Robert Earl Keen in St. Louis

Lola and I decide we need a bit of a road trip having not escaped Madison since driving to Champaign to see James McMurtry in the bitter mid-winter cold. Searching for ideas, we discover Robert Earl Keen is playing The Pageant in St. Louis the Saturday night of Memorial Day Weekend, and the destination is settled. Since he doesn’t need to tour outside of Texas, it seems like a fair deal to meet him halfway when he does take the show on the road.

Artist Direct: Among the large contingent of talented songwriters who emerged in Texas in the 1980s and 1990s, Robert Earl Keen struck an unusual balance between sensitive story-portraits ("Corpus Christi Bay") and raucous barroom fun ("That Buckin' Song"). These two song types in Keen's output were unified by a mordant sense of humor that strongly influenced the early practitioners of what would become known as alternative country music.

The North Mississippi Allstars open with each band doing 75 minute sets. Lola and I settle into seats on the wing and chat with three couples from childhood friendships who similarly converge on this show from various parts of Missouri. I venture into the stage front crowd when the band plays “the road goes on forever and the party never ends”.

Keen closes with Bob Dylan’s You Ain't Going Nowhere which is first recorded in 1968 by The Byrds on their seminal roots country album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It’s a pleasant surprise and appropriate in that Sweetheart, arguably, is the recording that marks the abrupt about face from the excesses of psychedelia and back towards an appreciation of the music created by American working people.

Hurray for Cold Beer!

How can beer get cold if carbon dioxide traps heat? This is a good question to ask your celebrity cashier at Bratfest. Don’t, however, expect scientific answers from politicians or media employees.

The Unholy Alliance that manufactured Global Warming: Please understand I am not claiming a conspiracy, but rather a cabal, which is defined as a secret political clique pushing a political agenda; in this case, designed by Maurice Strong.

The unresolved question remains which local publication, The Isthmus or The Wisconsin State Journal will first have the courage to ask why cold beer is possible if carbon dioxide has incendiary super power? My bet is that Marc Eisen of the free weekly will ultimately be the first to admit in print that there are “legitimate doubts” about the ability of CO2 to magically induce ecosystem destroying infernos. I’m thinking his thinking will free up as he realizes that Kathleen Falk’s rising star has peaked. Maybe the epiphany will happen this Memorial Day Weekend. Cheers, fellow citizens!

More Prep Work for Our Future

“There’s no accountability without accounting”. This remark is a comment on a specific situation in a specific country but it's a phrase with broad applications. (Source)

It seems to me that behind all the anti-capitalist rhetoric, what lurks is a knee-jerk aversion to accounting. The revolution thinks it's below its dignity to work through such grubby concerns as, y'know, whether its economic initiatives cost more than their product is worth.

"Capitalist values!" they'll scream. "The bourgeois fixation with profit!"

These people are revolted by the very thought that a cost and benefit calculus can ever be a basis for action. But, when you think about it, what is profit if not an accounting expression of what happens when the things you produce are worth more than the things you use to produce them with?

What can you expect from people who lionize the principle of indifference to profits other than unchecked waste?

Discipline undoubtedly gets in the way of a good time and there is probably a case to be made that non-profit systems inherently decay into inefficiency. I suppose a corollary is that undisciplined spending can still produce functional results for long periods of time. I suppose a house of cards is stable in stable surroundings.

Backchannel Currents

A few observations from gazing in the still waters for backchannel currents.

Over at The Volokh Conspiracy Peter Spiro, a professional academic, muses that American citizenship should be available to anyone who wants to be an American since America is an idea that people worldwide believe in. The lucid thoughts are in the comment thread.

Earlier this month, Russ Feingold introduces the Senate version of legislation mandating Election Day voter registration for all Federal elections. Mandatory, of course, means no diversity allowed.

The Election Day Registration Act: Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) are introducing legislation to help more Americans register to vote by allowing Election Day registration at polling places for all federal elections.

As citizens, we must continue to learn. The United States is now more of a modern way of life, than some structural remnant left over from antiquated authoritarian obsessions with geographical hegemony. The pursuit of true democracy creates a moral imperative to gather up all the people and record a vote for every warm body.

Its Dusk on Planet Earth

“All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth”. Oh pleeezzz! Do you know how retarded this sounds to people with eyes and ears? Desperation, from the Latin desperationem, a noun of action from desperare "lose hope", seems to apply to the current position of the environmentalist alarmists. From The Nation, the most recent outburst from NASA paid employee, Jim Hansen.

Earth at 350: A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA's Jim Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The abstract attached to it argued--and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper--"if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points--massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them--that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

Restated: Thirty Five PARTS PER MILLION makes the difference between the planet of life we know and some unexplained but somehow horrible future planet of “irreversible tipping points”. This sounds like the opening offer for the regulatory set points at which the government steps in to command our economy. This also sounds like the negotiating position of those knowing for a fact that experimentally verified scientific truth negates their claims. Carbon dioxide emissions are harmless. Hopefully, the free market side of government demands proof the projections are accurate.

My primary question is which local media source has the courage to publish the truth about the innocence of CO2. After all, The Isthmus and The Wisconsin State Journal both have access to the combined resources of the world wide internet in addition to the UW Madison Departments of Physics and Chemistry. I keep wondering which one will be the first to have the courage to tell the truth.

The Ides of May 2008

The capitalists view the world as one economy subdivided into regulatory subdivisions. The socialists view the world as one population subdivided into regulatory subdivisions. When I find myself asking why none of our Presidential candidates are talking only in terms about what is good for the citizens of the United States, I force myself back to this truth about the reality of our moment.

The Migrations Continue

A Mourning Warbler appears in the yard this early evening following the seasonal warming back towards summer homes in the northern woods. This one may settle in the Rice Lake area now that habit has grown back from the extensive logging of a century or so ago. I’ve observed two Common Yellow Throats as the warblers continue to migrate.

A White Breasted Nuthatch joins the groups of Purple Finches and White Crowned Sparrows feeding in the grass and trees then moving elsewhere. In the subsequent stillness I notice a large bird, probably a Marsh Hawk, perched on a low branch. She rests for several minutes then skims off low to the ground heading north.

Pragmatic West Virginia

West Virginia Democrats know a bit about the practical purpose of unions. The point of organization is to secure fair wages and abolish unfair management practices. They appear to believe that unionism is both collective and local and they vote as if politics is about “Just Us”. Today, the pragmatic Clinton wing of the Democratic Party secures a two to one victory over the global “Justice” of the Obama theorists.

West Virginia's Mine Wars: In response to poor conditions and low wages in the late 1800s, workers in most industries developed unions. Strikes generally focused on a specific problem, lasted short periods of time, and were confined to small areas. During the 1870s and 1880s, there were several attempts to combine local coal mining unions into a national organization. After several unsuccessful efforts, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) was formed in Columbus, Ohio, in 1890. In its first ten years, the UMWA successfully organized miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Attempts to organize West Virginia failed in 1892, 1894, 1895, and 1897.

In 1902, the UMWA finally achieved some recognition in the Kanawha-New River Coalfield, its first success in West Virginia. … By 1912, the union had lost control of much of the Kanawha-New River Coalfield. That year, UMWA miners on Paint Creek in Kanawha County demanded wages equal to those of other area mines. The operators rejected the wage increase and miners walked off the job on April 18, beginning one of the most violent strikes in the nation's history.

By 1912, however, the Model T Ford with its gasoline powered engine has already started a liberation of the working class from local employment captivity. If you don’t have to walk to work, if you don’t have to be delivered en masse to work, if you can go work where you please, then you can optimize your life in America. Individual freedom is the tap root of American exceptionalism and it is a shame watching it being destroyed.

Climate Friendly Commerce

Sigh. ... We are governed by fools and idiots.

Governor Doyle Signs Climate Change Agreement with United Kingdom: Since coming into office, Governor Doyle has worked to make Wisconsin and the Midwest a leader in renewable energy. Last year, as Chairman of the Midwestern Governors Association, Governor Doyle spearheaded a regional strategy to achieve energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming that culminated with 10 Governors signing the Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord.

The Agreement: (in part) Wisconsin commits to joining the International Carbon Action Partnership and to working with the UK and others in sharing best practice on carbon markets and compatibility of design to facilitate the development of a global carbon market.

We will aim to increase climate-friendly commerce between the United Kingdom and Wisconsin to bolster our respective economic positions while mutually benefiting each partner.

It almost sounds like free market capitalism – “global carbon market” and “climate-friendly commerce” – but it’s not. When Governor Doyle and some hereditary British Aristocrat appoint the panel authorized to designate climate friendly commerce, I hope they set a quota for representatives of Mother Nature. I recommend seating Owls. Owls are wise. I hope they avoid credentialing Cows. Cows are stupid.

SEIU & Obama

Andrew Stern’s Service Employees International Union supports Barack Hussein Obama and Forbes announces SEIU Local 1199 President Dave Regan from Ohio is the Democratic Party superdelegate that should tip the nomination to Obama. As a superdelegate, the fact Clinton won Ohio is a non-factor.

Obama is now open to the wishes of Andy Stern as he attempts to revitalize private sector unionism internationally. In the summer of 2005, Stern takes his union and leaves what he perceives as the stagnation of the AFL-CIO. Since then, his efforts to rebuild unionism have been controversial in the labor community, in large part because of his willingness to partner with business management.

Where Andy Stern is taking the SEIU: Stern has not been shy about this focus on corporate partnerships. On Jan. 22, 2007 he told the Wall Street Journal, "We want to find a 21st century model that is less focused on individual grievances, more focused on industry needs." In 2006, he told the McKinsey Quarterly, "Employers live in a competitive environment and have to meet certain shareholder expectations, and labor can play a role in helping to meet them."

The basis of his thinking is that private sector union membership is so low, that building membership is more important than membership benefits or membership input into decisions. Needless to say, this prioritization has some members upset to the point of open rebellion, in specific, California based United Healthcare Workers (UHW).

Roots of the crisis in the SEIU: The SEIU International contends that the low numbers justify an organize-at-any-cost method that surrenders many members' rights. This method of organizing, which offers concessions and support of pro-business legislation for the employer's blessing to organize, is being challenged by Sal Rosselli, president of the union's second largest local.

Since the Obama arm of the progressive movement is driven by theory, UMass Sociologist Dan Clawson jumps into the conflict to explain the theory behind the actions.

Labor Wars: Any time an individual or organization gets held up as a model of success it invites others to launch criticisms, and that's certainly been the case for SEIU, which may simultaneously be the most admired and the most criticized of all unions today. Those criticisms focus above all on SEIU's top-down staff-driven model, and the consequent lack of democracy, combined with the argument that this sometimes leads SEIU to collaborate with employers.

If our purpose is to build long-term power, one central issue is union density. If 95 percent of an industry is non-union, the 5 percent that is union is very limited in what it can win, because any agreement that involves substantial extra costs to the employer may force the employer into bankruptcy. … On the other hand, if the industry is 95 percent unionized, employers have less worry that a union gain will put them at a competitive disadvantage…. Given this, it might sometimes be sensible for a union to accept a not-very-good contract in order to increase union density, as part of a long-run strategy to raise density in an area, knowing that the greatest gains would come only with high density.

The charge is that in effect, Andy Stern has cut a deal with the employer not to insist on substantial pay raises, in exchange for the right to sign up new members. SEIU nationally responds that UHW is willing to put the interests of current workers ahead of the unorganized, that UHW would cut a deal with the employer for a current pay increase and in exchange accept conditions that made it harder to bring in the unorganized. This, SEIU nationally says, is "just us" unionism (instead of justice unionism), making unions into a narrow interest group concerned about the interests of the small number of people currently in unions, instead of the interests of all workers, including those not yet in a union.

Clever phrasing: “Just Us” unionism vs. “Justice” unionism. The socialism in one state model is perfectly willing to live with the job security of the former, but the theoretical worldwide solution to the woes of labor call for justice, even if justice takes times to reach critical mass. The difference is going to be a very narrow tightrope for Obama to walk. Workers of the World Unite!

Brzezinski: Supranational Jurisdiction

One of Barack Hussein Obama’s core supporters is Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. It is, therefore, instructive to pay attention to the world view Brzezinski outlines. The reasoning follows from the principle that socialism needs to be international. It requires a “workers of the world unite” foundation. It is telling that the story begins with reflections on sovereignty.

Zbigniew Brzezinski: America today is the world's most sovereign state. To be sure, in our time the concept of sovereignty has been largely drained of content by the reality of increasing interdependence among states. For most states, sovereignty now verges on being a legal fiction.

After all, even the undeniable reality of America as the sovereign power of last resort still begs the question: Sovereignty for what? Doubtless many would answer: for the sake of America's national security. But that reply begs a deeper question: Might not efforts to perpetuate America's unique status as an unconstrained sovereign eventually come to threaten America's national security, and its civil liberty as well?

America needs to face squarely a centrally important new global reality: that the world's population is experiencing a political awakening unprecedented in scope and intensity, with the result that the politics of populism are transforming the politics of power. The need to respond to that massive phenomenon poses to the uniquely sovereign America an historic dilemma: What should be the central definition of America's global role?

It will require increasingly supranational cooperation, actively promoted by the United States, to compensate for the weakness of nominally sovereign states that in fact are becoming ever less sovereign or even self-sustaining. The nation-state framework has become too narrow for the political solutions, economic remedies and social "depressurization" that a majority of populations urgently need.

The historic paradox of our time is that supranational cooperation toward these major goals is only possible if the lead is taken by the last sovereign state, and joined by the more resilient regional powers willing eventually to subsume their own sovereignty under more effective supranational arrangements.

The most concise way to summarize all of this is that America needs to change to adapt to the world, rather than the world adapting to become more like America. It is the view of people who believe American exceptionalism depends on injustice and should not be emulated.

When I term the Obama wing of the Democratic Party Theorists, is it precisely because they believe the “nation-state framework has become too narrow for the political solutions, economic remedies and social "depressurization" that a majority of populations urgently need”. They see an international set of problems requiring international solutions delivered by international organizations with supranational jurisdiction.

Theorists and Pragmatics

It is insane to keep electing the same people and expecting different results.

Real Change Requires Real Change.

Observing the tensions within the Democratic Party, it strikes me the fault line is forming between the academic Marxists who understand that socialist theory is and must be international, and the pragmatic socialists who believe that “socialism in one country” is an important and desirable goal.

Barack Hussein Obama is the figurehead of the Marxist academics and their youthful dupes. He has been cleverly selected to attract a large established American voting bloc. Remember, the struggle of the working class in all countries forms the basis for the movement towards Socialism. The needs of the people are not constrained by political boundaries.

The Clintons are the more pragmatic intellectual heirs to the “socialism in one country” theory of Nikolai Bukharin. It is this concept of a national socialism that Joseph Stalin wholeheartedly adopts, and which justifies all the Nanny Statism smothering Europe and growing in America. It is the reasoning that the removal of capitalistic inequalities will not occur in one fell revolutionary swoop, but rather piece by piece as governments are converted.

Converting the single most powerful government on Earth, however, is the change with potential to bring the rest of the First World economies into doctrinaire compliance. Those who believe the role of government is to use power in the best interest of the working population understand the coming Federal election is the best opportunity in decades to make real changes. Both sides of the Democratic Party covet this moment and history is fairly clear that competing socialists really hate each other.

The Voices of Reason Get Louder

If I ran a community newspaper, I would reprint Stephen Wilde's article in it's entirety on the front page. I would then take credit for breaking the “news” followed by trumpeting a commitment to bringing the truth to the public while also advocating good stewardship of the environment.

Global Warming and Cooling - The Reality: The greenhouse effect, as a whole, may smooth out rises and falls in temperature from other causes but is not itself the determining factor for global temperature. If the heat from the sun declines the global temperature will fall with or without any greenhouse effect and if the heat from the sun increases the global temperature will, of course, rise. The greenhouse effect does not create new heat. All it does is increase the residence time of heat in the atmosphere.

It seems so complex but the global heat balance only comes down to three parameters that swamp all others. Heat from the sun. The fact that 70% of the planet is water covered. Heat, radiating out to a very cold Space.

The planet cannot maintain and does not maintain a constant temperature. It is not even possible to identify a specific current temperature for the whole planet and for present purposes there is no need to do so. All I need to assert at this point is that whatever the Earth’s temperature is at any given moment it will always be in the process of warming or cooling and, of course, the rate of that warming or cooling is highly variable.

The fact is that the solar effect is huge and overwhelming. Other influences can only ever delay or bring forward what would have happened anyway because of the time scales involved with solar changes that tend to develop and intensify over centuries. One must also remember that, the warmer the Earth gets, the faster the radiation of heat to Space because of an enhanced temperature differential so it would be false to propose an ever increasing positive differential as a result of adding any warming effect of man made CO2 to the effect of solar changes.

In any event, since cooling is worse than warming for humanity and most life on the planet, our production of CO2, however large in our puny terms, would be wholly beneficial for life on Earth. CO2 is the least of our problems so our attention and resources should be better directed to a more general concept of sustainability.

This Madison evening, Swainson's and Veery Thrushes show up in the yard, as do Rose Breasted Grosbeaks and a Red Bellied Woodpecker. The coal fired power plants at the heart of FDR’s Rural Electrification Program have failed to extinct these species and there is no physical evidence that carbon dioxide has planetary destructive powers. Public policy can serve both mankind and the natural world. It will best serve both by examining and rejecting false theories, deliberate exaggeration and manipulative lies.

One Hour in AGW News

Anyone doubt there is sophisticated propaganda campaign in the media? Google News me this Batman: Results 1 - 10 of about 27,743 in the last hour for global-warming.

How fossil fuels killed the dinosaurs: … the asteroid hit oil or coal deposits when its impact made the 200km-wide Chicxulub Crater, just west of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It struck with such force that the buried carbon liquefied, rocketed skyward, and formed tiny airborne beads that blanketed the planet in soot.

Researchers have previously suggested there were mass extinctions as global forest fires pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to cause a period of runaway global warming, or they spewed enough soot to block out the sun and kill off the plants on which herbivorous dinosaurs fed, starving the meat-eaters further up the food chain.

Well aerosol particulate COOLING is well understood from documented volcanic explosions. Block the sunshine and things get cold and cold suppresses life. If the dinosaurs, however, were killed by “a period of runaway global warming” we know the mammals survived it. Hey, aren’t we mammals?

Koalas threatened by climate change: "I'm sure we'll see koalas disappearing from their current range even though we don't see any change in tree species or structure of the forests." Prof Hume will present new research at a major science conference in Canberra today showing that increases in CO2 decrease levels of "good" nutrients and increase toxic nutrients in eucalypt leaves.

Hummm… What exactly is a “toxic nutrient”? By the way, how did those ancestral koalas survive that effectively instantaneous combustion generated increase in CO2 referenced above? Maybe they were hyper-fast evolvers with Lamarckian superpowers.

Planet may get too hot for tropical insects, warn scientists: Scientists say insects in the tropics are far more sensitive to temperature rises than those elsewhere. They predict it will be difficult for them to survive temperature rises of up to five degrees predicted by 2100.

OK. Bugs are fragile. Step on one and see how easy it is to extinct it. Still I think bugs may survive nights a few (unspecified) degrees warmer that normal. I’m sure the science writer-journalist of this piece understands the greenhouse effect delays cooling, so the effect produces warmer night time temperatures rather than more daytime heat.

The War on Coal is Wrong

The Sierra Club is using every legal and regulatory challenge available to stop any coal fired electricity plants from being built in the United States. They have a chart with all their projects: Stopping the Coal Rush, including “victories” in Wisconsin. Madison based Bruce Nilles explains everything being done is to prevent carbon dioxide from causing global warming.

As evidence mounts that carbon dioxide has virtually no potential to adversely affect air temperature or ecosystem stability, it raises a question conservationists need to consider. How much good could be done if every penny the Sierra Club is spending on legal resistance to coal plants was spent instead on purchasing wildlife habit? The Sierra Club is not a conservationist organization. They are harming the movement.

Rhetoric v Results

This may be the best thing Isthmus Executive Editor Marc Eisen has written.

When policy trumps results: This earnest but unhelpful committee delved into the abstractions of what distinguishes "equity" from "equality," how the board might commit to equity and what esoteric guidelines could measure that commitment.

If you are already slipping into catatonia from the meaningless rattle of words, that's understandable. This is stuff that appeals to progressive professors at the UW-Madison School of Education and to graduate students who aspire to become progressive professors at the UW-Madison School of Education.

"Equity," the committee announced in its report to the board, "involves opportunity; access; elimination of barriers; distribution of resources; protection of specific groups; recognition and acceptance of differences" and marches on for another 75 words in an act of faux definition.

The lack of discipline in Academic writing is shameful. We have institutions of higher education demanding a magnitude and frequency words on paper, to demonstrate and justify scholarly activity, yet there is no corresponding requirement these words concisely express thoughts and concepts in simple clear understandable terms. This is how gibberish thrives and now we have gibberish masquerading as reasoned public policy.

I can't for the life of me see them rallying around a pompous and abstruse equity policy, especially one that reads like it was formulated by the UW Department of Leftwing Social Engineering.

Marc Eisen is making the point that Madison is saturated with the thinking that creation of policy is the purpose of government, however, this is not counterbalanced by an insistence that real world results of public policy are the standard of final judgment. In the private sector, performance dictates policy which explains why the private sector works for the public more efficiently than government. Especially government, for example, where leadership holds firm to a belief that Inclusionary Zoning works because it works on paper.

Spring Birds 2008

A Palm Warbler drifts through the back yard this afternoon. It is about a three minute stop but long enough to sight him up with the binoculars for a positive identification. That distinctive chestnut head plumage will be faded when it heads back southward at summers end. Two additional surprise sightings are an Indigo Bunting and a Rufus Sided Towhee.

All day long the yard is filled with birds as the landscape finally frees itself from the prolonged life suppressing cold of winter. A House Wren hops up and down along a rock wall while an Acadian Flycatcher darts between newly budding tree branches. The Cardinals, Crows, Chickadees and Wild Turkeys make appearances, acting like they are natives to the area. A Blue Jay and Hairy Woodpecker show up late in the afternoon.

White Throated Sparrows, with their yellow eye dots, kick up leaf litter as do a pair of Catbirds. Later on one of the Catbirds perches atop a sumac flower picking out the last tasty goodness leftover from last fall. I don’t understand why Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and his environmentalist comrades believe so fervently that people and nature need to be separated. That Palm Warbler has no preconceived idea of what constitutes a natural ecosystem. It just goes where the bugs are plentiful and there are adequate trees for safety and shelter.

May Day Thoughts 2008

Climate Skeptic: Observe today how little of the discussion is about anything other than climate. There are still many environmental issues in the world that can be improved by the application of man's effort and technology -- unfortunately, climate is the least of these but the issue getting the most attention. Consider how the global warming panic has sucked the oxygen out of the environmental movement. Ten years from now, I predict that true environmentalists will be looking back on the hysteria over trace amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere as a huge setback for real environmental progress.

Maggie's Farm: As readers know, we are old-time Conservationists here. We believe in National Parks, State Parks, nature preserves, farmland protection, habitat protection, species protection, zoning, "open space", clean rivers and waters, unpolluted air, and we do not approve of the government subsidizing real estate developers and urban sprawl by building highways to nowhere.

The Audubon Society came into being to protect Egrets. … At the turn of the century, those breeding-season plumes were all the rage for decorating lady's hats. Thus our egrets - the American and the Snowy in particular - were hunted almost to extinction. That is called "unsustainable use."

The same applied to the market-gunning and netting of waterfowl - and the Passenger Pigeon. Of necessity, we now have hunting laws, hunting seasons, wildlife refuges, and protected species. Thus we are not Libertarian when it comes to land-use and unsustainable and irreversible exploitation of wildlife or wildlife habitat. The Conservation Movement of John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt had to become politicized, because laws were required in the presence of competing interests: witness, nowadays, the political conflicts in MA and in Europe around the efforts to enforce sustainable fish harvests. We simply try to be rational about it all.

Don’t Talk Emissions – Talk Beer

The Wall Street Journal runs one of their well written fact filled commentaries entitled, The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change. This is exactly the type of accurate but meaningless analysis that is going to end up handing Wall Street over to anti-capitalist government oversight. It is “nice” to be well intentioned but it's important to be effective.

This is the sentence that pisses me off. “Begin with the current inventory of carbon dioxide emissions – CO2 being the principal greenhouse gas generated almost entirely by energy use”. Why? Because it accepts the premise that CO2 actually is a “principal greenhouse gas”. Until we understand and make the public aware that carbon dioxide is harmless to the environment, we are trapped into playing with the opponent’s language and to their advantage.

Every response to environmentalist rhetoric needs to demand an explanation of how CO2 can do what they claim. How does CO2 heat the air? By trapping energy? What energy? For how long? How come CO2 doesn’t trap energy in the rest of the world? For example beer. Beer is extremely carbonated and yet even when surrounded by solid matter on all sides, it still gets cold in a refrigerator. Why doesn’t CO2 stop beer from getting cold if CO2 “traps” heat? Isn’t outer space colder than an ice box?

P.S. Thanks for the link Steve: No Runny Eggs

Tropical Troposphere Not Warming

Authentic science uses computers to analyze observational data. It’s the meticulous adherence to real world measurements that makes science truthful and useful. Luboš Motl picks up on a story Steve McIntyre posts about the lack of observed warming in the upper atmosphere.

Lubos sums the graph up this way: The three complicated colorful lines are the temperature data for the tropical troposphere - where the warming should be most rapid - according to RSS MSU, UAH MSU, and CRU: they seem to almost fully agree with each other. In terms of words, there has been no warming over there since 1980.

MSU: The Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) is a microwave radiometer that flies aboard NOAA's polar orbiting weather satellites. Each day, the MSU observes approximately 80% of the earth's surface, with the orbit shifting slightly each day so that 100% coverage is achieved over a three to four day period. … The air temperature computed directly from channel 2 is representative of the middle-to-upper troposphere (centered about 7 km above the surface).

RSS and UAH are separate research groups using NOAA’s MSU data. The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data is from a British research group of true believers that nothing other than human influence explains the vagaries in our present limited snippet in the long history of our dynamic gas bubble. On a side note: Madison, Wisconsin receives trace amounts of snowfall this afternoon, adding to our record setting snowfall total for 2007-08.

Green Day Spring Day

Yesterday, NOAA announces they are finishing updating America’s high-tech climate monitoring stations that are improving the historical climatology network. The change is to insure “very high accuracy” in data collection, and corrects misplacement of older monitors in artificially heated areas such as asphalt parking lots in urban centers. Today, the Isthmus Green Day eco-celebration features a speaker on global warming.

Lola and I decide to take a slow drive on back roads down to Oregon, WI, and then a tour through the UW Arboretum before heading home. There is a great deal of melt water everywhere which is consistent with the record snowfall of the preceding winter. Other than that the ecosystem looks pretty normal for this point of the year. I simply don’t see a planet in the need of human salvation and I am reminded of the following thoughts.

Lord Monckton’s address to the Cambridge Union Society: AL GORE says, “I believe this is a moral issue.” So it is. To “announce disasters” or “scary scenarios” or “over-represent factual presentations” in place of adherence to the scientific truth – that is a moral issue.

To let politicians insert data into official scientific documents; to alter those documents so as to contradict scientific findings; to manipulate decimal points so as to engender false headlines by exaggerating tenfold – those are moral issues.

To exaggerate by 2000% not only the atmospheric lifetime of a trace gas but also the effect of that gas on temperature; to reduce the magnitude of its predicted influence on temperature without reducing the predicted temperature itself – those are moral issues.

To claim scientific unanimity where none exists; to assert that catastrophe is likely when most scientists do not; to exalt theoretical computer models over real-world observations; to misstate the conclusions of scientific papers or the meaning of observed data; to overstate the likely future course of climatic phenomena by several orders of magnitude – those are moral issues.

To reverse the sequence of events in the early climate; to repeat that reversal in a propaganda book intended to infect the minds of children; to persist in false denial that past temperatures exceeded today’s; to state that climate events that have not occurred have occurred; to ascribe these non-events as well as specific extreme-weather events unjustifiably to humankind – those are moral issues.

To propose solutions to the non-problem of climate change that would cost many times more than the problem itself, if there were one; to advocate measures to mitigate fancifully-imagined future climatic changes when adaptation would cost far less and achieve far more; to ignore the real problems of resource depletion, energy security, bad Third World government and fatal diseases that kill millions – those are moral issues.

I hope the Isthmus leadership; Marc Eisen, Bill Lueders, V.O and the rest, believe we all want clean air, clean water and vibrant ecosystems. What is unacceptable, however, is scientific fraud advancing political policies that are expensive and unnecessary at best, and ineffective and counterproductive at worst. It is time to stop perpetuating the dangerous man-made global warming lie.

Our Industrial Famine Culture

I thought the impetus for killing the living to burn for energy was based on the idea that burning rocks doesn’t turn carbon directly back into rocks. I was also under the impression that the MANDATE to use corn derived ethanol was a government dictate. I guess there are other interpretations of the reasons food prices are rising.

John Nichols on The World Food Crisis: The current global food system, which was designed by US-based agribusiness conglomerates like Cargill, Monsanto and ADM and forced into place by the US government and its allies at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, has planted the seeds of disaster by pressuring farmers here and abroad to produce cash crops for export and alternative fuels rather than grow healthy food for local consumption and regional stability.

“as the Oakland Institute's Anuradha Mittal observes, that it is time to "stop worshiping the golden calf of the so-called free market and embrace, instead, the principle [that] every country and every people have a right to food that is affordable." As Mittal says, "When the market deprives them of this, it is the market that has to give."

I also did not realize that genetically modified seeds “reduce food production”. If only we could return to the pre-industrial age when all food was locally produced by eco-friendly happy peasants, then hunger would be abolished. Is it true the word famine does not even exist in aboriginal languages?

Metamorphosis with Attitude

The Isthmus asks a question about the leap of faith Madison’s very old progressive paper is taking. The end of an era: Panicked newspapers seek salvation. Will the Cap Times find it on the web? Written with the empathy of a fellow comrade in the struggle, Marc Eisen writes:

Newspapers won't die off as quickly as slide rules did when calculators were introduced, but the changes under way are so epochal you'd be foolish to believe anyone who speaks confidently of what publishing will be like in 10 years.

The switch from paper to pixels to deliver the news represents far more than a change in transmission. The definition of news itself changes online. This is big stuff, truly a shift in the paradigm.

As the advent of bloggers, listservs and reader comments attest, online news is "less of a lecture, more of a conversation," as media analyst Jay Rosen has put it. This is hard for old-school journalists to accept. They're used to hiding behind either the fig leaf of "objective" reporting or the omniscience of magazine-style journalism. Now stories are picked apart online by citizen commenters and bloggers.

Marc Eisen is exactly right. As long as government allows the public freedom to access and question information, the conversation will push towards the truth. So let’s take a quick look at the first topic the electronic metamorphosis of the Capital Times brings up. Actually, it's not a call for reasoned debate.

Call Congress on climate change: Call the Capitol switchboard today at 202-224-3121 and leave a message for members of the Wisconsin delegation, telling them that their constituents want:
* A moratorium on new coal-burning plants.
* Renewable energy.
* Carbon-neutral buildings.
* Protection for the poor and middle class in the new green economy.

Now it strikes me as strange that the first thing the Capital Times wants as they transform from paper to electricity is a moratorium on coal-burning electricity generating plants. Why call for restrictions on the essential energy we are all depend upon? We all know the reason is because “progressive thinkers” believe carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal is "bad" for our photosynthesis dependent environment. This is exactly why the conversation needs to be brought back to these questions – is there a limit to the CO2 greenhouse effect and when that limit is reached, what exactly is dangerous in a healthy, warm and growing world?

Dr. Jonathan Foley

The fact the University of Wisconsin pays Dr. Jonathan Foley as a Professor says a great deal about academic science. The Capital Times features his Earth Day report to the State of Wisconsin Natural Resources Board. This is the report of a person well versed in computer modeling. Please, read the whole thing but focus on these specific assertions.

Climate 'out of balance,': A long-term rise of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — mainly due to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas — warmed the Earth, he said. … Those heat-trapping gases multiplied what is a natural greenhouse effect, in which the sun heats the Earth and the Earth in turn gives off radiation in infrared waves. Those waves go into the atmosphere, which absorbs some of that heat and radiates it back down to Earth. … "The Earth is 30 degrees warmer than it would be without that natural greenhouse effect. Without it, life would never have evolved," Foley said. But humans made the greenhouse a little thicker by burning fossil fuels.

First, let’s agree on the fact that the greenhouse effect is necessary for life on Earth. Second, let’s agree that the greenhouse effect is absorption of infrared radiation by a few specific types of atmospheric molecules. The fallacy in everything Dr. Foley asserts after these two points is attributing to carbon dioxide a significant and additive contribution to atmospheric absorption of infrared radiation.

It is well established that CO2 has limited IR absorption frequencies, and if saturation of these absorption bands are demonstrable from satellite data, it is proof that additional CO2 molecules are non-contributory. In other words, once saturation is achieved, as it is in the present 300 ppm range, it is impossible for additional molecules of carbon dioxide to contribute to additional warming.

The question Dr. Foley needs to answer is this: Is there a limit to the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect, and if so, then what is that limit? I doubt any UW Professor will answer that more CO2 always means more warming, without end.

Earth Day 2008

This is the truth that destroys the political hijacking of Gaylord Nelson’s legacy to America.

Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in only three narrow bands of frequencies, which correspond to wavelengths of 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µm), respectively. The percentage absorption of all three lines combined can be very generously estimated at about 8% of the whole IR spectrum, which means that 92% of the "heat" passes right through without being absorbed by CO2. If the entire atmosphere were composed of nothing but CO2, i.e., was pure CO2 and nothing else, it would still only be able to absorb no more than 8% of the heat radiating from the earth.

CO2 is currently working at 100% capacity, and neither adding nor subtracting from current levels will change the present temperatures. It is harmless to the environment.

Until this truth is embraced by our leadership the unjustified fears of our carbon footprint, the anti-human drive against cheap and abundant energy and the elitist desire to rule lesser individuals will not be driven from American society. Gaylord Nelson would have understood the slogan: Speak Truth to Power. It is time to do just that.

Did you know ...

The world's natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined. --- Source. --- Thank you Horicon Marsh!

Stop the CO2 Scare

“There is nothing wrong with a fourth grade understanding of science if you are a fourth grader” - Alan Caruba. The big lie of dangerous man-made global warming needs to be stopped, because our politicians are taking all of us in policy directions that will harm humans and harm the environment. Hard questions about the science behind the scare tactics need to be a central focus of the coming elections.

Stop the CO2 scare, before it's too late: The report - Nature Not Human Activity Rules the Climate - presents a devastating analysis of the IPCC's case. Intended for a lay audience and signed by scientists from 15 countries, it takes all the key points of the IPCC's "consensus" case and tears them expertly apart, showing how the Intergovernmental Panel has either exaggerated, distorted or suppressed the evidence available to it, or has imputed much greater certainty to its findings than is justified by the data.

At just the moment when, thanks to the overwhelming pressure generated by the IPCC, the world's politicians, led by the EU, are committing us to spending untold trillions of pounds, dollars and euros on measures to "mitigate" the claimed effects of man-made warming, here is a galaxy of experts producing hard evidence that - if the problem exists at all - the official explanation for it is oriented in wholly the wrong direction.

Nature Not Human Activity Rules the Climate: In conclusion, this NIPCC report falsifies the principal IPCC conclusion that the reported warming (since 1979) is very likely caused by the human emission of greenhouse gases. In other words, increasing carbon dioxide is not responsible for current warming. Policies adopted and called for in the name of ‘fighting global warming’ are unnecessary. It is regrettable that the public debate over climate change, fueled by the errors and exaggerations contained in the reports of the IPCC, has strayed so far from scientific truth. It is an embarrassment to science that hype has replaced reason in the global debate over so important an issue.

Basic CO2 Physics

Next, lets talk about a scientific process called Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. It is a method by which we can measure precisely which wavelengths of radiation a particular gas is capable of absorbing.

In our highly simplified drawing above, a radiation source is beamed through a glass container containing a gas sample. As the radiation passes through, a portion of it is absorbed at particular narrow bandwidths (often more than one ) so the end result are some "missing" sections of the whole spectrum coming from the source, which show up as dark lines. They're missing because they were absorbed by the sample in the chamber. They are called absorption lines, or absorption spectra, and when analyzed by a knowledgeable person, can tell one what the gas or gas mixture is in the sample chamber based on a catalog of known spectra. It's a wonderful tool for analyzing unknown gas samples.

Let's look at a real result, below - the absorption spectrum for pure carbon dioxide plus an amount of water vapor equal to that in our current atmosphere as the sample and infrared radiation from a black body spectrum as the source. This is part of the so-called "greenhouse effect"

As we can see above, carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in only three narrow bands of frequencies, which correspond to wavelengths of 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µm), respectively. The percentage absorption of all three lines combined can be very generously estimated at about 8% of the whole IR spectrum, which means that 92% of the "heat" passes right through without being absorbed by CO2. In reality, the two smaller peaks don't account for much, since they lie in an energy range that is much smaller than the where the 15 micron peak sits - so 4% or 5% might be closer to reality. If the entire atmosphere were composed of nothing but CO2, i.e., was pure CO2 and nothing else, it would still only be able to absorb no more than 8% of the heat radiating from the earth.

Taken in entirety from James A. Peden.

Greenwashing

For those of us who believe that environmentalism is faith based rather than fact based, the fact the movement is codifying The Six Sins of Greenwashing supports our view. Greenwashing is when corporations go eco-friendly in their sales claims in an attempt to make profits. Treehugger gives the quick summary.

1. Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: e.g. “Energy-efficient” electronics that contain hazardous materials. 998 products or 57% of all environmental claims committed this Sin.

2. Sin of No Proof: e.g. Shampoos claiming to be “certified organic,” but with no verifiable certification. 454 products and 26% of environmental claims committed this Sin.

3. Sin of Vagueness: e.g. Products claiming to be 100% natural when many naturally-occurring substances are hazardous, like arsenic and formaldehyde. Seen in 196 products or 11% of environmental claims.

4. Sin of Irrelevance: e.g. Products claiming to be CFC-free, even though CFCs were banned 20 years ago. This Sin was seen in 78 products and 4% of environmental claims.

5. Sin of Fibbing: e.g. Products falsely claiming to be certified by an internationally recognized environmental standard like EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal. Found in 10 products or less than 1% of environmental claims.

6. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils: e.g. Organic cigarettes or “environmentally friendly” pesticides, This occurred in 17 products or 1% of environmental claims.

I especially like the original papers discussion about the SIN OF VAGUENESS:

There are some recurring themes within these vague claims. For example:
♦ “Chemical-free”. In fact, nothing is free of chemicals. Water is a chemical. All plants, animals, and humans are made of chemicals as are all of our products.
♦ “Non-toxic”. Everything is toxic in sufficient dosage. Water, oxygen, and salt are all potentially hazardous.
♦ “All Natural”. Arsenic is natural. So are uranium, mercury, and formaldehyde. All are poisonous.
♦ “Green”, “Environmentally friendly”, and “Eco-conscious” (to name just a few) which are utterly meaningless without elaboration.

My favorite, however, is the SIN OF NO PROOF. By this standard, the whole dangerous manmade global warming by carbon dioxide idea is sinful. Unless you believe that computer programming of anecdotal observations constitutes proof.

Disclosure: I believe CO2 is innocent of any and all claims of environmental endangerment. As noted above, all plants, animals and humans are made of chemicals and it all starts when photosynthesis bonds H2O and CO2 into larger molecules.

Because I'm Awesome

I always tell you how smart you are

It’s cause my brain is really supersized

You’re an academic superstar

Just look at me

“Smart” is the new bullshit word, e.g. its smart to love hybrids, unless hybrid means the offspring of a native and invasive species union. Disclaimer: This message has not been reviewed by government censors.

What If Climate Alarmists are Right?

This is a Chevrolet commercial currently running on television.

An adult is talking to little children saying: “Now if exhaust comes out of a gas engine, what comes out of a fuel cell engine”? (there is a pause while six year old children fidget silently confused) ... “H2O”.

I have a question for everyone, including Vicki McKenna, Ellen Foley, John Nichols, and Bill Lueders. Why would anyone believing humans are capable of creating unnatural shifts in the ambient near surface diurnal temperature range, advocate replacing emissions of the rare atmospheric molecule carbon dioxide and it’s limited radiative absorptive range, with emissions of the single most potent green house gas of all --- water vapor?

Media people, we have a great big University in the middle of our town and I’m sure your offices all have phone books and email. Because water vapor is responsible for 60-70% of the greenhouse gas effect on surface temperature moderation, and if it is bad for human activity to alter in any way the natural temperature moderation of our embedded in freezing cold space planet, then why would any caring person want to move society towards increasing water vapor emissions? The truth is out there media people --- the X Files tell us so.

Bitter

HE SAID WHAT! ... thinking for a moment ... My reaction is along the lines of A.J.

The Strata Sphere: Well, it is time to grow up. Obama said America is bitter that government has not functioned. Well it has not functioned because of out of control partisanship, rancor and basically behavior that would not be tolerated in any other area of society. Lies about others, lies about what they will do for us, graft and corruption - it seems Americans have a right to be bitter with the low caliber and unprofessionalism that has permeated the offices of elected officials, the news media and the talking heads who create a living out of ringing the alarm bells.

I get that Obama reveals an intimate familiarity with the contemptible stereotypes of the day. This is not the first time and he is absolutely not the only politician completely up to date on the political foundations of partisan driven hate. If anything, it’s just more evidence that a complete house cleaning is overdue.

Actually, A.J. is far more generous than me. I believe the clean out needs to go pretty far down into the rank and file of our public servants. There are days I understand why Chairman Mao believed the intellectuals require some slave labor time. I’m not an advocate of government mandated servitude but sending some people looking for honest work would do the rest of us a great deal of good.

Dale Watson Nights

Lola and I first come across Dale Watson on a wonderful summer evening in the ancient sandstone basement of the old Fess Hotel. This is July of 1999. Since then we attend his shows at Tex Tubbs on Atwood Avenue and Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon in Austin, Texas. That and every show he has played at the Club Tavern in Middleton since the turn of the century. So last night when we are asked if we’ve seen Dale before, we honestly answer yes, about a dozen times.

I never saw Johnny Cash in person so I’m not wasting opportunities to observe the closest practitioner of that musical lineage. This is a common thought by many in the Club Tavern audience last evening. Now this is not to imply that he is a gifted mimic. Quite the contrary. Dale Watson is as authentically skilled as any of the historical predecessors.

YouTube pulls up 175 videos but most of them are fan postings from the various venues of the traveling road show. If you aren’t sleeping on the tour bus, it probably means some corporate sponsor is picking up the hotel bills. Every soul, it is said, has a price. Then, of course, there are the gigs like Oneida, where you don’t have to play marathon shows and the casino puts the crew up in style for three or four days.

After some thought, I decide not to post any videos because even the few with professional production fall short of capturing the total complexity of the live stage performances. Besides, Dale is producing a diverse and maturing body of work that is impossible to appropriately summarize with one, two or even three examples. If anyone is really interested, Strictly Discs on Monroe Street will be more than happy to get you started.

Living Small

The Isthmus runs a lead story about Madison residents living in really tiny houses. The piece ends with an almost textbook example of the Orwellian reasoning embraced as virtue by our environmentalist neighbors.

Living Small: Big, historically, has been considered good, and small inferior. …"That's no longer an appropriate way of looking at the world. We're reaching a point where people who build McMansions will be considered immoral."

I take this seriously because cultures change over time and money and power can completely alter public values. It has been twenty years, for example, since organized money set out on a deliberate strategy to stigmatize tobacco smoking to great success.

But that’s not my favorite part. That honor goes to a featured quote: “When you free yourself from your stuff, you actually can become freer”. There you have it. In poverty lies freedom. In the more common vernacular, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. If that comes off glib, it shouldn’t. The political discourse uses words like freedom with the assumption the public agrees on the meaning of the word. Clearly freedom means very different things to very different people.

This Madison reasoning is not hard to understand. Even 18 year old fledgling adults can learn the basics. If freedom from want is served by dependency on the government then advancing government dependency is advancing freedom. If wealth and resources are fixed sums and the population grows, then mathematics dictate that fairness requires each individual receives a smaller portion of the total. All that is left is to codify the meaning of happiness as accepting having what you have.

Untouchable Badgers

There are reasons why: Badgers - the untouchables.

We Can Change The World

Using the same people and expecting different results is insane.

Real Change Requires Real Change.

Let’s Kill Foreigners

In my apparently ongoing anger phase, I want to go on record that I despise the concept of “invasive species”. It is an unnatural concept. Nature does not have rules for who lives where. Nature is all about give life a go and congratulations to the survivors and their offspring. This whole “invasive species” idea is entirely dependent on the human desire for stagnant ecosystems – anything not present in 1491 SHOULD NOT be present in 2008! Besides, the whole premise is merely the smoke and mirrors covering the human desire to control everything.

DNR proposes stricter new rules to regulate invasive species: The rules being written by the DNR would create legal classifications of such invasive species, establish rules for sale and transportation of the non-native plants and animals, and prescribe fines and penalties for violating the law. … Two non-regulated categories — watch and non-restricted — would be set up for species that either are not currently in the state and for which there is little information or species that, though invasive, actually have beneficial impacts on the environment.

OK – check list of species not present in Wisconsin prior to 1492: Starlings. Humans of European descent. Horses. Humans of African heritage. Dandelions. Norway maple trees. Honeysuckle bushes and many, many, many more. In fact, the more you look at the issue, the more you realize nature doesn’t pay attention to political boundaries. Nature is actually pretty adamant about changing over time. Oh yeah, and humans of Mexican decent.

Come to think of it, if you choose some other arbitrary point of time, say 168 million years ago, almost none of the species residing in Wisconsin in 1491 were residing in Wisconsin back then. Furthermore, since nothing but perhaps some bacteria exist at the GPS coordinates of Lake Mendota during the last ice age, is it not true that virtually every living thing in Wisconsin today descends from pioneering, colonizing, new to the area, competing and thriving invaders? If living here doesn’t make you a native, then what does? These are good questions for the DNR as they kill off the stuff on your property before sending you the bill for services rendered.

The Abundant Examples of Badness

The political blogs are growing trite. I expect it is computer assisted perfection of the ancient school of ‘character flaw’ politics. Look, look, look, a mistake. Faux Pas! False, false, false false, false – proof, proof, proof. VIDEO! Inconsistent. Non Sequiter! Hypocrite! Racist. Collectivist. Criminal. Liar. Liar! LIAR!!! It’s all about seeking victory by riling up the emotions.

Re-traumatizing blacks to serve the Left: What the Left has done to black people in the last fifty years is a kind of emotional abuse -- a constant, obsessional reliving of the traumatic past. Fifty years after the Civil Rights Acts, Democrat politicians, professors and preachers are still intent on rubbing salt into those old, painful wounds. It has now become institutionalized. Reliving the past is a major reason for Black Studies Departments all over the country, just as Women's Studies are designed to perpetuate an everlasting cry of pain and rage about the fate of women throughout history. Those constant rehearsals of reasons for rage and resentment do not to help people; they just exploit their pain for political gain.

I am all for giving the Presidency to the Barack Hussein Obama leftists. Since none of the three major political factions are pursuing the politics of principled solutions, and since all of the three major political factions are committed to expanding government power, then it makes sense that those of us who cherish individual liberty should support the least experienced, least competent option. If we are heading towards disaster, then let us have a disaster that destroys the status quo so we can rebuild better.

Memo to Self

“Cowboy Roy's back with the Meat Raffle join us every Saturday starting at 2pm. WE HAVE BIG TEN NETWORK come watch all Badger sports”.

Love Wisconsin people. Not real fond of the current crop of politicians. WTF do you think freedom means?

April Fools

April Fool’s Day and the first morning of 2008 the chirping of birds awakes me from slumber. A pleasant reminder that nature proceeds with total indifference to the affairs of mankind. To everyone indoctrinated to “Save the Planet” – wake up, you are being played as fools. Oh by the way, the entire ecosystem is built from carbon dioxide. Exhale on that reality.

Anger

“Anger should be a universal feeling about a government and culture which is failing.” I watch Newt Gingrich’s speech at the American Enterprise Institute on CSPAN and next day go to his website to watch it again. The former Speaker of the House uses the word anger eighteen times in his speech. There is a lot of anger in the American public. I got me some too.

The speech is called The Obama Challenge, and the challenge is for adults to put politics aside and decide on what type of country we want the United States to be. It reflects Newt’s long time quip that “Real Change Requires Real Change”. We know what works to grow prosperity and we also know what doesn’t work. “But to find real solutions, I would argue, we have to have real honesty and a serious dialogue in which unpleasant facts are put on the table and bold proposals are discussed.”

There is zero chance that able yet McCain or the Clintons vs. the entire politicized federal bureaucracy will meaningfully change the status quo. Supporting either of them is like walking right back into the same stagnant swamp. They had their time and failed. I want them fired not promoted. The policies required to fix government will drive thousands of people off the public payroll, and if 1994 teaches anything, it is that persistent resistance and the temptations of power are powerful forces of inertia.

Now Barack Hussein Obama is no saint. I believe he is wrong in the majority of the approaches he advocates for governance. But he is still a newcomer and not fully vested in the abominable self nourishing slug that is our federal government. Of the options before us, he is the one with the most potential for major change of any kind. Sometimes the path to the goal moves away from the goal. I fully expect Obama will instantly find himself in over his head with the enormity of responsibly required by the Presidency. I expect he will make lots of mistakes. Yet it will be in those moments of his most severe self doubt that the opportunity for wise counsel to take root is appears.

I’m Still Voting for Obama II

Lola asks why I’m not posting. -- I tell her it's because I am disgusted. -- The American way of life is facing serious challenges and our permanent political class is offering three completely unacceptable choices for the Presidency.

I know the suck it up and vote for McCain school of thought and I reject it. As the American Thinker points out, McCain believes the lies about man-made Global Warming and will institute polices based on the scientific fraud that carbon dioxide is detrimental to the environment. Policies that will severely damage the American economy for absolutely no good reason. I will never vote for a Republican that believes socialist lies.

Returning the Clintons to office is a clear breach of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment. From the founding of this country, it has been understood that the primacy of the private sector over government is best served by limiting any individual person’s leadership. The Democratic Party broke this unwritten covenant with the American people, forcing the public to put it into writing. Marriage is two individuals forming a single union and it is the clear intent of this single union to win a third term.

This leaves Barack Hussein Obama, inexperienced, unprincipled, but gifted in trickster tale skills. I am serious about voting for Obama because there are no options in my best interest in the short term, so I am looking towards the long term.

I’m Still Voting for Obama

The Clintons play the race card against Barack Obama, forcing him to be honest to the world about his mixed heritage and his overtly racist black liberationist close good friends. Caroline Glick writes the only commentary worthy of a link, about the man Obama and the intrusion of the planetary human population into the United States of America.

So Obama is a black racist. I don’t care. I want change in the old establishment. If I was black, I would be very angry at a country decimating my community with incarceration. Incarceration which is state paid education for crime. Obama is wrong to be racist, but he has chosen sides with the true white racists in America, the Democratic Party. Under whose rule did black families get destroyed and the education of their children perverted? Barack understands the hatred in his core support and needs to understand the Republicans, as they have always been, are the allies for proud individual independence.

The Race and Gender Blues

Last Saturday is International Women’s Day and the Madison Blues Society seizes the nomenclature to use as a fundraiser. The Brink Lounge hosts the event featuring Chicago based blues guitarist Sue DeBaco followed by Canadian born, now Austin based Sue Foley. Lola and I agree this is a good opportunity to hear Ms. Foley for the first time so we pay our $30 and order drinks.

Sue DeBaco puts on a Chicago Blues performance. Adequate vocals and frantic guitar work combined with an overbearing obsession with audience banter. It’s a stage show perfected for suburbanite crowds out to have an adventuresome night downtown in a big city Blues Club. Clap with me, sing along, have some drinks, tip your bartenders. Let me play you something in the style of Hendrix.

At intermission I slip into the lounge to watch the end of the Wauwatosa East v. Madison Memorial Wisconsin Boy’s State Basketball Championship game. Madison has victory in hand until Wauwatosa ties the game with a three point shot sending it into overtime. Alas, Memorial finishes second again. Lola tells me I miss Kathleen Falk give her Guest Speaker presentation. Kathleen, allegedly, says she wakes up every morning thinking about Rosa Parks. Every morning? That’s just absurd unless it's part of a specific meditation ritual upon rising. Just saying.

Sue Foley begins her time on stage with solo acoustic songs before bringing out her band to finish the acoustic set. It’s all very polished and sparkling. It’s the kind of mastery that a smoke free room of affluent white people appreciate. The electric set that follows is decidedly good but I can’t help thinking this would be much, much better if the room was much darker, hot and hazy, and scarred by the wear and tear of time.

Spitzer & Friends

Power Corrupts - Who Knew?

Outright Big 10 Basketball Champion Badgers

IT'S ALL GOOD -- IT'S NOT OVER.

The Myth of the Rule of Law

The Myth of the Rule of Law: Stop! Before reading this article, please take the following quiz: The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States states, in part:

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press;"

On the basis of your personal understanding of the meaning of this sentence (not your knowledge of Constitutional law), please indicate whether you believe the following sentences to be true or false.

______ 1) In time of war, a federal statute may be passed prohibiting citizens from revealing military secrets to the enemy.
______ 2) The President can issue an executive order prohibiting public criticism of his administration.
______ 3) Congress may pass a law prohibiting museums from exhibiting photographs and paintings depicting homosexual activity.
______ 4) A federal statute can be passed prohibiting a citizen from falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater.
______ 5) Congress may pass a law prohibiting dancing to rock and roll music.
______ 6) The Internal Revenue Service may issue a regulation prohibiting the publication of a book explaining how to cheat on your taxes and get away with it.

______ 7) Congress may pass a statute prohibiting flag burning.

Self Esteem Education

Obama-mania and cult of self-esteem: The phenomenon of Senator Barack Obama's campaign is astounding. He has packaged policies largely indistinguishable from those of John Edwards or Hillary Clinton in airy platitudes about "change" and "hope," and suddenly he's a rock star - complete with swooning and fainting fans at his huge campaign rallies. … Conventional wisdom says this adulation and intensity level cannot last. But conventional wisdom may be missing something fundamental.

His evident charisma aside, a clue to the source of Obama-mania may be found in the demographics of his support: he is far and away the favorite of younger voters and college students, routinely winning over 75% of the votes of Democrats under 30. Obama has tapped into is the first generation educated in schools focused on "self-esteem." Now, the products of self-esteem education have come of political age in substantial numbers, perhaps with profound implications for this and future elections.

The Clintons Survive in Ohio and Texas

Tonight is the Republican Party’s missed Osama Bin Laden moment. They have the opportunity to send Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton to certain defeat, but they do not. In open primaries in the large population states of Texas and Ohio, Republicans vote in the opposition primaries and contribute to Clinton victories. Various rationales for wanting to extend the internal Democratic selection struggles are put forward, but the tactic deliberately keeps the path open for Hillary Clinton to be sworn in as the 43rd white president of the United States.

I can't help but think that as much as the political elites hate each other, they fear the loss of power even more. Watching the well funded rise of a youthful socialist threat promising to make real changes to the status quo, it's like the realization clicked that they are truly different wings of a single party of government. The former First Lady is on the verge of setting a new family control precedent in American government. I suspect the establishment of any permanent aristocracy goes through the phase where marriage claims to power come to be understood and accepted as valuable to all parties.

This election is taking place near a crest in the information age and globally there are no secrets about the relative status of the human beings in the massive human population. Observing the Republicans, I wonder if they hope the old married couple will be useful in the future against the rising socialist tide. It’s probably more likely they are counting on the traditional politics of money and interest groups to keep Hillary in the Senate. I wouldn’t count on it. The game is changing.

Great swarms of the political punditry all seem to be focusing in on the ephemeral veneer of the Barack Hussein Obama campaign and puzzling as to why there is not more demand for or concern about specifics. This misses the point. The Obama hopefuls don't care about specifics. They want change. Period. They want change of the status quo.

Hey Hillary

I'ts over Old Woman. Some people are cool. You ain't.

Yep

Mencius Moldbug: Most of progressivism's power is a consequence of its ability to manage public opinion. It can do this because it controls the educational system--schools, universities, and press. There are no elections for teachers, professors or journalists. They will be the same individuals whether the new president in 2009 is Barack Obama, John McCain, David Duke or Jeremiah Wright. The same is true of progressivism's other power base, the permanent civil service, which is also untouchable by "politics," i.e., democracy. Civil servants are nominally employees of the President, but that doesn't mean the White House can actually manage them. Typically the best it can do is frustrate them and make them ineffective, and this produces bad press, which harms the administration.

This is how Washington has worked since the 1930s. It is a machine designed to be immune to electoral politics. (It is also immune to reality, from which it steadily grows more detached.) But it is also designed to work in the presence of political opposition, which it belittles and denigrates at every turn.