#1
"... Ministers continually call for the most Draconian measures, convinced that they are justified given the extreme nature of the times; but they are fiercely opposed by those who cling to timeless British values.
Amid the fall-out from July 7, the irreconcilable forces came closer to some form of consensus, but that has now retreated. In its darker moments, the government warns that only another attack, or a near miss, could convince the nay-sayers that it is ministers and the security forces who have right on their side."
I'm convinced that not even another attack, no matter how grievous, will protect Britain - or America, for that matter.
This article asserts the (now) classic disingenuous press view, substituting such foolishness as "fiercely opposed by those who cling to timeless British values" for the actual fact, the Islamic killers have learned how to use the traditional openness, tolerance , and civility of Western society against us.
#2
Don't "timeless British values" include Guy Fawkes, Charles I, and the Earl of Essex?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2006 10:00 Comments ||
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#3
Lol, Fred. I'd wager that Mr Brady's idea of terror is missing afternoon tea or having to endure America scones... and that your skewer would sail well clear over his head. :)
#1
Good article. Some parallels with immigration trends in the US:
"The injection of large numbers of unskilled workers into the economy does not benefit the bulk of the population to any great extent. It benefits the nanny-and housecleaner-using classes; it benefits employers who want to pay low wages; but it does not benefit indigenous, unskilled Britons, who have to compete with immigrants willing to work hard for very low wages in unpleasant working conditions."
The US is coping, so far, but we're gonna see a lot more "native" citizens struggling to get by if we pass the proposed guest worker program-unless a reasonable cap is set. I don't see that happening. The guest worker program is coming into focus more and more: it's about 1) increasing commerce and opportunity, yes, but also about bringing economies of the western hemisphere more into alignment with one another to reduce the hemorraging of peoples into the US (a kind of under-the-table wealth redistribution scheme) and to lessen the oppositional urges of some foreign governments; 2) keeping "native" American incomes at rock-bottom for the benefit of some businesses by threatening the import of unskilled labor to do the same work for a fraction of the cost.
As a capitalist, I understand that competition is essential, but the thought of our wage base approaching that of Mexico rather than distancing itself from that of a 2nd world country should be of concern. We need to think about what a guest worker program could really do-to the American people.
#2
Of course, in relative terms our population and our economy are substantially larger than back when we had waves of southern and eastern European immigrants coming here.
We have 12 million illegals here now, and our economy continues to grow faster than the EU and faster than all but a handful of other industrial powers. If this be the horror of illegal immigration, I think we can handle it.
I don't like illegal immigration, if only because it allows evil people -- 'coyotes' and the like -- to make money off the misery of others. I don't like the law being broken.
I also understand the desparation that drives it. If I were a campesino in Mexico trying to feed my campesino wife and campesino children on $8 a day, and someone told me that I could make $8 an hour mowing lawns and chopping up chickens, I'd hit the road and head north.
Then again I'm an American, not just by birth but also by attitude.
A guest worker program is vital to fixing the problem, as is a tall, sturdy fence from San Diego to Brownsville.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2006 12:02 Comments ||
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#3
Fence first
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 12:07 Comments ||
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#4
The illegal immigrants have less to do with our growth rate than the absence of one in Mexico. The horror of illegal immigration will show up three ways:
1) when the US growth slows down. Either they stay here and are a problem or they go home and are a problem.
2) when the US fails to assimilate them due to multi-culti tranzi educationists. Fortunately most of the legitimate ones want to assimilate as fast as they can. But it still takes 3 generations and nobody really knows what our assimilation capacity is.
3.) the illegals create a high band width line of communication to what may become a failed state. If Obrador wins, we've got problems. Even if he doesn't we've got MS-13, decapitating drug dealers and potential al-Qaeda coyotes building a p9ipeline into the heart of the US.
#5
And to me, as and American, a guest worker program is an anathema. If they're good enough to come here and work, they're good enough to become citizens. If we aren't p[repared to let them become citizens, we shouldn't let them in just because we need somebody else to clean our toilets. Guest workers are second class non-citizens on the way to slavery.
#6
Nimble, I appreciate that point. When I think of 'guest workers', I think of seasonal, temporary help from people who want to make some money but have no intention of staying (it's the word 'guest', I guess). You're absolutely right: people who want to stay permanently should become citizens (or at least permanent residents). They should be here legally, pay taxes, etc.
I have no problem with such legal immigrants, and I have no problem with some fair number of them. Pick a number that's reasonable, that our economy can support, and that the incompetent ICE can handle. 99.9% of such legal immigrants will be good people, and their children will become solid Americans.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2006 12:40 Comments ||
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#7
Who cleaned toilets and mowed lawns before we stopped enforcing immigration laws?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
07/02/2006 12:43 Comments ||
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#8
I have no problem with seasonal workers who come through the country to do work. In high school I worked with a bunch of Mexicans who went up and down the esat coast to do agricultural work and went home for Christmas before coming back for another season. Great. Worked well for everyone.
What I object to is a guest worker program where the people come in tied to some employer who then has them by the short hairs and where the option to pursue citizenship is not open and they are expected to go home. If we're going to let them in to do our work, they ought to be good enough to be our fellow citizens; and if they're not, then we shouldn't be letting them in for any reason.
I also think we ought to be bringing them in with the express intent of having more Mexicans in the US than in Mexico. We should then use their Mexican voting privileges to absorb Mexico, or some portion of it, into the US legally. With all these illegals, we need more room in which to live. Turn this baby into a threat to the lecherous Mexican oligarchs and see how long it lasts.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 13:03 Comments ||
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#10
The illegals must not be allowed to vote. When it is fact that theey can never vote, then, and only then, our politicians will 'obey' us and serve us with the wording of the law. Today, our politicians are positioning for the new votes. We must not allow this to happen.
What do we think of Canada? When we think of them at all...
What do they think of us?
Well, neocon or liberal, the truth is -- not much
In all the unabashed self-celebration this Canada Day weekend, thoughts turn easily to our national obsessions: universal health care, bilingualism, the social safety net and of course, the United States.
I went to the Canada Day celebration at the embassy on Saturday. I didn't notice any of those obsessions. I saw lots of very nice people eating pancakes and sausage (the ambassador was one of the cooks), listening to a band called Calgary Stampede, and enjoying a pleasant day. The theme was Alberta, though, so maybe if the theme had been Ottawa I'd have seen the obsessions.
Whether we're worrying about frank-talking Canadian ambassadors "tarnishing" our relations with the U.S., or what some American newspaper or broadcaster has said about us, there are few things more fundamentally Canadian than our abiding fixation with the U.S.A. Few things more genuinely Canuck than our unending preoccupation with the opinions of that elephant across the border. Few things more revealing.
I was very comfortable floating in a sea of Canucks. They reminded me of the Americans of the long lost days of my youth, before it became fashionable to have an attitude...
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2006 10:59 ||
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#1
I'm instituting a new rule. Whenever I read a foreign article, I'm going to stop at the first use of the word "neocon". No foreigner (and damned few Americans) actually knows what a "neocon" is, but it seems to be code for "people I really hate".
I might miss some insightful articles on Leo Strauss that way, but I'm willing to take the risk.
#2
It is painfully apparent that, in George W. Bush's profoundly divided U.S., the population is rigidly split along ideological lines -- Republicans vs. Democrats, neoconservatives vs. liberals, warmongers with me-first sensibilities and all the wrong priorities vs. peace-lovers with social conscience and all the right ones.
Idiot
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 13:21 Comments ||
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#3
That will surely be the most pointless article I'll read anywhere today. Obsessing about obsessing. I learned one thing: it's Canada Day. In Canada I presume.
On those rare occasions the U.S. opens its eyes long enough to realize it is not alone on the continent, when it does accidentally notice us...
The US knows very well it's not alone on the continent. We spend a lot of time thinking about Mexico, for example. Ms. Kennedy seems to be unaware that Mexico is in North America. Typical Canadian insularity.
Most people don't know this, but the name of the country is actually spelled Cnd. The confusion starts when you ask a Canuck to spell it. He'll invariably say "C eh, N eh, D eh.".
This has gone on for so long that people actually think it's spelled "C A N A D A" nowadays.
#7
A lot of Canadian energy in the late 19th and early 20th century went into defining themselves as "good" vs. the "bad" U.S. If we don't always pay attention, maybe it's because the one-note song is boring.
You know, if those ugly Americans just south of you started to think that way, the rest of the world will start to become very worried, very worried indeed. Particularly since there's nothing that exists that could really stop them if they had the attitude.
Keller on Face the Nation this morning:
Mr. KELLER: But, I mean, I don't think this is all politics, I think the administration's a little embarrassed. They--this is the most secretive White House we've had since the Nixon White House, I think, by general acceptance, and I think they're a little embarrassed that they've had so much trouble holding on to their secrets.
SCHIEFFER: One of the more interesting reactions came from your competitor, The Wall Street Journal. Now, they did publish the story after it became known that you were going to publish the story, but they used some very strong language. In fact, I think at one point they said something that you had taken one of the most powerful weapons in the US arsenal and exposed it. What was your reaction to--to the way the Journal reacted?
Mr. KELLER: I think people who should react to The Wall Street Journal editorial are the--are the people over in The Wall Street Journal's newsroom, who must have been cringing with embarrassment to read, kind of, what the people on their opinion pages were saying. Because they wrote that story and although they were not--because they were a little late coming to the story, they were not asked by the administration not to publish.
SCHIEFFER: Well, to the contrary. As I understand it, from the Journal'seditorial, they were actually given the story after it became known that you all had the story. Is that unusual in journalism...
Mr. KELLER: It's--it's...
SCHIEFFER: ...for the government to give somebody else's story to another newspaper?
Mr. KELLER: No, that's not that unusual a tactic. A lot of times when they are aware that one newspaper's going to publish something, they will give it to other papers in hopes that first of all you get the whole story out in onefell swoop, rather than have it trickle out over, over days or weeks, and you also have more of a chance to put your own spin on it.
SCHIEFFER: If you had something to say to people in America on this Fourth of July weekend about all this, what would it be, Mr. Keller?
Mr. KELLER: I guess I would say if you're under the impression that the presss is neutral in this war on terror, or that we're agnostic--and you could get that impression from some of the criticism--that couldn't be more wrong. We have people traveling in the front lines with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've had people who've been murdered in trying to figure out the terrorist threat. You know, we live in cities that are targets, proven targets, for the terrorists. So we--we're not neutral in this.
Now, if we were to quote Keller like he quotes Bush, the quote would be "We're not neutral in this."
#1
I'd encourage anyone (with the access) to publish Bil Keller's and Pinch Sulzbergers', as well as other major NYT stockholders', addresses, pictures of the driveway and security measures (like the NYT's Travel section on Cheney and Rumsfeld), since this is now the standard of the "public's right to know".
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 18:52 Comments ||
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#2
"...I think they're a little embarrassed that they've had so much trouble holding on to their secrets."
They'd have a lot less trouble holding on to them if Sultzberber, Keller, the reporters, and the scumbags who leaked to them were given a 5-minute trial for treason, lined up against a wall, and executed by firing squad.
Sooner or later it's going to come to that, because these people just don't know when to stop.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/02/2006 19:18 Comments ||
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#3
I'd appreciate it if the Rantburg editors didn't remove the ellipses I used to indicate that a whole section of the interview was passed over. It's only five characters. What is the reason for taking the time to edit out what I added? They are necessary to make an accurate quote; otherwise you are subject to the criticism that you changed the meaning of a quote by selective editing.
#5
KBK/115AS: legit complaint if it misrepresents (or allows an illegitimate gripe re:) the quote, IMHO
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 21:20 Comments ||
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#6
We will routinely snip ellipses, [snip]'s, etc to save space and loading time. We assume that all news articles are being edited. If you think that a particular snip or ellipse needs to be there to ensure that the article won't be mis-understand, indicate that and we'll leave it alone. Thanks, AoS.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2006 23:40 Comments ||
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#7
Schieffer and Keller: Mutual masterbation.
Mr. Keller should be in a PMITA (Pound-Me-In-The-ASS) Federal Prison married to Bubba for a few years for treason. Schieffer should be retired (or dead of old age by now).
Bush and company better do something about this open treason or *THEY* (Bush and Co) will lose the WOT for us.
To counter terrorists, you need to think like one. That will be the case to thwart terrorists who want to match, if not exceed, the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
September 11 came from the sky in a somewhat unconventional way. Terrorists turned fully-fueled airplanes with passengers into cruise missiles, crashing them into the symbols of U.S. economic and military strength: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In their desire to at least match the destructive effect of those attacks, terrorists will look for another "creative," unconventional approach.
Continued on Page 49
An Hiroshima-type bomb with an equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT could take out a city and most people in it. The heat from the blast will evaporate most structures near the explosion and create radiation that will affect the lives of many more people.
Hmmm, the Hiroshima bomb was detonated at 1900 feet in the middle of the city specifically to maximise the damage created and killed 70,000 people.
I would have thought that any bomb of the same size detonated in a port, at sea level, is not going to create the same damage as the Hiroshima device. Not that there won't be extensive damage of course!
IMHO, the quote about 'taking out a city' is pure hyperbole.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
07/02/2006 17:30 Comments ||
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#3
Yeah, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bustling cities today.
Neither was "Taken Out" except temporarily.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/02/2006 19:23 Comments ||
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#4
Well, we have the strength and power to suppress, and then obliterate, an attack from any front or direction.
Today, our political system, the best concieved in modern history, can't muster the resolve to assuage all the cry-babies, and then do what must be done.
Posted by: as ||
07/02/2006 22:41 Comments ||
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There are several ways to fight a war. On the one hand, you can put on a uniform, climb into a tank, rumble across a field and fire on the other fellows' tank. On the other, you can find a 12-year-old girl, persuade her to try on your new suicide-bomber belt and send her waddling off into the nearest pizza parlor. The Geneva Conventions were designed to encourage the former and discourage the latter. The thinking behind them was that, if one had to have wars, it's best if they're fought by soldiers and armies. In return for having a rank and serial number and dressing the part, you'll be treated as a lawful combatant should you fall into the hands of the other side. There'll always be a bit of skulking around in street garb among civilian populations, but the idea was to ensure that it would not be rewarded --that there would, in fact, be a downside for going that route.
The U.S. Supreme Court has now blown a hole in the animating principle behind the Geneva Conventions by choosing to elevate an enemy that disdains the laws of war in order to facilitate the bombing of civilian targets and the beheading of individuals. The argument made by Justice John Paul Stevens is an Alice-In-Jihadland ruling that stands the Conventions on their head in order to give words the precise opposite of their plain meaning and intent. The same kind of inspired jurisprudence conjuring trick that detected in the emanations of the penumbra how the Framers of the U..S Constitution cannily anticipated a need for partial-birth abortion and gay marriage has now effectively found a right to jihad -- or, if you're a female suicide bomber about to board an Israeli bus, a woman's right to Jews.
The old-school wars were Britain vs. Germany, Japan vs. Russia, that sort of thing. But we don't hold those as often as we once did, so, for the new school of warfare, Justice Stevens and his chums took refuge in Geneva's Common Article Three, which begins as follows:
Continued on Page 49
#1
Like I said, five supremes need to hang. Do it on the Mall, where everyone will see it, and understand that there is no way that "wrong" can be turned into "right" and succeed. Add a few senators and representatives for flavor - I've got a list.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/02/2006 22:21 Comments ||
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The head of the House intelligence panel is calling the national intelligence director to task for misrepresenting the discovery of chemical munitions in Iraq. Why is the intelligence establishment playing games?
A strongly worded letter sent last week by Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., complained to John Negroponte about a June 21 press briefing that Negroponte's office organized and in which unidentified intelligence officials made "inaccurate, incomplete and occasionally misleading comments" to reporters.
Reporters were told that CIA weapons inspectors in Iraq weren't interested in weapons of mass destruction produced before the 1991 Gulf War. "This assertion is demonstrably false," Hoekstra wrote, and he quoted from the Transmittal Message to the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report.
Continued on Page 49
SULEIMANIYA, IRAQ - When I went to the Middle East for a six-month extended visit I wanted to see if I could find a genuinely moderate Islamist political party, one that not only practices democracy but also believes in it. There was a slight chance Hezbollah might fit that description. Lebanons Party of God has mellowed somewhat with age and participates in elections. But Hezbollah, unfortunately, is psychotic as ever. Hassan Nasrallah and his goon squad are instinctively belligerent and authoritarian even if Lebanons post-war democratic culture keeps them in check. Hezbollah is liberal and even pacifist compared with Hamas and Al Qaeda, but they nevertheless are a violent warmongering proxy militia for two despotic regimes in the Middle East.
Egypts Muslim Brotherhood is better. They arent armed, they dont even try to kill Israeli soldiers (let alone civilians), and they at least pretend to be opposed to terrorism. But they are only moderate compared with their violent fellow Islamists. Ideologically they dont differ much.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union, though, does seem to be genuinely moderate. Its leaders appear to have more in common with conservative Christian Democrats in Europe than with any terrorist organization or Middle Eastern religious dictatorship.
I met with Ali Muhammad, Director of the Suleimaniya bureau of the KIU, Iraqi Kurdistans third largest (and growing) political party, in his office. He provided his own in-house translator, a plump woman in a dark brown abaya. My own translator, because he was a stranger, was not to be trusted.
Interview follows, well worth going to the link to read the whole article. If you can, hit his paypal -- he says a major, frequently criticised US newspaper rejected it as not being ground-breaking enough.
Assuming Ali Muhammad was honest with me, the very existence of the Kurdistan Islamic Union is a relief. Osama bin Laden will never calm down and become a mainstream religious conservative. He will be a radical and a fascist until somebody punches his ticket. But if the KIU can find a way to reconcile an authoritarian religion with modern democracy there is no reason other similar moderately conservative political parties cant form elsewhere to compete with the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the theocratic Iranian state.
I do believe Ali Muhammad was sincere in his moderation, that he wasn't just jerking me around for good press. It was painfully obvious that Essam El-Erian of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood was concealing his real opinions from me so I wouldn't expose him and his organization as radical nutjobs.
As a reality check, though, I asked my translator Alan Atoof in Suleimaniya about the KIU. Alan is a secular liberal whose family is from the part of Iraqi Kurdistan that was besieged by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ansar al Islam until U.S. Special Forces and the Peshmerga drove them into Iran three years ago. You have to look long and hard to find someone more opposed to violent jihadists. He simply will not put up with these people, and I wanted to know what he thought of the Kurdistan Islamic Union. Do they practice taqiyya? Are they Salafists or Wahhabis in moderate drag?
Not according to Alan, they aren't. His uncle is a member of the KIU, and he knows them well and in person. He confirms that they are genuinely moderate and reasonable people who don't pose a threat to Kurdistan's secular culture and politics.
#1
Thanks TW...[in the main] the Kurds seem to be the real deal, I've read many good things about them from quite a few people. heh they like Americans !
#1
And there was no alternative to the example of the Philistines. And to this day, they are memorialized by having their proper name used as an adjective.
Don't Believe the Hype Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming.
BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN
Sunday, July 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms--unless we change the way we live now.
Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore's gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush's obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over."
That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place.
The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know."
So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.
They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.
The other elements of the global-warming scare scenario are predicated on similar oversights. Malaria, claimed as a byproduct of warming, was once common in Michigan and Siberia and remains common in Siberia--mosquitoes don't require tropical warmth. Hurricanes, too, vary on multidecadal time scales; sea-surface temperature is likely to be an important factor. This temperature, itself, varies on multidecadal time scales. However, questions concerning the origin of the relevant sea-surface temperatures and the nature of trends in hurricane intensity are being hotly argued within the profession.
Even among those arguing, there is general agreement that we can't attribute any particular hurricane to global warming. To be sure, there is one exception, Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who argues that it must be global warming because he can't think of anything else. While arguments like these, based on lassitude, are becoming rather common in climate assessments, such claims, given the primitive state of weather and climate science, are hardly compelling.
A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.
A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the order of one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and the early '70s, increased again until the '90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.
There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.
Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.
The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument--e.g., we can't think of an alternative--to support human attribution. But the "summary for policy makers" claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
In a similar vein, the National Academy of Sciences issued a brief (15-page) report responding to questions from the White House. It again enumerated the difficulties with attribution, but again the report was preceded by a front end that ambiguously claimed that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability." This was sufficient for CNN's Michelle Mitchell to presciently declare that the report represented a "unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Well, no.
More recently, a study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.
Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: "Case closed." What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open.
So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.
First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade.
Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky.
Mr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 17:57 ||
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#1
Al Gore is wrong.
Ummm, this is worth mentioning?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/02/2006 19:18 Comments ||
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#2
"A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic"
Gore and his ilk have always found a half truth to be more useful than a whole one.
That question has troubled me for quite a while. The Hamdan decision certainly suggests that, by ignoring the Geneva Conventions even in Guantanamo (let alone in Iraq), a war crime has been committed. And in the military, the command structure insists that superiors are held accountable. I've been saying this for a long time now, and have watched aghast as the Bush administration has essentially dumped responsibility for war-crimes on the grunts at Abu Ghraib. The evidence already available proves that the president himself ordered torture and abuse and the violation of the Geneva Conventions. Now he has been shown to be required to act within the law, and according to the Constitution, his liability for war crimes therefore comes into focus. Money quote from a useful Cato Institute Hamdan summary:
Both the majority and concurrence cite 18 U.S.C. § 2241, which Justice Kennedy stresses makes violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention a war crime punishable as a federal offense, enforceable in federal civil court. The majority holds, of course, that trying persons under the president's military commission order violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, suggesting that trial is a war crime within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 2241.
Furthermore, the majority stresses that the Geneva Conventions 'do extend liability for substantive war crimes to those who "orde[r]' their commission" and "this Court has read the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 to impose command responsibility' on military commanders for acts of their subordinates." The Courts emphasis on the liability that attaches to "orders" is significant, because trials in the military commissions are, of course, pursuant to a direct presidential order. Even so, it's difficult to imagine a circumstances in which charges under Section 2241 might actually be prosecuted.
Difficult but not impossible. AS was a one-trick pony (gay marriage) and has become increasingly unhinged. I only posted this so you can see what advanced Assholery can lead to...and I'm not making a snide gay reference. Sheer BDS-induced stupidity. Thoughtful readings of the rulings say nothing of the sort. Time Magazine should be ashamed to print his shit
There was a time when I thought he really got it. He didn't. He's not a conservative -- he's a firm believer in group identity, and no such believer is a conservative.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2006 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Silly Sully, no log cabin card for him
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/02/2006 1:00 Comments ||
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#2
Someone should tell to this retarded that Geneva conventions apply only IF the other part has signed them AND is respecting its signature.
#3
I wrote A Sullivan several years ago on the subject of gay 'marriage', pointing out that this is a money issue. Gays want the financial benefits that accrue to hetereosexual marriages.
Be honest about the issue and debate it on it's merits and you might find me sympathetic, but continue with this deceptive campaign and I will oppose it.
I got a bullshit reply and have never read his blog/writing since.
#4
And to think his was one of the blogs that got me into reading blogs after 9/11. He is a case study in BDS "in the field." Most BDS sufferers were unhinged (at least politically) before.
It's sad what BDS does to a person. Shouldn't we have a telethon or something?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Whether we're worrying about frank-talking Canadian ambassadors "tarnishing" our relations with the U.S., or what some American newspaper or broadcaster has said about us, there are few things more fundamentally Canadian than our abiding fixation with the U.S.A. Few things more genuinely Canuck than our unending preoccupation with the opinions of that elephant across the border. Few things more revealing.
Don't Believe the Hype Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming. 
That question has troubled me for quite a while. The Hamdan decision certainly suggests that, by ignoring the Geneva Conventions even in Guantanamo (let alone in Iraq), a war crime has been committed. And in the military, the command structure insists that superiors are held accountable. I've been saying this for a long time now, and have watched aghast as the Bush administration has essentially dumped responsibility for war-crimes on the grunts at Abu Ghraib. The evidence already available proves that the president himself ordered torture and abuse and the violation of the Geneva Conventions. Now he has been shown to be required to act within the law, and according to the Constitution, his liability for war crimes therefore comes into focus. Money quote from a useful Cato Institute Hamdan summary:
