By Timothy Birdnow

Actor Fess Parker passed away yesterday.  He was 85 years old. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100318/ap_on_en_tv/us_obit_fess_parker

The 6 foot 6 actor frequently played frontier characters, most notably Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone in two beloved television series. He was also in the movies Springfield Rifle, Them!, and Old Yeller. He was a good friend of Ronald Reagan.

The death of the man who played Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone is ironic; the last vestiges of those characters, of the self-reliant free men who made this country, could die by Sunday.  If Fess Parker's characters symbolized what made this nation great, his death at such a critical time in our history is all the more tragic, for he was not just an actor, but in the minds of many an archetype, that thing that so distinguished the soul of this land, the wild and free.  Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are in the process of murdering that soul - little wonder the actor who portrayed it has perished.

Davey Crockett died at the Alamo, fighting for the freedom of his brethren.  The fascists in Washington want nothing better than to murder his legacy.

Americans have always been a free, self-reliant people. From the first, with the Pilgrims settling in the cold and rocky shores of Plymouth through the settlers who crossed the Cumberland Gap, to the Crocketts and Bowies and Travises who were prepared to sacrifice their lives for freedom in Texas, to the Mormons of Utah and the gold miners who went into the tundra in Alaska, Americans have sought freedom and self-reliance over ease and paternalism.  Our forefathers would live free or die, and many of them did precisely that. 

But now it may be over. Where once the U.S. government forced the Indian Nations onto reservations, where they had to die or live in chains, so too are our own leaders now trying to place us on reservations, only this will be a continental reservation; our whole country will live under the thumb of the Great White Chief, er, the Great Black Chief, or at least the Great partially black, partly Arab, and partly European American Chief with an international upbringing. At any rate, we are being told that we cannot leave this brave new reservation, that we must take what is provided rather than hunt for our own needs, must obey the edicts put down by the great men who rule over us. We are being told that we can no longer be Americans! Those rough heroes of old - Ethan Allen, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Kit Carson, Daniel Boone, Brigham Young, all of those rough and noble heroes who braved the wilds of a hostile continent to break trail for the settlers who wanted freedom and to fight for that freedom against all comers must be rolling over in their graves; their sacrifices are busily being overturned by a cabal of urban leftists who want nothing better than to recreate the ghettos and servitude of old Europe that these men of legend labored to escape. 

In 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner delivered a lecture to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Frontier+theory  Turner theorized that the roots of American exceptionally lie in the frontier, that Americans are who we are because of the great Out There, and that the closing of the frontier would lead to profound changes in the American psyche and character. Throughout the 20th Century America has witnessed the increasing triumph of the Progressives, of the Europeanization of the American viewpoint. Acceptance of the yoke of government, curtailing of the freedoms that the frontier offered would suggest that Turner's thesis was correct. Certainly, the fundamental concept of what it means to be an American has shifted dramatically.  Where once Americans would have fought to the death to stop such an abomination as socialized medicine, now many relish the prospect. The idea of freedom has succumbed to the wish for security.

So the death of Fess Parker means more than just the death of one man - it symbolizes the death of something far greater, of a way of thinking and a way of life. It symbolizes the death of the soul of America. 

If the Democrats pass this health care reform, they will have effectively murdered it. 

 
Thanks to Wil Wirtanen

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Wil Wirtanen

For us boomers, another icon has passed.

Below is a comment by Loyal Rebel on the yahoo news site.  He/She nails it on the head.

“Another of the very few real actors with us, has left us. The last real comedian was Red Skelton who
passed away a few years ago. Nowadays Hollywood is just full of foul-mouthed, American
hating riff-raff.”

Fess Parker, TV's `Davy Crockett,' dies at 85

By JEFF WILSON, Associated Press Writer Jeff Wilson, Associated Press Writer 34 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – Actor Fess Parker, who became every baby boomer's idol in the 1950s and launched a craze for coonskin caps as television's Davy Crockett, died Thursday of natural causes. He was 85.

Family spokeswoman Sao Anash said Parker, who was also TV's Daniel Boone and later a major California winemaker and developer, died at his Santa Ynez Valley home. His death comes on the 84th birthday of his wife of 50 years, Marcella.

"She's a wreck," Anash said, adding Parker was coherent and speaking with family just minutes before his death. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.

The first installment of "Davy Crockett," with Buddy Ebsen as Crockett's sidekick, debuted in December 1954 as part of the "Disneyland" TV show.

The 6-foot, 6-inch Parker was quickly embraced by youngsters as the man in a coonskin cap who stood for the spirit of the American frontier. Boomers gripped by the Crockett craze scooped up Davy lunch boxes, toy Old Betsy rifles, buckskin shirts and trademark fur caps. "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" ("Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee...") was a No. 1 hit for singer Bill Hayes while Parker's own version reached No. 5.

The first three television episodes were turned into a theatrical film, "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier," in 1955.

True to history, Disney killed off its hero in the third episode, "Davy Crockett at the Alamo," where the real-life Crockett died in 1836 at age 49. But spurred by popular demand, Disney brought back the Crockett character for some episodes in the 1955-56 season, including "Davy Crockett's Keelboat Race." In reporting this development, Hedda Hopper wrote: "Take off those black armbands, kids, and put on your coonskin caps, for Davy Crockett will hit the trail again."

But just as suddenly it had taken the country by storm, the craze died down.

Parker's career then leveled off before he made a TV comeback from 1964-1970 in the title role of the TV adventure series "Daniel Boone" — also based on a real-life American frontiersman. Actor-singer Ed Ames, formerly of the Ames Brothers, played Boone's Indian friend, Mingo.

After "Daniel Boone," Parker largely retired from show business, except for guest appearances, and went into real estate.

"I left the business after 22 years," Parker told The Associated Press in 2001. "It was time to leave Hollywood. I came along at a time when I'm starting out with Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Sterling Hayden and Gregory Peck."

"Who needed a guy running around in a coonskin cap?" he said.

Parker had made his motion picture debut in "Springfield Rifle" in 1952. His other movies included "No Room for the Groom" (1952), "The Kid From Left Field" (1953), "Them!" (1954), "The Great Locomotive Chase" (1956), "Westward Ho, the Wagons!" (1956), "Old Yeller" (1957) and "The Light in the Forest" (1958).

Several of Parker's films, including "The Great Locomotive Chase" and "Old Yeller," came from the Disney studio.

It was Parker's scene as a terrified witness in the horror classic "Them!" that caught the attention of Walt Disney when he was looking for a "Davy Crockett" star. He chose Parker over another "Them!" actor, James Arness — who became a TV superstar in the long-running "Gunsmoke."

After departing Hollywood, Parker got into real estate with his wife, Marcella, whom he had married in 1960.

He bought and sold property, built hotels (including the elegant Fess Parker's Wine Country Inn & Spa in Los Olivos and Fess Parker's Doubletree Resort Santa Barbara) and grew wine grapes on a 2,200-acre vineyard on California's Central Coast, where he was dubbed King of the Wine Frontier and coonskin caps enjoyed brisk sales.

After its inaugural harvest in 1989, Parker's vineyard won dozens of medals and awards. The Parkers' son, Eli, became director of winemaking and their daughter, Ashley, also worked at the winery.

Parker was a longtime friend of Ronald Reagan, whose Western White House was not far from the Parker vineyards. Reagan sent Parker to Australia in 1985 to represent him during an event, and when Parker returned he was asked by White House aide Michael Deaver if he was interested in being ambassador to that country.

"In the end, I decided I'd better take myself out of it. But I was flattered," Parker said.

Parker also once considered a U.S. Senate bid, challenging Alan Cranston. But Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt said it would be a rough campaign, and a key dissenter lived under the same roof.

"My wife was not in favor," Parker said. "I'm so happy with what evolved."

Fess Elisha Parker Jr. was born Aug. 16, 1924, in Fort Worth, Texas — Parker loved to point out Crockett's birthday was Aug. 17. He played football at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene but was injured in a nearly fatal road-rage knifing in 1946.

"There went my football career," Parker had said.

He later earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas.

Parker was discovered by actor Adolphe Menjou, who was Oscar-nominated for "The Front Page" in 1931 and who was a guest artist at the University of Texas. Menjou urged him to go to Hollywood and introduced Parker to his agent.

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Timothy Birdnow

One of the arguments made by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq was that we had reason to BELIEVE that Saddam Hussein's regime had hidden weapons of mass destruction.  The counter argument made by pacifists and Democrats was that we could not justify going against world opinion and violating Iraqi sovereignty - on suspicion, but had to have firm, solid facts to take any action.  It did not matter what good things removing Saddam would bring - ending rape rooms, torture chambers, freeing Iraqi women from second class citizen status, freeing all Iraqis from a tyrant, giving them the chance to choose their destiny. No, sir; the important thing was to maintain the status quo unless we had absolute certainty that Iraq was guilty of complicity in the 911 attacks and that they had - for certain - weapons they intended to use against us.  The burden of proof had to be beyond reasonable doubt; we had to have proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, or we had no right to act.

Strange how the burden has shifted in the health care debate; suddenly we are supposed to take drastic action, invade the private health insurance market with bureaucratic storm troopers, on the mere suspicion of financial WMD's.  We are to ignore the opinion of sovereign entities i.e. We the People in favor of Our President's word that it is needed.  What of the sovereignty of American citizens? Of the individual states?  If civil rights weren't worth fighting for in Iraq, why is the right to health care suddenly worth so much?  

Of course, we were told ad-nauseum that dissent is the highest form of patriotism over Iraq, and now we are told we have no right to dissent and need to shut our mouths about health care reform.  

The Democrats didn't care about rape rooms, about torture chambers, about brutality and oppression in Iraq. On the contrary, they want to set up their own version of these things, a gentler version, granted. Death panels, abortion mills, "end of life counseling" for the weak and sickly, jail time for those who do not surrender their sovereignty and buck up. And, like Saddam's Ministry of Information, they want us to believe that these evil things are actually good, that this is somehow what charitable and decent people advocate.

And Nancy Pelosi says the House has to pass the Senate bill to see what is in it!  Isn't this exactly what the Democrats loathed when George W. Bush said we have to invade Iraq to see what is in it?

Saddam clearly had something to hide; he kicked the U.N. inspectors out, and refused to come clean when asked. Who has something to hide here? There has been repeated - and desperate - attempts to obfuscate many aspects of this bill, to keep it under cover.

For you liberal Christians, I challenge you with these words:

"And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

(John 3:19-21)

Who has been dealing in darkness here?

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Timothy Birdnow

This from Mark Krikorian and the good people at the Center for Immigration Studies:

Immigration and the Southern Poverty Law Center http://cis.org/immigration-splc

New Report Finds Stopping 'Hate'
Is Really about Stopping Debate


WASHINGTON (March 18, 2010) – After the collapse of the Senate amnesty bill in 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) joined with the National Council of La Raza and others to launch a campaign to smear the three largest mainstream groups making a case for tighter enforcement and lower immigration. At the center of this campaign was the designation of the Federation for American Immigration Reform as a “hate group” and the spread of that taint to Numbers USA and the Center for Immigration Studies. The announced goal was to pressure journalists and policymakers not to meet or speak with these organizations. Touted as an effort to 'stop the hate,' it was a thinly disguised move to stifle debate.

The Center for Immigration Studies has released a new report http://cis.org/immigration-splc examining the SPLC and its role in this campaign. 'Immigration and the SPLC: How the Southern Poverty Law Center Invented a Smear, Served La Raza, Manipulated the Press, and Duped its Donors,' authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jerry Kammer, now a Senior Research Fellow at CIS.

Among the findings:

While the SPLC presented itself as a public-interest watchdog, it became a propaganda arm of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). Its designation of FAIR as a 'hate group' was a publicity stunt in the service of La Raza's 'Stop the Hate Campaign.' That campaign, formally launched in early 2008, is actually an effort to stop the debate on national immigration policy.


The SPLC had demeaned FAIR for years, without tarring it with the toxic 'hate group' smear. It tried to justify its timing of the hate group announcement – the month before the 'Stop the Hate' campaign was launched – with a drummed-up accusation that FAIR had 'crossed the Rubicon of hate' with a meeting between a single FAIR official and a delegation from a right-wing Belgian political party that was visiting Washington.


When the SPLC designates an organization as a 'hate group,' it places that organization on a list already occupied by such notorious groups as the Ku Klux Klan and racist skinheads. Yet SPLC director of research Heidi Beirich acknowledged that 'we do not have a formal written criteria' for assigning a label intended to bring disgrace to its recipients. Beirich said this in a radio interview: 'You qualify as a hate group if you treat an entire group of people for their internal characteristics, or their inherent characteristics, or you demean them in some way.' The report observes: 'A definition this flexible and imprecise could summon the SPLC Hate Patrol to the door of nearly any group of football fans, political activists, or Apple computer enthusiasts.' It says such laxity is an invitation for the malice and mischief that are characteristic of the SPLC.


The SPLC's attacks on Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, are a classic guilt-by-association smear based on Beck's relationship with FAIR founder John Tanton. Noting that Beck says he is not a racist, the SPLC has acknowledged that 'his website and other writings do not contradict that.' Meanwhile, the SPLC ignores a large body of evidence that demonstrates his rejection of immigrant-bashing and his search for measured public debate.


The SPLC is equally reckless in its evaluation of Otis Graham, the most important figure in the founding of CIS and a member (and former chairman) of the CIS board. Graham is a respected scholar with a long history as an advocate of civil rights and environmental protections. In his 2008 memoir he reflected on his efforts to seek reduced immigration, 'without disparaging immigrants or their cultures, reserving condemnation for our own incompetent and shortsighted public officials and ethnocentric lobbyists rather than the immigrants caught in the mighty currents of globalization.'


Because of Tanton's role as the founder of FAIR, and because he was instrumental in the establishment of CIS and NumbersUSA, he can rightly be described as the father of the modern movement to restrict immigration. But the SPLC caricature of Tanton as a sinister 'Puppeteer' manipulating the groups at will is absurd. Nevertheless, the CIS report also criticizes Tanton, describing his big-tent philosophy that embraces some figures who do not play a constructive role in the immigration debate. It also says that he has 'a tin ear for the sensitivities of immigration.'


The report shows that the SPLC has distorted many of Tanton's comments, egregiously taking them out of context to justify their claims of bigotry. It shows that many of Tanton's concerns have also been raised by serious students of immigration.


The SPLC/La Raza campaign to delegitimize FAIR, NumbersUSA, and CIS diverts attention from substantial issues about immigration policy. The report cites the work of journalists and scholars who acknowledge that there are sound, respectable reasons to want to restrict immigration, both legal and illegal.


Laird Wilcox, an archivist of volatile political movements who has studied the SPLC, called it a prime example of the 'anti-racist industry afoot in the United States that has attracted bullying, moralizing fanatics.' He said the SPLC has benefited from the work of cooperative reporters who have written about the 'hate group' accusation without questioning the SPLC's tactics and claims and without reporting that the SPLC is an ally of the NCLR 'Stop the Hate' campaign.


The SPLC has parroted the NCLR line in denying the complexity of the effects of immigration. It has also helped NCLR gloss over the historically and culturally charged meaning of 'La Raza.' The term comes from Mexican nationalist and intellectual Jose Vasconcelos, who wrote of the special qualities of 'la raza cosmica.' In the 1960s the term was adopted by Mexican-American nationalism as it adopted a radical posture of resistance.


Mexican American leaders such as Cesar Chavez and Rep. Henry Gonzalez were sharply critical of the political uses of the term 'la raza.' Chavez warned, 'Some people don't look at it as racism, but when you say la raza, you are saying an anti-gringo thing, and our fear is that it won't stop there.'


The report acknowledges that the SPLC and founder Morris Dees have done admirable work in combating the Ku Klux Klan. But it cites journalistic exposés that show how the SPLC has milked that early success to raise tens of millions of dollars. In a 1994 editorial, the Montgomery Advertiser wrote that the SPLC 'focuses on the anti-Klan theme not because the Klan is a major threat, but because it plays well with liberal donors.'


The attack on FAIR, NumbersUSA, and CIS is consistent with Morris Dees' long history of sensationalism and dishonesty in arousing fear among his liberal donors. As Dees said in 1988, 'The people who will give big money through the mail are either on the Far Right or the Far Left. They're true believers. You can't fire them up with a middle-of-the-road cause or candidate. You've got to have someone who can arouse people.'


The report calls the SPLC 'the cult of Morris Dees.' It cites a fundraising appeal from December 15, 2009 – Dees' 73rd birthday. It says the e-mailed appeal featured 'the SPLC's trademark concoction of joyful celebration, somber sentiment, cold commerce, and cult-like glorification of Dees.'


The report concludes that the SPLC smear campaign, 'demonstrates that the Southern Poverty Law Center has become a peddler of its own brand of self-righteous hate. It is a center of intolerance, marked by a poverty of ideas, a dependence on dishonesty, and a lack of fundamental decency.'

The report is available online at: http://cis.org/immigration-splc

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Jack Kemp's piece on Health (Couldn't Care Less) Reform and a lame duck Congress http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/the_healthcare_fight_could_drag_into_january has caught the eye of the good folks at American Thinker, and Thomas Lifson has kindly linked it on the blog side at AT. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/the_beast_that_will_not_die.html

So, a hearty welcome to all American Thinker readers!  I don't blame you for being intrigued; Jack was way ahead of the curve on this one!

There is plenty more from Jack here, as well as from myself and some other terrific writers.  I think you will enjoy your visit.

Timothy Birdnow

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Timothy Birdnow

Top-O-the mornin to ye all!  Being that it`s St. Patrick`s day, I thought I`d repost the story of St. Patrick from Catholic Online http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=89 :

Saint Patrick
St. Patrick of Ireland is one of the world's most popular saints.

Apostle of Ireland, born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in the year 387; died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, 17 March, 461.

Along with St. Nicholas and St. Valentine, the secular world shares our love of these saints. This is also a day when everyone's Irish.

There are many legends and stories of St. Patrick, but this is his story.

Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britian in charge of the colonies.

As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him.

During his captivity, he turned to God in prayer. He wrote

"The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same." "I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."

Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family.

He had another dream in which the people of Ireland were calling out to him "We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more."

He began his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained by St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre, whom he had studied under for years.

Later, Patrick was ordained a bishop, and was sent to take the Gospel to Ireland. He arrived in Ireland March 25, 433, at Slane. One legend says that he met a chieftain of one of the tribes, who tried to kill Patrick. Patrick converted Dichu (the chieftain) after he was unable to move his arm until he became friendly to Patrick.

Patrick began preaching the Gospel throughout Ireland, converting many. He and his disciples preached and converted thousands and began building churches all over the country. Kings, their families, and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity when hearing Patrick's message.

Patrick by now had many disciples, among them Beningnus, Auxilius, Iserninus, and Fiaac, (all later canonized as well).

Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.

He died at Saul, where he had built the first church.

Why a shamrock?
Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and has been associated with him and the Irish since that time.

In His Footsteps:
Patrick was a humble, pious, gentle man, whose love and total devotion to and trust in God should be a shining example to each of us. He feared nothing, not even death, so complete was his trust in God, and of the importance of his mission.

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Dana Mathewson

Gang, I don't think I'm indulging in hyperbole when I say this looks to me like the possible precursor of another battle about states' rights.  Except that this one isn't starting out along geographical lines, it could eventually rival that little dust-up we had back in the mid eighteen-hundreds (that wasn't about slavery at all, although we've come to think of it in those terms). 

The people with a vested interest in the power of the Federal Reserve (especially the boys in Washington) will (rightly) see this as a shot across their bows.  This will be one to keep an eye on!

-------------------
Idaho (& perhaps Georgia?) proposing use of silver & gold as alternatives to paper money!
Idaho bill permits state taxes be paid with silver - Yahoo! Finance
(http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Idaho-bill-permits-state-apf-2981219005.html?x=0&.v=1)

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Wil Wirtanen

A WSJ op-ed that highlights the consequences if the PAP gets his way.

The Failure of RomneyCare

The former Massachusetts governor enacted something very similar to the Obama health plan. It isn't working well.

By GRACE-MARIE TURNER

Former Massachusetts governor and likely 2012 presidential aspirant Mitt Romney has been on the wrong side of the defining political battle of our time.

Mr. Romney claimed earlier this month on "Fox News Sunday" that the Massachusetts health reform plan he signed into law in 2006 is "the ultimate conservative plan." But there are many similarities between it and the ObamaCare loathed by conservative voters.

Both have an individual mandate requiring most residents to have health insurance or pay a penalty. Most businesses are required to participate or pay a fine. Both rely on government-designed purchasing exchanges that also provide a platform to control private health insurance. Many of the uninsured are covered through Medicaid expansion and others receive subsidies for highly-prescriptive policies. And the apparatus requires a plethora of new government boards and agencies.

While it's true that the liberal Massachusetts legislature did turn Mr. Romney's plan to the left, his claims that his plan is "entirely different" will not stand up to the intense scrutiny of a presidential campaign, especially a primary challenge. Mr. Romney needs to be more honest about his Massachusetts experiment and its failings.

Mr. Romney insisted in a recent interview on "Fox News Sunday" that "our plan is working well," and he defended his state's right to create its own plan. He also said in his book "No Apology" that because of the plan everyone in Massachusetts now has access to "portable, affordable health insurance." Not exactly.

While Massachusetts' uninsured rate has dropped to around 3%, 68% of the newly insured since 2006 receive coverage that is heavily or completely subsidized by taxpayers. While Mr. Romney insisted that everyone should pay something for coverage, that is not the way his plan has turned out. More than half of the 408,000 newly insured residents pay nothing, according to a February 2010 report by the Massachusetts Health Connector, the state's insurance exchange.

Another 140,000 remained uninsured in 2008 and were either assessed a penalty or exempted from the individual mandate because the state deemed they couldn't afford the premiums.

Mr. Romney's promise that getting everyone covered would force costs down also is far from being realized. One third of state residents polled by Harvard researchers in a study published in "Health Affairs" in 2008 said that their health costs had gone up as a result of the 2006 reforms. A typical family of four today faces total annual health costs of nearly $13,788, the highest in the country. Per capita spending is 27% higher than the national average.

The state's stubbornly high health costs are partly the result of intrusive government regulations that stifle competition in the insurance market and strict mandates on what services insurance must cover. A 2008 study by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy found that the state's most expensive insurance mandates cost patients more than $1 billion between July 2004 and July 2005. The Massachusetts health reform law left all of them in place.

Further, insurance companies are required to sell "just-in-time" policies even if people wait until they are sick to buy coverage. That's just like the Obama plan. There is growing evidence that many people are gaming the system by purchasing health insurance when they need surgery or other expensive medical care, then dropping it a few months later.

Some Massachusetts safety-net hospitals that treat a disproportionate number of lower-income and uninsured patients are threatening bankruptcy. They still are treating a large number of people without health insurance, but the payments they receive for uncompensated care have been cut under the reform deal.

The Bay State is also suffering from what the Massachusetts Medical Society calls a "critical shortage" of primary-care physicians. As one would expect, expanded insurance has caused an increase in demand for medical services. But there hasn't been a corresponding increase in the number of doctors. As a result, many patients are insured in name only: They have health coverage but can't find a doctor.

Fifty-six percent of Massachusetts internal medicine physicians no longer are accepting new patients, according to a 2009 physician work-force study conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Society. For new patients who do get an appointment with a primary-care doctor, the average waiting time is 44 days, the Medical Society found.

As Dr. Sandra Schneider, the vice president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, told the Boston Globe last April, "Just because you have insurance doesn't mean there's a [primary care] physician who can see you."

The difficulties in getting primary care have led to an increasing number of patients who rely on emergency rooms for basic medical services. Emergency room visits jumped 7% between 2005 and 2007. Officials have determined that half of those added ER visits didn't actually require immediate treatment and could have been dealt with at a doctor's office—if patients could have found one.

Mr. Romney insists that in Massachusetts, "We didn't do what President Obama's doing, which is putting controls on our system of premiums for private insurance companies."

But that is what's happening now: Faced with soaring medical expenses, Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Romney's successor, wants to cap insurance rate increases at 4.8%, not the 8% to 32% increases the companies have requested for April 1. Three of the four major health insurers in Massachusetts showed operating losses for 2009. If their rates are capped, they say they'll be forced to cut payments to health providers, putting further pressure on doctors and fragile hospitals.

One of the challengers Mr. Romney could face in 2012 is Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. Mr. Daniels went in a very different direction in tackling the problem of the uninsured. He created a program targeted to lower-income uninsured people who weren't eligible for Medicaid or employer insurance. Mr. Daniels's Healthy Indiana program has a fixed budget and relies on shared responsibility between the newly insured and the government in managing health spending.

The nation may well be eager to have a leader in three years with Mr. Romney's experience in tackling and fixing complex systems and who has a record as a successful businessman. But health care is likely to be the defining issue of the 2010 and 2012 elections. Unless Mr. Romney is more honest about the system he set in motion in Massachusetts, he will have a hard time convincing Republican primary voters that he has learned his health-care lesson.

Ms. Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization focusing on patient-centered health reform.

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Timothy Birdnow

A while back, I posted a piece about the Obama Administration lifting the ban on AIDS infected people immigrating to the United States http://tbirdnow.mee.nu/obama_rescinds_ban_on_aids_patient_immigration This is a strange thing to do for someone focuses so laser-like on controlling medical costs and improving the public health, but there you have it. Perhaps this was merely an aberrational thing? Perhaps in this instance Il Duce and his demiurge had a momentary intellectual hiccup?

Well...

John Kerry (White) and Al Franken (Stein) are pushing to open the blood banks to donations by homosexuals. http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/ckincaid/2010/ck_03161.shtml

According to Cliff Kincaid, Kerry's demand led FDA Administrator Margaret Hamburg - a progressive who once worked for Ted Turner's Nuclear Threat Initiative, to cave despite a reaffirmation on the ban just three years ago. No scientific breakthroughs have occured since the last evaluation; what has changed is the political climate.

AIDS wiped out hemophiliacs during the 1980's, largely because of tainted blood. 

Do the Democrats REALLY care about the health and well being of the American people? This act of "fairness" strongly suggests otherwise.

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Jack Kemp

At this moment, it appears that the House Democrats don't have the votes to pass their healthcare bill, even with the aptly named Slaughter Rule which would bypass a direct vote on the Senate bill. A vote for this convoluted procedure is, in the eyes of the voters, very similar to a straight up and down vote on the Senate approved healthcare bill. That means those House Democrats that fear losing their seat today are not placated by any legalisms involving a bill that the voters strongly object to. There is public talk of pushing the House vote back to April 4th.  Of course, my assumptions can be proven wrong in an instant in the coming days and weeks.

But allow me to consider a speculation on a line of thought based on what if an ObamaCare bill won't be passed by Election Day. What changes after a Democratic electoral "bloodbath" in November?

Professional pollsters, including Democrat Pat Caddell are saying the Democratic Party could lose "30 or more House seats" (try 70 or more, Pat) in November. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031102904.html?hpid=opinionsbox1  A defeated Democratic Congressperson  who in early November 2010 now knows that their career is over gets approached by  Nancy Pelosi with an offer of a job if they now vote "yes" on the healthcare bill. Remember, the defeated Democrats still are in office until early January, effectively in power until Christmas. Will these lame duck Democrats take such an offer from their party? Or will they be so bitter - and well connected - that they see taking such an offer from Madame Speaker (a possible soon-to-be ex-Speaker) as a detriment to their future in general or as a Democrat in particular?

People a lot more informed as to what goes on in Washington than myself can speculate on this in greater detail, but they can't read the minds and hearts of well connected soon-to-be ex-Congresspeople.

On the surface, a soon to be Democratic ex-Congressperson has nothing to further lose in voting for the ObamaCare Bill in mid-November or December. But there are other considerations they might have, including possibly not wanting to be associated with an ex-Speaker.

The only thing one can say with some degree of certainty is that the people who believe that manipulations and intrigues involving the ObamaCare bill, be it attempts to pass a first version with "reconciliations" or any other amended versions, will not see an end to this struggle until the new Congress meets on or about January 3rd, 2011.

And then a new fight can begin.

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Timothy Birdnow

More lies from the Gang Green on Global Warming, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0315/As-Climate-Change-debate-wages-on-scientists-turn-to-Hollywood-for-help

So, scientists aren't doing a good job of explaining the root science of climate change?  I suppose Michael Mann didn't refuse to give Steve McKyntire his methodology for plotting the infamous "hockey stick graph". I guess that Steve and Roger Pielke Jr. didn't have to sue using the Freedom of Information Act to acquire the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia's raw data, which director Jones then said they had thrown away.  I suppose scientists have been completely above board with their research, ever eager to tell the public anything they want to know.

Because True Scientists are so good at unravelling the mysteries of nature but so poor at communicating their issues (despite worldwide budgets for their research in the mega billions - they seemed to have done a fair job explaining to the money changers) that they need to hire Hollywood to "get their message out".  Hmmm. Didn't Albert Arnold Gore win an Academy Award for an apocalyptic documentary which is shown to just about every school in America (though not in Britain, where the many mistakes require a disclaimer to be shown)?  Wasn't there a move called The Day After Tomorrow, a disaster movie suggesting that the planet would fall into a "snowball Earth" scenario in a couple of days because of Anthropogenic Global Warming? How about M. Night Shamalamadingdong, er, Shyamalan's The Happening in which trees and plants begin killing people with neurotoxins because they are afraid of Anthropogenic Global Warming?  

Aren't there numerous propoganda outfits like the World Wildlife Fund or the Sierra Club actively working to "educate" the public about the horrors of Global Warming?  Aren't we treated to this in almost every periodical, publications like Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, etc.

We've had thirty years and billions of dollars invested in this thing, yet the public still is too stupid to understand it, according to the good people at the CSM.  If that is the case, what does that say about public education in this country?  I suspect the Christian Science Monitor would not advocate breaking up the educational monopoly in these United States, yet they bemoan American ignorance in this particular instance.

The reality is that the CSM has this flipped completely around; it is the public's education in these matters that has the cookie crumbling.  More and more, people are coming to understand that the Earth's climate has always been changing, and that we are in neither an unusually warm period nor a period with unusually high concentrations of carbon in our atmosphere.  The public is coming to a realization that there has been an agenda at work here, and that there are fortunes being made off of this whole scheme. The public is perceptive enough to realize that, despite being told that 2009 was the second warmest year on record in the warmest decade in history http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp-analysis-2009.html, they were REALLY COLD last year, and that people in other countries around the globe complained about being cold.  They are realizing that someone is simply lying to them.

Oh, wait; someone has been lying to them. Phil Jones at CRU, for one. Michael Mann at Penn (well, he belongs in the Pen at any rate). Rajendra Pachauri, head of the International Panel on Climate Change, the U.N. body that has been so influential in claiming that the debate is over, despite having environmental activists write large swaths of the report and putting such dubious cliams into it as the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035, an opinion voiced by a scientist in an interview with the popular press (he actually believed it would be 2350, and had no science to back it up.) There are e-mails that prove the puffed-up great men of climate science have been dishonest, and scandals have been breaking all over the world. Temperature data has been systematically  distorted or been gathered in a most unprofessional manner, violating NOAA rules and introducing temperature biases. 

The public is not as stupid as liberals would have us believe; but, then, they have always seen themselves as head and shoulders above the "plebeians".  That is the great attraction of liberalism/leftism; you become a member of the brotherhood of the gigantic brains!  You must be respected for your brilliance, your vision, your superiority in every and all ways.  That is why they become so wroth when challenged; you, the doltish, ungrateful swine of the dim classes have no right to challenge the semi-godhead of the intelligentsia! Or is it the Demiurge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge (Not that the term comes from Greek "public worker".)

The public has come to sense that those telling us that ragnarok is around the corner are liars trying to convince us that they, our betters, know better. What we have is TOO MUCH knowledge for our own good, and no amount of Hollywood spin can change that.  Putting this genius of the lamp (a little three stooges lingo) back into the djihn bottle will be difficult.

Frankly, I'm going to be interested to see them try; how many contortions will they be able to make? 

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Dana Mathewson

HOMELAND REBELLION

Another state to feds: Take your gun regs and stuff 'em
Local governments in massive revolt against rules ordered by Washington

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 10, 2010
9:24 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Utah has become the third state to adopt a law exempting guns and ammunition made, sold and used in the state from massive federal regulations under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and supporters say about 30 more states have some sort of plan for their own exemptions in the works.

Officials in Utah say they expect a lawsuit over their direct challenge to Washington if the federal government succeeds in its current case against Montana's law.

Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, who has spearheaded the Montana law, now describes himself as a sort of "godfather" to the national campaign. He confirmed Montana, Tennessee and Utah have enacted such laws.

"Wyoming and South Dakota, they have passed legislation and it's on their governors' desks," he said. "We learned today Oklahoma's House has passed a plan over to the Senate. Idaho's House has just passed it along. Alaska's has passed the House and is in the Senate Judiciary committee," he said.

The move is about far more than just the regulation of handguns and shotguns, he said.

Larry Klayman
 

"It's about states' rights. Firearms are the vehicle, but the subject is states' rights and an overbearing federal government," he said.

He said one of his sources of information for the Montana lawsuit compiled a list of states' rights issues such as identification, sovereignty and gun licensing that was 20 pages long.

He confirmed an emerging consensus that the federal government's role in making local decisions needs to be reined in.

"It is huge," he said. "We are glad the Firearms Freedom Act can be the point of the spear."

There only are about a dozen states that have not at least taken up the issue for discussion.

He noted other subjects also have become issues, such as regulations dealing with the sale of alcohol and tobacco.

Originally introduced and passed in Montana, the FFA declares that any firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported yesterday the Utah plan was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert.

Learn what you can do about your nation. Get "Taking America Back," Joseph Farah's manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal

"There are times when the state needs to push back against continued encroachment from the federal government. Sending the message that we will stand up for a proper balance between the state and federal government is a good thing," said Herbert in a statement.

The governor said he recognized the possibility of a lawsuit but said the cost can be minimized. In any event, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said any case probably would be delayed until Montana's decision is rendered, the newspaper reported.

The Utah plan was sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem. Dayton said, according to the Tribune, it "illustrates the universal yearning for freedom, and shows the people still feel the spark that inspired our ancestors at Lexington and Valley Forge. My hope is that the march toward tyranny can be turned back with our votes."

In Montana, officials filed suit against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and others seeking a court order that the federal government stay out of the way of Montana's management of its own firearms within state borders.

In a recent filing, the federal government demanded dismissal of the action, explaining it can regulate in-state commerce under the Constitution's Commerce clause.

As WND reported, the action was filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Montana Shooting Sports Association in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont., to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, which took effect Oct. 3.

Marbut argues that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states and the people, and it is time for the states to begin drawing boundaries for the federal government and its agencies.

The government's latest filing in the case demands its dismissal, citing a lacking of "standing" for the plaintiffs and the court's lack of "jurisdiction," as well as the Constitution's Commerce Clause. The government filing argues, "The Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit have repeatedly held that even purely intrastate activities, such as those the MFFA purports to exempt from federal law, do affect interstate commerce and thus are within Congress' power to regulate. As a result, even if plaintiffs had standing and jurisdiction existed, plaintiffs' amended complaint fails to state a claim and must be dismissed."

The Commerce Clause, however, can be interpreted to have been amended by the 10th Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights, adopted subsequent to the U.S. Constitution, Marbut explains.

His organization said, "The Commerce Clause was amended – by the 10th Amendment. It is a bedrock principle of jurisprudence that for any conflict between provisions of a co-equal body of law, the most recently enacted must be given deference as the most recent expression of the enacting authority. This principle is ancient. Without this principle, laws could not be amended or repealed."

For example, U.S. courts repeatedly affirmed slavery before it ultimately was rejected.

There's no question that the components of the Bill of Rights have authority: Just look at the 1st Amendment, Marbut explained.

The federal government had written gun dealers in Montana as well as in Tennessee when it adopted its own version of the same law that warned against following the state laws.

The letters were distributed to holders of Federal Firearms Licenses.

In the Tennessee case, Carson W. Carroll, the assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told dealers the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act, adopted, "purports to exempt personal firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition manufactured in the state, and which remain in the state, from most federal firearms laws and regulations."

The exemption is not right, the federal agency letter contends.

UPDATE:

Now there are five!

Rebellion in America heats
up as 5th state exempts guns
A fifth state has decided that guns made, sold and used within its borders no longer are subject to the whims of the federal government through its rule-making arm in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and two supporters of the growing groundswell say they hope Washington soon will be taking note.

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Timothy Birdnow

William Kay has a fascinating review of the Oxford Handbook of Fascism at his site Ecofascism.com. Be sure to check it out, as well as the many other articles which explain the history of fascism and the Green movement in detail.  This is an excellent resource for those wishing to understand the foundations of our modern world.

http://www.ecofascism.com/review19.html

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Timothy Birdnow

The Roman Warming Period was likely warmer than the Modern Warming Period, according to a new technique devised to develop proxy data.

From CCNET:

Dr. David Whitehouse

A promising new technique to reconstruct past temperatures has been developed by scientists at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and Durham University, England, using the shells of bivalve mollusks. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science the scientists say that oxygen isotopes in their shells are a good proxy measurement of temperature and may provide the most detailed record yet of global climate change.

Most measures of palaeoclimate, such as those from tree rings, provide data on only average annual temperatures, William Patterson, lead author of the study, says that as mollusks grow the colder the water, the higher the proportion of the heavy oxygen isotope, oxygen-18 in the shells. Because shell growth depends upon seasonal temperature variations it is possible to see much finer changes than tree rings. Because they only live for between 2 – 9 years it has the potential to reveal fine temporal detail for specific periods.

The study used 26 shells obtained from sediment cores taken from an Icelandic inlet. The shells were extracted along their growth axes and the carbonate powder analysed for stable oxygen isotopes using a mass spectrometer.

Although the mollusks record water temperatures, not air temperatures. But the two are closely linked - especially close to the shore, where most people in Iceland lived.

Oxygen isotope values for the two oldest bivalves in the study show a cold spell between 360 BC to 240 BC that has some of the coldest temperatures in the entire series of observations that stretch to about 1660 AD. Following this period it seems that temperatures increased rapidly such that temperatures from 230 BC are significantly higher. In fact a shell from 130 BC recorded the highest temperature in the entire 2,000-year dataset.

Between 230 BC and 40 AD there was a period of exceptional warmth in Iceland that was coincident with the Roman Warm Period in Europe that ran from 200 BC to 400 AD. This Icelandic shell data series suggests that the RWP had higher temperatures that those recorded in modern times.

By 410 AD there had been a return to cooler temperatures presaging the onset of a cold and wetter era called the Dark Ages Cold Period between 400 AD and 600 AD.

The subsequent warming trend in Iceland took place from 600 AD to 760 AD about a century before prolonged warming began in Europe than in the subsequent centuries led to the Medieval Warm Period that was about as warm as the Roman one.

Iceland was initially settled between 865 AD – 930 AD, and it is often assumed this happened when the climate was favorably warm for sea voyages and settlement. The reconstructed temperatures in this study suggest they were high just before Iceland’s initial settlement began but deteriorated shortly afterwards.

The study's findings suggest that details of climate recorded in Icelandic sagas are reasonably accurate.

In the 1000s the Icelandic “Book of Settlements” reports a famine so severe “men ate foxes and ravens” and “the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs.” According to his shells, it was a difficult period with summer water temperatures peaking at only 5-6 degree C, down from as high as 7.5-9.5 degree C only 100 years earlier.

The high time resolution possible because of the short lives of the clams enables intricate changes to be deduced. A warming trend occurred after 1120 AD however by 1320 AD the climate began cooling again recording record lows for the 2,000 year dataset. Such lows are also seen in Greenland ice cores. The cool period was prolonged. Western settlement in Greenland was abandoned by 1360 AD and by 1450 AD settlements in the east were abandoned as well.

Isotope data from shells is clearly a highly promising technique with many advantages over paleoclimatic reconstruction using tree rings. The ability to monitor seasonal climatic extremes will be very valuable not only for climate but also to shed light on the rise and collapse of societies.

Another crucial aspect of climate science that this research could be important for is the statistical extraction of human climatic "fingerprints" from climate models and real-world data. It is commonly said that one of the most important human fingerprints on the climate is the rapidity of the changes seen in global average temperatures seen in the past few decades. This new line of research has the potential to provide fine temporal resolution of past climatic changes possibly demonstrating similar changes to that seen currently which took place without todays putative anthropogenic forcing. It would be fascinating to see this approach used to produce a detailed timeline of the changes of the past two thousand years from many site worldwide, especially for the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods so that they could properly be compared to what is going on today.

Feedback: avid.Whitehouse@thegwpf.org">David.Whitehouse@thegwpf.org

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Timothy Birdnow

Also from the Federalist Patriot:

In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama risked the ire of his leftist comrades when he championed offshore drilling as an opportunity to free America from dependence on foreign oil; he shrewdly hedged his bets in order to lure centrists and other undecideds into his camp. However, as with so many other issues, Obama's campaign promises are proving worthless.

Despite the fact that Americans favor offshore drilling by a 2 to 1 margin, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has used every tool in his bureaucratic box to hinder it, including extending the public comment period before beginning the drilling program, voiding existing contracts for onshore drilling in Utah and announcing the delay of the offshore program until 2012. This program would have created 1.2 million real jobs per year and not doing it will cost the U.S. $2.36 trillion over the next 20 years. Surprise! Economic recovery is not the real agenda of this administration.

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Timothy Birdnow

More proof that the GOP hasn't learned squat from their failures - and that the Democrats want nothing less than full blown socialism for America.

From the Federalist Patriot:

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) stunned his Republican colleagues by working with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) this week to breathe new life into Democrats' financial "reform" package. Feeling pressure from his right, however, Corker has since pulled out of the deal, which Dodd is now pushing without him.

The House version of the bill, crafted by Massachusetts liberal Barney Frank, was recently considered dead in the Senate, and for good reason. It included a $4 trillion bailout provision for rickety financial institutions that would make TARP the official policy of the federal government. No more bankruptcies, no more survival of the fittest -- both characteristics of a free market. Instead, the government would be allowed to manipulate the markets on the backs of taxpayers. This bill would also create the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), a massive new federal bureaucracy that would have the power to oversee and ultimately regulate not only financial institutions, but also virtually any organization that deals with consumers.

Corker, a freshman senator with an American Conservative Union rating of 83, should have joined his colleagues in the first place and let the bill die in negotiations. Instead, he worked with Dodd to keep the CFPA alive. His office stated that he doesn't support the bailout provision, but he did in fact vote for the TARP-bank bailout in 2008. Wall Street likes the bailout provision, because it coats big firms with Teflon to keep them from failing under almost any circumstances. It's a good thing that Corker, who has received $3 million in campaign funds from the finance industry since taking office in 2007, reconsidered when he did. Still, he shouldn't have put himself in that position in the first place.

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Brian forwards this political pastiche from Newsmax:

 We Heard . . .

THAT some Republicans in Nevada are crying foul over Jon Scott Ashjian, who filed as a tea party candidate to oppose Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November.

The charge: The Reid camp put him in the race to siphon conservative votes from the Republican candidate, CNN reported.

And the Las Vegas Sun reported: “Republicans, long accustomed to the Reid tentacles reaching into every crevice of Nevada politics, have publicly floated the idea — repeated frequently in conservative media outlets — that Ashjian is a sham fashioned by the Reid campaign to save the senator’s flagging political fortunes.”

“Nobody in the tea party knows who he is,” Danny Tarkanian, one of the GOP senate candidates vying for the nomination, told CNN.

A Rasmussen poll shows Reid trailing all three Republican candidates by double digits in head-to-head races. But a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll found that, with a tea party candidate on the ballot, Reid would win the three-way race by a narrow margin.

Both Reid and Ashjian have denied the allegation.

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Timothy Birdnow

Once the journal Nature was the Lion of science publishing, but it has become the lyin' of science publishing in recent years.  The embrace of climate change hysteria has seen Nature decline, where now it is little more than The Weekly World News for scientists. 

Here is a case in point. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7286/full/464141a.html

According to the article:

"Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it's only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.

Worse, the onslaught seems to be working: some polls in the United States and abroad suggest that it is eroding public confidence in climate science at a time when the fundamental understanding of the climate system, although far from complete, is stronger than ever. Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shitless, but they don't know what to do,” he says."

End excerpt.

Dominating the media agenda?  The New York Times wouldn't even acknowledge Climategate at first, and has claimed it is a tempest in a teapot, despite the fact that the e-mails show that the keepers of the data were systematically distorting it to "hide the decline" and were taking steps to keep dissenters from being published.  it seems to me that the "deniars" are the ones who have been knocked about, and for years, by a corrupt and dishonest establishment. I would like to know who in the blogosphere is not taking time to assess facts and weigh evidence?  Obviously the editorial writer has not visited Wattsupwiththat or Climate Audit.

I would also like to know how climate science is stronger than ever; we have had decades of FAKED data and attempts to silence critics. We have had refusals to divulge raw data, methodology, and demands that scientists who find themselves in disagreement are targeted and told to shut up.  We have climate models that do not work, being unable to even predict present conditions when past data is programmed into them. We have the most basic predictions of the models not coming to pass - but, yessir!  This is solid science! 

It makes one wonder what climatologists were doing in the past; picking through animal parts mixed with stumpwater on a full moon night? 

Any time someone quotes doomsday prophet Paul Ehrlich they have next to no case, by the way.

But there's more:

"The core science supporting anthropogenic global warming has not changed. This needs to be stated again and again, in as many contexts as possible. Scientists must not be so naive as to assume that the data speak for themselves. Nor should governments. Scientific agencies in the United States, Europe and beyond have been oddly silent over the recent controversies. In testimony on Capitol Hill last month, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, offered at best a weak defence of the science while seeming to distance her agency's deliberations from a tarnished IPCC. Officials of her stature should be ready to defend scientists where necessary, and at all times give a credible explanation of the science.

These challenges are not new, and they won't go away any time soon. Even before the present controversies, climate legislation had hit a wall in the US Senate, where the poorly informed public debate often leaves one wondering whether science has any role at all. The IPCC's fourth assessment report had huge influence leading up to the climate conference in Copenhagen last year, but it was always clear that policy-makers were reluctant to commit to serious reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Scientists can't do much about that, but they can and must continue to inform policy-makers about the underlying science and the potential consequences of policy decisions — while making sure they are not bested in the court of public opinion."

End excerpt.

Now they have really jumped the shark; the core science has not changed? Everything changed once it came to light that the primary source for data was LYING!  What part of that do the dimwits at Nature fail to understand?  The whole edifice has been constructed on a dishonest foundation, and the many scientists who did their work based on purposefully deceptive data were acting in good faith, but producing junk science. 

Why do the Nature people think that the U.S. scientific agencies have "been oddly silent"?  Because they have been completely exposed, and there isn't a whole lot they can say at this point.  Defend the data?  They will be putting themselves into the same position as those who resisted Gallileo, or who scoffed at Isaac Newton.  They already look foolish; they aren't going to make total jackasses out of themselves.

They'd rather leave that to the editorial board at Nature.

Oh, and I would like to know why scientists are supposed to "do something about" greenhouse gases?    When did science move from study to open advocacy?

This article calls for "street fighting" by "scientists" (and by scientists they mean hysterical doomsayers), yet that is precisely what they have done from the beginning. Does anybody remember calls for Neuremberg Trials for "deniars".  The term deniar itself is an awful slur; it denotes Holocaust Deniar, and was intended to place those who disagree with AGW in a similar light to racist murderers and people living in fantasyland. Does anybody remember Heidi Cullen of The Weather Channel demanding that meteorologists who deny global warming be decertified?  What of the hysterical accusations against S. Fred Singer and other scientists who disagree, claims that they are in the pockets of "Big Oil" and calling them evil? The whole Gang Green approach has been one of systematic intimidation and strongarming - they brought a gun to a fistfight, and from the beginning.

But truth will out.  And that has the seekers after truth at Nature terrified.

Hat tip: SEPP

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Timothy Birdnow

Lubos Motl gives us an historical climate change retrospective that may prove quite eye-opening to some.  http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/us-president-describes-climate-change.html#more

It seems that Global Warming has been around a tad longer than the Gang Green believes.

(Thanks for the nudge, Ron De Haan!)

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During the last few months, there has been occasion praise for SecState Hillary Clinton, if only because she has come off as putting up a stronger front against our enemies than our President.  Granted, that's not a difficult thing to do...

Well, it's time to see her for what she really is, and stifle the praise.  This is amazing!  Has the woman no shame?

http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20V/MARCH%202010/12.RIGHTS.HTML

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