The Town Crank

Time to move

2008-05-09T21:38:00.002-05:00

This will be the last of my blog posts on blogspot.com. I've had the domain name, TheTownCrank.com, registered for some time now and I'm ready to throw the switch.

Over the next few weeks I'll be transferring the over 600 posts here on BlogSpot over to TheTownCrank.com, dribs and drabs at a time...comments, too, I hope. There doesn't seem to be any straightforward way of moving blog posts from here to there; so it means the old-fashioned bucket brigade -- one post at a time. Lets see, 600 posts at about two minutes per post...that means about 20 hours spread out over two or three weeks.

Once all the posts are transferred I'll leave a marker here for anyone that still stumbles upon this site. I hope to use TheTownCrank.com as part of a springboard to a new campaign for the Neenah City Council, as well as NeenahPolitics.com.

So, meet me over at TheTownCrank.com!

New More Nukes!

2008-04-14T06:10:00.002-05:00

That's how one wag put it in a comment to this story from Scientific American. I heartily agree with him (emphasis in article mine):

U.S. Will Approve New Nuclear Reactors

British official says she's been informed the U.S. will approve at least three new nuclear power plants

By David Biello

One of the U.K.'s top nuclear officials said today that she was told the U.S. will okay plans to build the first nuclear power plants since the accident at Three Mile Island nearly three decades ago. Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, chair of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said that the chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission informed her that the NRC will approve three applications for new nuclear reactors that it's currently considering.

"Dale Klein told me that those three nuclear applications will be approved," she told the State of the Planet conference at Columbia University today, the 29th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa. (Subsequently, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Ukrainian Soviet Republic melted down in April 1986 in what would become the worst nuclear power accident in history, spreading radiation as far away as North America and leading to the evacuation and resettlement of more than 336,000 people).

"The politics is changing," she added, noting growing enthusiasm for nuclear power as the clean alternative to coal-burning plants. Even some environmentalists have begun to embrace nuclear power, because of its potential to reduce the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming.

But critics question the safety of nuclear power, citing such concerns as the potential for catastrophic meltdowns, their potential vulnerability to terrorists, the lack of workable evacuation plans in the event of accidents as well as the problem of dealing with radioactive waste.

Among the pending applications: a plan to build two additional boiling-water reactors at the South Texas Project power plant near Houston. As many as 29 other reactors could be built, according to Bill Borchardt, director of the NRC's Office of New Reactors.

But neither the South Texas facility nor the applications for new reactors at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland and the Shearon Harris nuclear plant outside Raleigh, N.C., have completed the NRC's long design safety and feasibility evaluation, which could take years to complete. The commission does not expect to complete its review of the new reactors at the South Texas plant before 2011, according to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell.

"Once you build the power plants, it just keeps producing energy," Judge said, noting the potential benefits of electricity generation from nuclear fission. "It is part of what we have to do to deal with energy security and climate change."

Recent commentary: gas and ethanol

2008-04-14T05:26:00.002-05:00

Reader Reaction Forum: Will gas prices cause you to curb summer travels?

(published 14-Apr-2008, Appleton Post-Crescent)

I hitchhike more, drive through yellow lights very fast, and I put the patron saint of increased gas mileage on the dash. Then I hear the E85 ads on the radio: "We're helping make a cleaner world for everyone." Oh, spare me! Without the subsidies, how many farmers do you think would grow corn for ethanol? How brilliant to subsidize corn for burning! Less food for everyone! You've noticed your grocery bills going up? The politicians natter on about helping the poor, while at the same time dishing out ethanol subsidies to get farmers to divert more of their crops to make ethanol because it's "better for the environment." Once it all goes to ethanol, the environment should be saved, right? Of course, we'll all die of starvation. But before that happens we'll re-subsidize corn for food ... but then ethanol prices will skyrocket ... then we can re-re-subsidize ethanol ...

Truth or Satire?

2008-04-12T03:34:00.004-05:00

From Downsize DC, this message from one of their frequent newsletters:

Did Congress ban wireless internet networks last week?

According to John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine, it did. He goes into detail in his article, Onerous New Law to Phase Out Wi-Fi:

The bill, with the pretentious title Telecommunications Restructuring Act, passed with little or no debate.
The bill was bipartisan. Co-sponsors were from both parties.
The beneficiaries of the bill are large telecoms, who can afford to purchase the currently free, unlicensed spectrum, which will be auctioned off.
There is a "phase-out" transition period, which is why the bill slipped under the radar of major media and activist groups.
Harsh penalties are imposed, and the bill would apply not just to network users, but ham radio operators and microwave oven users. It is unclear whether this was intentional.
The bill was debated on CNBC, where one of the bill's sponsors clearly didn't know what he was talking about.
Only two members of Congress, Ron Paul and Ted Kennedy, opposed the bill.
Presidential candidates Obama, Clinton, and McCain didn't have the guts to show up to vote.

The good news is, it was an April Fool's joke. There were hints throughout the article. The bill numbers weren't in the proper format, and the procedures for passing the bill were unusual. But the article had all the hallmarks of a good April Fool's joke. A headline like "Scientists Declare Moon is Made of Green Cheese" is too stupid to be believed, but any story about how Congress will wreck or complicate our lives is all-too believable.

That's because members of Congress don't read or debate most of the bills they pass. For instance, last week the House passed 15 bills, but only two were actually debated. Congress also doesn't give the people a chance to provide their opinions before bills come to their final vote. Thousands of bills are introduced in Congress each year, and referred to a committee. Even activist organizations such as DownsizeDC.org can't keep track of every bill that moves out of committee for a vote.

But if bills, including amendments, were placed on a calendar and posted on the Internet for seven days before passage, the public would be able to object and pressure Congress when a bill spends too much, infringes on our liberties, or sacrifices our interests for those of Big Business. This is why DownsizeDC.org wrote the Read the Bills Act (RTBA).

The RTBA requires each member of Congress who plans to vote yes on a bill to have read it, or heard it read, before voting for it. It also requires that:

All bills must be published on the Internet at least 7 days before a vote
Congress must give public notice of the date when a vote will be held on that bill
Congress will not be able to waive these provisions

The Read the Bills Act requires sponsors in both the House and Senate. Please tell your own Rep. and Senators to introduce the RTBA. You can even refer to the April Fool's article above and tell them Congress wouldn't be the target of that kind of satire if the RTBA was passed. You can do so here.

Last week, the Senate passed on 40-page bill and the House passed 15 bills totaling 227 pages. You can learn about the bills below my signature at the blog version of this Dispatch, where we invite you to post comments or questions.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.

Sincerely,
James Wilson
Assistant to the President
DownsizeDC.org

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c his the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

CONTRIBUTE to the Electronic Lobbyist project

http://www.downsizedc.org/ is sponsored by DownsizeDC.org, Inc. -- a non-profit educational organization promoting the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and small government.

Keystone Kops

2008-04-08T06:41:00.008-05:00

The vast majority of people on either side of the manmade global warming argument haven't examined the arguments in any detail whatsoever; their conviction is based, really, on belief. They trust, they have faith that the people making the case for their side have done due diligence and present just the facts, ma'am.

People that provide counter-arguments to the theory of manmade global warming need to be far more careful than those that promote it. Otherwise it's far too easy to have one's argument shot to pieces just based on sloppiness.

Being one of those on the "con" side, it pains me when someone else points out that I've made a shaky assertion about global warming. It also hurts when I see an article for my side written by somebody with some scientific credentials turn out to have plenty of holes in it. And it's worse when I find the holes. It's still worse when the article is changed to reflect my suggestions but the changes make the whole thing laughable -- a Keystone Kops movie.

I brought to your attention the egregious math errors in an American Thinker article published on January 22nd. The article set out to demonstrate how Al Gore's claim that the sea level could rise by 20 feet by the end of the century due to manmade global warming was complete tosh. I certainly believe it is complete tosh, but it's better that the numbers be correct. I also brought it to the attention of the publisher and the author in a series of e-mails I detailed in my blog post.

Well, I went back to the American Thinker today just to see if anything's changed. It has! It's been corrected! But, alas!, it's worse than before

What I mean is, when I first saw the article, an editor's note said that the final conclusion of the article had dropped a decimal point from the original posting. Therefore, I concluded, the author must have said that Al Gore was off by a factor of 3000 times. The article, as I saw it, said 300 times with that little asterisk attached. (That number referred to the amount of heat predicted to be trapped in the earth's atmosphere by the end of the century... and amount woefully inadequate to melt enough ice at the poles to raise the sea levels by 20 feet.)

I provided the correct math to both the editor and the author: the number should actually be 30 times...two full orders of magnitude down from what I presumed was the original figure. Well, here's what I saw today in that American Thinker article:

There is a difference of 300* between these two figures. Even if I am wrong by an order of magnitude, there is still an enormous difference. This does NOT mean that ice caps have not melted in the distant past nor that ice-age glaciers have not grown to cover much of the northern hemisphere; it simply means that the time scales involved to move sufficient quantities of heat to effect such melting or freezing occur over what we scientists commonly call "geological" time scales, i.e. hundreds of thousands and millions of years.

"There is a difference of 30* between these two figures, by implication extending the time-horizon for sea-level rise from 100 to 3000 years at the earliest. This does NOT mean that ice caps have not melted in the distant past nor that ice-age glaciers have not grown to cover much of the northern hemisphere; it simply means that the time scales involved to move sufficient quantities of heat to effect such melting or freezing occur over what we scientists commonly call "geological" time scales, i.e. tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

You see correctly: two separate paragraphs at the end of the article saying just about the same thing except for the "difference": 300 vs. 30. The editor of the article must have given the revised paragraph to an underling and said, "Here, stick this in at the end of the article. We don't wanna look bad by publishing stupid math."

Gad! This does no good for my side.

[Update: I found a copy of the original text of the American Thinker article (ain't the Internet grand?). I only speculated that it said that Gore's figures were off by a factor of 3000. Nope: the original said "over ten orders of magnitude...10 billion" times. That was the stupendously wrong number that generated the asterisk, not 3000. - Ed.]

The 2nd American Revolution

2008-04-04T04:53:00.008-05:00

That's Carla Howell, chairman of the Small Government Committee.

It's beginning again in Massachusetts, the site of the beginning of the American Revolution. Remember the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and Paul Revere's ride? The kind of people that threw off the shackles of the British in the 18^th century are rising up again in the 21^st.

In November, the people of Massachusetts will have a second opportunity to end the state income tax. In 2002 they nearly managed it: the vote then to end the state income tax was defeated by a startlingly small margin, 45% to 55%.

It was so startling that the usual gang of suspects have rallied to oppose this year's measure with a vengeance:

Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick, called it "a dumb idea" and "foolish"
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President, Michael Widmer, said it would lead to "political chaos" and "rampant lawsuits", and that the state would be "the joke of the nation" [Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't you think that a "Taxpayers Foundation" would be in favor of reducing taxes? - Ed.]
The Committee for Our Communities – a collaboration of teachers and labor leaders – says it would decimate education
Greater Boston Labor Council President, Rich Rogers, said that it's an "insane idea"
Massachusetts Teachers Association President, Anne Wass, called it "a wacky, wrong-headed idea"

I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced by these protests.

Nine states currently have no personal income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. New Hampshire and Tennessee have an income tax, but only on interest and dividends. I'd say that Massachusetts governor Patrick has plenty of states he could contact to see how they do it.

The Committee for Small Government's web site contains more information and an appeal: they're looking to leverage the influence of the Internet by setting off a "money bomb" on April 15th to raise $100,000 to continue their effort to place the initiative on the ballot. There's a special web site called Tax Day MoneyBomb to assist in that effort.

For whatever reason, Massachusetts requires two rounds of signature gathering to enable any ballot initiative to make it onto the ballot. The first one, requiring 66,593 signatures, was accomplished after the group collected 100,000 "raw" signatures of which 76,084 were approved. Now they need to collect another 20,000 signatures. $100,000 donated by April 15th will go a long way towards helping them achieve that essential goal.

The question they ask on the Small Government web site is, "Why should you get involved? Why should you donate money so that Massachusetts workers can end their Income Tax?"

Do you remember California's Proposition 13 that put a lid on property tax increases? When it passed in the late 70s it spawned a host of similar referendums across the country. Ballot initiatives have since been passed and copied around the country to:

Impose term limits on legislators
Permit the medical use of marijuana
Restrict the use of eminent domain to take private property
Repeal affirmative action laws
Create a constitutional definition of marriage

You may not like all of the above examples. The point is that ballot initiatives have become a legitimate and powerful way for voters to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo. If Massachusetts voters approve the end of the state income tax, copycat initiatives will have a far better chance of getting on the ballot in your state.

Here's an interesting video produced by the Committee for Small Government explaining what the End the Income Tax ballot initiative is all about. The presenter is a man named Kamal Jain:

Make a donation by April 15th to help start the 2nd American Revolution!

The Earth Hour bust

2008-03-31T17:16:00.006-05:00

I replied to a post on an Amazon "climate change forum" subtitled "What should we do to mitigate climate change?". Here's the original post:

Initial post: Mar 11, 2008 12:44 AM PDT
John Croft says:

Climate change is the biggest problem facing the world. March 29th is the time of "Earth Hour" where cities around the world are encouraged to draw attention to turning off lights for one hour. It began in Sydeny last year and 24 cities worldwide have officially signed on.

Does such changes reeally make a difference?

James Lovelock in Gaia's Revenge suggests that it is already too late to prevent a major disaster, and that by this time next century most of the tropics will be uninhabitable. He believes there is a real risk of the collapse of civilisaion.

What do you think? People talk about the need for mitigation and adaptation, but no one really talks about how are we going to help those wo through no fau;lt of their own are going to suffer most?

Please share your ideas here?

Regards

John

To which I replied:

Your post, in reply to an earlier post on Mar 14, 2008 6:13 PM PDT

Steven W. Erbach says:

Mr. Croft,

All right. I'm afraid my "ideas" are pretty conventional:

1) "Earth Hour" will be as effective at halting global warming as "World Jump Day" was in perturbing the orbit of the earth; as the "Gas Out" protests were in affecting gas prices; and as the Green Hanukkia campaign was in lowering world CO₂ emissions.

2) Lets stop pussy-footing around about alternative energy and build another hundred nuclear power plants in the U. S. We've only got 102 plants now and we get 20% of our electricity from them. Windmills? To generate as much electricity as is currently generated by nuclear power we'd have to erect well over 30,000 3.25 megawatt, 40-story-tall windmills, with none of them down in river valleys or canyons or low spots. Nope, all the prime high-ground real estate in the U.S. would have to be purchased for this task...and we'd still get only 20% of the energy we produce now.

3) If you want to get serious about proving man's role in climate change, then lets pony up $100 billion to do it. We MUST find out the relative degree to which the climate is affected by anthropogenic causes before we go laying our hands on the bible of the Precautionary Principle and signing away our childrens' future to pay for attempts to change the climate back to what it's "supposed to be".

4) There's so much talk of the effects of higher temperatures with higher death rates. What puzzles the heck out of me -- since I'm from a state that has a pretty good winter -- is that the death rate of people exposed to cold is far greater than it is for those exposed to heat. I'd LIKE it to be warmer if it means fewer cold-related deaths!

5) "The biggest problem facing the world"? Hardly. One good war does more damage in human terms than a century of global warming. One degree Celsius in a *century*?! And that's going to lead to a "catastrophe"? Completely and utterly incredible.

That's a good starting list. Those were off the top of my head.

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI
http://TheTownCrank.blogspot.com

So now come the results from around the world about how much energy was saved during "Earth Hour". This blog entry is from the HeraldSun.com.au web site:

Earth Hour crashes to Earth

Andrew Bolt
Sunday, March 30, 2008 at 11:01am

Credit the public with sense. Earth Hour, hysterically promoted by The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, SBS, Sky News and the federal and state governments, resulted in no significant fall in power usage.
Check the graphs from our National Electricity Market Management Company, tracking power use between 8pm and 9pm (a period in which demand always plummets):

Here is the graph for Victoria:

Nothing much there that I can see. By way of comparison, here’s the graph from the day before:

NSW may have had a tiny cut in demand just after 8pm, but in fact ended up the night using more power than the day before:

As with the graphs, so with the crowds:

More than 1000 people braved the chill and the rain to see Premier John Brumby and Lord Mayor John So lead the countdown to 8pm… At the top of the Rialto, a small crowd had a sense of anticlimax when there was no widespread blackout at 8pm. In fact, across the CBD rows of illuminated office windows, with little sign of beavering workers behind them, showed not everyone had read the memo.

The organisers will say never mind, this was about raising awareness (although not of raising awareness of the facts). But here’s the awareness it should raise: how difficult it is to get even a tiny cut in just electricity use for one lousy hour, in a country responsible for just 1.5 per cent of the world’s emissions.

And then think what the Rudd Government is promising: a 60 per cent cut in all emissions, all year. And it’s to be matched by every country around the world.

Meanwhile, the world has not warmed since 1998. Indeed, the oceans and atmosphere have cooled over the past couple.

There were 236 comments when I read the article. One Aussie commentator is a man after my own heart:

Well I did my bit.

Every light in the house was turned on, the stereo was on, the TV was on, two computers were turned on - I even turned on all lights in the garage and outside the house.

After my beacon of sanity was shining for all to see, the family and I left my humble, well lit home and hopped into the 4WD to drive around Melbourne for the entire hour.

While driving around, we counted the houses on my block that had their lights turned on (admittedly an informal, unscientific count) and we plan on doing the same next Saturday night at 8pm to compare. We also took special note of any business illuminated with their lights shining, and agreed to make efforts to use their products whenever we can.

Before heading home, we drove down Chapel Street and had a bit of a chuckle at the candlelight vigils taking place at some (note: not the majority) of the trendy bars and coffee shops in their efforts to pose and pat themselves on the back. I only wish I had taken a picture of the gigantic stretch Hummer limousine parked right there outside of one of these bars, fully equipped with plasma screens, neon lights and the works.

One can only imagine the invitations sent out for this bucks night: “Show the world that you care - arrive at the Earth Hour festivities in style - in a Hummer!”

Myth Hour did not disappoint.

Attaboy!

An excellent spoof of TV political reporting

2008-03-06T05:57:00.002-06:00

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

No more poison fuel!

2008-02-22T04:44:00.008-06:00

As you may have heard, the Aegis-class USS Lake Erie fired one missile at the "dying spy satellite" and scored a direct hit. That is pretty sharp gun-slinging. The squawking from the Chinese and the Russians only underscores how much of an achievement it was. I suppose that the Chinese have more cause to be chagrined as they already destroyed a satellite much higher up last year.

I was a bit bemused by the public statement of the spokesman for an outfit called the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance:

The factual reality of using deployed missile defenses to destroy a falling satellite or a ballistic missile or even a meteor from space that would risk human life is an achievement for mankind. Missile Defense will continue to become more and more universal throughout the world and it will become more reliable and effective, so as to one day in the near future, we as a world can eliminate and mitigate risk from any and all harmful objects coming from space that would threaten mankind.

Our missile defense capability would, indeed, have to improve dramatically for us to "eliminate and mitigate risk from any and all harmful objects". For example, meteors are generally a bit on the small side; certainly not bus-sized. Even if they are bus-sized, they're awfully hard to spot a long way off.

Those near-earth asteroids that have caused a stir by coming "close" to earth have rarely passed within the orbital distance of the moon. There's currently only one, 99942 Apophis, that is of significant size with even a marginal chance of striking the earth. This baby is about 250 meters across and weighs about 2.1 x 10¹⁰ kilograms. [Ed. - Since The Town Crank is determined to be metrically and avoirdupois-ally correct, that's about 820 feet and 46 billion pounds, or about 23 million tons.]

What does that mean in terms of destructive power if it ever hit the earth? Calculating the straight kinetic energy using a velocity of 30.7 kilometers per second (69,000 mph), we get:


½ x 2.1x10¹⁰ kilograms x (30,700 meters per second)²
= 9.9 x 10¹⁸ Joules

The killer is that squared velocity term.

That number of Joules translates to 2,360 million tons of TNT...or in nuclear weapons parlance, 2,360 megatons. That's if the full orbital speed of the asteroid was brought to bear. According to the Wikepedia site, NASA has estimated a lower figure based on the fact that Apophis is orbiting in more or less the same direction as the earth is. Thus, any impact would be a glancing blow or a strike from behind. Still, the speed at impact would be 12.6 kilometers per second (28,000 mph). That's still almost 400 megatons of TNT if the full weight of the asteroid makes it to earth at that speed.

For comparison, the meteor that dug out the 1200 meter wide (3900 feet) Baringer crater in Arizona has been estimated at 3-10 megatons.

Don't you just love huge numbers? By the way, the calculations for this post were assisted by the excellent unit converter available at MegaConverter.com.

Anyway, Apophis looks like it's going to pass within about 36,000 miles of earth in 2029. That's spittin' distance!

The question remains, no matter how accurate an SM-3 missile fired from an Aegis-class vessel can be, what's going to push aside a 23 million ton mass far enough to miss the earth? 23 million tons is about 2400 times the displacement of the USS Lake Erie itself...and the Lake Erie's top speed, while classified, is on the order of 32.5 knots or 37 mph. If the USS Lake Erie were thrown at the ground at 37 mph (equivalent to a drop of around 60 feet [correction: 47 feet – Ed.]), the energy released would be about 0.29 tons of TNT and it would have several large dents in it.

Poison fuel

2008-02-17T06:17:00.004-06:00

You've heard about the U.S. spy satellite that's headed towards the ground. As Edison Carter used to say in "Max Headroom", what I wanna know is this: why is it that news stories these days have all got to have a scary health threat angle? Here's what I'm talking about:

One shot. That's all the military hopes it will take to bring down a dying, out-of-control, school bus-sized U.S. spy satellite loaded with toxic fuel and on a collision course with Earth.

As if a school bus-sized satellite travelling at 17,000 miles an hour landing on your house isn't enough of a worry!

Military and administration officials said the satellite is carrying 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, a fuel that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it hits the ground.

Not to mention the school bus-sized body of the satellite that could injure or even seriously kill people who are near it when it hits the ground! Sheesh! They make it sound like the satellite is just going to drop off the back of a truck and that the real threat is the projected reduction in average life expectancy of the neighbors in the 10 square mile vicinity of the crash.

Officials compared the effects of hydrazine fuel to chlorine or ammonia. "It affects your tissues and your lungs - it has the burning sensation," Cartwright said. "If you stay very close to it and inhale a lot of it, it could in fact be deadly."

Holy cow! Are you kidding??!! Especially if it lands right on top of your head!!! Then it might really hurt you!!!!

Experts on military satellites agreed that hydrazine could pose a serious health hazard, although even Cartwright said it probably would be spread over an area the size of only two football fields if it hit the Earth.

My god! It doesn't quit! No mention of the crater that will form when the satellite hits the ground, or the spectacular fireball, or efforts to alert the people in the satellite's projected crash zone. It's the bleeping toxic fuel and the "serious health hazard"!

Do the public relations people at the newspapers or TV stations really believe that we have become so longevity-conscious and so public health-care cost-conscious that the little matter of a 5,015 pound (2,275 kilograms; have to be metrically and avoirdupois-ally correct here at The Town Crank!) satellite traveling at 17,000 mph arriving at ground zero with a kinetic energy of approximately 66 GigaJoules of energy is insignificant? Like, that's as much energy as 31,400 pounds of TNT (source: MegaConverter2)! Isn't that, like, bad for your health?

Time to vote

2008-02-15T06:09:00.002-06:00

(Letter to the editor, published 17-Feb-2008, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Presidential primaries are the only elections where you've really got a choice. Last fall, with 16 candidates, I knew that the candidate I preferred was someone I could vote for without holding my nose.

When my guy was asked a question during the TV debates, he answered it immediately and then went on to explain his answer. But highly trained TV interviewers pounce on a "Yes" or "No" answer. They had to have been pleased to be able to interrupt the explanation -- he gave his answer, didn't he? -- so that one of the "star" candidates could throw in his two cents. When thrown into the piranha tank of a televised debate, it's best to dissemble, hedge, demur, equivocate, back-and-fill, joke, divert, and dance rather than answer a question forthrightly.

TV producers aren't interested in substance. Their principal driving motivation is to look like king-makers, to be the ones that were most accurate in forecasting the winner. That translates into ratings. Nothing else matters to them.

That's the political reality: a stupefying concentration of attention on winning. What were campaigns like before thousands of pundits tried to make their prognostications heard above the din? If all the primaries were held on a single day, there'd be no drama, no fake pathos, no nail-biting, no tension. What self-respecting TV executive wants that?

It's a bit disheartening, though, to see the field melt away to five or six candidates before primary day. It looks like they held an election and nobody came.

Even though my guy hasn't won many delegates, he stayed in. I can still vote for someone whose record doesn't disguise his positions, who speaks plainly, doesn't pander, and has the least number of skeletons in his closet. I hope you vote for him, too: Ron Paul.

Steve Erbach
Neenah

Fuzzy math skewered!

2008-02-13T05:05:00.004-06:00

"Dedicated to Peacefully Disarming Fuzzy Math", the web site called Weapons of Math Destruction Comics was founded in 2006. The site posts a new anti-Fuzzy-Math comic every week. Just the thing for reminding us that professional educators (ahem!) are only in business because of huge public subsidies for compulsory matriculation.

Here's the latest (6-Feb-2008) comic:

Not quite like the Battle of Stirling Bridge

2008-02-04T06:11:00.000-06:00

Several Israeli soldiers were suspended for being politically incorrect in the presence of Palestinian shepherds. The form their incorrectness took was mooning. The incorrectness was decried by an Arab-Israeli member of the Israeli parliament, Ahmed Tibi:"The soldiers frustrated with the failure of the Lebanon war could finally make a victory sign by showing their posteriors to unarmed Palestinians."

Somehow this doesn't move me. Perhaps I'm anti-Arab. My first thought, however, was that soldiers are trained to kill their enemies. Palestinians haven't exactly been friendly to the Israelis over the decades. Mooning seems like a quite non-violent way of showing disapprobation.

But now, I suppose, the Israeli army is reduced to performing cop-on-the-beat type functions and it just isn't nice to show any sign of disrespect.

It's coming, I'm telling you

2008-02-03T19:48:00.000-06:00

This may seem like a joke – and the Smoking Gun article claims that it'll be "dead on arrival" – but you're going to see more and more of these attempts to control how we eat:

Mississippi Pols Seek To Ban Fats

New bill would make it illegal for restaurants to serve the obese

FEBRUARY 1--Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. Bill No. 282, a copy of which you'll find below, is the brainchild of three members of the state's House of Representatives, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows. The bill, which is likely dead on arrival, proposes that the state's Department of Health establish weight criteria after consultation with Mississippi's Council on Obesity. It does not detail what penalties an eatery would face if its grub was served to someone with an excessive body mass index.

The bill (a copy is available at The Smoking Gun) directs the state health department to draw up "criteria for determining whether a person is obese", and the affected restaurants will be required to use these yet-to-be-established criteria in refusing to serve those it is forbidden to serve.

I fantasized about those criteria. Might there be face-saving loopholes for a fat guy like me that unwittingly walks into one of those Mississippi restaurants to purchase a meal? I mean, might I be permitted to have some celery sticks so that, to the other diners, it looks like I actually ate before packing up and leaving? Not that I'd leave a tip...

Will there be some sort of sliding caloric scale for what may be served to the marginally or somewhat obese? Might a slice of cheesecake be allowed to someone with a body mass index that's only 10% over the state norm?

Do you think that the proprietor or the waitress will brandish one of those pinchy things that are used to determine BMI and use it on everyone they suspect might be obese?

If you're one of those who think that these sorts of regulations are really for my own good, then I must part ways with you, dear reader. If you understand what I mean, no explanation is needed. If you don't understand, no explanation is possible.

Another twist to Universal Health Care

2008-02-03T19:37:00.000-06:00

This story today got me to thinking about an aspect of the imminent Universal Health Care I hadn't considered before:

Clinton health plan may mean tapping pay

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer Sun Feb 3, 11:40 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."

The true, compulsory nature of UHC is revealed in this quote from Mrs. Clinton. That is, it could very well be that UHC insurance will be yet another payroll deduction like Medicare and Social Security. That is, if you don't pay the UHC premiums you'll be subject to the full weight and force of the federal government's compliance mechanisms.

But there's a saving grace, thank goodness! Lucky for us that the federal government considers our individual feelings and sensibilities so thoroughly. We won't have to sweat paying the UHC premiums because they'll be automatically deducted from our paychecks! Whew! I was worried there for a minute!

Will we be drowned?

2008-01-31T21:53:00.000-06:00

In "An Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore – Nobel laureate, Oscar winner, and erstwhile Vice President – made a very scary prediction: the world-wide sea level would rise a full 20 feet by the end of this century due to the effects of anthropogenic global warming in melting the polar ice caps. I don't believe this for a minute. There have been several published debunkings of this notion, and a ruling by a judge in England that required "government guidance notes" to accompany the showing of the film in British secondary schools (the Town Crank blog post here has the details).

But I'm always on the lookout for more ammunition to fire at this preposterous sort of scare talk. A fellow by the name of Jerome Schmitt made the effort to determine just how much heat would be required to melt enough ice at the poles to cause such a sea level rise. His calculations can be found at The American Thinker.

He determined:

How much ice would have to be melted (I won't give the figure here because of what follows)
How much air there is in the atmosphere: approx. 5 x 10¹⁸ kilograms
How much heat from the sun would have to be trapped by global warming to heat that mass of air 5° Celsius – the amount predicted by many global warming scenarios: approx. 2.5 x 10¹⁹ kiloJoules
How much heat would be needed to melt enough ice to raise the sea level by 20 feet: approx. 7.4 x 10²¹ kiloJoules

All of the numbers and calculations can be found in the American Thinker article. Mr. Schmitt concludes, using simple physics and nothing more complicated than multiplication and division, that the amount of heat that will raise the temperature of the atmosphere an average of another 5° Celsius in the coming century would only be 1/300^th the amount necessary to melt enough ice to cause the catastrophic sea level rise that Mr. Gore has promised us.

That is, 7.4 x 10²¹ kiloJoules is almost 300 times greater than 2.5 x 10¹⁹ kiloJoules. Which means that the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of the entire earth's atmosphere an average of another 5° Celsius is woefully inadequate to melt enough ice to cause the biggest flood since Noah.

If you read the article, however, you may be struck – as I was – by two statements at the end. First, the author hedges his bets:

Even if I am wrong by an order of magnitude, there is still an enormous difference.

Also there's an asterisked note to that 300 times figure:

*Editor's note: a transposed decimal point led to an incorrect multiple used here when this article was first published. The energy required is nevertheless hundreds of times greater than evidently assumed by Al Gore.

When I read the article the day it was published (January 22^nd) it had already been hastily edited because of some faulty math. Apparently, judging by the language in the note ("nevertheless hundreds of times greater"), the figure was very likely 3,000 in the original article. Therefore, as is my wont, I cast a jaundiced eye over all the figures. I've found far too many math errors in publications of every type over the years to trust a long set of calculations, even if they lead to a conclusion with which I'm entirely in agreement.

I ran into trouble right in the middle of the article. Mr. Schmitt calculates that the surface area of the earth covered by water is about 360 trillion (3.6 x 10¹⁴) square meters and that a 20-foot rise in sea level is about the same as 6 meters. So far, so good. Therefore the "Volume of water necessary to raise sea level 20 feet" would simply be 6 meters times that 360 trillion figure, or about 2.2 quadrillion cubic meters. However, this is what was in the article I read on the morning of the 22nd of January:

Volume of water necessary to raise sea-level 20-feet: approx. 6 x 10²⁴ cubic meters

or 6 trillion trillion (that is, 6 septillion) cubic meters – 2.7 billion times too much. 6 septillion cubic meters is about 5500 times the volume of our entire planet! About 7½ times the volume of the planet Saturn.

He followed this with the "Volume of ice that needs to melt to raise the sea level 20 feet", and that number is the nearly correct figure of 22 quadrillion cubic meters. I say "nearly correct" since an extra digit got added to the correct figure of 2.2 quadrillion. In other words, that figure is off by a factor of 10 times. Not nearly as bad as being off by 2.7 billion times, but it ain't chump change.

I wrote to the editor of The American Thinker detailing my findings. About an hour-and-a-half later, the editor e-mailed me back asking whether I was referring to the correction that had already been made in the article. I wrote back saying, no, I read the version of the article that already contained the asterisked comment and correction. Therefore two additional errors remained after the first hum-dinger was taken care of.

I visited The American Thinker site a little later and saw that the 6 septillion error had, indeed, been altered ... but it still wasn't correct. The number had been changed to 22 quadrillion, the same number as the existing incorrect figure that was off by a factor of 10. Thus there were two numbers cheek-by-jowl that were both off by that same factor.

So I wrote another friendly missive (my third) to the AT editor telling him that everything was almost copacetic. Those two 22 quadrillion cubic meter figures just needed to be divided by 10 and they'd be set. The editor wrote to say that he'd run it by the author, Mr. Schmitt first.

A day later the two numbers hadn't yet been corrected. So I decided to go over the numbers once again and check the sources for the numbers. I then wrote a fourth e-mail to the AT editor:

Dear Sir,

I decided to look up all the values used in Mr. Schmitt's article, and then follow the calculations all the way to the end. The only remaining error is the repeated error of the volume of water/ice necessary to raise the seal level by 20 feet. The number should be 2.2 quadrillion cubic meters, not 22 quadrillion as in the article.

What this means is that Mr. Schmitt is prophetic at the end of his article where he says:
There is a difference of 300 between these two figures. Even if I am wrong by an order of magnitude, there is still an enormous difference.

I say "prophetic" due to his final comparison of the "difference" between the heat needed to raise the temperature of the atmosphere 5 degrees Celsius (~25 quintillion kiloJoules) and the heat necessary to melt ice to achieve 20-foot seal level rise (~7.4 sextillion kiloJoules). Rather than "difference", he should have said "ratio". The ratio between the two is, indeed, about 300-to-1. However, because of the mistake in the volume of ice needed to raise the sea level by 20 feet, the ratio should be 30-to-1.

Usually an error of a full order of magnitude would be, shall we say, disquieting. The error remains.

Sincerely

As I said, that was my fourth message to the American Thinker editor. I then found the e-mail address of the author who happens to be the principal of NanoEngineering Corporation. I recapped the errors I'd found, a total of four errors. I gently admonished that if one is trying to debunk the absurd claims of others using numbers to back up one's debunking, it's best to make sure they debunk accurately. I couldn't imagine what the American Thinker would say if they had to change the final big important number a second time, taking it down from 3,000 to 300 to 30.

Mr Schmitt courteously replied that he was going to check the numbers one more time and would get back to me. I also heard one final time from the editor saying that they were double-checking, too. That was four days ago.

Today I heard from Mr. Schmitt in a very engaging e-mail:

Dear Mr. Erbach:

You are right. Here's what happened.

In a fit of pique over listening to a Global Warming alarmist announcing on PBS that Miami-Dade county will be under water in 20 years unless the right Democrat is elected president, I dashed off the calculation and article. I asked that it be proofread. The Editor was very happy with the essay and assumed I had completed the calculation correctly. He persuaded me to publish it immediately. To my horror and embarrassment, we were then alerted to a major mistake I had made in transposing data from a website. I probably would have caught this myself if I had waited a day and proofread it myself. This required a very hurried edit the day of publication, complicated by the Editor's lack of internet access that day. Hurried phone calls and recalculations resulted in the text as it is, still containing the error you identified.

For this reason, I am reluctant to ask for another re-edit. Will you indulge me in this, particularly since the furor of the first mistake has died down? As it is, I think I have already torpedoed my credibility with the Editor, although he acknowledges some responsibility for pushing for immediate posting.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

-Jerry Schmitt

I can't say as either Mr. Schmitt or American Thinker came off looking too well out of all this. Having to make a second correction to the final figure would, apparently, wake up the sleeping dogs rather than letting them lie.

I haven't asked for Mr. Schmitt's permission to publish his e-mail, so I guess I'm letting myself in for recriminations of some sort. But I thought that laying out the situation to the American Thinker people as he did to me would demonstrate a decent respect for the truth. What's the worst that could happen? AT would pull the article completely. That's it. Perhaps publish a small notice saying that there were too many problems in the article. Mr. Schmitt would have to be embarrassed for a while, but it might cause him to not dash off in a fit of pique the next time.

As far as my own exposure in this affair, I rather doubt that Mr. Schmitt or the editor of The American Thinker will ever see this blog posting. You're reading the world's most active least-read blog. I think I'm safe. But, hey! I like the numbers to jibe, OK?

Paul blackballed?

2007-12-29T17:05:00.001-06:00

I heard both from the local Fox Valley Ron Paul Meetup group and from Downsize DC that Ron Paul was to be excluded from the January 6th Republican debates:

According to the New Hampshire State Republican Party and an Associated Press report, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul will be excluded from an upcoming forum of Republican candidates to be broadcast by Fox News on January 6, 2008.

So, using the handy link provided to me by Downsize DC, I wrote to Mr. Chris Wallace, the moderator of the debate:

Dear Mr. Wallace,

I tried to locate details of the upcoming Republican roundtable discussion on Fox News to be broadcast on January 6th, but I was unsuccessful. All I've heard is what I've been told by the Downsize DC organization. And what I've heard is disturbing.

You may certainly invite anyone you wish to participate in the discussion. You may, indeed, have logic on your side; that is, the logic of the polls, though a couple of your invitees have poll numbers no stronger than Dr. Paul whom you've elected not to invite.

I would ask you to consider two things. One is the victory of Jesse Ventura in the Minnesota gubernatorial race several years ago. Insurgent, non-centralized campaigns are certainly not dead. Ventura won against a field of very uninspiring major party candidates. Keep that in mind as you try to figure out who is the least objectionalble candidate for the Republican nomination.

The second is the very real possibility that Dr. Paul may finish third in Iowa, ahead of three of your invitees. It might seem a bit odd to your viewers to exclude someone who succeeded so improbably, against conventional wisdom, against the odds, and by ignoring the experts.
Please reconsider your decision to exclude Dr. Paul from the January 6th discussion. It might be better for Fox if you did.

Sincerely,

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI

I'm not a fan of Fox News, and certainly not a fan of the provocative and pusillanimous things they've said about Dr. Paul. The link to Downsize DC is above. Write your own letter. It's fun, and it might just be effective.

Update - haven't we had enough of this?

2007-12-26T14:39:00.000-06:00

More dialog on the 10-year-old girl arrested for using a steak knife on her lunch. I've corresponded with a group of friends on this topic and here's what's been said recently:

December 19

Steve,

100 incidents is a lot to research and a lot to read. But is the number significant? 100 by itself means little. You'd have to know if this represents 1%, 10%, or 90% of the times a student was caught on campus with a 'weapon' before you could say 100 is meaningful.

YMCA, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, I would think , being private organizations, would not be under the same proscriptions as a public entity, and could more easily disregard an absolute policy. So that comparison may not be fair.

That it 'seems' to happen more in the schools can be explained by the lack of discretion that those in authority may perceive that they have. IOW, their hands may be tied. For some that is a frustration. For others a relief.

Rocky

December 19

Rocky,

» IOW, their hands may be tied. For some that is a frustration. For others a relief. «

Ooooo! Good one! You have a future in the punditocracy, methinks.

As to the research, the 100 incidents chronicled on my site represent a fraction (not sure of the size of the fraction) of the total stories during that time. I focused on stories involving zero tolerance in the schools, but I didn't see every one. I only saw those that made national news, so there is an additional filter in place to the one you mention; i.e., the actual number of incidents vs. the number that were reported in the news.

One could just as well apply the same filter to reports of DEA agents breaking down the wrong door or incidents of racially motivated police harassment. What does it mean when those incidents are reported in the news? Sometimes it's enough to set off firings, police dept. investigations, protests, etc. Are those sorts of reactions justified or appropriate based on the total number of incidents? It's immaterial, really; the outcry and the reaction is still there, appropriate or not.

As far as zero tolerance policies go, the more reports there are of such things the better, as far as I'm concerned. Those reports may lead to a greater acceptance of school choice, vouchers, alternative schools, etc.

Steve Erbach

December 19

Dear Steve,

While I share certain sympathies with your position on this matter, lemme ask you this: Had this girl stabbed another girl with that "weapon", would you still maintain your position? Or, would you have asked "where were the responsible adults in this situation?" That's a rhetorical question.

Re: "I keep finding and reacting to these things"...yep! "Reacting" is the key reason that these laws, regulations and law enforcement is involved. Given the climate of the times (Columbine and it's clones), most responsible people wouldn't have it any other way.

You must have led a sheltered life...I entered a public high school almost fifty years ago (in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin): Here are merely some of the reasons you could be (and were) arrested for:

- Possession of any firearm, any knife with a blade greater than four inches (including steak knives), razor blades, slingshots, zip guns, clubs, ice picks, brass knuckles, steel-toed boots, fireworks, ammunition, etc.

- Possession of drugs, whether legally-prescribed or illegal, condoms, any tobacco product, liquor, pornography (including Playboy magazine), stolen property (including overdue library books), suggestive lingerie, etc.

-Truancy, assault (including verbal), battery, inappropriate sexual contact, etc.

You could be suspended or even expelled for:

- Fighting, wearing jeans or leather jackets, wearing suggestive clothing (girls were not allowed to wear pants of any kind...except in winter), wearing shorts, drunkenness or inappropriate / disruptive behavior (including cursing), smoking, pregnancy and a whole host of other offenses.

Most of these same rules are applied today here in Moron...er, Monroe County, Florida where I live. What part of "zero tolerance" don't you understand?

Dickford Cohn

December 26

Dickford,

Sorry about not replying earlier on this one. Came down with a cold on the 20th, was out of town from the 21st to the 23rd, then Christmas and all. Not much time spent at the confuser.

The "responsible adult" thing was aimed directly at the school personnel that called the cops and the cops themselves who hauled this girl downtown. As you know, when laws are broken the cops have some latitude. When you're stopped for speeding there's a whole range of things that can happen: verbal warning, written warning, ticket, or haul your ass downtown.

What is unbelievable in this situation is that the ONLY response possible was that this girl had to be arrested and taken from the school. My ire isn't directed at the rules banning knives and guns, fer cry yi! It's the completely pig-headed and blundering policy to follow through with the inappropriate response.

Asking what my "reaction" would have been if that girl had stabbed someone is silly. Of course I would have been horrified. But the fact that the rule against knives did not, in fact, prevent a knife from physically being brought into the school in a paper sack illustrates the only role that law enforcement has in these situations: cleaning up the mess (if there is one). The teachers and administrators could tell immediately that this girl wasn't going to carve anybody up. So the follow-through involving the arrest of this girl served what purpose? To make everyone feel good about the rules?

I don't object to the rules. No knives, fine. No guns, fine. But laws are written with intent in mind, too. Why treat a 10-year-old who completely unwittingly and innocently brings a knife to school with her lunch the same as someone who brandishes that knife in a threatening manner? I object to the completely our-hands-are-tied reactions.

Steve Erbach

December 26

Steve,

Sorry to hear about your cold...no apologies are necessary for the rest.

RE: When laws are broken the cops have some latitude.

Normally, you'd be right...but not when a "zero tolerance" policy is in effect. Apparently, that policy is what you don't understand. Using your very own "stopped for speeding" example...let me elucidate:

Where I currently live, the cops enforce a zero tolerance policy with regard to speeds in school and construction zones. Go 16mph in a 15mph school zone...you WILL be stopped. Absent any other charges...or aggravation, your fine and costs will exceed $600...no exceptions...for exceeding the limit by one mile-per-hour.

I am not disagreeing one whit with your disgust over this whole situation. I am merely pointing out that this is where OUR society IS at this point...and that all of the "authorities" involved did precisely what WE REQUIRE them to do. Apparently, we do not trust any "latitude" that they may have employed.

This is akin to "mandatory sentencing guidelines"...which remove ANY "judgement" from judges.

Dickford Cohn

December 26

Dickford,

Well, so, like, um ... you're agreeing with me by feigning disagreement and being tiresome?

Oh, I get it! You're using the old cross-examination trick of feigning disagreement and being tiresome to wear down the witness! Ho, ho! You have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull the hairy covering of a cloneable mammal over MY aging peepers, old son!

Steve Erbach

Recent commentary: free exercise of religion

2007-12-19T19:48:00.000-06:00

Should nativity scenes be displayed on government property during the Christmas season?

(published 24-Dec-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The key phrase is "free exercise". Nothing prohibits, say, Skokie, IL, from erecting a huge menorah for Hanukkah. How lawyers figure that city governments shouldn't have "free exercise" is beyond me. The Green Bay nativity scene kerfuffle escalated when a Wiccan display was vandalized. (Personally I liked the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" idea, but that's just me.) Now the mayor wants only "legitimate" religions to erect displays. There's a Constitutional issue for you: How do you define a "legitimate" religion? Then came the standard over-reaction. Council VP, Chris Wery, has changed his mind: "I thought this would encourage our community to share good will this holiday season, and, as we've seen, it's done the opposite." No, it hasn't. All it shows is that people are sensitive about religion and that some people have bad manners.

Haven't we had enough of this?

2007-12-18T06:11:00.000-06:00

I mean, enough of arresting 10-year-olds in public schools? This young girl brought leftover steak for lunch and a steak knife. She began to eat her lunch using the knife properly and ... I can't go on. Here's the story:

Knife At Lunch Gets 10-Year-Old Girl Arrested At School

OCALA, FL -- A 10-year old Ocala girl brought her lunch to school and a small kitchen knife to cut it. She now faces a felony charge after being arrested. The school and the sheriff's office disagree on the reason for the arrest.

School officials say the 5th grader was brown-bagging it. She brought a piece of steak for her lunch, but she also brought a steak knife. That's when deputies were called.

It happened in the cafeteria at Sunrise Elementary School. The 10-year-old used the knife to cut the meat.

"She did not use it inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn't pull it out and brandish it. Nothing of that nature," explained Marion County School Spokesman Kevin Christian.

But a couple of teachers took the utensil and called the sheriff. When deputies arrived, they were unable to get the child's parents on the phone, so they arrested her and took her to the county's juvenile assessment center.

"And we didn't handcuff her or treat her like a criminal. But, we took her to the assessment center to be assessed," said Capt. James Pogue, Marion County Sheriff's Office.

School officials said it doesn't matter what the knife was being used for. They said they had no choice.

"Anytime there's a weapon on campus, yes, we have to report it and we aggressively report it because we don't want to take any chances, regardless," Christian said.

But the sheriff's office said the extreme measures in what some may say was a harmless incident had to do with school policy, not theirs.

"But once we're notified, we have to take some type of action," Pogue explained.

The student now faces a felony charge for the possession of a weapon on school property and the principal suspended her for ten days. The parents of the girl could not be reached for comment.

The sheriff's office has turned the case over to the State Attorney's Office.

She didn't use it inappropriately, but when the school couldn't reach her parents, the girl was arrested. "[W]e took her to the assessment center to be assessed," said the eloquent sheriff. Will they assess the damage done to the reputation of the school for this insane response? Do the teachers who called the sheriff feel proud that they averted a possible killing spree?

In any situation involving law breaking there is an element of judgment. Does anyone really believe that the teachers would have been disciplined (they can't be fired; they're union, you know) if they hadn't called the sheriff? If they'd just given the girl a good talking to? Anyone? Would the school system have tottered if they'd simply sat the girl down in one of the 17 counseling offices in the school (there are at least that many in any modern public school) and just asked her for her side of the story?

Bah! No Child Left Behind, indeed.

Update:

A friend of mine in San Diego replied to this:

Steve:

Right issue. Wrong target. We know you've got it in for the public school system. But this is not a problem unique to the public school system. In fact, given a bit broader view, it is really a problem of employment in the public sector, and has been with us since the creation of civil service (maybe longer).

How many times does this NOT happen. IOW, if you knew that there were 42,000 incidents last year like this which were handled as you think they should be, without the intervention of the police or some other draconian reaction by the school, what would you think, then? You're angst implies that this incident represents the way it's always done, which, if true, I would agree is boneheaded. No one thinks that the blind application of a policy this way is the right thing to do. But I question whether this truly represents SOP. Any incident handled discreetly, would, by its nature, never come to your attention.

In the public sector, unlike the private, there is no reward for taking initiative, exercising judgment, or exposing yourself to unnecessary risk. There is no downside for a school (or the police) to apply the zero tolerance policy, other than the ridicule of the public, which is not enough to overcome bureaucratic intransigence. Even though I would venture to say many times the policy in contravened by a sensible teacher, principal, or cop.

This pattern is equally applicable to stiff necked civil service employees across the board. Ever run across something like this at the Post Office? Get a parking ticket for being two minutes over? Nevertheless, billions of pieces of mail get handled efficiently every year, and lots of parking tickets get written and paid for which are richly deserved.

In fact, one might say you are guilty of the very thing you criticize. Your chronic attacks on the public school system have become pro forma, automatic, and any misstep by any teacher, administrator, or educational bureaucrat becomes proof for you that the entire system is deeply if not fatally flawed. No Child Left Behind (which I have retitled No Child Gets Ahead) has nothing to do with zero tolerance for weapons on campus.

Your target should not be public schools but human nature and the government we must live with to create and maintain an orderly society. Simply change human nature and incidents like this will never happen again.

Rocky

My response:

Rocky,

You make a decent point. The "however" that I'm going to throw in is related to the very large number of similar bone-headed incidents I documented on my blog over the past three years. I had a category for school-related zero tolerance stories. I posted 100 of those stories over that time until I figured I'd made whatever point I was trying to make. I think that more of these incidents get to the bone-headed stage in the schools than they do in the YMCA or the Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, Boys/Girls Brigade, etc.; that is, any other organization that deals with young people for extended periods of time. It's the schools where this stuff happens and it goes beyond the reasonable response way more often than in those other organizations.

Steve

And I'm going to change my weak closing line to something another friend in Kentucky suggested to me: I think it's time to pray ... pray for deliverance from these fools.

The Ron Paul Tea Party

2007-12-13T06:30:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, December 16th, tens of thousands of Ron Paul supporters will donate $100 each to raise another huge chunk of money for his campaign.

Vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary in your state. Check Ron Paul's site for the date and requirements for voting.

Poodwaddle

2007-12-12T20:06:00.000-06:00

Odd, no? But it's a site with all sorts of nifty items for web sites. For instance:

Poodwaddle.com

Polar bears on the brink?

2007-12-08T14:22:00.001-06:00

Interesting article in the London Daily Mail about a film crew doing a new documentary, "Polar Bear Week", about the bears around Churchill, Manitoba. One member of the crew, Dennis Compayre, is a life-long resident of Churchill who has been around the bears for decades:

Dennis Compayre raises bushy grey eyebrows as he listens to the environmentalists predict the polar bear's demise.
"They say the numbers are down from 1,200 to around 900, but I think I know as much about polar bears as anyone, and I tell you there are as many bears here now as there were when I was a kid," he says as the tundra buggy rattles back to town across the rutted snowscape.
"Churchill is full of these scientists going on about vanishing bears and thinner bears.
"They come here preaching doom, but I question whether some of them really have the bears' best interests at heart.
"The bear industry in Churchill is big bucks, and what better way to keep people coming than to tell them they'd better hurry to see the disappearing bears."

The man doing the filming had some insights, too:

After almost three months of working with those who know the Arctic best - among them Inuit Indians, who are appalled at the way an animal they have lived beside for centuries has become a poster species for "misinformed" Greens - Nigel Marven finds himself in broad agreement.

"I think climate change is happening, but as far as the polar bear disappearing is concerned, I have never been more convinced that this is just scaremongering.

"People are deliberately seeking out skinny bears and filming them to show they are dying out. That's not right.

"Of course, in 30 years, if there's no ice over the North Pole, then the bear will be in trouble.

"But I've seen enough to know that polar bears are not yet on the brink of extinction."

They did the math for me!

2007-12-06T21:19:00.001-06:00

Tuesday's analysis of the proposal by Israeli environmentalists to reduce carbon emissions during Hannukah involved a fair amount of unit-conversion math to show that the projected emission savings wouldn't amount to a hill of beans, as they say.

Well, this Bloomberg story is more like it: all the math is done for me!

Hot Air Emitted by Climate Summit Equals 20,000 Cars

By Alex Morales and Kim Chipman

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Government officials and activists flying to Bali, Indonesia, for the United Nations meeting on climate change will cause as much pollution as 20,000 cars in a year. The total of 40,700 tons of gas created by the conference is equivalent to the annual emissions of 20,350 mid-sized cars, each traveling 12,000 kilometers, according to www.atmosfair.de.

The delegates each will produce an average 4.07 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2, to reach the resort island 950 kilometers (600 miles) from Jakarta, according to estimates e- mailed to Bloomberg by the UN agency holding the conference.

Some of the 187 nations participating in the two-week forum promised to offset their so-called carbon footprint by planting trees or buying emission credits. The symbolic actions won't help stop global warming, some scientists say.

As P. J. O'Rourke once put it, these folks get all tangled up in their Birkenstock straps falling all over themselves to promise to "offset" the harm that the conference will cause to the climate:

Indonesia will plant 79 million trees to offset the entire conference's emissions, Emil Salim, head of the host country's delegation, told reporters yesterday in Bali. The Asian nation is investigating how to develop its tree-planting activity to ensure a lasting offset, said Amanda Katili, special assistant to Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar.

"We have to know where the trees will be planted and make sure that they grow and not be cut down until they make enough carbon stock," Katili said in an interview.

The U.K.'s 40-person team will have their emissions neutralized through a central government fund, a spokeswoman for the country's environment department said.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas and three of his staff are buying so-called carbon credits, each representing a reduction of a ton of carbon dioxide, on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said in a telephone interview.

$132 `Out of Pocket'

"I'm paying out of my own pocket, and some individuals will also offset," said Helfferich, adding she's spending about 90 euros ($132).

The environmental group WWF International, known in the U.S. as the World Wildlife Fund, is also making sure the visit to Bali by about 80 of its workers is carbon-neutral, according to Martin Hiller, a spokesman for the group's climate change program.

"Our flight emissions are equivalent to about half an hour's emissions from a normal coal-fired power station of about 600 megawatts," Hiller said in a telephone interview from Bali. "We're offsetting all our travel with emissions credits."

Sheesh! Enough, already! At least there's somebody with a lick of sense, and whaddaya know? She's from the USA!:

The U.S. won't compensate for the emissions of its delegates because "we feel the best use of taxpayer dollars is for technology advancement, not purchasing carbon offsets," said Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for the delegation.

And what will these oodles and oodles of delegates be doing at the conference aside from apologizing for their carbon footprints?

The goal of the Bali meeting is a deadline for a new international treaty to limit emissions after the current accord, called the Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012.

Bully!

Some things cannot be parodied

2007-12-06T17:33:00.000-06:00

I'll let this article speak for itself:

Kangaroo farts could ease global warming

December 06, 2007 11:56am

Article from: Agence France-Presse

AUSTRALIAN scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.

"Fourteen per cent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep,'' said Athol Klieve, a senior research scientist with the Queensland Government.

"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base, they're actually up around 50 per cent,'' he said.
Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

"Not only would they not produce the methane, they would actually get something like 10 to 15 per cent more energy out of the feed they are eating,'' said Mr Klieve.
Even farmers who laugh at the idea of environmentally friendly kangaroo farts say that's nothing to joke about, particularly given the devastating drought Australia is suffering.

"In a tight year like a drought situation, 15 per cent would be a considerable sum,'' said farmer Michael Mitton.

But it will take researchers at least three years to isolate the bacteria, before they can even start to develop a way of transferring it to cattle and sheep.

Whatever next?

2007-12-04T19:02:00.000-06:00

The Jerusalem Post reports that

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

OK, lets do the math:

  15 grams of carbon dioxide per candle per day
x 1,000,000 candles
= 15 million grams of carbon dioxide per day

Lets convert that to tons per day:

  15 million grams per day
x 1 pound per 454 grams
x 1 ton per 2000 pounds
= 16.5 tons per day

According to the Earthlab Carbon Calculator, for a car to emit that much CO₂ it would have to travel:

  16.5 tons per day
x 2000 lbs per ton
x 1 gallon of gas per 19.564 pounds of carbon dioxide
x 21 miles per gallon (avg. car in the U.S.)
= 35,465 miles per day

Well, that's a bit far to travel in one day. Lets round it up to 35,500 miles and have a fleet of cars travelling 500 miles each day, how about that? That means:

  35,500 miles per fleet of cars
x 1 car per 500 miles
= 71 cars in the fleet

So, we finally come up with 71 cars travelling 500 miles each day of Hanukkah; that is, 4000 miles each, or from New York to LA and back to Chappell, Nebraska.

Are we really worried about this? With about 150 million cars travelling an average of about 33 miles per day (12,000 miles per year / 365 days) in the U.S. for a total of 4,931,506,849 miles per day? That's 39,452,054,795 miles traveled in 8 days.

So burning a million candles on each of 8 days turns out to be the equivalent of 71 cars driving 4000 miles each (284,000 miles) ... which is .00071986% of the total emitted by all the cars in the U.S. over the same period.

I repeat, are we really worried about this?

Excellent!

2007-12-03T07:18:00.000-06:00

Chavez Loses Constitutional Vote

Dec 3, 6:54 AM (ET)

By FRANK BAJAK

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Humbled by his first electoral defeat ever, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state.

"I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense," he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reforms by 51 percent to 49 percent.

Opposition activists were ecstatic as the results were announced shortly after midnight - with 88 percent of the vote counted, the trend was declared irreversible by elections council chief Tibisay Lucena.

Some shed tears. Others began chanting: "And now he's going away!"

Without the overhaul, Chavez will be barred from running again in 2012.

On being correct, III

2007-11-21T17:45:00.000-06:00

Zero tolerance or zero intelligence? You decide:

Students Suspended For Fake Drug Use In PSA

WAYNESBURG. PA - Two students at Waynesburg Central High School have been suspended for 10 days because of the way they depicted an activity they were trying to discourage. John DiBuono and his classmate made a public service announcement for a TV workshop. They used crushed Smarties candies. In the video, his friend pretended to snort cocaine. It was supposed to be a message against using drugs.

In a statement, the Jerome Bartley, superintendent of the Central Greene School District, said: "Although the individuals involved were not using illicit drugs, the district's policy prohibits look-a-like drugs, substances, liquids or devices."

It's listed in the student handbook, but DiBuono's father says the punishment doesn't fit. "I believe that the discipline is a bit excessive, and you know this was clearly an anti-drug statement," he said.

In addition to the suspension, DiBuono, a 4.0 student, said he was told to attend drug counseling. "The only words said in the entire public service announcement was, 'Don't do drugs,' and now I'm being sent to rehabilitation conference," he said. "I think it's a little ridiculous."

The superintendent says the students weren't assigned to do a public service announcement that day but instead, "took it upon themselves to produce a short video depicting drug use."

DiBuono says it was an ongoing project.

One to watch, II

2007-11-20T18:00:00.000-06:00

My earlier post about the potential Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller, expressed hope that the Court would hear it. Now it looks like my wish has been granted:

Supreme Court Will Hear D.C. Guns Case

Nov 20 03:23 PM US/Eastern
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will decide whether the District of Columbia can ban handguns, a case that could produce the most in-depth examination of the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" in nearly 70 years.

The justices' decision to hear the case could make the divisive debate over guns an issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.

The government of Washington, D.C., is asking the court to uphold its 31-year ban on handgun ownership in the face of a federal appeals court ruling that struck down the ban as incompatible with the Second Amendment. Tuesday's announcement was widely expected, especially after both the District and the man who challenged the handgun ban asked for the high court review.

The main issue before the justices is whether the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns or instead merely sets forth the collective right of states to maintain militias. The former interpretation would permit fewer restrictions on gun ownership.

Gun-control advocates say the Second amendment was intended to insure that states could maintain militias, a response to 18th century fears of an all-powerful national government. Gun rights proponents contend the amendment gives individuals the right to keep guns for private uses, including self-defense.

Alan Gura, a lawyer for Washington residents who challenged the ban, said he was pleased that the justices were considering the case.

"We believe the Supreme Court will acknowledge that, while the use of guns can be regulated, a complete prohibition on all functional firearms is too extreme," Gura said. "It's time to end this unconstitutional disaster. It's time to restore a basic freedom to all Washington residents."

The only tricky point, the one that the Court will clarify, is whether the 2nd Amendment applies only to federal laws.

Our friends, the Saudis, II

2007-11-20T17:47:00.000-06:00

As expected, the Saudi Arabian justice system has defended it's ruling of a few days ago that sentenced a 19-year-old rape victim to 200 lashes for riding in a car with an unrelated male:

Saudi defends verdict against gang-rape victim
Tue Nov 20, 2007

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia defended on Tuesday a court's decision to sentence a woman who was gang-raped to 200 lashes of the whip, after the United States described the verdict as "astonishing".

The 19-year-old Shi'ite woman from the town of Qatif in the Eastern Province and an unrelated male companion were abducted and raped by seven men in 2006.

Ruling according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, a court had originally sentenced the woman to 90 lashes and the rapists to jail terms of between 10 months and five years. It blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated man.

Last week the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.

In my original posting about this case I used the term "double jeopardy" to describe the startling legal tangle in which this young woman finds herself. Upon further consideration I've concluded that there is no word that I know of for this situation; i. e., the victim of a violent crime is charged and convicted of the crime of violating a tenet of Sharia law. Then, upon receiving an extremely harsh sentence (90 lashes), the court decided to up the dose to an inconceivable 200 lashes.

Double jeopardy doesn't fit because that merely covers the case of a defendant being found innocent of a crime and then being tried again for the exact same crime. This is indescribable. Jesus Christ himself only endured 39 lashes.

Think it can't happen here?

2007-11-19T18:55:00.000-06:00

A British emigré to New Zealand is having trouble getting his wife to join him. No, she isn't reluctant to move to NZ. She's been disqualified from moving there because she's too fat:

Richie Trezise, 35, a rugby-playing Welshman, lost weight to gain entry to New Zealand after initially being rejected for being overweight and a potential burden on the health care system.

His wife, Rowan, 33, a photographer, has been battling for months to shed the pounds so they can be reunited and live Down Under but has so far been unable to overcome New Zealand’s weight regulations.

A drain on the national health care system. Does that sound familiar?:

Robyn Toomath, a spokesman for Fight the Obesity Epidemic and an endocrinologist, said she was opposed to obese people being stigmatised. "However, the immigration department’s focus is different," she said. "It cannot afford to import people into the country who are going to be a significant drain on our health resources.

So how did Mr. Trezise's doctor react?

Mr Trezise, a submarine cable specialist and a former soldier, said: "My doctor laughed at me. He said he’d never seen anything more ridiculous in his whole life. He said not every overweight person is unhealthy or unfit.

Can it happen here?

Our friends, the Saudis

2007-11-15T20:30:00.001-06:00

Tough to find words to describe my reaction to this. I'm going to let the story speak for itself (emphasis mine):

Saudi punishes gang rape victim with 200 lashes

Nov 15 10:51 AM US/Eastern

A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.

Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.

But the woman's lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.

In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.

The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.

He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.

Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and "contradicts King Abdullah's quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system."

King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

You've heard of double jeopardy? It's a TV game show, right? Well, in this case it's something we've never had to deal with in this country because of the Fifth Amendment. Somehow I don't think "I claim the Fifth" would go over very well in Saudi Arabia. That poor girl is going to feel the weight of Sharia with every lash.

Hurricanes in the U.S.? What hurricanes?

2007-11-14T20:36:00.000-06:00

Well, here we are near the end of this year's hurricane season, and for the second year running the number of hurricanes to hit the United States was zero. This makes it annoyingly difficult for the global warming johnnies to support the notion that 2005 was only a taste of the horrible killer hurricanes we could expect from now on, now that man-made climate change is upon us.

Note that the number of hurricanes forecast for 2007 was between seven and ten. Five actually formed. This year's hurricane curve hugged the 1944-2005 average curve precisely.

What does this all mean other than the fact that it's very pleasant not to have to clean up after multiple Hurricane Katrina's? Not much. We'll continue to have hurricanes every year. Some of them will hit the United States, some won't. Some will be severe. Some won't.

But for global warming apologists to have suggested that 2005 was a watershed year for hurricanes was the silliest sort of hubris. I very fervently want them to know that.

What is December 16th? The Tea Party!

2007-11-14T05:59:00.000-06:00

Does anyone else find this completely bizarre?

2007-11-14T03:38:00.000-06:00

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, without doubt two of the most well-known actors in the world, have purchased one of the 300 islands (the one shaped like Ethiopia) for sale in Dubai, part of "The World" development. According to the news story:

The Hollywood couple intend to use the reclaimed piece of land to showcase environmental issues and encourage people to live a greener life, the Emirates Today newspaper said.

The bizarre thing to me is the idea that to make this "showcase" an island had to be built from scratch in the Persian Gulf as part of arguably the most expensive land development on the planet. This isn't like those prairie grass plots you see around here; every speck of the island Pitt and Jolie purchased was deposited there by machines and a lot of Indians: the white sand, the palm trees, the docks, the breakwaters, the millions of yards of dirt, etc.

And if this is a "showcase", I wonder how it will be shown to an eager world? Is this hyper-exclusive real estate development going to be a magnet for wealthy eco-tourists? Somehow I can't see a Disney-like water ride around the "showcase". Maybe an episode on "Lives of the Rich and Famous"? Or is there to be a special episode of "Extreme Makeover: Dubai Edition"?

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no quarrel with rich people deciding to buy their very own island. However, I am — "curious" isn't strong enough, but it'll have to do — curious about the motivations to create this environmental "showcase" in a place where no normal person will ever see it.

That is, as the Emirates Today article says:

The plots will be accessible only by boat and security teams will patrol constantly.

Not too conducive for anyone viewing the "showcase" but invited guests , I'd say.

One to watch: District of Columbia v. Heller

2007-11-12T06:07:00.000-06:00

The final chapter in our country's long history of angst over the right to bear arms could be decided by the Supreme Court in a few months. The case involves a security guard in Washington, DC, who insists that he has the right to keep a handgun in his home, contrary to the DC law.

On Tuesday we might know whether the Court will take the case at all, that's the first step.

It's curious to me that something like the establishment to a right to abortion can be manufactured out of "penumbras" (i.e., thin air), but that a phrase right out of the Bill of Rights ("the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed") would lead to so many federal laws restricting that Constitutional right.

Here's the story about the case. And here's a very interesting article written about it.

The Ron Paul Money Bomb

2007-11-05T21:31:00.000-06:00

From the RonPaul2008.com web site:

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA—Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has raised over $3.1 million in the past 19 hours, making today’s the single largest fundraising effort of the 2008 election cycle. At 4:00 pm, the campaign’s $2.7 million broke the record for the largest online presidential primary fundraising effort in a single day, and by 6:30 pm, the campaign broke Mitt Romney’s $3.1 million record for single-day fundraising this year.

Thus far today, approximately 25,000 supporters have contributed to the so-called “money bomb.”

I made my contribution at around 10:15 pm Eastern time. The total for today so far is over $3.7 million. Take that you Republican party hacks!

On being correct, II

2007-10-31T19:53:00.000-05:00

Multiple stories today that cover the spectrum of the government-sanctioned compulsory-attendance matriculation centers. First:

GISD moves ahead with threat to sue parent

By Rhiannon Meyers
The Daily News

Published October 31, 2007
GALVESTON — The public school district has officially demanded that parent Sandra Tetley remove what it says is libelous material from her Web site or face a lawsuit for defamation.

Tetley said she’ll review the postings cited by David Feldman of the district’s firm Feldman and Rogers. She’ll consider the context of the postings and consult attorneys before deciding what to delete.

Feldman said Tetley’s Web site — www.gisdwatch.com — contained the most “personal, libelous invective directed toward a school administrator” he’s seen in his 31-year career.

Feldman cited 16 examples of what he says are libelous postings. Half were posted by Tetley; the other half were posted by anonymous users.

The postings accuse Superintendent Lynne Cleveland, trustees and administrators of lying, manipulation, falsifying budget numbers, using their positions for “personal gain,” violating the Open Meetings Act and spying on employees, among other things.

Tetley said the postings were opinions only.

“Everyone deserves to have their opinion,” she said. “I don’t think they have a right to make me, or anyone else, take down criticisms of them off the Web site. They’re not going to force us to take off our opinions because we have no other place to go.”

From Tetley's web site:

Mr. Feldman, the School District, the Board and the Firm have unlimited funds with which to fight me. They’ve already spent thousands of dollars monitoring the website, discussing their options and bringing in Mr. Feldman himself for the dramatic presentation to the School Board. You can see the check registers on the GISD Board Book and request a copy of the legal bills through an Open Records Request. I’ve seen the individual line item attorney charges – they charge the district for monitoring this website. Nearly every day.

I believe this whole issue to sue me for gisdwatch is a reflection of the school board members' and of the superintendent's disdain for public dissent, criticism and open government. I strongly believe it is a direct attempt to stifle some of the most sharp and revealing criticism of their actions. I believe it is a direct attempt to stifle teachers and administrators from questioning their authority, alerting us to problems and to voice their distaste for the administration. No longer can the administration and board go unnoticed. They apparently do not like to be questioned on their actions. They apparently do not appreciate being made a parody but who does? But do each of us go out and sue someone for making fun of us or criticizing us or calling us names?

So this whole imbroglio will be worth watching if only to see how far the school district gets in suing someone for her opinions.

Next, a school forbids certain Halloween costumes:

Political Figures, Latex Among Items Banned For Various Reasons

(AP) There will be as many standards for Halloween costumes today as there are schools in Illinois. At West Elementary School in north suburban Glencoe, princesses and superheroes will walk the halls. But there will be no Richard Nixons or George Bushes.

This is because school administrators have banned costumes depicting political figures, calling them inappropriate for 8- to 10-year-olds.

Many schools prohibit costumes, while some elementary schools allow only preschool and kindergarten students to dress up. Masks are generally prohibited at schools that allow the bizarre on Halloween, as are fake weapons. Hatchets coming out of heads are also frowned upon.

At Naperville Central High School, latex is a no-no. There is a student and a custodian at the school with a life-threatening latex allergy.

Just par for the course at schools these days (including the accommodations for the two allergy sufferers). I do wonder, however, why schools don't just ban all holidays. Let the kids out for the federal holidays but ignore the secular and religious ones.

Looks like Russian schools have banned Halloween:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow schools have been ordered to ban students from celebrating the cult of the dead, better known as Halloween, despite the widespread popularity of the imported festival to Russia.

Halloween is being forced underground because it "includes religious elements, the cult of death, the mockery of death," a spokesman for the city's education department Alexander Gavrilov said on Wednesday.

"It's not an attempt to block the celebration of this holiday completely, just in schools and colleges," he added.

Pumpkins and images of witches are widespread across Russia, with many bars organizing special fancy dress parties, despite the efforts of the Kremlin and especially the Russian Orthodox Church to curb enthusiasm for non-native festivities.

"This is destructive for the minds and the spiritual and moral health of pupils," said Gavrilov, saying the ban had been recommended by psychiatrists.

Of course, the experts know best what's good for us.

On to the next story:

Teachers' Muslim dress order

By ANDREW PARKER

Published: 31 Oct 2007

Rufford primary school in Lye, West Midlands [England], was yesterday accused of making teachers dress up as Asians for a day – to celebrate a Muslim festival. Kids at the 257-pupil primary have also been told to don ethnic garb even though most are Christians.

The morning assembly will be open to all parents – but dads are barred from a women-only party in the afternoon because Muslim husbands object to wives mixing with other men.

Just two members of staff – a part-time teacher and a teaching assistant – are Muslim.

Yesterday a relative of one of the 39 others said: “Staff have got to go along with it – or let’s face it, they would be branded racist.

“Who would put their job on the line? They have been told they have to embrace the day to show their diversity. But they are not all happy.”

The day aims to belatedly mark Eid, the end of Ramadan.

Sally Bloomer, head of the school, insisted: “I have not heard of any complaints.

“It’s all part of a diversity project to promote multi-culturalism.”

Oh, gawd! Spare me! It'll happen in the U.S., mark my words.

And, finally:

N.Y. Students Stage Walk-Out, Protest Rats

Tony Aiello

NEW YORK (CBS) -- Hundreds of students walked out of a Rockland County High School Wednesday, voicing their concern about vermin, filling the school's athletic field and banging on the fence that surrounds it in protest.

Students at Clarkstown North High School claim the "three R's" have been supplemented with two more: roaches and rats. Some held signs reading, ""Clean North" and "Rams not roaches," according to the Journal News.

Cases of rat sightings have been widespread of late. According to football player Steven Jean-Baptiste, when he took his shoe out from his locker, three big roaches crawled out.

Another student used a camera phone to snap a picture of a rodent outside the high school door.

The district, located just north of New York City, removed three dead rats, including a decomposing one that was crawling with maggots, at the high school's annex building, officials said.

Wednesday, hundreds of kids cut class to protest the grotesque conditions.

"The problem of roaches at North High School is decades long and from my understanding, it's probably the most resilient life species that exists on the face of the earth," said Clarkstown Superintendent, Margaret Keller-Cogan.

"Students need to stop leaving sandwich crusts and french fries lying about. This does attract critters and other things on the floor. One thing we can do is pick up the garbage and simply throw it out," Leonardatos said.

Students however, say the vermin issue is so vexing they'll protest at the school board later this month.

It's bad enough when the kid brings home a cold from being at school. But what if he brings home bubonic plague instead?

Recent commentary: likeable politicians

2007-10-25T08:15:00.000-05:00

Who's your favorite public official?

(published 29-Oct-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

In school I thought that one of the female Congresscritters might be worth admiring because there's no way she could be worse than her male counterparts. I've always liked Mike Ellis, ever since we used a couple sound bites of his back in my radio days for our annual blooper tape. But that probably isn't the best reason for liking a public official. I also like and support Congressman Ron Paul, even to the extent of being one of the people that hold up those "Ron Paul for President" signs you see on highway 41. Judging by the ratio of thumbs-up to other, less congenial hand gestures I've seen, lots of other folks like him, too. The guy makes sense, he's intelligently consistent, his voting record is Constitutionally superb, and he tells it straight. His Texas constituents have re-elected him nine times. I'd love for us to elect him as President.

You don't think environmentalism is a religion?

2007-10-12T06:56:00.000-05:00

Then consider what erstwhile Vice President Al Gore said upon being notified that he had won this year's Nobel Peace Prize:

We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.

It isn't political at all! Why haven't I gotten the message? It must be that my spirit is suffering a moral dilemma or conflict or something. The Vice President says so!

Actually, as P. J. O'Rourke put it so piquantly, I've had an epiphany. I've achieved regime satori. And I just remembered that the Nobel committee gave the Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat in the early 90's. (Arafat, by the way, is still in stable condition in a grave in Ramallah.)

"Serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush"

2007-10-11T07:06:00.000-05:00

It took a British judge (stories in the Times of London, New York Times, and Agence France Presse) to utter those words describing parts of erstwhile Vice President Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth". He said those words when handing down his ruling that the movie could, indeed, be shown in 3500 British secondary schools, but that

the Oscar-winning film should be accompanied by government guidance notes and to distribute it without them would breach education laws prohibiting the promotion of unbalanced political viewpoints.

That quote is from the Agence-France Presse story on the ruling.

Judge Michael Burton noted 9 inaccuracies that would require those "government guidance notes":

The inaccuracies are:
The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Believe me, I am no fan of government, and the thought that school children would need "government guidance notes" is repellent to me. But British law is different from American law and the kiddies in the British public school system there are going to be treated to government guidance whether they like it or not.

Mr. Gore has his Academy Award. He has the ear of the enthusiastic mainstream media. Now he has well-wishers that placed a full-page ad in the New York Times containing an open letter to Mr. Gore urging him to run for President. The letter contains the following, shall we say, heartfelt statement:

America and the Earth need a hero right now — someone who will transcend politics as usual and bring real hope to our country and to the world.

I'm afraid I have to excuse myself. I feel somewhat indisposed...

An excellent on-line Presidential preference quiz

2007-10-06T14:29:00.000-05:00

USA Today has put together a superb interactive preference quiz for the 17 Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates still in the race. "Superb" because after you answer each of the 11 questions you can see which candidate falls in line with your answer. Here's a snapshot of my own results:
There are sliders provided for you to weight the results based on any of seven factors: the Iraq War, health care, immigration, global scare-mongering (that is to say, anthro-centric / anthropogenic global warming), etc. You may then determine which candidates are really more in line with your way of thinking if you downplay certain factors and emphasize others.

For those that like grids more than graphs, this site gives you that as well:

Ron Paul is my man!

Recent commentary: Favorite fall thing

2007-09-28T06:07:00.000-05:00

What's your favorite thing about fall in Wisconsin?

(published 1-Oct-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Halloween! My wife makes terrific costumes, especially duplicates of costumes from artsy children's movies. Last year she dressed our daughter in the wedding dress from "The Castle Cagliostro". Obscure, hunh? She's very good at papier mache, too. We still have an amazing papier mache mask of Anubis that she made for our second son a dozen years ago. I even managed to squeeze into it when I had bowl duty. Nobody quite knows what to say when Anubis answers the door, you know? The kids, having been drilled never to take candy from strangers, know that it's different on Halloween; but a guy in an Anubis mask holding out a bowl of Snickers and Milk Duds crosses the line somehow. You can almost hear them thinking, "Is this dude like Jason from 'Friday the 13th' and he's going to whip out a chainsaw or something?" How can you beat that?

Just doing my part to promote freedom of the press

2007-08-27T07:26:00.000-05:00

This Opus cartoon has stirred up a bit of controversy. I wonder why?

And speaking of Greenpeace...

2007-08-20T06:06:00.001-05:00

...you've heard, no doubt, about the latest photographic "installation" composed by Spencer Tunick? 600 people stripped bare to stop glaciers from melting, or something like that. Oh, wait! It's a global warming protest, that's it!

Greenpeace has a slideshow, a "making of" movie, and Windows wallpaper here. I downloaded the 1440 x 900 wallpaper myself. I never want to forget the significance of this event.

Just keeping an eye on it for ya

2007-08-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

The 2007 Atlantic storm forecast, that is. There isn't much one can say about the curve so far other than it's one ahead of last year which was a pretty average storm season.

I'm simply watching. The anthropogenic/anthro-centric global warming johnnies keep making noise about the horrible hurricanes and storms and heat waves that we're going to have. They had to have been severely disappointed that not a single hurricane made landfall in the U. S. last year...especially after 2005 more than fulfilled all of their hopes, and made Al Gore's movie a hit.

I'd say that we should keep our heads, as Bjorn Lomborg advises. He's the author of a fabulous book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, debunking the worst environmental scares perpetrated by the green crowd. Since he's a former member of Greenpeace, it might pay to listen to him.

Lomborg has a new book coming out next month called Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming. Here's what author Michael Crichton (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Disclosure, State of Fear)has to say about it:

Lomborg is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering; he begins by dispatching the myth of the endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. Lomborg considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased five fold since the 1960s.

Lomborg then works his way through the concerns we hear so much about: higher temperatures, heat deaths, species extinctions, the cost of cutting carbon, the technology to do it. Lomborg believes firmly in climate change--despite his critics, he's no denier--but his fact-based approach, grounded in economic analyses, leads him again and again to a different view. He reviews published estimates of the cost of climate change, and the cost of addressing it, and concludes that "we actually end up paying more for a partial solution than the cost of the entire problem. That is a bad deal."

In some of the most disturbing chapters, Lomborg recounts what leading climate figures have said about anyone who questions the orthodoxy, thus demonstrating the illiberal, antidemocratic tone of the current debate. Lomborg himself takes the larger view, explaining in detail why the tone of hysteria is inappropriate to addressing the problems we face.

In the end, Lomborg’s concerns embrace the planet. He contrasts our concern for climate with other concerns such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and providing clean water to the world. In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the book’s greatest value. Lomborg and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.

Can't wait to get my copy.

Recent commentary: P-C Pro & Con -- Universal Health Care in WI: I'm against it

2007-08-12T23:57:00.000-05:00

Universal health care isn't for U.S.

Government system more expensive, less effective

(published 13-Sep-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

"The government is good at one thing...it knows how to break your legs, and then hands you a crutch and says 'See? If it weren't for the government you wouldn't be able to walk.'" -- Harry Browne

That quote is so astoundingly appropriate to the universal health care debate one hardly has to say anything else. But for those that think the government makes great crutches, read on.

I must first make a sobering observation: we are going to have more government meddling in health care. The government juggernaut cannot help but roll over every aspect of health care delivery, covering the landscape with new regulations. This is not a guess. No matter how vehemently I or anyone else opposes greater regulation of health care, it is simply going to happen. If that makes you happy, then give three cheers because you're gonna get what you've always dreamed of.

All I can do is play Cassandra and, in my humble yet deadly accurate way, predict just what will take place.

First health care will get scarcer. That is, it will take longer to get any AND there will be less of it. When health care is "cheaper" because it's "universal" and the government is subsidizing it for the millions of people without insurance, the first thing that will happen is that you won't be able to see your doctor nearly as quickly as you do now because loads more people will start going to see her. It's the Iron Law of Economics and it works for health care just as it does for milk, iPhones, and mortgages: people will buy more of something at a lower price than they will at a higher price.

You say that you're OK with longer waits as long as everybody gets to have a chance to see a doctor without breaking the bank? Then please consider how long our neighbors in the Great White North have to wait for certain procedures. Canada's Fraser Institute does a survey every year to determine average waiting times for surgery and other treatments by specialists. The AVERAGE wait time in Canada is near its all-time high of 18 weeks -- over four months.

From the latest (Oct, 2006) report: “Canadians should not expect to see any dramatic improvement in waiting times as a result of the latest federal-provincial agreements regarding waiting lists. The long waiting times for medically necessary services are a symptom of a much greater problem: a poorly designed health care system.”

The totally government-controlled health care system in Canada is "poorly designed"...and they're talking about "medically necessary services", not Botox treatments. In other words operations that will keep patients alive can't be had because the waiting lines are so long.

If it weren't for the government you wouldn't be able to walk!

Second, doctors will leave practice early or will avoid certain specialties. There is already a crisis in 22 states with ob-gyn doctors: there aren't enough to go around because of astronomical malpractice insurance rates. Some hospitals have closed their obstetrics departments. Universal coverage will do nothing to bring ob-gyn doctors back. Not only that, but geriatrics as a branch of medicine is imperiled by low Medicare (government) reimbursements.

Third, more of the doctors that are left will refuse to take patients covered under the new regulations. If you think that the new "universal" plan will force a doctor to see patients, you must not have heard of Medicare and Medicaid. The American Medical Association's own survey done last year revealed that 45% of physicians treating elderly patients would refuse to take new patients after the January, 2007, Medicare cuts went into effect. Medicare already pays less than most insurance plans...and it's a LOT harder to shake down the government.

U. S. Representative Steve "Doctor Millionaire" Kagen -- the darling of the universal coverage set -- wrote in the Post-Crescent on August 8th: "We cannot fix health care without doctors, and the [Children's Health Care and Medicare Protection] CHAMP Act ensures doctors will be paid adequately so they may continue to care for their patients." He recognizes that government meddling has made for reduced availability of doctors because they weren't paid enough from the public trough. So he's going to put a pin in one of the legs that the government broke to see if it'll hold up without crutches.

He also says it's "fiscally responsible". It takes a big man to admit his mistakes, but what kind of metaphor applies to enormous government programs? What does it say about Medicare's multi-decade custodians that the program will only NOW be "fiscally responsible"?

Universal health care will definitely be more expensive, less available, more unwiedldy, and less effective than the mess we're already in. If you think that it's expensive now just wait until it's "free".

Recent commentary: volunteerism

2007-08-03T11:55:00.000-05:00

Do you spend any time volunteering?

(published 6-Aug-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Cub Scout leader, community theatre board, chess club director...all that's in the past. My full-time volunteer work continues: rearing two step-sons and a bio-daughter. Anyone who marries into an existing family makes an interesting – to say the least – volunteer commitment. There have been many times that I've tried to live up to the example of my own step-father. He was steady, fair, firm, and reliable. Not particularly warm and fuzzy, but he had plenty to handle with four of us reacting to him in a variety of prickly ways. I have half as many step-children so I figure my task is one-fourth as difficult (inverse square law). Every kid is different and my step-sons really aren't like my brothers and sisters. I only hope that they'll look back with understanding on my attempts to rear them when they become fathers and step-fathers themselves.

Health insurance is NOT health care, I

2007-07-15T11:13:00.000-05:00

Single-payer, government-administered health insurance plans have one thing going for them: they're simple to explain. That is, what could be simpler than dealing with one organization, the government, when it comes to health insurance claims? The government isn't out to turn a profit nor is it motivated by looking for ways to avoid taxes or to satisfy stock holders. None of that rubbish.

But perhaps things aren't quite so clear. In a paper posted on the Free Market Cure web site, author David Gratzer examines the issues that make "simple" government-run health insurance a tad more complicated. Here's his summary:

[P]rominent politicians recognize the angst of middle America and flirt with single payer. "I think we've reached a point where the entire health care system is in impending crisis. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we should begin drafting a single-payer national health plan," former Vice President Al Gore stated in the fall of 2002. His comments weren't greeted with a sea of enthusiasm but the fact that a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination would flirt with the idea suggests that single-payer health care is at least a possibility.
And it is. True, there is limited enthusiasm on the part of federal politicians to take on a sweeping new initiative after the grand failure of Clinton-care. True, too, that American journalists increasingly report the problems of single-payer systems like Canada's medicare. But Americans wouldn't completely dismiss the idea.

It lives on because of its simplicity. Those who promote single payer present the idea as a magic bullet. Why fuss with the sticky economics of health care when all you need is a simple government initiative? Indeed, the word simple (and its derivatives) seems to appear as often in Himmelstein and Woolhandler's book as motivation speakers shower their talks with the word empowerment.

In this paper, we explore the government temptation. Far from being an elegant solution, we find that government-run health care systems are universally plagued with deep problems. Whether we look to Canada or Britain or Germany, we find that single payer is a fanciful temptation, like hoping that a new house will save a troubled marriage.

Instead of that fruitcake, Kennedy...

2007-07-11T20:51:00.000-05:00

...how about this from Dr. D. Bruce Merrifield, former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs and Professor Emeritus of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania:

Summary

The earth has been subjected to many warming and cooling periods over millions of years, none of which were of human origin. Data from many independent sources have mutually corroborated these effects. They include data from coring both the Antarctic ice cap and sediments from the Sargasso Sea, from stalagmites, from tree rings, from up-wellings in the oceans, and from crustaceans trapped in pre-historic rock formations.

The onset of each 100,000-year abrupt warming period has been coincident with emissions into the atmosphere of large amounts of both carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases, which absorb additional heat from the sun, a secondary warming effect. Solar radiation would appear to be the initial forcing event in which warming oceans waters release dissolved carbon dioxide, and melt methane hydrates, both of which are present in the oceans in vast quantities. Subsequent declines in radiation are associated with long cooling periods in which the green house gases then gradually disappear (are re-absorbed) into terrestrial and ocean sinks, as reflected in the data from coring the Antarctic Ice Cap and Sargasso Sea.

The current 100 year solar radiation cycle may now have reached its peak, and irradiation intensity has been observed to be declining. This might account for the very recent net cessation of emission of green house gases into the atmosphere starting about 1988, in spite of increasing generation of anthropomorphically-sourced industrial-based green house gases.

While it seems likely that solar radiation, rather than human activity, is the "forcing agent" for global warming, the subject surely needs more study.

That's just the summary of the article. Having somebody like Robert Kennedy calling people traitors for not doing something about global warming puts me right off my feed. I just can't get over how willing people are to believe all of these politicians that have jumped on the anthropogenic/anthro-centric global warming bandwagon and who are now fighting for the reins.

"Get rid of all these rotten politicians"

2007-07-09T21:59:00.000-05:00

Hear! Hear! That was Robert Kennedy creating part of the sound and fury signifying ... well, nothing ... at the Live Earth Concert:

[I]t was nonmusicians at this concert who made the most passionate pleas about demanding action for the environment. "Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist author, president of Waterkeeper Alliance and Robert F. Kennedy's son, who grew hoarse from shouting. "This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors."

Well, I like the part about getting rid of "all these rotten politicians", but why for refusing to move more quickly to forestall anthropogenic, anthro-centric global climate change? I say "Hear! Hear!" to that! Stall forever, says I!

There were more maudlin appeals:

Primatologist Jane Goodall offered a greeting in chimpanzee language, before saying, "Up in the North the ice is melting, what will it take to melt the ice in the human heart?"

And there was this bit of bloviating:

For John Mayer, the raised awareness that Live Earth U.S.A. brought to the issue of climate change made the event a success. "I think a lot of people at Giants Stadium today want to listen," he said. "Awareness works likes a vitamin. You go to the bathroom and 99 percent of it is gone but you hope that you retained 1 percent."

How apropos to use bathroom similes for this event.

You can be skeptical all you want...

2007-07-08T07:22:00.000-05:00

...but, jeez, lady! Keep it to yourself, eh? French Housing Minister, Christine Boutin, expressed apparent belief that President Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:

French official suggested Bush was behind September 11

Sat Jul 7, 7:34 AM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - A senior French politician, now a minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, suggested last year that U.S. President George W. Bush might have been behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to a website.

The www.ReOpen911.info website, which promotes September 11 conspiracy theories, has posted a video clip of French Housing Minister Christine Boutin appearing to question that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group orchestrated the attacks. Boutin's office sought to play down the remarks.

Asked in an interview last November, before she became minister, whether she thought Bush might be behind the attacks, Boutin says: "I think it is possible. I think it is possible."

The next paragraph is particularly revealing:

Boutin backs her assertion by pointing to the large number of people who visit websites that challenge the official line over the September 11 strikes against U.S. cities.

"I know that the websites that speak of this problem are websites that have the highest number of visits ... And I tell myself that this expression of the masses and of the people cannot be without any truth."

Followed by a little CYA:

Boutin's office sought to play down the remarks, saying that later in the same interview she says: "I'm not telling you that I adhere to that position." This comment does not appear on the video clip on ReOpen911.

It would be my public duty to inform Madame Housing Minister that lots of people believe lots of things. Conspiracy theories, the honest-to-God-this-time end of the world scenarios, receiving $5 from Bill Gates just for visiting the Microsoft web site, horoscopes...you name it, people will believe it.

I think that Mme. Boutin should visit Snopes.com and put her mind at rest about the tendency people have to believe three outrageous things before breakfast.

Anthro-centric global scare mongering, XXXVII

2007-07-07T20:19:00.000-05:00

Well, the concert's over and Madonna has saved the planet:

Wearing a below-the-knee puff-sleeved dress, matching knee-length leggings and black patent Mary-Janes, the star of the show, Madonna, took to the stage for her performance of Hey You where she was joined by a choir of schoolchildren.

She then strummed an electric guitar to Ray of Light before bursting into La Isla Bonita accompanied by cult New York Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello

Madonna thanked Al Gore, the brainchild of the nine concerts across the globe, "for giving the world the wake-up call it so badly needs and for starting an avalanche of awareness that we are running out of time".

"Running out of time." Gad! It is absolutely amazing how much people want to believe that things will go to hell unless we sing about them or watch Al Gore's movie.

Madonna tried to resurrect the most amazingly drastic global warming reversal ever attempted (emphasis mine):

She said: "Lets hope tonight's concert and the concerts going on around the world are not just about entertainment but starting a revolution around the world. If you want to save the planet let me see you jump."

She must have heard about World Jump Day! Say! With the concert "beamed to 2 billion people", she certainly had a much larger audience than WJD was able to muster!

What this planet needs is LIVE BAIT!

2007-07-07T20:04:00.000-05:00

A reader of my last post about Al Gore's Live Earth concert sent me a link to his own blog. The link describes a far more constructive event than the silly world-wide music concerts for anthropogenic global warming. That event is Live Bait!

Global WORMing Responsible for Global WARMing
June 25th, 2007
GLOBAL WORMING™ may be the culprit behind the much-talked-about “climate crisis” that, according to people like Al Gore, threatens the existence of life on Planet Earth.

This revelation comes courtesy Jim Frederickson, research director at the UK-based Composting Association. He was quoted in a recent Materials Recycling Week magazine article as saying the following:

“Worms produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Recent research done by German scientists has found that worms produced a third of nitrous oxide gases when used for composting.”

and

“The emissions that come from these worms can actually be 290 times more potent than carbon dioxide and 20 times more potent than methane. In all environmental systems you get good points and bad points.”

Now that mankind has been duly informed that worms are serious polluters likely responsible for global warming, I’ve developed a handful of possible solutions for dealing with this slimy menace.

And, by golly, he lists some pretty good ones. Makes me want to take up fishing again.

"The last thing the planet needs is a rock concert"

2007-07-06T08:59:00.001-05:00

So said rock patriarch Roger Daltrey of The Who regarding erstwhile American Vice President Al Gore's Live Earth concert set to start tomorrow.

I haven't said anything about anthropogenic, anthro-centric global climate change in quite a while. Not that there haven't been oodles of news stories; it's the quantity that gets to me. I'm juicing up for a couple, three reviews of the news here shortly.

But this story about pop stars expressing doubt about Live Earth roused me enough to laugh, at least. Here's what some of them are saying besides that gem by Daltrey. Bob Geldoff, organizer of Live Aid and Live 8:

"Why is he (Gore) actually organising them?" Geldoff said in an interview with a Dutch newspaper in May, adding that everyone was already aware of global warming and the event needed firm commitments from politicians and polluters.

Rock group, Arctic Monkeys

have become the latest music industry stars to question whether the performers taking part in Live Earth on Saturday are suitable climate change activists.

"It's a bit patronising for us 21 year olds to try to start to change the world," said Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, explaining why the group is not on the bill at any of Al Gore's charity concerts.

"Especially when we're using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting. It'd be a bit hypocritical," he told AFP in an interview before a concert in Paris.

Bass player Nick O'Malley chimes in: "And we're always jetting off on aeroplanes!"

Large parts of the band's hometown of Sheffield were flooded at the end of last month after a deluge of mid-summer rain that some blamed on global warming. Two people were killed.

But the band wonder why anyone would be interested in the opinion of rock stars on a complex scientific issue like climate change.

"Someone asked us to give a quote about what was happening in Sheffield and it's like 'who cares what we think about what's happening'?" added Helders.

"There's more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we're in a band?"

The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant,

attacked the arrogance of pop stars who put themselves forward as role-models.

"I've always been against the idea of rock stars lecturing people as if they know something the rest of us don't," he was reported as saying by British music magazine NME.

OK, it isn't all that humorous. All of these folks taking themselves way too seriously about an event that is the modern equivalent of a rain dance.

Books: Crazies and Wimps

2007-07-05T07:08:00.000-05:00

This week I've been reading the latest book by Bernard Goldberg, Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right - How One Side Lost its Mind and the Other Lost its Nerve. Goldberg is the author of Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News, Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite, and 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37).

There are lots of little tidbits on Don Imus, Ann Coulter, Fox News, "Bush Derangement Syndrome", Alec Baldwin, girly men, global warming, the separation of church and state, muslim extremists, the War on Terror, Jews, pork barrel spending...lots of stuff. All of it organized very well, allowing one to crack open the book anywhere and spend a pleasant half hour.

His most trenchant commentary is on the subject of race in America. I thought I'd quote a passage towards the end of Crazies. I think it hits the sweet spot of the overwhelming hypocrisy built into our handling of racial issues:

[I]f affirmative action and racial preferences are such a good idea, then why don't we use them in really important things, like sports and politics?

Let's start with basketball. To make college and pro teams more diverse, let's reject some really talented black players in favor of white guys, who might not be as good but bring something very important to the table—namely the color of their skin; their minority whiteness.

But what about merit, you say. Shouldn't we take the best players without regard to race? In a word, No! White kids grew up with a distinct disadvantage. They go to inferior high schools (basketball-wise), and could never compete in the big leagues without affirmative action.

But won't the white kids feel stigmatized? Won't they know they got picked for the team not because of their ability but because of their skin color? Who cares! Too much is at stake to worry about such insignificant matters. Sports, as we all know, are a microcosm of America. And so America has a stake in the greater good. And that greater good is called ... diversity!

My plan is to initiate affirmative action at two college basketball powerhouses: the University of Michigan and Michigan State. Why there? Because in 2006 the head coaches of the men's basketball teams at both of those schools publicly came out against a state ballot measure that would have outlawed racial preferences in college admissions. "I know what it takes to build a team," Tom Izzo, the Michigan State coach said, "and that is diversity. We need all kinds of players on our team."

So, if Coach Tom Izzo and his pal Coach Tommy Amaker of the University of Michigan care so much about diversity then I'm sure they'd be very happy to ditch four or five of their talented black players to make room for four or five young white men who can't jump—or maybe can't dribble, either. All in the name of diversity, of course!

Now let's move on to politics. Under my plan, beginning with the 2008 presidential campaign, every white male candidate would have to tell the American people where he stands on affirmative action as it is currently practiced—meaning that race is used not just as a factor, but often as the factor in deciding who gets into college or who gets hired in the workplace. Once we've established who's for it and who's against it, we would then use the University of Michigan affirmative action plan as our model. Under that plan, certain applicants got twenty extra "admission points" simply because they were minorities. The system worked quite well. It kept many highly qualified white kids out, since they had the wrong skin color. Diversity, as we all know by now, is more important than anything else.

And so it is with presidential politics. Last time I checked, this country has never elected a black president. That's because Americans are racists. If they weren't, they would have elected a fine, decent, honorable man like Al Sharpton, when he ran.

Under my plan every white male candidate who comes out in favor of affirmative action—if he is running against a woman or a racial minority—would have to spot that candidate ten percentage points before the votes are even counted, to make up for past injustices against women and minorities. So if the white male candidate were to "win" the vote by, say, nine percentage points—he would in fact lose the election, because of the ten bonus points. What could be more fair?

Satire, yes, but the point he makes is that racial preferences do nothing for "diversity"; the divide is only increased. It becomes reverse institutional racism. Why do we have to go through that all over again?

The answer? Because it makes people feel better to think that something exculpatory is being done to redress grievances. And if that something bears an uncanny resemblance to the flawed racist policies of the past, well then, we have a lot of guilt to atone for.

It's masochism, self-flagellation. However, many people opposed to this reverse discrimination say nothing because being in the crosshairs of the diversity crowd's gunsights isn't too far removed from what would have happened to a white bus driver in Selma, Alabama, in the 50s who dared to allow blacks to sit in the front of the bus.

Remember what happened to Lawrence Summers, former Harvard President and former Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton? The reverse discrimination/affirmative action crowd at Harvard disgorged him from his position as President because he dared to say out loud that he thought that genetics might be a reason why there were fewer women in the fields of math and the hard sciences.

Summers crumpled under the relentless criticism from the diversity mavens because he knew that he had said something entirely out of character for a Harvard President with the pedigree he has. He apologized repeatedly and abjectly for having strayed from the fold. He even went so far as to pledge other people's money to increase diversity awareness at Harvard. None of it was good enough for that crowd, though. Summers resigned and order was restored, the order of the right-thinking diversifiers. (A very good synopsis and analysis of Summers' gaffe can be found here.)

The Crazies insist that their guilt-ridden compassion should be the law of the land and the Wimps accept the craziness as the price of high office. Isn't it time for "a little rebellion, now and then" that Jefferson called for?

Recent commentary: the Commutation

2007-07-04T07:37:00.000-05:00

Was President Bush right in commuting Lewis Libby's sentence?

(published 9-Jul-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

He certainly has the Constitutional right. Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, can spout off all he likes about a congressional investigation, but the President's power to pardon is absolute. What's fascinating to consider is what someone else might do with the pardoning power. Hillary Clinton said last month that "Nonviolent offenders should not be serving hard time in our prisons." Sounds like all the pot smoking Democrats in Leavenworth might have freedom to look forward to. But just 4 days later she said: "This commutation sends the clear signal that ... cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice." Not that I understand what that means, exactly, but it seems that certain non-violent offenders, namely Republicans, deserve prison. Ex-President Clinton pardoned actual violent criminals, Puerto Rican terrorist bombers, just before his wife's Senate race in New York, a stronghold of Puerto Rican votes. Might cynicism trump justice, too? But that's different: they vote Democrat.

For Democrats who just aren't sure...

2007-06-18T20:54:00.000-05:00

On being correct, I

2007-06-18T19:58:00.000-05:00

Public school zero-tolerance policies are sometimes taken to extremes. This isn't in dispute. It's simply hilarious to watch. Political correctness is the emperor's new clothing.

So if a fifth-grade boy at Cornerstone at Pedregal School in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, wishes to glorify the military at his school's promotion ceremony, and every student is granted the opportunity to decorate a mortarboard cap with personal expression of his goals and dreams, what on earth is wrong with decorating his cap with U. S. military symbols and plastic army men? Apparently, a lot:

On Thursday, before the ceremony, one boy was told he couldn't participate unless he agreed to clip off the tips of the plastic guns carried by the minuscule GIs on his cap. Ten others complied with the order before the event.

Leonard, a first-year principal, didn't respond to several requests for comment, deferring to district administrators, who said the toys with miniature rifles and grenades violated a zero-tolerance weapons policy.

Leonard "directed students not place images of weapons on student-created mortarboards to be used in the promotion ceremony," according to a district statement. "The district fully supports her decision to comply with school rules and practices. In addition, practically all fifth-grade parents understood and accepted this decision and, in some cases, modified the student mortarboards, sans the weapon images."

In enforcing the decision, the district cited its Safe Schools policy and the federal Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, a federal law designed to remove firearms from schools.

The policy, however, is a little vague:

A copy of the district's Safe Schools policy obtained by the Daily Breeze includes no mention of toy army men. Students found to be "possessing, selling or otherwise furnishing a firearm" are expelled for one year, the policy states.

Weapons are also mentioned in the board's "weapons and dangerous instruments" policy that allows only authorized law enforcement or security personnel to possess "weapons, imitation firearms or dangerous instruments of any kind" on school grounds.

You will note in the picture above that the young fellow complied with the school policy by cutting off the hands of his toy soldiers...but then bandaged them with gauze and fake blood. Good for him!

A tribute to Salman Rushdie

2007-06-18T18:44:00.001-05:00

The disgusting religious persecution of author Sir Salman Rushdie continues:

A government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie’s recent knighthood justified suicide bombing.

The question of blasphemy in The Satanic Verses, Rushdie’s 1988 tale of a prophet misled by the devil, remains a deeply sensitive issue in much of the Muslim world and the author’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week has inflamed anti-British sentiment.

Mehdi Kuchakzadeh, a Tehran MP, declared: “Rushdie died the moment the late Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] issued the fatwa.”

Forouz Rajaefar, the Organisation to Commemorate Martyrs of the Muslim World's secretary general, said: “The British and the supporters of the anti-Islam Salman Rushdie could rest assured that the writer’s nightmare will not end until the moment of his death and we will bestow kisses on the hands of whomsoever is able to execute this apostate.”

Ijaz-ul-Haq, Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister, told the assembly in Islamabad that the award of the knighthood excused suicide bombing. “If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet then it is justified,” he said. "We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims."

Somebody get me a tissue. I am unaccountably broken up by the spectre of 1.5 billion Muslims with their g-strings in a Gordian over this.

Long live Western Civilization!

Recent commentary: favorite quote

2007-06-08T06:58:00.001-05:00

What's your favorite quote?

(published 11-Jun-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Oh, man! That's like asking for my favorite word! How about a quick potpourri? Robert Heinlein: "Everything in excess! To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks!" P. J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to the government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenage boys." Harry Browne: "Government breaks your leg, hands you a crutch, and tells you you're better off." Hard to beat Mark Twain: "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." Can't leave out Ben Franklin: "A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats." Thomas Babington Macaulay: "Many politicians lay it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim."

Congressman, step away from the pump

2007-05-26T12:28:00.000-05:00

Sooner or later it had to happen. Gas prices continue to rise so Congress decided to do something rather than leave well enough alone. As Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute writes:

Tuesday, they voted to sick the Justice Department on OPEC for violating U.S. anti-trust laws (good luck with that). Wednesday, they voted to ban service stations from taking "unfair advantage" of motorists and outlawed "unconscionably excessive" prices for gasoline and other fuels were the president to declare an energy emergency.
What constitutes taking "unfair advantage"? Congress doesn't say. Apparently, taking "fair advantage" of motorists is O.K. And what is an "unconscionably excessive" price? Again, silence. Presumably, "conscionably excessive" pricing is O.K., as is "unconscionably high" prices if we posit that there is a difference between a "high" price and an "excessive" price. The fact that Congress passes this sort of gobbledygook suggests that they aren't particularly serious about doing much beyond providing themselves a talking point when they return to their districts this weekend.

So we have yet another set of laws that matches the posturing of our legislators. Do you feel better?

A serious international web site

2007-05-24T06:35:00.000-05:00

Just in case, as James Taranto of Best of the Web Today says, "some adult hasn't stepped in and taken it down", here are three screen shots of the graphics accompanying a "survey" on the Amnesty International web site. The survey itself? Well! Maybe it's something you want to take!

Who's got the worst human rights record?

Vote for Darth Vader
Torture, enslavement of Wookiees, decimation of the Alderaanian civilization.
Vote for Hobgoblin
Attacks on Spiderman, gassing civilian populations, using innocents as human shields.
Vote for Dick Cheney
Torture, black sites, "disappearances," kangaroo courts, indefinite detention, and more!

I haven't read the book but...

2007-05-21T18:57:00.000-05:00

...the review had some very interesting and compelling things to say about the Iraq War. But first...

I haven't said much about the war. I supported our entry into the war for a number of reasons. But there has always been an issue that holds me back from being you-rah-rah about our continuing, though necessary, effort there.

That issue is the new kind of war that the U. S. invented in the waning years of the Reagan administration: technology-aided warfare. Because our armed forces had come out of a period of low defense budgets after the Vietnam War, the appeal of techno-war with little commitment of ground forces seemed to be just the ticket for future conflicts. The U. S. could keep its nose from getting bloodied if we just bombed from afar with smart bombs. Of course, when we did get our nose bloodied, as in Somalia, we ducked out. Those conflicts didn't fit the profile of low-intensity ground action with high-intensity air strikes.

The Gulf War seemed to justify faith in high-tech operations. I think everybody remembers the pictures of the incredible smart bomb strikes. Not all of our bombs hit what they were aimed at, but there was extensive effort to make it seem as if they did. The mop-up of Saddam Hussein's much-vaunted Republican Guard seemed to be an anti-climax after the pummeling it took from our Air Force. We certainly didn't stint when it came to applying overwhelming ground forces for that mop-up, though.

In the mid-90s I remember wondering how the heck the Balkans could be pacified simply by bombing everything in sight. The Clinton administration did everything it could to prevent troop casualties in the former Yugoslavia. That was its main strategy; but there didn't seem to be any way that Milosevic would stop slaughtering Kosovars unless there were at least some troops on the ground. Clinton managed to get away with putting the United Nations peace-keeping forces in the front lines, so to speak. The U.S. lost far more men in training accidents than we lost in combat in those years.

Then after the Balkans came Afghanistan and the Iraq War. With a lightning fast ground assault supported by better smart bombs than ever, the United States and coalition forces waltzed into Kabul and Baghdad in jig time. The total of the ground forces was much smaller than that used for the liberation of Kuwait in 1991. The faith we had in our technologically-backed armed forces was nigh onto unshakeable.

But we have been shaken, and, according to the book I mentioned up-front, it's because we had too much faith in technology. That is the conclusion drawn in Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy, by Frederick W. Kagan. The book is reviewed by Colin Dueck in the Spring 2007 edition of the Claremont Review of Books. Unfortunately, there is no on-line version of the review, so I'm going to transcribe portions of it here.

As I said at the outset, I haven't read the book myself, but this review makes me want to very much. Dueck summarizes the points Kagan makes in his book:

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the argument began to gain steam that precision air strikes could be used to attack a country's leadership, infrastructure, troops, communications, and equipment to paralyze and overwhelm it without the need for heavy, costly ground campaigns. In some circles, the first Gulf War was viewed as a vindication of this argument. The air campaign against Saddam in 1991 certainly achieved remarkable effects. It removed Iraq's air force from the equation; undermined and damaged Iraqi command and control, communcations, and logistics; demoralized Iraq's rank and file soldiers; and dramatically reduced the Iraqi army's maneuverability. As Kagan explains, however, it was not airpower by itself that won the Gulf War: a major ground campaign, executed with skill and preparation by the U. S. Army and Marine Corps, was critical in forcing Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait. There is no reason to believe that this outcome could have been reached through airpower alone. Yet the images of precision weapons destroyig Iraqi targets from great distances encouraged the impression that a new age had dawned in warfare, an age of smart bombs and real-time intelligence, in which the U. S. would be able to fight its conflicts at minimal cost or commitment on the ground, by relying on high-flying technological advanteages.

The impressions arising from the first Gulf War grew over the course of the 1990s. America's pin-prick wars against Slobodan Milosevic during the decade were not really fought in the absence of ground support. The United States relied upon MUslim and Croat proxies in 1995, and upon the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999 together with the ultimate threat of some kind of U. S. grouhd intervention to achieve significaant effects against Serb forces. It is still not enitrely clear why Milosevic conceded when he did in 1999; Russian diplomatic pressure seems to have played an important part. In any case, the widespread perception that the war over Kosovo was won entirely from the air perhaps the first such victory in history only strenghthened the hand of air-power enthusiasts and advocates of transformation. War could now be seen as a kind of targeting drill, in which the United States would launch precision strikes from great distances against critical nodes in the enemy's command, logistical, and communications sytem, while minimizing risk to American forces. Here was the military equivalent of Dell Computers, delivering light, efficient, "just-in-time warfare" to mimic the wonders of information-age business models. It was a vision that had much appeal during the Clinton years for reasons financial, political, and bureaucratic. The practical international and military disadvantages of this vision its inability to accomplish the political mission at hand or to deliver effective control over events unfolding on the ground were not given equal consideration. Apparently nobody in high office asked the question: what if, after being pummeled by our high-tech precision weaponry, the enemy does not surrender?

Far from disowning the concept of light, agile, long-distance warfare, George W. Bush campainged in 2000 in favor of the military's accelerated transformation. He also campaigned against "nation-building" missions overseas. The appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense indicated his seriousness in both regards. Rumsfeld made military transformation his leading priority, downplayed the importance of operations other than war, and pressed his vision with keen bureaucratic skill and eenergy. After the terrorist attacks of September 2001, he saw no reason to question this emphasis on transformation. On the contrary, he saw the war against the Taliban, and then the invasion of Iraq, as opportunities to fight and win America's wars using transformational weapons and techniques, without the burden of heavy or protracted postwar stability operations. In practical terms, this meant conducting both wars with a relatively small number of troops on the ground, and with every intention of having those troops leave as quickly as they had arrived.

The war in Iraq has now lasted almost four years, degenerating first into a bloody counterinsurgency and then into multidirectional sectarian violence of increasing brutality. The war in Afghanistan, though less visible in the daily headlines, has also seen disappointments, as Taliban forces fight to recover their former influence. We are now entitled to ask whether or not the emphasis on military transformation Rumsfeld's preferred method, and apparently President Bush's as well, for fighting these wars has been vindicated by events.

Kagan's achievement in Finding the Target is to show that America's "postwar" frustrations were not simply unpredictable complications of war, but were massively, and unnecessarily, aggravated by the administration's emphasis on military transformation. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the administration failed to match military means to political ends. The obvious and stated purpose of American intervention was not only to overthrow hostile regimes, but also to create a stable postwar environment in which support for terrorism could not flourish. The latter goal was at least as important as the former; without it, neither invasion would have made sense. Yet despite lip service to the contrary, the planning for both wars was conducted with an astonishing indifference to the entirely foreseeable need to create a secure political environment after conventional military operations had ceased.

To say that hindsight is 20/20 is simply not good enough: both contingencies [the escape of al-Qaeda terrorists from Afghanistan and the period of chaos and the rise of the insurgency in Iraq] were foreseen and warned of at the time by numerous defense, intelligence, and foreign policy experts and officials within the U. S. Yet the administration apparently chose to ignore them because of its commitment to a particular form of light, detached, high-tech warfare.

What is to be done? The U. S. military has learned (or more properly, re-learned) hard lessons about the nature of counterinsurgency and stability operations since 2003 and has begun to move in the right direction. Kagan believes our military forces are over-extended and recommends immediately increasing the size of both the Army and Marine Corps. ... But if the U. S. is going to intervene abroad to establish friendly new governments, it has no choice but to prepare itself for some form of nation-building. Troops must be properly trained not only to fight and win high-tech conventional wars against conventional opponents, but to prevail in postwar conditions against guerilla tactics and terrorist insurgencies. A primary emphasis on technological transformation is positively unhelpful under such circumstances, because it creates the illusion that these relatively low-tech, messy, close-in, unconventional conflicts are simply temporary distractions from the larger and more important project of modernization. They are not. On the contrary, they are the only kind of wars the U. S. is actively fighting, and there is no more urgent priority than winning them.

This fills in quite a few pieces of the puzzle for me, particularly my understanding of the progress of U. S. strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will never be free of the need for well-trained troops on the ground to secure the political goals of war. Our faith in high-tech has caused us to forget that. It has also caused opponents of the war to clamor for withdrawal; the justification being that a precipitous withdrawal is the best if not the only practical option left open to us. The number of casualties is the flag around which the anti-war troops are rallying, so to speak.

I don't believe that this is a war we can walk away from. I support the continued funding of our forces with increased troop strength to make use of the hard lessons they've learned. In no way do I feel that quickly withdrawing our troops will 1) make us safer, 2) repair our relations with our allies, or 3) bring peace to the region or to the United States.

Returning to the "nuisance" of pre-9/11 terrorism (as Senator Kerry put it in 2004), or to an "acceptable level of violence" as the Brits say about the troubles in Northern Ireland, is not our way. This struggle is one we have to face. We can't wish our way out of it, we can't negotiate our way out of it. We have to show that we are willing to fight and die to relieve ourselves of this threat, this reality, these butchers.

This year's top illusions

2007-05-20T10:21:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd pretty much seen everything in the realm of optical illusions, but I was wrong. I was browsing mindhacks.com and I found this year's "Best Visual Illusion of the Year" contest. The top 10 finalists are featured on the web site. Some amazingingly beautiful illusions. I find it hard to imagine how they'd be represented without computer technology. The example pictured above is the initial position of my favorite of the 10. The web site allows animation and selection of different properties. Check it out.

Recent commentary: Gas boycott

2007-05-10T21:38:00.000-05:00

Do you plan on participating in the May 15 "gas out"?

(published 14-May-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

Stupid ideas never die; they live forever on the Internet. The Gas Out is the perfect protest: it doesn't cost anything, you don't have to march in the rain with people who haven't bathed in a while...it isn't even inconvenient! You simply buy gas a day earlier or later than May 15th and voila! Those evil oil companies will lose ... um ... well, nothing. Talk about a hollow threat. With a real boycott you have to actually sacrifice something. The Gas Out will have as much impact on the oil companies as World Jump Day had on the climate. What was World Jump Day? It was an international campaign to get everybody on Earth to jump up at the same exact instant. When everybody landed the earth's orbit would be perturbed just enough to push it a bit further from the sun, thus ending global warming! Didn't you jump? I did!

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXVI

2007-05-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

Another round-up of recent anthropogenic global warming stories...

First, "These things are fact, not hypothesis." That's what Wendy Baker, the president of Lloyd's America, said about her company's report on the awful things that are going to might happen:

Floods and drought: Lloyd's assesses climate change

Mon May 7, 2007 7:06PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lloyd's of London, the world's oldest insurer, offered a gloomy forecast of floods, droughts and disastrous storms over the next 50 years in a recently published report on impending climate changes.

"These things are fact, not hypothesis," said Wendy Baker, the president of Lloyd's America in an interview on Monday. "You don't have to be a believer in global warming to recognize the climate is changing. The industry has to get ready for the changes that are coming."

In a report on catastrophe trends Lloyd's is disseminating to the insurance industry, a bevy of British climate experts, including Sir David King, chief scientist to the British government, warn of increased flooding in coastal areas and a rapid rise in sea level as ice caps melt in Greenland and Antarctica.

Northern European coastal levels could rise more than a meter (3 feet) in a few decades, particularly if the Gulf Stream currents change, the report says.

Floods, which now account for about half of all deaths from natural disasters, could multiply and become more destructive, with annual flood damages in England and Wales reaching 10 times today's level, according to some studies.

At the same time, drought patterns that are already forming in some parts of the world are going to get worse, particularly in southern Africa.

Even the lush Amazon may dry up, and with less vegetation, more carbon dioxide will leak into the atmosphere, making the global warming problem even worse, the Lloyd's study says.

Note the qualifiers: "could", "may", "impending", "according to some studies". So Ms. Baker feels justified in declaring all of these events – which may never happen – "facts".

But wait a minute! Here's the true cause of Lloyd's alarm:

Baker said Lloyd's has formed a partnership with American International Group, the world's biggest insurer, Harvard University's Center for Health and the Global Environment and the Insurance Information Institute, a research group.
The four will hold a forum in the fall of 2007 to look at the severity and consequences of future natural catastrophes.

"The property casualty industry had an easy year in 2006, when there were no U.S. hurricanes," Baker said. "But the next one may make Katrina look inexpensive."

There's your "catastrophe" for you: the destruction of the insurance industry from a global deluge of ... wait for it! ... insurance claims!

Because of the diligence of environmentalists of all stripes, but particularly the global warming johnnies, we've all been told ad infinitum, ad nauseum, that lots of things we do are bad for the planet. Now it's human children that are "bad for the planet":

Children 'bad for planet'

By Sarah-Kate Templeton in London

May 07, 2007 12:00am

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

"The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child."

It's curious, though: Britain and pretty much all of the western European countries aren't producing enough children to replace themselves. In the United States the birth rate per child-bearing woman is only a skosh above 2, barely replacement level. In Spain the birth rate is below 1.3 children per woman. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that, barring other factors, Spain will just fade away after a while.

No mention that the poplulation is only growing in most western countries because of immigration. This thesis is bogus.

Next, now we get to the real heart of the matter: mankind itself is an evil virus:

Species work interdependently to develop mutually beneficial strategies that maintain and strengthen ecosystems. Every species removed diminishes the system and weakens the collective body of the biosphere.

Humans are presently acting upon this body in the same manner as an invasive virus with the result that we are eroding the ecological immune system.

A virus kills its host and that is exactly what we are doing with our planet’s life support system. We are killing our host the planet Earth.

I was once severely criticized for describing human beings as being the “AIDS of the Earth.” I make no apologies for that statement. Our viral like behaviour can be terminal both to the present biosphere and ourselves. We are both the pathogen and the vector. But we also have the capability of being the anti-virus if only we can recognize the symptoms and address the disease with effective measures of control.

Those are the words of Paul Watson, founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Here's what he recommends:

We need to radically and intelligently reduce human populations to fewer than one billion. We need to eliminate nationalism and tribalism and become Earthlings. And as Earthlings, we need to recognize that all the other species that live on this planet are also fellow citizens and also Earthlings. This is a planet of incredible diversity of life-forms; it is not a planet of one species as many of us believe.

In this case, I have to agree with Ann Coulter:

"Global warming" is the left's pagan rage against mankind. If we can't produce industrial waste, then we can't produce. Some of us — not the ones with mansions in Malibu and Nashville is my guess — are going to have to die. ... If we have to live in a pure "natural" environment like the Indians, then our entire transcontinental nation can only support about 1 million human beings. Sorry, fellas — 299 million of you are going to have to go.

Next ... oh, gawd! Something else is killing the planet!

Travel: the new tobacco

The founder of Rough Guides now believes that our addiction to 'binge flying' is killing the planet

Mark Ellingham, founder of the Rough Guides and the man who encouraged a generation of travellers to pack a rucksack and explore the world, has compared the damage done by tourism to the impact of the tobacco industry.

Ellingham now says travelling is so environmentally destructive that there is no such thing as a genuinely ethical holiday. He wants the industry to educate travellers about the damage their holidays do to the environment. The development he regrets most is the public's appetite for what he calls 'binge-flying'.

"The tobacco industry fouled up the world while denying [it] as much as possible for as long as they could," said Ellingham. "If the travel industry rosily goes ahead as it is doing, ignoring the effect that carbon emissions from flying are having on climate change, we are putting ourselves in a very similar position to the tobacco industry."

Doesn't it strike you as very difficult to feel guilty about any of this?

One more, one more, from Al Gore:

Gore sees 'spiritual crisis' in warming

05/05/2007 11:12 PM CDT

Anton Caputo
Express-News

Playing equal parts visionary, cheerleader and comedian, Al Gore brought his message of how to fight global warming to a capacity crowd of receptive architects Saturday in San Antonio.

The former vice president referred continually to a "new way of thinking" that is emerging in the country and offered hope in the battle to control the effects global warming will have on the planet.

"It's in part a spiritual crisis," Gore told the crowd in the Convention Center at the American Institute of Architects national convention. "It's a crisis of our own self-definition — who we are. Are we creatures destined to destroy our own species? Clearly not."

His speech was often interrupted by thunderous applause and explosive laughter from the several thousand architects who packed the Convention Center's ballroom.

"I used to be the next president of the United States," Gore deadpanned to the laughing crowd as he introduced himself. "I don't find that funny. Put yourself in my position. I flew in Air Force Two for eight years. Now I have to take off my shoes to get on an airplane."

In between jokes, Gore called for a change in thinking about climate issues and the pollution that causes global warming. He was especially critical of the business community's current focus on quarterly profits at the expense of sustainable business practices.

"That's functionally insane, but that is the dominant reality in the world today," Gore said.

The only one insane is...well, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic said it best:

Perhaps only Mr Al Gore may be saying something along these lines: a sane person hardly.

Finally, sanity. The dean of American meterologists, Wisconsin's own Reid Bryson, Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology, has a lot to say to the global warmists:

Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate.

“I was laughed off the platform for saying that,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News.

In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom.

“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

And the air is suddenly clearer. Don't let the global warmists grind you down!

I have no words

2007-05-04T21:59:00.000-05:00

Do we in the Western world consider ourselves civilized? We are certainly aware of the distant and the not-too-distant past history of the Christian religions. And there are some who see no moral difference between Christianity and Islam.

So what do you think?

The moment a teenage girl was stoned to death for loving the wrong boy

3rd May 2007

A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because she loved a teenage boy of the wrong religion.

As a horrifying video of the stoning went out on the Internet, the British arm of Amnesty International condemned the death of Du’a Khalil Aswad as "an abhorrent murder" and demanded that her killers be brought to justice.

Reports from Iraq said a local security force witnessed the incident, but did nothing to try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding in fear for his life.

Miss Aswad, a member of a minority Kurdish religious group called Yezidi, was condemned to death as an "honour killing" by other men in her family and hardline religious leaders because of her relationship with the Sunni Muslim boy.

The link also contains video of the death of the young girl. You've been warned.

Jerry was a man

2007-05-04T21:50:00.000-05:00

That's the title of a 60-year-old short story by Robert Heinlein. It relates the successful attempt by a shady lawyer to get a genetically modified chimpanzee declared human in court.

Life imitates art:

Activists Want Chimp Declared a 'Person'

May 4 12:24 PM US/Eastern
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - In some ways, Hiasl is like any other Viennese: He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to paint and enjoys chilling out watching TV.

But he doesn't care for coffee, and he isn't actually a person—at least not yet.

In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26- year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person."

Hiasl's supporters argue he needs that status to become a legal entity that can receive donations and get a guardian to look out for his interests.

"Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights," said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of the Association Against Animal Factories, a Vienna animal rights group.

"We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions," Theuer said.

Does anybody still think Venezuela is a socialist paradise?, II

2007-05-03T19:03:00.000-05:00

This story goes right along with Chavez' plan to drop three zeroes from the currency next February:

Chavez Threatens to Nationalize Banks

May 3, 4:53 PM (ET)

By JORGE RUEDA

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday threatened to nationalize the country's banks and largest steel producer, accusing them of unscrupulous practices.

"Private banks have to give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost," Chavez said. "If banks don't agree with this, it's better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalize them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country and not to speculate and produce huge profits."

It was not clear if Chavez was only referring to Venezuelan banks like Mercantil Servicios Financieros CA and Banco Provincial SA, or if he was also aiming the threat at major international banks with subsidiaries in the country, such as Citigroup Inc. (C) and Spanish banks Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBV) and Banco Santander Central Hispano SA. (STD)

You see, if the banks are nationalized then the devaluation of the currency can go smoothly and the government can prop up the banks quietly without a fuss. Well, not as much of a fuss as with commercial rather than government-run banks.

I remember wishing that Oregon would have passed its universal health care scheme (an 11% payroll tax to pay for it) back in 2002. Then we could all watch as the experiment unraveled. But now we have a whole country turning into a "socialist paradise" at top speed and we all get to watch its demise.

Oh, did I mention that Chavez has threatened to nationalize the Sidor steel company, too?

Sidor "has created a monopoly" and sold the bulk of its production overseas, forcing local producers to import tubes and other products from China and elsewhere, Chavez said.

"If the company Sidor ... does not immediately agree to change this process, they will obligate me to nationalize it," Chavez said.

"I prefer not to," Chavez added, as he ordered Mining Minister Jose Khan to depart immediately for the company's headquarters and come back with a recommendation with 24 hours.

I like the sop he gave to Sidor: "I prefer not to" nationalize you. But just to make sure you're paying attention, I'm dispatching my Mining Minister to make sure you get the message.

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXV

2007-04-30T18:05:00.000-05:00

A whole host of news on the anthopogenic global warming front today, some on the scare-mongering side, some on the skeptic side. We'll start with the scare mongers.

Agence France Presse reports that France has experienced the hottest April since reliable nationwide record-keeping began in 1950

with the average temperature four degrees Celsius higher than the usual 10 degrees (50 Fahrenheit), the national weather office said Monday.

In the northern half of France, averages recorded between the first and the 24 of April were between 8 and 12 degrees higher than the seasonal norm, said Meteo France.

Holy cow! That oughta give global warming a huge boost, don't you think? But at the end of this brief article comes a review of the GW data:

Amid growing fears over global warming, experts say average temperatures have already risen 0.74 degrees Celsius over the past century and predict that they will rise another four degrees Celsius by the end of this century.

So it would appear that 8-12 degrees higher than seasonal norms doesn't translate into a big uptick in the rate of global warming temperature increases. But couldn't the conclusion be drawn that the press adds the global warming reference to forward the idea that those huge increases in seasonal temperature norms are caused by global warming?

Next, our erstwhile Vice President has stuck his oar in the water of environmental politics in Canada. According to the AP:

Canada aims to reduce the current level of greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020. But the government acknowledged it would not meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which requires 35 industrialized countries to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The country's emissions are now 30 percent above 1990 levels.

So Mr. Gore said:

...the plan did not make clear how Canada would reach its 2020 emissions goal. He also criticized the plan for allowing industries to pollute more if they use emissions-cutting technologies while increasing production.

"In my opinion, it is a complete and total fraud," Gore said Saturday. "It is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

At least he also acknowledged that, as an American, he had "no right to interfere" in a Canadian decision. But, by golly, he was going to get some TV time by denouncing them!

Then there's a story about how a British airline has rejected the advances of numerous "snake oil" carbon offset entrepreneurs and decided to offer carbon offsets to its passengers by itself. This whole area is one that messes with my head. According to the Guardian story:

Carbon offsetting is one of the most popular means of atoning for CO2-generating activities such as flying or driving to work. It allows consumers to contribute to projects such as tree planting to negate the effect of their flight or commute.

"Atoning?" What the heck does that mean, you ask? Well, it beats my pair of jacks! Atone for what? Elsewhere in that same article comes this:

There is also debate about the efficiency of such schemes. Scientists warned recently that one of the most popular offsetting investments, in planting trees, could contribute to global warming if the trees were planted outside the tropics because they would trap heat and absorb carbon.

So if you do your personal part to save the planet by planting trees, you might be making things worse by forgetting that tree-planting to offset your carbon dioxide emissions only works if you live in the tropics. At least, that's the way it sounds to me.

Now, to get away from the fever swamps of the global warmists, more from the United States' leading hurricane forecaster:

global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming. William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

Well, hallelujah! Don't let up on 'em, Mr. Gray! This story appeared in the Daily Telegraph relating Gray's presentation before a group of Members of Parliament in England:

Dr Gray had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming.

"They are blaming it all on humans, which is crazy," he said.

"We're not the cause of it."

Dr Gray said in the past 40 years the number of serious hurricanes making landfall on the US Atlantic coast had declined even though carbon dioxide levels had risen.

He said increasing levels of carbon dioxide would not produce more, or stronger, hurricanes.

Dr Gray, 77, has long criticised the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Music to my ears!

And this from Mars:

From The Sunday Times
April 29, 2007

Climate change hits Mars

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

I like that last bit: "...could be natural phenomena." As if somehow it could be un-natural, perhaps human-caused phenomena! Say! Maybe it's all of those Martian exploration bots that we've been sending up there lately, and those rockets that orbited the planet and polluted the atmosphere!

And, finally, the Daily Mail reports that UN scientists – the ones that brought you the IPCC report that has been so much in the news in the past couple of months – are suggesting something very interesting to save the planet:

Nuclear power will save the world, UN scientists claim

30th April 2007

Leading scientists are today expected to back a major expansion of nuclear power as a way of saving the world from global warming.

Other measures in a United Nations report include the use of GM crops to produce biofuels and the "capture and storage" underground of harmful CO2 gases.

The new report is the third this year by the UN climate panel. An IPCC report in February said it was at least 90 per cent certain that mankind was to blame for global warming and on 6 April it warned of more hunger, droughts and rising seas.

"We're moving from two very sobering reports to what we can do about climate change," said Achim Steiner, the head of the UN's environment programme. "And we can do it."

As well as plans for more nuclear power, genetically modified biofuels and carbon storage, the report sets out a vision of the future that is a mixture of existing policies, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy from wind and wave farms, and more futuristic ideas for hydrogen car fleets and "intelligent" buildings which can control energy use.

Of course, not all global warmists are happy about this development:

The report has also angered environmentalists. Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth said: "Nuclear reactors are dangerous and land clearance and chemical pesticides and fertilisers used to grow fuel crops can cause huge environmental damage."

My, my! You just can't please these people!

Tax Freedom Day '07

2007-04-30T08:32:00.000-05:00

How long do you work each year in order to unload your tax burden? The Tax Foundation calculates "Tax Freedom Day" every year. Today, April 30th, is that day for the United States as a whole, though states vary quite a bit, from April 12th in Alabama and Oklahoma up to May 20th in Connecticut. In other words -- as if you needed to be reminded -- your total tax burden is discharged only after working for four whole months, 1/3 of the entire year. Do you think you're getting your money's worth? Will Rogers said, "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for."

All the data and rankings are here, but I thought I'd reproduce a few of the graphics, just to make you feel good about your government! (Note: click on the graphics to see larger versions)

First is a chart showing where Tax Freedom Day has fallen in the past up to today. Note the big dip after the Bush tax cuts:

How many days, on average, do Americans work to pay their various kinds of taxes (sales, property, income, etc.)? This chart tells you. (NB: Did you know that you're on the hook for corporate income taxes?):

Finally, how much, on average, does an American work to earn his daily bread compared to how long he works just to pay his taxes?

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXIV

2007-04-29T20:43:00.000-05:00

I'd say bovine Beano would do the trick:

New law sounds full of hot air

April 28, 2007

BARMY Euro MPs are demanding new laws to stop cows and sheep PARPING.

Their call came after the UN said livestock emissions were a bigger threat to the planet than transport.

The MEPs have asked the European Commission to “look again at the livestock question in direct connection with global warming”.

The official EU declaration demands changes to animals’ diets, to capture gas emissions and recycle manure.

They warned: “The livestock sector presents the greatest threat to the planet.” The proposal will be looked at by the 27 member states.

The UN says livestock farming generates 18 per cent of greenhouse gases while transport accounts for 14 per cent.

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXIII

2007-04-25T18:08:00.000-05:00

If any more evidence was needed to prove that global warmists are politically motivated and not, repeat not, motivated by the truth, there is this story from the Associated Press on efforts by a group of British scientists to edit a film openly skeptical about anthropogenic global warming:

Film on Global Warming Is Challenged

Wednesday April 25, 3:22 pm ET
By Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Writer

Scientists Demand Changes to Global Warming Skeptic's Film

LONDON (AP) -- A group of British climate scientists is demanding changes to a skeptical documentary about global warming, saying there are grave errors in the program billed as a response to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

"The Great Global Warming Swindle" aired on British television in March and is coming out soon on DVD. It argues that man-made emissions have a marginal impact on the world's climate and warming can better be explained by changing patterns of solar activity.

An open letter sent Tuesday by 38 scientists, including the former heads of Britain's academy of sciences and Britain's weather office, called on producer Wag TV to remove what it called "major misrepresentations" from the film before the DVD release -- a demand its director said was tantamount to censorship.

Can you imagine the "heads of Britain's academy of sciences" writing such a letter to the director of a movie openly skeptical about, say, evolution or the Big Bang? I hear no outcry from these "heads" regarding the exaggerations and hyperbole in Gore's film.

Speaking of our erstwhile Vice President,

Gore has been hired as an adviser to the British government, which plans to send copies of his film to schools around England.

So, according to the article,

British broadcast law demands impartiality on matters of major political and industrial controversy -- and penalties can be imposed for misrepresentations of fact.

Oh, really? Then they must already have decided that "An Inconvenient Truth" is the gospel according to Gore. No misrepresentations there, no sir! No fixation on the absolute maximum possible negative effects of any and all conceivable factors contributing to climate change to make it look like humans are the major and most destructive players. No, it's completely politically neutral! Honest!

Zero intelligence, C

2007-04-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

This will be the final posting under the title "Zero intelligence" or "I love stories like this". This is the one hundredth posting. I find it fitting that the series ends with this story:

Boy jailed over clock change mix-up

Thursday, April 5, 2007

A fifteen-year old boy in America was incarcerated for twelve days, wrongly accused of making a hoax bomb threat - because his school had forgotten that the clocks had gone forward.

Cody Webb was arrested last month, after Hempfield Area High School received a bomb threat on their student hotline – which provides a range of information to students about the school - at 3.17am on March 11th. They believed they'd found the culprit when they traced the phone number they thought was responsible to Webb.

Unfortunately, they forgot that the clocks had switched to Daylight Saving Time that morning. Webb, who's never even had a detention in his life, had actually made his call an hour earlier.

Despite the fact that the recording of the call featured a voice that sounded nothing like Webb's, the police arrested Webb and he spent 12 days in a juvenile detention facility before the school eventually realised their mistake.

Webb gave an insight into the school's impressive investigative techniques, saying that he was ushered in to see the principal, Kathy Charlton. She asked him what his phone number was, and , according to Webb, when he replied 'she started waving her hands in the air and saying “we got him, we got him.”'

'They just started flipping out, saying I made a bomb threat to the school,' he told local television station KDKA. After he protested his innocence, Webb says that the principal said: 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.'

All charges against Webb have now been dropped.

So, might he at least get some extra credit for his extended field trip?

Inane, ineffectual, counter-productive and insulting to the intelligence

2007-04-16T14:11:00.000-05:00

That's what The Telegraph's Toby Harnden has to say about the boycott of Israeli goods by the British National Union of Journalists (NUJ). Why, you might ask, would journalists boycott a country's goods? Excellent question! According to Mr. Harnden, a member of the NUJ,

because of the "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon by Israel".

You might ask:

Israel's "savage, pre-planned attack" on Lebanon? Er, am I missing something or wasn't last summer's conflict sparked by Hezbollah firing rockets and mortars at Israeli border villages and kidnapping two Israeli soldiers (who still have not been released) and killing three other troops?

Harnden goes on:

[I]f the NUJ is going to go in for this sort of posturing, how about boycotting goods from countries that really abuse human rights? A glance down the list of NUJ motions reveals a childish fixation with trendy-Leftie causes. There's a Guantanamo motion that expresses "concern" (that'll make a difference) about "the systematic violation of human rights by the US Military".

Another "applauds the advances made by the Venezuelan people and government in redistributing the country's wealth" and condemns "disinformation" that encourages "unjustified stereotypes of the Venezuelan president as a dictator who is repressing the local media".

So the NUJ is now dictating that its members should all write that Hugo Chavez is a great chap? Clear the front pages. And if you read the anti-Israel motions, you will spot a complete absence of any sense of journalistic impartiality. The "slaughter of civilians" by Israel is condemned (no mention of suicide bombings or human rights abuses by Palestinian militias, needless to say), as is the "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon by Israel" and "continued attacks inside Lebanon following the defeat of its army by Hezbollah".

Well worth your time.

Weren't they supposed to be safe now?

2007-04-13T17:51:00.000-05:00

Shades of the 7th century! The Moors are coming! The Moors are coming! So says this story:

Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 13:11

Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"

By Sinikka Tarvainen

Madrid (dpa) - The emergence of a new al-Qaeda-linked organization in Northern Africa is alarming Spain, which is concerned about Islamists' calls for the reconquest of the country they regard as a lost part of the Muslim world. "We will not be in peace until we set our foot again in our beloved al-Andalus," al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said on claiming responsibility for an attack which killed at least 24 people in Algiers on Wednesday.

Al-Andalus is the Moorish name for Spain, parts of which were ruled by Muslims for about eight centuries until the last Moorish bastion, Granada, succumbed to the Christian Reconquest in 1492.

The terrorists will undoubtedly attempt to extend their offensive from Northern Africa to European soil, anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon warned, cautioning that Spain was at a "very high risk" of suffering an Islamist attack.

The reference to al-Andalus was not the first by al-Qaeda, which has also vowed to put an end to the Spanish "occupation" of the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast.

Such announcements worry the security services in Spain, where 29 mainly Moroccan suspects are on trial for the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 and injured about 1,800 people.

Ohhhh! That's why there's all the hub-bub. That train bombing was punishment for Spain's part in the Iraq War; but the Spaniards weren't supposed to actually go after the perpetrators! I get it! If Spain would just have taken its lumps, just turned the other cheek like a good Christian nation, nobody else would get hurt! Nobody's country would be overrun by islamo-fascists!

Zero intelligence, XCIX

2007-04-11T18:51:00.000-05:00

It had to come to this eventually: white people in Seattle must acknowledge their "destructive power" by sending their kids to the White Privilege Conference at the University of Colorado. The Seattle School District

presumes racism is institutionalized in Seattle schools and that students of color are inherently disadvantaged.

Great way to start the day, isn't it, knowing that you're either advantaged or disadvantaged?

This is the Mission Statement of the WPC:

The Conference on White Privilege serves as a yearly opportunity to examine and explore issues of white privilege, diversity, multicultural education, multicultural leadership, social justice, race/racism, sexual orientation, gender relations, and other systems of privilege/oppression. It provides participants the opportunity to get honest about the type of society in which we live, and the advantages that accrue to some but not others. The conference offers a means to develop and sustain ongoing work to dismantle this system of white privilege, white supremacy, and oppression.

"Ongoing work to dismantle this system of white privilege." Did you know this was going on?

There is an incredible ... er, unbelievable ... um, interesting Q&A regarding the conference. Here's the whole ball of wax rolled up into the answer to the critical question (emphasis mine):

Q. Is this about proving how bad white folks are?

A. Our attempts to dismantle dominance and oppression must follow a path other than that of either vilifying or obliterating Whiteness... Whites need to acknowledge and work through the negative historical implications of 'Whiteness' and create for ourselves a transformed identity as White people committed to equality and social change. Our goal is neither to defy or denigrate Whiteness, but to diffuse its destructive power.

To teach my white students and my own children that they are 'not White' is to do them a disservice. To teach them that there a different ways of being White, and that they have a choice as White people to become champions of justice and social healing, is to provide them a positive direction for growth and to grant them the dignity of their own being.

Ye gods! Why can't we just teach the kids manners instead? Or is that "too white"?

What he said

2007-04-09T23:40:00.000-05:00

"Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies."

OK, are we clear on that point? Fine. Now what does the Professor have to say?

Why So Gloomy?

By Richard S. Lindzen
Newsweek International

April 16, 2007 issue - Judging from the media in recent months, the debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are almost certainly true. What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes. The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare. Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's no such thing as an optimal temperature—a climate at which everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

If you're a global warmist, you won't like the rest of this story, so you'd better just skip it.

It's about time

2007-04-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

I lost my aldermanic re-election bid to former Park and Recreation Commission President, Lee Hillstrom last Tuesday, 518-496. There are two polling places in the 3rd District in Neenah. I manned one at poll-closing time while my wife, Janet, manned the other. The vote total at my polling place was 310-305. For a fleeting moment I offered up a prayer that Janet would bring me a margin of victory from the other polling place of 6 votes. But then I remembered that Mr. Hillstrom lives in that part of the District and that he'd probably win by 100.

Janet came to pick me up and looked rather forlorn as I got into the car. I said, "Well, did Hillstrom win by a hundred?" "No," she said, "17."

So out of 1014 votes cast I lost by 22. I dropped Janet off at home and went out to pick up the rest of my yard signs – I wasn't going to risk any displeasure with my signs left up beyond Tuesday night. I then went to The Capitol Dome, the tavern owned by our 55th Assemblyman, Dean Kaufert. I had several beers with Mark Lange, the winner in District 1 over former police officer, Gary Radtke, and Mark's wife, Sue; Nick Piergrossi, the other District 1 alderman, 2nd District Alderman, Marge Bates and her husband, Forrest; Patricia and Larry Wirth.

We all got a chuckle from Channel 5's coverage of the Neenah elections. Not to say that I didn't appreciate how they presented the results on-screen. Channel 26 displayed every single solitary race from Marinette to Ripon. I saw my vote total at one point, but then waited 20 minutes without seeing it repeated; and the races weren't even in alphabetical order by municipality. So we switched to Channel 5, which did list the races by city and had far fewer of them. But when my race came up, here's what I saw:

My hat's off to Nick Piergrossi for capturing this image at his home after Channel 5 broadcast it for a couple of hours. Besides the entertaining dummies on-screen, the vote total of the politicians appears at the bottom and, holy cow! I'm winning! I was winning all night, according to Channel 5!

Turns out that they had neglected to include the vote totals from the two touch-screen voting machines. But that picture is now my PC's wallpaper; something I'll treasure until I regain a Council seat in the future.

Oh, yes. My blood is up, as they say. Just as I started to get the hang of campaiging, the race was over and I'd lost by 22 votes. I won't claim that I did everything possible. No, I only visited about half the neighborhoods in my door-knocking rounds. That was a mistake I will not make a second time.

When will I run again? I'll let you know. Until then, vote! Don't forget!

I'm just saying...

2007-04-07T14:11:00.000-05:00

...nobody talks about global warming when it snows on the cherry blossoms in April!

...or when there's a 17 degree wind chill at the Masters:

...or when there's a foot of snow on the baseball diamond:

Zero intelligence, XCVIII

2007-04-06T20:44:00.000-05:00

13-Year-Old Arrested In School For Writing On Desk

Principal Urges Cops To Arrest Girl For Writing 'Okay'

Chelsea Fraser was arrested at the Dyker Heights [New York] Intermediate School on March 30 along with three other male students. She says she was made to empty her pockets and take off her belt. Then she was handcuffed and led out of the school in front of her classmates and placed in the back of a police car.

That pretty much says it all. The girl was handcuffed to a pole at the police station for three hours. Some things are beyond parody.

Zero intelligence, XCVII

2007-04-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

I suppose one could feel a mort of compassion for the principal in this story, but it sure is a reflection of modern times, don't you think?

Principal Sues Youths Over MySpace Fakes
Apr 6 01:21 PM US/Eastern

HERMITAGE, Pa. (AP) - A school principal sued four former students who he claims posted parody MySpace.com profiles saying he smoked pot, kept beer at school and liked having sex with students.

In the lawsuit, Eric W. Trosch alleged that the three profiles created in December 2005 on the social networking Web site damaged his reputation, humiliated him and hurt his earning capacity.

The profiles "went far and beyond what you would see on a bathroom wall in a school," said Trosch's attorney, John E. Quinn.

Trosch was co-principal of Hickory High School at the time the profiles were created and is now principal of Hermitage Middle School, in the same western Pennsylvania school district.

According to the suit, which seeks unspecified punitive damages, a profile by defendant Justin Layshock said Trosch smoked marijuana and kept a keg of beer behind his desk. Trosch alleges that another profile created by Thomas Cooper said his favorite movie was pornographic, and a third created by brothers Brendan and Christopher Gebhart said Trosch liked having sex with students and brutalizing women.

Layshock was suspended and sent to an alternative program after Trosch learned of the profile. In an effort to return to regular classes he sued, claiming the profile was protected by the First Amendment, but a judge last year declined to order the school to transfer him back.

Layshock's father, Donald, said he could not comment on Trosch's lawsuit because of the pending federal suit. Attorneys for Cooper and the Gebharts also declined to comment to The Herald of Sharon, Pa.

Quinn said it remains unknown who created a fourth Myspace profile that he described as "the most graphic and lurid of them all."

Great speeches by Democrats

2007-04-06T05:22:00.000-05:00

Best of the Web Today often features a recent quotation by a leader of the Democrats at the bottom of a brief, but trenchant, list of quotations from past Democrat leaders. Here's that short list:

"One man with courage makes a majority." – attributed to Andrew Jackson
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." – Franklin D. Roosevelt
"The buck stops here." – Harry S. Truman
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." – John F. Kennedy

Note that last one. Now note the following question posed to Presidential candidate, John Edwards, at the University of New Hampshire on Monday:

I need to be able to look to my leader and see words of encouragement, words of hope. I need to be able to trust that person. I need to be able to know that I'm going to be grow [sic in transcript] in a world that's not going to be full of hate and prejudice and racism and to know that I matter, that I wasn't just dumped in this world for no particular reason whatsoever.

I'm busting my ass in school, I work 25 to 30 hours a week, and it's just me and my dog. So what can you do for the people that are in my situation, that are trying their damnedest in school, wanting to go to grad school, is going to be hit with the loans--and, uh, I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. I don't know what I want to be when I'm an adult. But I'm 22 right now, so people are like, "Honey, you are an adult." You know what? It's about me. It's about me voting for you or supporting somebody who's going to be the next president. So it's all about me right now. Just give me something.

This, reportedly was greeted with a standing ovation. I guess the questioner never heard of President Kennedy.

Please, please read this

2007-04-06T04:20:00.000-05:00

It's a Cato Institute article published in the San Diego Union-Tribune on March 11th. The author is Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, and a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. He has some fascinating things to say about the International Panel on Climate Change study.

For instance, do you want a metaphor for what the Panel has come up with in terms of news about global warming?

Despite breathless news reports, there's very little in it that's new to anyone involved in global warming science. Instead, there have been dozens of stories about how scientists now believe there is a definite human influence on mean global surface temperature, and that, in recent decades, much of the warming can be attributed to the effect of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.

Scientifically, this is tantamount to concluding that because Las Vegas is awash in poker chips and prophylactics, we now have high confidence that much of the recent decades' increase in economic growth has something to do with the prevalence of gambling and hanky-panky.

You probably want more meat than that gives you, so here are some highlights of Michaels' analysis of the IPCC report (emphasis mine):

The biggest story in the summary was largely missed by the environmental media. The IPCC now projects, in its mid-range scenario for carbon dioxide emissions, that the maximum rise in global sea level in this century will be around 17 inches. That's a reduction of 30 percent from what was in the Third Scientific Assessment, published just six years ago.

That's huge news, or it should be. But instead of listening to what the IPCC is saying, people are opting for the science fiction of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," whose central disaster scenario is that Greenland sheds the majority of its ice this century, raising sea level as much as 20 feet. Much of Florida disappears, and the Mall in Washington goes under water. The U.N.'s sea-level projections "include a contribution due to increased ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica, but these flow rates could increase or decrease in the future."

That's excellent hedging by the IPCC, because the authors of the summary surely knew that a paper was about to appear in the journal Science showing that an increase in the loss of ice from Greenland's big glaciers in 2004 had stopped and reversed by 2006. And was the loss of ice ever as gargantuan as Gore's imagery? Hardly. Satellite data, also published in Science last October, show that Greenland was losing a total of only 25 cubic miles of ice per year. That's teeny. There are 630,000 cubic miles of ice up there. Dividing 25 into 630,000 and multiplying by 100 gives the rate of loss: 0.4 percent of Greenland's ice per century.

I have to stop here and point out one of my pet peeves about any kind of publication that uses numbers to support a conclusion: the authors are often, shall we say, relaxed about presenting those numbers. I will not even spare Professor Michaels.

His article says "Dividing 25 into 630,000". What he meant was "Dividing 25 by 630,000".

Dividing 25 into 630,000 gives us useful information: 25,200 years (252 centuries) for all the ice in Greenland to melt assuming current melting rates. Dividing 25 by 630,000 gives us useful information, too: the percentage of the Greenland ice pack that disappears each year. If we multiply that number by 100 we get the percentage of the Greenland ice pack that disappears each century: 0.4%. That's the number Prof. Michaels derived, though the global warming student would have gone down the wrong computational path following his instructions.

Thank you for listening to that plea for correct math representation in the media. Now, back to Prof. Michaels. He mentions the level of carbon dioxide at the beginning of the 1900's:

Right now, we're only about 1.3 times that value, and there's a reasonable debate about whether we will ever get to twice that figure, because in the time frame required, technology is likely to change dramatically, in ways we can't imagine today.

For an interesting thought experiment, consider the energy and technology world of 1900, and a vision of the future. "Scientists will discover a new element called plutonium," some placard-carrying crackpot on the horse-infested streets of New York might say, "and if we compress a few pounds of it, almost all the buildings on Manhattan will be destroyed, along with their inhabitants." What a wacko! And that's nothing, compared with his assertion that, by 1975, people would fly from New York to London in a little over three hours, 65,000 feet in the air, or that all of the information in all the libraries of the Earth could be on everyone's desktop by 2000.

But that's how technology changes in a century. There were similar changes between 1800 (horse power and hand-carried letters) and 1900 (iron-horse power and the telegraph, etc.), so it's a real stretch to say we will go all the way to four times the 1900 concentration of carbon dioxide and then stay there for over a millennium. Does anyone seriously believe we will be a fossil fuel-powered society, industrially respiring massive amounts of carbon dioxide, in the year 2500?

Very much worth your time.

Zero intelligence, XCVI

2007-04-05T17:40:00.000-05:00

I have to ask, why wasn't he simply expelled?

Fla. student who mooned teacher sues

Wed Apr 4, 7:47 PM ET

CLEARWATER, Fla. - A high school senior acknowledges he went too far when he mooned a teacher. But he thinks the decision of school officials to send him to a new school for the rest of the year was too harsh, so his family is suing.

Tyler Tillung, 18, mooned a teacher "suddenly and without thinking about the consequences" in February, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday. The teacher had declined to let him into a Feb. 21 school lip sync show that was full. He was suspended for six days and reassigned to a new school.

But the teen wants to graduate with his Palm Harbor University High class in six weeks and complete his final season on the varsity baseball team, the lawsuit said.

"We're talking about his graduation," said Tillung's lawyer, B. Edwin Johnson. "That's an important event in a guy's life. ... This kid deserves a break."

School Board Attorney Jim Robinson said administrators stand by their decision.

"Without knowing the allegations, we're confident in the administration's position on this case," Robinson said. Palm Harbor principal Herman "Doc" Allen described the mooning as "disgusting" and the teacher as "traumatized."

Kick him out; let him get back in to school to graduate next year.

Remember to vote!

2007-04-02T22:17:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy week, and I've had just about zero chance to write anything here. I haven't had a week-long gap in my blog for I don't know how long.

Tomorrow my re-election campaign ends and we'll find out whether I've been given another go on the Neenah City Council. I've put together an Issues web site at http://www.swerbach.com/Neenah3rd/ if you're curious.

But please get out and vote wherever you are!

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXII

2007-03-26T20:56:00.000-05:00

Another computer model follows a geometric trend line upward and concludes ... wait for it! ... that about half the climate zones in the world will "disappear" by 2100! No, silly, those parts of the globe won't evaporate or melt, they'll just become different climate zones! Just, you know, warmer. The article doesn't give a lot of detail. We'll have "unfamiliar climes" around the equator and in the present rainforest belts, according to the computer models.

And, of course, there's the threat to animals:

The trend poses the greatest threat to areas of rich, but threatened, animal and plant life, in regions such as the Himalayas, the Philippines and African and South American mountain ranges. The changes could threaten some species with extinction and also displace or fragment local human populations.

It's the equivalent of Bill Clinton's "It's for the children", in the global warming imbroglio.

Of course, those computer models can't model the past at all. That's one of the curious features about this whole global warming modeling craze: just plug in some assumptions into the various models and you get a wonderful 300-400% variation in the results. A former Vice President's "documentary" about global warming can then fan the flames of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, goading us into doing something, anything to avert the holocaust to come.

But when asked to model the past, things that have actually happened climate-wise in other words, nobody seems interested. Natural variations in climate over the past 1000 years that had nothing to do with man-made causes don't seem to interest these folks at all. It's the glorious prospect of gaining control over the global affairs of all mankind that trips their trigger, while denying developing nations the chance to develop.

Then, of course, mention that atomic power could remove gobs of CO2 from the air and whoa! You're worse than the CO2 polluters, you nuclear nut-job you!

Bah! I have faith that peoples' good sense and resistance to scare-mongering will win out and people like Al Gore and his ilk can fade into well-deserved obscurity.

Zero intelligence, XCV

2007-03-26T20:01:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to make of this story. The state of Washington public school system appears to be ready to change the content of the state-wide 10th grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) by removing the math and science sections. It appears that the reason is that too many students were flunking those parts of the test:

But the proposed remedy is generating a lot of concern because it could mean big changes in what students are expected to learn, and how they're tested.

Nearly 85 percent of the students in that class who've taken the exam have passed reading and writing. But it's a different story in math and science, with just 56 percent passing math and 38 percent passing science.

Two bills under consideration — one passed by the House, a similar version by the Senate — would phase out math and science on the 10th-grade WASL. The state Board of Education then would select new tests in algebra, geometry and biology to be given right after students finish courses in those subjects.

The math WASL now includes probability and other topics in addition to algebra and geometry. The science WASL covers more than biology.

The House bill also says the new exams "must rely" on multiple-choice questions, which the WASL doesn't. It has some fill-in-the-bubble items, but among its hallmarks are short-answer and "extended response" items that require students to solve problems, apply what they've learned, or explain how they arrived at an answer.

I have very mixed feelings about all of this. My wife and I have just brought our sophomore back into our home-based private education program. We had serious concerns about the school environment and its contribution our 10th-grader's unwillingness to work. So, from that perspective, it's not hard for me to believe that test scores in math and science have tanked.

On the other hand, I was not in favor of the No Child Left Behind Act. It urged states to try a bit too hard to get a share of some serious federal dollars. Now those states have found that it isn't so easy feeding from the federal trough.

On the gripping hand, Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy holds for school systems as well as big companies and the government. The government-funded public matriculation centers have made their own bed. It's unfortunate that we spend so much for such mediocre results, but it's apparently what we want. At least in Neenah the majority voted for the lastest school funding referendum and I'm sure there are more to come.

Better living through lefty activism

2007-03-25T13:57:00.000-05:00

The inspiring things one finds on the GoreNet!

Here's something you don't see every day

2007-03-24T06:18:00.000-05:00

Public school 6th graders determining for themselves that humans don't cause global warming! Somehow the kids at Trail Ridge Middle School in Longmont, CO, have shaken off the indoctrination and put anthro-centric global warming on trial:

Humans don’t cause global warming, a jury of sixth graders at Trail Ridge Middle School concluded Thursday after hearing opposing arguments from their peers.

“They’re pretty young for this kind of thinking. They did great,” paleontology teacher Ken Poppe said after the 40-minute “trial” in his classroom.

With Earth’s warming accepted as a tenet, pre-teen “lawyers” and “scientists” debated whether humans have caused it.

Eleven jurors listened intently as prosecutors and defendants flashed contradictory graphs tracking global temperatures, carbon dioxide levels, polar ice cap statistics, volcanic activity and sea surface temperatures — all of which were found Wednesday in the school’s computer lab.

“The earth has warmed and cooled over many years. If it’s caused by CO2, why haven’t the charts shot up?” Poppe’s son and lead prosecutor Caleb argued during a rebuttal.

In a climax that sent half the class to its feet and forced the judge to call for order, opponent Monique Nem slapped a contradictory graph onto the prosecution’s table.

“We’ve proven you wrong! The CO2 levels have shot up,” she said.

The jury responded more warmly, however, to Caleb Poppe’s response: The graphic cited a Hawaiian source; Hawaii has volcanoes; volcanoes emit CO2.

In closing arguments, Alexia Hegy said global temperatures actually decreased in the 1960’s, while the global population rose. Humans cannot be at fault, she concluded.

With the final word, defense attorney Sarah Steed countered: “It all comes back to us, the people — not the sun, not the weather. We need to turn off lights when we don’t need them. Bikes can work. The environment can be richer.”

Seven of 11 jurors decided humans are not to blame, but everyone agreed classroom debates make for fun learning.

“It was a hard decision, because both sides made good points,” said student Samantha Roberts.

Ken Poppe said he let students choose which side of the debate to argue. Poppe personally believes global warming is cyclical and not affected by humans, while his Colorado State University student aide David Richards believes the opposite. Both, however, said they presented both sides equally to the students leading up to Thursday’s debate.

At the end of the article Poppe related that one parent expected him to show Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" before the debate and present it as fact. This, unfortunately, is pretty much the position that Mr. Gore takes himself. He doesn't want to be confronted with opposing viewpoints or data; he wants a clear field and an audience willing to suspend disbelief.

Magna est veritas, et praevalet

2007-03-19T21:46:00.000-05:00

May the Truth Win! That's the challenge issued by the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to erstwhile Vice President, Al Gore:

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question “That our effect on climate is not dangerous”, to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.

Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President’s prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet.

Given at Carie, Rannoch, in the County of Perth, in the Kingdom of Scotland, this 14th Day of March in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand And Seven.

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
Carie, Rannoch, PH17 2QJ, Scotland
011 44 1882 632341
monckton@mail.com

I'd say, "Put up or shut up, Mr. Vice President!"

The spunkiest political ad ever

2007-03-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

The Truth

2007-03-18T10:18:00.000-05:00

The BBC has been the source of some fabulous television over several decades. My personal favorites are "I, Claudius", the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett in the title role, "Cadfael", "Jeeves and Wooster", and "Pride & Prejudice" with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.

But today I'm in a state of complete admiration over a broadcast that might put a crimp in the juggernaut of anthro-centric / anthropogenic global warming: "The Great Global Warming Swindle". The full 75-minute program is available on YouTube. I offer it here for your delectation and enjoyment.

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXI

2007-03-18T08:22:00.000-05:00

It's interesting to me to see the sorts of people that gravitate to the anthro-centric global warming movement. This article quotes James Lovelock, "a renowned environmental scientist":

"Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic."

I thought at first that the guy was just another global warming doom-sayer, but he's a doom-sayer with a difference. That is, he has very strong ideas about what should be done to prevent the doom he predicts.

Lovelock is the originator of the "Gaia" hypothesis:

The close interrelation between life and its environment, and its philosophical significance, was noted by the British chemist James E. Lovelock and the American biologist Lynn Margulis. They called this idea of complementary evolution of life and environment the Gaia hypothesis after Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. As Lovelock put it, this is “a new insight into the interactions between the living and the inorganic parts of the planet. From this has arisen the hypothesis, the model, in which the Earth's living matter, air, oceans, and land surface form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place for life.”

The Gaia hypothesis is highly controversial because it intimates that individual species (e.g., ancient anaerobic bacteria) might sacrifice themselves for the benefit of all living things. Furthermore, the hypothesis has yet to be formulated quantitatively and in a scientifically testable manner. However, regardless of the eventual validity of the idea that life controls its environment for its own benefit, the recognition that the Earth's physical, chemical, and biological components interact and mutually alter their collective destiny, by accident or design, is a profound insight. [ "climate." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 18 Mar. 2007 < http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-53371 >. ]

Lovelock was embraced by many in the environmental movement until one fateful day in 2004 when he ruined the ride for everybody by declaring that "only nuclear power can now halt global warming". This makes me like the guy. The originator of the New Age Gaia theory believes that technology can save the planet. What a concept!

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXX

2007-03-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

It's so annoying! How is a self-respecting global warming group supposed to hold a march to end global warming when there's a snowstorm?

Interfaith group braves storm in climate change trek

By Adam Gorlick
Associated Press
March 16, 2007

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. --As the world's warmest winter on record drew to an end with a weekend snow storm, a group of religious leaders started walking across the state Friday to bring attention to global warming.

"People have been asking me what happens if it snows," said the Rev. Fred Small of the First Church Unitarian in Littleton. "I tell them: 'we walk.'"

The nine-day haul from downtown Northampton to Copley Square in Boston was planned far before forecasts called for a weekend of snow and sleet just a few days before the start of spring.

"It was windy and cold. I was walking on the front of the line and I felt like I was bow of a ship with the wind just coming into my face," said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Johns of the Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, where the group warmed up on bowls of lentil and minestrone soup after walking eight miles in deep snow from Northampton to Amherst."God has given us this Eden, and our behavior is making a mess of it," said the Rev. Jim Antal, president of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, the state's largest Protestant denomination.

The religious walkers are part of Religious Witness for the Earth, a 6-year-old national interfaith environmental organization. Supporters include clergy from the Catholic, Unitarian, Jewish, Episcopalian, and Muslim faiths.

The leaders are calling for individuals, businesses and government entities to reduce fossil fuel emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

With most of its members based in the Northeast, it made sense for the group to walk in Massachusetts. About 1,000 clergy members are expected to take some part in the trek, which will include prayer and information sessions along the way before ending with a rally on March 24.

This falls right in line with this recent story. Global warming is a religion.

Recent commentary: Will I be voting?

2007-03-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Are you planning to vote in the April elections?

(published 19-Mar-2007, Appleton Post-Crescent)

You're kidding, right? Like, I'm in the April elections! Yer darn tootin' I'll be votin'! Two or three times if I can swing it! Say! My district includes the Oak Hill Cemetery. Lots and lots of nice, quiet potential voters. Just have to figure out how to get 'em to the polls. If Mayor Daley could do it, I sure can! [Full disclosure: Your humble, yet deadly accurate, correspondent is the incumbent candidate for 3rd District alderman in Neenah, running against Lee Hillstrom, chairman of the Neenah Park and Rec Commission, and the most gracious and cordial opponent a guy ever had. Come see us at the League of Women Voters Candidates' Forum Thursday at Neenah City Hall, 6:30.] [Further full disclosure: I had nothing whatsoever to do with the selection of today's topic. Absolutely nothing. Nope. Not a thing to do with it. Had no clue. Wasn't aware. Merest coincidence. Really.]

Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXIX

2007-03-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

This represents the most plausible explanation I've seen yet for the rise in global temperatures: a lack of faith. Since environmentalism is a religion (click here and here), it's only natural that a paucity of faith would lead to our current predicament (emphasis mine):

Drought blamed on lack of faith

By Liam Houlihan
March 11, 2007 12:00am
Article from: Sunday Herald Sun

A LEADING Muslim cleric has blamed the devastating drought, climate change and pollution on Australians' lack of faith in Allah.

Radical sheik Mohammed Omran told followers at his Brunswick mosque that out-of-control secular scientific values had caused environmental disaster.

"The fear of Allah is not there. So we have now a polluted earth, a polluted water, a wasteland," he told a meeting this year.

"What are the people now crying for? The prophet told you hundreds of years ago, 'Look after the water'."

A Sunday Herald Sun investigation also found clerics railing against "evil" democracy, vilifying Jews and Christians and encouraging jihad and polygamy.

And in a popular DVD selling locally, a foreign sheik exhorts Muslims to take control of Australia by out-breeding non-believers.

British-based Sheik Abdul Raheem Green forbade Muslims from having fewer than four children so Australia would become an Islamic state.

So, while you're refueling your faith, make sure to procreate plentifully in order to swarm over the landscape. Oh, and renounce democracy, vilify the Jews, and marry four wives, too.

Stay tuned

2007-03-09T05:29:00.000-06:00

Condoleezza Rice may yet be in the running. This op-ed from NewsMax.com gives the details:

Vice President Dick Cheney's health problems have triggered speculation that he may be forced to step down, a move that could potentially throw the Republican 2008 presidential nomination race into disarray.

In the event of the vice presidency becoming vacant through resignation or death, the Constitution requires the president to nominate a vice president who must be confirmed by majority vote of both houses of Congress.

Bush would find it difficult to get a Democratic-controlled Congress to approve a conservative nominee, analysts say. At the same time, neither of the leading GOP 2008 presidential aspirants - former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Sen. John McCain of Arizona - would be eager to be seen as President Bush's heir apparent, should he tap either of them for the job.

If, on the other hand, Bush were to replace Cheney with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - a move analysts consider not unlikely in the event of a vacancy - Rice would almost certainly accept the position only if she was also prepared to run for president in 2008.

I still have a Condi bumper sticker on my car...

My favorite car doing its thing

2007-03-08T21:07:00.000-06:00

Bugatti Veyron at top speed
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