Update: Ed makes us see stars. See below the “continue reading” line.
I slept so late today recovering from my jet lag I almost forgot to place my flag outside.
Flying to Australia and traversing the country, gives me an appreciation for liberty no matter what hemisphere you reside in. Aussies have made many contributions to freedom, such as I witnessed with this WWI war memorial in Emerald, QLD:
There is also a WWII memorial just to the right of the photo. Aussies have been side by side with the USA in every world conflict. They are owed thanks on this day as well.
As the founders of our country declared in this document:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing colonial grievances against King George III, and by asserting certain natural rights, including a right of revolution.
Like with the colonists, with this blog, the readers, and the publications, I often assert my right of revolution against unreasonable acts of taxation, such as Kerry’s cap and trade bill.
Today, once again Ed Darrell and I are in agreement, and I particularly like the flag on the moon he chose. It is depressing that President Obama has proposed killing the next step in the manned space program, Aries.
So today, take a cue from myself and Ed, no matter whether you are a free market optimist or a tax happy sourpuss, fly your flag. Later today, I’m going to pursue some life, liberty, and happiness, you should too.
UPDATE: Speaking of Ed Darrell and Australians, perhaps some of our readers “down under” might like to educate Ed as to what the 5 stars mean in the logo for the AU Climate Skeptics Party.
I laughed out loud when I read this from Ed’s blog. Not only does he misappropriate the source of the logo, even though all he had to do was click the image on WUWT, he also seems to have no clue as to the reference to why the stars of the “southern cross” is a symbol of Australia. After learning about it with the help of some WUWT commenters, perhaps he’ll make a lesson plan of it for his students.
From Ed’s blog:
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That may explain why Anthony Watts’ logo for his Australian tour shows a kangaroo whose rear end has just been kicked (you can tell by the stars).
In cartoons, stars show where a character has been punched or kicked, right?
No agreement to control greenhouse gases came out of the Copenhagen conference last fall. So-called climate skeptics patted each other on the back, claimed victory, and proceeded to send Christopher Monckton on his Bonnie Lies All Around the World Tour. In cool light of morning, however, the facts can’t be silenced: Warming continues, science shows the extremely high probability that humans cause it, official investigations show that climate scientists who had their e-mails stolen were victims of crime, not perpetrators, and climate skeptics failed to stop warming with their big-dollar, nice-banquet meetings with the Heartland Institute, or anywhere else.
If they are skeptics, they are pretty bad at it, falling like chumps for a story that fourth-grade science project made the case they have failed to make everywhere else, and for the story that one of their comrades was sent a bomb in the mail (it turned out to be a misdirected fuel filter).
No wonder Americans remain concerned about warming.
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The Southern Cross stars with a boxing kangaroo is a common design in Australia. This car decal for example:
http://beaututes.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=153&products_id=934
or this t-shirt
http://www.gooses.com.au/categories.asp?cID=32&c=55834
or this flag:
http://www.1uptravel.com/flag/flags/au-kang.html
BTW here’s the update on the bomb scare story, it also fooled a journalist and a terrorism expert. In fact, suspicious packages are cause for alarm every day around the world, and often get misidentified (and often blown up) by professional people erring on the side of caution. Here’s a few examples: 1 2 3 4 5 and even in Ed’s home state of Texas they react to suspicious packages the same way. It’s hard to be skeptical when you risk life and limb to find out. Sheesh Ed.
Heh, “big dollar nice banquet meeting”. The once a year meeting not using a dime of taxpayer money, totally privately funded, and yes, no big oil either. I guess he’s still sore for not getting invited to the IPCC meeting in Bali. Ed’s a slippery sort of bloke, so he’ll probably try to claim post facto that it was humor, or that we misinterpreted his reference to the 5 stars. Give him no quarter.
Modern democratic New Zealand is, in part, a by-product of the American War of Independence. The Brit government of the day, truly frightened by the spectre of the loss of the American colony some 70 years earlier, a disaster in their eyes, became very determined not to lose another colony to local intransigence and French military assistance. With the French being active in major South Pacific voyages of exploration close to the time of Cook’s annexation of New Zealand for Great Britain and the arrival and residence of a French Catholic bishop, Pompallier, in the Bay of Islands just across the bay from the English Mission station, plus the unrest of local Maori under the leadership of Hone Heke, who ‘borrowed’ an American flag from some Yankee whalers wintering there to fly on his war canoe as he crossed the bay to fell the British military Flagstaff on the hill behind the British fort at Korareka. The British got their skates on after the flagstaff went down. They hastily re-erected it, then set about making Cook’s annexation legal through the Treaty of Waitangi, now regarded as New Zealand’s founding document. This was hastily penned on the spot by Governor Hobson (a rapidly-promoted naval comander and Jonny-on-the-spot) and translated into a Maori version by the Revd. Williams, missionary and first Anglican bishop of the country. Copies of the Treaty were signed, first at a major gathering of Maori chiefs and colonial officials in the Bay of Islands then later around the country by various influential Maori and British functionaries.
The NZ flag is almost identical to Australia’s, with the exception of Australia’s single ‘Federation’ star below the Union Jack, which is not relevant to NZ as it was, from its founding, a single country divided into Provinces. N Zedders share their heritage with Australia as ANZACs (Australian/New Zealand Army Corp) and the annual Anzac Day, which comemorates the disastrous Dardanelles landings during WWI and marks the newly emergent identity of the two independant countries who share many commonalities. The Dardannelles disaster also firmed up the resolve of the armed forces of both countries to never be under British command again.
Like Australians, Kiwis are intensly proud of our nation, our Rugby (and other sports) and our various beers and wines which are enjoyed around the world, but, like Australians and despite our great national pride, we are not great flag-flyers. We see national flag-flying as very ‘American’ and if that’s the way you honour your country, go for it with your chests out and heads up.
Hey, we’ve a new sunspot forming 1086 to go along with 1084. My prediction is still in the running.
An elongated solar cycle 20 repeat.
And I’m not in Sunman, IN
@papertiger says:
July 4, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I agree that the maple leaf looks good in those locations. Thanks to the moderators for permitting that slightly off topic topic.
Back on topic, I note that the Southern Cross has been adopted as an American icon as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Marine_Division_(United_States)
I am proud Canadian and a proud American too. Happy July 1 and July 4 to all of us.
DaveF says: July 5, 2010 at 2:24 am
Reading the above comments reminds me, once again, that Britain and her former colonies are like a family of boisterous teenagers.
Yup, we are all ‘cuzzies’ and we have a huge amount in common in understanding the love of freedom and democracy ‘Magna Carta’ ‘n all that, Boston Tea Party ‘n all that a few world wars ‘n all that. We tend to stick together.
Doug
I think America & it’s beautifully written Constitution represents the finest achievement of humanity’s quest for liberty & freedom thus far (I think we can go much further to protect the liberty of the individual against cruel & powerful men) but I ask all Americans to understand that your country, & many others is under attack from a cabal of overseas banksters & corporations that is deliberately sabotaging it from within.
Climategate is just one symptom of this & needs to be understood in the larger context unless we are to remain fools.
The Fall Of The Republic by Alex Jones
The Obama Deception
Endgame
Unless you know who you are being attacked by, you remain defenceless.
This enemy threatens us all & unless opposed by humanity, will soon have in place a fascist world government that will then move to impose mass genocide against our human family…
Love to all reading this.
God Bless Humanity.
As predicted, Ed Darrell can’t own up to his silliness with the boxing kangaroo and stars.
In each of those cases the person who found the package or device thought to be a bomb called the cops or FBI. Each case was reported by those law enforcement agencies, with the spokesmen for the agencies often quoted in the article. In each case, the alarm was raised almost immediately.
In the case of Dr. Gabriel Calzada, I have found no indication that any police agency was ever involved. As I understand it, Calzada got the package, called the sender to ask about it, didn’t inquire any further from the sender, waited a few days, then passed it through an x-ray machine operated by a security guard (“expert” you called him).
Genuine skeptics call the cops. Genuine skeptics inform the authorities, and let them take it from there. Genuine skeptics don’t write op-eds or editorials accusing their presumed (erroneously) foes to be criminals, accusing them falsely of crimes (that’s slander in the U.S.), and only back down when a cursory investigation shows the story doesn’t hold up.
Anthony, read each of those stories you cite, and if you apply a bit of reporter’s wisdom, you’ll see why the gullibility factor of Christopher Horner and others suggests a lack of credibility and presence of gullibility to rationalists and real skeptics.
REPLY: OH puhleeze Ed. This from the man who can’t admit the simplest of errors, such as not understanding what the boxing kangaroo and stars were all about. Neither you nor I nor anybody else can know what the full details are there, you especially since you aren’t in direct communication with any of the people involved. There’s also the language and country barrier. Point is that just like dozens of other bomb threats, it turned out not to be true. A dud due to misidentification, just like in Texas. In this case he WAS expecting a package, but the package didn’t look right, he called, the answer given was odd, he got suspicious, had it x-rayed by somebody trained enough to use the machine (would you call TSA agents that run xray machines airports “non experts”? Heh, go ahead next time you go through security) and saw something that looked like a bomb; a cylinder with wires. Then he got worried and called on it. You’d do the same thing at that point and you’d be screaming bloody murder over that blog of yours. I’m not the least bit impressed by your skepticism, mostly what you do is take cheap pot-shots, call people liars and deniers, and generally write childish things about people you disagree with. If you were any sort of professional, you would not need to do such things, but could argue on the strength of your arguments alone. As I say though, you are highly amusing. -A
More to the point for Ed Darrell, how would you react to this sort of thing if the situation were reversed at the school you teach at ? This portion you’ve completely ignored:
…intimidation Dr. Calzada has faced since releasing his report and following up with articles in Expansion (a Spanish paper similar to the Financial Times). A minister from Spain’s Socialist government called the rector of King Juan Carlos University — Dr. Calzada’s employer — seeking Calzada’s ouster. Calzada was not fired, but he was stripped of half of his classes at the university. The school then dropped its accreditation of a summer university program with which Calzada’s think tank — Instituto Juan de Mariana — was associated.
Additionally, the head of Spain’s renewable energy association and the head of its communist trade union wrote opinion pieces in top Spanish newspapers accusing Calzada of being “unpatriotic” — they did not charge him with being incorrect, but of undermining Spain by daring to write the report.
Their reasoning? If the skepticism that Calzada’s revelations prompted were to prevail in the U.S., Spanish industry would face collapse should U.S. subsidies and mandates dry up.
…all this for pointing out the mathematical impossibility of the economics of green. But you support such things, right Ed?
“..A minister from Spain’s Socialist government called the rector of King Juan Carlos University — Dr. Calzada’s employer — seeking Calzada’s ouster.”
Anthony, this alone would keep me from wanting to call the police. You do not call the police if you doubt their honesty and integrity. The incident in 1946 in Tennessee called The Battle of Athens where there was a pitched gun battle between a corrupt sheriff, his deputies and returning GI’s over voter fraud is an extreme example.
Heck the corruption in my town is so bad a neighbor had to call in the DEA to shut down the five drug dealers on our six mile long dirt road. My county’s “law enforcement” is so corrupt it is an open joke according to the cop who lives down the road.
Okay, I admit it: I didn’t realize you worship kangaroos, Anthony. My apologies for not understanding your unusual faith.
(Did I get it right yet? I can’t figure out what it is that’s so sacred about that kangaroo and the Southern Cross — there is nothing on the internet about how sacred this symbol is to anyone. )
REPLY: I don’t appreciate your patronizing comments about religion Ed. Now you are just being deliberately obtuse. If you haven’t got it by now, I’ll have to assume its on purpose. Better then that you just stew in your own juices at your own blog. You’ve worn out your welcome here with your patronizing remarks. – Anthony
So you’ll never explain what it is I’m supposed to “get?”
Anthony, in your support, I would suggest that as Ed Darrell can obviously read and write, he can’t be as good-ole-boy, aw-shucks dumb as he is pretending to be. His insulting remarks require a genuine apology before you open the door to him again. but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for said apology. He has obviously seen a market for his kind of mindless red-neckery by casting himself in the Huck Finn mould, but he is so wide of that particular iconic character that Samuel Clemens would be disgusted. National symbols are an important part of the identity of most of us and being deliberately obtuse about the Southern cross and the Australian kangaroo is insulting to us Antipodeans.
Ed Darrell says:
“So you’ll never explain what it is I’m supposed to ‘get’?”
Lost.
Smokey:
Oh, Snap!