Enviornmental Forecasts

Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C. S. Lewis

Why Me? I'm So Complacent!

In a USA Today op-ed, Tom Krattenmaker of Portland, Ore., "a writer specializing in religion in public life," puzzles over why a terrorist would consider bombing his city:

"For several good reasons, many of us Portlanders are having a hard time wrapping our minds around the horrific thought of a 19-year-old from the local suburbs wanting to kill and destroy. Why would Portland, of all places, be the site of a terror attack?

The "People's Republic of Portland"--so dubbed for its liberal ways--seems so utterly different from New York, Mumbai, London, or the other places that one associates with terrorist attacks. Portland is so much smaller, light years from the figurative front lines. This is a laid-back city where the red-hot rhetoric around terrorism, Islam, the "ground zero mosque," and the like runs cooler. It's a place where a live-and-let-live spirit extends ample latitude to anyone who might otherwise stand out--whether it's for wearing a Santa hat and pedaling around on a unicycle playing bagpipes (which my wife actually witnessed last year), covering every inch of your arm with tattoos, or wearing a head scarf and praying at a mosque rather than a church or synagogue."

This guy really needs to get out more. Portland is liberal, welcoming of weirdos, and munificent toward Muslims, and he thinks that sets it apart--from New York? And how self-absorbed do you have to be to think, almost a decade after 9/11, that terrorists won't target you because of your "live-and-let-live spirit"?

Examine the origins
It's time we begin to hear complaints against nativity scenes, "Silent Night" being sung in schools, even "Christmas" trees or vacation -- any instance of religion entering our public life.

In the State Dining Room at the White House, the fireplace mantle contains a prayer by President John Adams that President Roosevelt had carved into the stone fireplace below a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

"Praise be to God" is inscribed on the cornerstone of the Washington Monument and "Preserve me, God for in thee do I put my trust," is inscribed in a window of the U.S. Capitol's chapel.

An image of the Ten Commandments is engraved in bronze on the entrance floor of the National Archives. The Lincoln Memorial quotes Lincoln: "He who made the world still governs it."

In the House chamber is the inscription, "In God We Trust."

A book by Newt Gingrich, "Rediscovering God in America," gives these and many other examples of the beliefs of our country's founders and leaders. Those who want to ignore it are free to, but why try to stop everyone else?

JOYCE PAHLKE
Southeast Portland

Wikileaks

so-sick-of-the-tea-party

Calhoun Says: 

What I never cease to find comical is that while parroting the conventional wisdom of the moment Leftists manage to convince themselves that they are being iconoclastic and individualistic. They still think they are being rebellious and “edgy” when they lampoon religious faith or tradition or Christianity or the South or what-have-you, when all they are really doing is repeating by rote the beliefs of the bi-coastal elite, which they were entirely taught by – God help us – the (aptly named) idiot box. The messages from the Brady Bunch and All In The Family et al are still echoing across the empty canyons of Liberal brains, and most have literally never taken a moment to sincerely question whether their favorite celebrities might be wrong. That is where this smugness comes from – knowing subconsciously that on your side are ALL the people that matter: filmmakers, actors, hip hop rappers and other such celebrities. It is the smugness that comes from knowing that one is safely regurgitating Establishment arguments, from knowing that rather than engaging in the dangerous business of speaking Truth to Power, one is speaking for Power, and to the unwashed, filthy, unfashionable masses. It is the smugness of the small child who taunts loudly and cruelly knowing he has a bully at his back.

I think it is no exaggeration to state that progressivism, as exemplified here, is not so much a political philosophy as a fashion statement. It is conformism in the most depressing sense, dressed in a gaudy yet threadbare nonconformist costume.

Do better.

11.11.10 at 12:16 pm

Bush Agonistes? Not Quite

In an interview, the former president makes the case for his 'freedom agenda' and defends his record on the economy and spending.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Dallas, Texas

The former leader of the free world sits in a comfy chair wearing Crocs. As twilight sets in, George W. Bush keeps one eye on a muted World Series game. "That's what I'm talking about," he tells the TV in his home library after one impressive Rangers play.

The 43rd president of the United States looks healthy, rested and confident. That last is especially notable, considering he's not yet two years out of what can only be called a controversial presidency.

Mr. Bush ran as a uniter, but the hung 2000 election bequeathed him a divided nation. The terrorist attacks of September 11 brought brief national cohesion, but it was soon shattered by recriminations over the Iraq war. A difficult second term—overshadowed by war turmoil and capped by a financial crisis—saw him leave office with anemic approval ratings. But as readers of "Decision Points," his memoir set to hit stands today, will discover, this is not a president agonizing over the big decisions he made or wringing his hands about history's judgment.

The book is not the usual chronological fare; Mr. Bush wrote thematically, with 14 chapters chronicling decisions he made in life and office, and it is very much in his own voice. We get his insights on his decision to quit drinking, on stem cell research, Hurricane Katrina and enhanced interrogations. Six chapters deal with the momentous foreign and domestic policy decisions that followed from 9/11.

Terry Shoffner

George W. Bush

The president does write about his regrets and his desire to have done some things differently. But both in his memoir and in an interview he granted me 10 days ago, Mr. Bush sounds entirely secure about the major decisions of his presidency. The last lines of the book perhaps put it best: "Whatever the verdict on my presidency, I'm comfortable with the fact that I won't be around to hear it. That's a decision point only history will reach."

The president—thoughtful, spirited, and at times making fun of my clumsiness with a tape recorder—gamely answered everything I threw at him.

If his book has an overriding theme, it is Mr. Bush's case for his "freedom agenda." He defines it broadly: from Afghanistan and Iraq, to his African AIDS work, to tax cuts. One major criticism of his Iraq policy is that the turmoil in that country has empowered Iran, which continues to move toward a bomb.

"The notion that we went into Iraq and therefore the Iranians became emboldened—it was the opposite," Mr. Bush says. "The Iranians, it turns out, suspended their program," he continues, referring to a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate finding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003. He says that it wasn't until mid-2005 that Iranian elections brought to power Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who announced the process of nuclear enrichment would accelerate.

As for those who feel Mr. Bush wasn't aggressive enough, the president disputes the notion that Iran can be compared to Iraq. "Diplomacy was just beginning in Iran, the world was just beginning to focus," he says. Mr. Bush takes credit for "helping focus" that attention.

One revelation in the book is the degree to which Mr. Bush's Iran strategy hinged on internal political revolt. His goal, on the one hand, was to "slow down" the Iranian "capacity to develop a weapon," which he chose to do with sanctions. On the other hand, his administration tried to "speed up" the ability of reformers to institute change. He writes of his belief that the success of the surge and a free Iraq would "help catalyze that change," and he points to last year's massive street protests following Ahmadinejad's re-election.

What about the critique that Afghanistan was left to fester while the president dealt with Iraq, setting up a return of the Taliban and the need for President Obama to send more troops? "What I say is, we had a large coalition of troops in Afghanistan and it looked like we were making progress." He notes that "when it became apparent that the NATO coalition was not able to cohesively deal with the Taliban," he ordered a 2006 "silent surge" in Afghanistan—a 50% troop increase. "We were plenty capable of doing two things at the same time."

Mr. Bush writes that one of two major "setbacks in Iraq" was not finding WMD. He writes it still gives him a "sickening feeling." I ask why, given the myriad reasons he lays out for removing Saddam. The problem, he says, was what the lack of WMD meant for the public's perception of the war.

"The world is better off and more secure without Saddam Hussein in power. But so much of the case—and so much of the focus—was on WMD, that the failure to find it made the task of convincing the American people to hang in there harder." The Bush doctrine rested on "going on offense." And in Mr. Bush's mind, this failure risked a "wave of isolationism that would effect U.S. security" by putting Americans off future pre-emptive action.

Should he have fought back harder against those who accused him of lying about WMD, as Karl Rove argued in his memoir? "His point is that I should have gotten in their face about the lying, and I chose not to do that because I thought it would diminish the presidency. . . . You start calling names, it makes it even harder to hold the support of the American people."

President Bush has studiously refrained from commenting on Mr. Obama—and doesn't here. Though when I ask him what is the most devastating thing that could happen to Iraq now, he shoots out unequivocally: "No U.S. presence. We need to work with the Iraqi government and respond to any requests they may have about a presence."

Given Mr. Bush's reputation as an international cowboy, readers will be intrigued by his descriptions of his relationships with world leaders—including frank appraisals of those he did and didn't like. The latter category would come to include Vladimir Putin, despite the president's 2001 comment that he'd seen into the Russian leader's "soul."

I ask the president when exactly he became aware of Mr. Putin's true political character. "When they started suspending rights," he responds. Mr. Bush's theory is that the mid-decade rise in oil prices emboldened Mr. Putin, giving him "an opportunity to spread economic hegemony" to a Europe reliant on Russia's natural gas. Why wasn't there more pushback from the White House? Russia was a "disappointment," Mr. Bush admits, but he adds that "it's hard to know if we could have done anything differently. Russia is a sovereign nation, they elected their leaders, and they entrenched themselves."

Then there are the anecdotes about Jacques Chirac, who at several points lectures the U.S. on the folly of morality or idealism. When I ask the president if he wants to expand, he starts, stops, and gives that Bush chuckle. "Let's just say he wasn't a freedom-agenda guy."

Mr. Bush devotes his final chapter to the financial meltdown: The White House anxiety he describes nearly equals his narration of 9/11. He heaps most of the blame on Wall Street. As for too-loose Federal Reserve policy, which many see as the groundwork for the housing bubble, Mr. Bush refers to "easy money" only once among a list of contributing factors.

I ask if anybody ever specifically warned him about the Fed's feeding of the mortgage beast. "No, not really. I think that the only place, the main place, where we get credit for having seen a potential crisis is Fannie and Freddie." (The administration's proposed reforms were blocked by Congress.) "The crisis blindsided us."

While a Democratic Congress this year passed a slew of financial regulations, Mr. Bush argues this wasn't "a lack-of-regulation crisis, except for the extent to which Fannie and Freddie were allowed to run wild. . . . This was a regulated house of cards—regulators were watching it all. . . . This was a crisis that was caused in large part by bad business decisions."

If that was the case, why weren't more banks left to fail? Did the administration discuss what particular institutions were too big to fail? "No," Mr. Bush answers, adding that he believes in letting the market punish bad decisions but in this case the economy was in the balance. "We didn't want any of them to fail because we were really worried that there would be a domino effect."

Unprompted, he adds that this fear is why the administration bailed out General Motors. Did he genuinely believe that a GM bankruptcy would cause an economic freefall? "That's what I was told. I think at that point in time it would have been still pretty risky." I must still look skeptical because he adds: "I hope I conveyed in the book this sense, that we were," he throws his hands in the air, as if to summon the anxiety of those weeks. "We were pretty risk-averse at this point. We really were."

Why did the administration inject TARP money directly into banks—a move that tarred healthy banks along with sick ones—rather than proceed with the original idea to buy up toxic assets? "Because it was too cumbersome. It was an interesting idea, but it wasn't going to work quickly enough. Whose assets? How do you buy them? . . . We didn't have a lot of time." With capital injections, the money went "boom, right into the system."

Will the fact that the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression happened on his watch overshadow his accomplishments on the war on terror? Again, that confidence. "Naaaaah. I think history will eventually say that the Bush administration dealt with this in a way that saved the economy. . . We didn't have a depression—and I thought one was coming. I did."

One perception the president is determined to shift is that of his spending record. "Decision Points" contains one graphic: a table comparing, among other things, President Bush's average spending-to-GDP (19.6%) to that of Bill Clinton (19.8%), Bush 41 (21.9%), and Reagan (22.4%). It also shows that his deficit-to-GDP was 2%—half that of Bush 41 and Reagan.

I come armed with a slew of spending questions. Why didn't he veto more GOP spending bills? Why didn't he use the war as a reason to cut back on domestic spending? But he shuts me down by referring to the chart. I point out that, chart or no, there is a perception he oversaw fiscal profligacy.

"Yes, there is," he concedes. "I think the Medicare reform caused certain conservative writers to say 'Bush has been fiscally irresponsible.' And they did not look at the facts. And the facts are that we have a very solid fiscal record"—despite spending "a lot of money" on war, homeland security, and Hurricane Katrina.

But what about 2003 Medicare reform, which saw Republicans add a major new prescription drug entitlement? He rejects the premise of the question. "The entitlement already existed, and the entitlement was Medicare. And that's the threshold question—should we have Medicare? If the answer is no, my attitude is fine, go debate it. If the answer is yes, then let's modernize it." The prescription-drug program is about allowing Medicare to give seniors a "$15 drug in order to prevent a $30,000 operation that your taxpayer money would be committed to paying."

Congress will soon be debating the fate of the Bush tax cuts. They were the centerpiece of his 2000 campaign and have been an unadulterated supply-side victory. As the memoir notes, what followed the 2003 legislation—which included important cuts in top marginal rates, capital gains and dividend taxes—was 46 consecutive months of growth.

Isn't the point here that not all tax cuts are created equal, and that there's more value in the 2003 supply-side winners, than in, say, Mr. Bush's 2008 one-time tax "rebates" that caused only a temporary GDP blip? "I don't want to differentiate," he responds, though he does a bit. "I do know this, 70% of new jobs in America are created by small businesses . . . and the rates matter to small business. And capital gains matter to investment." His bigger point is that all the cuts come down to a "philosophy" that's pretty simple to follow: "We'd rather you spend your money than the government spend your money."

There's a lot of emotion in Mr. Bush's memoir—much of it for the families of troops who died protecting the country. But when it comes to the policy decisions we discuss during the interview, this does not seem like a man going to bed tortured by what-ifs or what-will-comes.

What will future historians say? "I'd hope they'd say he had certain principles that were the foundation of his presidency, and on which he was unwilling to compromise."

And what about those who believe he wasn't really a conservative—that he's to blame for setting the stage for the Obama ascendancy? He smiles. "I say read the book."

Ms. Strassel writes the Journal's Potomac Watch column.

Obama's half brother in Kenya says he married teen

Eight Dems Arrested in Bell, CA 'Corruption on Steroids' - Not a Single Mention of Party Affiliation From Media

By Lachlan Markay | Tue, 09/21/2010 - 15:19

Today, eight city council members were arrested in Bell, California for what Los Angeles County District Attorney labeled "corruption on steroids." Thus far, every major news outlet that has reported on the story has omitted the fact that all eight individuals arrested are Democrats.
These glaring omissions come only weeks after NewsBusters reported that of the 351 stories on the then-brewing controversy, 350 had omitted party affiliations, and one had mentioned they were Democrats only in apologizing for not doing so sooner.
ABC, CBS, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and the San Francisco Chronicle all reported on the arrests today without mentioning party affiliations.

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/#ixzz10HRLigjm

Our money. Wrong on every level.

GM Resumes Political Giving

By JOSH MITCHELL

General Motors Co. has begun to once again contribute to political campaigns, lifting a self-imposed ban on political spending put in place during the auto maker's U.S.-financed bankruptcy restructuring last year.

The Detroit company gave $90,500 to candidates running in the current election cycle, Federal Election Commission records show.

Washington Wire

• GM Resumes Campaign Contributions

The beneficiaries include Midwestern lawmakers, mostly Democrats, who have traditionally supported the industry's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.).

The list also includes Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican Whip, who would likely assume a top leadership post if Republicans win control of the House in November.

It isn't unusual for big companies like GM to spend on political campaigns, but complicating GM's situation is that the company is majority-owned by the U.S. government. GM is planning to return to the public stock markets later this year, allowing the U.S. to begin to sell off its roughly 61% stake in the company.

GM spokesman Greg Martin said the company stopped making political contributions in spring 2009 to focus on its taxpayer-financed bankruptcy reorganization.

"As we've emerged as a new company, we're not going to sit on the sidelines as our competitors and other industries who have PACs are participating in the political process," Mr. Martin said. He called GM's political action committee is "an effective means for our employees to pool their resources and have their collective voice heard."

Mr. Martin added that the company has supported members of both parties who "approach issues thoughtfully" and "support a strong auto industry."

http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/jet-fuel-cocktail-kenyan-moonshine/

Taranto

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life 
From the Boston Globe:

It's happening in offices across the country. Employees leave, and their vacant cubicles remain.

Rather than let this "empty-desk syndrome'' serve as a daily reminder of laid-off colleagues and days of bigger profits gone by, some companies are getting creative. They're putting up walls and subletting part of their space to another firm, or moving in with another company and sharing a receptionist.

Others have found ways to capitalize on the extra space, ripping out vacant cubicles to set up new meeting areas, or adding new facets to their business. A few are doing away with their offices altogether.

The headline: "With Layoffs, Room for Creativity." We have to say, when the Democrats no longer in power, we're going to miss these cheery stories about the dismal economy.

Two Papers in One!--I

• "There's a problem: conservative politicians, clinging to an out-of-date ideology--and, perhaps, betting (wrongly) that their constituents are relatively well positioned to ride out the storm--are standing in the way of action. No, I'm not talking about Bob Corker, the Senator from Nissan--I mean Tennessee--and his fellow Republicans. . . . I am, instead, talking about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and her economic officials, who have become the biggest obstacles to a much-needed European rescue plan."--former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 15, 2008
• "Why is Europe falling short? Poor leadership is part of the story. European banking officials, who completely missed the depth of the crisis, still seem weirdly complacent. And to hear anything in America comparable to the know-nothing diatribes of Germany's finance minister you have to listen to, well, Republicans."--Krugman, New York Times, March 16, 2009
• "The euro area economy grew 1 percent in the second quarter of this year, a much better rate than had been expected, as Germany's best quarterly performance since reunification compensated for slow growth in Spain and Italy and a sharp decline in Greece, according to data released Friday."--news story, New York Times, Aug. 14, 2010

Two Papers in One!--II

• "The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security. This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office."--news story, New York Times, March 25, 2010
• "Social Security's attackers claim that they're concerned about the program's financial future. But their math doesn't add up, and their hostility isn't really about dollars and cents. Instead, it's about ideology and posturing. . . . Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century."--former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Aug. 16, 2010

 

We Demand the Berth Certificate! 
"Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I.," the Boston Herald reports:

Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven--like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau - for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners?

Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000.

Kerry's chief of staff, the delightfully named David Wade, denies that the haughty, French-looking former junior senator, who by the way served in Vietnam, chose the out-of-state berth for tax reasons. Meanwhile,CNSNews.com reports:

Speaking at a town hall-style meeting promoting climate change legislation on Thursday, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) predicted there will be "an ice-free Arctic" in "five or 10 years."

What will he do with all the money he saves when he can move his yacht there?

James Taranto-

A spat has broken out between the U.N.'s World Health Organization and Amnesty International, a left-leaning human-rights group, over Pyongyang's patient care, the Associated Press reports:

Amnesty's report on Thursday described North Korea's health care system in shambles, with doctors sometimes performing amputations without anesthesia and working by candlelight in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power. It also raised questions about whether coverage is universal as it--and WHO--claimed, noting most interviewees said they or a family member had given doctors cigarettes, alcohol or money to receive medical care. And those without any of these reported that they could get no health assistance at all.

WHO's Paul Garwood claims that Amnesty's report is "not up to the U.N. agency's scientific approach to evaluating health care":

The issue is sensitive for WHO because its director-general, Margaret Chan, praised the communist country after a visit in April and described its health care as the "envy" of most developing nations. . . . Garwood and WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib insisted that Amnesty's report was complementary to their boss' observations. . . . Asked Friday what countries were envious of North Korea's health, Chaib said she couldn't name any.

Islamism

Fedor himself was the picture of civility following his first real career loss:

"I was made into a kind of an idol," he said at the post-fight press conference. "I'm a normal human being as all of us, and if it is God's will, the next fight I will win."

http://cache.dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/05/TCF-2010-Speech.pdf

Obama’s “I apologize for America, defending Islam is on of my top priorities” rhetoric just doesn’t seem to be turning those Al Quaeda frowns upside down.

Fooled Again 
This is from Reuters, not the Onion:

North Korea's health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking a day after returning from a 2-1/2 day visit to the reclusive country, said malnutrition was a problem in North Korea but she had not seen any obvious signs of it in the capital Pyongyang.

North Korea--which does not allow its citizens to leave the country--has no shortage of doctors and nurses, in contrast to other developing countries where skilled healthcare workers often emigrate, she said.

Reuters also notes--seriously, we are not making this up--that Chan found no signs of obesity among North Koreans. "News reports said earlier this year that North Koreans were starving to death," the wire service deadpans in response.

Recently a reader sent us a 2007 New York Times editorial purporting to debunk the "delusion" that America has the best health-care system in the world. Among the paper's evidence: "Seven years ago, the World Health Organization made the first major effort to rank the health systems of 191 nations. France and Italy took the top two spots; the United States was a dismal 37th." The Times didn't mention how the Norks did, but remember Margaret Chan's stunningly fatuous comments the next time someone cites WHO as an authority.

http://nevergetbusted.com/2010/audio/National-Public-Radios-This-Ame-Barry-and-His-Recent-Arrest.mp3

Firemen

The Associated Press has some good--albeit highly anecdotal--news on the unemployment front:

When laid-off toy company executive Paul Nawrocki hit the streets of Manhattan wearing a sandwich board and handing out his resume, he became the face of the recession.

At the end of 2008, with the giants of Wall Street collapsing and bank accounts dwindling, this lone, mustachioed job hunter with the sign proclaiming he was "almost homeless" seemed like a mirror of a slumping nation's fears and troubles. . . .

Well, if Paul Nawrocki is a sign of the times, then times are looking up.

Because last month, after collecting 99 weeks of unemployment, Nawrocki finally found a job.

Ninety-nine weeks, eh? Want to see an amazing coincide? This is from the Web site of the New York State Department of Labor:

New York State now provides 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits, as well as the usual 26 weeks of regular benefits.

Get a calculator, and punch in "73+26=." Spooky, isn't it?

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2010/03/15/media-reality-check-year-spin-liberal-obamacare

Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned up yesterday at the Washington conference of the National Association of Counties, and she engaged in a little cheerleading for ObamaCare:

You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention--it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting.

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

Mary Pahlke

Pahlke, Mary 64 09/25/1945 03/02/2010 

Mary McBroom was born in Boise, where she grew up with her two younger sisters. She attended Boise State University where, while working in the cafeteria, she met her future husband John Pahlke, who came back for seconds. They moved to Portland, married in 1967 and started their family. After raising their two boys, Mary embarked on a 20-year career with Nordstrom that began in Oregon and ended in Virginia. Mary and John were avid boaters and loved nothing more than cruising the Chesapeake Bay. Upon leaving Nordstrom, Mary and John spent two years traveling the country in a motor home seeing amazing sights and creating lifelong memories. Mary was an avid artisan her entire life, weaving, cross-stitching, knitting and sewing. Those who have some of these pieces will treasure them forever. Mary was small in stature, but a giant in the fight against cancer. Sadly, it was a fight that she lost while surrounded by her family and friends. She was preceded in death by her best friend, and the love of her life, her husband, John. Mary is survived by her sisters, Barbara and Janice; sons, John and Tom; three grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews. A celebration of Mary's life will be held Sunday, March 7, 2010, at her sister's home, 5290 S.E. Hillwood Road, Milwaukie. Friends may stop by anytime between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Published in The Oregonian on March 6, 2010 

John Stossel: More Anarchist Than Most

Posted by Gavin McInnes on February 17, 2010

The Anarchists in Vancouver are not happy about the Winter Olympics being held there and recently marched through town smashing windows, covering their faces, and yelling about everything from capitalism to the seal hunt to indigenous land. Some of their beefs are valid. The Olympics is a big waste of taxpayers’ money and in a city where one junkie dies every day, the local government could afford to be focusing on more serious problems. However, when reading the “manifestos” of today’s anarchists, one thing becomes abundantly clear, they hate capitalism more than they hate government.
I grew up going to anarchist conventions and don’t regret the various A’s I have tattooed up and down my arms in the slightest (in fact, I just got two more). We looked exactly like the 2010 Olympic protestors when we did things like protest outside the Chinese Embassy for China’s human rights violations in 1988. But back then, only a handful of anarchists would cover their faces. It drove us nuts because we were out there screaming about government ineptness and guys are acting like our adversary knows what he’s doing. “You realize your assumption that they are recording your face and putting you in some kind of massive database implies they know what they’re doing, right?” we’d ask them. This seemingly small detail is actually indicative of a much bigger split in the anarchist community: government aptitude.

“Politics is Hollywood for ugly people and the White House is just a big DMV with Greek columns out front.”
Anarchists with covered faces smashing the windows of retail stores are in fact, communists. Sure, the wage discrepancy between CEOs and factory workers is disgusting. I also hate the way big business ships in illegals and lowers the minimum wage to zero but if anyone has dealt with government at any level in their adult life they’d realize big business is the lesser of two evils by a long shot.
Today’s anarchists want money out of entrepreneur’s hands and into government hands where it can rot. They advocate unions like it was the 1930s and guys with tweed caps needed to get compensation for black lung. Nice sentiment but today’s teacher’s union is the most powerful political lobby in the world and has more cronies on both the Democratic and the Republican side than any other group in Washington. These unions are essentially mobsters who shake down anyone who dares pay electricians less than $50 an hour plus time-and-a-half for overtime plus double time-and-a-half for holidays. That’s more than architects and doctors make when they start out. Is $700 a day the fair wage the anti-capitalists want for the workingman? It’s more money than I ever made and I’m rich.
I often visit the anarchist squat Dial House where the founders of anarcho punk, Crass set up shop in the early 70s and are still there today. I had a seven-hour argument with the patriarch of the commune, Penny Rimbaud because I had the gall to point out it was ridiculous Mugabe was still alive and said if I was a Zimbabwean, he would have been blown up long ago. The Taliban did a seamless job of assassinating Massoud and all it took was a trick camera so why can’t the MDC do something similar? Like all anarchists, Rimbaud was stunned I didn’t know this wasn’t all part of the big government plan. “Zimbabwe is needed to cart diamonds out of South Africa,” he explained. “America needs him there the same way they need Iraq to get oil out.”
I don’t get it. If government is such a powerful monster, why do anarchists want to give it The Gap’s profits? They can’t seem to decide if the government is this elaborate network James Bond reports to or a quaint group of intellectuals who want to empower the poor. The truth is. It’s neither. They are not all-knowing they are know nothings. They are not a “secret society” (as Crass once said) they can’t even keep an infidelity secret. Since the president got caught using a cigar as a dildo, we’ve learned: John Edwards was screwing his biographer, governor Mark Sanford was boning his Argentinean mistress, senator Larry Craig was fishing for blowjobs in the bathroom, and Spitzer was fucking prostitutes with his socks on. Politics is Hollywood for ugly people and the White House is just a big DMV with Greek columns out front.
Danny Schechter’s new book Plunder! Investigating Our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, makes it crystal clear: the government is everything bad you can say about big business but without the “employing people and manufacturing stuff” part. This sentiment is what attracted me to the anarchist movement in the first place—not Marx’s intellectual claptrap about his “dialectic.”
This is why, as an adult, I’m drawn to libertarians like John Stossel. Sure there’s flaws like a love of open borders which I see as a chance for big business to go on an exploitation bender (anarchists also want open borders which I never quite got), but Stossel’s show spends 90 percent of its time pointing out government incompetence and exposing the way they oppress the everyman. During each episode he holds up a tiny book that’s about half the size of the communist manifesto and explains this is the bill of rights and the constitution combined. Then he shows us the endless piles of documentation the government uses for even the most insignificant rule. “This is all we need,” he says holding up the small book. That’s the closest I’ve seen to a plausible anarchist goal in America—ever.
Then Stossel gets specific. We learn about swimming pools that have diving boards revoked because of impending danger and then cause more accidents because kids no longer know where the deep end is. We hear local governments in Texas are strangling restaurants with insanity like “No Outside Dancing” laws (a bizarre rule New York’s previous mayor used to close down clubs he didn’t like). Stossel is very vocal about big money firms like Goldman Sachs and how much they’ve benefited from Obama’s new big government plans. From daycare workers being muscled into joining unions to California being bankrupted by bureaucrats, John Stossel has done more to mobilize hatred for government than any punk kid in black sweatshirt could ever hope to.
If the fashionable punks in Vancouver really cared about personal freedom and really wanted to abolish as much of the government as possible, they would swallow their prejudice, tune into Fox, get over his moustache, and take notes from the most articulate and driven anarchist in America today. In short, it’s time for crusty punks to Get Stosselized!
(I’m trademarking that so don’t even think about stealing it.)
Article URL: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/john_stossel_more_anarchist_than_most/

Food expiration dates bullshit!

http://www.slate.com/id/2244249/

Consensus or Con?

 

The global warmists are the real deniers. 

By JAMES TARANTO

This column was scoffing at global warming back when global warming was still cool. But even we have been surprised at the extent of the past three months' "meltdown" of global warmism, to use the metaphor that everyone seems to have settled on.
As we've written on various occasions, we didn't know enough about the substance of the underlying science to make a judgment about it. But we know enough about science itself to recognize that the popular rendition of global warmism--dogmatic, doctrinaire and scornful of skepticism--is not the least bit scientific. The revelations in the Climategate emails show that these attitudes were common among actual scientists, not just the popularizers of their work.
Still, we would not have gone so far as to say that global warming was just a hoax. Surely there was some actual science to back it, even if there was a lot less certainty than was claimed.
Now, though, we're wondering if this was too charitable a view. London's Sunday Times reports that scientists are "casting doubt" on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution," a claim the IPCC describes as "unequivocal":

"The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change," said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.

"The story is the same for each one," he said. "The popular data sets show a lot of warming but the apparent temperature rise was actually caused by local factors affecting the weather stations, such as land development."

Meanwhile, the BBC carries an extraordinary interview with Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the central Climategate figure. In the interview, Jones admits that the periods 1860-80 and 1910-40 saw global warming on a similar scale to the 1975-98 period, that there has been no significant warming since 1995, and that the so-called Medieval Warm Period calls into question whether the currently observed warming is unprecedented.
And then there's this exchange:

When scientists say "the debate on climate change is over," what exactly do they mean--and what don't they mean?

It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don't believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.

So "the vast majority of climate scientists" don't think the debate is over? Someone had better tell the IPCC, Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee and most of our colleagues in the media, who have long been insisting otherwise--and indeed, who continue to do so. An example is this piece from yesterday's Washington Post:

With its 2007 report declaring that the "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize--and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.

But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel's work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel's methods and mistakes--including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level--give doubters an opening.

It wasn't the first one. There is still a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. But . . .

That sentence beginning "There is still . . ." seems a rote recitation of an editorial position, sort of like when a news story refers to "a procedure that opponents call 'partial-birth abortion,' " or when Reuters puts scare quotes around "terrorism." (Or, for that matter, like when we refer to John Kerry as "the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam," except that we are satirizing the practice.) The gist of the Post's story is that the so-called consensus no longer exists, if it ever did. So why is the paper compelled to assert that it still does?
For an amusing example, listen to this New Yorker podcast on Climategate, featuring writers Elizabeth Kolbert and Peter J. Boyer. Boyer acknowledges that the emails raise serious questions about Climate science, but Kolbert denies it. Listen, though, to Kolbert's tone of voice: She sounds extremely defensive, as if she feels personally threatened by questions about global-warmist doctrine.
And maybe she does. There are, no doubt, lots of true believers in global warming--not scientists, but people, including many journalists, who have embraced global warmism as a political and quasireligious doctrine based, they have been led to believe, on the authority of science.
Even Phil Jones acknowledges climate science is rife with uncertainty, but global warmism's popularizers refuse to brook any doubt or acknowledge that the "consensus" they have touted is a sham.
And they used to call us deniers.

We Blame George W. Bush 
Remember when liberating Iraq was the worst foreign-policy mistake in American history? Now it turns out to have been anything but. The Los Angeles Times's Andrew Malcolm notes that Iraq is now so successful that the Obama administration, speaking via Vice President Biden, is taking credit for it. Here is what Biden said last night on CNN's "Larry King Live":

I am very optimistic about--about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.

I spent--I've been there 17 times now. I go about every two months--three months. I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society. It's impressed me. I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.

Malcolm notes that Biden and President Obama both opposed the 2007 surge, and that Biden once had some crazy plan for partitioning Iraq. But all's well that ends well. And as for former president George W. Bush, just remember Reagan's dictum: "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."