Global warming conflicted

If you are interested in Global Warming, read this.

In its pamphlet, the Royal Society purports to speak on behalf of a consensus of scientists. But no such consensus exists. Direct polling of climate scientists has shown that about 30% are "skeptical" of anthropogenic global warming. More than 31,000 American scientists recently signed the Oregon Petition, which expresses doubt about the major conclusions of the IPCC, and opposes the drastic mitigation demands of the Kyoto Protocol and the proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation of the U.S. Congress.

And this is the most important thing you should know.

Mr. Singer, a professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, is the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. His most recent book is "Unstoppable Global Warming — Every 1500 Years."

The GW warming argument is failing. In fact, Mr. Singer has split it in half.

Should we be making public policy based on what is conflicted and flawed science?

Surely not.

USA Today editorial catoon comment

USA Today has this editorial cartoon by Joe Heller this morning. It shows a guy filling up his camper while overlooking a cemetery of tombstones named.. Iraq, Korea, etc. The caption says:

"I'm not going to complain about the high cost of anything this weekend."

And while I understand all too well that as you get closer to death many things get less important, I must say:

What pure BS.

My father and four uncles did not serve in WWII, nor did the other millions who served then and since then, including my ten years in Naval Aviation, to save the world so that thugs and dictators can rip off this country, and the world. What OPEC and world wide speculators are now doing is nothing less than a attack on us.

And that we have enabled them with stupid energy polices does not forgive what they are doing nor make it right.

As I write this there are elderly who are trying to figure out what medications they can do without to enable them to buy food and pay utility bills.

There are families world wide who can't afford a pound of rice because of the price increases.

And the future looks bleak.

Heller's cartoon speaks of death in war. Yet millions of those who died in WWII could have been spared if Chamberlain had not disgraced himself and England with "peace in our time" with Hitler, the French responded with vigor when Germany's troops first crossed the border, if we had done whatever we needed to do in Korea and Vietnam, taken our embassy back from the radicals in Iran and finished Desert Storm.

Simply put, you can't put rabbits in the cage with a boa constrictor. At some point the snake will eat the rabbit. It is what they do.

We have fed the snake for years. But now its appetite has grown larger and wants our dogs and cats. What comes next? Our old people and our children?

It is time for action. Not the false sympathy and misplaced sadness of Heller's cartoon.

Nationalize Oil

That's a frightening thought, eh?

Well, think about this.

China and India do that. Both have been shielding their industries and their citizens from the huge run ups in price caused by, mostly speculation not shortages.
Since we are in intense competition with these countries....been to WalMart lately?...their actions result in allowing their industries to be always lower in price.

This has a double whammy. It kills our economy, both consumer goods and manufacturing. The consumer has less money to spend so he travels less and buys fewer big ticket items. That's dollars that used to stay in the economy. And since he is stressed for cash, he will continue to go for the lowest prices, which aids China and the other SE manufacturers/countries.

Obviously there is a point where the sales volumes goes down for foreign produced goods, in a rational environment. Why? Because as our dollar weakens due to interest rate cuts, its value to the importers goes down. But, since the cost basis of the foreign manufacturers is protected by national price and supply control, the impact is not predictable. It is irrational. If our chemical companies are paying $130. for a barrel of oil, and China's is paying $40.00, they can't compete. BTW - Fertilizer is directly impacted by oil. So we are again impacted. Higher food prices hurts our consumers and hurts our farm exports. It also hurts our ethanol prices.

We are literally under attack. I can't tell you what the tipping point is, but in the last three days, at 10:07AM CDT, the market has run off about 460 points.

So we come back to nationalizing oil. Would it work? Well, price controls don't work in a free market. But nationalization would be different. As a whole we have immense bargaining power with OPEC. While our goal would be to tell OPEC we respect a fair price, of say, $80.00 a barrel, we are not going to accept gouging and are willing to take "various actions at various times" to insure our citizens' health and welfare." Let them figure out what that means.

Would it work? I don't know. But I do know that we are on the edge of a huge problem that could make 1929 look like a picnic. I also know that there is no reason why our lives should be so under control of the thugs and dictators whose only claim to anything is that they happened to be born "Kings" of oil.

The rights of Kings has been settled in the favor of democracies. Time to remind them of that.