President Rabbit Ears

Bensblurb # 550 May 25, 2010

President Rabbit Ears?

"The more he talked, the more he got upset," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said. “He needs to take a valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans and just calm down, and don’t take anything so seriously. If you disagree with someone, it doesn’t mean you’re attacking their motives — and he takes it that way and tends then to lecture and then gets upset.” --from a report on Politico about Obama’s meeting with GOP Senators today.
　
I had noticed that tendency earlier, when he held the televised meeting with Republicans to get their input on the Health Care bill that had yet to be passed.

I brought it up in a little treatise on the subject I wrote the other day, in commenting in Huffington Post (which incidentally is perhaps the most entertaining blog around, and inflammatory):

“No, Obama isn't a figurehead. He simply doesn't know how to manage anything. He conducts seminars in which he presides, like the academic he is, and critiques rather than directs. And have you noticed? He doesn't take criticism. Rather, he rebuffs. Remember those sessions he had with GOP leaders who were urging him to look further into the health care legislation? Every presentation, every followup comment was met with curt putdowns, as if he were judge and jury. In fact, he is. And who knows where he'll take us. Not too far, let's pray.”


Today was only the second time Obama has met with the Senate GOP conference in such a setting, in the Capitol. As Politico noted, “Bill Burton, a White House spokesman who attended the meeting, later told reporters that the meeting was “civil in tone” and not as contentious as Republicans have made it out to be. But he said Obama directly challenged the GOP to work in a bipartisan fashion on immigration and energy – or risk seeing those two major issues fall apart this year.”

Let’s hear it for falling apart, at least on energy legislation.
Additionally, at that skeptics conference on climate change, in Chicago earlier in the month, reportedly, “The betting in Washington is that the cap-and-trade carbon bill...hasn't got a chance of passing this year. That may explain why public outcry against yet another economy-choking piece of legislation has been fairly muted.”

As the Detroit News editorialized, This bill ought to be labeled "The Kill Any Hope for Economic Recovery Act." Its negative impact on jobs and economic development in this country will be enormous, as will be its contribution to job creation and economic growth

At the Chicago conference, a featured speaker quoted from a dire global warming notice by the Weather Bureau:

“The arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot. Reports all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the arctic zone. Expeditions reportthat scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”
—US Weather Bureau, 1922


--Ben Blankenship
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New Climate Law? WAIT!

Bensblurb #549 5/20/10

New Climate Law? Wait !

Poor Ken Cuccinelli. Our state’s attorney general is delving into scientist Michael Mann’s research findings which Virginia’s taxes supported to the tune of $500,000 some years ago at UVA to see if they were legit.

Predictably, the roof has fallen in on our young AG. Science, you see, is a closed society and outsiders stay out if they know what’s good for them. Seems that Cuccinelli based his query on a suspicion that Mann, now at Penn State U., had resorted to monkeyshines in creating an infamous climate graph (aka hockey stick) that, while influential in convincing other climate officials about how dreadful global warming was, arrayed his data so as to make the situation look worse. That surfaced last fall via public revelations of the “Climate Gate” emails among leading warmist scientists, including Mann.

Cuccinelli has said he’s only making sure Virginia’s public funds weren’t misused. He denies any connection to the fact he’s been a global warming skeptic. In any event, his query highlights at least two things.

There is a ton of taxpayer money supporting climate science. For example, the National Science Foundation hands out about $10 million a year for research into climate change. So delving into its possible misuse, by taxpayers’ representatives like Cuccinelli, should be OK.

More important, Congress is now trying to pass a new climate law that would greatly raise everyone’s energy costs and taxes. That impetus reflects many scientists’ worries that the world will otherwise get too warm.

It surely might, if Mann’s hockey-stick graph had truly shown great global warming in recent years. But detractors say it was a purposeful exaggeration to build support for remedies.

A few years ago, the detractors seemed a lonely bunch, but with the disclosure of the Climate Gate emails, they are swaying the public to increasingly doubt the purported dangers or the facts of global warming. A mainly stable, non-warming climate over the past decade, contrary to the heating predicted in scientists’ climate models, has also raised questions over the research and its proponents.

As our young AG can attest, the climate scientists aren’t taking this lying down. “The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change..." --James Hansen, longtime global warmist at NASA’s Goddard Institute. More: "[if we produce] climate disasters for young people and nature – we would destroy creation."
　
Whatever. What’s the next logical step other than a vast new energy law? “Only a thorough investigation will be able to document that there was really no strong warming after 1979, that the instrumented record is based on data manipulation involving the selection of certain weather stations (and the omission of others that showed no warming), plus applying insufficient corrections for local heating,” claims retired climate scientist Fred Singer, also from the University of Virginia.

And according to the Science and Environmental Policy Project: “In 2006...Edward Wegman of George Mason University...headed a team of statisticians testing the methods used by Mann. Professor Wegman testified before Congress that Mann's faulty statistical techniques always produce the infamous hockey stick configuration...”-- Power Line.

So Virginians, pro and con, are in this fight. It won’t likely end soon.

Ben Blankenship is an Aquia Harbour resident and career journalist. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com.

Obama Still Cool?

Bensblurb # 548 5/14/10


Obama the cool (?) guy:

Except when he gets really, really mad. Like when he goes to New York and blames Wall Street for financial woes, like when he lights into oil companies for the Gulf disaster. But his own bureaucrats? Well, they are hard working but he’s going to reorganize the oil permitting and regulatory offices anyhow to make them even more effective.

Too bad he doesn’t show a little anger at Iran, which is harboring countless Al Queda terrorists. Too bad he doesn’t show a little anger at his clownish Attorney General, who has made himself demonstrably ignorant in answering questions about Arizona’s new illegal alien law--or in steadfastly refusing to call radical Islamists what they are...Too bad budget boss Orszag has refuted Obama’s supposedly inviolable pledge—repeatedly uttered during the 2008 campaign and since the inauguration—that he would never raise taxes on middle-class citizens who earn $250,000 a year or less. Orszag threw that pledge out the window. He described it, not as a pledge, but a “preference.”...Too bad he’s mum over the outrageous plans by Muslims to erect an edifice next to NYC’s Twin Towers 9/11 hole.
And too bad he’s allowing EPA to attempt to regulate CO2 as a global-warming gas while the Senate again gets bogged in Cap and Tax energy legislation. What a week.

But look on the bright side--just over two and a half more years for Obama. Keep counting.

The air we breathe out:

* Lawmakers should stop perpetuating the hope that technology can help make huge cuts in the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions...Capturing carbon dioxide from the flue gas of a coal-fired electric generation plant is an energy-intensive process. Analysts estimate that capturing the carbon dioxide cuts the output of a typical plant by as much as 28 percent...Given that the global energy sector is already straining to meet booming demand for electricity, it’s hard to believe that the United States, or any other country that relies on coal-fired generation, will agree to reduce the output of its coal-fired plants by almost a third in order to attempt carbon capture and sequestration.--Robert Bryce, Manhattan Institute.
* As last year's "Climategate" scandal showed, scientists disregarded the scientific method in order to promote an ideologically favored hypothesis. In ignoring the scandal and pushing ahead with its "climate" agenda, the Obama administration has shown that it is more interested in ideology than science.--James Taranto, WSJ
* And here’s Fred Singer, retired climate physicist at University of Virginia: Certainly, the remedies invoked to "fight" [global warming] are a cruel hoax -- mainly a tax burden on low-income households who will pay more for electricity, food, transportation, and other necessities of life...By the 1970's, H.H. Lamb, the pioneer of modern climate research, compiled extensive physical evidence showing that climate change is normal and that during the last 10,000 years there were periods colder than today and warmer than today. The first two assessment reports of the UN’s IPCC included charts showing temperature change for the last 1,000 years that included the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. The Summary for Policymakers of the 2001 Third Assessment Report eliminated these temperature changes and substituted Mann's now infamous "hockey stick" graph produced by statistical techniques that purport to show that temperatures were relatively stable for about 900 years then shot up in the 20th Century. The results of a computer model trumps physical evidence.

--Ben Blankenship
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Internet Goodies

Bensblurb # 547 May 10, 2010


Thanks to friend Karla Keyser...

...for forwarding this goodie from the Internet: “I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc., I called the Suicide Lifeline. I got a call center in Pakistan , and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.”

Enjoying that did remind me again of a ditty I have thought about every time I have watched a certain commercial.

Imagine: The single mom says goodnight to a friend, locks the front door, pushes the button activating the home alarm system, and then suddenly encounters a maniac who has just broken down the door. The alarm rings, and then the telephone: “Hello!!!”

“Hi, this is your finance company calling about your last payment...”

She immediately hangs up, reaches into her bedside desk, pulls out her pistol and calmly shoots the intruder right between the eyes.

Only on Saturday Night Live or Comedy Central would such a scenario ever play out, other than here of course.

Now for a real one:

"'Hello, fellow racists.' That's how I greeted the gathering at the Tax Day Tea Party rally in Sacramento, Calif. Several people dropped their hoods and sheets in laughter. After a thorough search, I can report that I detected no secret handshake, security guards or minority-sniffing German shepherds to alert blacks that our presence was unwanted. ... A more serious criticism of the Tea Party movement goes like this: When George W. Bush and the Republicans controlled the House, Senate and Oval Office, where were the complaints about spending? ... As to Bush's non-defense, non-homeland security domestic spending, people did complain -- lots of them and frequently. Why isn't this more widely recognized? ... The Left loves domestic spending. For liberals, Bush's No Child Left Behind program 'wasn't fully funded.' The prescription bill for seniors contained a 'doughnut hole,' which made it insufficiently generous. Conservatives, pundits and talk show hosts routinely blasted Bush for domestic spending. ... So if people were unhappy with Bush's spending, then why are folks only now assembling, carrying signs and holding rallies in opposition to bigger government? Fair question. Better late than never. More importantly, things are much, much worse. Government bailouts, 'stimulus,' ObamaCare, etc., now push the nation's deficit to record non-World War II levels and debt to an all-time high. ..." --columnist Larry Elder, in Patriot Post

And here’s friend Dennis Avery again, in Pajamas Media:

What about our modern warming? We’ve had less than 0.7 degrees C of warming in the 160 years since the Little Ice Age ended. Both the Roman and Medieval warmings were somewhat warmer than now. The warming cycle typically delivers about half its total warming in its early decades — implying only another 0.7 degrees of warming over the next several centuries. Not enough to disrupt modern crop production.
Dutch researchers recently pointed out that U.S. corn yields have soared 240 percent since 1961, despite rising temperatures. Some seed experts predict they will double again by 2030. Mexican soybeans are averaging higher soybean yields than the U.S. despite higher temperatures, and Brazil is getting higher cotton yields than us despite much higher Brazilian temperatures.
In addition, higher levels of CO2 in the air will buffer the impact of any warming on agriculture. Doubling the level of CO2 in the air stimulates the growth of crop plants by 30 to 50 percent.
Extended droughts will be the biggest warming danger, but crop water use efficiency will greatly increase through technology that is waiting on the shelf...Rejoice, but fear a future cold cycle.,,,

Too bad Al Gore won’t read Dennis’s stuff, but he’s too busy moving into his new oceanside multimillion-dollar home in California, so happy to have left flood-drenched Tenn. behind.


--Ben Blankenship

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Oil spills and terrorism

Bensblurb # 546 5/7/10

OH, MY...

Two more big reasons for worry this spring: The oil spill and the Times Square terror.

Regarding that latest terrorist flop, maybe we should make sure those Pakistan area training schools for would-be bombers are encouraged to continue with their instructions for how to blow up things. Recent graduates include the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber and now the van bomber. They all flunked their field tests. Don’t tell anyone.
　
Remember, after the Christmas bombing failure, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pronounced "the system worked," even though passengers had succeeded where the security system failed. Likewise, all three instances reflected failure of our security forces to prevent the culprits from triggering their home-made duds. Thus, no cause for any Washington bigshot to celebrate.

Now, those bigshots are trying to blame BP for all the oil spill woes. However, note this from the Washington Post (via Instapundit)...“The Interior Department exempted BP’s calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental-impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.”

Back to you, Katrina blamers:

House Republican Conference Chair Mike Pence of Indiana...said the “necessary equipment was not immediately available in the region” after the leak began on April 20 and the federal government did not “fully deploy” federal resources until April 28...the American people want answers. They want to know what’s happened, they want to know why the federal response was slow.”--Politico
Wait, there’s more:
Here’s Ben Raines, writing in Mobile Press Register: “If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land. The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand...The "In-Situ Burn" plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms....
[F]ormer National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil spill response coordinator Ron Gouguet -- who helped craft the 1994 plan -- told the Press-Register that officials had pre-approval for burning. ‘The whole reason the plan was created was so we could pull the trigger right away.’ Gouguet speculated that burning could have captured 95 percent of the oil as it spilled from the well.”
Finally, ...“There is a basic difference between this incident and Hurricane Katrina, to which it is being compared. In the case of Katrina, the primary responsibility for disaster response lay with the local and state governments. The local response was very poor; among other things, the governor of Louisiana was slow to call out the National Guard. Here, responsibility lay with the Obama administration from the beginning...Only the federal government can act. It didn't, until, perhaps, it was too late.--Power Line blog.


Too bad the oil explosion hadn't been planned in Pakistan.


--Ben Blankenship

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Love and hate in newspapers

Bensblurb # 545 5/5/10

Love and hate in the dailies’ pages...

They’ve been my two favorite daily workweek companions for over 50 years, keeping me firing on all cylinders, or rather some of them lately despite the aging process.

One of them I love to hate, the other I hate to love. Both have helped me keep scrawling my opinions here over the past 15 years of my retirement.

The one I love to hate--no secret of course--is the Washington Post. It has thrived nevertheless. I had hoped at one time that the old Washington Evening Star would overtake it, then the Washington Daily News, then the Washington Times. No way. Instead, after chalking up four new Pulitzer prizes for quality this year, the Post starts a new weekly spin-off, Capital Business, during a really bad recession. That’s gutsy.

Why do I hate WaPo? Two recent examples. A Sunday feature went on and on about the garden editor’s hatred of...azaleas! Now what could be sicker? He bewailed their flowery and showy presence nearly everywhere in the region without once explaining why. Here’s the major reason why, from me, your former long-time proprietor of Azaleas of Aquia, no less.

Many years ago a USDA researcher out at Beltsville’s Plant Industry Station started trying to develop azaleas, then typically southern grown, that would do well in the Washington area. Ben Morrison, in his so-called Glendale plots, was amazingly successful over the years. Many of his hardy varieties now grace most of our area’s gardens today.

But not once did the Post’s garden editor properly blame the federal government for the proliferation of these azaleas he obviously detested. Just what you’d expect from a liberal rag so Obamist.

Another Post burr under my saddle, nearly as egregious, is its continuing campaign to besmirch our governor, Bob McDonnell. The other day it blared the headline “Virginia is for Lovers (and two haters).” It tied an incident, where a noted black singer messaged on his Twitter that he’d been racially dissed by two Virginians, to McDonnell’s recent proclamation on Confederate History Month. That thin editorial gruel was blown into a half-page spread.
　
Tough toenails, WaPo: Giant Northrop Grumman has now chosen Northern Virginia over the District or Maryland for its new national headquarters, despite the paper‘s advocacy. I was hoping for Stafford, especially since we killed the new BPOL tax, but Arlington-Fairfax will be OK too, benefiting us Virginians.

Now for the paper I hate to love: The Wall Street Journal. Why? Subscribing to it costs an arm and a leg. Nevertheless, I’ve seen it rise from being a mere business and conservative opinion periodical to national dominance, overtaking the holy New York Times and even Arlington’s scrappy USA Today.

Through the years I have treasured WSJ’s editorial page’s conservative opinions. I’ve agreed with most of them, and they have consistently been enhanced by clear and clever writing. I trust some of that has rubbed off on my own writing style.

Were there ever two more contrasting newspapers so successful in occupying much of the time this retiree should be spending on the Internet...and azaleas? Nope.

--Ben Blankenship

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MAY DAY! 2010

Bensblurb #544 MAY DAY 2010
　
　
So they’re out protesting, as usual, about illegal immigrants’ rights. With the onslaught of big media’s resulting wall-to-wall TV coverage, I thought I’d get my licks in early. So I sent you Charley Daniel’s ruminations “under separate cover.” That’s how we used to put it, back in the old unlamented days of government snail mail.
　
The stars, I fear, have all aligned to gum up just about everything Washington has had on the front burners lately.
　
Cap and tax, meet your climate stars’ onslaughts: The West Virginia mine disaster and the Gulf oil explosion. And by nads a volcano for good measure. Then, to foul up all the bureaucrats’ best intentions, here came the new Arizona immigration law. Not to mention the SEC suit against Goldman Sachs, which just happened to hit right when Congress took up new financials-regulating legislation. Just a coincidence, of course.
With all that on his platter, do forgive Obama for quickly changing the subject away from his customary ridicule of all opponents’ ideas ( a-la Saul Alinsky).

I say customary, after observing his numerous curt putdowns of the GOP legislators who had met with him to offer critiques of his health care plan (now dastardly law).
And now he may never have another press conference. The National Enquirer has “revealed” he’s cheated on his wife with a campaign aide, dating back to 2004. Far-fetched? Maybe. But remember this is the same sensational rag that everyone ridiculed at first for uncovering the John Edwards baby episode.
　
Meanwhile, that Obamacare turkey is taking some licks, according to Grace-Marie Turner of National Review:
“Not one of its major programs has gotten started, and already the wheels are starting to come off of Obamacare. The administration’s own actuary reported...that millions of people could lose their coverage, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them. The White House is trying to spin the [report] from Medicare’s chief actuary Richard Foster as only half bad because it concludes that, while costs will increase, only 23 million people will remain uninsured (instead of 24 million previously estimated).”

Wait, there’s more:

Washington Examiner: “[T]he president and his appointees said repeatedly over the last year that it would reduce government health care spending. Yet now comes Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's Health and Human Services secretary, confessing that ‘We don't know how much it's going to cost.’ Why is Sebelius only now saying this when her own department just made public a report obviously months in preparation that projected government health care costs overall will go up, not down? That same HHS report also said Obamacare's Medicare cuts could put 15 percent of all hospitals out of business, making treatment harder to get and especially for seniors.” But the sun is still shining, and will surely come up tomorrow, as per Little Orphan Annie.

--Ben Blankenship

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