…I didn’t make it to that substantive evening post.
I got home a little while ago, however, turned on the TV, and noticed that Washington DC is bracing for a huge snowstorm. Somehow, it seems appropriate.
I know, I know; the pathetic fallacy. Still, although I feel bad for the people of DC, a little smile curves my lips when I consider that this just may make it difficult for Harry Reid to keep to his “pass-Obamacare-by-Christmas-Eve-even-though-we-won’t-even-tell-you-what-it-is” schedule.
I’ve got an exceptionally busy day today, and so I’ll probably post something in the evening. But till then, I thought I’d give you a few things to chaw on:
In another huge surprise (not) climatologist Michael Mann, he of the famous hockey stick scam, writes that the Climategate emails don’t amount to much, and that the scientific evidence for AGW is clear. No doubt he’s a neutral and objective observer of the entire undertaking. Note, also, that he follows the usual MSM approach to the topic, which is to act as though the whole ruckus is about a few words (such as “trick”) in a couple of emails, and to completely ignore the enormous disclosures about the data-collection problems with CRU as well as the “Harry read me” file. As for the WaPo, it’s as though it published an op-ed by Gordon Liddy at the height of Watergate.
Obama’s friendliness to Hugo Chavez doesn’t seem to be repaid.
Obamacare loses David Brooks. I doubt it matters—Congress will do what Congress will do—but it’s interesting anyway.
Tom Coburn agrees about the perils of Obamacare. That’s Dr. Tom Coburn to you.
Obama talks at Copenhagen and says, “The time for talk is over.” That Obama, he’s such a can-do man; always in a rush. But he doesn’t like scare tactics, oh no—at least, not when they’re used against his agenda.
What do Barack Obama and Lillian Hellman have in common (besides being from the far Left, that is)? Mary McCarthy famously said of Hellman that every word she wrote was a lie, including “and” and “the.” Well, the same could be said of Obama.
(1) Presents purchased. Check.
(2) Presents wrapped. Check.
(3) Presents mailed. Unchecked—but about to be done this afternoon, when I will brave the post office lines.
A few observations:
(a) Wrapping paper always seems an odd thing to me—a completely frivolous and yet somehow necessary covering for the naked gifts. I used to wrap very carefully, including the ribbon that curls so nicely when placed in quick and skillful contact with the edge of a scissors. Although now I’ve simplified my life by mostly obliterating that little detail, whenever I do curl the ribbon I remember how, as a little girl, I would watch the adults do it and yearn for the day when I had that much knowledge and coordination. It took a while to learn, something like the tying of shoelaces, but I finally mastered it.
(b) Getting gifts for little children is much more fun than getting gifts for most grownups. But with the latter, every now and then one thinks of the perfect present, and that’s a very satisfying thing, an instance when one feels the truth of the old adage that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
In reference to this post of mine on the current Democrat agenda to pursue unpopular policies in the face of strong public opposition from the majority of Americans, a number of people have directed me to some well-written, sobering, and thoughtful comments by “Subotai Bahadur” at Belmont Club (here’s one of his/her comments, and here’s another.)
Subotai Bahadur was the name of one of the greatest military strategists of all time, conqueror Genghis Khan’s general. But these comments don’t concern military matters, although they do feature speculation on the strategy of the Obama administration. The points that Subotai Bahadur (the commenter that is, not the general) is making are difficult to summarize; it’s one of those “read the whole thing” situations.
No doubt some of you may consider Subotai’s musings paranoid and alarmist. Perhaps they are; I certainly hope so. This is an old subject of argument on this blog, and I must say I have become far more pessimistic myself over time about the aims of the current administration and its far-Left enablers (and I was fairly pessimistic to begin with).
Here’s a representative excerpt from the Subotai oeuvre:
In all cases, the public polls show massive opposition to the actions of Congress and to the specific programs Obama is pushing. These are massaged before release. The real, private polls commissioned by the politicians have to show worse. And still they do it…
As I said, we have an impasse. The Left has no intention of giving up power. But they act consistently and almost unanimously in ways that leaving me biting my tongue to find ways of describing it in this forum, and actively infuriating huge swathes of the American people. If there are honest elections a whole bunch of them are going to lose power, quite possibly enough to take them out of control of the government.
Politicians in a group when they act consistently and anomalously against what would seem to be their own interests, are usually operating on information not available to anyone else. One also has to add to the mix the question why the Republicans as a party are only offering token opposition to the Democrats, when standing up would rally support to them? What do they know?
When you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, has to be considered. The only thing that remains, that I can see, is that no matter what they do, they no longer have any fear of facing the voters in an honest election. The specific mechanisms and basis for that confidence have yet to be determined.
Subotai and many others in the blogosphere are the Cassandras. We have some on this blog, people with whom regular readers are probably familiar (FredHjr was a valuable one, but sadly, now he’s gone). Are they telling the truth (see this)? Time will tell. Unfortunately, however, if they are correct, by that time it may be too late.
I have a question, and Google hasn’t given me an answer yet. So I’m throwing it out here for my very erudite commenters to tackle:
If Democrats lose seats in the 2010 Congressional elections, and then enough representatives vote to repeal the health care reform bill that is probably about to be passed by this Congress, I assume that Obama can veto their repeal. Is this correct—and, if so, can they get around that by just not voting funding, or some other similar Congressional machination?
Climategate continues to get richer, as much of the world continues to ignore the growing storm.
Now the Russians appear to have confirmed that a great deal of the temperature data from their part of the world has been ignored by CRU and the IPCC, and—no great surprise—the eliminated readings do not support global warming, while the included ones do:
Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.
On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.
Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.
But these inconvenient truths are hardly affecting most AGW believers, except to make them circle the wagons. Will doubt reach critical mass among the general population at some point?
I am not at all sure that it will, no matter how much evidence is amassed that AGW, so far, has been based to an unacceptable degree on smoke and mirrors. Survey your friends: how many are even aware that Climategate involves a great deal more than a couple of emails from understandably angry scientists, upset that the truth they’ve so reliably proven has not been universally accepted?
I don’t listen to many radio talk shows. Sometimes, though, when I’m in the car and bored, I tune one in for a while.
So the other day I was listening to someone (Rush? Hannity?) for a few moments and there was a series of audio clips of Obama during the campaign, making promises about the process that would lead to health care reform legislation. Over and over, in many places and at many times, he declared in those ringing tones of his that it would be completely transparent—the deliberations, suggestions, and debates televised on C-Span for all to see.
It’s ironic to hear those promises now, especially since the subject was openness and honesty itself, and there’s been nothing open and honest about this administration. I know that politicians lie, especially in their campaign promises. But although I’ve been around for quite a while, I’ve never in my lifetime heard (in this country at least) a major politician lying so consistently and egregiously without being called on it by the MSM. Obama’s C-Span lie is only one of many promises—about raising taxes, about posting bills online for 72 hours, about earmarks—that have been broken with a brazenness that can only be called Orwellian (if that were not an insult to Orwell) and/or Soviet in its scope.
But this has been the story of Obama’s life—so far. His approval rating has been dropping, but not nearly precipitously enough for me, and not nearly as far or fast as the evidence indicates it should.
During the campaign, Obama’s broken promise about accepting public financing should have rung an alarm. He was testing the waters, seeing what he could get away with, and he discovered that boldly breaking the firmest of campaign promises caused hardly a ripple in either his fawning press coverage or the adulation of his adoring supporters. That made him think that yes, he could get away with almost anything.
And maybe he can. We’ll see.
Here’s a must-read piece on the decades-long war waged against the CIA by liberals:
This war has also been enshrined in one disastrous liberal-led “reform” of the CIA after another. The wreckage reaches back to congressional hearings conducted in the 1970s, to the disastrous cutbacks in CIA activities under Jimmy Carter, and to the Clinton administration’s ban on sharing intelligence between the CIA and domestic law enforcement.
So what is it about the CIA that makes liberals and Democrats lose their common sense?…One cannot deny that Republican administrations have made disastrous decisions regarding the CIA as well. And there is no covering over the fact that the CIA has sometimes been its own worst enemy””not least when it decides to act on the advice of its liberal critics. At any rate, a serious examination of this implacable hostility toward America’s leading spy agency on the part of the American Left over the course of the past 35 years reveals a great deal about the nature of modern liberalism itself and its often self-destructive course.
It’s a long piece, but it’s worth reading the whole thing.
The release of the Lockerbie bomber al Megrahi has become a story few follow any more. There are too many upsetting events these days, coming with ever-accelerating speed, to focus on any one for long—especially if it involves a single elderly man reported to have prostate cancer.
But here’s some background on al Megrahi to refresh your memory. And in this post, I noted that al Megrahi seems to have outlived the three months forecast that caused Scottish authorities to release him on compassionate grounds in the first place.
And now we learn—quelle surprise!—that al Megrahi’s gone missing. He’s not in the hospital, nor is he at home, and when the Scottish authorities call to see why he’s been so remiss in his required correspondence with them, al Megrahi’s nowhere to be found:
Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish government could face a new crisis.
Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council.
If I were asked to offer one piece of evidence for the precipitous decline of common sense in the Western world, and our culture’s resultant inability to effectively combat the threats arrayed against it (at times even seeming to conspire in our own demise), I would be hard-pressed to find a better example than the idiocy of the members of the Scottish government who approved the travesty of al Megrahi’s original release, as well as the cluelessness of the East Renfrewshire Council.
What possible leverage did they think they would have with al Megrahi once he once safe in Tripoli? They are now reduced to the level of the whining elderly mother who complains, “you never call, you never write.”
Yes, of course it’s possible that al Megrahi will turn up soon. And it’s even possible his disappearance is due to the fact that his health has declined. But that appears unlikely; wouldn’t that fact be highly publicized? In the past, his visits to the hospital were covered by the press, and the hospital itself now claims to know nothing of his whereabouts. The Times even did a bit of investigative reporting to find out what’s going on, and this was the result:
One of three security officers sitting in a grey Mercedes car outside [al Megrahi’s house] said: “They’ve all gone.” He refused to elaborate.
Not everyone in Scotland has lost his/her mind, however:
Richard Baker, Labour’s justice spokesman in the Scottish Parliament, said the whole affair was turning into a shambles and putting Scotland’s reputation at risk. “This flags up just how ludicrous it is that East Renfrewshire Council, a local council thousands of miles away from Libya, is responsible for supervising al-Megrahi’s conditions of licence,” he said.
Ludicrous, yes. If I were a terrorist, I’d be laughing myself silly at the antics of the Western world right about now.
And if I were KSM, I’d not only be getting a good lawyer, I’d be getting myself a sympathetic doctor.
[ADDENDUM: Honey, I’m home!]
Senate Democrats have devised bill after bill on health care reform, with provision after provision, only to be unsuccessful in getting the sixty votes required. Now, public opinion has tanked in its support for all of the bills. And yet this Congress perseveres. Why? Isn’t it a form of political suicide?
Byron York tackles the answer here:
In the House, the view of [California Rep. Henry] Waxman and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi is that we’ve waited two generations to get health care passed, and the 20 or 40 members of Congress who are going to lose their seats as a result are transitional players at best,” [a Democrat strategist] said. “This is something the party has wanted since Franklin Roosevelt.” In this view, losses are just the price of doing something great and historic…”At the White House, the picture is slightly different,” he continued. “Their view is, ‘We’re all in on this, totally committed, and we don’t have to run for re-election next year. There will never be a better time to do it than now.'”
“And in the Senate, they look at the most vulnerable Democrats — like [Christopher] Dodd and [Majority Leader Harry] Reid — and say those vulnerabilities will probably not change whether health care reform passes or fails. So in that view, if they pass reform, Democrats will lose the same number of seats they were going to lose before.”…
“…[T]hey think they know what’s best for the public,” the strategist said. “They think the facts are being distorted and the public’s being told a story that is not entirely true, and that they are in Congress to be leaders.”
But in the comments section to the York article you see a different story. It goes something like this: Byron, you’re being naive. Do you really think their motivation is so noble?
These commenters have a different idea of what’s going on. The Democrats are out for power through the creation of another huge and perpetual entitlement program. They’ll cook the books in the next election via ACORN and won’t lose many seats after all. If enough illegal aliens come in and get to vote through motor voter and other ploys, they’ll have a permanent majority. They’re creating a huge constituency for big government, and delivering the goods is the most important thing. They (especially Obama) want to further the dream of socialism at any cost.
I’m with the commenters.
[NOTE: The following is an excerpt from one of the earliest blog posts I ever wrote. It’s from January 12, 2005, and deals with—of all things—health care reform. I thought it was worth reprinting right now,]
Socializing anything, including health care, tends to lead inexorably to wider availability of a more mediocre service. I am reminded of the drab high-rises of eastern Europe under the Soviets, the norm of tiny apartments shared by multiple families, the hackneyed art, the lack of variety in the stores, the dullness of reduced expectations for everyone. Everyone, that is, except the elites.
For, as even a casual observer of human nature is forced to admit, ye shall always have the elites with you. The Soviet elites got whatever they wanted, Communism or no Communism—spacious apartments, fancy clothes, plentiful food, dachas on the Don (or wherever dachas are). In the US, the rich certainly get better health care, which is one of the many reasons people want to get rich—to have access to better food, clothing, shelter, vacations, and health care. And in Canada, the rich also get better health care—the only difference is that they have to travel to do it, mostly to the US. And travel they do. The Canadian health care system might not be able to function even at its current level if not for the safety valve afforded by the exodus of the rich to the US for their health care.
In the US, we don’t lack for proposals to solve our health care system’s problems, but my guess is that all of them are flawed because they all involve difficult choices about allocating resources. I think most people would agree (although not the most extreme Social Darwinists) that we need to have some sort of bottom line health care for everyone, although we don’t agree on how to provide it, how much would be enough, or at what point it would kick in (at death’s door, or preventatively, or somewhere in between?). The answers to these questions depend on the answers to the larger questions: how far are we willing to go towards health care equality, and how low will our standards of general health care have to dive in order to attain it (and isn’t it the case that the rich will always find a way to get better care under any such system—and, might that not even be a good thing in some ways, since it provides motivation and energy for work and achievement )?
Nominations are open. Voting should begin soon. Dare I ask for a repeat?