Squaring the Culture

My post about the joint, front-page editorial on Monday to open the Copenhagen Climate Change meeting, entitled “56 World Newspapers: ‘Scandal? What Scandal?’” was nominated for a weekly award at Watcher of Weasels by my blog-buddy over at Howling Wolf, whose Wednesday post, “Obama Fails His First Test as Commander-In-Chief,” won their Council Submissions category. I tied for second place among Non-Council Submissions, but it’s never a shame to come in behind Gateway Pundit. Y’all might want to scoot over there and read the winners, ’cause they’re not half bad. Thanks for noticing, Weasel-watchers.

Now, if they can only get the name of the blog right… It’s “plumB bob blog,” and there’s no “the” at the beginning. Criminy…

I’m in a musical mood, but couldn’t make up my mind which of several pieces to post, so y’all get to choose: two classics and a marvelous modern guitar composition.

First is Steely Dan from their Steelyard “Sugartooth” McDan (and the Fab-Originees.com) Band tour in 2006, playing an updated arrangement of “Do It Again.” There are lots of things not to like about Steely Dan — the main guys are reputed to be thoroughly unlikeable, their lyrics are always seedy, raunchy, and depressing, and even the name of the band is a completely tasteless reference I won’t explain — but musically, they’re about the smoothest funk in the rock world, and among the best musicians. The opening shots are of Dan Fagin on keyboard, the rhythm section, and Walter Becker on strat (guitar), and Fagin and Becker are the two mainstays of the band over the years, the rest mostly being studio players. However, on this cut the lead is sung by Michael McDonald, whom we know from the Doobie Brothers and from solo work. McDonald actually sang and played with Steely Dan from about 1974 onward. This song is about how one’s sins keep recurring, but counter-thematically, they’ve altered the changes at the end of the chorus and added some truly fine breaks, especially Keith Carlock’s drum fills at the end. This is the first time I’ve watched these guys on video, and I’m surprised to discover that the fine Telecaster guitar work I’ve admired over the years is not Becker’s, but that of Jon Herington (and that it’s not a Telly, it’s a Gretsch or something.)

Next is Cream from their 2005 Reunion Tour, playing the old blues standard “Sitting On Top of the World” at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Cream was always at their best playing the blues, in my humble opinion, although “White Room” sticks in my mind as one of the finest examples of studio guitar work from the 1960s. I play bass guitar, and Jack Bruce is one of my prime influences as a player. The instrument he’s playing is a Warwick, and it’s my next instrumental purchase (I’ll go for a 5-string); I think the sound is fabulous. I’m sure there are blues players all over the US thinking that there’s no way a bunch of wrinkly, old, skinny, white gits from England should be able to do blues this well, but… they’ve still got it.

And finally, Kaki King. It was her hands that did all the fabulous tapping and hammering guitar work in the 2007 film August Rush, so I looked her up on YouTube. I would not call her the best technical guitarist in the world, or even anywhere near that, but her compositions are fascinating and original, and her interpretations of them are compelling. This was recorded live at Tower Records in San Fransisco in 2004, and it’s called “Neanderthal.” It was probably recorded on a small portable digital camcorder, not a professional camera, but the sound system they used was clean, so the sound is far better than the video. Enjoy.

It’s not every day that Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake and I even appear to agree on anything, so we should mark this occasion somehow.

Jane posted an email that she sent to subscribers to FDL’s Action Memos regarding her opinion that President Obama has utterly failed to address the pressing needs of health care reform, opting instead to satisfy the desires of huge corporations and cronies. And I agree, that’s exactly what he’s done, and the bill is a failure. Read:

When Barack Obama announced his health care plan in 2007, he said insurance premiums for a family of 4 would be cut by $2500. This plan will see premiums increase $1000 each year.

Obama said “coverage without cost containment will only shift our burdens, not relieve them.” This plan does nothing to meaningfully contain spiraling health care costs.

Obama said “it’s time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they’ll get a seat at the table, they don’t get to buy every chair.” This plan includes a deal between the White House and PhRMA that guarantees there will be no negotiation for Medicare prescription drug prices.

Obama said he’d go after the drug companies who “sell the same exact drugs here in America for double the price of what they charge in Europe and Canada.” But the White House deal not only doesn’t do that, it bans the reimportation of cheaper drugs from Canada.

What does this deal do? It forces Americans to buy the products of large corporations, then the IRS penalizes them if they refuse.

Now, Jane’s object was to get people to sign a petition demanding a true public option. This, of course, I won’t support, because the public option is nothing but a Trojan Horse to produce a full-blown, government-run health system, which will bankrupt the nation, shrink the US health system to 2nd-world size, and leave even more Americans without health care.

But I find it encouraging that Ms. Hamsher at least may be beginning to realize that she’s been a useful idiot in the construction of an oligarchy that includes the largest corporate players, along with the unions and permanent, “Democratic” party oligarchs like The One.

I was surprised at first by Obama’s willingness to include the most powerful corporations in his power grab, but I should not have been. Remember the image of Obama teaching an ACORN class that I scared up during the campaign, the one that appears at the top of this column? He was lecturing on power relationships. I’ve never attended any of his classes, but based on what I know of Saul Alinsky and the tactics of community organizers, I can imagine that he’s actually teaching how the greed of various players can be tapped to get them to cooperate in schemes that you might think they’d avoid like the plague.

This seems to be a powerful part of Mr. Obama’s power strategy. He’s been negotiating with the largest corporate players all along, not to get them to agree to their own demolition, but to ensure monopoly power for them within the new, permanent power regime. In return, they apparently promise to support his power grab, and they fail to engage their marketing muscle into the sort of publicity that might defeat the administration’s proposals in public.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner noted from the right what Jane Hamsher noted from the left: that Obama’s commitment seems to be to a permanent power position for the largest players:

But this facade of Democrats-versus-industry is crumbling now that the final bill is being crafted. The measure still contains the insurers’ grand prize, the individual mandate — a federal requirement that every individual buy sufficiently comprehensive health insurance.

By late Tuesday, all signs pointed to Democratic abandonment of the one major “reform” policy that the insurers’ hated: a government-run insurer, known as the “public option.” Sen. Joe Lieberman said that in Senate negotiations, Obama didn’t even bring up the public option as a bargaining point, which shows it’s not a White House priority.

Liberal and moderate Democrats early this week were lining up behind an alternative “public option” that is not public at all, but just another government program to funnel Americans into private health insurance. As the Associated Press put it, “instead of Medicare-for-the-masses, it would be Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser Permanente, albeit with a government seal of approval.”

And the drug makers? They cut their deal with the White House early. Obama promised not to go after their government favors such as the ban on reimportation of drugs and high Medicare payments and, in exchange, the drug makers offered $150 million in “Harry & Louise” ads rallying the public behind “reform” together with some discounts for Medicare patients.

Even outside of this deal between White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and top drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin, the drug companies stand to profit from Obama’s plan, which subsidizes prescription drug purchases and will likely mandate prescription drug insurance.

The heads of the largest corporations are not stupid men. I’m sure they realize that President Obama is not their friend. However, I’m sure they also see that economic liberty is no longer part of the landscape, and they see their best available deal as becoming corporate partners to Big Brother. If democracy will not protect their right to engage in business freely, they will serve whatever master permits them the best return for the longest time, regardless of the ism represented by that master. They may favor liberty personally, but their corporations will not become martyrs.

In addition to striking deals with the largest corporations, the Obama administration has also been extremely friendly to unions, and in particular the Service Employees International Union (SEIU.) SEIU President Andy Stern was the most frequent visitor to the White House during the Obama administration’s first 6 months, and the SEIU perpetuates President Obama’s intention to incorporate ACORN into American government somehow. Administration policy has rolled back union disclosure guidelines, slashed budget for the union watchdog arm of the Dept of Labor, and written pro-union guidelines into the stimulus bill and the auto industry bailout. Union representatives (and other major contributors to Obama’s perpetual campaign) continue to get seated at the head of the table at official White House functions. And one of the most obvious beneficiaries of national health care reform would be those unions whose retiree pension plans are approaching bankruptcy.

So the Obama administration is no better for progressives, ultimately, than it is for conservatives. We were wrong to assert that Obama is a pure socialist. He’s far more cynical than that, and seems to be operating more along the lines of the Soviet Communist Party, which was anything but communist. He apparently intends to establish an oligarchy of mutual interest, merging the common aims of the unions, the largest businesses, and the heads of the Democratic party. And have no doubt: we know by the persistent stacking of the deck that he fully intends for this oligarchy to become permanent.

A final word to ardent capitalists and free marketeers: huge corporations are not your friend, and never have been. The market thrives on competition, and the largest players tend to operate anti-competitively. The real losers in the coming permanent oligarchy will be small businessmen, whose insignificance is being guaranteed by the new rules favoring the largest players. And, of course, those citizens whose personal fortunes might have been secured by engaging in successful small businesses are the losers as well, as are those hourly wage-earners those businesses might have hired. In fact, the entire economy will shrink as a result of the oligarchic power of the largest players. But Obama will have formed his power circle, and that’s what matters. The good of The One is the good of the nation. Don’t you know that?

Continuing my review of sermons demonstrating the relationship in the minds of colonial Americans between Christianity and their government, called Theological Foundations of a Just Rebellion (TFJR,) I offer an Election Day sermon preached by Samuel Dunbar on May 28, 1760 entitled “The Presence of God with his People.” Dunbar, a graduate from Harvard seminary and lifelong pastor of the First Church in Stoughton, MA, was renouned for his excellent oratory. Attending this particular sermon was the Governor of the Massachusetts-Bay colony, Thomas Pownall, Esq., and also the Lt. Governor, His Majesty’s Council for the colony, and the entire House of Representatives, as well as many private citizens from the area. Those who have been following this series may recall that this is the second sermon in the series that was preached in Boston on an election day; in New England, the job of electing officers to govern the people was taken as a deeply serious enterprise requiring the greatest piety as they sought wisdom and assistance from God.

Dunbar was a strict Calvinist, and no friend to the Great Awakening preachers that travelled around the New England countryside. He served as a military chaplain to British troops during the 1750s, and in later years was a staunch supporter of the patriot cause in the American revolution.

The transcript of the actual sermon may be found here.

The text for Dr. Dunbar’s sermon was II Chronicles 15:1-2: “And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.”

In the passage, King Asa had just successfully defeated a vast, invading army from Cush (the upper Nile region in Africa,) and was met upon his return by a prophet sending him encouragement and warning. The people of New England had about 14 years earlier defeated a French invasion in the northern colonies as part of what was called King George’s War (the signature battle in the colonies took place in Nova Scotia,) but beginning in 1754 they were again faced with the need for arms in the face of rising Indian attacks that we now call the French and Indian War. By 1760, British forces had successfully pushed the French north of the American colonies, having taken forts at Ticonderoga and Niagra and defeated the French General Montcalm outside of Quebec. Dr. Dunbar felt that the success of contemporary British forces mirrored the success of King Asa’s forces, and that the word of the prophet was appropriate encouragement and warning for the colonies. So, his message focused on the link between the piety of the people and the favor God granted them, particularly but not solely their armies.

The two central principles of the sermon were:

I. The presence of God with his People, is their only safety and happiness.

Dunbar did not claim that the presence of God was a guarantee against trouble, but rather that it was guarantee of final success; that when enemies gathered together to trouble a people who pleased God, their plots would never succeed no matter how great the odds in their favor.

This presence of God with his people preserves them in their greatest sufferings & dangers… This delivers them, in their lowest and most desperate circumstances… This lays restraint upon their envious and malicious enemies… This defeats the mischievous plots and devices of their enemies against them… This supplies them, with the comforts of life, so that they want no good thing… This directs them in all their darkness, and points out to them, the path of duty, the way of safety… This protects them, from all enemies and dangers, and is as a wall of fire, round about them, to keep them from harm…

This gives them success, in all their affairs. Success doth not constantly follow the probability of second causes. The Race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Oft-times the best human counsels are turned into foolishness, the wisest measures are disconcerted, the greatest preparations brought to nothing, and the cunningest politicians befooled; while on the other hand, weak and contemptible means are prospered, and the most improbable, meet with the greatest success. This is entirely owing to the divine governing providence. But when God is present with his people, he orders all things well for them, and prospers all their lawful undertakings. The smiles of God upon them, make every thing flourishing—God’s presence makes their land healthful, their fields fruitful, their merchandize gainful, and their armies successful…

This repairs the ruins, brought upon them, by the judgments of providence… This turns all the evils they meet with into real kindnesses to them… This favourable providential presence of God with his people, builds his house, and appoints the ordinances of his worship, among them.

II. Their enjoying the presence of God with them, depends upon their being with God.

Here Dunbar recommends keeping covenant with God by recognizing His hand in all matters, retaining a prayerful attitude of dependence, and diligently performing all religious observances.

God’s gracious providential presence with them performs great acts of favour for them, and their obediential presence with God, lies in performing religious duties to him. It implies in it, their keeping covenant with God. Their covenant relation to God constitutes them his peculiar people: and brings them into a state of nearness to him; for they, that are strangers from the covenant, are afar off from God: and their keeping covenant with God, being stedfast in it, abstaining from all sins forbidden, and doing all required duties, believing all revealed truths, and walking in all the commandments & ordinances of the Lord; and in all designing his glory, is their being with God. So also is their eying God in all providential dispensations. When they look thro’ second causes, and above visible instruments, and see the sovereign providence of God in all events, and adore the divine wisdom & goodness, power and righteousness, truth and faithfulness, in them, and compose themselves to a behaviour, comporting with them, they are with God. When they express a dutiful submission to, and a fiducial dependance upon God in all their wants, and fears, & dangers: when they maintain a prayerful frame of spirit, seeking of God the supply of their wants, direction in their streights, deliverance from their dangers, protection from their enemies, and other judgments, success in their enterprizes, and a blessing upon their labours: when they excite themselves to a thankful praising God for all his benefits: when they endeavour a wise and good improvement of all God’s dealings towards them: and when they conscienciously walk in obedience to his commands: then may they be said to be with God, and not to forsake him.

God’s people being thus with him, God will be with them. Not as if their being with God merited his being with them. By no means: for after all, they are unprofitable servants: and there are so many sinful imperfections attending them, in their abiding with God, such as, distrust and impatience, carnal confidence and undue dependance upon themselves or others, or means, neglect of humble believing prayer, or of holy thankful praises, that God might justly withdraw from them, and deny them his gracious presence. But, these infirmities notwithstanding, his people may humbly hope for his presence & blessing; for God is not strict to mark iniquity, where he sees sincerity.

He proceeds to warn the Governor directly, then His majesty’s council and the House of Representatives, then judges who sit on the bench, then pastors in the colonies, and finally the people themselves, observing that each of them stands to be judged finally and personally should they fail to fulfill faithfully the station to which they have been called, and emphasizing that their stations call for personal integrity, piety, and excellence. He is particularly forceful with the pastors:

Of all men in the world, we have need to be with God, and to give our selves to prayer, imploring his spirit, to give us a spiritual understanding in the mysteries of the gospel, & to lead us into all truth: his presence, to animate us in our holy work, and to carry us above all the discouragements we meet with, from the carnality and unbelief of our own hearts, from the temptations of satan, from the little visible success of our labours, from the unkindness of our people, and from the oppositions of an ungodly world: his help, to support us under our burdens, and to strengthen us to make full proof of our ministry: and his blessing upon our labours, that we may preach so, as to save our selves, and them that hear us. We had need be with God in our preaching… [and] in our lives, and like Noah that antediluvian preacher of righteousness, walk with God, and be exemplary in faith and purity, and all the vertues of a holy life; that all may take knowledge of us, that we have been, and are with God. If we are thus with God, we may hope, he will be graciously present with us, to assist, instruct, encourage, and succeed us, in our ministerial work.

But, if we forsake God, become strangers to prayer, and ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and the religion of the Bible: if we trust to the strength of our own reason, and the imaginary greatness of our learning; and preach for doctrines, the unscriptural conceits of our own brains, or the erroneous notions of others; if we corrupt the word of God, and preach another gospel; if we neglect or mislead the souls committed to our charge; and, by the badness of our lives, contradict and frustrate the end of our ministry, we have reason to fear, that God will forsake us utterly; and abandon us to the giddiness and wildness of our own fancies, to the blindness and pride of our own natural reason, to a reprobate mind, and to the delusions of satan: and that, having been wandring stars, the blackness of darkness for ever will be reserved for us; and that, in that outer darkness, we shall have our miserable portion, but just punishment, and be the subjects of a greater damnation.

The take from this sermon is very simple: to Dr. Dunbar, there was no arena of human life in which God’s presence was not a prerequisite for success. God’s presence was not something that was earned — indeed, nobody was worthy of it — but something that God graciously offered to those who committed themselves to His way, to preserve them and assist them through the ordinary difficulties of life. He did not say that God punished those who failed to commit themselves, but simply that He removed Himself from them at their own request, to allow them to suffer the consequences of their own ways. Judgment comes later, after death.

His sentiment would be echoed less than 30 years later by Benjamin Franklin in an appeal to the Constitutional convention in 1787, that they engage in prayer in order that they be aided by Providence in the composition of their new Constitution:

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probably that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I ended my post yesterday by observing that when the EPA asserts the power to regulate everything, which is what’s produced if the EPA declares CO² a public danger and imposes the Environmental Protection Act’s emissions limits on any business emitting as few as 250 tons of CO² per year, the revolution will follow quickly on its heels. Turns out I’m not alone in that assessment.

Take a listen to Charles Krauthammer, from Special Report with Bret Baier:

Krauthammer correctly quotes Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, saying “Environmentalism is the new Socialism.” They’ve been planning this for some time, but it’s going to produce a reaction that will tear the nation apart.

Review my comments from 2008 about the plan to use EPA to institute national economic planning here.

On the opening day of the Copenhagen climate change summit, 56 newspapers around the world have published a single editorial written by the UK Guardian, signalling the propaganda theme of the conference: “We will lie to frighten you, in order to institute World Socialism.”

According to The Guardian’s web site where I read the editorial,

The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

Michelle Malkin signals the important lesson: take note of which newspapers publish this propaganda — and never trust those newspapers again.

The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage.

Every word of that paragraph is false. Eleven of the past 14 years have not been the warmest on record, at least not here in the US. The adjusted GISS data show only 3 years in the last 14 have made the top 10 hottest years on record. The Arctic ice cap is beginning to recover, and the Antarctic ice cap has increased in mass by more than 40% since 1980, according to GlobalWarmingHoax.com and supported by WattsUpWithThat. Last year’s inflamed oil and food prices had absolutely nothing to do with global temperatures, as I reported here on PlumbBobBlog; the food prices were the result of US ethanol policy, and the oil prices were the result of rising Asian rim demand, world politics, and ill-timed dollar policy by the Fed, exacerbated by deliberate limits on US exploration (see here.) And the comment about scientific journals is simply false: according to former NASA climate scientist Ray Spencer, not a single, peer-reviewed paper has ruled out natural causes of whatever warming has been experienced.

I know of no observable evidence tying human-generated CO² to the current behavior of the climate. None.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea.

This is hysterical scaremongering, not science. Global temperature rise over the last century is measured at .7 degrees Celsius (if we trust surface weather station readings — and we have good reason not to.) The prediction of a rise of 3-4 degrees C is the upper theoretical limit on the effect of doubling atmospheric CO² and does not conform to actual observation, which suggests a much more modest warming of 1-2 degrees — if we actually double CO², which we may or may not do eventually. There is no scientific evidence suggesting that global temperature rise expected from ordinary greenhouse warming will “turn farmland into desert;” quite the contrary, it’s more likely to turn desert into farmland, as CO² is plant food and greenhouses are known for lush vegetation. A survey of peer-reviewed literature on climate change published by the Petition Project and signed by more than 30,000 American scientists confirms that the only provable impact of human-generated CO² is a worldwide increase in plant growth. The claim that we can “prudently expect” calamity is an outright lie; the predictions of calamities are based on untested hypotheses that do not conform to observation and are provably unable to predict actual temperatures.

Furthermore, there is no economically feasible scenario under which action taken by the nations of the world would be able to limit temperature rises by a full 2 degrees C — even if the “science” of the global warming alarmists turns out to be true. This is the second leg of the hoax: that even if humans are causing global warming (we’re not,) it would be possible for humans to reverse this by limiting or redistributing economic growth. Even if the scare were true (it’s not,) the only sane response is to adapt.

The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

This is the only mention of the wheels that came off the Global Warming Bandwagon last month — and in fact, the wheels were coming off the bandwagon even before Climategate. Tell us, Guardian writers, what mass of evidence exists on which those predictions are based? And if the scientists we’ve been told to trust on the subject, who wrote the core of the IPCC reports, were finagling both their own data and the peer review process itself, how can we trust any part of that illusory mass of evidence without reviewing the entire subject under a more transparent regime?

And after the lies about the science, we get to the true agenda:

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.

International wealth redistribution. World socialism. Kiss liberty goodbye, it no longer exists. This is about world governance by socialists, and about stealing the prosperity of rich nations and giving it to poor nations. We already know from American welfare experiments what happens when you do that — the poor remain poor (because nothing has addressed the real cause of their poverty,) the rich cease to be rich, and all incentive for innovation disappears.

The left loves to yammer on about the scaremongering of Dick Cheney — a local candidate here in Massachusetts ran ads specifically naming this as his reason for running, despite the fact that Dick Cheney no longer holds office — but they never mention the real scaremongering, the hysteria of global warming alarmism. This is a global power grab on an unprecedented scale. President Obama will certainly bow down and kiss the feet of the incipient World Government. We, the people, must prevent his treachery from ever becoming law, or lose our liberty and our national sovereignty forever.

Corresponding to the Copenhagen hoax, the EPA apparently plans to announce its finding that CO² constitutes a serious pollution hazard, which will trigger its ability under the Environmental Protection Act of 1973 to regulate it.

The revolution shall commence shortly thereafter.

Deborah Solomon at the Wall Street Journal reports that TARP program loans from the government — you know, the $787 billion bailout from a year ago — are being repaid faster than expected. She also reports that President Obama is floating the idea of using the TARP funds for a new jobs program, now that the repayments look like they’re going to bring the federal deficit down from its record-setting $1.4 trillion.

Recall from the 1980s a maxim touted by then-President Ronald Reagan and a number of conservative Senators and Congressmen: if you increase the amount of money flowing to the government, the spending becomes permanent. “Government does not tax to get the money it needs, government always needs the money it gets,” quoth Ronaldus Maximus. So now we’ve hiked the federal deficit to $1.4 trillion, from the old record high under George W. Bush at around $450 billion… and now, President Obama wants to make that level of spending the norm.

We, the people, cannot allow government to set its spending levels according to the programs they want to implement. We have to limit the government to a particular size, and force Congress to remain within that size. They will never spend sensibly until we force them to do it. Again from Ronaldus Maximus:

Now, your son can be extravagant with his allowance, and you can lecture him day after day about saving money and not being extravagant, or you can solve the problem by cutting his allowance.

Reagan quotes are from a televised debate against George HW Bush in 1980, occurring around the 7:55 minute mark.

I’ve been watching the left react to the Climategate fiasco for a couple of weeks now, and I’m seeing a lot of non-scientist ideologues gathering their wits in order to continue their takeover of Western Civilization despite the setback. It’s disheartening, but at least they know they’ve got some science homework to do.

Jon Stewart, whom I regard as “not half a bad guy, for a leftie,” illustrates the tack that these folks have generally taken. Watch:

“Does this disprove Global Warning? Of course not!” Stewart’s big complaint seems to be that Climategate gives too much ammunition to the likes of Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Megan McArdle over at the Atlantic — whom I regard, like Stewart, as “not half bad for a leftie,” takes a similar tack. She very fairly summarizes the effect of the revelations as follows:

• They apparently tried to organize a deletion of files in order to avoid an FOI request.
• There is strong evidence that a small group of scientists has inappropriate power over the process of consensus-building.
• It is not clear to me that CRU can now reproduce their own data set.

They actually had inappropriate power over the process of scientific peer review, not “consensus-building,” and then used “peer review” as a shibboleth to exclude dissenters. Still, despite the non-scientist’s error, she’s got the right idea, and her take on the unacceptability of the East Anglia cabal’s behavior is spot on.

But then she backtracks:

That said, there are a bunch of things I don’t think. I don’t think that this proves that AGW is all bosh–there are other data sets that generate roughly similar results, though I believe CRU’s is the most comprehensive. I do not think that we are seeing evidence of a conspiracy to fabricate data. I see little that has direct bearing on the various disputes over the “hockey stick” and other graphs.

Sorry, Megan, but no. It’s the very people who engaged in the dishonest peer review process who are defending the hockey stick and similar graphs. If their peer review was not scientifically robust, then those graphs are unsupported, and need to be re-established by a transparent, properly peer-reviewed process.

By the way, the other data set showing roughly the same thing is the GISS data. That’s the stuff that Anthony Watts has been lambasting for a few years. The sad story on the GISS data is that they don’t agree with the satellite data, which don’t have the warm bias that Watts has documented so assiduously in the ground data. The US’ version of the East Anglia Miscreants, James Hansen, resolves that discrepancy by adjusting the satellite data to match the ground data — because the satellite data don’t show the same level of warming.

McArdle in a later post offers a link to a Popular Mechanics article that she regards as a “really, really excellent article” regarding the scientific method and what we actually know for sure about the climate. I’m sure she wishes it really was “excellent,” because it’s on the basis of articles like this that she can still grasp onto Anthropogenic Global Climate Change as a real problem. The article is not half bad concerning the scientific method, but dead wrong about the current state of the science.

The author, Peter Kelemen, represents the CRU climate models as a good-faith attempt by scientists to predict the future. Models like those in use by the folks at CRU are useful for understanding interactions in complex systems, which is all well. However, those models have been demonstrated to have no predictive value. For non-scientists, that’s a complex scientific phrase meaning “no predictive value.” Simply put, when the models are fed historical data and asked to predict more recent historical temperatures, the output does not predict actual values any better than a random number generator. The CRU folks may have “jimmied” the models to perform better, but that does not create a valid predictive model unless they actually understand the science behind the “jimmying,” which they don’t. Trenbeth’s “travesty” admission speaks directly to this.

Far worse, though, is how Kelemen represents “What We Know For Sure.” Even granting every claim he makes about the current science — much of which is debatable — his claim that “reasonably probable outcomes could be fatal” is simply wrong.

What is “known” about the greenhouse effect is that doubling atmospheric concentration of CO² will raise average global temperatures somewhere between 1 and 4 degrees C, roughly, with the best estimates closer to 1. This does comport well with observed temperatures, which appear to have risen about .7 degrees in the past 100 years. However, that does not constitute a level of warming that will produce any of the “probably fatal” outcomes. This is agreed by all, enthusiasts and skeptics alike, and even by the IPCC. It is not controversial. The “fatal” outcomes only occur if the models’ predictions of positive feedback effects turn out to be correct. The observable evidence supporting those claims of positive feedback mechanisms is… zip.

So, no, the reasonably probable outcomes are not fatal. Only the extreme, unlikely outcomes are fatal.

Climategate properly places the burden of proof squarely on those who claim (1) that catastrophic effects are reasonably likely as a result of human-generated CO², and (2) that potentially catastrophic economic changes have a reasonable chance of preventing those effects. I’m willing to let real, transparent, accountable scientists take another crack at proving those two theses, but as of today, they are not proved — not even close.

If you encounter folks like Stewart and McArdle over Christmas turkey or Hanukah tsimmis, simply ask them to recite for you the observable data demonstrating that human-generated CO² is actually causing damage anywhere. More than likely they’ll tell you about melting polar ice, which cannot be tied to human-generated CO², nor can it be tied to any harm. The simple fact is, no observable data support the claim that humans are damaging the climate.

By the way, Andrew Orlowsky at the UK Register has a pretty good summary of why Climategate matters, observing that just about everything proved by Climategate was already in the public record beforehand. It’s worth a read.

There are some serious factual errors in Obama’s speech, but this one, I think, constitutes the largest bending of the facts:

I am mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who – in discussing our national security – said, “Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.”

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children.

The claim here is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are the reasons for the sour economy. This is the expected “It’s the Bush Administration’s fault” part of the speech, carefully disguised as expected. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been expensive, yes, but they have very little to do with the sour economy. The economic troubles are the result of the confluence of a dozen different elements, including the loosening of loan standards (something to which Mr. Obama contributed personally,) errant Fed policy, Democrats committing fraud at FNMA, short-sighted bond-rating agencies, and much more. The alleged “fix” for the economy has been much, much more damaging than these wars, and in fact attempted to spend in just two or three years considerably more than the wars cost in their entirety.

In fact, Democrats usually attempt to claim that WWII is what ended the Great Depression. For President Obama to claim in this instance that war spending is what caused the recession flies in the face of consistent Democratic posturing, and demonstrates yet again that Democrats don’t have principles, they just pick up whatever is nearby and handy to smack whatever target they’re aiming at today. If you ask him, I feel certain President Obama would also say that WWII ended the Great Depression, and would feel no sense of irony or embarrassment if the conflict were pointed out to him.

I read through the transcript of Obama’s speech and was struck by this:

But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades – a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.

For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation’s resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for – and what we continue to fight for – is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.

This is the first time I can recall President Obama — or any other major figure in the Democratic Party, for that matter — making this observation about America’s role in the world. It is correct, and it’s an acknowledgement that is long past due.

I just have one question, President Obama: if this is true, and you actually believe it,

WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN GOING AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE PAST YEAR APOLOGIZING FOR OUR CONDUCT???