Blog: Strange Allies in the War on Carbon Fuels

Blog: Strange Allies in the War on Carbon Fuels

 

Strange Allies in the War on Carbon Fuels

By Viv Forbes

What
great cause could unite Prince Charles, President Obama, the Pope, the
Arab Oil sheiks, the United Nations, the European Union, the Russians,
the Chinese, Pacific Island Nations, most undeveloped countries, the
glitterati of Hollywood, left-wing politicians, unrepentant reds,
government media, the climate research industry, Big Oil, Big Gas, and
the Green Blob? It must be something posing a clear and urgent danger to
all humanity?



No, the crusade that unites them all is the War on Carbon Fuels, focussed mainly on that most vilified target, coal.



The biggest group, and the generals in this war on carbon, have no real
interest in the facts or science of global climate change – they see
climate alarmism as a great opportunity to achieve their goal of
creating an unelected global government. They have even laid out their
plans in a document called Agenda 21. This group naturally includes the
United Nations and all of its subsidiaries, the EU, and left-wing
politicians and media everywhere. At a news conference in Brussels
recently, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework
Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental
activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but “to
change the economic development model” ie destroy what is left of free
enterprise and private property.



The next big group of carbon warriors is the anti-Western failed states
who see this as their big chance to enrich and entrench their ruling
classes with “climate reparations”.



Then there are the enviro-entrepreneurs forever seeking new crusades to
energise their supporters and get the donations rolling in – Greenpeace,
WWF, Get Up etc...



In the dark corner are the anti-human Malthusians and the Deep Greens
who want to get rid of most of us other people -- personified by the
rich and powerful such as Prince Charles and Maurice Strong. They know
that carbon fuels support millions of people by cultivating, harvesting,
transporting, processing, and storing most of the food that supports
the cities of the world. Killing the use of carbon fuels will certainly
achieve their goal of reduced world population.



Naturally, government media usually support a bigger role for
government, and all media like a scare story. Truth or logic does not
matter greatly for most of them -- just so long as they can coax a
looming disaster story from someone. The daily diet of natural
calamities soon heightens climate anxiety, which then motivates
politicians to be seen to be “doing something”.



And then there are those who see that fighting carbon fuels also suits
their pockets. As someone said “When placing a bet, the best horse to
back is the one called ‘Self-interest’ -- at least you know he is
trying”.



For example, Shell, with its massive gas interests, was caught
campaigning against coal-fired power, the main competitor of gas in
electricity generation. Arab Oil interests were caught funding a film
attacking their competitors -- shale oil fracking in America; and a
Russian oil company was exposed funding U.S. anti-carbon green groups.



The Chinese of course are great supporters of green energy as long as it
is installed elsewhere - e.g. they supply the machines and solar panels
and then welcome the factories forced from the host country by soaring
electricity prices.



Gas, nuclear, and hydro power will be the greatest long-term
beneficiaries of the war on coal. Initially, they will be needed to
provide base load and back up for intermittent green power like wind and
solar. Then as green subsidies are withdrawn to appease angry
taxpayers, the green play-toys will fail and grown-up generators will
step easily into full-time electricity production.



Finally, the government bureaucracy and the research grants industry
justify their existence by “solving community crises”. They love “The
Climate Crisis” because it can be blamed for any weather event anytime,
anywhere. It is unlikely to be solved, no matter how many dollars are
thrown at it -- a problem that does not exist can never be “solved”. And
the sinister “Greenhouse Effect”, like any good ghost, is invisible,
mysterious in operation, debatable, and allows anyone to produce their
own scare story.



Opposing this coalition of climate alarmists and opportunists is a
rag-tag army of stressed tax payers and electricity consumers and a
scattering of sceptical scientists and media researchers.



But the imposing alarmist empire has a hollow heart -- the globe has
refused to warm, the alarmist “science” is crumbling, their climate
models are discredited, some researchers have been caught manipulating
records and results, and the costs of green electricity are becoming
obvious and onerous. The public is growing restive, governments can no
longer afford the climate industry cuckoo in the public nest and the
ranks of sceptics grow. Groups like UKIP in UK and the Tea Party in U.S.
have abandoned the war on carbon.



The climate revolt is spreading.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/02/strange_allies_in_the_war_on_carbon_fuels.html#ixzz3S1tD2m4e

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Articles: Manufacturing Outrage

Articles: Manufacturing Outrage

Manufacturing Outrage

By Ed Lasky

Manufacturing outrage is the modus operandi
of Obama and Democrats.  Liberal media are their tools.  The result has
been destruction, pain and murder.  And the worse is yet to come.



The
last six years have seen an explosion of faux controversies generated
by Democrats.  Aside from political ads attacking opponents (Paul Ryan
pushing grandma and her wheelchair off a cliff; Romney as a bully,
homophobe, dog abuser and carcinogenic (I may have missed a few
calumnies).  Before those defamations, it was Sarah Palin who endured
unceasing attacks.  And before that it was Obama’s two opponents for the Senate who were targets of ginned up outrage.



There also have been campaigns that have attacked broad groups of Americans. 



Consider
the purported epidemic of rape by privileged whites on college
campuses.  Then there was a fictitious gender gap in wages between men
and women.  Aren’t there enough wars around the world without having to
start (un)civil wars in America?



The
most disgraceful use of this strategy has been the deliberate stoking
of black rage against whites.  Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown became
martyrs not perpetrators.  Al Sharpton was anointed healer-in-chief and
Obama’s point man on race (the arsonist becomes the fire department
chief -- such are the perversions Barack Obama has inflicted on
America).  Barack Obama has fanned the flames by comments such as “racism is deeply rooted in American society”
and his Attorney General Eric Holder has race-baited throughout his
tenure, routinely claiming civil rights violations at the height of the
strife triggered by the deaths of Martin and Brown -- and routinely
being frustrated by the facts.  Joe Biden told a black audience that
“Republicans are “going to put y’all back in chains.”  Police have borne the brunt of these malicious attacks, all but accused of being Ku Klux Klansmen in blue. 



All
these slanders were meant to play on people’s worst emotions. fear and
envy, and generate votes for the delectation of Democrats, costs to this
country from this  artificial outrage be damned.  All were lies. 



They are manifestations of a ploy dreamt up by Barack Obama’s White House Senior Adviser (at the time) David Plouffe, as the Weekly Standard noted last year:

Last week, National Journal reporter
Major Garrett provided an interesting explanation for the White House’s
obsession with promoting a dubious statistic on the alleged “pay gap”
between men and women.  The White House has repeatedly claimed that
women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn.  Such “war on women”
rhetoric has no doubt proved inspiring to many single women, the
Democrats’ most crucial voting bloc.  (Republicans still enjoy an
advantage among married women.) 



However,
as has been repeatedly pointed out, once you control for a number of
confounding factors in the data, including the degree to which women
drop in and out of the workforce to attend to marital and parental
duties, the pay gap all but evaporates.  Even the usually credulous
D.C.  press corps was scratching their heads over the White House’s
misleading rhetoric.  The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus -- not
exactly the face of conservative opposition to Obama -- called the White
House’s use of the stat “revolting.” But as Garrett explains, the Obama
administration deliberately sought to create controversy:

[The
White House was] desperate to inject the issue into the political
bloodstream and amplify otherwise doomed Senate Democratic efforts to
make it easier for women to sue and win damages for workplace pay
differences.  The controversy that played out on front pages, social
media, TV, and radio did just that. 

This
is the White House theory of “Stray Voltage.” It is the brainchild of
former White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe, whose methods loom
large long after his departure.  The theory goes like this: Controversy
sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation
embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public
consciousness. 

The
false allegations are amplified by the usual suspects: liberal media
outlets, bloggers, Democratic Party operatives masquerading as think
tank “experts” (The Center for American Progress, a George
Soros-creation, is among the worst of the lot; it has been described as Obama’s Idea Factory
and has also been a revolving door for Obama’s key officials).  Lies
are streamed through the social networks that Obama and the Democrats
have spread throughout America.  Narrowcasting has empowered liars as
never before.



Truth does not matter.  As the great Winston Churchill
said “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance
to get its pants on.”  Even when purveyors of the false allegations are
compelled to issue “corrections” they are ignored.  Few people read
fact-checkers such as the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, who routinely
hands out awards to Obama and his minions: Pinocchios.  We might read
about Obama’s Grammy and Nobel Peace Prize, but how about his Lie of the
Year, bestowed upon him by PolitiFact.com, for his repeated claims that “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it”?



But
facts do not seem to matter to Democrats, only rage that can motivate
people to vote for them.  Their leader Barack Obama is a con man who thinks Americans are stupid people, susceptible to believing any stories he peddles.



Many
of these outrage fabricators appear to be disciples of Saul Alinsky
(Hillary Clinton actually shares this ideological kinship with Barack
Obama) who wrote, “it’s up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change.”



This
was clearly Obama’s strategy from the get-go.  When executives of AIG,
an insurer bailed out by the government, were awarded bonuses, people
were understandably upset if not enraged.  When asked how he would quell
this anger, President Obama said he was not interested in calming the
waters.

"I
don't want to quell anger.  People are right to be angry.  I'm angry. 
What I want us to do is channel our anger in a constructive way."

Of course, what is one man’s constructive path may be another man’s destructive path.



And
so it has been throughout Obama’s presidency.  He has never missed an
opportunity to manufacture outrage.  When there have not been existing
“sores of discontent” he creates them.  After all, that is the logical
next step when there is no discontent to manipulate -- create it.



The latest example of his modus operandi
has been the agitprop he has poured out regarding the invitation
extended to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak to Congress
regarding the dangers of Islamic extremism (see my blog
entry that Boehner blindsided Obama on Netanyahu invitation was
manufactured agitprop).  Barack Obama -- the most thin-skinned, petty
and prickly of our presidents -- considers this trivial incident a
diplomatic affront.  The White House invented the tale of Netanyahu’s
supposed outrageous behavior to blunt any unwelcome criticism of Barack
Obama’s surrender to the mullahs.  The White House deliberately
manufactured this spat with Netanyahu.



This
is manufactured taking of offense is ironic coming from a man who gum
chews while at solemn occasions with foreign leaders, took selfies
during the funeral ceremony for Nelson Mandela, handed Queen Elizabeth
an iPod loaded with his own speeches as a gift from the American people,
insults Indians for racism in their nation while on an official visit, sent the bust of Winston Churchill out the White House door, mistreated then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, accused Canada of being greedy for wanting to export their oil-and on and on.



For some reason, the White House routinely manufactures outrage when it comes to Israel (see How Obama is turning America Against Israel for other examples). 



So
what has been the result of this manipulation, this appeal to people’s
most base emotions? Arson and damage in Ferguson and elsewhere (usually
in areas and among people who can least afford such wanton
destruction).  Americans believe race relations have worsened under
Barack Obama, and that is blowback from the onslaught of disparaging
whites as racists and scapegoating them as the culprits behind problems
afflicting the African-American community.  Obama and Democrats who have
irresponsibly played the race card for political gain have poisoned race relations in America. 



The anti-police hysteria fomented by many Democrats, including New York City Mayor De Blasio (see Heather MacDonald’s superb “The Mayor who slandered the Police”), Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama, reached a fever pitch and led to the murder of two New York policemen.



In
fact, in one area --and one area only -- has he tried to quell anger. 
That would be any anger towards Islamic extremism.  In that no-go zone
he has done his best to manufacture apathy or ignorance or willful
blindness.  Why?



The
good news is that Americans have finally begun to realize they have
been manipulated.  Democrats manufacture outrage, but like most tools it
has begun to wear out its usefulness.  Americans have learned that
where there is smoke there is not necessarily fire -- in fact, it might
just be smoke blown in our faces.



The resounding defeat of Democrats in November was a sign of better things to come, one hopes.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/02/manufacturing_outrage.html#ixzz3RMz1jcll

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Articles: We Are Cursed Because We Think

Articles: We Are Cursed Because We Think

We Are Cursed Because We Think

By W.A. Beatty

One of the great things about the American Thinker website is that (most) readers are able to think! 
But with that ability comes a curse.  The curse is the propensity of AT
readers to examine all facets of a proposal or issue, to consider
ultimate results, to recognize unintended consequences, to evaluate its
merits, and to pronounce a bad idea as bad regardless of how it makes us
feel.



This
ability to think complicates our lives, which would be much less
complicated if we conservatives could do what liberals always do: feel
rather than think.



Below are some examples of what I mean.  I'm certain that AT readers can think of others.



Let's begin with J.R. Dunn's article of 6 Nov. 14.  Dunn thinks about the ultimate result of Barack  Obama's "Open Doors" immigration policy. 



Dunn first explained from where Obama's immigration plan came:

His
“plan” was simply to carry on what the American left had been doing
since FDR: encourage creeping socialization by taking advantage of the
moral weakness of the American populace.

Dunn then explained why Obama's policy had/has unintended consequences:

As
a result of asinine policy borne of multiculturalism and his obsession
with third-world immigration, the doors were left open and deadly
disease -- always overlooked by sophisticated urbanites, familiar with
only the mild "childhood" diseases -- came roaring in: the result has
been the importation of potential epidemic disease into the U.S.: Ebola,
enteroviruses, and others.

Dunn closed his article with a summation of Obama policy:

But
it acts as a pure metaphor for the Age of Obama: failure, incompetence,
willful negligence, dishonesty, the collapse of the elites, and utter
indifference toward the public welfare.

That is a great example of thinking.  Obama's immigration policy, as Dunn pointed out, had/has some unintended consequences, but the policy sure felt good.



LBJ,
fifty years ago, started the "War on Poverty" so that liberals could
feel good by ending poverty (and buy votes).  Twenty trillion dollars
later, the poverty level remains largely unchanged.  But the votes stayed bought.

...
between 2009 and 2011, a shocking one third of Americans slipped below
the federal poverty line for at least two months, data show.

The current situation is just as bad.  Liberals feel just as much today as they did fifty years ago.

Typical
liberals, who are filled with lots of emotion but low on the facts, are
worried that children and disabled people will now go without.   If
they did a little research, they would know this expired waiver
[requiring work in order to receive welfare] will only affect
able-bodied people with no children.

Welfare
and the War on Poverty sound good, and they let liberals feel good. 
But the price – a wrecked economy and a large portion of society lost –
is high for feeling good.  And liberals want to continue the feeling. 
"Despite five decades of the War on Poverty and $20 trillion spent, with
no sign of victory in sight, Obama said the 'war' must be stepped up." 



Today's
welfare state, and its antecedent, the "War on Poverty," certainly have
and had unintended consequences.  Thinking fifty years ago could have
recognized them, but thinking didn't feel good then.  And thinking
doesn't feel good today.



Minimum wage: Derrick Wilburn, in a 21 Jun. AT article,
provided some useful information.  Unfortunately, reading the article
and analysis of the facts he presented would require thinking –
something liberals will not do.  So let's look to another article, one that requires no thinking.  That should appeal to liberals.

The
whole argument of a guaranteed minimum wage is fallacious.  It is wrong
in principle, therefore it is wrong in practice.  It leads to evils
much worse than those it proposes to cure.



The
whole trouble is that it is so easy to confuse the end with the means. 
The main objective, its proponents say, is to give everybody a living
wage.

The second quote sums up the liberal position.  They confuse the end with the means in order to feel good.  The problem with this
article is that it doesn't foster good feelings, so liberals simply
ignore it.  Ignoring facts allows liberals to keep on feeling good by
ignoring actual outcomes.



Even Obama confuses (on purpose?) the minimum wage issue in his 2014 State of the Union address.  Perhaps Obama should consider what Economist Dr. Walter E. Williams wrote:
"Mandated wages are one of the most effective means of pricing one's
competition out of the market, ...[.]"  But that will never happen
because "consideration" requires thought and interferes with feeling.



ObamaCare:
Sure, it sounded good, and liberals felt good about providing health
care for everyone.  But (and there's always a “but” when Obama is
involved) someone must pay.  The latest reality check
suggests that all is not going to liberals' plan.  More people
receiving health care = more cost = higher premiums.  I'll bet even
Nancy Pelosi could have thought of that had she taken the time to read
the ObamaCare bill before voting for it.  But no, she was too busy
feeling good.



And
let's not forget our national defense.  People who wish to do us and
this country harm often place themselves and their weapons in schools,
hospitals, and residential areas because they know that liberals will cry out
if our military kills or injures non-combatants while attacking them. 
Hamas, with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group favored by Obama, admits that it places its weapons in schools and hospitals.  In (what I assume to be) an effort to feel good, Obama said he has no sympathy
for Hamas.  Was his condemnation not sincere, meant only for public
consumption, knowing the MSM would spread his feel good sentiments
worldwide?



It's
unfortunate that party politics has to enter into this discussion, but
ultimately it does.  The vast majority of MSM journalists are liberal
and vote Democrat.  They present their "facts" from a liberal
perspective that favors Democrats, ignoring and omitting information
that does not further both groups' agendas.  They feel rather than
think.  We (mostly Republican) conservatives must therefore dig out
information that is what the late, great Paul Harvey referred to as "the
rest of the story" so we can think about the entire situation or
proposal.



I
know some conservative Democrats, but they can never explain why they
associate themselves with that party.  The Republican Party comprises
mostly of conservatives, but there are a few RINOs out there.  So the
"problem" goes beyond party politics.  It is a conservative-liberal
phenomenon.  For liberals, and therefore for most Democrats, feeling
trumps thinking.  And we thinking conservatives are cursed. 



Bottom line: liberals feel, then stop there.  They never think – never have, never will.



Dr.
Warren Beatty (not the liberal actor) earned a Ph.D. in quantitative
management and statistics from Florida State University.  He was a (very
conservative) professor of quantitative management specializing in
using statistics to assist/support decision-making.  He has been a
consultant to many small businesses and is now retired.  Dr. Beatty is a
veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 22 years.  He blogs at
rwno.limewebs.com.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/we_are_cursed_because_we_think.html#ixzz3KTxQ0bxl

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Articles: The Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth

Articles: The Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth

 

The Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth

By Stephen Mauzy

Since
the beginning of time, the sentient, civilized person has strived to
distance himself from filth, and for unarguably rational reasons.  Filth
is parasites, dysentery, disease, decay, putrescence – all of which
shorten lifespan and infuse what lifespan there is with misery.



With
this in mind, the latest leftist initiative to turn us against our
nature occurred in California last month, when the democratically
elected hegemony banned (after first demonizing) all single-use plastic
bags.  That an overwhelming majority of Californians oppose the ban is
beside the point.  Such is the arrogance of tyrants, petite and grand. 



The
leftist intellect portrays waste where a marvel of engineering and
utility exists.  There's the obvious: the plastic bag enables us to
segregate our groceries.  Meat remains separated from fruit and
vegetables.  We've all encountered the leaky package of raw chicken.
 Because the chicken is segregated, the risk of salmonella and coliform
is minimized.  



Best
of all, the chicken-contaminated plastic bag can simply be tossed away.
 Compare this to the revolting reusable grocery bag – canvas or
polypropylene – which over time festers a cauldron of mold and bacteria
and, thus, disease.  Why?  Because no one washes the reusable bag
after it has lugged home the leaky chicken.  Next time, the reusable
grocery bag will just as likely haul back the naked apple and broccoli
floret as it will another leaky chicken.



The
term “one use” is also a misnomer and another example of manipulating
language for devious purpose.  When the plastic bag isn't rightly thrown
away because it's been contaminated, it's frequently called into duty
that further distances us from filth.  Consider the lining of bathroom
trash cans.  When a cold overruns the household and the bathroom trash
can fills with mucus-sodden tissue, the trash can itself remains
disease-free.  No one need contact the tissues or clean the trash can –
simply replace the old plastic bag with a new one. 



The left counters,
“Yes, but banning plastic bags will significantly reduce energy use and
waste.”  For argument's sake, let's say it's true (it isn't).  It's
still a non sequitur.



Banning
anything will reduce energy use and another person's definition of
“waste.”  If we really want to reduce energy use and waste, let's ban
refrigerators larger than 10 cubic feet, homes larger than 1,000 square
feet, automobiles with more than 150 horsepower engines.  Better yet,
let's ban refrigerators, traditional stick homes, and automobiles.  Bury
your food, live in a mud hut, ride the horse to work.  There's no limit
to the ways energy use and waste can be reduced.  And if you want to go
all in, if you are truly serious about the cause, simply die.  There's
nothing more outside dying you can do to reduce energy use and waste.



That
energy – hydrocarbons specifically – used to produce a plastic bag is
meaningless anyway, as is the number of times the plastic bag is used.
 Plastic bags are value-added goods, which is evidenced by the
profitable manufacture and sale of plastic bags.  Thus, the energy used
is value-adding, not wasteful.  Whether the bag is used once or a
hundred times is no one's business; only the buyer knows what
constitutes utility, and he telegraphs his utility by shopping in stores
that provide plastic bags. 



Not
that it matters; the underlying motive isn't about saving energy or
reducing waste.  Entrepreneurs operating in free markets will always
provide the most agreeable, most efficient solutions where energy,
waste, or anything else is concerned.  Tyranny is the real motive here,
and the left wraps tyranny and delivers it in the passive-aggressive
multi-use canvas bag of the coward – the concentrated political minority
interest.  Because too few Californians were stupid enough to fall for
sophistry, sophistry was legislated from above.  



Of
course, an intellectual movement favoring filth is nothing new.  Many
towns and municipalities have long required their citizens to separate
glass, plastic, and paper and set them aside in clearly marked bins.
 The next step is to mandate separating organic and inorganic;
then you can get even closer to filth.  But it's easier to escape a
municipality than a state.  That's what makes statewide bans all the
more damnable. 



These
incremental steps that lead to more interaction with filth irritate at
first, and frustrate later.  Your clothes are dingier, and your
automatic dishwasher grows more putrid due to lack of detergent
phosphates.  Your body is more difficult to clean and to invigorate
because of the trickle that flows out of the shower head.  Low-flow
toilets present opportunities to get more intimate with the most
revolting of filth.  One flush or two?  This means having to watch.  And
when the curious child or the optimistic adult finds himself in
purgatory – where he or she isn't quite sure what's going on –  one more
flush will do the trick.  It doesn't, and thus we become even
nauseatingly intimate with the filth we most wish to avoid. 



In
Europe, the leftists want to ensure no one can escape filth at the most
quotidian level.  Bureaucrats in Brussels are so imbued with leisure
that they have time to ponder the lowly vacuum cleaner, so they
legislate vacuum-cleaner power;
thus the European can be assured of never escaping dust, animal dander,
dust mites, detritus, dirt, or whatever filth is brought or blown into
the house.   



And
while the left poses, postures, and pontificates on the
environment-friendliness of its tyranny, it concurrently fantasizes of a
world untouched by the human hand.  It sighs doe-eyed at the thought of
a world bereft of CO₂ emissions, hydrocarbon-fueled machines (which, when benefits are weighted against costs, clean much more than defile),
capitalism, anything with a human touch, and even anything with humans.
 Stasis it what the left desires.  Let's all return to 20,000 BC, when
everything was putatively perfect.  Better to return to a time when a
thorn prick could turn septic and then into a long agonizing death than
to despoil an imperceptible amount of acreage. 



Such
is the trajectory when a country is populated by people with too much
time, too little common sense, and too many governmental avenues to
impose their will.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/10/the_left_avows_its_ungodly_love_of_filth.html#ixzz3GW8YWowe

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Articles: The Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth

Articles: The Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth

 

The Left Avows Its Ungodly Love of Filth

By Stephen Mauzy

Since
the beginning of time, the sentient, civilized person has strived to
distance himself from filth, and for unarguably rational reasons.  Filth
is parasites, dysentery, disease, decay, putrescence – all of which
shorten lifespan and infuse what lifespan there is with misery.



With
this in mind, the latest leftist initiative to turn us against our
nature occurred in California last month, when the democratically
elected hegemony banned (after first demonizing) all single-use plastic
bags.  That an overwhelming majority of Californians oppose the ban is
beside the point.  Such is the arrogance of tyrants, petite and grand. 



The
leftist intellect portrays waste where a marvel of engineering and
utility exists.  There's the obvious: the plastic bag enables us to
segregate our groceries.  Meat remains separated from fruit and
vegetables.  We've all encountered the leaky package of raw chicken.
 Because the chicken is segregated, the risk of salmonella and coliform
is minimized.  



Best
of all, the chicken-contaminated plastic bag can simply be tossed away.
 Compare this to the revolting reusable grocery bag – canvas or
polypropylene – which over time festers a cauldron of mold and bacteria
and, thus, disease.  Why?  Because no one washes the reusable bag
after it has lugged home the leaky chicken.  Next time, the reusable
grocery bag will just as likely haul back the naked apple and broccoli
floret as it will another leaky chicken.



The
term “one use” is also a misnomer and another example of manipulating
language for devious purpose.  When the plastic bag isn't rightly thrown
away because it's been contaminated, it's frequently called into duty
that further distances us from filth.  Consider the lining of bathroom
trash cans.  When a cold overruns the household and the bathroom trash
can fills with mucus-sodden tissue, the trash can itself remains
disease-free.  No one need contact the tissues or clean the trash can –
simply replace the old plastic bag with a new one. 



The left counters,
“Yes, but banning plastic bags will significantly reduce energy use and
waste.”  For argument's sake, let's say it's true (it isn't).  It's
still a non sequitur.



Banning
anything will reduce energy use and another person's definition of
“waste.”  If we really want to reduce energy use and waste, let's ban
refrigerators larger than 10 cubic feet, homes larger than 1,000 square
feet, automobiles with more than 150 horsepower engines.  Better yet,
let's ban refrigerators, traditional stick homes, and automobiles.  Bury
your food, live in a mud hut, ride the horse to work.  There's no limit
to the ways energy use and waste can be reduced.  And if you want to go
all in, if you are truly serious about the cause, simply die.  There's
nothing more outside dying you can do to reduce energy use and waste.



That
energy – hydrocarbons specifically – used to produce a plastic bag is
meaningless anyway, as is the number of times the plastic bag is used.
 Plastic bags are value-added goods, which is evidenced by the
profitable manufacture and sale of plastic bags.  Thus, the energy used
is value-adding, not wasteful.  Whether the bag is used once or a
hundred times is no one's business; only the buyer knows what
constitutes utility, and he telegraphs his utility by shopping in stores
that provide plastic bags. 



Not
that it matters; the underlying motive isn't about saving energy or
reducing waste.  Entrepreneurs operating in free markets will always
provide the most agreeable, most efficient solutions where energy,
waste, or anything else is concerned.  Tyranny is the real motive here,
and the left wraps tyranny and delivers it in the passive-aggressive
multi-use canvas bag of the coward – the concentrated political minority
interest.  Because too few Californians were stupid enough to fall for
sophistry, sophistry was legislated from above.  



Of
course, an intellectual movement favoring filth is nothing new.  Many
towns and municipalities have long required their citizens to separate
glass, plastic, and paper and set them aside in clearly marked bins.
 The next step is to mandate separating organic and inorganic;
then you can get even closer to filth.  But it's easier to escape a
municipality than a state.  That's what makes statewide bans all the
more damnable. 



These
incremental steps that lead to more interaction with filth irritate at
first, and frustrate later.  Your clothes are dingier, and your
automatic dishwasher grows more putrid due to lack of detergent
phosphates.  Your body is more difficult to clean and to invigorate
because of the trickle that flows out of the shower head.  Low-flow
toilets present opportunities to get more intimate with the most
revolting of filth.  One flush or two?  This means having to watch.  And
when the curious child or the optimistic adult finds himself in
purgatory – where he or she isn't quite sure what's going on –  one more
flush will do the trick.  It doesn't, and thus we become even
nauseatingly intimate with the filth we most wish to avoid. 



In
Europe, the leftists want to ensure no one can escape filth at the most
quotidian level.  Bureaucrats in Brussels are so imbued with leisure
that they have time to ponder the lowly vacuum cleaner, so they
legislate vacuum-cleaner power;
thus the European can be assured of never escaping dust, animal dander,
dust mites, detritus, dirt, or whatever filth is brought or blown into
the house.   



And
while the left poses, postures, and pontificates on the
environment-friendliness of its tyranny, it concurrently fantasizes of a
world untouched by the human hand.  It sighs doe-eyed at the thought of
a world bereft of CO₂ emissions, hydrocarbon-fueled machines (which, when benefits are weighted against costs, clean much more than defile),
capitalism, anything with a human touch, and even anything with humans.
 Stasis it what the left desires.  Let's all return to 20,000 BC, when
everything was putatively perfect.  Better to return to a time when a
thorn prick could turn septic and then into a long agonizing death than
to despoil an imperceptible amount of acreage. 



Such
is the trajectory when a country is populated by people with too much
time, too little common sense, and too many governmental avenues to
impose their will.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/10/the_left_avows_its_ungodly_love_of_filth.html#ixzz3GW8YWowe

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Articles: Progressives At War with Reality

Articles: Progressives At War with Reality

July 6, 2014

Progressives At War with Reality

By Taylor Lewis

In his essay The Part Played by Labor in the Transition From Ape to Man,
Frederick Engels wrote, “Let us not, however, flatter ourselves
overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such
victory nature takes its revenge on us.” Engels may have been a dunce on
economics and class sociology, but his warning was prescient to
progressivism’s attempt to subvert the shackles of reality.



Listening
to today’s progressives, you get the impression that we are on the
inexorable path to utopia. People are more tolerant and accepting than
ever before. Abortion and birth control are readily available. Sex
selection of the unborn is on the rise. Marriage has ceased
being a sacred bond and is becoming a catch-all term for any contract
agreed to by one or more persons. As government takes over more swaths
of the economy, promises of material abundance keep escaping the mouths
of politicians.



The
implicit goal in all of this progress is total domination over nature
by man. Poverty, sickness, intolerance, ugliness -- the left wants
nothing to be left to chance or God’s hands. The power to mold the
future so that it fits one grand vision is the Holy Grail of
progressivism.



A slew of recent news stories elucidate this sweeping objective. In Slate, transgender activist Christin Scarlett Milloy condemns the practice of assigning gender at birth. She -- her preferred pronoun, though this photo
makes me question its accuracy -- writes that upon birth, a child’s
“potential is limitless.” The second that gender is determined, the
newborn’s “life is instantly and brutally reduced... down to one
concrete set of expectations and stereotypes.” Essentially, the baby’s
future is split, so that its career as a blue collar construction worker
or ballet dancer is now predetermined.



Not
giving the infant or the parents consent to “choose” gender is now seen
as a great injustice. It may sound strange but it shouldn’t. In the
great age of choice, why shouldn’t we subvert the tradition of gender
assignments? Are we not free unless we can ignore a doctor’s “cursory
assessment” of what’s between a newborn’s legs?



If
nature is the enemy, then biological reality must be defeated. Hence
the move to transcend gender, and its social expectations, through
medical operations. But even the construction of artificial genitals
doesn’t seem to be enough to soothe the unrest of those uncomfortable
with binary gender roles. Milloy notes that transgendered individuals
have a higher rate of suicide and
depression than cisgender folks. Why is this? Milloy attributes it to
bullying and being assigned the wrong gender at birth. The idea of
revenge for believing man can overthrow nature is not given a hint of
consideration.



Striving
to master sex and gender is not the only mission of progressives. Now,
there are attempts being made to counteract life’s one guarantee: death.
A recent front page story in the New York Times detailed
how a funeral home in New Orleans specializes in posing the corpse of
the recently deceased performing their favorite activity. One deceased
woman was photographed while propped up at a table “amid miniature New
Orleans Saints helmets, with a can of Busch beer at one hand and a
menthol cigarette between her fingers” as was her wont in life. The
practice, which originated in Puerto Rico, is still relatively rare. In
San Juan, viewings in recent years have included a “paramedic displayed
behind the wheel of his ambulance” and “a man dressed for his wake like
Che Guevara, cigar in hand and seated Indian style.” Some people are
beginning to request this type of funeral upon their death. Elsie
Rodríguez, vice president of the Marín Funeral Home in Puerto Rico,
rationalizes the custom because it eases the burden felt by the
deceased’s family. He told the Times, “the family literally suffers less, because they see their loved one in a way that would have made them happy.”



In
the scheme of things, does posing the dead engaged in a favored
activity really corrupt the soul? Perhaps not, but it’s indicative of a
fanciful longing to not leave things as they are. This year, a man in
Ohio received his wish that upon his death, his body was to be placed on
his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and towed to the cemetery in a custom
plexiglass coffin. Did parading his lifeless body around bring some
happiness to his spiritual being? We’ll never know the answer. But does
clinging to the last vestiges of earthly existence undermine a person’s
contribution to the living world? I believe the answer is “yes,” despite
what reprieve it may bring for family members in anguish. As Wesley Smith of
the Discovery Institute writes, conducting “living” funerals is just
another contemporary disposition that attempts “to deflect the ultimate
reality of human mortality.”



Gender-bending
and death denial aren’t consequences of a flawed philosophy on life,
but merely symptoms. If you believe mankind can conquer the mountains,
squash all injustice, and create a society of pure happiness, then it
makes sense to push the limits of nature and see if God will truly stand
down to His own creation. Of course, in the fight between God and man,
man must always lose, or else he wouldn’t be man to begin with. That’s
why progressivism’s march to conquer nature nearly always ends in
despair.



Pushing
too hard against reality is liable to create unintended ramifications
that distort and disorder our own well-being and sense of purposeful
design. In short, it conflates what we know to be true with what’s
false. Pretending the dead are still alive doesn’t bring proper closure.
It only delays the inevitable reckoning. Just the same, arbitrarily
choosing one’s gender based on personal inclinations doesn’t appear to
boost self-esteem. The epidemic of suicide attempts among transgendered
individuals says there is something highly disrupting about challenging
one of nature’s most embedded realities.



Without
a recognition and acceptance of natural order, things become
disorienting to the point of meaningless. If good and evil are no
different, if life and death hold no meaningful difference, if girl and
boy are simply words with no distinction, then what foundation do we
have to plant the flag of reality? It is as Milan Kundera wrote:

“...it
reminds us of Stalin’s son, who ran to electrocute himself on the
barbed wire when he could no longer stand to watch the poles of human
existence come so close to each other as to touch, when there was no
longer any difference between sublime and squalid, angel and fly, God
and shit.”

Kundera
called this feeling of weightlessness in a world crying out to be
grounded “the unbearable lightness of being.” When it attaches itself to
a person, our moral compass goes haywire. Life begins to lose all
direction. The only way to recalibrate ourselves is to rediscover our
role in the universe.



The
difference between the man who sees reality as living truth and the man
who must control all external factors is surrender and pride. Those who
surrender accept the path given, and find joy along the way. Those who
have the overwhelming need for control -- and are prideful enough to
believe they can succeed -- end up destroying what nature provides. They
pull reality’s various poles together, flattening the landscape until
they are left with nothing.



In Canto III of Paradiso,
Dante summed up the ordered liberty position perfectly: “For in His
will is our peace.” Those who try to conquer the laws of nature will
never find peace because they are ultimately trying to accomplish the
impossible. Failure leads to dismay, dismay leads to arrogance, and
arrogance leads to an inability to distinguish between what’s right and
wrong. And without that moral fortitude, we may as well be animals
without a higher purpose.

Articles: Climate Consensus Con Game

Articles: Climate Consensus Con Game

Climate Consensus Con Game

By S. Fred Singer

February 17, 2014

 

 

At
the outset, let's be quite clear: There is no consensus about dangerous
anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) -- and there never was.  There is
not even a consensus on whether human activities, such as burning fossil
fuels to produce useful energy, affect global climate significantly. 
So what's all this fuss about?





Let's
also be quite clear that science does not work by way of consensus. 
Science does not progress by appeal to authority; in fact, major
scientific advances usually come from outside the consensus; one can
cite many classic examples, from Galileo to Einstein.  [Another way to
phrase this issue: Scientific veracity does not depend on fashionable
thinking.]  In other words, the very notion of a scientific consensus is
unscientific.





The
degree of consensus also depends on the way the questions are phrased. 
For example, we can get 100% consensus if the question is "Do you
believe in climate change?"  We can get a near-100% consensus if the
question is "Do you believe that humans have some
effect on the climate?"  This latter question also would include also
local effects, like urbanization, clearing of forests, agriculture, etc.





So one has to be rather careful and always ask: What is the exact question for which a consensus has been claimed?





Subverting Peer Review





Finally,
we should point out that a consensus can be manufactured -- even where
no consensus exists.  For example, it has become very popular to claim
that 97% of all publications support AGW.  Here the key question to ask
is: Which publications and what exactly is the form of support?





Thanks
to the revelations of the Climategate e-mails, we now have a more
skeptical view about the process which is used to vet publications.  We
know now that peer-review, once considered by many as the
'gold-standard,' can be manipulated -- and in fact has been manipulated
by a gang of UK and US climate scientists who have been very open about
their aim to keep dissenting views from being published.  We also know
from the same e-mails that editors can be bullied by determined
activists.





In
any case, the peer-review process can easily be slanted by the editor,
who usually selects the reviewers.  And some editors misuse their
position to advance their personal biases.





We have, for example, the case of a former editor of Science
who was quite open about his belief in DAGW, and actively discouraged
publication of any papers that went against his bias.  Finally, he had
to be shamed into giving voice to a climate skeptic's contrary opinion,
based on solid scientific evidence.  But of course, he reserved to
himself the last word in the debate.





My occasional scientific coauthors David Douglass (U. of Rochester) and John Christy (U. of Alabama, Huntsville) describe a particularly egregious instance of the blatant subversion of peer-review -- all supported by evidence from Climategate e-mails.





Confusing the Issue





Further,
we should mention the possibility of confusing the public, and often
many scientists as well, by clever use of words.  I will give just two
examples:





It
is often pointed out that there has been essentially no warming trend
in the last 15 years -- even though greenhouse forcing from carbon
dioxide has been steadily increasing.  At the same time, climate
activists claim that the past decade is the warmest since thermometer
records were started.





It happens that both statements are true; yet they do not contradict each other.  How is this possible?





We are dealing here with a case of simple confusion.  On the one hand we have a temperature trend which has been essentially zero for at least 15 years.  On the other hand, we have a temperature level which is highest since the Little Ice Age ended, around 1800 A.D.





Note
that 'level' and 'trend' are quite different concepts -- and even use
different units.  Level is measured in degreesC; trend is measured in
degC per decade.  [This
is a very general problem; for example, many people confuse electric
energy with electric power; one is measured in joules or kilowatt-hours;
the other is measured in kilowatts.]





It
may help here to think of prices on the stock market.  The Dow-Jones
index has more or less been level for the last several weeks,
fluctuating between 15,000 and 16,000, showing essentially a zero trend;
but it is at its highest level since the D-J index was started in 1896.





This
is only one example by which climate activists can confuse the public
-- and often even themselves -- into believing that there is a consensus
on DAGW.   Look at two typical recent headlines:





               "2013 sixth-hottest year, confirms long-term warming: UN"
               "U.S. Dec/Jan Temperatures 3rd Coldest in 30 Years"





Both
are correct, but neither mentions the important fact that the trend has
been flat for at least 15 years -- thus falsifying the greenhouse
climate models, all of which predict a strong future warming.





And
of course, government climate policies are all based on such
unvalidated climate models -- which have already been proven wrong.  Yet
the latest UN-IPCC report of Sept 2013 claims to be 95% certain about
DAGW!  Aware of the actual temperature data, how can they claim this and
keep a straight face?





Their
laughable answer: 95% of climate models agree; therefore the
observations must be wrong!  One can only shake one's head sadly at such
a display of "science."





Another
trick question by activists trying to sell a "consensus": "If you are
seriously ill and 99 doctors recommend a certain treatment, would you go
with the one doctor who disagrees?" 





It
all depends.  Suppose I do some research and find that all 99 doctors
got their information from a single (anonymous) article in Wikipedia,
what then?





Opinion Polls





Both
sides in the climate debate have made active use of opinion polls.  In
1990, when I started to become seriously involved in climate-change
arguments and incorporated the SEPP (Science & Environmental Policy
Project), I decided to poll the experts.  Having limited funds, and
before the advent of widespread e-mail, I polled the officers of the
listed technical committees of the American Meteorological Society -- a
sample of less than 100.  I figured those must be the experts.





I
took the precaution of isolating myself from this survey by enlisting
the cooperation of Dr Jay Winston, a widely respected meteorologist,
skeptical of climate skeptics.  And I employed two graduate students who
had no discernible expertise in climate issues to conduct the actual
survey and analyze the returns.





This
exercise produced an interesting result: Roughly half of the AMS
experts believed there must be a significant human influence on the
climate through the release of carbon dioxide -- while the other half
had considerable doubt about the validity of climate models.





Subsequent
polls, for example those by Hans von Storch in Germany, have given
similar results -- while polls conducted by activists have consistently
shown strong support for AGW.  A classic case is a survey of the
abstracts of nearly 1000 papers, by science historian Naomi Oreskes (UC
San Diego); published in 2004 Science, she claimed a
near-unanimous consensus about AGW.  However, after being challenged,
Oreskes discovered having overlooked some 11,000 abstracts -- and
published a discreet Correction in a later issue of Science.





On
the other hand, independent polls by newspapers, by Pew, Gallup, and
other respected organizations, using much larger samples, have mirrored
the results of my earlier AMS poll.  But what has been most interesting is the gradual decline over the years in public support for DAGW, as shown by these independent polls.





Over
the years also, there have been a large number of "declarations,
manifestos, and petitions" -- signed by scientists, and designed to
influence public opinion -- starting with the "Leipzig Declaration" of
1995.  Noteworthy among the many is the Copenhagen Diagnosis (2009),
published to build up hype for a UN conference that failed utterly.





It
is safe to say that the overall impact of such polls has been minimal,
compared to the political consequences of UN-IPCC (Inter-governmental
Panel on Climate Change) reports that led to (mostly failed) attempts at
international action, like the Kyoto Protocol (1997-2012).  One should
mention here the Oregon Petition against Kyoto, signed by some 31,000
(mostly US) scientists and engineers -- nearly 10,000 with advanced
degrees.  More important perhaps, in July 1997 the US Senate passed the
Byrd-Hagel Resolution against a Kyoto-like treaty by unanimous vote --
which probably dissuaded the Clinton-Gore White House from ever
submitting Kyoto for Senate ratification.





Is Consensus still an issue?





By
now, the question of a scientific consensus on AGW may have become
largely academic.  What counts are the actual climate observations,
which have shaken public faith in climate models that preach DAGW.  The
wild claims of the IPCC are being offset by the more sober, fact-based
publications of the NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on
Climate Change).  While many national science academies and
organizations still cling to the ever-changing "evidence" presented by
the IPCC, it may be significant that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has
translated and published a condensation of NIPCC reports.  





In the words of physicist Prof Howard "Cork" Hayden:





"If the science were as certain as climate activists pretend, then there would be precisely one
climate model, and it would be in agreement with measured data.  As it
happens, climate modelers have constructed literally dozens of climate
models.  What they all have in common is a failure to represent reality,
and a failure to agree with the other models.  As the models have
increasingly diverged from the data, the climate clique have
nevertheless grown increasingly confident -- from cocky in 2001 (66%
certainty in IPCC's Third Assessment Report) to downright arrogant in
2013 (95% certainty in the Fifth Assessment Report)."





Climate activists seem to embrace faith and ideology -- and are no longer interested in facts.
S.
Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and
director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project.  His
specialty is atmospheric and space physics.  An expert in remote sensing
and satellites, he served as the founding director of the US Weather
Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the US National
Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere.  He is a senior fellow of
the Heartland Institute and the Independent Institute, and an elected
Fellow of several scientific and engineering organizations.  He
co-authored the NY Times best-seller Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 years. 
In 2007, he founded and has since chaired the NIPCC (Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change), which has released several
scientific reports [See www.NIPCCreport.org].    For recent writings, see http://www.americanthinker.com/s_fred_singer/ and also Google Scholar.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/climate_consensus_con_game.html#ixzz2tbiyyQVU

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