Super Bowl History/Prediction

Most of you know I am a lifelong Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan. As we approach another chapter in the long history that is the Super Bowl, I have one piece of trivia I’d like you all to remember. No team who has lost to the Bucs in the regular season has ever won the Super Bowl. A couple of notable instances: in 1998, the Vikings went 15-1 in the regular season. The 1 was the Bucs – the Vikings lost in the NFC Championship. Then in 2001, the Rams went 14-2, losing to the Bucs and Saints. They would lose the Super Bowl on a last minute drive by the Patriots. On Dec. 27, the Bucs beat the Saints, 20-17. Take the Colts!! But if losing to the Bucs is a curse, losing Tony Dungy is a blessing. Every team who lost Tony Dungy as a head coach has gone on to win the Super Bowl the next year. Ok, so it only happened once, in 2002 Jon Gruden took over the Dungy-less Bucs and led them to a victory in SB XXXVII. I’m still counting it! Go Colts!!

Sympathy for the Liberal – Part II

This is a great time for our country. We are rediscovering who we are and what we stand for! Last September, after the death of Ted Kennedy, I had a little pity party for the liberal leftists in this country. In a blog titled “Sympathy for the Liberal,” I pointed out how despite the almost universal support from the media and overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, it seemed the President’s agenda was floundering. Well, if the wheels were coming off in September, the bus has crashed into the side of a mountain here in February.

Let’s take a look back at the last few months of the President’s attempts to get things done. In October, he went to Copenhagen to lend his personal charisma to his adopted hometown’s bid to win the Olympics. Not only didn’t Chicago win the Olympics, they were the first city eliminated! In November, he campaigned for Democrat Creigh Deeds and Democrat Jon Corzine (an incumbent) for Governors of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively. Both states are traditionally Democrat run and went big for Obama in the election last year. But in both cases, even the endorsement of the most powerful liberal in the country couldn’t sweep them into office. They both lost.

Then in December, President Obama went back to Copenhagen to encourage the world to come to some agreement on the restriction of greenhouse gasses. At a time when the entire global warming movement is being exposed as a fraud, the President decided to step up to the plate and lend the force of his office to the issue. The Climate Conference ended with what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a weak agreement.

But the fatal blow came in January. The reason I wrote the first blog was in response to the death of Ted Kennedy. It was believed at the time that his death would help spur health care reform negotiations in the Senate. His seat was filled by an appointment from the Massachusetts governor (a Democrat) but there would still need to be a special election to fill his seat permanently. Over the months, the Senate did finally pass a bill with the help of not a single Republican. And now the election of Ted Kennedy’s replacement has turned into a de facto referendum on health care reform. If by some miracle, a Republican were to win Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, it would mean the super-majority in the Senate would be gone and it would be even harder to get health care reform passed.

During the campaign between Martha Coakley, the Democrat, and Scott Brown, the Republican, the race was often referred to as the fight for Ted Kennedy’s seat. During a debate, Mr. Brown reminded everyone that this was not Ted Kennedy’s seat, it was the people’s seat! I believe this was the “You’re no JFK” moment of the campaign. The polls started to turn the next day and never looked back. On the last weekend of the campaign, with the bottom having already fallen out in favor of Brown, the President decided to make one last ditch effort to save the seat. Remember, this is a state which has been the most liberal for decades. Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1. Despite the President’s fervent pleas, Brown won by five points. Brown made it clear that if he was elected he would vote “no” on the current health care legislation being considered. The people listened and the people took their seat!!!

As far as I’m concerned, this marks the end of the Obama administration. We’ll still have to put up with his bloviating, his incompetence and his condescension for the next three years, but any hope he had of getting anything passed is over. Not just because of one seat, but because it marks the turning of the political tide. Those who were on board for his agenda until now have begun to have serious second thoughts. Many in his party have decided simply not to run for re-election. They know they have little hope of surviving the people’s scrutiny given their acquiescence to Obama’s agenda. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada is losing to all of his potential opponents in the fall election, some by as much as 11 points!

And since this string of absolute debacles for the President, he has not changed his agenda one iota. In his State of the Union speech, he doubled down (as they say in the gambling trade). He just released a new budget proposal which has more increased spending at a time when tax revenues are drying up due to continued unemployment. Somethings gotta give. At least for now, we still have the power to change Congress which is starting to listen to the people. We can make government work for us instead of the other way around. Yes we can! Yes we can!!

Year in Review – 2009

Last year, as we approached the inauguration, I made a series of predictions in a blog called Closing one book, opening a new one. Feel free to read it first if you like. With just a touch of hubris, let’s look back and see how I did:

1) If it is a success, it will be because Obama made it happen! (see Iraq, bailout, war on terror)

2) If it all goes to hell, it will be Bush’s fault (see Iraq, bailout, war on terror)

These are obviously tied together. I’m calling both of these correct. We have certainly seen both of these in the past year. Granted, they were a little bit vague and general, and something most politicians do, but hey, what did you pay to get in here?!? So far, 2 for 2!

3) Obama will place an executive order banning offshore drilling (a requisite rise in oil prices will ensue, which will be Bush’s fault)

4) Congress, taking their lead from Obama, will also renew the ban on offshore drilling (a further rise in oil prices will ensue, which will also be Bush’s fault)

Again, these are clearly tied together. Congress in fact did not renew the offshore drilling ban. That one is clearly wrong. The other one is a little fuzzy. Obama did not use an executive order to ban drilling, but they have used other governmental forces to block drilling. This article from the Washington Times, details the Obama administration’s efforts to stop drilling plans left over from the Bush administration. The article was written the second week of February in ‘09. That week, oil hit is lowest price per barrel for the year. This chart shows the dramatic rise in oil prices beginning that very week!!! I’m calling this one correct. That makes me 3 for 4!

5) We hear the name Blagojevich for at least the next two years.

6) We don’t hear the name Biden until his son runs for Senate in 2010.

Again, I’ll take these together. In the past year, the name Blagojevich has been everywhere (except the courtroom!) The former Illinois Governor’s wife was even on a reality TV show (the court prevented Rod from doing it himself). Rod will be on The Celebrity Apprentice this year. Since the prediction is only half over, I’m not sure it’s fair to call it correct yet, but it’s my blog so yes it’s correct! In contrast, Joe Biden is the second most powerful man in the country. He hasn’t been on any reality shows but he has been in the news quite a bit. His son is not going to run for the Senate seat after all so I guess I have to call this one wrong. So now I’m 4 for 6. Next. . .

7) Obama will get his economic stimulus package through Congress featuring billions in tax “cuts” which don’t actually cut anyone’s taxes. (You can’t cut taxes for someone who doesn’t pay taxes)

He did get the stimulus package passed – it didn’t cut any taxes. It did include a reduction in the amount of tax taken out of your paycheck, but most of us will still have to pay it at the end of the year. This is dead on! 5 for 7!

8) Obama has made it clear that he favors a playoff system for the NCAA Football Championship. After many hours working with NCAA officials and network TV execs, and millions of taxpayer dollars spent, a much more complicated and less effective system of crowning a champion will be established, or. . .nothing will change.

9) Either way, the Gators will still win the National Championship!!!

Obama had a busy year so obviously this pesky football thing slipped through the cracks. No attempt was made to change the BCS. As for #9. . .well, in the immortal words of Don Adams, “Missed it by that much!” Despite playing out the regular season undefeated, they lost in the SEC Championship to the eventual National Champions, the Alabama Crimson Tide. (Congratulations by the way!) Both of these are clearly wrong. 5 for 9.

10) And the number 10 prediction for Obama’s Presidency is (drum roll please. . .wait. . .I did this backwards. . .ah screw it!) Middle East Tension!!!!

Well duh! That was a gimme. There hasn’t been a year without middle east tension since Jesus walked the earth. (Maybe they’re inexorably linked!) So 6 for 10, that’s better than half and I’ll take it. What are my predictions for this year? I’ll keep it simple – more unemployment, Republicans take over the House and Senate, more tea parties, and yes:

More Middle East Tension!!!

See you next year!

Editor’s Note: The day after I wrote this, it was reported that the President indeed does intend to investigate the NCAA for anti-trust violations due to their BCS Championship. Although the outcome is clearly not decided yet, if it turns out like everything else the President has done, I’m a shew-in! I’m changing the count to a slightly more respectable 7-10!

Introducing Your “Death Panel”

I haven’t had a chance to write about this since it happened but I wanted to put it down in cyberspace. I am a frequent user of Facebook. One night back in November, while perusing the various scribblings of my friends, I found one very outraged one. She is an old friend from high school who works in the medical field. She was very upset that the US Preventive Services Task Force had reversed itself and advised women under 50 NOT to get routine mammograms. This flew in the face of recommendations from the American Cancer Society and others for women 40 and over to have routine mammograms. Many lives have been saved by this procedure over the years.

She had posted some links to this Task Force and wondered if the insurance companies were behind this. This is not surprising since we have had our fill of the insurance companies being demonized over the last several months. I checked out her links and boldly posted that this was the opening salvo in the new health care reform. As I began to read more about this panel and their recommendation, it became clear to me what the agenda was. Not only were they recommending women not get mammograms until they are 50, they were also recommending women not self-exam! What could be the harm in a simple, life-saving self exam? Since I was familiar with the health care debate and what many of us expect from a socialized medical plan, the end game was obvious to me. The only reason to tell a woman not to self exam is to keep her out of the doctor’s office, tying up needed staff to treat the overwhelming number of new people now in the system.

I looked harder at the background of the members of the task force. All of these members are professors or deans – members of academe; not practicing doctors! So we know they are very liberal based on their academic background. Not only that, but most are from states who voted for Obama (ok, there are a lot of those anyway!). Given the liberal slant of these people and the obvious goal in their current recommendation, I felt very secure in posting to my friend, “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce your new death panel!”

I got a lot of heat from my friend and from some of her friends who said I was politicizing this. My point was that I was not the one who was politicizing it. Our President has already done that! It wasn’t until later that I found out that the bill which had already passed in the House has named the US Preventive Services Task Force as the sole authority on what will and won’t be covered under the new federal health plan! (So even when I don’t know it, I’m right! LOL) Death panel anyone?

Since the outrage from both the medical community and private individuals, the Task Force is reconsidering their recommendation. That’s nice of them. Just wait until the new federal health care system is in place and these kind of reversals have dramatic consequences on coverage. They will not be so quick to change their mind!

The New Prohibition

I love salt. I have always loved salt. My son reminds me sometimes that salt is not a side dish. I don’t listen. I consume vast quantities of salt far above the national average. I am over 100 pounds overweight (but shrinking) and by most estimates, at high risk for high blood pressure and heart disease due to my overconsumption of salt. If you have spent anytime with me at all in the last year, you have probably heard me brag about my medical check up last year. No?!? Let me tell you about it. Cholesterol – 187! Blood pressure – 120 over 75! Sodium, triglycerides, etc. – normal, normal normal! I have to tell you that as the doctor is telling me this, I just started laughing. I told her, “you know, this is just going to validate all my bad behaviors!”

I say all that to say this: we are all different. What’s good for me is not necessarily good for you and vice versa. We each have to take responsibility for our own health and the behaviors that effect it. It’s called personal responsibility. But in the city of New York and increasingly around the country, we no longer have a choice about what we can eat and drink, or smoke. The latest attack on personal freedoms is a proposal from Mayor Bloomberg (is he still in office?). Things are going so well in NYC that the Mayor has time to worry about what we are all eating. It wasn’t enough that he has banned trans fats and required all restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus. Now he wants food preparers to reduce salt in their foods by 25% by 2014.

While I am flattered by the good Mayor’s concern for my health, I clearly don’t need it. This is just the latest attempt to govern personal behavior for the greater good. And if you think it is going to stop at NYC, guess again. If the new health care system gets passed, we can expect this kind of thing on a regular basis from the government. We have already seen the argument being made during the 90’s and the demonization of smokers. I am not a smoker (well, the occasional cigar) and never have been. When restaurants started to ban smoking, I voted against it because I could see the end game. If they can ban a completely legal substance to be used in a public place, what’s next? But people bought into the public health argument and we now have an almost universal ban on smoking in public. It’s the new prohibition. Only this time, they are not banning the substance, they are regulating the use of it.

Once the new health care system is in place, every activity will have an effect on the public health care system so it will not be long before McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. will be required to have their foods meet certain requirements. Which means the food will be much healthier and totally suck! It is our right to eat junk food and if we are responsible for our own health care, then we are only hurting ourselves. But if we are part of the collective, we are hurting the greater good. Don’t let them get a foothold on your health care or a bite out of your Big Mac!

Ah yes, I remember it well!

The aftermath and fallout of the global warming hoax has started in earnest now. This is a story which I think has yet to finally sink in. As we all start to come to grips with the idea of being duped so completely for more than half our lives, it’s difficult to think we could have been so gullible. Sometimes the truth is hard to accept. After all, as I mentioned in my last blog, what we did, we did from a sense of obligation to the planet. Since we all want to be good stewards of God’s great gifts, we fell hook, line, and sinker for a ruse that was designed to make us change our lifestyles and feed the government coffers.

I have been tracking the demise of the global warming movement in this blog for almost a year now. Last year, I linked to an article from the UK Telegraph proclaiming 2008 as the year the climate hoax was disproved. While that may have been true in the UK, and despite overwhelming evidence now from the disclosed emails, people in the states are still reticent to accept the full weight of the deceit. Exhibit A, Ed Begley, Jr.:

For the record, I love Ed Begley as an actor. I have watched his show, “Living with Ed,” which shows his lifestyle of “living green.” One of my favorite moments on that show was when his wife realized she had been putting plastic bottles in the recycle bin with the caps still on. If you have a recycle bin, you know that you are supposed to take the caps off. When she realized her mistake, she asked what they do with bottles that have the cap on them. (I’m sure she envisioned a well-paid government employee spending their day uncapping bottles to save the planet.) When she was told they simply throw them away with the rest of the trash, you could see the blood drain from her face! Her mouth fell open, she was apoplectic! “17 years! 17 years I’ve been recylcing and they’ve been putting them in the trash?!?” LOL I can’t stop laughing over that one! Anyway, Ed Begley is one of these people who is “all in” on the global warming issue. So it’s no surprise that he isn’t willing to give in so easily to the obvious flaws in his arguments. When he says “peer-review journals are the key,” he ignores the hundreds of emails released pointing out how they intended to change the nature of peer review to hide their deceit. The global warming scientists haven’t released any of their original data sets so no one can possibly reproduce their scientific work.

But the wake of the fallout from this has started to ripple. Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the email scandal, has agreed to step down as head of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit. Is this an admission of guilt? I think so. What do you think? Why wouldn’t he stay and fight if these have been fabricated in some way. At the very least, it means the emails are real. If he wants to argue that “hide” and “trick” are words that have a different meaning in the scientific world, I’d like to hear him make that case. But he couldn’t leave without dropping one more bombshell. According to Mr. Jones, ALL OF THE ORIGINAL DATA HAS BEEN DESTROYED!!! So no one can ever reproduce their scientific work! There can no longer be any question about the level of deceit here. So when Mr. Begley points to peer review, there can not possibly any form of peer review, now or ever! The idea of this being settled science has been smashed to smithereens!

Here’s what we know for sure:

The earth hasn’t been warming for about the last ten years.

The polar bear population is at an all-time high.

The ice caps are growing back.

The head of the IPCC isn’t a climatologist, he’s an engineer.

Wait! What was that last one?!? The head of the largest scientific body in the world isn’t a scientist?!? This is the major source of climate science for the last thirty years and the guy who’s in charge of diseminating this information has no idea if it’s true or not? Perhaps we have found the source of the problem!

Yes, the signs have been there all these years. If you wanted to look you could see that this has been a political movement from the start and not an environmental one. So with all due respect to Mr. Begley, Mr. Gore, and any others whose pocket book will be completely depleted by the demise of this movement. . . .IT’S OVER!

Fortunately, the news is starting to creep in to the mainstream. Even John Stewart on “The Daily Show” did a report on it. This is good news since most of America gets their news from John Stewart and Weekend Update on SNL. (sadly) Although he still hasn’t completely accepted that the idea that global warming was a hoax (I told you it would be hard), he does come pretty close:

Check it out here.

For me the line of this entire affair is, “Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented! Oh the irony!” LOL I’ll remember that one for a long time!

I have to say that I find it so humorous now to see commercials on television pitching “green” features. Imagine twenty years from now talking to our grand-kids and trying to tell them how we all fell for such an outlandish proposition. Hopefully, by then, we can all laugh about it without throwing up in our mouth. . .just a little bit.

Can I recycle the last thrity years of my life?

In my last post, I detailed the apparent fraud which has been exposed by the release of some material from the East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit in Britain. For some of you, this may come as startling news, since virtually none of the old guard media have made much of this story. I guess you can file this in the same file with Van Jones and ACORN. But if the global warming hoax is officially over, it’s time to take count of all the changes we’ve made and how that might affect the rest of our lives.

I was more than a little chagrined when I started to realize all the things we have done in the name of protecting the environment over the last thirty years. For example, I have always resisted the idea of recycling. Oh, sure, I’d drop some aluminum cans in a recycling bin if it was handy, but to actually go out of my way to store refuse until I could haul it to a recycling center, out of the question. Until I moved up north. In the town I live in, we are all issued a recycling bin with very specific instructions on what should go in it and what should not. Here’s the kicker – it is actually illegal for me not to recycle. That’s right, government has decided that it is for the greater good to prosecute those who refuse to recycle in order to protect the planet. So far, the trash Nazis haven’t checked my trash – yet!

And it’s not like there is some more economical reason for cities to mandate recycling. In fact, I’ve read recently that California’s recycling program is in shambles and nearly bankrupt. California is a state that has completely sold out to the environmental hoax and look where they are. They are almost completely bankrupt, they can’t pr0duce enough energy to serve their citizens, and they keep raising taxes to cover their budget shortfalls. It’s time for California to take the restrictions off of businesses, let people live their lives and make the economy for California flourish.

Another aspect of the environmental movement has been to ban a series of chemicals because they are supposedly causing global warming or harmful to the environment. For me though, one of the most appalling things that has happened is the ban on the incandescent light bulb. The light bulb is the quintessential American invention. It helped define us and establish us as a force for industry in the world. Now we are turning our back on the light bulb in favor of a far more hazardous alternative: the compact fluorescent light bulb. This, as you may know, is far more hazardous since it contains mercury. If you break it or it burns out, you must take it to your local hazardous materials dump. You can’t simply throw them away. To me, it is an insult that we would make it illegal to sell incandescent bulbs when they are far safer than the alternative.

Perhaps this is why I have always had a problem with the so-called environmental movement. At it’s heart, I have always believed it was anti-technology and anti-freedom. That is to say, someone who thinks all our consumption is obscene wouldn’t get you to stop consuming without guilting you into it. So we end up with more dangerous light bulbs, cars we don’t want to drive, and environmentally-friendly chemicals which don’t do what they’re supposed to.

The demise of the global warming movement comes at an interesting time. Next month, the United Nations is having a huge climate change convention in Copenhagen to discuss new strategies governments around the world (this means you, United States) can take to combat catastrophic climate change. Can anyone say. . .”Never mind!” No! In fact, it wasn’t until the release of these documents that the President confirmed he would make an appearance at the convention. It’s handy since he’s going to Oslo to collect his Nobel Peace Prize and Copenhagen is in the neighborhood. . .I guess. No doubt, President Obama and many of the other dignitaries will do their best to resuscitate the environmental movement, but the people of the world aren’t stupid. They may compassionate to a fault, but they are not stupid.

So what does it all mean, where do we go from here? Obviously, with so much money tied to the environmental movement, there will be a continued attempt to keep the gravy train rolling. They may call it something else, but the bottom line is that they will continue to tell you that you must do this or that or the planet will die. Remember the lies they have been telling you for the last thirty years. Remember how you felt when you realized you had been duped all these years (if you have). Don’t feel bad, it isn’t your fault. You only wanted to help save the planet. You did what you thought was right. It’s never time to trash the planet or disrespect our environment, but it is time to reject a political movement whose goal is to get you to live a smaller life than what you are capable of. Elect people who reject the constraints of the “environmental” movement and help get America back on its feet at the same time!

Maybe I should’ve deleted ALL the emails!

I really thought this period of time would always be remembered as some of the most dismal days in American history. Make no mistake, these are dark days. Unemployment is nearing an all-time high and there is no end in sight. Our President cannot make a decision whether he wants to win the war on terror or what he wants to call it. Debt is running out of control and the Congress is about to pass new health care legislation that the American people have said loudly they don’t want and don’t need.

But as dark and ominous as all of those things are (and I just scratched the surface), I am sure I will remember this year as the time when the global warming hoax was finally revealed. For the last year, I have been detailing the rapid decline of the believability of the global warming/climate change proponents. (If you type “global warming” in the search box, you can read the others.) But the latest shot across the bow is probably the fatal one. In case you haven’t heard, someone (we don’t know for sure who. Maybe a hacker, maybe a whistle-blower on the inside) uploaded a package of files detailing the subterfuge exercised by the scientists involved in the hoax. These files, including over a thousand emails and several thousand other documents, originated at the Climate Research Unit of the East Anglia University in Britain (CRU). This lab has been at the forefront of the global warming hoax, working closely with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In fact, most of the emails refer to “AR4″ which is the IPCC’s shorthand for their Fourth Assessment Report. The IPCC has been the major panel which has been pushing the idea of man-made global warming for decades now.

So now you know the “who” of these documents, here’s the “what.” I have read some of the media’s examples, but I have decided to use some of my own. I have by no means read ALL of the documents in the folder labeled “FOI2009.” But I have read enough that the tone is clear to me. For example, in one email, Phil Jones, the director of the CRU, writes to Michael Mann, an American climatologist who also does a sizable amount of work for the IPCC. He says:

Mike,
This is for YOURS EYES ONLY. Delete after reading – please !  I’m trying to redress the balance. One reply from Pfister said you should make all available !!  Pot calling the kettle black – Christian doesn’t make his methods available.  I replied to the wrong Christian message so you don’t get to see what he said. Probably best.  Told Steve separately and to get more advice from a few others as well as Kluwer and legal. PLEASE DELETE – just for you, not even Ray and Malcolm.

Cheers
Phil

There are other references like this in other emails. Phil encouraging people to delete emails of conversations they’ve had. This to me is important for a variety of reasons. In the US, and now in the UK, there is legislation called the Freedom of Information Act. That is, anyone doing work for the government must keep a papertrail of their communications so anyone who requests them may see what their government is doing with taxpayer dollars. Since Mr. Mann works for a state university (at the time of the email, he worked for the Univeristy of Virginia and now works for Penn State), he would of course be required to keep this papertrail. Mr. Jones is covered by the same legislation in the UK. To me, someone as well respected as Jones and Mann colluding to delete emails in violation of law says there must be something in those emails incriminating enough to risk their going to jail! So that begs the question, what are they trying to prevent us from finding out. One thing is for sure, this deosn’t need context to be understood. If someone is requesting emails to be deleted in violation of law, they’re trying to cover something up. . .period! And remember, these are not underlings or interns or flunkies. These are the big-wigs!

In another email between Mann and Jones, the subject of providing data to independent researchers comes up. Stephen McIntyre, a climate researcher from Toronto, had asked for the underlying research for his so-called “hockey stick” graph. For a complete explanation of the “hockey stick” issue, check Wikipedia. Basically, Mann and Jones were trying to show the aggressive nature of global warming by producing a graph with a sudden and dramatic rise in temperature beginning in the 90’s. The problem was that is there aren’t accurate records of temperature before the 1800’s. So. . .they made them up. I mean. . .estimated them. McIntyre (among others) didn’t like their estimations and wanted them to back up their graph with data. Here’s Mann’s conversation with Jones after receiving McIntyre’s querie:

Phil,
I would immediately delete anything you receive from this fraud. You’ve probably seen now the paper by Wahl and Ammann which independently exposes McIntyre and McKitrick for what it is–pure crap. Of course, we’ve already done this on “RealClimate”, but Wahl and Ammann is peer-reviewed and independent of us. I’ve attached it in case you haven’t seen (please don’t pass it along to others yet). It should be in press shortly. Meanwhile, I would NOT RESPOND to this guy. As you know, only bad things can come of that. The last thing this guy cares about is honest debate–he is funded by
the same people as Singer, Michaels, etc… Other than this distraction, I hope you’re enjoying the holidays too…

talk to you soon,
mike

While this isn’t necessarily incriminating, it does reflect an underlying animosity for anyone whose opinion they disagree with. They apparently don’t feel that their data could stand up to scrutiny so they demonize anyone who wants to review their work. Peer review is typical in the scientific community, but not with these guys. As I read over the emails, there are several people who express difficulty with their assumptions. Their responses are never straightforward.

However, the smoking gun appears to be an email Jones wrote saying, “I’ve just completed Mike’s (Mann) Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” Again, I’m not sure we need any context for this. If a scientist, no not just a scientist, the head of the most important climate research unit in the world, says he is using a “trick” to “hide” a decline in temperatures, that’s a very important piece of information. At best, it means that global warming theory is far from “settled science,” as we have been told by Al Gore and others for many years now. At worst, it is fraud perpetrated on the entire world by a cabal of unethical “scientists” for more than thirty years!

Make no mistake, they will not go quietly into that good night. There is too much at stake here. We are talking billions of dollars in research grants worldwide not to mention the lawsuits, threats of criminal prosecution and professional reputations. Well, perhaps the professional reputations are beyond repair at this point, we’ll see. I just hope that as we begin a new decade, we can get politics out of the laboratory and back into the gutter where it belongs!

A Changing of the Guard

This country has a rich history of watchdog journalism. Even before the founding of this nation, free speech and freedom of the press have been hallmarks of our society. Over the years, we found the need to limit certain types of speech because they were deemed detrimental to the well-being of the society. For example, you can’t shout fire in a crowded movie theater, unless there actually is a fire. You can’t print things about someone that are false. You don’t have the right to say hurtful things which would damage a person’s reputation in his or her community. These we have seen as valid restrictions on free speech. But now there is an all-out attack on free speech in this country.

Since the early days of this administration, there has been an effort to marginalize the voices of dissent found in what has been called the alternative media: talk radio, blogs, websites, and of course, FOX News. With the advent of the web, true news junkies like me have been able to find alternative sources for the information they want about the world around them. Starting with Rush Limbaugh in 1988, conservative voices began pushing back against what has been perceived as a liberal bias in journalism. As Rush’s popularity grew in the late 80’s and early 90’s, he started to shine the light of truth on stories that could not find airtime on so-called mainstream media outlets like the national newspapers and network news shows. Then in 1992, Rush highlighted a couple of stories involving corruption in the House of Representatives: the House post office scandal and the House banking scandal. The latter of these was a story that had “legs,” as we in the biz say. It was easy to understand and everyone could relate. Members of the House would write checks on their accounts in the House bank and the bank would honor them regardless of how much money was in the member’s account. As a result, several members of the House were overdrawn to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars! There was no penalty for this and there was no indication that the members had any intention of paying the amounts back. As the outcry grew, the House Ethics Committee singled out 22 of the worst offenders, 19 of whom were Democrats. At this point, the House had been controlled by Democrats for 40 years. After these scandals hit, due largely to Rush’s spotlight, and because of some opportunistic moves by Newt Gingrich, the leader of the Republicans in the House, Republicans took the House in the 1994 elections! This was the first time the alternative media had an impact on politics in Washington.

Then, in 1997, when Matt Drudge broke the Monica Lewinski story on his website, DrudgeReport.com, alternative media was on the map for good. Some of the other successes include the exposure of Dan Rather’s use of fraudulent documents to smear President Bush. This was just weeks before the election in 2004, and was reported on many blogs including Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, and Powerline. Another big story that year was John Kerry’s service record, which the alternative media found to be exaggerated or fabricated entirely by Kerry. (Not to demean his service, he did go to Vietnam and he did serve his country!)

As the reach of the internet grew, so did the reach of the alternative media. But now the playing field is changing. As many of you know, I have been working in television and radio for almost 30 years now. Some of these years have been spent working in television newsrooms at local affiliates in the Tampa Bay area. I was always amazed to walk into the newsroom and find new producers hovering over their local newspaper, searching for news items to cover. For many years now, the print media has dominated what we see on our TV screens each evening. When it comes to national news and the news networks, it is the New York Times which has had the ear of the national media. Followed closely by the Washington Post (who broke the Watergate scandal back in the 70’s), the Wall Street Journal (for financial news), and the LA Times (so we can keep track of those west-coasters). But the print business is fading. . .fast.

As the all-news cable networks began proliferating in the mid-90’s, so began the 24-hour news cycle. Now you didn’t have newspapers just reporting in the morning and the big networks reporting at 6 and 11. You had continuous coverage, 24 hours a day. The cable networks were an extension of what the mainstream media outlets were doing. They would generally follow the lead of the print media. Until the alternative media started their ascendancy. Unlike the other news channels, FOX News would actually report many of these news stories that could only find a home in the alternative media. In the last 13 years, FOX has found an audience that has helped it dominate the ratings over all their competitors. On some nights, the FOX primetime lineup beats CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Headline News combined!!

In the last few months, FOX has been the only one to air extensive coverage on some rather important stories:

Glenn Beck’s investigation into the background of the man who was in charge of creating “green” jobs, Van Jones, resulted in Mr. Jones having to resign.

FOX News’ airing of videotapes in which ACORN workers were shown coaching an admitted pimp and prostitute on how to gin the tax system so they could deduct their business expenses and count their underage El Salvadoran sex slaves as dependents. This was particularly damaging to the President, since he has spent most of his career working with ACORN. One surprising moment in this escapade was when Charlie Gibson, the long-time anchor of ABC World News admitted he knew nothing of this story! Amazing!

In the wake of these scoops, the New York Times admitted that they were out of touch with what was going on over at FOX News. They didn’t understand how FOX had been able to scoop them so easily. Well, this frank admission had repercussions all the way up to the halls of the White House. If the New York Times has decided they need to pay more attention to the kind of stories FOX News is doing, the White House is in BIG TROUBLE!

So out come the attack dogs. Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, has been leading the charge both in appearances on TV and on the White House blog. But the heat was turned up when Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, and David Axelrod, Senior Advisor to the President, made simultaneous appearances on CNN and ABC’s Sunday morning news chat shows. They both made the point that they didn’t think that FOX News was a “real news” organization. That meant they intended to treat FOX News differently than the other networks.

While this is unprecedented behavior from a White House to single out a news organization as an enemy, what came next was even more shocking. During their respective interviews, they both served notice to the other networks and news organizations that they could be next. Appearing on CNN, Rahm Emanuel said, “more importantly is not have the CNN’s and the others in the world basically be led and following Fox as if that what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization.” If that’s not a warning, I don’t know what is!

I think this is an admission that the news cycle is now being driven by FOX and the other alternative media outlets and that the influence of the old guard media is diminishing. As circulation of the big newspapers continues to dwindle, so does their influence. If you couple that with their admitted obliviousness to very important news stories, you have a totally irrelevant news organization. That’s what’s happening to the New York Times and others.

So here you have the White House demonizing the one network they need to reach prospective voters with their message, and embracing an increasing irrelevant system. And what’s more, they have sent a warning to the old guard that they shouldn’t try to respond to the increasing pressure from their competition, otherwise they will be marginalized too. Perhaps the White House isn’t the best place to take advice from on how to respond to criticism, since they have not been able to maintain the President’s approval rating which has dropped from over 70% at inauguration to under 50%!

Maybe if I paint my house white, I can be President!

My wife is constantly telling me that I should be more positive in my blogs. I keep reminding her that there aren’t a lot of positive things going on so it’s hard to be positive. But I think this one will be her favorite. I found something that Barack Obama did right. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but I have found one scrap of a good policy amidst the tidal wave of social changes, dithering on troop deployment, and demonizing free speech.

This week, the National Association of Realtors announced that home sales are up 24% from the bottom of the market in January. This in turn has reduced the supply of available houses, causing home values to creep up ever so slightly. While that news is great news for all us home owners, it’s important to understand why the surge in home buying is taking place.

Even casual readers of this blog have seen that from the beginning of the economic downturn I’ve been preaching tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. It is always the solution to any economic slowdown. Usually, the reason the economy is slowing in the first place is because of some government intervention which has finally caught up with the markets inability to sustain itself given the heavy burden. It’s like a champion runner who can run like the wind, until you put a 100-pound backpack on him, then he’s just average, or worse. The only way to restore this thoroughbred of an economy is to take the backpack off. That’s just what President Obama did when he signed the stimulus bill back in February.

I’m pretty sure no one noticed this since most legislators didn’t read the bill, but somehow a few billion in tax cuts did make their way through the stimulus bill despite the overwhelming amount of the nearly $800 billion in spending. There was a nice little tax cut in there for first-time home buyers. If you haven’t bought a home in the last three years,  you are eligible for a 10% tax break on your new home purchase, up to $8000. The clock is ticking on this tax break, as it is due to expire on Nov. 30. It is believed that the extraordinary surge in home buying in the month of September is due to prospective home buyers trying to get in under the deadline. DUH! Ya think so?!?

It is axiomatic that no nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity. The reason this nation has had the most productive economy in history is because of the generally low tax rates here compared to other, more socialist economies. As we have headed down the road to socialism, we have seen the dramatic effect on our once exemplary economy. Unemployment is now closer to 10% than it has been in 27 years. Real unemployment (those who have lost their jobs and have stopped looking for new ones or have taken part-time work) is at a staggering 17%! We are still in the throes of a deep recession. Banks are still failing at an alarming rate. Despite all of this, there is one shining beacon of hope: the housing market.

Because of this one little tax cut mired in the morass that was the economic stimulus package, housing sales are at a two-year high. Now the push is on by the Realtors’ association to get Congress to extend the tax cut. Surprisingly, they have found an unlikely ally: Sen. Chris Dodd, head of the banking committee in the Senate. Dodd has never seen a tax cut he liked, except this one. Facing a tough re-election next year (with competition from the WWE’s Linda McMahon and others), Dodd has decided to hitch his wagon to something that works. . .a tax cut.

Of course, the praise for Obama’s lowly tax cut has not been universal. According to an article by the Associated Press, Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities said that the Realtors association has “an incentive to talk up the effects of the credit as it is urging Congress to extend it, and it therefore may be exaggerating the credit’s effects.” That might be true Zach, if it were an anomaly. If this was some strange occurrence never before seen in the history of macro economics. Unfortunately for Zach (and whoever it was that gave him an economics degree), this kind of stimulus has happened EVERY TIME it has been tried.

For example, I documented in this blog last July (That’s great but what do you do for an encore!) how Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany who was facing re-election, succumbed to pressure to cut taxes. Her country was mired in recession and her re-election was looking bleak. I threw down the gauntlet in that article. I told Germany to BRING IT! Well, they did. Economic signs have turned around and although it is still early, indications are that the recovery has begun. As a result, Merkel was re-elected and her coalition government has vowed more tax cuts to keep the economy headed in the right direction.

I will offer just this one caveat to what we are seeing with our housing market. Yes, it is true that more first-time home buyers are getting into the market, but this bill defines them as people who have not owned a home in the last three years. Many of the so-called “sub-prime” borrowers got out of the market about that time. I fear that we are letting some of the same people back in the system who couldn’t pay for their homes the last time. If you are not familiar with the Community Reinvestment Act, you should read my blog “Get you money for nothin’ and your houses for free!” It details the influence Congress had on the housing market using the CRA. Now they are trying to expand the CRA instead of repealing it. This means we are destined to repeat the same disaster we had last year unless someone stops them.

But for now, I’m happy to bask in the glow of a very mature response to Obama’s brilliant tactic of taking my advice, at least on the housing market:

I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIIIGHHT!!!