Still blaming Bush!

Only now it's his absence! E.J. Dionne Jr. just can't accept the fact that the health bill is just down and dirty awful. Now it's that the Dems don't have their nemesis and hatred to energize and unite them. Mr. Dionne, there's no there there. This is old, rehashed FDR, early 20th century stuff that has driven Europe to its knees. You've elected a Chicago thug-marxist. Don't be fooled by the Wall Street fat cats he hangs with. Marxists don't mind making oodles of money--they're crooks for goodness sake. The American people don't want this socialist stuff. Stop blaming Bush! Obama never intended to restore the economy, only to destroy it.

"For his part, Obama has not appreciated until recently how closely he has been tied to Wall Street and the banks. He has been too reluctant to underscore how much of Washington's dysfunction has been pushed to new levels by the Republican Party's decision to grind the Senate to a halt. He has tried to make clear the size of the mess he inherited from Bush, but has not sold the country on the extent to which he has begun to clean it up.

Americans may not be sold on anything until unemployment starts dropping. Even then, Democrats will have a tough time making the sale if the process that produced the health-care bill comes to define the image of how they govern the country. Democrats have every right to blame Bush for the fix we're in. They can't blame him for the problems they're creating for themselves."

Friday Family Photo--college 1958

In 1958 I tranferred from Manchester College in Indiana to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to study Russian and Spanish. It didn't hurt that my high school boyfriend studying engineering was also there. However, that didn't last, but there was a young man from Indiana living about a mile from my dorm, McKinley Hall (owned by the YWCA) in Armory House (privately owned) who was studying architecture. Our first date was for the St. Pat's Ball in 1959. These photos were taken the first day of classes 1958 in the dorm room my husband shared with Lou Wozniak. This was truly Mr. Neat living with Mr. Clean. Looking at these photos I'm guessing there wasn't a pencil or hair out of place. He was about 25 lbs lighter, solid muscle (cross country runner) and had curly red hair.

The ghost of capitalism stalked the Copenhagen scam

That's a loose translation of Chavez' speech.

From the Australian: "Then President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation."

Well, if those applauding the demise of our economy want that climate blackmail money, they better hope capitalism isn't a ghost just yet, or they won't get a dime of the billions Hillary has promised them. Marxism is a broke, busted bamboozle that murders its own citizens in every country where it's been tried--maybe 100 million in the 20th century counting China, USSR, Vietnam and North Korea. If Chavez thinks Karl Marx is so great, and capitalism so bad, let him get help and pay offs from Cuba. They're close by. He probably didn't get points ridiculing his buddy, Obama, over the Nobel prize.

However, in a way I have to say that Ahmadinejad and Chavez do have a point. We had it all, and threw it away in our last election by choosing a marxist thug to run a quasi-capitalist economy sinking deep into deficit territory through 70 years of wealth transfers. How smart was that?

Where's our moral right to tell any country how to run its affairs, its industry or its military?

• We have the technology to clean up pollution and to help our neighbors to the south and in Africa both, but not if we let our federal government continue to destroy private business, initiative and free markets. Not if we destroy our fossil fuel industries.
  
  
• We have free elections which Venezuelans and Iranians can only dream about and which would give Chavez and Ahmadinejad nightmares. Yet we reelect the Barney Franks and Harry Reids and wonder why we're in a mess with the White House controlling the Congress.
  
  
• We stay home from the polls and don't object when the left goes to court to aid illegals and the non-registered who were denied the vote.
  
  
• Our president gives away like it was nothing one of our most precious rights--trial by jury--to admitted terrorists who should have been tried by the military tribunals set up by law.
  
  
• We have freedom of religion guaranteed by our Constitution, yet we're fast placing legal muzzles on preachers in the name of gay rights, and our mainline churches are ripping their Bibles to shreds.
  
  
• We're infantilizing huge segments of our population, check any city--Detroit, New Orleans, Cleveland--overrun by helpless poor, and its been run for decades by Democrats, keeping them forever at the bottom, discouraging hope and progress until it's time to vote.

Yes, who do we think we are giving green advice!

Who is behind all this, asks guest blogger Murray

Time Magazine's missed opportunity--photo of the fed up American patriot in Washington DC.
If you’re tired of bad news, I’ll give you some more. I believe we have a behind the scenes enemy with an agenda to destroy our economy--an enemy who has placed Barack Obama in office and is now using him and our legislators to destroy our great country from within. Who, I don’t know, perhaps some form of a secret society. However, if you review the last several years, it leaves little doubt regarding the possibility. This enemy has developed a strategy over many years to create a massive crisis for our great country to bring it down.

Bush and the Republicans were demonized to the point that the people began to hate them. It's still being done every day. If you back a Democrat or Obama into a corner, they start playing the “Blame Bush Game” because they have no other excuse or answer to justify their destruction. I was no Bush fan. I believe that the Bush administration did a lot of things wrong, but the Democrats played a huge role in the downturn of our economy and promoted the excessive spending DURING the Bush Administration and then later turned up the volume as they came into power. They now all deny their participation. Going backwards and blaming Bush solves NOTHING!

Why do I think there is an enemy group behind the scenes? Could one man be this bad all the time all by himself?

1 We have a President who came out of nowhere, who has a questionable background and associations with known communists and who continues those relationships.
2 . . . who signs unread bills laden with PORK after promising to end PORK barrel spending.
3 . . . who constantly blames the previous administration for our economic crisis.
4 . . . who builds his administration with liars, tax cheats and communists.
5 . . . who encourages bribery as a tool to get votes for his agendas.
6 . . . who stymies us with "political correctness".
7 . . . who thinks terrorists and war prisoners should be treated like citizens.
8 . . . who refuses to try to win the wars, puts out timelines for withdrawals and shares our war plans with the enemy.
9 . . . who travels abroad and downplays our great country's past role in the world.
10 . . . who has professed to be Muslim.
11 . . . who has agendas that promise to economically destroy our country.
12 . . . who claims to have created 600,000 jobs when in reality we lost 7 million more.
13 . . . who promotes and finances the activities of SEIU and ACORN and they him.
14 . . . who ignores our Constitution and allows others to do the same in the name of change.
15 . . . who TOTALLY ignores the very citizens that he pledged to work for while they try in every way just to get him to listen to them.
16 . . . who turns a blind eye to illegal immigration.
17. . . who demonizes and attacks anyone who is critical of his actions.
18 . . . who feels the need to constantly campaign to sell his agendas. (While I'm typing this I just seen on TV that Obama is at Home Depot today selling HIS "cash for caulkers" tax credit which is on its 2nd round, but with a new name.)
19. . . who promises us one thing (transparency, for instance) and then does the opposite and lies to the taxpaying citizens on a daily basis.
20. . . who has promoted various hoaxes like Global Warming, Swine Flu, gate crashers, slap the bad guy CEOs hearings, etc., to distract from the damage his administration is trying to accomplish.

All presidents have used some of these tactics and misused their power from time to time, but a watchdog press has been on duty to warn us. Today’s MSM, the mainstream media, are also being controlled by someone. In the past, there has been no group powerful enough to completely control the news. The politicians aren't organized or smart enough. Now there no longer exists any investigative reporting among them. There are only a few outlets for the "behind the scenes" stories that expose what is really happening in our government and to our economy. One being Fox News. ABC, CBS, NBC, all fail to report the facts regarding the destruction taking place every day. All you get from them is a high profile personality with daily drivel. They accept Obama's deception.

The enemy knew there was no way our great country could be taken by force so the way to put it down was the economy. Obama was selected to orchestrate and direct this destruction. They wanted a person that could appear to ride in on his white horse and "save" us from the evil doings of that nasty Bush Administration. The enemy picked a person that could "sell" himself and their agendas. The Democrats were so power hungry that they easily went along with Obamanomics. Besides, it allowed them ample PORK for reelection.

So where are we now and what do we do? Well, if you consider yourself a grass roots taxpayer, middle class or over 65, you're pretty much screwed. Obama, the MSM and the Democrats refuse to listen to the masses. You can call all of them, write to them, e-mail them, march against them and they refuse to respond. The polls all show the masses are not pleased, but the polls get ignored. The grass rooters can say they will just vote them out of office, but the first opportunity isn't until November 2010. While were waiting for that date they are burying us with political correctness, debt., taking away our freedoms, destroying our healthcare, raising our taxes, indoctrinating our children, destroying Social Security and Medicare, devaluing the dollar and expanding their power over us.

Now if you don't think those actions will economically destroy this great country then continue to sit back and relax. Or if you don't think this is what's going on, you could get a job with the MSM and hope you will be able to look your children and grand children in the eye 5 years from now. The unions and community organizers will be doing the same thing in 2010 they did for Obama. They will be hauling anyone that breathes to the polls and falsify registration wherever possible for a Democratic incumbent. Both the Senate and the House voted unanimously to cease funding ACORN but Obama never signed the bill plus a Federal judge in a district court has ruled it UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Also, only about one third of the stimulus money has been spent at this time and that will be released in time for the next election to buy House votes.

Unstoppable global warming

It's waiting for pick-up after I do my mail-run today. There are probably used copies available for sale, but I like to use the public library when I can, since so many of the books I want to read it doesn't buy.

Author: Singer, S. Fred (Siegfried Fred), 1924-
Title: Unstoppable global warming : every 1,500 years / S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery.
Call Number: 363.73874 Si, 2008 c. 1
Item Class: 28 Day Circ 10 Cent Fine 1002145441
Hold Expiration Date: 26-DEC-2009
Pickup Location Name: (20000) Lane Road

From the Amazon review: "Since the 1,500 year cycle was discovered in the early 1980's it's general characteristics have been confirmed by measurements in: tree rings (living, preserved and fossilized), pollen, coral, glaciers, boreholes, stalagmites, tree lines, and sea sediments. The most recent cycles have been recorded in human history with forced migrations, starvation, and disease during the cold portion of the cycle and greater population, expanded farm land, greater crop variety, and extra building during the warm portion.

The causes of the 1,500 year cycle are not well understood although 600 of them have been identified in the last million years. This permits us to be relatively confident that we have been moving into the warm phase of the cycle for the last 150 years. It also suggests that we may have one or two degrees more warming if we are to get to the typical high of the warm phase."

If believing that man controls the climate is part of your humanist based religion and it gives you comfort and makes you feel powerful, you probably wouldn't consider reading a broad overview or even entertain the thought that you are probably sitting on a spot formerly covered by a glacier. So, go look somewhere else for comfort.

Visit a Nursing Home Week in Ohio

It's official. Our governor wants us to visit a nursing home this week.

"The department [of aging] created "Visit a Nursing Home Week" to encourage people to look at nursing home residents not as patients with conditions that need care, but as individuals with thoughts and feelings, some of them isolated from the ones they love, who might appreciate some fellowship, particularly during the holidays. With the help of the Office of the State Long-term Care Ombudsman, the department also encourages facilities to design special events during the week to welcome visitors.

"Many nursing home residents have family and friends who visit them regularly," said Strickland. "Others seldom have visitors and some have no one to visit them. Visitors help residents stay connected to the world around them and give them a sense of friendship and belonging. And that's why this week is so important.""

In the 80s when I returned to Illinois to visit my parents, I'd usually drive to Oregon and visit my grandparents at the nursing home. Anyone would have taken in grandma (despite what you read, most frail elderly are cared for by relatives), but grandpa had dementia, and after 70 years of marriage, she thought it best to go with him.

I don't know any churches who don't have volunteers who regularly visit nursing home residents. All levels of government in developing their social programs take their ideas from the churches, whether it's the penitentiaries or the Peace Corps or universities and colleges. In fact, the volunteers are essential for keeping staff and management on their toes because they might notice things (sores, urinary tract infections, missing glasses, wrong dentures, etc.) that staff miss, although it is usually a family member who spots this first. One time when I was volunteering with Kay, a member of our church who'd had an aneurysm at 18, I heard something that sounded like a bird chirping in the next room. Thinking there might be a trapped animal, I went to investigate. It was an elderly woman left alone strangling in the restraints of her wheelchair. I desperately tried to free her, but couldn't lift her, so I ran to get help. The staff didn't seem any too concerned and just ambled down the hall.

But if you do visit, you need a special heart. Ignore the odors; ignore their desire that you be someone else, perhaps long deceased; ignore your own frailties. Also ignore their forgetfulness that makes them believe and say, "no one comes to visit." You probably passed their daughter or spouse or niece in the hall, and they've already forgotten. Twenty-five years ago, I never heard anyone crying out for "daddy," it was always "mommy." Maybe that will be different 20-30 years from now.

When I was in elementary school, one big event of the season was walking over to "the Brethren old folks home" (now Pinecrest, with apartments, duplexes, nursing care and dementia care) to sing Christmas carols. My friend Lynne includes that in her Christmas story at the class reunion blog.

Jane Hamsher's attack on Hadassah Lieberman

Kathleen Parker at WaPo writes about Jane Hamsher’s attack on Mrs. Lieberman, but never calls her out as a leftist radical. Even "progressive," a much too gentle word for her, isn't used. What’s the deal? Parker blames the “new Media,” and the internet, and defines the attack as “anti-feminist” calling Hamsher a “political activist.” Huh? That’s like calling a terrorist a freedom fighter.

Let’s move on to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood for the real Hamsher story.

After cutting her teeth in the business by producing what many feel is the most offensive and degrading main-stream film of the past twenty years (and, some would say, screwing Quentin Tarantino in the process) Hamsher seems to have finally found her calling as a more abrasive, and dangerous version of Arianna Huffington. With her oddly named blog FireDogLake (named after her three favorite things, sitting by the fire with her dog watching Lakers games) she has created a left-wing haven for bloggers not merely content with attacking their opponents with words, but with some serious action.

Hamsher’s latest foray into the realm of on-line coercion is her latest call to arms is against Hadassah Lieberman, wife of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I, CT). Mrs. Lieberman’s crime? She is the wife of a Senator who has proclaimed his opposition to Obama Care. Hamsher is targeting Susan G. Komen for the cure, a breast cancer charity that Mrs. Lieberman serves as Global Ambassador for. . . through her blog and her tangled web of PACs and non-profits she foments rage and builds momentum and loyalty from extremists who read her pages and then targets those readers on behalf of candidates and authors/film makers who are looking to sell to that demographic.

Hamsher's blog is really ugly, and not afraid of telling off the White House. And apparently, she also used to be Andy Stern's (SEIU) girlfriend (isn't there a huge age gap or is he not aging gracefully?), or still is--didn't bother to go that far. That's how she went from just ordinary leftist wet behind the ears to raging, anti-semitic, racist, obscene, violent radical.

Medical slang and acronyms

Some of these are really awful, or disrespectful, or unbelievably gross. Link. A selection:

AALFD - Another A**hole Looking For Drugs

ALS - Absolute Loss of Sanity (nutcase)

BFH - Brat From Hell (usually accompanied by PFH - Parent(s) from Hell)

Blamestorming - apportioning of blame for mistakes, usually to any locum or lowliest medic in sight

Brothelizer test - microbiology test (on swab or sample) requested by the Genito-Urinary Clinic or STD clinic to check for sexually transmitted diseases. A positive test result means the patient has "failed the brothelizer test".

Coffee and a Newspaper - Patient is Constipated (i.e. long time sitting on toilet with drink and reading matter)

COSMONAUT - Cat Owner, Smells, Made Of Nuts And Used Tampons ("mad cat lady" with poor hygiene and body odour)

D&D - Divorced and Desperate (middle aged female who visits doctor weekly just for male attention) Also Death and Donuts--the night shift

Doc In A Box - a small clinic/health centre, with ever-changing staff.

Donorcycle - motorbike: the biggest cause of donated organs! (hence reckless motorcyclists are known as Organ Donors and rainy days are Donation Days)

Dunlap Syndrome - belly done lapped over the waistband; obese (spare tyre, Dunlop being a brand of tire)

FORD - Found On Road Dead

GOLP - Generalised Old Lady Pains

GPH - Goddamns Per Hour

Improving His Claim - Victim of minor accident, needs no treatment but wants something to support his insurance/legal claim.

Janitor's fracture - a fracture so obvious that a janitor (cleaner) could diagnose it

LFTWM - Looking for 3 Wise Men (applied to young pregnant females who deny having had intercourse)

Lipstick Sign - if a female patient is well enough to put on, she is well enough to be discharged

MGM syndrome - Faker putting on a real good show

OFIGATOOS - One Foot In the Grave And The Other One Slipping

Please Optimize Medical Treatment - don't call us until you've done your job first

Pumpkin Positive - a penlight shone into the patient's mouth/ear would encounter a brain so small that the whole head would light up

Qwertyitis - what a doctor suffers from when he spends more time on a computer than with actual patients

Scumdex - 1 pt for every tattoo, extra piercing, IVDU scar, etc. The higher the scumdex, the greater the likelihood of survival.

Twelve other reasons to stop smoking

Besides the obvious one, death. The list is in the November 14, 2008 US News and World Report. I came across it today looking for the success rate of cessation programs, either medication and/or counseling. I wanted to know this because of the billions the government spends on that through Medicare and Medicaid, and the only former smokers I know who kicked the habit for good, did it without either. Like my Dad, who quit at about 39 when he started coughing up blood (died at 88), and my father-in-law (died at 92) who quit cold turkey around 50 when he reached for that 3rd pack of the day the first time.

So here are 12 other reasons. Link.

1. It fogs the mind. . . smoking in middle age is linked to memory problems and to a slide in reasoning abilities . . elderly smokers face a heightened risk of dementia and cognitive decline, compared with lifelong nonsmokers.

2. It may bring on diabetes. . . current smokers have a 44 percent greater chance of developing type 2 diabetes than nonsmokers do, and the risk was strongest for those with the heaviest habit, who clocked 20 or more cigarettes per day.

3. It invites infections. . . there are very strong data showing that the risk of infection by pneumonia-causing bacteria is substantially greater for smokers than for nonsmokers. . . research suggests that smoking may interfere with immunity, compromising people's ability to fight infections. . . children exposed to secondhand smoke at home during early infancy (especially those born prematurely or with a low birth weight) are more prone to a throng of severe illnesses.

4. It may stultify a sex life. . . Smokers are more apt to experience erectile dysfunction than nonsmokers are, and this risk climbs as the number of cigarettes smoked increases.

5. It may lead to wrinkles...everywhere. . . including the inner arm and perhaps the buttocks.

6. It may hasten menopause. . . chemicals in cigarette smoke can hurry menopause by killing off egg cells made by ovaries, thereby dwindling the egg cell reserve.

7. It may dull vision. Several studies have found a robust link between smoking and eye disease . . . active smokers may face two to three times the risk for developing the disease experienced by those who have never smoked.

8. It hurts bones. Smoking weakens the body's scaffolding and is a serious risk factor for osteoporosis . . . Smokers may also experience slower healing of broken bones and wounded tissues than do nonsmokers.

9. It may injure the insides. . . heartburn, peptic ulcers, and possibly gallstones, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. . . elevated risk of developing Crohn's disease.

10. It may stifle sleep. . . smokers are four times more likely to get nonrestorative sleep than those who don't smoke, and researchers deemed nicotine the likely culprit.

11. It shaves years—and quality— off life. Men who have never smoked live on average 10 years longer than their peers who smoke heavily.

12. Tobacco use and smoking have been linked to much more than lung cancer. . . Lung and bronchial cancer topped the list, naturally, but other types included stomach, pancreatic, kidney, urinary bladder, and cervical cancer.

Extortion, threats, and corruption in the White House

Offutt Airforce Base is being threatened with the BRAC list (closure) if Ben Nelson (D-NE) doesn't fall in line. Michael Goldfarb, the Weekly Standard. That's thousands of jobs--a lot more than the piddling few Illinois will get with transferring prisoners from Gitmo. I'm still trying to find this story somewhere other than the blogosphere. Not that our media is so great about telling us what's going on with the stinks-to-the-heavens in this administration, but this is our security he's threatening, if that is true.

This is a bigger problem than just passing health care. The Democrats, who now have nothing at all to show for this ridiculous bill that's been gutted except a notch in the gun belt of the president, are risking our security. It's going to raise costs, cause rationing, lower the level of care, and there will still be millions of uninsured. It's about power. "Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons."

It's the Chicago way.

Today's new word--archetypal

Again, not new, but can't think that I've ever used it, so I looked it up to find out why. Here's the context. "Polonius (Hamlet) is the archetypal yes-man, a court toady." Doesn't that just bring up an image of Robert Gibbs--Obama's yes-man. He sniffs at Climategate; sneers at Fox as not real news. Toady is such a wonderful word. But I digress. It comes from archetypum, arche + typos, stamped first. Archē (arkay) ἀρχή in Greek means that which was in the beginning, a first principle. It's the word used in the first verse of the Gospel of John, "in the beginning" and numerous other places in the Gospels. "Archetypal yes-man" then means constituting a model for all the court toadies to come.

There are so many delightful words that begin or end with "arch" meaning first in time or first in importance.

•monarch: The sole ruler of a state or country.
•archbishop: The chief bishop of a diocese.
•architect: The chief builder or designer.
•archeology; archeologist: The study of ancient civilizations; a scientist who excavates ancient cities.
•hierarchy: A group arranged in order of rank or grade.
•patriarch: The father or ruler of a family or group.
•matriarch: The mother or woman who rules the family or tribe.
•archdiocese: The district presided over by an archbishop.
•anarchy: Without a leader; absence of government and law.
•archduke: A chief duke.
•archipelago: A sea with a cluster of islands.
•archenemy: Chief enemy.
•archetype: Chief model.
•archaic: Belonging to ancient times; old-fashioned.
•archangel: Chief angel.
List from Word Focus

The real threat from global warming

It's driving politicians mad!

"Global warming just might be the most important problem facing Western civilization after all. Not because of anything the globe is doing, but rather because of the scientifically-proven fact that our politicians have all gone stark raving mad and could well agree to a plan, proposed at the Copenhagen Summit, to cut carbon dioxide emissions--and our economic output--by as much as 95%. . .

The only problem is that carbon dioxide, by any reasonable definition, is not a threat. Not counting our recent cooling period (or somehow massaging it away), the average global temperature, we were told, has increased by 0.6 degrees Celsius since 1900. To put this into perspective, 0.6 degrees is just barely within the human body's ability to detect. The new EPA ruling is not based on any observably harmful changes in the environment. Contrary what Al Gore may have told you, sea levels have not risen, the Arctic ice is melting and re-freezing pretty much as usual (although the amount of ice seems to depend on whom you ask), the main part of Antarctica is colder than ever, and hurricanes have, if anything, decreased in severity. The ruling is based solely on what a small number of scientists, who are psychologically committed to one specific conclusion, think might happen." Link Don't blame science for Climategate.

More arrests at Copenhagen's Hopenchangen

Wonder of Fancy Nancy has wept tears and spoken out against the leftists protesting in Copenhagen. Remember how she slandered the peaceful tea party protesters? Thousands of rowdy leftists--progressives, socialists, marxists and people along for the excitement--waving the Communist international flag--and where is Nancy? With tears. I want to see the tears she sheds over the "tone," violence and anger from the left. She insulted well behaved American patriots, many her age (but without the botox and surgical enhancements). Shame on you, Nancy. You're an embarrassment to your fellow senior citizens! This was said while choking back tears:

"Q: Madam Speaker, in terms of the political tone, the tone of the debate, Hoyer said earlier this week he thought it was the most vitriolic since ‘93-’94. And around that time we also saw acts of domestic violence, domestic terrorism. How concerned are you about the tone of the political debate, in terms of people talking about anti-government rhetoric and so on and the possibility of violence?


Speaker Pelosi: Well, I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country, and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance.

I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this, myself, in the late ’70s in San Francisco. This kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate in which violence took place.

So I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made, so that understanding that some of the people — the ears that it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume." From Caffeinated Thoughts

Who are the Deniers Now?

"A couple of years ago, supporters of global warming theory began referring to skeptics as “deniers” — implying that anyone who doubted climate change should be lumped with Holocaust deniers.

Now the shoe is on the other foot, thanks to the eye-popping e-mail dump that hit the Internet recently and quickly became known as “Climategate.” The response of much of the global-warming “community” has been … denial." Kansas City Star,"At the very least, it’s time for AGW hard-liners to climb down from their pulpits and stop treating every dissent as evidence of evil."

Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)

Unstoppable Global Warming, Every 1,500 Years (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery sums up the theory of human-caused (anthropogenic) global warming:

• Computer models that cannot explain past temperature, let alone accurately forecast future ones, and whose funding depends on the public's fear of radical warming.
  
  
• Activists who oppose modern technology, abhor expanding human populations, and especially hate the low-cost energy that alleviates human poverty and misery. They say we must...renounce attractive lifestyles, give up high-yield farming, shorten millions of lives, and put more pressure on Third World forests for fuelwood.
  
  
• European politicians.
  
  
• Journalists looking for scary headlines.
  
  
• Various national and international bureaucracies and UN-appointed members and staff of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. [p.198] Link

It's on list of books to read.

You don't need Sean or Rush to be a skeptic

Knowing I don't believe that humans control the climate, a friend asked me if I get my information from Sean and Rush. Why she would think that, I'm not sure since she knows how I love research and I question everything, regardless of the political slant and I seriously doubt she ever listens to either one of them. But the librarian in me just has to list this, 500 peer-reviewed papers supporting skepticism. . . Now I wouldn't agree with all of them, however, they represent an interesting span--some back to the early 1980s. But it's important to understand how government and foundation research grants are doled out, how peer-review is done, and how if you're not in the main stream (which could be flowing the wrong direction), you will be underfunded, understaffed, and under-promoted, whether in climate, astronomy, economics, library science, or war games. Even getting a published work to the shelf of a public library is political.

The triple crown of cooling

Joe Bastardi of Accuweather.com thinks we could be in more trouble if the earth cools. He sees the patterns of the past.

Today's new word--greenwashing

Although I've talked about this a lot (I receive all my husband's e-newsletters in architecture, materials, and construction methods), I didn't have a term.

"Greenwashing," a pejorative term derived from the term "whitewashing," was coined by environmental activists to describe efforts by corporations to portray themselves as environmentally responsible in order to mask environmental wrongdoings. The term "greenwashing" was originally confined to describing misleading instances of environmental advertising, but as corporations' efforts to portray themselves as environmentally virtuous have diversified and proliferated, so have charges of greenwashing. The term is now used to refer to a wider range or corporate activities, including, but not limited to, certain instances of environmental reporting, event sponsorship, the distribution of educational materials, and the creation of "front groups." However, regardless of the strategy employed, the main objective of greenwashing is to give consumers and policy makers the impression that the company is taking the necessary steps to manage its ecological footprint. Business Ethics

It is ubiquitous. And the public is very gullible. I'd throw "green jobs" into that mix, too. That's just a grab for government dollars. Greenwashing made the cover of TIME, but I don't read it unless I'm desperate and a copy has been abandoned somewhere, so I missed this very useful word.

Global warming measures and malaria

We've killed a lot of Africans and Asians with our messing around with malaria and other mosquito borne diseases--more than all the wars of the 20th century; more than all the lives lost in the transatlantic slave trade. But we could possibly do something with the money we're planning to throw at an unsuccessful warming trick. Like try to undo the damage.

"Take malaria. Most estimates suggest that if nothing is done, 3% more of the Earth's population will be at risk of infection by 2100. The most efficient global carbon cuts designed to keep average global temperatures from rising any higher than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a plan proposed by the industrialized G-8 nations) would cost the world $40 trillion a year in lost economic growth by 2100—and have only a marginal impact on reducing the at-risk malaria population. By contrast, we could spend $3 billion a year on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for new therapies—and within 10 years cut the number of malaria infections by half. In other words, for the money it would take to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives." BJORN LOMBORG

Unfortunately, to environmentalists a perceived non-threat to polar bears is a bigger deal than a real threat to an African child.

More Al Gore misinformation: Several weeks ago, Mr. Gore claimed on a TV talk show that the earth's core was millions of degrees hot, and at the Copenhagen climate change summit, he claimed new computer modelling suggesting a 75% chance of the entire polar ice cap melting during the summertime by 2014. However, Dr. Wieslav Maslowski, the climatologist whose work the prediction was based on, refuted his claims. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this,” said Maslowski. Go home, Al. Buy a smaller home. Make a smaller footprint. You are an embarrassment.

Watching Glenn Beck

If you're not watching Glenn, if you're only getting him through the George Soros funded marxism filter (Media Matters), you're missing one of the best shows on TV. It's part theater (comedy, mime, silliness), part classroom (lots of blackboard and visuals) part spirituality (heavy redemption theme) and part politics and patriotism (libertarian). The left has no response except to ridicule, call him names, and threaten his sponsors. Because most of his sources and guests are very solid--Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Joe Lieberman, Judge Napolitano (the guy with a hairline down to his eye brows) and he gives them time to talk without interruption, you can actually understand different perspectives.

Recently, he's been going after Robert Creamer, the convicted felon husband of Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. Because Glenn made light of being unable to pronounce her Slavic name, they got all over him and tried to inflame the Chicago Polish community. After that made the rounds of all the lefty bloggers they found out she was of Russian heritage, not Polish. And really, the way names get transliterated and adjusted by the census takers and Ellis Island gate people, who knows how Poles would pronounce it if she were Polish. (I used to work with an Illinois woman 40 years ago who had a Polish surname with a -wiec ending (vee-etts or vee-etch) which she pronounced -wick because she was 3rd generation American and didn't even have relatives who spoke Polish. But Beck was supposed to know. That's the level the left has fallen to--judging not his information, but his pronunciation of a Russian name they thought was Polish. It's not like the Left ever mispronounced BUSH as SHRUB or anything.

I've read through the Media Matters columns (many) on Glenn's Creamer story (from Breitbart TV) and they can't dispute anything Glenn says about Creamer, only that the facts are "smears." I believe Creamer has called him a McCarthyite--problem is McCarthy was an elected official going after the media and celebrities, so what to make of that? A bit like Creamer, one person removed from Congress, and author of the President's health care plan, going after someone in the media and or entertainment field to shut him up, isn't it? I don't know what you have to do in Illinois to get convicted as a felon, but it must be tough. He and his wife were also big Blagojevich supporters--or am I thinking of another Illinois politician?

Did you hear the lefties are now threatening Joe Lieberman's wife because he won't walk the plank for Obamacare? How low can they go?