Nancy Pelosi says the surge was a failure and the war in Iraq is lost.
Several Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders wrote that their organizations are almost totally destroyed and on the verge of collapse. "We are in crisis. There is panic and fear."
(Regarding this Al Qaeda quote, it does show similarities with Democrats.)
Who are you going to believe?
The highest ranking Democrat in the world, or an ignorant, lying, Islamofascist fanatic?
It’s no contest.
The Islamofascist is trying to get help for a lost cause.
The Democrat is trying to snatch defeat for America from the jaws of victory. She’ll do and say anything, including dumping her country in the toilet, to try to make President Bush and Republicans look bad.
When the subject is Nancy Pelosi, “honest Democrat” is an oxymoron.
Please click the labels below to go to my other posts on similar issues.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Abundantly Happy - Greens Mess Up Environment with Biofuels
Typical of the Green movement, biofuels are the latest disaster created by their ignorant but spirited crusade to save the world one misguided step at a time.
Previously their attempts resulted in the abominations of ethanol, wind farms, biofuels, and increased dependency on foreign oil.
These efforts to find “Green” energy replacements all require huge taxpayer subsidies and increased environmental damage when compared to the continued use of conventional fuels.
How have the Greens damaged the environment?
Let me count the ways.
Biofuels and ethanol – recently I blogged that producing fuel from plants has driven up prices, for example, corn tortillas in Mexico. Further, demand for agriculture has increased dramatically at a time when water supplies world wide are already stressed out. It goes without saying, but I will have to say it anyway because of the abundant environmental ignorance of the Green intelligentsia, that abundant crop production requires abundant fertilizer use, which necessitates abundant fertilizer production.
Fertilizer production requires abundant natural gas consumption, and abundant water use to apply it. Then after a rain, the abundant fertilizer creates abundant run-off which then causes abundant algae growth, quickly removing the abundance of oxygen in the water, followed by abundant dead fish.
Is all this abundantly clear?
Happily, there’s more. Long-overdue life cycle studies just published in the journal Science indicated that substantially more greenhouse gases result from biofuels production than from conventional fuels. In fact, one study indicated it takes 93 years before savings from biofuels equal the greenhouse gases created at the beginning of their production.
Doubly happy, as wasteful and damaging to the environment as biofuels are, recent studies show climate change corresponds directly to solar variation, and not at all to carbon dioxide changes. Today’s low solar activity indicates global cooling will start soon.
Oh happy day!
Previously their attempts resulted in the abominations of ethanol, wind farms, biofuels, and increased dependency on foreign oil.
These efforts to find “Green” energy replacements all require huge taxpayer subsidies and increased environmental damage when compared to the continued use of conventional fuels.
How have the Greens damaged the environment?
Let me count the ways.
Biofuels and ethanol – recently I blogged that producing fuel from plants has driven up prices, for example, corn tortillas in Mexico. Further, demand for agriculture has increased dramatically at a time when water supplies world wide are already stressed out. It goes without saying, but I will have to say it anyway because of the abundant environmental ignorance of the Green intelligentsia, that abundant crop production requires abundant fertilizer use, which necessitates abundant fertilizer production.
Fertilizer production requires abundant natural gas consumption, and abundant water use to apply it. Then after a rain, the abundant fertilizer creates abundant run-off which then causes abundant algae growth, quickly removing the abundance of oxygen in the water, followed by abundant dead fish.
Is all this abundantly clear?
Happily, there’s more. Long-overdue life cycle studies just published in the journal Science indicated that substantially more greenhouse gases result from biofuels production than from conventional fuels. In fact, one study indicated it takes 93 years before savings from biofuels equal the greenhouse gases created at the beginning of their production.
Doubly happy, as wasteful and damaging to the environment as biofuels are, recent studies show climate change corresponds directly to solar variation, and not at all to carbon dioxide changes. Today’s low solar activity indicates global cooling will start soon.
Oh happy day!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Quiz Answer Sheet
Polar bear question:
c. Both a. and b. are inconvenient trues if you are Al Gore
The rest of the quiz
1. d. The United States produces approximately 27% of world GDP
2. d. The total GDP of the next 5 largest - Japan, China, Germany, UK, and France – roughly equals the GDP of the United States.
3 c. The European Union has 27 member states.
4. a. United States
5. c. Unemployment in China is about 23%, or roughly the 300 million population of the United States, according to The Rand Corporation
6. a. United States (2007)
US 4.9% Germany 8.4% UK 5.4% France 8%
7. d. Only these three – 1. Luxembourg, $87,400 2. Ireland, $47,169 3. Norway, $47,098 4. United States, $44,765 (International Monetary Fund rankings)
8. d. 93 years: “The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land…”
9. d. All the above
10. c. Global cooling
11. d. All the above.
12. c. A team of Harvard and Smithsonian researchers
13. a. Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide: In all preceding periods of climate change, such as the Medieval Warm Period researched by Harvard-Smithsonian scientists, increases in atmospheric CO2, whether natural or man-made, did not precede warming.
14. a. 1934
15. c. 6
16. d. Two feet: Average sea level rise per century of about two feet. It’s just simple math. Since the end of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago, sea levels have risen approximately 410 feet. Dividing 410 feet by 180 centuries equals about 2’ 3” rise per century.
17. d. 1850
18. d. AD 1850
19. c. About 1850 when graduated thermometers came into use
20. e. All the statements are true
21. d. b and c are correct
22. c. Both statements are true
23. d. Both statements are false
24. d. All the above
25. d. All the above
26. c. Al Gore has proof that global warming is caused by increased levels of atmospheric CO2.
27. d. All the above
c. Both a. and b. are inconvenient trues if you are Al Gore
The rest of the quiz
1. d. The United States produces approximately 27% of world GDP
2. d. The total GDP of the next 5 largest - Japan, China, Germany, UK, and France – roughly equals the GDP of the United States.
3 c. The European Union has 27 member states.
4. a. United States
5. c. Unemployment in China is about 23%, or roughly the 300 million population of the United States, according to The Rand Corporation
6. a. United States (2007)
US 4.9% Germany 8.4% UK 5.4% France 8%
7. d. Only these three – 1. Luxembourg, $87,400 2. Ireland, $47,169 3. Norway, $47,098 4. United States, $44,765 (International Monetary Fund rankings)
8. d. 93 years: “The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land…”
9. d. All the above
10. c. Global cooling
11. d. All the above.
12. c. A team of Harvard and Smithsonian researchers
13. a. Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide: In all preceding periods of climate change, such as the Medieval Warm Period researched by Harvard-Smithsonian scientists, increases in atmospheric CO2, whether natural or man-made, did not precede warming.
14. a. 1934
15. c. 6
16. d. Two feet: Average sea level rise per century of about two feet. It’s just simple math. Since the end of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago, sea levels have risen approximately 410 feet. Dividing 410 feet by 180 centuries equals about 2’ 3” rise per century.
17. d. 1850
18. d. AD 1850
19. c. About 1850 when graduated thermometers came into use
20. e. All the statements are true
21. d. b and c are correct
22. c. Both statements are true
23. d. Both statements are false
24. d. All the above
25. d. All the above
26. c. Al Gore has proof that global warming is caused by increased levels of atmospheric CO2.
27. d. All the above
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Bill Clinton’s Still a Stranger to the Truth
Here is Bill Clinton being himself, in this case alleging voter intimidation in Nevada:
Of course there is no way any of this could be true, and if Bill Clinton heard it, it was his duty as a citizen, not his option, to file a formal complaint as a witness to illegal activity.
However, there were notices posted in the casinos that employees could go directly to their managers to request time off to participate in the caucus if they thought the union organizers would prevent them.
Same old Bill
Today when my daughter and I were wandering through the hotel, and all these culinary workers were mobbing us telling us they didn’t care what the union told them to do, they were gonna caucus for Hillary.
There was a representative of the organization following along behind us going up to everybody who said that, saying 'if you’re not gonna vote for our guy we’re gonna give you a schedule tomorrow so you can’t be there.' So, is this the new politics? I haven’t seen anything like that in America in 35 years. So I will say it again – they think they're better than you..
Of course there is no way any of this could be true, and if Bill Clinton heard it, it was his duty as a citizen, not his option, to file a formal complaint as a witness to illegal activity.
However, there were notices posted in the casinos that employees could go directly to their managers to request time off to participate in the caucus if they thought the union organizers would prevent them.
Same old Bill
Friday, January 18, 2008
Taking the Long Way to Turkey in 1964
I enlisted in the Air Force in 1962, and after Basic Training at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, I went to Russian language school at Indiana University, then to radio intercept schools at Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo, Texas, and the National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland. By the time I finished all the schools and had orders to report to Karamursel Air Station, Turkey, I was less than two months from completing two years of service.
Marilynn and I bought a used 1958 Rambler station wagon for the commute from our apartment in Laurel to NSA, and when I graduated we decided to drive it to California where I would complete my thirty-day leave from the Air Force, leave Marilynn and eight-month old Bruce with her parents in Vallejo, and then go on to Turkey alone.
We decided we would go from Maryland by way of Long Island, New York, to visit Marilynn’s Aunt Helen and Uncle Jul in Levittown and take in the New York World’s Fair before departing for California.
Of course the roads and routes have changed a lot since late spring 1964, but I remember that getting out of New York and through New Jersey onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike wasn’t bad. The Pennsylvania Turnpike would have been great too, except we had to stop overnight in Carlisle to repair a small hole in the radiator.
Looking back, I can’t believe the old clunkers I used to buy and drive because we couldn’t afford better, and the innocent faith we had that we could load our family and all our worldly possessions into one, and take off on a one-week, three thousand mile trip across country with $200 cash in our pockets, about the same in our checking account, and a Chevron credit card.
What adventures we had, by just being young and foolish!
I’d do it all again, only this time I’d take more pictures.
Cross country travel was more fun and interesting then. Once the more populous eastern states were behind, the roads were almost all two-lane and went down all the Main Streets along the way. However, before you knew it you were across the Mississippi, and towns became fewer and farther between, and so did motels and gas pumps.
We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to visit my mother’s youngest brother, Uncle Richard Stonemetz, and his wife, Aunt Shirley. From Cheyenne heading west you would see a sign about every fifty miles or so giving you the miles left before you got to Little America, an “oasis for the traveler” located somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, almost three hundred miles from Cheyenne and another 150 miles to Salt Lake City.
I can still remember the relief I felt approaching Little America. The sun was down, and I could see the lights far ahead. Soon we pulled in and parked next to a gas pump. Fortunately Little America took every gas company credit card, because I only had the one from Chevron. All around us were trucks, most of them with their engines idling.
We drove a short distance to a parking space at the café, and I carried sound-asleep Bruce in while Marilynn prepared a bottle for him. Then we sat down to our burgers, fries, and cokes, all for about three dollars.
Then it was time for me to get us a room. I had already determined that there were many vacancies that evening, indicated by a lot of empty parking spaces, and the waitress had told me that there were a couple of motels within ten miles heading west. Armed with this information, I entered into negotiations with the motel desk clerk, and got a reduced rate for the night.
For the next six years, as the need arose, I would look for vacancies and negotiate for lower prices rather than reserve rooms in advance.
It wasn’t until we got to England in 1970, and I realized my pay as an officer was now enough to bump us up into the middle class, that I finally started making advance reservations and quit negotiating room rates.
However, in the late spring of 1964, those days were a long way ahead and I wasn’t really sure that our life would ever be significantly more prosperous.
Anyway, after Little America we still had almost 900 miles of driving and two or three nights in motels before we would arrive at Marilynn’s parents’ house in Vallejo.
Most of the traveling west of Omaha was through “almost no radio” country, although as the sun went down and we searched for signs of gas stations, cafes, and cheap motels, the radio dial became flooded with signals from powerful stations all over America.
Of all those stations, I have a special place in my heart for KMOX, St. Louis, a place I apparently shared with most of Middle America at that time. After driving west for two days and almost a thousand miles from St. Louis, I was still in St. Louis Cardinals country.
I doubt there has ever been, or will be again, a force that unified and united a culture to the extent that KMOX did for the Mid-West for a half-century after its start-up in 1925. I still prefer to get my news and sports delivered with a flat Midwestern accent; it just sounds more interesting and believable that way.
The rest of our trip took us through Salt Lake City, then into Nevada through Wendover, Elko, Winnemucca, and Reno (where we were married almost two years before, in November 1962), then down through Sacramento to Vallejo, with a fun dinner stop at The Nut Tree in Vacaville, our only “extravagance” since leaving the World’s Fair in New York.
We stayed with Marilynn’s parents for only two days, then drove to Point Arena to stay with my parents while I worked for almost a month at the Bojock Lumber Company. Pop was the Bojock millwright, had worked for its owner, Chub Ohleyer, for many years and had arranged a job for me while I was on leave from the Air Force.
Working in the sawmill was hard, enjoyable, and paid well, but all too soon I was saying goodbye to Marilynn and Bruce, to Mom and Pop, and was in San Francisco boarding a Pan American 707 on my way to Turkey.
The sadness I felt at leaving didn’t stand a chance against the joy I felt for the anticipated adventures ahead.
I boarded the Pan Am 707 wearing civilian clothes and a big smile.
Marilynn and I bought a used 1958 Rambler station wagon for the commute from our apartment in Laurel to NSA, and when I graduated we decided to drive it to California where I would complete my thirty-day leave from the Air Force, leave Marilynn and eight-month old Bruce with her parents in Vallejo, and then go on to Turkey alone.
We decided we would go from Maryland by way of Long Island, New York, to visit Marilynn’s Aunt Helen and Uncle Jul in Levittown and take in the New York World’s Fair before departing for California.
Of course the roads and routes have changed a lot since late spring 1964, but I remember that getting out of New York and through New Jersey onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike wasn’t bad. The Pennsylvania Turnpike would have been great too, except we had to stop overnight in Carlisle to repair a small hole in the radiator.
Looking back, I can’t believe the old clunkers I used to buy and drive because we couldn’t afford better, and the innocent faith we had that we could load our family and all our worldly possessions into one, and take off on a one-week, three thousand mile trip across country with $200 cash in our pockets, about the same in our checking account, and a Chevron credit card.
What adventures we had, by just being young and foolish!
I’d do it all again, only this time I’d take more pictures.
Cross country travel was more fun and interesting then. Once the more populous eastern states were behind, the roads were almost all two-lane and went down all the Main Streets along the way. However, before you knew it you were across the Mississippi, and towns became fewer and farther between, and so did motels and gas pumps.
We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to visit my mother’s youngest brother, Uncle Richard Stonemetz, and his wife, Aunt Shirley. From Cheyenne heading west you would see a sign about every fifty miles or so giving you the miles left before you got to Little America, an “oasis for the traveler” located somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, almost three hundred miles from Cheyenne and another 150 miles to Salt Lake City.
I can still remember the relief I felt approaching Little America. The sun was down, and I could see the lights far ahead. Soon we pulled in and parked next to a gas pump. Fortunately Little America took every gas company credit card, because I only had the one from Chevron. All around us were trucks, most of them with their engines idling.
We drove a short distance to a parking space at the café, and I carried sound-asleep Bruce in while Marilynn prepared a bottle for him. Then we sat down to our burgers, fries, and cokes, all for about three dollars.
Then it was time for me to get us a room. I had already determined that there were many vacancies that evening, indicated by a lot of empty parking spaces, and the waitress had told me that there were a couple of motels within ten miles heading west. Armed with this information, I entered into negotiations with the motel desk clerk, and got a reduced rate for the night.
For the next six years, as the need arose, I would look for vacancies and negotiate for lower prices rather than reserve rooms in advance.
It wasn’t until we got to England in 1970, and I realized my pay as an officer was now enough to bump us up into the middle class, that I finally started making advance reservations and quit negotiating room rates.
However, in the late spring of 1964, those days were a long way ahead and I wasn’t really sure that our life would ever be significantly more prosperous.
Anyway, after Little America we still had almost 900 miles of driving and two or three nights in motels before we would arrive at Marilynn’s parents’ house in Vallejo.
Most of the traveling west of Omaha was through “almost no radio” country, although as the sun went down and we searched for signs of gas stations, cafes, and cheap motels, the radio dial became flooded with signals from powerful stations all over America.
Of all those stations, I have a special place in my heart for KMOX, St. Louis, a place I apparently shared with most of Middle America at that time. After driving west for two days and almost a thousand miles from St. Louis, I was still in St. Louis Cardinals country.
I doubt there has ever been, or will be again, a force that unified and united a culture to the extent that KMOX did for the Mid-West for a half-century after its start-up in 1925. I still prefer to get my news and sports delivered with a flat Midwestern accent; it just sounds more interesting and believable that way.
The rest of our trip took us through Salt Lake City, then into Nevada through Wendover, Elko, Winnemucca, and Reno (where we were married almost two years before, in November 1962), then down through Sacramento to Vallejo, with a fun dinner stop at The Nut Tree in Vacaville, our only “extravagance” since leaving the World’s Fair in New York.
We stayed with Marilynn’s parents for only two days, then drove to Point Arena to stay with my parents while I worked for almost a month at the Bojock Lumber Company. Pop was the Bojock millwright, had worked for its owner, Chub Ohleyer, for many years and had arranged a job for me while I was on leave from the Air Force.
Working in the sawmill was hard, enjoyable, and paid well, but all too soon I was saying goodbye to Marilynn and Bruce, to Mom and Pop, and was in San Francisco boarding a Pan American 707 on my way to Turkey.
The sadness I felt at leaving didn’t stand a chance against the joy I felt for the anticipated adventures ahead.
I boarded the Pan Am 707 wearing civilian clothes and a big smile.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The New Budget Officer, RAF Bentwaters, 1970
In my previous post we arrived at my new base in the UK and we spent the first six weeks living in the Coach and Horses, Melton, while I worked constantly, then searched long and despairingly for a house for us.
I arrived at RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, UK, in early January, 1970, a 27-year old 2nd Lieutenant with wife, Marilynn, and three sons ages 6, 3, and 1. I had just completed an MBA at Michigan State, and the Budget Officer job at Bentwaters would be my first Air Force duty as an officer. Since I had spent my six enlisted years as a Russian linguist radio intercept analyst, clerk typist, and/or college student, I knew absolutely nothing about Air Force accounting or budgeting.
Apparently the Air Force wasn’t concerned, because no mention was ever made of sending me to any school to train me for my new job.
When I reported for duty as the Budget Officer, 81st Combat Support Group, 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, I found that my predecessor, Mr. Byce Pierce, had transferred from RAF Bentwaters to an accounting and finance job on RAF Lakenheath nine months before my arrival. During that long vacant period, the Budget Office had operated with only two people, TSgt Phillip Ashcraft and UK civilian clerk Art Sharman. Their happiness at my arrival was tempered with the immediate recognition that I didn’t know the slightest thing about the Air Force’s accounting and budgeting system.
Another thing that happened the week I arrived that tempered their joy was the simultaneous arrival of the “call” to begin preparation of the Fiscal Year 1971 Wing Operations Operating Budget and Family Housing Budget. The preparation of each of these hundreds of pages documents is a harrowing and challenging activity at the best of times. With a new untrained and inexperienced leader, and a just installed new tape and hard drive computer (Burroughs 3500) to replace the old punched card one, a Burroughs B-263, the budget preparation tasks looked impossibly difficult.
Looks weren’t deceiving.
For the next six weeks each of the three of us worked forty or more hours of overtime each week, but even though each of us worked the same long hours, this arduous workload was not evenly distributed.
At 27, I was the youngest, but my position as Budget Officer and my total lack of accounting knowledge gave me few duties I was either required or capable of performing. Fortunately, writing the budget narrative (borrowing heavily from the previous years’ budgets) and proofreading the typed printing masters were important jobs that I could do well without grasping the underlying details and concepts.
TSgt Ashcraft was the Noncommissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of Budget, and was ten years older than me, and very calm and affable. He was able to get a lot of information from a wide variety of activities and individuals, and incorporate it into the Byzantine budget formats. I didn’t realize until much later that Air Force budgeting was in a period of transition and upheaval when I arrived. My ignorance of what preceded the new system led me to believe that I was entering an established one, when actually it was in complete disarray and groping its way in the dark from being a tightly centrally managed one to responsibilities being distributed throughout all levels of Air Force management. TSgt Ashcraft was struggling to make the transition, and for the most part I was unaware of it.
Arthur Sharman, the UK civilian budget clerk, was twenty years older than me, and I owe him a lot for my eventually successful career in budgeting. Art handled the most precisely demanding elements of our budget, the pay of civilian employees and the contracts and services provided through the British Ministry of Defense and Department of Environment (DOE), which performed the functions performed at stateside bases by Air Force Civil Engineering. He also ably liaised with the financial officer of the DOE, Mrs. Iris Fletcher, a very able and slightly built but imposing woman in her fifties who Art nicknamed the Dragon Lady. Between the two of them they wielded a surprising amount of power over most of the physical plant of the two air bases which were operated by the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, Royal Air Force Bases Bentwaters and Woodbridge.
The problem we all faced was that the newly responsible financial managers had no training or experience in their duties under the new program. Being an overseas base compounded the problems, because both military and civilian managers and personnel were normally rotated back to a stateside base after three years, and there were very few with any knowledge or experience in financial management.
I thought I was stepping into an existing system and that I had to find out what everyone was doing so I could learn and get up to speed, and they thought I was there to lead them.
It could have been a classic example of the blind leading the blind, except I didn’t know they were blind and waiting for me to show them the way.
Somehow we got the budgets finished on time, although Phil Ashcraft was visibly exhausted, and Art Sharman suffered a minor stroke and was off work for about six weeks to recover. Although the budgets were in, we continued working many hours of overtime each week, even after Arthur came back to work.
Not long after Arthur came back, Phil Ashcraft finished his tour of duty and went back stateside. Arthur and I anxiously awaited his replacement, another TSgt named Robert Clough, coming to us from a Defense Contracting Agency job in Paramus, New Jersey, and prior to that, a year at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam.
As we awaited TSgt Clough’s arrival, we continued to burn many overtime hours on tasks such as loading budget targets in the Base Accounting system on the B-3500 computer, and corresponding supply and equipment targets in the Base Supply system on the Univac 1050-II computer system.
Working with Base Supply was particularly difficult, since they operated in accordance with their own sacrosanct regulations and procedures which seemed to be in competition or opposition to the overall budget process. We were in a constant fear that Base Supply would not issue a critical maintenance part because of a shortage of funds in a unit account, thereby resulting in delayed repairs to an aircraft delaying mission accomplishment, and the blame placed on us.
The Supply system seemed to be run by its cranky computer. When there were problems, and there were endless problems, the usual explanation for not fixing them immediately was that “the computer won’t let us.”
We had very little information about TSgt Clough, but information in some of his records we received before his arrival showed he had experience working with Base Supply.
The fateful day finally arrived, and I made the short walk from Accounting across the highway to the parking lot in front of the Base Reception Center to meet the bus carrying Sergeant Clough and his family from the UK arrival base, RAF Mildenhall. The bus pulled in, and Sergeant Clough and his wife Lorna, plus two sons and a daughter, got off. As I gave Sergeant Clough a warm welcome I noticed he was overweight and his uniform more unkempt looking than expected even considering the long flight and bus ride.
He introduced me to his family, then announced that he was “on the Road program.”
“What’s the ‘Road’ program?” I asked.
“Retired On Active Duty,” he replied.
I arrived at RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, UK, in early January, 1970, a 27-year old 2nd Lieutenant with wife, Marilynn, and three sons ages 6, 3, and 1. I had just completed an MBA at Michigan State, and the Budget Officer job at Bentwaters would be my first Air Force duty as an officer. Since I had spent my six enlisted years as a Russian linguist radio intercept analyst, clerk typist, and/or college student, I knew absolutely nothing about Air Force accounting or budgeting.
Apparently the Air Force wasn’t concerned, because no mention was ever made of sending me to any school to train me for my new job.
When I reported for duty as the Budget Officer, 81st Combat Support Group, 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, I found that my predecessor, Mr. Byce Pierce, had transferred from RAF Bentwaters to an accounting and finance job on RAF Lakenheath nine months before my arrival. During that long vacant period, the Budget Office had operated with only two people, TSgt Phillip Ashcraft and UK civilian clerk Art Sharman. Their happiness at my arrival was tempered with the immediate recognition that I didn’t know the slightest thing about the Air Force’s accounting and budgeting system.
Another thing that happened the week I arrived that tempered their joy was the simultaneous arrival of the “call” to begin preparation of the Fiscal Year 1971 Wing Operations Operating Budget and Family Housing Budget. The preparation of each of these hundreds of pages documents is a harrowing and challenging activity at the best of times. With a new untrained and inexperienced leader, and a just installed new tape and hard drive computer (Burroughs 3500) to replace the old punched card one, a Burroughs B-263, the budget preparation tasks looked impossibly difficult.
Looks weren’t deceiving.
For the next six weeks each of the three of us worked forty or more hours of overtime each week, but even though each of us worked the same long hours, this arduous workload was not evenly distributed.
At 27, I was the youngest, but my position as Budget Officer and my total lack of accounting knowledge gave me few duties I was either required or capable of performing. Fortunately, writing the budget narrative (borrowing heavily from the previous years’ budgets) and proofreading the typed printing masters were important jobs that I could do well without grasping the underlying details and concepts.
TSgt Ashcraft was the Noncommissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of Budget, and was ten years older than me, and very calm and affable. He was able to get a lot of information from a wide variety of activities and individuals, and incorporate it into the Byzantine budget formats. I didn’t realize until much later that Air Force budgeting was in a period of transition and upheaval when I arrived. My ignorance of what preceded the new system led me to believe that I was entering an established one, when actually it was in complete disarray and groping its way in the dark from being a tightly centrally managed one to responsibilities being distributed throughout all levels of Air Force management. TSgt Ashcraft was struggling to make the transition, and for the most part I was unaware of it.
Arthur Sharman, the UK civilian budget clerk, was twenty years older than me, and I owe him a lot for my eventually successful career in budgeting. Art handled the most precisely demanding elements of our budget, the pay of civilian employees and the contracts and services provided through the British Ministry of Defense and Department of Environment (DOE), which performed the functions performed at stateside bases by Air Force Civil Engineering. He also ably liaised with the financial officer of the DOE, Mrs. Iris Fletcher, a very able and slightly built but imposing woman in her fifties who Art nicknamed the Dragon Lady. Between the two of them they wielded a surprising amount of power over most of the physical plant of the two air bases which were operated by the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, Royal Air Force Bases Bentwaters and Woodbridge.
The problem we all faced was that the newly responsible financial managers had no training or experience in their duties under the new program. Being an overseas base compounded the problems, because both military and civilian managers and personnel were normally rotated back to a stateside base after three years, and there were very few with any knowledge or experience in financial management.
I thought I was stepping into an existing system and that I had to find out what everyone was doing so I could learn and get up to speed, and they thought I was there to lead them.
It could have been a classic example of the blind leading the blind, except I didn’t know they were blind and waiting for me to show them the way.
Somehow we got the budgets finished on time, although Phil Ashcraft was visibly exhausted, and Art Sharman suffered a minor stroke and was off work for about six weeks to recover. Although the budgets were in, we continued working many hours of overtime each week, even after Arthur came back to work.
Not long after Arthur came back, Phil Ashcraft finished his tour of duty and went back stateside. Arthur and I anxiously awaited his replacement, another TSgt named Robert Clough, coming to us from a Defense Contracting Agency job in Paramus, New Jersey, and prior to that, a year at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam.
As we awaited TSgt Clough’s arrival, we continued to burn many overtime hours on tasks such as loading budget targets in the Base Accounting system on the B-3500 computer, and corresponding supply and equipment targets in the Base Supply system on the Univac 1050-II computer system.
Working with Base Supply was particularly difficult, since they operated in accordance with their own sacrosanct regulations and procedures which seemed to be in competition or opposition to the overall budget process. We were in a constant fear that Base Supply would not issue a critical maintenance part because of a shortage of funds in a unit account, thereby resulting in delayed repairs to an aircraft delaying mission accomplishment, and the blame placed on us.
The Supply system seemed to be run by its cranky computer. When there were problems, and there were endless problems, the usual explanation for not fixing them immediately was that “the computer won’t let us.”
We had very little information about TSgt Clough, but information in some of his records we received before his arrival showed he had experience working with Base Supply.
The fateful day finally arrived, and I made the short walk from Accounting across the highway to the parking lot in front of the Base Reception Center to meet the bus carrying Sergeant Clough and his family from the UK arrival base, RAF Mildenhall. The bus pulled in, and Sergeant Clough and his wife Lorna, plus two sons and a daughter, got off. As I gave Sergeant Clough a warm welcome I noticed he was overweight and his uniform more unkempt looking than expected even considering the long flight and bus ride.
He introduced me to his family, then announced that he was “on the Road program.”
“What’s the ‘Road’ program?” I asked.
“Retired On Active Duty,” he replied.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Media Lies - What's A Blogger To Do?
The New York Times, CBS News, the Associated Press, and The New Republic. What do they have in common?
They publish lies dressed up as news.
Bloggers obviously don’t have the resources of the major news media. We don’t have employees educated and trained as investigative reporters, supported by voluminous files and archives, overseen by seasoned editors. You name just about anything the main stream media has, we bloggers don’t have it.
However, when you compare the knowledge and experience of the blogosphere on specific issues compared to what the main stream media can apply to them, bloggers have an overwhelming advantage.
The most dramatic illustration of this point was the blogosphere vs. 60 Minutes and the forged Texas Air National Guard papers. Bloggers were able to marshal vast expertise examining the forged documents that 60 Minutes had neither the means nor the will to access.
Recently I’ve found myself engaged in unequal combat with elements of the main stream media, and I must modestly admit that they were “no contests,” and that I emerged victorious without breaking a sweat – or spending a buck.
I also humbly admit that very few know of my victories, including the main stream media I so thoroughly trounced. My satisfaction is that of putting a fly in their ointment. I’ve noticed that when the subjects I posted on are Googled, my article pops up along with the offending one.
For example, when the title of a November CBS News article entitled “Suicide Epidemic among Veterans” is Googled, my post totally debunking their article by proving the veteran suicide rate is lower than the rate for average citizens, and for nations such as France and Japan, appears as the fourth item on the search page following their tale.
Similarly, when “New York Times veteran murder rates” is Googled, my post disproving the New York Time’s article, in which I demonstrate that the veteran’s murder rate ranges from one-half to one-fifth of many American cities, and is even lower when you take women, children, and old men out of the comparison, appears as the third item on the Google search page.
My recent post exposing the Associated Press for fraudulently reporting that the Heritage Foundation ranked Europe as the economically freest region of the world hasn’t had a chance yet to attain first page Google search ranking because the AP release is still showing up as a fresh “news” item in many newspapers. It’s a shame, since it is so patently wrong and misleading, but the AP is not subjected to intense review by the main stream media that disseminate their releases.
Bloggers have to do it for them.
Not long ago a swarm of bloggers including me jumped all over The New Republic for publishing lurid and defamatory stories written by Private Scott Beauchamp supposedly based on his ongoing experiences in Iraq entitled “Baghdad Diarist.” Since many experienced Army veterans meticulously exposed gaping flaws in Beauchamp’s stories, I decided that since I’m an Air Force veteran with little or no knowledge of Army equipment and practices, I would concentrate on things that could be fact checked on the Internet without ever leaving Gualala, Northern California.
It was easy to decide that stories about joy riding in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and using it to kill stray dogs were ones that any editor, regardless of military experience or lack thereof, should have easily been able to determine were untrue. All that was needed was to Google “Bradley Fighting Vehicle,” and compare its picture to the descriptions of killing the dogs.
Even a great fool would have noticed that the 21-inch wide treads of this thirty-ton vehicle were incapable of neatly slicing a dog in two, as described by Private Beauchamp. Looking at the picture, the great fool would also notice that the driver, sitting low at the left front, couldn’t possibly see a dog at the right rear, let alone make precise changes of speed and direction to do the impossible and ensnare the dog in its tracks.
Although reported otherwise by the editor of The New Republic, a spokesman for the manufacturer of the Bradley concurred it was extremely unlikely to impossible for a Bradley driver to do the things Private Beauchamp described.
Faced with this deluge of untruths and half-truths from the main stream media, what’s a blogger to do?
So much BS, so little time.
They publish lies dressed up as news.
Bloggers obviously don’t have the resources of the major news media. We don’t have employees educated and trained as investigative reporters, supported by voluminous files and archives, overseen by seasoned editors. You name just about anything the main stream media has, we bloggers don’t have it.
However, when you compare the knowledge and experience of the blogosphere on specific issues compared to what the main stream media can apply to them, bloggers have an overwhelming advantage.
The most dramatic illustration of this point was the blogosphere vs. 60 Minutes and the forged Texas Air National Guard papers. Bloggers were able to marshal vast expertise examining the forged documents that 60 Minutes had neither the means nor the will to access.
Recently I’ve found myself engaged in unequal combat with elements of the main stream media, and I must modestly admit that they were “no contests,” and that I emerged victorious without breaking a sweat – or spending a buck.
I also humbly admit that very few know of my victories, including the main stream media I so thoroughly trounced. My satisfaction is that of putting a fly in their ointment. I’ve noticed that when the subjects I posted on are Googled, my article pops up along with the offending one.
For example, when the title of a November CBS News article entitled “Suicide Epidemic among Veterans” is Googled, my post totally debunking their article by proving the veteran suicide rate is lower than the rate for average citizens, and for nations such as France and Japan, appears as the fourth item on the search page following their tale.
Similarly, when “New York Times veteran murder rates” is Googled, my post disproving the New York Time’s article, in which I demonstrate that the veteran’s murder rate ranges from one-half to one-fifth of many American cities, and is even lower when you take women, children, and old men out of the comparison, appears as the third item on the Google search page.
My recent post exposing the Associated Press for fraudulently reporting that the Heritage Foundation ranked Europe as the economically freest region of the world hasn’t had a chance yet to attain first page Google search ranking because the AP release is still showing up as a fresh “news” item in many newspapers. It’s a shame, since it is so patently wrong and misleading, but the AP is not subjected to intense review by the main stream media that disseminate their releases.
Bloggers have to do it for them.
Not long ago a swarm of bloggers including me jumped all over The New Republic for publishing lurid and defamatory stories written by Private Scott Beauchamp supposedly based on his ongoing experiences in Iraq entitled “Baghdad Diarist.” Since many experienced Army veterans meticulously exposed gaping flaws in Beauchamp’s stories, I decided that since I’m an Air Force veteran with little or no knowledge of Army equipment and practices, I would concentrate on things that could be fact checked on the Internet without ever leaving Gualala, Northern California.
It was easy to decide that stories about joy riding in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and using it to kill stray dogs were ones that any editor, regardless of military experience or lack thereof, should have easily been able to determine were untrue. All that was needed was to Google “Bradley Fighting Vehicle,” and compare its picture to the descriptions of killing the dogs.
Even a great fool would have noticed that the 21-inch wide treads of this thirty-ton vehicle were incapable of neatly slicing a dog in two, as described by Private Beauchamp. Looking at the picture, the great fool would also notice that the driver, sitting low at the left front, couldn’t possibly see a dog at the right rear, let alone make precise changes of speed and direction to do the impossible and ensnare the dog in its tracks.
Although reported otherwise by the editor of The New Republic, a spokesman for the manufacturer of the Bradley concurred it was extremely unlikely to impossible for a Bradley driver to do the things Private Beauchamp described.
Faced with this deluge of untruths and half-truths from the main stream media, what’s a blogger to do?
So much BS, so little time.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Associated Press Lies About "Freest" Economies Study
“Asia is home to the world's freest _ and most repressed _ economies, but Europe ranked highest as a region in terms of economic freedom, an annual report released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal said.”
So began an Associated Press news report of the Heritage Foundation report just released.
Naturally I was intrigued, particularly since the conclusions in the AP report ran counter to what I have studied and observed this past half-century. I wondered, as Ross Perot may have mused, whether there was a Devil in the details, so I went to the Heritage Report.
There I found, in a strict reading of the Heritage Report, that Asia is indeed home to the world’s freest – and most repressed – economies. The two freest in the world are the city/states of Hong Kong and Singapore, but then you have to drop down all the way to 17th to pick up the next free Asian economy, Japan, and China comes in at 126th.
Europe being ranked highest as a region in terms of economic freedom also requires very strict reading of the Heritage Report. According to the AP, their rationale for ranking Europe first as a region was that: “European countries accounted for half of the top 20 economies considered free or mostly free, with Ireland at No. 3, Switzerland at No. 9 and Britain at No. 10.”
Rounding out the top 20 freest European economies: Denmark at No. 11, Estonia at No. 12, Netherlands at No. 13, Iceland at No. 14, Luxembourg at No. 15, Finland at No. 16, and Belgium at No. 20.
All told, these ten freest European countries make up 32 percent of the total European Union (EU) Gross Domestic Product (GDP), although the UK GDP is larger than the total of the other nine ranked with it in the top 20. The percentage of EU GDP that belong to EU countries ranked in the top ten freest is only 20 percent.
One obvious conclusion from looking at the numbers so far is that 68 percent of the EU GDP is produced by members not ranked in the top 20 freest: Germany at No. 23, Spain at No. 31, France at No. 48, and Italy at No. 64. In fact, these four lower ranked EU members produce 57 percent of the EU GDP, or almost double the total of the “freer” EU countries.
Apparently it suits the political point-of-view of the AP to not mention anything about the position of North Americans in terms of freest economies. Again, using a strict reading of the Heritage Report, the AP is correct in stating that only two of the top twenty freest economies are in North America: the United States at No. 5, and Canada at No. 7 (the AP erroneously listed Canada at No. 6). However, the combined US and Canadian GDP is 30 percent of the gross world product, virtually identical to the European Union GDP.
According to the Heritage Report: “America could do better in its scores for fiscal freedom and government size, which are 7 and 8 points below average, respectively. Total government spending equals more than a third of GDP. Corporate and personal taxes are moderately high and are getting relatively higher as other advanced economies reform with lower tax rates.”
In other words, American economic freedom suffers because of high government spending and taxation.
To put it another way, American economic freedom suffers because of high government spending and taxation.
It bears repeating that American economic freedom suffers because of high government spending and taxation.
In conclusion, America could have the world’s freest economy if not for high government spending and taxation.
Another way to compare is to look at how much of the world’s population live in the freest economies. Obviously a Frenchman living in the 48th freest economy can’t claim to enjoy the economic freedoms of an Irishman at No. 3, even though both are European.
While a total of 111 million Europeans (23 percent of the EU population) live in the top twenty freest nations economically (and 77 percent don’t), 334 million North Americans (100 percent of Americans and Canadians, and triple the number of Europeans) live in the top twenty – make that the top ten - freest.
In fact, 89 percent of the residents of the nations having the top five freest economies are Americans.
From these facts, obvious conclusions can be drawn about which region of world has the freest economies, unless you’re an AP editor.
Post Script:
The surest path towards having the freest economy becomes obvious from the Heritage Report – have an English heritage.
Look at the top ten of the entire list:
1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Ireland
4. Australia
5. United States
6. New Zealand
7. Canada
8. Chile
9. Switzerland
10. United Kingdom
So began an Associated Press news report of the Heritage Foundation report just released.
Naturally I was intrigued, particularly since the conclusions in the AP report ran counter to what I have studied and observed this past half-century. I wondered, as Ross Perot may have mused, whether there was a Devil in the details, so I went to the Heritage Report.
There I found, in a strict reading of the Heritage Report, that Asia is indeed home to the world’s freest – and most repressed – economies. The two freest in the world are the city/states of Hong Kong and Singapore, but then you have to drop down all the way to 17th to pick up the next free Asian economy, Japan, and China comes in at 126th.
Europe being ranked highest as a region in terms of economic freedom also requires very strict reading of the Heritage Report. According to the AP, their rationale for ranking Europe first as a region was that: “European countries accounted for half of the top 20 economies considered free or mostly free, with Ireland at No. 3, Switzerland at No. 9 and Britain at No. 10.”
Rounding out the top 20 freest European economies: Denmark at No. 11, Estonia at No. 12, Netherlands at No. 13, Iceland at No. 14, Luxembourg at No. 15, Finland at No. 16, and Belgium at No. 20.
All told, these ten freest European countries make up 32 percent of the total European Union (EU) Gross Domestic Product (GDP), although the UK GDP is larger than the total of the other nine ranked with it in the top 20. The percentage of EU GDP that belong to EU countries ranked in the top ten freest is only 20 percent.
One obvious conclusion from looking at the numbers so far is that 68 percent of the EU GDP is produced by members not ranked in the top 20 freest: Germany at No. 23, Spain at No. 31, France at No. 48, and Italy at No. 64. In fact, these four lower ranked EU members produce 57 percent of the EU GDP, or almost double the total of the “freer” EU countries.
Apparently it suits the political point-of-view of the AP to not mention anything about the position of North Americans in terms of freest economies. Again, using a strict reading of the Heritage Report, the AP is correct in stating that only two of the top twenty freest economies are in North America: the United States at No. 5, and Canada at No. 7 (the AP erroneously listed Canada at No. 6). However, the combined US and Canadian GDP is 30 percent of the gross world product, virtually identical to the European Union GDP.
According to the Heritage Report: “America could do better in its scores for fiscal freedom and government size, which are 7 and 8 points below average, respectively. Total government spending equals more than a third of GDP. Corporate and personal taxes are moderately high and are getting relatively higher as other advanced economies reform with lower tax rates.”
In other words, American economic freedom suffers because of high government spending and taxation.
To put it another way, American economic freedom suffers because of high government spending and taxation.
It bears repeating that American economic freedom suffers because of high government spending and taxation.
In conclusion, America could have the world’s freest economy if not for high government spending and taxation.
Another way to compare is to look at how much of the world’s population live in the freest economies. Obviously a Frenchman living in the 48th freest economy can’t claim to enjoy the economic freedoms of an Irishman at No. 3, even though both are European.
While a total of 111 million Europeans (23 percent of the EU population) live in the top twenty freest nations economically (and 77 percent don’t), 334 million North Americans (100 percent of Americans and Canadians, and triple the number of Europeans) live in the top twenty – make that the top ten - freest.
In fact, 89 percent of the residents of the nations having the top five freest economies are Americans.
From these facts, obvious conclusions can be drawn about which region of world has the freest economies, unless you’re an AP editor.
Post Script:
The surest path towards having the freest economy becomes obvious from the Heritage Report – have an English heritage.
Look at the top ten of the entire list:
1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Ireland
4. Australia
5. United States
6. New Zealand
7. Canada
8. Chile
9. Switzerland
10. United Kingdom
Monday, January 14, 2008
California 2008 Primary Election - My Vote is In
I completed my absentee ballot and mailed it today. I voted for John McCain, and against all seven of the ballot propositions.
Although even the organizations who placed Proposition 91 on the ballot recommended voting against it because it was no longer needed, it was even easier to vote “No!” on several other propositions than on 91.
Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97 (allowing four southern California tribes to greatly increase their slot machines in exchange for tax revenue contributions totaling less than one percent of our state budget) were the easiest to vote against on many grounds. Primarily, they would expand gambling, which I wish was still confined to Nevada (including getting rid of state lotteries). Gambling promotes wasteful and irresponsible behavior, and the gambling businesses are guaranteed profits while the gambling public is guaranteed losses. Indian gambling has been and will be a constant source of problems for the Indians and for society. While some tribes have become extremely wealthy, most tribes haven’t, but the dream of casino riches has stifled efforts of many “poor” tribes and individuals to improve because they are waiting for their casino “ship” to come in.
Our local Pomo tribe on the Garcia River is one of many whose casino ship will never dock, but many lives are being wasted while waiting.
It was also a pleasure to vote against Proposition 92, which foolishly cuts junior college student fees while creating another bloated state agency. It also commits what I consider the cardinal sin of budgeting by instituting a funding mechanism that removes control from elected government officials. This creates another sacred budget cow, one that doesn’t even need to ask to be fed according to its formula, regardless of the condition of other government programs and funding considerations.
Proposition 93 was the toughest for me to put the “No” to because I’m not a believer in term limits. I think the historic election of 1994, when the Republican tsunami powered by Hillarycare swept the arrogant Democrats out after forty years in power, or the milder rebuke of Republicans in 2006 to remind them of the consequences of acting like the Democrats prior to 1994, demonstrated that we already have term limits - it's called a ballot box. I voted "no" because Proposition 93 struck me as a dishonest attempt to fool Californians into thinking they were supporting term limits, when they would really be extending the terms of many powerful Democrats.
I voted for John McCain even though I've disagreed with him on many issues.
McCain-Feingold for starters. Man-caused global warming and the need for governments to get involved, for another.
But of all the candidates of either party, he's the most genuine and honest by far. He never told us that he was once for something before he was against it, or that he voted for something because the President or someone else fooled him.
When all the other candidates forgot they knew and said that Saddam had WMD while Bill Clinton was president, John McCain has stood by his guns. The current trend in Iraq bears out the wisdom of his position, and rewards him for standing up and being counted the whole time.
Finally, I look up to John McCain for spending 5 and a half years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, enduring treatment and conditions that violated the Geneva Convention every day, and coming out strong and ready to continue serving his country. The worst day John Kerry experienced in his four months of duty in the rivers of South Vietnam was infinitely better than the best day John McCain spent in North Vietnam.
The Democrats went for John Kerry as a war hero, and denigrated the proud and demanding service of George W. Bush flying dangerous fighter jets. Previously Democrats backed a draft dodger over two genuine heroes of World War II, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole.
I hope that they get another chance to cast a vote to honor a brave American, John McCain, and that this time they do it. I've just done my own small part. I look forward to doing much more later.
I don't have to agree with every thing John McCain does to know he's still the best person for the job.
Although even the organizations who placed Proposition 91 on the ballot recommended voting against it because it was no longer needed, it was even easier to vote “No!” on several other propositions than on 91.
Propositions 94, 95, 96, and 97 (allowing four southern California tribes to greatly increase their slot machines in exchange for tax revenue contributions totaling less than one percent of our state budget) were the easiest to vote against on many grounds. Primarily, they would expand gambling, which I wish was still confined to Nevada (including getting rid of state lotteries). Gambling promotes wasteful and irresponsible behavior, and the gambling businesses are guaranteed profits while the gambling public is guaranteed losses. Indian gambling has been and will be a constant source of problems for the Indians and for society. While some tribes have become extremely wealthy, most tribes haven’t, but the dream of casino riches has stifled efforts of many “poor” tribes and individuals to improve because they are waiting for their casino “ship” to come in.
Our local Pomo tribe on the Garcia River is one of many whose casino ship will never dock, but many lives are being wasted while waiting.
It was also a pleasure to vote against Proposition 92, which foolishly cuts junior college student fees while creating another bloated state agency. It also commits what I consider the cardinal sin of budgeting by instituting a funding mechanism that removes control from elected government officials. This creates another sacred budget cow, one that doesn’t even need to ask to be fed according to its formula, regardless of the condition of other government programs and funding considerations.
Proposition 93 was the toughest for me to put the “No” to because I’m not a believer in term limits. I think the historic election of 1994, when the Republican tsunami powered by Hillarycare swept the arrogant Democrats out after forty years in power, or the milder rebuke of Republicans in 2006 to remind them of the consequences of acting like the Democrats prior to 1994, demonstrated that we already have term limits - it's called a ballot box. I voted "no" because Proposition 93 struck me as a dishonest attempt to fool Californians into thinking they were supporting term limits, when they would really be extending the terms of many powerful Democrats.
I voted for John McCain even though I've disagreed with him on many issues.
McCain-Feingold for starters. Man-caused global warming and the need for governments to get involved, for another.
But of all the candidates of either party, he's the most genuine and honest by far. He never told us that he was once for something before he was against it, or that he voted for something because the President or someone else fooled him.
When all the other candidates forgot they knew and said that Saddam had WMD while Bill Clinton was president, John McCain has stood by his guns. The current trend in Iraq bears out the wisdom of his position, and rewards him for standing up and being counted the whole time.
Finally, I look up to John McCain for spending 5 and a half years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, enduring treatment and conditions that violated the Geneva Convention every day, and coming out strong and ready to continue serving his country. The worst day John Kerry experienced in his four months of duty in the rivers of South Vietnam was infinitely better than the best day John McCain spent in North Vietnam.
The Democrats went for John Kerry as a war hero, and denigrated the proud and demanding service of George W. Bush flying dangerous fighter jets. Previously Democrats backed a draft dodger over two genuine heroes of World War II, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole.
I hope that they get another chance to cast a vote to honor a brave American, John McCain, and that this time they do it. I've just done my own small part. I look forward to doing much more later.
I don't have to agree with every thing John McCain does to know he's still the best person for the job.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
New York Times Blows Military Murders Report
A New York Times report, disputed by the military, indicates that 121 recent Iraq and Afghanistan service veterans and active duty military, from a population of about 300,000, committed a killing or were charged with one in the six-year period beginning with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
This is a rate of about 8 murders per 100,000 people per year.
According to the New York Times:
The report noted that some of the killings did not seem to have any connection to service in Iraq or Afghanistan, and at least 25 were the result of fatal car crashes.
Disputing the New York Times report, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said that Army statistics "show little or no increases in positive drug use, driving under the influence crimes or domestic abuse in the past years among the more than 300,000 soldiers who have deployed in this war."
Wanting to put this exposé in context, I thought I should see if there are comparable statistics available. For comparison, I thought I would pick a California city, for instance, Oakland. Its population is almost 400,000, of which less than 200,000 are males, and of the population of males, many are children or elderly.
So what about killings in Oakland, committed by a population of adolescent through middle-aged males which probably is less than half of the 300,000 that have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The most recent information I found was that there were 145 murders in Oakland in 2006 alone, which didn’t include fatalities from auto accidents. The Oakland murder rate for 2006 was 36.4 per 100,000, or 4.5 times higher than the military rate.
If females, children, and the elderly are factored out to make it more of an “apples to apples” comparison, the murder rate actually is over 80 per 100,000 per year, or ten times the subject military rate.
How about another California city, such as Richmond, with a population of just over 100,000? From 2001 through 2006 Richmond had 202 murders, or a murder rate of about 33 per 100,000 per year, or over 70 for murder-prone males.
How about the peace-loving Liberal paradise of the world, San Francisco, where about 300,000 adolescent through middle-aged males live?
In just 2005 through 2006, San Francisco had 182 murders. Even if you use the entire population of San Francisco of about 750,000, that still leaves a murder rate for San Francisco of over 12 per 100,000 per year, or over 25 for murder-aged males.
The New York Times found few of the military killers received more than a cursory mental health screening after deployment. Therefore, I suppose the New York Times study is supposed to lead its readers to conclude that the military should and could reduce the murder rate by giving detailed mental health screening at the end of Iraq and Afghanistan deployments.
I wonder if the New York Times would extend that to New York males, whose murder rate per 100,000 New York males per year was over 15, almost double the subject military rate?
Apparently they don’t receive even cursory mental health screening, despite their much higher need for some form of screening or treatment, as evidenced by their high murder rate.
Actually, if I were just comparing murder rates for military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan deployments with the rates for American cities, I would conclude that the way to dramatically reduce the murder rate for cities is to enlist and deploy their males to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Whatever our cities are doing now obviously is not as effective as the military's program.
This is a rate of about 8 murders per 100,000 people per year.
According to the New York Times:
Few of the 121 veterans received more than cursory mental health screening at the end of their deployments, the veterans, their lawyers, relatives and prosecutors said. While many showed signs of combat trauma, they were not evaluated for or diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder until after the homicides, according to the interviews.
The report noted that some of the killings did not seem to have any connection to service in Iraq or Afghanistan, and at least 25 were the result of fatal car crashes.
Disputing the New York Times report, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said that Army statistics "show little or no increases in positive drug use, driving under the influence crimes or domestic abuse in the past years among the more than 300,000 soldiers who have deployed in this war."
Wanting to put this exposé in context, I thought I should see if there are comparable statistics available. For comparison, I thought I would pick a California city, for instance, Oakland. Its population is almost 400,000, of which less than 200,000 are males, and of the population of males, many are children or elderly.
So what about killings in Oakland, committed by a population of adolescent through middle-aged males which probably is less than half of the 300,000 that have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The most recent information I found was that there were 145 murders in Oakland in 2006 alone, which didn’t include fatalities from auto accidents. The Oakland murder rate for 2006 was 36.4 per 100,000, or 4.5 times higher than the military rate.
If females, children, and the elderly are factored out to make it more of an “apples to apples” comparison, the murder rate actually is over 80 per 100,000 per year, or ten times the subject military rate.
How about another California city, such as Richmond, with a population of just over 100,000? From 2001 through 2006 Richmond had 202 murders, or a murder rate of about 33 per 100,000 per year, or over 70 for murder-prone males.
How about the peace-loving Liberal paradise of the world, San Francisco, where about 300,000 adolescent through middle-aged males live?
In just 2005 through 2006, San Francisco had 182 murders. Even if you use the entire population of San Francisco of about 750,000, that still leaves a murder rate for San Francisco of over 12 per 100,000 per year, or over 25 for murder-aged males.
The New York Times found few of the military killers received more than a cursory mental health screening after deployment. Therefore, I suppose the New York Times study is supposed to lead its readers to conclude that the military should and could reduce the murder rate by giving detailed mental health screening at the end of Iraq and Afghanistan deployments.
I wonder if the New York Times would extend that to New York males, whose murder rate per 100,000 New York males per year was over 15, almost double the subject military rate?
Apparently they don’t receive even cursory mental health screening, despite their much higher need for some form of screening or treatment, as evidenced by their high murder rate.
Actually, if I were just comparing murder rates for military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan deployments with the rates for American cities, I would conclude that the way to dramatically reduce the murder rate for cities is to enlist and deploy their males to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Whatever our cities are doing now obviously is not as effective as the military's program.
Friday, January 11, 2008
California - Under Taxed or Over Spent?
California hit the budget wall a long time ago, but it has taken a long time for the sound of the crash to penetrate the isolation wards of state government. As the California budget hemorrhaged tanks of red ink, state politicians labored long and hard to devise new, incredibly expensive plans to spend money that was already earmarked to go towards previous over commitments.
The problem was not that Californians weren’t being taxed enough. In fact, much of the recent rosy budget picture was due to a relatively low rate of taxation applied to an enormous base of rapidly increasing economic activity, spurred on by low taxes.
Unfortunately, parading a healthy budget in front of politicians is like running through a pack of wolves wearing pork chop underwear.
To the politicians of California, when they looked upon the vast waves of tax revenues splashing over Sacramento, what they saw was the answers to each of their pleading constituent’s wants, and the means of buying their vote and eternal gratitude – at least until they come with their next whining need.
So the California legislature spent and spent – and the governor, a Republican in name only (RINO), signed and signed those spending bills.
Republican legislators, on the other hand, used their meager power to obstruct the passage of spending bills. When they were successful, instead of earning praise for their fiscal responsibility, they were roundly condemned for being tight fisted and mean spirited. In the Age of Oprah, that’s about the nastiest thing you can call a politician. The only way you can win the hearts of Oprah’s Acolytes is to cry while you pass a bill to succor the teller of every sad tale.
The loudest teller of sad tales is the education empire. It consumes forty percent of the state budget, is very powerful politically because of their sheer numbers and the way they allocate union dues to political campaigns, and supports an ever growing administrative overhead that sucks resources from the classrooms. Wherever in California public schools are faced with challenges – children from low-income families, high percentages of non-English speaking students, uninvolved parents – those schools almost always fail the challenges.
However, that doesn’t stop the heavily unionized public school system from opposing reforms and resisting measurement of their results.
Of course, every state spending program has its supporters and promoters, and each is adamant that, rather than cutting spending, the funding for their program should be increased. Each is fully prepared to demonstrate how spending more for their program will produce future benefits far in excess of additional expenses.
Unfortunately, much is promised, little is produced.
This morning I paid particular attention to the comments by San Francisco Chronicle readers concerning Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposals. Distilled to their essence, they were: we don’t need cuts, we need increases; we don’t need less state services, we need more; wealthy taxpayers and businesses should pay more taxes; and that everyone, except those that actually need the services, should pay more taxes.
Or “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the fellow behind the tree.”
As usual, the Chronicle readers drew on vast stores of ignorance to take their positions. Their first assumption is that, in a global economy, the wealthy and businesses will act like the world outside California doesn’t exist, and will continue to participate in having their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the “more deserving.”
The second ignorance based assumption is that businesses pay taxes, instead of just serving as a distribution point to pass them through to ultimate consumers in their cost of goods sold or services provided. The only times businesses are concerned about taxes are when competitive or economic pressures prevent passing them fully on to consumers.
For a San Francisco example, their increased mandatory contributions to health care costs will force restaurants to increase their menu prices, and they will make fewer sales. If no employees are cut, total expenses will increase. The higher prices may result in more or less revenue, depending on how far sales drop as prices go up. As employees are cut and profits shrink, fewer taxes will be paid into a system based on the assumption that tax revenues will be increasing substantially to meet the higher benefit levels, both for employees and the homeless and unemployed.
In a competitive economic environment, increased business taxes create a competitive disadvantage for businesses being taxed, since they can’t pass on the increases without raising prices.
Of course, business tax increases always hurt consumers, the ones cheering for taxes to soak big business, since they are the ones who actually pay the taxes when they buy the product.
Whenever I hear someone calling for more taxes on businesses because “they aren’t paying their fair share,” I mentally picture them with an “Ignoramus” sticker on their foreheads.
Right next to their “Democrat” badge.
The problem was not that Californians weren’t being taxed enough. In fact, much of the recent rosy budget picture was due to a relatively low rate of taxation applied to an enormous base of rapidly increasing economic activity, spurred on by low taxes.
Unfortunately, parading a healthy budget in front of politicians is like running through a pack of wolves wearing pork chop underwear.
To the politicians of California, when they looked upon the vast waves of tax revenues splashing over Sacramento, what they saw was the answers to each of their pleading constituent’s wants, and the means of buying their vote and eternal gratitude – at least until they come with their next whining need.
So the California legislature spent and spent – and the governor, a Republican in name only (RINO), signed and signed those spending bills.
Republican legislators, on the other hand, used their meager power to obstruct the passage of spending bills. When they were successful, instead of earning praise for their fiscal responsibility, they were roundly condemned for being tight fisted and mean spirited. In the Age of Oprah, that’s about the nastiest thing you can call a politician. The only way you can win the hearts of Oprah’s Acolytes is to cry while you pass a bill to succor the teller of every sad tale.
The loudest teller of sad tales is the education empire. It consumes forty percent of the state budget, is very powerful politically because of their sheer numbers and the way they allocate union dues to political campaigns, and supports an ever growing administrative overhead that sucks resources from the classrooms. Wherever in California public schools are faced with challenges – children from low-income families, high percentages of non-English speaking students, uninvolved parents – those schools almost always fail the challenges.
However, that doesn’t stop the heavily unionized public school system from opposing reforms and resisting measurement of their results.
Of course, every state spending program has its supporters and promoters, and each is adamant that, rather than cutting spending, the funding for their program should be increased. Each is fully prepared to demonstrate how spending more for their program will produce future benefits far in excess of additional expenses.
Unfortunately, much is promised, little is produced.
This morning I paid particular attention to the comments by San Francisco Chronicle readers concerning Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposals. Distilled to their essence, they were: we don’t need cuts, we need increases; we don’t need less state services, we need more; wealthy taxpayers and businesses should pay more taxes; and that everyone, except those that actually need the services, should pay more taxes.
Or “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the fellow behind the tree.”
As usual, the Chronicle readers drew on vast stores of ignorance to take their positions. Their first assumption is that, in a global economy, the wealthy and businesses will act like the world outside California doesn’t exist, and will continue to participate in having their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the “more deserving.”
The second ignorance based assumption is that businesses pay taxes, instead of just serving as a distribution point to pass them through to ultimate consumers in their cost of goods sold or services provided. The only times businesses are concerned about taxes are when competitive or economic pressures prevent passing them fully on to consumers.
For a San Francisco example, their increased mandatory contributions to health care costs will force restaurants to increase their menu prices, and they will make fewer sales. If no employees are cut, total expenses will increase. The higher prices may result in more or less revenue, depending on how far sales drop as prices go up. As employees are cut and profits shrink, fewer taxes will be paid into a system based on the assumption that tax revenues will be increasing substantially to meet the higher benefit levels, both for employees and the homeless and unemployed.
In a competitive economic environment, increased business taxes create a competitive disadvantage for businesses being taxed, since they can’t pass on the increases without raising prices.
Of course, business tax increases always hurt consumers, the ones cheering for taxes to soak big business, since they are the ones who actually pay the taxes when they buy the product.
Whenever I hear someone calling for more taxes on businesses because “they aren’t paying their fair share,” I mentally picture them with an “Ignoramus” sticker on their foreheads.
Right next to their “Democrat” badge.
Global Warming is Unequivocal
The U.N. Climate Panel said last year that global warming was "unequivocal." It said temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.3 Fahrenheit) in the 20th century and could rise by a "best guess" of another 1.8 to 4.0C (3.2 to 7.2F) by 2100. (Reuters, World warming despite cool Pacific and Baghdad snow, Fri Jan 11, 2008)
And they are at it again.
Even though global warming has stalled out for almost ten years, and 2008 began with cooling in many areas.
I agree with the U. N. Climate Panel's first sentence: global warming is unequivocal. And it is entirely natural.
Unlike Al Gore and the U. N. Climate Panel, who have to deny the undeniably warmer Medieval Warm Period, and totally ignore the even warmer Holocene Optimum in order to further their messianic belief that global warming is man made, we skeptics of man-caused global warming trumpet the fact that there is global warming, that it is expected, and that it is natural.
In support of our position we have hundreds of thousands of years of records of prior dramatic climate changes. We can point to voluminous records that show warming periods are soon followed by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, again what would be expected since oceans are the primary depository for carbon dioxide, and lose carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as they warm.
However, at the moment the religion of man-caused global warming has hit a dog leg in their dogma. Since 1998 global temperatures have not been rising. In fact, in may locales there has been some cooling.
Computer models don’t show this scenario, where atmospheric CO2 is increasing steadily, and temperature is not.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
While Mr. Pachauri is doing that, he should also look at the climate record since 1900. By doing that he would notice that most of the increase in global temperatures since 1900 occurred in the first half of the century, and that six of the ten warmest years in the United States occurred over fifty years ago.
Over fifty years ago was before atmospheric CO2 caused by mankind’s industrial activities increased significantly.
Mr. Pachauri would also notice that, during the first thirty years of greatly increased atmospheric CO2 (1945-1975), the Earth experienced global cooling.
Although the twin anomalies of a greater increase in global warming in the first half of the 20th Century and global cooling for most of the second half don’t fit the man-caused global warming constructs, these anomalies do fit very well with fluctuations in solar activity.
Not surprisingly, the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, and Dark Ages Cool Period all track precisely with solar variation.
For Al Gore and the U. N. Climate Panel, inconvenient truths indeed.
And they are at it again.
Even though global warming has stalled out for almost ten years, and 2008 began with cooling in many areas.
I agree with the U. N. Climate Panel's first sentence: global warming is unequivocal. And it is entirely natural.
Unlike Al Gore and the U. N. Climate Panel, who have to deny the undeniably warmer Medieval Warm Period, and totally ignore the even warmer Holocene Optimum in order to further their messianic belief that global warming is man made, we skeptics of man-caused global warming trumpet the fact that there is global warming, that it is expected, and that it is natural.
In support of our position we have hundreds of thousands of years of records of prior dramatic climate changes. We can point to voluminous records that show warming periods are soon followed by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, again what would be expected since oceans are the primary depository for carbon dioxide, and lose carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as they warm.
However, at the moment the religion of man-caused global warming has hit a dog leg in their dogma. Since 1998 global temperatures have not been rising. In fact, in may locales there has been some cooling.
Computer models don’t show this scenario, where atmospheric CO2 is increasing steadily, and temperature is not.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
While Mr. Pachauri is doing that, he should also look at the climate record since 1900. By doing that he would notice that most of the increase in global temperatures since 1900 occurred in the first half of the century, and that six of the ten warmest years in the United States occurred over fifty years ago.
Over fifty years ago was before atmospheric CO2 caused by mankind’s industrial activities increased significantly.
Mr. Pachauri would also notice that, during the first thirty years of greatly increased atmospheric CO2 (1945-1975), the Earth experienced global cooling.
Although the twin anomalies of a greater increase in global warming in the first half of the 20th Century and global cooling for most of the second half don’t fit the man-caused global warming constructs, these anomalies do fit very well with fluctuations in solar activity.
Not surprisingly, the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, Holocene Optimum, Roman Warm Period, and Dark Ages Cool Period all track precisely with solar variation.
For Al Gore and the U. N. Climate Panel, inconvenient truths indeed.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
The New Republic Publishes Barracks BS as True
The New Republic published barracks BS as true stories of American military atrocities in Iraq when they got their over-eager hands on Private Scott Beauchamp’s “Baghdad Diarist” tales.
During my over 21 years in the Air Force, I heard young enlisted personnel slinging fanciful BS, and some of it was accepted as fact after a while. When I arrived at RAF Bentwaters, England, in 1970, I soon heard stories that young airmen had fitted an old Air Force truck with ATO (assisted take-off) bottles and raced it down the runway at high speed for fun. They supposedly got away with it, and although the date could not be established accurately, it sounded like it happened just a few years before my arrival.
On a visit to England a couple of years ago, Alice and I were on a train going to the cruise ship terminal at Harwich, not far from my now closed old base. I started to chat with an older passenger and his wife, and found he had been stationed at Bentwaters in the early 1950s, many years before me. He mentioned that when the base had upgraded to Republic F-84F Thunderstreak jets, he helped install the arresting cables and net to stop this bigger, heavier fighter-bomber from accidently running off the end of the runway when aborting a high speed takeoff. His comments reminded me of the story about the high-speed truck run, and I asked him if he had heard of it.
He not only had heard of it, he had participated!
But it wasn’t like the story of fun and games. Soon after installation of the arresting barrier, it didn’t properly stop an F-84 on a take-off emergency, and the F-84 was damaged beyond repair.
Since no live tests could be run using the extremely valuable and expensive F-84s, an old General Motors truck was rigged with the landing gear of the destroyed jet fighter, ATO bottles were added to get its speed up to an estimated 140 miles per hour – probably the fastest a GM truck has ever been driven! – and two barrier tests were run in 1954. The first test showed why the barrier hadn’t worked, and the second run showed that modifications made after the first test worked the second time.
The story as told by Derrick Booth, who had worked as an engineering assistant on the project, is very rich, interesting, and humorous (don’t miss how its driver was selected), and may be read in its entirety by clicking here (scroll about half way down the page to the beginning).
Needless to say, if an anti-military rag like The New Republic had heard the barracks BS about this, they would have published it under the pseudonym of an anonymous “Bentwaters Diarist” as an example of military negligence and incompetence, not as one of thoughtful and painstaking testing and problem solving.
When a bunch of guys (and gals) sit around with a few beers and lay on the BS, they are just doing what troops have done ever since the beginning of organized military units. But when The New Republic publishes barracks BS as truth, they steal the integrity and honor of all those who serve and have served courageously and honorably.
During my over 21 years in the Air Force, I heard young enlisted personnel slinging fanciful BS, and some of it was accepted as fact after a while. When I arrived at RAF Bentwaters, England, in 1970, I soon heard stories that young airmen had fitted an old Air Force truck with ATO (assisted take-off) bottles and raced it down the runway at high speed for fun. They supposedly got away with it, and although the date could not be established accurately, it sounded like it happened just a few years before my arrival.
On a visit to England a couple of years ago, Alice and I were on a train going to the cruise ship terminal at Harwich, not far from my now closed old base. I started to chat with an older passenger and his wife, and found he had been stationed at Bentwaters in the early 1950s, many years before me. He mentioned that when the base had upgraded to Republic F-84F Thunderstreak jets, he helped install the arresting cables and net to stop this bigger, heavier fighter-bomber from accidently running off the end of the runway when aborting a high speed takeoff. His comments reminded me of the story about the high-speed truck run, and I asked him if he had heard of it.
He not only had heard of it, he had participated!
But it wasn’t like the story of fun and games. Soon after installation of the arresting barrier, it didn’t properly stop an F-84 on a take-off emergency, and the F-84 was damaged beyond repair.
Since no live tests could be run using the extremely valuable and expensive F-84s, an old General Motors truck was rigged with the landing gear of the destroyed jet fighter, ATO bottles were added to get its speed up to an estimated 140 miles per hour – probably the fastest a GM truck has ever been driven! – and two barrier tests were run in 1954. The first test showed why the barrier hadn’t worked, and the second run showed that modifications made after the first test worked the second time.
The story as told by Derrick Booth, who had worked as an engineering assistant on the project, is very rich, interesting, and humorous (don’t miss how its driver was selected), and may be read in its entirety by clicking here (scroll about half way down the page to the beginning).
Needless to say, if an anti-military rag like The New Republic had heard the barracks BS about this, they would have published it under the pseudonym of an anonymous “Bentwaters Diarist” as an example of military negligence and incompetence, not as one of thoughtful and painstaking testing and problem solving.
When a bunch of guys (and gals) sit around with a few beers and lay on the BS, they are just doing what troops have done ever since the beginning of organized military units. But when The New Republic publishes barracks BS as truth, they steal the integrity and honor of all those who serve and have served courageously and honorably.
I’ll Miss Hillary
I hate to see Hillary beaten for the Democrat nomination. I already knew Democrats in this area were unenthusiastic about her – “Any Democrat but Hillary” pretty much sums up Democrats’ desires in Northern California – but I was happy to believe what the mainstream media were telling us, that Hillary’s nomination was inevitable and the primaries just formalities.
Hillary was all I hoped for in a Democrat candidate, and as her husband Bill said – “she can’t be taller, younger, male…” – she lacked many qualities that could have made her a viable candidate.
I’ll miss Bill, too, egotistically and constantly reminding everyone that Hillary wasn’t him, and never could be.
I’ll miss indulging my guilty pleasure, the Hillary Scandals Reruns. While Bill was president, whiling away his time and energies diddling each delightful Democrat demoiselle he encountered, Hillary was giving new life to the anti-socialist medicine movement while masterminding palace intrigues like rifling FBI files of prominent Republicans, firing the White House Travel Office employees to make way for her cronies, and sequestering her Rose Law Firm billing records in her library to duck subpoenas.
Without the Janet Reno Justice Department giving cover, maybe this time around she would have had to explain her fabulous success in trading cattle futures.
What I’m looking forward to is everyone going “Obama bananas” until they realize that everything Hillary and John Edwards are saying about him is true.
Obama’s current support appears to be more “dynasty fatigue” than fervent belief in his principles and programs. Obama is trying to cast himself as the “man with Hope,” but I think another Democrat owns the “Hope” logo.
Once everyone learned that the White House with Hillary running the show wouldn’t be a continuation of the “Bill Clinton Vanities,” they dumped Hillary faster than Bill Clinton could find willing female companionship.
However, lest I regret too much the loss of Democrat dramatic possibilities, methinks I hear the whoosh of hot air, and a gargantuan shadow filling the room.
“Is it a Pepsi Cola Slice Blimp? A hot-air balloon? A gargantuan gas bag?”
“It’s all those, and more, it’s Al Gore!”
“We’re saved!”
At this point I know my wish came true.
I was poised to ask the Democrats to send it the clowns.
Don’t bother, they’re here.
Hillary was all I hoped for in a Democrat candidate, and as her husband Bill said – “she can’t be taller, younger, male…” – she lacked many qualities that could have made her a viable candidate.
I’ll miss Bill, too, egotistically and constantly reminding everyone that Hillary wasn’t him, and never could be.
I’ll miss indulging my guilty pleasure, the Hillary Scandals Reruns. While Bill was president, whiling away his time and energies diddling each delightful Democrat demoiselle he encountered, Hillary was giving new life to the anti-socialist medicine movement while masterminding palace intrigues like rifling FBI files of prominent Republicans, firing the White House Travel Office employees to make way for her cronies, and sequestering her Rose Law Firm billing records in her library to duck subpoenas.
Without the Janet Reno Justice Department giving cover, maybe this time around she would have had to explain her fabulous success in trading cattle futures.
What I’m looking forward to is everyone going “Obama bananas” until they realize that everything Hillary and John Edwards are saying about him is true.
Obama’s current support appears to be more “dynasty fatigue” than fervent belief in his principles and programs. Obama is trying to cast himself as the “man with Hope,” but I think another Democrat owns the “Hope” logo.
Once everyone learned that the White House with Hillary running the show wouldn’t be a continuation of the “Bill Clinton Vanities,” they dumped Hillary faster than Bill Clinton could find willing female companionship.
However, lest I regret too much the loss of Democrat dramatic possibilities, methinks I hear the whoosh of hot air, and a gargantuan shadow filling the room.
“Is it a Pepsi Cola Slice Blimp? A hot-air balloon? A gargantuan gas bag?”
“It’s all those, and more, it’s Al Gore!”
“We’re saved!”
At this point I know my wish came true.
I was poised to ask the Democrats to send it the clowns.
Don’t bother, they’re here.
Monday, January 07, 2008
No Quibbling About Global Warming
A year ago 2007 was predicted to become the hottest year on record, surpassing 1998. One could quibble about 1998, since in the United States, land of the most thorough, modern, and intensive climate study and monitoring systems, 1998 was second to 1934, and six of the warmest years in the past 100 years occurred over 50 years ago.
You might quibble that worldwide temperature measurement has been highly suspect since the demise of the Soviet Union resulted in closure of thousands of weather stations in a massive, relatively cool part of the world.
You could also quibble about “hottest year on record,” since that actually may only be for the period since 1978, when weather satellite observations began, or perhaps since the end of the Little Ice Age circa 1850, when graduated and standardized thermometers came into widespread usage.
But who’s quibbling?
The bottom line on 2007 is in now, and if you lived in the Southern Hemisphere, you would have experienced bitter cold in many areas. Not to quibble, but global warming really loses some of the luster of its “global” label if half the planet goes the opposite way.
As Jeff Jacoby of the far-left leaning Boston Globe points out, Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?, January 6, 2008, “2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed.”
Before Al Gore and the rest of the true believers trot out their forecasts for 2008, I would like to make my own. On the evidence of the first week of 2008, global warming is not doing its job in northern California. It has been cold, windy, heavy snowfall in the Sierras, some flooding in the San Francisco Bay area, and not at all what I expected given that so many “experts” say it would be otherwise.
Frankly, I feel cheated.
A bit of warmer weather would be welcome.
Fortuitously, I bought a 12.5 kilowatt generator with automatic start and power transfer switch a couple of months ago, and its installation was finally completed at 2 pm this past Thursday. About eight hours later we lost power for a day and a half, and the generator performed flawlessly.
When I chide Liberal friends about the miserable weather, they tell me it is proof of global warming. In fact, they tell me that global warming will cause it to be wetter, drier, hotter, colder, stormier, calmer, more flooding, more droughts – anything and everything that happens, no matter what, is and will be proof of global warming.
When Alice mentioned that many parts of the southern hemisphere were experiencing unusual cold, a daughter told her that cooling in the Tropics was also part of global warming.
Not to quibble, but cooling in the Tropics will also, I’m sure, be part of global cooling.
Interestingly, a prominent Russian scientist predicts global cooling will begin in 2012.
"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012."
Damn!
That’s not what I wanted to hear.
(Please click on one of the labels below to be magically transported to much of my recent commentary on the fallacies of claiming mankind is causing global warming. I'll be glad you did)
You might quibble that worldwide temperature measurement has been highly suspect since the demise of the Soviet Union resulted in closure of thousands of weather stations in a massive, relatively cool part of the world.
You could also quibble about “hottest year on record,” since that actually may only be for the period since 1978, when weather satellite observations began, or perhaps since the end of the Little Ice Age circa 1850, when graduated and standardized thermometers came into widespread usage.
But who’s quibbling?
The bottom line on 2007 is in now, and if you lived in the Southern Hemisphere, you would have experienced bitter cold in many areas. Not to quibble, but global warming really loses some of the luster of its “global” label if half the planet goes the opposite way.
As Jeff Jacoby of the far-left leaning Boston Globe points out, Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?, January 6, 2008, “2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed.”
Before Al Gore and the rest of the true believers trot out their forecasts for 2008, I would like to make my own. On the evidence of the first week of 2008, global warming is not doing its job in northern California. It has been cold, windy, heavy snowfall in the Sierras, some flooding in the San Francisco Bay area, and not at all what I expected given that so many “experts” say it would be otherwise.
Frankly, I feel cheated.
A bit of warmer weather would be welcome.
Fortuitously, I bought a 12.5 kilowatt generator with automatic start and power transfer switch a couple of months ago, and its installation was finally completed at 2 pm this past Thursday. About eight hours later we lost power for a day and a half, and the generator performed flawlessly.
When I chide Liberal friends about the miserable weather, they tell me it is proof of global warming. In fact, they tell me that global warming will cause it to be wetter, drier, hotter, colder, stormier, calmer, more flooding, more droughts – anything and everything that happens, no matter what, is and will be proof of global warming.
When Alice mentioned that many parts of the southern hemisphere were experiencing unusual cold, a daughter told her that cooling in the Tropics was also part of global warming.
Not to quibble, but cooling in the Tropics will also, I’m sure, be part of global cooling.
Interestingly, a prominent Russian scientist predicts global cooling will begin in 2012.
"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012."
Damn!
That’s not what I wanted to hear.
(Please click on one of the labels below to be magically transported to much of my recent commentary on the fallacies of claiming mankind is causing global warming. I'll be glad you did)
Monday, December 31, 2007
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.
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:
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:
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.)
Sunday, December 30, 2007
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:
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.
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:
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.
Then make a retraction, damn it!
Anything less is inadequate and unprofessional.
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.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Willful Ignorance of Global Warming Alarmists
If ignorance is bliss, the global warming alarmists live bliss-filled state. With blinders firmly placed, they lead mankind down the path to the eighteenth century, in the sure belief that destroying the economic hope of the impoverished masses is the way to save their miserable lives.
The core of their belief is simple, and to the alarmists, unquestionable. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by the powering of mankind’s rapid economic progress is causing global warming.
The alarmists’ belief in a man-caused calamity in the making is unshakable, yet there is much evidence that it is easily assailable.
First, are there universally acknowledged instances, not just in the deep, dark past, but even in recent times, that the Earth has been warmer than today because of natural climate change?
The answer?
A resounding “yes!” Evidence of all types – analyses of tree rings, sediments, glacier retreat, remains of trees above current tree lines, records of vineyards where can’t be sustained today, and myriads of other studies have established beyond the shadow of doubt that the Medieval Warm Period of 1,000 years ago, and the Holocene Optimum of 5,000 years ago, were global and much warmer than today.
Of course, there is also abundant, universally accepted evidence, that prior to the warm, interglacial period we are now enjoying, the Earth went through a glacial period, the Ice Age, which reversed only 18,000 years ago. Since the reversal, the mile-thick ice sheet above Chicago (and a very large portion of North America) melted away, and the seas have risen over 400 feet, or an average of over two feet a century.
Are there now anomalies that don’t fit the anthropogenic global warming scenarios?
Another resounding “yes!” Again there is abundant evidence that some recent periods of climate change contradict the CO2 driven models.
Examples abound. Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth” made much of glaciers shrinking, and from his presentations you would think it a new phenomenon. However, glaciers began retreating at the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, well over a century before mankind’s accelerated hydrocarbon use.
Al Gore prophesized that seas would rise about twenty feet, engulfing major cities and low-lying nations by the end of this century. Again, sea levels have risen over 400 feet in just 18,000 years, and have been rising at about a seven-inch per century rate since 1850. The current rate of sea level rise is just an extension of that trend, and even the United Nations has no evidence or expectation of a significant change in the trend.
According to global warming alarmists, global temperature increases on a direct or even accelerated basis with increases in atmospheric CO2. However, the highest rate of warming came in the first half of the twentieth century (+0.6º C from 1910 to 1945), and has only increased another 0.6º C in over sixty years since 1945. In fact, for a thirty-year period (1945-1975), as atmospheric CO2 went up, global temperature went down.
For those who insist on knowing the cause of things, since nothing “just happens,” they will be happy to learn that even though the temperature variation of the past century does not correlate well with increased atmospheric CO2, it correlates almost perfectly with solar fluctuation. Further happiness is in store, since solar variation also correlates exceedingly well with global temperature variation for thousands of years, and even longer.
For man-caused warming fanatics, a bit of sadness: the chart Al Gore showed in “An Inconvenient Truth,” purportedly showing CO2 increasing, followed by temperatures doing likewise, actually shows temperature increases preceding CO2 increases by about 800 years. The mechanism driving this change is simple and well known. The cold water of the oceans store enormous quantities of CO2. When water temperature rises, as it does in response to increased solar activity, the warmer water cannot store CO2 as well as colder, causing the oceans to release CO2 into the atmosphere. Ergo, and ipso facto, CO2 increases following, not preceding, a solar-driven temperature increase.
None of this should be interpreted as a denial of global warming – not of the natural variety, anyway. It is obvious to all with open minds that climate change has been occurring naturally for millions of years, and will continue to do so, regardless of human efforts to stop or reverse it.
What few of us realize is that we live in a fortunate period in terms of the Earth’s climate. Even as recently as two centuries ago our ancestors struggled against numbing cold, crop failures and famine, pandemics of influenza, cholera, and plague, frequent and violent storms, and all the ills that beset humanity during cold periods.
Ironically, having survived the ravages of cold, we’re now inundated by prophets of gloom regaling us with their fears that we will soon experience as warm a climate as our ancestors prospered under just 1,000 and 5,000 years ago.
What a snake-oil sales job! We’re supposed to have more fear of warmth than cold? Then why do we all flock to Florida, California, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and the southern states? Are we rushing to our doom? Or do we just naturally know that cold kills multiples of the number that die from heat, and that our lives can be happier and more comfortable in warmer climes?
However we look at it, clearly Al Gore’s mediocre academic record explains much of the failings of his climate science presentation. Now what excuse do his true believers have to continue following their inept leader?
The core of their belief is simple, and to the alarmists, unquestionable. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by the powering of mankind’s rapid economic progress is causing global warming.
The alarmists’ belief in a man-caused calamity in the making is unshakable, yet there is much evidence that it is easily assailable.
First, are there universally acknowledged instances, not just in the deep, dark past, but even in recent times, that the Earth has been warmer than today because of natural climate change?
The answer?
A resounding “yes!” Evidence of all types – analyses of tree rings, sediments, glacier retreat, remains of trees above current tree lines, records of vineyards where can’t be sustained today, and myriads of other studies have established beyond the shadow of doubt that the Medieval Warm Period of 1,000 years ago, and the Holocene Optimum of 5,000 years ago, were global and much warmer than today.
Of course, there is also abundant, universally accepted evidence, that prior to the warm, interglacial period we are now enjoying, the Earth went through a glacial period, the Ice Age, which reversed only 18,000 years ago. Since the reversal, the mile-thick ice sheet above Chicago (and a very large portion of North America) melted away, and the seas have risen over 400 feet, or an average of over two feet a century.
Are there now anomalies that don’t fit the anthropogenic global warming scenarios?
Another resounding “yes!” Again there is abundant evidence that some recent periods of climate change contradict the CO2 driven models.
Examples abound. Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth” made much of glaciers shrinking, and from his presentations you would think it a new phenomenon. However, glaciers began retreating at the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, well over a century before mankind’s accelerated hydrocarbon use.
Al Gore prophesized that seas would rise about twenty feet, engulfing major cities and low-lying nations by the end of this century. Again, sea levels have risen over 400 feet in just 18,000 years, and have been rising at about a seven-inch per century rate since 1850. The current rate of sea level rise is just an extension of that trend, and even the United Nations has no evidence or expectation of a significant change in the trend.
According to global warming alarmists, global temperature increases on a direct or even accelerated basis with increases in atmospheric CO2. However, the highest rate of warming came in the first half of the twentieth century (+0.6º C from 1910 to 1945), and has only increased another 0.6º C in over sixty years since 1945. In fact, for a thirty-year period (1945-1975), as atmospheric CO2 went up, global temperature went down.
For those who insist on knowing the cause of things, since nothing “just happens,” they will be happy to learn that even though the temperature variation of the past century does not correlate well with increased atmospheric CO2, it correlates almost perfectly with solar fluctuation. Further happiness is in store, since solar variation also correlates exceedingly well with global temperature variation for thousands of years, and even longer.
For man-caused warming fanatics, a bit of sadness: the chart Al Gore showed in “An Inconvenient Truth,” purportedly showing CO2 increasing, followed by temperatures doing likewise, actually shows temperature increases preceding CO2 increases by about 800 years. The mechanism driving this change is simple and well known. The cold water of the oceans store enormous quantities of CO2. When water temperature rises, as it does in response to increased solar activity, the warmer water cannot store CO2 as well as colder, causing the oceans to release CO2 into the atmosphere. Ergo, and ipso facto, CO2 increases following, not preceding, a solar-driven temperature increase.
None of this should be interpreted as a denial of global warming – not of the natural variety, anyway. It is obvious to all with open minds that climate change has been occurring naturally for millions of years, and will continue to do so, regardless of human efforts to stop or reverse it.
What few of us realize is that we live in a fortunate period in terms of the Earth’s climate. Even as recently as two centuries ago our ancestors struggled against numbing cold, crop failures and famine, pandemics of influenza, cholera, and plague, frequent and violent storms, and all the ills that beset humanity during cold periods.
Ironically, having survived the ravages of cold, we’re now inundated by prophets of gloom regaling us with their fears that we will soon experience as warm a climate as our ancestors prospered under just 1,000 and 5,000 years ago.
What a snake-oil sales job! We’re supposed to have more fear of warmth than cold? Then why do we all flock to Florida, California, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and the southern states? Are we rushing to our doom? Or do we just naturally know that cold kills multiples of the number that die from heat, and that our lives can be happier and more comfortable in warmer climes?
However we look at it, clearly Al Gore’s mediocre academic record explains much of the failings of his climate science presentation. Now what excuse do his true believers have to continue following their inept leader?
Friday, December 21, 2007
Katie Couric and CBS News are Crying Over Epidemic of Veteran Suicides
CBS News with Katie Couric reported that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. Once again the news organization that can’t report straight proves how easily they can attain heights of incompetence.
CBS News contacted all fifty states and compiled statistics on veteran suicides, then breathlessly reported: “Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.”
That’s very alarming, isn’t it?
However, research has shown that there are marked differences in suicide rates by sex (males commit suicide at a rate four to six times higher than females, but females attempt suicide at three times the rate for males), by age (males over 65 are the highest risk group), and by nationality (the very high Japanese suicide rate is 24 per 100,000 people per year).
Are Americans prone to suicide? Not in the context of other nations.
In 2002, the suicide rate in the United States was 45th highest in the world at 11 per 100,000 people per year. In 2004 the National Institute for Mental Health reported a similar number, 10.9.
When our veteran suicide rate of 19 is compared to the rates of all citizens of both sexes of other countries, it is about the same or lower as Japan (24.0), Belgium (21.1), Finland (20.3), Cuba (18.3), France, Austria, Korea, and Switzerland.
When CBS News did their study, they used the classic method of comparing apples to oranges, and gave birth to a lemon. Although Katie Couric didn’t even pucker when she delivered it, many of us were left with a very sour taste when we investigated and found how bad it was.
As a veteran myself, with over 21 years Air Force service, I knew that veterans are predominantly males; that males, and particularly older males, have much higher suicide rates than females; and that the average age of veterans is higher than the general population because so many were called to service for World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and even in peacetime before the draft ended in 1973.
Obviously CBS New’s conclusion that there was a “suicide epidemic among veterans” because the veteran suicide rate was 19 compared to a general population rate of 9 was a complete fallacy. CBS compared the rate for a predominantly older, male group, against the younger, female majority general population.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one who noticed CBS’s glaring errors. As I Googled more I found this in Aviation Week:
Not content with just reading about others dragging CBS News through the mud, I continued Googling, and found that the suicide rate for active military is only about half the rate for the same age, same sex general population.
That is not the sort of image CBS News was trying to convey.
Could it be that it is better for suicide prevention to be in the military as a young man than to stay a civilian? Since the active military rate of 11 per 100,000 per year is roughly half the rate of their civilian counterparts, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
Is it better in terms of suicide potential to be a male veteran than to be Japanese? Suicide rates indicate it is. In fact, it is just about as bad to be French as to be a veteran, and probably much worse if studies isolated the suicide rate of older French males. Since the rate for all French males is 27.5, or 45 percent higher than our veterans’ rate, I would hazard a guess that the rate for older French males is much higher.
Are 45 nations, including Japan, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Cuba, Austria, Russia, and many others experiencing epidemics of suicide? If CBS News was calling the shots, you would have to conclude a resounding “Yes!”
Quick! Someone tell CBS News and console Katie Couric! If they thought they had a hot story about a suicide epidemic among veterans, think how hot their story will be when it is about entire nations!
Stop the presses!
Or unplug the cameras!
Or do whatever you do today to get ready to insert really hot news.
And by the way, call for Make Up, because Katie’s crying.
CBS News contacted all fifty states and compiled statistics on veteran suicides, then breathlessly reported: “Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.”
That’s very alarming, isn’t it?
However, research has shown that there are marked differences in suicide rates by sex (males commit suicide at a rate four to six times higher than females, but females attempt suicide at three times the rate for males), by age (males over 65 are the highest risk group), and by nationality (the very high Japanese suicide rate is 24 per 100,000 people per year).
Are Americans prone to suicide? Not in the context of other nations.
In 2002, the suicide rate in the United States was 45th highest in the world at 11 per 100,000 people per year. In 2004 the National Institute for Mental Health reported a similar number, 10.9.
When our veteran suicide rate of 19 is compared to the rates of all citizens of both sexes of other countries, it is about the same or lower as Japan (24.0), Belgium (21.1), Finland (20.3), Cuba (18.3), France, Austria, Korea, and Switzerland.
When CBS News did their study, they used the classic method of comparing apples to oranges, and gave birth to a lemon. Although Katie Couric didn’t even pucker when she delivered it, many of us were left with a very sour taste when we investigated and found how bad it was.
As a veteran myself, with over 21 years Air Force service, I knew that veterans are predominantly males; that males, and particularly older males, have much higher suicide rates than females; and that the average age of veterans is higher than the general population because so many were called to service for World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and even in peacetime before the draft ended in 1973.
Obviously CBS New’s conclusion that there was a “suicide epidemic among veterans” because the veteran suicide rate was 19 compared to a general population rate of 9 was a complete fallacy. CBS compared the rate for a predominantly older, male group, against the younger, female majority general population.
Of course, I wasn’t the only one who noticed CBS’s glaring errors. As I Googled more I found this in Aviation Week:
In the US, male veterans outnumber female veterans 13:1. Since four times as many males as women commit suicide in the general population, you'd expect the rate among veterans to be close to the rate among males - 17.6/100,000 per year in 2002 - and indeed it is, if the CBS raw numbers are correct.
CBS also makes an issue of the fact that suicide rates among younger veterans exceed that of the general population by an even bigger margin - but again, that's what you'd expect, because in that age group, the male-to-female imbalance in suicide rates is greatest, almost six to one.
Suicide is tragedy. What it does not seem to be, among veterans, is an epidemic.
Not content with just reading about others dragging CBS News through the mud, I continued Googling, and found that the suicide rate for active military is only about half the rate for the same age, same sex general population.
That is not the sort of image CBS News was trying to convey.
Could it be that it is better for suicide prevention to be in the military as a young man than to stay a civilian? Since the active military rate of 11 per 100,000 per year is roughly half the rate of their civilian counterparts, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
Is it better in terms of suicide potential to be a male veteran than to be Japanese? Suicide rates indicate it is. In fact, it is just about as bad to be French as to be a veteran, and probably much worse if studies isolated the suicide rate of older French males. Since the rate for all French males is 27.5, or 45 percent higher than our veterans’ rate, I would hazard a guess that the rate for older French males is much higher.
Are 45 nations, including Japan, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Cuba, Austria, Russia, and many others experiencing epidemics of suicide? If CBS News was calling the shots, you would have to conclude a resounding “Yes!”
Quick! Someone tell CBS News and console Katie Couric! If they thought they had a hot story about a suicide epidemic among veterans, think how hot their story will be when it is about entire nations!
Stop the presses!
Or unplug the cameras!
Or do whatever you do today to get ready to insert really hot news.
And by the way, call for Make Up, because Katie’s crying.
"Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans" by CBS News Doesn't Pass Smell Test
In Liberal Northern California, our local weekly newspaper the Independent Coast Observer provides a steady supply of inane and uninformed letters from local "Bush bashers." They often take an issue from the major news media and run it through their warped viewpoints until a poorly reported item is rendered totally abominable. Such did one of our citizenry accomplish from an atrocious CBS News article about a so-called epidemic of suicide among veterans.
My reply to our newspaper follows:
Keith Jacobsen’s letter “Soldiers and Suicide” mentioned that in “2005 the number suicides (sic) of veterans who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq had reached 120 each week.” That would be 6,240 per year, 18,270 in the past three years, or five times the total killed since the Iraq War began.
Mr. Jacobsen’s numbers didn’t pass the smell test. Where did he get them? In the Age of Google, that’s an easy question. I immediately found a poorly written and researched article by – who else? – CBS Evening News with perky Katie Couric. In their November 13 article, “Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans,” was this quote: “In 2005 … there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.”
Mr. Jacobsen took “(120 suicides per week) among those who served in the armed forces” and replaced it with “veterans who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Mr. Jacobsen missed that the population CBS News reviewed for suicides consisted of all who had ever served in the military, a total living today of about 25 million.
By comparison, today’s total of active and reserve military is about 2.5 million, or less than ten percent of the total who have ever served. Few of today’s veterans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Instead of an “epidemic of veteran suicides,” veterans match the rate for same-age males; the suicide rate among active military (11 per 100,000 per year) is about half of the general population rate; forty nations have higher male suicide rates than our veterans; and the overall veterans’ rate of 19 is the same or lower than the rate for BOTH SEXES in Japan (24.0), Belgium (21.1), Finland (20.3), Cuba (18.3), and France, Austria, Korea, and Switzerland.
Do you still say, Mr. Jacobsen, that these statistics reflect the poor quality of mental health screening among active duty personnel and veterans?
Do you still think there is an “epidemic of suicide,” or do you now realize that you and the American public have once again been misled by sloppy and sensationalist CBS News reporting?
My reply to our newspaper follows:
Keith Jacobsen’s letter “Soldiers and Suicide” mentioned that in “2005 the number suicides (sic) of veterans who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq had reached 120 each week.” That would be 6,240 per year, 18,270 in the past three years, or five times the total killed since the Iraq War began.
Mr. Jacobsen’s numbers didn’t pass the smell test. Where did he get them? In the Age of Google, that’s an easy question. I immediately found a poorly written and researched article by – who else? – CBS Evening News with perky Katie Couric. In their November 13 article, “Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans,” was this quote: “In 2005 … there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.”
Mr. Jacobsen took “(120 suicides per week) among those who served in the armed forces” and replaced it with “veterans who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Mr. Jacobsen missed that the population CBS News reviewed for suicides consisted of all who had ever served in the military, a total living today of about 25 million.
By comparison, today’s total of active and reserve military is about 2.5 million, or less than ten percent of the total who have ever served. Few of today’s veterans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Instead of an “epidemic of veteran suicides,” veterans match the rate for same-age males; the suicide rate among active military (11 per 100,000 per year) is about half of the general population rate; forty nations have higher male suicide rates than our veterans; and the overall veterans’ rate of 19 is the same or lower than the rate for BOTH SEXES in Japan (24.0), Belgium (21.1), Finland (20.3), Cuba (18.3), and France, Austria, Korea, and Switzerland.
Do you still say, Mr. Jacobsen, that these statistics reflect the poor quality of mental health screening among active duty personnel and veterans?
Do you still think there is an “epidemic of suicide,” or do you now realize that you and the American public have once again been misled by sloppy and sensationalist CBS News reporting?
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