>Rosie O’Donnell’s low favourability rating

>According to a new Rasmussen poll sub-cretinous, untalented, cacophonous, oxygen thief Rosie O’Donnell is viewed unfavourably by 61% of Americans. That’s the same percentage as George Bush’s disapproval rating, which should give the loud-mouthed, 9/11 nutjob something to chew over in the fifteen minutes a day that she spends not stuffing her repulsive, puffy face.

Seventy-three percent (73%) of Americans have read, seen or hear about recent stories about Rosie O’Donnell’s early departure from her latest TV venture–“The View” O’Donnell, an outspoken and well publicized Democrat, is viewed favorably by just 25% of Americans (including just 33% of Democrats). Sixty-one percent (61%) of all Americans hold an unfavorable view of the daytime TV diva. While far from a popular endorsement, O’Donnell’s these ratings are better than those received by Hollywood bad girls Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan.

That’s not much of a comparison list. I presume she also has better ratings than Charles Manson, David Duke and Osama bin Laden.

O’Donnell quit “The View” following a recent quarrel with her co-host, Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck is a conservative whose views on the Iraq War have been highly criticized by O’Donnell. But, while most Americans have doubts about the War, they like Hasselbeck more than O’Donnell. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of adults express a favorable opinion of Hasselbeck, while just 27% hold an unfavorable view.

That’s not a bad effort given Hasselbeck is always getting shouted down in mid-sentence by the hideous, vulgar O’Donnell.

Another public figure in the O’Donnell-Hasselbeck saga is Donald Trump. The man who likes to name things after himself was recently quoted as saying “I’ve always said Rosie is very self destructive…As far as Elisabeth Hasselbeck, I’ve always said she’s probably the dumbest person on television, but when she called me…obnoxious, she was probably right.”

“…the dumbest person on television”? Hasn’t Trump ever seen Keith Olbermann? Now that Rosie is off the air Olbermann has a clear lead in the Dumbest On TV Stakes.

Still, even Trump receives better ratings than O’Donnell (but not much better). Thirty-two percent (32%) rate the mogul favorably while 54% have the opposite opinion. Men give Trump slightly better ratings than women. Rumors surfaced shortly after the latest O’Donnell-Hasselbeck eruption that the whole incident was a publicity stunt. Barbara Walters, creator of the show, denied the rumor stating, “Aunt Barbara is back, and there will be peace in the kingdom.”

Walters is seen in a more positive light than any of the other participants. Overall, 57% rate the veteran journalist favorably, while 31% give her unfavorable reviews.

So there you go. O’Donnell has a 61% unfavourable rating but is the darling of the DailyKos, Huffington Post crowd. That pretty much tells you how far to the left those profoundly racist, reality-challenged sites are.

>Hamas proves conventional wisdom wrong. Again.

>Noah Pollak has a great post at Michael J. Totten’s site dealing with the reality versus the predictions of Hamas’ rise to power in Gaza.

I’ve had little time to post over the past week, as we’re in full production mode at the journal I work for and my days have been busy. But I wanted to make a brief observation about the situation today in Gaza, as by my lights there are three fundamentally important premises of recent Middle East diplomacy that the lawlessness there has overturned — and quite violently, at that.

The first is the notion that power would moderate Hamas. After the terrorist group was elected in January 2006, western interpreters of “the conflict” dreamily predicted that its stridency and absolutism would attenuate; with its constituency being the entire Palestinian population, this thinking went, Hamas’ war against Israel would be necessarily curtailed by the mundane requirements of governance and incumbency. At the time, President Bush said, “I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I’m looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.” The AP’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief wrote, “if the elections pull the Islamic militants off the streets and into the corridors of power — shifting their focus from terror to governance — prospects for peace could be improved.” Not only has Hamas not moderated, it has actually become even more self-confident. Islamists, like most people, aren’t “moderated” by winning political power; they only compromise when a more powerful force, or necessity, compels them to.

Why anyone would think that power would moderate Hamas’ and reduce its terrorist activities is beyond me given it hasn’t worked for the Taliban, the Syrian Baathist regime or in Iran.

The second is an idea that dates back at least to the start of Olso in the early 1990’s. It is the belief that Israel must make concessions in order to validate and strengthen the Palestinian moderates and marginalize the radicals. Another piece of conventional wisdom holds that Hamas won the 2006 election primarily due to a widespread feeling of disgust among Palestinians with Fatah’s corruption and fecklessness. Yet Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza happened just four months before the election, and the commotion surrounding that event distracted many people from taking note of what the withdrawal meant for the Palestinians themselves.

And what it meant for the Palestinians, especially the residents of Gaza, was that Hamas’ fierce resistance over the decades had finally forced an Israeli retreat. It was the Shia reaction to the 2000 Lebanon pullout all over again, with Hamas playing Hezbollah. Hamas was able to campaign proudly on this victory, which was viewed as additional evidence of Hamas’ strength and competence. And so it seems clear that a massive Israeli concession — its departure from Gaza — did not strengthen the Palestinian moderates at all, but in fact did the opposite: it vindicated the extremists, who unlike the moderates could declare a great victory and bask in the ensuing public admiration — and collect a lot more votes when election day arrived.

Exactly as could have been predicted given the Middle Eastern man in the street’s propensity to support the ‘strong horse’.

And finally, there is the matter of foreign aid and its relationship to democracy-promotion. The Arab states and Iran have always spoken with great high-mindedness about the plight of their brothers in Palestine, but these regimes in practice have always lustily enjoyed seeing their brothers become permanent wards of UNRWA, settle into never-ending refugee status, and stagnate in extremism and violence. Since Hamas came to power, as David Frum helpfully notes, the gushers of largess that flow into the Palestinian territories have actually increased.

It is a little-known fact that international aid to the Palestinian territories has actually risen since Palestinians elected a Hamas government in January, 2006. According to International Monetary Fund and UN figures, the Palestinian areas received a total of $1.2 billion in official aid in 2006, up from $1 billion in 2005.

America’s contribution rose from $400 million in 2005 to $468 million in 2006. Aid from the European Union and other international organizations also increased handsomely, and the UN has called for still greater increases in aid in 2007.

Look at the incentives that have been created for the Palestinians: vote for terrorism, get an increase in your foreign aid. The Palestinian areas now receive more than $300 per person, per year, making them the most aid-dependent population on Earth. (The people of sub-Saharan Africa receive only $44 per person per year.)

And yet the UN, EU and every NGO operating in the place wants us to pour more money into this illegitimate, festering cesspool. Makes you wonder, really.

Meanwhile Hamas’ supposed pariah status has allowed it to strike a deal with a generous fellow-pariah, Iran, which since the election has spent well over $100 million directly on the terrorist group. Iran, whose economy is rapidly falling apart, is not providing this money out of altruistic solidarity, or even as cheap symbolism, as Saddam Hussein used to do with his payments to the families of suicide bombers. Iran is purchasing terrorism against Israel and improving its already substantial ability to foment crises in the region, which is one of mullahs’ greatest deterrent capabilities.

Add all of this money up, and one confronts the reality that Hamas and the PA today are awash in unprecedented sums of money, absolving both Hamas and Fatah of the need to fulfill the most basic requirements of governance. This largess has so taken the pressure off Hamas that it is free to indulge almost exclusively in its greatest interest, and a major interest of its new patron, Iran — waging jihad against Israel.

Why would anyone think that Hamas would do otherwise given its constitution that explicitly states what its goals are?

The primary givers to the Palestinians — America and the EU — have for years insisted on democracy without demanding accountability, or even a modicum of initiative and self-sufficiency. This is not aid; it is welfare. If there should ever be a moment when the institutions that are charged with improving the plight of the Palestinians take stock of what their benevolence has wrought, that moment it now, amidst Hamas’ acts of war against Israel, its entente with Iran, and its civil war with Fatah. Have all of these billions been helping the Palestinians, or hurting them?

Is there anywhere on earth where aid without accountability has provided a positive, ongoing benefit? If there is then I’m yet to see it.

Many observers of Hamas’ rise to power have noted that the U.S. wishes for the Hamas government to collapse under the weight of its own narcissistic radicalism and unrestrained ambition. But the U.S., UN, and EU are pumping so much money into the Palestinian territories that they’re preventing that collapse, and the ensuing recognition among Palestinians that their votes were perhaps cast unwisely. With its prolific foreign aid, the West is not just infantilizing the Palestinian people and continuing to thwart any possibility, however implausible, of a Palestinian state. It is now underwriting the emerging Palestinian-Iranian alliance.

This is an important point. Not only is the Israel-Palestine conflict a proxy war between the US and Iran, Syria etc, it’s also a proxy war between the EU and the US in order to gain political leverage at the UN and elsewhere. The moral malnourishment of the UN and Europe is thus exposed for all to see.

This will all end in tears, of course, and people will blame the one nation that had been trying to achieve peace in the region. Any guesses which one?

>Islam for Dhimmis

>Hey, it’s been done a few times before but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make my contribution to the genre.


(click on the image to embiggen)

Lots of work by my brother, coz I’m too retarded with Photoshop.

>Crap in, crap out. Welcome to climate science.

>Anthony Watts has been questioning the validity of temperature readings due to what appears to be a completely inappropriate placing of recording devices.

Check out how the device is placed at Marysville’s Fire Station.

Hmmm, asphalt. Doesn’t that get a little warm? Even in winter it’s much warmer than the surrounding environment.


It sure does look like a nice BBQ. Just the thing to increase temperature around the sensor.



Unsurprisingly, there’s an upward trend to the data.

Meanwhile, in Orlando, which is just 50 miles away, Anthony shows us what a proper recording station looks like along with its temperature graph.

We always told that the Urban Heat Island Effect has been factored out of the data but when pressed to show how that has been done, given evidence to the contrary, climate scientists do what they do best – attack the man.

Check out part two of Anthony’s How Not To Measure Temperature posts, which I hope will expand with input from all over the world.

>Zbigniew Jaworowski’s demolition of climate science

>If you haven’t seen it yet then Zbigniew Jaworowski’s demolition of the state of climate science is well worth catching up with. Jaworowski is an old school scientist, one of the type that still believe in those pesky things that climate scientists and their Brown Shirt brigade have so much trouble with – facts.

He refers to the Four Basic IPCC Lies:

1. Carbon dioxide, the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas, increased markedly as a result of human activities, and its atmospheric concentrations of 379ppmv (parts per million by volume) in 2005 by far exceeded the natural range of 180 to 300ppmv over the last 650,000 years.
2. Since 1750, human activities have warmed the climate.
3. The warmth of the last half-century is unusual, is the highest in at least the past 1,300 years, and is “very likely” caused by increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.
4. Predictions are made that anthropogenic warming will continue for centuries, and between 2090 and 2099 the global average surface temperature will increase 1.1C to 6.4C. Various scare stories of global catastrophes are prophesied to occur if man-made emissions are not curbed by drastic political decisions. The obvious beneficial effects of warming for man and all of the biosphere are downplayed.

When people say that the “science is settled” why is it that there seems to be such a growing contrarian body of science? It’s a strong article and well worth reading the whole thing.

>10 Questions to test your political nuance and judgement faculties

>The recent Amnesty International annual report comparing Australia to Zimbabwe and America to North Korea confirmed two things. One is the shocking demise of Amnesty into just another loony left wing anti-US advocacy group. The other is the lack of nuance that makes up postmodern leftist thought.

Here are 10 questions that require you to make nuanced judgements.

1. Where would you rather live? a) Cuba; b) United States
2. Where would you rather live? a) North Korea; b) Israel
3. Where would you rather live? a) Mugabe’s Zimbabwe; b) Ian Smith’s Rhodesia
4. Where would you rather live? a) East Germany; b) Post 1990 Germany
5. Would you rather? a) Withdraw from Iraq, fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; b) Stabilise Iraq, fight Al Qaeda wherever they are
6. Who would you rather be tortured by? a) Al Qaeda; b) the United States
7. Who was the better President? a) Bill Clinton; b) Ronald Reagan
8. If your child converted religions then which would you prefer them to change to? a) Islam; b) Buddhism
9. If you see Muslims praying loudly and shouting “Allahu Akhbar” in an airport departure lounge what would you do?: a) Not worry about it because all cultures are equal; b) Be happy to see airport security questioning them
10. You believe that the science of Global Warming is: a) settled; b) inconclusive and subject to ongoing research

Score 1 point for all A answers and 0 points for all B answers.

0: Congratulations! Your nuance and judgement faculties are intact and fully working.

1-3: A disappointing result. Perhaps you haven’t yet been mugged by reality after being indoctrinated by all of those years in the education system. There’s still hope for you, though, if you recognise the danger to your moral compass early enough.

4-7: I bet you think that the New York Times is the world’s best newspaper, don’t accept blame for the 3 million deaths caused by the US withdrawal from Vietnam, have a ‘War is not the answer’ bumper sticker on your car, believe Global Warming is man made and that world wide terrorism is the United States’ fault and nothing to do with Islam. You are absolutely part of the problem and not the solution.

8-9: You are definitely a Useful Idiot. You contribute nothing to the world while also complaining about everything.

10: Holy smoke, Batman! We have a real Cindy Sheehan, DailyKos, Huffington Post type on our hands. You need to move to Cuba. Or Camp Casey. Just go. And good riddance.

>Sunday night Aussie rock

>The Masters Apprentices were a raw-edged Aussie rock ‘n’ roll band from the 1960s and early 70s that included a couple of industry notables – Jim Keays and Glenn Wheatley.

Here’s a couple of their classics.

Because I Love You

Turn Up The Radio

>More inconvenient truth about those peskily inaccurate climate models

>Here’s a question. If billions of dollars were spent developing financial forecasting models so we could tell what the markets would be like in 50 years’ time and they had almost no ability to predict what happened in the past then should politicians bet trillions of dollars of the world’s economy on their accuracy?

The climate change debate degenerated into a propaganda war long ago. Lacking a sound scientific basis for making outrageous claims of planetary catastrophe, those organisations promoting the most dire consequences of increasing CO2 emissions did what all ideology-based movements do – ratcheted up the level of propaganda to drown out opposition, paying particular attention to ‘playing the man and not the ball’.

The proof of this particular climate pudding was definitely shown to be in the eating when the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report, which included reduced predictions about the next one hundred years including a sea level increase of 18-59cm (7-23 inches), the lower end being below what actually happened in the twentieth century. In a moment of pure comedy gold, activist organisations, previously in lock-step with the IPCC, suddenly turned on the organisation accusing it of not being alarmist enough.

The climate propaganda machine had previously been able to point to the so-called science of the IPCC to validate their claims. Deprived of this validation, enviro-fascists have made a complete spectacle of themselves by making even more hysterical claims that require us to, basically, stop using energy now, now, now. Of course, by ‘us’ they mean we in the rich West. They impose no such requirements on India, China or Brazil – which pretty much gives away their socialist, regressive agenda.

Climate science is based on a number (I think it’s around 26) of recognised climate models from around the world. The IPCC ranges tend to represent the low and high ranges provided across all of the models.

I remind readers of a couple of steps in the Scientific Method:

Predict: Use the hypothesis to predict the results of new observations or measurements. Often, advanced mathematical and statistical hypothesis testing techniques are used to design experiments that attempt to effectively test the plausibility of hypotheses.

Verify: Perform experiments to test those predictions. Attempting to experimentally falsify hypotheses is thought by many to be a better choice of term here.

The fact is that there’s a huge elephant in the room for climate scientists, namely that these models have a diabolical predictive record. No wonder they have to make up new statistical methods in order to ‘validate’ their methodologies.

It’s always worth keeping an eye on what Roger Pielke Sr is writing over at Climate Science. He’s old enough to not have to worry about criticism from self-interested climate scientists and dishonest, play-the-man climate propagandists.

Climate Science has already weblogged on the claim in the 2007 IPCC WG1 report that,

“Projecting changes in climate due to changes in greenhouse gases 50 years from now is a very different and much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now. To put it another way, long-term variations brought about by changes in the composition of the atmosphere are much more predictable than individual weather events.” [from page 105]

One of the criticisms of climate science is that it’s like trying to predict the weather 50 or 100 years out. If they can’t get it right next week what chance in 50 years? The IPCC deals with this issue by making the clearly preposterous claim above. A clear analogy would be a financial forecaster telling you what the market will be doing in 50 or 100 years when he’s only right about next week a small percentage of the time.

This weblog provides a short summary of why such a claim is absurd.

First, all climate and weather models include two components; a dynamic core (which involves advection, the pressure gradient force, and the gravitational acceleration) and parameterized or prescribed) physical, chemical and biological processes. Only the dynamic core is basic physics. All parameterizations are engineering code which means they include tunable components.

Weather prediction models parameterize long- and short-wave radiative flux divergence, stable clouds and precipitation, deep cumulus clouds, turbulence, and air-sea and air-land fluxes. The state variables in weather model are the three components of velocity, temperature, pressure, density of air, and the three phases of water (and sometimes other gaseous and aerosol components). A detailed discussion of this type of model is given, for example, in Pielke, R.A., Sr., 2002: Mesoscale meteorological modeling. 2nd Edition, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 676 pp. [Table of Contents]

The state variables are initialized from real world observations such as from radiosonde and satellite data. If the weather model is a regional model, it obtains information through lateral boundary conditions. The dynamic core of the weather model, therefore, is constrained by the real-world initial conditions and lateral boundary conditions. Most of the surface boundary conditions are prescribed. This includes, for instance, sea surface temperature, sea ice coverage, vegetation, and snow cover. Only certain quantities, such as soil moisture and land surface temperature may be permitted to change in response to the land-air fluxes. When the initial conditions of the weather model are “forgotten”, the parameterizations must skillfully predict the evolution of the state variables from that time forward, which is the reason that the weather prediction accuracy degrades and becomes of no value after a certain time period (e.g. see).

A climate model, in contrast, must model more processes than in a weather model (such as biogeochemistry of vegetation on land and plants in the ocean; sea ice dynamics; aerosol processes; ocean circulation; ground freezing and thawing; snow accumulation and melt and sublimation, etc. – see). For some of these climate processes (which involve physics, biology and chemistry) they are modeled, as with a weather model, by a dynamical core and by parameterizations. These include sea ice dynamics and ocean circulation, which both have advection, pressure gradient and gravitational parts, as well as the parameterization of other effects (such as turbulence, phase changes of water). Some of the climate processes, such as biogeochemistry and biogeography have no dynamical core, and are completely parameterized models.

Thus, a climate model involves more parameterizations with their tunable components than for a weather model, as well as additional new state variables (such as salinity, ice, snow, vegetation type and its root depth etc) for which initial conditions are required for all of these variables.

The climate model also has no real world constraint such as supplied by real-world initial conditions (and for a regional model lateral boundary conditions). This real-world data constrains its predictions. Instead, the state variables required for the dynamic core of each component of the climate model (i.e. the state variables for the atmosphere, land, ocean and continental ice) must be generated from the parameterizations!

The claim by the IPCC that an imposed climate forcing (such as added atmospheric concentrations of CO2) can work through the parameterizations involved in the atmospheric, land, ocean and continental ice sheet components of the climate model to create skillful global and regional forecasts decades from now is a remarkable statement. That the IPCC states that this is a “much more easily solved problem than forecasting weather patterns just weeks from now” is clearly a ridiculous scientific claim. As compared with a weather model, with a multi-decadal climate model prediction there are more state variables, more parameterizations, and a lack of constraint from real-world observed values of the state variables.

Climate modelling is non-trivial stuff. It’s clear that none of the models are anywhere near getting it right in spite of the billions of dollars that have been spent on them.

Backwards, socialist environmentalists might want us to spend trillions on these models but that’s because they 1) don’t understand where money comes from; 2) don’t understand what motivates people; and 3) paradoxically, don’t understand the environment (or socialism’s catastrophic impact on it).

One day people will look back at the money sent down the climate model hole, look at the health debacle in Africa and wonder what the heck we were thinking.

>The real catastrophe of climate catastrophism

>George Reisman has a great piece published on the Mises Institute site, The Arithmetic of Environmentalist Devastation.

Most people don’t understand the real impact of implementing a 25% or 60% reduction in CO2 by 2050. There are real consequences. Here’s the whole article.

A major demand of the environmental movement, put forward as essential to combating global warming, is the imposition of a massive rollback in global emissions of carbon dioxide accompanied by a freeze on such emissions at the sharply reduced level imposed.

In this spirit, Britain’s Stern Review, published in the fall of 2006, seeks a reduction of 25 percent by the year 2050. Going considerably further, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has urged a 60 percent reduction.

Such pronouncements can be made openly and repeatedly only because the immense majority of people do not take the trouble to understand their implications. They do not because what is required to do so is a combination of making connections between various facts and performing calculations. These are activities that are widely perceived as onerous. Nevertheless, this level of thinking is essential if people are to understand the implications of environmentalism’s demands.

In purely verbal terms, those implications are that environmentalism seeks the destruction of the energy base of the modern world, along with the elimination or radical reduction in the supply of all goods and services that depend on that energy base. It seeks this on the grounds that these goods and the energy on which they depend entail the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The goods and services in question are air conditioners, automobiles, airplane travel, housing, food, clothing, refrigerators, freezers, television sets, telephones, washers, dryers, books, computers—everything that depends on the production and use of oil, coal, or natural gas, which all release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in being burned. The destruction of the energy base and the production of goods and services is implied by the fact that in order to rollback the emission of carbon dioxide, it is necessary to rollback the production and use of energy in these forms. But rolling back the production and use of energy reduces the production of goods and services.

Turning now to the arithmetic of environmentalist destruction, I will proceed to calculate the extent of the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per person that is entailed in the environmentalist demands. This will serve as a guide to the extent of the reduction in the production and use of energy per person and thus as a guide to the reduction in the production of goods and services per person. Proceeding in this way, it will be very easy to prove that environmentalism seeks the destruction of the energy base of the modern world, along with the elimination or radical reduction in the supply of all goods and services that depend on it.

Let me start with the 25 percent reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions urged by the Stern Review. Its application across the world would imply a 25 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions here in the United States by that year. Yet the population of the United States in 2050 is projected to be approximately 400 million people. Since the US population is currently 300 million people, this means that four-thirds of the present population of the US would be expected to generate only three-fourths of present carbon dioxide emissions. Three-fourths divided by four-thirds is nine-sixteenths, or 56.25 percent. That would be the projected per capita level of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States in 2050, i.e., a reduction of 43.75 percent from today’s level.

If the reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions is to be 60 percent rather than 25 percent, then, with the same increase in population, the reduction in per capita emissions in the United States would be to a level found by dividing 40 percent (the emissions remaining after the 60 percent reduction) by four-thirds. Since division by four-thirds is always multiplication by three-fourths, the per capita reduction would be to a level of 30 percent of today’s emissions instead of 56.25 percent. The per capital reduction in emissions in the United States would be 70 percent rather than 43.75 percent.

But there is yet a further major reduction in US per capita carbon dioxide emissions to contend with. And that is that while global emissions will be reduced by 25 percent, or by 60 percent, emissions in China, India, and the rest of the so-called third world will be allowed to go on increasing, presumably until there is equality in per capita emissions across the world.

At present, even though it has only 5 percent of the world’s population, the US consumes 25 percent of the world’s supply of energy and is responsible for approximately 25 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Assuming the US population to remain at 5 percent of the world’s population, the achievement of global equality in per capita carbon dioxide emissions would require a reduction in US energy consumption from its present 25 percent to 5 percent, corresponding to the size of its population. This implies a further reduction of 80 percent in per capita emissions in the US. This is because 5 percent divided by 25 percent is 20 percent; a fall to 20 percent of the initial percentage is a decline of 80 percent from the initial percentage.

This further decline of 80 percent in per capita carbon dioxide emissions would apply to the already very substantial percentage declines calculated above. Thus, with a rollback of 25 percent in global emissions, the decline in the US would be to 20 percent of 56.25 percent, i.e. to 11.25 percent. This, of course, would be an 88.75 percent reduction in per capita US carbon dioxide emissions. With a rollback of 60 percent in global emissions, the decline in the US would be to 20 percent of 30 percent, i.e. to 6 percent. This would be a 94 percent reduction in per capita US carbon dioxide emissions.

Whether the per capita reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is to 6 percent or to 11.25 percent, whether or not a few percentage points of reduction can be avoided by virtue of obtaining additional power from windmills and solar panels (the environmentalists will not allow atomic power, which they regard as the death ray and oppose even more than carbon dioxide emissions, nor will they allow hydro-power insofar as it interferes with the migratory patterns of fish), the clear implication is economic devastation. It is devastation in the production and use of energy and devastation in the production of everything that depends on energy.

The implications of imposing environmentalism’s demands include those that I have discussed in previous articles on the subject. In terms of the life of individuals, they are precisely of the kind described in the newspaper articles I quote in “After the Hideous Light Bulbs.” They also include such paradoxes as attempting to fight global warming by means of destroying air conditioners, refrigerators, and freezers. (I presented this particular paradox in “Environmentalist Zen.” That it is present in environmentalism is something that should be glaringly obvious from the present article.)

It follows that inasmuch as anything may serve as an opening wedge in getting people to accept environmentalism’s agenda of destruction and impoverishment, it needs to be opposed as strongly as possible. Such is the case with the organized campaign now underway to get people to accept the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs in place of customary, incandescent bulbs. As a prelude to their imposition by law, the sale of these bulbs is currently being highly subsidized by business firms seeking to curry favor with environmentalists, in order to mitigate the harm that they expect would otherwise be done to them. It should be obvious that it is necessary to fight acceptance of these bulbs, as I argue in “Say No to the Hideous Light Bulbs.”

There is tremendous public pressure today to join the environmentalist cause. Business firms that had long opposed it are now rushing to join it. Opposition is evaporating. Where there are still pockets of serious resistance, environmentalist smears serve to undercut their effectiveness. This has been the case, for example, with respect to the British television documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” which presents the views of numerous scientific experts on climate and the causes of climate change who are opposed to the environmentalists’ claim that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide emissions.

The public embrace of a movement as dreadfully destructive as environmentalism brings to mind the rush to embrace Hitler and the Nazi Party in the Germany of 1932 and 1933, once their victory at the polls seemed to become inevitable, and then once they actually came to power. However the views of serious people, who hold their views first-hand, based on their own, independent judgment, do not change merely because the views of others have changed.

Nazism was a catastrophe. Environmentalism has the potential to be an even greater catastrophe—a far greater catastrophe than Nazism: one that will result in the deaths of billions rather than millions. This is because it is the diametric opposite of economic liberalism on a global scale. In contrast to liberalism and its doctrine of the harmony of the rightly understood self-interests of all men, environmentalism alleges the most profound conflict of interests among people. It implies that there is a major economic benefit to be obtained through the death of billions of fellow human beings, that, indeed, the well-being and prosperity of the survivors depends on the extermination of those billions.

Thus, for example, from the depraved perspective of environmentalism, if global carbon dioxide emissions equal to 25 percent of present emissions were to disappear, because those responsible for them ceased to exist, there would be no need for the global cutback in emissions urged by the Stern Review, and thus no need for any diminution in economic well-being on the part of the survivors (provided, of course, their number did not increase). If still more emissions could be eliminated by the elimination of still more people, there would be room for actual economic improvement among the survivors, according to environmentalism. Obviously, the magnitude of mass murder that is invited is the greater, the greater is the alleged need to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Those who recognize the astoundingly evil nature of environmentalism must never cease opposing it.

Well, I’m opposing it and fully intend to continue.

>The follow up to the poem ‘When’

>In February, 2007, reformist Saudi author Wajeha Al-Huwaidar published a satirical poem titled “When” that lamented conditions in the Arab world; now she has written a sequel, which was posted on the Arab liberal website Aafaq on May 13, 2007. The following are excerpts:

“When your neighbor throws trash in your path, and calls you foul names, and urges his sons to accost your sons at school and in the street, and incites the men and women of the neighborhood against you so that they will harass your wife and daughters – and the reason [for all this] is that you are from a minority that doesn’t belong – this is ugly racism that has taken root. And you can be sure that it is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When you feel that whenever you leave your house there are hidden eyes that spy on you, follow your movements, watch you with suspicion and misgiving, and make you return quickly back from where you came – this is part of the culture of fear. And without the least bit of doubt, it is not a Western conspiracy that was hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When your young children come home from school and tell you that they learned that day that the ‘others’ are despicable people who do not deserve any respect, acceptance, or appreciation, and that God commanded them to hate [‘the others’] and to fight them, at all times and everywhere – this is an institutionalized plan for disseminating hatred. Don’t worry, this is not a Western conspiracy against you; this is a product of your own country…

“When you are banned from many of the opportunities given to others, like studying, working, and the basics of living in dignity, just because you do not make hypocritical displays [of loyalty] to corrupt high officials and do not flatter the clerics who enjoy the favors of the regime – beware not to think that this is a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When all the years of your life are stolen from you… and your vitality, your mind, and your soul are wrested away, all in the name of religion, customs, traditions… and an outmoded heritage – and you know that this has usurped your right to life – don’t weep and don’t cry, and don’t imagine that this is a Western conspiracy against you; these are actions and behaviors that are a product of your own country.

“When everything around you, around the clock, reminds you that you are a worthless human being in the view of the political or religious powers, and that you and the soil on which your shoe treads are equals, for the sole reason of your being the citizen of an Arab land – this is the height of arbitrary [rule]. But know that this is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country…

“When the number of those wanting to emigrate is twice that of those who wish to live in the country, and everyone [who can] takes up their belongings and leaves, and there is no place for intellectuals, artists, or even for regular people – you should be very sad, because this is premeditated debasement and deportation. But please don’t think that this is a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When your diligent university-student daughter informs you that she received a one-week suspension from her studies because she did not fully cover her face when leaving campus – something the country’s laws [consider] disgraceful – whereas in the palaces of high and influential officials there are evenings of debauchery, where whores and harlots are brought in from all over – well, this is ‘mastery of one’s soul’ and ‘breaking [the desires of] one’s soul.’ This is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country…

“When everything you hear, see, feel, and perceive tells you that women were created to be a receptacle for you, and that [a woman] is an incubator for your pure offspring, and that you can replace this receptacle whenever you want, and do with her whatever you see fit, and when your friends add a harem of miserable women to their lairs, and think of them as their very private possessions, like hens in a coop or ewes in a pen… don’t be surprised. Know that this is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When you see poverty and hunger gaining ground… and the ruler tells the people to tighten their belts and to not waste electricity and water, claiming that the country has been going through an economic crisis for [several] long decades, and then all of a sudden you hear that the venerable ruler, may God keep him, has bought an island, with all its palaces, in the Indian Ocean, for millions of dollars – this is theft of the country’s resources. But don’t take it hard, please, don’t take it hard. Just believe that this is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When you, an adult in your full senses, have your pen intentionally taken away from you, and are treated as a person not responsible [for their own actions], and you are not allowed to be under your own charge, and everyone becomes your legal guardian, and it is they who determine your political, religious, and national morals – this is abasement of a human… And this is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country.

“When the political and religious establishment ignites your feelings over things that take place beyond the borders of your country, and urges you to demonstrate your rage… over what is going on here or there, and you hold up signs, and organize marches, and walk in long demonstrations throughout the day and the night, and you forcefully condemn and criticize – and then after the event ends, you feel tired and sluggish, and you go home to your sagging, broken-down house, and there isn’t a slice of bread there to give to your young children – but you don’t have the right to go out and protest, or march, or even to write a two-line petition – this is the worst kind of iniquity. And this is not a Western conspiracy that has been hatched against you; this is a product of your own country…”