The ALCAIDE’S CAFE

If you have followed this blog, recently, or in it’s first 4 year incarnation, you know I’ve been a huge skeptic … no, make that “opponent”, of the great global climate warming theory … no, make that “scam”. I will, in fact, try to get the time to transfer/resurrect more of my past writings on that topic. but meanwhile, I’ll keep on keepin on with new postings. Such as this.  

This one is not exactly my own. I could try to rewrite it so it would appear to be so, but the truth is, I couldn’t really add anything to make it better, in writing, in the important details, or in getting the point made. So I will simply post this excerpt, and give you the proper credit and reference to the original. The title was/is, “The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic“. The author, Kimberley Strassel. The publisher, the Wall Street Journal (July 3, 2009) Here it is:

Mr. Carlin and a colleague presented a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look, as the science behind man-made global warming is inconclusive at best. The analysis noted that global temperatures were on a downward trend. It pointed out problems with climate models. It highlighted new research that contradicts apocalyptic scenarios. “We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science by EPA,” the report read.

The response to Mr. Carlin was an email from his boss, Al McGartland, forbidding him from “any direct communication” with anyone outside of his office with regard to his analysis. When Mr. Carlin tried again to disseminate his analysis, Mr. McGartland decreed: “The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” (Emphasis added.)

Mr. McGartland blasted yet another email: “With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate.” Ideology? Nope, not here. Just us science folk. Honest.

Are you willing to drastically change your, and all the U.S. of A’s, economy and way of life when this is the sort of gerrymandering of science and politics is going on to underwrite the policies and politics of Obama and the Democrats in Congress to (unilaterally) “save the world” (well, a quarter of a degree F of warming in the next half century)?

By the way, Mr. Carlin, a senior analyst in the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics and a 35-year veteran of the agency.

Our President, trying to save us all from the Global Climate and Energy Disaster, told us we should emulate (be like) California, because “Californians use 40% less energy per person than the national average.” Duh! 

It might also be because California has the best/most temperate climate in the U.S.

I live in California. I NEVER use the furnace in my apartment. And have no air conditioning. In the coldest days I have used a little 1500 watt space heater, which still runs less than half the time. And on the hottest days, I open the patio door. Maybe drink a cold beer or Margarita. I occasionally don a light jacket, for an outdoors stroll, and wear a long sleeve shirt. Most of the time I wear short sleeved Polo or Hawaiian shirts. Being close to the equator, I use far less lighting than I did when I lived in Washington state, which had nightfall before 4 PM in the winter. Get the idea? Of course I use less energy … I don’t live in Minnesota, or the “windy (half-frozen) city” – Chicago.

And while California has the most “progressive” energy policies, which he obviously admires, it also…

… with its multiple seasonal “grades” and formulations of gasoline and diesel, has some of the most expensive fuels in the nation. And houses cost about 4 to 6 times as much as homes in the rest of the nation. (A million dollar house is nice, but hardly something special. Not in California.) Which is why we, in California, find the administration definition of “rich” rather ridiculous. If we can’t leave a million dollar estate to our kids, we can’t really bequeath them anything! And while the state is going bankrupt, it refuses to pump any of its vast oil resources, even out of existing pumping platforms, and get the 100s of millions of dollars in royalties pumping would provide (and save YOU, the rest of America, the need to export 100s of billions of dollars to the Middle East to buy the oil we all still need)!

And Obama apparently admires, and points to the fact that California has fewer power plants than other states as evidence of how great California is doing as an energy-efficient state.

I live in California. Our papers (and courts) are filled with the answer – the power companies can hardly ever get the permits to build power plants, even those REQUIRED by the state’s policies! And so, California imports about a fourth of its electricity from states that can afford to produce electricity because they DON’T follow California standards/policies. Some would call THAT hypocritical. And call Obama rather uninformed!

And, oh yes, we pay some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S. - about twice what those “energy star ratings” stickers I see on new appliances!

And in conclusion…. while Obama says we (well, you all) should emulate California …

I live in California. We just hiked our state income tax, and sales taxes, and car registration fees (50%), and have cut almost every welfare and medical assistance and social security type program we have, and are laying off thousands of teachers, and closing our state park system, and are getting ready to turn loose all sorts of prisoners, and are actually losing population, and businesses, and economic viability, and going bankrupt because of a budget shortfall that dwarfs most states’ own total annual budgets … well, I don’t think California, for all its “progressive” and “pioneering” ways, is where most of you want to go!

  

Climate change has flat-lined for the last decade. The EPA predicts the world will actually get cooler for the next 30 years. More and more scientists are announcing that the Global Warming scenario is NOT supported by the data, or science.

Australia is bailing, no longer convinced there is anything to the Global Warming, bit, especially regarding human influences. They asked the Obama Admin to show them the evidence, and were told that it could not. So Australia is reversing its policies, not going to try to “slow warming” by sacrificing its own economy.

China, the world’s biggest offender, in terms that Al Gore and his Kyoto Kronies pitch, (China dwarfs our “Carbon Footprint” by factors of tens) is totally uninterested in doing anything to change their way of life if it costs them even a dime. India (ditto China … but a little less) says the same.

Spain went “green years ago. Lost two jobs for every one gained in “green industries”. They are bailing. Same for England. Same for Germany. Same for Japan. Same for almost everyone in the world. But….

The U.S. (Congress and Obama Admin both) will march ahead, boldly going where even fools no longer dare to go. Even though, in the best of circumstances, we (the U.S.) can influence about 2 or 3 % of the man-caused climate effects, if their more-and-more discredited climate theories were correct and there are such effects – and will actually cause about 1/4^th a degree (F) of warming in the next 30 years as they claim – they (Congress and Obama Admin) are trying to march ahead with their restructuring of our U.S. Economy, and way of life. Congress (well, the House) has passed the Cap and Trade energy tax system while everyone else in the world is retreating from it because it is an economic disaster, not to mention public policy (CORRUPTION!) disaster. So….

Do you think there is something else going on here? Duh. You better get smart before you get bankrupt!

I’m absolutely amazed by all the apocalyptic predictions that countless species will perish as the climates warm up. What happened to adaptation and evolutionary processes? We know that micro-climates and macro-climates are always changing. Always have.

The tribes of Indians living in the temperate paradise of our American Southwest, building the magnificent cliff dwellings were driven out by desertification just a few centuries ago. California Indians came in and developed rich cultures as California filled with acorn-producing oak parklands, after their ancestors skirted the glaciers to chase the Woolly Mammoth, and moved into the Great Plains when the glaciers disappeared almost entirely to make way for the buffalo, etc., etc. Just a 150 years ago England and Europe marveled at a minor ice age that turned their rivers into ice rinks. We don’t have to look far to see adaptation and migration of not just humans, but all the flora and fauna.

Oh, I know, that calming bit of insight ruins the apocalyptic visions of politicians and industrialists and scientists hoping to build their careers on their ‘chicken little” acts. But that is the truth.

When we are told the coasts are going to be submerged in 50 or 100 years, why don’t we just stop building on them, and in floodplains, and start a sensible withdrawal and redrawing our cities’ boundaries on higher ground? Why do we even rebuild New Orleans beneath the sea levels of today’s ocean?

When we are told the birds and butterflies, and flowers and snails we are accustomed to cannot survive … well, sit back and watch them slowly drift northward, and take your next vacation to places south and see the birds and butterflies and flowers and snails your grandchildren will get to experience and feed in their bird feeders in the backyard. Don’t panic! Maybe, in fact, the birds and butterflies you like the most will do exactly what scientists have been preaching at us for the past 100 years: adapt; evolve; learn to eat the new seeds, drink the nectar of warmer-clime flowers, pounce on the mice that like warmer weather! Or move north to stay with your favorites.

Farmers can grow regular wheat instead of winter wheat. Northern Californians can grow the rice their central Californians grow now.

Change is a vital part of our earth and in the creation of all the life if we are to believe the theories of evolution. And our earth is always changing. Often very rapidly, and to some serious extremes. So why the sudden failure of the natural processes? Like evolution. Why the sudden inability for OUR society to adapt and adjust to new foodstuffs and migrate a few miles back from the coasts in the next century – IF the global-warming alarmists are right?

Maybe there’s a clue in something I heard just today: our ex-VP, Al Gore has increased his personal fortunes from $2 million, to over $100 million, in the past eight years! And all the while, as the media keep showing, not giving up his huge mansion, or private jets, or big cars, like he tells us we must if we want to survive the next decade!

As the banishment of gender continues in our culture, one wonders at what else that might hide from our eyes. For example, “same-sex marriage” serves the purposes of numerous allied agendas.

Churches and religion are further marginalized, as one of their basic doctrines and services to their own and the larger population, is eroded. They are less esteemed for the extra sense of “special” and “important” they give married couples as marriage is diminished. “Civil unions” and the new and “less old-fashioned” (traditional, religious) “marriage” become more a matter of legal contracts and governmental affairs.

Now, few constitutional lawyers really doubt that once same-sex marriages are established, the same reasoning and legal principals will justify plural marriage, marriage between humans and animals (PETA wins that one), marriage between adults and younger children (already “age discrimination”, and “privacy rights” are already eroding “old fashioned” ideas of parental authority), marriage between closer relatives – even brother and sisters (with same sex marriage fuzzing up definitions of “family”, and brother-sister marriage has a lot of history already – Greeks, Romans, European royalty, etc). I’ve even heard (jokingly now, but…) of human robot marriage. As “robots” become more human-like and equipped with very human-like bodies (see what the Japanese have already done!) what business is it of ours or yours (that infamous “right to privacy” doctrine)?

Much the same rubric now accompanies a new legislative move to banish gender from public view, legislation creating “same-sex insurance”. Senator John Kerry says it is “to prohibit insurers from considering sex as a factor in setting premiums for policies in the individual insurance market.” His argument, that women pay higher rates for insurance than men is disingenuous at best, and patently false in most cases.

Insurance, of course, has always been actuarially priced. Smokers pay more. Bad (or more frequently ticketed or accident prone) pay more. Old people close to the end of normal lifetimes pay more. Flood plain homeowners pay more. People with serious illnesses pay more to start either life or health policies. Why? Because the insurance is not a philanthropic enterprise or gift from someone somewhere. While companies are profit driven (someone has to pay wages and stockholders), they are still ultimately the facilitators of communities of policy holders willing to pool their money to help ameliorate (pay for) risks, like sickness, accidents, or death. If the pool is used up by one very sick member, everyone else loses everything, gains nothing. Would you buy into that? Of course not. So IF you know that the next person wanting to get into the pool is very sick, or very accident prone, or extremely risky for whatever reason, you will at least demand higher investment (rates paid) or refuse their membership. That’s a “Duh!”

Well, women of childbearing years are much more likely to use the pool ($). If for no other reason than childbearing! So their rates are likely to be higher. But older men have usually pay much higher life insurance rates. Young men generally pay more because of their propensity to risky behavior. And so on. Its so obvious. So obvious that the public (so-called taxpayers) is more and more calling for higher rates or stricter limits to public health benefits (say, Medicare) for smokers or the “morbidly obese”.

Surely Kerry and his fellow Democrats know all this. They aren’t that stupid, I hope. So what other agenda(s) might be hidden behind this? I believe, as usual when you see alliances of legislators and various groups like union, political activists, etc., there are several beneficiaries being served at least. Feminist groups, maybe. Gays and lesbians, maybe. Nationalizing (Government owning and operating) health care, definitely. Nationalizing the health care is a real priority of this new government.

So how can this help that agenda. Well, it immediately stokes knee jerk resentments and senses of “justice” from the unfair greedy insurance companies. And seems to promise lower rates to a large constituency. With government the champion, of course.

And it should be obvious that only the government and bureaucrats can ignore actuarial facts and treat everyone “fairly”. They don’t need to make a profit, though once their budgets start getting cut (they always do, sooner or later) the benefits will get cut, and start being “politicized”, i.e., punish those darn smokers and fat people, or let them pay more for their own bad choices.

Politics is a treacherous business. Lots of smoke and mirrors. Strange bedfellows. All that. But rarely do YOU come out ahead. Higher taxes, if nothing else.

Those of you who knew the first life of Alcaide’s Cafe know we were ardent fans of the Hubble. We used its awesome photos frequently. We praised it almost every Sunday in a feature titled “Sunday’s Praise”. We lobbied for this last space shuttle mission (scheduled to launch May 11th) and featured a prominent button linking to the “Save the Hubble” group and petition on our sidebar.

I am glad it is going, but I can understand why NASA was originally so reluctant, and why they’ve spent a couple of years training for the mission. Just look at this picture (I’ll improve it after I do some studying up - this is my first image in a post in this incarnation of the Cafe, and WordPress):

Replacing this mess of stuff is just one of five back-to-back similar projects teams of astronauts will “spacewalk” to perform. The others are to install six new stabilizing gyroscopes, six new nickel-hydrogen battery packs, the new data computer and two new instruments, the $126 million Wide Field Camera 3 and the $81 million Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Can you imagine doing that housed in the bulky spacesuits, floating in space, having to make sure not even a tiny screw escape to get into some trouble. It would be a major challenge in a good cleanroom here on earth with days, not hours, to get each done!

I almost feel I should apologize. Instead, I think I’ll salute them (even if they end up failing!) and praise their courage and willingness to serve us all.

Ice Sheet Behavior Much More Volatile And Dynamic Than Previously Thought, Tahiti Corals Show (ScienceDaily, Apr. 30, 2009)

— Fossilised corals from tropical Tahiti show that the behaviour of ice sheets is much more volatile and dynamic than previously thought, a team led by Oxford University scientists has found.

Analysis of the corals suggests that ice sheets can change rapidly over just hundreds of years ….

“It’s amazing just how rapidly these ‘melting’ – or ‘deglaciation’ – events occurred and how enormous the volumes of ice involved were,” said Dr Alex Thomas, from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford University, lead author of the paper. “In the case of deglaciation after the penultimate ice age, before 137,000 years ago, we’re talking about ice sheets – that covered most of the USA and Canada and were up to five kilometres thick – simply vanishing.”….

We are starting to understand that recent observations of changes in ice sheets have not prepared us for just how rapidly the covering of ice across the Earth can fluctuate and that, as yet, we have not identified all the natural phenomena which drive deglaciation.”

Would someone please send this to Al Gore?

Oh, that’s right. There is no more uncertainty, or debate. We know it all, now. And we are certain that the enemy we espied is us! Our fault, the science is clear and concluded, and we must be punished … sent to our caves to think about what we’ve done. We can come out when we are ready to live purely (you know, like Golden Savages, leaving no trash or carbon footprint behind).

 

 

The poster child for the “cause” of embryonic stem cell research was a man (Superman, in fact) paralyzed by spinal cord injury. He, and the lobbyists who used him, played on the public conscience (and ignorance of the actual science of stem-cell research and potential) to demand that there be no economic or policy or ethical bounds to the sacrifice and utilization of any human embryo, that these tiny people-to-be be freely available for dissolution in a testube for use in the search for cures of spinal-cord injuries. Of course, I’m sure you know - at least - many people, scientists included, consider these embryos are extant human lives that deserve at least as much respect, valuation, rights and protections that, say, PETA people accord mice and snails and chickens and cows.

Just a few days ago our new President, Obama, overturned the few limitations the previous President, Bush, had established. Embryonic stem cell research was not forbidden by Bush, but only the use of public (tax) money, which is taken from all of us by force, for the sacrifice of new embryos was banned. The sentiment behind that policy, of course, was a respect for the beliefs of millions of citizens who do not want their taxes used for what they see as murder. Embryos previously killed and cloned were still fair game, and private money was allowed to kill as many human embryos as anyone wanted. So, it was felt, by the previous Presidency, that embryonic stem cell research was still pretty much unfettered whenever the taxed money of conscientious objectors was not paying for it.

It is ironic then that only a few days after Obama overturned the policy, presumably rescuing the hopes of all those with spinal cord injuries, that scientists announced the first successful therapy for spinal cord injury. And it involved not the pirated cells of human embryos, but adult stem cells taken, with no sacrifice of one human life to benefit another, but from adults’ bone marrow!

You can get a quick read on this at: “Stem Cell Administration Study Demonstrates Improved Quality of Life For Patients suffering From Spinal Cord Injury” (ScienceDaily, Mar. 28, 2009)

You know, this particular battleground in the “Culture Wars” is so unecessary. Both sides have such really great and deeply felt concerns; both have sincere moral positions; both, in fact, really have the same hope and desire for the science and medical goals. And I suspect few on either side actually disagree in their empathy and sympathy for the patients who need this next medical breakthrough, and regard for the sanctity of human life. It’s much more the rancorous partisan politics of our time that fuel the actual battle.

By the way, the studies just keep pouring out that show even more how little we actually need to kill our littlest young in order to profit our own selves and future. For instance:

“Testes Stem Cells Can Change Into Other Tissues” (ScienceDaily, Jan. 8, 2009)

“Stem Cell Troops Called To Repair the Body Using New Drug Combinations” (ScienceDaily, Jan. 12, 2009)

“Blood Cells Can Be Reprogrammed To Act As Embryonic Stem Cells” (ScienceDaily, April 21, 2009) 

There are hundreds, I assure you, that have appeared in the “pop science” ezines like Science Daily and more officious journals everywhere. All say the same: Barring ideology or partisan politics, there is/was no need to lift even these slight restrictions on the use of new embryonic cell lines. 

That “Ugly American Syndrome” showed itself again, these past few days, as the “we gotta have our sex” crowd in this country (and a few other parts of the world - mostly the “modern” world) condemned the Pope for his saying that condoms are not the solution to, but part of the problem in the AIDS epidemic.

In tour most modern culture, once ravaged by HIV but now only plagued by it, we believe that condoms are the prophylactic of choice against HIV’s hell … though the fact that HIV still eats its way through our society like the grim reaper’s second-in-command should make us a little bit uncertain … and wonder if it’s more likely that the availability of a number of super (expensive) drugs that is really the more effective barrier between HIV and AIDS that protects us against HIV’s full promise. Condoms, instead, may well be the reason so many still get the disease, even here in our so-clever and educated and technically savvy and well-able-to-buy society that HIV still thrives.

It may be that a condom well-used protects when it is used. But at the same time doesn’t it encourage the sexual behaviors that are needed for HIV to sneak into a life and perpetuate itself? HIV need only wait for the time the condom is not used, or is used poorly, or fails, to score yet another one for the gipper reaper to take his toll. The condom, and human fallibility, may indeed be seen as part of the problem if, as does the Pope, you both know human nature well enough to KNOW that we will keep on keeping on (sexually) but skip or forget, occasionally, our little guardian friend (the condom), and see the problem of HIV more as one of behavior and morality than biology and a little virus.

Were those offended by the Pope not so ready to take offense and condemn anyone who doubts their own wisdom and view of things, those who have been so loudly and vociferously condemning the Pope’s opinion, they might instead see his point … maybe even agree it has some merit … especially regarding that 60, 70, 80 percent of the world’s people where condoms are not so available, or habitual, or understood, or fresh and reliable. Where his moral remedy would guarantee what the condom cannot. Where, in fact, the condom almost guarantees the opposite, that it only encourages what will ultimately keep HIV alive and well as one of the most effective predators humanity has ever faced!

If there’s one constant in American culture and politics that leads our “diplomacy” to nought, vis a vis the Arab and Islamic world, it’s that we blindly (some - remember “The Ugly American” - would say, arrogantly) continue to assume they think exacly like us. That we share most basic values, perceptions, and objectives. They don’t. Their culture is a very different culture, and we never seem to grasp that. And it’s liable to be fatal, someday.

Nothing stands as a better example of that than President Obama’s little “Let’s start over and be friends this time” speech to Iran, the other day. Our people were a little bit shocked when the Iranian leadership dismissed his speech in an almost mocking manner. They looked as if they really could care less, though the truth is, it made their hearts leap with joy. But not for the reasons you might think. To their perception, Obama just confirmed what they are wont to believe every day: We (jihadists) ARE winning, the Americans are beginning to fade!”

I’ve always credited Obama with a bit more street smarts. I gave some of the credit for his great oratorical skills and persuasive ways to the African American male (esp) culture where one just grows up knowing how to talk your way into, or out of, or past any sort of situation or interpersonal challenge. It’s the way of the street. It’s the way people who are often the underdogs, the ones with less power than whomever they must face down or outsmart or placate get by. They talk. Hip hop, trash talk, smooth talk, conning and jiving, all psychological and conversational skills/weapons. But I’ve come to think Obama has spent too many years sharing the white halls of power and culture. He’s lost, or failed to hone, those street smarts so much.

They (the press & media folk) always talk about the “Arab Street” when the politics get rough or contentious. When something we do, or Arab leaders who have grown too like us in their own life of political power amongst the rest of the world (the non-Arab world), causes an adverse reaction, causes raucus and violent protests and demonstarations “in the streets” (where most Arab men spend most their time), we attribute that to the “street”, something we tend to equate with the unwashed, the proletariat, the Islamicists, etc. We don’t understand, that is not just the street, but the desert, the tents, the culture.

Arabs respect strength. Obama didn’t show strength. I even heard a well-known female Arabic reporter translate how she saw his speech (language and style) the next day. She thought it was weak. Almost effeminate. And much more likely to elicit a reaction like my title than one of serious respect or a “Hmmm, this man is serious and means well - maybe we ought to grab the opportunity to work out a new rapprochement.”

Arabs like the fight. They respect a good trick, a clever deception, a victory by cunning. One is honest to his god, his brother, his tribal elders, but not to his enemy. His enemy is a dog. He deserves no respect, no honesty, no quarter. All this talk about how if we treat them kindly and respectfully as prisoners of war they might treat our soldiers decently when captured is just so much ignorant malarky. They will do what we see them doing even to each other in their factional conflicts: burn, pound, drill holes in their knees and legs; rape their women and torture their children; make them suffer as much as possible before killing them with the insult of a beheading. By our values that might seem evil. By their values, it is macho. We are stupid and weak, and effeminate as homosexuals - whom they see as evil! Judging another culture by our own values … that IS the Ugly American at its best!

Obama and his Democratic left might want to do politics and foreign policy as they see fit. They might think it far superior to the hardness of the Republican neocon right. But it is not going to work in treating with the Islamicists and jihadists their sympathizers in the Arab street. If you honestly look at how they work, you’ll see even our neocon hardliners don’t come near their hardliners!