Without even invoking the angst the media had over climategate emails, where somebody simply got fed up with the constant illegal sidestepping of FOI requests and dumped the whole lot…
FOIA said
November 17, 2009 at 9:57 pm e
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.
We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.
…we have this comment via Instapundit about the current state of affairs related to obtaining public emails:
BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: “The Washington Post thinks it’s ‘harassment’ to request Michael Mann’s files from the University of Virginia (their Memorial Day editorial) but it’s cool with requesting and obtaining and asking for citizen-journalists to go through 24,000 of the State of Alaska’s emails involving Sarah Palin.”
I never thought I’d see any comparison of any kind between Michael Mann and Sarah Palin, and yet, here we are.
You put your finger right on it, John Whitman. That lack of integrity runs like a swamp through the whole AGW science establishment. It’s hard to know whether the cause is cognitive dissonance or tactical cynicism, but it’s had the most corrosive effect on science.
The comparison: Both losers.
mac the knife: “Socialists seek government intervention, to redistribute wealth from citizens that earned it to citizens and noncitizens that did not…”
And, “Socialism has created a morbidly obese culture and government. The road to economic and cultural health now requires harsh measures to ‘cut the fat’ and restore a lean, agile, and powerful US of A.”
Is that actually what’s happening? If you look at Smokey’s Gallup poll link above, it show that Conservatives outnumber Liberals by a hefty margin. If you look at the chart on page two of <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/129tn0251.pdf".this article by David Cay Johnson, it shows that the wealthiest 20% of Americans own 83% of the wealth. Not only that, but wealthy people themselves believe that the distribution of wealth should be more equal, according to the article.
Exactly who are you going to “cut the fat” from? You’re painting a picture of a Socialist menace that doesn’t exist, and using that as justification to suggest that “we must progressively dismantle the strangling burdens of socialist welfare programs…” and “Confrontation is inevitable…”
I hate to break it to you, but gutting the government and the remaining social programs isn’t about Socialism, it’s about handing the reins of power to Corporate America and hoping that they will throw you a few bucks when they open a new Walmart down the road. Good luck with that.
Hey Footagus –
Like AGW, its about the statstics —
I don’t care that the wealthiest 20% own 83% of the wealth,
the American experience has always been the the distribution of the rest was sufficient to create the largest
and wealthiest middle class in history, and for that matter, the wealthiest bottom 20% as well.
Also, that 20% probably is about 40% of the workforce…hardly a tiny elite.
— Oh and wealth, mostly isn’t distributed — it is earned.
So how many tree rings do you need to figure out a “fair” distribution of wealth?
Footagus says:
June 12, 2011 at 7:04 pm
mac the knife: “Socialists seek government intervention, to redistribute wealth from citizens that earned it to citizens and noncitizens that did not…”
And, “Socialism has created a morbidly obese culture and government. The road to economic and cultural health now requires harsh measures to ‘cut the fat’ and restore a lean, agile, and powerful US of A.”
Is that actually what’s happening? If you look at Smokey’s Gallup poll link above, it shows that Conservatives outnumber Liberals by a hefty margin. If you look at the chart on page two of <a href="http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/129tn0251.pdf".this article by David Cay Johnson, it shows that the wealthiest 20% of Americans own 83% of the wealth. Not only that, but wealthy people themselves believe that the distribution of wealth should be more equal, according to the article.
Exactly who are you going to “cut the fat” from? You’re painting a picture of a Socialist menace that doesn’t exist, and using that as justification to suggest that “we must progressively dismantle the strangling burdens of socialist welfare programs…” and “Confrontation is inevitable…”
I hate to break it to you, but gutting the government and the remaining social programs isn’t about Socialism, it’s about handing the reins of power to Corporate America and hoping that they will throw you a few bucks when they open a new Walmart down the road. Good luck with that.
==============================================================================
Footagus, I dislike entering this conversation. I understand many skeptics are liberal democrats and I am of much disdain to alienate any skeptics, that said………
Wrong. You're framing the argument wrong, and you're wrong in engaging in the class warfare that has been part and parcel of the left. Anyone familiar with my writings will know I have plenty to say about this issue, and I would be correct of the various assertions I'd make. But today, I've something different to offer. I have a personal experience.
After many years of struggle, mostly of my own difficulties, I've attained a lifestyle and income that can be termed as middle-class. While I'm rich in many things, I've never sought great wealth…….. only enough to feed, house, and cloth me and mine. And, most importantly, to earn it myself, without owing anyone and anyone owing to me. I've done my best to pass on this way of being.
Recently, like millions others, my son-in-law and daughter found themselves without jobs…..as too, some close cousins and their families. I don't earn enough to carry them all through the hard times, but we do what we can. Lately, me, and them (my extended family) have become increasingly frustrated. While it appeared that people were hiring, my people weren't getting the jobs. Any jobs……labor, skilled or otherwise. These are people well versed in all sorts of work. Machinists, roofer, construction, truckers….. it doesn't matter, they're not above the job to do it.
The day before yesterday, I found out why. One of my cousin's daughters accidentally got hired. By accidentally, I mean the manager went to her and stated if he’d been there, she wouldn’t have the job. She asked why……….. the response, ….“Because you are not on cash assistance.” For those not familiar with the term…… it is welfare. Where the government takes care of you because you can’t or won’t take care of yourself.
Evidently, there is some program that gives companies some sort of extra money to hire people on welfare. So, they only hire people on welfare. Screw the ones that don’t admit defeat. God knows we don’t want to encourage that behavior. Apparently, the sorry sacks of shitte believe everyone needs to suck at teat of government, and by God we’ll force them to before they can earn their way through life. If the tree of liberty ever needed watering………
Who ever or whatever sick SOB ever thought of that asinine program….. better pray to God…….. I cannot write any further without violating our laws.
“I hate to break it to you, but gutting the government and the remaining social programs isn’t about Socialism, it’s about handing the reins of power to Corporate America and hoping that they will throw you a few bucks when they open a new Walmart down the road. Good luck with that.”
I always love the angst some people have against “corporations”. Does that include “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting”? How about small businesses and one person LLCs (guess what the C stands for)?
Corporations are, in the end, PEOPLE! PEOPLE who run, invest in, and contribute to business. Don’t like a particular corporation? Then stop purchasing goods from them! You are free to seek alternatives. But don’t tell other people who they can or can not purchase goods from! I personally love shopping at my Walmart!
If you still don’t like corporations and think they all suck, then start your own business and show us all how it’s done. You can even be a non-profit if you want!
And finally, about redistributing wealth. If you think taking money from rich people and giving it to the poor will solve all our problems, think again. When you tell someone they can only earn 10 cents on the dollar when their income is above a certain threshold, you can be sure they won’t have any incentive to earn any more than they have to in order to avoid the penalty. This is why “taxing the rich” will never work in the long run. And on the other side, giving someone something for nothing ensures that the person receiving the something will continue to do nothing to get their something. This is why Socialism never works in the long run (at least without the use of force by the government).
Footagus says:
June 12, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Our +$14 Trillion dollar US national debt and even larger unfunded social welfare program commitments are a direct result of ever expanding and failing socialism. Our latest folly is National Health Care, aka ObamaCare. Expansion of the welfare state continues unchecked, as do our annual deficits and almost unrecoverable national debt. There are 308, 745,538 people in the USA, according to the 2010 census , with anywhere from 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 additional illegal aliens undocumented. Using just the census count, each US resident is now responsible for $45,345 of the +$14 Trillion national debt. This number more than doubles, if the unfunded socialist mandates are added in. The substantial additional debts from illegal aliens consuming welfare benefits remains undocumented. What part of this very basic data do you not understand? Are you prepared to forfeit your welfare checks (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare, etc) to pay your personal portion of the National Debt? If not, who do you think should pay for your welfare checks? How do you think this debt is going to get paid when the bills come due? Do you think gross inflating of the US money supply, our current ‘monetary easing solution’ and last refuge of every failing government, is a viable course of action? “Good luck with that.”
Nor can it be argued that this is a result of ‘Corporate America’, the favorite canard and refuge of progressive argument. Our rapidly expanding government is bloated, promising wealth transfer and security that increasingly it can’t deliver, and consuming wealth better deployed in the private sectors of our economy. Our bloated government debts further deplete our national wealth, diverted as interest payments to other countries that hold our debt. How is our bloated government addressing the bloated national debts? By inflating the money supply. The countries holding our treasury notes and bills have realized our inflating money supply is devaluing the US debt (T Bills/Notes) they are holding. Recent financial headlines indicate China, the single biggest holder of US debt and US dollars, is divesting their US debt holdings and calling for replacement of the US dollar as the primary medium of world wide economic exchange. When our biggest creditors finally refuse to buy our debt, the spit really hits the griddle. Interest rates rise rapidly, the value of our US dollar drops, and real, ugly inflation results. ” \I hate to break it to you”, but the government, the bloated and inefficient social programs, and the progressive socialists that support them are gutting the economy of the US. Denying this is like Anthony Wiener denying those are his ‘tiddy whities’…..
In 2006, a freshman Senator Obama opined “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
Senator Obama understood the problem in 2006. Why can’t Our Dear Leader ($3Trillion in debt later and counting…) and his feckless supporters, grasp that fundamental truth today?
Easy answer. 0bama never actually understood anything.
He has different speech writers today than he did then.
And different people are pulling his strings now.
The level of hypocrisy shown by the media is breathtaking, and this Palin vs. Climategate example is but one of many. Usually once I point out to someone what a “weasel word” is in a climate article, they soon realize that the entire “news industry” is either corrupted, or simply meaningless entertainment. The rare occasion when they are actually reporting news or covering an event is still awash with political point-scoring and climate brainwashing. It’s foul, and it’s disgusting, but it’s the reality we are dealing with.
And for the record, no, Foxnews is not “right wing”, not even close. It’s just that media coverage is so far out to the left that anything close to the middle starts to look far-right in comparison…
All I can say is hear, hear!
Oh man, that is perfect. Between that photo and those of the baseball pitches, he is clearly the weeniest weenie to ever move into the White House. Rolling Thunder baby!
Speak it brother! (I’m really digging this thread.)
Try to think of socialists like cancer cells in the body of a free America. Even in a cancer ravaged human body, the cancer cells are outnumbered by normal cells by many, many orders of magnitude. Food for thought: perhaps the cancer would be defeated if all the cells showed up for the fight, not just the dedicated fighters. Unfortunately, sometimes the white blood cells are tricked and turned against the body by the invading disease. Other useful and accurate analogies include virus and bacterial infection.
Bingo. And it is yet another proof that to a liberal/socialist, anything that is not left-wing, must be right-wing. To turn a liberal into babbling idiot, just make them explain exactly what they mean when they use the phrase right-wing.
Mann, Sarah Palin? Both extremists in their own way. Problem is that Mann has more influence.
A follow-up on Corporations…
For you anti-corporation Progressives out there who use Facebook and Twitter. Did you know that Facebook, Inc. and Twitter, Inc. are both…Corporations??? Oh NO!!!
there is something that is interesting on my up-dated pool table:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
Note the difference between the southern hemisphere (the first 5 stations) and the northern hemisphere.
Especially in the tables for the means and minima. It appears that there has been virtually no global warming in the southern hemisphere.
Any ideas as to why that is?
Anyone?
Hypocrisy knows no limits.
The Democrats have been subverting the Constitutional Republic since before the American Civil War. Education and related academic disciplines related to science have been undermined by increasing socialism since the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, particularly with the Upton reforms. The Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt Administrations were especially involved with packing the Supreme Court of the United States and inferior courts with a judiciary dedicated to implementing social engineering through court decisions beyond the scope of powers granted to the Federal Government by the U.S. Constitution. Current court decisions often cite precedent cases from the Supreme Court justices appointed by the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations. The usurpation of the limiited government power granted by the U.S. Constitution such as the regulation of Commerce and Education began long before the Kennedy Administration. Communists and socialists have played key roles in the Administrations of Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, before the Kennedy Administration.
The role of communism and socialism in U.S. education and science is as old as the roots of communism and socialism. Oppenheimer’s relationship with communism was in no respect non-representative of the period in which he was a part of the educatonal establishment.
“Other useful and accurate analogies include virus and bacterial infection.
Seriously?
Anyway, this is fascinating stuff!
I’m curious to know if people here think that the issue of climate change is a Left-Right thing, or is it strictly a science issue?
Considering I feel that both are capable of similar tactics to avoid the embarrassment light sheds on being a crummy person, I am not surprised that the two are comparable.
Seriously.