By Alan Caruba
Millions of Americans will, by plane, car and rail, move around the nation for the next few days for the sole purpose of getting together with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving.
It is impossible to calculate all the carbon dioxide (CO2) that will be generated by this, but I am willing to bet that the Greens will be curiously quiet about it.
Masters of public relations, they know better than to rain on everyone's Thanksgiving parade by reminding them that they are, by their interpretation, contributing to a disaster they call global warming.
Instead, the media is filled with reports of how swiftly people are being processed through airports and what parts of the nation will encounter bad weather conditions. Meanwhile, around the world there are reports of unusually early and unusually cold weather. That's another thing the media will not report.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
The True Cost of Wars
By Alan Caruba
I read a column by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne today. This man has a reputation as a deep thinker and, one presumes, is influential inside the Beltway.
“It’s time that we subject the Iraq war to the same cost-benefit analysis that we are called upon to impose on other government endeavors,” wrote Dionne. And, immediately, I thought to myself that this was a fairly idiotic idea. What if, halfway through World War II, it was determined that it was costing the United States too much and that we should cease our efforts to defeat the Axis powers? What if we had decided that the Korean conflict was too costly and the whole of the peninsula should be abandoned to the Communists of the North?
The United States has engaged in any number of military endeavors, large and small, and I cannot remember anyone saying, “Hey, this is costing too much money. Let’s quit.”
Wars are expensive. Modern wars are especially expensive. And wars yet to be fought will be even more expensive. But defeat is costly, too. Just ask the Soviet Union, rumored for decades to be a great superpower equal to the United States. Then Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military and made it clear he would outspend any Soviet effort to threaten Western Europe or anywhere else in the world. Then, one day, after being defeated in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
It took some 45 years of a very expensive Cold War, but today it can be argued that it was worth every penny for that fleet of bombers that ceaselessly flew to guard against the prospect of a sneak attack or the Navy that guarded the waters of the world. All the protective actions the United States took, spending billions, in retrospect seem worth it now.
How many times do you think the U.S. should have had to invade Iraq? The first time under Bush 41 was deemed a success in that it restored Kuwait’s sovereignty and denied Saddam Hussein access to its oil reserves. Saddam had previously waged war on Iran for eight years for the same purpose. But Saddam had been permitted to remain in power and the result was the necessity for a second invasion to remove his threat to the region.
Costly? Yes. However, the result is that Saddam’s evil regime is gone. The Shiites and the Sunnis appear to have begun to sort out their differences. And al Qaeda, drawn like moths to a flame, has suffered greatly in Iraq. Initially driven from Afghanistan after 9/11, all the reports out of Iraq suggest how unpopular it is there. Even the Saudis have issued warnings against any more of their young men, the backbone of al Qaeda, leaving to engage in jihad.
So, despite the enormous costs of the Iraq war perhaps history will look back at George W. Bush and the neocons, and conclude it was all worth it.
By way of contrast, more than 40,000 Americans lost their lives on the streets and highways of America last year. That is carnage on a scale that humbles our military casualties in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the United States has continued to undergo a wholesale invasion across our southern border of millions of illegal aliens and, with it, growing and ever more dangerous Mexican drug cartels. Americans spend an estimated $40 billion on illegal drugs every year. Between the illegal aliens and the illegal drugs, the costs to America are in the billions, and we are hard-pressed to read any influential columnist address this “war.”
And, finally, since 9/11 when U.S. troops were sent to Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban and to remain there to protect a nascent democracy, and since they invaded Iraq and destroyed the evil Saddam dictatorship, there has not been a single major attack on the United States homeland. You know what I would call that?
Victory.
I read a column by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne today. This man has a reputation as a deep thinker and, one presumes, is influential inside the Beltway.
“It’s time that we subject the Iraq war to the same cost-benefit analysis that we are called upon to impose on other government endeavors,” wrote Dionne. And, immediately, I thought to myself that this was a fairly idiotic idea. What if, halfway through World War II, it was determined that it was costing the United States too much and that we should cease our efforts to defeat the Axis powers? What if we had decided that the Korean conflict was too costly and the whole of the peninsula should be abandoned to the Communists of the North?
The United States has engaged in any number of military endeavors, large and small, and I cannot remember anyone saying, “Hey, this is costing too much money. Let’s quit.”
Wars are expensive. Modern wars are especially expensive. And wars yet to be fought will be even more expensive. But defeat is costly, too. Just ask the Soviet Union, rumored for decades to be a great superpower equal to the United States. Then Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military and made it clear he would outspend any Soviet effort to threaten Western Europe or anywhere else in the world. Then, one day, after being defeated in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
It took some 45 years of a very expensive Cold War, but today it can be argued that it was worth every penny for that fleet of bombers that ceaselessly flew to guard against the prospect of a sneak attack or the Navy that guarded the waters of the world. All the protective actions the United States took, spending billions, in retrospect seem worth it now.
How many times do you think the U.S. should have had to invade Iraq? The first time under Bush 41 was deemed a success in that it restored Kuwait’s sovereignty and denied Saddam Hussein access to its oil reserves. Saddam had previously waged war on Iran for eight years for the same purpose. But Saddam had been permitted to remain in power and the result was the necessity for a second invasion to remove his threat to the region.
Costly? Yes. However, the result is that Saddam’s evil regime is gone. The Shiites and the Sunnis appear to have begun to sort out their differences. And al Qaeda, drawn like moths to a flame, has suffered greatly in Iraq. Initially driven from Afghanistan after 9/11, all the reports out of Iraq suggest how unpopular it is there. Even the Saudis have issued warnings against any more of their young men, the backbone of al Qaeda, leaving to engage in jihad.
So, despite the enormous costs of the Iraq war perhaps history will look back at George W. Bush and the neocons, and conclude it was all worth it.
By way of contrast, more than 40,000 Americans lost their lives on the streets and highways of America last year. That is carnage on a scale that humbles our military casualties in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the United States has continued to undergo a wholesale invasion across our southern border of millions of illegal aliens and, with it, growing and ever more dangerous Mexican drug cartels. Americans spend an estimated $40 billion on illegal drugs every year. Between the illegal aliens and the illegal drugs, the costs to America are in the billions, and we are hard-pressed to read any influential columnist address this “war.”
And, finally, since 9/11 when U.S. troops were sent to Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban and to remain there to protect a nascent democracy, and since they invaded Iraq and destroyed the evil Saddam dictatorship, there has not been a single major attack on the United States homeland. You know what I would call that?
Victory.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
IPCC Lies: Driving the Human Herd Before Them
by Alan Caruba
It is clear from the Sunday news coverage of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's draft report, agreed to in Valencia, Spain by the representatives of some 140 nations, that the drive to impose a massive attack on the world's economic structure is now under way.
It is the equivalent of a cattle drive in which masses of the world's population must be deceived to permit a change in everything we associate with the modern world, its use of energy, its modern agricultural techniques, its vast transportation system, and the transformation of its economic system by the imposition of a "cap-and-trade" marketplace for "carbon credits" that will transfer billions of dollars to the scheme's creators, all in the name of saving the earth from immediate and near-future disaster.
If anything can and should totally discredit the United Nations, it is the IPCC. If anyone gives credence to the U.N, Secretary-General's statements, it will only be out of ignorance of the truth. Ban Ki-Moon says that, "Only urgent, global action will do" to avoid scenarios one would only expect to find in a science fiction movie or novel.
Ki-Moon decries both the United States and China as the world's two biggest producers of carbon dioxide. So what? Carbon dioxide's contribution to the earth's atmosphere is so small that it can hardly be measured. What ordinary sensible people call "the air", environmentalists call "greenhouse gases." Carbon dioxide represents barely 0.038% of the atmosphere! The primary elements are nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (20.95%).
Despite this, an Associated Press report states that the IPCC claims, "As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages and residents of Asia's largest cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, according to the report."
"Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water."
These cataclysmic predictions are all based on computer models, all of which since 1988 when the IPCC came into being, have had to be revised over and over again as obvious and deliberate errors have been found and disputed.
However, it is the computer models themselves that are of no value no matter what they predict. No computer model or group of models can possibly begin to represent the unimaginable complexity of the earth's weather and climate cycles.
No computer model can even include the actions of the earth's clouds, but clouds are significant elements of the earth's weather, changing minute-to-minute and hour-to-hour across the face of the globe.
As for claims of massively rising oceans, these too are lies. It would take centuries for the IPCC's claims to even approximate the rise they predict. As to "fiercer storms and more frequent droughts", there have been and will always be storms and droughts. This is how the planet functions.
These and all the IPCC claims are a desperate effort to do great injury to the economies of the Western industrialized nations, and to those nations like China and India that are beginning to reflect the modernization that the West has innovated and developed.
Cloaked in the apocalyptic language of religion and purporting to be a "moral" issue, the IPCC and all the environmental groups supporting the global warming lies know that even a casual examination of the so-called "science" behind their claims will destroy them and their evil agenda.
It is clear from the Sunday news coverage of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's draft report, agreed to in Valencia, Spain by the representatives of some 140 nations, that the drive to impose a massive attack on the world's economic structure is now under way.
It is the equivalent of a cattle drive in which masses of the world's population must be deceived to permit a change in everything we associate with the modern world, its use of energy, its modern agricultural techniques, its vast transportation system, and the transformation of its economic system by the imposition of a "cap-and-trade" marketplace for "carbon credits" that will transfer billions of dollars to the scheme's creators, all in the name of saving the earth from immediate and near-future disaster.
If anything can and should totally discredit the United Nations, it is the IPCC. If anyone gives credence to the U.N, Secretary-General's statements, it will only be out of ignorance of the truth. Ban Ki-Moon says that, "Only urgent, global action will do" to avoid scenarios one would only expect to find in a science fiction movie or novel.
Ki-Moon decries both the United States and China as the world's two biggest producers of carbon dioxide. So what? Carbon dioxide's contribution to the earth's atmosphere is so small that it can hardly be measured. What ordinary sensible people call "the air", environmentalists call "greenhouse gases." Carbon dioxide represents barely 0.038% of the atmosphere! The primary elements are nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (20.95%).
Despite this, an Associated Press report states that the IPCC claims, "As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages and residents of Asia's largest cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, according to the report."
"Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water."
These cataclysmic predictions are all based on computer models, all of which since 1988 when the IPCC came into being, have had to be revised over and over again as obvious and deliberate errors have been found and disputed.
However, it is the computer models themselves that are of no value no matter what they predict. No computer model or group of models can possibly begin to represent the unimaginable complexity of the earth's weather and climate cycles.
No computer model can even include the actions of the earth's clouds, but clouds are significant elements of the earth's weather, changing minute-to-minute and hour-to-hour across the face of the globe.
As for claims of massively rising oceans, these too are lies. It would take centuries for the IPCC's claims to even approximate the rise they predict. As to "fiercer storms and more frequent droughts", there have been and will always be storms and droughts. This is how the planet functions.
These and all the IPCC claims are a desperate effort to do great injury to the economies of the Western industrialized nations, and to those nations like China and India that are beginning to reflect the modernization that the West has innovated and developed.
Cloaked in the apocalyptic language of religion and purporting to be a "moral" issue, the IPCC and all the environmental groups supporting the global warming lies know that even a casual examination of the so-called "science" behind their claims will destroy them and their evil agenda.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Is the U.S. Getting Ready to Betray Israel?
By Alan Caruba
Nothing good can come of this. It ranks as nothing less then a betrayal of a steadfast ally—the only democracy in the region—at a time when Arabs should see the U.S. standing behind Israel, not deserting it and its rightful claim to the Holy Land that was the biblically granted homeland of the Jews for more than two thousand years before Islam ever existed.
Rice: Israelis must be prepared for "difficult and painful sacrifices" now that they have a negotiating partner in President Abbas
November 14, 2007, 4:22 PM (GMT+02:00) – DEBKA.com
"In an address to the United Jewish Communities meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday, Nov. 13, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Israelis must sacrifice some of their “longest held aspirations” in talks with Palestinian leaders. A strong Palestinian state was more urgent than ever, she insisted, as a bulwark against threats from violent extremists."
November 14, 2007, 4:22 PM (GMT+02:00) – DEBKA.com
"In an address to the United Jewish Communities meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday, Nov. 13, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Israelis must sacrifice some of their “longest held aspirations” in talks with Palestinian leaders. A strong Palestinian state was more urgent than ever, she insisted, as a bulwark against threats from violent extremists."
For the record, the Palestinians are the violent extremists. They have rejected every proposal for a separate state since Israel proclaimed its independence. Suicide bombers are Yasser Arafat's gift to the worldwide war on the Islamic Jihad.
The notion that Israelis and Jews worldwide will sit back and do nothing if Israeli Prime Minister Olmert tries to trade away Jerusalem and the West Bank in search of peace with either Fatah or Hamas is a diplomatic pipedream. No, make that a nightmare.
Worse, it is both strange and disconcerting that the Bush Administration which has been engaged with Islamic jihadists from the earliest days of its first term of office would think that Israel, which has battled them before and since its independence for sixty years, should make “sacrifices.”
Despite wars waged against it, Israel unilaterally pulled out of southern Lebanon in the late 1980s, only to be repaid for this with a short war by Hezbollah last year. It later pulled out of the Gaza, forcing Israelis who lived and had thriving businesses there to leave. It has been repaid with ceaseless rocket shelling ever since.
And yet the U.S. has the temerity to demand that the Israelis negotiate with organizations whose leaders have repeatedly gone on record saying they will only be satisfied when Israel ceases to exist.
The notion that Israelis and Jews worldwide will sit back and do nothing if Israeli Prime Minister Olmert tries to trade away Jerusalem and the West Bank in search of peace with either Fatah or Hamas is a diplomatic pipedream. No, make that a nightmare.
Worse, it is both strange and disconcerting that the Bush Administration which has been engaged with Islamic jihadists from the earliest days of its first term of office would think that Israel, which has battled them before and since its independence for sixty years, should make “sacrifices.”
Despite wars waged against it, Israel unilaterally pulled out of southern Lebanon in the late 1980s, only to be repaid for this with a short war by Hezbollah last year. It later pulled out of the Gaza, forcing Israelis who lived and had thriving businesses there to leave. It has been repaid with ceaseless rocket shelling ever since.
And yet the U.S. has the temerity to demand that the Israelis negotiate with organizations whose leaders have repeatedly gone on record saying they will only be satisfied when Israel ceases to exist.
Nothing good can come of this. It ranks as nothing less then a betrayal of a steadfast ally—the only democracy in the region—at a time when Arabs should see the U.S. standing behind Israel, not deserting it and its rightful claim to the Holy Land that was the biblically granted homeland of the Jews for more than two thousand years before Islam ever existed.
Friday, November 16, 2007
The Climate Lies on Page One
By Alan Caruba
It was the lead story on page one of my November 16 daily newspaper. “A little time left on global warming” was the headline and the sub-headline said, “U.N. draft report seen as world ‘how-to guide.’”
Yes, but it is a guide on how to mislead people into believing that the world is warming dramatically or just about to. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been at this since 1988!
For the record, the earth has warmed only a net 0.2 degrees Centigrade of net warming since 1940. Human-emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) is estimated to represent only half of that or 0.1 Centigrade of warming over 67 years!
There has been no warming since 1998 and, in the United States, the warmest year occurred in the 1930s at the height of a historic drought that affected the nation’s heartland. What warming has occurred began with the end of the last mini-ice age in 1850, so it should be understood as a natural response to that climate event that began in the 1300s.
In 2001, the IPCC predicted that human-emitted CO2 would likely drive the planet’s average temperature upward by 5.8 degrees Centigrade. This is would constitute a greater average warming than the planet has experienced in the last 100,000 years.
The new IPCC report, just six years later, has scaled back, predicting that, “For the next two decades, a warming of about (1 degree Fahrenheit) per decade is projected for a range of emissions scenarios.”
“Beyond the next few decades, projections increasingly depend on future greenhouse gas emission scenarios.” You know what a scenario is? The dictionary defines it as “a possible situation or sequence of events” and as “an outline of the plot of a play or opera.”
In other words, the IPCC is inventing, forecasting, projecting and predicting something it cannot possibly know. It is doing so based on seriously flawed computer models programmed to confirm the misleading assertion that the earth’s atmosphere will be critically affected by the amount of CO2 emitted by human activity.
Moreover, that water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin, as is the case of the other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases with the exception of CFC’s. All the gases other than water vapor play such a small role that the IPCC’s demand constitutes criminal nonsense.
I have long since despaired that science reporters or other so-called journalists in this capacity will ever report the truth about the IPCC’s reports or the truth about any of the other utterly specious claims made in the name of global warming.
How many world-class climatologists have to publicly denounce the IPCC’s reports before any journalist will begin to exhibit the slightest skepticism?
How can real science compete with the totally politicized Hollywood Oscar awards to Al Gore for the collection of lies that passes for being a documentary? How does real science compete with five Swedish politicians—not scientists—who decide to give Gore and the IPCC a Nobel “Peace” Prize as if climate has anything whatever to do with advancing worldwide peace? This is the same group that gave an award to the father of all modern terrorists, Yasser Arafat.
This is theatrics, not science. Just as the “scenarios” of the IPCC are more worthy of a movies’ science fiction plot. End of the world scenarios have been around since the earliest recorded history of civilization. Virtually all major religions include their own version.
Claiming that “Human activities could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts”, as the IPCC report suggests, is the worst kind of fear mongering, but it is consistent with the kind of lies the environmental movement has engaged in since it metamorphosed from the socialist movement to one based on pseudo-science.
It’s enemies remain the same, corporations, industrialization, the greater use of energy resources by developing nations, and the sovereignty of individual nations.
That’s why many of the two thousand scientists whose opinions are sought by the IPCC have joined in opposition to its report because they know their objections and corrections to its text have been consistently ignored.
The report is not about science. It is pure propaganda intended to further the utterly false “theory” of global warming. If you want to read something comparable, read the history books published by the former Soviet Union.
You want to know what will cause a real catastrophe that could kill millions of people? Think of Iran, run by a handful of lunatics, having nuclear weapons. Don’t expect the United Nations to do anything about it.
It was the lead story on page one of my November 16 daily newspaper. “A little time left on global warming” was the headline and the sub-headline said, “U.N. draft report seen as world ‘how-to guide.’”
Yes, but it is a guide on how to mislead people into believing that the world is warming dramatically or just about to. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been at this since 1988!
For the record, the earth has warmed only a net 0.2 degrees Centigrade of net warming since 1940. Human-emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) is estimated to represent only half of that or 0.1 Centigrade of warming over 67 years!
There has been no warming since 1998 and, in the United States, the warmest year occurred in the 1930s at the height of a historic drought that affected the nation’s heartland. What warming has occurred began with the end of the last mini-ice age in 1850, so it should be understood as a natural response to that climate event that began in the 1300s.
In 2001, the IPCC predicted that human-emitted CO2 would likely drive the planet’s average temperature upward by 5.8 degrees Centigrade. This is would constitute a greater average warming than the planet has experienced in the last 100,000 years.
The new IPCC report, just six years later, has scaled back, predicting that, “For the next two decades, a warming of about (1 degree Fahrenheit) per decade is projected for a range of emissions scenarios.”
“Beyond the next few decades, projections increasingly depend on future greenhouse gas emission scenarios.” You know what a scenario is? The dictionary defines it as “a possible situation or sequence of events” and as “an outline of the plot of a play or opera.”
In other words, the IPCC is inventing, forecasting, projecting and predicting something it cannot possibly know. It is doing so based on seriously flawed computer models programmed to confirm the misleading assertion that the earth’s atmosphere will be critically affected by the amount of CO2 emitted by human activity.
Moreover, that water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin, as is the case of the other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases with the exception of CFC’s. All the gases other than water vapor play such a small role that the IPCC’s demand constitutes criminal nonsense.
I have long since despaired that science reporters or other so-called journalists in this capacity will ever report the truth about the IPCC’s reports or the truth about any of the other utterly specious claims made in the name of global warming.
How many world-class climatologists have to publicly denounce the IPCC’s reports before any journalist will begin to exhibit the slightest skepticism?
How can real science compete with the totally politicized Hollywood Oscar awards to Al Gore for the collection of lies that passes for being a documentary? How does real science compete with five Swedish politicians—not scientists—who decide to give Gore and the IPCC a Nobel “Peace” Prize as if climate has anything whatever to do with advancing worldwide peace? This is the same group that gave an award to the father of all modern terrorists, Yasser Arafat.
This is theatrics, not science. Just as the “scenarios” of the IPCC are more worthy of a movies’ science fiction plot. End of the world scenarios have been around since the earliest recorded history of civilization. Virtually all major religions include their own version.
Claiming that “Human activities could lead to abrupt or irreversible climate changes and impacts”, as the IPCC report suggests, is the worst kind of fear mongering, but it is consistent with the kind of lies the environmental movement has engaged in since it metamorphosed from the socialist movement to one based on pseudo-science.
It’s enemies remain the same, corporations, industrialization, the greater use of energy resources by developing nations, and the sovereignty of individual nations.
That’s why many of the two thousand scientists whose opinions are sought by the IPCC have joined in opposition to its report because they know their objections and corrections to its text have been consistently ignored.
The report is not about science. It is pure propaganda intended to further the utterly false “theory” of global warming. If you want to read something comparable, read the history books published by the former Soviet Union.
You want to know what will cause a real catastrophe that could kill millions of people? Think of Iran, run by a handful of lunatics, having nuclear weapons. Don’t expect the United Nations to do anything about it.
The Celebrity of Hillary Clinton
By Alan Caruba
The cover of the November 19 issue of U.S. News & World Report has Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger smiling demonically, his huge head filling the page. Though nominally Republican, Arnold is more a Democrat and crazed environmentalist. It is the last page of the issue that is worth a brief comment.
Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the Editor-in-Chief, can usually be counted upon to write something thought provoking and, indeed, the title of his weekly commentary is “Hillary Hits a Pothole.” Proving that a week in politics is a very long time, Zuckerman was reflecting on her poor performance in a debate in which she took several positions on the issuing of driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
Within days, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer who had advocated it, decided it was a bad idea, The fact that 75% of people polled on the subject hated the proposal might have had something to do with it, but more likely Elliot got a call from the Clinton campaign to help him change his mind.
By the time of the Nevada Democrat candidate’s debate on November 15, Hillary was once again being proclaimed the front-runner. The media is desperate to insure she will be the Democrat candidate.
While Zuckerman’s commentary might have seemed a cautionary view based on its title, its full text is one long accolade for Sen. Clinton. Acknowledging that her lead over Sen. Obama had shrunk and that she was “vulnerable” on the war in Iraq, Zuckerman spent half of his text singing her praises. “She has a quarter century of national political experience; a grasp of policy that makes the other Democratic contenders look shallow or uninformed; a willingness to work unbelievably hard; a prodigious memory; and a formidable campaign machine, including fundraisers who have brought her an overflowing war chest.”
In case you still hadn’t got the message, Zuckerman declared she has “star power.” However, the White House is not about celebrity, but competence. As Gov. Mitt Romney has noted, Sen. Clinton has never run a single business, a single city, or any other enterprise. Not exactly the best credentials to run the nation. Nor has she produced a single piece of significant legislation while in the Senate.
Indeed, her only real credential is that she is the wife of a president who served two terms, both of which were filled with scandal. Halfway through, voters turned Congress over to the Republicans. As to the other attributes Zuckerman cited, they mostly speak to her knowledge of waging political campaigns, not actually being in charge of anything as important as the government of the United States. She wasn’t even in charge of a husband whose philandering is legendary.
The cover of the November 19 issue of U.S. News & World Report has Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger smiling demonically, his huge head filling the page. Though nominally Republican, Arnold is more a Democrat and crazed environmentalist. It is the last page of the issue that is worth a brief comment.
Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the Editor-in-Chief, can usually be counted upon to write something thought provoking and, indeed, the title of his weekly commentary is “Hillary Hits a Pothole.” Proving that a week in politics is a very long time, Zuckerman was reflecting on her poor performance in a debate in which she took several positions on the issuing of driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
Within days, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer who had advocated it, decided it was a bad idea, The fact that 75% of people polled on the subject hated the proposal might have had something to do with it, but more likely Elliot got a call from the Clinton campaign to help him change his mind.
By the time of the Nevada Democrat candidate’s debate on November 15, Hillary was once again being proclaimed the front-runner. The media is desperate to insure she will be the Democrat candidate.
While Zuckerman’s commentary might have seemed a cautionary view based on its title, its full text is one long accolade for Sen. Clinton. Acknowledging that her lead over Sen. Obama had shrunk and that she was “vulnerable” on the war in Iraq, Zuckerman spent half of his text singing her praises. “She has a quarter century of national political experience; a grasp of policy that makes the other Democratic contenders look shallow or uninformed; a willingness to work unbelievably hard; a prodigious memory; and a formidable campaign machine, including fundraisers who have brought her an overflowing war chest.”
In case you still hadn’t got the message, Zuckerman declared she has “star power.” However, the White House is not about celebrity, but competence. As Gov. Mitt Romney has noted, Sen. Clinton has never run a single business, a single city, or any other enterprise. Not exactly the best credentials to run the nation. Nor has she produced a single piece of significant legislation while in the Senate.
Indeed, her only real credential is that she is the wife of a president who served two terms, both of which were filled with scandal. Halfway through, voters turned Congress over to the Republicans. As to the other attributes Zuckerman cited, they mostly speak to her knowledge of waging political campaigns, not actually being in charge of anything as important as the government of the United States. She wasn’t even in charge of a husband whose philandering is legendary.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Green PR to Influence Presidential Candidates
By Alan Caruba
Have you ever wondered why hardly a day goes by without your reading or hearing about some Green program? It’s not just happenstance. The environmental movement has one of the most varied and impressive public relations programs extant. And it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on it.
Take, for example, a $250,000 contract that Fraser Communications, a Los Angeles PR and advertising firm, just secured to promote the Presidential Climate Action Project. It is described as “an academic, government and interest group push to make climate change a priority for the next U.S. president.” Think about that, we haven’t even had a primary yet, but this program is already thinking about how to bring pressure on whoever is elected to continue dealing with climate change or, as it used to be known, “global warming.”
About the only person still using the term “global warming” is the gaseous former Vice President, Al Gore. He has, despite his Nobel Prize, evolved into a laughing stock for his near-term predictions of global catastrophe.
The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) has an “advisory committee” that includes the Johnson Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the National Wildlife Federation, among other groups.
One almost instantly wonders why a governmental agency like NOAA that presumably takes its direction from Congress is involved in trying to influence a future president? Isn’t that just a tad inappropriate? Unethical?
As to the others, from the beginning when the environmental movement first took off, it has been leftist foundations that have provided the funding, so there’s no surprise in that. Here again, however, one wonders what the National Wildlife Federation’s interest in climate change is all about? Since the Green mantra is that climate change is manmade, the result of human activities, why is a group devoted to bison, bunny rabbits, and other furry creatures involved?
The whole object of this endeavor and the charge that its PR firm will undertake is to apply “public persuasion” strategies related to policy and the environment. The key goal is to “set the stage for candidates running for public office in 2008 to take positions on specific proposals to address climate, energy, and national security.”
Whoa! The name of the project is “Climate Action”, but it turns out that this Green project is also about energy and national security.
One can understand “energy” because the primary goal of the Greens is to cripple the ability of the U.S. to acquire the energy resources it requires to maintain our economy and our lifestyle. Using the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and every other means, the bottom line is to insure that no coal-fired electricity utilities be built anywhere and to continue to slow any progress toward nuclear facilities. As for oil, they hate it. That’s why they have conspired to limit access to the billions of barrels of oil untapped in ANWR, Alaska’s North Slope, and 85% of our nation’s continental shelf.
You want national security? You better be able to fuel our Air Force squadrons, our Army’s tanks, and our Navy’s carrier fleets. You better cut our current 75% imports of oil and become more self-sufficient.
But somehow I suspect that PCAP’s agenda is about influencing presidential candidates to take positions that they genuflect to the myth of global warming. That means a President who will sign off on carbon dioxide limits on every industry and activity that might emit CO2. And that includes backyard barbeques.
Have you ever wondered why hardly a day goes by without your reading or hearing about some Green program? It’s not just happenstance. The environmental movement has one of the most varied and impressive public relations programs extant. And it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on it.
Take, for example, a $250,000 contract that Fraser Communications, a Los Angeles PR and advertising firm, just secured to promote the Presidential Climate Action Project. It is described as “an academic, government and interest group push to make climate change a priority for the next U.S. president.” Think about that, we haven’t even had a primary yet, but this program is already thinking about how to bring pressure on whoever is elected to continue dealing with climate change or, as it used to be known, “global warming.”
About the only person still using the term “global warming” is the gaseous former Vice President, Al Gore. He has, despite his Nobel Prize, evolved into a laughing stock for his near-term predictions of global catastrophe.
The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) has an “advisory committee” that includes the Johnson Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the National Wildlife Federation, among other groups.
One almost instantly wonders why a governmental agency like NOAA that presumably takes its direction from Congress is involved in trying to influence a future president? Isn’t that just a tad inappropriate? Unethical?
As to the others, from the beginning when the environmental movement first took off, it has been leftist foundations that have provided the funding, so there’s no surprise in that. Here again, however, one wonders what the National Wildlife Federation’s interest in climate change is all about? Since the Green mantra is that climate change is manmade, the result of human activities, why is a group devoted to bison, bunny rabbits, and other furry creatures involved?
The whole object of this endeavor and the charge that its PR firm will undertake is to apply “public persuasion” strategies related to policy and the environment. The key goal is to “set the stage for candidates running for public office in 2008 to take positions on specific proposals to address climate, energy, and national security.”
Whoa! The name of the project is “Climate Action”, but it turns out that this Green project is also about energy and national security.
One can understand “energy” because the primary goal of the Greens is to cripple the ability of the U.S. to acquire the energy resources it requires to maintain our economy and our lifestyle. Using the Endangered Species Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and every other means, the bottom line is to insure that no coal-fired electricity utilities be built anywhere and to continue to slow any progress toward nuclear facilities. As for oil, they hate it. That’s why they have conspired to limit access to the billions of barrels of oil untapped in ANWR, Alaska’s North Slope, and 85% of our nation’s continental shelf.
You want national security? You better be able to fuel our Air Force squadrons, our Army’s tanks, and our Navy’s carrier fleets. You better cut our current 75% imports of oil and become more self-sufficient.
But somehow I suspect that PCAP’s agenda is about influencing presidential candidates to take positions that they genuflect to the myth of global warming. That means a President who will sign off on carbon dioxide limits on every industry and activity that might emit CO2. And that includes backyard barbeques.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
