Chess, Ghetto Style

D'Angelo Barksdale: Now look, check it, it's simple, it's simple. See this? This the kingpin, a'ight? And he the man. You get the other dude's king, you got the game. But he trying to get your king too, so you gotta protect it. Now, the king, he move one space any direction he damn choose, 'cause he's the king. Like this, this, this, a'ight? But he ain't got no hustle. But the rest of these motherfuckers on the team, they got his back. And they run so deep, he really ain't gotta do shit.

Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Like your uncle.

D'Angelo Barksdale: Yeah, like my uncle. You see this? This the queen. She smart, she fast. She move any way she want, as far as she want. And she is the go-get-shit-done piece.

Wallace: Remind me of Stringer.
D'Angelo Barksdale: And this over here is the castle. Like the stash. It can move like this, and like this.

Wallace: Dog, stash don't move, man.

D'Angelo Barksdale: C'mon, yo, think. How many time we move the stash house this week? Right? And every time we move the stash, we gotta move a little muscle with it, right? To protect it.

Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: True, true, you right. All right, what about them little baldheaded bitches right there?

D'Angelo Barksdale: These right here, these are the pawns. They like the soldiers. They move like this, one space forward only. Except when they fight, then it's like this. And they like the front lines, they be out in the field.

Wallace: So how do you get to be the king?

D'Angelo Barksdale: It ain't like that. See, the king stay the king, a'ight? Everything stay who he is. Except for the pawns. Now, if the pawn make it all the way down to the other dude's side, he get to be queen. And like I said, the queen ain't no bitch. She got all the moves.

Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: A'ight, so if I make it to the other end, I win.

D'Angelo Barksdale: If you catch the other dude's king and trap it, then you win.

Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: A'ight, but if I make it to the end, I'm top dog.

D'Angelo Barksdale: Nah, yo, it ain't like that. Look, the pawns, man, in the game, they get capped quick. They be out the game early.

Preston 'Bodie' Broadus: Unless they some smart-ass pawns.

Offshore Wind Turbines for "Taming Hurricanes"

I thought this was a parody, until I realized that it wasn't. Funding sources include NSF and NASA. Is there nothing too outlandish for the Warmists in government and academia? Read the comments. This stuff isn't funny anymore. Desperate Warmists who are unable to feel shame cling to straws to keep the true believers on board.

The paper requires several trillion dollars of wind turbines to ameliorate a few mph of hurricane winds. I wonder what the unanticipated effects of that much wind disruption will be on weather and wildlife. Science reports both sides of the data. This is more of an advertisement for a product - sales puff is not science. From their website:

3:30 p.m., Feb. 25, 2014–The University of Delaware will steer the way toward making offshore wind turbines a reality in the United States through a new initiative announced today at a major industry conference. The Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, housed at the University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, will serve as an independent catalyst for offshore wind development and add momentum to a promising industry that is at a critical juncture.”

That is not science, it is advocacy.

Claim: Offshore Wind Turbines for ‘Taming Hurricanes’ | Watts Up With That?

Testimony of Greenpeace Founder to the U.S. Senate on Climate Change

Statement of Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight

February 25, 2014

“Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting ecosystems and economies”

Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing.

In 1971, as a PhD student in ecology I joined an activist group in a church basement in Vancouver Canada and sailed on a small boat across the Pacific to protest US Hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We became Greenpeace.

After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective. Climate change was not an issue when I abandoned Greenpeace, but it certainly is now.

There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20 th century.” (My emphasis)

“Extremely likely” is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.

These judgments are based, almost entirely, on the results of sophisticated computer models designed to predict the future of global climate. As noted by many observers, including Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated, but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods.

Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.

Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5°C. This compares with a low of about 12°C during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22°C during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested. Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.

Moving closer to the present day, it is instructive to study the record of average global temperature during the past 130 years. The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming “since the mid-20th century”, which is 1950. From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5°C over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year “pause” until 1970. This was followed by an increase of 0.57°C during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time.

The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910- 1940 to “human influence.” They are clear in their belief that human emissions impact only the increase “since the mid-20th century”. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910- 1940?

It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a 2°C rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing. It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age. It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.

I realize that my comments are contrary to much of the speculation about our climate that is bandied about today. However, I am confident that history will bear me out, both in terms of the futility of relying on computer models to predict the future, and the fact that warmer temperatures are better than colder temperatures for most species.

If we wish to preserve natural biodiversity, wildlife, and human well being, we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, recognizing that cooling would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on this important subject.


Attached please find the chapter on climate change from my book,
“Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible
Environmentalist”. I would request it be made part of the record.



Testimony reposted from Watts Up With That?

Atmospheric Aerosol Eddies and Flows

This remarkable video from NASA GSFC Space Science shown aerosol flows in the troposphere. The animation shows the emission and transport of key tropospheric aerosols from August 17, 2006 to April 10, 2007. It shows the aerosol optical thickness of black and organic carbon (in green), dust (in red/orange), sulfates (in white), and sea salt (in blue) from a 10 km resolution GEOS-5 “nature run.”

What is most interesting to me is that huge continuous dust storm out of Africa. The Trade Winds pick up the dust. When the Trade Winds blow west this dust fertilizes the Atlantic equatorial ocean.

Also interesting is the sulfate flows from populated areas. Notice that the heaviest flows come from China and India, then Europe, then North America. Fascinating.

Where are the Global Warmists for Freedom?

Philosopher Daren Jonescu offers what is perhaps the best explanation of the global warming phenomenon ever. It is all about the politics, not the science. Human beings, not climate models. Moral authority, not science. Too much great stuff to excerpt, you are gonna have to read the whole thing. You won't be disappointed.

Writings From Climate Experts

Some on-the-record musings from climate experts, PHDs all

1. Dr Robert Balling: “The IPCC notes that “No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected.” This did not appear in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers.

2. Dr Lucka Bogataj: “Rising levels of airborne carbon dioxide don’t cause global temperatures to rise…. temperature changed first and some 700 years later a change in aerial content of carbon dioxide followed.”

3. Dr John Christy: “Little known to the public is the fact that most of the scientists involved with the IPCC do not agree that global warming is occurring. Its findings have been consistently misrepresented and/or politicized with each succeeding report.”

4. Dr Rosa Compagnucci: “Humans have only contributed a few tenths of a degree to warming on Earth. Solar activity is a key driver of climate.”

5. Dr Richard Courtney: “The empirical evidence strongly indicates that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is wrong.”

6. Dr Judith Curry: “I’m not going to just spout off and endorse the IPCC because I don’t have confidence in the process.”

7. Dr Robert Davis: “Global temperatures have not been changing as state of the art climate models predicted they would. Not a single mention of satellite temperature observations appears in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers.”

8. Dr Willem de Lange: “In 1996 the IPCC listed me as one of approximately 3000 “scientists” who agreed that there was a discernible human influence on climate. I didn’t. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis that runaway catastrophic climate change is due to human activities.”

9. Dr Chris de Freitas: “Government decision-makers should have heard by now that the basis for the long-standing claim that carbon dioxide is a major driver of global climate is being questioned; along with it the hitherto assumed need for costly measures to restrict carbon dioxide emissions. If they have not heard, it is because of the din of global warming hysteria that relies on the logical fallacy of ‘argument from ignorance’ and predictions of computer models.”

10. Dr Oliver Frauenfeld: “Much more progress is necessary regarding our current understanding of climate and our abilities to model it.”

11. Dr Peter Dietze: “Using a flawed eddy diffusion model, the IPCC has grossly underestimated the future oceanic carbon dioxide uptake.”

12. Dr John Everett: “It is time for a reality check. The oceans and coastal zones have been far warmer and colder than is projected in the present scenarios of climate change. I have reviewed the IPCC and more recent scientific literature and believe that there is not a problem with increased acidification, even up to the unlikely levels in the most-used IPCC scenarios.”

13. Dr Eigil Friis-Christensen: “The IPCC refused to consider the sun’s effect on the Earth’s climate as a topic worthy of investigation. The IPCC conceived its task only as investigating potential human causes of climate change.”

14. Dr Lee Gerhard: “I never fully accepted or denied the anthropogenic global warming concept until the furore started after NASA’s James Hansen’s wild claims in the late 1980s. I went to the [scientific] literature to study the basis of the claim, starting with first principles. My studies then led me to believe that the claims were false.”

15. Dr Indur Goklany: “Climate change is unlikely to be the world’s most important environmental problem of the 21st century. There is no signal in the mortality data to indicate increases in the overall frequencies or severities of extreme weather events, despite large increases in the population at risk.”

16. Dr Vincent Gray: “The [IPCC] climate change statement is an orchestrated litany of lies.”

17. Dr Mike Hulme: “Claims such as ’2500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous … The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was only a few dozen.”

18. Dr Kiminori Itoh: “There are many factors which cause climate change. Considering only greenhouse gases is nonsense and harmful.”

19. Dr Yuri Izrael: “There is no proven link between human activity and global warming. I think the panic over global warming is totally unjustified. There is no serious threat to the climate.”

20. Dr Steven Japar: “Temperature measurements show that the climate model-predicted mid-troposphere hot zone is non-existent. This is more than sufficient to invalidate global climate models and projections made with them.”

21. Dr Georg Kaser: “This number [of receding glaciers reported by the IPCC] is not just a little bit wrong, it is far out by any order of magnitude … It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing.”

22. Dr Aynsley Kellow: “I’m not holding my breath for criticism to be taken on board, which underscores a fault in the whole peer review process for the IPCC: there is no chance of a chapter [of the IPCC report] ever being rejected for publication, no matter how flawed it might be.”

23. Dr Madhav Khandekar: “I have carefully analysed adverse impacts of climate change as projected by the IPCC and have discounted these claims as exaggerated and lacking any supporting evidence.”

24. Dr Hans Labohm: “The alarmist passages in the IPCC Summary for Policymakers have been skewed through an elaborate and sophisticated process of spin-doctoring.”

25. Dr Andrew Lacis: “There is no scientific merit to be found in the Executive Summary. The presentation sounds like something put together by Greenpeace activists and their legal department.”

26. Dr Chris Landsea: “I cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.”

27. Dr Richard Lindzen: “The IPCC process is driven by politics rather than science. It uses summaries to misrepresent what scientists say and exploits public ignorance.”

28. Dr Harry Lins: “Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now. The case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated.”

29. Dr Philip Lloyd: “I am doing a detailed assessment of the IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science. I have found examples of a summary saying precisely the opposite of what the scientists said.”

30. Dr Martin Manning: “Some government delegates influencing the IPCC Summary for Policymakers misrepresent or contradict the lead authors.”

31. Dr Stephen McIntyre: “The many references in the popular media to a ‘consensus of thousands of scientists’ are both a great exaggeration and also misleading.”

32. Dr Patrick Michaels: “The rates of warming, on multiple time scales, have now invalidated the suite of IPCC climate models. No, the science is not settled.”

33. Dr Nils-Axel Morner: “If you go around the globe, you find no sea level rise anywhere.”

34. Dr Johannes Oerlemans: “The IPCC has become too political. Many scientists have not been able to resist the siren call of fame, research funding and meetings in exotic places that awaits them if they are willing to compromise scientific principles and integrity in support of the man-made global-warming doctrine.”

35. Dr Roger Pielke: “All of my comments were ignored without even a rebuttal. At that point, I concluded that the IPCC Reports were actually intended to be advocacy documents designed to produce particular policy actions, but not a true and honest assessment of the understanding of the climate system.”

36. Dr Paul Reiter: “As far as the science being ‘settled,’ I think that is an obscenity. The fact is the science is being distorted by people who are not scientists.”

37. Dr Murray Salby: “I have an involuntary gag reflex whenever someone says the science is settled. Anyone who thinks the science is settled on this topic is in fantasia.”

38. Dr Tom Segalstad: “The IPCC global warming model is not supported by the scientific data.”

.39. Dr Fred Singer: “Isn’t it remarkable that the Policymakers Summary of the IPCC report avoids mentioning the satellite data altogether, or even the existence of satellites — probably because the data show a slight cooling over the last 18 years, in direct contradiction of the calculations from climate models?”

40. Dr Hajo Smit: “There is clear cut solar-climate coupling and a very strong natural variability of climate on all historical time scales. Currently I hardly believe anymore that there is any relevant relationship between human CO2 emissions and climate change.”

41. Dr Richard Tol: “The IPCC attracted more people with political rather than academic motives. In AR4, green activists held key positions in the IPCC and they succeeded in excluding or neutralising opposite voices.”

42. Dr Tom Tripp: “There is so much of a natural variability in weather it makes it difficult to come to a scientifically valid conclusion that global warming is man made.”

.43. Dr Gerd-Rainer Weber: “Most of the extremist views about climate change have little or no scientific basis.”

44. Dr David Wojick: “The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”

45. Dr Miklos Zagoni: “I am positively convinced that the anthropogenic global warming theory is wrong.”

 46. Dr Eduardo Zorita: “Editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed.”

Popular Technology.net: 1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Support Skeptic Arguments



As the Great Backdown continues, more and more scholarly papers support the skeptical view of the existence of catastrophic human caused global warming. Here Popular Technology finds over 1350 such papers. 

Reason and Accountability 

 

Or just the good part...

New Dimensions of U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Russia | Stratfor

By George Friedman

The struggle for some of the most strategic territory in the
world took an interesting twist this week. Last week we discussed what
appeared to be a significant shift in German national strategy in which
Berlin seemed to declare a new doctrine of increased assertiveness in
the world -- a shift that followed intense German interest in Ukraine.
This week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, in a
now-famous cell phone conversation, declared her strong contempt for the
European Union and its weakness and counseled the U.S. ambassador to
Ukraine to proceed quickly and without the Europeans to piece together a
specific opposition coalition before the Russians saw what was
happening and took action.

This is a new twist not because it makes clear that the United States is not the only country intercepting phone calls, but because it puts U.S. policy in Ukraine in a new light and forces us to reconsider U.S. strategy toward Russia and Germany. Nuland's cell phone conversation is hardly definitive, but it is an additional indicator of American strategic thinking.

Recent U.S. Foreign Policy Shifts

U.S. foreign policy has evolved during the past few years.
Previously, the United States was focused heavily on the Islamic world
and, more important, tended to regard the use of force as an early
option in the execution of U.S. policy rather than as a last resort.
This was true not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in Africa and
elsewhere. The strategy was successful when its goal was to destroy an
enemy military force. It proved far more difficult to use in occupying
countries and shaping their internal and foreign policies. Military
force has intrinsic limits.

The alternative has been a shift to a balance-of-power strategy in which the United States
relies on the natural schisms that exist in every region to block the
emergence of regional hegemons and contain unrest and groups that could
threaten U.S. interests. The best example of the old policy is Libya,
where the United States directly intervened with air power and special
operations forces on the ground to unseat Moammar Gadhafi. Western
efforts to replace him with a regime favorable to the United States and
its allies have not succeeded. The new strategy can be seen in Syria,
where rather than directly intervening the United States has stood back
and allowed the warring factions to expend their energy on each other,
preventing either side from diverting resources to activities that might
challenge U.S. interests.

Behind this is a schism in U.S. foreign policy that has more to do
with motivation than actual action. On one side, there are those who
consciously support the Syria model for the United States as not
necessarily the best moral option but the only practical option there
is. On the other, there are those who argue on behalf of moral
interventions, as we saw in Libya, and removing tyrants as an end in
itself. Given the outcome in Libya, this faction is on the defensive,
as it must explain how an intervention will actually improve the moral
situation. Given that this faction also tended to oppose Iraq, it must
show how an intervention will not degenerate into Iraqi-type warfare.
That is hard to do, so for all the rhetoric, the United States is by
default falling into a balance-of-power model.

The Geopolitical Battle in Ukraine

Russia
emerged as a problem for the United States after the Orange Revolution
in 2004, when the United States, supporting anti-Russian factions in Ukraine,
succeeded in crafting a relatively pro-Western, anti-Russian
government. The Russians read this as U.S. intelligence operations
designed to create an anti-Russian Ukraine that, as we have
written, would directly challenge Russian strategic and economic
interests. Moreover, Moscow saw the Orange Revolution (along with the
Rose Revolution) as a dress rehearsal for something that could occur in
Russia next. The Russian response
was to use its own covert capabilities, in conjunction with economic
pressure from natural gas cutoffs, to undermine Ukraine's government and
to use its war with Georgia as a striking reminder of the resurrection
of Russian military capabilities. These moves, plus disappointment with
Western aid, allowed a more pro-Russian government to emerge in Kiev,
reducing the Russians' fears and increasing their confidence. In time,
Moscow became more effective and assertive in playing its cards right in
the Middle East -- giving rise to the current situations in Syria and
Iran and elsewhere.

Washington had two options. One was to allow the balance of power to
assert itself, in this case relying on the Europeans to contain the
Russians. The other was to continue to follow the balance of power
model but at a notch higher than pure passivity. As Nuland's call shows,
U.S. confidence in Europe's will for and interest in blocking the
Russians was low; hence a purely passive model would not work. The next
step was the lowest possible level of involvement to contain the
Russians and counter their moves in the Middle East. This meant a very
limited and not too covert support for anti-Russian, pro-European
demonstrators -- the re-creation of a pro-Western, anti-Russian
government in Ukraine. To a considerable degree, the U.S. talks with
Iran also allow Washington to deny the Russians an Iranian
card, although the Syrian theater still allows the Kremlin some room to
maneuver.

The United States is not prepared to intervene in the former Soviet
Union. Russia is not a global power, and its military has many
weaknesses, but it is by far the strongest in the region and is able to
project power in the former Soviet periphery, as the war with Georgia
showed. At the moment, the U.S. military also has many weaknesses.
Having fought for more than a decade in the core of the Islamic world,
the U.S. military is highly focused on a way of war not relevant to the
former Soviet Union, its alliance structure around the former Soviet
Union is frayed and not supportive of war, and the inevitable post-war
cutbacks that traditionally follow any war the United States fights are
cutting into capabilities. A direct intervention, even were it
contemplated (which it is not), is not an option. The only correlation
of forces that matters is what exists at a given point in time in a
given place. In that sense, the closer U.S. forces get to the Russian
homeland, the greater the advantage the Russians have.

Instead, the United States did the same thing that it did prior to
the Orange Revolution: back the type of intervention that both the human
rights advocates and the balance-of-power advocates could
support. Giving financial and psychological support to the demonstrators
protesting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to reject a
closer relationship with Europe, and later protesting the government's
attempt to suppress the demonstrations, preserved the possibility of
regime change in Ukraine, with minimal exposure and risk to the United
States.

Dissatisfaction with the German Approach

As we said last week, it appeared that it was the Germans
who were particularly pressing the issue, and that they were the ones
virtually controlling one of the leaders of the protests, Vitali
Klitschko. The United States appeared to be taking a back seat to
Germany. Indeed, Berlin's statements indicating that it is prepared to
take a more assertive role in the world appeared to be a historic shift
in German foreign policy.

The statements were even more notable since, over the years, Germany
appeared to have been moving closer to Russia on economic and strategic
issues. Neither country was comfortable with U.S. aggressiveness in the
Middle East and Southwest Asia. Both countries shared the need to create
new economic relationships in the face of the European economic
crisis and the need to contain the United States. Hence, the apparent
German shift was startling.

Although Germany's move should not be dismissed, its meaning was not
as clear as it seemed. In her cell phone call, Nuland is clearly
dismissing the Germans, Klitschko and all their efforts in Ukraine. This
could mean that the strategy was too feeble for American tastes (Berlin
cannot, after all, risk too big a confrontation with Moscow). Or it
could mean that when the Germans said they were planning to be more
assertive, their new boldness was meant to head off U.S.
efforts. Looking at this week's events, it is not clear what the Germans
meant.

What is clear is that the United States was not satisfied with
Germany and the European Union. Logically, this meant that the United
States intended to be more aggressive than the Germans in supporting
opponents of the regime. This is a touchy issue for human rights
advocates, or should be. Yanukovich is the elected president of
Ukraine, winner of an election that is generally agreed to have been
honest (even though his constitutional amendments and subsequent
parliamentary elections may not have been). He was acting within his
authority in rejecting the deal with the European Union. If
demonstrators can unseat an elected president because they disagree with
his actions, they have set a precedent that undermines
constitutionalism. Even if he was rough in suppressing the
demonstrators, it does not nullify his election.

From a balance of power strategy, however, it makes great sense. A
pro-Western, even ambiguous, Ukraine poses a profound strategic problem
for Russia. It would be as if Texas became pro-Russian, and the
Mississippi River system, oil production, the Midwest and the
Southwest became vulnerable. The Russian ability to engage in Iran or
Syria suddenly contracts. Moscow's focus must be on Ukraine.

Using the demonstrations to create a massive problem for Russia does
two things. It creates a real strategic challenge for the Russians and
forces them on the defensive. Second, it reminds Russia that Washington
has capabilities and options that make challenging the United States
difficult. And it can be framed in a way that human rights advocates
will applaud in spite of the constitutional issues, enemies of the
Iranian talks will appreciate and Central Europeans from Poland to
Romania will see as a sign of U.S. commitment to the region. The United
States will re-emerge as an alternative to Germany and Russia. It is a
brilliant stroke.

Its one weakness, if we can call it that, is that it is hard to see
how it can work. Russia has significant economic leverage in Ukraine, it
is not clear that pro-Western demonstrators are in the majority, and
Russian covert capabilities in Ukraine outstrip American capabilities.
The Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service have been
collecting files on Ukrainians for a long time. We would expect
that after the Olympics in Sochi, the Russians could play their trump
cards.

On the other hand, even if the play fails, the United States will
have demonstrated that it is back in the game and that the Russians
should look around their periphery and wonder where the United States
will act next. Putting someone in a defensive crouch does not require
that the first punch work. It is enough for the opponent to
understand that the next punch will come when he is least expecting it.
The mere willingness of the United States to engage will change the
expectations of Central Europe, cause tensions between the Central
Europeans and the Germans and create an opening for the United States.

The Pressure on Russia

Of course, the question is whether and where the Russians will answer
the Americans, or even if they will consider the U.S.
actions significant at all. In a sense, Syria was Moscow's move and this
is the countermove. The Russians can choose to call the game. They have
many reasons to. Their economy is under pressure. The Germans may not
rally to the United States, but they will not break from it. And if the
United States ups the ante in Central Europe, Russian inroads there will
dissolve.

If the Russians are now an American problem, which they are, and if
the United States is not going to revert to a direct intervention mode,
which it cannot, then this strategy makes sense. At the very least it
gives the Russians a problem and a sense of insecurity that can curb
their actions elsewhere. At best it could create a regime that might not
counterbalance Russia but could make pipelines and ports vulnerable --
especially with U.S. help.

The public interception of Nuland's phone call was not all that
embarrassing. It showed the world that the United States, not Germany,
is leading the way in Ukraine. And it showed the Russians that the
Americans care so little, they will express it on an open cell phone
line. Nuland's obscene dismissal of the European Union and treatment of
Russia as a problem to deal with confirms a U.S. policy: The United
States is not going to war, but passivity is over.

New Dimensions of U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Russia is republished with permission of Stratfor.

A More Assertive German Foreign Policy | Stratfor

By George Friedman and Marc Lanthemann

The Ukrainian crisis is important in itself, but the behavior it has elicited from Germany is perhaps more important. Berlin directly challenged Ukraine's elected president for refusing to tighten relations with the European Union and for mistreating Ukrainians who protested his decision. In challenging President Viktor Yanukovich, Berlin also challenged Russia, a reflection of Germany's recent brazen foreign policy.

Since the end of World War II, Germany has pursued a relatively tame
foreign policy. But over the past week, Berlin appeared to have
acknowledged the need for a fairly dramatic change. German leaders,
including the chancellor, the president, the foreign minister and the
defense minister, have called for a new framework that contravenes the
restraint Germany has practiced for so long. They want Germany to assume
a greater international role by becoming more involved outside its
borders politically and militarily.

For Berlin, the announcement of this high-level strategic shift comes
amid a maelstrom of geopolitical currents. As the de facto leader of
the European Union, Germany has to contend with and correct the slow failure of the European project. It has to adjust to the U.S. policy of global disengagement,
and it must manage a complex, necessary and dangerous relationship with
Russia. A meek foreign policy is not well suited to confront the
situation in which Germany now finds itself. If Germany doesn't act,
then who will? And if someone else does, will it be in Germany's
interest? The latter is perhaps the more intriguing question.

Setting Boundaries

Such a reconfiguration shows that Germany has its own national
interests that may differ from those of its alliance partners. For most
countries, this would seem self-evident. But for Germany, it is a
radical position, given its experience in World War II. It has refrained
from asserting a strong foreign policy and from promoting its national
interest lest it revive fears of German aggression and German
nationalism. The Germans may have decided that this position is no
longer tenable -- and that promoting their national interests does not
carry the risk it once did.

The timing of the announcement, as Ukraine's strategic position
between Russia and Europe continues to make headlines, was not
coincidental. While the timing benefited Germany, it would be a mistake
to ascribe too much importance to Ukraine itself, particularly from the
German perspective. That is not to say Ukraine should be discounted
entirely. As a borderland between the European Peninsula and Russia, its
future potentially matters to Germany -- if not now then perhaps in the
future, when unexpected regional realities might show themselves.

Ukraine is an indispensable borderland for Russia, but it has little
value for any modern power that has no designs against Russia. It is one
of the gateways into the heart of Russia. A hostile power occupying
Ukraine would threaten Russian national security. But the reverse is not
true: Ukraine is not a primary route from Russia into Europe (World War
II is a notable exception) because the Carpathian Mountains discourage
invasion. So unless the Germans are planning a new war with Russia --
and they aren't -- Ukraine matters little to Europe or the Germans.

The same is true in the economic realm. Ukraine is important to
Russia, particularly for transporting energy to Europe. But outside of
energy transport, Ukraine is not that important to Europe. Indeed, for
all that has been said about Ukraine's relationship to the European
Union, it has never been clear why the bloc has made it such a
contentious issue. The European Union is tottering under the weight of
Southern Europe's enormously high unemployment rate, Eastern Europe's
uncertainty about the value of being part of Europe's banking system and
currency union, and a growing policy rift between France and Germany.
The chances that the Europeans would add Ukraine to an organization that
already boasts Greece, Cyprus and other crippled economies are so slim
that considerations to the contrary would be irrational. The fact that
Ukraine is not getting into the bloc makes German policy even harder to
fathom.

Of course, some European countries have more of an interest in
Ukraine than others, particularly those formerly in the Soviet sphere of
influence. For Poland and the Baltic states, Russia remains the major
geopolitical foe in a way that Western Europe cannot fully comprehend.
These relatively small and new members cannot compel the EU heavyweights
to commit to a plan of action that would go too far in provoking
Russia, but they can still push their peers to take a more measured
action.

During the Orange Revolution, U.S.-led Western powers openly funded
opposition groups in the former Soviet states, threatening Russia's
strategic interests to the point that it had to eventually invade Georgia
to show the consequences of Western meddling. Over the past month,
Germany has been behaving similarly, albeit to a smaller degree: opening
partisan ties and giving relatively low-cost financial and rhetorical
support to opposition groups that can irritate Russia without actually
causing an immediate break with Moscow.

For the past decade, Germany could not afford to alienate Russia,
which Berlin thought could be the answers to some of Germany's problems.
It could reliably supply relatively cheap energy, it was a potential
source of low-cost labor, and it was a potential destination market for
German exporters looking for alternatives to stagnating EU markets.

Diplomatically, Moscow could have become a close ally and strategic
partner as erstwhile allies appeared to be growing increasingly hostile
to Germany. Relations with the United States were tense ever since
Berlin refused to participate in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and
Chancellor Angela Merkel's support for EU-wide austerity measures
strained Germany's ties with Southern Europe and France.

But the reality was otherwise. There is a fit between Germany and
Russia, but it is at best an imperfect one. Russia never industrialized
or modernized as Germany and many others had hoped as it reaped the
profits of high commodity prices. Under President Vladimir Putin, Moscow
became increasingly autocratic and went on the political and economic
offensive in Central and Eastern Europe.

This conflicts with Germany's strategic goals. Berlin's core
imperative is to preserve its economic power, which is highly dependent
on exports. The European economic crisis has caused consumption to
falter in the European Union, leading Berlin to search for export
markets further afield. While it has had some success in China and the
United States for certain industries, it has not been able to shed its
overwhelming dependence on European markets as a general destination for
its goods. Thus, Germany's only possible course of action is preserving
and eventually reinvigorating the free trade zone in Europe.

Russia's resurgence in Central Europe has concerned EU members in
that region. On the surface, the Germans were prepared to live with that
resurgence even though it appeared to threaten to unravel the bloc.
Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are indispensable components of
the German industrial supply chain and a source of relatively cheap
skilled labor. That they should remain in the German sphere of influence
is a non-negotiable position for Berlin.

These issues are not new, but until now Germany had been constrained
in how it could establish firm boundaries with Moscow. Berlin believed
its dependence on Russian energy was a vulnerability that Russia could
exploit if it chose to. In addition, it was concerned about Russia's
ability to wrest Central Europe from EU control. In a worst-case
scenario, Germany would end up with a fragmented Europe, a distant
United States and a hostile Russia.

The fact that Germany actively supported opposition groups in
Ukraine, particularly in the absence of a pressing strategic imperative
to do so, is a sign that something has changed in Berlin's calculus
toward Russia. It seems as though the German government has determined
that Russia is facing major challenges at home; that its position in
Europe is weaker than it appears; that the risk of energy cutoffs are
minimal; and that there are no long-term economic benefits to an
economic relationship with Russia that goes beyond energy trade. That
last point cannot be overstated. Russia is poised to remain the most
important supplier of energy to Europe, and while the dependency runs
both ways -- Europe is Russia's largest customer -- Germany will make
sure the flow of energy continues unimpeded.

With the United States increasingly depending on a balance of power
approach to its foreign policy, relying more heavily on regional actors
to manage threats, the long-term U.S. security guarantees that had been
the hallmark of European defense since 1945 can no longer be counted on
in Berlin. As NATO continues to fray and the challenges posed by an
increasingly volatile Russia loom, Germany seems to be taking the first
step back into establishing a new national and regional security
framework.

A New Element

Germany's talk of a new, more assertive foreign policy that relies
more heavily on its military is, however, not solely linked to concerns
over Russia or the United States. Germany has accepted that its only
option is to rally Europe but as the past six years have shown, it has
had limited success on the economic front. The European Union is an
economic entity, but economics has turned from being the binding element
to being a centrifugal force. Either something new must be introduced
into the European experiment, or it might come undone.

Berlin believes that holding the European Union together requires
adding another dimension that it heretofore has withheld in its dealing
with the bloc: military-political relations. Standing up to a weakening
Russia will appeal to Central European nations, and taking a more active
role overseas would endear Berlin to Paris. Germany's allusions that it
would expand its international military operations, particularly in
Africa, is a clear nod to France, which has consistently expressed its
desire for a deeper military and political partnership with Germany.

Notably, the drive to bring Germany closer to France in the short
term could create tensions between them in the long term. Last week's
summit between British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President
Francois Hollande was a reminder that France and the United Kingdom may
have extremely different views regarding the European Union but still
see each other as a military partner and, more important, as a
counterweight to Germany.

Of course, Germany is in no position to take military action. It is
in a position to posit the possibility in some vague way, thereby
generating political forces that can temporarily hold things together.
Berlin needs to buy time, particularly in Central Europe, where Hungary
has embarked on an independent course and is being watched carefully by
others. With the United States unwilling to become involved, Germany
either becomes the counterweight or lives with the consequences.

At first, Germany's actions seemed confusing and uncharacteristic.
But they become more sensible when you consider that that Berlin is
looking for other tools to hold the European Union together as it
re-evaluates Russia. So far, Germany's announcement has been met
positively, mainly outside Germany, but the tension that a stronger and
more assertive Berlin exerts on the European continent and the global
stage are sure to come to the fore again. For now, however, Merkel has
no choice.

A More Assertive German Foreign Policy is republished with permission of Stratfor.

Searching for Time Travelers on the Internet | The Volokh Conspiracy

Searching for Time Travelers on the Internet | The Volokh Conspiracy

Yet another scientific study that finds zero data upon which to report. I would expect that, in a more efficient world, we would not require public money to be used in the reporting of failure. Bad enough that we funded the spurious research in the first place.

In a paper pre-published on arXiv, a pair of actual physics professors detail their exhaustive efforts to canvass the Internet for evidence of time travelers.

[Snip]

Time travel has captured the public imagination for much of the past century, but little has been done to actually search for time travelers.

[Snip}

They go on to explain that they approached the problem by scouring the Web for tweets, Google searches, and other online postings about events—such as a comet or the naming of a new pope—that hadn’t happened yet at the time they were posted. “Given practical verifiability concerns,” the researchers note, “only time travelers from the future were investigated.” That’s understandable: Time travelers from the past presumably wouldn’t have had prescient insights to offer. Sadly, it seems, neither did any time travelers from the future. “No time travelers were discovered,” the researchers report.

The tone might be a bit light, but the money spent on this research was as real as it gets.

Ford: 'We have GPS in your car, so we know what you're doing' | The Daily Caller

Ford: 'We know what you're doing' | The Daily Caller

Only 96% of new cars have GPS capability, so they do not have all the info on EVERYBODY. Yet.

A top Ford executive made a startling admission about the amount of data the auto maker tracks from its customers at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show this week.

“We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it,” Ford Vice-President Jim Farley told a crowd in Las Vegas during the show. “We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing.”


Of all mass-produced vehicles in 2013, about 96 percent had computers recording and transmitting the type of data Farley was talking about. Police have even begun using such data to investigate car accidents.

What a bizarre boast for an auto executive to make. But then, maybe it was just a gaffe, so everything is OK.

For Every One Job Added, Nearly 5 People Left the Workforce | The Weekly Standard

For Every One Job Added, Nearly 5 People Left the Workforce | The Weekly Standard

Senator Jeff Sessions has the grim facts:

Today’s jobs report underscores a deeper problem facing our economy: a large and growing block of people who are chronically jobless and completely outside the workforce. In December, the economy added only 74,000 jobs – not nearly enough to keep up with population growth –and 347,000 left the workforce. That means for every one job added, nearly 5 people left the workforce entirely. There are now nearly 92 million Americans outside the workforce, resulting in the lowest participation rate in 36 years.

And remember that 36 years ago, many more wives stayed at home and took care of their household.

De Blasio's Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban | The American Spectator

De Blasio's Horse-Drawn Carriage Ban | The American Spectator

Call it Carriage-Gate. The far-left new mayor of NYC has taken it upon himself to make banning New York City's hansom cabs his first priority. Robert Stacey McCain has a neat piece of investigative journalism on the budding scandal. Apparently the socialist mayor is in the pocket of real estate tycoons, and is using humanitarian groups for cover. Read the piece - it's a laugh a minute. The hypocrisy of the left always makes me smile.

Top 10 Media Hate-Crime Hoaxes of 2013

Top 10 Media Hate-Crime Hoaxes of 2013

John Nolte has his list of ten most egregious media hoaxes on 2013 up, but, to me, he missed the biggest of all - global warming. But I will give him some slack, since the CAGW hoax is fomented by a far bigger and more powerful amalgam of interests than merely the MSM. Like the academic establishment, the political establishment, and the religious nuts who are everywhere and always trying to get us to self-flagellate.

Weather Is Not Climate | National Review Online

Weather Is Not Climate | National Review Online

A snippet:

Basic physical chemistry dictates that if you change the makeup of the atmosphere, other things will change, too. The trouble is that, whatever they say, nobody really knows what or on what scale. And they certainly don’t know enough to warn that the end times are nigh. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped a diverse cast of prognosticators from trying — safe in the knowledge that being a climate scientist, to paraphrase a 1970s romantic movie that Al Gore claimed he inspired, means never having to say you’re sorry.

But What Do We Mean By Consensus?

Guest essay by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
 
Politicians pay for science, but scientists should not be politicians. Consensus is a political concept. Unwisely deployed, it can be damagingly anti-scientific. A reply to Naomi Oreskes (Nature, 4 September 2013).

Subject terms: Philosophy of science, consensus, climate change

The celebrated mathematician, astronomer and philosopher of science Abu Ali Ibn al-Haytham, or Alhazen, is justly celebrated as the founder of the scientific method. His image appears on Iraqi banknotes and on the postage stamps of half a dozen nations of the ummah wahida.

Al-Haytham, unlike Naomi Oreskes,[1] did not consider that consensus had any role in science. He wrote that “the seeker after truth” does not put his trust in any mere consensus, however venerable: instead, he submits what he has learned from it to reason and demonstration. Science is not a fashion statement, a political party or a belief system.

The objective of science, as of religion, is truth. Religion attains to the truth by accepting the Words of Messiahs or of Prophets and pondering these things in its heart[2]. Science attains to the truth by accepting no word as revealed and no hypothesis as tenable until it has been subjected to falsification by observation, measurement and the application of previously-established theory to the results.

The Royal Society’s dog-Latin motto, Nullius in verba, roughly translates as “We take no one’s word for it”. The Society says, “It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.”[3] No room for consensus there.



T.H. Huxley, FRS, who defeated Bishop Wilberforce in the debate over evolution at the Oxford Museum of Natural History in 1860, put it this way: “The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties: blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”[4] Richard Feynman agreed: “Science,” he said, “is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”[5]

Karl Popper[6] formalized the scientific method as an iterative algorithm starting with a general problem. To address it, a scientist proposes a falsifiable hypothesis. During the error-elimination phase that follows, others demonstrate it, disprove it or, more often do neither, whereupon it gains some credibility not because a consensus of experts endorses it but because it has survived falsification. Head-counts, however expert the heads, play no part in science.

The post-modernist notion that science proceeds by the barnacle-like accretion of expert consensus on the hulk of a hypothesis is a conflation of two of the dozen sophistical fallacies excoriated by Aristotle[7] 2350 years ago as the commonest in human discourse. The medieval schoolmen later labelled them the fallacies of argument ad populum (consensus) and ad verecundiam (appeal to reputation).

Science has become a monopsony. Only one paying customer – the State – calls the tune, and expects its suppliers to sing from the same hymn-sheet. Governments, by definition and temperament interventionist, are disinclined to pay for inconvenient truths. They want results justifying further intervention, so they buy consensus.

The Hamelin problem is compounded by a little-regarded consequence of nearly all academics’ dependency upon the public treasury. Those whom the State feeds and houses will tend to support the interventionist faction, and may thus give a spurious legitimacy to a political consensus by parading it as scientific when it is not.

Too often what is really a political consensus will be loosely defined with care, allowing its adherents to pretend that widespread scientific endorsement of an uncontentious version implies support for a stronger but unsupported version.

Consider climate change. The uncontentious version of the climate consensus is that greenhouse gases cause warming. Oft-replicated experiment establishes that the quantum resonance that interaction with near-infrared radiation induces in a greenhouse-gas molecule, such as carbon dioxide, emits heat directly, as though a tiny radiator had been turned on. Thus, adding greenhouse gases to the air will cause some warming. Where – as here – the experimental result is undisputed because it is indisputable, there is no need to plead consensus.

The standard version of climate consensus, however, is stronger. It is that at least half the global warming since 1950 was anthropogenic.[8]^,[9] Supporters of the uncontentions version need not necessarily support this stronger version.

Though IPCC (2013) has arbitrarily elevated its level of confidence in the stronger version of consensus from 90% to 95%, Cook et al. (2013),[10] analyzing the abstracts of 11,944 papers on global climate change published between 1991 and 2012, marked only 64 abstracts as having explicitly endorsed it. Further examination[11] shows just 43 abstracts, or 0.3% of the sample, endorsing it.

No survey has tested endorsement of the still stronger catastrophist version that unless most CO2 emissions stop by 2050 there is a 10% probability[12]^,[13] that the world will end by 2100. The number of scientists endorsing this version of consensus may well be vanishingly different from zero.

The two key questions in the climate debate are how much warming we shall cause and whether mitigating it today would cost less than adapting to its net-adverse consequences the day after tomorrow. There is no consensus answer to the first. The consensus answer to the second may surprise.

Answering the “how-much-warming” question is difficult. Models overemphasize radiative transports, undervalue non-radiative transports such as evaporation and tropical afternoon convection, and largely neglect the powerfully homoeostatic effect of the great heat-sinks – ocean and space – that bound the atmosphere.

Absolute global temperatures have varied by only ±1% in 420,000 years[14]. Will thermometers be able to detect the consequences of our altering 1/3000 of the atmospheric mix by 2100?

Uncontroversially, direct radiative warming at CO2 doubling will be the product of the instantaneous or Planck parameter[15] 0.31 K W^–1 m² and the CO2 radiative forcing[16] 5.35 ln 2: i.e., ~1.2 K. Models near-triple this value by temperature feedback amplification. Yet no feedback can be measured directly or determined theoretically. Feedbacks may even be net-negative.[17]^,[18]

Another uncertainty is introduced by the amplification equation in the models, which was designed for electronic circuits, where it has a physical meaning. In the climate, as the singularity at a loop gain of 1 approaches, it has none. In a circuit, feedbacks driving voltage to the positive rail flick it to the negative rail as the loop gain exceeds 1. In the climate there is no such physical mechanism.

The chaoticity of the climate object is an additional, insuperable uncertainty.[19]^,[20] The IPCC admits this: “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system and, therefore, that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”[21]

The atmosphere, like any object that behaves chaotically, is highly sensitive to initial conditions. The available data will always be inadequate to allow reliable prediction – especially by probability distribution in model ensembles – of the chaos-driven bifurcations that make climate climate.

Given these real uncertainties, the IPCC’s claim of 95% consensus as to the relative contributions of Man and Nature to the 0.7 K global warming since 1950 is surely hubris. Nemesis is already at hand. Empirically, the models are not doing well. The first IPCC Assessment Report predicted global warming at 0.2-0.5 Cº/decade by now. Yet the observed trend on the HadCRUt4 data[22] since 1990, at little more than 0.1 Cº/decade, is below the IPCC’s least estimate.

Taking the mean of all five global-temperature datasets, there has been no global warming for almost 13 years, even though CO2 concentration increases should have caused at least 0.2 Cº warming since December 2000.

Given the Earth’s failure to warm as predicted, and the absence of support for the IPCC’s version of the climate consensus, its 95% confidence in the anthropogenic fraction of the 0.7 Cº warming since 1950 seems aprioristic.
 

No global warming for 12 years 8 months. Data sources: GISS, HadCRUt4, NCDC, RSS and UAH.

So to the economic question. Posit ad argumentum that the IPCC’s central estimate of 2.8 Cº warming from 2000-2100 is true, and that Stern[23] was right to say the cost of failing to prevent 2-3 Cº warming this century is ~1.5% of GDP. Then, even at a zero inter-temporal discount rate, the cost of abating this decade’s predicted warming of 0.17 Cº[24] by CO2-mitigation schemes whose unit mitigation cost is equivalent to that of, say, Australia’s carbon tax will be 50 times the cost of later adaptation.

How so? Australia emits just 1.2%[25]^,[26] of global anthropogenic CO2. No more than 5% of Australia’s emissions can now be cut this decade, so no more than 0.06% of global emissions will be abated by 2020. Then CO2 concentration will fall from the now-predicted 410 μatm[27] to 409.988 μatm. In turn, predicted temperature will fall, but only by 0.00005 Cº, or 1/1000 of the minimum detectable global temperature change. This is mainstream, consensus IPCC climatology.

The cost of this minuscule abatement over ten years will be $162 billion[28], equivalent to $3.2 quadrillion/Cº. Abating just the worldwide mean warming of 0.17 Cº predicted for this decade would cost $540 trillion, or $77,000/head worldwide, or 80% of ten years’ global GDP[29]. No surprise, then, that in the economic literature the near-unanimous consensus is that mitigation will cost more than adaptation[30]^,[31]. The premium vastly exceeds the cost of the risk insured. The cost of immediate mitigation typically exceeds by 1-2 orders of magnitude that of eventual adaptation.[32]

Accordingly, Oreskes’ statement that “Political leaders who deny the human role in climate change should be compared with the hierarchy of the Catholic church, who dismissed Galileo’s arguments for heliocentrism for fear of their social implications” is not only scientifically inappropriate but historically inapt: for no political leaders “deny the human role in climate change”, though some may legitimately doubt its magnitude or significance; and none impose any such opinion upon their citizens.

It is the true-believers in the New Religion of Thermageddon who have demanded that their opponents be put on trial for “treason” (Robert Kennedy), and for “high crimes against humanity” (James Hansen, NASA)[33]. The penalties for treason and for crimes against humanity are not the house arrest to which Galilei was sentenced, but death. Insistence upon consensus has often bred the most brutal kind of intolerance.

The true lesson of l’affaire Galilei, then, is that the governing class, then the high priests of Rome, now the acquiescent archdruids of academe and their paymaster the State, should not intolerantly abuse their power, then of theology, now of monopsony reinforcing peer-pressure rebranded as consensus, by interfering in scientists’ freedom to be what al-Haytham had beautifully called them: seekers after truth.

Reposted from What's Up With That. You can read the whole thing - including comments, footnotes, and illustrations - over there.

Fight Fire With Fire - David Horowitz

Last week this very important speech was given by David Horowitz at the Americans for Prosperity - Defending the American Dream Summit in Orlando, Florida. I reprint the transcript here in its entirety. Bolds are mine, italics and the original post can be read at the link to Front Page at the bottom of this post.
 
I’m pleased to be here. I want to thank Tim Phillips for inviting me to this gathering, and the Koch brothers for organizing it. Most of you probably know that I grew up in a Communist family and had a misspent youth as a Marxist leader of the New Left in the 1960s. In later years, when I reflected on the damage our “revolution” had inflicted on our country, I would ask myself “Where was the ruling class? Why didn’t they defend the System from these modern day Luddites and America haters? Why didn’t they expel us from the schools we tried to shut down? Why did they give us platforms to advance our agendas? What were they thinking?”

As the years progressed, and the radicals first infiltrated and then took over the Democrat Party, I found myself asking, “Where is the ruling class? Why don’t they see the threat this radicalized party is posing to their interests and the country’s? Why isn’t the ruling class mobilizing its resources to oppose an assault that is threatening the free market system and the very foundations of our democracy?

And then, last year, I was invited to this event, and here you are. Except that I no longer believe there is a ruling class or that you are one. America is — as it has always been — a pluralistic society with competing centers of power. Moreover, as Jacob Laksin and I have shown in our book The New Leviathan the preponderance of political wealth is on the left, and has been put in the service of parties and causes that are anti-capitalist. As Jacob and I showed, progressive foundations engaged in political activities are more than 10 times wealthier than their conservative counterparts, and are able to deploy resources for political ends that are greater by far than even that.

Historically the movers of radical transformations have always been drawn from the ranks of the upper classes. The French Revolution was initiated by French aristocrats; Karl Marx was funded and promoted by a capitalist factory owner. And the Obama socialists who today threaten our way of life are swimming in wealth up to their eyeballs. The purpose of these observations is first to underscore how important you as creators of wealth are to the battle facing us; and second, how much catching up you have to do in order for us to prevail.

If the last five unhappy years have should have taught us anything it is these two things:

First, elections have consequences. The left’s last two electoral triumphs have already had a devastating impact on our nation and its future. America is now a great power in steep decline, a by-stander in world events, where once it shaped them. Our president is set on a course that actively encourages our enemies, weakens our friends and diminishes our military strength. At home his policies have impelled us towards national bankruptcy and constitutional disorder. And worse. Until the IRS and NSA scandals and Obamacare revealed the power that the Obama radicals are acquiring, I myself did not realize how close we were to the prospect of losing our democracy and actually becoming a totalitarian state. If you control all that information about individual lives and you have all that power over their finances and health, you can destroy any opposition and you do not need a secret police to enforce your will.

The second thing we have learned is something that everyone knows but no one wants to admit: well-designed character attacks can have a crucial impact on electoral outcomes; well-designed character attacks overpower well-crafted messages.

In the last election, Romney had a good message and an obvious one: Obama’s economic recovery has been a sorry failure; 23 million people still are jobless; many more are underemployed; if you want jobs and economic opportunities, support the job creators and innovators and deregulators.

But a critical majority of the voting public never heard Romney’s message. The reason? A $200 million smear campaign successfully portrayed him as a heartless job destroyer, a mouthpiece for the selfish rich, someone whose words you can’t trust.

What was the answer of Obama’s opponents to this killer attack? They didn’t have one. There was no $200 million campaign dedicated to destroying Obama’s credibility and undermining his message. Obama’s opponents didn’t have a message discrediting his character and neutralizing his attacks.

Would it have been difficult to do this? Obama is arguably the most brazen and compulsive liar ever to occupy the White House. He is an absentee executive — invisible at the budget negotiations in Washington and the withdrawal negotiations in Iraq, missing in crisis after crisis. While Egypt and Syria burns, he golfs. His endless dithering and misguided interventions in support of the Muslim Brotherhood have set the entire region aflame. Meanwhile, he and his wife carry on like French royalty, lavishing tens of millions of taxpayer funds on their family and dog while tens of millions of Americans suffer historic levels of deprivation because of the policies Obama put in place.

How is it possible that his opponents have not buried him under his own disasters? How did two successive presidential candidates, McCain and Romney characterize this selfish, malicious, leader — selling hope while delivering misery — as a “good man,” and someone who only lacked experience for the job? How about a moral conscience?
The answer is obvious to everyone but no one will say it out loud.

No one will confront Obama the way he deserves to be confronted because he is black. Actually he is half black, raised by whites and one Indonesian but no matter, since racist liberals have made the color of one’s skin decisive. It is because Obama is a minority that no one will hold him to a common standard; or confront him with what he has actually done. Any political consultant will tell you that you can’t. This is how race conscious and race-prejudiced our country has become.

This is why Republicans lose elections. Because what is true of Obama is true of the Democratic Party and the socialists generally. They present themselves as the party of minorities, whom they use as human shields whenever they are attacked, portraying their critics as indecent and racist. If we can’t hold Obama accountable, how can we hold any Democrat, any liberal or any socialist accountable? Because this is how they fight, and will do so until a counter-strategy is put in place.

My purpose in coming here today is to outline such a strategy, one that will take down the socialists at election time, and between election times, and defend the market-based democracy we all hold dear. Defend it when we are attacked as racist, insensitive and unfair. Which is how they will always attack us.

Their campaign narrative goes like this: We are the defenders of the underdog, and the champions of equality and fairness. If you attack us you attack minorities, women, children, and the poor. If you oppose us you are racists; you are the people who supported segregation and lynching. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s Secretary of Health Education and Welfare, has actually said this about opponents of Obamacare, glossing over the fact that segregation, like slavery, was a Democratic Party platform.

To begin to devise a counter-strategy, to expose their hypocrisy and impugn their character and neutralize their attacks, you have to ask yourself this question: How is it that Democrats liberals and socialists can pose as defenders of the poor?

Obama has created more poor people than all the presidents since World War II put together. Today, forty-seven million Americans are on food stamps and 100 million on government handouts. In Democrat monopolies like Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Washingon DC and a dozen other major urban blight areas, liberal socialists have damaged and destroyed the lives of more African Americans than all the Republicans since the creation of the Republic. Yet every four years – and in between – they are able to persuade voters that they are defenders of minorities and the poor.

How do they do it? Not by actually helping minorities and the poor, but by attacking the rich. They portray rich people as the enemies of minorities and the poor who refuse to pay their fare share. They demonize wealth. That is what allows them to pretend they are friends of the poor.

Conservatives often fail to appreciate the cynical basis of the  attacks on them. Conservatives are earnest – too earnest. They aim their messages at the head instead of the heart. They appeal to reason instead of the emotions. That’s why they lose. Democrat socialists don’t actually hate rich people or believe they are oppressors of the poor. In fact Democrat socialists want to be rich. In fact they are rich. Just ask George Soros, Jon Corzine, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emmanuel, Terry McAuliffe, Bill Clinton and the White House couple. They want to be filthy rich. As far as socialists are concerned rich people are ok — if they support the socialist agendas. It’s cynicism on steroids. It’s all about power. It’s a strategy to win. Attack the rich to show you are friends of the poor. And politically it works.

How can we who believe in individual rights and free markets fight this? How can we neutralize the slanders and show that we are the real defenders of minorities, the poor, the little guy, working Americans, the middle class? How can we turn the tables on them?

It’s not rocket science. You can counter their attacks by turning their guns around. You can neutralize them by fighting fire with fire.

In the real world, Democrat socialists have made the lives of poor Americans worse, much worse. You need to shove this fact in their faces every time you speak. Here is the reality: In every inner city of size in America, the selfish exploiters of the poor are liberals – what I am calling democrat socialists; they are the ones who fatten themselves off the votes of minorities and the poor while blocking their opportunities for a better life, and throwing them crumbs in return.

Detroit is a city democrat socialists have run as a political monopoly for 52 years.  For twenty of those Detroit’s Democrat mayor, Coleman Young, was also a member of the Communist Party.

In 1961 when their rule began, Detroit had the highest per capita income in the United States; Today, it is the poorest large city in all fifty states.

In 1960 Detroit was the fourth largest city in America with nearly 2 million inhabitants. Today two-thirds of Detroit’s population is gone. This human flight was the direct result of the government’s attacks on wealth and private companies, and on white people. It was a direct result of the rampant corruption among its political rulers and their draconian restrictions on what private individuals and entrepreneurs could do.
The city currently owes $14 billion in long-term debt, primarily driven by unfunded government union pension and retirement healthcare obligations.

Today Detroit’s median household income is $28,000 – slightly more than half  the median income of the state of Michigan or the United States.

Nearly half of Detroit’s population is either unemployed or no longer looking for work. Its poverty level is 36 percent or more than twice that of the state level.  Over a third of its inhabitants are on food stamps. Three out of every four of its children are born out of wedlock. A third of its school children don’t graduate and nearly half of those who do are functionally illiterate.

In one generation the democrat socialists reduced America’s number one industrial city to the level of a third world nation.

Did I mention that eighty-two percent of Detroit’s population is African American.
This is a social atrocity committed by liberals and democrat socialists against African Americans. If we spoke like they do, we would have no compunction about calling this the most appalling racist atrocity against African Americans since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts.

Now consider this: This historic assault on Detroit’s African American population was absent from all the speeches and all the political ads of all the actors supporting free market solutions in the 2012 elections. The word “Detroit” wasn’t mentioned.
This atrocity is not just being committed in Detroit. The government of every major inner city in America has been 100% controlled by democrat socialists for the last fifty years. Everything that is wrong with America’s inner cities that policy can affect liberals, Democrats and socialists are responsible for. They have their boot heels on the necks of poor black and Hispanic families. But we are all too polite to mention it.

Some Republicans have complained that Democrats win because they hand out goodies to minorities and the poor. Yes, they do. But the goodies they hand out are chump change compared to what they’ve destroyed for all Americans and especially for the poor. Would you rather live on food stamps and handouts or be able to pay for what you need and want? I don’t think there are many Americans who would have trouble making that choice.

So here’s the strategy, remembering that the best defense is a good offense: Attack the Democrat socialists for their wars against minorities and the poor. Expose their empty promises and question their character and undermine their message by portraying them as hypocrites who cannot be trusted. In attacking them as enemies of minorities and the poor we show that we care what happens to minorities and the poor. We put them on the defensive, and we neutralize their malicious and unfair attacks.

There is one more lesson to be learned from the last election: By well-placed attacks, we can change the story line of the national debate to our advantage.

Republicans planned to make the 2012 election about Obamacare, because there was a Republican landslide in 2010 around that issue. But two things happened on the way to the election that changed the subject. First, Romney picked Paul Ryan as his running mate so the details of Ryan’s plan to fix everything – including Medicare – became targets that were used to neutralize and divert the Republican attack.

Second, and far more importantly, a movement called Occupy Wall Street went on a rampage in American cities attacking the so-called 1% and the allegedly unfair distribution of wealth. Occupy Wall Street was a criminal mob supported by Obama and Pelosi, orchestrated and financed by the socialist government unions. Overnight, this changed the national debate from Obamacare to “fairness.” It cast anyone opposing more taxes and a selfish defender of the rich, and put Republicans on the defensive.

We don’t have the presidency, and we don’t have the union network or the national media to shift the debate to subjects that will give us that advantage. But we do have independent expenditure campaigns, and we do have the Tea Party grassroots to promote the message. And this is what the message should be:

They say we’re anti-woman because we don’t want to finance contraceptives for upper middle class academic women. Our answer to this attack should not be to argue about contraceptives, which will lose us a lot of single women votes. Our answer should be:

After 5 years of Obama rule there are 16 million women on food stamps. Two out of every five single mothers are on food stamps. Under Obamacare family health care costs are about to skyrocket. This is Obama’s war on women.

They say we’re anti-Hispanic. After 5 years of Obama rule, there 8 million Hispanics on food stamps, and 20 million Hispanics who are unemployed or no longer looking for work. This is Obama’s war on minorities.

They say we don’t care about blacks. Look at America’s inner cities. They are run by Democrats and socialists and have been for fifty years. This is their war on African Americans and the poor.

And so on. As I said, it’s not rocket science. It’s about turning the guns around. It’s about having the moral fiber to do so.

Finally, I don’t want to leave you with the idea that campaigns are won on negatives alone. The negatives I have proposed are designed to blunt the opposition attacks and put them on the defensive. But people need hope, and are looking for change. These are basic elements of any campaign message. In crafting the message the positive elements should be designed so that they also dramatize the negative: how the opposition hurts minorities, working Americans and the poor. In opposing parties that oppress these underdog classes we demonstrate that we care about what happens to them. It’s a simple equation. But our side doesn’t get it yet.

Here’s one example of how it could be done:

Let’s take the education dollar that taxpayers now give to the bureaucrats who don’t care about their children, and give it back to the taxpayers. Let’s voucherize all the school systems in the country from kindergarten to college. Conservatives are always talking about abolishing the Department of Education. This is not the way to go about it. Voters will be told that conservatives are against education.

Instead of calling for the abolition of the Department of Education call for a fundamental change in its mission. Take its $50 billion or so budget and require that the money be spent on a voucher program for all Americans – from kindergarten through college. Let’s put the education dollars in the hands of every poor and middle class person in America. And let’s launch this effort with a $100 million TV ad campaign to tell Americans how the liberal socialists in every major urban school system have destroyed the lives of poor, mainly black and Hispanic children, who can’t afford the private schools that liberal legislators send their own kids to.

Let’s put hope in the hands of people who can’t afford to send their kids to schools that will teach them. Let’s change the way the educational economy works, so that individuals are empowered – not government – so that competition is restored and standards are raised. Let’s take the second biggest part of the government economy and return it to the people. Let’s create a model of the kind of society we want — a free market society, a society based on individual achievement, not government defined collectives.

This is just one possible campaign. Even if this particular campaign doesn’t win the first or second time around it will eventually change the perceptions of everyone in politics. We will no longer be seen as the defenders of the rich; we will be seen as the defenders of minorities and the poor; and our opponents will be seen as their oppressors. If campaigns like this are conducted in the right way they will change not only the way conservatives frame their message; they will change the political landscape of the country and the prospects for our nation’s future.

Fight Fire With Fire | FrontPage Magazine

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