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What They've Thought
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What They Thought June 19, 2005 WELCOME!
Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
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Alan
Caruba On June 13, USA Today declared that “The debate’s over: Globe is Warming.” That’s another headline you can ignore. The world has been warming ever since the last Ice Age, but it is not rapidly warming in ways that threaten our existence, nor warming in a way that requires the industrialized nations to drastically cut back on their use of energy to avoid the many scenarios of catastrophe the Greens have been peddling since the 1980’s. Global warming is a classic scare campaign initiated by the Greens after a previous effort in the 1970s to influence public policy by declaring a coming Ice Age failed to generate any response. What we are seeing now is yet another worldwide coordinated campaign by the Greens to rescue the global warming theory from the junk heap to which it should be consigned. In early June, the National Resources Defense Council, one of the large Green organizations, declared that, “Global warming is fast becoming the number one environmental problem of our time.” It has organized an Internet campaign led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Sen. John McCain, and other so-called environmental leaders to drum up the fears of people who know little of the real science of the Earth in order to force the US to implement the United Nations Kyoto protocol on “climate control.” Anyone who thinks humans have any control over the Earth’s climate is willfully ignoring the evidence that we have none. The NRDC declared, “The world’s leading scientists now agree that global warming is real and is happening right now. According to their forecasts, extreme changes in climate could produce a future in which erratic and chaotic weather, melting ice caps and rising sea levels usher in an era of drought, crop failure, famine, flood and mass extinctions.” Scary, eh? One huge volcanic eruption could this. As to the weather, it is the very definition of chaos and has been for billions of years. The good news is that leading climatologists and meteorologists are actively debunking this nonsense. One of them, Dr. F. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, is in the forefront. He debunks a June 7 statement issued by several national academies of sciences just before Britain’s Tony Blair arrived for talks with President Bush, saying, “The Statement simply regurgitates the contentious conclusions of the (UN) International Panel on Climate Change report of 2001, which has been disputed by credible scientists. The so-called scientific consensus is pure fiction.” Among the data he cites is the fact that, “Since 1940, there has been a 35-year-long cooling trend and not much warming in the past quarter-century, according to global data from weather satellites.” Moreover, “an extrapolation of the satellite data gives at most a fraction of a degree rise for the 2lst century,” adding that, “The IPCC further claims that the 20th century was the warmest in the past 100 years, but this myth is based on a seriously flawed publication. The IPCC also claims that sea levels will rise by up to nearly a meter by 2100; but every indication is that they will continue to rise inexorably and much less, as they have for nearly 20,000 years since the peak of the last Ice Age.” Bear in mind that the IPCC is a creation of the United Nations and we have all seen how corrupt that institution has become, failing to fulfill its mandate for a more peaceful world while seeking to become a world government that would destroy the sovereignty of the United States and all other nations. Other scientists have joined Dr. Singer to dispute the global warming claims. Paul Knappenberger of the University of Virginia, says of the claims made by the science academies that, “What is missing is the scientific assessment of the potential threat. Without a threat assessment, a simple scientific finding on its own doesn’t warrant any change of action, no matter how scientifically groundbreaking it might be.” What passes for a threat assessment is simply the claims being made. Knappenberger noted, “The fact of the matter is that there does exist a growing body of scientific evidence that the climate changes in the coming decades will be modest and proceed at a rate that will lie somewhere near the low end of the IPCC projected temperature range.” Here’s what you must keep in mind; the IPCC claims are based on what virtually every scientist knows to be seriously flawed computer models for its projections. In short, we are being asked to believe what computer engineers are telling us, not what credible climatologists and meteorologists are telling us. There isn’t a computer model for the world’s weather that can reliably predict the future by more than a week at best. This is why tracking the routes of hurricanes proves so difficult. This is why blizzards often turn out to be better or worse than initial projections. Iain Murray, another scientist, laid into the statement of the national academies for having committed the sin of advocacy. “Climate alarmists in the scientific community now face a long retreat, while the victory of President Bush’s position on the issue seems assured. Even the hopes of European intervention are dashed.” The US Senate unanimously rejected signing the Kyoto protocol many years ago. “Rational nations will not take action if the costs of the action outweigh the benefits,” said Murray of the protocol’s demand for energy caps on emissions while exempting nations like China and India, each with more than a billion people. Meanwhile, in Congress we have people like Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, seeking to introduce legislation that would put “caps” on emissions of greenhouse gases and implementing what is essentially the Kyoto protocol that the Senate rejected long ago. The US Department of Energy has estimated that a cap-and-trade program such as Bingaman proposes would cost $331 billion in lost GDP between 2010 and 2025. Other Senators like McCain and Lieberman have similar strategies. Caps are idiotic and, in my view, treasonous. There is no scientific consensus. There is only the manipulation of public opinion and the effort to influence public policy. There is no rapid global warming and no way that any limits on energy use could have any effect on it if it did exist. Global warming is a classic scare campaign and we may well be witnessing its last desperate gasps as more and more scientists step forward to debunk it |
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R.A.
Hawkins Several years ago when we didn’t have a real first lady, from 1992 until 2000 — and even prior to 1992 — all one had to do in order to get a liberal to be nice to you was claim to be Jewish. I remember battling it out on political message boards and being called a Nazi repeatedly by radical leftists. I decided to try something and put the Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership link into my tagline for my posts. The strangest thing happened. Suddenly I was their best friend. I suspect that if I were to do that today I would get something along the lines of “Zionist pig.” There has been an accidental unveiling of the left. Reagan was once asked a question in a debate and the reporter asking the question referred to him as being right wing. He calmly explained that if one goes all of the way to the left, one gets Stalin. If one goes all of the way to the right, they find Hitler. He said he preferred to be called a little right of center because if you draw it out on a piece of paper and fold it, Hitler and Stalin fold together and there’s no difference. There is actually only free and not free. Tim McVeigh said in an interview that the far right and the far left have much more in common than either side realizes. He predicted that the far right and left would one day come together. I didn’t find his words to be very comforting. The sad truth is that it is happening. These days when I receive a nice steaming email from one of the wings — left or right — it is very difficult at times to determine which side they come from. Those who are from the far right are usually filling their letters with a wide variety of Yiddish words in order to convince me they have done their homework and know of what they speak. One individual told me that Bush announced the start of the war with Iraq at the beginning of Purim as a present to his Jew masters. In 2003, Purim started on March 18th. I ignored his claim because I knew it was ridiculous. When I first answered his email I told him I wasn’t sure but he might actually be writing his letter on that day to celebrate…and then I copied a bunch of unrelated events that happened on the 11th of June. The only reason I bothered with this is that he said I was suffering from my "Jew training." He said he was "going to help" me. But the next day I decided to let him have one more salvo. I looked it up. It turns out that Bush announced the war had started on March 19th. I answered just about everything he had commented on, and when I was done I told him that my Jew training sure did help me. I could read, write, add, subtract and even understand a calendar. This individual also told me about a speech that Benjamin Franklin made regarding keeping the Jews out of America. I just couldn’t seem to locate it either. Of course that is because it never happened. The only pages where I found mention of it had been smart enough to replace the swastika with a happy face, except for one, which refuted it. I first started writing columns again when the war was starting. As I sought out pages to submit to, I noticed something very interesting. It was difficult to tell left from right on some of those pages. Just about all of them seemed to have a link to the Rachel Corrie story. That was that nice girl that stood in front a bulldozer in Israel and became one with the street. Of course the bulldozer was huge and the driver couldn’t have seen her, but it was still the operators fault. Israel had done this to her intentionally. It didn’t seem to matter to either the left or the right-wing pages that carried the story that she liked to give lessons to the Palestinian children on how to burn the American flag because, like them, she hated this nation to its very core. On those web pages, I notice references to Dr. Condoleezza Rice using the same terms once used to refer to the female slave that got to live in the master’s house. In the letter I was referring to above he called her "Congo." Looks like all of that hate is loosening tongues. The hatred coming from the right which used to be directed at Clinton hadn’t subsided by the time Bush got into office. Once hatred began to grow on the left, the two sides began to merge. That hatred is the glue that binds and holds this delicate little folding of Reagan’s paper together. There are now left and right-wingers that side with Aztlan which wants to annex part of America back to Mexico. They all side with the Palestinians. Farrakhan’s people side with the Palestinians. All of these groups will end up sitting in the lap of Al-Qaeda because of a common cause. They will be able to cast aside their hatred for each other temporarily for that common cause. Do you know where David Duke was when the FBI raided his house? He was in Russia. A convergence between
the radicals of the right and the left has been one of the long-term
goals for the Russian or Leninist dialecticians. Dean is trying to sound
concerned by the anti-semitism growing in the Democratic quagmire. It
might be genuine, but I can guarantee you that there are a few of them
sitting back, smiling and high-fiving it when nobody is looking. Tally
ho, you KGB jerks. It’s working. You’ve created a bunch
of little Eichmanns who call everyone else little Eichmanns. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of pain. And not just pain, but severe, crippling pain—the kind of pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. For years, people in less than a dozen states have been smoking medical marijuana to help cope with such things as brain tumors and multiple sclerosis. The federal government, however, sees such attempts at pain relief as selfish. These people are undermining the war on drugs, the feds say. And, last week, the Supreme Court agreed. In a 6-3 ruling, the court confirmed that federal anti-drug laws overrule state medical marijuana laws. Federal power is far more important than some cancer-havin’ stoner’s excruciating pain. So now the feds can feel free to bust anyone who smokes, grows, prescribes, or distributes medical marijuana, even if they live in one of the few states where doing so was approved democratically. Why is it the American government so hates average Americans? I’m not really being facetious here. I think a strong case can be made, based on this decision, that the government actually hates and despises ordinary people—that they, in fact, wish pain on us. I’ve discussed a number of civil liberty issues in my column the last few years. We can argue all day about forced mental screenings and the Patriot Act. But this goes beyond civil liberties. It goes beyond federal thugs tapping your phone and rummaging through your sock drawer. This ruling gets to the basic core of human decency. Here you have people with terrible, painful afflictions, who smoke pot because, God forbid, it actually makes them feel better. And Washington wants to stop them? What the hell for? Do they like watching people with tumors writhe in pain? Is that somehow fun for them? The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. A few months ago, we learned that this includes the performance-enhancing drugs so popular amongst kids and Major League Baseball players. Now we learn that it includes legally prescribed pain relievers like marijuana, too. According to the Supreme Court, state medical marijuana laws are a problem because marijuana grown for in-state use could easily find its way to the interstate market. And since marijuana isn’t legal on the national level, the feds are therefore entitled to stem its production state-by-state. Well, that’s great. But what I want to know is, why does Washington care so much? What, exactly, are they trying to stop? I’m not the kind of guy who rails against drug companies. I think drug companies do plenty of good. But I also think the pharmaceutical industry is like the skinny immigrant pool boy living in the FDA’s secret backyard shed. I mean, the FDA-approval process seems like a mutually beneficial relationship to me; both the agency as well as the companies stand to make a fortune off it. Which is fine, you know. They’re entitled to make money. But medical marijuana is a homegrown remedy. It’s out of the loop. Could that be why Washington worries about it? And, if so, wouldn’t it kinda, sorta be wrong? I’m not the kind of guy who rails against oil, either. People treat it like it’s the Blood of Satan. I’m not sure I agree with this viewpoint (I’ve always imagined Satan’s veins coursing with Ovaltine), but I do have my suspicions about the oil companies. After all, the use of oil is deeply embedded in our society. Yet there’s apparently a limited worldwide supply of it, and a small number of people control every last drop. Industrial hemp is a renewable, eco-friendly natural resource, and some say it’s the perfect alternative to many synthetic, oil-based products. But since hemp is marijuana’s cousin, Washington doesn’t want us to use it. Doesn’t this seem a bit fishy to you? Or at the very least, a bit stupid? I realize it sounds like your basic stoner conspiracy theory, but I’m neither a stoner nor a full-time conspiracy theorist. I just think it’s weird how the oilmen in the White House care so much about cancer patients rolling joints. It’s hard to believe that Washington’s anti-pot stance has anything to do with the drug’s ill effects. Marijuana’s track record is probably better than anything ever approved by the FDA. (Painful four-hour erections, anyone?) And while it’s true some pot-smokers smoke their lives away, other people gamble, shop, and argue their way into similar oblivion. Self-destruction is self-destruction, with or without marijuana. Most of the people who smoke this stuff simply eat some Doritos and go to bed. (Heck, I’m a beer man, and I usually do the same thing.) But that’s beside the point. Even if recreational marijuana remains illegal, even if it’s the worst thing you can do short of stapling your face to the living room carpet—there’s still no reason why medical exceptions can’t be made. I don’t know if the American government “hates” us, per se. They may have the best of intentions here. But if anyone stands to benefit from their medical marijuana policies, it’s them—not us. People like to call marijuana a gateway drug, but, if you ask me, the true gateway drug here is absolute power. Washington took its first hit of the stuff when the threat of secession ended in 1865, and they’ve been gobbling up other checks and balances like Robert Downey, Jr., on a weekend coke binge ever since. If America is truly built on Judeo-Christian principles, let’s see some Judeo-Christian compassion here. The greatest political rebel of all, Jesus Christ, illegally healed people on the Sabbath; he told his detractors the law took a back seat to helping those in need. The same should hold true in the modern USA. If Jesus could scoff at the law in order to make people feel better, shouldn’t we? Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Being literate is more than just being able to read words. There is a world of experiences which children and adults can appreciate more fully if they can extrapolate from what they have previously encountered and apply it to new situations. Obviously the more you learn, the more reserves you have from which to draw upon when faced with unfamiliar circumstances. This is why the learning experience is never ending. How sad for those who find no joy in discovery. Because I am an avid reader, I have developed into a person who knows something about everything and everything about, well, some things. I now make my living doing research. On a computer, links to more information are somewhat of a black hole for me because I can't help but click on them. I'm just that curious about how people, places, and events impact our world. But it is more than that. Every once in awhile I stumble across some new development and I get a strange sense of foreboding. In these cases, my mind (which is like one giant graphic organizer) starts making connections to similar feelings and the previous catalysts for my reaction. Faced with this situation, I am compelled to write about my thoughts in the hope that my words and my instincts can some how change the course of events. Such is the case when I read in this week's Education Gadfly (Fordham Foundation) how in Philadelphia, students are going to be required to take a year-long course in African and African-American history — written by an "Afro centrist". Everything I read about this gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. The link that I went to in my own head ended up in science fiction. This is because there are so many children and adult books which deal with futuristic scenarios where freedoms, (in this country so taken for granted) are limited or non existent. No good can come of placing more emphasis on the events and experiences of one race over that of another in our public schools. That is the very complaint that American minorities voiced back in the 1960's when they felt that the white male experience was over represented in our textbooks — to the detriment of women and a variety of ethnic groups. This is the reason why our government cannot endorse one religion over another. All groups are to receive equal treatment under the rule of law. Implementing a curriculum in which a theme of black oppression dominates, is simply trading inequities. Our founders envisioned equal opportunity for all when they put together a constitution to protect our God given right to life, liberty, (property) and the pursuit of happiness. Some compromises they made to accomplish this goal (3/5ths sticks out) are something that most freedom loving people are not proud of. But this very same document allowed our country to grow, eventually righting injustices. No curriculum should provide a narrow interpretation of the experiences that form our history. There should be no editorializing of events in any Social Studies classroom in any public school. Facts should be presented, a variety of interpretations offered, and students should form their own conclusions. School should be a place where students learn from the past so that they can approach the future with prior knowledge of what can go right and what can go wrong under a variety of circumstances. They should not leave school with a chip on their shoulders about what they owe or are owed because of circumstances which were beyond their control. An "Afro centric" curriculum is by its very nature damaging because it revolves around one group's experiences at the expense of another. Nancy Salvato Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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The culture war is real and is a struggle to the death. Civilization hangs by a thread, that has just been frayed - by a judicial majority - bent on the eradication of all traditional morality. By striking down a ban on gay sex and invalidating a Texas law against "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex", it has validated the road to perdition. If any diehards had any doubts about the sorry state of the law in the new American millennium, all qualms should be put to rest. Total depravity is the supreme law of the land. Fellow citizens, this decision is not about sex, it’s about the abandonment of every canon of responsible moral behavior. A despotism of the judiciary, is the worst kind of tyranny, because it cloaks its oppression under the protection of the law. This nation can no longer survive under the dictums of a federal bench. This continent was settled by people who sought to worship freely and organize communities of like minded residents. The moral foundations that underpinned their legal and social institutions, formed the basis of their governmental structures. Individual states possessed their own sovereignty. Inhabitants were free to move if practices of civil government conflicted with the conscience of any citizen. The most profound values and right to govern is now prohibited upon the torso of vile pretension, by a degenerate court. Texas, or any other state, is wholly within their rights to legislate and adjudicate their own rules for decent behavior. States Rights are legitimate, especially within the context of community standards. Ineffective attempts to force an official perverted version of moral conduct, that panders to lost souls, only invigorates the remaining moral remnants. Decent Americans will not accept anymore authoritarian assaults upon traditional values. The legitimacy of “federalism” has been betrayed one time too often. This union under a central dictatorship deserves to wither, as willful consent is withheld from any federal authority. If the intent of the relative law is supreme, respect for principled criterion of civilized values and social coexistence is impossible. Our form of government was never envisioned to be perfect. But it was intended to allow people to govern themselves in ways that conform to their most precious beliefs, values and expectation. Living in a moral cesspool is not an option. But willingly accepting the pronouncement of a sick court is sheer insanity. Our counsel has consistently advocated civil disobedience. How many more insults to your own dignity will you tolerate before you rebel? Is there anyone left to fight, or has the vast plurality of that old “moral majority” died decades ago? Unless states take back real power from the federal monster, no citizen is free to select their own way of living. If Sodom and Gomorrah is your thing, dwell in your own misery away from normal families. Turning the entire country into a celebration of porn, is not acceptable. The time has come to separate these lifestyles permanently. “THE Court” is a pimp of totalitarianism. While they pronounce on every form of moral decay with approving eyes, proper people are left with dismay as to the decline of their society. Maybe most folks no longer care about a worthwhile future! Surely, very few do anything to challenge the lunacy of this “PC” degradation that passes for the popular culture. Individual freedoms are wishful fantasies, when a conservative community is coerced into tolerating the methodical destruction of their society. The absence of protest from organized religions will be deafening - they need to protect their tax exempt status. What is the next heresy that they will accede to in order to preach their artificial message? Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority: The law "demeans the lives of homosexual persons”, cuts to the core of the ruin of our nation. Where is the outrage for their demeaning of us? What happened to that cherished public welfare clause and where is that equitable action from this court? Do they really believe that abandoning the man woman relationship can be a substitute for the traditional family? What history did this justice learn? Justice Scalia said the Texas law was "well within the range of traditional democratic action" and should not have been overturned. Justice Scalia added the ruling was "the product of a law-profession culture that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda" and reflected a decision by the Supreme Court to "take sides in the culture war." "Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions," Justice Scalia concluded. The significance of this ruling is that sane Americans no longer can give lip service to federal legitimacy. No, it has been replaced with fellatio of a retrograde coitus, pushed down our throats. The rogue majority on the Supreme Court reflects the carnality that their lust for total domination desires. They want to make you submissive to their every whim. Expanding a “living law” is no eternal standard. Common to any pervert is the passion for control. The federal monster is a rapist and you have just been violated, again . . . I will not be the next sacrifice to the Marquis de Sade culture. The Quill that was used to form this nation was never intended to be used to destroy the family. What will it take for you to revolt?
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©2004-2005 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
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