No Common Sense in Berkeley

The Berkeley City Council recently passed several measures targeting the only Marine recruitment office in town. Instead of defending the recruiters' property rights after they were subjected to defacement (bloody handprints and misspelled signs slapped on their windows) and aggressive picketing and nonstop bullhorn harrassment by the radical anti-war group Code Pink, the city fathers voted to sabotage the center further by granting the protesters special parking privileges in front of the center to facilitate their protests and offered them a free sound permit for six months. In a way that you might treat a porn shop, the council members decided that the protesters needed special license to impede the work of the recruiters, apparently oblivious to federal law that makes it a crime to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States. Shamelessly, the council maintained that they were not against our troops, but only against our government's (read Bush's) policies. Give me a break. This vote was political and partisan. Let's be clear. Code Pink has a right to protest. But the council has no right to grant special rights to one group at the expense of another, and especially not to flaunt federal law. This council acted like a special interest group, not a governing body. Shame on their stupidity, and shame on the message that they are sending their and our children. Seriously, where is their common sense?

Presidential influence

Probably the most underreported aspect of the next presidential election is the impact on the makeup of our Supreme Court. As a general rule, Presidents nominate individuals who broadly share their ideological views. The President may nominate anyone to serve, and a majority of the Senate must approve, to complete the lifetime appointment. Of the current nine justices, four are over 71 years old (one is 87 years old), and two are on the 70-year cusp. It would not be unreasonable to project that one-half of the Court may retire, die, or become diminished in the term of the next President. History tells us that Supreme Court decisions are rarely overturned, and, if so, only occur many decades later. The reality is that the next justice nominations, and the resulting decisions, will shape the law of our land for our lifetimes. Our next President will wield the awesome power to tip the court ideologically. Please look at our candidates with a broad view to the future. Their ideology will be tattooed on their nominations and the resulting court rulings will likely stand for your life. This is not small stuff.

The Real "Inconvenient Truth"

Carbon footprint activists claim that by reducing the burning of fossil fuels, we will produce less greenhouse gases and reduce global warming. That "solution" is junk science and is based on a false premise. Here are some real answers to real questions.

1. Is the world warming catastrophically? NO...Humans have only been measuring global temperature consistently since 1880, and it has warmed only .6C (plus or minus .2C) since then, and at least half of this rise occurred prior to 1950 and prior to any signficant changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

2. Carbon dioxide rising means rising temperatures? NO...Global mean temperatures have both risen and fallen during the period that atmospheric carbon dioxide has been rising, and are well within the range of natural variations.

3. Carbon dioxide is bad? NO...It is an essential trace gas that underpins the bulk of the global food web. Commercial growers deliberately generate CO2 to increase productivity and water efficiency for food crops.

4. Greenhouse is all about carbon dioxide? NO...Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's total greenhouse effect. The other 10% is carbon dioxide and other minor gases.

5. Humans are responsible for the carbon dioxide total greenhouse effect? NO...Humans only account for about 3% of the only 10% of the greenhouse effect. The rest is natural.

6. The Earth's atmosphere acts like a greenhouse? NO...an actual greenhouse acts as a physical barrier to convection (the transfer of heat by currents in a fluid). The Earth's atmosphere actually facilitates convection.

Bottom line: Of all the things that humans can do to the planet, temperature response to carbon dioxide emissions is simply too trivial to worry about. Thank you for "saving the planet", but carbon constraint is nonsense and a distraction to real problems. Better to direct your activism to begging problems like malaria, potable water, AIDS, and sanitation in the Third World.

Good Iraq news is bad for activists

It is said that the winners in war write the history. And, inescapably, peace always follows war. War should not be waged simply to achieve a peace, but history tells that the nature of mankind makes war inevitable and that peace is always a byproduct. Sometimes, the dynamics of a situation make fighting a war now make more sense than fighting a war later. The so-called Axis of Evil in World War II are now all allies of the United States. I find it curious that many anti-war, or liberal, activists are not welcoming the indisputably good news that is coming out of Iraq. By any metric, violent attacks are less than half of what they were a year ago and trending distinctively downward. After all, this kind of news should energize those who claim their true concern is the safety of our troops as it portends the return of them to the U.S. Yet, it also means that we are slowly winning the Iraq war and that conclusion does not fit the template of those who claim the war is a disaster. If the war is not a quagmire and winnable, that would make them...well, wrong. Watch as they move the goalposts and deny the successes even when the news continues to be good, the security responsibilities continue to be shifted to the Iraq people, and our troops begin a steady exodus. My guess is that these activists will conveniently dismiss the military's years of efforts, including the recent Surge operation, and will instead try to claim that their whining, not the military, made our victory possible. Of course, such a lie is mind numbingly absurd and despicable, but let's see if they hijack our media and write the history to fit their political agenda.

Mother Earth

Is the Earth unnaturally warming, and, if so, what are the reasons? Do not look to politicians, celebrities, or CEOs for the answers, their motives disqualify them. Meteorologists and climate researchers agree that the Earth is a dynamic organism that is in constant change. Earth is dependent on the Sun for its life and, absent a catastrophic occurrence (like a collision with a meteor or even a small change in the Sun itself), is always going through changes that take thousands of years. The Earth is warming, but only by a miniscule measurement consistent with its history of slow cooling and slow warming. Recently, Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts concluded that the human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures, and pointed out that the natural cycle of ocean water temperatures, related to the amount of salt in ocean water, was responsible for the miniscule global warming, and that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon. Only 25 years ago, a fraction of a nano-second in Earth's life, our newspapers and magazines were filled with fears of global cooling, not global warming. Taking short-term data to make long-term predictions is simply not consistent with the way Mother Earth works.

Why not report good news?

Did you know that the US budget deficit fell to its lowest level in five (5) years last week? Or that the deficit has fallen by $250 billion over the last three years, and is on course for a SURPLUS by 2012? Or that the deficit stands at 1.2% of the economy (that's half of the 40-year average of 2.4% of our GNP)? Amazingly, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, AND THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, all failed to report any of this dramatic and good news last week in their newspapers. And remember too, this great economic turnabout has been accomplished while we are spending billions to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the US economy has added jobs for 49 straight months, consumer tax cuts have been introduced to encourage business growth, and our federal treasury has enjoyed higher revenues in their tax collections as a result. This is just one example why you should never formulate a position or opinion with only one source. By the way, I'll bet when there is bad economic news, these same newspapers will not ignore, but trumpet it, on their front pages. Sadly, some of today's news disseminators are agenda-driven.

Nobel Peace Prize

Sorry, but the Nobel Peace Prize has become a transparent fraud. Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite but later regretted doing so, endowed the prize and instructed that it go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". This year's winner, former VP Al Gore, has done exactly NONE of those things. He became the second environmental activist to win the prize in the last four years. Wangari Muta Maathal won it in 2004 for planting trees. It can be argued that the peace prize became meaningless in 1992 when it was awarded to literary fraud Rigoberta Menchu whose autobiography was found to be largely fabricated, or in 1994 when Yasser Arafat, that notorious murdering terrorist, was chosen. And don't forget another winner, Kofi Annan, the corrupt UN mastermind behind the Oil-For-Food debacle with Iraq. Sorry, but the Nobel Peace Prize is no longer any more serious an international award than a Miss Universe tiara. If alive to see the fraud it has become, Alfred would no doubt use his dynamite to blow up this now-useless medal.