This and That August 8th

If you haven't been there already, LGF and Powerline and Michelle Malkin are exposing doctored photos of Lebanon by a Reuters photographer. Evidently, Reuters has retracted the photos. EU Referendum looks at more doctered photos. And for a crituque of same try here. (Hat tip to John Brignell at Number Watch, go to August scroll down to Props.)

What gets me is not that some reporters are dishonest from time to time but that this stuff gets by the editors. We are constantly told that bloggers lack the checks and balances of having a crew of fact-checkers or "gatekeepers" as the BBC likes to call them. There can only be one reason for this getting past the editors so easily, they want it to be true so they go with it. So much for the integrity of the MSM.

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In a similar vein, Steven Milloy at Junk Science.com says that global warming advocate Ross Gelbspan is still claiming he won a pulitzer prize even though he didn't. Figures, people who don't care about the truth of global warming won't care about the truth of other things as well.

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Why is NASA flying around looking for woodpeckers?

While at Junk Science.com I found this article. "NASA assists in hunt for woodpecker thought to be extinct." Ok I can see NASA helping out the university with their vertical imaging technology but I hope the university is paying NASA for its use. There is also this sentence:

"But last month scientists from NASA and the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., launched a project to identify possible areas where the woodpecker might be living."

It seems to me our tax money would be wiser spent on finding one of the birds for sure then examining the environment around it rather that maping possible areas where the woodpecker might be living.

I Feel Better Now

A few days ago Andy Clarkson at the Charlotte Capitalist had a good post tying Hezbollah's desire to wipe out Isreal and Michigan Senator Carl Levin's desire to loot profits of off-shore based companies as both instances of attacks on the producers because they are producers. Andy is right of course.

But Sen. Levin is my Michigan senator and watching him perform-just listening to him talk-over the years is an exceedingly frustrating experience. Perhaps I'm letting myself get frustrated too easily. Maybe I should console myself that I don't live in Mass. But I'm telling you, Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin could give Sen's Kennedy and Kerry a run for their Robin Hood credentials anyday.

I left a comment to the above post telling Andy that sometimes I feel like I want to join the repub party just to help get Stabenow and Levin out of office. Then again sometimes I feel like voting for more people like them so the economy will crash sooner and people will get what they deserve. But that is just me being spiteful and naturally, being spiteful is irrational and I must avoid the irrational even though it can feel good which of course it shouldn't. Sigh. (Andy was sympathetic.)

So, when I get thusly frustrated, I have decided what works best for me is to visit as many Objectivist sites as possible as well as taking another look at reality.

At the Noodle Food site Diana has the really good news that two of Leonard Peikoff's lecture courses are now for sale at a discounted price. I'll be taking advantage of that shortly because the offer expires Oct. 1st.

Blair at The Secular Foxhole recommends two books for good August reading. One fiction and one non-fiction. The book on coincidences and math seems interesting to me.

Jennifer Snow at Literatrix recommends Six Plays by Henrik Isben for more enjoyable reading.

Danielle Clark at I Blog can post on serious subjects but also likes to be a little lighthearted now and then which I find relaxing.

Toiler at Acid Free Paper recommends The Enemy by Lee Childs.

In addition to the sites above I recommend Cox and Forkum or go to any of the above sites and checkout their blogroll or mine on the right.

In regards to taking another look at reality, my second grandchild was born Friday morning and such an event helps one see the world in a different light, a most precious and value filled light. To see my son beaming with happiness at having a healthy son (the way I did when he was born) and the loving look of the mother as she cradled the little guy in her arms was, well, a scene of complete goodness.

I feel much better now.

Gramps again!

There hasn't been any bloging lately for several reasons the biggest of which is-- Mrs. Eyes and I are grandparents for the second time. Mommy and baby boy are just fine. Needless to say, the grandparents are eager go-fers as well as official picture takers.

Posting should resume Sat. or Sun. I hope!

Civilians and 'Sustainable Peace'

A great deal of hand wringing is going on over the civilian casualties in Lebanon recently. We are told that the conflict is resulting in the death of too many civilians. But this should not be a surprise. The jihad against the West is a war of civilians.

Usually, an aggressive government will employ a uniformed military to attack a neighbor and seize their wealth. The invaded nation's government will then respond with its military to try and defeat the aggressor.

Throughout the Middle East, the governments have reversed the normal structure of warfare. Today, all the governments from Syria over to Afganistan go out of their way to pretend to be uninvolved. The people in the government and the military do nothing, at least outwardly. Instead they recruit civilians to form terrorist groups who then go forth and kill the civilians of hated infidel nations. These terrorist groups are civilians. The people who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were not government or military people. They were civilians. No Middle Eastern nation attacked us on 9/11. We were attacked by civilians. Whenever Isreal conducts a sweep of Palistinian or Lebanese areas looking for weapons stashes, they find them in the homes and cellars of civilians.

This does not mean that we need to run around the ME killing only civilians. We must still remember that it is these governments that are sponsoring and financing these civilians. Destroy these governments (Iran and Syria) and it will help a lot.

But even that will not be enough. There is a very dangerous call going out right now by Western leaders for something called "sustainable peace." This demand requires Hezbollah to be completely disarmed. But ridding Hezbollah of weapons is not the same as ridding Hezbollah of the reason for those weapons--the will to destroy Isreal. The will to kill is what needs to be destroyed.

No matter how many times Hezbollah lays down its arms in a temporary truce or cease fire, Iran and Syria will simply supply them with more. The terrorists will then stage another attack on their own people and blame it on Isreal. The idea that disarming Hezbollah will work is based on the same warped thinking employed by the gun control crowd here in America, the notion that the reason Hezbollah is killing Jews is because they have guns and if we can take away their guns everything will be just lovey dovey.

The Jews have no desire to wipe Muslims off the face of the earth. The Muslims do want to wipe the Jews off of the planet. When this desire to kill is destroyed, sustainable peace will be possible, not before.

Should Have Expected This From The "Experts"

In Saturday's 07/29/06 Detroit News Nation & World section is an Associated Press article by Seth Borenstein titled "Experts: Get used to heat waves." The headline alone doesn't indicate global warming as the cause but the subtitle does. "Global warming causes warmer nights and drier days, leading to extreme temps, scientists say."

Guess who the scientist was who said that. Kevin Trenberth, the same guy who, in his capacity as an IPCC official, declared that global warming caused increases in hurricanes. This was in direct contradiction to the evidence documented by the IPCC's hurricane expert Chris Landsea. When the director of the IPCC sided with Trenberth, Mr. Landsea resigned in protest.

The article continues with:

"And in the long term, the world will see more killer heat waves because of global warming, scientists say."

followed by:

"The July burst of killer heat waves around the world can't be specifically blamed on global warming. And they aren't the worst ever. But the trend is pointed in that direction, experts say."

Translation: "We can't blame this on global warming but, oh what the hell, lets do it anyway."

Even Mr. Trenberth seems to say this: "The immediate cause of the California heat wave--and others--is day-to-day weather, he said."

This seems to be a new twist. "Specifically," "day-to-day", the "immediate" cause is not global warming, but the "trend" toward the general "long term" is caused by global warming. Or to put it another way, these heat waves are caused by natural variability but we don't want you to know that hence the use of obfuscators like "specifically" and "day-to-day" and so on. But we do want you to believe that this non-evidence of global warming is caused by global warming. We know, we're experts.

And when it comes to experts, I recently watched a 49 minute video interview of Richard Feynman and he had some things to say about the concept of *experts* with which I agree. (which is here)

Of course 'expert' is a valid concept. However, the way it is being used today reminds me of the way 'high priest' was used in more primitive times. The high priest was a person who simply declared what reality was. If you valued your life, you didn't argue with him either. His wisdom and knowledge came to him by way of revealations from some mystical source only he could understand.

Well, not much has changed since then. Today they are not called high priests but are *experts* and they are still getting their knowledge revealed to them from a mystical source called computer models that only they (the modelers) can understand.

This is what happens when science becomes a government establishment. The solution of course is to get science back into the hands of private enterprise.

Giving Back

In Friday's 07/28/06 Detroit News is a front page article extolling Motown Records creator Berry Gordy for creating an after-school program, funded by Gordy, for Detroit teens to develop music industry skills. It is a good news story and I commend any paper for reporting good news. However there is one negative thing about the article I didn't like. The headline praised Gordy for "giving back to Detroit." So I fired off this LTE the the News:

"I write to protest the shameful subtitle to the front page story Motown Magic of 7/28/06 which read: "Berry Gordy is giving back to Detroit with his after-school program..." The idea that Mr. Gordy is giving back inplies that he took something from Detroit. This is nonsense.

In fact, because he took advantage of the profit motive, he not only earned a living for himself and provided a living for those who worked at Motown, he provided all of us a value that was priceless--the Motown Sound. It is Detroit that owes him. He traded with us music for which we happily paid. He owes Detroit nothing. This is the morally inverted thinking that all American's should reject. If the News wants to praise him for giving to the City of Detroit, fine, but not giving back."

I don't know if they'll print it, I'll have to wait and see. This is the kind of thinking that needs to be opposed every time it's advanced.

Democracy, Elections Do Not Equal Freedom

At Capitalism Magazine, Peter Schwartz has an excellent article titled "Freedom vs Democracy: How the U.S. Government Created a Crises in the Middle East." He correctly points out that:

"The essence of democracy is unlimited majority rule. It is the notion that the government should not be constrained, as long as its behavior is sanctioned by majority vote. It is the notion that the very function of government is to implement the "will of the people." It is the notion espoused whenever we tell the Lebanese, the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Afghanis that the legitimacy of a new government flows from its being democratically approved.

And it is the notion that was categorically repudiated by the founding of the United States."

Very true. Our founders had a distinct disdain for democracy. They knew that democracies, even those set up with protections for certain minorities, always devolve into unlimited majority rule. They have to. The method is always the same. The majority will complain "How does the minority get to dictate to the majority?" The majority will then 'vote' to change the laws gradually voting away the minority protections. That is why our founders wanted to establish a Constitutional Republic not a democracy.

An example of the above mentioned method is easily seen in the Sunday 7/23/06 editorial page of the Detroit Free Press.

The editorial properly criticizes President Bush for vetoing the Stem Cell Reasearch bill and it makes some good points why he shouldn't have. Unfortunately, the editorial also make the arguement from democracy or the majority will arguement. The third paragraph reads:

"The Bush veto, the first of his presidency, thwarted the will of Congress and a majority of the American public to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research with the informed consent of donor parents."

Aside from the fact that 'thwarting the will of congress' is what a veto is supposed to do and providing checks and balances is why our founders put it in the Constitution, the 'will' of the 'majority' is being invoked as a reason for passing the bill. No mention of the fact that peoples' rights are being violated by forbidding them to do such research. The closest the editorial came was to decry the unfairness of it all:

"There are 400,000 embryos left over at fertility clinics around the country. When frozen, they are mere days old, microscopic in size, have no brain waves and will never become human beings unless they are implanted in a woman's womb. Most of them will be discarded. How can that be OK while using them in research that could help millions of people is condemned as murder?"

A very good point. But nothing is mentioned about how it is unfair precisely because it is a violation of rights and therefore unconstitutional. The editorial then attacks the power of the minority.

"Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this debate is that it plays to an active, vocal minority that holds great political influence, as evidenced by Snow's contention that federal dollars should not go toward something some folks believe is murder."

What is being attacked here is the 'political influence' held by a minority. But this minority was democratically elected so whatever they do is OK right? The editorial then argues that the government violates our rights in thousands of ways so one more shouldn't hurt.

"The government spends all kinds of money on all kinds of things many taxpayers abhor -- including wars that some probably consider murder." True, but while this arguement is irrational on the grounds that 1000s of wrongs plus one more don't make a right, it has some merit from a different perspective. If the government funds all forms of medical research, then it would be wrong to exempt one. But it's obvious how such a bag of mixed premises can result from putting everything up for a democratic vote including peoples' rights.

The editorial then gets specific in its attack on minority power. "Why the religious right gets to hold sway on this issue when more than two-thirds of the country favors the research is mind-boggling."

Clearly, this is an appeal for majority rule and an example of the process by which 'democracy' devolves into unlimited majority rule.

When justice is no longer focused on rights, it will become focused on power. Democracy and elections do not create freedom. A society based on the protection of rights will provide freedom and justice.

Proportionality, a Mistake

Amit Ghate at Thrutch has a post on the proportionality doctrine now found in the "Just War" theory of warfare. This doctrine holds that the proper response to an aggressor is to inflict on him an amount of harm that is commensurate to the harm he inflicted on you. Or, that which you hope to gain by retaliation cannot exceed the damage done to you.

Of course this is a notion that is irrational in the extreme. As far as I can tell, proportionality is a concept of measurement and as such has no value outside that which is being measured or proportioned. Proportionality could be a very evil and dangerous thing.

For example, you are attacked by a virus and become ill. You go to a doctor and he identifies the virus. But then he tells you that he is not going to give you enough vaccine to kill the virus and return you to health. Instead, because he believes in proportionality, he is only going to give you enough vaccine to make the virus as sick as you are.

What would you think about that? Would you want this doctor to draw up your family health plan? Would you want to see doctors with this kind of thinking in charge of world health? And what do you think would happen to world health if they were?

Happily, we don't have such doctors in charge of world health--yet. Unfortunately, we have exactly those kinds of people and ideas in charge of America's military policy. And that is why cheap little thugs all around the world are attacking and challenging America daily--because they have nothing to fear.

There are a lot of things wrong with that nonsensical notion. Ayn Rand once advised us not to waste time examining a folly, but to ask what is it designed to accomplish?

Well, if you have a population of 100 and so does an aggressor, and he attacks you killing 10 of your people and you retaliate killing 10 of his people, and back and forth, you will wind up with 0 people and he will still have ten left. He wins. You lose.

Proportionality is a doctrine of, by and for aggressors. If an aggressor wanted to attack a neighbor, how could he do it proportionally? Proportional to what? It's impossible to apply the concept to an aggressor. Thus proportionality is a concept designed to be applied only to the retaliatory use of force. It is a straight jacket placed on the attacked nation's right of self defense.

That is what 'proportionality' is designed to accomplish.

The proper response in the above example would be to retaliate not by trying to kill just 10 of his people but to destroy his ability to fight and his population's will to fight. It is never enough to try and destroy just his ability to fight. If the will is not destroyed, the population will find ways to keep fighting. If you destroy their will to fight, their ability to fight will evaporate.

An overwhelming first response in retaliation would be the proper response. You would have 90% of your population left and he would have more than 10 percent. Such a policy of overwhelming force is both the practical and moral thing to do. For their identification of this principle, I highly recommend the essay "Just War Theory and American Self Defense by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein here. (Hat tip the Objective Standard)

Roundup July 21

Gus Van Horn has an essay on how the religious right intellectuals are supporting the "Just War" theory of war. He does an insightful analysis of one of the right's leading intellectuals Professor Bainbridge.

Rule of Reason treats us to some valuable tips on fiction writing in an essay by Ed Cline author of the Sparrowhawk series of novels set at the time leading up to the American Revolution.

Jim Woods at Words by Woods has a interesting post on how the pragmatism of Mike Deaver has influenced modern events in Lebonon.

Amit Ghate at Thrutch has an essay on the "disproportionate response" condemnation Isreal has been getting for the way it's fighting against Hezbollah and Hamas. I've seen a lot of websites discuss this doctrine of "proportionality" in the last few days so I've decided to add my 2 cents in a day or so.

Principles in Practice links to a funny illustration of the bible--in Lego bricks.

Matt May critiques a LA Times column by perrenial Bush basher Johnathon Chait. Bush has his faults for sure but failing to meet the intellectual level of a Johnathon Chait should be comforting.

Global Cooling: What You Really Need To Know

On July 16th 2006 former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw hosted a documentary on the Discovery Channel titled Global Warming: What You Need To Know. I watched it. It presented only the pro-warming point of view. But the fact is that global cooling is far more dangerous and destructive than global warming. Here then are the things you really need to know.

"Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich. (From 1926 to 1960, some 70-95% of these glaciers were in retreat.)"

That, according to an article by Laurence Hecht, editor of Science and Technology Magazine titled "Is a New Ice Age Underway?" It is uncertain what is causing this sudden, abrupt turnaround.

According to the website 'help the aged' there is this ominous headline:

"Last winter, tens of thousands of older people in England and Wales died, simply because of the cold."

At the website of Timesonline we get this dire prediction:

"Britain has not had a particularly cold winter for ten years, but some experts believe that temperatures over the coming months could plummet as low as the winters of the 1970s."

According to this NOAA site Casper, Wyoming had these record lows in 2005:
January: 5 degrees on the 14th
April: 27 degrees on the 28th
May: 17 degrees on the 1st and 2nd.
June: 36 degrees on the 10th, 33 degrees on the 11th.
July: 44 degrees (tied) on the 18th, 45 degrees on the 27th

Why did the 1st two days of May plummet ten degrees colder than April 28th? And why are summer months of June and July setting record lows?

Then there is this troubling report from the BBC:

"Unusual Weather for New Zealand by Helen McKenzie
New Zealand has been experiencing an exceptionally cold start to winter this year. Record low temperatures, unusual amounts of snow, heavy rain and storms have all been witnessed across the two islands over the last few months."

The New Zealand Harold has this frightening article:

Glacier visitors ignore 'extreme risks'

12.01.06

"The Department of Conservation is worried someone will be killed as giant chunks of ice are falling from rapidly advancing glaciers in the middle of the peak visitor season.

Staff believe the risk of ice collapse at the face of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers is high and visitors are ignoring warning signs and putting themselves at risk.

Both glaciers are advancing at the rate of about a metre a week.

Fox is pushing up the sides of the valley, stressing the terminal face and causing rock falls and ice collapse."

And if that weren't enough we learn from the NZ Harold again that:

"Ageing icebreakers have put New Zealand and the United States' Antarctic programmes under threat, it was reported today.

National Radio said an unusual build-up of ice in McMurdo Sound meant the American icebreakers, which are nearing the end of their life span, were having trouble getting through."

What's going on here? Unusual build-up of ice, glaciers growing, people at 'extreme risk', some dying, predictions of record lows? Obviously our planet is cooling and cooling fast, and it isn't the Coors lite train doing it either.

Scientists agree that our planet has been warming for over one hundred years, that the climate works in cycles leading some to believe that we are now entering a new ice age. What would that look like? Well, in his documentary Global Warming: What You Need To Know, host Tom Brokaw showed us what New York City, Boston and London would look like under 30 or so meters of water. Now picture those cities under a mile of ice. That's global cooling!

Unlike the fiction movie Day After Tomorrow where water fills NY to the brim then freezes, global cooling doesn't work that way. Giant mountains of ice move from the poles downward flatening everything in thier path. All the northern forests and cities would be crushed. Nothing will survive unless it can migrate towards the equator. Can you imagine 6 (maybe 9 by then) billion people trying to divy up less and less land and what that will look like? Even the landscape will be changed. For more on the devastating nature of a glaciation I recommend the Paleoclimatology site here. I also recommend this website article and Roger Peilke reports that the 2nd conference on global warming and the next ice age is in session this week.

The bottom line is that a look at climate history shows that warmings have been generally very good for life on earth while coolings have not.
What can we do to prevent a glaciation? Probably nothing. But maybe, just maybe a little extra CO2 will hold it off a tad.

(Some of the sources above were linked to via the web site iceagenow.com which I recommend and is here.)

Global Warming Doc. pt 1

A few years ago there was a commercial on TV. It showed a very old man sitting with legs folded, a long beard, holding a cup of yogurt and crying. Someone sticks a microphone in his face and says something like "Oh ancient one, why are you crying?" He responds "For 125 years I have been eating that other yogurt."

Yes it was a cutsie-pie commercial but when one sees something like that one should try to look upon it with at least a slightly critical eye. You might even say if something had kept you alive for 125 years, there is no way you would switch. But is that a valid line of reasoning?

It's obvious that the commercial did not claim that the 'other' yogurt kept him alive for 125 years. That is an assumption I made based on two side by side facts, a certain brand of yogurt and longevity. Should I have inferred that one caused the other? Of course not. There was no direct connection, only circumstantial evidence.

That is what Mike's Eyes were looking at tonight, July 16th, as I watched the Discovery Channel's documentary "Global Warming: What You Need To Know" hosted by Tom Brokaw, a lot of circumstantial evidence but no direct connection as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I settled in and focused a critical eye on the major talking points which are in angle brackets. My comments follow those.

>Global warming is the gradual rise of the earth's surface temperature, thought to be caused by increased emissions of greenhouse gases (the "greenhouse effect"), specifically from human activities.<

I would agree with that, especially the phrase "thought to be caused" for that is where the state of the science is. Not proved but thought to be caused by man. In April of this year 60 scientists sent a letter to the Canadian PM asking for a review of the science behind the Kyoto treaty. They said in part:

"The study of global climate change is, as you have said, an "emerging science," one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth's climate system."--from National Post article Via the Enviro-Truth website.

>The sun provides the Earth with the heat it needs to support life, but a drop of only 1/10th of 1% of the amount of the sun's energy reaching the earth can spawn an ice age.<

If this is true, and since ice ages mean death while warmings do not, shouldn't we be trying to warm the planet in some way so as to at least postpone the next ice age a little longer? Just a thought.

>The average temperature in the U.S. in 2005 was almost one degree above the 1895-2004 mean, which will make 2005 one of the 20 warmest years on record for the country. This was from preliminary data from NOAA<

What is meant here by "on record"? Does that mean 1895-2004 as previously mentioned? If we go back to 1895, that is only 15-45 years after the estimated end of the Little Ice Age 1850-1880. So naturally the planet is going to warm as it pulls out of an ice age with subsequent years being warmer than previous ones. Each new high of course a new 'record.'

>Of the top 20 hottest years on record, 19 have occured since 1980.<

This is probably true and not surprising. The planet started warming around 1880, cooled from 1940 to 1975 and has been warming since 1976. That's 30 years. So it's no mystery that 19 of the 20 hottest years occured then.

>Computer models suggest that average global surface temperatures will rise between 2.5 deg F and 10.4 deg F by the end of this century, a rate much larger and faster than any climatic changes over the past 10,000 years.< From NAS.

This I take issue with because I don't think the science has evolved enough where we can attribute predictive powers to computers just yet. They are not crystal balls and cannot see into the future. I think the temptation for some scientists to treat models as an automatic form of knowledge is great. Senarios coming out of computers are not hard evidence and should not be treated as such. In my op-ed "Models of Doubt" at Opinion Editorials.com I wrote in part:

**At the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) their section on global warming said "There is much need to refine our understanding of key natural forcing mechanisms of the climate, including solar irradiance changes, in order to reduce uncertainty in our projections of future climate change." (3)

One paragraph later "Climate models are constantly improving based on both our understanding and the increase in computer power, though by definition, a computer model is a simplification and simulation of reality, meaning that it is an approximation of the climate system."**

Yes the models are getting better but we've only been using the technology we have for about 35 years now. That is just not long enough to accumulate sufficient knowledge about our climate system. New info and studies are coming in every day virtually faster than modelers can feed it into their computers. The botton line, we don't know enough about our climate to give computers predictive powers of any import.

>There was the claim that many scientists believe that temps are rising so fast, the earth's climate may reach a threshold--the tipping point--when there will be nothing we can do to 'undo' global warming.<

The words 'believe' and 'may' indicate pure conjecture and we need to treat that claim as such. In other words, ignore it. In my amaturish studies of climate change I have learned that the Earth has been warmer than now before and came back to ice.

At the website of Paleoclimatology is this: "So far we have had around 15 to 20 individual major advances and subsequent retreats of the ice field in our current glacial epoch. The last major advance of glacial ice peaked about 18,000 years ago and since that time the ice has generally been retreating (albeit with some short term interruptions)." So we've had 15 to 20 coolings followed by warmings. In other words, the climate works in cycles, back and forth like a pendulum. The small amount of CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere isn't going to stop this pendulum. According to The National Center for Public Policy Research's website The Global Warming Information Center:

"There are many indications that carbon dioxide does not play a significant role in global warming. Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the 11 scientists who prepared a 2001 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on climate change, estimates that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would produce a temperature increase of only one degree Celsius. In fact, clouds and water vapor appear to be far more important factors related to global temperature. According to Dr. Lindzen and NASA scientists, clouds and water vapor may play a significant role in regulating the Earth's temperature to keep it more constant."

The documentary devoted time to presenting anecdotes from around the world as evidence of global warming. Of course anecdotes are not proof of anything. At best their value is only that of circumstantial evidence. Regional events cannot and should not be extrapolated to the entire globe. Besides, these only show that the planet may be warming a bit, something I'm not disputing. They do not show that said warming is all man's fault. But lets focus on a few of these.

>In 1980, sea ice covered nearly 1.7 billion acres of the arctic, about the size of the United States. In the last two decades alone, the Arctic has lost an area roughly the size of Texas. If the melting continues at this rate, computer models predict that by 2060 there will be no ice at all during the Arctic summer.<

It's the last sentence: "If the melting continues at this rate.." Is there any evidence the warming will continue? No. Just those future-predicting computer models. Is there any evidence the melting will eventually stop? Yes. The historical record.

It is true that the melting could keep going until all the ice on the planet is gone. But so what? It has happened before and did not result in a cataclismic disaster for living things. From the Paleoclimatology website:

"For much of Earth's history, the world has been ice-free (even at the poles) but these iceless periods have been interrupted by several major glaciation periods (called glacial epochs) and we are in one now. Each glacial epoch consists of multiple advances and retreats of ice fields. These ice fields tend to wax and wane in approximate 100,000, 41,000, and 21,000 year cycles. Each advance of ice is popularly known in the press as an "ice age" but it is important to note that these multiple events are just variations of the same glacial epoch. The retreat of ice during a glacial epoch is called an inter-glacial period and this is our PRESENT DAY CLIMATE system.."

>One hundred years ago, there were more than 150 glaciers at Glacier National Park in Montana. Today there are fewer that 30.<

Well, 100 years ago was 20 to 50 years following the Little Ice Age so it stands to reason that as the planet warms up (from natural forcings) there will be fewer glaciers today than back then. Yes the planet is warming up ever so slightly. That's what it is supposed to do when coming out of a little ice age.

>The Patagonian glaciers at the Southern tip of South America have lost 10% of their ice in the last seven years.<

Again, anecdotes like this mean little. What happens regionally is not evidence of global happenings. So glaciers are melting. So what? Others are growing. From the editor of the Science and Technology Magazine, Laurence Hecht, is this article in which he says in part:

"Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich. (From 1926 to 1960, some 70-95% of these glaciers were in retreat.)"

According to Mr. Brokaw's logic, this should be evidence of global cooling. Of course it isn't and neither is warming of Patagonian glaciers evidence of global warming.

Also, the idea that this warming is "unprecedented" and faster than before is in error. The historical record is replete with evidence of sudden and abrupt climate change. From this NOAA website:

"Abrupt changes in climate can occur at many time scales, and while usually they are abrupt warming events, sudden cooling can occur as well."

To be continued.

Global Warming Doc. Pt 2

>If just the Greenland icesheet melts into the ocean, it could raise global sea levels by 23 feet over the next few hundred years. Coastal cities, including New York and London,would be completely flooded. Low lying countries such as Bangledesh-with much of its land mass at sea level-would be nearly wiped out.<

Again, more conjecture. Sure, it could happen and if so people will have a few hundred years to move to higher ground. But if warming doesn't happen and cooling does, New York and London will be under a mile of ice and so will the higher ground.

>Every year, nearly a thousand square miles of farmland in China turns to desert. Since the 1950s, that rate has doubled.<

Well, this article at the Pittsburg-Tribune Review by Dennis Avery says:

"China's weather records show four major floods per century during the Medieval Warming, and eight per century during the Little Ice Age. China also had three times as many droughts during the Little Ice Age as during the warmings."

Obviously, China's climate is much better off under a warming shift.

>In a study of polar bear population in the Arctic town of Churchill, Manitoba, along Canada's Hudson Bay,the number of bears has declined from about 1200 back in the 1980s to less than 950 today. This 22% delcine is directly related to early break-up of sea ice in the region.<

Yes the bears are in decline in Hudson Bay. Evidentally though, not anywhere else. According to Steven Milloy at Junk Science.com via Fox News.com:

"A Canadian Press Newswire story earlier this year reported that, in three Arctic villages, polar bears "are so abundant there's a public safety issue." Local polar bears reportedly increased from about 2,100 in 1997 to as many as 2,600 in 2004. Inuits wanted to kill more bears, which are "fearsome predators."

An aerial survey of Alaskan polar bears published in Arctic (December 2003) reported a greater polar bear density than previous survey estimates dating to 1987.

If polar bears are getting skinnier as the 1999 study suggested, it may be due to greater numbers subsisting on the same level of available food. After all, harvesting Alaskan polar bears has been limited by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and international agreements since 1972." And this article from the Toronto Star by Dr. Mitchell Taylor via Arctic Net:

"Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present."

The documentary then focuses on greenhouse gases. It points out how much carbon dioxide humans are puting into the air and how fast. One of the claims is;

>More than 5 million acres of Amazon rainforest are lost every year to loggers and farmers.<

All the more reason to bring modern technology and modern agriculture techniques (i.e. capitalism) to that region ASAP so they won't have to burn so much wood for fuel and clear so much land for inefficient agriculture.

>The United States pumps more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other country in the world. And the U.S. makes up only five percent of the world's population, yet we are resposible for a staggering 25% of the carbon dioxide that's released into the atmosphere.<

As far as I know those numbers are plausible. But did you know that the conterminous USA (the lower 48) is a net carbon sink? From what I've read, a net carbon sink is an area on the planet that draws more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than it emits into the atmosphere. In other words, the USA pulls out all the CO2 it emits and some of someone else's as well. This paper from Princeton University says they estimate the US carbon sink to end around 2100 probably as reforestation slows or stops.

As for the amount of CO2 and the speed with which we emit it, I for one am not worried. It seems that there has only been two times in Earth's history that carbon dioxide levels and temperatures have been as low as they are today: the Carboniferous and Ordovician periods. The Ordovician was an ice age. According to this website, today's climate, when compared to the rest of Earth's history, is carbon dioxide deficient!

The end of the documentary had some commen sense suggestions on what an ordinary citizen could do to reduce CO2 emissions. Personally I don't see anything wrong with them except that I would do them for reasons of saving money and not to reduce emissions.

A summary.

The Documentary Global Warming: What You Need to Know was well done from a professional delivery viewpoint. But the content left a lot to be desired. It was all one sided presenting only the pro-warming position as if there were no other view. No direct connection was established showing CO2 as causing temperature rise. There are studies that show the relationship of CO2 to temp. rise is backwards. In other words, the climate warmed then CO2 went up. Why did Mr. Brokaw think his viewers didn't need to know this?

End of review but a follow up is in the works.

Notice update for Undercurrent

I see when I cut and pasted the last notice I left out a few sentences. So here is the email again. Sorry.
***

Dear Objectivist blogger and Ayn Rand fan,

The Undercurrent, a national Objectivist campus publication, is now accepting submissions for its back-to-school issue, due to hit the presses in the first week of September. The article draft submission deadline is July 28th.

Please send all submissions and inquiries to mail@the-undercurrent.com .

You are welcome as always to send us your article ideas, or an outline to review, if you would like feedback from our editors in advance of the deadline. Please visit our website, the-undercurrent.com , for a review of submission guidelines and to peruse our past issues.

Whether or not you choose to submit an article for this issue, we encourage you to please post this announcement to your blog.

Thanks,
_The Undercurrent_ staff

Notices

I just recieved this request for submissions to The Undercurrent and thought that my readers may like to check it out and respond to it.
***

The Undercurrent, a national Objectivist campus publication, is now accepting submissions for its back-to-school issue, due to hit the presses in the first week of September. The article draft submission deadline is July 28th.

Please send all submissions and inquiries to mail@the-undercurrent.com .

You are welcome as always to send us your article ideas, or an outline to review, if you would like feedback from our editors in advance of the deadline. Please visit our website, the-undercurrent.com , for a review of submission guidelines and to peruse our past issues.


Thanks,
_The Undercurrent_ staff
Which is here.

************************************************

I also recieved an email asking if I would mind doing a review of a two hour documentary on the Discovery Channel called "Global Warming: What You Need To Know" hosted by Tom Brokaw This Sunday night at 9 PM. I agreed. I am not a scientist of any kind so I will be reviewing the doc. strictly from a laymans's perspective. It will probably appear on my blog Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

Unity

On Sunday 7/09/06 The Detroit Free Press's editorial page editor Ron Dzwonkowski ran his second editorial calling for unity in politics.

"I heard from a surprising number of people after writing recently about Unity08, the nascent political movement that is trying to depolarize this divided land.

I do not hold out great hope for the effort, but extrapolating the level of
local interest in it tells me that there are millions of Americans who are fed up and frustrated with the state of politics in this country and looking for an alternative to bickering, conniving Democrats and Republicans."

I think that bickering and conniving will always be part of politics. But bickering and conniving are not evil in and of themselves and have no value apart from that about which one is bickering and conniving. Mr. Dzwonkowski goes on to present a few anecdotes of people upset with the status quo then says:

"That's not what Unity08 wants. The Internet-based organization is trying to channel all this disaffection into support for a presidential ticket in '08 that would be pledged to really do something about important issues -- global terrorism, dependence on foreign oil, the spread of nuclear weapons, dealing with the emerging economic power of China and India and shrinking our national debt. Way down on the agenda would be such divisive issues as gun control, gay rights and abortion."

From this I get the impression that the problem really isn't divisiveness but lack of action, no one wants to "do something" about the issues. It's as if the politicians are paralyzed by a ritual of humming and hawing over trying to get the approval of a sufficient number of people, a consensus, before one lifts a finger to do anything. This fact is alluded to in the next sentence:

*"This government just doesn't know or is unwilling or unable to address what is really important," said Joe Alam, 68, a financial consultant from Grosse Pointe and formerly an active Republican.*

I would have to say Mr. Alam is right on all counts. The government is unable to do what is right because it is unwilling to justify its actions on the proper moral grounds and that is because it doesn't know what those grounds are. It is impossible to solve problems of rational self-interest while trying to justify them on grounds of self-sacrifice.

Let's take a look at the specific problems enunciated above by Mr. Dzwonkowski. It is in our rational self-interest to fight global terrorism and when Bush defended his plan to take out Afganistan and Iraq as matters of self defense, the nation was pretty much united behind him. But now he seems to have stopped half way and is leaving Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia intact while justifying military operations on the grounds that we must make sacrifices to bring freedom and prosperity to these two nations. Also, the policy of leaving those three above mentioned nations alone to send in an unlimited supply of jihadists to keep killing our soldiers and Iraqi ones too is a policy of self-sacrifice, of sacrificing coalition and Iraqi troops to the enemy and the civilian populations that support them.

It is in our rational self-interest to have a secure supply of oil at reasonable prices. To drill in Anwar and to open up the 85% of offshore land presently off limits to drilling is in our self-interest. But Americans are asked to make sacrifices to the Caribu and things swimming offshore. They are also asked to sacrifice their standard of living by giving up our desire to drive, stay cool in the summer and generally enjoy life with labor saving devices. Bush tried to achieve drilling in Anwar and offshore on the grounds that we need to lessen our dependency on foreign oil. But when congress cried that we must sacrifice for the Caribu and fishes, he didn't know how to answer them. He was paralyzed. He can't go against sacrifice because he believes in it himself.

It is in our self-interest to curtail the spread of nuclear weapons. It was not in our self-interest to negotiate with N. Korea in the 90's or with Iran now. But we are doing so on the grounds that their right to self-determination is just as valid as ours. In other words, by negotiating, our right to live is being sacrificed to their right to kill us. The proper rational self-interest thing to do with Iran and N.Korea is and would have been, to take them out. But such action cannot be justified on the grounds of self-sacrifice. Thus, no action is taken, just talks and more talks. This pattern holds true of the rest of 'important issues' as well.

I agree with Mr. Dzwonkowski that more unity would be a good thing, but only if that unity is around or about some good idea or ideal. Unity as such has no value apart from that which one seeks to unify. There is unity in a lynch mob. Is that a good thing? Of course not. In the 1930's, the German people were united behind the idea that Hitler and his Nazi party would be good for Germany. Look what that unity achieved.

There was a time when Americans were more united than today, but that unity was around a set of principles we call our Constitution. Over time we have abandoned or compromised those principles until today we are being pulled apart by those who want America to stand up for itself and do what is in its rational self-interest, and those who want America to sacrifice its interest to the interests of everyone and everything else. As Ayn Rand pointed out, the two competing moralities of self-interest and self-sacrifice cannot exist for long in the same man or the same nation. I would only add, nor the same policy.

(For those interested, the Unity08 website is here.

A Nation of Men...

I know almost nothing about new Mexican president-elect Filipe Calderon except that he is supposed to be a conservative, and I'm not sure what that means in Mexican politics. But I think this short article in the Detroit News of 7/07/06 by AP writer Will Weissert demonstrates one way a nation becomes a nation of men and not of laws: by intellectuals focusing on things like charisma instead of substance, appearence instead of ideas. Mr Weissert begins:

"MEXICO CITY -- Charisma is not Felipe Calderon's strong suit.

But the balding, bespectacled lawyer and technocrat proved to be a confident campaigner while steadily raising doubts about his wildly popular rival."

Mr. Weissert doesn't provide any evidence of Calderon's lack of charisma, unless balding, being a lawyer who wears glasses and is adept with technology somehow disqualifies one from having charisma. If Calderon was a confident campaigner, why didn't the headline say "Mexico's next boss confident campaigner"--a positive reference rather than the negative one he used? If his opponent was so wildly popular, why did he lose? Notice how he emphasizes the emotional--wildly. I assume that gives him charisma. See what's going on here? We are being encouraged to evaluate people by their outward appearence rather than their ideas. More appearences:

"Poised to become one of the youngest presidents in Mexican history, the 43-year-old Calderon won the official count in Mexico's disputed presidential race Thursday. He in many ways represents the new middle class that has burgeoned during the pro-business government of Vicente Fox.

But while he belongs to what many consider the party of the rich, he drives a 1993 Volkswagen Golf and is one of the country's few prominent politicians who hasn't amassed a personal fortune during a career in government."

While it may be interesting to some that he drives an old car and hasn't amassed a fortune and is only 43 years old, these are still non-essentials. Notice also how he refers to "the pro-business government of Vicente Fox." In other words, policy is just naturaly tied to the man and not a set of constitutional principles.

The only mention of ideas is in this paragraph:

"Raising his open palms at every rally to show he has "clean hands" and isn't corrupt, Calderon preached free-market values and financial stability, striking a chord with undecided middle-class voters weary of financial meltdowns that rocked Mexico throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s."

If true about the free-market ideas, I might like Mr. Calderon. But on net balance I don't think Mr. Weissert intended to do any slanting. I think he was just doing what comes natural considering the culture today and its emphasis on the emotional rather than the conceptual. That's why I think, he focused on charisma.

My Webster's New World college dictionary isn't very helpful. Under charisma it gives the non-religous usage as "A special quality of leadership that captures the popular imagination and inspires unswerving allegiance and devotion." But what is the nature of this 'special quality'? No mention. Unswerving allegiance and devotion to what? An attitude? I think this is it.

My same dictionary says an attitude is "a bodily posture showing or meant to show a mental state, emotion, or mood." Mental state could mean ideas here but that doesn't change the fact that the object of the allegiance and devotion is the outward display of attitude, not its source.

Of course there can be a charisma of a rational nature. A person can integrate his values and emotions in such an automatized way that he projects an exuberance, an excitement. But the rational observer will focus his critical attention on the source of the excitement. That source could be ideas, feelings or some combination of these. That is what needs to be discerned. But to focus only on the charisma, as if it had value independent of its source, is a mistake.

When a culture evaluates its leaders based on non-essentials like charisma, it will eventually become a nation of men and not of laws. The government will then take on the personality of a man and not a set of constitutional principles. The pro-business government of Jones, or the pro-union government of Smith, or the tax and spend government of Brown, or the fiscally conservative government of White, are the kinds of choices such a culture will face. How can people tell which way to go? By who has the most charisma. No principles involved, just charm.

For example, Michigan's Governor Jennifer Granholm had lots of charisma when she was first elected. Michigan's economy is in the tank and while much of it is not her fault, she has done almost nothing to effectively fix things. Charisma cannot solve problems. Competence can.

One has to wonder why people find charismatic leaders appealing. Philosopher Ayn Rand in her essay Philosophical Detection (Philosophy: Who Needs It p18) writing about rationalization wrote "Men do not accept a catch phrase by a process of thought, they seize upon a catch phrase--any catch phrase--because it fits their emotions."

It makes sense then that such people will be easily swayed by those who are expert at formulating the right catch phrases and placing them in the most effective emotional context. There are other ways a nation becomes a nation of men. Focusing on non-esentials is just one.

(For more info on Ayn Rand go to ARI here.)

Something Special

Steve Yzerman has retired. It's sad but inevitable I suppose. Like Al Kaline of the Tigers, Yzerman was a class act. When he became captain he didn't go around getting in teammates' faces. He led by example. Want to see how to score on these guys? Like this. Want to see how teamwork wins by assisting on a goal? Like this. And he would go and do it.

When you turned on a Red Wing game whether tv or radio, you knew you would be treated to something special, the play of Steve Yzerman, and you could see how that play often elevated the play of his teammates.

I will of course still watch Red Wing games even though that something special is gone now. But for all those awesome moments and great memories,

Thanks Steve!

The Senate Candidates

On Aug 8th Michigan voters will vote in a Republican U.S. Senate primary to see who gets to run against Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow this November. The candidates are Michael Bouchard and Keith Butler. According to the Detroit Free Press today 7/05/06, Mr. "Bouchard is a former Beverly Hills police officer and council member who served in the state legislature from 1990-99, when he was appointed sheriff. He has twice been elected to that position."

Mr. "Butler was elected in 1989 to a 4-year term on the Detroit City Council and remains the only Republican to have served on the council in more that half a century. He is the founding pastor of Word of Faith International Christian Church."

As an aside, I would venture to say that if you're wondering why Detroit City is in bad shape, could it be that the Democrats have had almost exclusive control of council for 50 years? In a Detroit News article in its Metro section of June 21st titled "In population, Mich. a loss leader" By John Wisely and Amy Lee, there is a quote by mayoral spokesman James Canning: "For the past 50 years, people have been leaving in large numbers, and we're cutting into that. Our goal is to stabilize, if not add to, the population."

While it is true that Detroit is experiencing a housing growth, most of it in single family homes and downtown lofts, it can't last as long as jobs keep fleeing the state. But to get elected to anything in Detroit you had to be a strong pro-union democrat, which means you had to be anti-corporation. And 50 years of that attitude simply chases jobs out of the state. And that brings us to the job killing policies of most Mich. politicians like Debbie Stabenow.

Personally, if either of these guys beat Sen. Stabenow in Nov. I'll be happy if for no other reason than they both are in favor of drilling in Anwar. Sen. Stabenow voted against Anwar and voted for windfall profits tax on oil companies.

At the moment, I tend to favor Keith Butler because he said the following on immigration. "It's too hard to get into this country, and it takes too long. So that needs to be reformed so that legitimate people-people we want-can get here, and it doesn't take 14 years to do so." I like that position but I needto hear some details.

Do these gentleman have any serious drawbacks? You bet they do.

Mr. Butler: "I'm not for a national health care of the type that you have in Canada. ...I am not for socialized medicine. But as a principle, I believe everyone should have it." Huh?

Mr. Bouchard seems to be in favor of health savings accounts and against socialized medicine whan he says: "National health care with government running it, I think, would be a mess." But then he's in favor of providing affordable and accessible health insurance to small businesses and thaoe concepts usually mean subsidized.

I'll have to hear more from both candidates of course and whoever wins will have an uphill battle as Sen Stabenow will have the union vote. I wouldn't mind getting behind the winner just to get Stabenow out, I think. More to come.

Supporting Evidence

In my recent post "Not Good For Michigan or America" I wrote:

"The price of gas is determined by the price of crude oil, which is being bid upon daily by nations all around the globe. Most of these bidders are governments not private oil companies."

I didn't know then the numbers but thanks to HBLer Duncan Curry I now do. Mr. Curry provides a link to a Baker Institute Energy Forum article which says in part:

"Through out the 1990s and into the next century, economic liberalization, market economy reforms and Western-style corporatization management reorganizations have characterized the oil and gas industries of major energy producing countries such as Russia, Norway, Canada and Malaysia, as well as the energy industries of major consuming countries in the developing world such as China, Brazil, Japan and India. These emerging hybrid firms, together with remaining traditional oil and gas state monopolies, control the vast majority of proven resources remaining for exploitation and development. The Western international oil majors now control less than 10% of the world’s oil and gas resource base."

This means that Western oil majors now have to compete with government run companies and as Mr. Curry points out:

"...oil prices keep raising because
state-ownership and control of the world's oil reserves keeps
increasing (now 90%). Nationalization of the oil industry, by
economic law, leads to inefficiencies, production shortages, and
higher prices."

(HBL is a private email subscription only list that discusses current events from a rational self-interest perspective. Host Harry Binswanger offers a free one month trial which can be had here.)

A Matter of Principle

Paul W. Smith is host of "The Paul W. Smith Show" on WJR (760 AM in Detroit) from 5:30 to 9 Am every weekday. He also writes an op-ed column for the Detroit News which appears every Monday. Last Monday, June 26th., Mr. Smith's op-ed was titled "Inconvenient truths prevail on helmets, drugs, schools." The first paragraph says:

"O utta' my mind on a Monday moanin':

It is never good to bash your head; however, if you are going to bash your head, better to have a helmet on it. Football, hockey, lacrosse and baseball players know it. Race car drivers and bicyclists know it. Motorcyclists know it."

True. It is safer to wear a helmet than not to at certain times like when riding bikes and motorcycles. But this isn't about persuading people of a rational idea. It's about positing a noble goal and then trying to achieve it by force. He then says:

"I don't need to go into all the arguments for and against a law making cyclists do what's best for them and for the rest of us. (We went through this already regarding seat belts in cars.)"

Yes we did. The thugs won and now they want to expand their control to helmets. But the above two sentences illustrate a point to which I will return shortly. Mr. Smith then adds:

"Now's a good time to point out that I have been a motorcycle owner. And I have been hit by a car while riding (I was a very careful, defensive driver. It did not matter.) I had my helmet on. I thank God I did.

The inconvenient truth: Everyone is better off when you wear a helmet. (It is unfortunate there has to be a law to get people to do it.)"

Yes it is, but not for his reasons. In a laissez-faire economy, most personal saftey issues would be handled privately, probably by insurance companies who would offer cheaper rates to people who wore helmets. But Mr. Smith's attitude seems to be "Why should we wait for market forces to persuade people to do that which a little force can achieve a lot faster?"

Mr. Smith is not alone. Most intellectuals and media pundits think this way. There is however a fact of reality they are all ignoring and that was hinted at in the comment above about seat belts. It is the fact that a principle once adopted, even if only in part, must eventually be adopted in its entirety or completely repealed.

In this case, it means that once you agree to the principle that the government has the right to force people to wear seat belts, it's only a matter of time before all aspects of our lives are controlled by that same government. If it's ok to force people to wear seat belts, why is it not ok to force them to wear helmets? If it is ok to force people to wear seat belts and helmets, why is it not ok to force them to drive the kind of cars the government wants them to drive as long as the government claims it "is better for everybody?" There is no reason. Why can't the government declare that single family homes are a waste of energy and begin a massive campaign of moving all Americans into high rise apartments because it "is better for everybody?"

Of course the fundamental principle under all of this is the principle that the government has the right to initiate the use of force against citizens for some social goal other than protecting citizens' rights. Once that principle is adopted it will grow of its own virtue. If a little bit of force is "good for everybody," a little bit more is better, and a little bit more, then more, until total force becomes the best for everybody. The only way to prevent total control by the government is by repudiating the principle in its entirety and returning the government to its original responsibility of controling the retaliatory use of force.

Today's thinkers like to pretend that principles don't have to work that way. It's what they are taught in college. But they do work that way. If you doubt this, look at the nature of law itself. The law works by extrapolating new conclusions from established precedents. An established precedent is an adopted principle.

"Mr. Smith goes on to complain about illicit drug use: "It angered and drove me crazy when some folks somehow blamed the police for not being more on top of the Fentanyl/heroin story. You, too?

Inconvenient truth: If you use illegal drugs, (or use legal drugs illegally) you may die."

The wisdom of the war on drugs aside, I usually don't feel sorry for people who OD on drugs. Such people are looking for an escape from reality and I am not saddened when they achieve a permanent one.

Paul W. Smith correctly complains about Detroit schools and their turn down of $200 million dollars from Bob Thompson:

"Enough time has passed since that opportunity has come and gone (in its original form) to state the obvious inconvenient truth: Politics, ego and control issues trumped what was best for the kids. What system of education, city or state in this country, would not have benefited from an infusion of $200 million?"

Aside from the question of why a government run school system needs such a bailout, it doesn't seem to have occured to Mr. Smith that "Politics, ego and control issues" would not be a factor in a completely private school system.

He then promotes breast feeding but doesn't call for the government to force that on women, yet. He then closes with these two paragraphs:

"Finally, I'm not telling you how to live your life, or if you are right or wrong in your own actions (even though I have a strong personal opinion). My (ultimate) inconvenient truth is: Human life begins at conception.

Join me as I sit in again for Rush Limbaugh on his nationwide show heard noon till 3 p.m. on WJR."

Of course this was an op-ed and Mr. Smith is entitled to all of his opinions. But I find it a bit ironic that a man who is comfortable with the principle that the government can initiate the use of force against citizens to achieve some social goal, and who does not understand that principles (precedents) always grow by way of their own virtue (merit), is sitting in for Rush Limbaugh. Rush of course is often heralded as a defender of freedom and capitalism. With defenders like this is it any wonder capitalism has a bad name? One cannot defend the principles of captalism (individual rights) while endorsing the principles of statism (iniatory coercion against citizens for some social goal--"it's good for everybody." If capitalism is to be defended properly, its defense must be based on individual rights. It's a matter of principle.

The Traitorous Times

Matt May links to a letter from a soldier to the NYT congratulating them for exposing the anti-terrorist funding campaign and making it possible for the terrorists to kill more of his men. Matt also has a relevent quote from Thomas Jefferson here. Gee, I didn't know the Times existed back then.

Of course these men at the Times are getting away with betraying America simply because Americans let them get away with it. If the Bush administration tried to bring these men up on charges for printing classified info, our own Senators and Representatives would support the NYT. They would support the betrayal of America. And that is our fault for electing them.

But for now, we really don't have much choice. There just aren't any people running for congress who would demand the Times people be brought to justice. I am optomistic about the future though. As more people move from the morality of sacrifice to rational self-interest there will be positive changes.

I would like however, to see one Senator or Congressman introduce a resolution calling for the prosecution of any news organization who prints classified info just to see who would vote for and against it.

Happy Days

Mrs. Eyes and I went to a graduation party for the oldest son of the family next door to us. We watched Dan grow up. He would often cut our grass and shovel the snow from the walk in the winter. Now his little brother sometimes does it.
I shook Dan's hand and congratulated him for being the Valedictorian of his school and for earning a full 4 year scholorship to a prominent technical institute. Watching him grow up from a scrawny neighborhood kid to the successful and promising adult that he is, was a beautiful experience.

Mixed Premises

In Michigan Republican Dick Devos is running against Democrat governor Jennifer Granholm. In today's June 23rd Detroit News there is a commentary by conservative talk show host Frank Beckmann. Mr. Beckmann quotes parts of a book written by Mr. DeVos in 1997 titled "Rediscovering American Values: The Foundations of our freedom for the 21st century."

Like most politicians, Mr. DeVos seems to be a mixture of good and bad premises:

**The DeVos book emphasizes integrity among public officials and perhaps the first hint of his political philosophy when he stresses freedom as a result of self-reliance.**

Actually, freedom is the result of government recognizing individual rights which then allows for the exercise of self-reliance.

**"When we are self-reliant," he writes, "we do not impose a burden on others by depending on them."**

It is true that relying on ourselves is good in the sense that we are not violating our neighbor's rights by forcing them to support us. None of us have that right. But the justification for self-reliance is man's right to life, not whether it imposes a burden on others. It's saying that the value of self-reliance is based on the needs or suffering of others and not the protection of their rights or the exercise of our own. It's advocating a good idea (self-reliance) for the wrong reason, service to others.

Dick DeVos is the son of Rich DeVos the founder of Amway Corp. now called Alticor Inc. He is selling himself as a businessman who understands Michigan's need for job growth and says he can improve the business climate here which would bring jobs. We'll have to see on that one. It's early and I haven't formed a firm opinion on him yet. If you're interested, the News has a front page article on him here.

Communist Paradise

Bruno at The Simplest Thing links to some photos of North Korea. Depressing actually. And to think this (or worse) is the standard of living enviromentalists and leftist professors want for Americans.

Round Up June 21st.

Diana Hsieh at Noodle Food takes a look a "Aristotle on Pity" in which she discerns the difference between his concept of pity and the modern concept of same. In so doing she makes a very perceptive observation:

"A justice-oriented culture cares whether a person suffers by his own hand. It scorns such voluntary suffering, reserving pity for the innocent. In contrast, an altruistic culture cares for nothing but the suffering, ignoring the cause or justice thereof."

(In my opinion, a concrete example of this would be the aftermath to Katrina.)

Yet another reason why altruism is not a morality of benevolence towards men.
I recommend reading the whole post.

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Craig Biddle at Principles In Practice looks at an article by Diana West and discerns the difference between faith and reason as well as a look at sacrifice. On faith he points out:

"Either faith—i.e., the acceptance of ideas in support of which there is no evidence—is a valid means of knowing the truth, or it is not. The Islamists have faith that they are right and good and that Americans are wrong and evil. If faith is a valid means of knowing the truth—as many Americans continue to believe—then how can anyone say that the Islamists are wrong? What Americans need to face is the fact that faith is invalid. Man's only means of knowledge is reason. The true and the good and the right can be known only by means of observation and logic and recognition of the requirements of human life on earth. If Americans want to name and defeat their actual enemy, they must lose religion; they must embrace reason."

The whole post is worth the read.

******************************************

On The Slightly Lighter Side.

You Dirty Healthy Rat?

Steven Milloy at Junk Science links to an AP article carried by the New York Times titled "Rat Study Shows Dirty Better Than Clean."

"Washington -- Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.

The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen."

It doesn't surprize me that the Western world is being blamed for the above mentioned diseases and maladies. It is true that as the air in the U.S. has become cleaner the asthma rate has gone up. I do think there may be some merit in the hygiene hypothesis. However, I want to draw your attention to the phrase 'sanitized Western world' and a little later in the article this sentence:

"Human epidemiological studies have long given credence to the hygiene theory, showing that allergy and asthma rates were higher in the cleaner industrialized areas than in places such as Africa."

It seems ironic that the "Western," "industrialized" world can be referred to as "sanitized" and "cleaner" when most of the time Western industrialized nations are reviled as the dirtiest polluters on the planet. Oh Well.

The scientists did say that they wanted to find things that would "exercise the immune system" without having to expose people to actual dirt so I suppose that's a good thing.

I am told that lab mice and rats are speciffically bred to pop out tumors much faster than wild ones would.

Our Tax Dollars At Work?

Saturday's 06/17/06 Detroit News has a report titled "U-M Gets $70M for study on aging" by Marisa Schultz. It starts with:

"The University of Michigan is on the verge of receiving a $70 million grant -- the largest research award in the university's history -- to study America's aging population.

Funded by the federal National Institute on Aging, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, the study will provide information on what Americans are spending their money on and how they're saving and living longer, said U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, who is expected to formally announce the grant Monday."

I have never been in favor of using taxpayer money to study aging or anything else. What seniors are spending their money on is info that should be paid for by private companies like Sears or Wal-Mart, not taxpayers.

Besides, all this is doing is providing politicians and policy makers with information on which way to vote on specific issues regarding seniors. In other words, how to win the senior vote on any given issue. This is of crucial importance of course because millions of baby boomers will start to retire in about 4 years and politicians like Rep. Dingell need to know how to buy their votes.

Philosophically, this is an admission that our government makes no decisions by reference to wider principles (i.g. individual rights) but bases them on concrete-bound, range-of-the-moment polls, surveys and studies, like studying a herd of cows without the knowledge of what is a cow and what is its nature.

The article then gives a little overview of U.M.s research programs:

"The huge gift comes at time when academic institutions are in fierce competition for limited federal research dollars, especially for social science survey research grants, according to the university. Typically, research at U-M's Institute for Social Research accounts for just 12 percent of all research expenditures at U-M, with the medical school bringing in the bulk of the grant money.

University officials had little to say Friday about the grant, although people familiar with Monday's announcement confirmed the amount of the award.

The university institute is among the world's oldest survey research organizations. It produces some of the most widely-cited studies, such as the Survey of Consumer Attitudes and the National Election Studies. Established in 1948, the institute produces nationally recognized research on diverse topics such as poverty, drug use, income and aging."

While the above may sound almost impressive, I still don't think taxpayer money should fund it. There are lots of private organizations that deal with the elderly who could fund this kind of research. Besides, we seem to be getting into a paradigm of research for research's sake which can lead to this:

"Earlier this month, it (the university institute-ME) released a widely publicized index measuring how fast the happiness level of hurricane victims rebounded." !!!!

Hmmmm. I'd like to see a study of how fast the happiness level of government funded researchers rebound when all their grant money is cut off. I'd pay for that. Oh well, there is one piece of certainty that came out of this award:

"Meanwhile, the U-M regents reappointed President Mary Sue Coleman, a strong advocate for research and development, to a second five-year term."

Mission accomplished.

Here We Go Again

The Michigan State Board of Education's social studies advisors are in the news again. In an excellent 6/13/06 column by Detroit News writer Laura Berman, we are advised:

"An Oakland County judge and some of the state's social studies directors are protesting the lack of standards in the new standards, which omit Ford, and are scheduled for approval by the State Board of Education at a meeting today.

"There is little history in the (proposed) history content," wrote Oakland County Circuit Judge Michael Warren, a former State Board of Education member in a scathing June 13 memorandum to the board that cited the absence of -- among others -- Henry Ford, the Presidents Roosevelt (Theodore and Franklin), Rosa Parks, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

A few key historical moments are also missing: the Spanish American War, the Holocaust, Watergate, September 11."

Presumably, these historic people and events aren't on the test so they don't need to be taught.

"The 21-page proposal, if approved, is what high school students will be expected to learn and know.

"What gets tested is what gets taught," said Amy Bloom, the social studies consultant for Oakland Schools."

A more obvious hatred of testing students to see if they know anything would be hard to find.

What is it with these social studies consultants? Readers of this blog will remember my post The Little Witch Doctors in which I wrote about social studies consultant Karen Todorov who wanted to drop the word 'American' when referring to the United States. I concluded that post with:

"In my essay The Science Establishment II ( Feb archives), I mentioned the fact that the essence of government is force and the essence of science is reason and to mix the two will result in reason being forced out. Just substitute education for science. The principle is the same. The only way to prevent the corruption of education is to get the government completely out of it."

A good start towards that end would be tax credits for education and vigorous support for private schools.

Fatal Flaw

Alan Germani at Principles in Practice has an essay "Somalia and Our Fatal Flaw." Evidently, America, via the CIA, has been supporting the warlords there in the hopes of keeping islamists from taking over the country and to get info on suspected al-Qeada hiding there. Well, the islamists just ran the warlords out of town and are now imposing Sharia Law. The U.S. loses again.

Mr. Germani correctly points out why such misguided policies are doomed to failure by identifying our fatal flaw as:

"The tragic flaw inherent in the "War on Terror" is its focus on individual enemy combatants. We are wasting money, munitions—and, worst of all, American soldiers—trying to eliminate these combatants while ignoring the states that produce and sustain them (primarily Iran and Saudi Arabia). As long as these regimes and their supporting populations believe that they can triumph over the West, there will be an endless supply of terrorists to fill the sandals of the few that we're able to track down and kill."

So very true. It's like trying to destroy a large anthill by killing one ant at a time, except that American soldiers are dying in the process. The anthill should have been destroyed in one fell swoop. I urge reading the whole article.

Not Good For Michigan or America

My U.S. Congressman Sander Levin has a newsletter his office sends out about once a week informing constituents of the latest congressional action. In the week of May 22 – 26, 2006 issue was a headline saying:

“House Narrowly Approves Oil Drilling in Arctic refuge.”

I think drilling in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) is long over due and a small step on the path of reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, Mr. Levin voted against the legislation. I think his reasons are misguided in the extreme.

First, he says, “Drilling in ANWR will not bring down gas prices—not today and not tomorrow….” While this is probably true, it is not the sole or even the main reason for drilling in ANWR. Oil companies should have the right to buy the drilling rights to any property at market prices. But, not counting ANWR, the government has placed 85% of offshore oil fields off limits to any drilling. If people would like to know the why behind high gas prices, that is one reason. Placing most of the oil fields off limits then crying about a dependency on foreign oil is being less than honest with the American people.

Lets look at another claim by Mr. Levin. “Although over 95% of the recommendations in that plan (Bush’s 2001 energy plan) have been implemented, our nation still confronts sky-high gas prices, growing dependence on foreign sources of energy, and record pro! fits (sic) for the oil industry.” Notice how he names two maladies, high prices and dependency on foreign energy and then lumps in “record profits” as if they were of equal malevolence.

In other words, Mr. Levin believes that morality is a matter of numbers; if you earn millions of dollars you’re virtuous or at least amoral. But if you earn billions you become evil and are placed alongside other undesirable human conditions.

This kind of thinking is known to economists as the intrinsic theory of wealth. It holds that wealth is a static amount and therefore if someone has a lot of it then it must be at the expense of someone else thus government must step in and redistribute the wealth more fairly. Of course this theory was thoroughly discredited long ago. Wealth creation is a very dynamic process. Yet it is sad to see Congressman Levin still believing in it and pandering to one of the worst human emotions, envy, the hatred of success for being success.

But Congressman Levin is not alone. His brother, Michigan Senator Carl Levin and colleague Debbie Stabenow have both said they will support a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. Consider the kind of message this sends to large corporations. “You had better not be too successful, too efficient, too profitable or we’ll nail you”

I understand that the price of gasoline is a national problem but consider what thoughts might be going through the minds of CEOs of large corporations thinking about moving to Michigan. “Do you think it’s a good idea to set up shop in Michigan since the main politicos there are so hostile to profits and corporations in general?”

I’ve heard the argument “I wouldn’t care how much money the oil companies make if they would just keep the price of gas nice and low.” This argument ignores the fact that market prices are set by how much people are actually willing to pay, not by how much they’d prefer to pay. It also supposes that oil execs sit in their offices and every morning say “Well, how much should we charge for gas today?” That is ridiculous.

The price of gas is determined by the price of crude oil, which is being bid upon daily by nations all around the globe. Most of these bidders are governments not private oil companies. The OPEC cartel controls most of the oil out of the Mideast. Most South-American oil companies are state owned and Russia recently nationalized their oil industry. Yet the Levins and Ms. Stabenow want you to believe it’s all the fault of evil, greedy private enterprise, and that governments are faultless, especially ours.

A myriad of regulations and laws have prevented the building of refineries for about 30 years. But Congressman Levin and Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are not about to get the government out of the way. That is why keeping these politicians in office is not good for America or Michigan.

Some Good News Last Week

Like the color green, some headlines were soothing to Mike's Eyes last week.

First was the headline Zarqawi Dead. This will probably be followed by a power struggle between Zarqawi wannabes who will then kill each other until one of them takes over. More good news.

Second, is a report by Little Green Footballs titled "Don't Wanna Be Zarqawi" about a young Jewish man who was kidnapped by Palistinians but as soon as they discovered he was an American they turned him over to the Isrealis.

Third, was the report by Yahoo news that Goldman Sachs had lowered its stock rating of New York Times to 'Underperform' causing NYT share price to fall. How sweet it is!

Now if I could just see a headline like "Iranians Overthrow Mullahs" or "Syria Falls," that would make for a good year.

The Pragmatic Senate

Donald Luskin at Conspiracy To Keep You Poor and Stupid was sent a note by Daniel Clifton of Americans For Tax Reform. Evidently, Mr. Clifton is upset over the duplicity of the Democratic Senators who defeated a motion to only consider bringing the Estate Tax Reform bill to the floor. The duplicity consists of:

**Interestingly, Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, and Ron Wyden voted for full repeal in 2002. Today, they voted against even considering the legislation for some type of reform. Hence they went from supporting a 0 percent estate tax to a 55 percent rate. That’s because this is not whether you support or oppose estate tax repeal. The Dems have actively traded votes to let their vulnerable members up for reelection support the legislation and have other members not up for reelection vote against the legislation, even if they support estate tax repeal/reform. This ensures incumbent protection while also ensuring 60 votes can never be reached.

As an example, Sen. John Breaux, the prime sponsor of the legislation for repeal, voted no in 2002 so Mary Landrieu can vote yes.**

The blatent deception of the American voters, openly on the Senate floor demonstrates how no one takes principles seriously anymore. In their minds, hypocrisy is not a bad thing because you are supposed to go with whatever works for now and don't worry about consequences. Thus, if you don't want to repeal the Estate Tax, but your constituents do, then come election time you can fool them by voting for repeal and ignoring your NO votes of the past.

I was reminded of Senator John Kerry's statement "I have never waivered" during the 04 presidential debates. I wondered how he could say that with a straight face on national television. I have decided that such behavior is that of a pure pragmatist, a person who has bought into the primacy of consciousness completely and believes reality is whatever he wills it to be on a daily basis. Whenever reality doesn't conform to his will, it is because, for some unknown reason, reality has conformed to someone else's will. (Considering the implications of that thought process could make for an interesting essay, but for another time.)

Of course, a pure pragmatist is to be differentiated from a partial pragmatist like a George Bush. Mr. Bush seems to go back and forth from pragmatic behavior to that based on his religous principles. Mr. Kerry is 100% tunnel vision on the here and now.

In fairness I have to assume the Republicans do the same thing when the Dems are running things. Anyway, I'm glad there are men like Mr. Clifton keeping track of such insanity.

A is non-A

According to my Comcast home page there is an Associated Press news article by AP writer Ali Akbar Dareini reporting that Iran has agreed to consider an "incentive" package offered by the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany.

**The incentives package offers economic and political rewards if Tehran relinquishes domestic uranium enrichment, which is used to generate power but can also produce weapons-grade uranium for nuclear warheads. It also contains the implicit threat of U.N. sanctions if Iran remains defiant.**

So we are giving "rewards" to thugs in return for the thugs' promise not to be too thugish with us! There is no difference between this "package" and the package reached by a homeowner who offers to give some of his money to a thief in return for the thief's promise not to try and steal the rest of it.

The evasion of reality by the West in these so-called negotiations is astounding. The thief doesn't care about the homeowner's property rights. When the homeowner agrees to "negotiate" with the thief, the homeowner doesn't care about them either and deserves to lose them all.

The West's desire to live and the Mullah's desire to kill the West is something that cannot be negotiated. The attempt to do so demonstrates how completely the West has adopted the epistomology (method of thinking) of the primacy of consciousness where reality becomes whatever we can will it to be if we just all agree to the willing.

Just as the homeowner's epistomology was "Giving my money to the thief is not a surrender if I don't call it by that name," so the West's epistomology is "What Iran is doing is not extortion if we all agree not to call it by that name."

But wait. Are we even getting the thug's promise to stop being thugish? No. Iran has only agreed to "study" the package.

**"The proposals contain positive steps and also some ambiguities," (Iran's nuclear negotiator Ali) Larijani said.

He did not identify the "ambiguities," but he said he had discussed them with (EU negotiator) Solana and that more talks would be required.

"We hope we will have negotiations and deliberations again after we have carefully studied the proposals," he said.**

"Ambiguities" are absolutely essential in modern "diplomacy." They assure more "negotiations" and thus avoid the necessity of taking action. In fact, in the minds of Western intellectuals, "diplomacy" is action and it is entirely devoted to making sure no other action ever takes place.

But what are these "positive steps" the West is offering?

**Details of the proposals have not been made public, but an early draft indicated that if Iran agrees to abandon uranium enrichment, the world would offer it help in building nuclear reactors, a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel and European Airbus aircraft.

The United States has reportedly sweetened the offer by saying it would lift some bilateral sanctions on Iran, such as a ban on Boeing passenger aircraft and related parts.**

So we are trying to get Iran to give up its nuclear bomb intentions by giving it a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel! No wonder Iran is willing to "study" the package. They probably can't believe it either. That's like the homeowner offering the thief a guaranteed supply of crowbars in the hopes the thief will use them for "peaceful purposes."

Of course, the homeowner (West) refuses to identify the fact that such a policy will result in all other thieves (thugs) noticing what works and presenting the same demands to the homeowner (West) until one day he discovers that his money and silverware (freedom) and whatever else he had to negotiate away, are gone. Such is the logical result of ignoring the existence of, and compromising on, principles.

round up on June 3rd update

Donald Luskin at Conspiricy to Keep You Poor and Stupid reports on Paul Krugman's standing in the eyes of a few. I especially liked the 2nd update where an emailer says he makes money by betting against Krugman because Krugman is wrong so often. Hmmm. I wonder if he's onto something there.

round up on June 3rd

Diana Hsieh at Noodle Food has a good analysis of an article by Julian Edney in which she identifies his use of the fallacy identified by Ayn Rand as "the frozen abstraction."

Gus at Gus Van Horn also has a critique on a James Taranto article in which Mr. Taranto is obviously confused about the nature of self-interest. Although he has written some rational articles in the past he is nevertheless a strong believer in forced sacrifices as his belief that under certain circumstances, the military draft is ok.