Never underestimate the power of well organised evil

Britain if far down the road painted here. Talk about demoralized... fifty nine people showed up at the inaugural British Tea Party... that is one millionth of the population of the country. I keep reading the figure 60% about the US- it is estimated that sixty percent of Americans fundamentally agree with US Tea Party core beliefs. If I were to venture a guess, about 0.5% of Britons agree with those. I have yet to meet one Briton of my generation who shares those core beliefs about the world. The KGB not only knew what they were doing, they have succeeded far beyond their own wildest dreams. So even as Marxism/Leninism has died a painful death in Russia, it is gaining new adherents every day in Britain.

Our schools and universities are awash with marxist/leninists. They feed their potted history of the world to the 'soft brains' and those kids grow up to be demoralised morons, and reiterate their programming at the pub and at work. Even supposed 'Conservatives' in Britian are highly tainted by marxist/leninist ideas. Anti-Americanism, which used to be the default position on the left, is now across the board. Support for the monolithic state bureacracies is very high amongst 'Conservatives', and ignorance of liberal economics is absolutely standard.

Oy vey. The road for a British Tea Party will be long and arduous. I'd say thirty to forty years of hard slog.

What I would say is that the only way it will succeed is to offer people positives, to offer them things which are genuinely better and superior. If the Tea Party is only about what needs to be destroyed (Big Government) and exited (the EU), it will never get beyond 59 people. The Bolsheviks succeeded in gaining mass support by offering people simple goods- bread, freedom from serfdom (ok they lied), jobs. The Tea Party will succeed if it does the same- frame its goals as simple, concrete desirable things.

Who says brainwashing doesn't work?

'It is true that most reasonable people concede there has been warming on the planet and that most concede they can't possibly fully understand the underlying science. I certainly can't, despite my best efforts.'
http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/17/who-doesnt-trust-science-now

Repeat after me- there has been warming on the planet, there has been warming on the planet, there has been warming on the planet. See! You're getting it now.

There has been warming on the planet, there has been warming on the planet, there has been warming on the planet...

What happened to the lurve?

What is weird about this picture? Real Clear Politics is a pretty good barometer of what the pundit world is scratching its head about. So, who is up and who is down? Two stories about Obama, and both negative. Evan Bayh, now an ex-Senator, gets a couple of whumpings for having the temerity to tell the truth and not be a socialist. And two stories about Sarah Palin, private citizen and FOX news contributor.

What does it say exactly when just over a year into the great wondrous Obama reign, the really hot topic is whether Sarah Palin will have what it takes to get elected in ... three years time?

One of my now ex-Friends on Facebook presented her conservative acquaintances with a link to a Facebook group called 'Sarah Palin is a fucking moron'. What happened to the love? What happened to the great healing that the Won was going to bring about when he was elected. Hell, where is the attention span of his great hordes of unwashed acolytes? Their guy is in power, presiding over a government dominated by Democrats, and their attention is on... an ex-Governor of Alaska, and what she is doing this week? Come on people. Buck up.

Rugby traditions are dying

Two Rugby players get stinking drunk, find a golf buggy, tear off down the road in it and get pulled for drink driving.

Time was when everybody involved in Rugby, including the WRFU, would have laughed uproarously at this story, the players involved ticked off publicly for the sake of form, and everybody would go straight back to playing rugby.

Now, its like Powell murdered someone.

'Wales team manager Alan Phillips said: "This kind of behaviour cannot be tolerated."

... "This kind of behaviour cannot be tolerated in a professional, elite sporting environment and we have acted quickly and incisively in order to leave no ambiguity over the dim view we take of this situation.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/8515528.stm

Truly, truly dismal. One by one, the traditions of rugby are disappearing in a murk of prim officialdom, 'professional' attitudes and big money.

Ensuring that the truth is known, loud and clear

From the comments

'REN:

I wonder if there will be a slow creep towards the real facts and figures and a general amnesia about the extremes and scare tactics the general public were subjected to. This seems to not be unlike the recent revisionism in the Iraq “success story,” pretending we all knew the truth and were on the “right side” of the issues, all along.

Feb 14, 2010 - 11:56 am'

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-what-did-phil-jones-actually-admit-was-he-correct/2/

Well worth reading the whole article. The Global Warmist cat is well and truly out of the bag. Their bullshit posing as credible science is now well and truly in the spotlight, and starting to look very feeble indeed.

But this comment reminded me of the interview I just watched, by Fox news anchor Chris Wallace interviewing the head of the US National Security Council. He asked him a direct question, whether if Obama and Biden had been in charge when the surge in Iraq was being suggested, whether there would have been any victory in Iraq to celebrate and claim. He played a clip of Obama saying that not only did he believe the surge would make no difference, it would make things worse. So the head of the NSC says 'Oh yes, Iraq is a great victory for America and for whichever administration is in power at the time'. What a load of gilt-edged horseshit. No American with an ounce of knowledge and sense is going to buy that.

Actions matter. And to take the right ones, you have to have knowledge and judgement. As I documented here at the time, President Bush executed the surge over the indignant squeaking of about three quarters of the Pentagon, because he decided on the basis of what he knew that it would succeed, in combination with the Awakening movements and the political progress being made in Baghdad. Would Obama have made the same decision? Absolutely not, as his own words give evidence. Obama would have failed, America would have lost, and untold damage would have been caused. All the lives lost up to that point would have been for nothing.

It is disgusting and repulsive that those idiots are now claiming victory in Iraq, and it must not be allowed to stand.

Twisting in the wind

'The Palin shtick has now become the Republican catechism, parroted by every party leader in Washington. Their constant refrain, delivered with cynicism but not irony, is this: Republicans are the anti-big-government, anti-stimulus, anti-Wall Street, pro-Tea Party tribunes of the common folk. “This is about the people,” as Palin repeatedly put it last weekend while pocketing $100,000 of the Tea Partiers’ money.

Incredibly enough, this message is gaining traction.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/opinion/14rich.html?ref=opinion

Er, that isn't Ms Palins schtick. You are doing a dreadful job of watching the news and reading the newspapers, Mr Rich. Nobody with half and eye and a quarter of a brain, leastways Tea Party people, can forget how government and government debt grew under George W Bush. Supported by many Republican encumbents who are at this very moment being fitted for their political funeral clothes. These big government Republicans get booed and shouted down at Tea Parties they are rash enough to attend. But you apparently haven't been paying attention. Tut tut, you man.

'...G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course. Republicans in office now, as well as Palin during her furtive public service in Alaska, have feasted on federal pork, catered to special interests, and pursued policies indifferent to recession-battered Americans.'

Huh. Ok, you seem desperately intent to tar Sarah Palin with the RINO brush. Do you really think anybody who knows any of the facts is going to buy that? If Sarah Palin had been a porky beast during her time as Governor of Alaska that is all you guys would have talked about during the McCain campaign. And given that you didn't, and had to fall back on bogus flim flam about book burnings, unethical quashing of investigations and her clothes budget, I think we can conclusively deduce that she wasn't. You are right about many other Republicans- pork earmarks are a game everybody can play, and that many of both parties have. Indubitably some special interests have had a deleterious affect on American democracy, and something should be done about that.

You got any ideas Mr Rich? Well, other than replacing Republican special interests with even more voracious and despicable Democrat ones?

'It also shows the power of an incessant bumper-sticker fiction to take root when ineffectually challenged — and, most crucially, the inability of Democrats to make a persuasive case that they offer anything better.'

Oooooh. Dangerous ground. 'Hope and Change' bumper sticker anybody? Do Republicans demagogue better than Democrats? Or is it that most Americans just agree with far more of the Republican core prospectus of God, Country and Family than the Democrat one of Obama, Government and victim tribe? Is it perhaps that they find the Republican prospectus resonates in a thrilling and positive way, while the Democrat one reeks of class division, resentment and murderous rage barely masked?

Nobody does apoplexy better than the Nutroots, and nobody does demagoguic flim flam like the the Democrat leadership. But people have to be willing to buy what you are selling if you are going to close the deal. And the Democrats simply can't.

Not all mobs are the same

'Greek firefighters protest government spending cuts on Jan. 29'

'Demonstrators try to burn an EU flag in Athens on Wednesday.'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703525704575061172926967984.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_MIDDLESecondNews

Back when the Tea Parties were just starting out, a concerted chorus of Democrat bigwigs immediately slandered them 'They are un-American, rent-a-mob, astroturfer racists'. Based on? Evidence proffered? But it has become evident to everybody, apart from the most extreme partisans, that the Tea Parties are neither a proxy of the Republican party nor some recent incarnation of the secessionist Militias. They are mostly mom and pop USA. They are Mr and Mrs Main Street, common-or-garden working people sick of the way their country is being run into the ground at the speed of a runaway freight train.

Compare and contrast the Greek mobs. Utterly oblivious to straightforward economics, blinded by many decades of Marxist bullshit, selfish, greedy and irrational. Take these paragraphs for instance:

'The issues for troubled euro zone countries are straightforward: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain (known to the financial markets, and not in a polite way, as the PIIGS) had varying degrees of foreign- and bank credit-financed rapid expansions over the past decade. In fall 2008, these bubbles collapsed.

As custodian of their shared currency, the European Central Bank responded by quietly opening lifelines to all these countries, effectively buying government bonds through special credit windows. Europe's periphery was fragile but surviving on this intravenous line of credit from the ECB until a few weeks ago, when it suddenly became apparent that Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, and his German backers were finally lining up to cut Greece off from that implicit subsidy. The Germans have become tired of supporting countries that do not, to their minds, try hard enough. Investors naturally flew from Greek debt—Greece's debt yields rose, and its banking system verged near collapse as investors and savers ran from the country.'

Cause followed by effect. Absolutely straightforward. Greece has spent far too much money on its pampered population. The tap has been turned off. And their response? Not humility and shame followed by a resolve to work themselves out of this tight corner. It is to go into the streets, shout stupid slogans and burn EU flags. I already had a very low opinion of Greece, which I consider a Marxist basketcase, but my opinion is heading downhill. Most Germans are probably thinking approximately the same things.

Why should a German worker work until age 69 so a Greek worker can work to 61 and retire on a nice comfy pension? Like an angry teenager whose allowance has been taken away, the Greeks reaction is completely outlandish and negative.

Many of the Tea Party people have gone on record to say, 'We will sacrifice, we will work twice as hard so our children and grandchildren are not saddled with the crippling debt now being accumulated by our government.' Compare and contrast.

My take on the Space debate

'By the end of this year, there will be no shuttle, no U.S. manned space program, no way for us to get into space. We're not talking about Mars or the moon here. We're talking about low-Earth orbit, which the U.S. has dominated for nearly half a century and from which it is now retiring with nary a whimper.'

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/12/closing_the_new_frontier_100276.html

I am a huge fan of Charles Krauthammer. I disagree with him very infrequently, but I do disagree with him about NASA. Equating American space efforts solely with NASA is very 20th century and very statist. Just as the NHS totally dominates healthcare provision and the healthcare marketplace in Britain; and the BBC totally dominates broadcasting and the broadcasting marketplace in Britain; NASA has dominated American activities in space. It has sucked up the talent, it has determined the culture of space exploration (extremely risk-averse), it has decided to a very large extent space priorities (science over commercial) and it has made Americans believe that only government has the resources to do things in space.

The Apollo program and the Space shuttle program were both very exciting. But how useful were they? Were they the best use for the gigantic resources poured into them? It is hard to say definitively, but we can say without fear of contradiction that the decision to put resources into them was made by government apparatchiks who had no board of directors or shareholders to answer to. They had no bottom line to worry about. What did the US get out of either the Apollo program or the shuttle? A few hundred KG of moon rocks? Some unbelievably expensive trips into space to deliver satellites which could have been delivered for a thousandth of the cost by an unmanned rocket?

If men are going to go into space, there must be some reason to. There must be some concrete goal, something of value which they will go there for. Like to bring something back to earth of value, some rare metal, or valuable resources. If not, don't go. The original American frontier drew people to its gold, its land and its forests. People didn't populate it because they wanted to do gravitation experiments or better astronomy. Until these obvious but highly neglected truths are given due attention, govenment space programs will continue to be highly wasteful luxuries.

No Tea Party for Britain

'these conservative populists do perform the useful function of focusing American political attention on the need for fiscal responsibility. They make a good point, for example, in arguing that we shouldn't add a major new entitlement program for health care until we've figured out how to pay for the entitlement programs we've already got.

Europe, by contrast, lacks this sort of potent conservative movement to constrain government spending.'

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/11/in_europe_time_for_tea_100263.html

Two points. First, they aren't doing a very good job. Why didn't the tea party exist five or six years ago, when George W Bush was passing the legislation for No Child Left Behind? And their effect so far in the Obama era? How come Congress just passed the law allowing the government debt ceiling to be raised by one point something trillion dollars?

Second point, the tea partiers are just average joe people sick of government overreach. I don't know about the rest of Europe, but here in Britain people are in love with enormous government. They are addicted to it. They volunteer for higher taxes. Where are the tea party rank and file going to come from?

Britain is now a wholly owned subsidiary of its government. The free, proud Englishman is a distant memory.

UPDATE

Oh, and the Samizdata blog people, who are allegedly independent-thinking libertarians, are totally uninterested in action. They are windbags happy to sit around and bitch about all the stuff that is wrong, with no apparent desire to go out the door and do something about anything.

Thanks for making my day Mr Dalmia

This may be even more important than Rhubarb Crumble.

I know I only said the other day that something was the best thing written about Ayn Rand and 'Atlas Shrugged', but... this is the best thing written about Ayn Rand and 'Atlas Shrugged'!

'With the notable exception of Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek, market theoreticians have to a large extent employed the equivalent of the Great Man theory of history to explain what makes markets tick. According to this theory, the course of history is shaped not by the convergence of multiple, unpredictable events but by the intervention of great men. Likewise, in the conventional thinking about markets, economic progress depends not on the labors of infinite economic actors but on the select few, the brainiacs, who rise to the top and generate innovations from which ordinary mortals benefit through a kind of trickle-down effect.'

http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/12/the-fable-of-market-meritocrac/

Ok, I know it isn't directly about 'Atlas Shrugged' and Ayn Rand, but suddenly I was confronted by the fact that this piece articulates as accurately as I have ever seen my own view of markets. I always knew deep down that Ayn Rand and I didn't agree about the biggest things. Her characters are supermen, in the worst Nietzchian way. Rand worships them, idolizes them. If you don't naturally worship, and feel the need for supermen in the world, Rands books can leave you feeling pretty left out.

What is described in this article is vastly more preferable to me- the rough and ready democracy of free enterprise. Of adding your own small piece to the enormous jigsaw in whatever way you can. Vastly, vastly positive. And with something for everyone. I may well make Shikha Dalmia the object of great study in the next few months. Hayek as well.

After a dismal day of bad news, this is a wonderful tonic.

This news just in!!

'Rhubarb has an interesting and exciting history. The Emperors of China used it as a diplomatic weapon, withholding exports of rhubarb to nations that had displeased them.'

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTQyNzEyZTJkZjc5OGJmMWVlOTliNTY0MGJkNDQ1ZDE=

That would certainly have got my attention!

Mmmmmm, Rhubarb crumble.....

They paid good money for this ad?

Do you want a whole new police force? Intruding in your life constantly? Not just glad-handing liberals whining at you, but real police acting on behalf of statute? Wouldn't that be great?

Can you say enviro-police state?

Our right to control your life

Reading 'Atlas Shrugged' certainly raises your sensitivity to certain modes of language:

'Poorest in England live 7 years less on average
By Jane Dreaper
Health Correspondent, BBC News'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8508204.stm

It actually hurt to read this, even though you might term it a bog-standard marxist interpretation. Can't help myself, going to fisk it.

'People in England's poorest areas live an average of seven years less than those in the richest ones, says a major report on health inequalities.'

So are you going to tell us why? What the factors are that cause this discrepancy?

'Epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot, says the NHS must spend much more on preventing illness.'

Er, whoah there fella, aren't you jumping the gun just a tad? First of all, you haven't even told us yet why poor people live shorter lives. Couldn't there be a way of lengthening poor peoples lives that doesn't involve spending taxpayers money?

'And he calls for an increase in the minimum wage to allow everyone to have a healthy lifestyle.'

Boy, this is definitely not a clear, logical argument. So you have asserted that poor people live shorter lives, with no explanation why that might be, if anyone knows. You have immediately then proffered two 'solutions' to this problem without establishing why those solutions would actually solve the problem. And bizarrely enough both solutions are big Government ones. One involves pumping yet more billions into Britains gargantuan healthcare system, and the other involves interfering with the free market. Funny that.

'The health secretary, Andy Burnham, has welcomed the government-commissioned report and said more work was needed.'

Thanks for phoning it in, Andy. Sheesh

'The Marmot Review shows that although life expectancy has risen in poor and rich areas, inequalities persist. '

No word of a lie, that sentance actually made me laugh out loud. THAT should have been the headline! Listen up people! Living in a capitalist country makes everyone richer and live longer! Yay!

'Poorest neighbourhoods

People in the poorest neighbourhoods will also spend a greater proportion of those shorter lives unwell.'

Still no sign of any evidence of WHY poor people live shorter lives. I have my own theory, but it is based mostly on personal anecdotal evidence, so doesn't mean all that much. But don't these professors and ministers have access to all kinds of research and statistical data about what causes poor people to live short lives? Why won't they divulge that information to us?

'There must be a real political commitment at all levels, because a fairer society will benefit all.' Professor David Hunter, Durham University

I bet he isn't a commie!

'The report estimates up to 202,000 early deaths could be avoided, if everyone in the population enjoyed the same health as university graduates.'

Another laugh-out-loud moment. My mind wandered back to a couple of years ago when Jamie Oliver tried to force kids in schools across Britain to eat healthy school dinners, and the response of many parents was to bring gristle-burgers and chips to the school fence and subvert the whole thing. Food is culture. Unless forced to by an all-powerful, all-intrusive state, people will eat what their culture dictates. In the case of many English, Scottish and Welsh people, that means deep-fried Mars bars and gristle burgers.

'Doing nothing to tackle these inequalities would cost the economy more, according to the review, which says inequality in illness accounts for £33bn of lost productivity every year.'

Pick amount of money from air. Put in story so story sounds fact-based.

'The report says "action is essential" because more than three-quarters of the population experience significant illness by the age of 68 - which will by 2046 be the pensionable age for men and women in England.'

68? Has to be one of the historically longest average lifespans in history. When even your poor people live to 68, you are doing something very very right.

'And there's a call for NHS spending on preventing illness to be much higher than the current 4%, with more money going to initiatives such as providing statins and helping people to stop smoking.'

Of course there is a call for more spending of taxpayer money. That is as predictable a part of most BBC news stories as the reflexive shitting on conservatives and slandering Margaret Thatcher

'Best start'

The authors feel their most important recommendation is giving every child the best start in life.'

Sounds vague but well-intentioned. I personally believe that what they REALLY mean is that working class British culture needs to be destroyed by getting the children away from their parents, and teaching them what middle-class people think they should think.

'Sir Michael Marmot, from University College London, said: "Every child needs to be nurtured at an early stage.'

"In one study, mothers were asked whether it was important to cuddle and talk to a child.

"I would have thought every mother would have said yes to that - but not all of them did.

"That made my hair stand on end.

"And it follows the social gradient - women from less well-off families are less likely to see this as important.

"But then by the age of three, these children had more behavioural problems and worse cognitive skills.

"Then they have less readiness to learn, and the problems continue."

On the face of it, this seems completely reasonable. Of course children should be nurtured and loved. But on reflection, it would seem to me that working class people bring up their children the way they need to, by and large, to fit into working class society. Is it tougher than middle-class society? Undoubtedly. Is it far less concerned with academic learning? Absolutely. Is it a legitimate way to live? Well, you tell me. And while you are at it, tell me who has the right to de-legitimize it.

'The review also says the current minimum wage of £5.80 an hour is below the level needed for a healthy life.'

I'll make you a bet. I bet you a million pounds that I could live a healthy life as defined by the government on £5.80 an hour. If you don't smoke, bet, play the lottery, buy fast food and takeout food, and own a car, it is remarkably easy. All of the above activities are what we conservatives call choices. I don't do any of those. But I eat really really well. I'll probably live to a ripe old age. But that is because in MY culture, none of my list of things is deemed necessary and normal. And even if they were, I would choose to do what I want. What this argument about the minimum wage means once parsed is that people should be able to smoke, bet, play the lottery, buy fast food and takeout food, own a car and STILL be able to afford organic vegetables. Yeah, nuh uh. Not at the cost of rigging the economy thanks.

'It cites the higher pay levels recommended by the London Living Wage Unit - set up by then mayor Ken Livingstone and continued by Boris Johnson.'

Ah, well why didn't you say? Open the coffer floodgates!

This calculated that Londoners need an hourly wage 16% higher than the national minimum rate to lift them above poverty.'

That sentance has the same plausability as the advertisements that say 'People who switched from X car insurance to Y car insurance saved up to £367 pounds'. You could replace any of the material facts with any other number or phrase, and the statement would have the same validity. 'It is calculated that Berliners need an hourly wage 27% higher than the Brizilian chimp chomp rate to lift them above poverty'. Disprove that if you can!

'The report says a minimum income should allow people to consume a healthy diet, take exercise and have technology such as broadband, that enables them to maintain social networks.'

Of course people should have broadband. If you can't check FaceBook 38 times a day, you die! Allegedly.

'Sir Michael says he has been given a sympathetic hearing when presenting his findings to politicians from all main parties.'

Don't remind me. That is the thought that keeps me awake at night.

'The health secretary, Andy Burnham, said: "It's not right that where we live can dictate the state of our health.'

Non sequitur alert. When did we start talking about WHERE poor people lived? I used to live in Walthamstow, but I didn't live like a Walthamstowian. I imagine that I'll live somewhat longer than your average working class Walthamstow resident. But that has nothing to do with WHERE I live, but HOW I live.

'Professor Mike Kelly, of the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said: "Public health interventions are extremely good value when compared with the costs of clinical interventions.

"We need to shift the emphasis away from medical interventions that treat existing illnesses to interventions to prevent those illnesses developing in the first place, but it needs political support and system change to make this happen.'

And if we have to take away peoples control of their lives, and impose an alien culture on them to do it...

The impacts of climate change are everywhere!

'NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives,” the release says.'

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/02/08/noaa-blizzard-rearranges-climate-change-announcement/

I was brought up in a fringe religion, where one of the most popular games was to pick a story of some disaster, natural or human, from the newspaper, and opine 'Ah, another sign of the end'. The end being the end time before the return of Christ to earth for the big showdown. Every disaster was fair game. Whether is was a night club burning down (which they seem to do with shocking regularity) or a volcano doing its volcano thing, it provided proof certain that we were living in the 'end of days'.

The global warmists engage in the same logical nonsense. Every bit of slightly abnormal weather, hell, even completely normal weather, is posited as yet further proof (not that any is needed; the science is absolutely certain) that global warming is happening, that it is disastrous, and we all need to become subsistence farmers clothed in hemp, riding wooden bicycles in a socialist utopia.

I never found the argumentation for the 'end of days' persuasive, not even as a child. And as an adult, I just find it risible. Same for the Global warmists.

On a side note, Professor Robert Watson of the completely discredited East Anglia CRU and UN IPCC was on the Daily Politics last night, getting a pounding from Andrew Neil. After some particularly intensive questions, Will Self, famously crap writer and druggie, asked Andrew why he was giving Watson such a hard time. 'Because it is my job', he replied pithily.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8504300.stm

At least there are a few terriers left in the press! Good on you, Mr Neil.

They just can't help themselves

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-great-global-warming-collapse/article1458206/

From the comments:


Louis Robert, 2/7/2010 8:08:47 AM

"The great global warming collapse"

--

'Rather the great global warming debate collapse.

Just read: ignorant, reactionary populism at its worse. The strategy was always part of the agenda. We finally got there. Canada will have its Palin after all: "America is ready for another revolution and you are a part of this."

Rehearsals for Fascism. (Make a good note of that, we'll revisit often, on more than one issue)'

Insisting that science be done right, according to the basic tenets of science commonly agreed upon for some centuries now, is fascism apparently. When your debating tactics are always the same, and involve ad hominem, threats and labelling your debating opponents with the scariest label you can think of, eventually nobody will pay any attention to you.

That is where we have got to with the great mass of armchair global-warmists.

The kaliedescope vilification of Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin was a blithering idiot until she became a devious genius

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2010/02/sarah-palin-was-blithering-idiot-until.html

This reminds me of the scene at the end of Terminator II when the terminator is dying in the cauldron of molten metal, panics and frantically cycles through the different shapes it has taken during its operations. The vast throng of frightened lefty puppies in America and Britain are doing the same thing.

She's just some stupid hick from the backwoods who thinks she knows Russia because she saw it across the Bering straits!

She's just some beautiful, sexy floozy who couldn't possibly ever be qualified for president!

She's a baby machine who should just go back to Wasilla and die somehow!

She's a book-burning religious fanatic!

She's a corrupt tool of the big oil companies!

And now... she's a devious machiavellian using the media to further her evil ends!

An effective measure of Sarah Palin's potential is how frightened she makes the hard left. And they are soiling themselves messily.

Are you sure that is science you're doing?

'Specifically, what’s fascinating to Brown and Buie is the tremendous amount of change that has been observed on Pluto, particularly between images obtained in 1994 and 2003. Based on the new processing of the photos, there has been more change on Pluto than Earth or Mars.

“You’re looking at the surface in the solar system where there are the biggest changes we’ve ever seen,” Brown said.

The color of the surface of Pluto changed so markedly, particularly between 2000 and 2002, that Buie has spent years checking and rechecking his work, just to make sure the differences weren’t an artifact of faulty equipment or calculations.

“I got that result years ago but it’s just so hard to understand and believe that I’ve been checking everything that I can think of,” he said. “I’m still nervous about it. It could be that I’ve just completely screwed this up, but I can’t find where.”'

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/best-view-yet-of-pluto-shows-rapidly-changing-surface/#ixzz0eoQlwitv

See, now, that is how I imagine scientists talking. Doubting everything, self-deprecating, constantly on the lookout for the unexpected and not forcing any theory onto the discovered. But I must be wrong- millions of armchair global-warmists insist I'm wrong! And they insist that science is all about forming little cabals, lying, hiding data, stitching up 'peer review journals', manipulating findings that don't meet preconcieved notions, launching media blitzes against 'deniers', reprocessing and reprocessing data until it says what you need it to say, that sort of thing.

Boy, am I naive!

Wilful disregard for what people say

"And it may be that ... if Congress decides we're not going to do it [health care reform], even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," the president said. "And that's how democracy works. There will be elections coming up and they'll be able to make a determination and register their concerns one way or the other during election time."

http://thecitysquare.blogspot.com/2010/02/ap-admits-obama-sounds-contradictory.html [Hat Tip: Instapundit]

The case being made by this post is that AP have finally got around to realising that Obama constantly contradicts himself. My alternative point, if you take this paragraph, which is a direct quote from an Obama speech, is probably more disturbing.

When Obama was elected president, he chose, against all known facts about the nature and mental habits of the American electorate, to construe it as a mandate for the socialist agenda dear to the Obama soul. Not as a mandate for the thin gruel hopey-changey bullshit which was the sum total of what Obama offered the electorate during his campaign. That choice was an abuse, a purposeful, deliberate misconstrual of the true intent of most of those 68,000,000 votes.

How do we know that? Because apart from the hard core 20% who are socialists, the other 80% of those who voted for Obama are increasingly distancing themselves from his agenda. They drank too much cool-aid to dump Obama himself, who apparently they still love, but they are polling against and voting against his policies in ever-increasing throngs.

So let us go back to the original quote. What is Obama saying? Let us present two facts-

1. After the Massachussets Senate election was won by Republican Scott Brown, Obama said 'This election result shows people are very angry. Angry about what has happened this last year, but also in the last eight years.'

2. He is now saying in this quote that the 2010 'midterm' elections are an opportunity for the electorate to punish senators and congressmen for not voting through health care reform.

This is a consistent pattern of behaviour. No matter how clearly the American people, most especially the Tea Party folks, say they want less government, less regulation, balanced public books, less public debt and less government interference in the basic activities of public life, Obama will not hear them. He has his fingers in his ears, going la-la-la.

If they vote out large numbers of Democrats in November, it won't be punishment for their fiscal insobriety- no no. It will be because they couldn't get it together to pass Obamas socialist agenda.

That much denial of reality in a president is deeply, deeply disturbing. Has a US president ever been impeached for mental illness? There could be a first...

Hard-hitting, balanced story about Phil Jones and ClimateGate

'The scientist at the centre of a row over climate change research has defended himself against claims that he manipulated data.

Professor Phil Jones, former director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), said his results "stand up to scrutiny".'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/8494497.stm

And why wouldn't we think he was telling the truth?

Oh yeah, all the emails. Right.

If you want to read a solid, well-balanced story about the role of Professor Phil and the ClimateGate saga... don't bother reading this one. It's all him. Just a list of direct quotes from the guy himself.

That's right, no contrary voices. The voice of criticism that lards every story about America in Iraq, America in Haiti, Israel no matter what it is doing, Honduras when it kicks out a lefty monarch beloved leader and many many other topics is surprisingly quiescent here in this article. Weird. It's like they are protecting one of their own or something.

Ah, the lofty standards of the great BBC institution.