Life After Clinton

I just listened to a replay of today’s “Meet the Press” on the radio, at least the roundtable.  All talk was about the Democrat race:  blacks have come far; Clintons have fallen farther. It struck me that the pundits–liberal Democrats all–seemed to have forgotten that another vote happens in November.  Instead of deep analysis of the McCain-Obama face-off, Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert were handicapping Obama’s cabinet picks. 

Late in the segment, the team returned from 2009 as conversation turned to Hillary as veep.  “No way” was the consensus, relying heavily on David Broder’s logic:  Obama must demonstrate that he is his own man by rejecting Hillary just as Reagan rejected a Blue Blood Republican attempt to install Gerald Ford as Reagan’s running mate in 1980.

No year in my life has so resembled a previous year as 2008 resembles 1976.  Both the American and world economies are threatened by spiraling oil prices, talk of shortages, and the need for alternative fuels.  As in 1976, in the shadow of Love Canal, the environment is now the left’s favorite tool in its perpetual scheme to destroy capitalism and replace it with a soviet paradise.  And Americans seem ready to turn to far left liberalism in both domestic and foreign policy to solve these problems. 

The Economy

The economy’s handlers–the Fed, Congress, investment banks, institutional investors–are hamstrung by their own actions and greed. Like his predecessor in 2000, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, overestimated the economy’s strength in 2006 and early 2007.  By the time he started cutting interest rates, the economy was headed south. 

The White House and Congress, pre-occupied with micro-managing the Army in Iraq, also missed its cue.  Most Americans, myself included, still don’t have the stimulus check.  By the time it arrives, it will pay for necessities, not the luxuries that actually fuel the economic engine in America these days.  

In the meantime, the fed has cut interest rates so low that it has little or no room for further cuts.  Even if it does cut further, there is no indication that oil and gasoline prices (followed by food prices) will not rise to absorb any additional cash in the economy.  One could argue that the recent surge in oil and gas prices (to $138 a barrel and $4 a gallon, respectively) is a direct result of the stimulus package.  If so, by my calculations, those prices will increase another 20 percent each after the last check arrives. 

The jump in unemployment to 5.5 percent from 5.0 percent in May is only the latest symptom of these economic problems.  Others will follow.  In the 1970s, we had “stagflation,” a combination of high inflation (12 percent) and a stagnant economy.  We also had a “misery index” that measured inflation+unemployment, often over 20.  The usual market balancers failed, largely because of high taxation, increasing regulation and interest rates that were too high to stimulate growth but too low to choke inflation.  At that time, fuel and food were included in the inflation number, but we stopped counting those staples in the 1980s.  If you put them back, inflation is running at 12 percent a year. 

The Environment

In 1976, we were worried about a coming ice age, littering, and smoke stacks.  Today we’re worrying about universal tropics, water shortages, and smoke stacks.  According to environmentalists, the massive restrictions in human freedom wrought by three decades of environmental activism have made matters worse.  Jerry Ford was almost as ecological (as we called it then) as was Jimmy Carter.  John McCain is almost as green as Barack Obama.  Either man will institute regulations and taxes that will further the damage a weak economy and handicap a healthy one. 

The good news is that the plebiscitary spasm about the environment will end when people need to find work and shelter.  The bad news is that Congress and Presidents won’t need to find work or shelter until after a couple of election cycles.  That means that misguided environmental policies inspired by non-science promoted by the fraudsters Al Gore and Michael Mann will put more people out of work and out on the streets until Bobby Jindal takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013. 

Liberal Bias

Every so often, the American electorate becomes lib-curious.  It happened in the 1970s, the 1960s, the 1930s, and whenever Woodrow Wilson ran for President.  This is not a permanent condition. It builds until a true liberal gains the White House and has Democrat accomplices in both houses of Congress. Most times, the people give the Dems 4 years to really screw things up.  (Clinton was a quasi-liberal, but in 1994 we were still smart enough to recognize a bad thing and returned the House and Senate the GOP.) 

This year, I expect the race between Obama and McCain to look a whole lot like Carter-Ford in 1976.   By Labor Day, Obama will have a seemingly insurmountable lead.  By October 31, that lead will be less than 5.  By election day, it will be too close to call.  By noon the next day, Obama will emerge victorious and the Democrats will widen their margins in the House and Senate.

Conclusion

By this time next year, the people will ask for a Mulligan.

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An Inconvenient Ice Age

Part I

The sun is the source and cause of all weather.  The aggregate of weather is climate.  When the sun changes, climate changes. 

These are irrefutable truths of science, even though Dr. Mann, Al Gore, and the global warming hysteriacs skipped that chapter in their science books. 

Part II

The downside of global cooling, or ice ages, is far worse for humanity and most species of fish, plants, and animals than the worst predictions of global warming.  Warming four degrees over 100 years might challenge or kill hundreds of species.  Cooling 5 to 10 degrees in 50 years would thousands and thousands beyond those destined for extinction on purely evolutionary grounds.

Part III

The evidence that the world is on the precipice of a new ice age far outweighs the evidence that it is on the verge of catastrophic warming.

Referring to the chart below, meteorologist Anthony Watts describes with frightening eloquence a solar event that took place three years ago:

Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels, almost as if something “switched off”.

Today, Mr. Watts found a disturbing scientific paper with an ominous conclusion.  The domain jargon might be foreign to you, but it provides a beautiful set up to the final sentence (speaking literarily):

A linear fit to the changing magnetic field produces a slope of 77 Gauss per year, and intercepts the abscissa at 2015. If the present trend continues, this date is when sunspots will disappear from the solar surface.

On Financial Post, Lawrence Solomon describes circumstances the last time the sun failed to spot:

The consequences of the Little Ice Age, because they occurred in relatively recent times, have come down to us through literature and the arts as well as from historians and scientists, government and business records. When Shakespeare wrote of “lawn as white as driven snow,” he had first-hand experience – Europe was bitterly cold in his day, a sharp contrast to the very warm weather that preceded his birth. During the Little Ice Age, the River Thames froze over, the Dutch developed the ice skate and the great artists of the day learned to love a new genre: the winter landscape.

As a hockey player and winter-lover, all sounds great.  But as a man who must commute to work, who must earn a wage, and who must heat a home, the next paragraph sounds frightening:

In what had been a warm Europe , adaptations were not all happy: Growing seasons in England and Continental Europe generally became short and unreliable, which led to shortages and famine. These hardships were nothing compared to the more northerly countries: Glaciers advanced rapidly in Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America, making vast tracts of land uninhabitable. The Arctic pack ice extended so far south that several reports describe Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland. Finland’s population fell by one-third, Iceland’s by half, the Viking colonies in Greenland were abandoned altogether, as were many Inuit communities. The cold in North America spread so far south that, in the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, enabling people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.

While the global warming hysteriacs drive their hybrids to Whole Foods for some organic alfalfa sprouts and Ethos water, the wise will plan for the cold.  The last time climate turned cold, the world changed.  The New World was settled.  The Protestant Revolution erupted.  Confined to their homes, people demanded that Gutenberg invent the printing press to give them something to read (or something like that). 

Anyway, Tom Buchanan was right the second time:  the sun is getting colder every year. 

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Before Al Gore . . . there was Tom Buchanan

"I read somewhere that the sun’s getting hotter every year," said Tom genially.  "It seems that pretty soon the earth’s going to fall into the sun–or wait a minute–it’s just the opposite–the sun’s getting colder every year."

                                                         –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Now, read this [click]

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FOXNews.com – Solar-Powered Speedboat Goes on Sale in Netherlands – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

Here’s some environmental-like news I like.  

Dutch researchers at the Technical University of Delft have developed what they say is the world’s first solar-powered speedboat, and it’s got all the luxurious trimmings one would expect.

FOXNews.com – Solar-Powered Speedboat Goes on Sale in Netherlands – Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

No, I’m not panicked about greenhouse gasses, I do like effective methods of starving the oil barons in the Middle East.  A luxury boat that runs on sun power is one great start.  Now, if they can do the same for my Jeep Commander, all would be well.

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Global Warming Dying Fast

The global warming hoax of the past decade, which reached a climax in 2006-2007, is in rapid decline.  I’m no longer the only one noticing it.    Add to that the news of a couple weeks back that no one in an ABC News poll of 1,197 US adults named Global Warming as an issue in this year’s elections.  No one.  Nada.  Zip.  Ain’t huntin’. 

In desperation, then, Al Gore today pronounced the Myanmar Hurricane a result of non-existent global warming. 

Al Gore makes money on global warming.  So today’s pontification is, effectively, his attempt to cash in on a tragedy–like the carpetbaggers who descent on natural disasters and bilk the people out of their remaining cash on the promise of repairing their homes.  (Many, many sincere carpenters and constructors also travel to disaster scenes to help.  I’m not calling them out or comparing them to Al Gore.)

What does this mean? 

It means that it’s okay to swim against the theoretical flow.  It’s okay to enjoy your SUV, to not say you’re “green,” to eat beef, to keep comfortable, to put real bygod gasoline into your car, to cut the lawn with a gas mower, then fire up the grill to seer some steaks.  Pop a Budweiser, releasing the naturally produced CO2.  The greenhouse bubbles will help carry the aroma of hops and natural beechwood aging to your olfactory nerves, enhancing the beverage’s crisp, satisfying flavor.

You earned it, my friend; you survived Global Warming.

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Draw a Pig, and Know Yourself

Bill
Click to view my test results

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Abortionman

Michelle Malkin points out a skit on YouTube by comedian Damon Wayans:  Abortionman.  Michelle asks:

Is Wayans really trying to send an anti-abortion message here? Or is this just sophomoric, exploitative garbage masquerading as faux social criticism?

I’m a hyperbolist, myself, so I tend to see this as sophomoric anti-abortion speech.  Sure, it’s exploitive: it exploits those who treat infanticide as a coin-flip decision.  It exploits the moronic pro-abortion arguments the dehumanize unborn children.  We on the anti-abortion side see the light treatment of a type of murder that happens thousands of times a day.  The other side sees the light treatment of assault and battery. 

I suspect most pro-abortionists also find the video acceptable and feel the young lady got what she deserved for selling out her sister by deciding against abortion.  To the left, every live birth is a crime.

Click Here to take survey

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Survey

Please take a minute to answer 10 quick questions about plastics and the environment. This will help me greatly with an environmental sciences class.

Thanks,
Bill

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Survey: Environmental Cost of Plastics

Please take a quick, 10-question survey on the environmental cost of plastics. 

This survey is for an environmental science class, and will help me get a good grade.  Please forward this link to anyone you know might want to help me with this survey.  I need at least 25 responses, but the more, the merrier.

http://hennessysview.plastics.sgizmo.com

Thanks, in advance, for your help.

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