10-2009 What Do You Want

What do YOU want? Or three issues that plague you every day! October 14th, 2009 Before we walk into the jungle of what individuals, you and I, would like to have tagging along with us as we crisscross this planet, it would probably be a good idea to scan some of the issues facing us in this journey today. If you live in the United States today there are a three issues facing the population, albeit some are the product of the sitting government, which depending on what side of the card you punched in November-2008, could either be a thorn in your side or an issue that some perceive as being fair and square. Number one on the list is the economy, which some perceive as on the mend, while others see as a free fall towards death and the Fall of the US Empire. Some, like me, see similar events as were experienced in the Fall of the Roman Empire, difference being a slow drawn out recovery, while others see a rosy picture ahead of the United States in their continued dominance of the world’s economy. I, as many of you know, make it through the day by examining the issues and their causes that herded us to this position. Many point their fingers at the mass exodus of our jobs to the overseas market, while others point to the mass influx of illegal immigrants wandering across our land. Short of stationing a soldier armed with two or three automatic weapons every six feet along our borders, illegal immigration is a fact of life. It is a worldwide problem, and as long as there are powerful nations with more opportunity than their neighbors, it will continue –that too is a fact of life. People are strange you know, this have this desire to survive, whether it be on their land or someone else’s they want to eat, and provide for their families. I would hazard a guess that within the last 24-hours in the U.S., you have are someone you know has eaten some food that was either picked or processed by an illegal immigrant. In doing so you’re contributing to their livelihood. More important today in the world is jobs, whether they are in America or in the outback of Australia, they are in short supply – there are too many reasons to count why employment has become a crisis. Our fiscal oversight of the large financial houses in the west was lacking, but then again some of us had our investments tied up in these house and were happy we were riding along with them when the dollar bubble was expanding, and when it burst we wanted their necks. We could increase our finger pointing to our involvement in a war in the Middle East, yet we couch our finger pointing simply because we drive or heat our homes and it has become apparent that our action in Iraq was oil driven and still is. But our involvement in Afghanistan gives a greater majority of American citizen’s pause, after-all there is no oil only a few radicals running

around shooting up the place and shipping a load of poppy seeds outside of the borders to survive. War, which hasn’t touched the shores of the United States since the War Between the States, and its implications flies over the head of at least 60% of the population within its borders. The adversity to war in a foreign country boiled over in the 60s, with the bearded people of the west coast starting a movement that eventually embarrassed our government enough for our military forces to tuck in their tails and leave Vietnam – many maintain if the politicians had stayed off the front line (along with Jayne Fonda) we’d have won the war. I realize that we lost a lot of American lives fighting the war, my relatives among them, and I know good men who when they returned were shunned or spent a good part of their lives recovering from the wounds they had from the battles. So, in one sense we have veterans who fought and lost in a way that a minority within our borders convinced the left-at-home population the war was not only killing our young men, but was illegal in the first place. The question today with the conflicts (wars) we’re involved in outside of our borders is not just, should we be there or why are we there? But now that we’re involved, how much is it costing us, and when will-our-fighting men return home. Consider the consequences of us fighting overseas, where a good majority of our people say, and “we’d rather battle outside of our borders than inside!” Albeit the statement rings true, in some circles it begs to be answered, especially the ambiguous phrase “collateral damage” and where do any of the battling parties consider the innocent people involved. If you are a student of history, you’d reason that what is going on today is not different than the actions that took place during the Crusades, the goals are the same, but rewards are a bit different. One was to invade and drive the barbarians from a once Christian site, the other is to drive or control the same perceived anti-Christian barbarians to get their oil. Unfortunately along with good lives lost, we’ve spent billions in our effort achieve our ends, be them overthrowing a dictator and his weapons of massdestruction and gaining access to his country’s oil – or the argument that he was harboring a gang of thugs that pulled a kamikaze attack on New York City and the Pentagon, did not hold water, a point that was feebly argued between our Congressional representatives in that they didn’t want to appear antiAmerican or to appear as letting the anti-Christian barbarians get away with killing people on our soil. Our sitting government, along with the previous one, pumped a goodly amount of cash into our financial houses and agencies of the US Government to dole out on loans and some grants that was supposed to stimulate our economy … which through the assistance of the media has tanked like the Exxon Valdez grounding on a reef in Prince William Sound, difference being when the banks and financial houses ran aground money didn’t spill over the landscape.

The stimulus money was slated to, among other things, rebuild our falling down infrastructure, and provide massive amounts of broadband access to people so they could read the up-beat news from around the world, along with some help to the homeowners who had lost their jobs in keeping their overpriced homes. Extend unemployment, and so-forth and so-on. What some, but not most, realized that under the guidance of Federal Agencies with their multi-layer bureaucrats and forms a Philadelphia lawyer would find hard to interpret, it wasn’t going to happen overnight and it has not. The economy is still sputtering along on one or two cylinders, where today although the DOW tipped past the 10,000 mark for a few seconds the rest of the economic picture is still pretty sour with unemployment figures spinning out of control in the lower teens. And talk among some countries who want a different base for the worldwide currency, and other telling us that the dollar will regain its power and life will be good once again. In a nut shell, the American public is a little put out, not only with the value of their dollar but by the in-action of all of our leaders punching their time clock on the banks of the Potomac. The second issue clouding our minds is healthcare, where it is said that over one-third of our population has no health insurance which translates into 107.7 million people with no insurance, a high-figure to be sure, government figures put it at 47 million without health insurance. How factual this is we can only look to our leaders to confirm, that is the agencies keeping the statistics. There are about 50% of us who carry the “don’t get sick” insurance plans. This issue is dividing the country, as it has in the past causing some administrations to either ignore it or dropping it once they ran into a brick wall over any sort of plan to provide insurance for the population that did not have health insurance. One of the big issues within the healthcare bill that recently made it through the senate finance committee is the amount of “pork” hidden or added onto the health issue. This is a bill supported by President Obama that has within in its pages billions of dollars for walking paths, street lights, jungle gyms and even farmers’ markets – this a bill that is supposed to be the hard work of a few to improve the nation’s health infrastructure, a bill that has met with increased criticism on both sides of the aisle. Defenders of the bills add-on’s say this pork is meant to promote healthier lives and in the long run cut medical costs, maintain they are just ‘community transformation grants’. Other say, “listen to get all the cash for the healthcare problem is have Congress repeal the authorization on spending for the remaining sums in the record-breaking, non-stimulating $787 billion stimulus bill.” Whereas over 9 months have passed since the “rushed” signing of the bill to solve the job crisis sweeping the country, and today less than 15% of the funds have been spent. It is noted that all politicians were quick to line up and get their hands on money for their pet projects, but slow on the draw when it came to quickly designing the type of pro-growth, pro-business legislation that would have

actually stimulated the creation of jobs in the private sector – Oh! I take some of that back we did get for our money a $4million paving job on a parking lot for private jets in Aspen, a $550,000 new skateboard park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. This from a package that was supposed to create 3.5 million jobs within two-years. Well guess what the shovels are still hanging and over 2 million additional jobs have been lost – now you can understand why over 50% of the population in the United States is scared to death of its government guiding our healthcare. Congressional committee’s along with the Congressional Budget Office has taken a close look at the actual numbers of people without health insurance, whereas the 47 million claim is made up of at least 11 million illegal’s, with another 17 million are people who earn more than $50,000 a year and decided not to carry health insurance, with a great number already who are eligible for care under Medicaid and other government programs, and millions more between jobs. Deducting a reasonable amount from the 47 million the detractors that don’t care to see a government healthcare bill state that approximately 10 million are classified as the ‘chronically uninsured’, where the Kaiser Family Foundation says the number could be as low as 8 million. Today, the figure for those “in between jobs” stands at 13.2 million, add this to the 10 million and the “chronically uninsured” leaps to 23.2 million. Detractors beware, the other side can add also! Now on average in America and average insurance policy for a “family” is going to run around $10,000 per year for a family of four, multiply this by 23.2 million for the heavy side cost of and you’re talking approximately $232 billion. Even if we cut that by 50% it is still a pretty big number. If as some in the GOP say, the President was to kick loose $116 billion from the stalled money in the stimulus bill, which would only pay for 1 year’s premiums for the “Chronically Uninsured”, then what? But, in estimating the cost of the Chronically Uninsured, you can now see the amount that the insurance companies are fighting over. On the other side of the picture, doctors are more than worried with a cap on their charges, that they would never be able to pay their higher-education loans they borrowed to be licensed to practice medicine, or the skill they acquired over a period of 8 plus years in school and internship. Other’s look at the cost of a government sponsored bill producing over the next ten-years of over $1 trillion in red ink, while cutting the profits of medical businesses, which in turn would not bring in any revenue to help pay the government run programs. And last but least, the government would be running it and like I mentioned before this just scares the hell out of people, the same people who spend at least 2 hours in traffic on the way to work in some cities are citing waiting in a doctor’s office waiting for service just does not fit in their life plan – well have you ever waited in a drivers license bureau? Number three on the list of things to worry about is the Global Warming debate reverberating around the world, where if it is to warm – Global

Warming too much CO2, and it is too cold – Global Warming too much CO 2. Pick a flavor! I read today that 2009 Atlantic hurricane season was very quiet, this the scientists reported was due to the Pacific warm-water phenomenon known as El Nino playing a role in suppressing the Atlantic cyclones. If it was the end of the season for them, which it isn’t ending in November, it would be the lowest number of storms since 1997, the last time an Atlantic season produced only two hurricanes was 1982. Insurance companies are breathing a sigh of relief, whereas there was no hurricane damage in the United States this year. It was also noted that the sea temperatures in the tropical Atlantic are cooler, by about 2°F on average, than the blistering season of 2004, when four hurricanes hit Florida, and in 2005 when a total of 28 storms were generated, the highest single-season in recorded history. Global Warming advocates will more than likely jump on this like crows on a cornfield, and the question is which way will they spin it? My guess, the cold water from the melt in the Arctic is affecting the Gulf Stream causing the chilly drop in temperature in the tropical Atlantic. If they do, they’re spin won’t have too much effect in that measurements this year at the end of the Arctic summer that showed more ice cover was evident this year, albeit remained they are couching this by saying that it still isn’t up to par with what it was in during the past decade. It was also reported today that Chicago has registered some the coldest days recorded this last week in over 82-years and is forecasted to bounce around the low to upper 40s for the next week, another extreme that our expert Global Warming experts will leap on, be sure! Marlo Lewis a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute mention at one time the rhetoric flowing from between the lips of Global Warming advocates, “That is not how science operates, it is how propaganda operates.” And then there is a news item posted on the BBC today, “Scary Climate message from the Past”, where Doctor Aradhna Tripati from the University of California (UCLA) and some researchers analyzed some ocean sediments in plotting CO2 levels back 20 million years, that told them that the sea levels were 80-130 feet higher today with approximately the same levels of CO2 we’re experiencing today. She says even though Ice Cores have been analyzed, the records she has give a much more accurate analysis of what really happened. Their data comes from the ratios of boron and calcium in the shells of tiny marine organisms called foraminifera, whereas the ratio indicates the pH of sea water at the time the organisms grew, which in turn allows scientist to calculate the carbon dioxide content from the atmosphere. According the Jonathan Overpeck of the IPCC (UN PANEL) this method provides a more accurate look at how past CO 2 values relate to climate than previous methods. Kind of makes you wonder don’t it, is he saying that the data before was suspect?

Dr Tripata did say, “The new research does not imply that reaching CO2 levels this high would ‘definitely’ result in huge sea level changes, or that they would happen quickly, just that sustaining such levels on a long timescale ‘might’ produce such changes.” She went on to say, “There aren’t any perfect analogies in the past for climate change today or in the future. I think we should use our knowledge of the physics of climate change in the past to prepare for the future.” In my opinion it is the lack of any applied physics in making a determination of past weather changes that is feeding the scientific community’s debate today – as in fact we know very little or next to nothing what factor or set of factors that caused the Ice Ages or even when our last experience of a very warm period that took place, and event our scholars have named the Medieval Warm. Even the exact levels of the CO2 concentrate has been debated till the blood has flown down the halls of buildings around the globe, where some say we’re at the tipping point and if it reached 510 ppm in our atmosphere storms and rising sea’s will destroy all but the high-plains of Kansas, a new bill in the US Senate introduced by Senators Boxer and Kerry state 450 ppm is a dangerous level. Dr Overpeck says, “Trouble is, we don’t know where the critical CO 2 ppm is or the temperature threshold will have to be to bring on an inevitable ice sheet collapse.” He continues, “if we overshot the 450 ppm on the way to stabilization we ‘could’ be playing with fire.” Scholars and other scientists around the world have said CO2 plays a minimal role in whether or not the earth is cold or warm, and even if the advocates of Global Warming were even 50% correct the doubling of CO 2 ‘might’ rise the temperature by 0.1°F by 2030 – maybe! You have to remember that from 1850 to 1940 the average temperature increase was 0.5°C and from 1940 till today was another 0.3°C, whereas most of the warming in the 20th century was between 1900 and 1940, in other words the only real increase in ‘hot air’ has been from Al Gore and his crowd. But there again, Time Magazine had one cover story that screamed, “Special Report on Global Warming: Be Worried. Be Very Worried”. Despite this fear spreading, when 17,000 expert climatologist, meteorologists and astrophysicists endorsed Dr Arthur Robinson’s Petition Project, which said the Kyoto Accord was bunk said, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” It didn’t even make the papers in a conservative newspaper in the middle of Idaho. Whereas the media has declared in most cases the climate issue settled. 30 years ago Newsweek said, “The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinary mild conditions, the Earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologist…are almost unanimous in the view that the trend

will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.” Well like that really happened! The flip side being warmer weather will improve agricultural productivity – you’d think. I believe that Global Warming advocates suffer from a great conceit when they shout from the rooftops that human activity has or will have a significant impact of climate change. Consider, the UN sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) that estimates human activity is responsible for 7 billion metric tons of global carbon dioxide out of a total of 157 billion tons or about 4.5% that is annually released. 57% comes from out oceans, 19% from decaying vegetation, and 19% from plant and animal respiration. Bjorn Lomborg a well know economist said in 2001 (8 years ago) that “implementing Kyoto will cost $150 billion to $300 billion globally every year, merely to postpone the temperature rise by six years from 2010 to 2016. It’s a very expensive way to achieve so little.” I have said it over and over again, and in closing this short number of Global Warming I’ll say it again. Climate change is as old as our planet and predates human life. Remember they named it “Greenland” not “Iceland” for a reason, the ice sheet was melting there and it was an ideal location for the barbaric Vikings 1,000 years ago. The Great Ice Age covered much of the Earth more than a million years ago, when SUVs were not part of the equation – and we’ve had several lesser Ice Ages since, and we’ve been warming since the Little Ice Age that started in the 15th century and ended in the 19th. I know and you know that all three of the preceding does not dictate how fast you swing your feet over the edge of the bed in the morning, but I’ll guarantee you that sometime during your day, one or maybe even all three items will become part of your brain function during the next 16 or so hours you stumble about doing what it is you do during the day. The first two will eventually come to some sort of a conclusion, the first we hope and pray will be sooner than later, the second no matter the result will piss off at least 50% of the population and the last until you breath your last it will debated and debated until the sun expands, and even then there will be some who blame it on man. Have a good day and if it’s chilly put a coat on and piss off some advocate you meet at work!

Kanook