I just came across this little gem of a fact relating to the reparations that post WWI Germany was to pay, decided at the Treaty of Versailles;

In January 1921, the total sum due was decided by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission and was set at 269 billion gold marks (2,790 gold marks equalled 1 kilogram of pure gold), about £23.6 Billion, about $32 billion (roughly equivalent to $393.6 Billion US Dollars as of 2005).

The figure was later cut in half. Ask any junior high-school student the root cause of WWII and the cause of the economic collapse of Germany, and they’ll answer, “The Treaty of Versailles.” I hope to hell these ‘economists’ know what they’re doing in spending two or three times the amount that bankrupted German.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Presidential election was much closer than the Main Stream Media was willing to admit. I came across this excellent map that shows the breakdown by county in November. Red = McCain, Blue = Obama:

Mandate? You decide. Source for this (and some other interesting maps) here.

John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, in a middlin’ long essay, attacks the claims of the environmental extremists, that an increase of less than 200 additional parts per million of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is cause for decimating the American economy. Good for ya’ John. Reprinted in its entirety:

The Amazing Story Behind The Global Warming Scam

By John Coleman
January 28, 2009

The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming.

How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government we have to struggle so to stop it?

The story begins with an Oceanographer named Roger Revelle. He served with the Navy in World War II. After the war he became the Director of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla in San Diego, California. Revelle saw the opportunity to obtain major funding from the Navy for doing measurements and research on the ocean around the Pacific Atolls where the US military was conducting atomic bomb tests. He greatly expanded the Institute’s areas of interest and among others hired Hans Suess, a noted Chemist from the University of Chicago, who was very interested in the traces of carbon in the environment from the burning of fossil fuels. Revelle tagged on to Suess studies and co-authored a paper with him in 1957. The paper raises the possibility that the carbon dioxide might be creating a greenhouse effect and causing atmospheric warming. It seems to be a plea for funding for more studies. Funding, frankly, is where Revelle’s mind was most of the time.

Next Revelle hired a Geochemist named David Keeling to devise a way to measure the atmospheric content of Carbon dioxide. In 1960 Keeling published his first paper showing the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and linking the increase to the burning of fossil fuels.

These two research papers became the bedrock of the science of global warming, even though they offered no proof that carbon dioxide was in fact a greenhouse gas. In addition they failed to explain how this trace gas, only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, could have any significant impact on temperatures.

Now let me take you back to the1950s when this was going on. Our cities were entrapped in a pall of pollution from the crude internal combustion engines that powered cars and trucks back then and from the uncontrolled emissions from power plants and factories. Cars and factories and power plants were filling the air with all sorts of pollutants. There was a valid and serious concern about the health consequences of this pollution and a strong environmental movement was developing to demand action. Government accepted this challenge and new environmental standards were set. Scientists and engineers came to the rescue. New reformulated fuels were developed for cars, as were new high tech, computer controlled engines and catalytic converters. By the mid seventies cars were no longer big time polluters, emitting only some carbon dioxide and water vapor from their tail pipes. Likewise, new fuel processing and smoke stack scrubbers were added to industrial and power plants and their emissions were greatly reduced, as well.

But an environmental movement had been established and its funding and very existence depended on having a continuing crisis issue. So the research papers from Scripps came at just the right moment. And, with them came the birth of an issue; man-made global warming from the carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

Revelle and Keeling used this new alarmism to keep their funding growing. Other researchers with environmental motivations and a hunger for funding saw this developing and climbed aboard as well. The research grants began to flow and alarming hypothesis began to show up everywhere.

The Keeling curve showed a steady rise in CO2 in atmosphere during the period since oil and coal were discovered and used by man. As of today, carbon dioxide has increased from 215 to 385 parts per million. But, despite the increases, it is still only a trace gas in the atmosphere. While the increase is real, the percentage of the atmosphere that is CO2 remains tiny, about .41 hundredths of one percent.

Several hypothesis emerged in the 70s and 80s about how this tiny atmospheric component of CO2 might cause a significant warming. But they remained unproven. Years have passed and the scientists kept reaching out for evidence of the warming and proof of their theories. And, the money and environmental claims kept on building up.

Back in the 1960s, this global warming research came to the attention of a Canadian born United Nation’s bureaucrat named Maurice Strong. He was looking for issues he could use to fulfill his dream of one-world government. Strong organized a World Earth Day event in Stockholm, Sweden in 1970. From this he developed a committee of scientists, environmentalists and political operatives from the UN to continue a series of meeting.

Strong developed the concept that the UN could demand payments from the advanced nations for the climatic damage from their burning of fossil fuels to benefit the underdeveloped nations, a sort of CO2 tax that would be the funding for his one-world government. But, he needed more scientific evidence to support his primary thesis. So Strong championed the establishment of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This was not a pure climate study scientific organization, as we have been lead to believe. It was an organization of one-world government UN bureaucrats, environmental activists and environmentalist scientists who craved the UN funding so they could produce the science they needed to stop the burning of fossil fuels. Over the last 25 years they have been very effective. Hundreds of scientific papers, four major international meetings and reams of news stories about climatic Armageddon later, the UN IPCC has made its points to the satisfaction of most and even shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

At the same time, that Maurice Strong was busy at the UN, things were getting a bit out of hand for the man who is now called the grandfather of global warming, Roger Revelle. He had been very politically active in the late 1950’s as he worked to have the University of California locate a San Diego campus adjacent to Scripps Institute in La Jolla. He won that major war, but lost an all important battle afterward when he was passed over in the selection of the first Chancellor of the new campus.

He left Scripps finally in 1963 and moved to Harvard University to establish a Center for Population Studies. It was there that Revelle inspired one of his students to become a major global warming activist. This student would say later, “It felt like such a privilege to be able to hear about the readouts from some of those measurements in a group of no more than a dozen undergraduates. Here was this teacher presenting something not years old but fresh out of the lab, with profound implications for our future!” The student described him as “a wonderful, visionary professor” who was “one of the first people in the academic community to sound the alarm on global warming,” That student was Al Gore. He thought of Dr. Revelle as his mentor and referred to him frequently, relaying his experiences as a student in his book Earth in the Balance, published in 1992.

So there it is, Roger Revelle was indeed the grandfather of global warming. His work had laid the foundation for the UN IPCC, provided the anti-fossil fuel ammunition to the environmental movement and sent Al Gore on his road to his books, his movie, his Nobel Peace Prize and a hundred million dollars from the carbon credits business.

What happened next is amazing. The global warming frenzy was becoming the cause celeb of the media. After all the media is mostly liberal, loves Al Gore, loves to warn us of impending disasters and tell us “the sky is falling, the sky is falling”. The politicians and the environmentalist loved it, too.

But the tide was turning with Roger Revelle. He was forced out at Harvard at 65 and returned to California and a semi retirement position at UCSD. There he had time to rethink Carbon Dioxide and the greenhouse effect. The man who had inspired Al Gore and given the UN the basic research it needed to launch its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was having second thoughts. In 1988 he wrote two cautionary letters to members of Congress. He wrote, “My own personal belief is that we should wait another 10 or 20 years to really be convinced that the greenhouse effect is going to be important for human beings, in both positive and negative ways.” He added, “…we should be careful not to arouse too much alarm until the rate and amount of warming becomes clearer.”

And in 1991 Revelle teamed up with Chauncey Starr, founding director of the Electric Power Research Institute and Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, to write an article for Cosmos magazine. They urged more research and begged scientists and governments not to move too fast to curb greenhouse CO2 emissions because the true impact of carbon dioxide was not at all certain and curbing the use of fossil fuels could have a huge negative impact on the economy and jobs and our standard of living. I have discussed this collaboration with Dr. Singer. He assures me that Revelle was considerably more certain than he was at the time that carbon dioxide was not a problem.

Did Roger Revelle attend the Summer enclave at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California in the Summer of 1990 while working on that article? Did he deliver a lakeside speech there to the assembled movers and shakers from Washington and Wall Street in which he apologized for sending the UN IPCC and Al Gore onto this wild goose chase about global warming? Did he say that the key scientific conjecture of his lifetime had turned out wrong? The answer to those questions is, “I think so, but I do not know it for certain”. I have not managed to get it confirmed as of this moment. It’s a little like Las Vegas; what is said at the Bohemian Grove stays at the Bohemian Grove. There are no transcripts or recordings and people who attend are encouraged not to talk. Yet, the topic is so important, that some people have shared with me on an informal basis.

Roger Revelle died of a heart attack three months after the Cosmos story was printed. Oh, how I wish he were still alive today. He might be able to stop this scientific silliness and end the global warming scam.

Al Gore has dismissed Roger Revelle’s Mea culpa as the actions of senile old man. And, the next year, while running for Vice President, he said the science behind global warming is settled and there will be no more debate, From 1992 until today, he and his cohorts have refused to debate global warming and when ask about we skeptics they simply insult us and call us names.

So today we have the acceptance of carbon dioxide as the culprit of global warming. It is concluded that when we burn fossil fuels we are leaving a dastardly carbon footprint which we must pay Al Gore or the environmentalists to offset. Our governments on all levels are considering taxing the use of fossil fuels. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of naming CO2 as a pollutant and strictly regulating its use to protect our climate. The new President and the US congress are on board. Many state governments are moving on the same course.

We are already suffering from this CO2 silliness in many ways. Our energy policy has been strictly hobbled by no drilling and no new refineries for decades. We pay for the shortage this has created every time we buy gas. On top of that the whole thing about corn based ethanol costs us millions of tax dollars in subsidies. That also has driven up food prices. And, all of this is a long way from over.

And, I am totally convinced there is no scientific basis for any of it.

Global Warming. It is the hoax. It is bad science. It is a high jacking of public policy. It is no joke. It is the greatest scam in history.

John Coleman
1-29-09

In the 1967 movie “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?” Joanna “Joey” Drayton (Katharine Houghton) is a young white American woman who has had a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), an African American man she met while on a holiday in Hawaii. The plot is centered on Joanna’s return to her liberal upper class American home in San Francisco, bringing her new fiance to dinner to meet her parents (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn), and the reaction of family and friends.

Shocking topic for America in 1967. In the contemporary version, to be played in Washington D.C. this coming weekend, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be sitting down to dinner with former Hawaii resident and current President Barack Hussein Obama at an exclusive club dinner in Washington.

Palin has started her own political action committee and laughed off suggestions that she’s in line for an $11 million book deal. Her stated intention of attending the dinner is strictly to promote Alaska’s interests as its governor.

It should prove interesting to see who commands bigger headlines for attending this event…

Source: http://www.fortmilltimes.com/124/story/438726.html

We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.
George Orwell

Seems appropriate on a day when a spokesperson for the Obama Adminstration defended expanded coverage for contraception as a means of economic stimulus to feel the need to refer the most famous of writers who warned of the anti-utopia in our future. One more from George:

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

“Well, I’ve got Social Security checks to send next week, a couple of bailouts, National Health Insurance, and Medicare’s in the  hole again, so make it 10 large on the Steelers…Larger…Larger…Larger…That’s right, trillion. What do you mean I gotta talk to Frankie?”

A Pew Poll, released today, showed these as the top three concerns of the respondents:
Economy 85%
Jobs 82%
Terrorism 76%

Concerns over terrorism are in a virtual tie with concerns over losing ones job and the economy.  The American people are not going to be happy if the new President lets the guard down and a couple million citizens go up in a fireball or inhale a tiny spec of some radioisotope and die a horrifying death within six months.

If President Obama wishes to pander to the hard-core leftists and shut Guantanamo down, nulify every legal order and opinion on interrogations, or make other concessions that, in the eyes of three-quarters of the American public make us more vulnerable to terrorists, it’s going to take more than just a brilliantly cheoregraphed and tele-prompted speech to allay the outrage. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…

Add’l: As the financial calamities of many major newspapers indicate, there is a migration away from newsprint to the Internet. The terrorist actions of many are hardly, if at all, reported in the main stream media. In that vacuum many independent reporters, internet journalists, photographers, and bloggers are providing extensive coverage of disturbing trends, even in the United States. My supposition is that the new media is helping to provide the information that is causing  continuing concerns over terror-related activities around the globe.

As a prime example, Internet journalist Zombie provides a comprehensive report on Islamist reaction to the attempt by Israel to defend itself from the daily rocket attacks against its citizens (of all faiths). Note the coordinated threats, protests, and riots on January 10, 2009. Including right here in the United States.

Just as it took years for the economic damage to occur, it may take years to repair. Outlined below are seven proposals that will not instantaneously bust the Treasury, but will in a very short time cause jobs to be created, consumer confidence to climb, and the economy to move forward.

1). Return the deduct-ability of interest expense, from whatever source, especially automobile financing, to the tax code. People have been using second mortgages and re-mortgaging their homes to buy automobiles. By doing this they are circumventing the tax law. Automobiles depreciate, homes appreciate. Until lately, when most areas of the country have witnessed dramatic depreciation. The auto industry is in trouble and consumers have little ability to finance their now worth less homes, once again, to buy autos. Sunset the law, for some later date, but return the tax deduction for all interest expense. Perhaps even for those who do not itemize deductions. Consider some type of variable for interest expense on high mileage cars. Buy a tiny little car that gets 50 mpg? You get to write-off twice the interest expense. Buy a gas guzzler, and you only get to write off 50% of the interest. Cost to the treasury? Very little in year one.

2). The new home builders are in trouble. Let ‘em yell and scream and stomp their feet. But tell ‘em to get lost. The existing homes in this country need to begin appreciating again. A fresh supply of new homes is the last thing we need. The sub-contractors who supply the labor to the new home builders can work on repairing the existing home base. Consumers might be able to find a supply of plumbers, roofers, electricians, and other skilled craftsmen at an affordable rate. Cost to the treasury? Zero. Benefit to nation? Immeasurable.

3). The oil shock of the past years is not an accident. We can expect it to happen again. More natural gas and oil needs to be found. It is there, and if we have to provide tax incentives to oil companies to make them drill, do it! Provide a further reward for high-yielding discoveries. Some people hate the oil companies, but they need to get over it. More jobs will be created and less money will ultimately flow to our “friends” in the middle east. Cost to the treasury? Substantial. Cost to let the obsession of some people leave us hostage, once again? A hell of a lot more substantial. The Islamic Republic of Iran, fattened by oil revenue, and in hot pursuit of atomic weaponry, is one prime example of what our do-nothing attitude has achieved.

4). Legal immigration from other countries needs to slow down. Legal immigration from Islamist countries needs to grind to a halt. The strategy of the Islamists has been to drive all competing religions from their territories. We are making it too easy for them. American workers are losing good jobs to immigrants from other countries. Some legal and illegal immigrants are sending a substantial portion of their earnings back to their home countries, which does little for the U.S. economy. Cost to the treasury? A net plus as more American workers are employed and spend money in their own communities.

5). Apply a “means test” to Social Security. Did you make it to retirement age with a million dollars or more in the bank? Great, and if you had become disabled or died along the way, Social Security would have been there to help you or your survivors out. But you really don’t need to receive a check every month. Shed your assets, give some to your children and grandchildren now so that they might have a chance to keep their homes and educate their children. Shed all of your assets below a certain amount and you can receive that social security check. Harsh? Not really. Social Security was intended to be a type of insurance. Just as you pay for homeowners or renters insurance it is there in case you needed it. You don’t. Get over it. Cost to the treasury? A net plus as the red ink slows.

6). Forget all of the “pie-in-the-sky” make-work, jobs programs. They only amount to income-redistribution from one area of the country to another. Usually from rural areas to big cities. The rural areas will be out in full force, next election, if you continue to raid their wallets. Don’t believe me? Look at the Electoral Map, by county, from the last election. That election was a lot closer than the main-stream media reported. Seven small states with a swing of between 20k to 400k votes and John McCain would have won the electoral college and been President.

7). The industrial base of this country has been completely decimated by “free-trade” with other countries. But just how free has that trade actually been? Someone in Washington really has to look at the subsidies that other countries permit to their industries. American manufacturer’s need to know who they can complain to in order to get action. It’s nice to talk about making college affordable for everyone, or create some sort of taxpayer financed program to subsidize that education. Not everyone needs or wants to be a Marine Biologist. Some people need the types of employment that manufacturing provides, whether it be full or part-time employment. Consider placing severe tariffs on low-cost, highly petro-chemical based products from China or other importers. It’s junk, it’s cheap, and it may make some people feel good to be able to afford such crap. But it’s ballooning the demand for oil, and it’s still crap. Cost to the treasury? A net plus, once again.

With these seven fairly simple steps, easily and quickly implemented, the economy of the U.S. would once again begin moving. I expect not one of them will be pursued.

Post Script: When I wrote this post this morning, it was prior to MicroSoft announcing 5,000 job cuts. The days of the “information age” and “high tech” and “knowledge worker” jobs that were going to propel us into the next century are shreiking to a halt. Not everyone in this country is a C+ language programmer with the esoteric skills to create a new ‘paradigm’ to ‘reinvent’ our economy. Statistically, an IQ high enough to graduate college, much less understand the intricascies of computer languages, is enjoyed by less than half the population. Manufacturing, which used to employ nearly one-third of the employed, has been gradually out-sourced to other countries. Manufacturing jobs used to employ people of all age, IQ, gender and race. The days of looking down upon those jobs, and the people that filled those positions, should end.

Winston Smith, spokesperson for the Office Of The President-Elected and Ministry of Truth, today released raw numbers on the latest Presidential Approval poll, and declared that, “while they still need to be tweaked a bit, they will be higher than 100%. My job depends on it,” he declared.

When reminded that a number higher than 100% is statistically impossible, Mr. Smith informed the assembled press that the Guantanamo “detainees,” as future law-abiding American citizens, had not been able to be included in the polls  and, in a curious aside, mumbled, “Sanity is not statistical.”

“Once we are able to assimilate these individuals into American society, we are certain they will set aside their demand for Islamic dominance across the planet and become card-carrying Democrats and peaceful American citizens,” he insisted. When informed that most former “detainees” had, upon release, resumed global jihad, Mr. Smith stated that that information on such “unpersons” was “ungood” and in the process of “going down the memory hole” and would shortly be no longer factual.

“The purpose of this administration is to control the present. The past is in the process of revision. When that is complete, we can control the future,” Mr. Smith lectured. His remarks were met with a standing ovation from the assembled throng of reporters.

Hope! Change! Trash!

According to the Associated Press:

As crowds cleared the city Tuesday, their trash covered the National Mall and Washington Monument grounds after President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

They left behind plastic bottles, newspapers, food wrappers, gloves and even American flags they had been waving. Trash bins overflowed with items people tossed.