Conservative for Change

Zionism=Nazism-The Great Lie

2010-03-17T15:22:00.000-06:00

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

This essay first appeared on Grizzly Groundswell

Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels
He would be proud.

The opponents of Israel has been pushing the idea that Israel is taking on the characteristics of the Nazis as they fight to defend themselves. In actuality, Israel's enemies don't really recognize Israel's right of self-defense since they regard her as an illegitimate state. The charge of Nazism by Israel/Zionists is not a new one, but it is being used with greater frequency in the light of recent fighting between the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the terrorist groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, and Hamas in Gaza at the turn of the year 2008-2009. The idea of comparing Israel to Nazism is absurd on its face.

Much of the accusation is based on charges that in both of the above conflicts, Israel deliberately targeted civilians for death and, in effect, is attempting to commit genocide against the Palestinian people-a charge ridiculous in itself. It is true that civilians died in both conflicts. Civilian casualties in war are eventually inevitable. In Israel's case, they went to great lengths to avoid innocent casualties even as both Hezbollah and Hamas used the tactic of fighting from behind human shields in apartment complexes, schools and hospitals. In effect, they wanted their civilians to die so as to show a willing international media how bad the Israelis were. The media complied-virtually ignoring the causes of both conflicts. In the case of the Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, it was a result of Hezbollah ambushing and kidnapping two soldiers from across the border. (After the fighting, those soldiers bodies were returned, dead, of course and showing signs of severe torture). In the case of Gaza, it was in response to hundreds of rockets being launched into southern Israel, many of which landed in schoolyards. During the resultant conflicts, the international media paid scant attention to the above as well as Hezbollah rockets lobbed into Haifa in 2006 forcing that city's residents into bomb shelters.

It is also conveniently ignored that in both conflicts, Israel dropped millions of leaflets warning residents in certain areas to clear out. In addition, automatic phone calls were made to residents giving them the same warnings. Contrary to Hamas' propaganda, the Israeli allowed outside humanitarian aid into Gaza during the conflict.

The Nazis never did those things. To be honest, neither did the Allies in World War II. German and Japanese cities were leveled knowing that tens of thousands of civilians would be killed. We were in effect, trying to destroy the will of the Japanese and German people to continue the war. I myself have visited Hiroshima, and it is a profoundly moving experience. This does not mean that I am condemning what we did in World War II. We were fighting for our very survival against two evil regimes that were committing horrible atrocities in the lands they had conquered and occupied.

But back to the comparison between Nazis and Israelis/Zionists. Some questions are in order.

Are the Israelis persecuting their Arab minority living within Israel proper-as the Nazis did to the Jews? No. Arabs/Muslims in Israel enjoy more freedom that they would in any of the neighboring Arab dictatorships. Have Israeli Arabs ever had to wear distinctive clothing in Israel marking them as Muslims or non-Jews?

Has there ever been an Israeli version of Kristalnacht against Arabs or Muslim in Israel? No.

Kristalnacht-November 1938-burning of synagogue in Michelsberg.

In contrast, ask yourself whatever happened to the centuries-old Jewish communities in Arab lands after 1948. The fact is that they were driven out. Today, only a few thousand remain here and there. Yemen's last remaining Jews are trying to get out of that country-where they had lived for centuries- as fast as they can due to persecution.

Do Israeli newspapers and magazines contain perverted images of Arabs or Muslims similar to Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer of the Nazi era? No-but neighboring mainstream newspapers in the Arab world still portray Jews in cartoons similar to Steicher's anti-Semitic images. Here are just a few examples:

Nazi newspaper "Der Stuermer"-headline reads, "Jewish murder plan against non-Jewish humanity uncovered."

The Jewish Blood Libel
Web site of the Arab European League, February 2, 2006

Al-Watan (Oman)
February 3, 2004

There are hundreds more like these that are regularly printed in the Arab media. They are readily available on the Internet. Have you ever heard about Jews rioting over these cartoons?

Who are the real Nazis?

Did the Nazis allow Jews to continue in the Reichstag? Or the universities? The answer is no. Are the Israelis excluding Arabs from teaching or engaging in politics? No. Are the Israelis forcibly taking over Arab businesses and giving them to Israelis? No. Are the Israelis burning down mosques in Israel? No.

Is there anything in Israel comparable to the so-called Nuremberg Laws of 1935 which formally encoded the Jews' status as second class citizens? No. Israel is a democracy, where the rights of minorities are protected-unlike its neighbors, none of whom are democracies.

Do the Israelis punish their citizens for marrying across ethnic or religious lines? No-but Muslims do-they forbid a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim. The penalty is death. That may not be encoded in the legal code of any Muslim nation, but it is part and parcel of Islam. In contrast, Jewish women intermarry all the time.

Eisenach 1940-The sign says, "I am a race-defiler"

Aryan woman and Jewish man in Nazi Germany (same wording on sign)

Other than retaliating or trying to stop armed aggression against them from their neighbors, what countries has Israel invaded and occupied as did Germany, which took over almost all of Europe? True, they have gone into Lebanon in an attempt to defeat those who were at war with them and trying to deny their right to exist, but there is no Israeli desire to make Lebanon part of Israel. Had not Syria, Jordan and Egypt not attempted to destroy Israel in 1967, they would not have lost the Golan Hts, West Bank and the Sinai, which Israel occupied as buffer zones. Can anyone seriously suspect that Israel wants to take over Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and all the other nations of the Middle East? Along those lines, did Nazi Germany ever negotiate peace treaties with any neighboring countries by which they gave up disputed land? No.

Had the Arab world accepted the 1948 UN decision to partition the Palestine area into two states, which Israel accepted, probably none of this conflict would have resulted. The Arab world rejected it and immediately went to war-and lost. The hatred coming from that humiliation has existed ever since.

The fact is that Israel is simply trying to exist as an independent Jewish state-where minority religions are tolerated to this day. Instead, they are faced with a hostile Arab world which refuses to allow the presence of a non-Muslim nation the size of New Jersey to exist in its midst-notwithstanding the historical existence of the three major religions in the Holy Land.

Let's compare the start of World War II with the wars that Israel has engaged in. In 1939, after taking over Austria and Czechoslovakia, Hitler manufactured a hoax to justify his invasion of Poland. A group of operatives were sent to the German-Polish border- a place called Gleiwitz, where they "stormed" a German radio site, left a few bodies behind in Polish uniforms (actually concentration camp prisoners) and made a fake broadcast. That led to the invasion of Poland which Hitler described as a self defense response. In contrast, Israel's wars against its neighbors have truly been in self defense including the last two incursions into Lebanon and Gaza. Unlike Gleiwitz, Israel had two soldiers truly kidnapped at the Israel-Lebanon border-who were eventually tortured and killed, and in the case of Gaza, Israel was legitimately responding to hundreds of rockets being launched from Gaza by Hamas-a terrorist organization which in its own charter, rejects any negotiation and calls for the destruction of Israel and establishment of an Islamic state. Yet American apologists like the discredited ex-professor Norman Finklestein, himself of Jewish heritage, propagate the lie to university audiences that Israel invaded Gaza because Hamas was becoming "too moderate" and "a real partner for peace". (He said that in my presence at UC-Irvine in January 2009.)

Much more importantly, have the Israelis set up death camps, where their enemies or non-Jews-specifically Muslims-have been systematically exterminated? No. Yet, their enemies charge them with "genocide". Why does not the world cry out over the Hama massacre in Syria in 1982 when the Syrian army bombarded the town of Hama while fighting elements of the Muslim Brotherhood resulting in an estimate of anywhere from 7-40,000 deaths? Where is the world's memory of the Black September massacre when Jordan expelled or killed thousands of Palestinians?

Do Jews in synagogues call out for "death to Muslims" or anyone else? No. Is Israel trying to exterminate the Arab/Muslim race? Of course not; it would be impossible to begin with.

One of the most disgusting aspects of the anti-Israel campaign is the insistence of many-especially in the Arab world- that the Holocaust never happened-or was greatly exaggerated. In a region where Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is still a best seller, as well as the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", many leaders are engaging in this ultimate of canards. They ignore the historical evidence of an era that is more well-documented than virtually any other. They ignore the images of the death camps once they were liberated. They ignore the testimony of the Nuremberg trials. They even ignore the confessions of the commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, who actually wrote his memoirs describing what happened as he was awaiting his execution in Poland after the war. Even a national leader, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, subscribes to this mad idea as he and so many others plan their own "final solution" to the Jewish problem.

This is the real Holocaust. This is what real Nazis did.

This is what the Allies discovered when they conquered Germany

Who are the real Nazis of today?

Speaking of Nazis, it should be pointed out that during the war years, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was Hitler's guest in Berlin, from where he made anti-Semitic broadcasts to the Middle East urging his listeners to purge and drive out the Jews. More importantly, he even helped organize a Muslim SS Division in Bosnia, which made their own contributions to the Final Solution in that region.

Hitler and his ally, al-Husseini in Berlin

Who are the real Nazis?
The charge of Nazism and genocide is not one to be made lightly. To charge the survivors of the Holocaust is unconscionable. Yet, that is what Israel's enemies
do and successfully at that. They have convinced many in the Western World that Israel is no better than Nazi Germany; thus, they argue it does not deserve to exist. No doubt there are many in the West who will accept these lies. After all, so many in Europe are intimidated by an aggressive and radical Muslim immigrant presence, and after all, we need that Arab oil, don't we? So why not accept the lie that Israel is just another evil nation that should be eliminated so we can all live in peace? What naivete.

A more accurate argument would be that Israel is the lone democracy surrounded by Nazis.

The Tea Party and The Illusion of Fiscal Conservatism

2010-03-17T10:30:00.001-06:00

The question is raised: Is there a place for social conservatism in a conservative political movement? While it seems that many (informal personal polling) take the question seriously, and most often say yes – the more the merrier – there's influence in numbers – a few shrug it off as part of a vast left-wing media conspiracy to spit the coalescing conservative movement. Ignoring the question won't answer it and could easily weaken conservative influence before 2012.

The fiscal conservatives of the T.E.A. Party tend to insist that neither political conservatism nor social issues matter. T.E.A. is an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already,” and despite a very strong focus on Constitutional issues and over-reaching federal power expressed among its mass of participants, founders and organizers press to limit their scope to purely fiscal concerns. This they assert, is the big enchilada, large tent conservatism that is needed. Money is the root of all political evil and keeping taxation and spending under control is the final solution.

The political conservatives in the bunch (the old-fashioned Constitution thumping classic political liberals – or in ObamaSpeak: “domestic terrorists”) can very well ask; Haven't we been down this road before? Isn't “liberal tax and spend” verses the “conservative” lesser of two evils a bit too reminiscent of “business as usual”; the usual business that got us into the great mess we're in today? This is a crowd worth considering. Their independent-mindedness stems from a love of country that far outweighs party loyalty. Many of them would gladly support a third party or not vote in protest in a continuing effort to break the old business as usual cycle. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a dozen or more times and I might have to vote differently!

Real tension has been building around the divisions of varying conservative identities for decades. The great emergencies for Democrats today are nationalized medicine and global warming. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, one of the great emergencies for both parties was that lazy, irresponsible people were weighing down the welfare system. Poor people simply didn't have the right moral character and needed the federal government to step in to “enforce personal responsibility.” (Fathers through the mid- 1990s followed by mothers in the late 1990s.)

To meet the challenge, socially conservative rhetoric was employed to expand the role, power, intrusiveness, size and cost of the welfare establishment and expand welfare entitlements. (That'll teach 'em!) A new era of bipartisanship emerged as both parties focused their zeal on “doing something” at the federal level; completely abandoning any thought of states' rights, privacy, and Constitutional limits to government. To be fair, it wasn't just poor people who needed forceful moral guidance from the new army of bureaucrat crusaders. For the first time in American history, the reach of the “welfare state” was expanded beyond its traditional boundaries (those in need) and into the general population. Fundamental changes in the relationship between government and the people went unnoticed by the mass media and through the 1990s, great battles ensued between the parties over repackaging and taking credit for reforms.

Social conservatism had become the perfect compliment to social liberalism in American politics and fiscally conservative rhetoric the perfect wood from which to build the bridge. Every expansion of government, along with its fancy price-tag was justified because in “theory” it would save tax-payers money. Poverty was a result of poor moral foundation and Bigger Government could fix that. Of course, it didn't work out according to the theory – something many “skeptics” concretely predicted on the basis of observable facts and figures. The media beating those skeptics received make the global warming debate seem quite civilized in comparison. Critics were considered enemies by both partisan camps, and what a filthy beneath human scum type you were to oppose Big Brother this time – right down there with the immoral, low-life deadbeats moral reformers aimed at reforming.

When the facts supporting the morally fiscal “theory” were proven false by their own history, it didn't matter. It's the principle that counts. But like the fiscally conservative theory that yielded unnecessarily higher costs, the adjoining socially conservative “family values” theory yielded an opposite as well – the legal destruction of marriage.

Pushing social issues onto the federal agenda is always a bad idea. The Constitution does not include social issues in federal jurisdiction. It is structured for for the exercise of different types of power and particular treatments by courts for issues that at federal, state, and personal levels. Allowing federal take-overs of state (and private) issues is a formula for destruction. Everything becomes arbitrarily politically defined and manipulated. In the case of marriage, this is exactly what the unmitigated social / fiscal conservative perspective delivered.

Marriage was, legally, a sacred, protected private institution. Under the cover of welfare reform, it was legally destroyed through successive unconstitutional intrusions into marriage and family law. The institution of marriage was transformed (legally) into a politically defined element of a federal welfare program; and generally redefined as a public rather than a private issue. Once this was accomplished, its protected status disappeared and courts began ruling on it as they would any other aspect of government programs.

Republicans blamed the destruction of marriage on "activist judges," but the real problem with judicial activism was that judges had not been active enough in fulfilling their oaths to protect the Constitution by protecting the American people against the intrusion. Applying "equal protection," courts extended the new social policy entitlement of marriage to same-sex couples. This was not an extension of a civil right to traditional marriage. In a legal sense, traditional marriage no longer existed. The overall effect was to deny the legal status of traditional marriage to everyone.

You can call me a skeptic when it comes to solutions formulated by the same minds that created the problem, or in this case a similar coalition of self-defined social and fiscal conservatives. The movement to restrict the federal program entitlement of marriage to “a man and a woman” through a US Constitutional amendment collapsed. State initiatives can do little to address the real underlying problem because it was created at the federal level. Now we've moved on to other emergencies – the de facto plan apparently being that we'll all just have to get used to living with another big mess. If the same minds get together to tackle Cap-n-Trade, health care reform, and government take-over of the economy, the mess will just get bigger.

A serious conservative revolution cannot be designed from a formula for a return to business as usual. Merely using different rhetoric to expand government and increase its arbitrary use of power is not sufficient to define a philosophical difference from the political left. The genuine grass-roots conservative movement is defined by the mass of participants who have a very strong focus on Constitutional issues and over-reaching federal power. Without that translating to the expulsion Big Brother from American soil, there is little reason to suspect that conservative unity will be maintained for long; nor would the movement have any appreciable effect if it did. We really need a return to Constitutional rule to limit the destructive power of government; and that requires (by definition really) a conservative movement that meets in a politically conservative tent.

Related articles:

Are Americans Paying Taxes to Organized Crime Syndicates?

How America was Destroyed – The Rise of Big Lie Politics

Tea Party March Hijacked at the Podium

McCain Palin Losing the Gender Gap War

American Politics: We are on a Dangerous Precipice

Why John McCain is Losing

GOP Platform 2008 on Preservation of Marriage

The Rise of Despotism in America

2010-03-16T19:25:00.000-06:00

After reading an article like this, it makes me weep for my country and the rule of our Constitution:

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

It is beyond my comprehension that something as preposterous as this tactic is being considered for something as big as the health care debate.

This is now the rise of despotism in America. We have moved way beyond the idea of electing representatives to vote on our behalf, and into a world of totalitarian government.

When does this end....and when is the R3VOLTUION!

"When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

John McCain’s Attack On Liberty

2010-03-16T16:24:00.000-06:00

John McCain has been hailed as a great American, but recently he has been anything but a great American.

He has introduced two bills in the Senate that are probably the biggest assault on the people liberty than any other time in history.

From Infowars:

Anyone paying attention knows that John McCain has been a Big-Government Globalist Neocon (BGGN) for virtually his entire senatorial career. As with many BGGNs hiding out in the Republican Party, McCain likes to talk about smaller government, but his track record is littered with the promotion of one big government program after another. But, what else would one expect from a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)?

Lately, however, McCain has outdone himself. He has introduced two bills in the US Senate that are about as Machiavellian as they could be. I am referring to S.3081, a bill that would authorize the federal government to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial, and S.3002, a bill that would authorize the federal government to regulate vitamins, minerals, and virtually all health and natural food products.

It amazes me to think that a guy who claims to be a great American would be so idiotic to think that a bill that would detain American citizens indefinitely is patriotic.

People need to see who is running this country and think twice before they support the likes of John McCain again.

Obama vs the Insurance Companies

2010-03-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

As President Obama and his allies in Congress continue to demonize the insurance companies in their fight to sell government health care to the public, I think we need to recognize a couple of things here. If this plan gets passed by Congress, we are looking at the eventual demise of the health insurance business. Maybe you think that's a good thing. Maybe you think that the government should take it all over. Either way, I think Obama knows what the effects will be, and he doesn't care.

Consider that if this plan is passed and there will be a requirement for companies to insure people even if they have pre-existing conditions-plus fines for people who don't have insurance, what incentive is there for anybody to have insurance-until they need it? As long as the fine and/or tax assessment doesn't exceed premium costs, why should anyone bother with insurance while they are healthy? It seems logical to me that private health insurance companies are looking at the possibility of being driven out of business. Then who would be left? The government.

Judging by the way Obama is demonizing insurance companies, one would conclude that he and his minions know all this. You see, it's not what comes into effect the day after the bill passes, that is so important. It's what the eventual result will be.

So you don't like insurance companies? Maybe you've been screwed by them in the past. Fine. But does it matter if Medicare rejects more claims for treatment than private insurance companies do? (Is that true? I don't know- I just heard Sean Hannity point it out tonight.)

Let me put it another way. If private insurance is driven out of the business, do you think government can run it better-like they do the automobile industry, for example? What comes next? Does the government move in and take over the food industry? What do you think about the performance of the US Dept. of Education in improving education in America? In other words, why do you have so much faith in the government? I don't. Why? I worked for the federal government for 25 years. As I have openly stated, I was a DEA agent. I still feel that on the street level, federal law enforcement agencies do a good job. They make mistakes, of course, and often those mistakes get publicized. Yet, at the enforcement level they do well. Once you go to the HQs level in Washington DC, that's a whole different story. Now you are dealing with that inside-the-beltway, bureaucratic mentality-and things go to Hell. It doesn't mean they are bad people, quite the opposite, but it is just the nature of the beast.

This nation became what it is because of the ingenuity and work ethic of its people. Yes, capitalism, with all its flaws has made this country great. Big business and the big corporations, much demonized, have created vast wealth and millions of jobs.

What does government create?

The really scary thing about this is that Obama, Reid and Pelosi know exactly what they are doing. They are setting a monster in place that will greatly socialize America-and be very difficult to repeal.

Salt Ban in New York Restaurants?

2010-03-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

We have all heard of the nanny state, but most of us wouldn't think that it would extend to the way we spice up our food (or maybe you did???)

It now appears that there is a push in the state of New York to ban the use of salt in all restaurants.

From MyFox in New York:

MYFOXNY.COM - Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

When is freedom to make choices going to prevail in this country?

When is the government going to stop trying to control our lives and dictate what we put into our bodies?

It amazes me how absurd things are getting in this country, but with the mentality of the nanny state, there is no stopping this type of garbage.

Judge Napolitano Interview @ CPAC

2010-03-10T17:03:00.002-07:00

Here is a great video of Judge Andrew Napolitano talking about the left vs. right paradigm and the Constitution:

Canadian Dollar Likely to Trump US Greenback

2010-03-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

In a nation that is powerful and prosperous, the power of the currency is the strongest leverage that the nation has, and one of the biggest promises to the people that can be made.

However, here in the United States of America, our currency is just a tool in a horrible game that is being played by the leaders we have in Washington...and it is now about to get even worse.

OTTAWA (AFP) – The Canadian dollar, or loonie as it is affectionately called here, is likely to soar above parity with the US greenback this year, experts at a Canadian bank said Wednesday.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada (CIBC) chief economist Avery Shenfeld said the Canadian dollar had already gained several cents in recent weeks as the market firms up expectations of an interest rate hike in July.

If as expected, the central bank "is out in front of the US Federal Reserve by a couple of quarters" in raising interest rates, the Canadian dollar could reach 1.02 dollars versus the US dollar by September, before dipping back to 0.97 dollars by year end," Shenfeld said.

It is despicable to think that this is actually happening, but when people in this country are uneducated and they vote, this is exactly what we get.

It is time to stand up and demand that this nonsense stop right now! We need the R3VOLUTION of ideas very quick, or we will no longer have money to get by as a society.

Chief Justice Roberts: Scene at State of Union `very troubling'

2010-03-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago the President delivered his state of the union address to congress. During this speech the President chose to call out the Supreme Court that was sitting right there in front of them. He said "With all due deference to the separation of powers the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections."

The protocol for a speech like this is simple. The President gives the speech, the members of Congress react to the speech by cheering or booing, and the Supreme Court sits there quiet to show that they are non-partisan.

However, Chief Justice Robers found the call out by the President to be "very troubling"

From the AP:

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Obama's State of the Union address was "very troubling" and the annual speech has "degenerated to a political pep rally."

Obama chided the court, with the justices seated before him in their black robes, for its decision on a campaign finance case.

Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question, Roberts said anyone was free to criticize the court, and some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.

"So I have no problems with that," he said. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum.

"The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

While there has been a few instances throughout history of a President mentioning the Supreme Court in a State of the Union, no other time in history has a President criticized one of their decisions because he didn't like the decision.

The Chief Justice is correct to assume that this type of conduct on the part of the President is troubling. Justice Alito reacted during the speech, but now that the head of the nation's top court has spoken, it should really send a message to Obama and how he conducts himself as President of the United States, and the fact that he should respect the separation of powers.

Too Late to Stop National ID

2010-03-09T09:18:00.001-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reports that lawmakers are working on a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. The "national ID" thing again. Let's do a little quick catching up, with a reprint of a 2001 article; Too late to stop national ID.

"Imagine a state in which you must register your name and address with the authorities, just so they can find you in case you break the law. In an age when bills vaunting protections for privacy abound, and when surveys of consumers rank privacy as a top concern, could that happen here? It is already happening. When we rely on the federal government to solve our problems, we invite it to intrude upon our privacy. We are asking Big Brother to come in and make himself at home." — How Big Brother Began, Solveig Singleton, Cato Institute

Changes in technology have left a nation confused about how the modern national ID system is implemented. Visions of passports with stamped pages need to be replaced with the modern reality of the computer age. Centrally located file cabinets filled with hand written cards have been replaced by interconnected databases in a huge distributed system.

It has long since been understood that safeguarding our freedom requires limiting the government's access to personal information. Where a legitimate purpose is served, government agencies have been allowed to accumulate limited information for specific purposes. Over the past decade a dramatic shift has taken place. The government has developed the ability to accumulate the maximum amount of information and provided central access to an army of low level bureaucrats. All signs indicate that this is just a beginning.

During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the federal government spent approximately four billion dollars developing a national database system for keeping track of intimate details of the lives of all Americans. Funding, and in fact the project itself was never held up for close public scrutiny. Most of the people reading this article have never heard of the project. Of those who have, many probably believe it was either shut down for lack of public support, or limited in purpose.

In order to understand the potential of such a system it is worthwhile to consider its cost. Four billion dollars is a huge amount of money to spend on development of a computer system. It could buy more than sixty million hours (thirty thousand years) of engineering consulting time. It is enough to pay 130,000 people an average income for one year. It is more than enough to buy a million modern desktop computers; each one powerful enough to manage a database containing information about every man, woman, and child in the United States, and then some.

Four billion dollars is a lot of money. It would buy almost ninety B-2 stealth bombers. It is enough to pay for about forty thousand average homes. It is enough to send about one hundred thousand students to college for one year or buy hot lunches for every elementary school child in the United States for five hundred years.

$4 billion buys a lot of B-2s

As awesome as the price tag is, the excuses for its existence have been poor. The premier reason it was built, according to most official reports, is to track child support payments and people who are supposed to make them. But state and county governments, already armed with their own computers resisted. Propaganda campaigns exaggerated claims of non-payment to the level of a national emergency, but were countered with real data from the national census and other research showing that fully employed fathers pay well. Fathers of children supported by welfare are often poor, unskilled, too sick to work, in jail, unknown, or dead. Another database system does nothing to reduce poverty.

The database would be used to catch illegal aliens. This was a short-lived excuse. One only needed to point out that illegal aliens would probably be the only people not registered.

As weak as the justification is, the child support excuse still had the necessary characteristics. The government wanted to look into every important detail of a person's life. Laws were passed to require financial institutions to provide detailed information on transactions. Systems were integrated so that information obtained from all government sources would be available in one search, and so that businesses and other private organizations could contribute and access information. "Deadbeat dad" propaganda was intense. As long as people could believe that fathers do not deserve fundamental human rights, they could accept the logic of unconstitutional privacy infringements.

States were initially asked to pay half the cost. The problem that states were not interested was overcome by a creative funding strategy. The federal government paid the cost of developing the system and added incentive payments of more than one billion dollars per year to encourage states to use it. With the inclusion of this funding, every politician, bureaucrat, judge, and prosecutor instantly became a "deadbeat dad" hunter. The combined state / federal system now employs more than fifty thousand people nationwide.

Those in Congress who promoted the system promised repeatedly that it would only be used to track child support payments and people who are supposed to pay. But as soon as the system could function, that cover was blown. The database became known as the "National Directory of New Hires." The name reflected the first strategy for registering people. Rather than registering child support debtors, everyone taking a new job would be registered. This strategy eventually shifted to registration of everyone with a job, a social security number, a driver's license, a bank account, a telephone; anyone for which there is a source of information. You can be located whatever you do, and the government will know what you do.

The Bush administration does not appear to be set to improve the record. Amidst a flurry of anti-terrorism legislation, administration officials have issued several denials that a national ID system is even contemplated. We already have a modern computerized system in place that is far more effective than any identification and tracking system the Nazis or the Soviet Communists ever had. Common sense suggests that possession of such an Orwellian tool has not escaped their notice.

The primary contractor for the database system was Andersen Consulting. The company broke from international financial services consulting firm Arthur Andersen, Andersen Worldwide this year and was renamed Accenture Ltd. Accenture is based in Bermuda, a well-known offshore tax and privacy haven.

Everything is Dangerous (Even the Weather)

2010-03-09T07:43:00.001-07:00

By Roger F. Gay

Al Gore, et al. claimed an obvious correlation between CO2 and atmospheric temperature increases. Although the cause and effect claim he made was easily exposed as incorrect, as well as other statistical claims by warmers (often because they faked the data), it is still interesting to look a little deeper into the use of statistics by researchers who are less than expert in statistical analysis - which surely includes "climate scientists."

Those of you who are not scientists (which includes the vast majority of warmers) probably do not understand how often empirical researchers who make dramatic claims are simply doing poor analysis and reaching false conclusions. Every research university and major research institution has statisticians who are available for consultation. But researchers often publish and announce research without consulting the experts; leading to a great deal of "scientific" misinformation.

It will probably be useful to start with the short article; "The Ease of Cheating With Statistics." The audio recording "Everything is dangerous" - is a longer talk and somewhat technical. A couple of key points early in the talk (even if it ends up being too deep for you) - that so many claims based on empirical studies are false - and that one of the great faults in the scientific process is that the researchers refuse to share their data (like the "climate scientists" who claim evidence of catastrophic man-made global warming).

The Ease of Cheating With Statistics

Everything Is Dangerous: A Controversy

The Climategate Whitewash

2010-03-07T06:14:00.001-07:00

By Roger F. Gay

Since Climategate, it's been clear that the UK Met Office and the UN Climate Czars would need to investigate themselves before anyone else did, and equally apparent that they would find little fault in themselves. Results of their “reviews” have the feel of partially digested left-overs from last night's bongy bash.

The UK Met Office is back to square one – the idea that there is a “scientific consensus” backing Al Gore's dire warnings based on a “study” that polls peer-reviewed literature; despite the fact that the only evidence supporting the view is now known to have been faked.

Australian newspaper, The Age and the BBC have slightly different versions of the new regurgitation of the old propaganda.

Excerpts from BBC article; Climate change human link evidence 'stronger'.

In 2007 the IPCC's report concluded that there was "unequivocal" evidence that the Earth was warming and it was likely that it was due to burning of fossil fuels.

Since then the evidence that human activities are responsible for a rise in temperatures has increased, according to this new assessment by Dr Peter Stott and colleagues at the UK Met Office.

The Age shines a light on the open-mindedness of reviewers to consider positions taken by “skeptics” in their article; Climate change review stresses human factor .

IT IS an ''increasingly remote possibility'' that human activity is not the main cause of climate change.

Not exactly a sincere sign of remorse that a judge would look for when sentencing.

Peter Stott, who led the study, hopes this new “evidence” will convince people to put their blinders on and ignore the actual evidence. He wants a do-over; complete with fears of melting glaciers, dramatically shifting environmental conditions, and strange weather patterns.

It's literally as if we haven't been through this before. According to Stott; "We hadn't [until now] looked in detail at how the climate system was changing." Really? But wasn't there some controversy ..... ?

"[Our paper looks at] not just the temperatures but also the reducing Arctic sea ice and it includes changing rainfall patterns and it includes the fact that the atmosphere is getting more humid.

"And all these different aspects of the climate system are adding up to a picture of the effects of a human influence on our climate."

You might think they could have acknowledged just a wee bit of the unequivocal evidence that shows little to no human effect on climate. Throw us a bone, will ya! Well – it's just tricky science, you know. Proving the case isn't easy.

The Met Office study said that it was harder to find a firm link between climate change and individual extreme weather conditions - even though models predicted that extreme events were more likely.

According to the report: "Extremes pose a particular challenge, since rare events are by definition, poorly sampled in the historical record and many challenges remain for robustly attributing regional changes in extreme events such as droughts, floods and hurricanes."

Then why not pay more attention to the overwhelming amount of common weather that actually defines climate? Unscientific, you think? Or just not worthy of another trillion dollars in government spending?

But There is Good News....According to Harry Reid

2010-03-06T23:18:00.001-07:00

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

You gotta see this one:

"Happy days are here again,
The skies above are blue again,
So let's sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again"

"Ah wunnerful, ah, wunnerful ah!"

"Good news, mein Fuehrer! Only 36,000 Germans lost their jobs today!"

Al Gore Appears : Note to Warmers; No More Do-Overs!

2010-03-06T07:20:00.005-07:00

By Roger F. Gay

Al Gore made an appearance on a Norwegian television program last night. (approx. 40 min. in, 42 to skip chit-chat) A more impressive move would have been to have accepted the invitation to appear before the US Senate, which could conceivably lead to criminal charges.

He has thus far failed to convince the world that the Earth is headed for certain catastrophe without his leadership and he said so. In his fantasy world however, he is still on a vital mission, there is still a “massive movement worldwide” supporting him, the awesome might of Bush's evil oil (and coal) empire – that wants nothing more than to destroy civilization as we know it – continues to focus solely on defeating him (long after his election defeat in 2000, which is still very much on his mind), and his own personally profitable and growing, federally supported dabblings in the energy business are primarily philanthropic – not worth the attention they have received.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The great and powerful wizard Gore says he isn't finished yet; despite appearances apparently – which one might think would be important to a man who has nothing else in his arsenal. His appearance in a protected studio in Oslo, confronted by a small mild-mannered green-conscious Scandinavian audience, is a far cry from facing the angry mods back home. It seems to be the story of his life. Recalling that his own home state of Tennessee voted against him in the presidential race, it seems that the more people get to know him, the less they like him.

Gore's quip that he's not finished yet characterizes the entire global warming saga. Anyone who's engaged in Internet debate on the subject or even tried to follow the issue via newspaper or channel switching has encountered this same psychotic repetition. If at first they don't succeed then they will deny and lie again! And that goes for the second time, the third, the fourth …. You get it – as never-ending as Florida recounts; it goes on and on until responsible people step in and put a stop to it.

From the ardent Internet believer in global warming “theory” who can't provide any real scientific evidence, to the East Anglia researchers who insist that Climategate is merely a misunderstanding, to IPCC defenders who claim their reports are only in error by a few insignificant typos, to Al Gore still battling the imminent destruction of planet Earth by the evil “global warming pollutants,” there can never be too many chances to ignore defeat and start all over again – from the beginning.

To the glee of warmers, it's put the rest of us in an uncomfortable position. If we ignore them, they don't go away. With trillions of dollars at stake, they move forward if resistance is not sufficient. Without debate, they continue to build support among the unwitting, becoming stronger. On the other hand, we do not want to be trapped in a dysfunctional co-dependent relationship, endlessly repeating the same old arguments.

Al Gore's arguments in “An Inconvenient Truth” were dead on arrival. We've always known that they did not correspond to real science. Despite years of international effort and an estimated trillion dollar cost, the global political and scientific effort to justify political action on global warming has come up empty handed. In its place – the corruption that typically accompanies such large amounts of public spending.

Not finished yet? I really think it's time for responsible people to step in and put a stop to it. No more do-overs!

President Obama's Proposed Budget Would Add More Than $9.7 Trillion to the National Debt

2010-03-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

When most people think that $12 Trillion is a lot of money, we get this story:

President Obama's proposed budget would add more than $9.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, congressional budget analysts said Friday. Proposed tax cuts for the middle class account for nearly a third of that shortfall.

The 10-year outlook released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is somewhat gloomier than White House projections, which found that Obama's budget request would produce deficits that would add about $8.5 trillion to the national debt by 2020.

When is it enough? When do our officials in Washington have to wake up before they realize they are destroying the country through money.

It has been said that the greatest danger we face in this country is our fiscal irresponsibility.

Who is going to stand up and lead? It sure as hell isn't President Obama because he is the catalyst to this entire mess. We have nobody, and the people that we do have are shunned off because they actually challenge the status quo (RON PAUL!!!!)

Wake up people and look at who we are electing. Republicans are the biggest offenders in this respect because they believe the crap that comes out of the mouth of Republican leaders about fixing the problem. However, once you elect them, they turn their backs on you and screw you in a not so forgiving manner.

When does the real Revolution start? When will we stop letting the same people run our country and destroy it?

March 2nd Protest at UC-Irvine

2010-03-04T22:09:00.001-07:00

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

I have previously written about a protest that occurred at UC-Irvine (March 2, 2010) as a reaction to racially-tinged incidents at UC San Diego and the February 8th arrests of 11 students for disrupting the speech of the Israeli ambassador The below video is courtesy of the Orange County Register. The principle organizers were the Black Student Union (BSU)and the Muslim Student Union (MSU). Here is a video of the event that shows two speakers, one a recent UCI grad and James Lafferty of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles.

The below video filmed by Anteaters for Israel contains interviews of two Jewish UCI students during the protest

The below video is in Hebrew. A group of Israeli high school students participated in the counter-protest with Anteaters for Israel.

Meanwhile, local Jewish Federation CEO Shalom Elcott, who was present, told the Orange County Register,

“It was civil discourse of two different opinions,” said Shalom C. Elcott, CEO of the Jewish Foundation of Orange County, describing the event, “Although, there was a lack of factual dialogue.”

A Jewish student is overcome with emotion yesterday at the UCI protest

Interesting take from Elcott, who has spent years denying the problems on the UCI campus, but, since the February 8th event, is now being interviewed by every reporter he can find and acting like he is leading the charge.

Here's another:

"It was an example of free speech at its most dramatic," said Cathy Lawhon, University spokeswoman.

I take note that Jim Lafferty, head of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles was back to defend the "Irvine 11" and repeat the talking point that the Israeli Ambassador was able to finish his speech on February 8th after being disrupted by members of the Muslim Student Union (conveniently leaving out the fact that the speech was only concluded after the MSU left the hall and that during the ambassador's "20-minute break" due to the multiple disruptions, it was not clear whether he would return). Oh, by the way, did Lafferty inform the audience that the NLG was created in the 1930s as a legal arm of the Communist Party USA? Probably not.

On Wednesday, a group of BSU members held a "silent protest" at the Student Center at UCI. The students stood silently with their mouths taped shut. As I understand it, the students were saying that they have no voice at the UC campuses.

This is curious since students are freely using their freedom to protest and speak out all day long as we are all seeing. The catalyst is largely the events at UCSD last month with the so-called "Compton Cookout" and the discovery of a noose in the UCSD library. An unidentified female has come forward and given an explanation that she innocently left the noose in the library. (You can see her letter on my previous post.)That letter raises more questions than it answers. The school has not identified the person, but she has identified herself as a minority. The explanation of how she came into possession of the rope, how it became a noose, and how she left it in the library is somewhat hard to accept. If her account is true, then why was she immediately suspended? Something is fishy. Is UCSD holding something back? I frankly don't care to know the girl's name, but I think the best tonic for this troubling story is the full truth.

I would also like to ask why the controversy in San Diego has morphed into yet another protest against Israel at UCI. True, we have had our own unfortunate incident on February 8th, when the Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, had his speech disrupted by members of the MSU, who were charged with disrupting a public event. As I have previously stated, whatever happened at UCSD merits a full disclosure and, if appropriate, suitable punishment. I think it is good that UCSD students stood together with their black fellow students as a sign of support for them. Yet, the activists always take one incident and use it as a soapbox to launch into tirades about "all the injustices of America"-including Israel. As I stated, I was not at the March 2nd UCI event, but one (Jewish) person I talked to that was there heard a lot of references to "Zionist Power". I sure hope the protesters will not take what happened at UCSD and link that to "Zionist Power". I hope they will not try to make the case that there is a connection between "Zionist Power" and standing silently with mouths taped. There is no connection.

While we are on the subject, it's time we strip the facade away from this use of the term "Zionist". It is code language meaning...

JEW.

If you are going to try and blame "Zionists" for problems in the United States, you might as well go ahead and say it:

JEW.

Because that is what they mean. In the world of the anti-Semite, the Jew is responsible for all of the world's problems. Banking? Run by Jews. Hollywood? Run by Jews. Doctors? Too many Jews. Lawyers? Mostly Jews. Neo-Cons? All Jews. Media? Jews. As Amir Abdel Malik Ali himself informed us in a speech at UCI, "Rupert Murdoch is a straight-up Zionist Jew." As if Jews should be embarrassed about excelling in so many professional fields.

I'll give you a pass when you use the term "Zionist Power" to refer to the military might of Israel. But if that term is applied to anything going on here in the US, I'm going to take it as anti-Semitic. Israel is Israel. America is America. Neither Zionism nor Israel has anything to do with "Compton Cookouts" or nooses being found in university libraries. Let's keep those discussions separate.

Ron Paul Exposes CIA & Federal Reserves's Drug Running Business

2010-03-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

Ron Paul is known for his over the top exposures of government agencies and officials. In this interview he exposes the CIA & Federal Reserves's drug running business:

Problems on UC Campuses

2010-03-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

(This article was first posted on Grizzly Groundswell.)

Recently, I have written about disruptions and arrests occurring on University of California campuses at Berkeley and Irvine, incidents that have brought embarrassment to the respective schools. Unfortunately, two other campuses have been hit by embarrassing incidents in the past few days.

A few days ago, a Jewish student discovered a swastika carved into her dormitory door at UC Davis. The girl says she gets along well with all her dorm mates and is at a loss as to who did it.

At UC San Diego, a group of fraternities organized a so-called "Compton Cookout", meant as a spoof of Black History Month. Attendees were invited via Facebook to dress up and act like stereotypes of inner-city blacks. Black students at UCSD were not amused.

Below is a link to the invitation, the reaction of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and a letter from a campus fraternity regarding the incident (San Diego Channel 10 News):

http://www.10news.com/news/22588063/detail.html

Then, a few days ago, a noose was found hanging on a book shelf in the campus library. Just in the past day, a female student came forward and admitted to the act. She has been suspended. At this point, her name (and race) has not been reported. These incidents have led to rallies in support of black students and a protest at the chancellor's office. Given the already-simmering controversy of the cookout, the noose must be assumed to have been hung as a racial statement. Given the past history of lynchings in the South, the noose has a definite racial connotation. It is highly troubling that this would occur on a university campus-or anywhere else, for that matter.

UCSD does not have a high black enrollment, and now the university is facing demands that they increase their number of black students and faculty, as well as set up a resource center for black students.

Yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger spoke of the racially-tinged incidents and said that they will not be tolerated. It is not clear what action will be taken by the university against the organizers of the "Compton Cookout" since it occurred off-campus. However, if their rules of conduct are the same as UCI's, there should be a provision for off-campus incidents. It would also seem that action could be taken against the fraternities if they were indeed acting as sponsors.

I think it is high time for UC President Yudoff to step in and exercise some firm leadership if you get my drift. Forget the "sensitivity" sessions and the holding-hands rallies. That's always the response, and they do no good. They also tend to deteriorate into demagoguery of all the other issues in the world. The students at UCSD have shown their support of their black classmates, and that is good. If the university makes an example of the haters and troublemakers on campus by getting rid of them, everybody else will get the message. Then the nooses and the swastikas will stop.

London: First in Series of Climate Fraud Hearings

2010-03-02T04:59:00.001-07:00

Breaking news concerning the Climategate scandal is making its way around the world as a key figure in climate research admitted that he 'hid the facts' on global warming and that such behavior is 'standard procedure.'

Professor Phil Jones, a key figure in the scandal, was grilled by the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons in London on Monday. Although Jones denied manipulating climate data, he admitted withholding key information.

The Climategate row was triggered when hundreds of emails sent from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit were exposed. They revealed scientists plotting how to avoid responding to Freedom of Information requests from climate change skeptics. Some even appeared to show the researchers discussing how to manipulate raw data from tree rings about historical temperatures. In one, Professor Jones talks about using a 'trick' to massage figures and 'hide the decline'.

The scandal forced Professor Jones to stand down as Chair of the Climate Research Unit and led ultimately to the stern rebuke he received on Monday from the Science and Technology committee.

Examiner: Breaking...Climategate researcher says hiding facts 'standard procedure'

How It All Ends : The Dumbest Video on the Web

2010-03-02T04:57:00.001-07:00

By Roger F. Gay

If I tell you that it has to do with global warming, your interest level might drop a thousand fold. Stupid “climate change” videos are everywhere, including classrooms where unsuspecting children have their reason replaced with biodegradable compost. But in the spirit of Alfred Nobel, the prize goes to a video that has had an enormous world-wide impact on the weak of mind, more indelibly perhaps than Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

How It All Ends by high school science teacher Greg Craven has been such a hit on YouTube (since 2007), that he's offered to let you pay for it on DVD. If you really want to throw money away, killing trees and increasing atmospheric CO2 in the process, you can also buy the short paper-back version with the long title What's the Worst That Could Happen?: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate.

Mr. Craven's claim: You can make a rational choice about whether to support political action on global warming without considering whether there's really a problem to address. Make no mistake about it; he expects you to support political action even if you're not convinced that climate change is a problem. It defies common sense, obviously. But once again, we're asked to ignore the obvious for a little more compost in place of reason.

He puts his political action argument in the form of a “risk analysis;” one that I'm sure would not survive a cursory review in a first year business course. The bottom line is that if you feel confused by the global warming debate, then you should definitely favor draining trillions of dollars from the world economy even if it causes a world-wide depression and you starve to death as a result. It doesn't matter whether the trillions spent address any real problem or whether political action could do any good even if a real problem exists. You don't need to think about that.

You don't need to think about that because Mr. Craven does it for you, replacing your uncertainty with the belief that we'll face dire consequences if political action is not taken. Here's the trick. He says if you are not certain either way, then you must accept that the alarmists' view “might be” true. If it “might be” true, then he asserts that you must treat it in your analysis as if it is true. In other words, if you don't know that it's true, then it's true. And by the way; even if you are absolutely certain that global warming is not a problem requiring political action, you're still instructed to act as if it is. After all, you're not infallible (like the warmers are); which equates to uncertainty and by his default reasoning tips the analysis in favor of political action.

Real-world risk assessment does in fact require that you understand what you're talking about. The point is to understand risks and assess their impact. There is no magic that transforms not having a clue into “a rational response” to anything.

Bottom line: Mr. Craven is preaching fear of the unknown: telling you to forget about knowledge and reason and to allow yourself to be driven by global warming fear-mongering without question. Be afraid of what "might be" imagined as true - even if it's not. It makes you wonder what other compost he might be stuffing into the heads of high school students in place of reason.

Liberty Organizations Overtake CPAC 2010

2010-03-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

CPAC 2010 has passed and the big news that came out of this years conference was the win by Congressman Ron Paul in the Presidential strawpoll.

What else can be taken from this years conference was the power of the Liberty oriented organizations that took over CPAC 2010.

Here is a video that showcases this phenomenon:

Ron Paul: Winning the Hearts and Votes of Conservatives

2010-02-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here is video of Ron Paul on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show:

This is a man that people really need to start listening to...he has the right ideas and shines the philosophy of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater.

Free Speech? Here's an Example of Free Speech from the Anti-Israel Side

2010-02-24T18:57:00.001-07:00

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

It seems one of the focal points of the question of free speech revolves around the free speech of Israelis in the US. Now anyone with half a brain knows that Israeli ambassadors or academics should have a right to express their point of view in this great country of ours, right?

Well, not quite. You see the far-left allies of radical Islam and the pro-Palestinian lobby feel that anyone representing the nation of Israel should not have the right of free speech in America. Nowhere does this idea have more currency than in the world of academia. Now we have this outfit that works for the boycott of Israel asking a group to dis-invite an Israeli scholar from participating in a seminar on Iran in Santa Monica, California.

http://usacbi.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/open-letter-to-the-international-society-for-iranian-studies/

For the record, I grew up near Santa Monica. I know it well. It is still part of the United States of America. Tell that to the learned scholars of this rag-tag outfit.

Check out the names who signed this letter. Of course, there is that nut job at MIT, Noam Chomsky. He'll sign anything. In fact, he's signing so many letters and petitions, he probably doesn't have time to teach linguistics anymore-the only subject, I might add, that he knows anything about. Saree Makdisi I remember. He is at UCLA but is on the seminar circuit (including UCI) sitting on "panels" that spend hours telling audiences how bad Israel is. I never heard of the other folks, but I'll bet they all hold PHDs. Note that they all teach at our universities. This is what is teaching (indoctrinating, I should say) our children.

Don't laugh. It's not funny.

Here we have a collection of so-called academics- you know, smart people-who don't have a clue about the First Amendment, our Constitution or anything else. All they know is that what they don't agree with must be suppressed. Of course, they will all stand with the so-called "Irvine 11", when they try to shut down the Israeli ambassador and say that they (the students) were exercising their free speech.

You see, to the academic left, it all comes down to this:

"What I believe is free speech. What you believe must be silenced."

Global Warming Advocates : Two IQ Points Short of a Pin Head Perhaps

2010-02-23T14:57:00.006-07:00

By Roger F. Gay

Bill Nye. OK, here's another one. What do normal people call heating of the Earth's atmosphere? …...... Summer.

MSNBC's Bill Nye “the science guy” has been the regular butt of jokes as a result of his ceaseless and absolute defense of the global warming industry; with arguments that include the fact that the UN's IPCC shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore – and “those are really hard to get.” (Ann Coulter at CPAC)

There's some chat around the Internet water-cooler just now on Nye's performance in a global warming debate against Joe Bastardi (State College, Pennsylvania and AccuWeather meteorologist). For the most part, it was just another boring call from Nye for unquestioning faith in the IPCC's conclusions and all that Al Gore might wish make of them. But first some science questions.

Nye: Ah well, the evidence is overwhelming. Do you agree Joe, that in 1750 the world's carbon dioxide was 280 parts per million?

Bastardi: Bill, you don't want to go here, because you know why? Because I'm going to show CO2 correlation ...

Nye: Do you agree?

Bastardi: Yes, I agree.

Nye: Do you agree that the planet Venus is warm because it has a lot of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere? And I say warm, warm enough to melt lead on its surface. Do you agree?

Bastardi: I don't believe we have the proper measurements of Venus from over ten billion years ago, so I can't tell the relationship with the Earth. But maybe you can.

Nye was pointing to Venus as an example of the results of run-away global warming; the alleged fate of Earth if we don't pass laws against it and pay more taxes. No jokes here asking who was driving the SUVs on Venus. When the planet is at stake, we owe it to ourselves to be deadly serious. So I went to the same place the IPCC entrusts with its scientific review – Wikipedia, where the tireless editors of truth support the theory whole-heartedly.

“Studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus's atmosphere was much more like Earth's than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.”

Studies have suggested - probably. I'm reminded of a short documentary in a season five episode of Futurama, “Spanish Fry.”

Documentary: In the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest, dwells the strange and beautiful creature known as Bigfoot, perhaps.

Phillip Fry: That proves it!

Documentary: Sadly, logging and human settlement today threaten what might possibly be his habitat, although if it's not, they don't. ... Bigfoot is a crucial part of the ecosystem if he exists. So let's all help keep Bigfoot possibly alive for future generations to enjoy, unless he doesn't exist. (From, “Bigfoot, Endangered Mystery”)

Wikipedia cites only one study, and it's on how the atmosphere might be effected by the amount of sunlight (energy -> heat) that it receives. It includes for discussion, speculation that “Venus may originally have had oceans if its initial water endowment was close to that of Earth. In other words, it may have had lots of water if it had lots of water, but who knows?

Documentary: Several billion years ago Venus' atmosphere was much more like Earth's than it is now but it was destroyed by a runaway greenhouse effect perhaps, ...

Bill Nye: That proves it!

Documentary: … although if it didn't, it wasn't.

What is the actual evidence that Venus was once like Earth? There is none. Earth's history includes vast oceans and evolution of life that transformed carbon dioxide into oxygen. CO2 rich environment early. Less CO2 in the atmosphere as a result of water and life. There is no evidence that Venus had such a history. No evidence that its atmosphere was once more like the Earth's is now. If it somehow miraculously did, it would quickly have changed because of the greater amount of sunlight hitting Venus' surface, which is about 35 million miles closer to the Sun than the surface of Earth.

If you're still worried about global warming, don't be. By the end of the episode, Fry gets his nose back and Lrr, ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8, makes up with his wife. Most importantly, Bigfoot survives – so you've still got that going for you.

Senator Asks for Investigation of Gore, et al.

2010-02-23T14:02:00.003-07:00

Inhofe intends to ask for a probe of the embattled climate scientists for possible criminal acts. And he thinks Gore should be recalled to explain his prior congressional testimony. (Click here for the just-released Senate Environment and Public Works report behind Inhofe's announcement.)

BREAKING: See Charlie Martin’s “Senator Barbara Boxer and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Throw IPCC Under the Bus“.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.

“In [Gore's] science fiction movie, every assertion has been rebutted,” Inhofe said. He believes Vice President Gore should defend himself and his movie before Congress.

Just prior to a hearing at 10:00 a.m. EST, Senator Inhofe released a minority staff report from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, of which he is ranking member. Senator Inhofe is asking the Department of Justice to investigate whether there has been research misconduct or criminal actions by the scientists involved, including Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University and Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

This report, obtained exclusively by Pajamas Media before today’s hearing, alleges:

[The] Minority Staff of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works believe the scientists involved may have violated fundamental ethical principles governing taxpayer-funded research and, in some cases, federal laws. In addition to these findings, we believe the emails and accompanying documents seriously compromise the IPCC -backed “consensus” and its central conclusion that anthropogenic emissions are inexorably leading to environmental catastrophes.

Full report from Pajamas Media: Climategate Meets the Law: Senator Inhofe to Ask for DOJ Investigation