

Yet you described that Private Beauchamp wrote of attempts to run over stray dogs, not the killing of the stray dogs that Private Beauchamp described.

Why didn’t you write that Beauchamp described the “killing” of stray dogs rather than “attempts” to run over them?

May I speculate why you chose to mischaracterize what Private Beauchamp wrote?

I believe that you realize, as do I, that only a fool or a someone complicit in Beauchamp’s fanciful reporting would publish his account as fact.



I’m sure you, as did I, looked at a photo of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle while reading Beauchamp’s account of catching the first dog in the Bradley’s tracks. Of course, we both noticed that the Bradley driver sits low in the left front of the Bradley, with a steel hatch cover and a turret completely blocking the view of the right rear area.

We immediately noticed that the only way the driver could "snag its (the dog's leg) under the tracks" would be to have the front of the right track roll precisely over the dog's leg. Why is that? Because a 30-ton Bradley traveling at dog-walk speed cannot make a track bounce into the air to land on a dog's leg.

To further complicate matters, to lurch a slow moving Bradley to its right, you have to almost stop the right track, and let the unbraked left track push you into the right turn.

So now the driver has done something bordering on the impossible. He has caught the leg of a dog he couldn't see in a precise spot of the track where its leg would be wedged and thus caught, and Private Beauchamp adds to the incredulity by observing it all from ...?

From where?

Wasn't Beauchamp inside the Bradley?

What could he see from there?

Further, didn’t we both notice that it is impossible to drag something caught in a Bradley track? Apparently Private Beauchamp is not as observant as you and I, and didn’t perceive that anything caught in a Bradley track could not possibly be dragged, because the portion of the track where the animal was caught would remain on the same spot of ground until it became the rearmost piece of track, and then would suddenly be propelled upwards, then violently forward. Something caught in it might be flung upwards, or if caught firmly be carried upwards and forward, but it could never be dragged.

I’ll bet you also caught that the second dog could not have died in the manner described by Private Beauchamp. Again looking at the photo of the Bradley, we would have noticed its wide track.

“How wide is that track, I wonder?”

A quick Google of “Bradley Fighting Vehicle” got us the answer, didn’t it?

Twenty-one inches wide.

How long is the torso of a dog?

I don’t know about your dog, Mr. Rutten, but my dog Buddy has a very long torso, 28 inches. Even if a dog as large as Buddy were lying squarely across the path of a Bradley, and was struck in its exact center, there would be a 3.5 inch rear portion, a smashed middle, and a front portion with neck and head, with all portions still attached. It is beyond any and all rational belief to think that an animal run over by a 21 inch-wide track on a 30-ton vehicle would have a rear part left that was capable of “twitching wildly,” or a “head (that) was still raised and smiling at the sun as if nothing had happened at all.”

You see, Mr. Rutten, you and I can easily visualize the effect a Bradley track would have on a dog, can’t we? In fact, with our superior logic and experience we know that such a track, hitting the average dog, would in fact smash all of it flat, leaving nothing to twitch wildly or smile at the sun.

Mr. Rutten, I appreciate that your regard for your fellow professionals at The New Republic brought forth your effort to obfuscate this matter and spare them public humiliation and embarrassment at the hands of Bloggers, but the matter is shockingly simple.

If The New Republic editors cannot demonstrate why they did not reject Private Beauchamp’s easily disproven tales, then they were either incompetent or complicit in spreading lies about United States soldiers serving in Iraq.

Isn't it one of the lowest things a journalist could do, engaging in specious reporting and casting aspersions upon the actions of men who are serving their country honorably? Stealing their valor by spreading and sensationalizing false stories?

Clearly there is no room for a third interpretation, and nothing that has happened subsequent to The New Republic publishing the stories can change that.

Trying to drag Drudge in, and posing a series of irrelevant questions about Drudge’s participation, leaves a stink rising from your article like that of a dead red herring lying in the sun.

You see, Mr. Rutten, when the essential elements of a story are false, the story is false. Even when it is reported by someone the Los Angeles Times doesn’t like.

So congratulations, Mr. Rutten.

Now you have brought the Los Angeles Times into solidarity with The New Republic in their public humiliation and embarrassment.

Asian And Black Racial Disparity In America

Wisdom concerning racial disparity in America still escapes Liberal writers and scholars. For the latest example of ignorance and illogic, we look in one of the usual source, a fast fading main stream media propaganda mill, the San Francisco Chronicle.

Race Disparities Persist in U.S. By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer, in the November 14, 2006 San Francisco Chronicle.

“Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing. White households had incomes that were two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Hispanics last year, according to data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

“Home ownership grew among white middle-class families after World War II when access to credit and government programs made buying houses affordable. Black families were largely left out because of discrimination, and the effects are still being felt today, said Lance Freeman, assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University and author of "There Goes the 'Hood."

“Home ownership creates wealth, which enables families to live in good neighborhoods with good schools. It also helps families finance college, which leads to better-paying jobs, perpetuating the cycle, Freeman said.

"’If your parents own their own home they can leave it to you when they pass on or they can use the equity to help you with a down payment on yours,’ Freeman said.”

Noteworthy in this article is how Mr. Freeman and others ignore Asians in their analyses of the effect of race on income, education, and home ownership. It is understandable that a writer trying to prove a point about racial disparity in America would want to leave Asians out of the discussion, because they disprove every point the writer is laboring to make.

As I noted in an earlier post, which I should have made available to the author to help him avoid appearing a fool, Asians who recently “got off the boat” penniless and uneducated are now the highest paid, highest educated, and close to the top in home ownership as a racial group in America.

Those high-achieving Asians, and whites like my wife Alice and I, did not benefit from home ownership wealth to finance college. They, and we, worked hard to put ourselves through college. The Asians, like most Blacks and many Hispanics, can be identified as a member of a racial minority by their appearance. Many Asian Americans, unlike most Blacks and many Hispanics, arrived with no education, no English language abilities, to work in unfamiliar occupations in a strange culture, and with little or no capital to begin a business or buy a home.

Thirty percent of white adults had at least a bachelor's degree in 2005, while 17 percent of black adults and 12 percent of Hispanic adults had degrees. However, 49 percent of Asian Americans had at least a bachelor's degree.

The median income for white households was $50,622 last year. It was $30,939 for black households, $36,278 for Hispanic households and $60,367 for Asian households.

The poverty rate for white residents was 8.3 percent in 2005. It was 24.9 percent for black residents, 21.8 percent for Hispanic residents, and 11.1 percent for Asian residents.

The home ownership rate for whites in 2005 was 76 percent, blacks 44 percent, Hispanics 48 percent, and Asians 59 percent.

What do these statistics show or prove? Obviously, whites have done well, as would be expected, placing first in lowest poverty rate and in highest home ownership, and second in education and income. And even more obviously, Asians have done really well, placing second to whites in home ownership and low poverty rate, and first in college education and household income. If I was a betting man, I would bet that with their education and income numbers, their poverty rate will be going down while their home ownership goes up significantly.

The author of the race disparity article would have you believe that race, and vestiges of racial discrimination, explain why blacks and Hispanics lag far behind. However, the author doesn’t explain why these same factors don’t cause Asians to lag behind, let alone why they actually excel in the supposedly racist American environment while Hispanics, and especially blacks, falter.

"The wealth gap is not just a story of merit and achievement, it's also a story of the historical legacy of race in the United Sates," said Thomas Shapiro, author of "The Hidden Cost of Being African American."

But the wealth gap between African Americans and Asian Americans is a story of merit and achievement. I’m sure Mr. Shapiro is enough of a student of history to have heard of coolie labor, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese American internment camps during World War II, and the desperate, penniless refugees after the fall of Saigon, the “boat people,” and survivors of Cambodian killing fields.

It’s not like Asian refugees weren’t exposed to racism in America. Blacks in particular have attacked Korean shopkeepers in black neighborhoods, and then complained they have to travel far from their neighborhoods to shop.

Liberal cities like San Francisco have tried to impose quotas on the number of Asian students admitted to the most prestigious San Francisco high schools. Liberals in the University of California system are seeking ways to discriminate against Chinese students by establishing criteria beyond grades and test scores for admittance.

Apparently, liberals don’t like it when some minority groups don’t need their special help to thrive in America, because it might call into question why any need such help.

In fact, some might even be so bold as to remark that minorities who work hard, who study hard, achieve more in America by far than anywhere else in the world. That would destroy entire liberal cultures that focus on identifying victims on the basis of race and “lack of opportunity.”

Anytime you read about any group in America not doing well because they are suffering from the “indirect effects of lingering racism,” ask yourself why others are not.

The answer may be painful, but as Sakini (Marlon Brando) said in Teahouse of the August Moon: "Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable."

"Socks up, boss!"

Global Warming and The Prophets of Doom

Primitive man (and woman too) was terrified and mystified by the natural changes in their environment, and powerless to do anything about it.

However, some of their brethren noticed patterns in environmental changes, and in a while were able to anticipate and even to predict their occurrence, and recurrence.

It didn’t take long for the sharpest blades in the stone knife drawer to realize that they could use this knowledge to their advantage. If you knew something would probably happen soon, wouldn’t your fellow tribesmen, ignorant of that possibility, be very impressed it they thought you could make it happen, or facilitate the process?

If it was a good thing, they would want to give you something to bring the good to them. If you could warn them that something bad might be coming, they would be glad to give you something for the warning. Soon you would accumulate great wealth (comparatively), and wouldn’t have to work hard and do dangerous things to survive. You would be able to spend time thinking, observing, and accumulating wisdom as you lived to an unusually ripe old age.

Your riches would, of course, greatly heighten your desirability in the eyes of your tribe’s most delectable darlings, and in the eyes of their parents. Eventually you would groom a son to succeed you, passing on all your knowledge and position (remember the wealth) in the tribe to him.

Eventually tribes grew and coalesced into states and nations, and the knowledge of the tribal wise men was incorporated in an organized religion and a hierarchy of priests. But through it all, there was a constant. Priests safeguarded and added to a body of knowledge that translated into an apparent ability to influence the gods, and thereby future events.

Years passed and scientific discoveries peeled away the layers of the realm of God, leaving little He could do except reward goodness with Eternal Life.

Which ain’t chopped liver, but it’s not the same as the old system, where you could put your money down and expect the gods to fill your wish basket.

Now the Kingdom of God was “up there,” and earthly life was supposed to be spent in suffering and sacrifice.

About that time, life on Earth started getting a lot easier, and man felt imbued with God-like abilities. God was no longer needed (or trusted) to stem the tides, stop the floods, turn the winds, bring the rains, make fruitful the harvest, make fertile the womb – in fact, mankind felt that it was not only capable of doing all these things, but at fault if they became a problem.

More skin cancer in Australia? Not the result of more skin exposed for longer periods in Australia, Mate. It’s the bloody hole in the ozone layer, caused by chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) compounds, don’t you know?

Why are there more chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) compounds in the atmosphere? Because we’re use air conditioning to live comfortably in places that summer heat and insects used to make unlivable.

Like Australia.

Why are respiratory problems such a big concern now? (Obviously, they have always been a problem ever since man built a fire in a room to help fend off the cold.) Just look at all the smog caused by burning fossil fuels to generate power to run air conditioners – and to power vehicles, run factories, communicate quickly and effectively, and to conduct medical research into detecting and correcting things like respiratory problems.

Progress today is like taking medicine – along with the benefits there are always undesirable side effects.

“We’ve cured his erectile dysfunction, but he has to spend too much time on the pot to appreciate the cure.”

Today modern man, just like primitive man hundreds of thousands of years ago, is again mystified and terrified by changes in his environment, but this time around is certain they are mankind’s fault. Instead of petitioning God, or the gods, modern man feels he can solve the problems by reversing his actions.

A modern messiah like Al Gore copied the wise elders of antiquity and identified a cause for alarm, the potential in the not quite distant future for environmental devastation due to man-caused global warming. All evidence of previously greater and more dramatic climate changes was thrown aside or ignored, and like the preachers of old, Al Gore laid the blame for our future environmental woes on our sinful drive to improve our material condition.

There you have it. Greed, sin, consequences, and then salvation through Al Gore by returning to a state of Grace; i.e., reducing energy consumption to pre-Industrialization levels.

You may say “Nay, that’s not what Al wants,” but the physics of energy production are very simple and won’t be wished away. Over 80% of all energy production is from the combustion of fossil fuels, and there is no viable alternative or substitute, not even nuclear, that can fill the gap in energy production vs. need if the draconian cuts required to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to pre-1990 levels could actually be made.

Of course they can’t, and they won’t, but that doesn’t stop Apocryphal Al and his Acolytes from preaching that mankind’s salvation depends on us doing just that.

Now for a dose of reality.

Wind, solar, and/or wave power generation are all very expensive and unreliable, require huge areas on land or sea, and cause an enormous amount of environmental degradation (which the Environmentalists are loath to admit). Biomass, even if it is a by-product of current agricultural or industrial processes, creates more environmental damage than benefit. It takes more power to produce hydrogen for fuel cells (usually provided by coal-fired generators) than the fuel cells generate.

And it will be a very long time before we can find a substitute for aviation fuel that is not produced from oil. In the meantime, we’re flying ever more often and farther. Just ask Al Gore and all of our environmental activist celebrities about their own travel histories and plans. Also don’t forget to ask them about the heating and cooling needs of their mansions, summer and winter homes, and apartments. Many of them have at least one of each.

Oh, that’s right, they’re all playing the shell game of purchasing carbon offsets.

Isn’t that sort of like the Indulgences that the Catholic Church used to peddle to expiate sin?
(For an in-depth, insightful analysis of Indulgences and Democrat leaders, click here.)

No, not exactly, because the Indulgences were to pay for past sins, and were not licenses for continued sinning. However, the purchase of carbon offsets allows the buyer to be environmentally guilt free while continuing to add to atmospheric carbon dioxide, smugly confident in the belief that somewhere, at some time, trees will be planted to grow and to eventually absorb the evil CO2.

Just like the buyer of Indulgences was sure he had safeguarded his soul from Hell.

What a boondoggle, all smoke and mirrors.

Just like a modern-day Elmer Gantry, Al Gore and his ilk preach a path to salvation that they themselves don’t follow, one that requires that the poor of the world remain poor, incapable of generating and amassing wealth that would enable them to cope with the effects of climate change, or any other disasters that might threaten them.

Catastrophe always falls heaviest on the poor because they don’t have the means to forestall it, or to minimize its effects, or to recover in its aftermath. Therefore, the best way to prepare for whatever calamity Nature has in store for mankind is to encourage and facilitate increased productivity (which will obviously require increased energy consumption and higher CO2 levels).

Only then will the poor of the Earth be able to build the dikes, desalinate the water, eradicate disease, and do all the other things that wealthier mankind already does.

Then they’ll they be like the rest of us, and will no longer be terrified and mystified, powerless to cope with the changes in their environment.

Increased wealth from industrialization will enable them to break unremitting cycles of disaster and deprivation.

And to banish the Prophets of Doom.