Why the Logic Of Abortion Rules Out Worrying About “Climate Change”

Why should we care about human babies in the womb? They’re not actual people; they’re only potential people. So let’s allow the mother to do whatever is best for her convenience and kill her baby if she wants to.

For the sake of argument, just for the moment, let’s accept that position.  Potential person.  Choice is all important.  Convenience of the people who are here now.  Kill at will.  Check.

So, let’s not worry about the planet for exactly the same reasons we shouldn’t worry about babies in the womb.

It’s interesting that the same people who tend to care so passionately about global warming also so devotedly support abortion on demand.  Potentiality is meaningless.  Choice is everything.  And convenience is all we are to live for.  In the ends-justifies-the-means relativism of liberalism, these things are sacrosanct in one issue, and then utterly meaningless the next.

Climate change (which used to be called “global warming” until the inconvenient fact emerged that the planet has actually been getting colder for the past 10 years) isn’t wiping out millions of people now.  Alarmists and pseudo-scientists such as Al Gore can twist the actual data all they want, but at best (or worst) “climate change” is just a potential problem that will happen in years to come.   And in this sense, potential “climate change” is very much like all the millions of “potential persons” who would clearly have been cooing and gurgling in just a few months if their incredible potential as human beings hadn’t been ignored so that they could be dissolved with acid or cut into little pieces and vacuumed out of the womb like so much garbage.

Choice?  Well, in the United States, I might have a right to walk into any abortion clinic and have my baby killed for me by courteous professional killers, but I am increasingly losing my right to do something that might contribute to “climate change.”  Environmental laws are becoming more and more restrictive and punitive all the time.  What about my “choice”?

Individual choice is only important when liberals want it to be important.  They don’t mind if their logic and moral reasoning are incoherent; not as long as they keep getting their way.

And then there is the “choice” of countries like China and India.  China has been building a new coal plant at the rate of one a week.  Are we going to be “anti-choice” and try to stop them?  What makes European and American socialists think they know better than a couple billion Chinese and Indians?

And if the argument of convenience matters, then by all means, let’s throw all “climate change” regulations and spending out the window and start burning more of that good old fashioned oil and coal.  The simple fact of the matter is that oil and coal are incredibly cheap and deliver an incredible amount of energy compared to the “alternative energy” that liberals want us to undermine our economy to develop.

When it comes to abortion, potential is thrown out the window, the choice of a mother to kill her baby is sacred, and convenience is absolutely everything.  But when it comes to “climate change,” potential is all important, choice is to be denied any who think otherwise, and convenience is to be destroyed at all cost in favor of an energy system that will produce little at great cost.

Japanese Scientists Compare Global Warming To Astrology – by Andrew Orlowski

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/25/jstor_climate_report_translation/

Japan’s boffins: Global warming isn’t man-made

Climate science is ‘ancient astrology’, claims report

By Andrew Orlowski (andrew.orlowski@theregister.co.uk)

Posted in Environment, 25th February 2009 12:23 GMT

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Exclusive Japanese scientists have made a dramatic break with the UN and Western-backed hypothesis of climate change in a new report from its Energy Commission.

Three of the five researchers disagree with the UN’s IPCC view that recent warming is primarily the consequence of man-made industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside.

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One of the five contributors compares computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. Others castigate the paucity of the US ground temperature data set used to support the hypothesis, and declare that the unambiguous warming trend from the mid-part of the 20th Century has ceased.

The report by Japan Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) is astonishing rebuke to international pressure, and a vote of confidence in Japan’s native marine and astronomical research. Publicly-funded science in the West uniformly backs the hypothesis that industrial influence is primarily responsible for climate change, although fissures have appeared recently. Only one of the five top Japanese scientists commissioned here concurs with the man-made global warming hypothesis.

JSER is the academic society representing scientists from the energy and resource fields, and acts as a government advisory panel. The report appeared last month but has received curiously little attention. So The Register commissioned a translation of the document – the first to appear in the West in any form. Below you’ll find some of the key findings – but first, a summary.

Summary

Three of the five leading scientists contend that recent climate change is driven by natural cycles, not human industrial activity, as political activists argue.

Kanya Kusano is Program Director and Group Leader for the Earth Simulator at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology (JAMSTEC). He focuses on the immaturity of simulation work cited in support of the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Using undiplomatic language, Kusano compares them to ancient astrology. After listing many faults, and the IPCC’s own conclusion that natural causes of climate are poorly understood, Kusano concludes:

“[The IPCC’s] conclusion that from now on atmospheric temperatures are likely to show a continuous, monotonic increase, should be perceived as an unprovable hypothesis,” he writes.

Shunichi Akasofu, head of the International Arctic Research Center in Alaska, has expressed criticism of the theory before. Akasofu uses historical data to challenge the claim that very recent temperatures represent an anomaly:

“We should be cautious, IPCC’s theory that atmospheric temperature has risen since 2000 in correspondence with CO2 is nothing but a hypothesis. ”

Akasofu calls the post-2000 warming trend hypothetical. His harshest words are reserved for advocates who give conjecture the authority of fact.

“Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth… The opinion that great disaster will really happen must be broken.”

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Key Passages Translated

What is the source of the rise in atmospheric temperature in the second half of the 20th century?

Shunichi Akasofu

[Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)

Introductory discussion.

Point 1.1: Global Warming has halted

Global mean temperature rose continuously from 1800-1850. The rate of increase was .05 degrees Celsius per 100 years. This was mostly unrelated to CO2 gas (CO2 began to increase suddenly after 1946. Until the sudden increase, the CO2 emissions rate had been almost unchanged for 100 years). However, since 2001, this increase halted. Despite this, CO2 emissions are still increasing.

According to the IPCC panel, global atmospheric temperatures should continue to rise, so it is very likely that the hypothesis that the majority of global warming can be ascribed to the Greenhouse Effect is mistaken. There is no prediction of this halt in global warming in IPCC simulations. The halt of the increase in temperature, and slight downward trend is “something greater than the Greenhouse Effect,” but it is in effect. What that “something” is, is natural variability.

From this author’s research into natural (CO2 emissions unrelated to human activity) climate change over the past 1000 years, it can be asserted that the global temperature increase up to today is primarily recovery from the “Little Ice Age” earth experienced from 1400 through 1800 (i.e. global warming rate of change＝0.5℃/100).

The recovery in temperatures since follows a naturally variable 30-50 year cycle, (quasi-periodic variations), and in addition, this cycle has been positive since 1975, and peaked in the year 2000. This quasi-periodic cycle has passed its peak and has begun to turn negative.

(The IPCC ascribes the positive change since 1975, for the most part, to CO2 and the Greenhouse Effect.) This quasi-periodic cycle fluctuates 0.1 degrees C per 10 years, short term (on the order of 50 years). This quasi-periodic cycle’s amplitude is extremely pronounced in the Arctic Circle , so it is easy to understand. The previous quasi-periodic cycle was positive from 1910 to 1940 and negative from 1940 to 1975 (despite CO2 emissions rapid increase after 1946).

Regardless of whether or not the IPCC has sufficiently researched natural variations, they claim that CO2 has increased particularly since 1975. Consequently, after 2000, although it should have continued to rise, atmospheric temperature stabilised completely (despite CO2 emissions continuing to increase). Since 1975 the chances of increase in natural variability (mainly quasiperiodic vibration) are high; moreover, the quasiperiodic vibration has turned negative. For that reason, in 2000 Global Warming stopped, after that, the negative cycle will probably continue.

Regarding the current temporary condition (la Nina) JPL observes a fluctuation of the quasiperiodic cycle [JSER editor’s note: this book is is still being proofed as of 12/19]. So we should be cautious, IPCC’s theory that atmospheric temperature has risen since 2000 in correspondence with CO2 is nothing but a hypothesis.

They should have verified this hypothesis by supercomputer, but before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for “truth”. This truth is not observationally accurate testimony. This is sidestepping of global warming theory with quick and easy answers, so the opinion that a great disaster will really happen must be broken.

It seems that global warming and the halting of the temperature rise are related to solar activity. Currently, the sun is “hibernating”. The end of Sunspot Cycle 23 is already two years late: the cycle should have started in 2007, yet in January 2008 only one sunspot appeared in the sun’s northern hemisphere, after that, they vanished completely (new sunspots have now begun to appear in the northern hemisphere). At the current time, it can clearly be seen there are no spots in the photosphere. Lately, solar winds are at their lowest levels in 50 years. Cycle 24 is overdue, and this is is worrisome.

So, have there been other historical periods with an absence of sunspots? As a matter of fact, from 1650 to 1700 approximately, there were almost no sunspots. This time period has been named for the renown English astronomer Maunder, and is called the Maunder Minimum.

There is a relationship between transported energy and the light emissions from the photosphere and sunspots. It was thought that times of few sunspots are times of lower energy. Satellites were launched in 1980 to research this, and results were contrary to expectations. It became clear that these times were more energetic than periods of high sunspots. Periods of low sunspots have vigorous solar activity. The total change during sunspot cycles is usually .0.1%, from the Maunder Minimum to today the increase is .05%. The Maunder Minimum fell in the middle of the period of 1400-1800, the Little Ice Age, and it was theorized that this was due to a cut in solar emissions. The theory is that solar activity began to increase after that, and from 1800 global warming increased and recovery from the Little Ice Age began.

But sunspot change and climate change are not clearly correlated. Rather, the cycle was not the punctual 11 years, scientific research indicates that climate change is related to that change. Furthermore, according to the IPCC’s computational investigation, this energy increase does not significantly contribute to global warming. But then, the IPCC insists that current global warming correlates to CO2, solar influence is estimated as minimal, this calculation should be redone. This 0.1-0.5% is an enormous sum of energy. The energy of solar emissions is not just light from the photosphere. Solar winds cause geomagnetic storms, yet comparisons of solar wind and light energy to particle emissions are rarely carried out. Research into the relationship between geomagnetic storms and climate change has been undertaken for almost 100 years. However, because during this time, this simple correlation has not been seen, no conclusion has been reached. The super-hot temperatures of geomagnetic storms higher than 100 kilometers have increased, and the chances of the stratospheric and tropospheric transference are low.

Through the 11 year sunspot cycle, ultraviolet rays vary considerably, the ionosphere and ozone layer are affected. Whether or not this affects the troposphere is unknown. More research is necessary. On the other hand, cosmic rays continuously fall, it seems that they constantly seed comparatively low clouds. The solar system may shield us somewhat from Geomagnetic storms caused by solar winds, so called “magnetic clouds” may shield us from extrasolar cosmic rays, so solar activity and climate are in a complex relationship.

In this way, climate change and solar activity’s relationship is inconclusive. It is necessary to increase research efforts into the relationship between Earth’s climate fluctuations and solar activity.

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Predicting the Future with Numerical Simulation

Kanya Kusano, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology (JAMSTEC)

Numerical simulation by forecast models are generally classified as theoretical models and empirical models. The former follows universal laws and carries out predictive calculations, the latter makes models that are thought to be realistic from data of phenomenon. These two methods cannot be strictly differentiated, generally experiential methods gradually become theoretical methods, finally becoming the generally accepted dogma.

Celestial mechanics originated in astrological prediction of solar and lunar eclipses, calendars were experiential predictions; mechanistic theory evolved when we reached an era of accurate computation. Consequently, the predictability of celestial mechanics became extremely high and practical estimates gave way to proof. Similarly, modern Global Climate Models still largely dependent on empirical models. Fundamental principles, therefore must resolve very complex physical/chemical/biological processes and phenomenon. That is why many artificial optimization operations (parameterization tuning) are needed, or we will not be able to reproduce the phenomenon. Because of this, besides mathematical accuracy, the people who construct models’ choice of processes and optimum operating guidelines will have large scale effects on the calculated results.

1. Scientific Understanding and Uncertainty

When constructing models, if our scientific understanding is poor, we are not able to capture the model. But we should pay attention to the importance of the naturally occurring processes when our scientific understanding is not yet clearly decided.

In the IPCC’s 4th Evaluation Report, a few potentially major processes were discussed; but [since] scientific understanding was too low to decide, the evaluation of these was omitted. In order to scientifically understand the uncertainty of accurate estimates according to the potential importance of these processes, “the cause of lack of scientific understanding and uncertainty” must be assessed.

Finally, uncertainty estimates should be included. For example, the effect of variances in cosmic ray activity on clouds, caused by sunspot activity, solar flares accompanied by energetic protons striking the upper atmosphere and generating NOx and ozone effects [*], etc., are not sufficiently understood and incorporated into the models.

Also, there are great uncertainties in reproducing historical TSI (Total Solar Irradiance), TSI fluctuation and spectral change related climate sensitivity estimates are inadequate.

---

2. The limits of modeling aerosols and clouds

The indirect effect of aerosols and aerosol generation as the greatest uncertainty is becoming widely recognized, but fundamental, naturally spontaneous (especially oceanic) aerosols are not yet well understood. Dimethyl sulfide (DMS: CH3SCH3) of biological origin is thought to be a primary source of sulphuric aerosol formation over oceans, but the process of cloud cores forming from DMS is not sufficiently understood. According to recent physical models, the percentage of involvement of cosmic ray ionization processes is not well understood.

Furthermore, the types of aerosols and the ways they affect climate systems are not well understood. The increasing number of aerosols, in this case, augments precipitation, but if it increases too much, water droplet diameter will decrease and cloud generation will be renewed, and the albedo will be changed significantly. Thus, the fine-scale physical processes of clouds causing feedback in geological climate fluctuation now clearly points at this as a decisively material effect.

However, the discussion of the properties and life span of aerosols in clouds in the IPCC 4th Evaluation Report is inadequate.

3. Predictability and estimation rules

The 4th Evaluation Report is confident of the reliability of its assessment that previous data does not differ from its model. But a more effectively persuasive assessment of its predictive ability has not come forth. This is like the ancient Greek Thales predicting solar eclipses, future predictions should be tested in practice. Again, by means of short metaphase models and domain models, future information feedback can be isolated in hindcast experiments (reproducing the past according to the model) and quantitatively compared to long term climate predictions assessments.

4. Conclusion: Anthropogenic global warming theory still hypothetical

To summarize the discussion so far, compared to accurately predicting solar eclipses by celestial mechanics theoretical models, climate models are still in the phase of reliance on trial and error experiential models. There are still no successful precedents. The significance of this is that climate change theory is still dominated by anthropogenic greenhouse gas causation; the IPCC 4th Evaluation Report’s conclusion that from now on atmospheric temperatures are likely to continuously, monotonously increase, should be perceived as an unprovable hypothesis; it will be necessary investigate further and to evaluate future predictions as subject to natural variability.

[Translation by Charles Eicher.]

For Country A Crisis; For Obama A Generational Power-Grab Opportunity

To reference the Chinese curse, we are living in interesting times.   First we had the $700 billion TARP bailout (of which $78 billion was literally pissed away and of which $350 billion has been reserved for Obama).  Then we had the largest spending package in the history of the world – euphemistically referred to as “Porkulus” because even the most blatantly obvious pork projects were defended as “stimulus.”  This bill came in at an incredible $787 billion; but when the interest and the social programs – which everyone knows will continue on – are factored in,  it will actually cost $3.27 TRILLION.

And believe it or not, the liberal socialist spending choir is only just now beginning to warm up.  Right on the heels of Porkulus comes the introduction of another massive $410 billion earmarked-stuffed spending bill even as President Obama hypocritically praised himself for his fiscal responsibility.

And there may well be a “Porkulus 2” package, given the special interest-benefiting uselessness of the first one that conservatives railed against.

We’ve also got another bank bailout plan that “Turbo Tax Tim” Geithner says may cost taxpayers as much as $2 trillion.

And there’s the $275 billion housing bailout that promises to subsidize the worst behaviors.  $75 billion will be spent to essentially bribe lenders to modify loan terms for people at risk of foreclosure – all subsidized, of course, by those who have been paying their bills on time.

I may have forgotten one or three multi-billion spending packages.  But seriously, what’s a few hundred billion dollars with this Congress and this president in this day and age?

And you would probably think the government is done spending yours and your children’s retirements, but not so fast: now Obama is proposing another $634 billion so he can socialize everyone’s health care (which will lead to elderly people dying for lack of care to save scarce resources).

Are you kids at home adding all these stats to your national debt score cards?

Sane people would think, “We can’t afford to do that right now,” but that’s just not the mentality of liberals.  As Bloomberg described Obama’s position, “President Barack Obama framed the U.S. economic crisis as an opportunity to solve some of the nation’s most intractable issues and signaled that more taxpayer money would be needed to end the credit crunch.”  But I prefer Obama’s chief of staff’s description:

EMANUEL:  “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.  What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.  This is an opportunity. What used to be long-term problems — be they in the health care area, energy area, education area, fiscal area, tax area, regulatory reform area — things that we had postponed for too long that were long-term are now immediate and must be dealt with.  And this crisis provides the opportunity for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before.”

In other words, this economic crisis may be a bad thing for YOU; YOU’VE lost half your 401k, your home equity nest egg has tanked, and you might lose your job.  But don’t think that the White House is rubbing their foreheads and staying awake nights desperately trying to figure how to get us out of this crisis.  Because it is giving a socialist the opportunity to massively transform the American way of life.

Obama has been fearmongering the economy – even as he drives it down further and further – into a naked power grab.  Obama – who clearly understands the effect of language on people – used the “crisis” more than 25 times in a single speech to pitch the Porkulus bill to a fearful nation.  Desperate people are willing to turn to the government to save them in desperate times.

To quote from Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism: “Crisis is routinely identified as a core mechanism of fascism because it short-circuits debate and democratic deliberation.  Hence all fascistic movements commit considerable energy to prolonging a heightened sense of emergency” (page 43).

I couldn’t help but think of that passage when I heard Obama pronounce, “The time for talk is over, the time for action is now.”  He didn’t want the American people or their elected representatives to debate – or even read – his Porkulus bill.  And in the generated crisis rush to vote for the bill, no one did.

And now even Democrats are beginning to understand this frightening development:

Byrd: Obama in power grab
By JOHN BRESNAHAN | 2/25/09

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

While it’s rare for Byrd to criticize a president in his own party, Byrd is a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House. Byrd no longer holds the powerful Appropriations chairmanship, so his criticism does not carry as much weight these days. Byrd repeatedly clashed with the Bush administration over executive power, and it appears that he’s not limiting his criticism to Republican administrations.

Byrd also wants Obama to limit claims of executive privilege while also ensuring that the White House czars don’t have authority over Cabinet officers confirmed by the Senate.

“As presidential assistants and advisers, these White House staffers are not accountable for their actions to the Congress, to cabinet officials, and to virtually anyone but the president,” Byrd wrote. “They rarely testify before congressional committees, and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege. In too many instances, White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability.”

It’s a power grab when Obama goes for this kind of massive and historically-unprecedented generational social spending.  It’s a power grab when he appoints czars who unconstitutionally seize power from Congress behind the scenes.  And it was most certainly a naked power grab when Obama took the politically sensitive census into his office so he could use the enumeration to grab still more social spending powers.

Carter-era Economist Sees Deja Vu In Barack Obama

Doug Casey‘s 1979 book Crisis Investing became the largest selling financial book in history as Americans desperately sought to survive in the disastrous economy created by President Jimmy Carter.  He is clearly one of the best men you could turn to in finding out how to survive the economic mess created by an incompetent Democrat in the White House.

So, with that in mind, it would be interesting to ask the guy who wrote the book on the disastrous Carter economy what he thinks about the mother-of-all-disastrous economies that is about to be hatched while Barack Obama sits on the national nest.

In their annual forecast edition, the editors of BIG GOLD asked Casey Research Chairman and contrarian investor Doug Casey to provide his predictions and thoughts on issues everyone’s thinking about these days. Read what he has to say on the economy, deficits, inflation, and gold…

The $1.1 Trillion Budget Deficit

My reaction is that the people in the government are totally out of control. A poker player would say the government is “on tilt,” placing wild, desperate bets in the hope of getting rescued by good luck.

The things they’re doing are not only unproductive, they’re the exact opposite of what should be done. The country got into this mess by living beyond its means for more than a generation. That’s the message from the debt that’s burdening so many individuals; debt is proof that you’re living above your means. The solution is for people to significantly reduce their standard of living for a while and start building capital. That’s what saving is about, producing more than you consume. The government creating funny money – money out of nothing – doesn’t fix anything. All it does is prolong the problem and make it worse by destroying the currency.

Over several generations, huge distortions and misallocations of capital have been cranked into the economy, inviting levels of consumption that are unsustainable. In fact, Americans refer to themselves as consumers. That’s degrading and ridiculous. You should be first and foremost a producer and a consumer only as a consequence.

In any event, the government is going to destroy the currency, which will be a mega-disaster. And they’re making the depression worse by holding interest rates at artificially low levels, which discourages savings – the exact opposite of what’s needed. They’re trying to prop up a bankrupt system. And, at this point, it’s not just economically bankrupt, but morally and intellectually bankrupt. What they should be doing is recognize that they’re bankrupt and then start rebuilding. But they’re not, so it’s going to be a disaster.

The U.S. Economy in 2009

My patented answer, when asked what it will be like, is that this is going to be so bad, it will be worse than even I think it’s going to be. I think all the surprises are going to be on the downside; don’t expect friendly aliens to land on the roof of the White House and present the government with a magic solution. We’re still very early in this thing. It’s not going to just blow away like other post-war recessions. One reason that it’s going to get worse is that the biggest shoe has yet to drop… interest rates are now at all-time lows, and the bond market is much, much bigger than the stock market. What’s inevitable is much higher interest rates.

Would you like a nice big helping of some “God damn America” with your President?  Because this is what it looks like when put into practice.  Capitalism was an invention of Christianity.  It is no coincidence that those who have been most hostile to the religious and Judeo-Christian worldview should be hostile to the capitalist system that came from that worldview and seek to impose socialism.

I would add that capitalism was most corrupted by the spirit of social Darwinism that is  the logical outcome of godless Darwinian thought (think about it: why shouldn’t the rich and powerful hoard and consume all the resources given the “survival of the fittest” and “big fish eat the smaller fish” mentality?).  And now the very people who corrupted capitalism in the first place are using the very greed and predatory mindset they introduced into the system to attack and undermine capitalism as they seek to impose socialism.

Well, at least Doug Casey is all alone in seeing all this doom and gloom coming over America, right?  I mean, surely he’s the only economic expert who sees a disaster coming, isn’t he?

Wrong.

Commodity Online
The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions – all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.

Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

“We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place….putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.

“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.

Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as “The Panic of 2008,” adding that “giants (would) tumble to their deaths,” which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman
Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 percent.

The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape
transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”

In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.”There will be a revolution in this country,” he said. “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.”

“The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”

“It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.”

“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.”

The George Washington blog has compiled a list of quotes attesting to Celente’s accuracy as a trend forecaster.

“The Trends Research Institute is the Standard and Poors of Popular Culture.” – The Los Angeles Times

“If Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente.”- New York Post

So there you have it – hardly a nutjob conspiracy theorist blowhard now is he? The price of not heeding his warnings will be far greater than the cost of preparing for the future now.

It is frankly amazing that only one month in to the Obama presidency, I already find myself wishing we had Jimmy Carter back.  He was just a disaster and a disgrace, after all.  Obama represents the total destruction of this country’s economy and the American way of life.  Carter brought us into a devastating foreign policy, energy, and economic crises; Obama may so undermine this nation’s political, financial, economic, defense, intelligence, and social institutions that there is little left to rebuild.

Obama Socialist Housing Plan: Let’s reward the worst behaviors

There are a couple of things that you should know about if you have a queezy, “What-in-the-hell-are-these-idiots-doing-now?” feeling in the pit of your stomach about the so-called “second leg of the economic stool” (the mortgage rescue plan).

The first features CNBC financial reporter Rick Santelli’s self-described “rant” over his anger and rejection of Obama’s mortgage bailout.  As Larry Kudlow notes, Santelli said:

Reporting from the Chicago commodity pits, my CNBC colleague Rick Santelli unleashed a torrent of criticism against this scheme. Santelli said: “Government is promoting bad behavior. . . . Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgages! It’s a moral hazard.”

All this took place on the air, to the cheers of traders.  Santelli called for a new tea party in support of capitalism.  He’s right.

And you’re dang right, he’s right.

It’s being called “the rant of the year.”  YOUTUBE

The White House immediately lashed out at Rick Santelli, but it’s pretty clear who won and who lost.    CNBC is standing behind their guy all the way.  His rant struck a nerve with Americans.  As Newsweek‘s Mary Kate Carey puts it, “Their sense of injustice is real, and could be of biblical proportions.”

A Rasmussen poll shows an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with Rick Santelli and oppose Obama’s housing plan.

The second comes from a Bloomberg article, which provides a little more of the grounds behind Santelli’s “rant”:

Mortgage Plan Aids Liars About Income, Amherst Says (Update2)

By Jody Shenn

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration’s mortgage- modification plan offers the most aid to homeowners who “really stretched to buy their house and lied the most about their income,” Amherst Securities Group LP analysts said.

The plan calls for government payments before and after loans are reworked to mortgage servicers and lenders including mortgage-securities investors, as well as borrowers, Amherst’s Laurie Goodman and Roger Ashworth wrote in a report today. The proposal also will “badly misalign” the incentives of servicers and bondholders, they wrote.

“This program needs to be retooled,” the New York-based mortgage-bond analysts wrote. Amherst is a securities firm specializing in trading and advising investors on home-loan debt.

Under Obama’s plan, a borrower who qualified for a 6 percent interest-only “stated income” loan of $250,000 by claiming income of $45,000 a year while actually making $37,500 would see payments cut by $2,625 annually through lender and government subsidies, according to their report. A borrower who actually made $30,000 while claiming to make $45,000 would pay $5,700 less a year to meet the debt-to-income ratios sought.

“The borrowers that really stretched to buy their house and lied the most about their income receive the largest break in payments,” the analysts wrote.

Even Obama’s own numbers don’t add up in this horrible plan for economists trying to make sense of the White House’s data.

And even Democrat Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chris Dodd recognizes the moral hazard of the Obama plan:

Dodd endorsed the $275 billion housing plan Obama unveiled this week, which is aimed at keeping as many as 9 million borrowers from losing their homes. He acknowledged the “moral hazard” of helping borrowers who made bad decisions, and said relief is needed because foreclosures drive down home values in neighborhoods.

“Moral hazard,” defined as the following:

Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions.

In other words, let’s not learn our lesson.  Let’s subsidize the behavior of the worst players – ALL OVER AGAIN – so they’ll be able to do the same damn thing all over again.  And then the government will swoop in and “rescue” them all over again.  And probably again after that.  Because when you grow government so that it has power and influence over everything, you will always have a “connected” class who will use their influence to obtain special status, benefits, and favors from government.  And the bigger the government, the bigger the abuse and corruption.

Along with Rick Santelli and a lot of other Americans, I’m ranting, too.  I’m ready for some “tea party” action myself.  I take walks in my neighborhood on a regular basis.  And I’ve been doing so for several years now.  And by simple observation, I can tell you that a whopping load of the homeowners who are in the most trouble today are the ones who took second mortgages so they could use their homes as piggy banks to buy lots of goodies that I don’t have (motor homes, swimming pools, fancy new cars, jet skis, quads, golf carts, etc.).  Or they bought their homes on adjustable rate mortgages because they counted on cashing in on the appreciation in value before the higher interest rates kicked in (in other words, they gambled like high rollers at the crap table in Vegas).  Or they were your typical “flippers” buying houses just to take advantage of the swelling real estate balloon so they could turn around and sell them at an obscene profit.  Or they just stupidly overextended themselves by buying a lot more “house” than they could realistically afford.

In every single case above, the moment the dramatically overvalued real estate market corrected, they were dead ducks.

As further proof that this “crisis” was largely the result of real estate speculation, the lion’s share of the “crisis” is occurring in just five states: California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and Illinois.  And those five states match the states with the biggest speculation bubbles.

I didn’t do any of that stuff.  I thought I was being smart, not taking stupid risks.  But it turns out that I was being dumb.  Because now I and all the other “smart” people am going to have to bail out all the big-time gamblers.  The banks will be pressured to refinance their homes at lower rates, to lower the principle, etc. so these people can stay in their homes.  And the government will be underwriting the cost of new buyers to encourage them to buy new homes.  But no one is going to give me any such sweetheart deals.  Someone has to be stuck holding the bag in this kind of system.  And those “someones” are people like me.

Let me tell you something: I deserve my money a helluva lot more than they deserve my money.

Rick Santelli isn’t the only one who’s raining all over Obama’s parade.  MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews – who is so uber-liberal that he literally confesses to getting a shiver down his leg in the presence of Obama – somehow couldn’t manage to find a single financial expert to lend support to Obama’s economic plan.  Both CNBC‘s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer and Maryland University economist Peter Morici basically damned Obama’s plan in every way possible.  They damned Obama’s fearmongering; they damned his stimulus package; they damned his housing package; they damned his bank bailout deal; and they damned his Treasury Secretary, calling for his ouster.  And this from one of the most unrelentingly liberal programs on the most unrelentingly liberal networks on television.

We’re currently on the “second leg of the stool” of Obama’s economic plan now (first the so-called “stimulus” which is actually a pork-laden liberal social spending bill that will ultimately cost taxpayers $3.27 trillion), and now the greed, fraud and stupidity-rewarding mortgage bailout.  The finance/banking bailout to come is expected to cost somewhere in the ball park of another $2 trillion, and will be intended to force banks to make loans they don’t want to make.

Which is frankly how we got into this whole damn mess in the first place.

When liberal politicians decreed that home ownership was a “fundamental right,” banks didn’t run out and say, “Shoot, yeah!  We’ll make risky loans!  Can’t pay us back?  No collateral?  Can’t make a down payment?  No problem!”  They were forced to make these home loans by people like our new President.

And then Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie and Freddie took all these bad “landmine” loans – these loans that didn’t have any down payment, these ARMs, these subprime mortgages – and bundled them together along with all the solid, stable mortgages in order to effectively subsidize the bad loans by mixing them up together with all the good ones.

And now the Obama administration wants what Yogi Berra called “deja vu all over again.”

Joe the Plumber famously said, “That sounds a lot like socialsim” during the campaign.  And apparently that’s what Americans wanted, because – as Newsweek trumpeted – “We are all socialists now.”  But socialism doesn’t work.

Margaret Thatcher put it this way: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

Winston Churchill – who saw the failure of socialism firsthand – was even more damning: “Socialism is a philosophy of FAILURE, the creed of IGNORANCE, the gospel of ENVY; it’s inherent virtue is the equal sharing of MISERY.”

And Dr. Adrian Rogers explained why socialism – offered as the means to create “fairness” – is actually quintessentially unfair:

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

We are diving deep into the cesspool of socialism.  Many Democrats are assuring us that it will be only temporary, that we will get out of our current economic downturn and immediately restore the glories of capitalism – the system that allowed this country to become the most powerful economy in the history of the world – once again.

I don’t see it.

I see this nation now plunging blindly into a system that will be virtually impossible to free ourselves from as government – like a giant octupus – wraps its omnipotent tentacles into every fabric of society.

Right now the government is beginning to implement socialism by increasingly taking over the commanding heights of the economy – the banks, the manufacturers – and at the same time increasing political control over much of the rest of the economy by legislative fiat.

And once we’re in a socialist state, it’s hard to understand how we’ll get out.  Particularly with Democrats – who have always pushed for more government control – in total control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

When we consider the interest to pay for the $787 billion “stimulus” package, and when we add in the cost of just some of those programs which are called “temporary” but which we KNOW will become permanent, (did I mention this?) the actual cost of the bill soars to $3.27 trillion.  And yet, amazing as it is to believe, Obama is apparently following up one useless socialist spending bill with another.  “Porkulus 2.0” may be on it’s way through the House of Representatives (or – as it really should be known – “Nancy’s house”) as early as next week.

So get used to subsidizing bad behaviors.  That’s really the hallmark of the socialist system, after all.

As California Goes, So Goes The Nation – Straight To Hell

There’s an old saying, “As California goes, so goes the nation.”  That’s because California has a massive population (over 38 million, which is the combined population of the 22 smallest states) to go with the society-transforming megaphone of Hollywood (you know, where gay marriage – not Sean Penn – wins the Best Actor award).

Well, back on October 12, 2003, Fred Roe said:

Liberalism is a disease, and as a trend that will destroy California, so goes the nation.

Here, here, Freddy.  As California stares into the face of bloated-budgetary doom, we who watch our lawmakers do everything imaginable to avoid making meaningful budget cuts salute you.  Or perhaps it’s more like a toast raised from the tilting deck of the Titanic.

Today California passed a budget.  Part of the problem was dealing with a $42 BILLION shortfall.  Part of the problem will continue to be the fact that our massive debt grows by $1.7 million every single hour.

And Californians with the means to do so are leaving California the way rats leave sinking ships.

The Wall Street Journal has an article titled, “California’s Gold Rush Has Been Reversed: Entrepreneurs are fleeing heavy taxes in the state.”

The LA Times has an article titled, “Plan raises taxes on the state’s wealthiest: California’s tax rate is the nation’s highest, but budget woes are prompting proposals to raise it further. Tax foes say it could backfire by driving businesses and top earners out of the state.”

And the state – already the most heavily taxed in the nation – just raised its taxes again.

Colorado smells the blood-red of red ink in the water:

Colorado goes after California workers

by Rob Schmitz, Friday, February 13, 2009

Kai Ryssdal: According to the Los Angeles Times this morning, California officials are expecting about $26 billion in stimulus spending to come their way. That still won’t be enough to fix a whopping budget deficit and a state government that’s gridlocked even on a good day. And it’s not going to make it any easier to do business out here. The high cost of running a company in the Golden State has been driving firms away for a while. And now other Western states are trying to capitalize. From KQED, Rob Schmitz reports.

Rob Schmitz: Tomorrow, 400 of California’s top CEOs — at companies from Google to Amgen — will receive Valentines from the state of Colorado. This morning, an airplane circled over L.A. with a banner proclaiming “Colorado Loves California.” It’s all part of a $100,000 campaign to court heart-broken businesses looking for a better suitor. Tom Clark is with the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.

Tom Clark: We’re not going in to steal companies, we’re going in and offering an option for folks who have cost issues, that they need to get into a new market. Because if we lose California, the entire West gets hurt.

Last year, a billion dollars’ worth of venture capital flowed into Colorado. Half of it from California. The state of Nevada has spent millions to lure businesses across its border. Nevada Development Authority’s Somer Hollingsworth, says he’s heard from quite a few California CEOs lately.

Somer Hollingsworth: People have finally said, “I can’t be here. No matter what happens, I’m going to be sunk, so maybe I need get out of Dodge.”

And it’s not just businesses looking for a way out. Public Relations manager Heather Clisby recently moved to Denver from San Francisco, initially for a boy. A week later, the relationship was over.

Heather Clisby: Well, once I stopped crying, I looked up, I’m like, ‘Oh! Mountains! And, I don’t want to say anything bad about California, but I also felt it was just getting really, lifestyle-wise, it was just getting very crowded.

And expensive. Now she’s got her own business, and she’s saving money. And she’s so over her fling with the debt-ridden Golden State.

Californians can beg their elected leaders – “Please don’t screw us” – all they want, but the pleas fall on liberalism-deafened ears.  The state is a socialist people’s republic, and lusts for more and more money to spend for all of its many redistributionist programs.  Nancy Pelosi lives here, you know.

California could have had $5 billion of free money and created a ton of good paying private sector jobs, but that aint the California way:

California blocks state waters oil project
By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Feb. 11 — The California State Lands Commission voted not to approve an extended reach drilling project that would have recovered nearly 100 million bbl of oil and brought as much as $5 billion to the financially insolvent state.

Plains Exploration & Production Co., Houston, had proposed in 2005 to drill 17 wells from shore and from existing Platform Irene to develop the Tranquillon Ridge prospect. Drilling was to start in 2009 and continue 5-6 years, and production would last 14 years.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, commission chairman and a former deputy Interior secretary under former US President Bill Clinton, said the plan “would signal that California wants to open offshore drilling.” Garamendi also said US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other members of the California congressional delegation had concerns the lease would have undercut their attempts to reintroduce a federal moratorium on offshore drilling.

Oh, well.  Who needs oil or gasoline, anyway?  We’d just drive around and waste it on things like going to work, shopping, and heading off to spend money on recreation.  And businesses would waste it on about a quadrillion different products, goods, and services to help “lubricate” the economy.  Thank God those Democrats saved us from that demon-juice oil!

I wrote an article the day Democrats – after fighting against any oil production for more than a quarter century – finally blinked against an onslaught of public pressure and agreed to allow an offshore billing ban to expire.  In my concluding paragraph I predicted:

If you want to put gas in your car’s gas tank, and if you don’t want to keep paying OPEC $700 billion every year for the privilege, you have to vote Republican.  Don’t think that Nancy Pelosi won’t still try to save the planet, or that Harry Reid has stopped thinking that oil is ruining our world.  After the election, you can rest assured that they will be right back to their old tricks.

Democrats are lying weasels.  That’s the one thing about them that you can depend upon.

California’s unemployment rate is 9.3%, third worst in the nation behind other liberal socialist peoples republics Michigan and Rhode Island.  And it’s the highest it’s been in 15 years – you know, when Republicans clobbered Democrats back in 1994.

And California is one of five states (Michigan, Florida, Nevada, Arizona being the others) with the highest rate of foreclosures.  And thanks to Obama’s subsidizing of bad and stupid behavior, you’ll be seeing more foreclosures in your own state real soon.  Spreading the misery is at the heart of socialism.

Ignore the economic solutions that work; and instead turn to failed socialist policies dictated by ideology rather than reality.  That’s the California way.

Democrats Continue To Melt Down Economy With Socialist BS

Senator Chris Dodd says we (meaning socialist liberals) may have to nationalize banks.  And then the bottom of the market falls out under the banks on fears that the banks will be nationalized.

Sean Hannity the other night ran a montage of Barack Obama describing the US economy as being in a “crisis” at least 25 different times during a single speech.  I don’t know about you, but that sure makes me want to go run out and invest my fortune in the stock market.

Economists might call it the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” ; I call it the “Hitler-Reichstag Fire Strategy.”  Both terms amount to the same thing: manufacture a crisis, implement massive reactionary self-serving measures to “resolve” the crisis, seize total control, and then never let go.

Here’s the latest headline:

US STOCKS-Wall St tumbles on fear of bank nationalizations

The story is just another example of shocking horrific Democratic mismanagement and sabotage of the economy.  As the LA Times notes:

Wall Street already is convinced that some significant chunk of the nation’s banking industry will be nationalized. Sen. Chris Dodd just bolstered that view this morning.

From Bloomberg News:

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said it may be necessary to nationalize some banks for a short time, as Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. tumbled today on concern the U.S. may take over both banks.

“I don’t welcome that at all, but I could see how it’s possible it may happen,” Dodd said in an interview on Bloomberg TV’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” to be broadcast later today. “I’m concerned that we may end up having to do that, at least for a short time.”

Nationalize, then de-nationalize? That sounds like a wipeout for current bank shareholders.

Bank of America shares were down $1.11, or 28%, to a 24-year low of $2.82 about 10:30 a.m. PST. Citigroup crashed 80 cents, or 32%, to $1.71. Wells Fargo & Co. dived $2.88, or 24%, to $9.13.

The BKX index of 24 major bank stocks was down 9%, bringing its year-to-date loss to 55%. The broader stock market is crumbling with the financials; the Dow industrials were down 184 points, or 2.5%, to 7,281, a new six-year low.

As the market truly appeared to be going into the crapper following Dodd’s “Hugo Chavez” act, the White House finally issued an unconvincing statement that maybe we wouldn’t completely socialize our economy after all:

On Wall Street, talk of nationalization of Citigroup Inc., and Bank of America Corp., prompted investors to continue to balk, worried that the government would have to take control and wipe out shareholders in the process. Citigroup fell 20 percent, while Bank of America fell 12 percent in afternoon trading but also came off their lowest levels.

“This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said when asked about nationalizing the banks.

If you don’t see this as a horribly ridiculous mess, throwing investors and basically the entire economy into a panic – only to come out and say, “Oops, did we do that?” – you’re just not that smart.

And that’s not the only burning sack of poop Obama stamped out today:

White House nixes transportation secretary’s mileage tax idea

Washington (AP) The White House says you can forget about a mileage tax.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs made the comments after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said taxing motorists based on the number of miles they drive instead of how much gasoline they buy should be considered.

LaHood told the Associated Press that the gasoline taxes can’t be counted on to keep up with the federal share of highway and bridge construction costs.

Asked about LaHood’s remarks, Gibbs said, “It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration.” A mileage tax has been proposed in a number of states, but has drawn some angry opposition. A tentative plan in Massachusetts to use GPS chips in vehicles has drawn complaints from drivers who say it’s an Orwellian intrusion into people’s lives. Others say it eliminates an incentive to drive fuel-efficient cars.

Even Democrats freaked out over the sheer over the top Big-Brother-has-come-to-stay idea.  Liberals say Bush violated privacy rights by listening to calls being made by terrorist watch list suspects overseas, and then they want to be able to have the ability to track everywhere you and your family goes?

You have to understand: LaHood is Obama’s own guy; he’s Obama’s own transportation secretary.   Obama is in effect having to come out and say, “Hey, don’t listen to this guy I chose for this important job; he’s just an idiot.”

And you can’t blame either one of these policy gems on Vice President Joe Biden, a man who can say something completely stupid or insane at basically any moment.

Ever wonder what it would be like if Homer Simpson was running the country?  Today you got your chance.

Basically, either the Obama administration and the Democrats in power are genuinely incompetent boobs (which is really scary!), or – even MORE scary – they are totalitarian fascists who are working on genuinely socializing the entire economy and monitoring the peoples’ every move.

Neither option sounds very good.

The latest news is that – almost immeidately after announcing that they won’t nationalize banks on Friday – the White House proceeds to begin strategizing to do exactly what they’d just said they wouldn’t do by effectively nationalizing the largest bank in the country.  That fundamental irrationality and lack of direction led to yet another blood bath in the stock market.

Wall Street plunged to it’s lowest level since May 4, 1997 – which as everyone knows was when Bill Clinton was President and the streets were all paved with gold – with the Dow closing down 251 points to 7115.  In a total abandonment of confidence in Obama’s ability to handle the economy, the market has lost more than 1000 points since Obama announced his plan to “stimulate” the economy, and more than 2000 points since he was elected.

At some point, Americans will realize that they elected an inexperienced socialist and begin to hold Barack Obama for the incredible mess he’s made out of the economy due to his own failures.  But for the time being, every new day brings a new announcement about how he “inherited” the economy.

It’s Official: Iran Will Have The Bomb On Obama’s Watch

Obama’s about to have his Cuban Missile contest.  And to quote a famous phrase to the “O” (as in ‘zero’):

“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

The IAEA severely underestimated the quantity of uraniam Iran actually possessed.  I wonder what would have happened in the election if they’d bothered to get their facts straight.

Remember Joe Biden warning America that President Obama would face a crisis, and it would look for all the world that he had no idea what he was doing, but to place blind faith in his messianic leadership anyway?

Well, brace yourself.  Because Iran will take Obama to school and make the US look like a fat stupid weakling just like they did to Jimmy Carter.

When (because anybody who says ‘if’ is just a retard) Iran develops the bomb, they will have a deterrent to any direct attack by the United States or anyone else.  They will be able to unleash international terrorism as they will without fear of retaliation.  Soon they will be able to close the Strait of Hormuz whenever the hell they want and shut off the world’s oil supply.  And they will start an arms race in the craziest part of the world.

The recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report states that inspectors uncovered 209 kilograms of low-enriched uranium that the Iranians had failed to declare, which brings the total amount that Teheran has so far enriched to over a ton, enough, with additional purification, to produce a nuclear weapon, officials told the New York Times Thursday.

Independent weapons experts told the paper that they were surprised by the figures and criticized the IAEA for conducting inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities only once a year.

“It’s worse than we thought. It’s alarming that the actual production was underreported by a third,” said Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

“You have enough atoms” to make a bomb, a senior UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The IAEA report, which was made public Thursday, stated that the new assessment of the total amount of uranium enriched by Iran factors in 171 kilograms of newly-produced material and 839 kilograms of old production. In the past, however, the agency had only reported 630 kilograms of old production.

The discrepancy between the two figures, 209 kilograms, brought the total amount of uranium enriched by Iran to over a metric ton.

You want to blame Bush, don’t you, you snivelling liberals?  Bush lied (about Iran’s nukes), people will die (under Obama).

Both statements are a reflection of the confusion left by the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran over Tehran’s intentions regarding nuclear weapons. That estimate was immediately attacked by the right and disowned by the George W Bush administration because it revealed that Iran had halted work on nuclear weapons in 2003.

The real problem with the NIE, however, was that it failed to clarify whether the Islamic Republic was determined to have nuclear weapons or only to have the capability to build them as a “hedge” against possible future developments.

The difference between those two possible Iranian strategies can hardly be overestimated. If Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons, the United States would have to choose between coercive diplomacy on Iran or accepting Tehran’s status as a nuclear weapons state and seeking to deter it.

If Iran has a “hedging strategy”, however, the United States could take diplomatic steps that would maximize the incentives for Iran to remain a non-nuclear weapons state indefinitely and not risk an international confrontation.

You appeasing weakling liberal pukes were all over that, calling Bush a warmonger and spouting off about what a liar he was.

Only Bush was right, and you were wrong.

Oh, by the way, Israel was right, too.

Oh, you liberals had total faith in the international estimates.  They were Those Who Could Not Be Wrong.  But they were wrong, wrong, wrong.

The only way to stop Iran from developing the bomb – and the ballistic missile to go with it – is to go to war with them and take them out.  But the US under Obama won’t have the balls to do that.  We elected to be a bunch of socialist weaklings like Europe.

Welcome to the world of nuclear nations, Iran.  Now the countdown to World War III can officially begin.

Democrat Clyburn Says It’s Racist Not To Bow To Socialism

It’s hard for white people not to be viewed as racist now that they elected the first black President.  And, of course, it’s impossible for conservative whites.

First we had our first black attorney general tell us we that we weren’t only racists, but cowards as well:

WASHINGTON – Eric Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, said Wednesday the United States was “a nation of cowards” on matters of race, with most Americans avoiding candid discussions of racial issues. In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder said.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”

The only way to avoid being labeled as a racist is to talk about your racism, which … wait a minute – that would make you racist, too.

Face it.  You suck, whitey.  Just recognize it, embrace it, and wallow in your guilt like a pig in mud.

And now we’re being told that to oppose the Generational Theft Act is also racist.

Clyburn: Opposition to stimulus is slap in face

By PAGE IVEY, Associated Press Writer Page Ivey, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The highest-ranking black congressman said Thursday that opposition to the federal stimulus package by southern GOP governors is “a slap in the face of African-Americans.”

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said he was insulted when the governors of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and his home state, which have large black populations, said they might not accept some of the money from the $787 billion stimulus package.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday he would accept the money, and none of the others has rejected it outright. The Republican governors of Idaho and Alaska also said they had reservations about whether the money would come with too many strings attached, but Clyburn said he was particularly taken aback by southern governors who said they might decline it.

“These four governors represent states that are in the proverbial black belt,” Clyburn said.

A spokesman for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford accused Clyburn of playing the race card.

Rush Limbaugh is a scourge of the left because he understands their little rodent minds and exposes them for what they are.  Way back on April 24, 2008, Rush said:

RUSH: I can’t tell you the number of people who have called me over the course of the recent past, months or so, and she said, “Rush, I’m thinking about Obama. If Obama wins, doesn’t that mean that there’s no more racism in America?  Doesn’t that mean it’s over?”  Oh, no! Just the opposite.  You have to understand that racial discrimination is a business in this country to people like the Reverend Sharpton and the Reverend Jackson, and any criticism of a black president is going to be said to be racist!

Make that any criticism of a black president’s $3.27 trillion dollar socialist porkulus generational theft act is racist.  Make that a nation of cowardly racists because we can’t “Mea culpa” enough to satisfy an attorney general who pardoned a tax cheating commodities trader (Marc Rich) who did business with terrorists in Iran and then fled the country to avoid facing the music.  When he wasn’t pardoning actual terrorists.

I guess it’s part of being “racist,” but I despise being morally lectured by weasels like Eric Holder.

And House Majority Whip James Clyburn thinks it’s racist for governors to oppose accepting porkulus bill pork money because it will supposedly hurt black people, but he didn’t have a problem hoping that the war – with a bunch of black people fighting it – would go poorly so he and his fellow Democrats could demagogue it as a political issue.

“If Obama wins, doesn’t that mean there’s no more racism in America?”

You stupid moron.  Of course not.  Hard-core racists will always see people of different skin colors as evil.

Anybody who thought that should have paid attention to the fact that Barack Obama spent 23 years in a racist church, then had the unmitigated chutzpah to deliver a speech lecturing the country on racism.  In that speech he piously proclaimed of his racist spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright:

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.

And then threw Wright under the bus the moment he became more of a political liability than a political asset.  And only twenty-three years too late to matter.

Anybody who thought that should have listened to the race-card-dealt-from-the-bottom-of-the-deck preemptively racist charge against Republicans from Barack Obama:

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) – Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him…

“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

Anybody who thought that should have listened to Rep. John Lewis’ totally unmerited poisonous racist bile against John McCain and Sarah Palin:

“I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign,” said Lewis, an Obama supporter, civil rights icon and Georgia Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“What I am seeing today reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” he said.

Noting that Wallace, a divisive political figure in his day, had also run for president, Lewis said, “He created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights.”

“Sen. McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all,” Lewis said.

Anybody who thought that should have listened to Rep. Bobby Rush’s totally hypocritical and totally over-the-top racist charges shouted to demand that white Senators be shamed into approving corruption-ridden (and now ousted) Governor Blagojevich’s pick of Raymond Burris simply because the man was black:

This is a matter of national importance. There are no African- Americans in the Senate, and I don’t think that anyone — any U.S. senator, who’s sitting in the Senate, right now, wants to go on record to deny one African-American for being seated in the U.S. Senate. I don’t think they want to go on record doing that. And so, I intend to take that argument to the Congressional Black Caucus.

“I will ask you not to hang and lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer.”

Eric Holder – self-righteous hypocrite that he is – pompously lectures the nation that “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”  Maybe that’s because there are way too damn many people like you who are just waiting to jump all over any white person who dares to risk saying something that will give a bunch of hard-core racist black leaders a chance to jump down their throats with the charge of “Racist! Racist! Racist!”

Maybe it’s because black “civil rights” leaders have turned “race issues” into the equivalent of a communist show trial, in which this white person, and then that, is frog marched before the tribunal, and assumed guilty until proven innocent.

And maybe it’s because we’ve heard the “racist” thing – rather like the boy who cried wolf – so many damn times that we’re frankly fed up with dealing with one pseudo crisis after another (I think back to perennially-outraged race-card peddler Jesse Jackson leaping to pile condemnation on the innocent Duke Lacrosse team players, while giving the lying accuser financial aid).

People like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton destroy lives with their racist charges, and then move on to the next press-garnering episode.

And their racist attacks are always politically-motivated, with conservative blacks like Condileeza Rice, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, and Michael Steele not needing to apply for sympathy as they are called “Aunt Jemimahs”, “Uncle Toms”, “happy Negroes” and “race traitors” for being conservative or Republican.

At some point, with the deck stacked by a kangaroo court, white people just shut down and quit talking, Mr. Holder.  And it’s not their fault; it’s your fault.

I personally am to the point that if I am called a racist, I merely respond by saying, “What a racist thing of you to say, you racist bigot.”  How else should I respond to people who use a label to attack, undermine, discredit, marginalize, and hurt me not because of my attitudes toward race, but rather because of my attitudes toward politics.

If there’s one good thing that comes out of the election of Barack Obama (and I’ll wager that no OTHER good thing will come out of it), it’s that the myth that “black people can’t be racist because racism demands power” has now been officially exploded.  A black man is the most powerful man in the country.  And another black man is the nation’s highest law enforcement officer.  That’s more than enough power to qualify even by the ridiculous and twisted standard and utterly self-serving standard routinely offered by racist black intellectuals.

I would welcome an honest conversation on racial issues.  But it has to begin with an honest self-assessment from every participant and from every group involved.  The days when black leaders can use race as a club to bludgeon white society into submission need to end.

Today, as I write this, there is another of an endless series of examples of generated racial outrage over a political – and NOT a racial – issue.  The New York Post used the story of the crazed chimpanzee to mock the crafting of the stimulus bill.  Barack Obama didn’t write a single page of the bill – yet somehow the Post is being accused of comparing Obama to a chimp.

Governor Bobby Jindel and other Republican governors are not racist or out to hurt black people for being hesitant to accept the so-called “stimulus” money.  Rather they are “concerned about Federal strings and the long-term impact of the borrowed money.”  Theirs is a principled stand, NOT a prejudiced one.  In the end, they will probably all take the money, for the simple reason that this massive package will have to be paid for by every citizen of every state, regardless if they wanted it or not.

New York Mayor Bloomberg Says Liberal Tax Policies Will Lead To Nowhere

You don’t expect wisdom from people who have too-often sided with fools, but conservatives found an unexpected ally today in Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

He basically says that, while he understands how fun and rhetorically useful Marxist class-based demagoguery is, we’d be fools to actually govern that way.

BLOOMY BLASTS RICH TAX
WARNS OF WEALTH EXODUS

By DAVID SEIFMAN, February 14, 2009

Charging that it’s “easy to rile against the rich,” Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday that the income-tax increases being considered for the wealthiest New Yorkers would drive them from the city.

“One percent of the households that file in this city pay something like 50 percent of the taxes. In the city, that’s something like 40,000 people. If a handful left, any raise would make it revenue neutral,” the billionaire mayor said on his weekly radio show.

“The question is what’s fair. If 1 percent are paying 50 percent of the taxes, you want to make it even more? Anybody below that 1 percent, no taxes?”

Legislators in Albany are considering state income-tax hikes for households earning from $250,000 to $1 million to close a budget gap next year of at least $13 billion.

At the same time, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn this week proposed three higher tax brackets in the city with a top tax of 4.65 percent for married couples with incomes of $1.2 million or more.

Bloomberg is taking a political risk by standing up for the rich in his re-election year.

Polls show the mayor’s popularity is highest in Manhattan, the wealthiest borough, and lowest in The Bronx, the poorest.

But that didn’t stop him from questioning the wisdom of loading tax burdens onto the rich.

“Keep in mind little over half the households that file tax returns don’t pay any taxes, and about 30 percent of the households that file get a credit from the government, that’s the Earned Income Tax Credit,” he said.

“It’s also true that it’s easy to rile against the, quote, rich. I saw one group wants to give affordable housing to people up to $240,000 income a year, but $250,000, they’re millionaires and we’ve got to tax ’em.”

State Sen. Diane Savino (D-SI) said Bloomberg’s concerns about a millionaires’ exodus is unfounded.

“Research does not bear out that people get up and leave,” she said. “People say they’ll go to New Jersey. Their taxes are higher. It’ll cost them more to live there.”

A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declined comment.

Well, first of all, allow me to deal with the idiot liberal bimbo Diane Savino who says, “Research does not bear out that people get up and leave.”

It doesn’t as long as you don’t bother to live in the real world.

Let me simply present a couple headlines:

From The Wall Street Journal: “California’s Gold Rush Has Been Reversed: Entrepreneurs are fleeing heavy taxes in the state.”

From National Review Online: “Exodus From California.”

That last article presents a survey from the California Business Roundtable that found:

1. The cost of doing business in California is 30 percent higher than the western-state average.

2. Almost 40 percent of the California decision-makers participating in the Roundtable survey plan to “outsource” jobs from California to other western states, preferably Texas.

3. Half of the companies have “explicit policies to halt employment growth in California while less than five percent of companies have retention policies in place to keep jobs in California.”

4. Last, California’s “regulatory environment is the most costly, complex and uncertain in the nation.” Regulatory costs are 105 percent higher in California than in other western states.

Outsourcing from one country to another is as legitimate as outsourcing from one state to another. It’s a principle from Econ 101. And, it works: Just monitor California.

The LA Times, discussing California’s $42 billion budget deficit, refers to the fact that “California’s government continued its grinding downshift toward insolvency.”  And technically the state – which is failing to meet obligation after obligation – is already insolvent.

It is rather fascinating that the states with the highest tax rates are experiencing the worst budget deficits and the greatest financial crises.

It is amazing that if those 40,000 rich New Yorkers got tired of being demonized and demogogued and left New York City, that the city would essentially just shrivel up and die.  If even a significant fraction of those 40,000 decided that the sun was warmer and the taxes were lower in Arizona or Florida, the city would implode from the weight of its own socialist social structure.

I’ve never been “rich,” and now that we’ve elected a president and a Congress whose policies will ultimately destroy this country’s economy, I probably never will be rich.  But I understand a few things.

I understand that it is rich people, not poor people, who create jobs.  When was the last time a poor person hired you for a job?

I understand that rich people, not poor people, invest in the economy and support the economy with their taxes.  As just one example, for all the demonization of “Wall Street bonuses” by the Democrats, the loss of those bonuses cost the state of New York a whopping $1 billion in tax revenues.  And the poor aren’t going to make up for that loss in revenue.

And I understand that rich people got rich in the first place by working harder and for longer hours, by investing in more education for themselves, and by saving and investing rather than spending and consuming.  I understand that they got rich by sacrificing the short-term for the longer-term benefits.

Meanwhile, Democrats are tearing our economy down.  Last night on Sean Hannity, they played a montage of at least 25 times that Barack Obama described our economy as being in “crisis” in order to fearmonger his porkulus bill.  Does that make you want to risk investing in better days?  And private jet manufacturers saw their businesses tank after Democrats demagogued the automakers for having the unmitigated gall to fly to the Capitol in private jets.

Even former communist KGB agent Vladimir Putin knows that socialism doesn’t do anything but drag down an economy.

Now that Democrats have no one to demagogue, we’ll see what a disaster they make of the economy.  They are already off to a bang-up beginning.