The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of last year's disputed Senate race, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's gracious concession at least spares the state any further legal combat. The unfortunate lesson is that you don't need to win the vote on Election Day as long as your lawyers are creative enough to have enough new or disqualified ballots counted after the fact.
Mr. Franken trailed Mr. Coleman by 725 votes after the initial count on election night, and 215 after the first canvass. The Democrat's strategy from the start was to manipulate the recount in a way that would discover votes that could add to his total. The Franken legal team swarmed the recount, aggressively demanding that votes that had been disqualified be added to his count, while others be denied for Mr. Coleman.
But the team's real goldmine were absentee ballots, thousands of which the Franken team claimed had been mistakenly rejected. While Mr. Coleman's lawyers demanded a uniform standard for how counties should re-evaluate these rejected ballots, the Franken team ginned up an additional 1,350 absentees from Franken-leaning counties. By the time this treasure hunt ended, Mr. Franken was 312 votes up, and Mr. Coleman was left to file legal briefs.
What Mr. Franken understood was that courts would later be loathe to overrule decisions made by the canvassing board, however arbitrary those decisions were. He was right. The three-judge panel overseeing the Coleman legal challenge, and the Supreme Court that reviewed the panel's findings, in essence found that Mr. Coleman hadn't demonstrated a willful or malicious attempt on behalf of officials to deny him the election. And so they refused to reopen what had become a forbidding tangle of irregularities. Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact.
This is now the second time Republicans have been beaten in this kind of legal street fight. In 2004, Dino Rossi was ahead in the election-night count for Washington Governor against Democrat Christine Gregoire. Ms. Gregoire's team demanded the right to rifle through a list of provisional votes that hadn't been counted, setting off a hunt for "new" Gregoire votes. By the third recount, she'd discovered enough to win. This was the model for the Franken team.
Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election. If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them.
Friday, July 3, 2009
None Dare Call It Marxism
By David Limbaugh
July 3, 2009
All right already. I won't call Obama a Marxist in this column. Instead, I'll point to some signs that indicate that Barack and Karl might well be soul mates. At least, they have similar attitudes about capital, labor and profits, er, surplus value.
Liberals, even those of the Marxist variety, take umbrage when you point out their ideological kinship with Marxism.
I suppose this dates back to the days when being a communist was tantamount to being an enemy of the United States, in that there was a global communist movement intent on -- and coming darn close to -- world domination. Though global communism has been defeated, there remains a strong contingent among us, whose nerve center is the Democratic Party leadership under President Obama, committed to obliterating America's free market.
Without getting into the intricacies of Marxist theory, suffice it to say that at the core of this political and economic philosophy is a belief in the historical class struggle. The capitalist (bourgeois) exploits the industrial worker (proletarian) by underpaying him and adding on unnecessary charges to the prices of goods and services, driving up costs to the consumer, and pocketing the profits.
In "Basic Economics," Thomas Sowell puts it this way: "Profits may be the most misconceived subject in economics. Socialists have long regarded profits as simply 'overcharge,' as Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw called it, or a 'surplus value' as Karl Marx called it." The theory is that under socialism or Marxism, these surplus charges would be eliminated and goods and services would become more affordable.
But in reality, socialism doesn't make goods and services more affordable, but less so. As Dr. Sowell explains: "The hope for profits and the threat of losses is what forces a business owner in a capitalist economy to produce at the lowest cost and sell what the customers are most willing to pay for. ... Under socialism (there is) far less incentive to be as efficient ... much less to keep up with changing conditions and respond to them quickly." With less incentive for efficiencies and cost control, the prices of goods might well be higher.
Profits are not arbitrary charges added on to the costs of producing goods and services; nor are they attributable to artificially high prices charged by those motivated by greed. Indeed, writes Sowell, most of the great fortunes in American history were amassed when entrepreneurs were able to reduce costs and charge lower prices and to increase their volume sales to mass markets.
You get the point. Capitalists don't view profits as evil or the product of greed. Their opponents -- call them Marxists, fascists, socialists, radical liberals or whatever -- do. Which brings us back to Barack Obama.
Both his father, Barack Obama Sr., and his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, were communists. His church of choice was one of black liberation theology, whose Marxist roots are inarguable. He associated with far leftists on the "organizing" streets of Chicago, including Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
Mentorship and associations are one thing, but what have Obama's words and actions revealed about his attitudes toward labor, capital, profits and government control of business and industry?
Well, he said that he would raise capital gains tax rates, even if it reduced revenues, as a matter of fairness. It's only fair to make everyone poorer if you believe profits are inherently evil.
He told Joe the Plumber he wants to spread the wealth around. He talked about confiscating Exxon Mobil's profits and giving them to consumers, saying "they are not going to give up those profits easily." He called Chrysler creditors "speculators" and castigated them for refusing to accept his extortionist reorganization plan. He berated Wall Street for making profits, saying "now is not (the) time" for them to "rake in profits." He and his wife even railed against the pursuit of profit in their respective commencement addresses.
He abused the power of his office to steal money from GM and Chrysler shareholders and transfer it to the proletariat, I mean, the United Auto Workers. He redistributed taxpayer money from those who have paid their mortgages to those who have not.
He is desperately trying to spread the misery and impoverish businesses and individuals through his cap and tax plan, which no proponent of economic growth and prosperity would consider supporting. And in addition to gobbling up other businesses and industries, he is trying to nationalize medicine -- to siphon off the evil surplus value charged by doctors and insurance companies -- on the flawed Marxist theory that he can reduce costs overall, when the reason health care costs have already skyrocketed is that market forces have been suppressed in the industry.
You don't have to call him a Marxist, but at least understand where his heart is.
---
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.DavidLimbaugh.com.
July 3, 2009
All right already. I won't call Obama a Marxist in this column. Instead, I'll point to some signs that indicate that Barack and Karl might well be soul mates. At least, they have similar attitudes about capital, labor and profits, er, surplus value.
Liberals, even those of the Marxist variety, take umbrage when you point out their ideological kinship with Marxism.
I suppose this dates back to the days when being a communist was tantamount to being an enemy of the United States, in that there was a global communist movement intent on -- and coming darn close to -- world domination. Though global communism has been defeated, there remains a strong contingent among us, whose nerve center is the Democratic Party leadership under President Obama, committed to obliterating America's free market.
Without getting into the intricacies of Marxist theory, suffice it to say that at the core of this political and economic philosophy is a belief in the historical class struggle. The capitalist (bourgeois) exploits the industrial worker (proletarian) by underpaying him and adding on unnecessary charges to the prices of goods and services, driving up costs to the consumer, and pocketing the profits.
In "Basic Economics," Thomas Sowell puts it this way: "Profits may be the most misconceived subject in economics. Socialists have long regarded profits as simply 'overcharge,' as Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw called it, or a 'surplus value' as Karl Marx called it." The theory is that under socialism or Marxism, these surplus charges would be eliminated and goods and services would become more affordable.
But in reality, socialism doesn't make goods and services more affordable, but less so. As Dr. Sowell explains: "The hope for profits and the threat of losses is what forces a business owner in a capitalist economy to produce at the lowest cost and sell what the customers are most willing to pay for. ... Under socialism (there is) far less incentive to be as efficient ... much less to keep up with changing conditions and respond to them quickly." With less incentive for efficiencies and cost control, the prices of goods might well be higher.
Profits are not arbitrary charges added on to the costs of producing goods and services; nor are they attributable to artificially high prices charged by those motivated by greed. Indeed, writes Sowell, most of the great fortunes in American history were amassed when entrepreneurs were able to reduce costs and charge lower prices and to increase their volume sales to mass markets.
You get the point. Capitalists don't view profits as evil or the product of greed. Their opponents -- call them Marxists, fascists, socialists, radical liberals or whatever -- do. Which brings us back to Barack Obama.
Both his father, Barack Obama Sr., and his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, were communists. His church of choice was one of black liberation theology, whose Marxist roots are inarguable. He associated with far leftists on the "organizing" streets of Chicago, including Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
Mentorship and associations are one thing, but what have Obama's words and actions revealed about his attitudes toward labor, capital, profits and government control of business and industry?
Well, he said that he would raise capital gains tax rates, even if it reduced revenues, as a matter of fairness. It's only fair to make everyone poorer if you believe profits are inherently evil.
He told Joe the Plumber he wants to spread the wealth around. He talked about confiscating Exxon Mobil's profits and giving them to consumers, saying "they are not going to give up those profits easily." He called Chrysler creditors "speculators" and castigated them for refusing to accept his extortionist reorganization plan. He berated Wall Street for making profits, saying "now is not (the) time" for them to "rake in profits." He and his wife even railed against the pursuit of profit in their respective commencement addresses.
He abused the power of his office to steal money from GM and Chrysler shareholders and transfer it to the proletariat, I mean, the United Auto Workers. He redistributed taxpayer money from those who have paid their mortgages to those who have not.
He is desperately trying to spread the misery and impoverish businesses and individuals through his cap and tax plan, which no proponent of economic growth and prosperity would consider supporting. And in addition to gobbling up other businesses and industries, he is trying to nationalize medicine -- to siphon off the evil surplus value charged by doctors and insurance companies -- on the flawed Marxist theory that he can reduce costs overall, when the reason health care costs have already skyrocketed is that market forces have been suppressed in the industry.
You don't have to call him a Marxist, but at least understand where his heart is.
---
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.DavidLimbaugh.com.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Obama Administration Calls for Universal Access to Abortion at U.N. Meeting
Thursday, July 2, 2009 4:05 PM
By: Samantha Singson, C-Fam Article Font Size
At United Nations headquarters this week, the Obama administration continued its push for ever increasing access to legal abortion around the world. The Obama team has introduced language that has thrown a high level negotiation into a roil. The US proposal calls for “universal access” to “sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning.” The document under consideration will culminate in the 2009 Annual Ministerial Review, which convenes next week in Geneva.
The sticking point for many delegations and what has driven apart the usual solid European bloc is the use of the word “services” in the context of “reproductive health.” Way back in 2001 during negotiations related to the ten year review of the Child Convention, a Canadian delegate blurted out “of course everyone knows ‘services’ means abortion.” Ever since, the word “services” has been a topic of hot debate.
So controversial is the topic of “services” in the context of “reproductive health” that the usually impenetrable negotiating bloc of the 27 member European Union has imploded with Malta, Poland and Ireland splitting from their allies and joining the Holy See in opposing the measure.
In addition to the word "services," delegates are also concerned with attempts to link “sexual and reproductive health” to “universal access,” something the UN has never agreed to and what would amount to a major gain for pro-abortion forces. There have been numerous attempts at the UN to insert language on "universal access to sexual and reproductive health services." In 2005 at the Commission on Population and Development, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) joined with pro-abortion lobby groups to call for "universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and programmes." They were defeated in large part by the Bush-appointed US delegates who insisted that none of the terms related to reproductive health be interpreted to include abortion.
In recent weeks the new US administration has interpreted "reproductive health" to include abortion. In April, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a US House subcommittee, “We [the Obama administration] happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.” In this statement, Clinton also contradicted the agreement reached at the Cairo Confernence which said that abortion can never be used as a part of family planning. This was a document that Clinton helped to negotiate.
Apart from the US, other delegations including Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Estonia and the United Kingdom are pushing for the language.
The G-77 developing nations' bloc is still holding its own negotiations to determine whether or not they will have a common position on the paragraph.
Negotiations are scheduled to continue this week and the draft declaration will be adopted by high level government ministers at the end of next week's meeting in Geneva.
By: Samantha Singson, C-Fam Article Font Size
At United Nations headquarters this week, the Obama administration continued its push for ever increasing access to legal abortion around the world. The Obama team has introduced language that has thrown a high level negotiation into a roil. The US proposal calls for “universal access” to “sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning.” The document under consideration will culminate in the 2009 Annual Ministerial Review, which convenes next week in Geneva.
The sticking point for many delegations and what has driven apart the usual solid European bloc is the use of the word “services” in the context of “reproductive health.” Way back in 2001 during negotiations related to the ten year review of the Child Convention, a Canadian delegate blurted out “of course everyone knows ‘services’ means abortion.” Ever since, the word “services” has been a topic of hot debate.
So controversial is the topic of “services” in the context of “reproductive health” that the usually impenetrable negotiating bloc of the 27 member European Union has imploded with Malta, Poland and Ireland splitting from their allies and joining the Holy See in opposing the measure.
In addition to the word "services," delegates are also concerned with attempts to link “sexual and reproductive health” to “universal access,” something the UN has never agreed to and what would amount to a major gain for pro-abortion forces. There have been numerous attempts at the UN to insert language on "universal access to sexual and reproductive health services." In 2005 at the Commission on Population and Development, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) joined with pro-abortion lobby groups to call for "universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and programmes." They were defeated in large part by the Bush-appointed US delegates who insisted that none of the terms related to reproductive health be interpreted to include abortion.
In recent weeks the new US administration has interpreted "reproductive health" to include abortion. In April, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a US House subcommittee, “We [the Obama administration] happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.” In this statement, Clinton also contradicted the agreement reached at the Cairo Confernence which said that abortion can never be used as a part of family planning. This was a document that Clinton helped to negotiate.
Apart from the US, other delegations including Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, Estonia and the United Kingdom are pushing for the language.
The G-77 developing nations' bloc is still holding its own negotiations to determine whether or not they will have a common position on the paragraph.
Negotiations are scheduled to continue this week and the draft declaration will be adopted by high level government ministers at the end of next week's meeting in Geneva.
Obama releasing terrorists
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Senators Sessions and Kyl Demand Answers on Obama's Negotiations with Iran-Backed Terrorist and Release of a Terrorist Responsible for Murdering U.S. Troops [Andy McCarthy]
The Washington Times has the story this morning, here. My column on this disgrace is here.
I realize the media is in the tank for this president, but this is the most shocking story we have had in a steady stream of shock since the start of the Obama presidency. Will no one ask about why we have released an Iran-backed terrorist who is responsible for the 2007 abduction/murder of our troops (five murdered, four of them after being kidnapped) in Karbala?
The administration, if anyone bothers to ask, will undoubtedly spout nonsense about promoting "Iraqi reconciliation." But this is a terrorist who murdered Americans — an unlawful combatant who committed war crimes. Even if that were not true, it's absurd to suggest that releasing the leaders of a terrorist network is going to promote peace in Iraq — does Obama think we should release the Blind Sheikh, the embassy bombers, or KSM to promote a peaceful settlement with al-Qaeda? But even if it were not absurd on its face, the Iraqi interest here is not the paramount interest for us; terrorists who methodically target and kill Americans, and whom we capture, are supposed to be tried and executed or imprisoned by us. We don't release them for the benefit of other countries, and we certainly don't barter them for hostages — in violation of American policy and common sense — because that endangers our troops, our civilians, and our allies.
Why are we still in negotiations with an Iran-backed terror network to release the network's leaders? Even if that were not a stupid idea on its face, have we learned nothing from the last go-round? In exchange for the terrorist described above, we got back two dead bodies of British hostages — i.e., not even the five live British hostages whose freedom we were foolishly hoping to secure.
Finally, why is this being done at a time when the Iranian regime is not only murdering and repressing its own population but, as Michael (Ledeen) pointed out yesterday, is continuing to support and train terrorists to kill American military personnel in Iraq?
07/02 06:39 AMShare
Senators Sessions and Kyl Demand Answers on Obama's Negotiations with Iran-Backed Terrorist and Release of a Terrorist Responsible for Murdering U.S. Troops [Andy McCarthy]
The Washington Times has the story this morning, here. My column on this disgrace is here.
I realize the media is in the tank for this president, but this is the most shocking story we have had in a steady stream of shock since the start of the Obama presidency. Will no one ask about why we have released an Iran-backed terrorist who is responsible for the 2007 abduction/murder of our troops (five murdered, four of them after being kidnapped) in Karbala?
The administration, if anyone bothers to ask, will undoubtedly spout nonsense about promoting "Iraqi reconciliation." But this is a terrorist who murdered Americans — an unlawful combatant who committed war crimes. Even if that were not true, it's absurd to suggest that releasing the leaders of a terrorist network is going to promote peace in Iraq — does Obama think we should release the Blind Sheikh, the embassy bombers, or KSM to promote a peaceful settlement with al-Qaeda? But even if it were not absurd on its face, the Iraqi interest here is not the paramount interest for us; terrorists who methodically target and kill Americans, and whom we capture, are supposed to be tried and executed or imprisoned by us. We don't release them for the benefit of other countries, and we certainly don't barter them for hostages — in violation of American policy and common sense — because that endangers our troops, our civilians, and our allies.
Why are we still in negotiations with an Iran-backed terror network to release the network's leaders? Even if that were not a stupid idea on its face, have we learned nothing from the last go-round? In exchange for the terrorist described above, we got back two dead bodies of British hostages — i.e., not even the five live British hostages whose freedom we were foolishly hoping to secure.
Finally, why is this being done at a time when the Iranian regime is not only murdering and repressing its own population but, as Michael (Ledeen) pointed out yesterday, is continuing to support and train terrorists to kill American military personnel in Iraq?
07/02 06:39 AMShare
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Here is a great piece written by John Stossel from ABC.
July 1, 2009
"Better" Health Care?
By John Stossel
President Obama says government will make health care cheaper and better. But there's no free lunch.
In England, health care is "free" -- as long as you don't mind waiting. People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth. At any one time, half a million people are waiting to get into a British hospital. A British paper reports that one hospital tried to save money by not changing bedsheets. Instead of washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over.
Obama insists he is not "trying to bring about government-run healthcare".
"But government management does the same thing," says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute. "To reduce costs they'll have to ration -- deny -- care."
"People line up for care, some of them die. That's what happens," says Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of "The Cure". He liked Canada's government health care until he started treating patients.
"The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house." "You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months."
Polls show most Canadians like their free health care, but most people aren't sick when the poll-taker calls. Canadian doctors told us the system is cracking. One complained that he can't get heart-attack victims into the ICU.
In America, people wait in emergency rooms, too, but it's much worse in Canada. If you're sick enough to be admitted, the average wait is 23 hours.
"We can't send these patients to other hospitals. Dr. Eric Letovsky told us. "Every other emergency department in the country is just as packed as we are."
More than a million and a half Canadians say they can't find a family doctor. Some towns hold lotteries to determine who gets a doctor. In Norwood, Ontario, "20/20" videotaped a town clerk pulling the names of the lucky winners out of a lottery box. The losers must wait to see a doctor.
Shirley Healy, like many sick Canadians, came to America for surgery. Her doctor in British Columbia told her she had only a few weeks to live because a blocked artery kept her from digesting food. Yet Canadian officials called her surgery "elective."
"The only thing elective about this surgery was I elected to live," she said.
It's true that America's partly profit-driven, partly bureaucratic system is expensive, and sometimes wasteful, but the pursuit of profit reduces waste and costs and gives the world the improvements in medicine that ease pain and save lives.
"[America] is the country of medical innovation. This is where people come when they need treatment," Dr. Gratzer says.
"Literally we're surrounded by medical miracles. Death by cardiovascular disease has dropped by two-thirds in the last 50 years. You've got to pay a price for that type of advancement."
Canada and England don't pay the price because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their systems, we could worry less about paying for health care, but we'd get 2009-level care -- forever. Government monopolies don't innovate. Profit seekers do.
We saw this in Canada, where we did find one area of medicine that offers easy access to cutting-edge technology -- CT scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients didn't have to wait.
But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that hasn't been taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people, the waiting list is a month.
"Better" Health Care?
By John Stossel
President Obama says government will make health care cheaper and better. But there's no free lunch.
In England, health care is "free" -- as long as you don't mind waiting. People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth. At any one time, half a million people are waiting to get into a British hospital. A British paper reports that one hospital tried to save money by not changing bedsheets. Instead of washing sheets, the staff was encouraged to just turn them over.
Obama insists he is not "trying to bring about government-run healthcare".
"But government management does the same thing," says Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute. "To reduce costs they'll have to ration -- deny -- care."
"People line up for care, some of them die. That's what happens," says Canadian doctor David Gratzer, author of "The Cure". He liked Canada's government health care until he started treating patients.
"The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house." "You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months."
Polls show most Canadians like their free health care, but most people aren't sick when the poll-taker calls. Canadian doctors told us the system is cracking. One complained that he can't get heart-attack victims into the ICU.
In America, people wait in emergency rooms, too, but it's much worse in Canada. If you're sick enough to be admitted, the average wait is 23 hours.
"We can't send these patients to other hospitals. Dr. Eric Letovsky told us. "Every other emergency department in the country is just as packed as we are."
More than a million and a half Canadians say they can't find a family doctor. Some towns hold lotteries to determine who gets a doctor. In Norwood, Ontario, "20/20" videotaped a town clerk pulling the names of the lucky winners out of a lottery box. The losers must wait to see a doctor.
Shirley Healy, like many sick Canadians, came to America for surgery. Her doctor in British Columbia told her she had only a few weeks to live because a blocked artery kept her from digesting food. Yet Canadian officials called her surgery "elective."
"The only thing elective about this surgery was I elected to live," she said.
It's true that America's partly profit-driven, partly bureaucratic system is expensive, and sometimes wasteful, but the pursuit of profit reduces waste and costs and gives the world the improvements in medicine that ease pain and save lives.
"[America] is the country of medical innovation. This is where people come when they need treatment," Dr. Gratzer says.
"Literally we're surrounded by medical miracles. Death by cardiovascular disease has dropped by two-thirds in the last 50 years. You've got to pay a price for that type of advancement."
Canada and England don't pay the price because they freeload off American innovation. If America adopted their systems, we could worry less about paying for health care, but we'd get 2009-level care -- forever. Government monopolies don't innovate. Profit seekers do.
We saw this in Canada, where we did find one area of medicine that offers easy access to cutting-edge technology -- CT scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients didn't have to wait.
But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that hasn't been taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people, the waiting list is a month.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Freedom Can't Be Rationed
By Rep. Mike Pence from the June 2009 issue
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!"
As Congress prepares to consider health reform, P. J. O’Rourke’s famous quip provides an important context to the debate. President Obama and Democrats in Congress have proposed a government-run health care plan that would “compete” against private health coverage. Estimates have suggested that such “competition” would encourage employers to reduce costs by eliminating their health benefits for employees. As a result, as many as 119 million Americans will lose their coverage, forcing most of them into the government-run plan. In his budget, the president proposed nearly $1 trillion in new spending as a mere “down payment” to fund this “free” health care gimmick.
The truth is, government-run health insurance takes away citizens’ freedom, forcing them to accept a government decree about intensely personal health decisions. At a time when Medicare faces unfunded obligations of nearly $86 trillion, dumping more than half of all Americans with private coverage into a government program will dramatically jeopardize our fiscal future. To make matters worse, it will take away citizens’ freedom to choose their doctors—and the freedom to choose, with their doctors, the treatment option that best meets their health needs.
Democrats have admitted both their desire for government to control health carew and the effect of such control on ordinary Americans. A provision in the recent “stimulus” bill will spend $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. While few would dispute the wisdom of scientific research comparing the medical benefits of various treatment options for a given ailment, Democrats have shown a strong desire to use such research to examine the cost-effectiveness of medical treatments—as a precursor to government rationing of care. In fact, a draft committee report produced by the Democratic majority noted that “more expensive [treatments] will no longer be prescribed” as a result of rationing sparked by effectiveness research.
Peter Orszag, President Obama’s new budget director, was candid about the impact of government control on health care when he cited studies in a 2007 report noting that “patients who might benefit from more expensive treatments might be made worse off” if the government rations access to costly—but potentially life saving—care. In other words, the true cost of “free” government-run health insurance will be a loss of freedom for millions of Americans who will be forced to give up their freedom to choose medical treatments that will actually work for them.
Here’s how one Michigan mother expressed her exasperation with the government-run Medicaid program: “You feel so helpless thinking, something’s wrong with this child and I can’t even get her into a doctor….When we had real insurance, we would call and come in at the drop of a hat.” This mother’s helplessness in a vast government bureaucracy is the antithesis of freedom—lack of freedom to choose one’s doctor resulting in a lack of access to care.
Our nation needs health reforms that expand Americans’ freedom. Removing the current inequities in the tax code that force individuals whose employers don’t offer health coverage to use after-tax dollars to buy insurance—and pay 30 to 50 percent more as a result—would put coverage within reach for millions of Americans. Allowing individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines would increase consumer choice while expanding insurance coverage for as many as 12 million individuals. Just as important, these options would ensure that doctors and patients, not government bureaucrats, make important health care decisions.
While Democrats argue that a government-run plan is more “efficient,” I strongly believe that the nationalized plan would look a lot like Medicaid does today—cheap, broken, and government-rationed coverage that most Americans do not want. The American people want to keep their health care freedom—and Republicans need to respond to their call.
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!"
As Congress prepares to consider health reform, P. J. O’Rourke’s famous quip provides an important context to the debate. President Obama and Democrats in Congress have proposed a government-run health care plan that would “compete” against private health coverage. Estimates have suggested that such “competition” would encourage employers to reduce costs by eliminating their health benefits for employees. As a result, as many as 119 million Americans will lose their coverage, forcing most of them into the government-run plan. In his budget, the president proposed nearly $1 trillion in new spending as a mere “down payment” to fund this “free” health care gimmick.
The truth is, government-run health insurance takes away citizens’ freedom, forcing them to accept a government decree about intensely personal health decisions. At a time when Medicare faces unfunded obligations of nearly $86 trillion, dumping more than half of all Americans with private coverage into a government program will dramatically jeopardize our fiscal future. To make matters worse, it will take away citizens’ freedom to choose their doctors—and the freedom to choose, with their doctors, the treatment option that best meets their health needs.
Democrats have admitted both their desire for government to control health carew and the effect of such control on ordinary Americans. A provision in the recent “stimulus” bill will spend $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. While few would dispute the wisdom of scientific research comparing the medical benefits of various treatment options for a given ailment, Democrats have shown a strong desire to use such research to examine the cost-effectiveness of medical treatments—as a precursor to government rationing of care. In fact, a draft committee report produced by the Democratic majority noted that “more expensive [treatments] will no longer be prescribed” as a result of rationing sparked by effectiveness research.
Peter Orszag, President Obama’s new budget director, was candid about the impact of government control on health care when he cited studies in a 2007 report noting that “patients who might benefit from more expensive treatments might be made worse off” if the government rations access to costly—but potentially life saving—care. In other words, the true cost of “free” government-run health insurance will be a loss of freedom for millions of Americans who will be forced to give up their freedom to choose medical treatments that will actually work for them.
Here’s how one Michigan mother expressed her exasperation with the government-run Medicaid program: “You feel so helpless thinking, something’s wrong with this child and I can’t even get her into a doctor….When we had real insurance, we would call and come in at the drop of a hat.” This mother’s helplessness in a vast government bureaucracy is the antithesis of freedom—lack of freedom to choose one’s doctor resulting in a lack of access to care.
Our nation needs health reforms that expand Americans’ freedom. Removing the current inequities in the tax code that force individuals whose employers don’t offer health coverage to use after-tax dollars to buy insurance—and pay 30 to 50 percent more as a result—would put coverage within reach for millions of Americans. Allowing individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines would increase consumer choice while expanding insurance coverage for as many as 12 million individuals. Just as important, these options would ensure that doctors and patients, not government bureaucrats, make important health care decisions.
While Democrats argue that a government-run plan is more “efficient,” I strongly believe that the nationalized plan would look a lot like Medicaid does today—cheap, broken, and government-rationed coverage that most Americans do not want. The American people want to keep their health care freedom—and Republicans need to respond to their call.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
another great global warming article from the U.K.
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.
By Christopher Booker
Published: 5:50PM GMT 27 Dec 2008
Comments 1145 | Comment on this article
Polar bear
Polar bears will be fine after all Photo: AP
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
Related Articles
*
Scientists plan to stop global warming with mirrors
*
Global warming: Reasons why it might not actually exist
*
Climate deal possible under Obama, says Lord Stern
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
I must end this year by again paying tribute to my readers for the wonderful generosity with which they came to the aid of two causes. First their donations made it possible for the latest "metric martyr", the east London market trader Janet Devers, to fight Hackney council's vindictive decision to prosecute her on 13 criminal charges, ranging from selling in pounds and ounces to selling produce "by the bowl" (to avoid using weights her customers dislike and don't understand). The embarrassment caused by this historic battle has thrown the forced metrication policy of both our governments, in London and Brussels, into total disarray.
Since Hackney backed out of allowing four criminal charges against Janet to go before a jury next month, all that remains is for her to win her appeal in February against eight convictions which now look quite absurd (including those for selling veg by the bowl, as thousands of other London market traders do every day). The final goal, as Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund insists, must then be a pardon for the late Steve Thoburn and the four other original "martyrs" who were found guilty in 2002 – after a legal battle also made possible by this column's readers – of breaking laws so ridiculous that the EU Commission has even denied they existed (but which are still on the statute book).
Readers were equally generous this year in rushing to the aid of Sue Smith, whose son was killed in a Snatch Land Rover in Iraq in 2005. Their contributions made it possible for her to carry on with the High Court action she has brought against the Ministry of Defence, with the sole aim of calling it to account for needlessly risking soldiers' lives by sending them into battle in hopelessly inappropriate vehicles. Thanks not least to Mrs Smith's determined fight, the Snatch Land Rover scandal, first reported here in 2006, has at last become a national cause celebre.
May I finally thank all those readers who have written to me in 2008 – so many that, as usual, it has not been possible to answer all their messages. But their support and information has been hugely appreciated. May I wish them and all of you a happy (if globally not too warm) New Year.
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.
By Christopher Booker
Published: 5:50PM GMT 27 Dec 2008
Comments 1145 | Comment on this article
Polar bear
Polar bears will be fine after all Photo: AP
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
Related Articles
*
Scientists plan to stop global warming with mirrors
*
Global warming: Reasons why it might not actually exist
*
Climate deal possible under Obama, says Lord Stern
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
I must end this year by again paying tribute to my readers for the wonderful generosity with which they came to the aid of two causes. First their donations made it possible for the latest "metric martyr", the east London market trader Janet Devers, to fight Hackney council's vindictive decision to prosecute her on 13 criminal charges, ranging from selling in pounds and ounces to selling produce "by the bowl" (to avoid using weights her customers dislike and don't understand). The embarrassment caused by this historic battle has thrown the forced metrication policy of both our governments, in London and Brussels, into total disarray.
Since Hackney backed out of allowing four criminal charges against Janet to go before a jury next month, all that remains is for her to win her appeal in February against eight convictions which now look quite absurd (including those for selling veg by the bowl, as thousands of other London market traders do every day). The final goal, as Neil Herron of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund insists, must then be a pardon for the late Steve Thoburn and the four other original "martyrs" who were found guilty in 2002 – after a legal battle also made possible by this column's readers – of breaking laws so ridiculous that the EU Commission has even denied they existed (but which are still on the statute book).
Readers were equally generous this year in rushing to the aid of Sue Smith, whose son was killed in a Snatch Land Rover in Iraq in 2005. Their contributions made it possible for her to carry on with the High Court action she has brought against the Ministry of Defence, with the sole aim of calling it to account for needlessly risking soldiers' lives by sending them into battle in hopelessly inappropriate vehicles. Thanks not least to Mrs Smith's determined fight, the Snatch Land Rover scandal, first reported here in 2006, has at last become a national cause celebre.
May I finally thank all those readers who have written to me in 2008 – so many that, as usual, it has not been possible to answer all their messages. But their support and information has been hugely appreciated. May I wish them and all of you a happy (if globally not too warm) New Year.
Here is one of the best articles breaking down man made global warming
By Dr. S. Fred Singer, posted January 7, 2008
Global warming, man made or natural?
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on June 30, 2007, during a seminar entitled "Economics and the Environment," sponsored by the Charles R. and Kathleen K. Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence.
Wild firesIN THE PAST few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that - should it occur - a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.
This is not to say that we don't face a serious problem. But the problem is political. Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate, pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty. This misdirection of resources will adversely affect human health and welfare in industrialized nations, and even more in developing nations. Thus it could well lead to increased social tensions within nations and conflict between them.
If not for this economic and political damage, one might consider the present concern about climate change nothing more than just another environmentalist fad, like the Alar apple scare or the global cooling fears of the 1970s. Given that so much is at stake, however, it is essential that people better understand the issue.
Man-Made Warming?
The most fundamental question is scientific: Is the observed warming of the past 30 years due to natural causes or are human activities a main or even a contributing factor?
At first glance, it is quite plausible that humans could be responsible for warming the climate. After all, the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The CO2 level has been increasing steadily since the beginning of the industrial revolution and is now 35 percent higher than it was 200 years ago. Also, we know from direct measurements that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas" which strongly absorbs infrared (heat) radiation. So the idea that burning fossil fuels causes an enhanced "greenhouse effect" needs to be taken seriously.
But in seeking to understand recent warming, we also have to consider the natural factors that have regularly warmed the climate prior to the industrial revolution and, indeed, prior to any human presence on the earth. After all, the geological record shows a persistent 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling extending back at least one million years.
In identifying the burning of fossil fuels as the chief cause of warming today, many politicians and environmental activists simply appeal to a so-called "scientific consensus." There are two things wrong with this. First, there is no such consensus: An increasing number of climate scientists are raising serious questions about the political rush to judgment on this issue. For example, the widely touted "consensus" of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scientific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC's report. The Associated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report's "Summary for Policymakers."
Likewise, only about a dozen members of the governing board voted on the "consensus statement" on climate change by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Rank and file AMS scientists never had a say, which is why so many of them are now openly rebelling. Estimates of skepticism within the AMS regarding man-made global warming are well over 50 percent.
The second reason not to rely on a "scientific consensus" in these matters is that this is not how science works. After all, scientific advances customarily come from a minority of scientists who challenge the majority view or even just a single person (think of Galileo or Einstein). Science proceeds by the scientific method and draws conclusions based on evidence, not on a show of hands.
But aren't glaciers melting? Isn't sea ice shrinking? Yes, but that's not proof for human-caused warming. Any kind of warming, whether natural or human-caused, will melt ice. To assert that melting glaciers prove human causation is just bad logic.
What about the fact that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at the same time temperatures are rising? That's an interesting correlation; but as every scientist knows, correlation is not causation. During much of the last century the climate was cooling while CO2 levels were rising. And we should note that the climate has not warmed in the past eight years, even though greenhouse gas levels have increased rapidly.
What about the fact - as cited by, among others, those who produced the IPCC report - that every major greenhouse computer model (there are two dozen or so) shows a large temperature increase due to human burning of fossil fuels? Fortunately, there is a scientific way of testing these models to see whether current warming is due to a man-made greenhouse effect. It involves comparing the actual or observed pattern of warming with the warming pattern predicted by or calculated from the models. Essentially, we try to see if the "fingerprints" match "fingerprints" meaning the rates of warming at different latitudes and altitudes.
For instance, theoretically, greenhouse warming in the tropics should register at increasingly high rates as one moves from the surface of the earth up into the atmosphere, peaking at about six miles above the earth's surface. At that point, the level should be greater than at the surface by about a factor of three and quite pronounced, according to all the computer models. In reality, however, there is no increase at all. In fact, the data from balloon-borne radiosondes show the very opposite: a slight decrease in warming over the equator.
The fact that the observed and predicted patterns of warming don't match indicates that the man-made greenhouse contribution to current temperature change is insignificant. This fact emerges from data and graphs collected in the Climate Change Science Program Report 1.1, published by the federal government in April 2006. It is remarkable and puzzling that few have noticed this disparity between observed and predicted patterns of warming and drawn the obvious scientific conclusion.
What explains why greenhouse computer models predict temperature trends that are so much larger than those observed? The answer lies in the proper evaluation of feedback within the models. Remember that in addition to carbon dioxide, the real atmosphere contains water vapor, the most powerful greenhouse gas. Every one of the climate models calculates a significant positive feedback from water vapor - i.e., a feedback that amplifies the warming effect of the CO2 increase by an average factor of two or three. But it is quite possible that the water vapor feedback is negative rather than positive and thereby reduces the effect of increased CO2.
There are several ways this might occur. For example, when increased CO2 produces a warming of the ocean, a higher rate of evaporation might lead to more humidity and cloudiness (provided the atmosphere contains a sufficient number of cloud condensation nuclei). These low clouds reflect incoming solar radiation back into space and thereby cool the earth. Climate researchers have discovered other possible feedbacks and are busy evaluating which ones enhance and which diminish the effect of increasing CO2.
Natural Causes of Warming
A quite different question, but scientifically interesting, has to do with the natural factors influencing climate. This is a big topic about which much has been written. Natural factors include continental drift and mountain-building, changes in the Earth's orbit, volcanic eruptions, and solar variability. Different factors operate on different time scales. But on a time scale important for human experience - a scale of decades, let's say - solar variability may be the most important.
Solar influence can manifest itself in different ways: fluctuations of solar irradiance (total energy), which has been measured in satellites and related to the sunspot cycle; variability of the ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum, which in turn affects the amount of ozone in the stratosphere; and variations in the solar wind that modulate the intensity of cosmic rays (which, upon impact into the earth's atmosphere, produce cloud condensation nuclei, affecting cloudiness and thus climate).
Scientists have been able to trace the impact of the sun on past climate using proxy data (since thermometers are relatively modern). A conventional proxy for temperature is the ratio of the heavy isotope of oxygen, Oxygen-18, to the most common form, Oxygen-16.
A paper published in Nature in 2001 describes the Oxygen-18 data (reflecting temperature) from a stalagmite in a cave in Oman, covering a period of over 3,000 years. It also shows corresponding Carbon-14 data, which are directly related to the intensity of cosmic rays striking the earth's atmosphere. One sees there a remarkably detailed correlation, almost on a year-by-year basis. While such research cannot establish the detailed mechanism of climate change, the causal connection is quite clear: Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate.
Policy Consequences
If this line of reasoning is correct, human-caused increases in the CO2 level are quite insignificant to climate change. Natural causes of climate change, for their part, cannot be controlled by man. They are unstoppable. Several policy consequences would follow from this simple fact:
*
Regulation of CO2 emissions is pointless and even counterproductive, in that no matter what kind of mitigation scheme is used, such regulation is hugely expensive.
*
The development of non-fossil fuel energy sources, like ethanol and hydrogen, might be counterproductive, given that they have to be manufactured, often with the investment of great amounts of ordinary energy. Nor do they offer much reduction in oil imports.
*
Wind power and solar power become less attractive, being uneconomic and requiring huge subsidies.
*
Substituting natural gas for coal in electricity generation makes less sense for the same reasons.
None of this is intended to argue against energy conservation. On the contrary, conserving energy reduces waste, saves money, and lowers energy prices -irrespective of what one may believe about global warming
Science vs. Hysteria
You will note that this has been a rational discussion. We asked the important question of whether there is appreciable man-made warming today. We presented evidence that indicates there is not, thereby suggesting that attempts by governments to control greenhouse-gas emissions are pointless and unwise. Nevertheless, we have state governors calling for CO2 emissions limits on cars; we have city mayors calling for mandatory CO2 controls; we have the Supreme Court declaring CO2 a pollutant that may have to be regulated; we have every industrialized nation (with the exception of the U.S. and Australia) signed on to the Kyoto Protocol; and we have ongoing international demands for even more stringent controls when Kyoto expires in 2012. What's going on here?
To begin, perhaps even some of the advocates of these anti-warming policies are not so serious about them, as seen in a feature of the Kyoto Protocol called the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows a CO2 emitter - i.e., an energy user - to support a fanciful CO2 reduction scheme in developing nations in exchange for the right to keep on emitting CO2 unabated. "Emission trading" among those countries that have ratified Kyoto allows for the sale of certificates of unused emission quotas. In many cases, the initial quota was simply given away by governments to power companies and other entities, which in turn collect a windfall fee from consumers. All of this has become a huge financial racket that could someday make the UN's "Oil for Food" scandal in Iraq seem minor by comparison. Even more fraudulent, these schemes do not reduce total CO2 emissions - not even in theory.
It is also worth noting that tens of thousands of interested persons benefit directly from the global warming scare - at the expense of the ordinary consumer. Environmental organizations globally, such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund, have raked in billions of dollars. Multi-billion-dollar government subsidies for useless mitigation schemes are large and growing. Emission trading programs will soon reach the $100 billion a year level, with large fees paid to brokers and those who operate the scams. In other words, many people have discovered they can benefit from climate scares and have formed an entrenched interest. Of course, there are also many sincere believers in an impending global warming catastrophe, spurred on in their fears by the growing number of one-sided books, movies, and media coverage.
The irony is that a slightly warmer climate with more carbon dioxide is in many ways beneficial rather than damaging. Economic studies have demonstrated that a modest warming and higher CO2 levels will increase GNP and raise standards of living, primarily by improving agriculture and forestry. It's a well-known fact that CO2 is plant food and essential to the growth of crops and trees - and ultimately to the well-being of animals and humans.
You wouldn't know it from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but there are many upsides to global warming: Northern homes could save on heating fuel. Canadian farmers could harvest bumper crops. Greenland may become awash in cod and oil riches. Shippers could count on an Arctic shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific. Forests may expand.
Mongolia could become an economic superpower. This is all speculative, even a little facetious. But still, might there be a silver lining for the frigid regions of Canada and Russia? "It's not that there won't be bad things happening in those countries," economics professor Robert O. Mendelsohn of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies says. "But the idea is that they will get such large gains, especially in agriculture, that they will be bigger than the losses." Mendelsohn has looked at how gross domestic product around the world would be affected under different warming scenarios through 2100. Canada and Russia tend to come out as clear gainers, as does much of northern Europe and Mongolia, largely because of projected increases in agricultural production.
To repeat a point made at the beginning: Climate has been changing cyclically for at least a million years and has shown huge variations over geological time. Human beings have adapted well, and will continue to do so.
* * *
The nations of the world face many difficult problems. Many have societal problems like poverty, disease, lack of sanitation, and shortage of clean water. There are grave security problems arising from global terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Any of these problems are vastly more important than the imaginary problem of man-made global warming. It is a great shame that so many of our resources are being diverted from real problems to this non-problem. Perhaps in ten or 20 years this will become apparent to everyone, particularly if the climate should stop warming (as it has for eight years now) or even begin to cool.
We can only trust that reason will prevail in the face of an onslaught of propaganda like Al Gore's movie and despite the incessant misinformation generated by the media. Today, the imposed costs are still modest, and mostly hidden in taxes and in charges for electricity and motor fuels. If the scaremongers have their way, these costs will become enormous. But I believe that sound science and good sense will prevail in the face of irrational and scientifically baseless climate fears.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, a distinguished research professor at George Mason University, and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. He performed his undergraduate studies at Ohio State University and earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University. He was the founding dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami, the founding director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, and served for five years as vice chairman of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. Dr. Singer has written or edited over a dozen books and monographs, including, most recently, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.
Global warming, man made or natural?
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on June 30, 2007, during a seminar entitled "Economics and the Environment," sponsored by the Charles R. and Kathleen K. Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence.
Wild firesIN THE PAST few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that - should it occur - a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.
This is not to say that we don't face a serious problem. But the problem is political. Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate, pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty. This misdirection of resources will adversely affect human health and welfare in industrialized nations, and even more in developing nations. Thus it could well lead to increased social tensions within nations and conflict between them.
If not for this economic and political damage, one might consider the present concern about climate change nothing more than just another environmentalist fad, like the Alar apple scare or the global cooling fears of the 1970s. Given that so much is at stake, however, it is essential that people better understand the issue.
Man-Made Warming?
The most fundamental question is scientific: Is the observed warming of the past 30 years due to natural causes or are human activities a main or even a contributing factor?
At first glance, it is quite plausible that humans could be responsible for warming the climate. After all, the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The CO2 level has been increasing steadily since the beginning of the industrial revolution and is now 35 percent higher than it was 200 years ago. Also, we know from direct measurements that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas" which strongly absorbs infrared (heat) radiation. So the idea that burning fossil fuels causes an enhanced "greenhouse effect" needs to be taken seriously.
But in seeking to understand recent warming, we also have to consider the natural factors that have regularly warmed the climate prior to the industrial revolution and, indeed, prior to any human presence on the earth. After all, the geological record shows a persistent 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling extending back at least one million years.
In identifying the burning of fossil fuels as the chief cause of warming today, many politicians and environmental activists simply appeal to a so-called "scientific consensus." There are two things wrong with this. First, there is no such consensus: An increasing number of climate scientists are raising serious questions about the political rush to judgment on this issue. For example, the widely touted "consensus" of 2,500 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an illusion: Most of the panelists have no scientific qualifications, and many of the others object to some part of the IPCC's report. The Associated Press reported recently that only 52 climate scientists contributed to the report's "Summary for Policymakers."
Likewise, only about a dozen members of the governing board voted on the "consensus statement" on climate change by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Rank and file AMS scientists never had a say, which is why so many of them are now openly rebelling. Estimates of skepticism within the AMS regarding man-made global warming are well over 50 percent.
The second reason not to rely on a "scientific consensus" in these matters is that this is not how science works. After all, scientific advances customarily come from a minority of scientists who challenge the majority view or even just a single person (think of Galileo or Einstein). Science proceeds by the scientific method and draws conclusions based on evidence, not on a show of hands.
But aren't glaciers melting? Isn't sea ice shrinking? Yes, but that's not proof for human-caused warming. Any kind of warming, whether natural or human-caused, will melt ice. To assert that melting glaciers prove human causation is just bad logic.
What about the fact that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at the same time temperatures are rising? That's an interesting correlation; but as every scientist knows, correlation is not causation. During much of the last century the climate was cooling while CO2 levels were rising. And we should note that the climate has not warmed in the past eight years, even though greenhouse gas levels have increased rapidly.
What about the fact - as cited by, among others, those who produced the IPCC report - that every major greenhouse computer model (there are two dozen or so) shows a large temperature increase due to human burning of fossil fuels? Fortunately, there is a scientific way of testing these models to see whether current warming is due to a man-made greenhouse effect. It involves comparing the actual or observed pattern of warming with the warming pattern predicted by or calculated from the models. Essentially, we try to see if the "fingerprints" match "fingerprints" meaning the rates of warming at different latitudes and altitudes.
For instance, theoretically, greenhouse warming in the tropics should register at increasingly high rates as one moves from the surface of the earth up into the atmosphere, peaking at about six miles above the earth's surface. At that point, the level should be greater than at the surface by about a factor of three and quite pronounced, according to all the computer models. In reality, however, there is no increase at all. In fact, the data from balloon-borne radiosondes show the very opposite: a slight decrease in warming over the equator.
The fact that the observed and predicted patterns of warming don't match indicates that the man-made greenhouse contribution to current temperature change is insignificant. This fact emerges from data and graphs collected in the Climate Change Science Program Report 1.1, published by the federal government in April 2006. It is remarkable and puzzling that few have noticed this disparity between observed and predicted patterns of warming and drawn the obvious scientific conclusion.
What explains why greenhouse computer models predict temperature trends that are so much larger than those observed? The answer lies in the proper evaluation of feedback within the models. Remember that in addition to carbon dioxide, the real atmosphere contains water vapor, the most powerful greenhouse gas. Every one of the climate models calculates a significant positive feedback from water vapor - i.e., a feedback that amplifies the warming effect of the CO2 increase by an average factor of two or three. But it is quite possible that the water vapor feedback is negative rather than positive and thereby reduces the effect of increased CO2.
There are several ways this might occur. For example, when increased CO2 produces a warming of the ocean, a higher rate of evaporation might lead to more humidity and cloudiness (provided the atmosphere contains a sufficient number of cloud condensation nuclei). These low clouds reflect incoming solar radiation back into space and thereby cool the earth. Climate researchers have discovered other possible feedbacks and are busy evaluating which ones enhance and which diminish the effect of increasing CO2.
Natural Causes of Warming
A quite different question, but scientifically interesting, has to do with the natural factors influencing climate. This is a big topic about which much has been written. Natural factors include continental drift and mountain-building, changes in the Earth's orbit, volcanic eruptions, and solar variability. Different factors operate on different time scales. But on a time scale important for human experience - a scale of decades, let's say - solar variability may be the most important.
Solar influence can manifest itself in different ways: fluctuations of solar irradiance (total energy), which has been measured in satellites and related to the sunspot cycle; variability of the ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum, which in turn affects the amount of ozone in the stratosphere; and variations in the solar wind that modulate the intensity of cosmic rays (which, upon impact into the earth's atmosphere, produce cloud condensation nuclei, affecting cloudiness and thus climate).
Scientists have been able to trace the impact of the sun on past climate using proxy data (since thermometers are relatively modern). A conventional proxy for temperature is the ratio of the heavy isotope of oxygen, Oxygen-18, to the most common form, Oxygen-16.
A paper published in Nature in 2001 describes the Oxygen-18 data (reflecting temperature) from a stalagmite in a cave in Oman, covering a period of over 3,000 years. It also shows corresponding Carbon-14 data, which are directly related to the intensity of cosmic rays striking the earth's atmosphere. One sees there a remarkably detailed correlation, almost on a year-by-year basis. While such research cannot establish the detailed mechanism of climate change, the causal connection is quite clear: Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate.
Policy Consequences
If this line of reasoning is correct, human-caused increases in the CO2 level are quite insignificant to climate change. Natural causes of climate change, for their part, cannot be controlled by man. They are unstoppable. Several policy consequences would follow from this simple fact:
*
Regulation of CO2 emissions is pointless and even counterproductive, in that no matter what kind of mitigation scheme is used, such regulation is hugely expensive.
*
The development of non-fossil fuel energy sources, like ethanol and hydrogen, might be counterproductive, given that they have to be manufactured, often with the investment of great amounts of ordinary energy. Nor do they offer much reduction in oil imports.
*
Wind power and solar power become less attractive, being uneconomic and requiring huge subsidies.
*
Substituting natural gas for coal in electricity generation makes less sense for the same reasons.
None of this is intended to argue against energy conservation. On the contrary, conserving energy reduces waste, saves money, and lowers energy prices -irrespective of what one may believe about global warming
Science vs. Hysteria
You will note that this has been a rational discussion. We asked the important question of whether there is appreciable man-made warming today. We presented evidence that indicates there is not, thereby suggesting that attempts by governments to control greenhouse-gas emissions are pointless and unwise. Nevertheless, we have state governors calling for CO2 emissions limits on cars; we have city mayors calling for mandatory CO2 controls; we have the Supreme Court declaring CO2 a pollutant that may have to be regulated; we have every industrialized nation (with the exception of the U.S. and Australia) signed on to the Kyoto Protocol; and we have ongoing international demands for even more stringent controls when Kyoto expires in 2012. What's going on here?
To begin, perhaps even some of the advocates of these anti-warming policies are not so serious about them, as seen in a feature of the Kyoto Protocol called the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows a CO2 emitter - i.e., an energy user - to support a fanciful CO2 reduction scheme in developing nations in exchange for the right to keep on emitting CO2 unabated. "Emission trading" among those countries that have ratified Kyoto allows for the sale of certificates of unused emission quotas. In many cases, the initial quota was simply given away by governments to power companies and other entities, which in turn collect a windfall fee from consumers. All of this has become a huge financial racket that could someday make the UN's "Oil for Food" scandal in Iraq seem minor by comparison. Even more fraudulent, these schemes do not reduce total CO2 emissions - not even in theory.
It is also worth noting that tens of thousands of interested persons benefit directly from the global warming scare - at the expense of the ordinary consumer. Environmental organizations globally, such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund, have raked in billions of dollars. Multi-billion-dollar government subsidies for useless mitigation schemes are large and growing. Emission trading programs will soon reach the $100 billion a year level, with large fees paid to brokers and those who operate the scams. In other words, many people have discovered they can benefit from climate scares and have formed an entrenched interest. Of course, there are also many sincere believers in an impending global warming catastrophe, spurred on in their fears by the growing number of one-sided books, movies, and media coverage.
The irony is that a slightly warmer climate with more carbon dioxide is in many ways beneficial rather than damaging. Economic studies have demonstrated that a modest warming and higher CO2 levels will increase GNP and raise standards of living, primarily by improving agriculture and forestry. It's a well-known fact that CO2 is plant food and essential to the growth of crops and trees - and ultimately to the well-being of animals and humans.
You wouldn't know it from Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but there are many upsides to global warming: Northern homes could save on heating fuel. Canadian farmers could harvest bumper crops. Greenland may become awash in cod and oil riches. Shippers could count on an Arctic shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific. Forests may expand.
Mongolia could become an economic superpower. This is all speculative, even a little facetious. But still, might there be a silver lining for the frigid regions of Canada and Russia? "It's not that there won't be bad things happening in those countries," economics professor Robert O. Mendelsohn of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies says. "But the idea is that they will get such large gains, especially in agriculture, that they will be bigger than the losses." Mendelsohn has looked at how gross domestic product around the world would be affected under different warming scenarios through 2100. Canada and Russia tend to come out as clear gainers, as does much of northern Europe and Mongolia, largely because of projected increases in agricultural production.
To repeat a point made at the beginning: Climate has been changing cyclically for at least a million years and has shown huge variations over geological time. Human beings have adapted well, and will continue to do so.
* * *
The nations of the world face many difficult problems. Many have societal problems like poverty, disease, lack of sanitation, and shortage of clean water. There are grave security problems arising from global terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Any of these problems are vastly more important than the imaginary problem of man-made global warming. It is a great shame that so many of our resources are being diverted from real problems to this non-problem. Perhaps in ten or 20 years this will become apparent to everyone, particularly if the climate should stop warming (as it has for eight years now) or even begin to cool.
We can only trust that reason will prevail in the face of an onslaught of propaganda like Al Gore's movie and despite the incessant misinformation generated by the media. Today, the imposed costs are still modest, and mostly hidden in taxes and in charges for electricity and motor fuels. If the scaremongers have their way, these costs will become enormous. But I believe that sound science and good sense will prevail in the face of irrational and scientifically baseless climate fears.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, a distinguished research professor at George Mason University, and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project. He performed his undergraduate studies at Ohio State University and earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University. He was the founding dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami, the founding director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service, and served for five years as vice chairman of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. Dr. Singer has written or edited over a dozen books and monographs, including, most recently, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Great article from Star Parker at World Net Daily
Fast-tracking the nanny state
Posted: June 13, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
President Obama wants health care reform this year.
He said at a town hall meeting the other day that he won't tolerate "endless delay" and that we probably won't reform health care if we don't do it this year.
Now why is that, Mr. President? Will the U.S. Congress be on vacation for the remaining three years of your term?
Consider that it's not unusual to take a full session of Congress – two years – to pass legislation a fraction of the size and consequence of health care reform. Yet our president is demanding that a bill to overhaul a $2.5 trillion sector of our economy – one sixth of it – be considered and passed in a few short weeks.
It ought to be clear that this is not about taking an honest and sincere look at how to make this a better country and how to do a better job at delivering health care to Americans. It's impossible to look at something this massive and deal with it in such a short time frame.
Milton Friedman's classic "Capitalism and Freedom" explains how individual liberty can only thrive when accompanied by economic liberty
This is about raw politics. When Mr. Obama says that if we don't get "it" done this year we probably won't get "it" done, he doesn't mean reforming health care. He means reforming it the way he and Ted Kennedy want to do it. Government run, nanny state health care.
To pull it off, they have to move fast.
First, the White House knows that Mr. Obama's honeymoon won't last forever. While his personal approval ratings remain high at 60 percent, his disapproval rating now at 33 percent is almost twice where it stood last February. And, in latest Gallup polling, the majority now disapprove of how Obama is handling government spending. So the White House wants action now on health care while their man is still popular.
Second, the White House knows that next year is an election year. It will be far more difficult to get senators and congressmen to play ball.
Third, they know that the big reason Hillary Care failed in 1993 was that the American people were given an opportunity to look at it and consider it. They don't want to make the same mistake of giving voters a chance to actually understand what is about to happen to them. They know that the more Americans have an opportunity to take a look at the bureaucrat run, nanny state health care freight train, the more likely they will jump of the track.
Breathlessness is a great political technique – telling voters that the world will end if we don't get X passed now.
This is how the $800 billion dollar "stimulus" bill got passed earlier this year. We were flashed images of the Great Depression of the 1930s and told our only hope is the stimulus bill.
Now, three months later, it's clear that our current economy bears no resemblance to the 1930s, that signs of recovery are emerging, and thus far only 6 percent of the $800 billion "stimulus" pot of political lard has been spent.
The trillions in new debt have been piled up at such a dizzying pace in the last few months Americans are numb. The federal government take from our economy has jumped from one-fifth of it to one-fourth.
Now, Mr. Obama and his Democrat colleagues want to layer on a new government health care plan to "compete" with private plans. "Compete" means raising taxes a few trillion dollars to provide subsidized insurance
and, in some cases, free insurance, through a government plan in which all Americans will eventually wind up, and putting federal bureaucrats in charge of approving what health care procedures we are permitted.
The health care nanny state freight train is moving. Will we wake up before it's too late?
Posted: June 13, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
President Obama wants health care reform this year.
He said at a town hall meeting the other day that he won't tolerate "endless delay" and that we probably won't reform health care if we don't do it this year.
Now why is that, Mr. President? Will the U.S. Congress be on vacation for the remaining three years of your term?
Consider that it's not unusual to take a full session of Congress – two years – to pass legislation a fraction of the size and consequence of health care reform. Yet our president is demanding that a bill to overhaul a $2.5 trillion sector of our economy – one sixth of it – be considered and passed in a few short weeks.
It ought to be clear that this is not about taking an honest and sincere look at how to make this a better country and how to do a better job at delivering health care to Americans. It's impossible to look at something this massive and deal with it in such a short time frame.
Milton Friedman's classic "Capitalism and Freedom" explains how individual liberty can only thrive when accompanied by economic liberty
This is about raw politics. When Mr. Obama says that if we don't get "it" done this year we probably won't get "it" done, he doesn't mean reforming health care. He means reforming it the way he and Ted Kennedy want to do it. Government run, nanny state health care.
To pull it off, they have to move fast.
First, the White House knows that Mr. Obama's honeymoon won't last forever. While his personal approval ratings remain high at 60 percent, his disapproval rating now at 33 percent is almost twice where it stood last February. And, in latest Gallup polling, the majority now disapprove of how Obama is handling government spending. So the White House wants action now on health care while their man is still popular.
Second, the White House knows that next year is an election year. It will be far more difficult to get senators and congressmen to play ball.
Third, they know that the big reason Hillary Care failed in 1993 was that the American people were given an opportunity to look at it and consider it. They don't want to make the same mistake of giving voters a chance to actually understand what is about to happen to them. They know that the more Americans have an opportunity to take a look at the bureaucrat run, nanny state health care freight train, the more likely they will jump of the track.
Breathlessness is a great political technique – telling voters that the world will end if we don't get X passed now.
This is how the $800 billion dollar "stimulus" bill got passed earlier this year. We were flashed images of the Great Depression of the 1930s and told our only hope is the stimulus bill.
Now, three months later, it's clear that our current economy bears no resemblance to the 1930s, that signs of recovery are emerging, and thus far only 6 percent of the $800 billion "stimulus" pot of political lard has been spent.
The trillions in new debt have been piled up at such a dizzying pace in the last few months Americans are numb. The federal government take from our economy has jumped from one-fifth of it to one-fourth.
Now, Mr. Obama and his Democrat colleagues want to layer on a new government health care plan to "compete" with private plans. "Compete" means raising taxes a few trillion dollars to provide subsidized insurance
and, in some cases, free insurance, through a government plan in which all Americans will eventually wind up, and putting federal bureaucrats in charge of approving what health care procedures we are permitted.
The health care nanny state freight train is moving. Will we wake up before it's too late?
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