How You Gonna Grow The Middle Class, Joe?

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ecent news reports tell us that Joe Biden’s big job in the Obama administration will be to increase the size of his much-loved middle class.  Just one question, Joe:

How much are you going to do that by lifting the poor up to the middle class, and  how much are you going to do it by taxing the wealthy down to it?

Just wondering …

Peanut Nutty

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ecently a school bus in an unnamed U.S. school district has hastily evacuated, then fully decontaminated. Why? Sarin gas? Smallpox pores? No, a peanut was seen on the floor. What hope do we have that our children will get a sensible education if education is in the hands of people who evacuate and decontaminate school buses because of a peanut?

As I usually do when confronted with a story I like, I turn to Stats Blog, where I found another example:

At this time of year many municipal elementary schools in the United States, including the one attended by my children, raise money by selling wrapping paper and candy. This year parents in our school were told that they could no longer pick up their purchases from their children’s classrooms. Instead they had to pick up their orders from a loading dock at specified times, to avoid a danger to the children.

The danger? Some of the orders contained sealed tins of festive nuts. Out of an overabundance of caution the school decided not to allow any of the items on the premises.

Sealed containers!  In the hands of adults!  What are they afraid of, that a child with a peanut allergy and utterly no self-control will beat a teacher paralyzed by fear of physically restraining a child, rip the tin open, and commit suicide by nut?

“This allergy is just nuts,” by Nicholas A. Christakis, professor of medical sociology, Harvard Medical School, in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal, which is excerpted above.  Christakis goes on to say:

About 3.3 million Americans are allergic to nuts, and even more - 6.9 million - are allergic to seafood. However, all told, serious allergic reactions to foods cause just 2,000 hospitalisations a year (out of more than 30 million hospitalisations nationwide). And only 150 people (children and adults) die each year from all food allergies combined.

That’s about the same as the number of people in the U.S. killed by lightening each year. Should we ban thunderstorms?

W

ooo Wooo Warmie, the global warming psychic, predicts that Mr. Toasty Toes himself, Al (”Is it hot in here or is it just me?”) Gore will be venturing into SoCal to rally the Warmie masses sometimes soon.

Has Wooo Wooo been incinerating the incense while invoking the incantations again?  Nope.  He just read this news item:

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - December 8, 2008 (OWSweather.com) - With a warm November, Southern California is finally ready for cold storms to make their way in. Resort level snow will be likely next week, and in pretty hefty amounts if things stay on track. OWSweather.com Meteorologist Kevin Martin predicts a 50 year event.

While Martin is usually conservative on these events, the pattern highly favors it. “We are in a pre-1950 type pattern, “said Martin. “We know we are due for a winter storm sometime this year. The type we may be dealing with will be ranked up there with the known years before 1950, which set record low daytime temperatures into the forecast region. With this, may come low elevation snow.”

Wooo Wooo put that tidbit together with his understanding of the Warmie’s propensity to schedule their events to coincide with unseasonable cold snaps (call it God’s little joke on James Hanson), and sent one of his telepathic communications my way.

Pack your overcoat, Al.

hat-tip:  Jim

A New Level Of Islamist Sub-Humanism

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eports coming out of Mumbai confirm that Islamist terrorists are capable of sinking still lower in the sight of decent humanity, capable of even worse crimes against decency:

“Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing,” a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: “It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words,” he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said. (Source)

And what of the Jewish “hostages” that had the great misfortune of existing in a world in which Islamists exist?

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

This “religion of peace” has become such a scourge on the Earth that we really just can’t allow it to continue in its evil ways. Does Obama see this? Does he have the spine to confront evil? I believe it’s a yes on the first and will prove to be a no on the second.

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ames A. Peden is a likable guy - what’s not to like about a guy who starts his bio, “James A. Peden, better known as “Jim” or “Dad,” ….” He’s also got some good science chops:

[Peden] spent some of his earlier years as an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories in Blawnox, Pennsylvania, studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. As a student, he was elected to both the National Physics Honor Society and the National Mathematics Honor Fraternity, and was President of the Student Section of the American Institute of Physics. He was a founding member of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His thesis on charge transfer reactions in the upper atmosphere was co-published in part in the prestigious Journal of Chemical Physics. The results obtained by himself and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh remain today as the gold standard in the AstroChemistry Database.

Peden got bugged by insistence that the science on global warming is settled when, in fact, the science of global climate prediction is in its infancy and regularly soils its diapers with false predictions, bad data processing and lack of proper respect for the scientific process. Foiled - understandably so - by the reticence of his local newspaper editors to publish his lengthy attack on anthropogenic global warming arguments, he has published his paper on line.

It’s very long, very thorough and pretty darn elegant. It’s a bit over my head, but I am not particularly proficient in math and science, so you’ll probably enjoy it even more than I did. Here is Peden’s summary - which is not the conclusion of his article:

Summary - Exactly what have we learned here?

1. The “Greenhouse Effect” is a natural and valuable phenomenon, without which, the planet would be uninhabitable.

2. Modest Global Warming, at least up until 1998 when a cooling trend began, has been real.

3. CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor.

4. Man’s contribution to Greenhouse Gasses is relatively insignificant. We didn’t cause the recent Global Warming and we cannot stop it.

5. Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change, accompanied by complex ocean currents which distribute the heat and control local weather systems.

6. CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population.

7. CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past.

8. Nothing happening in the climate today is particularly unusual, and in fact has happened many times in the past and will likely happen again in the future.

9. The UN IPCC has corrupted the “reporting process” so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid’s lunch money. They do not follow the Scientific Method, and modify the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions. In empirical science, one does NOT write the conclusion first, then solicit “opinion” on the report, ignoring any opinion which does not fit their predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.

10. Polar Bear populations are not endangered, in fact current populations are healthy and at almost historic highs. The push to list them as endangered is an effort to gain political control of their habitat… particularly the North Slope oil fields.

11. There is no demonstrated causal relationship between hurricanes and/or tornadoes and global warming. This is sheer conjecture totally unsupported by any material science.

12. Observed glacial retreats in certain select areas have been going on for hundreds of years, and show no serious correlation to short-term swings in global temperatures.

13. Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century. There is active geothermal activity in the currently “melting” sections of Greenland.

14. The Antarctic Ice cover is currently the largest ever observed by satellite, and periodic ice shelf breakups are normal and correlate well with localized tectonic and geothermal activity along the Antarctic Peninsula.

15. The Global Warming Panic was triggered by an artifact of poor mathematics which has been thoroughly disproved. The panic is being deliberately nurtured by those who stand to gain both financially and politically from perpetuation of the hoax.

16. Scientists who “deny” the hoax are often threatened with loss of funding or even their jobs.

17. The correlation between solar activity and climate is now so strong that solar physicists are now seriously discussing the much greater danger of pending global cooling.

18. Biofuel hysteria is already having a disastrous effect on world food supplies and prices, and current technologies for biofuel production consume more energy than the fuels produce.

19. Global Warming Hysteria is potentially linked to a stress-induced mental disorder.

20. In short, there is no “climate crisis” of any kind at work on our planet.

The summary is followed by a lengthy section, “How do we end the panic?” It devotes almost as much space to the politics of global warming as was spent on the science, but concludes with a milquetoast action call: sending the url of the article around. Allayed as we are against a well-funded movement with major momentum and an incoming sympathetic administration, sending around a url, while a valid and hopefully viral action, is not enough.

Recently 100 scientists signed a letter to Ban ki-Moon asking the UN to stop frittering away needed resources on global warming windmill-tilting. The final signature was that of the president of the World Federation of Scientists. A Senate report lists more than 400 scientists who originally bought into the global warming hysteria but now want to be excused. We need more scientists to stand up, more loudly.

We need a good book to counter Al Gore’s. It needs to be written by someone with a good, high-visibility name and be in the same breezy, easily consumed style. We need to sue to get it included in any curricula that includes Gore’s book, and more broadly, we need to sue to remove global warming propaganda from elementary, junior and high school curricula.

We need to shore up the GOP’s good initial read on global warming that has been weakened by John McCain’s candidacy, and we need to add some Blue Dog Democrats to the mix. If anyone will lead the global war on global warming lunacy, it’s America, and we’ll have to put up roadblocks to the Obama admin’s efforts to fight and fund on behalf of the hysteria. The economy is running in our favor now, and we have to seize the opportunity.

And finally, we have to watch the weather. We’re right and the weather is going to prove us right. As it provides proof, it’s our job as the scribes of the new era to share the proof, and use it to rebut the hysterics.

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his just in from the AGI (Al Gore International):

At least 200 narwhal whales in Canada’s Arctic, trapped by winter ice and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials say.

Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometres from Pond Inlet, on November 15. …

“A couple of weeks ago, when the ice was still moving, there were quite a few narwhal seen out there in the open water,” Jayko Allooloo, chairman of the Pond Inlet hunters and trappers organisation, told public broadcaster CBC.

“About a week later, they’re stuck.”

Community elders and officials feared the whales would die from a lack of oxygen as the ice grew thicker around them, Pelley explained. (source)

Remember, should these whales die, their deaths will be attributed to climate change, the grand Greenie vision of everything being a catastrophe caused by man’s impertenent existance.

hat-tip: Jim

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hina, the world’s largest polluter, is also the world’s least responsible nation. At least that’s what Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao told representatives of 76 nations in Beijing this week:

“The developed countries have a responsibility and an obligation to respond to global climate change by altering their unsustainable way of life.”

China aparently feels no such obligation, even though it pollutes more than America, even though it has about a tenth our gross national product. Even so, the Chinese government’s position is that it is under no obligation to clean up after itself; no, that’s our job.

The Chinese government used a two-day conference in Beijing, which ended Saturday, to trumpet proposals for rich economies to devote up to 1 percent of their gross domestic product to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (WashTimes)

China is working to stack the deck against the countries that are working to clean up after themselves as the UN works to find a replacement to the dismally failed Kyoto treaty.

But it’s just a percent, right? No big deal. Well, just a little deal: $300 billion a year from the G7 alone.

China argues that taking charge of its pollution would limit its own goals to reduce poverty. Someone better dial up Obama. He seems to think that a massive, government-forced conversion to clean energy will grow the economy, expand jobs and be good for everyone.

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eptember brought the latest snowfall ever recorded to Southern Brazil, along with a spate of chilly weather that took just about all the fun out of being Brazilian. Here’s an analysis of the situation, courtesy of a great article by Lorne Gunter in Canada’s National Post, which is the source for this entire post:

Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to “a negative PDO” or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs — El Ninos — produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones — La Ninas — produce below average ones.

Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as “solar minimums” magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded — none — and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. “This is no coincidence,” he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.

September brought a scientific chill to global warming theory, though:

American Craig Loehle, a scientist who conducts computer modelling on global climate change, confirmed his earlier findings that the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) of about 1,000 years ago did in fact exist and was even warmer than 20th-century temperatures.

Prior to the past decade of climate hysteria and Kyoto hype, the MWP was a given in the scientific community. Several hundred studies of tree rings, lake and ocean floor sediment, ice cores and early written records of weather — even harvest totals and censuses –confirmed that the period from 800 AD to 1300 AD was unusually warm, particularly in Northern Europe.

But in order to prove the climate scaremongers’ claim that 20th-century warming had been dangerous and unprecedented — a result of human, not natural factors — the MWP had to be made to disappear. So studies such as Michael Mann’s “hockey stick,” in which there is no MWP and global temperatures rise gradually until they jump up in the industrial age, have been adopted by the UN as proof that recent climate change necessitates a reordering of human economies and societies.

Dr. Loehle’s work helps end this deception.

And let’s revisit those sun spots for a moment:

Don Easterbrook, a geologist at Western Washington University, says, “It’s practically a slam dunk that we are in for about 30 years of global cooling,” as the sun enters a particularly inactive phase. His examination of warming and cooling trends over the past four centuries shows an “almost exact correlation” between climate fluctuations and solar energy received on Earth, while showing almost “no correlation at all with CO2.”

Gunter goes on to give several additional instances of reputable sources trying desperately to avoid the coming wagon-wreck of the global warming bandwagon - including a real shocker out of NASA which I’ll leave to him to explain out of deference to copyright law.

Global warming skepticism actually appears to be coming into vogue everywhere but at the doctrinaire journals where the High Priesthood of Doom still holds court.

hat-tip: RCP

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n yesterday’s Sunday Scan, I referenced a Thomas P.M. Barnett article on 12 lessons we should (have?) learned from the war in Iraq, including one I didn’t agree with.

The redirect on Iran was a complete waste of effort.

Due to our strategic tie-down in Iraq and Afghanistan, America can’t stop Iran from getting nuclear unless we go nuclear. We won’t do that, meaning we should have welcomed Iran’s offered help in both locations and not wasted our troops’ lives in the meantime.

I protested that going nuclear is not the only option, and that welcoming Iranian offers of help is a risky business, like accepting large horsey gifts from Trojans Greeks (thanks, Bob). Behind my thinking on the risks of working with Iran is the utter failure of the European initiative to talk Iran out of its nukes. They’ve had five years to convince Ahmedinejad and the Mullahs to behave themselves and play by the most rudimentary of international rules, and have gotten nowhere.

I take that back: They have gotten somewhere, and it’s worse than where they started. The Europeans have been corrupted by the Iranians and are doing foul deeds at their behest - hardly a get tough policy on Iran’s nukes. Here’s what I’m talking about, from Spiegel:

Hoping to accommodate Tehran, [the EU] placed an Iranian dissident group on the EU list of terrorist organizations — and got the bloc’s agriculture ministers to rubber stamp the decision without any debate. Now lawyers from across Europe are accusing the EU of abusing the law.

Europe’s agriculture ministers had been bickering over the usual topics for hours: the reform of agricultural policy, the economic misery of many fishermen, the import of genetically modified varieties of soy, the distribution of fruit and vegetables in schools.

Then they had to deal with a particularly unusual point on the day’s agenda: the European Union’s new list of terrorist organizations. Following an “exhaustive examination,” according to the press release, the ministers voted unanimously in favor of the list.

However, those who took part in that meeting on July 15 recall that the submission was approved silently “without any discussion, without a single word being spoken and without a formal vote.” Most of those present had “no idea” what the document was about. The agriculture ministers could hardly have realized that their silent decision would lead two months later to a huge political stir.

Part of any reasonable Iran strategy is to encourage dissent within Iran, yet here we see the EU shoring up the corrupt and dangerous regime, by turning its back on a group that could attack the Mullahs from within - while getting nothing to show for it in return.

How did the EU decide to add the group - the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) - to the terrorist list? Simple … and foul:

The decision that the agriculture experts made in their meek ignorance had been prepared and formulated by a group that meets in secret. The names of the members of the group is classified as is the location where they meet and the dates of the gatherings. Every six months they update the so-called black list, which currently contains 48 organizations and 46 individuals suspected of terrorist activities. Those on the list can have their accounts frozen, and it is illegal to donate money to them or to support them in any other way. The organizations in practice lose the means to support themselves.

The EU’s handling of the matter - slipping the measure through secretly while proclaiming a public process - shows how dangerous it is to trust the Europeans with sensitive diplomacy when issues of the magnitde of nuclear weapons are in play.

If the Europeans have failed so miserably with Iran, we cannot afford to blame it entirely on the wimpy vicissitudes of the Europeans; we have to also give the Iranians their due: They are set in their policy, they are unwavering; they don’t feel threatened; they are threatening. Are these the sorts of folks we should accept offers from?

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he American Psychological Association, hot on the heals of “proving” that abortion is not a mental health risk for women, is now rallying its legions to scrub patients’ brains ’til their free of any pesky thoughts about global warming skepticism. And they’re ready to recruit the media in their crusade, sez their brash news release:

News stories that provided a balanced view of climate change reduced people’s beliefs that humans are at fault and also reduced the number of people who thought climate change would be bad, according to research by Stanford social psychologist Jon Krosnick.

His presentation will detail a decade of American attitudes about climate change. His new experiment, conducted in May, illustrates what he says is a public misperception about global warming. He says there is scientific consensus among experts that climate change is occurring, but the nationwide online poll of 2,600 adults asked whether they believe scientists agree or disagree about it.

By editing CNN and PBS news stories so that some saw a skeptic included in the report, others saw a story in which the skeptic was edited out and another group saw no video, Krosnick found that adding 45 seconds of a skeptic to one news story caused 11% of Americans to shift their opinions about the scientific consensus. Rather than 58% believing a perceived scientific agreement, inclusion of the skeptic caused the perceived amount of agreement to drop to 47%.

I’ve always loved the phrase “global warming skeptic” because of its religious overtones; “apostate” would be better, but apparently the Warmie faith isn’t quite that dogmatic yet. Imagine Krosnick’s frustration when a mere 45 seconds of truth-speaking skepticism could drop belief in global warming to sub-majority levels! That’s concerning enough to drive the APA to pressure their friends in the media to knock out this “giving time to skeptics” ridiculousness!

Krosnick’s presentation is one of several APA members will hear about creating behavior change for Gaea (aka “brainwashing”) at the group’s upcoming convention:

Armed with new research into what makes some people environmentally conscious and others less so, the 148,000-member American Psychological Association is stepping up efforts to foster a broader sense of eco-sensitivity that the group believes will translate into more public action to protect the planet.

“We know how to change behavior and attitudes. That is what we do,” says Yale University psychologist Alan Kazdin, association president. “We know what messages will work and what will not.”

During a four-day meeting that begins today in Boston, an expected 16,000 attendees will hear presentations, including studies that explore how people experience the environment, their attitudes about climate change and what social barriers prevent conservation of resources.

So, the next time you visit your psychologist, expect a slightly different question - “Do you still hate your earth mother?” - because one well-placed word by a highly trained professional can turn you into the Manchurian candidate of the Warmie movement. (Which is why, BTW, psychiatry has been so successful at solving all the world’s other ills. Methinks Alan “We know what messages work” Kasdan could use a bit of time on the couch himself.

Hat-tip: Rush

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet. I will not have this debate trivialized by [the GOP's] excuse for their failed [energy] policy.”
- Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker and Dem Demigod

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adame Speaker has become adept enough politically to stonewall all GOP efforts to force a vote on dropping the federal ban on offshore drilling, and based on this explanation of why she’s doing it - given in an interview to Politico - she’s going to continue her obstructionist policies.

Energy policy statements are highly politicized, so I’m not exactly sure what the GOP’s supposedly failed energy policy is, but if I can hazard a guess it’s this: Try to break through the Dem/Green logjam and create some new energy sources while giving some serious lip service to alternative energy. It contrasts with the Dem position, which goes something like this: Protect the earth from Demon Warming, fight oil at every turn, put your full faith in the unfulfilled promises of alternative sources.

The last month should have been an eye-opener to Madame Speaker. After talking about it taking 10 years for new oil leases to impact the market, we’ve seen an immediate drop in oil prices upon President’s Bush’s rescinding of the federal off-shore drilling ban. And we’ve seen public opinion shift dramatically - now even more liberals are supportive of off-shore drilling than are opposed to it, and 67 percent of voters support it.

So maybe, just maybe, we should trivialize the debate a bit, stepping off the global warming pedestal to discuss things like the impact of high oil prices on the economy and the poor, or the amount of doubt and disproof that’s been heaped upon global warming theory, or the wisdom of fighting for theories when it’s reality that really sucks.

But NanPo is fighting to save the planet.

Even though the Dems’ historic constituency of the poor and working class is hurt most by rising oil prices.

Even though whichever side wins the energy policy debate, the planet, which doesn’t need her help, will just keep doing what its doing in its long and ageless cycles, oblivious to the grandiose and flighting egos of Capital Hill.