Sunday, December 30, 2007

The hoax of man-made global warming revisited

Recent articles on this blog have pointed out the real threat to our American way of life presented by the misnamed Energy and Security Independence Act but we can’t escape the fact that this and other laws of the federal and state governments are prompted by the also misleading idea that man is causing our planet to ‘warm’. Despite numerous reports and articles by many actual scientists to the contrary, the public is made to believe that humans are the culprits behind global warming and it is irresponsible to not take some action, virtually any action dictated by the global warming alarmists, to diminish this alleged impending destruction of the Earth and with it, many inhabitants of the planet.

Although it may do little good to inform people about the enormous hoax world organizations and politicians of all stripes are playing on the public, one cannot help but to try to disperse as much information and facts to others in the hope that they in turn will spread the truth to still more ‘others’ so that it may be possible to stop the onslaught of this hubris before we are unable to reverse the trend of global dominance and redistribution of wealth from successful societies to primitive ones.

Let’s once again examine what is happening.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change issued their latest report on global warming, stating that “the earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10.4 degrees over the next 100 years”, which is 60 percent higher than the same group predicted just six years ago. This was followed up with some alarming predictions of what this rise in temperature would mean to our planet and its inhabitants: “Ocean currents would be altered and huge portions of Alpine snowcaps would be wiped away. There would be devastating droughts, floods, violent storms and the spread of cholera and malaria”.

In a letter to the Washington Post, Dr. Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, which is on his Science and Environmental Policy Project website, pointing out that the spokesman for the IPCC claimed that the climate has warmed in the last 50 years. However, he and other scientists “have seen little or no warming since about 1940”. Therefore, they can't put much faith in these "theoretical forecasts."

Numerous scientists agree with Dr. Singer. In 1998, 17,000 scientists signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, saying, in part, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate"; but this petition has not been reported very much, if at all, in news media.

We are told that more than 2,000 scientists were consulted by the IPCC in drafting its report, but IPCC did not also mention that not all of them agreed with the findings. However, even if there had been total agreement among those ‘consulted’, the sad fact is that these scientists were handpicked by the IPCC and their respective governments, most of which were fully behind the Kyoto treaty. Clearly, the IPCC's reports are products of political rather than scientific processes.

One example of the shoddy support for the IPCC report: an observation by Harvard University oceanographer James J. McCarthy, a prominent member of the IPCC panel, was reported by the New York Times. Dr. McCarthy said “that for the first time in 50 million years the ice pack at the North Pole had melted”. It seems Dr. McCarthy had observed open water at the North Pole while on an educational cruise and he promptly reported this as evidence of the effects of human-induced climate change. This is the caliber of the ‘science’ supporting the idea of man-made global warming.

After printing Dr. McCarthy’s ‘observation’, the New York Times was contacted by scientists more familiar with the Arctic's climate history and geological record who pointed out that, during the summer, more than 10 percent of the Arctic Ocean is free of ice and it is not rare that the North Pole is part of that 10 percent. Ten days later the New York Times printed a retraction which was not challenged by Dr. McCarthy.

The IPCC has stated that global warming is causing the sea level to rise dangerously. However, in October 1999, a team of scientists led by Dr. Howard Conway of the University of Washington reported that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was melting; but the melting was believed to be part of an ongoing natural cycle that began when the ice age ended 10,000 years ago - not as a result of anything humans did or are doing. Conway also predicted that it will take several thousand years before this melting ice sheet would begin to affect seaboard cities, assuming the earth doesn't enter a new ice age.

Here are some other points the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should have considered before issuing their report, and which gullible agents of man-made global warming should understand before jumping on the ‘melting ice berg’ pronounced by alarmists:

  • "While the IPCC is able to show a recent temperature rise by averaging data from surface thermometers, there is no corresponding rise when data is obtained from well-controlled weather stations where local heating urban effects are eliminated.
  • Data from more reliable weather satellites show no appreciable warming trend since 1979, nor does the data gathered from weather balloons.
  • Data from tree rings, ice cores and ocean sediments shows, after the modest 1.0 degree global warming of the last 140 years, present-day temperatures remain cooler by about 1.0 degree than they were when the Vikings settled Greenland in medieval times.
  • For more than 7,500 of the last 10,000 years, temperatures have been higher than today."


We who are skeptical of the IPCC report and its political consequences have every right to remain skeptical. We are in good company with thousands of expert scientists. The public should not be manipulated into accepting laws that transfer our wealth and cripple our economy, especially laws based on views of political scientists rather than the scientific evidence provided by actual scientists.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Ron Paul; the candidate (most) everyone loves to ridicule

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not voting for Ron Paul; mainly because he couldn’t win anyway (nor could anyone with the name ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ win a national election; that’s why I hope he gets the Democrat nomination). The best non candidate is Newt Gingrich, but that’s another story.

But is Ron Paul the kook a lot of people, including Republicans, say he is? Maybe we should take a look at what he says and his positions before labeling Ron Paul an extremist or kook.

In a one-on-one interview recently, here is what Ron Paul said - as I quote and sometimes paraphrase:

Paul is in favor of “beefing up the border patrol.”

Regarding investigation into 9/11; Paul said:

“Bureaucracies are always inept. And I think that nobody wants to be investigated because it makes one look bad. Obviously if you have something as tragic as 9/11, somebody slipped up somewhere, and I think that's the main problem with these investigations. Even though I've given some token support to the idea that we ought to really look into it and find the real truth, frankly another government investigation is not likely to reveal a whole lot of difference because government is sort of protective of itself, sometimes even party to party they do that.”

When asked about the role Israel plays in the Middle East, Paul said:

“I think they provide a balance of power there. I think unfortunately we get in their way, because they depend on us for money. They also depend on us for permission. We hinder Israel by not allowing them to do what is necessary for their own defense. If they thought they needed to take out somebody they have to get our permission. On the other side of that, I think they would play an even better role if we would allow them to negotiate with Syria and other countries, and there's been some strong hints that they would like to do that. In many ways I think that they have a balance of power there. Nobody's going to touch them. They don't really need us. They have 200-300 nuclear weapons and nobody's going to attack Israel. Israel would be even more secure if they didn't depend on us so much. because they wouldn't have to get our permission. There's no way – Iraq and Iran they don't even have – neither one has nuclear weapons. Iraq didn't and Iran doesn't, but even if they did, Israel's going to take care of it. So I think they play an important role in the balance of power there but I think it would even be more powerful if they weren't so dependant on us.”

In response to this question posed by the interviewer:

“You often cite George Washington's warning to the U.S. to, quote, avoid foreign entanglements, end quote, but under that rule the U.S. probably would not have fought and defeated Hitler's Germany, which never attacked the U.S. In your view is there ever a legitimate reason for the U.S. to invade a foreign nation to free an enslaved people or to save a nation from being invaded and assimilated by another?”

Paul replied:

“Your question is inaccurate in the sense that Germany declared war against us. We didn't declare against them. We didn't go to war just on our own. They made the declaration, and we declared war against them the following day. The president actually has clear authority to pre-emptively act in defense of this country if a nation has attacked us or if there is an imminent attack. He doesn't even have to ask the Congress to do that. But just to say for humanitarian reasons or for some other reasons for us to pre-emptively attack somebody, Iraq or Iran, no, I think it's completely wrong. It's unconstitutional, it's immoral, it's unwise. And when you don't declare the war, you don't win the war, so Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and probably the war that's coming in Iran, I think these are way beyond the scope of what the Founding Fathers intended and I think that's why we haven't been winning wars much since World War II.”

Regarding illegal immigration and the North American Union under secret development by the Bush administration, Paul said:

“… we should stop the inflow[of illegal immigrants], but I emphasize in a strong manner the idea of removing the benefits, no amnesty and changing the law so it's very clear there's no birthright citizenship and making sure there are no federal mandates on the states for free services, no free medicine, no free education, no bilingualism where we have to pay more money to teach kids in Spanish to illegal aliens to having food stamps and getting on our Social Security. You've got to get rid of the incentives and I think the whole process would change. Right now, there's a much greater move on for the New World Order which incorporates the North American Union. I don't think our current leaders in either the Republican Party or the Democrat Party care about borders any more, and I would be emphatic. Although the law was not changed in 2005, our president agreed with Mexico and Canada that they would work in that direction, that they would have a North American Union and I would make it very clear that that's not my intent, and yet I would still want to be friends with our neighbors and trade with our neighbors and be peaceful and not get involved in their internal affairs. I certainly would change this whole attitude about the obliteration of our borders and working toward a North American Union.”

Paul was asked:

“Would you support an amendment to the Constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman?”

Paul answered:

“I tend to like the principle of the Constitution that our problems are dealt with by the states. I don't want more power, I want to remove power from Washington. I don't want it going from Washington and then to the United Nations, so …on the marriage amendment I want the states to deal with that. I think it's a good system. I think federalism is the best way to do it. Those problems on marriage should be defined by the states.”Asked to share his perspective about Roe vs. Wade, Paul answered:“The Constitution now does not explicitly interfere with the states obligation to punish people who commit murder, and killing an innocent fetus is to me an act of violence and it should be permitted that states prohibit this. I want to repeal Roe v. Wade. It should have never been heard, and the federal government's obligation is to make sure that nobody is ever forced to fund abortions, yet we're doing that all the time. We fund hospitals that do abortions, we fund international programs that do abortions. We have to move away from that. The protection of life in most cases today, even in spite of our big problems, most acts of violence are still taken care of by the federal courts, and I don't want to distinguish the killing of a fetus one minute before birth from the killing of a fetus one minute after birth, because if we don't invite the federal government in when the teenager kills her baby as soon as the baby is born, they are arrested and they are charged for the crime by the state, and I think that's the way the abortion issue should be handled.”

Paul was asked about the North American Union and he replied:

“It's incremental. It sneaks up on us. When we joined the WTO I objected and they said it's no big deal, they won't force us to do anything. They try to reassure you. Yet to be an upstanding member of the WTO we have already changed our tax laws. We have gone to war under U.N. resolutions. As a matter of fact, this excuse of giving the president the authority to go to war and Congress ducking their responsibility, it was to give the president the authority to enforce U.N. resolutions, so it's subtle but it's there, and it's not legal in the sense that they say a treaty is the law of the land so we join the U.N. and you have to do these things. But you cannot amend the Constitution with a treaty. I think it's already happening. I think it's going to get a lot worse. This Security and Prosperity Partnership is something most members of Congress are totally unaware of and when you tell them anything about it, they say that's all conspiratorial and it's not true and they don't care. The American people are facing some serious problems because of the fact members of Congress aren't alert to what's happening.”

In answering the final question Ron Paul responded with his view of the Constitution and the rule of law:

“ … all of us , liberals, conservatives, libertarians and Democrats, everybody should agree that without the rule of law there is nothing. We can have our disagreements, but we should not ever reject the idea of the rule of law. Our problem we have today is that courts take it upon themselves to legislate, we have allowed our executive branch to legislate through the administrative courts and through the writing of regulations. We have allowed the president to go to war, the Congress to reject their responsibilities, and then when they do write laws they don't obey the Constitution. But I think what the American people want are members of our government to obey the rule of law. If they want to have No Child Left Behind, the federal government running our public schools, at least change the Constitution. There was a time when this country, they thought they were going to make the country a better place to live and they said nobody should drink alcohol. Well they went out and amended the Constitution. They had a lot of respect for the law. Today there is no respect for the law, the Constitution. That is what I'm going to do, is direct my attention to solving any and every problem. Of course my thesis is that the mess we have with its financial, monetary or foreign policy has all occurred because we have ignored the Constitution. If we decide we want to solve some of these problems, I venture to bet we can find most of the answers in the Constitution."

Very likely, most Republicans, or at least most conservatives, would agree with the positions described by Ron Paul in this interview; yet he is maligned as someone a bit less than a heretic.

This is not to say Ron Paul does not have some views disagreeable to many of us, he does. For example, Paul is an isolationist and severely criticizes our participation in the Iraq war, but so do other well meaning Republicans and conservatives. Paul is particularly adamant about bringing back our troops in Iraq; he wants to put them on the border to stop illegal immigration.

Do you know of any other candidate for the Republican presidential nomination that speaks out as clearly as Ron Paul on the issues you agree with him about? Why should we be surprised that Ron Paul has collected as much money as he has in the primary process?

By the way, Ron Paul became a flight surgeon in the Air Force. As a doctor, Ron Paul delivered over 4,000 babies. In Congress, Ron Paul never voted to raise taxes, never voted for an unbalanced budget, never voted to restrict gun rights or raise congressional pay.

“Ron Paul; the candidate (most) everyone loves to ridicule

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not voting for Ron Paul; mainly because he couldn’t win anyway (nor could anyone with the name ‘Barak Hussein Obama’ win a national election; that’s why I hope he gets the Democrat nomination). The best non candidate is Newt Gingrich, but that’s another story.

But is Ron Paul the kook a lot of people, including Republicans, say he is? Maybe we should take a look at what he says and his positions before labeling Ron Paul an extremist or kook.

In a one-on-one interview recently, here is what Ron Paul said - as I quote and sometimes paraphrase:

Paul is in favor of “beefing up the border patrol.”

Regarding investigation into 9/11; Paul said:

“Bureaucracies are always inept. And I think that nobody wants to be investigated because it makes one look bad. Obviously if you have something as tragic as 9/11, somebody slipped up somewhere, and I think that's the main problem with these investigations. Even though I've given some token support to the idea that we ought to really look into it and find the real truth, frankly another government investigation is not likely to reveal a whole lot of difference because government is sort of protective of itself, sometimes even party to party they do that.”

When asked about the role Israel plays in the Middle East, Paul said:

“I think they provide a balance of power there. I think unfortunately we get in their way, because they depend on us for money. They also depend on us for permission. We hinder Israel by not allowing them to do what is necessary for their own defense. If they thought they needed to take out somebody they have to get our permission. On the other side of that, I think they would play an even better role if we would allow them to negotiate with Syria and other countries, and there's been some strong hints that they would like to do that. In many ways I think that they have a balance of power there. Nobody's going to touch them. They don't really need us. They have 200-300 nuclear weapons and nobody's going to attack Israel. Israel would be even more secure if they didn't depend on us so much. because they wouldn't have to get our permission. There's no way – Iraq and Iran they don't even have – neither one has nuclear weapons. Iraq didn't and Iran doesn't, but even if they did, Israel's going to take care of it. So I think they play an important role in the balance of power there but I think it would even be more powerful if they weren't so dependant on us.”

In response to this question posed by the interviewer:

“You often cite George Washington's warning to the U.S. to, quote, avoid foreign entanglements, end quote, but under that rule the U.S. probably would not have fought and defeated Hitler's Germany, which never attacked the U.S. In your view is there ever a legitimate reason for the U.S. to invade a foreign nation to free an enslaved people or to save a nation from being invaded and assimilated by another?”

Paul replied:

“Your question is inaccurate in the sense that Germany declared war against us. We didn't declare against them. We didn't go to war just on our own. They made the declaration, and we declared war against them the following day. The president actually has clear authority to pre-emptively act in defense of this country if a nation has attacked us or if there is an imminent attack. He doesn't even have to ask the Congress to do that. But just to say for humanitarian reasons or for some other reasons for us to pre-emptively attack somebody, Iraq or Iran, no, I think it's completely wrong. It's unconstitutional, it's immoral, it's unwise. And when you don't declare the war, you don't win the war, so Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and probably the war that's coming in Iran, I think these are way beyond the scope of what the Founding Fathers intended and I think that's why we haven't been winning wars much since World War II.”

Regarding illegal immigration and the North American Union under secret development by the Bush administration, Paul said:

“… we should stop the inflow[of illegal immigrants], but I emphasize in a strong manner the idea of removing the benefits, no amnesty and changing the law so it's very clear there's no birthright citizenship and making sure there are no federal mandates on the states for free services, no free medicine, no free education, no bilingualism where we have to pay more money to teach kids in Spanish to illegal aliens to having food stamps and getting on our Social Security. You've got to get rid of the incentives and I think the whole process would change. Right now, there's a much greater move on for the New World Order which incorporates the North American Union. I don't think our current leaders in either the Republican Party or the Democrat Party care about borders any more, and I would be emphatic. Although the law was not changed in 2005, our president agreed with Mexico and Canada that they would work in that direction, that they would have a North American Union and I would make it very clear that that's not my intent, and yet I would still want to be friends with our neighbors and trade with our neighbors and be peaceful and not get involved in their internal affairs. I certainly would change this whole attitude about the obliteration of our borders and working toward a North American Union.”

Paul was asked: “Would you support an amendment to the Constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman?”

Paul answered:

“I tend to like the principle of the Constitution that our problems are dealt with by the states. I don't want more power, I want to remove power from Washington. I don't want it going from Washington and then to the United Nations, so …on the marriage amendment I want the states to deal with that. I think it's a good system. I think federalism is the best way to do it. Those problems on marriage should be defined by the states.”

Asked to share his perspective about Roe vs. Wade, Paul answered:

“The Constitution now does not explicitly interfere with the states obligation to punish people who commit murder, and killing an innocent fetus is to me an act of violence and it should be permitted that states prohibit this. I want to repeal Roe v. Wade. It should have never been heard, and the federal government's obligation is to make sure that nobody is ever forced to fund abortions, yet we're doing that all the time. We fund hospitals that do abortions, we fund international programs that do abortions. We have to move away from that. The protection of life in most cases today, even in spite of our big problems, most acts of violence are still taken care of by the federal courts, and I don't want to distinguish the killing of a fetus one minute before birth from the killing of a fetus one minute after birth, because if we don't invite the federal government in when the teenager kills her baby as soon as the baby is born, they are arrested and they are charged for the crime by the state, and I think that's the way the abortion issue should be handled.”

Paul was asked about the North American Union and he replied:

“It's incremental. It sneaks up on us. When we joined the WTO I objected and they said it's no big deal, they won't force us to do anything. They try to reassure you. Yet to be an upstanding member of the WTO we have already changed our tax laws. We have gone to war under U.N. resolutions. As a matter of fact, this excuse of giving the president the authority to go to war and Congress ducking their responsibility, it was to give the president the authority to enforce U.N. resolutions, so it's subtle but it's there, and it's not legal in the sense that they say a treaty is the law of the land so we join the U.N. and you have to do these things. But you cannot amend the Constitution with a treaty. I think it's already happening. I think it's going to get a lot worse. This Security and Prosperity Partnership is something most members of Congress are totally unaware of and when you tell them anything about it, they say that's all conspiratorial and it's not true and they don't care. The American people are facing some serious problems because of the fact members of Congress aren't alert to what's happening.”

In answering the final question Ron Paul responded with his view of the Constitution and the rule of law:

“ … all of us , liberals, conservatives, libertarians and Democrats, everybody should agree that without the rule of law there is nothing. We can have our disagreements, but we should not ever reject the idea of the rule of law. Our problem we have today is that courts take it upon themselves to legislate, we have allowed our executive branch to legislate through the administrative courts and through the writing of regulations. We have allowed the president to go to war, the Congress to reject their responsibilities, and then when they do write laws they don't obey the Constitution. But I think what the American people want are members of our government to obey the rule of law. If they want to have No Child Left Behind, the federal government running our public schools, at least change the Constitution. There was a time when this country, they thought they were going to make the country a better place to live and they said nobody should drink alcohol. Well they went out and amended the Constitution. They had a lot of respect for the law. Today there is no respect for the law, the Constitution. That is what I'm going to do, is direct my attention to solving any and every problem. Of course my thesis is that the mess we have with its financial, monetary or foreign policy has all occurred because we have ignored the Constitution. If we decide we want to solve some of these problems, I venture to bet we can find most of the answers in the Constitution."

Very likely, most Republicans, or at least most conservatives, would agree with the positions described by Ron Paul in this interview; yet he is maligned as someone a bit less than a heretic.

This is not to say Ron Paul does not have some views disagreeable to many of us, he does. For example, Paul is an isolationist and severely criticizes our participation in the Iraq war, but so do other well meaning Republicans and conservatives. Paul is particularly adamant about bringing back our troops in Iraq; he wants to put them on the border to stop illegal immigration.

Do you know of any other candidate for the Republican presidential nomination that speaks out as clearly as Ron Paul on the issues you agree with him about? Why should we be surprised that Ron Paul has collected as much money as he has in the primary process?

By the way, Ron Paul became a flight surgeon in the Air Force. As a doctor, Ron Paul delivered over 4,000 babies. In Congress, Ron Paul never voted to raise taxes, never voted for an unbalanced budget, never voted to restrict gun rights or raise congressional pay.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

When God said “Let there be light," he didn’t mean Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Congress dictated that the light bulbs we now use will one day be a thing of the past; like the horse buggy, the ice box, home delivered milk and the nickel cigar. However, the difference is these were replaced with substitutes that were better and didn’t require the hazardous waste disposal unit to take them away when they broke down.

With the enactment of the ‘Energy Independence and Security Act,' Congress bowed to the man-made global warming industry and required Americans to replace the dependable incandescent bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Lamps (‘CFLs’ for short); those weird looking spiral ‘light’ bulbs’ that often don’t fit well in your lamps and which put out less illumination, sometimes with a colorful hue not the white light of their ancestors. [The phase-out of incandescent light is to begin with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and end in 2014 with the 40-watt.]

Another major difference is that there is no problem disposing of incandescent light bulbs when they burn out and their life is over. You can throw them in the trash can and they won't hurt you or the garbage collector. They won't leech deadly compounds into the air or water. They won't kill people working in the landfills like CFLs may.

The same cannot be said about the mercury-containing CFLs. Even small amounts of highly toxic mercury in CFLs pose problems for consumers when they break or eventually burn out. Mercury is probably best-known for its effects on the nervous system. It can also damage the kidneys and liver, and in sufficient quantities can cause death. When sufficient mercury accumulates in a landfill, it can be emitted into the air in the form of vaporous methyl-mercury, and make its way into the water table. From there it can easily get into the food chain.

The potential hazard created by the introduction of billions of CFLs replacing incandescent bulbs with as yet undeveloped safe disposal practices and few safe disposal sites, and with a public unaware of the risks involved, is enormous. CFLs contain disposal warnings on the packaging but with limited recycling prospects and the problems experienced by users unfortunate enough to break one - sure to be repeated millions of times - the question is: Are environmentalists and industry putting the cart before the horse by marketing the new technology before the hazards in their use and disposal are worked out? Recycling experts say solutions to these problems are at least five to ten years away, and that’s just a guess.

The Environmental Protection Agency is highly recommending the switch to CFLs. While the EPA is on the CFL bandwagon as a means of reducing carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, which it believes contributes to global warming, it also quietly offers advice on cleanup of broken bulbs that might give consumers pause to consider dumping those incandescent light bulbs any time soon.

When a CFL breaks, the EPA cautions consumers to open a window and leave the room immediately for at least 15 minutes because of the mercury threat. The agency suggests removing all materials by scooping fragments and powder using cardboard or stiff paper. Sticky tape is suggested as a way to get smaller particles. The EPA says vacuum cleaners and bare hands should never be used in such cleanups. After final cleanup with a damp paper towel, the agency warns consumers to place all materials in a plastic bag.

"Seal and dispose of properly," says the EPA. "Wash hands."

Doesn’t that just make you want to run out and replace all your light bulbs with CFLs?

By the way, when laws banning incandescent bulbs take effect, mandatory fines on consumers and businesses that dispose of the new CFLs improperly kick in; a ‘catch 22’ since there is no easy way to dispose of CFLs and won’t be for a long time after they are required. LampRecycle.org offers a good sampling of the new regulations.


Joseph Farah at WorldNet.com has written -

“If government has the power to ban something incredibly benign and useful as the incandescent light bulb, what doesn't government have the power to do? No one has ever been killed by an incandescent light bulb. The billions of them that have been used around the world have done nothing they weren't intended to do. They produced light, efficiently and economically. But they have been legislated away - without so much as a single public opinion poll to determine what Americans think about the idea. And they will be replaced, by the way, by a hazardous alternative - one that will almost assuredly cost lives and hurt the environment.”

Who could disagree with him?

If all this is not enough to raise concerns, consider this as consumers discover other downsides of CFLs besides convenience and safety issues:

"Most do not work with dimmer switches

They are available in only a few sizes

Some emit a bluish light

Some people say they get headaches while working or reading under them

They cannot be used in recessed lighting enclosures or enclosed globes"

Fires are also seen as a possibility. When CFLs burn out, they often create some smoke which, to say the least, is alarming. This is a result of the plastic on the bulb's ballast melting and turning black. “CFL manufacturers dismiss safety concerns.”

A women’s experience recently reported in a Maine newspaper may give you even more cause for concern.

“When the bulb she was installing in a ceiling fixture of her 7-year-old daughter's bedroom crashed to the floor and broke into the shag carpet, she wasn't sure what to do. Knowing about the danger of mercury, she called Home Depot, the retail outlet that sold her the bulbs.

According to the Ellison American, the store warned her not to vacuum the carpet and directed her to call the poison control hotline in Prospect, Maine. Poison control staffers suggested she call the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The latter sent over a specialist to test the air in her house for mercury levels. While the rest of the house was clear, the area of the accident was contaminated above the level considered safe. The specialist warned the women not to clean up the bulb and mercury powder by herself – recommending a local environmental cleanup firm.

That company estimated the cleanup cost, conservatively, at $2,000. And, no, her homeowners insurance won't cover the damage.

Since she could not afford the cleanup, she has been forced to seal off her daughter's bedroom with plastic to avoid any dust blowing around. Not even the family pets are permitted in to the bedroom. Her daughter is forced to sleep downstairs in an overcrowded household.”


Believe it or not, the CFL craze did not start in Europe, it started in Fidel Castro's Cuba. His action in banning the incandescent bulb was followed up quickly by Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Only then did the trend continue to the industrialized western nations.

Doesn’t it make you feel good to know our Congress is following the lead of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez?

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Are children born of illegal immigrant’s citizens?

A common misconception is that the Constitution through the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship upon everyone born in the United States whether or not they were born to an illegal alien. Actually, the Constitution itself does not provide citizenship to those born of illegal parents; the Supreme Court only said it did in an 1898 decision known as ‘U.S. v. Wong Ark Can’, and it is politically correct to accept this Supreme Court decision while ignoring others.

The problem is that the court majority in the Wong Ark Can case, as is so often today, ‘made law’ according to their personal beliefs and not what those that wrote the Constitution (or in this case, the 14th Amendment) actually intended at the time it was written. Justice Horace Gray, who wrote the majority decision in the Wong Ark Can case, reveals exactly what the majority was up to by avoiding discussion about the intention of the clause by the two Senators most responsible for the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, Senators Jacob M. Howard and Lyman Trumbull.

It is clear the court majority in this case recognized the only reasonable way to come to the conclusion they wanted was to ignore the recorded legislative history left behind by the writers of the amendment. Justice Gray acknowledged this when he wrote:

"Doubtless, the intention of the congress which framed, and of the states which adopted, this amendment of the constitution, must be sought in the words of the amendment, and (sic)[but] the debates in congress are not admissible as evidence to control the meaning of those words."

Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed with this attempt by the Wong Ark Can majority to rewrite the Constitution:

"A refusal to consider reliable evidence of original intent in the Constitution is no more excusable than a judge's refusal to consider legislative intent."

Justice Gray and the court majority refused to consider both the original intent and legislative history behind the words because they knew it would be fatal to their pre-determined intent of reversing what Congress had inserted into the US Constitution by the fourteenth amendment so they avoided what senators Howard and Trumbull wrote and said.

Why did Justice Gray avoid the legislative history and the original intent of those writing the 14th amendment?

Well the first major hurdle Senator Howard presented to the court majority in this case is that he specifically declared the clause to be by "virtue of natural law" and national law only recognized citizenship by birth to those who were not subject to some other foreign power. The Senator also stated when he introduced the amendment:

“The clause [the citizenship clause section 1] specifically excludes all persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, and persons who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."

It seems clear that the amendment only applies to American citizens (natural law), regardless of their race - which is exactly what was intended. Remember, the amendment was written after the Civil War with the intent to acknowkledge the citizenship of those who had been slaves, not foreigners subject to national laws of other countries and not already citizens of the United States.

The court majority had an even bigger problem to impose their will on American citizens because Senator Howard also said in May, 1868 that the

"Constitution as now amended, forever withholds the right of citizenship in the case of accidental birth of a child belonging to foreign parents within the limits of the country." *

Senator Trumbull, the co-author, additionally presents a problem for the court majority by declaring:

"The provision is, that ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means 'subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.' What do we mean by 'complete jurisdiction thereof?' Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means."

Sen. Howard followed that up by stating that:

"The word 'jurisdiction,' as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now."

Illegal aliens and visitors do not enjoy the same quality of jurisdiction as a citizen of the United States. Can an alien be tried for Treason against the United States? Senator Howard clearly intended that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction" does not apply to anyone other than American citizens.

The writer, John A. Bingham, of the 14th amendment’s first section, considered the proposed national law on citizenship as

"simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen..."

Ironically, the Supreme Court had already decided the meaning of the 14th amendment's citizenship clause before the Wong Kim Ark case, and unlike the majority in the Wong Kim Ark court, did consider the intent and meaning of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction”. In the Slaughterhouse cases [Slaughterhouse Cases Butchers' Benevolent Association of New Orleans v. The Crescent City Livestock Landing and Slaughterhouse Co. (1873)] the court noted that

"[t]he phrase, 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."

Even the dissenting minority in the Slaughterhouse cases affirmed that the citizenship clause was designed to ensure that all persons born within the United States were both citizens of the United States and the state in which they resided, provided they were not at the time subjects of any foreign power.

Another Supreme Court decision [Elk v. Wilkins (1884)] correctly determined that

"subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States required "not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance."

America's own naturalization laws from the very beginning never recognized children born to aliens to be anything other than aliens if the parents had not declared their allegiance to the United State - a sure sign that the framers intended children under national law followed the citizenship of their father until he had become naturalized.

Also of interest, Justice Fuller, chief justice of the court in the Wong Kim Ark case, said,

The words 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' in the amendment, were used as synonymous with the words 'and not subject to any foreign power.”;

and he was absolutely correct.

Considering both the legislative and language history behind the citizenship clause (14th Amendment, Section 1) – and the courts own stated objective in reaching the conclusion they did while also taking into account two prior Supreme Court holdings - leaves the Wong Kim Ark ruling completely worthless. The decisions in the Slaughterhouse and Elk cases are still the only controlling case law that is fully supported by the history and language behind the citizenship clause as found in the first section of the 14th amendment, and it should be so today.

*14th Amendment
“Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Congress first gives us what we want, and then takes it away

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandated a border fence of 854 miles. If the law mandated a double layer fence covering 854 miles of fencing, then how come such little progress has been made? The reason is Congress and the President are playing games with the American people - pretending to support a border fence while working behind the scenes to ensure that the fence is never really built.

A deal had been made to un-do the Secure Fence Act even before the vote to approve it was taken. This scenario was staged to create the impression that Congress was clamping down on illegal immigration. Congress was approaching the 2006 elections and knew the public wanted secure borders so they passed the Secure Fence Act with no intention of actually closing the border; they were just playing election-year political games.

The plain language of the Secure Fence Act states that "the Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for [at] least 2 layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors" along a specified range of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Act then stipulated the precise regions of the border, covering a total of 854 miles, to be fenced. (Note: the border is actually over 1,400 miles long.)

But the very same day that the Senate passed the Secure Fence Act, Senate leaders had already hatched a plan to void the essential requirement of the Act. Congress passed another law immediately after passing the Secure Fence Act giving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discretion over how and where the fence would actually be built. The same day, after the Secure Fence Act was passed, it was undone.

Here is the sequence of events surrounding the passage of the Secure Fence Act and the subsequent appropriations bill that undermined the Act (from internet news sites):

“9/29/06, prior to vote -- Senator Bill Frist sends strongly worded letter to House and Senate leaders setting out the plan to pass subsequent legislation gutting the Secure Fence

9/29/06, (on the same day) -- Secure Fence Act passes

9/29/06 late evening – Senator Hutchison makes comments from the floor asking for discretion on implementation of Secure Fence Act; submits Frist letter into record

9/29/06 1-2 hour later – Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill passed with discretionary funding for border security not specifically tied to Secure Fence Act”

The funding bill passed by Congress required that the Department of Homeland Security (‘DHS’) was to issue a report to Congress as to how the money was to be spent prior to most of the funds being release. However, the DHS report submitted makes it clear that neither Congress nor the Administration really ever intended to adhere to the Secure Fence Act. For example, the DHS report in December 2006 questioned whether the border fence was necessary, and the report made no reference to the goals of the Secure Fence Act.

Instead of complying with the Secure Fence Act passed by Congress, DHS arbitrarily decided there should be only 570 miles of barriers, of which 370 miles would be pedestrian fencing (not double layer). There would be no 854 miles of double-layer fencing (as the Secure Fence Act required), there would be instead 370 miles of "pedestrian" fencing (i.e. not double-layer fencing) and only 554 miles of any kind of fencing, but in reality there wasn’t even 570 miles of fencing intended to be built.

Two amendments (SA 2466 and SA 2466 to HR 2638) introduced by Senator Hutchinson in the subsequent appropriation bill first seems to support building a fence (Section A) but does not (Section D). The first amendment states:

"(A) REINFORCED FENCING.--In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security shall construct reinforced fencing along not less than 700 miles of the southwest border where fencing would be most practical and effective and provide for the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors to gain operational control of the southwest border."

Note the phrase "where fencing would be most practical and effective." Basically, DHS has the discretion to build a fence any place it chooses (unlike the specific requirements of the Security Fence Act), or none at all. The second Hutchison amendment makes this even clearer: it states:

"(D) LIMITATION ON REQUIREMENTS.--Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location"

On December 20, 2007, Congress passed the “Consolidated Omnibus Appropriation Bill’ with the two Hutchinson amendments that emasculate the Secure Fence Act.

Thanks to several internet news sources and a few columnists, the true actions by Congress were exposed. For that we have to thank: TownHall.com, WorldNet Daily, Front Page Magazine, Michelle Malkin, Grassfire, and several others.

I too am trying to do my part so people will know Congress and the president do not really want to close our border; the more voters that know this, the better.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,



Vincent

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Will Islamic radicals self-destruct?

It’s about time we recognize that ‘war on terror’ is a war against Islam, at least the way the Koran asks Muslims to follow the ‘revelations’ to Mohammad in the form of Islamic radicalism.

Muslim religious radicalism has always been around. Islam was created from an aggressive movement that used violence and terror to grow from the Atlantic to Western Asia within 100 years of Mohammad’s death. Past periods of Muslim conquest are still regarded fondly by Muslims; after all, on three occasions Islam almost conquered all of Europe.

The current expression of violence in the name of Allah has been building for many years. In earlier periods, Islamic radicalism flared up from time-to-time in response to religious zeal or corrupt governments as an attempt to impose a religious solution on some social or political problem. The current Islamic terror is international because of the availability of mass media to supply bold headlines and the fact that the Islamic world is replete with theocratic dictatorships that cause economic backwardness. Islamic radicalism itself has no military power and relies on terrorism, fear and appeasement to gain attention and succeed.

As the news reports show, most of the victims of Islamic militancy are other Muslims. For this reason radicals eventually become unpopular among their own people and, hopefully, will run out of new recruits. If you think about it, the American invasion of Iraq was a clever exploitation of this phenomenon by forcing the Islamic radicals to fight in Iraq where they killed many Muslims, especially women and children, thus causing the Islamic radicals, such as al Qaeda, to lose their popularity among Muslims in general.

In the past the West did not get involved in Islamic religious wars unless attacked as they were three times before over the last 1,500 years, and on September 11th. Unfortunately, politically correct sensibilities make it even more difficult to confront Islamic radicalism head on. For example, fighting back is considered by Muslims and appeasers as culturally insensitive (i.e., a "war on Islam"), another ‘Crusade’ if you will, and many in the Western media have accepted this incredible interpretation of reality.

Some historians have pointed out that the medieval Crusades were a series of wars fought in response to Islamic violence against Christians, not as the opening act of aggression against Islam. In this respect the current war on terror is in the tradition of the Crusades.

There are many other ‘Crusades’ brewing around the world in all the places where Islam in the form of aggressive Islamic radicals is making unprovoked war on their Christian and Jewish neighbors. Politically correct academics and journalists enable the liberal news media to turn this reality inside out. But a close look at the violence in Africa, Asia and the Middle East shows a definite pattern of Islamic radicals persecuting those who do not agree with them, not the other way around.

Islamic terrorism makes most of the headlines but it is not the cause of many casualties as compared to many previous and current wars. Most of the related violence and deaths in the world is the result of many ‘little wars’ that get little media attention outside their region. While causalities from terrorism are currently about 5,000-10,000 dead a year worldwide, the dead and wounded from all the other ongoing wars actually comprise about 95 percent of all the casualties. Islamic terrorism seems to be larger because the terrorists threaten attacks every where and put much larger populations in fear.

A backlash to international terrorism has been created; the only terrorist victories are in the media. On the ground, the terrorists are losing everywhere. Their last refuges are places like Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Gaza, a few of the Philippine islands, and tribal regions of Pakistan. Islamic terrorists are being chased out of Iraq, Somalia and the Philippines, while Pakistan seems to be getting increasingly tough with terrorists and pro-terrorist groups. Iran continues to support terrorism and Syria and Lebanon remain thorns only because of Iranian subsidized factions there; the same may be said of Gaza.

Islamic radicalism is often a reaction to economic and diplomatic ties with the West because they are interpreted as supporting western countries against Islam. The affected Muslim populace then forces their leaders to confront their self-inflicted problems.

Al Qaeda is as self-destructive as its many Islamic predecessors. For example, an al Qaeda suicide bomber recently blew himself up in a crowded mosque, killing 48 Muslim worshippers. Of course this kind of terror makes Muslims turn against al Qaeda, but the terrorists justify such dumb attacks because their Koran-inspired religious doctrine mandates that Muslims who don't agree with them are not really Muslims. You can imagine how well that goes over with most other Muslims. You can, but al Qaeda and their ilk can't, and hopefully that’s what will cause their demise.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

The Energy Independence and Security Act; Part II

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.

~Thomas Jefferson~

Never was this sage wisdom truer than when congress and the president decided to save the planet by making Americans change their lives for the good of mankind. You have already seen how the 822 page ‘Energy Independence and Security Act’ (‘EISA’) provides neither “independence” nor “security”; now let’s examine ‘the rest of the story’.

First, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, correctly said, "This bill fails to increase the use of essential domestic energy resources and expand domestic refining capacity." Inhofe added "Absent from this 'energy bill' are increased oil and natural gas exploration, expansion of nuclear energy and the development of clean coal technologies - all essential to securing an American energy supply that is stable, diverse, and affordable.”

Among the provisions of this elaborate legislation that exceeds the Congress' enumerated powers is the ban of sales of the incandescent light bulb. "This is government command-and-control we might expect from the old Soviet Union and today's Cuba and Venezuela, not the United States of America."

Soon, the old-fashioned 100-watt incandescent light bulbs will not be available in stores. I predict that initially prices of light bulbs will go down as stores seek to reduce inventory, then prices will rise as ‘old fashioned’ light bulbs become as rare as the three-gallon toilet. So if you still want to read in your recliner, stock up while you can.

One portion of the bill sets new efficiency standards for appliances and will make the incandescent bulb virtually extinct by the middle of the next decade. The bill will phase out conventional incandescent bulbs, starting in 2012, with 100-watt bulbs, ultimately replaced by fluorescent bulbs and light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

The law additionally mandates that federal buildings renovated or newly constructed in 2010 and later reduce their fossil-fuel-generated consumption; first by 55 percent in 2010 and 100 percent by 2030, by use of low-energy light bulbs but says nothing about providing flashlights or lanterns for workers in the event lighting in work areas is reduced.

“In this bill, we ban by 2012 the famously inefficient 100-watt incandescent bulb,” said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who co-sponsored that provision. "Most of us still use the same glass and filament bulbs that Thomas Edison invented 128 years ago. When it comes to illumination, we still live in a cave."

"We must change the way we consume and produce energy in this country. Sometimes the most effective, accessible ideas are the smallest. One small change that everyone can make is as simple as changing a light bulb," Harman said.

She noted the plan does include exemptions for circumstances in the military, medical or public safety fields where other lighting would be needed. [Editor’s note: if these changes are so great, why should there be any exceptions.] "But these would be small exceptions rather than the rule," she said. In such cases, someone selling such a bulb would be required to seek a waiver and have it approved by a Department of Energy panel, and those waivers would be good only for two years, "pushing the market toward more innovation," she noted. [Editor’s note: imagine that?]

Harmon also said "The continued widespread use of incandescent lighting results in low overall efficiency, high energy costs and output, and in the end, tons and tons of harmful carbon emissions. According to the Department of Energy, one energy efficient bulb can prevent the release of over 450 pounds of greenhouse gases. This legislation, while a small step, could have an enormous impact. And hopefully, it can help transform American into an energy-efficient and energy-independent nation".

It is part of the effort to counter the dire forecasts made by former Vice President Al Gore and others that unless something changes, global warming will melt icecaps, raise ocean levels, drown polar bears and erase coastal cities.

However, U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said, that the "facts" used in Gore's film simply are not supported by science, and if Gore's plan would be followed specifically, there would be no new businesses, cars or even people allowed in the United States. [Editor’s note: and 400 scientists recently published agreement with Inhofe.]

"You just gave us an idea for a straight CO2 freeze, if I heard you correctly. I think that's an idea that's flawed. If you take that literally, we can add no new industry, nor new cars and trucks on our streets, and apparently no new people," Barton, who represents the 6th District in Texas, told Gore at a congressional hearing. "People are mobile-source emitters. Every person emits 0.2 tons of CO2 a year, so an absolute true freeze would be no new industry, no new people, and no new cars."

While standard light bulbs cost about 50 cents, the spiral CFL sells for about $3. However advocates argue that the CFL lasts five years longer and uses about 75 percent less energy. But they do not mention the presence of small amounts of highly toxic mercury in CFLs poses problems for consumers when breakage occurs and for disposal when bulbs eventually burn out. Mercury, a highly persistent and toxic chemical, can build up to dangerous concentrations in fish, wildlife, and human beings. An enormous environmental hazard is created by the mass introduction of billions of CFLs with few disposal sites and a public unfamiliar with the risks. The public is generally unaware of the risks of CFLs and recycling experts say the solutions are at least five years away. Nevertheless the Department of Energy is encouraging citizens to "take a pledge to replace at least one incandescent bulb with a CFL."

Earlier congress went into our toilets to dictate what kind of commodes we could have; now congress wants to tinker with standards for lighting, commercial and government buildings, and appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers and freezers. It also tells the Energy Department to issue efficiency standards more quickly, whether we like it or not.

The European Union is a trailblazer in limiting the public’s choices. EU directives by public officials will soon force manufacturers to produce more "efficient" bulbs in greater numbers.

"We expect that legally binding eco-standards will be set for energy efficiency and therefore gradually you would only be able to buy those light bulbs that meet the target. So effectively it would phase out the inefficient ones," the official said.

The new law also includes language that would create an electric reliability organization (ERO) with the ability to develop and enforce mandatory reliability standards in North America; another layer of bureaucrats dictating how we should and will live.

Republicans criticized the new law as a "no energy bill" because it doesn't open new U.S. acreage to oil and natural gas drilling. They said the bill will do nothing to curb soaring prices for gasoline and home heating fuels.

[...]

"There's nothing in here that's going to lower gas prices in America ... nothing that is going to help American families deal with heating costs this winter ... nothing to increase production," said Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

These Republicans got it right; too bad so many other Republicans got it wrong.

Friday, December 21, 2007

The Energy Independence and Security Act; a cloud with no silver lining

With almost no attention given to it by the public, congress passed and the president signed into law a bill that will change the life of every American. Why did this happen; because the news media reported the event as if it were a miraculous achievement instead as the devil’s handiwork it is, and to top it off the spin by the Democrats and other supporters is positively Orwellian.

The new law is called the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). Like most laws, the title has nothing to do with what the law does; it provides neither “independence” nor “security”. The avowed purpose of the law is to provide energy, i.e. oil, independence which would increase our security. However, EISA contains not one word about increasing the supply of oil to our country. The real purpose of EISA is to further the aims of the global 'warmists' by embarking on cut backs of greenhouse emissions in the grossly mistaken belief that you and I are responsible for global warming by our desire to live a quality life different from people in second and third world countries.

The answer according to environmental extremists and others who want to redistribute wealth around the world, mainly from the United States, is to reduce the American quality of life by imposing limitations on what we do and how we do it. Passage of EISA is one of the biggest steps on energy the United States has taken since the oil crises of the 1970s, but its full costs will not be known for years.

The law’s centerpiece is the requirement for a significant increase in average fuel economy, or CAFÉ standards, which have been 27.5 miles a gallon for cars and 22.2 for light trucks, SUVs and minivans since 1985. Under the new law each manufacturer's fleet of passenger vehicles would have to average 35 miles per gallon. As laudable as this may seem because of the higher price of fuel, it is accompanied by a requirement to use substantially more ethanol by 2020, a roughly 40 percent increase over current standards, for cars and trucks.

Beyond costs, in order to meet the tough new CAFE standard, cars and trucks will need to be lighter, which makes them less safe in collisions. A National Academy of Sciences study concluded that vehicle downsizing costs 1,300 to 2,600 lives per year. A tougher fuel economy standard would likely add to the death toll from vehicle crashes.

Smaller vehicles will have to be manufactured to comply with federally mandated rules which also raise the issue of consumer choice. It’s not as if fuel-efficient cars and trucks are currently unavailable, a variety of such models are already on the market for those who want them, including a growing number of hybrids. Although these vehicles may fit the needs of some people, others choose to buy larger, more comfortable vehicles. It is likely the American car-buying public does not want the federal government to force smaller vehicles on them.

In theory, consumers can save money at the pump by being made to switch to more efficient vehicles, and at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions and oil imports, but doing so will raise the prices of vehicles and the additional cost could more than negate the energy savings. Furthermore, the increased cost associated with ethanol production, and the affect on food prices are substantial but never factored into the equation by the environmentalists. For example, there is a government subsidy of $0.51 per gallon of ethanol paid to producers, as well as a tariff of $0.54 per gallon of ethanol imported.

The new energy law also includes a slew of new programs which will create a new industry based at ethanol made from sources other than corn, such as forest and field waste, switch grass, and agricultural waste. These second-generation biofuels are far from a proven technology. According to a recent New York Times report, "No fuel of the type in question has been produced commercially in the United States”. Even those who support uses of biofuels acknowledge that "the technology required has not yet been developed, the economics are uncertain and the potential for unintended consequences are very high".

Nonetheless, the ethanol mandate is extensive. Experts who have analyzed EISA say that "[h]undreds of new factories will be required, perhaps a billion tons of plant material will need to be hauled around every year, and estimates of the required investment start at tens of billions of dollars."

With the industry and technology in their infancy, the future of second-generation biofuels is very uncertain. Congress should not make the same mistake it made with first-generation biofuels, such as ethanol, by hastily subsidizing the industry through mandates and other government preferences without fully measuring the costs and benefits.

Congress has a poor track record when it comes to mandating rules for technological development. Selection of the ‘winner’ in the biofuel game should be left to free market competition. If biofuels are to succeed as a competitive fuel source, congressional legislation should not be necessary to mandate its production. Congress should not force specific technologies on Americans, especially if they are unproven technologies. Instead, congress should allow the power of free enterprise to determine the outcome, letting researchers and the markets choose the best new viable alternatives. Federal mandates limit choices and interfere with ability of free enterprise to find the most efficient, cost-effective solution. As we have seen many times in the past, the high costs of ill-conceived energy plans will be passed on to the public and then nobody wins.

Tomorrow we will explore the other draconian life-style changes mandated by the Energy Independence and Security Act.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Medicare patients face possibility of drastic changes in their medical care

For those that may be wondering why this blog has given so much attention lately to the universal healthcare plans adopted by the state of Massachusetts and the California legislature, it is because these programs have a devastating effect on our medical care, especially for seniors.

We are facing the most serious blow to what many in this country believe is the best medical care in the world being inflicted upon us by mostly liberal politicians and some Republicans in elective office that either do not take time to analyze the programs or are swayed by the news media clamor to "do something about our out of control health costs” regardless of the adverse impact current proposals have on the availability and quality of healthcare in the United States.

One of the most damaging changes already set to come into effect January 1, 2008 is the further cut-back in reimbursement to physicians by Medicare for services rendered to Medicare patients. Unless congress acts quickly, there will be a further average pay cut of 10.1% for all doctors who care for Medicare patients (in addition to pay cuts of previous years), although the percentage will vary by specialty, practice and geography. As American Medical Association Board of Trustees Chairman Dr. Edward L. Langston said: "Next year's 10.1% physician payment cut is bad news for America's seniors as 60% of physicians say the cut will force them to limit the number of new Medicare patients they can treat." Many seniors on Medicare will likely see their doctors refuse them service because of the cuts in Medicare reimbursements.

The 2008 Medicare pay cut for doctors is twice as large as the 5% cut physicians avoided this year because Congress declined to adjust the payment formula. That decision made this year's payment reduction less but it also meant that the 2008 cut would have to be two times as high to get reimbursement back in line with the level called for in the Medicare formula.

With congressional debate on reducing the upcoming 10.1% Medicare cut to physicians going into the final weeks of the year, physicians' decisions on whether to participate in the program in 2008 take on added importance. The year-end deadline for physicians to change their participation status is important because it likely will determine how doctors will be able to bill the program and receive payment for all of 2008. If physicians do not inform their Medicare carriers in writing of their intent to change their status before January 1, they will be locked into their current choices for the next 12 months.

Dr. Ron Davis, AMA president, said "Unless Congress takes immediate action ... Medicare will begin across-the-board cuts on January 1. Congressional action is not guaranteed, so physicians interested in changing their Medicare participation status for 2008 should do so before December 31.”

One option some physicians may elect is known as private contracting. By choosing this option physicians opt out of Medicare completely for at least two years. During that time, neither they nor their patients can bill Medicare for any of their services. This will be a further problem for seniors because most cannot afford medical care without Medicare assistance and those keeping doctors who opt out of Medicare will be charged very high fees for simple office visits.

Some in congress did recognize problems resulting from the Medicare cut and the Senate wrote language to alleviate the burden on doctors but unfortunately politics reared its ugly head and the language was inserted into the SCHIP legislation which President Bush vowed to veto for unrelated reasons. The House is still working on the issue.

Everyone is urged to contact their Senators and Congressmen to demand a stand-alone bill that addresses the looming problem for Medicare patients without muddling the bill with political issues that only serve to distract from the real problem facing seniors on Medicare. The timing is very crucial; the current mandated Medicare reimbursement cuts must be addressed in the remainder of this year to preclude taking effect on January 1.

Be careful what you wish for, you might get it

The Massachusetts version of a socialized medicine healthcare plan is often cited as the template for the Schwarzenegger-Nuñez California state-wide healthcare plan so it’s interesting to look at the Massachusetts plan to consider its effects on their residents; and it is not a pretty picture.

For example, on the day one person signed up for the Massachusetts plan, she called more than two dozen primary-care doctors approved by her insurer to try to get an appointment and all of them turned her away.

Her experience is common among the 550,000 uninsured people for whom Massachusetts had expected to provide healthcare. The newly insured will be trying to get medical attention in a state with a "critical shortage" of primary-care physicians, according to a study by the Massachusetts Medical Society released yesterday, which found that 49% of internists aren't accepting new patients. For those residents lucky enough to get an appointment with their primary-care doctor, the average wait is more than seven weeks, according to the medical society, a jump of 57% from last year's survey. Boston's top three teaching hospitals say that 95% of their 270 doctors in general practice have halted enrollment.

Having insurance for healthcare won't mean anything if you can't get a doctor appointment; and getting an appointment to see a specialist is even more difficult and with still longer waits being the norm. To make matters worse, prior approval from the difficult-to-get primary care doctors is required before you line up to see a specialist.

This experience in Massachusetts will likely be repeated in California where, in addition to the problems facing doctors in that Massachusetts, doctors in California will be expected to pay for the California plan through new ‘fees’ levied on them (along with additional ‘fees’ to be paid by hospitals in the state). Physicians already are burdened with continually reduced reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid and now they will see their revenue reduced even further by new taxes disguised as ‘fees’. It will be no surprise if medical practitioners choose not to set-up shop in California, and those that are here will retire earlier.

Nationwide primary-care doctors, including internists, family physicians, and pediatricians, are in short supply. The number of such doctors dropped 6% relative to the general population from 2001 to 2005, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington. The proportion of third-year internal medicine residents choosing to practice primary care fell to 20% in 2005, from 54% in 1998.

One reason for the decline in doctors is that they get less money for more work. Median income for primary-care doctors was $162,000 in 2004, the lowest of any physician type, according to a study by the Medical Group Management Association in Englewood, and their income droped strikingly after 2004 as insurance reimbursement declined. Income of specialists like cardiologists and radiologists is also dropping. Moreover, after managed care started in the mid-1990s, doctors have an added burden because insurance companies require primary-care doctors to serve as gatekeepers for their patients' referrals to specialty medicine. Why should newcomers enter a field where government pressure lessens income potential after undergoing many years of education and qualifying in resident programs while their responsibility continues to increase?

Under the Massachusetts and California socialized medicine programs, medical insurance is mandatory for all residents, whether they want it or not. Residents in Massachusetts who don't get covered pay a penalty on their state taxes, and companies with more than 10 employees face a fine for each worker to whom they don't provide insurance. The California healthcare law also mandates everyone to have insurance. Although penalties for failing to get insurance in California are not yet known, you can be sure there will be a ‘cost’ to those that don’t comply.

As the lady that looked for a doctor in Massachusetts said - "I thought (health) insurance was supposed to be some kind of great thing, but it hasn't changed". The lesson to those that expect ‘free’ medical care is: ‘Be careful of what you wish for, you might get it”; and it won’t be ‘free’.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Nuñez make a deal and guess who pays for it

Is there anything the government can do better than private enterprise; yes there is, they can take away money you work for better than anyone or any thing. The politicians and bureaucrats in California that handle road construction, the prison system, the courts, the Department of Motor Vehicles, child protective services and the energy deregulation plan, now want to take care of your health too.

At a bargain-basement cost of an additional $14 billion, you, your children, your mama, and illegal aliens can have ‘free’ medical care; free, that is if you don’t count the huge tax increases you will pay and the huge ‘fees’ doctors, hospitals and health care providers will pay. Arnold and Nuñez have to call these charges to doctors, hospitals, etc. ‘fees’ because otherwise they would not get enough votes in the legislature to pass them as taxes, so determined are they to inflict this plan onto mere tax payers. Oh, and by the way, if you’re a smoker, fugedaboutit, you will be paying an extra $1.50 to $2.00 a pack of cigarettes. (Which will this encourage more, smuggling or quitting?) Business owners and employers will also be asked to ‘contribute’ to Arnold’s new 1984-type society; to the tune of from 1% to 6.5% of the payroll cost. (And some people have the nerve to say “California is not a business-friendly place, can you imagine?)

The only impediment for illegal aliens to get in on the act is that they would have to prove they are state residents. That isn’t a hard thing to do but if the federal government ever gets serious about doing something about illegal immigrants, this would be a good data base for a starting point.

Although hospitals may be able to make up the cost of additional ‘fees’, doctors would have a more difficult time of it. The plan is therefore extremely unfair to medical practitioners who are already suffering from very low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. The best way to reduce our quality of healthcare is to make medical practice unattractive as a business enterprise.

California employers with payrolls of up to $250,000 a year would have to spend at least 1% on healthcare for their workers. Those that didn’t do this would pay into a state-run health insurance pool that would help buy coverage for the employees. Companies with payrolls up to $1 million would have to pay 4% and those with payrolls up to $15 million would have to pay 6%. All larger companies would pay 6.5%. Though it isn’t clear, it would seem that any company doing business in California or having facilities in California and employing California residents, would have to pay the required healthcare cost on at least their California payroll.

The ‘fees’ to be charge to hospitals are expected to generate $2.3 billion and to meet the expense of the plan, an additional $2.3 billion is expected from the federal government; is that likely to happen?

The Arnold-Nuñez plan requires virtually all Californians to have medical insurance, including everyone that doesn’t want it. Those earning below $51,625 for a family of four would receive state subsidies (guess who pays for these subsidies) to pay for most of their premiums. Families earning more than that but no more than $82,600 for a family of four would be able to deduct any premium costs that exceed 5.5% of their incomes on their California, but not their federal, tax returns. (Why should those with incomes over $82,600 not be able to deduct their cost?)

For a state facing a $20 billion deficit, it makes absolutely no sense to add another $14 billion of additional costs. Even some supporters of lawmakers’ efforts are worried that the political climate will make it difficult to undertake the plan. Bob Ross, president of the California Endowment, a Los Angeles-based foundation that favors expanded healthcare, said the state’s weakening economy and the budget gap are obstacles. "When you do the math on that set of realities, it doesn’t bode well," Ross said.

Fortunately it appears the universal healthcare plan of Schwarzenegger and Nuñez will have to be voted upon by California voters sometime and the leaders have agreed to put it on the ballot in November. Fair-minded voters should become familiar with the universal healtcare proposal, consider what it will do to their health care and whether they are satisfied with the quality of healthcare now, or whether they want to roll the dice and let politicians and bureaucrats make healthcare decisions for them.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Bush administration caves to world opinion on global warming

Shame on the Bush administration; once again it puts world opinion ahead of American interests.

Either Bush sent people without an American spine to Bali or Bush himself has lost his. In any case, we accepted the false premise man and CO2 are responsible for global warming and agreed to go forward with international calls for ‘doing something’ to retard the planet’s warming. It doesn’t matter that we have not accepted so-called ‘caps’ on emissions, yet; we have sold out to the global warming alarmists after years of resisting leftists call for redistribution of wealth.

According to the New York Times (and who can doubt that liberal ‘organ’) - “The deal came after the United States, facing sharp verbal attacks in a final open-door negotiating session, reversed its opposition to a last-minute amendment by India. 'We've listened very closely too many of our colleagues here during these two weeks, but especially to what has been said in this hall today,' Paula Dobriansky, who led the American delegation, told the other assembled delegates. 'We will go forward and join consensus."

George W. has removed all doubts that he has turned his presidency over to George H. W. since it was the elder Bush who in his final days as president signed onto the “Framework Convention on Climate Change” to deal with 'climate dangers'. Doubtlessly with his father’s blessing, George the younger agreed that the United States would accept the need for “urgency” in addressing global warming and that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required”.

The US agreement includes the need for some commitments by China and India to reduce greenhouse emissions but says nothing about how the world community will make them do this since unlike the United States, they don’t give a whit about world opinion. The purpose of the agreement signed onto by our fearless leader is to assure continuity of the Kyoto abomination, which took effect in 2005 and is the only existing addendum to the original climate treaty. Emissions caps in the Kyoto deal expire in 2012, and environmentalist greenies insist that by 2009 the reduction of emissions begins by starting the process of setting new emission limits and to create markets in emissions credits. This is essential to their goal of transferring wealth from developed countries to those still in the Neanderthal age by giving rich countries the ‘opportunity’ to receive carbon credit toward their targets by investing in “climate-friendly projects in poor countries”.

The Bush administration has been pressed by the Democrat-controlled congress, led by the giant among liberals, Senator Barbara Boxer, to take action on global warming and her strident calls are gaining momentum. Even presidential candidates from both parties are, or seem to, accept the ‘need’ for action on global warming consistent with the screeds of the Europeans. In an ‘et tu Bru`te’, last April the United States Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's contention that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant and ordered it to re-examine the case for regulating carbon dioxide from vehicles, thus confirming actions of many states that are mandating caps on greenhouse gases.

The US cave-in began after European nations threatened to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii to be sponsored by the United Nations. After US negotiators relented, Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, who had led the criticism of the United States, said: "The climate in the climate convention has changed a little bit. It's true that during the last night and during the negotiations America was more flexible than in the first part of the conference. We very much appreciate this. Not only for the Americans but also other parties."

It’s not clear how much the American self flagellation by Al Gore affected the Bush administration change of heart and the new agreement, but after Gore declared that the United States was "principally responsible for obstructing progress" in Bali, he urged delegates to agree to an open-ended deal that could be enhanced after Mr. Bush left office in January 2009. "Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now," Mr. Gore ‘said to loud applause’ (again, the New York Times commentary). "You must anticipate that."

As indicated, China and India, despite projections that they will soon become the dominant sources of climate-warming gases, continue to refuse to accept limits on their emissions. However this did not keep the global warming adherents from agreeing that “developed countries”, i.e., the United States, would compensate developing countries for protecting their rain forests, which environmentalists described as “an innovative effort to mitigate global warming”. (Destruction of rain forests are a major source of global warming, don’t you know.) How countries with large rain forests, like Indonesia and Brazil, would be compensated has not been fully worked out, but you can be sure they will be well compensated by US tax payers.

In what some may see as the ‘coupe de grace’, United Nations officials said part of the financing would come from developed countries through aid and other financing would come from carbon credits traded under the Kyoto pact; I guess this is meant to assuage those that think the US taxpayers will pay the whole bill for ‘saving the planet’.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Environmentalists really want redistribution of wealth

A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged at the UN climate conference in Bali to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming. Participants called for a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

One of the attendees at the conference, Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate from one of the attending NGOs, said the U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to a global fund,” and, “It is very essential to tax coal.” Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.” (Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm.) Even our own Al Gore repeated his call to place a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

Of course, the money collected from the tax would be administered by the same UN that handled the “Oil for food’ program during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and we all know how well that worked out.

Did you know that about 17,000 people attended the climate conference in Bali? The resort area of Nusa Dua, and the many luxurious hotels there, was the main center for meetings. The organizations in attendance included La via Capeskin, the international peasant’s movement that works primarily on food sovereignty, and a large contingent from WAHLI, (Friends of the Earth Indonesia). The point these and similar NGOs raised was that because the current economic system got us here in the first place, as Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth said, “A response to climate change must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources”.

At last, finally the real reason for the worldwide clamor to ‘reduce’ global warming is honestly expressed; naturally this won’t appear in the America-hating news media (domestic and international), who probably wished this was not reported at all for fear it may wake up people with the truth.

This is not a new vision of the global warming issue; former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said in 1990, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." And how can we forget that modern French philosopher, then French President Jacques Chirac, who in 2000 said the UN’s Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of authentic global governance." Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide."

Only Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper dismissed Kyoto as a “socialist scheme designed to suck money out of rich countries”, according to a letter leaked by his Liberal political opponents. The letter, posted on the federal Liberal party website, was apparently written by Harper in 2002, when he was leader of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance party. He was writing to party supporters, asking for money as he prepared to fight then-prime minister Jean Chrétien on the proposed Kyoto accord. "We're gearing up now for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership," Harper's letter says. "I'm talking about the 'battle of Kyoto' — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord."

Canada officially ratified the accord Dec. 17, 2002, under Chrétien's Liberal government. Harper's Conservative government, which took power January 2006, has since been accused of ignoring the accord. Harper said that belief in man-made global warming is based on "tentative and contradictory scientific evidence" and it focuses on carbon dioxide, which is "essential to life." He also said Kyoto requires that Canada make significant cuts in emissions, while countries like Russia, India and China face less of a burden.

Under Kyoto, Canada and the United States would be required to reduce emissions by six and ten per cent by 2012, while Russia was allowed to choose different base years and China and India were exempted from binding targets for reductions. Observing the Kyoto-mandated reductions would cripple the oil and gas industries, which are essential to Canada and the United States.

The Bush administration could make the same points Harper once expressed but instead remains mealy mouth about global warming and still worries about ‘world public opinion’ instead of the best interests of our country. We can only hope congress will ultimately realize global warming is a scam to bring America’s standard of lving down to the lowest common denominator by wealth redistribution, just as was finally admitted in Bali.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Some things I think I think - (Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner would make a great Playboy centerfold)

Playboy should try to get Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner for a magazine photo centerfold; it would boost sales, especially in Argentina.

I think we should can the primaries and go back to cigar smoke-filled rooms so party hacks can select the candidates from each party. Our primaries today are just open air theatres with most candidates being actors spouting talking points for their opponents when the election rolls around. Remember party hacks chose FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, etc. Primaries gave us Carter, Clinton (and maybe another Clinton). Also, doing business in smoke-filled rooms means the party hacks won’t be around very long anyway.

It looks like the Mitchell steroid report about users in baseball has cleared up one thing; steroids can’t be relied upon to improve performance. Most of the players identified as ‘users’ were not the stars (which of course were also included in the report), but the run-of-the-mine utility players. A 250-hitter doesn’t seem to get much bang for the buck when he shoots up with the illegal stuff.

Well we are on the subject of baseball; I have a suggestion for the next Democrat congressional investigation. Since George Bush once owned a baseball team, the Texas Rangers, when steroid user Jose Conseco was one of its players, Democrats should find out "what did George Bush know and when did he know it’. I like the idea that Democrats have conducted over 300 investigations since they have been the majority in congress; while they are salivating on investigations, they are doing less mischief by passing fewer stupid laws.

To everyone’s ‘surprise’ (this is sarcasm in case you missed it), Democratic presidential hopefuls called for higher taxes on the highest-paid Americans and on big corporations. They did this in an unusually friendly ‘debate’ after being provided with tea and cookies baked by Hillary. (What was in those cookies Hillary, do you have Alice’s recipe?)

Speaking of Hillary, has anyone noticed she has added her mother and daughter Chelsea to her campaign? Looks like husband Bill wasn’t doing well enough so Mrs. Rodham Clinton brought out the ‘big guns’. This is a little like bringing your Mommy to a little league game for moral support. Mama Hillary actually said "She (Hillary) is a good person". That is sure to bring a lot of undecided voters into the Hillary column. To paraphrase the now-deceased first Bush basher: "Poor Hillary, you can’t blame her for her lies; she was born with a forked tongue in her mouth."

The recently issued NIE report has made the Bush administration's lose a lot of creditability and it is unlikely the policy of sanctions and tacit threat of war against Iran is still viable. The National Intelligence Estimate contradicted the White House description of the Iranian threat. But I didn't see anything being said that although the new NIE report asserts Iran discontinued its program to make nuclear weapons ended in 2003, an earlier NIE report after 2003 still claimed Iran was in the process of actually attempting to produce an atomic bomb. To add to my concern is that the report indicates that Iran has seemingly suspended the weaponization aspect of its nuclear program but is still constructing an elaborate enrichment infrastructure that will give Iran the option to build a bomb whenever it wants to. Furthermore, everyone agrees with the Iranian announcement that it has successfully enriched uranium; why are we so happy with the NIE report’s current conclusions many take to mean the Iranian threat has diminished? The Israelis don’t think so, and their intelligence has always been better than ours.

I woke up from a nightmare dripping with sweat and a pain in my gut; I dreamt that Britney Spears was going to play the Virgin Mary in a movie. But I was just prescient in my sleep stupor; today I read that a French producer says he wants Britney to play Mary in satire 'Sweet Baby Jesus'. The article says "the mere thought of the starlet ever appearing on the screen as a teen mama who gives birth to baby Jesus II makes us want to make an emergency call to the three wise men". However my reaction is that the producer and Britney should make plans for spending an eternity in a very hot place.

Bali ‘high’

You have to give global warming fanatics some credit; they know where to have a meeting to draw a big crowd; what could be better than the lovely island of Bali to attract nuts from around the world, especially from places where global warming has not yet reached.

Government bureaucrats from 190 countries will lay the ground work for ‘Kyoto Two’ while sunning themselves on the beaches as they gathered on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Al Gore joined them and likely displayed and shared with them the Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize they helped him receive. When the vacation meeting is completed, the U.N. hopes that the representatives will have launched a two-year negotiation for an international agreement that will succeed the present Kyoto Protocol.

The left wing of the UN (which is most of its membership) has achieved enormous success in hijacking ‘scientific research’ and in promoting and giving access to non- elected "representatives" of many radical organizations who have forced industry representatives to follow them. These NGOs have also had great success in pushing their alarmist message through a sympathetic news media and their success has influenced numerous politicians around the world and, sadly, in the United States, to embrace the religion of environmental alarmism.

The goal of the meeting is to get agreement to cut CO2 and other "greenhouse gas" emissions, blamed for climate change, by between 25 and 40 percent from a 1990-level starting-point, by 2020. Of course, no one really knows what the “level of emissions” at the “starting point” was but if enough funding is provided to ‘researchers’, they will surely come up with a suitable number. Incidentally, this target is far more ambitious than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 36 developed countries to cut emissions by an average of five percent below 1990 levels for the period 2008-2012.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel peace prize with Gore, says that much deeper cuts are needed in the post-2012 period to combat problems which it attributes to climate change, including rising sea-levels, droughts and melting Arctic ice. Curiously, no one mentioned that Artic ice is refreezing this year at a rate greater than in past years.

The U.N. intends to produce a "roadmap" for negotiating a Kyoto Two deal. We all know how successful other ‘road maps’ have been, just look at the middle east for an example. The U.S. asks what will be expected of countries like China and India who were exempted under Kyoto from mandatory targets despite being major CO2 emitters; but since the real purpose is to ‘take the United States down to the level of less successful countries’, there will be no answer to this question. China reportedly will soon pass the U.S. as the largest producer of CO2 and says as a newly industrialized country it should not be held responsible for the results of longstanding emissions caused by developed countries.

Increasing numbers of real scientists are publicly challenging the view that there is consensus on the causes and effects of climate change but Al Gore and other leading figures in the global warming alarmist movement are adamant that the science is settled (after all, there is a ‘consensus’), and that the threat is potentially catastrophic.

Gore said "It is a question of the survival of our civilization. The engines of our great global civilization are now pouring 70 million tons of global warming pollution into [the atmosphere] every single day." Gore further said during a recent press appearance, “It is having the consequences long predicted by the scientific community." Gore praised what he called the rise of "the world's first people power-movement" on climate change and added, "It is my great hope that the meeting in Bali will result in a strong mandate empowering the world to move forward quickly to a meaningful treaty”.

Not to be out shown, chairman of the co-Nobel Prize winner with Al Gore, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, also expressed optimism on a global agreement. "There is an enormous understanding of the scientific facts when it comes to climate change," he said. "The time for doubting the science is over. What we need now is action."

However, like voices in the wilderness, scientists with actual evidence that global warming fanatics are wrong continue to be ignored by those with a political agenda whose goal is not to save the planet from premature destruction but to hasten America’s demise.