Global Warming Hoax Update

Mark Noonan7 Comments

Just more of that good, old global warming climate change climate disruption heading towards the midwest:

Following several weeks of economic data that has been, despite erroneous expectations of a Fed rate hike, one major disappointment after another including regional Fed reports, housing data, manufacturing surveys, construction spending, and durable goods data, the US economy is about to get the slowdown scapegoat it so desperately needs: according to Weather.com, following a brief overnight respite from cold temperatures, entering the first full week of January, both the Midwest and the East will see a plunge to the coldest temperatures of the season. This blast of cold temperatures will be different than the Arctic chill that ended 2014, which was mainly confined to the northern tier. This time the frigid air will push farther south and east.

Only thing I can figure is that Al Gore must be making a speaking tour through the area – but, as Zero Hedge notes, this is going to cause sighs of relief through our Economist and Banker classes…that it is cold in January will be used to explain away the poor 1st quarter GDP data we’re going to get in April (and, as usual, this exceptionally cold spell will be used to “prove” global warming…because if we weren’t warming, you see, we wouldn’t get weather that is unusually cold). The thing about our modern system is that it is so hopelessly corrupt that both global warming and fake-money economies can be kept going for quite a while…

Government is the Problem

Mark Noonan18 Comments

And it looks as though people are (finally!) starting to figure that out:

Government (and the creatures who infest its rotten carcass) was the most important problem facing the United States in 2014, Americans tell Gallup pollsters. That’s up from being the second most serious problem in 2013, and the third-ranker in 2012.

Who says the American political system is stuck? This is progress!

It is, indeed. Not quite enough, though – we need people to really understand, deep down in their bones, that government is a necessary burden, not something that can be a genuine force for good. It can restrain, it cannot really help – only people, acting as individuals and groups, can help other people. To be sure, if you could get a government run entirely by saints, you might have something which could do better – but that just isn’t going to happen because the sort of people who become saints wouldn’t want to be in government; while the sort of people who do want to be in government often ensure that government is messed up, when not actually malevolent. The mistrust of government upon which our nation was founded is healthy, and the sooner we get it back, the better.

Obama’s Beneficiaries: Russia, Cuba and Iran

Mark Noonan10 Comments

I read today that we’re to start negotiating Russia’s position in eastern Ukraine. Coming on the heels of Obama’s decision to open up to Cuba and recent remarks about how Obama would like to normalize our relations with Iran, we now know who has benefited most from Obama’s foreign policy: Russia, Cuba and Iran. That all three nations are enemies of the United States is not a bug in Obama’s policy: it is a feature.

To an academic liberal like Obama – ie, someone ignorant of the actual history of the world – these nations aren’t really our enemies. They were forced into opposing us because of our wrong-headed, racist and imperialist policies. Had we just not been rat bastards to these people in days gone by, they would be our friends. Obama has set out to correct this problem – and true to liberal prescriptions, the solution is for us to surrender…because by doing so we are merely surrendering our ill-gotten gains. Once such surrender is consummated, these so-called enemies will be our friends and partners in making a better world.

For Cuba, the enmity stems from our support for corrupt and cruel governments of the past, made worse by our embargo and other oppressive measures. For Iran, it was because we – all by ourselves, with no Iranian input, at all – overthrew an allegedly democratic Iranian government in the 1950’s. For Russia, it was because we kept trying to push NATO to the east, thus threatening Russia’s security. Had we just backed Castro at the start, helped overthrow the Shah of Iran and kept our nose out of places like Poland and Estonia, all would be well. Obama is going to fix all this – and any of us who point out the absurdity of it all will just be put down as old-fashioned, racist hate-mongers who want enemies so we can get defense contracts, or some such nonsense.

In the end, what Obama will actually do – though he and liberals like him will never understand it – is massively empower bitter enemies of the United States, much to the detriment of freedom in the world and America’s position in it. Cuba’s communist regime will get a new lease on life – and China better watch out because ruthlessly exploited Cubans can make cheap consumer goods just as well as ruthlessly exploited Chinese, and as they are much closer to the United States, the price will be less for Cuban crap than for Chinese crap. Russia will gain recognized dominance over most of its old Empire…and will try to push outwards more and more. Iran will become predominant in the Middle East and pressure will mount ever higher for us to cut Israel adrift rather than try to fight all of Islam to save her (our liberals grow to hate Israel…when push comes to shove, they’ll turn a blind eye to slaughter). Great job there, Barry – Neville Chamberlain got nothing on you.

What it also means is that anyone looking for an alliance won’t look towards us – we’re demonstrating that if you rely on us, you’ll be thrown overboard at the first opportunity. As soon as we find a tyrant who wants something, we’ll hand you over and call it a “reset” of relations. Small, weak nations will now try to make the best deal they can with tyrannies…this will prove especially crucial in places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Philippines…who in any of these nations would actually think in 2014 that an American army or fleet will be on their way when the tigers start to prowl?

Obama’s successor – either fellow nitwit academic Hillary or whomever the GOP nominates – will inherit a world which will be quite a mess. No one who possibly likes us will trust us, no one who hates us will be in any fear. We’ll be quite alone – and rather disarmed as Obama has cut the size of our military dramatically. Adding to the bad news, we’ll be $20 trillion in debt with a lot of short-term notes coming due at a time when interest rates are likely to be rising. I do wonder, seriously, if any of the contenders for the White House really understand what a difficult problem Obama will be leaving them…even if on January 20th, 2017 we’re not in a hot war or actual recession? I think if they did, hardly any of them would make a try for it. We’re going to need someone of the stature of Washington or Lincoln to get us through – someone who will be willing to work themselves to death, just to repair the worst of the damage. It won’t be an Obama-like time of vacations, golf outings and people checking your NCAA brackets.

But, Obama won’t care – he’ll go to his grave believing that he fixed everything. When things go smash – likely after he is out of office – he’ll blame his successors for not being as smart as he was. His acolytes in the MSM will also never question what was done, and will lay all blame on whomever gets stuck with the White House (you sure you really want that, Hillary?). Obama will be rich, well guarded and living among the elite of the elite for the rest of his days…the much poorer people who will have to play in blood and treasure to fix his mistakes won’t even be on his mind.

Friday Open Thread

Mark Noonan30 Comments

First up – global warming hoax update:

Arctic sea ice has reached the largest December extent in a decade. Government experts will of course not acknowledge this, because their funding and reputations depend on a misinformed public and Congress.

Here in Las Vegas, there is a chance we’ll have a light dusting of global warming on New Years Eve.

Does it seem like politics are stupid? You know, where the debate is about absurd, asinine things put forth by shrieking nincompoops? I think it is intentional – it is impossible to win stupid arguments. You can’t have a rational debate over an irrational proposition…this, I believe, is a tactic of the left: Keep it Stupid. The more we have people shouting stupid slogans, the less actual debate goes on, the more time the left has to grind their policies through the bureaucracies and courts.

The Washington Post notes that the Islamic State is not very good at State-building:

In the Iraqi city of Mosul, the water has become undrinkable because supplies of chlorine have dried up, said a journalist living there, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his safety…

Which tells you this: ISIS is in control in Mosul…and I think, for the moment, that is ISIS’ main plan. Sure, they are putting out propaganda showing themselves in a good light (and I think the beheading videos are classified under “happy talk” propaganda in ISIS), but the real goal, for now, is absolute power…they’ll worry about drinking water once the infidels are smashed. I get the feeling that WaPo is tut-tutting here…as if a bloodthirsty tyranny judges its successes based upon whether or not there is day care available. We’re losing the war against this ideology because we are refusing to think in war terms.

As we suspected: Fast and Furious was about getting stricter gun control. You know, get guns out there, blame the gun dealers for it, put restrictions on gun dealers…

Noted on Twitter: every winning GOP ticket since 1928 has had a Bush or a Nixon on it. So, we’re doomed.

Merry Christmas!

Mark Noonan5 Comments

First a bit about the reason for the season:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment,
when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth
to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there,
the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields
and keeping the night watch over their flock.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel,
praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

A merry Christmas to all of you! Remember, do count your blessings; remember that there literal billions worse off than you; give thanks to God for all things and let us pray for a good New Year.

When Did You Stop Believing in Santa Claus?

Retired Spook5 Comments

How about something a little more light-hearted than our usual politics and social commentary fare? We had a discussion about a number of Christmas related topics with several friends at a Christmas party this past weekend, and the subject of our grandkids believing (or not believing) in Santa came up. I remember the last Christmas I believed in Santa like it was yesterday, even though it was 50 years ago tonight.

My grandparents moved into a new house sometime in the fall of 1954, so my parents and brother and sister and I decided to spend Christmas Eve at their house. I was just shy of my 10th birthday and was getting pretty skeptical about Santa’s existence. As I found out later, my parents and grandparents were determined to stretch the magic for one more year. To this day I still don’t know how they did it, but we heard the sound of Reindeer hooves on the roof and the sound of sleigh bells coming down their chimney. We all (well, obviously not ALL) ran out on the front lawn, and seeing nothing on the roof, we came back in, and all the presents were under the tree. Not only did it renew my faith in Santa for one more year, but I marveled at how smart Santa was to know that I was at my grandparents’ house that Christmas.

Anyone else have any Santa stories, or Christmas stories in general?

The Bizarre Bubble of Leftist Insanity

Cluster12 Comments

Amazona coined this appropriate phrase and it certainly defines the current time period very well, if not actually a good definition for the last 6 years. The tragic shooting of the NYPD officers highlights liberal insanity in that it exposes their inability to speak the truth and their desperate resistance to never admit fault. The truth surrounding the Michael Brown and Eric Garner tragic deaths have never been part of the liberal narrative. “Hands up, don’t shoot” was a liberal spun bumper sticker that fit in very well with their agenda, and was a nice center piece for Al Sharpton’s race baiting speeches but never bore any resemblance to the truth. In fact nothing about the Michael Brown liberal narrative ever came close to the truth – from being a gentle giant (who just happened to be involved in a strong armed robbery and who assaulted a police officer), to the sad fact that Michael was raised in difficult circumstances born from very young parents who had difficulty caring for him, as so many other young black kids experience, and a culture of which so often leads to negative outcomes. But these two, core, hard truths have never been part of the story, thus reasonable people who see the deeper, underlying causes of his tragic death must contend with the loud shrill voices of the insane liberal agenda led by none other MSNBC’s and President Obama’s chief race baiter Al Sharpton.

Fast forward to the unfortunate death of Eric Garner. While in my opinion the police did overreact a bit in this instance, race was never a part of this story. However, in the insane, fact void, liberal world, this was again about white police officers targeting black men. The President spoke on it, the AG spoke on it, and the Mayor spoke on it and went so far as to make it personal, claiming that he counsels his half black son to be particularly cautious when dealing with police. An overlooked fact surrounding this issue is that minority shop owners were the folks who initially called in the police, and the ranking officer at the scene was a black woman. Also, despite the fact that Garner’s widow went public with her opinion that this was not about race, the liberal agenda ignored these truths and continued to push the false narrative, black sports stars even wore “I can’t breathe” jersey’s and ultimately one protest crowd started the chant – “What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.” Liberal leaders and their minions in the media remained silent about this protest and now those chants have in fact resulted in two dead cops. The liberal media and people like Sharpton have been spinning the false narrative of police brutality and fomenting police hatred for the last 5 months now following the death of Michael Brown, so no one should believe their surprise as to what happened last Saturday night. In fact, no one should ever believe liberals. They lie as easily as they breathe. They have a seething hatred for anyone who disagrees with their false sense of self superiority and benevolent intent. They will never honestly discuss issues. They can not be trusted, and incompetence is part of their DNA. Fortunately, I think the majority of Americans are coming around to these undeniable facts, but that won’t stop the liberals from becoming louder and more insane over the next two years.

The Real Problem With Sony

Mark Noonan20 Comments

I notice the MSM, with their usual keen eye, have entirely missed the point of the Sony issue – it isn’t that there was a cyber-attack: in the modern era, cyber-attacks will only become more common. No, the problem is that Sony – and Paramount – have shown an incredible level of cowardice.

I’m not sure if Sony was more worried about a terrorist attack on a theater or further revelations of internal Sony communications, but whatever the reason for their surrender, it is disgusting. It doesn’t matter who really did the cyber-attack – and people falling over themselves to devise ever more bizarre theories about who might “really” be behind the attack are just distracting from the real issue (and as the MSM seems to be running with it, I’m guessing that a lot of MSM outfits are terrified of their internal communications being revealed to the world: as an aside, this brings me back to my view about doing anything over the internet – it is a completely public place, there is no real possibility of privacy…if you can’t do it in broad daylight in your front yard with your grandmother watching, don’t do it on the internet). What have we become? A nation which is afraid – afraid to say things and do things for fear that someone might attack us for saying or doing. It is a terrible state of affairs.

It is also, of course, tailor-made for leftism…and no surprise that a Communist nation like North Korea might well be behind such things. What is the difference between what North Korea has allegedly done and screaming Stalinists in the United States do when they, for instance, get a speaker banned from a college? Peas in a pod. What this event tells me is that 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Communism is again on the march and is being far more successful than it ever was when run from Moscow…now its run from a hundred different places, and enabled by cowards who are afraid of a fight.

UPDATE: Rand Paul has essentially taken Obama’s side on the Cuba issue. This is just another reason why I can never be a Libertarian and while I’d vote Paul if he got the nomination, he’s way down there on my list of choices. Libertarians have the nonsensical – really, rather stupid – idea that if you trade with tyrannical regimes they will liberalize. Grab a clue: they won’t. In fact, they’ll get more tyrannical. We’ve been going down this route with tyrants since we set up relations with Stalin’s USSR in the 1930’s. Here’s the thing everyone needs to understand: tyrants don’t care. They’ll steal their own people’s money in order to live well. They’ll have them slave away in order to make things which can be sold to us for hard cash (tyrant money is always functionally worthless in the global market). They’ll use the wealth we provide – that which they don’t steal to build themselves palaces and monuments, that is – to buy weapons to fight us, allies to hate us, and traitors to undermine us (the USSR routinely funded leftist groups in the West – these days, Oil State kleptocracies spend money in the US to burnish their image, and hold down US oil production). Trade with tyrants is always a bad idea – we shouldn’t be opening up to Cuba; we should be shutting ourselves down to China.

UPDATE II: Had forgot about this – but, all people of the left are all alike…and so remember when the Clintons managed to get a movie cancelled?

Dealing With the Unreasonable

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Anyone paying close attention would have noticed that last night I deactivated my Twitter account. The account for Wost President (Victory Books, actually) is still up and running and will remain so – but I dumped my personal Twitter account. There were several reasons for this, but one of the major reasons was to drop down the level of crazy in my life.

Not to condemn Twitter – which does have some very good uses, especially when there is major, breaking news – but we have in our society quite a large number of unreasonable people. People who don’t know history; are only hazily aware of the facts, but are absolutely convinced of their worldview and determined that anyone who dissents from it be squashed. This is mostly on the left, but it is all too common on the right, as well. Twitter is ready-made for such people – it is impossible to explain to someone in 140 characters or less just how they are wrong but it is very easy for someone to get very insulting in 140 characters. I found myself getting drawn into the crazy on Twitter too often. The Worst President account is easier to handle – as it is not a personal account, people seem less inclined to start a flame war on it; I guess its the difference between insulting Victory Books (meh) or insulting Mark Noonan (woohoo!!).

But this also brings to mind the general unreasonableness of our society – You might have heard that the President of Smith had to apologize for saying “all lives matter”, this a take on the Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Because someone made a Twitter meme which has been identified by some as the “correct” position to have, the President of a major university had to crawl in apology essentially for not having the right hashtag in her statement. This isn’t just political correctness: this is crazy. And crazy is a good definition for the modern West in general.

And I do wonder just how crazy we will get before something really goes smash. It might seem cool to encapsulate an idea in just a few words, but the trouble with slogans is that they tend to shut down thought (which is, by the way, the secret of advertising). Mindless repetition of slogans and shouting hate at anyone who questions the slogans is picture perfect for a totalitarian society trying to have uniformity of belief…but in a still-free society like the United States, its the recipe for developing vicious hatred, on both sides.

I’d like to say that our solution is to convince those who don’t know to shut up and listen – but those who are least knowledgeable are most likely to believe they are practically all-knowing. Our actual solution is to try to ignore such silly creatures. In a sense, that is what we’ve done here – and while there are fewer comments, such comments as their are tend to increase the sum of knowledge. Of course, this is just a little-noticed blog – but I think it can serve as a model. Let us who are reasonable discuss what is best and then try to obtain the ability to implement it. Don’t engage every silly screwball out there who has an opinion armored from head to foot in ignorance. It just doesn’t pay – and it doesn’t help advance the solutions we need.

And just in case the crazy seems a bit much, some advice:

A Ballad Of Suicide by G. K. Chesterton

The gallows in my garden, people say,

Is new and neat and adequately tall;
I tie the noose on in a knowing way

As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours—on the wall—
Are drawing a long breath to shout “Hurray!”

The strangest whim has seized me. . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.
To-morrow is the time I get my pay—

My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall—
I see a little cloud all pink and grey—

Perhaps the rector’s mother will not call— I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way—

I never read the works of Juvenal—
I think I will not hang myself to-day.
The world will have another washing-day;

The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,

And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall,
Rationalists are growing rational—
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray

So secret that the very sky seems small—
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The Feinstein Report

Cluster15 Comments

As a parting shot, the Democrats decided to dust off an old playbook once agin and expose America in bad light in the name of transparency. Never missing an opportunity to make themselves feel “enlightened” at the expense of average Americans and this time, at the possible cost of patriotic military lives, Dem. Sen. Diane Feinstein has issued her $40 million report that has revealed absolutely nothing new regarding the CIA’s conduct in the direct aftermath of 9/11. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by publishing this report with the possible exception of settling a personal score for Feinstein which wouldn’t surprise me knowing the base level of childishness shared by all Democrats. Additionally, in an interview this morning ex-CIA Chief Michael Hayden confirmed that members of Congress including Feinstein were briefed all along the way on all methods of interrogation being used and at the time there were no objections. Only now, years after the fact and at a time when personal agendas can be served do the objections rise, although only on behalf of the Democrats, as every single GOP member of the committee abstained from contributing to this report. In fact, the GOP did issue their own minority report as did the CIA but strangely I am not hearing accounts of those reports at least in the liberal MSM. My personal opinion, shared by many others, is that water boarding is not torture. While it is an obviously brutal technique, and should only be used in extreme and rare instances, I believe that the circumstances surrounding the events of 9/11 did warrant such techniques and furthermore believe that the men and women of the CIA should be applauded for their efforts and not criticized by self serving, sanctimonious politicians or their sycophantic minions in the media.

The irony of course in this “search for the truth” effort on behalf of Democrats is deep and wide considering their lack of transparency on nearly every other major issue confronting the country, i.e.; the Fast & Furious program, the IRS, the NSA, the EPA, and of course the ACA. Speaking of the ACA, did everyone see Dr. Jonathan Gruber apologize for revealing the truth behind that program? Not surprisingly MSNBC, the publicity department of the Democrats spent approximately 40 minutes over two separate hours covering the Feinstein report this morning, and about 2 minutes at most covering the Gruber hearing. So what issue has the most impact on American lives? The partisan manipulation of the health care industry under the cloak of secrecy? Or the rough interrogation techniques of sub human murderers? And they wonder why they no longer control the Congress.

UPDATE: We are now in the third hour of Morning Joe on MSNBC and it is wall to wall coverage and analysis of the Feinstein report. Apparently, nothing else is going on in Washington. One liberal analyst anguished over the “humiliating” treatment of the sub human murderers, which reinforces my belief that media liberals, Progressives and/or Democrats (my apologies for the redundancies) should be ignored and excluded from future debate and decisions on governing this country.