I’ve held off as long as I can with commenting on the presedential election, as it tends to suck all the oxygen right out of the room, but this issue needs to be aired. There’s more to Obama’s energy plan than bankrupting coal power plants. He also intends to make energy prices “skyrocket”:
This doesn’t sound sustainable to me. Hat tip to Jon Jewitt.
UPDATE: here is video from the San Francisco Chronicle of the actual interview:
Hat tip to Fred for this one.
Well, that’ll mean the poor won’t be able to afford it which will mean more wealth will need to be redistributed downward.
We’ll know in about 36 hours if we’re following Britain down the road to freezing in the dark.
We’re already in danger of blackouts & brownouts
http://www.nextgenenergy.org/nextgen+blackout+study.aspx
and that’s BEFORE any group has driven a stake through the heart of the power grid.
… which I’ll add it means he just might try and do this.
It is shocking that a candidate wants to cripple a major US energy source! We cannot replace coal with wind mills. This is all based on bad science. There is no proven AGW based on CO2. Hopefully he will be just a footnote in history. On a lighter note how is Chico doing doing with their deficit. Maybe their cap and tax will restore the businesses there.
Neither candidate gets my vote based on their stance on AGW. But McCain gets it as the lessor of two evils on that score. And I have a lot of other reasons for voting against Obama. Since they go beyond the primary interests of WUWT, I’ll keep them to myself. I do think, no matter who wins, that events have a way of driving the future, not silly (or stupid) campaign promises. On climate change, I think we’ll see the climate change before the worst is done, no matter who wins.
Amazing arrogance!
The hidden tax that never gets mentioned. Not that McCain’s understanding of climate is much better.
I haven’t compared the two tapes but this is apparently the original
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/EDIAUHASH.DTL&o=0
You, ladies and gentlemen, are going to pay for the sin of emitting CO2. Not to worry. Your addiction to CO2 emissions will be limited by personal economic factors.
The short version.
I’ll make energy prices “skyrocket”
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=e46U2Gnzpr
The coal industry will not be bankrupt they will simply pass the costs onto the consumer. It should also be noted that greenhouse gases include water vapour. Would this mean that water would be included in the cap and trade plan? Irrigation produces a lot of water vapour. Would this drive up the cost of food?
With 50% of electricity generated by coal we need only look at what happened to California when the price of electricity skyrocketed.
Isn’t coal black?
Here is the video of his comment:
Update – it is about 26 minutes in
I’m starting to have serious reservations that this country will still exist 10 years from now. It’s being destroyed from within, and the politicians are the catalyst.
About half of the USA electricity generation is coal burning power plants. The USA has about 27% of the world’s coal supply. Trans[port fuel is easily made from coal with a process called the Fischer-Tropsch.
I vote we cut electricity to Al Gore’s house and Chicago first.
This coal idiocy is just astounding.
… More about what we don’t know about climate … It’s called Flux Transfer Events, sun to earth. Changes our understanding of how particles and energy moves from the sun to the earth — Courtesy of the THEMIS constellation of satellites.
An amazing, and unexpected discovery. How do FTE`s effect the Earth`s climate? Have FTEs decreased in number or intensity with the weakening solar wind or Earth`s decreasing magnetic field? Maybe they have increased, more are forming? We simply don’t know what is the ramifications of all this, how the Earth’s climate is affected, we just know something is happening.
Yet more climate complexity NOT figured into the UN-IPCC report and Al Gore`s Global Warming hoax.
Here is the link
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/30oct_ftes.htm?list1010788
Remember, the THEMIS satellites figured out how the Aurora Borealis event was triggered a few months back..
One of many things that continues to astound me is the number of people who just get giddy over the thought that we’ll FINALLY be making the evil, nasty, coal-fired power plants pay.
People at large seem to have absolutely no idea how a business operates. Purchasing carbon credits is an “expense”, just the same as purchasing any other raw material that goes into their product, in this case, electricity. The price they charge for that product obviously has to be above the price they pay to MAKE the product. Increase their cost, increase the cost to the consumer of the product.
Instead, people are of the belief that the company that owns the plant has to take this money for carbon credits out of some secret pile of money instead of passing the costs along, and that it will have no impact on the consumer.
When you tell them that it’s NOT the power company that pays for the carbon credits, it’s US, they look at you like you’re a lunatic.
The general public seems to be in some sort of trance that for the most part is impenetrable.
I wonder if their vision will clear once the sheckles are all gone?
Jim
I’ll be Obama does not even know what a lump of coal looks like.
Strangley enough, the guy who’s ‘strongest’ on the economy is acctualy the one who is the highest risk. I’m not conviced either of them, or anyone for that matter, can ‘fix’ the economy. I think this one needs to work it-self out. But Barack is the one who will do the most damage trying to fix it.
Let’s face it, tax cuts to 95% of the working class only help if you have a job.
“Maybe we pick wrong and maybe we pick right.” This authoritarian is not the right pick.
Coal Bankruptcy
If ever implemented widely, Cap and Trade will be such a spectacular failure that it will be political suicide for anybody who had anything to do with it.
The problem is it focuses on one thing – Carbon. We should be focusing on energy efficiency, sustainability and security. I might be willing to allow CO2 into the equation, as I’d prefer we not run massive experiments with our one and only atmosphere, but honestly I think there are much more pressing concerns at the moment.
I think one tactic in dealing with this sort of thing is to run with it and take it to extremes. If we cap and trade CO2 – why not methane? Hell, why not water vapor. Instead of fighting the regulator regime, jump on board in spades and help it collapse under it’s own weight.
Obama is obviously very intelligent. Even if he knows about the doubts surrounding AGW theory, would he hint about them in a campaign?
We’ll see what he does once elected. The slightest hint of waffling and delaying would mean that he won’t be as radical as many people on this blog fear.
I just had a conversation with my my small business owning brother.
We’re of a mind.
After they’ve put Obama in office – we’re done with our democrat friends.
The issues are too great to pretend that his candidacy and election are not an assault on our families, our livelihoods and this great land.
May I suggest some viewing alternatives to watching this tragedy unfold.
I’m watching National Geographic’s Lewis & Clark – Great Journey West.
No matter what they do in their effort to create a socialist utopia -they cannot take away the fact of the courageous visionaries who laid the foundations of America.
May God bless and keep her.
God bless her.
Unfortunately, there’s no more time left to truly expose the Messiah for who he really is. The mainstream media has already elected him.
There’s a huge disconnect in this country regarding the AGW issue. People as a whole don’t get the fact that “Cap and Trade” is nothing but a huge money-making (for some) scam that is going to cost We the People a lot of money, and will have incredibly negative consequences for our already-hurting economy. John McCain is for the same thing, it’s just that Obama has connected the dots. It is up to Congress to drag their feet on this as much as possible. Heaven help us if the Dems get a 60-seat majority, and I say that as a Dem. Here in NH, the Rep. Sununu (who I’ll be voting for) is in what appears to be a tight race with Shaheen. Should be interesting. Obama gets my vote, albeit an unenthusiastic one.
Obama is clueless.
Check the typo in the post’s title.
REPLY: Fixed Thanks- Anthony
The media has had this for some time I think. They are releasing various stories at the last minute in low key ways that they think will preserve their credibility. Those stories released in the primary would have finished the O.
I can’t think of a faster way for him to lose the support of a majority of the Democrats in congress over this. Most of them are much more centrist than Obama is, plus their constituents will be screaming bloody murder at them once the pain sets in. But it may take a painful year or two for it to happen.
Spiking oil prices were the original cause of the recent economic panic, despite what the MSM would like us to believe – notice how things have started to move in a positive direction now that oil pricing has come down. Cost of energy affects every single part of the economy. If energy prices skyrocket, as they will if we abandon coal as a source, look for another panic and likely a depression until we can kick the idiots out that are promoting this lunacy.
Hmm.. can’t say I’m following foreign politics very much, but I understand the US has an election coming up shortly? And everyone knows that when politicians are going for re-election they will make any promises they are asked to, without consideration of the impact?
I suspect that these words are taken from an interview with an environmental group, and Obama is just saying what they want to hear. How else do you get votes? I’m sure that, once in power, he will find a good reason to go back on his word, as every other politician on the planet has learned how to do. I seem to recall a ‘Yes, Minister’ script where Sir Humphery pointed out that there was an unwritter bargain between Ministers and Civil Servants – if the Ministers would drop all their manifesto promises the Civil Service would help them hide the reversal….
If Obama does this, I am going to send him a lump of coal in a stocking for Christmas.
Forward this video to every American you know. I’ve started.
Perry
But remember, those bankruptcies are non-partisan change we can believe in. And I certainly believe that my rates will skyrocket in a non-partisan way, if he is elected. And all the poor people who will stuggle to pay their utility bills should be ashamed at their selfishness and lack of patriotism.
well i know the people who are buying the plant Im helping to build right now and the citizens who are buying the 1000+ MW of electricity it and a nextdoor unit are going to make are going to be pretty irate if this happens….what a genius…
A WSJ editorial compared the two candidates’ energy policies here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122515084360974157.html
nothing new here.
the liberals have been FIGHTING FOR higher fuel and energy prices for decades.
The goal: restrain energy usage.
Exactly how they also restain housing growth in Kalifornia by making housing creation so expensive, people are forced into smaller houses and multi-story housing projects.
The big question I have – who will see this story before they vote? If it’s only on FoxNews then I doubt if anyone will be changing their minds.
I’d like to hear more specifics about this.
Anthony, you have seen it on a small scale in Chico, we are about to see it on a large scale across the country. Well meaning (perhaps) and mislead (certainly) folks trying to make the world better by deciding how you should live. Maggie Thatcher made a very good point in her preface to “The Downing Street Years”, setting the Conservative party in opposition to the idea that ‘the gentlemen in Whitehall know better how the people should live than the people themselves.’
It might not be so bad if there was solid evidence that it would help the environment or stabilize the climate. But current coal plants are better than they were a decade ago, new technologies will make them even cleaner, and the climate will do whatever it d— well pleases.
One thing this idea (even partially implemented) will do is raise taxes. In a soft economy. 75 years ago, FDR proved you can take a couple year recession and turn it into a decade long depression with a few tax hikes and a bit of government control. With a World War to fix it at the end.
I really don’t think that’s a good idea this time around.
Even scarier is this clip. Obama wants to create a “civilian national security force of the same size and power as the military.”
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
This is how the population was controlled in the USSR. A massive network of civilian spies who reported all dissident activity, in the name of national unity.
I wondered why he felt he needed a “National Police Force” composed of civilians. It will take force to cause this to happen, and he daren’t use
National Guard or Federal troops. I heard there was some rumbling from
a cemetery over in Britain showing up on seismometers. Seems a grave labeled Eric Blair is rumbling 24/7. Let me add another aside, as I toss another log into my stove (I heat a 1200 square foot home with wood fire), when will wood get put on the same “remove by” list?
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio. All swing states, all coal producting states. Obama will get them all new “green jobs” I am sure.
Well, as both candidates seem to have eaten the bait of cap and trade hook line and sinker, I do not think it will make much difference as far as the results of a disastrous energy policy goes. Unless you believe that one of them will back out faster and more than the other?
A mitigating factor must be that both are in the middle of a campaign while the economy is rocking dangerously. It is evident that both should rethink economic and energy policies, but this is not the time for them to do so.
It seems the only thing that will save us is weather itself: a long arctic winter in the NH will soon have everybody rushing for energy .
I have a plan… all the coal generating plants should declare bankruptcy and cease operation. That’s what Obama wants, let’s give it to him. Then watch the price of energy skyrocket and the people freeze because we can’t afford to pay for the energy we need.
McCain wants to cut co2 emmissions by 66% by 2050.Obama has said 80% by the same date. McCain will spend $2bn per year on clean_up tech per year.Obama wants to do it with a PPP. Can’t see a lot in it personally.
Watch what happens when the electric prices sky rocket, air conditioning units will be turned off across America, the next big heat wave will kill hundreds, there by proving again the intensity of global warming.
Only good news is I hope we will see a new golden age for nuclear power.
I say no to B.O.
This site held more interest back when I thought that it was more scientifically motivated than politically. And talk about alarmism! AGW’er don’t have the corner on it apparently.
Signing off here.
REPLY: Sorry you feel that way, back to science after the election. Unfortunately science has become politicized so it is hard to avoid. – Anthony
Shouldn’t we really focus on what is really going on here — Pay more in taxes, so government can PRETEND to control the weather. Does anybody wonder where the taxes are going? Or what they are to be spent on?
Not all change is good. Fidel Castro wanted to change Cuba in 1954, and succeeded.
tarpon (08:55:04) :
About half of the USA electricity generation is coal burning power plants. … I vote we cut electricity to Al Gore’s house and Chicago first.
Chicago won’t see brownouts. Illinois gets more than half its juice from nuclear.
Richard deSousa (10:52:06) :
“all the coal generating plants should declare bankruptcy and cease operation.”
They need not be as drastic. They could declare a “lockout”. It is what the strike of the owners is called. If the coal plants organize they could stop this in its tracks.
As a member of the once “third world”, you americans are becoming new members of the “fourth world” with all that AGW pseudosience.
The USA will never be the last century´s USA again. You are really blind, we just can not believe how you are heading to a bottomless precipice
Mark, of course you are right, behavior modification is what’s in the cards.
There is no real choice, between the two candidates, as far as climate or energy go. The people who run things, are behind the curtain, invisible to most of us, are using the time honored techniques used by dictators the world over and articulated clearly by Edward L. Bernays, the father of PR and political spin, the man who got women to equate smoking with being liberated! The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
He’s not going for a second term then???????????????
It’s easy to see who Messiah Obama is, what has not been brought out by the mainstream media is that the Messiah has horns. Unfortunately, if you didn’t do your homework and educate yourself on who this man is and what he represents, it’s to late now.
To bad, our country’s future hangs in the balance
“Well, that’ll mean the poor won’t be able to afford it which will mean more wealth will need to be redistributed downward.”
Genius, hoodie. Bet we get the ‘Civilian Guard’ first.
“Obama is obviously very intelligent.”
Oh? Too smart for a plumber?
The coal industry will not be bankrupt they will simply pass the costs onto the consumer.
I have heard this sort of thing for far too long. BOTH pay. When you raise the price on anything, there is less of it sold. That hurts the company as well as the consumer.
Look at what happened to gas. Prices went up. That increased oil company profits temporarily–until lower consumption forced prices to go down below where they were before.
As one wag put Obama’s policy:
All we have to do the solve the energy crisis is to repeal the law.
Of Supply and Demand.
if Acorn and the rest have invented enough voters to replace the disaffected ones in the swing states he has nothing to worry about.
Ann Coulter is right,
It’s a declaration of war on America.
Well, yes, but America tends to win these things.
I’m starting to have serious reservations that this country will still exist 10 years from now. It’s being destroyed from within, and the politicians are the catalyst.
If we survived Ike’s 91% marginal tax rate and his lamebrained “nuclear tripwire” so-called “strategy” (not to mention his contemptible, asinine, destructive “military-industrial complex” speech), and the Carter presidency, we’ll survive this.
As Tarkington once put it: “not unlike a bug fished out of an inkwell: alive, but discouraged.”
As a member of the once “third world”, you americans are becoming new members of the “fourth world” with all that AGW pseudosience.
The USA will never be the last century´s USA again. You are really blind, we just can not believe how you are heading to a bottomless precipice
Well, for the sake of heaven and the lives of you children, DON’T follow us over the cliff!
(You might be wrong, though; don’t count us out. We can be pretty resilient. Look at how we came back after Carter!)
So you can have a socialist, or a national socialist. Not much of a choice, in my opinion. Hat tip to DiLorenzo.
The Constitution protects us from bad leadership better than just about any arrangement in history. We have had some real honkers. Yet here we sit.
Besides, periodic bad leadership is a natural consequence of democracy. It’s the price we pay for it.
It could get very bad. Yet we will have survived worse.
First, many apologies to “Jim B Original”…I had no idea I was posting under someone’s identity…I’ll gladly change if you’d like it back ;*)
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
I am by no means an OB supporter, but is it possible he was just throwing a bone to the various law enforcement agencies?
Don’t want us to go off sounding half-cocked ;*)
Jim
Wil the unemployed coal workers still be allowed to “cling to guns and religion,” or will those be taxed as well?
How about people who’s jobs depend on available supply of electricity?
And the sucky thing is, that McCain Lieberman would have done the same thing.
Anyone wonder why I’m writing in Paris Hilton this year?
OK, I suppose I’ll be a gadfly here and play Devil’s advocate.
First off, while the President can affect policy a fair bit, it’s our friends in the Capitol that will ultimately shape it the most. Whether or not a particular President wants certain policies in the domestic arena, they are not necessarily going to happen unless a Congress is sympathetic. As the Americans on this blog who follow THOMAS.gov or any other legislation tracker should know, proposed bills and bills that actually pass the rigmarole of Congress rarely resemble one another.
For those of you who are worried that Obama has the power to actually do anything to the coal power plants, consider this: Just off the cuff, I’d guess that at least 25 states (with 2 senators each) get a large portion of their energy from coal. History tells us (as do regression analyses, if you’re interested) that those senators are highly unlikely to vote in favor of the strictest policies. If only 41 senators vote against a bill, it will not pass. That means that you will see the bill either: get Christmas tree’d to death; or radically altered to fit those senators’ constituencies’ needs.
Does this mean we will not get something close to what Obama wants? It’s hard to say, and it largely depends on the logrolling and wheedling the bills supporters do. But we can rest assured that the GOP will remain a gadfly in any of his policy making by simply asking for concessions, seeking to alter bills, etc.
Even with majorities in the House and Senate, party unity in the US is, and always has been, weak due to the structure of US government. Federalism saves us from broad sweeping changes so often seen in parliamentary systems like the UK or Japan. Remember the permanent Republican majority that we were promised in 2000? Yeah, didn’t happen. Why? America doesn’t work that way because it wasn’t structurally designed to do so.
I read this site mostly for the science content, and do find what you guys do with the weather stations admirable. But as for the political commentary, I can only say this: Calm down, everyone. Presidents do not exercise half the domestic policy making power we all seem to think they do. If you really want to be nervous about Obama as president, worry about his future as a foreign policy maker, where the Presidency has historically been most important. If you really are worried about domestic policy issues, I suggest to EVERYONE that they get involved with their local representative, read THOMAS.gov and see how their reps are voting, and pay more attention to what Congress does in general. That’s where the real domestic political action is at, and that’s what we seem to all forget every 4 years.
If they understood the science the entirety of the AGW energy policy can be reduced to a single equation. The more BTUs per C atom the better. Thus we have the Hydrogen economy and windmills as best and coal as the worst.
Simple answers are often wrong.
Well, that’ll mean the poor won’t be able to afford it which will mean more wealth will need to be redistributed downward.
——————–
That’s one thing that gets me about the liberals.
One one hand they declare that energy needs to be more expensive so that people will use less of it.
Then they turn around and declare that it isn’t fair that energy has been priced beyond the reach of the average families, so they create yet another welfare program to provide subsidized energy for everyone.
The net result is that the people are more dependant on govt then they were before govt took their money to pay for something that govt made expensive in the first place.
evanjones,
One quick economics note: Taxes on inelastic goods tend to get passed on to the consumer, and the resulting deadweight loss is borne almost entirely by the consumer. It’s elastic goods where taxes are most likely to affect both the consumer and producer.
This is why a gas tax holiday, for example, makes so little sense. Producers and sellers of gasoline know that gas demand is inelastic to price, and will simply keep the price at pre-tax holiday levels and reap the economic profit.
The big problem, therefore, with heavily taxing and raising the price of energy, is that it affects those on the bottom of the economic totem pole the most. Simple linear marginal taxation hurts those at the bottom because there is a basic amount of energy that one must use just to maintain a basic modern standard of living. One interesting solution to this is to tax logarithmically as consumption increases. That way, the poorest are not hit the hardest by a tax increase, as their consumption will be at the point where taxation increases the slowest.
I keep hearing: “The voters will boot them out in 2010 if they misbehave”.
Well, these guys aren’t stupid – they learned from their mistakes in 1994.
Expect the following once the Obamanistas land in Washington:
1. Rigorous takeover of the national climate data centers.
2. Fairness doctrine
3. Control & censorship of the internet
4. Persecution of sceptics until they submit.
5. Cap & trade
6. Tax increases
7. World Court jurisdiction
8. Strict gun control
9. Pack the Supreme Court with Marxists
10. Submission to the international law and the UN
Getting the picture?
They are not interested in serving the people. They are bent on forcing the people to live how they think is right.
Should give Americans yet more reason to continue clinging to at least their guns. I can’t believe I’d be writing such dire predictions of the country I was born in and a citizen of. What is wrong with Americans today? They are getting duped by con men on every front!
Unfortunately, Barack Obama has declared war against the US Constitution. He sees the Constitution as an obstacle to his “total makeover” of the US government–so the Constitution has to go!
Obama is right about that–the Constitution is meant to be an obstacle to government tyranny. Unfortunately, if Obama can pack the courts using his Democratic Party majorities in the Congress, the Constitution will magically start to say whatever Obama wants it to say. Voila! No more checks and balances.
Jeff (09:09:39) :
Strangley enough, the guy who’s ’strongest’ on the economy is acctualy the one who is the highest risk.
—————
Are you stating that Obama is strong on the economy? On what grounds?
Would it be his plans to raise taxes on families making more than $150,000 a year. (Considering that this number has fallen from $250,000 to $150,000 in less than a month, how much further will it come down before he takes office? Considering Obama voted for a bill that raised taxes on everyone making more than $42000, maybe that will be the floor)
He wants to increase taxes on all businesses by increasing the capital gains taxes.
He wants to force everyone to join a union. (a bill to eliminate secret ballots in unionization drives was introduced this year, and Obama has endorsed it.)
He has endorsed a bill that will end ALL state restrictions on abortions and provide federal funding for them. (Even parental notification for minors will be eliminated) (He even promised NARAL that passing this bill will be the first priority for him once sworn in.)
Obama has no credibility on any issue economic. McCain isn’t great, but at least he tried to reform Freddy and Fannie back in 2000. A move that was blocked in part by Obama.
When the pro-Obama guy was going into his little “pay no attention to the man behind the screen” spiel he was talking clean coal.
So I clicked the link under the article to find out what exactly this ‘clean coal’ stuff is of which they speak. According to that it doesn’t actually exist. It’s an oxymoron. Why does the media never let us in on little key facts like that?
Obama is obviously very intelligent. Even if he knows about the doubts surrounding AGW theory, would he hint about them in a campaign?
We’ll see what he does once elected. The slightest hint of waffling and delaying would mean that he won’t be as radical as many people on this blog fear.
————-
He believes he is at least.
A month or so ago, Obama told legislators that if they don’t pass Kyoto, he’s going to order the EPA to start regulating CO2 emissions.
He’s a true believer. Or at least he believes that he can use this issue to make the world more “fair”.
“If we survived……we’ll survive this.”
As I said, these guys have learned from their previous mistakes.
They are not going to repeat them. This time they are going to make sure
the dissent gets suppressed and that they control the information.
You think the military is gonna intervene? The generals are going to be replaced soon.
Another thing on the Obama backed union bill. Whenever there is an impasse in the negotiations, it authorizes the govt to impose a contract on both parties. In practical matters, this means that whenever there is a Democrat in the White House, the govt will force the company to accept whatever demands the union makes.
I had a premonition you would get to this, Anthony. You neglected to mention that the S.F. Chron suppressed this information in their original article. I find that as outrageous as Obama’s remarks!
Journalism may not be dead, but the “lame stream” is doing it’s best to kill it. The economy may be in trouble but with a president and congress who thinks it the duty of government to bankrupt energy producers and expropriate the profits of legitimate businesses it will soon be dead.
Alice,
Is this really any different, politically, from any other President? It’s clearly within the purview of the office to put whatever judges he wants in a seat, so I fail to see why this is a problem.
I remember the same thing being lobbed at Bush (he doesn’t believe in the Constitution! He’s packing the Court!), but I found it equally silly then. The appointments clause clearly states that, “The President may also appoint judges, ambassadors, consuls, ministers and other officers with the advice and consent of the Senate. By law, however, Congress may allow the President, heads of executive departments, or the courts to appoint inferior officials.”
To me, your argument sounds like the hardcore pro choice people who said that the second Bush appointed judges, they would turn around and repeal Roe v. Wade and force women to have a thousand babies each. It didn’t come to fruition because the process itself is very very stable and historically the SCOTUS has recognized that the sum of its power rests on the fact that it’s respected for being a responsible judiciary body. Let’s not forget that the same justices that many presidents have appointed have turned around and gone against those presidents because the law inclined them to do so.
I think what I would recommend to you guys is this: don’t worry so much. Don’t be like the people I knew in undergrad who said that Bush would represent that downfall of the US. It never happened, and no single President will likely ever do it.
Instead, get involved. Lobby your representative. Trust me, unless your rep is a jerk, you can usually at least get to talk to a legislative assistant/consultant and make your case. I’ve even gotten to spend five minutes with my rep, and he did listen to what I had to say. And I was in a very busy district (San Fernando Valley).
Follow THOMAS.gov. Follow it like a hawk. See what your reps are actually doing! I shocked many of my friends by showing that my rep, who they thought was going to save them from big bad nuclear, was actually voting in more funding for nuclear year after year. Now, he’ll definitely get my vote (I’d rather that we just put all our “clean coal” money into “more nuclear”, but I’m not in public office…) but they’ll be able to make better informed decisions, for better or for worse.
Lobby your parties. The quality of the candidates is a direct representation of what the party thinks its constituencies want. Think McCain is bad? Think Obama is bad? Well get up and lobby them to give us better candidates! Tell them that you want Mr. Smith or Ms. Brown instead.
I’m not saying that it will necessarily go the way you want it to– after all, the whole process is a prisoner’s dilemma (in the game theory sense)– but sitting around and despairing is such a, dare I say it, liberal thing to do?
Once the Cap & Trade (or Emissions Trading Scheme or other trendy name) is in place, will the wind generator companies have to pay for:
1. the CO2 generated for the 000’s of tons of concrete required to build their sites
2. the building of new roads necessary to haul these monsters onsite
3. clearance of vegetation required to give free wind access
4. running new distribution cables
or will they be ‘subsidised’.
I agree with gibsho, quoting Obama and playing back his own words is the worst kind of alarmism, it is, to coid a phrase “double plus ungood.”
On the plus side Palin is very much against Kyoto and these cap and trade schemes and has said she intends to work on McCain once elected.
Biden is as big a govt control guy as Obama.
Anthony, I agree with the other readers that heading off on political tangents defeats the fine work you are doing on the climate front. For my perspective, neither McCain or Obama support a position on AGW that I feel confortable with, but I do feel that Obama is much more inclined to listen to other points of view and include them in his policy decisions, whereas McCain has proven to be a far more impulsive individual.
If the polls are anywhere close, Obama will be the next president, so it will behoove us all to email our positions on the problems with cap and trade and other problems with much of the current “climate science” to him after the election. As a previous writer expressed earlier, it is the Congress that ultimately controls such matters.
UCLAri (12:39:31) :
——–
In all probability, the Democrats will have super majorities in both houses.
Whatever the Democratic leadership wants, will be passed.
Wil the unemployed coal workers still be allowed to “cling to guns and religion,” or will those be taxed as well?
No, I think they are going to use the guns after Obama closes up the mines.
If Obama wins Tuesday and if he and the Congressional Democrats accomplish just a quarter of what they intend, there will be a huge backlash come 2010. This could be the last time US voters go to the polls so uninformed. The GOP’s problems aren’t so bad that large scale unemployment, cold homes, and hungry children cannot cure.
Personally, I’m more concerned with the the US Senate races. If the GOP can hold on to at least 41 seats, they can fillibuster the most radical legislation. If the Dems do in fact in the Trifecta (The White House, Fillibuster proof Senate, and large House Majority), the next 2 years will indeed be long.
Alice F., with all respect, I think you might be confusing the issue with Cheney-Bush? As far as deconstruction of the Constitution and threatening Checks and Balances, nobody in U.S. History has done what Cheney-Bush have in the last 8 years. While facts in politics can swing a little loosely, your statement is a little “far out there”. Talk about an “Alarmist”, as so many like to say. Please try harder to Keep it real folks.
I’m looking forward to more scienctific discourse and sure will be glad when this miserable campaigning-mud slinging is over-with. Whichever candidate wins this time, let’s just hope it’s better than the last round!
John D.
If he really believes that we are going to get rid of coal or the carbon dioxide emitted by burning it anytime soon, he’s an idiot. Apparently, he didn’t learn anything from this summer’s gas price spike. When energy costs go up, people get mad and some of them lose their jobs. And then the politicians bend over backwards trying to find some way to get those energy costs down.
If the polls are correct, this guy is going to be our next president. It will almost worth it just to enjoy all the times he falls on his face and has to scale back his “change” every time reality teaches him how stupid his ideas are.
“I read this site mostly for the science content…Calm down, everyone.”
As do we, the `&omicron&iota &pi&omicron&lambda&lambda&omicron&iota, yet we all love supercilious condescension. Please, may I have some more?
I agree with Pierre. The ground was prepared for this takeover by 30 years of left wing public school and university indoctrination. There is not going to be any easy way to turn things around. Many Americans and Europeans are unwilling or unable to think for themselves at this point, and very few have an essential knowledge of history.
We are now just dangerous creatures who threaten Gaia.
Just a reminder, to those who want to see the basis for what is unfolding, read (or re-read) “Atlas Shrugged”.
If… there is one thing. which I learned from Sir Anthony Watts. is the profound respect that this site, reserve for the president of the United States of America.
Luck is released. ( ‘Alea jacta est’).
Obviously it is not valid for ex-vice president.
I hope not suffer. with the democratic choice of the American people.
FM
OT. Has anyone else seen the Antarctic ice extent reluctant to fall?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
MarkW:
Obama has no credibility on any issue economic. McCain isn’t great, but at least he tried to reform Freddy and Fannie back in 2000. A move that was blocked in part by Obama.
You might want to rephrase; Obama wasn’t in the Senate in 2000.
For perspective, one would benefit greatly by a review of Plato’s “Republic”. He outlined quite perfectly what’s going on here; “Hocky-Mom’s”, “Plumbers” and all. And to boot, he got the timeline just about right (~200 years).
I need some fresh-air..
John D.
Mark:
“In practical matters, this means that whenever there is a Democrat in the White House, the govt will force the company to accept whatever demands the union makes.”
Think about the American car companies and the costs that they have incurred by having union labor. They are already folding under the expense. Obama’s policies will only make it worse. How much union money does Obama think he is going to get out of bankrupt companies?
This basically goes along with Obama’s ideas about sub prime loans. He strongly supported them, and the law firm that he once worked for sued financial firms that would not give them. Somehow Obama is stupid enough to believe that our nation can succeed while our businesses are crushed. His campaign adds have already specified that he will solve our health care issues by going after the health care companies; and he will get better insurance policies for people (like no checking on preconditions) by going after insurance companies. Along with his planned attacks on energy companies and his vow to raise minimum wages by 50%, we can soon expect our country to become an economic wasteland. Of course the notion of helping the economy with tax cuts is foreign to him. The only way that he can see to get an increase in government revenue is to simply raise the taxes to get what he needs. The idea that one might shrink the economy and get far less than one thinks has never crossed his mind.
When you think about Obama’s complaint about shipping jobs overseas, how is he going to prevent that by attacking American companies. More of them will be scrambling to leave with him in office. Is he going to nationalize these companies to keep that from happening? Is he going to shut down trade and practice protectionism?
Obama is simply a socialist that doesn’t recognize the cost of that ideaology.
I suppose that there is one bright side to Obama’s election. If McCain had been elected he would never have been able to get Congress into the hands of conservatives. With Obama in office, the voters will most likely see their mistake very quickly. The main stream media has basically shielded Obama so that most of the people who are voting for him simply don’t know what they are voting for. As his disasterous policies are implemented, voters will be forced to elect conservatives to Congress to save themselves from the man that they put into the White House.
David (13:33:13) :
Here you are alluding to something not to be underestimated.
It really doesn’t take much to spook the markets and send them into a spiral of mayhem.
Just a threat of a 2% cut in oil output here, or a buying spike there is enough to send crude prices through the roof. Now just imagine what a 50% cut in the US energy supply would mean?
I think the guy has surrounded himself with some real loons and zealots. Don’t be surpsised by anything.
“Bankrupt 50% of USAs energy supply.”
That’s profoundly radical. That’s why I’m not going to be surprised by anything.
It’s not that I’m ashamed of the politicians we have “running” (laughably) our country. I’m very much ashamed of the voters who comprise the electorate.
Our country, not meaning to offend others, was founded on an ideal that no one else has ever been able to replicate, particularly in scale. Now we, the voter, have decided our form of democracy needs to morph into social democracy or socialism.
The Founding Fathers are probably not only rolling over in their graves – but want to be exhumed and moved elsewhere.
“Obama is obviously very intelligent.”
A lot of people are saying that. But I have no idea why. To me, the man is a walking cliche machine. I don’t see how you can look behind any of his ideas, at the real substance and the long term concequences, and conclude that they come from an intelligent man. I suppose you could say that his cynical move of getting himself elected by promising to give most people someone else’s money is intelligent, but we don’t know how much of that is coming from him or his campaign managers. I will admit that the people who are running his campaign are very good. But then when you have most of the main stream media actively campaigning for you, it would be difficult to fail.
Isn’t this just last minute electioneering? I’m not a US citizen but obviously follow events since they are important for countries elsewhere.
Whoever wins will have an induction period until late (?) January and surely during this time some of the economic consequences of their promises will come home to roost. If they are lucky they will get a 100 day honeymoon. But it won’t be long before realities set in.
Sky rocketing the price of ordinary individuals energy costs is a surefire way to end your popularity.
This time they are going to make sure the dissent gets suppressed and that they control the information.
I’d argue that dissent was suppressed far more in 1980 than now. There was no conservative voice of any real note other than one or two very minor outlets. The fairness doctrine was in full force. McNiel-Lehrer was as fair and balanced at it got. There was no alternative media whatever. Schools were totally in the dumper, too.
Yet the electorate threw the bums out. A genuinely failed economy carries with it a certain rough logic. The toothpaste is out of the tube and nothing the left can do will get it back, and they’d be very foolish to try. (They may be that foolish, of course.) They can’t silence dissent, and if they try, there will be more of an outcry than before.
UCLArie:
“Is this really any different, politically, from any other President?”
Yes, we have never had a president that has said that the US Constitution was fatally flawed because it did not contain a provisioun mandating redistribution.
Is Obama intelligent? Quien sabe? Carter was extraordinarily so–for all the good that did him.
This is one big reason I am against Obama. I’m not worried about the short term effect of his policies. But if the democrats can push through carbon trading, we’re going to be in a world of hurt and not just for the short term. It will be like so many other programs that will never be eliminated. And even worse would be signing on to a global treaty. Another example is healthcare. If they can push through socialized healthcare, it will be like Social Security and Medicare–with us forever.
You can be as much of a Republican cheerleader in your private life as you want or even on your blog but BOOM there goes your credibility. I don’t want to listen to you telling me how you want me to vote because I don’t care about your politics and now I can’t take you seriously about anything.
To put it bluntly: who cares about what you think about any aspect of climate change because you are just another mouthy defensive republican shoe shine boy.
REPLY: My goodness. Well you must have cared some, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken the time to write. Also would you care to show exactly where I said “listen to you telling me how you want me to vote”? I don’t recall writing or saying any of that.
What I did was list an issue that I thought should be aired. Cap and trade relates to climate change and it is politicized, so I think it is germane.
Unfortunately you weren’t able to express yourself without denigrating me in the process, which isn’t really very nice, but I won’t reciprocate with anger of “defensiveness”.
Anthony
MarkW (12:52:53)
I totaly aggree with you. This is why I said strongest in quotations. This is the MSM’s statment that most people have bought into, even the so-called non-partisen media (POTUS etc).
The problem is that the Left’s rantings sound soothing when you are un-employed or about to be, but in the end, they just prolong the suffering.
Somewhat off topic… Why does everyone beleve that a green shift (our Left partys platform up here in Canada) will help the economy. The harm that making energy more expensive will cost far outs weighs the benefit of the government aided green initiatives.
I have read some of the comments that in effect say,” Obama is just making a campaign speech, and the president really can not do anything.” With most political canadates this may be true. Not in Obama’s case. This man’s associations only matter if those associations are a reflections of his views. All indications are that he has the same political views as his long term close associations and had done all possible to hide them.
Cutting to the chase, Obama is a socialist. He is not afraid to cause millions to lose their jobs because he will create millions of government jobs. Jobs in alternative energy for the educated. Jobs in his national security force for the uneducated. (A force a large and well funded as the US military) Remember Rev Wright does not love this country. Rember Obama’s wife has never been proud of this country. Obama does not like America the way it is. In 2001 he said the founding father’s made a huge error in not setting up wealth redistribution in the constitution.
If he has congress and the senate he will set both carbon tax and his national security force in motion. Under the banner of national security he does not have to follow the normal checks and balances. Obama could no more resist carbon tax then a starving man resist food. While he is draining all the profit out of industry he can, he will use these funds and greater deficits and unemployment to set up his national security force. (Do not take a normal politician at his word, always take a radical politician at his word)
He will also give billions to ACORN to “community organize. Do you think I am having a conservative nightmare. Well please understand congress already tried to do this with the bailout. McCain and the republicans stood in their way although they did get several hundred million through anyway.
MCcain undersatands we have an economic emergency. This is why he says “drill here now”. His position on AGW is flexable, and Sahra Palin has in the real world demonstrated her ability to influence.
Making a politically motivated post the day before a general election? Certainly opened my eyes to the motivations behind this blog.
REPLY: Reality check for you Phil, the story broke today…if it broke last week I would have run it LAST WEEK…you are off base sir with such accusations. If you feel that coal power plants should be shut down and that electricity prices should indeed skyrocket….all without any discussion because somebody held on to the story, then I kindly suggest that you move along to another blog where these things are not discussed. Note the masthead and the description of things discussed “recent news”. – Anthony
evanjones is right, IMHO. Dissent is burgeoning along with the Internet. We have never had the fiery and wide-ranging dialog that we do today. Even if the Extreme Left takes over, the Voice of the People is stronger than ever.
You can’t keep the Truth down, and less so today. Whomever is elected, the democratic argle bargle will dominate as never before.
“but I do feel that Obama is much more inclined to listen to other points of view and include them in his policy decisions,”
Obama is whatever you want him to be. He is always lying to somebody else, never to you. Therefore his words can be ignored safely.
The election is tomorrow and still nobody can provide any accomplishment that doesn’t pale compared to even Palin’s accomplishments during her limited tenure in Alaska. Yet still we all know that he will be reasonable and finally agree with us on whatever issue we don’t like about him.
Anthony,
So it all comes down to this in the end, politics. Scaring people away from those socialist democrats, and keeping the good old Republicans in power. I’m Canadian, so what do I care? Well, I’m just disappointed that it wasn’t about science or weather stations in the end. It was about politics. So you can’t really complain that the issue is politicized, because it seems it’s your main motivation too.
So why don’t you say it plainly and openly. You don’t really care about the science. You don’t really care about weather stations. But you do seem to care a lot about coal power plants.
So maybe Hansen and Mann are right in the end. You’re all paid by big oil, and big coal… Well I guess it’s good to know that this blog has no credibility.
REPLY: Lets see, how many posts have I made on weather stations, weather station data, adjustments and measurement techniques..hundreds now.
How many posts have I made on Obama related issues with climate policy? Four.
And that makes me have zero credibility? And this is “the end” and I care more about coal power plants than weather stations? Wow, what a vision you have.
Huh…well nice knowing you. I’m sorry I don’t fit your expectations. – Anthony
Whatever your views of the two candidates in tomorrow’s election, I hope you feel that exciting sensation I experience every time I vote in a general election. Millions lost their lives to ensure that once every few years I have an equal say with everyone else on the future of my country.
General election day is the day every one is absolutely equal. No matter how rich or poor, fat or thin, clever or stupid, tall or short; we each have one vote. Every electoral system is imperfect, but so are we.
Go to the ballot box with your head held high and enjoy the right to vote – a right half the world would die to possess.
UCLAri (13:12:37)
“….I knew in undergrad who said that Bush would represent that downfall of the US. It never happened,…..”
I think he’s done a pretty good job of it! Your economy is a mess and foreign policy a joke. How could a once great nation make such a hash of it in only eight years?
“Just a reminder, to those who want to see the basis for what is unfolding, read (or re-read) “Atlas Shrugged”.”
I read it over 40 yrs ago and this whole AGW thing has made me think of it often. The
parallels are uncanny and actually a bit scary.
All,
You seem to think you know what is wrong but do you have an answer? Well, let’s hear it!
I thought so – just bash and call names and ridicule – makes you look a whole lot better – especially in your god’s eyes I can bet!
Anthony, though Phil and a few others have questioned this thread, I wholeheartedly agree with it. This is a simple case where faulty science is being used to further political agendas. Whatever the outcome of the election, there is a better than evens chance that the data will expose, in time, the flawed premise on which this alarmism has been based.
As a result, the ramifications for science in general, as a “disciplined discipline”, could be enormous. We have already seen it in the UK with the MMR vaccine scare. Science was once synonymous for the neutral, logical and falsifiable. That could all get thrown out of the window over this.
When I moved to my present location, one factor in favor is that it is served by an electric cooperative. Customers are members and have a voice in and information about company operations. I try to attend yearly meetings, some of which are simply out of driving range. This year’s meeting was an hour’s drive and well worth the time. I personally visited one on one with both the CEO and General Manager. Who stated in the meeting and personally confirmed, “Expect electricity costs to approximately triple in the next few years.” Due to government regulations, I assume, but they would only hint at that. OTOH, fuel futures are NOT expected to rise that fast, so what else?
Hummm,
A couple of different paths being followed in this thread. Anthony is usually pretty scientific in his posts here – but occasionally there is a post to let people “let off steam”. (Until that becomes illegal, it’s a greenhouse gas you know).
But I think those who deride this thread as being unscientific and politial only are missing the point. Global Warming, Climate Change, and whatever else you want to call it is political. The science is more than ambiguous and probably against man caused global warming by CO2. Land use and other areas are less certain. It’s the pols that are taking the ball from so called environmentalists and running to the printer with it.
I do not think there is one person who posts to this blog who would dismiss legitimate science just because it supported AGW. The problem is, there is so little of it. Most of the land temperature results in the USA are from weather stations in compromised situations. Bad data does not science make.
It is a political issue, and one that will cause people to lose jobs, income, shelter, heat, and lives.
Bankrupting the coal industry is probably not possible with a world market for good coal. It’s just that we in the US of A won’t be able to take advantage of this cheap and relatively benign form of energy (when compared to nuclear energy) I’d rather breath the fumes of a coal plant then the fumes of a factory making solar panels. (That’s an exaggerated statement to get your attention… )
I sense an air of doom amongst McCain supporters which I think is premature and misplaced. There are state polls putting McCain ahead in FL, VA, NC, MO and other crucial states. I do think Mac is gonna win it.
As far as Obama, I think his problem is that he promised way too much. Even Obama himself “admits” that it will be difficult to keep all of his plans and I think the electorate has sensed it.
If Obama wins, he’ll be deemed a tremendous failure because he can never live up to the promised utopia.
If he looses, he’ll be a tremendous failure because he lost.
Cathy:
At least Obama has read the Federalist Papers. I wonder how many on this blog have ever really read the Constitution or studied the founding fathers.
I can’t believe educated people complain that Obama is going to make this country socialist. What a crock! It is as if people here have no clue what socialism is.
Are our public schools socialist because they are funded by the government? I dare say that nearly everyone on this blog owes his education or some part of his education to public schools, of if they don’t their parents do. If you support public schools are you socialist? It amazes me how if we want the government to do something we call it public, but if we don’t we call it socialist.
This notion that the government can’t do anything and that if it does its socialist is a bunch of hooey. The founding fathers clearly had in mind that the government do much of the heavy lifting of society.
And I have said before that it is government regulation that keeps monopolies from ruining private competition.
What we have in America today is far closer to fascism than it is to socialism.
Mussolini, the Godfather of fascism, said fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism, because it is the merger of governmental and corporate power.
What America has truly been at risk as of late is the merger of corporate and governmental power.
Socialism is when government takes over business and begins to run businesses. This certainly has not been the trend. In fact, many of our governmental institutions have been turned over to the private sector. Parts of our military (Blackwater and Halliburton), our prisons, many of our public utilities, many of our public hospitals, the construction of our roads and bridges and dams, our airports, and our elections. Wall Street would love to have your social security if it could get its hands on it. The list just goes on and on. And when corporations take over traditional governmental roles, that smacks of fascism not socialism.
I really don’t see any desire on Obama’s part to have the government take over business and even if he did, it would take a long time for government to take back running many of the programs it used to run.
I guess most here are too young to know what it was like before we got the notion that we should privatize everything.
If B.O. wins, expect a loud shrill two year campaign to destroy the GOP before the 2010 election. He knows that the military and police are not likely to support his drive to the one (Unity) party system after decades of leftist insults and harassment, that’s what the Civilian (KGB) Force will do. The defense of liberty requires constant vigilance, ZZZZZZZZ. We always get the government we deserve.
Pierre Gosselin (12:48:48) :
Pierre, you omitted 11. Government take-over and control of your 401(k).
Pierre, an amendment to the previous post.
Proposed 401k changes by Congress
http://www.smallerindiana.com/forum/topic/show?id=1736855%3ATopic%3A168719
‘national security force’ in another time and place they were called ‘brown shirts’, its only been 70 years or so in history.
I had a tough day here today continually hearing ridiculous statements on tv and radio about AGW , greenhouse gasses and carbon taxes. Then downloaded and read a couple of EOS articles in the latest publication. One of them titled ‘Groups Call for Better Protection From Climate Change and Severe Weather’……..I just want to say how much I appreciate this website as a source of information and evidence of intelligent life on the planet.
Who ever is elected president tomorrow should probably add the cabinet position of Soothsayer and appoint James Hansen to that post. Maybe cut some of the federal funding of science that doesn’t seem to be that important any more.
Cheers
Mary:
“I think he’s done a pretty good job of it! Your economy is a mess and foreign policy a joke. How could a once great nation make such a hash of it in only eight years?”
Let me understand this correctly. You don’t live here in the U.S….but you’re so well versed in our politics and history, that you know for certain that Bush is to blame for the economic woes we’re experiencing? That’s fascinating.
Also pretty presumptive, I’d say. There’s plenty of information available which pretty clearly shows there’s plenty of fingers in the pie, and plenty of blame to go around.
One of the things that intelligent discourse should provide us all is the desire to open our minds a bit…even if just a tiny bit… so that we might examine various points of view and various possibilities.
Without that, it just boils down to who has the biggest club, or the most clubs.
Jim
davidgmills,
Read Obama’s words carefully. If he makes “energy prices skyrocket” (his own words) there won’t be many businesses to nationalize.
They will relocate to countries that want to do business.
Well, Anthony, looks like you hit some people’s hot spot. The funny thing is that you are correct in that I did not find that you endorsed one over the other. Strange, but the Fox crew had the better asessment than the other talking heads. It was also suprising how honest Obama is in discussing what his cap and trade with 100% on the auction block and yearly decreasing goals. It is unfortunate that Obama does (did?) not realize that many of the companies that own coal plants are required by regulation and law to produce electricity and pass the costs to consumers plus 10%. Simple math, if costs of producing electrity double, then the company will double their actual profits without spending another nickel on infrastructure. It is definetly an ill wind indeed, that blows no one good.
When the majority of Americans wake up and realize what the Hansonian energy plan will do to their utility rates and taxes, this nonsense will come to a screeching halt – even with Obama in office.
Tomorrow it’s all over……I thank Anthony for having this topic, it is after all about CO2 and killing the Coal Fired Electric Plants. I live between Louisville, Ky and Cincinnati, OH and I can think of about 6 of them here. Obama can shut them all down and the complete area can go dark for all I care. Of course millions of people can go without jobs, food and heat. I am just about sick of the USA, anyone have a thought on where I can relocate?
Great, just what we need. Another lawyer (chicago) in Washingto to “rule over us”.
One thing we can all be sure of tomorrow. Regardless of whether Obama or McCain wins cap and trade will come. Both have promised they will implement it.
I find it more than a bit disingenuous that McCain (or Palin) would cry foul about Obama stating the obvious repercussions of adopting cap and trade.
Make that a double talking Lawyer from chicago.
DavidMills..very well said. I also find irony in how “unconservative” so-called “conservatives” these days truely are! Dem-darned “liberals” are blamed for “tax and spend”, and “redistribution of wealth”.
In actuality, during the last 8 years, the Bush Administration has borrowed more money from foreign countries (and your Grandchildren) and spent more borrowed money than all presidency’s in U.S. History..combined! We are borrowing $1Billion per day from China just for Crude Oil imports, and we’re pushing more than $1 Trillion, much of it borrowed, for what many argue are energy-related wars.
These, My Friends, are no conservatives. So Dem-Libs are Tax-And Spend, and “redistributors”..I get it. But, so-called Conservatives are Borrow-and-spend, with redistribution going international and multi-generational. Kinda funny if it weren’t so ironically-sad.
By the way, sure would like to have been a fly on-the-wall during Cheney’s Energy Policy meetings, which he has yet to release the records of…Go Figure.
John D.
Its unfortunate to wish/hope both McCain and Obama are lying to us and to also cheer for an ass kicking cold winter in the event they are not.
I think he’s done a pretty good job of it! Your economy is a mess and foreign policy a joke. How could a once great nation make such a hash of it in only eight years?
Planting a working democracy in the heart of the Middle East is a remarkable achievement. Saddam was causing the deaths of 50,000 to 100,000 people a year for almost a decade before the invasion. Not counting the death squads. Eventually Saddam would have stopped a well deserved bullet and either his insane sons would have taken over or there would have been a civil war to make the current mess look like a playground. Fortunately for the Iraqi people, Saddam is gone and the US, UK (et al.) were there to hold the factions apart until they could work out an exemplary functioning democracy, exceeding all expectation.
And when things looked bad (actually reported to be worse than they were), the surge proved wildly successful, and in spite of direct attempts of the press to ignore the success and even report it as failure, has given the world a huge victory for humanity and democracy.
Such a liberal outcome is well worth the laughs of the ignorant.
Or we could have done nothing, and the slow-motion holocaust of Saddam’s Iraq would still be ongoing, with disastrous future prospects. As Tony Blair said, “Doing nothing IS doing something.” Nobly said! How anybody with a modicum of humanity could possibly have objected to the invasion after the discovery of the mass graves (half a million and counting) is utterly beyond my ken.
As for the economy, Clinton dumped a severe recession on Bush which was exacerbated by the 911 catastrophe. Real revenue dropped 21% from 2000 to 2003, and millions of jobs were lost. The tax cut of 2.6% helped check this downturn. The bulk of the tax cuts occurred after that. In mid-2003, capital gains tax was cut by a quarter–and the loss of revenues (sic) halted abruptly and began to reverse.
Millions of more jobs were created than had been lost. Revenues were up 2.4% in 2004 and 11% in 2005.
Finally, in 2006, there was a 7.4% marginal rate tax cut (from 37.6% to 35%), and revenues skyrocketed 27% from the 2005 take to record levels. All this is adjusted for inflation.
Now we are supposed to blame Bush for a crisis brought on by lending policies pressed on the country almost exclusively by democrats, who blocked attempts at reform and oversight of Fannie and Freddie in both 2000 and 2005.
Those are the facts. And while the press (both ours and the beeb) has grossly obscured and misrepresented them, fact it remains.
Mary Hinge (16:07:44) Cling bitterly to the remnants of your Bush Derangement Syndrome. Bush has had an excellent beginning against the extreme and destructive Islamists, and has presided over the greatest economic expansion of all time. His foreign policy has been marked by real progress in the Middle East, by ground-breaking international trade policy, and the recognition worldwide, including in the ‘Old Country’, of America’s benignity and necessity in the maintenance of a peaceful and civil world. The housing bubble and consequent credit crunch are the fault of the Democrats. Your parochial view of American and international geopolitics is your own fault.
==============================================
Excellent retort, evanjones. Really excellent!
Too bad it won’t register on the closed-minded and the ignorati.
Its unfortunate to wish/hope both McCain and Obama are lying to us and to also cheer for an ass kicking cold winter in the event they are not.
Quite.
I am just about sick of the USA, anyone have a thought on where I can relocate?
No. This is it. We have survived worse. As bad as it gets, there is no better option. No cop-outs allowed. (No cop-outs available!)
Too bad it won’t register on the closed-minded and the ignorati.
It will. We must give it time. Recall that Truman was even more unpopular than dubya when he left office. Historical perspective has a way of sorting these things out. What strikes me as strange, though, is that my fellow liberals would take such objection to the greatest blow for liberalism and secularism since the end of the Cold War. My liberals have, in the heat of passion, lost their liberality. It is my deep hope that they will eventually regain it.
The biggest challenge we face is declining availability of liquid fuels from oil exporting countries. See Khebab’s Graphoilogy.blogspot.com Especially fig. 16 and Fig 17.
Top Five Oil Exporters
China is rapidly developing methanol from coal for fuel.
China Mobilizes Methanol While the U.S. Remains Mired in Oil i.e., at $0.66 to $1.00/gal gasoline equivalent.
Obama’s cap and trade coal policy will shut down alternative fuels right when we need a massive war time emergency effort to develop alternatives.
That will shut down the economy, massive unemployment, no retirement etc.
Gov. Sarah Palin is the only one with the practical experience with oil industry and fuels and the only one with credible executive experience to deal with the critical problems coming with peak oil.
So vote for McCain/Palin with a possible chance to bring the economy through after very severe disruptions –
OR
Obama/Biden to properly sink our economy into the biggest financial black ever dreamed up of Carbon Sequestration.
Steven Hill (18:47:37) :
“Tomorrow it’s all over……”
No…not yet.
“…anyone have a thought on where I can relocate?”
There was a movement, some time ago, where people were going to relocate to a state…possibly N.H.?…and take it over, politically…watch for signs of that to be reborn.
Jim
I do not share the opinion that we are running short of oil. I even doubt we are running short of sweet crude. We have been through this before. There has never been a time when the wise old owls haven’t “known” we are “past the peak”, starting around five years before someone stuck a straw in the ground in Pennsylvania back in 1859.
Even if we run short of light crude, we have literally trillions of barrels in shale, tar, and bitumens. It’s likely that the Bakken shale (not actually shale) will yield a half a trillion barrels before we’re done with it. The current “potential” estimates are a bad joke. And even they have increased twentyfold in the last three years. What does one suppose the next three years will bring?
The only way we will run short of oil is if we try really hard to do so. Mostly by pretending it isn’t there. And even then (in spite of the application of considerable time, trouble, and treasure) our attempts to run out may not succeed.
I for ones I think the Russian scientists got it right Oil is not a fossil fuel.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3952
Thought some of you might find this interesting. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6007
Where can I go to find a place where there are very limited taxes (preferably just a few percent of either income or purchases), where I can pay for my own health care, donate my money to charities or the poor by my own decision, a place where the government handles defense and a justice system and nothing else, and there is a Constitution that prohibits the government from solving anybody’s “problems”?
I currently make about $100K a year. I really think that if I could keep all of my income tax, sales tax, property tax, road tax, vehicle tax, etc. and didn’t have to pay the portion of the multiply compounded corporate taxes and regulation buried within prices of energy, and food, and other goods, then my purchasing power would be closer to $500K a year. I’d be able to pay privately for what are now called “goverment services” for much less than what I pay the government now.
There would be a vast increase in overall wealth. Scientific advances would go wild. It would be a new golden age.
How do we get out of this chicken outfit?
Scott
Hydrocarbons were found on the moon and in some meteorites, were they not? We chuckle at how little mankind new 500 years ago. Wonder what people 500 years from now will think of us?
Getting his cap and trade program in place in the name of saving the planet is crucial for getting his “green” job program up and running. After energy companies pass the buck down to the consumer the average person will be able to justify their 30k to 40k investment in solar or wind power for residential power since they will pay for themselves in a few years vice a few decades as it takes now.
On the civilian defense force this will compete directly with the current military for recruiting and most likely have the same benefits only it will by law not be allowed to participate in any foreign conflicts essentially taking away any type of preemptive or offensive capability.
End state will be an environmentally friendly America that can’t pursue any foreign policy via force.
Or at least that’s what the liberals want to believe will happen
“AEGeneral (08:54:54) :
I’m starting to have serious reservations that this country will still exist 10 years from now. It’s being destroyed from within, and the politicians are the catalyst.”
It is the voters who put those politicians in place.They are getting what they want.
If they are doing it out of lazy ignorance.Then they deserve the smackdown they will get.But the ones who knew that Obama is not a viable choice.Will have to live with it somehow.
I would consider that a scary situation to ponder.
I feel sorry for the really angry posters. Don’t they see the benefit of civil debate? I do not agree with everyones viewpoints, but I am thrilled to be able to discuss it. Some of the best discourse anywhere. Thank you, Anthony !!
Scott R. (20:32:27) :You despair now like many Americans (I assume you are American). Try to come to Australia. We certainly do not equate with your aspirations, but we are closer to them than the future that exists for you now. Distance lends more than enchantment; it lends hope! No doubt in the near future, many of your countrymen and women will look to our shores and see escape!
McCain thought he could win Democratic votes by bashing Republicans and pretending to be a Democrat. Instead, all he accomplished was to give 15% approval Pelosi and Reid a larger majority. It was almost as if his campaign advisers were working for the other side.
Palin comes out the winner because she broke free from McCain’s useful idiots and came back to her core values. Look for the 2012 campaign to start tomorrow.
I just watched a video where Obama announced that he was going to “call” 65,000 young people to service in the military. yes, I remember those days from the 1960s well. It was called “Selective Service.”
Does anyone ever actually listen to what he is saying? His audiences remind me of deer staring into the headlights.
David Ball
I was astonished and surprised how little we know about the tuff our wealth and prosperity is built upon.
I got to think with modern computer and aerodynamics we get 747th to fly but when we program the wingspan and weight of a bumble bee into the computer Aerospace engineering tell us they shouldn’t be able to fly.
But I think sooner or later with a scientific approach they will find how bees fly.
Climatologists on the other hand would go after every bee with a fly swatter.
I hope we laugh at ourselves much sooner than 500 years, 10 years perhaps or i hope.
It amazes me how many people know what I think. Were I to believe what has been written here, I wouldn’t like me. But nonetheless, I am a liberal. Like Lincoln was. And Washington. And Franklin. And Adams. These men were radical liberals compared to the conservative faction they sought to either change or overthrow. So Obama has expressed reservations, strongly so, regarding the use of coal. By the way, anyone know why Franklin tried to come up with a stove that would take the place of an open hearth? Anyone know why Adams sought to provide a public education to all the people? Anyone know why the government ordered vaccinations for the masses? Anyone know why cheap (read free) labor would eventually bite us in the butt if it were allowed to continue? Anyone know why electric lighting (or any other kind of lighting) was being researched as an alternative to gas lighting? Anyone know why unregulated meat was not in our best interest? Anyone know why coal was eventually banned as an openly burned source of energy? We have lots of things that spoil our air and food today. But we modern folk have no idea what it was like decades ago when bacteria, gas, oil, and coal spoiled our food, our air and lungs every day. Maybe part of our desire to change our energy sources to something cleaner has old memories in it. These old memories were indeed horrible for children and women especially who had to live and breath in cramped living quarters along dank city streets. These things were substantially improved because of governmental regulations and programs. Yet men still die of black lung. Yes, even now. And miners still get caught in death traps while digging for black gold. These memories and events are neither conservative nor liberal. They were and are still distressing and need to be addressed, lest we repeat history to our own detriment.
That said, I for one believe that coal could and should become a clean source of energy, but in so doing, it will not provide cheap energy. It will however, help reduce our dependence on damned foreigners who don’t like us much and often have us by our privates over a barrel of oil. That is also not a conservative nor a liberal thought. Anyone with a brain knows that the conservative religious thought of radical muslims have a hatred in their heart for all westerners, be they red or blue. And we shouldn’t rely on them for even the crumbs from a piece of toast, even if it ends up that toasting our own slice of bread will be more expensive.
But back to the less than dignified way that some are posting here and the conclusions some have made regarding liberals. Some here seem to know what I, or any other liberal, think, and paint it in colors of their own choosing. But people are more complicated, and history is more complicated, than simple hues of red and blue. Most of us see each other through colors we choose to see from. It is the rare individual who takes those colored glasses off and seeks to find out how a conservative or liberal thinks by asking him or her and then taking what they hear at a face value, instead of re-interpreting it back into the colors we choose to see from. I have conservative folks in my family. These are people I love and respect. That includes respecting their views as they are stated without the color commentary. It has even changed the way I view some things. And I have changed the way they view some things. But I would never describe them in the vitriolic verbiage I have read here.
Maybe we need grandmas to throw some cold water on us. While it is American to state our views about our parties and beliefs, have you not remembered the golden rule? It is neither red or blue. For shame.
Did I hear that right? Did he say he was going to use the billions generated in the cap and trade policy to fund the subsidising of the wind and solar energy industry?
How the hell is he going to do that if he sends all the Coal industries broke?
This guy doesn’t even make sense!
I pity you Americans if you vote him in. But it will be entertaining to watch.
This civillian security force scares me… I think of the night of the long knives
UCLAiri
True, Presidents have limited power to change things however with a very liberal President and a if the Democrats win the house and the senate as expected with the control going to the extreme left. The President can nominate extremely liberal judges to the Supreme Court, who have already established a bias of making law not interpreting law.
Obama is a disaster waiting to happen with all of his 143 days of experience.
It’s shame you went politcal on your site Anthony.
[deleted expletive phrase ~ charles the moderator]
Pamela,
I appreciate your thoughts.
I stay out of political discussions generally – because people stop using logic. Their brains function on a lower level when emotional. However, I think that the discussions on this web site are much more cerebral than on any political blog. Also, I would argue that most bloggers on this site are environmentally conscious, and support “green” technology! I certainly do. After reading through the posts I think that the majority of our bloggers favor clean coal. There is no question that scrubbing the particulates and sulfates from the emissions has had a beneficial effect on the environment in coal burning areas. However, we must not confuse “clean coal” with “CO2 free emissions”. We are all educated enough to recognize that there is a monumental distinction between the two. One is grounded in science, while the other is a scam. This is a scientific based blog. It should be obvious to you and everyone who posts on this site why the cap and trade policy gets everyone’s hide rankled.
you are kidding charles!
Pamela Gray,
Our current power generation scheme is almost invisible. Coal is so clean and unobtrusive that most of us don’t even know where our power comes from. It took a long time to get to this point – coal fired power plants used to be filthy. We have already overcome that hurdle.
The thought of tens of thousands of windmills chopping up birds, and power lines everywhere sounds like an environmental catastrophe. Winter here in Colorado tends to be cold and the air is very still – reliance on wind would be a complete disaster during the two seasons when we need power the most.
I’m extremely happy with my (very low carbon footprint) life, and I don’t need some arrogant young idealist in Washington “fixing” it. My wife grew up in the USSR under the very vision he espouses (service, equality, fairness, government control.) Millions tried to escape the USSR every year to the United States, and had to be contained by the “civilian security force” – otherwise known as the KGB.
After reading all of these responses, maybe some of you will be encouraged by this.
I can’t stand McCain. Carbon trading was my issue, and they have both advocated it. I was willing to sit this one out….until this morning.
I listened to this interview with Obama in its entirety. This guy is morally and ethically bankrupt. I don’t mind philosophical differences, but this is on a whole different level.
Who in their right mind would INTENTIONALLY make energy costs “necessarily skyrocket”? And during a recession, no less? Does he realize what this will do to those who can afford it least? The nation’s poor that he supposedly represents? Or does his treatment of his own family reflect who he really is after all? I had dismissed all of that until I listened to this interview.
There’s something wrong with this guy’s thought process. He’s neither liberal nor conservative, he’s anti-human. I have to show up & vote against him after hearing this. Take me out of the undecided, not-likely-to-show-up column.
I feel better now.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program…..
JimB (20:05:03) :
Steven Hill (18:47:37) :
That’s the Free State Project whose goal was to get 20,000 people to commit to move to New Hampshire and then do so in five years. So far, they’ve only gotten 8781 participants, but 622 have moved to NH. (Or were already here, I’m not sure, but since I’m already here, I don’t need to remember.)
Some of the people who’ve moved in are interesting, well educated folks committed to encouraging people live their own lives. Some are politically active, some aren’t, some are very good additions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/holidays/cultural-holidays/new-hampshire-the-taste-of-freedom-935906.html is a surprisingly good report.
Oh – move soon – I think NH is going to vote for Obama. Can you get here by Tuesday evening?
Anthony:
This bottle should not have been uncorked.
The battle against AGW is not one of liberals vs. conservatives, it is one of truth vs. propaganda. Science vs. ignorance dressed as science.
People of all political persuasions recognize the greens as a menace to society, even if some are more apt to tolerate their idiocy.
So folks, let the other battle work itself out tomorrow. Then lets get back to what this site is all about.
kim (19:31:56) :
So why do polls of the rest of the world show an overwhelming preference for Obama?
open your mind;s eyes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/17/uselections2008-barackobama1
and the busy readers digest, lots of blurb:
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/global-poll-how-the-world-sees-the-2008-election/article102257.html
The world views the Bush administration as disastrous, and is terribly afraid of McCain’s continuation of imperial war policies. Ofcourse you all are judging by your country’s criteria, but please be aware that history is something that is written outside frontiers. Do not wear pink glasses.
On this AGW issue, maybe Obama is worse than McCain, but McCain has promised to use Al Gore if elected, so what is the difference between them except maybe candor and knowing the results of actions?
It amazes me how many people know what I think. Were I to believe what has been written here, I wouldn’t like me. But nonetheless, I am a liberal. Like Lincoln was. And Washington. And Franklin. And Adams. These men were radical liberals compared to the conservative faction they sought to either change or overthrow.
#B^1
I know what you mean–there are those on other blogs whom I’d just hate to characterize my views! And you make very good picks; you avoid the ones I don’t like. And I agree with the need for reasonable regulation–the robber barons have taught us well. I also favor a lot of what some people describe as “big government” (“as small as possible” can still add up to “pretty damn big”).
Unfortunately, many who call themselves “liberal” have simply fallen off the left edge of the table. And the country is split red and blue. That is the normal historical condition of America. The red/blue split is NOTHING compared with the Blue/Gray split of much of the 19th century. Or the Federalist-Democratic Republican split. Or the Union/Industrialist split.
America had an artificial joining during WWII, partially but not completely sustained by the Cold War–and that is fading. We are returning to historical normality: i.e, a House Divided.
The so-called liberals may regain their senses. Perhaps they may get their heads straight and go my way, once again. But I cannot count on it. And I won’t go theirs.
We are of a kind, you and I. (Separated by merely a few economic concepts.) I enjoin you to observe the unfortunate manner in which a huge percentage of the country has departed from the ideals of the founders you adduce. They are not like you; make no mistake.
Neither are the conservatives, mind. You and I will never be entirely at home with them. But they provide us a much needed shelter, and we must be genuinely grateful for it and pay for it in noblesse oblige. They will never be like us, but they are closer to us than our erstwhile comrades who have gone astray.
So we wait for them to return to genuine liberalism. It’s all we can do. We must not follow them into intellectual darkness.
In the meantime, we must accept the sad reality that they have made themselves our intellectual enemies, and I use that word advisedly. They have said so themselves. Beware of them. Do not expect any gratitude for your loyalty, nor any consideration; you won’t get it. There is no reasonable doubt to grant: You and I are declared apostate. Abandoned.
We are worse than betrayed. We are orphaned.
When the conservatives speak of “liberals” they do not mean us. We cannot fairly blame them for the misconception. And our only shelter is among the loving heathen.
Meanwhile, we wait with a terrible patience. We wait for our liberals to return to us.
October Mauna Loa is out … big jump
Retired, registered Dem, just voted for Sarah Palin. County clerk apologized for the long voting line, said the bus from Chicago just arrived.
@ davidgmills (16:57:19) :
At least Obama has read the Federalist Papers. I wonder how many on this blog have ever really read the Constitution or studied the founding fathers.
I, for one, have read the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, and the Soviet Constitution, and have tried wading through Mein Kampf. Amazing the assumptions people make about what’s in these documents. Senator Biden’s incorrect statement of what the Constitution says about the Vice-Presidency is an example.
I can’t believe educated people complain that Obama is going to make this country socialist. What a crock! It is as if people here have no clue what socialism is.
Socialism is a broad term, comprising communism, fascism, the cradle-to-grave welfare state, and many of the welfare programs we currently have.
The founding fathers clearly had in mind that the government do much of the heavy lifting of society.
Now we learn who hasn’t read the Federalist Papers.
And I have said before that it is government regulation that keeps monopolies from ruining private competition.
And we learn who got the public school education. (I got mine back when teachers were apolitical, when the National Education Association was still a professional organization)
What we have in America today is far closer to fascism than it is to socialism.
At last a glimmer! The fascist form of socialism occurs when a government isn’t strong enough to take over companies’ ownership, and must content itself with merely running them by regulation. Hitler and Mussolini would have loved to own the means of production, but they came to power in an already industrialized state and had to compromise, where Lenin had a non-industrial clean slate in Russia.
Socialism is when government takes over business and begins to run businesses. This certainly has not been the trend …
‘Compliance officers’ and a trillion dollars worth of takeovers. QED
I guess most here are too young to know what it was like before we got the notion that we should privatize everything.
Good sir, it doesn’t sound like age has much to do with it.
Jeeves (Steven Fry) explains why many Brits look down on Americans.
“When they mock America for its supposed lack of knowledge, irony or sophistication, they are revealing nothing but the pathetic inadequacy and inferiority complex of the British. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/3371819/Stephen-Fry-attacks-sneering-anti-Americanism.html
Any plan for fundamental changes to energy production must have a temporal and technical coherence. To talk of bankrupting an industry would seem to indicate that neither exists. If I were an American I would be very wary of voting for this man.
The world views the Bush administration as disastrous, and is terribly afraid of McCain’s continuation of imperial war policies.
Indeed. Much of the rest of the world cannot conceive of occupying Iraq and leaving it free and democratic. Of rebuilding the country at excessive cost and not demand one penny in payment. Of not making off with the oil. Because they would if they were us.
We call that one “projection”.
And I daresay the very concept is disconcerting. They would rather see the US as a run-of-the-mill imperialist state. It’s their comfort zone.
Ah, but where is our empire? So they try to invent a false one for us. They call it “economic imperialism” or “cultural imperialism” or “environmental imperialism” or some other such meaningless nonsense.
They cannot understand us, and they are made uncomfortable by what they cannot understand: This strange, young power that gives without taking, sacrifices without recompense, whose “national interest” IS freedom. If only we had some understandable motive! Something ancient, and visceral. Something with which to identify! Something to look down on, to feel morally superior to!
They are far more comfortable with the risible concept that America (or at least the better half of it) yearns and conspires to embark on mad world conquest than they are with the uncomfortable reality. (And so are over a third of our own citizens, as it turns out. The fools.)
Of course you all are judging by your country’s criteria, but please be aware that history is something that is written outside frontiers. Do not wear pink glasses.
Ah, the things they write. (How quaint!) It is like the story of the blind men and the elephant . . . some are more charitable in their interpretations than others.
I was wondering what the future of America was likely to be from tomorrow, so I repaired to my study and commenced reading ‘The Rise and fall of the Roman Empire.’ The barbarians where always at the Roman gates, but they let themselves in when they stumbled across the key of stupidity! Today that key is called the popular vote!
Mike McMillan (23:50:07) : Har! Har! (And Hear! Hear!)
evanjones (00:34:57) :
I am curious, what other country has over 250 army bases in foreign countries?
If China did that, how would you characterise it?
Imperial comes naturally for China.
And you are really deluded if you think that Irak is now a democracy or will remain a democracy. History tells us that democracies are not suites cut out and worn on nations, but spontaneously evolve when the conditions are ripe. What Irak has now is a US protectorate ( like the old roman and byzantine and UK ones) which will evolve into another overt dictatorship as is the rule in the moslem states of the region once the US leaves, which it will whoever wins this election. They have a long way to go to evolve into democracies.
I am curious, what other country has over 250 army bases in foreign countries?
I am curious, what would any “traditional power” be doing with those bases?
The only one of those bases that we would not immediately remove on request is Gitmo!
We are an odd cove, are we not?
If China did that, how would you characterise it?
It depends entirely on what they did with them and if they removed them upon request.
Imperial comes naturally for China.
The last time they actually took anything over by force was 1950. And Tibet had been a part of China before. They withdrew from North Korea after 1953. And even the 1978 Vietnam incursion was punitive; they never intended to occupy the place even had they won. They’d take over Taiwan if they could get away with it, but they consider that an internal matter, as well.
I am not too worried about China’s territorial ambitions.
Hey Pamela, what is it like there in Obama’s fantasy land, where working in difficult conditions mining gold that other people wanted and were willing to pay for is identical to writing those same people checks from taxpayers?
A world where the Carter Presidency never happened, and where the 18% mortgage rates and 10% unemployment could just be disregarded, even though that is what happened the last time Obama’s ideas were tried and there was a Senate supermajority of Democrats, a Democrat president, and a Democrat congress?
According to Pamela, the important thing is to not think about that.
And you are really deluded if you think that Irak is now a democracy or will remain a democracy.
It’s actually an excellent democracy with a well worked out constitution. And it gives every indication of remaining so. And they are about to request that we leave. We will.
As for Rome in Iraq, Trajan initially snagged the place and then Hadrian swapped it to Persia three years later for a secure border. (When did Rome or Byzantium ever simply leave a “protectorate” by request?)
History tells us that democracies are not suites cut out and worn on nations, but spontaneously evolve when the conditions are ripe.
You are forgetting about Japan and West Germany.
evan
West Germany is a bad example, because it is a part of the west, and western culture has no frontiers in europe. That they had a dictatorship interlude was unfortunate for the world, but so did spain and portugal and they evolved out of it.
Japan is a different story, it was decimated after the war and demoralized by the bombs, and emerged into a new paradigm in the same way as animals will do if shocked and awed. It is a bad example:” I will devastate you so that you become like me”.
I do not think that this has happened in Irak, and I live much closer to it than you do.
anna v
“They have a long way to go to evolve into democracies.”
Well, that’s not a reason to not get started.
I get the feeling you’re saying Iraqis and Moslems are neither capable nor developed enough to have a democracy. Such a view is elitist and arrogant. People living there ought to be insulted by that.
I respect you for your scientific skills, but please do spare us from this brand of European sophistication- the sort you demonstrated above. Hopefully you did not intend it that way.
Democracy and freedom involve hard work. But that’s not a reason to give up on them before trying.
Now, now, moptop. The economic realities come hard. Pamela has made pretty fair progress, I think. Besides, her climate skepticism has, perforce, cast her adrift.
She’s an exile in her own party, though she may not fully realize it yet. When one defects from what passes today for liberalism on the AGW subject, one is truly alone. Conservatives have lots of company.
She should be cut some slack and given the benefit of the doubt.
UCLAri has it right. The House reps and Senators you elect today will be your runners for the presidential election. Do you know how yours voted? Do you support what they did? There has been an extreme apathy in our local voting. Many places just revote the same person in over and over despite corruption because either no one else will run or they recognize the name. Find out who you are voting in on local and state levels. Its from those little choices that we can initiate the fix we need, weeding out the corrupt and insane hopefully.
Lets face it folks the presidential position does not hold as much power as the House and Senate do. They have the power to initiate and regulate and if the bailout is any indicator they intend to do what they dang well please no matter what we say or how loudly we say it. That needs to change and right now! I wonder if anyone from the current congress would be elected if folks spent half as much time researching them as they did reading about Pallins new clothes. How many of your votes went to someone who already voted yes to cap and trade before it got shot down by a fillabuster? How many of them voted yes to sneeking it into the bailout package?
As for our presidential candidates? I wouldn’t vote for either if I had a viable third choice. Which of them has ever had to plastic their windows to keep out the cold???
I previously thought that most AGW-science sceptics were sceptic because of the science. Now it has become obvious to me that there is more than a fair amount of partisanship in whether people believe in AGW or not.
Making posts here about patriotism, partisanism or politics unrelated to AGW issues pollutes this site completely.
I think I’ll stick to reading posts from McIntyre or Svalgaard and their likes.
anna. Germany was only briefly democratic and only that as a result of defeat in WWI. And they made a pretty poor job of it if the 1923 Ruhr crisis and letting Hitler slip into power is any indication.
Japan resisted to the very end. They did not surrender after the second atomic bomb. It took a 1600 B29 raid on Tokyo, and three other fire raids plus the threat to continue ’round the clock bombing. And even then it would have been a no-go if the emperor had not been allowed to remain in place as titular head of state. (And even then, they tried to assassinate the emperor’s messenger carrying the surrender message.)
Iraq was not anywhere near destroyed to the extent of Japan or Germany. But they had a huge voter turnout every time, outstandingly honest voting procedures. And even a new visible symbol of freedom: The purple ink-stained finger. I bet they do just fine. We’ll see.
But none of that alters my previous point: if they lose their democracy, that will not be in US interest. Primary US interest IS democracy. Not oil. Not territory. Not military bases. And Iraq will not have democracy as WE know it. They will have it as THEY know it. That’s why they call it democracy. They get to decide.
Both Turkey and Indonesia are successful Muslim democracies. Why not Iraq?
And one more thing,
as an American living in Europe I’m insulted by you comparing the USA to Communist China. The USA does not go around taking freedom away from people, it goes around spreading freedom.
Our soldiers don’t die overseas so that people like you can be oppressed; they die so that people like you have freedom – even to make twisted comments like yours. Be happy you are not speaking Nazi German or Stalinist Russian. It’s American “imperialism” that allows you to enjoy the freedom you have today. You comments insult the families of the soldiers who died on your behalf.
If you are even half the person I think you are, you’d have the human decency to apologise.
And take a trip to Normandy or Ausschwitz if you need a lesson in history.
Joachim,
“Making posts here about unrelated to AGW issues pollutes this site completely.”
Patriotism, partisanism or politics are not pollution. They are elements of an open society.
This post by Anthony is a political topic – so discussion will not be necessarilly be scientific. You are free ignore the comments here, but please do so without calling those participating polluters. It’s bad enough that CO2 is unjustly called a pollutant. Constructive opinions are not.
I’m so sick and tired of people with more than one field of interest, and who comment on such fields in their correct place, ie, under posts that have to do with the issues that interest those people.
I think both Obama and McCain have jumped on the AGW bandwagen. Now that is boring climate change out the way now the fun stuff, politics.
Retired Engineer (10:25:27) : said
>>Maggie Thatcher made a very good point in her preface to “The Downing Street Years”, setting the Conservative party in opposition to the idea that ‘the gentlemen in Whitehall know better how the people should live than the people themselves.’<>We’ll know in about 36 hours if we’re following Britain down the road to freezing in the dark.We’re already in danger of blackouts & brownouts<>and the recognition worldwide, including in the ‘Old Country’, of America’s benignity and necessity in the maintenance of a peaceful and civil world<>The only one of those bases that we would not immediately remove on request is Gitmo!<<
You wouldn’t move out of Diego Garcia either immediately. But I’m more interested on your thoughts on the war in Iraq, this is a war which was not about creating a democracy in the Middle East, the USA has been more than happy not to have democratic governments in the Middle East for the last 30 years, including when it supported Saddam in the 1980’s, so that is poppycock. The war was about WMD’s that didn’t exist and striking back at targets where you could, trying to claim a democracy being formed as a result of your actions is hijacking a good reason when all the actual reasons are bad.
The Republicans in two terms have invaded the wrong country on wrong intelligence, got distracted from the correct region so that Afghanistan is still a problem and Bin Laden has not been caught, failed to cope after Katrina and finally has let finances get so bad you are having to partially nationalise the banks and give them massive bailouts of taxpayers money (1 $1trillion plus)
How Socialist is that last sentence … ha… and Pierre Gosselin is worried about Obama. That’s like worrying about the heat from a candle when you are standing next to a blast furnace.
Also, what happened to America, the land of the brave? You guys sound scared and frightened and full of doubt. Golly, you sound like us Europeans !
Regards
Andy
Regarding evanjones (02:00:10’But none of that alters my previous point: if they lose their democracy, that will not be in US interest. Primary US interest IS democracy. ”
The reason this is a primary US intrest is because the history of the world indicates that only democracies have stable relationships with their neighbors.
Please google Rudolp Rummel talks about the miracle of liberty and peace.
Evan Jones said again
“Primary US interest IS democracy. Not oil.”
That’s not true, as my example of the USA supporting Iraq in the 1980 Iran – Iraq war showed. That’s not to say it’s about oil though, though that can play a part. What the primary US interest is, along with the other great superpower Russia in the 20th C, is balance of power mixed with putting caps on regimes that are seen not to be in the interest of the USA or Russia.
This is why Russia swatted Georgia and went over the top with it’s response when Georgia started an aggessive military campaign in South Ossetia, this is why the USA freed Kuwait from the Iraq invasion in the early 1990’s but then didn’t take the ideal chance to instigate a democracy in Kuwait as well. All they did, quite rightly, was correct the power balance and limit the anti US interests at that time.
The problem with invading Iraq is that the power balance has now shifted again but this time it has shifted it in Iran’s favour. Bush therefore even screwed that up, took away the bulwark of an admittedly horrible secular government against a horrible theocratic one. Oh the irony.
There’s quite a few countries in East Africa that could do with a good dose of democracy right now, but I don’t see much intent by Bush to send in the troops there.
Regards
Andy
My first post got horribly mangled there, lost my chance of attacking Maggie Thatcher on the coal mners to posterity .. sob sob …
Andy
Joachim: I completely agree. The good point is that it might show most people that skepticism really is all about politics and not science. Which might sound funny, because that’s exactly what they accuse “warmers” to do.
In this current age of Islamic Revival , I don’t think democracy is going to work in a society that gives any room to Sharia law. Islam rejects manmade law as an affont to Allah on the level of idoltry.
Turkey’s ruling party is Islamist and is steadily Islamicizing what it can get away with and will continue to do so bit by bit until they are so entrenched that the courts and military will not be able to roll it back.
Hopefully the Iraqis ordeal in being the victims of sunni and shia extermists will unite them in a non-religious nationalism but until the govt of Iran is taken care of, there will be constant destablization by Iran.
We should not leave until all threats to Iraq are neutralized.
History tells us that democracies are not suites cut out and worn on nations, but spontaneously evolve when the conditions are ripe.
I for one am getting rather bored with this argument that the North should have never freed the Slaves in the U.S. via the Civil War. Perhaps it should have waited for them and/or the South to “spontaneously evolve”?
And was the freeing of Eastern Europe a result of “spontaneous evolution”?
As to South Korea, why its existence as a democracy is just wrong, I say, wrong!
People have apparently forgotten what Imperialism is really like. We’re not even close.
I am curious, what other country has over 250 army bases in foreign countries?
Right. I say we withdraw from Europe post haste. We’ve got about 100,000 military there now, and in the past have averaged 250,000 for decades. This hegemony must end! Same goes for S. Korea.
Really, anna, I’ve heard about these vast numbers of “bases” now for about six years, but I’ve never heard anyone thinking that this is some kind of dig against the “imperialist” U.S. go any further, that is, to examine what those bases actually are and why they exist. Since it’s your argument, perhaps you are the one who should make some actual sense out of it instead of simply repeating an otherwise empty meme. [Somewhat mysteriously, the alleged total number of bases even keeps on going up.]
The last guy who threw this factoid at me didn’t seem to get the point of my rejoinder to the effect that, “Yeah, and don’t forget about all those massive naval forces spread out all over the World, either.”
Comprende?
Mike Bryant (23:40:59) :
“October Mauna Loa is out … big jump”
Thank you MIke,
An increase in Mauna Loa CO2 is normal from September to October, as the seasonal decline in CO2 ends, along with the summer growing season. ML CO2 will now increase until Northern Hemisphere Spring (it peaks in April or May).
However, as you correctly point out, this increase in CO2 from September to October is larger than recent numbers:
2004: +0.28 ppm
2005: +0.11
2006: +0.22
2007: +0.41
2008: +0.65
The simplest emplanation is that Autumn weather arrived sooner in 2007 and 2008 than in past years. Is this more evidence of global cooling?
ML CO2 data at
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Regards, Allan
Physicist and long time reader of this blog , I must make my first post in this thread .
First Anthony you were perfectly right to disclose the news object of this post .
The climate debate has both a scientific and a political dimension and there is nothing to gain to ignore one of those dimensions . Of course the fact that the political dimension is marginaly also mentionned doesn’t impair in any way the credibility of the scientific dimension of the blog .
Second , indeed , the debate concerning Obama goes much farther than only AGW .
It is primarily an internal US matter because it is you who are voting but if you will be in the first line to suffer the consequences , whether we non US citizens like it or not , we will feel the heat too .
To say it bluntly , I am sickened and disgusted by the Obamaniacal hysteria in Europe .
To be fair it doesn’t concern so much the ordinary citizens but massively the media and the show business .
The dumb journalists (pleonasmus) and dumb movie actors (another pleonasmus) are simply going nuts because the US could elect a black president who will at last see the right way of the wealth redistribution and of the fight against the climate change
Why being black should be some quality insurance and the fight against the climate change something else than a bottomless idiocy is generally left unexplained .
However if somebody dared to say in public that Obama is a catastrophe waiting to happen , he’d be immediately lynched . The atmosphere in the media is thick and insane . The atmosphere during the Moscow trials was of similar composition .
So what is my principal reason to hope that reason will prevail and Obama will be sent back where he belongs ?
Because it is for the first time in the world’s history that there is a socialist having a real chance at becoming the POTUS and having the Senate at his boot .
We , europeans , are good at recognising a socialist when we see one .
During more than a half a century we had on our own soil a huge socialist concentration camp .
I happened to live in one part of this concentration camp and if there were barbed wire and mine fields around it , it was to keep the people in .
A socialist has as a primary characteristic the conviction that he must achieve economical equality pompously called “social justice” .
Hence the statements about “wealth (re)distribution” are indeed paramount .
Or like the saying went in my former country “The socialists have promised to take from the rich to give to the poor . But half of the rich ran away and the other half was killed because they objected . So only poor were left in socialismus .”
Do not be mistaken – the USA are not immune to this illness and Obama is the proof .
Sure the timing is unknown and the things don’t always begin by arresting people or stealing property .
The timing is the matter of tactics and personnal preferences but there is no ambiguity about the targets to be achieved .
Achieving “social justice” always involves a degree of constraint and violence .
And here again let’s quote “the masters” who expressed the philosophy in very similar terms , Trotski and Hitler : “There is no question that can’t be solved by applying the adequate level of violence . The only problem is to have the will to apply it .”
Before some simple mind misinterprets – I absolutely don’t compare Obama to Trotski or Hitler , that would be utterly ridiculous . The environment is different , the times are different , the geopolitics are different , the personalities are different .
Much more the intent is to show that a socialist and a true champion of “social justice” doesn’t question the necessity of constraint and violence because for him it is necessary . He only questions matters of degree , timing and opportunity .
That is why any kind of socialist philosophy (regardless if it is marxismus , fascismus , anarchism etc) is intrinsically evil because it necessarily leads to the negation of individual freedom at a level that is much deeper than the mere contractual mutually accepted way commonly called “laws” .
I think that this part really has to be well understood because that’s how your dumb average socialist argues .
Any life in a society implies laws that are by definition constraints on personal freedom so what’s the problem with “socialist laws” ?
Well the problem is that normal laws are contractual matters where both parties have interest to follow them (I will not kill you if you don’t try to kill me) and those where the mutual satisfaction is not clear can always be undone .
Socialist laws are all submitted to one dogma : the target of the society is to achieve economical equality (or a society without classes or social justice or whatever wording) . And you will be never allowed to undo this one .
On the contrary , trying to undo the dogma was generally punished by death .
If Obama is elected , would he transform the USA like the raving lunatic Chavez transforms Venezuela ? Probably not in only 4 years .
But he will take steps in a very wrong direction that I hoped to never ever see reappearing on the face of this Earth .
JP (13:31:46) :
This could be the last time US voters go to the polls so uninformed.
————–
How will the public get informed. The Democrats are going to pass an expanded version of the Fairness Doctrine. They have already talked of expanding it to the internet and cable.
If Obama wins. All of the measures that have been passed in recent years will be outlawed. Democrats fought hard against them passing, and will be eager to get rid of them now that they have the chance.
If Obama wins, not only will the many electoral shenanigans that have occurred not be investigated, but they will be encouraged next time.
I honestly fear for the future of this republic should the Democrats win the White House and get enlarged majorities in Congress. I truely believe that if Obama wins, this will be the last honest and open election in this country for many generations.
John D. (13:33:09) :
As far as deconstruction of the Constitution and threatening Checks and Balances, nobody in U.S. History has done what Cheney-Bush have in the last 8 years.
I’m looking forward to more scienctific discourse and sure will be glad when this miserable campaigning-mud slinging is over-with. Whichever candidate wins this time, let’s just hope it’s better than the last round!
John D.
——————–
Ironic, even while decrying mudslinging, he engages in it.
Bush did nothing to “deconstruct the constitution”. Not even close.
Of course those on the left are swift to claim that anything that opposes their goals is evil.
Obama has no credibility on any issue economic. McCain isn’t great, but at least he tried to reform Freddy and Fannie back in 2000. A move that was blocked in part by Obama.
You might want to rephrase; Obama wasn’t in the Senate in 2000.
———
Sorry, meant 2005. 2000 was when the Community Reinvestment Act that started this mess was signed. By Clinton.
Pamela Gray (21:46:06) :
‘It amazes me how many people know what I think. Were I to believe what has been written here, I wouldn’t like me. But nonetheless,………..’
I agree with you on many of your view points. But I don’t need or trust a politican that tells the west coast I’m going to bankrupt “new”coal fire electric power plants and then comes to Ohio and says he for “new” clean coal fire electric power plants. He talks out of both side of his mouth on a lot of issues.
And I have said before that it is government regulation that keeps monopolies from ruining private competition.
——————
Completely and utterly wrong. It is govt regulation that creates monopolies.
Without the force of government, monopolies are impossible.
Our economic woes are due to two things.
1) The high price of energy. Bush had nothing to do with that. If the Democrats had allowed drilling offshore and in ANWR, the problem never would have gotten this bad.
2) The credit crisis. As I mentioned above, that was caused by policies put in place by Clinton, and protected by the Democrats throughout this adminstration. (The economic slowdown caused by high energy made this problem much worse.)
As to our foreign policy. Yes, it has been derided by a large number of left wing intellectuals.
So what.
A recent poll of Democrats found that 70% of them believed that judges should let their own view of “fairness” over ride the text of the law.
Now, nothing anyone posts here will affect the American election. So it is past time for people to be honest in what they write. Partisanship for the sake of partisanship is past its due date.
Obama’s energy policies are the same as the declared policies of Pelosi and Boxer in the Democratic Congress. They involve scaling back coal and oil sands drastically, and preventing the use of oil shales in Colorado entirely. They also involve severe limitations on any expansion of nuclear fission plants.
It is critically important to understand in real terms what this policy would mean, if implemented. Partisanship is misplaced, indeed it is suicidal, in this context.
I am curious, what other country has over 250 army bases in foreign countries?
——
Every time the US tries to close a base, the local politicians go nuts trying to prevent it. Do you honestly believe that those bases are there to control the countries they are located in?
—–
And you are really deluded if you think that Irak is now a democracy or will remain a democracy.
——–
You contradict yourself. How can Iraq remain a democracy, if it isn’t a democracy now? So which is it. When you can figure out for yourself, let me know.
As to it being a democracy now. Of course it is. They’ve voted twice now in free and open elections.
Joachim (01:47:26) :
———
Projecting again?
Anna V, I can only conjecture that the rest of the world has been as bamboozled by Bush’s bad press as have Americans by Mainstream Media. The America of Bush’s eight years has been a wise force for international civil defense, peace, and expansion of trade. It is only insofar as the American military has been needed as the world’s police force that envy and fear are generated internationally. However, it cannot be shown that that military has acted in any fashion other than with professionalism and ethical behaviour. There is very little on earth better than a good cop, and very little worse than a bad one, and the United States of our era, in co-operation with the functioning democracies of the world, has been a good cop.
You could ask for more, and would probably get worse.
=============================================
Phil, as I see it, neither the Left nor the Right have real answers. Each focus on certain problems, to the exclusion of others. Each tries to go with fragmented and damaging policies, in various ways. It really doesn’t matter whether someone is focussing on the social or the individual problems–both create their own problems. What you need to do is let go of the idea that climate is all about politics. You need to stop the witch hunt for people’s “real” motivations. Because first you have to identify your own motivations–are they so clear and pure? Nobody is a saint. So stop “uncovering motivations” and just pay attention to science issues. The whole point about science is that it is objective, which is to say, people’s motivations are irrelevant to the truth of the matter–either something is objectively true or it is not. But if you focus on motivations then you are focussing on subjective evaluations and you will never find the truth that way. The environmental movement can also be accused of being subjectively biased and motivated by weird politics, but that should be completely irrelevant to whether a windfarm will work in the real world. If it works it works. If it doesn’t it doesn’t. Look for facts and analysis. Imagining that you will only listen to someone who is pure of heart, makes the assumption that you are so pure of heart that you could even spot such a thing. We all have egos. We are all selfish in our own ways, and that includes you. So just be interested the facts and analysis.
Joachim,
Politics are important in this debate, perhaps fundamental.
Alas, but Democracy or something like it is a requirement for good science. If you look at “science” in Nazi Germany, or the Soviet Union, or Communist China you see the full forces of the state have been used so that science arrived at the politically required conclusion.
(Beria once expressed concern to Stalin that the scientists working on the atomic bomb were gaining too much political power. Stalin replied something like: “leave them alone. We can shoot them later.)
I believe the same factors are driving the AGW supporters. Acceptance of the AGW theory gives the government incredible power over the economy and the ability to transfer tens of billions of dollars from the pockets of fools to the friends of the politicians.
Think about this particular thread: the transfer of so much money out of the US economy that it will probably bankrupt the United States. Unless you think that Senator Obama is lying. If so, which parts are lies and which parts are the truths?
A researcher will be provided with near unlimited funding if he “proves” AGW.
If a researcher “dis-proves” AGW, his funding will be cut off, he will be called a shill for the oil companies, and there will be a call for him to be tried for “war crimes”.
What would you do? Put the welfare of your family first? Or abstract thoughts about the “integrity of science”?
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
PS
My life is now complete. Anthony recognized me with a “tip of the hat”. Seriously, thank you. You and your blog are important to me.
“John-X (08:29:39) :
We’ll know in about 36 hours if we’re following Britain down the road to freezing in the dark.”
Excuse me?! *looks around well-lit, air conditioned office* Do me a favour, stfu about my country, since you seem to know so little about it. Cretin.
it is a shame that people are so myopic in their view. I will not argue that lower fuel prices helps the economy. I will not disagree that people should not be penalized for their profits created from hard work. I will not dispute that we should push opportunity and not privilege.
But what I don’t understand is how people can look at issues in a parsed up vacuum. While low fuel prices grease economies, the waste from those fuels destroys the planet. Why not just remove all corporate hindrances on pollution and let companies dump toxic chemicals into the ground water? It would drop expenses and increase the economy. Oh that is right, we would all get sick and die. Tempering the demand for fuel consumption with environmental protection isn’t just economic– it is protecting the legacy of our planet for the future.
As far as alternative energy production, anyone that says that wind, new solar tech, and thermal aren’t viable power sources hasn’t done the research. Each house could create not only self-sustaining power, but extra power for the grid. Geo-heating and cooling can be done with a simple drilling into the ground. Solar can produces more than an entire houses electrical needs in New Hampshire, let alone Arizona. Wind can also provide more power for a home. What is expensive is retrofitting the millions of homes and building new power infrastructures that would undercut the utilities. Who is going to make a power grid that won’t make a profit for anyone but the consumer? That means that Americans have to pay for upgrades on their own– and that isn’t possible when high-paying manufacturing jobs are replaced with lower-income service and retail jobs. That isn’t the fault of politicians, but rich CEOs who value profit over patriotism.
Regarding the middle east over the last 30 years.
Perhaps you have forgotten about this other country, called the Soviet Union?
The US was involved with a global struggle with them.
The US has always been interested in democracy, it’s just that during tough times, you make do with the options that are available, rather than whining that the one you want isn’t there.
During the Cold War, the US promoted democracy first, and stability second. Sometimes stability had to be elevated to the first. The alternative was Soviet style communism.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the US has been promoting democracy, and only democracy.
As to the war in Iraq. It was the right war at the right time.
Whether or not Saddam had WMD’s is moot. He wanted everyone to think that he did. He did everything he could to make people think that he did.
He had a nuclear program prior to the first phase of the Gulf war. This program was only partly dismantled and was ready to be restarted once the sanctions were lifted.
I should remind everyone that liberals, especially European liberals were screaming bloody murder that the sanctions regime was killing Iraqi babies and that it needed to be ended immediately. I find it amusing that the very same people who were demanding that sanctions be ended, are now claiming that since the sanctions were working, we should have relied on sanctions rather than going to war.
That’s not true, as my example of the USA supporting Iraq in the 1980 Iran – Iraq war showed.
—–
Just how does the US supporting one murderous dictatorship against an even more murderous dictatorship that was also trying to expand it’s sphere of influence, prove that the US has no interest in supporting democracy?
I have been in the scientific community my entire life. Many scientists fundamentally consider the outside world to be intellectually inferior and fundamentally dangerous.
Relying on people of that mindset to set social and economic policy will absolutely lead to disaster, just as it always has. The mindset of many government funded scientists is that the private sector is dangerous, mainly because no one in the private sector is willing to hire them into a better paying job.
But would you hire someone who is arrogant, consistently wrong, and considers himself unaccountable?
Criminy, is there any piece of anti-western propaganda that you aren’t willing to peddle?
———-
This is why Russia swatted Georgia and went over the top with it’s response when Georgia started an aggessive military campaign in South Ossetia,
————
It was the Ossetians who started shelling Georgia. When Georgia responded, Russia jumped in with troops that it had pre-positioned in the area.
————
this is why the USA freed Kuwait from the Iraq invasion in the early 1990’s but then didn’t take the ideal chance to instigate a democracy in Kuwait as well. All they did, quite rightly, was correct the power balance and limit the anti US interests at that time.
——————
And just what pre-text would the US have used to install a democracy in Kuwait? I find it funny that certain people in one breath proclaim that the US is an imperial power, forcing it’s will on other countries. Then in the next breath complain that the US isn’t doing enough to force it’s will on other countries.
——————-
The problem with invading Iraq is that the power balance has now shifted again but this time it has shifted it in Iran’s favour.
—————-
On the contrary, Iran is even more contained than ever.
—————
There’s quite a few countries in East Africa that could do with a good dose of democracy right now, but I don’t see much intent by Bush to send in the troops there.
——————–
Again, a person who complains about US imperialism, demanding that US be more imperialistic.
Regardless. Out here in the real world resources are limited. We can’t do everything at once.
Here’s a perfect example of psychological “projection”:
Flanagan:
Not only does Flanagan fail to understand the tradition of scientific skepticism and how it directly relates to the Scientific Method, but he provides not one fact to back up his incorrect assertion.
It’s scary seeing how easily the scientifically illiterate are controlled by climate alarmist propaganda.
I am curious, what other country has over 250 army bases in foreign countries?
—————-
Of course many of these bases are nothing more then supply depots or diplomatic missions with only a handfull of soldiers manning them.
But let’s not let something as trivial as reality interfer with a good US bashing.
I do not agree with your assessment. John McCain is an honorable man but his energy policies are too similar to the Bush administration’s policies and this is not the time to continue those policies. The ‘drill, baby, drill’ short sighted mentality will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil and it won’t help us in the short run. Experts say that it will take about 10 years to extract that oil if we started today. Don’t get me wrong, I do like a few of his policies. There just aren’t enough of them that converge into a single long-term vision that will get us where we need to be; and energy independent nation.
Even now as some controversial statements are plastered all over the press, I still can’t support McCain for president. I have researched both the candidates’ energy policies that are stated on their web sites and after analysis I have posted that the results of my blog and I’ve come to the conclusion that Obama is the clear winner. Obama has a multipart multi phased approach with the long term vision that uses any and all current and future technologies to bridge the gap from our current dependence on oil to total independence.
With that being said, Obama is a common sense kind of guy. He listens to intelligent people and makes an informed decision. When he changes his mind because an expert’s opinion seems to make more sense than his position, people call him a “flip-flopper”. Both candidates have changed their minds and been labeled as flip floppers. I simply call them sensible. If coal can be burned clean and it would create jobs in a depressed area I don’t see why Obama would not listen to the proposal.
His energy policies are sound and impressive. See my blog for more information.
JCE
http://johnceberhardt.wordpress.com/
evanjones: Now, now, moptop. The economic realities come hard. Pamela has made pretty fair progress, I think. Besides, her climate skepticism has, perforce, cast her adrift.
She’s an exile in her own party, though she may not fully realize it yet.
There are many skeptics who also happen to be Democrats and/or Independents. This is a point which keeps being made, and continually gets ignored. The foam-at-the-mouth Obama bashers also conveniently forget that McCain is aboard the AGW bandwagon, as are many Republicans. You are right, though, that being a skeptic and a Dem. does put us in a difficult position, since, as far as I know there are no Democrats running who are even remotely skeptical on AGW, or who would dare to admit it if they were. The truth is, I would probably vote for McCain if he weren’t an AGWer, despite his other failings. I will, however be voting for a Republican senator, who is skeptical on AGW to some degree.
I am very fearful of Obama winning. Voting for Obama is the same thing as voting for Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Rev Wright, Frank Davis, L. Farrakhan, and who knows what other Marxists.
The Press and the McCain campaign barely scratched the surface of this network of revolutionaries.
Obama’s relationship with Ayers goes back to the 1980s, not the 90s. And it way more profound than just working together on boards.
If you have never watched the documentary called “Weather Underground” about that group, go to Google video and watch it. Realize that the violence was just a means to ends. They have just switched means.
To make a long story short…they have groomed Obama. He is their Trojan Horse.
I could go into detail if anyone wants.
As far as alternative energy production, anyone that says that wind, new solar tech, and thermal aren’t viable power sources hasn’t done the research.
————
I have done the research, which is why I can say with complete confidence that wind, solar, and thermal aren’t viable power sources.
————-
Geo-heating and cooling can be done with a simple drilling into the ground.
————
No it can’t. Not all houses have big enough yards to make this practical. If you live in an area where the bedrock is close to the surface, geo-thermal is not practical. Geo-thermal can make heating and cooling more efficient, but it does not provide enough energy to heat and cool by itself.
———-
Solar can produces more than an entire houses electrical needs in New Hampshire, let alone Arizona.
———–
This is true while the sun is shining. It is not true at night, or on cloudy days.
You forget the cost of storing the excess energy, and providing alternative sources when the sun isn’t shining brightly enough.
———–
Wind can also provide more power for a home.
———-
When the wind is blowing. What do you do during the vast majority of time when the wind is blowing strong enough?
Some of us are conservative.
Most of us are skeptical.
Therefore we are all skeptical because we are conservative.
And to think, some of us believe that AGWers have trouble with basic logic.
Look at what happened to Joe the plumber. For the crime of asking Obama a tough question, the govt officials of his state illegally opened his files looking for dirt to discredit him.
What do you think will happen to critics once Obama has access to the IRS, Justice Dept, FBI, etc?
We tend to forget that, unless re-elected/incumbent, a President will be shown some things that they did not know before. Things that even Vice-Presidents are not privy to.
This can make them grey haired and haggard within months. This can give them such new “perspective” that their manifesto promises turn 180 degrees about face. This can alter their world view drastically.
This happens with all heads of state. Permanent under-secretaries or civil servants deliver the news-
“Meet Knaargngpflitz Sodintxo Prime Minister. He is the ambassador from Altair and he wishes to discuss your plans to alter the composition of your countries atmosphere.”
Good luck today all our friends and allies across the pond.
MarkW (05:56:32) :
and Evan
and Kim
This is the first time it has been brought home to me that skeptics in the US are mainly from the republican side. In a lecture I gave against global warming I had been accused of supporting Bush by a leftist in the audience, and I had thought at the time it was really funny. Not so now.
Listen, I have lived through the greek junta that was instigated and supported by the US back from 1967 to 1974. When the US decided we should have the cover of “democracy” we all went and voted in droves. Democracy it was not. Fear that every third person was an informer, was.
Irak is not a democracy. It has been ordered under armed occupation to be a democracy.
I used to be an americanophile. I really believed all these you are saying,about the good cop, support of freedom and democracy and all that cant. Our junta opened a lot of eyes in Greece.
Before the US invasion in Iraq and the demonisation of Sadam Iraq was the only arab state with a secular government, where the majority of people were literate and where the moslem indoctrination schools were discouraged. Now they are thriving and women have been sequestered again. I am not talking of his faults as an absolute dictator, which were grand. I am talking of the life of the people.
The US is very selective on where it imposes a democracy. Oil interests are an attractor, oil routes etc. The number of dictators that are good friends and supporters of the US are N where N is a large number. Look at the rest of thearab peninsula .
The bases are for imposing the will of the US and its corporations if possible on the rest of the world. “What large teeth you have, grandma”
I am not saying that a world governed by Hitler, or Stalin would be prefereable. I am saying : take out the blinders. The US is after its own interests and under Bush they have expanded in imperial ways.
What is expensive is retrofitting the millions of homes and building new power infrastructures that would undercut the utilities. Who is going to make a power grid that won’t make a profit for anyone but the consumer? That means that Americans have to pay for upgrades on their own– and that isn’t possible when high-paying manufacturing jobs are replaced with lower-income service and retail jobs. That isn’t the fault of politicians, but rich CEOs who value profit over patriotism.
That is about the most stupid comment on economy that I have ever seen !
If I was a shareholder of a company whose CEO would “value” patriotism over profit I would fire him on the spot .
A CEO is not paid to do meetings and pronounce patriotical speeches , that’s a politician’s job .
A CEO is put in place and paid by shareholders who invested their money in the company because they expect a profit .
And yes , again as a shareholder I would make a good CEO very rich – quality has to find its reward .
While we are it who are the biggest investors in companies shares ?
Right , the retirement funds .
And they are responsible for millions of retired people who appreciate their monthly check that is paid for by companies lead by good CEOs .
And the unlucky ones have understood what it means when the CEO and the executive staff is not good because they lost their savings .
There are more and more retired people that will need more and more profit to have something to live with .
They certainly don’t care the least bit about your misguided theoretical ravings about “patriotism” .
MarkW, US support of two none democracies in the Iran v Iraq war with neither likely to become a democracy shows the USA was supporting one side because of power balance and not because of putting a new political system in place in one or more.
Same for Kuwait and all the other monarchies in the middle east, the USA has done nothing to make these countries become democratic whereas Iraq was invaded for “democracy” Sorry, those conflicting behaviour patterns show that democracy was just a byproduct of the war in Iraq, not the reason, so claiming it was a great result is non sensical.
As for Georgia, there has hardly been any global mass support of Georgian initial military intervention in South Ossetia apart from the USA where the Bush simplification of “good guys” and “bad guys” tends to get in the way of facts.
Regards
Andy
Don’t both candidates talk a lot about solar power and alternative sources of energy? How much more money would we have if we could power our nation with solar and wind, and export that coal to china? just sayin’
The face of our new President
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00425/04_11_2008—14_14_425519a.jpg
Reminds me of the most popular Dana Carvey SNL quote from the 1970s.
“I used to be an americanophile.”
Are you blaming the US for the most dysfunctional economy in Western Europe, for the most corrupt political system, for endemic petty thievery?
It is one thing to assess leadership from the ash heap, it is another to wear its mantle.
MarkW — correct, UNICEF was constantly nattering about 500,000 dead Iraqi babies from sanctions. Bush invaded the country and the nattering went away. One could conclude that Bush is a piker and apparently is nowhere near as efficient a killer as Clinton. Or, one may conclude that UNICEF was making stuff up.
Some of the anti-US rhetoric here is interesting. Something our Euro readers don’t seem to get by and large is that what many US citizens object to is not necessarily government control but rather FEDERAL control. Being against federal power to do X doesn’t equate to being anti-government. We have states, many of which are just as large in area and economy as many European countries. The US is *not* a Euro-style democracy, which essentially boils down to two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. In the US, the sheep is armed.
Meanwhile. Bases exist overseas in some countries due to treaty and in others because they demonstrated an inability to govern themselves and not cause regional problems. Others were installed at the request of the host country to help with their protection. Anyone yammering about bases ought to read some history of NATO, WWI, etc. This certainly can’t be that difficult.
well,,,
do you think the Canadians will put up a fence to keep us out?
Anthony,
Where you err, in my opinion, is not so much in discussing politics, but in relying on some hysterical discussion on Fox news about some obscure taken-out-of-context quote by one particular candidate, and that suddenly it’s all about coal power plants! And reading most of the comments, it looks like you certainly did not help elevating the debate. What is somewhat inevitable (that many who don’t “believe” in AGW do so because it’s incompatible with their political views, in other words they’re right wing republicans) will now become a main feature of this blog: this will now be an outlet where angry republicans can shout and jump around hysterically about how Obama is a S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T, and how he eats little children at night. That is the kind of politics that turns a lot of people away, and will probably cost the republicans the victory today.
Let me just comment on AGW and politicians. No politician in their right mind (save Sarah Palin, but that just proves my point) will say publicly that they don’t “believe” in AGW. Not when the entire scientific establishment is behind it. Obama and McCain are the same, and even our conservative prime minister here is the same. Can you imagine a politician saying that he’d rather believe some conservative blogger who posts Fox news items rather than the AAAS? Come on!
The real point is that the scientific establishment is not immune to ideological corruption. That once you recognize this, you’ve got to ensure that the policies you make are not based on ideologically-motivated scientific advice. The ideological corruption of the scientific establishment when it comes to AGW should be denounced, and prevented. But it cannot be denounced by people who are themselves ideologically motivated, otherwise those claims have no credibility.
Today, I wish that the Americans chose the best president for them. But I am also certain that both candidates, republican or democrat, if elected, will do their best to serve their people. To insinuate that one candidate is morally or ethically corrupt, and that he will “destroy” the country only reflects extreme views that should, as much as possible, not be what the main political and democratic debate is about.
REPLY: I didn’t “rely” on Fox news, as I also posted the video from the very left of center San Francisco Chronicle. I think mostly you are just angry about Fox News, not the content of the issue. Evan Jones said it best. “piffle”. Since you are Canadian, you don’t have to live with the consequences, I do. So if my posting an issue to discuss offends you, I’m sorry, but I simply won’t worry myself about it.
You seem to be the angry one: “this will now be an outlet where angry republicans can shout and jump around hysterically about how Obama is a S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T,” So please don’t even pretend to predict how this blog will be managed, you have no clue. – Anthony
kim (19:31:56) :
“…. the remnants of your Bush Derangement Syndrome”
Come come, I never called Bush deranged.
“Bush has had an excellent beginning against the extreme and destructive Islamists…”
More accurately he failed big time. I would say that the Islamic extremists had a succesful start in 2001.
“His foreign policy has been marked by real progress in the Middle East”…,
I won’t argue with that, he’s alienated the USA in that region and his army has even fought missions in other surrounding countries violating sovereign territories. He has certainly made progress, shame it’s in totally the wrong direction.
“…….. the recognition worldwide, …… of America’s benignity and necessity in the maintenance of a peaceful and civil world.”
Invading a country under false means, causing the deaths of thousands by direct action, unbounded secularisation, disease etc. is not by any stretch of the imagination benign, peaceful or civil.
“The housing bubble and consequent credit crunch are the fault of the Democrats.”
?????????? Of course it is, to you EVERYTHING is the fault of Democrats!
“Your parochial view of American and international geopolitics is your own fault.”
I have a very positive view of America as it was only a few years ago. I am sure that an intelligent, diplomatic and charismatic leader will undo much of the damage in the last 8 years
…
this will now be an outlet where angry republicans can shout and jump around hysterically about how Obama is a S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T, and how he eats little children at night…
“I just want to spread the wealth around.”
Voting record on abortion, partial-birth abortion, botched abortion (baby lives for minutes/hours/days wo/ any food/water/medical care).
fwiw, I didn’t vote for John McCain – I voted for Sarah Palin. And I’m not a Republican – I’m a social/fiscal conservative.
Given the past 100 year track record of American politicians and legislators, I think we can safely assume that both of the major candidates will continue to move the U.S. closer to bankruptcy.
America needs to move in a truly different direction, not merely toward more rhetorical lip service.
Francois O
By that comment you expose your bias and your ignorance. As a scientist and engineer, I see growing evidence that natural causes have greater impact on climate change than anthropogenic causes. Encourage you to evaluate evidence presented from BOTH sides. e.g.,
See ClimateAudit
ICECAP.us
Global Warming and Nature’s Thermostat
As far as deconstruction of the Constitution and threatening Checks and Balances, nobody in U.S. History has done what Cheney-Bush have in the last 8 years.
Oh, please!
Stuff and nonsense! Piffle.
Alien and Sedition acts? “Pet Banks”? Suspension of Habeas Corpus? The Corrupt Bargain (v. 1876)? Plessy Vs Ferguson? Attempted takeover of the Supreme Court? Internment of Japanese, Germans and Italians? “Dirty Tricks” squads?
That’s just off the top of my head.
What are they teaching in these schools?
Francois:
“Where you err, in my opinion, is not so much in discussing politics, but in relying on some hysterical discussion on Fox news about some obscure taken-out-of-context quote by one particular candidate, and that suddenly it’s all about coal power plants!”
This all seems like a fairly ignorant rant on your part. What makes you think that we got this information from Fox news. That is simply dumb sterotyping from you. I certainly didn’t get it from there. And what makes you think that the comment is out of context. Give me any indication of anything in Obama’s background than would support him not wanting to shut down the coal industry. Many of his supporters are the most rabid of the environmentalists, and closing down the coal industry would be a dream come true for them. And where do you get the notion that “it’s all about coal power plants”. Coal power plants are simply one of the many things that make Obama repugnant. His clearly stated idea that the US Constitution is deeply flawed because it contains no mandate for the redistribution of wealth by the government is also a huge issue. And in light of his position on the governments responsibility to redistribute wealth, on what do you base your judgement that this man is not a socialist. Yes, many people believe that socialism is a disgusting ideaology, but where do you get off to resorting to the hyperbole of “eating little children at night”.
“That is the kind of politics that turns a lot of people away, and will probably cost the republicans the victory today.”
Complete nonsense. The republicans will loose today because our major media outlets have been actively campaingning for Obama all along. People are under the impression that Obama will solve the economic crisis when in fact each and every policy that he expounds will do nothing but make it worse. Because of the media the public is under the impression that the Republicans are responsible for the current mess even though it was the Democrats that perpetuated and supported the subprime loan industry that got us here.
Yesterday they interviewed a woman who had listened to an Obama speech. She explained how thrilled she was about the speech because now she would no longer have to worry about making her car payments or her house payments. Obama is simply an idiot who thinks that he can channel money from one group to another, punish failure and reward success, while having no impact on society. Who the hell is going to build houses and make mortages if they cannot expect to get paid because Obama is busy buying votes from his supporters at the expense of American business?
“No politician in their right mind (save Sarah Palin, but that just proves my point) ”
The only point that you have just proven is that you are a political hack yourself and that you are just as guilty of doing that which you blame others here of doing.
Can you imagine a politician saying that he’d rather believe some conservative blogger who posts Fox news items.
You just produce one ignorant characterization after another. Nobody here posts Fox news items. The information that you get here is factual information that comes from a variety of sources, including climate scientists and data from national scientific institutions.
“But it cannot be denounced by people who are themselves ideologically motivated, otherwise those claims have no credibility.”
First of all, everyone is ideologically motivated. And your point is that pro AGW positions coming from ideologically motivated people have credibility but anti AGW positions coming from ideologically motivated people don’t? The difference between this issue and most political issues is that this one can be verified exactly and emperically. That is why the alarmists will be proven wrong. In the meantime, the position of the alarmists is politically motivated, and no amount of resistance is going to change their minds, regardless of where it’s coming from.
“To insinuate that one candidate is morally or ethically corrupt,”
I personally don’t care if you like the insinuation or not. I will make it. When you look at Obama’s closest freinds and associations like William Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, the Reverend Wright, Tony Resko, Franklin Raines etc; and when you look at his association with Acorn (now being investigated in many states for voter fraud), you have to conclude that the man is blind, deaf, dumb and the worlds worst judge of character, or else he is corrupt.
anna v, I think your experience with the 1974 Greed Junta has warped your perceptions. The Afghani and Iraqi people proudly waved their purple fingers emblematic of their enfranchisement as voters in a democracy. I also find it disgusting than you could prefer Saddam to the regime in Iraq at present. He sent people through shredders feet first so they’d feel it longer, you know.
It is almost accidental that skeptics tend to be conservative. It could have been the other way had a political movement donned the costume of science in order to perpetrate a policy fraud upon the populace. So don’t be ashamed of any of your associations with the truth and the real path of science. Politics is an inauthentic overlay to physical truth.
==========================================
Francois O (08:39:19) :,
What’s the alternative? Listen to ABC, CBS, CNN, or NBC? Those stations are biased to the left.
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx?RelNum=6664
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=278808786575124
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/22/study_coverage_of_mccain_much.html
http://www.journalism.org/node/11266
http://www.journalism.org/node/12299
http://www.journalism.org/node/12097
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503100.html?sub=AR
From ABC’s ‘The Note:’
“Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.”
Even the BBC admits a bias:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-411846/We-biased-admit-stars-BBC-News.html
You wouldn’t move out of Diego Garcia either immediately.
Would, too.
But I’m more interested on your thoughts on the war in Iraq, this is a war which was not about creating a democracy in the Middle East, the USA has been more than happy not to have democratic governments in the Middle East for the last 30 years, including when it supported Saddam in the 1980’s, so that is poppycock.
In the 1980s we were trying to win the Cold War. Saddam was firmly in the Soviet camp and up to his eyeballs in Red Army hardware. Creating democracy in Iraq was not at issue at that time. We wanted him to be our son of a bitch rather than their son of a bitch. In WWII, we were only too happy to be a cobelligerent of Stalin, and we put his army on wheels via Lend Lease.
Since the Cold War, we have encouraged democratic reform all over the Mideast. Your statement that we have been “perfectly happy” not to have democratic governments there is simply incorrect.
The war was about WMD’s that didn’t exist and striking back at targets where you could, trying to claim a democracy being formed as a result of your actions is hijacking a good reason when all the actual reasons are bad.
Not for one moment did we hesitate to establish democracy in Iraq the instant Saddam was out of power.
You need to review dubya’s actual speeches rather than the highly prejudiced accounts of his political enemies. WMDs were merely one item on a very long list, almost every one of which would have been a justification for invasion. WMDs in and of themselves were not the issue. (Lots of countries had WMDs. Would an invasion of, say, France have been justified on the grounds they had many more WMDs than Saddam at his worst?)
The reason this is a primary US intrest is because the history of the world indicates that only democracies have stable relationships with their neighbors.
That’s a little like saying that we only drink water because it’s wet.
Saddam had the will and was getting the means to WMD, just as do the Persians.
=======================================
evanjones (10:08:03) :
–You wouldn’t move out of Diego Garcia either immediately.
“Would, too.”
What and screw up the entire GPS system ?
And not have your only base in the Indian Ocean?
I don’t think so
Regards
Andy
And more from Evan Jones
“Since the Cold War, we have encouraged democratic reform all over the Mideast. Your statement that we have been “perfectly happy” not to have democratic governments there is simply incorrect.”
So how are you doing, which states have gone over to democracy in the Middle East since you have been promoting it?
Lets take one arabic region that did go over to democratic rule in the last few years, Gaza/WestBank. They voted for Hamas, so how did the USA respond to this new found democratic government voted in by majority?
Or is it only democracies that are pro USA that are ok?
Regards
Andy
This is the first time it has been brought home to me that skeptics in the US are mainly from the republican side. In a lecture I gave against global warming I had been accused of supporting Bush by a leftist in the audience, and I had thought at the time it was really funny. Not so now.
Oh, yes. A great majority of US skeptics are from the republican side. I, myself, am a liberal republican.
It has been ordered under armed occupation to be a democracy.
Yes. But that didn’t stop Italy, Japan, or Germany.
And yes, it is a great shame that Greece was made a pawn in the Cold War. (“Z”)
The US is very selective on where it imposes a democracy. Oil interests are an attractor, oil routes etc. The number of dictators that are good friends and supporters of the US are N where N is a large number. Look at the rest of thearab peninsula .
Yes. It’s an ongoing process. It can’t be done at once. And we only interfere if great crimes against humanity are occurring (as Somailia, Bosnia, Iraq), and sometimes not even then (Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia). We do not invade dictatorships that are not massacring their own people (as Iran) unless there are exceptional circumstances (as Afghanistan).
The bases are for imposing the will of the US and its corporations if possible on the rest of the world. “What large teeth you have, grandma”
No! A thousand times, no!
I am not saying that a world governed by Hitler, or Stalin would be prefereable.
Obviously.
I am saying : take out the blinders. The US is after its own interests and under Bush they have expanded in imperial ways.
Our “interest” is freedom and democracy. Our “imperial way” is liberation and self-determination. Perhaps it is not my kind who is wearing the blinders?
Steven Hill wrote:
>I am just about sick of the USA, anyone have a thought
>on where I can relocate?
I’ve been thinking about Ireland. Here’s an index of economic freedom:
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/topten.cfm
Bush simplification of “good guys” and “bad guys” tends to get in the way of facts.
We both have read our share of history. You don’t think there are “good guys” and “bad guys”? Really?
this will now be an outlet where angry republicans can shout and jump around hysterically about how Obama is a S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T, and how he eats little children at night.
Bland only eats the bad boys
Who can behave, but don’t.
Disgraceful lads who say, ‘Don’t care!’
And, ‘Sha’n’t!’ and ‘Ca’n’t!’ and, ‘Wo’n’t!”
–W.S. Gilbert
–You wouldn’t move out of Diego Garcia either immediately.
“Would, too.”
What and screw up the entire GPS system ?
And not have your only base in the Indian Ocean?
I don’t think so
You don’t? How little you understand us!
Two words: Clark. Subic.
(Besides, if those islands got global warmed right off the map, do you imagine we’d have no GPS?)
johnceberhardt wrote:
>The ‘drill, baby, drill’ short sighted mentality will not reduce our
>dependence on foreign oil and it won’t help us in the short run.
>Experts say that it will take about 10 years to extract that oil if we
>started today.
Do you realize that Bill Clinton vetoed a bill in 1996 based on that same logic? Maybe 10 years is soon enough. We don’t need help in the short run. Oil prices were artificially high because of speculation that imploded when the rest of the market collapsed. Gas prices are back down to under $2 / gallon– nearly down 50% in 3 months. I guarantee that drilling here will reduce our dependence on foreign oil because we’ll have more domestic oil.
And Anthony, great topic. It amazes me how some lose their civility so quickly.
kim (10:12:22) :
“Saddam had the will and was getting the means to WMD, just as do the Persians”
Big difference between Iraq and Iran (besides the different Islamic ideaologies):
Iraq never had, or was ever likely to get WMD. They showed their lack of military prowess and backbone in Kuwait, any prospect of formidable defence technology was severely depleted by effective sanctions. The US and allies could expect a comfortable and rapid victory with little prospect of retaliation against their, or allies populations.
Iran either already has, or will very soon have a functionable and deliverable nuclear device. They have a well equipped and formidable army. There is no prospect of a quick decisive victory. The US and allies will not attempt to invade Iran and will be reticent about a pre-emptive strike on nuclear facilities, it is too late for that now.
This is where Bush’s foreign policy went completely pear shaped. By concentrating all his efforts on Irag instead of being proactive on Iran he lost his options. The Iranians know they have the US over (if you excuse the pun) a barrel. Bush/McCaines only option now is to do nothing, just bleat about sanctions whilst neighbouring countries ignore the pleas. Israel would probably have to do the dirty business with all the fallout (pun not intended) thiswill involve.
Because of Bush’s inaction over Iran there is only one way to resolve the issue without the prospect of a wide-ranging war, and that is to talk to them. Obama said he will talk to them, McCain calls this dangerous. Who is right, you decide.
You said immediately, now you are watering that down when you realise alternatives would have to be put in place.
I’m still looking forward to your comments on democratically elected Hamas and the democracy loving US’s reaction to that, plus a list of other middle eastern states that have gone over to democracy with US help since Iraq was invaded.
Regards
Andy
kids kids kids…. Don’t freak out, OK? One guy can not make this happen. Perhaps its a dream of his…his passion is mis-spoken. You’re focusing on one clip of video posted by one guy…then the “sky is going to fall” starts…
Barack Obama knows good and well, he’ll never make that fly…but if you’re able to separate your hatred from common sense for a moment, and listen, you will see that he is simply exaggerating to make a point. We NEED to start looking at and investing in alternative energy…
He even talks about the entreprenuerial spirit into investing in this area, which frankly I believe will be the next “hi-tec” industry globally. And the US needs to be leading that charge as it will be the global demand of the next century to come.
So don’t go losing all your marbles kids… Step back and look at the big picture. He knows he can’t make that happen, and anyone with any idea of how things work in Washington, knows it too.
peace.
Iraq never had, or was ever likely to get WMD.
They definitely had oldstyle. Not only were they used against the Kurds, but we’ve uncovered around 500 already. They had at least 500 tons of yellowcake; if Israel hadn’t been on the ball in ’81, who knows? And they had lab setups for bio (presumably to be put to use once the sanctions had been busted). But that is not important. What’s important is that Iraq was a charnel house.
There was never any chance at all we would have invaded Iran. No holocaust ongoing. At most we’d have done a modicum of hot pursuit or done a deep strike on their nuke facilities.
But I don’t think invasion of Iran was ever justified. Furthermore, their bomb (which is inevitable) is not for use against Israel, but for power politics (Pakistan and India-style prestige) and deterrence to invasion (they could deter troop concentrations near or inside their borders). Besides, 80% of Iranians are pro-west in general, and pro-US, in particular. I’d hate to see that change. And 80% of Iranians feel they have the right to the bomb. We will woo them over time. Not their current government, but their people.
AndyW,
Sure, the Palestinians elected Hamas [who promptly murdered the opposition], the Germans elected Hitler, the Iranians elected Ahmedinijad, and the catholic Cardinals elect the Pope.
So you’re a papist supporter, eh?
[That’s a joke, son.]
The Soviets had elections, too. Didn’t make them a genuine democracy. They had a constitution, too. But it didn’t make them a genuine republic.
They had “rights”, too. Food, Work, Shelter, “Peace”–whatever the heck that means–Education (and ReEducation, as applicable), etc. But so what? Those are the rights of slaves.
I congratulate already the AGW-duped leftists, socialists etc. on Obama’s almost certain victory.
You’ll get to see first hand real dissent over the next couple of years when the masses see their standards of living deteriotrate rapidly under Obama’s kooky policies. I can hear the echos of Ronald Reagan already in 2012: “Are you better off than 4 years ago?”
I see a repeat of 1994 in just 2 short years from now.
Who’s in favour of higher taxes on business and bankrupting 50% of our energy supply in the middle of a recession?
Please make yourself known.
Concerning Greece, even Bill Clinton was forced to detour around Athens because he was so unwelcome there too. So let anna v dwell alone peacefully in her feelings. It’s a shame, really.
I must say I’m quite surprised, as I have Greek friends here in Germany, and they are just the nicest fun-loving people. First time I encounter one that is so teed off.
Take a couple of shots of Ouzo, anna v.
inappropriateone
By whatever measure I am not a kid. Maybe engineers should not take what people say at face value. But when 50% of our nations electrical energy comes from coal fired plants and a presidential candidate says that he will bankrupt that source of energy I must take him at his word. If a super majority is attained in this election maybe our government can do for energy what it has achieved in banking. Maybe I can get a NIJA loan on a windmill paid for by taxpayers. Not sure how to hook it to the grid not to worry. Not sure what to do when there is no wind, not worry. Maybe I can get the proposed security force to install it for me.
MarkW, US support of two none democracies in the Iran v Iraq war with neither likely to become a democracy shows the USA was supporting one side because of power balance and not because of putting a new political system in place in one or more.
————-
The world is more complicated than a simple democracy, non-democracy split.
Between the two, Iran was much worse. Iraq was not expansionist. Iran was.
When the US intervened, Iran was winning. The US’s goal was to maintain the status quo.
Maybe I can get the proposed security force to install it for me.
That, more than anything else, scares the hell out of me…
Since humans emit CO2 ,Obama’s plan is to starve the poor with ethanol and freeze the rest of us with coal being replaced with unreliable wind power. Of course he will exempt environmentalists, hollywood elites , billionaires, and political elites .
Bobpr
Sorry, those conflicting behaviour patterns show that democracy was just a byproduct of the war in Iraq, not the reason, so claiming it was a great result is non sensical.
—————-
Since nobody in the US ever said that democracy was the only reason for going into Iraq, your point is without merit.
On what basis would the US invade Kuwait to impose a democracy? Iraq had invaded it’s neighbor, and was continuing to violate the terms of the cease fire that it had signed.
Iraq was continuing to try and destabilize it’s neighbors.
Iraq was continuing to fund terrorists throughout the region.
Iraq was refusing to come clean on it’s WMD programs.
Trying to pretend that the only thing that matters is whether a country is a democracy or not, may sound good in the halls of academia. But it doesn’t cut it in the real world where there are often dozens of different factors at play in every situation.
And to think, liberals like to accuse conservatives of over simplifying things.
—————
As for Georgia, there has hardly been any global mass support of Georgian initial military intervention in South Ossetia apart from the USA where the Bush simplification of “good guys” and “bad guys” tends to get in the way of facts.
—————
I see you prefer to live in a world of fantasy.
The initial attack came from South Ossetia. That is an established fact.
The fact that Europe prefers to cozy up to the Soviets and their supplies of natural gas is hardly surprising, but not indicative of anything beyond the weak livered nature of most Europeans.
How much more money would we have if we could power our nation with solar and wind, and export that coal to china? just sayin’
————-
1) China has all the coal they need for the foreseeable future.
2) Since neither wind nor solar will ever be able to provide more than a tiny percentage of the electric grid, the question is moot.
“This is where Bush’s foreign policy went completely pear shaped. By concentrating all his efforts on Irag instead of being proactive on Iran he lost his options.”
What would being proactive on Iran have looked like?
Francois O (08:39:19) :
Anthony,
Where you err, in my opinion, is not so much in discussing politics, but in relying on some hysterical discussion on Fox news about some obscure taken-out-of-context quote by one particular candidate,
————–
Francios,
Where you err is in your assumption that the article is hysterical, that is obscure, and that it was taken out of context.
Other than getting every single fact wrong, the rest of your post wasn’t too bad.
So how are you doing, which states have gone over to democracy in the Middle East since you have been promoting it?
—————–
There’s Iraq for one.
——————
Lets take one arabic region that did go over to democratic rule in the last few years, Gaza/WestBank. They voted for Hamas, so how did the USA respond to this new found democratic government voted in by majority?
————
So you have no problem with a country having an openly terroristic organization for a government. Apparently you have no problem with a country openly dedicating itself to the destruction of a neighbor and the murder of it’s people?
Oh I forgot, there just Jews, they don’t deserve to live.
Iraq never had, or was ever likely to get WMD.
————-
Iraq not only had WMDs, he used them.
That he had ongoing WMD programs has been well documented.
Obama said he will talk to them, McCain calls this dangerous. Who is right, you decide.
————-
What is it about liberals that they feel the need to lie about things that can so easily be checked.
Obama said that he would meet with the president of Iran, with no preconditions. This is what McCain said would be dangerous.
Nobody said we wouldn’t talk to them. The US has been talking to them since the start of this crisis.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
– Winston Churchill
“So how are you doing, which states have gone over to democracy in the Middle East since you have been promoting it?”
Iraq has become a democracy. The Saudis are going to allow at least a portion of their leaders to be elected. But how is that relevant to anything? Are you saying that if we fail then it’s not worth trying, or are you saying that because we have failed so far that we will always fail.
“Lets take one arabic region that did go over to democratic rule in the last few years, Gaza/WestBank. They voted for Hamas, so how did the USA respond to this new found democratic government voted in by majority?”
Pretty much the same as most of the rest of the world. So what is your point now? Are you now saying that we shouldn’t promote democracy because people will sometimes choose terrorist organizations. Are you saying that we are wrong to think that people want the right to choose their own government? Are you going to offer that worn out claim that you cannot impose democracy – like we did in Germany and Japan. The thing about Democracy is that people will sometimes make the wrong choice. But as long as it’s not a one vote one time issue, then they will usually correct their mistake. So other than the crying and the habitual America bashing, do you actually have a point?
“Or is it only democracies that are pro USA that are ok?”
Same old lines. The election of Hamas by the Palestinians is perfectly okay. But the fact that a government is democratically elected does not mean that it’s okay for that government to attack it’s neighbors or support terrorism. It’s rather stupid to think that supporting democracy means that you have to accept bad behaviour on the part of a democratically elected government. Experience has shown that democratic governments will be beneficial for both the countries that have them and for the rest of the world the majority of the time. The fact that you are trying to make hay out of an exception is simply political partisanism.
>>””inappropriateone (12:07:14) :
…… you will see that he is simply exaggerating to make a point. We NEED to start looking at and investing in alternative energy…
….
He even talks about the entreprenuerial spirit into investing in this area, which frankly I believe will be the next “hi-tec” industry globally. And the US needs to be leading that charge as it will be the global demand of the next century to come.
peace.
“<<<
Well don’t count on it. When Ronald Reagan ran for Governor of California, he told the people eaxctly what he planned to do in the State, particularly wtih regard to State Education. Everybody, including the CTA said; “nah; he’ll never do anything like that.”
Fortunately, Californians elected him, and he immediately implemented exactly what he said he would do, and they believed he would never do.
Obama will do likwise. If you haven’t read Saul Alinski’s book “Rules for Radicals”, you have no idea who this guy is; a plain Marxist; Communist if you will, and he does plan to do exactly what he says he will. He’s another Jim Jones, and millions will follow him to their own ruin. And don’t look to the Congress for control; they have been waiting to have a debate proof Congress for so long and now they can taste it. You go vote your conscience; but don’t come complaining to me, when you get exactly what you voted for.
Islam prohibits no amount of subterfuge, lying, cheating or stealing, to advance the cause of allah; even deliberately calling your self Christian is ok if it advances the cause of a culture that tolerates zero non-compliance.
After today, the science problems of climate will be small potatoes for the world to worry about.
Mary Hinge. Wrong yet again, I’m afraid. Iraq did once have WMD. What do you think they used on the Kurds, and on Iranian troops? Note to Mary: Must do more research.
Wait just one month. If no one does anything about Iran – Israel will.
How ironic. On the progressive blogs, which I frequent, because I consider myself to be a progressive, Obama’s critics claim he is a corporatist and in the pocket of big oil and gas and especially in the pocket of the coal industry. On the right, they claim he is a socialist and out to destroy big oil and gas and the coal industry.
Either side seem to be able to find words and deeds that support their opinion.
They have a saying in law that when a judge makes a ruling neither side likes, the decision is usually is a reasonable resolution of the problem.
Obama’s managed to make both sides unhappy with his energy policy so his policy will probably be straight down the middle.
Will 4th November 2008 be remembered as
the most obvious example in human history so far of,
turkeys voting for Christmas.
Hey, talking of the lame stream media, if O wins,
will his birth certificates “problems” be aired or quashed…
Any bets on a void election being declared..
It maybe be politics, and this is first a science blog,
but what funds science more often than not..
If the US Economy Tanks over the next presidential term – will the foreign wealth funds from China, Saudi, etc keep putting money in by buying US Government Bonds, etc…
Even the democrats can’t spend money they don’t have.
I think that the average US citizen is smarter and tougher than some people give them credit for. However they have been in-attentive to the Democracy that they are living in. It is so easy to take the priveledge of liberty for granted and forget that it needs constant work to stop other people taking it away.
A short sharp jolt of economic pain is very likely to wake them up and get them concentrating – and then watch out!.
The next 4 years may provide a wonderful innoculation against pseudoscience and faith in Government.
Pop Quiz: Who said the following?
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry. See End
I won’t add to the quarrel, but guess who I voted for after reading the following.
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Thomas Jefferson
Anthony,
No need for anyone to put words in the candidate’s mouth, or take his statements out of context. This man is a lawyer who understands the meaning of words, and chooses words carefully, and he describes himself perfectly in his own words. It was he who mentioned his muslim religion to George Stepahnopoulis, and who said there is nothing as rousing as the muslim call to prayer. Moamar Khadafi described him as a Brother; one of us, and the Islamic world is ecstatic about the possibility of him winning the White House.
And this is a perfect thread for people to get their thoughts out, so we can address the science issues elsewhere without distraction. A good decision on your part Anthony.
George
I think it was a mistake to make a political post in a science-based blog. The point was made that science has become political. I don’t understand how that makes it OK. Shouldn’t we be striving to separate science from politics and emotional bias?
Now I’m bummed-out because this blog slipped on notch on my respect-o-meter. Oh well, it still rates pretty well.
davidgmills (15:03:38)
‘Obama’s managed to make both sides unhappy with his energy policy so his policy will probably be straight down the middle.’
I would say neither side trust the man. It looks to me that he can be bought by the highest bidder.
Coal will need to be replaced at some point by someone. Natural Gas is the most likely alternative, but wind and solar will play a role as well. It’s a matter of reinventing and plain inventing new cleaner sources of energy. I understand that the G.O.P. thinks we can just do whatever to whoever, whenever we want, but that is not reality.
Let’s wake up America and figure out that there are some major problems ahead of not only our country, but globally. Fortunately we are electing a man that can remember what he said yesterday as opposed to McCain. Who’s best judgment has been to nominate a V.P. that I’m pretty sure dyes her hair brown so that she does come across as a complete air head.
Mary Hinge (12:00:23) Saddam bluffed that he had WMD in order to keep the Persians at bay. Everyone, including Joe Wilson, believed that Saddam had WMD. Joe Wilson, in a 2/6/03 op-ed in the LATimes said we shouldn’t invade Iraq for fear that Saddam would use his chemical and biological WMD on our troops. Yeah, that Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame’s husband.
Duelfer and Rossett have demonstrated that Saddam and the will and the means to get WMD. Had we not intervened, he would have them by now.
===================================================
Anyone who has worked at a National Lab in the last 40 years knows that since Proxmire, science and politics are completely inseparable. They are funded by Congress.
I put my protest bumper sticker on the car last night – “Palin 2012.” McCain will go down in history as having run the worst Republican campaign in modern history. Mondale would be proud.
I can’t wait until Obama starts telling my community what we have to do to make ourselves acceptable to Europeans The courtship phase is over.
[…] THE MESSIAH CONTRA COAL: Please connect the dots; Obama’s energy plan: bankrupt coal power plants, skyrocketing electricity rates, brownouts ahead …. […]
Vaughn (16:28:38) :
“I understand that the G.O.P. thinks we can just do whatever to whoever, whenever we want, but that is not reality. ”
I have no idea where this even comes from. But I don’t believe it comes from any form of research…sounds kind of like a MSM soundbite to me.
“Let’s wake up America and figure out that there are some major problems ahead of not only our country, but globally. ”
I think that’s what’s been said for several years now regarding AGW, or ACC, whatever the new initials are.
“Fortunately we are electing a man that can remember what he said yesterday …as opposed to McCain.”
Yes..the guy who was going to visit ALL 57 states to make sure they all got the message.
“Who’s best judgment has been to nominate a V.P. that I’m pretty sure dyes her hair brown so that she does come across as a complete air head.”
Ok…I’d say that pretty much sums up the level of intelligence you’ve brought to the table :*)
Thanks for playing the home game.
Jim
To the Anti-Sceptics who sometimes visit this blog.
Doubt is a virtue as it helps you avoid the scams and schemes of conmen and charlatans and to honestly assess your own beliefs and behaviours.
Effective Scepticism is the systematic application of Doubt to (1) identify Assumptions. (2) Question and Test Assumptions, and (3) Weed out the Assumptions that don’t stand up in the face of rigourous multi-faceted testing.
We all carry around untested assumptions that form part of our world view and hence part of our indentity.
Testing our assumptions is hard work, and can be painful and frightening when dearly held beliefs are found to be wanting. Hence the general lack of popularity for actually doing scepticism.
The alternative is to leave yourself open to self-deception and the well spun schemes of conmen, charlatans and other intra-species predators…
We live in a culture that valorises belief and in which doubt is pretty much a four letter word. This plays into the hands of those who are happy to manipulate others for gain.
Watch out for belief and the quest for certainty as there is little that is truly certain in this world and certainty is often little more than a security blanket to mask fear.
I would suggest a balance of healthy doubt coupled with a strong sense of faith in yourself and the underlying values of personal liberty and independence that underpin your (US) community as providing an effective stance for dealing with lifes uncertainties.
Well, I am not holding out much hope. OTOH, none of the McCain must-win states have been called yet, so it ain’t over. We’ll see.
Evan Jones,
You are obviously a better historian than I. You are right, Cheney-Bush are not alone on the list of potential tyrrants!
Thanks for the insight.
John D.
This is a bit off topic, but I’m hoping that someone with more scientific credentials can help me answer this. One thing Obama said is that he would work to classify CO2 as a ‘dangerous pollutant’. Well, over on TTAC there is a story about some MIT research that shows the possibility of using magnesium rich rock formations to absorb airborne CO2. Here is the link. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/rocks-in-your-tailpipe/
Assuming the research proves true, is the follow equation correct (posted from the same discussion)?
————-
sean362880 :
November 4th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Um…no.
Mass balance:
(2400 grams C / gallon)* (10 gal/tank )* (84 g/mol MgC03 / 12 g/mol C) = 168,000 g.
So you’re going to remove 168 kg of MgCO3 from your tailpipe after every 10-gallon tank? That’s neglecting the weight of all the other crap that was part of the raw mineral.
I think this is why they’re going for industrial application only.
———————————————-
Patrick Henry (06:39:33) :
No, I wouldn’t hire James Hansen.
Hair dye??? My, my how the conversation has deteriorated. On both sides. I happen to like Sarah Palin. I don’t agree with her at all. But she is one helluva gal. Her biggest problem is that she has a blind spot and doesn’t realize it (I can be nasty to whomever I want and it won’t bite me in the butt kind of blind spot). Bill Clinton had a similar blind spot (I can play around with any toy I want and it won’t bite me in the butt kind of blind spot). They both suffer from “the rules are made for others, not for me” mentality. But as with Clinton who once had potential and then blew it, I think Sarah has potential, as long as she doesn’t blow it. Once she discovers her blind spot she will become a better world class leader. Alas, I think her ego will get in the way and somewhere down the line, she will blow it. But if she manages not to do that I will still not agree with her on many, many issues. However, she has guts and leadership qualities I admire.
this thread is a peculiar diversion for WUWT – but i applaud Sir Anthony’s statemenship in countering below-the-belt attacks – and my hat is off to Pamela Gray!
a Canadian not-born-there
For some needed relief, here’s McCain getting savaged by Obama, who leads off the debate [and note that the moderator clearly favors Obama]: clicky
It is 2.30pm 5th November here in Australia and I see that the American Empire has just gone down the plug -hole. The new world empire is to the north of us:China! Thanks for your help in WWII. We will not forget, so give us a call soon for us to return the favour (Taiwan shoulds be taken over very soon).
I can’t help but wonder if the cheering audience in the background of this clip is insane, completely daft, or just doesn’t understand what he is saying. Same goes for the press corps who covered Obama.
But at least we got thousands of critically important news stories about Tina Fey, Palin’s wardrobe, her daughter’s dating habits and non-Troopergate. Obama’s KGB proposal really isn’t important by comparison.
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
OK, people who live in the US. It is an Obama term.
As far as the global warming issue goes if I were a US citizen
I would be looking to find people in his administration who would listen to correct science.
I would try to expand the spread of information to the scientific community: many scientists trust the scientific integrity of scientists outside their field. If they become aware of how things are in IPCC climatology they will join the skeptics in droves.
And for those of you on the losing side, cheer up. What you call socialism in the US is barely liberal for Europe, the US is a great country and it was necessary that the pendulum should shift towards taking care of the hoi polloi instead of just the corporations, which was the Bush administration’s aim.
Lets get back to science.
And on that note, I’ll close this thread. Back to Science.