The Progressive Religion

As Christmas approaches, my thoughts have naturally turned towards things of a more religious nature.

The cause of this change in mindset hasn't all been Christmas-related activity. Much of what has oriented my thinking has been the religion of progressivism.

This is a topic I've addressed numerous times before--so many times, in fact, that I don't dare do a search of my archives and post every link to every article in which I've treated the subject. You'd be bored (more than usual) and I wouldn't have time to go and pick up my laundry from Tony all the way out in Queen's Park.

Suffice it to say that the progressive religion, though perhaps as not clearly outlined as other, more organized and defined religions is, in fact, a religion.

And the leftists--liberals and members of the Democrat party--who reject and sometimes mock Christianity and other religions (not all leftists, but a sizable vocal minority), are no less devout and pious in their belief system than their country bumpkin hick Christian friends on the right.

Indeed, as Byron York points out in latest article, leftist progressives are just as superstitious (in some cases, depending on definition, more so) as conservatives.

"Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics," the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

There's more. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in reincarnation, while 30 percent of Democrats do. Fourteen percent of Republicans say they believe in astrology, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in spiritual energy, while 30 percent of Democrats do.

There are some areas in which the two partisan groups are similar. When Pew asked respondents whether they have had a religious or mystical experience, 50 percent of Republicans said yes, as did 50 percent of Democrats. But overall, there are sizable disparities.

Progressives behave in all the same ways that conservatives do--it just so happens that their religion is become the public religion that Christianity was in Europe in preceding centuries and like Catholicism and early Protestant churches, they use public/government bodies to enforce the right amout of piety.

By recycling (in some areas here in London, you must recycle under penalty of law).

By purchasing carbon indulgences offsets (to rectify past--or future--"bad" behavior).

By paying a forced tithe (taxes) to fund "research centers" like the CRU and other so called "green initiatives" whose goals generally center around public information/marketing campaigns that guilt individuals into donating even more of their money. Or, if you have none, into supporting legislation that will compel those who do, but who do not want to pay (how unrighteous of them!) to pay higher taxes to fund Al Gore's next PowerPoint.

Whatever happened to the separation of Church & State?

Whatever happened to the separation of Church & Science?

Let's take the first, church & state. The consensus opinion in the United States is that separation of church and state has largely aided individual religious liberty. For the most part, I agree. However, if you look at Europe today, the involvement of the state with church seems to have done more damage to the latter than anyone anticipated. No one goes to church. Churches, cathedrals, meetings houses (mosques excepting) are all empty. Religion has become secularized and is no longer compelling to the masses.

In this instance, America's separation of church, while initially about religious liberty, seems to have saved American churches from the same fate as their European brethren.

It is possible, therefore, to surmise that a similar forced adoption of progressivism as the public religion would create the same sort of generational backlash that public religion did in Europe. Granted, it took centuries, but now the youth pay no mind to the faith of their fathers. Indeed, they know practically nothing about it.

The problem, of course, is that those of us who do not want to worship mother Gaia would be forced to do so until the zealotry of the current generation of environmental fanatics died out. Given the haste with which fads seem to pass nowadays (and the blatant cooking of the books at the CRU), this would probably only really hurt (and by hurt I mean kill) people in lesser developed countries while those of us in the developed world would only have to deal with the inconvenience of much higher taxes, lower standard of living, etc. I'm a poor student so whatever.

Before we go any further, take a little time to watch this enlightening Q&A with Michael Crichton:

Second & lastly (if you're still with me), science & religion. Look, I have no problem with those who honestly believe (whilst I'm a heretical "denier." note the religious language) in the religion of progressivism with environment, multiculturalism, tolerance, government, taxes (tithes) as their tenets. I wouldn't criticize your belief system at all, except that you insist on turning your beliefs into public policy.

The other major problem I have with you is this--the complete bastardization of science. If you've been following (at all) what's been happening with the scandal at the CRU, you know what I'm talking out. If you don't, here's a pretty good place to start. What has been done is nothing short of a triumph of tribal politics (the sort of stuff they're supposed to leave to me) over science. Where the data didn't produce the right graphs, they "massaged" it. Where the data contradicted their findings, they deleted it. Where skeptical scientists published articles in good academic journals, they ganged up and tried to keep them out or discredit the journal. And where all of this failed, they fantasized about beating up those who disagreed with them.

Whatever climate science has become (or ever was) it is no longer science. The only ones permitted into the inner sanctum and given access to the holy raw data are those who can be trusted to apply the right sorts of "homogenizing" effects or use the tricks of those who actually know how to use (and by use I mean really, you know, use) statistics.

If all of this only hurt their own cause, I would just laugh and laugh and laugh. But no, their complete misrepresentation, misuse and abuse of the scientific method and the peer-review process has done damage to science as a whole. And that really ticks me off. The pressures of faith and money (the environment business is worth tens of billions of dollars after all) have turned "climate science" into nothing more than propaganda machine. Like other rent-seekers, their whole goal is to do whatever is necessary to get more money (see your local newspaper for the latest alarmist prediction).

To sum up: Believe in Global Warmism if you want. I'll leave you to your religion the same way you leave me to mine. However, do not conflate your religion with science, impose it by the state, or try other public policy shenanigans to compel my observance.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Global Warmists: Squelch Dissent & Delete The Evidence

Evidence that our suspicions about these alarmist global warming "scientists" were right all along.

The correspondence between dozens of climate-change researchers, including many in the U.S., illustrates bitter feelings among those who believe human activities cause global warming toward rivals who argue that the link between humans and climate change remains uncertain.

Some emails also refer to efforts by scientists who believe man is causing global warming to exclude contrary views from important scientific publications.

"This is horrible," said Pat Michaels, a climate scientist at the Cato Institute in Washington who is mentioned negatively in the emails. "This is what everyone feared. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult for anyone who does not view global warming as an end-of-the-world issue to publish papers. This isn't questionable practice, this is unethical."

[...]

A partial review of the hacked material suggests there was an effort at East Anglia, which houses an important center of global climate research, to shut out dissenters and their points of view.

In the emails, which date to 1996, researchers in the U.S. and the U.K. repeatedly take issue with climate research at odds with their own findings. In some cases, they discuss ways to rebut what they call "disinformation" using new articles in scientific journals or popular Web sites.

The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with.

[...]

In one email, Benjamin Santer from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., wrote to the director of the climate-study center that he was "tempted to beat" up Mr. Michaels. Mr. Santer couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.

In another, Phil Jones, the director of the East Anglia climate center, suggested to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University that skeptics' research was unwelcome: We "will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Neither man could be reached for comment Sunday.

The emails were published less than a month before the opening of a major climate-change summit in Copenhagen.

Given the state of the world economy, the climate for a radical reordering of world economies to show obeisance to Mother Gaia and line the pockets of the High Prophet Al Gore and the rest of the Climate-Industrial complex was already not good.

Now that we know that some of the leading "scientific" hacks are stifling dissent, well, I'm guessing people will be even less inclined to go back to living in caves to heal the earth.

Also, Bjorn Lomborg has the latest in his series of articles about practical solutions to environment-related problems in the world. This time he tackles the damage cyclones and hurricanes cause in the poor, coastal areas of the world.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Bjorn Lomborg: 'Focusing On Global Warming At The Expense Of Food Aid Is Immoral'

As my econ-savvy friends always tell me, in a world with limited resources, there are always going to be trade-offs.

With a chimeric threat like "global warming" on the policy agenda, everything loses to the productivity, quality of life, liberty-reducing measures proposed by people whose real goal is to remake civilization and society in an image they see fit.

Bjorn Lomborg:

Poor families in Ethiopia struggle to survive, and global warming will make it tougher for them. In some of the poorest areas on earth, global warming is expected to increase hunger in the future. Mr. Mekonen has heard talk of global warming but, he said, "it does not affect our lives."

What does affect his life is high food prices. His family can afford to eat meat just once a month. Global food aid is at a 20-year low. Prices soared in 2008, partly because rich countries' biofuel mandates—designed to fight global warming—have meant that land once used to grow crops to feed people is now being used to grow crops to feed cars.

Investing in malnutrition assistance helps countries like Ethiopia because it reduces the burden that malnourished people place on health systems. Spending money on HIV prevention and treatment is a highly effective use of aid money. In economic terms, these investments have benefits that far outstrip their costs.

Malnutrition should not be neglected as developed countries concentrate on global warming. Oxfam has warned that at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment if rich countries divert aid to help poor countries tackle climate change instead of malnutrition as part of an agreement to be negotiated in Copenhagen next month.

Oxfam argued that developed countries should both increase aid and spend more to pay off countries that will suffer the worst of global warming. But the harsh truth is that resources are limited. Money spent on global-warming policies is likely to reduce the funds available for food aid.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Holman Jenkins: 'Unable To Do Anything About Global Warming, Policy Defaults To Satisfying Demands Of Organized Interests For Climate Pork'

Compare and contrast the very able in-house editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal and any other given daily newspaper--take the New York Times if you like. I guarantee you any objective analysis of the writing, to say nothing of the actual merit of the ideas expressed, will come out in favor of the WSJ's Daniel Henninger, Holman Jenkins, Bret Stephens and the rest.

Here's Jenkins on Al Gore's for-profit climate change machine:

All policy salesmanship naturally defaults toward the proposition of huge benefits and negligible costs (i.e., free lunchism). Isn't that where Al Gore is today?

Mr. Gore notes that he has poured his own money into two climate action nonprofits, but, whatever his self-felt motives, aren't these nonprofits functionally propaganda arms (i.e., advertising) that benefit his for-profit investments?

The truth is, evidence of man's impact on climate remains maddeningly elusive, in part because man's impact on climate is so small as to be hard to disentangle from natural variability. This is not Mr. Gore's position, of course. If anything, however, the case for action has become less closed since he pronounced it closed in 1989, if only because of the huge sums and manpower poured into the subject to little avail.

In retrospect, a significant moment was the falling apart or debunking of two key attempts seemingly well-suited to clinch matters for a scientifically literate public. One, the famous hockey stick graph, which suggested the temperature rise of the past 100 years was unprecedentedly steep, was convincingly challenged. The other, a mining of the geological record to show past episodes of warming were sharply coupled with rising CO2 levels, fell victim to a closer look that revealed that past warmings had preceded rather than followed higher CO2 levels.

These episodes from a decade ago testified to one important thing: Even climate activists recognized a need for evidence from the real world. The endless invocation of computer models wasn't cutting it. Yet today the same circles are more dependent than ever on predictions made by models, whose forecasts lie far enough in the future that those who rely on them to make policy prescriptions are in no danger of being held accountable for their reliability.

For a while the media could patch over the scientific shortfall by reporting evidence of warming as if it were evidence of what causes warming. Inconveniently, however, just as temperature-measuring has become more standardized and disciplined and less reliant on flaky records from the past (massaged to the Nth degree), the warming trend seems to have faded from the recent record.

It seems to me that the climate of opinion surrounding climate change is beginning to change.

As in, people aren't willing to give up Western Civilization in the vague and vain hope that it may forestall some far off future, unproven, and ridiculous prophecy of doom.

(h/t Scott L.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Hey Global Warmists, How About Spending Money Where It Can Actually Save Lives?

If the climate change movement were actually about saving lives, then they would welcome cost/benefit analysis of their programs. But it's not.

For most of those in control of the climate change agenda, it's about control & power and making money. It is, for them, a way to reorder economies and society according to their vision of the world.

Bjorn Lomborg has a great piece in today's WSJ about the good just a fraction of the world's 'stop climate change' money could do for people dying of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ask what he wants to see foreign donors' money spent on, and he is quick to answer: better health care. When he is asked about global warming, Mr. Samson responds: "I have heard about it, but I don't even know how it would affect me. If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?"

In the West, campaigners for carbon regulations point out that global warming will increase the number of malaria victims. This is often used as an argument for drastic, immediate carbon cuts.

Warmer, wetter weather will improve conditions for the malaria parasite. Most estimates suggest that global warming will put 3% more of the Earth's population at risk of catching malaria by 2100. If we invest in the most efficient, global carbon cuts—designed to keep temperature rises under two degrees Celsius—we would spend a massive $40 trillion a year by 2100. In the best case scenario, we would reduce the at-risk population by only 3%.

In comparison, research commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center shows that spending $3 billion annually on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for effective new combination therapies could halve the number of those infected with malaria within one decade. For the money it takes to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives. Mr. Samson has not done these calculations, but for him it is simple: "First things first," he says. Malaria "is here right now and it kills a lot of people every day."

Malaria is only weakly related to temperature; it is strongly related to poverty. It has risen in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 20 years not because of global warming, but because of failing medical response. The mainstay treatment, chloroquine, is becoming less and less effective. The malaria parasite is becoming resistant, and there is a need for new, effective combination treatments based on artemisinin, which is unfortunately about 10 times more expensive.

The extremists in the environmental movement have made no secret of their desire to see global population decline. To them, it is a necessary part of getting in line with the fickle demands of Mother Gaia.

To them, the sick and dying in places like Africa are only useful insomuch as they help them further their own agenda.

Once it is shown (as in Lomborg's article) that their anti-civilizational approaches to stopping climate change are more about reordering society than they are about saving human lives, then it's on to the next justification.

I find it ironic that the group arguing for science, ignores all rationality when deciding what to do about the supposed climate change consensus.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Markets Solve Energy Crisis, Natch

Don't listen to the Luddites and Malthusians. They're wrong, again.

Even if demand were still at pre-recession levels, advances in technology brought on by high prices would have sated world energy demands for generations.

America is not going to bleed its wealth importing fuel. Russia's grip on Europe's gas will weaken. Improvident Britain may avoid paralysing blackouts by mid-decade after all.

The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected.

Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, said proven natural gas reserves around the world have risen to 1.2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent, enough for 60 years' supply – and rising fast.

"There has been a revolution in the gas fields of North America. Reserve estimates are rising sharply as technology unlocks unconventional resources," he said.

This is almost unknown to the public, despite the efforts of Nick Grealy at "No Hot Air" who has been arguing for some time that Britain's shale reserves could replace declining North Sea output.

Rune Bjornson from Norway's StatoilHydro said exploitable reserves are much greater than supposed just three years ago and may meet global gas needs for generations.

"The common wisdom was that unconventional gas was too difficult, too expensive and too demanding," he said, according to Petroleum Economist. "This has changed. If we ever doubted that gas was the fuel of the future – in many ways there's the answer."

The breakthrough has been to combine 3-D seismic imaging with new technologies to free "tight gas" by smashing rocks, known as hydro-fracturing or "fracking" in the trade.

The US is leading the charge. Operations in Pennsylvania and Texas have already been sufficient to cut US imports of liquefied natural gas (LGN) from Trinidad and Qatar to almost nil, with knock-on effects for the global gas market – and crude oil. It is one reason why spot prices for some LNG deliveries have dropped to 50pc of pipeline contracts.

[...]

The US Energy Department expects shale to meet half of US gas demand within 20 years, if not earlier. Projects are cranking up in eastern France and Poland. Exploration is under way in Australia, India and China.

Texas A&M University said US methods could increase global gas reserves by nine times to 16,000 TCF (trillion cubic feet). Almost a quarter is in China but it may lack the water resources to harness the technology given the depletion of the North China water basin.

Needless to say, the Kremlin is irked. "There's a lot of myths about shale production," said Gazprom's Alexander Medvedev.

If the new forecasts are accurate, Gazprom is not going to be the perennial cash cow funding Russia's great power resurgence. Russia's budget may be in structural deficit.

As for the US, we may soon be looking at an era when gas, wind and solar power, combined with a smarter grid and a switch to electric cars returns the country to near energy self-sufficiency.

This has currency implications. If you strip out the energy deficit, America's vaulting savings rate may soon bring the current account back into surplus – and that is going to come at somebody else's expense, chiefly Japan, Germany and, up to a point, China.

Please, when listening to 'Prophets of Doom,' take their alarmist warnings with a healthy dose of skepticism. This applies specifically and perhaps most importantly to the High Priests of the Holy Church of Climate Change (long live Mother Gaia).

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Pie-In-The-Sky Green Jobs

I suggest you look elsewhere for employment.

Joel Kotkin in Forbes:

Nothing is perhaps more pathetic than the exertions of economic developers and politicians grasping at straws, particularly during hard times . . . All told, green jobs constitute barely 700,000 positions across the country -- less than 0.5% of total employment. That's about how many jobs the economy lost in January this year. . . . Green power is expensive and depends on massive subsidization, with government support levels at roughly 20 times or more per megawatt hour than relatively clean and abundant natural gas. . . . A recent study on renewable energy subsidies on the Spanish economy found that for every "green" job created more than two were lost in the non-subsidized economy.

Ah, unintended consequences. The social planners/economic developers can never account for all of them. This is why government ought to err on the side of less, rather than more regulation of the economy.

(see also "ethanol" & the unintended starvation in lesser developed countries)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

The Latest In My Ongoing Critique Of Progressivism

Yesterday I wrote about how progressives' knee-jerk response to world problems--real or perceived--is yet another government plan that will re-order society, reduce individual liberty and centralize power & control with the enlightened ones.

It's not that I think progressives are bad people. God love 'em, they've got great intentions, it's the unintended consequences of their utopian reordering that I'm worried about.

Consider healthcare. Does the United States have problems? I've admitted countless times that it does and in numerous posts, suggested a few things we could do to reduce costs & improve quality. I always remind people that ~90% of Americans have insurance, another 5% choose not to because they are healthy or wealthy, 2.5% are illegal immigrants, & the remaining 2.5% are the 2.5% I think we can help by introducing market reforms--essentially eliminating state & federal distortions of the market.

I think these things would do much of what progressives want to accomplish, only without a hasty, ad hoc reordering of 1/6th of the American economy.

Progressives are prepared to throw out the baby with the bath water, because for them, health care is a moral issue. Cost/benefit doesn't play a role at all. Despite what they may say (and here I remind readers that I'm not lumping all Democrats together, just the far progressive left), the cost or the quality of the care is not the issue.

The only thing they care about is the fairness of it all. Ah, égalité.

So long as everyone has access to care--even if it's just a few vitamins & a glass of water--it doesn't matter that some people die in the queue for a heart transplant or that others don't get hip replacement surgery or needed meds to improve their quality of life--the only thing that matters is that it is equal for everyone.

Of course, it won't be equal for everyone. And this is what history teaches. The rich opt out because they can afford it. The well connected in government opt out because they're owed favors. Everyone else suffers. So it went in the former USSR. And China. Continues for the Castros & their revolutionary cronies in Cuba. Ditto North Korea. Even in the social democracies of Europe--the elites (including socialist & other miscellaneous left-leaning members of parliament) always opt out.

Even in the European countries where you think socialized medicine in all its incarnations is a such a screaming success, it's not. They are dealing with mounting costs which result in higher taxes, more rationing, & poorer overall care.

Additionally, the only reason they are as good as they are is because as in so many other things, they are able to free ride on American drug development and other medical technology improvements. Because of the high prices Americans elect to pay, pharmaceutical & other medical technology companies respond with new and better drugs and medical devices.

Everyone else, everywhere else in the world benefits as a result.

As I said at the outset, social justice (whatever that means) is the morality of this century's progressives. Those who question their crusade for justice & equality--deniers!--will be subject to ad hominem attacks for not submitting to the latest dogmatic demand. Obviously, the degree to which one embraces the social justice cause du jour is a sign of how good of a person she or he happens to be (thus, the unfunny Goode Family).

How socially unrighteous of us deniers. As penance for our skeptical reception of the latest progressive nostrum, I suggest buying a few carbon offsets & repeating aloud Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech 10 times.

But, of course, progressivism as religion is another post for another day.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

'Hey Pop, How 'Bout You Put Down That Plastic Grocery Bag Before I Report You To The Enviro-Cops'

I read Weekly Reader practically every week from the point at which I was able to read through the 5th grade. Everyone at my school did. It was on the pages of the Weekly Reader that I first learned about "CFCs," the melting polar ice caps, global warmism, whales, the rainforest, recycled paper and so on and so forth.

An email with a forwarded article from my brother reminded me of this grade school propagandizing:

Dad

This must be how you felt when I'd come home from Ms. [witchy teacher's name redacted]'s class in 2nd grade convinced we needed to save the whales and rainforest. Fortunately I had your skepticism to steer me clear of her environmental sanctimony.

This little article from Jonah Goldberg in the latest NR is "priceless"

'HELPING Dad become a better man: priceless."

That's the closing line of a new MasterCard commercial. You know those commercials; they've been out for nearly a decade. A typical one goes something like this: "Bric-a-brac: 17 dollars. White elephant: 28 dollars. Getting your wife to remove the restraining order: priceless."

Only this one has a little boy tailing his father--a man who looks like a perpetually adolescent extra from the old sitcom Friends--through a home-improvement store pointing out ways the carbon-profligate old man can reduce his footprint. The boy replaces the usual narrator as well.

"Energy-saving bulb: four dollars," quoth the child. "Reusable bag: two dollars. Helping Dad become a better man: priceless."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There are two kinds of folks in this world: those who find this sort of thing creepy, and pod people. Okay, maybe that's a bit too strong. But how anyone could fail to find this commercial one of the more disturbing convergences of corporate power, advertising, and progressive groupthink is beyond me.

If you can't see why, maybe it will help to look a few spaces ahead of where we are. In Britain, an electric utility launched a website for kids that teaches them how to become "climate cops." Their duty is to keep a "watchful eye" and monitor the "energy crimes" of their family and neighbors, with the ultimate goal of building a "climate-crime case file." Beware that Johnson kid with the clipboard going through your recyclables.

If you still can't see why this kiddie Gestapo stuff is offensive, change the issue from environmentalism to eating habits (you know that's coming, by the way), or religion, or just about any subject where you don't think a six-year-old should be scolding you for weakness of character or informing on you to the authorities.

Now, it's not that I think kids shouldn't be encouraged to be civic-minded. And while I find today's climate obsessions to be suffused with religious hysteria, I don't see anything terrible in encouraging kids, or anyone else, to conserve resources. But that's not the issue here. Nor is environmentalism per se.

It's the kids.

There is something evil about recruiting children to lobby their parents on political causes. Okay, it's not always evil; sometimes it can be funny, like the time in 1965 when Soupy Sales told the children watching his TV show to sneak into their parents' bedrooms and take the "green pieces of paper" from their wallets and send them to him.

Sales apologized for cracking a joke that a few kids took seriously. But no apologies are forthcoming from MasterCard for broadcasting something in earnest that in a healthy society would be seen as a joke. The idea of enlisting children to the Cause is as fashionable today as it was under Robespierre. To crack the bunker walls of the family and seduce the children has always been a top priority of totalitarians, hard and soft. Progressives love to elevate the sagacity of children--Hillary Clinton says some of the best theologians she's ever met have been five-year-olds--because doing so gives children all the more authority when they parrot the talking points of the latest progressive fad.

James Lileks asks about the MasterCard ad: "If the kid didn't learn these steps to righteousness at home, where did he get them?" Precisely. It's not as if normal, uncoached six-year-olds talk about making their fathers "better men."

If the man in the ad were a better father, he would have scolded his kid for the disrespect and demanded to know who was teaching him such crap.

Because you "can't legislate morality" or teach it in public schools, we were taught the morality of the secularists. And it was and remains, environmentalism (along with, of course, relativism and its derivatives, multiculturalism, &c.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

IWHDI: How Many Jobs Have You Saved Or Created Today?

Add this to the "if W had done it" file.

In fact, I'm going to start my own "if Bush had done it file." Sure, after 5+ months in office, there have already been a lot of incidences I could have put in this file. Never fear, the audacity and hubris of the Obama administration will surely give me plenty of opportunity to invoke if W had done it.

William McGurn calls attention (because liberals & the media--but I repeat myself--ignore the ridiculousness of the claim) to Obama's ludicrous claim that he has "created or saved" tens of thousands of jobs.

Now, something's wrong when the president invokes a formula that makes it impossible for him to be wrong and it goes largely unchallenged. It's true that almost any government spending will create some jobs and save others. But as Milton Friedman once pointed out, that doesn't tell you much: The government, after all, can create jobs by hiring people to dig holes and fill them in.

If the "saved or created" formula looks brilliant, it's only because Mr. Obama and his team are not being called on their claims. And don't expect much to change. So long as the news continues to repeat the administration's line that the stimulus has already "saved or created" 150,000 jobs over a time period when the U.S. economy suffered an overall job loss 10 times that number, the White House would be insane to give up a formula that allows them to spin job losses into jobs saved.

These sorts of claims are of a piece with the re-branding of "global warming" as "climate change." What's that you say? Facts don't fit your narrative? No matter. Just change the narrative such that whatever happens, you can claim explanatory foreknowledge.

"Saved or created" & "climate change." Wow. And they say conservatives are gullible and dumb.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Bjorn Lomborg's 'Climate-Industrial Complex'

From last week's journal, a great article by this blog's favorite purveyor of global warmism common sense, Bjorn Lomborg. As the article title indicates--The Climate-Industrial Complex--Lomborg warns against the many special interests that stand to gain from adoption of the radical green plans President Obama has proposed.

The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, "If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory business."

[Aside: As James Taranto frequently reminds his readers, Paul Krugman is a "former Enron adviser." That shouldn't surprise anyone.]

I'm always surprised by liberal friends of mine who are sure that the only nefarious business interests at work in the world today are "Big Oil" companies which obviously hate the planet and just want money. They, in turn, are always surprised to learn that Al Gore, in addition to being a Nobel and Academy Award winner, is also, as Lomborg describes him,

a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.

Yeah, folks, green technology is a money maker--just not for most Americans.

This is what happens when the government intervenes in the market and picks the winners--you pay more taxes and Al Gore laughs all the way to the bank.

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Global Warmism & The Almighty

Quote of the Week, via yesterday's Political Diary: Peter Huber says The Church Of The Holy Gorean Environment 'has it both ways':

Thirty years ago, the case against nuclear power was framed as the 'Zero-Infinity Dilemma.' The risks of a meltdown might be vanishingly small, but if it happened, the costs would be infinitely large, so we should forget about uranium. Computer models demonstrated that meltdowns were highly unlikely and that the costs of a meltdown, should one occur, would be manageable -- but greens scoffed: huge computer models couldn't be trusted. So we ended up burning much more coal. The software shoe is on the other foot now; the machines that said nukes wouldn't melt now say that the ice caps will. Warming skeptics scoff in turn, and can quite plausibly argue that a planet is harder to model than a nuclear reactor. But that's a detail. From a rhetorical perspective, any claim that the infinite, the apocalypse, or the Almighty supports your side of the argument shuts down all further discussion.

If you're looking for consistency; if you're looking for rationality; if you're looking for honesty; if you're looking for untainted science; if you're looking for cost/benefit evaluations; if you're looking for any of this in environment movement, you're going to be sorely, sorely disappointed.

And here's the thing about this movement/religion/phenomenon/whatever: I don't have a problem with these people or their religion so long as they are honest about their beliefs--acknowledge that what you believe in is not science, but something else--religion like all the rest of us believers.

Even if you think you worship science, at least have a little humility about your beliefs and pause before you make huge decisions based on findings and research that may very well be turned on their head tomorrow.

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Global Warming Hits London (UPDATED)

The Daily Telegraph headline reads: Britain Paralyzed By Worst Snowfall in 20 Years.

Up to 1ft of snow fell in parts of the south east and the Pennines while most of the country was blanketed in at least four inches of it.

Forecasters are warning of worse to come and the Arctic blizzards are being treated as an "extreme weather event".

The Met Office said that it was the most widespread snowfall in Britain for 18 years.

With bus and train services out of action and drivers urged to stay off the roads, a handful of commuters took to skiing through the streets of London.

If only I had my "street" skis (as opposed to early-season, rock skis).

UPDATE 2:49pm BST: Do check out the snow-covered pictures of London posted by my flatmate, Seb.

Ice Age: Part 1
Ice Age: Part 2
Ice Age: Part 3
Ice Age: Part 4
Picasa Album

Last year, my brother, Matt, and I lived in a snowbound cabin the entire winter. From the time snow first fell in November, it persisted--w/o major melt--until April. One could climb, from the snow piles on either side of the entry, with very little difficulty, right onto the roof. The wild turkeys took shelter underneath our deck.

All of this is to say: I've seen snow, but I've never seen Londoners in snow, and let me tell you, it's great.

From our deck, overlooking the local cemetery (image courtesy Seb's Picasa album)

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The Day The Earth Stood Still: Craptastic Film Of The Year

I don't even know where to begin. Last night I attended an early premier of Keanu Reeves' latest at the BFI Imax here in London.

I guess the best way to sum up this movie is to say this: Imagine if Al Gore, Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, and those idiots who posted the anti-Christmas atheist sign in Olympia had an unholy trinity/wrote a screenplay--the result of this union, of all that environmental moralizing would be the The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Don't see it. It's worse, even, than The Day After Tomorrow--another couple of hours of my life I wish I could have back.

A little background. Aliens have been monitoring our planet and finally decided that we don't deserve it, that we are about to deserve one of the few planets in the universe capable of sustaining life. So, we are to be terminated. Reeves is the chief executioner. He brings mini ark/globes that collect samples of every other species for preservation. Meanwhile, humanity is wiped away by an alien plague of locusts. Really.

Briefly, in bullet points:

- I didn't stick around long enough to see, but did the writers give credit to Favreau for half of their lines? Every other sentence between Jennifer Connelly Keanu Reeves' alien creature/character (yes, another one) has Connelly pleading with Reeves insisting that humanity can change, "we can change! We can do it!"

- At one point, Connelly's mentor, her "leader of the world," a professor of bioethics, no less, tells her that she has to appeal to Reeves not with reason, but with herself. One envisions the emotional, angry Obamaniac advocating for change with airy rhetoric that means nothing. Change. Hope. Whatever.

- The alien (Reeves) likes Bach--Bach, the soundtrack of the Enlightenment. Of course he does.

- The destroyer of humans and all things created by humankind? Alien locusts. No kidding. Instead of the God of the Old Testament bringing locusts to cow the Egyptions into submission, Reeves brings alien locusts to consume humans and everything they have created--including, and specifically, Giants stadium, the oil fields (which figured prominently), and half of downtown Manhattan.

- At one point, when Connelly has persuaded Reeves to give humankind another chance, he says something to the effect of, "it's going to require a serious change in your way of life." Seriously? Did they get an advance look at Obama's innaugural speech?

- Did I mention the prominence of images oil derricks? Every version imaginable plus refinerys plus car manufacturing plants--hey, hey, the warming gangs' all here.

- Connely drove a hybrid Honda Civic. I suppose I should just be glad it wasn't the totally cliche Prius. Toyota probably didn't want to pay the product placement fee.

- The President and Vice President have been hustled off to separate bunkers where they are completely out of touch with the outside world and have left the female SecDef to monitor and manage things. Hurricane Katrina, anyone? Give me a break.

- At one point, Reeves-alien was cornered by a scared police officer who wants to detain him. Reeves starts a car with his hand and sends it hurtling forward, killing the man. His reasoning, as told to Connelly, "He was an obstacle." Sure, he brought the man back to life with the alien goo in his pocket, but still, this is environmental morality. Obstacles must be removed.

- I can't remember if this was a discussion between Reeves and Connelly or Reeves and Bates, but one of the latter two asks Reeves why he's saving samples of every other creature except humans. Reeves response, 'humans are just one species.' This is how the enviro-nuts view humanity--just one species of a gazillion, all of which have equal claim on the earth, none more important than the other.

- Scanning the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, I noted that one critic complained that at no point in the film is the phrase "global warming" uttered. Really, Katey Rich of cinemablend.com, they needed to say the words "global warming" for you to know that's what the movie was all about? The multitudinous pictures of oil, oil derricks, drills, refineries, gas guzzling cars, car factories, etc., I'msureI'mforgettingsomeoilisbadcliche, weren't enough?

- Lots of typical Hollywood diatribe about American intervention abroad, torture, violence, etc.

I'm sure there's more, but this is all that occurs to me at the moment.

Let me take this moment to say how glad I am that 650 scientists are now standing up to the whole "global warming consensus." My suspicion is that we will look back at this fad and say that it hit its peak in 2006-07 and that 2008 was the beginning of the end (for the Church of the Holy Environment, not the planet).


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Michael Crichton: 'Take Your Consensus And Shove It'

From Michael Crichton's lecture delivered at the California Institute of of Technology on 17 January 2003:

Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:

N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL

Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live.

This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses -- just so we're clear -- are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.

The Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. . . .

The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage -- similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example -- meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. . . .

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. . . .

I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . .

To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world -- increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

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When Pseudoscience Becomes Religion

Paul Johnson, British popular historian, is one of my father's and my favorite writers. He brings a historical perspective to every column he writes for Forbes--be it about Global Warming (like the subject of this post), or the Presidential election.

Consider, The Nonsense of Global Warming:

August was one of the nastiest months I can remember: torrential rain; a hailstorm or two; cold, bitter winds; and mists. But we are accustomed to such weather in England. Lord Byron used to say that an English summer begins on July 31 and ends on Aug. 1. He called 1816 "the year without a summer." He spent it gazing across Lake Geneva, watching the storms, with 18-year-old Mary Shelley. The lightening flickering across the lake inspired her Frankenstein, the tale of the man-made monster galvanized into life by electricity.This summer's atrocious weather tempted me to tease a Green whom I know. "Well, what about your weather theory now?" (One of the characteristics of Greens is that they know no history.) He replied: "Yes, this weather is unprecedented. England has never had such an August before. It's global warming, of course." That's the Greens' stock response to anything weather-related. Too much sun? "Global warming." Too little sun? "Global warming." Drought? "Global warming." Floods? "Global warming." Freezing cold? "Global warming."

I wish the great philosopher Sir Karl Popper were alive to denounce the unscientific nature of global warming. He was a student when Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was first published and then successfully tested. Einstein said that for his theory to be valid it would have to pass three tests. "If," Einstein wrote to British scientist Sir Arthur Eddington, "it were proved that this effect does not exist in nature, then the whole theory would have to be abandoned."

To Popper, this was a true scientific approach. "What impressed me most," he wrote, "was Einstein's own clear statement that he would regard his theory as untenable if it should fail in certain tests." In contrast, Popper pointed out, there were pseudo-scientists, such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Marx claimed to be constructing a theory of scientific materialism based on scientific history and economic science. "Science" and "scientific" were words Marx used constantly. Far from formulating his theory with a high degree of scientific content and encouraging empirical testing and refutation, Marx made it vague and general. When evidence turned up that appeared to refute his theory, the theory was modified to accommodate the new evidence. It's no wonder that when communist regimes applied Marxism it proved a costly failure.

Freud's theories were also nonspecific, and he, too, was willing to adjust them to take in new science. We now know that many of Freud's central ideas have no basis in biology. They were formulated before Mendel's Laws were widely known and accepted and before the chromosomal theory of inheritance, the recognition of inborn metabolic errors, the existence of hormones and the mechanism of nervous impulse were known. As the scientist Sir Peter Medawar put it, Freud's psychoanalysis is akin to mesmerism and phrenology; it contains isolated nuggets of truth, but the general theory as a whole is false.

The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels--the essence of the Greens' theory of global warming--has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism. Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.

Those who buy in to global warming wish to drastically curb human economic and industrial activities, regardless of the consequences for people, especially the poor. If the theory's conclusions are accepted and agreed upon, the destructive results will be felt most severely in those states that adhere to the rule of law and will observe restrictions most faithfully. The global warming activists' target is the U.S. If America is driven to accept crippling restraints on its economy it will rapidly become unable to shoulder its burdens as the world's sole superpower and ultimate defender of human freedoms. We shall all suffer, however, as progress falters and then ceases and living standards decline.

Out of Balance

When I'm driving to my country home in Somerset, I pass two examples of the damage Greens can cause when their views are accepted and applied. Thanks to heavy government subsidies, many farmers switched from growing food to biofuel crops--perhaps the most expensive form of energy ever devised. The result has been a world shortage of food, with near starvation in some places, and a rise in the cost of food for everyone. We're now getting wise to this ridiculous experiment; shares in biofuels have fallen, and farmers are switching back to their proper work. But the cost has been enormous.

[...]

Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof--of which history offers so many examples--that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science. If people are in need of religion, why don't they just turn to the genuine article?

(Emphasis added)

(h/t Scott L.)


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Fact: Global Warming Fried The Brains Of 9 British Jurors

Reader and friend of OL&L, B. Berns, wrote of the latest ridiculous Global Warming court ruling:

Are you sure we want to move there????!!!!!????

Short answer: Not permanently.

If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, last week a jury in Britain ruled that the threat of Global Warming was great enough to justify 35000 GBP in damage to private property.

Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

This is a gross application of the "burning house" exception.

I won't waste your time going through all the tenuous linkage steps between a clean-coal fired plant and the purported far-off destructive results of global warming or climate change or whatever buzz word they're using to describe something about which the fetishists know so little.

Suffice it to say, the hysteria in the United Kingdom is completely out of proportion to the supposed threat and people are making stupid decisions as a result.


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The Global Warming "Consensus"

The obamaean reception given to Al Gore at the Nutroots convention in Austin, Texas (read: swooning/fainting) gives context to the following quote (h/t: S. Lybbert) which calls into question the global warmism "consensus" and Al Gore's algorean blow-hardedness.

Does anyone still take him seriously? (besides the nutroots)

"It is my professional opinion that there is no evidence at all for catastrophic global warming. . . . It is also my professional opinion that the severely limited predictive capacity of the natural sciences is no adequate basis for globally orchestrated mitigation efforts concerning greenhouse gases. Fortunately, the time rate of climate change is slow compared to the rapid evolution of our institutions and societies. There is sufficient time for adaptation. We should monitor the situation both globally and locally, but up to now global climate change does not cause severe problems requiring immediate emission reductions. . . . [Researchers have] presented no scientific basis for dire warnings concerning climate collapse. Local and regional problems with shorter time scales deserve priority."
link

Hendrik Tennekes, former director of research at the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute, writing at climatesci.org.


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Re: Drilling, A Few Points of Clarification

After reading a few of your comments, we figured the discussion on this blog would benefit from a little issue elucidation.

- First off, though we endorse a carbon tax, we do not believe that it is realistic to expect one in our lifetime. Americans would probably throw the president and party who enacted such legislation out on their posteriors. The only way this works is if it is coupled with a cut in income taxes and corporate taxes as we suggested in our last post. Even then, passage of of a carbon tax remains an extremely long shot.

- Let drilling be part of a comprehensive plan. The global warming fetishists also happen to be the same people who have been anti-nuclear and in our neck of the woods (Washington State) anti-hydropower. Of the alternatives to fossil fuels in providing electricity to Americans, nuclear power is the only one even close to having proven capacity to produce. All the other "alternative" energy options combined produce something like 0.5% of all the energy consumed in this country. And this, even after the huge subsidy to their production and the high price of oil.

- All of which brings us to our point about R&D (research & development, to the uninitiated). Spend money on R&D, but do so in a cost effective fashion. We'd like to see a competition with a $100 million prize to the team or corporation or university or whoever was able to come up with the cleanest most viable alternative energy source. It does no good to simply throw money at wind or solar or whatever when the "solution" (though we doubt there will ever be just one OR that we'll ever truly go away from fossil fuels) may be something that has not ever been discovered yet.

A command and control solution to our energy problem will not solve the problem. We guarantee that the cure will be worse than the disease. For those of you who doubt this guarantee, we point, once again, to the ethanol debacle. Mandate ethanol, starve the already poor and starving in lesser developed countries.

- We agree with Lomborg and the consensus conference of earlier this year. The money being expended trying to cool the earth could be better spent in other areas. And, efforts to curb global warming, which studies show will have little to no impact, will hinder economic development that would, in the future, enable us to develop the technology necessary to actually do something.

Want to do some good in this world? Good that would actually save lives and make them better--make the world a better place?

Per the consensus, the most cost-effective ways to help the world's poor:

1. Vitamin A & zinc supplements
2. Doha trade round
3. Iron supplements and salt iodization
4. Expanded youth immunization
5. Biofortification of seed stocks

Those of you who click through to the article will find global warming-related initiatives at the bottom of the list. Even global warming R&D is near the bottom of the list. But then, we don't really care about developing new energy sources because of the environment. We don't think it's as serious a problem as the GW fetishists.

- Re: the millions less miles Americans drive today versus a few years ago: this is due far more to the price of gasoline than to any efforts of the GWF's.

- Drilling off the coasts is only part of the solution. And admittedly, not a short term one. We hope only to derive short term political gain from the issue, but we believe, and there is reason to do so, that drilling could help America's long term issues with energy dependence. Banning development of domestic oil and shale-oil is a stupid policy and stupid Democrat Party "article of faith." If they want to hold to it, they should be punished at the polls. But in addition to drilling off-shore and in ANWR, we think Congress should open up America's shale-oil supply to development and production. The numbers we've read--1.5-2.6 trillion barrels--that could potentially come from those sources are huge. They could be and would be developed and produce oil the same way as the Canadian tar sands. Coal liquefaction is another fossil fuel alternative.

There is energy to be had on American soil. And it can be extracted cost effectively. We should free American corporations to get at it. Fossil fuels will always be part of the American energy picture because they are there and they are cheap--far cheaper than the "alternatives." And, as they dwindle, market forces will drive innovation that will bring other energy alternatives online--the same way we went from whale oil to light sweet crude.

- For those of you religiously opposed to fossil fuels, your next alternative should be nuclear power. It is proven and it is clean. Call on your local representatives to do what is necessary to free the American nuclear industry from onerous regulations and frivolous lawsuits. In the nuclear sense, we should follow the example of the French, whose energy needs are satisfied in large measure by their extensive nuclear power program.

Our comprehensive energy/environment policy recommendations:
- open American coastlines, ANWR to traditional oil drilling.
- permit development of shale-oil extraction.
- enact a carbon tax combined with a cut in income and corporate tax.
- expand nuclear power plant construction.
- introduce cost effective, competitive R&D legislation
- start worldwide campaign to divert money now being spent on ineffective global warming policy towards the Top 5 cost-effective ways to help the world's poor.


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Drill! Drill! Drill!

We return from our 2 week (or so) blogging sabbatical to advocate for drilling anywhere and everywhere--including ANWR. We also endorse enactment of some sort of carbon tax. However, we would only embrace said tax if it were matched by a concurrent cut in corporate and individual income taxes such that there be no net increase in taxes.

A few notes:

- Technology has improved in the last 20 years (since the coasts were placed off-limits) to the point at which drilling can be done safely and with minimal environmental impact. This is a non-issue.

- We understand that drilling will have no short-run impact on prices. We don't care. We only hope that the current furor over prices drives policy in a direction we like: towards expanded drilling.

- Though it won't eliminate the need for importing oil from the middle east, expanded use of domestic oil supplies (including the estimated 1.5-2.6 trillion barrels to be derived from shale-oil) will lessen our dependence on middle eastern oil.

- This issue could be a winner for John McCain. The Rasmussen poll we saw tonight said that 62% of Americans agree that we should drill domestically. Obama may be leaving behind Bill Clinton's centrist ideals, but he should not forget that Presidential politics are almost always all about the economy. We almost feel sorry for poor global warming fetishists whose green utopia has run headlong into economic reality.

This is one of those few, happy instances when the popular policy is also the right one.

All that remains is for high gas prices to hold long enough to bully Democrats in Congress into passing domestic drilling legislation OR give McCain and congressional Republicans an election-breaking issue come November.


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