India announced it would not be bound by any decisions reached at the “climate change” summit in Copenhagen said it might participate in any programs supported by “financing and technology transfers”. And in Copenhagen itself the Danish Climate Minister, appointed to become Europe’s fist climate commissioner, said that if “U.S. President Barack Obama offered some financing for a global climate deal it would boost chances of reaching agreement in Copenhagen in the next two weeks”.
“What the world is waiting for now is exactly what will be the American commitments to reduce their emissions,” Hedegaard said and added the world also wanted to know “what kind of financial contributions would come from the American side.”
“There, President Obama could be very helpful if he has something in his pocket … when he comes to Copenhagen. I think it would be very useful.”
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Something in the pocket is always very useful in part because getting countries like India to sign on to Copenhagen is like pulling teeth. According to Reuters, India will do nothing contrary to its interest. Any cooperation will be strictly billed.
NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) – India will not accept a legally binding emission cut nor a peak year of carbon emissions at the global climate talks in Copenhagen, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday.
“There is no question of India accepting a legally binding emission reduction cut,” he told parliament, laying out India’s negotiating position ahead of the December talks.
India would however accept international verification of reductions if supported by financing and technology transfers.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has announced that it will also be looking for money in case emissions caps are announced. The BBC reports:
As the world’s leading oil producer, Saudi Arabia has previously fought attempts to agree curbs on emissions, and has also argued that it should receive financial compensation for “lost” revenue, given that constraints on emissions might restrict oil sales.
Several European leaders believe that without a control of carbon emissions the world is literally doomed. Gordon Brown argued that the Third World is facing an apocalypse — the very Third World that they hope America will bribe to accept restrictions.
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I believe it was the head guy in Indonesia that said last year that his country is covered with trees and thus should receive compensation for not cutting them down and making global warming worse.
We have a New Doomsday Weapon – Cutting down your own trees in order to blackmail the world.
“Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying And Make Money Off of Global Warming”
Where’s my compensation for… uh… you know… that thing I did… no, wait-that thing I’m not doing… uh…
This is all so completely idiotic.
Not that I want this summit to be “successful”, but if the President had any, he would tell the other nations that U.S. participation in the crusade against global warming is contingent on actual support from them for U.S. policies on _____ (Afghanistan, Iraq, War on Terror, North Korea, piracy)
Anybody else remember that National Lampoon “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog” cover?
Let us agree that we need to study ‘climate change’ more.
But since the raw data from the past 100 years were tossed, we will need to accumulate another 100 years’ worth of climate data in order to draw a conclusion.
Set aside a small budget, say 10 millions a year for climatologists for the next 100 years, (don’t need more computer models, we only need to collect data), after that, we will agree to have the next round of Copenhagen talk.
Room temp or slightly toasted’s all good, what a ridiculous job is Danish Climate Minister.
I still need to remind myself that when these clowns talk about “reducing emissions” they are talking not about pollutants but about CARBON DIOXIDE. The same gas I’m spewing out in horrifying amounts AT THIS VERY MOMENT. EVERYBODY PANIC.
Cap and trade and penalties for emitting carbon dioxide?
Don’t tax me, bro.
How is it using less of something costs more unless it is just a shake down? Why don’t they get their money the old fashion way; piracy?
So, they want our money and promises to help everybody else out. What else is new. Team 44 should make some official proclamation along the lines of;
“We (although he would probably prefer to use “I”) strongly advise that everyone everywhere properly inflate their tires, turn down your thermostat and let me be clear, if you contribute to my ongoing campaign with your credit card, Acorn will see to it that you get some $ to build a windmill”….or something.
Sorry off topic @ Pascal
what I found out is that there is a portrait of Pascal in Versailles “history of France” museum, created by Charles X at “Restauration” of kingdom in 19th cenury, and completed by Napoleon the 3rd.
you can see his portrait here:
http://www.museehistoiredefrance.fr/index.php?option=com_epoque&view=details&eid=28
otherwise there is a good sculpture of Pascal at Louvre museum
They want us to finance this? Is this an f’in joke? We’re up to our eyeballs in debt of all kinds. Why come to us?
They should cut out the middle man and ask China directly. The chicoms would be more than happy to finance the decline of the west.
A suitably polite reply would be “effin pay for it yourself.”
RWE @ 1
Back in the ’90s I watched NOVA (I was in a less evolved state at the time) where they calculated that the US was carbon negative due to our trees and other vegetation. Environmentalists on the show complained that they did not want our forests “held hostage” in this way. I did not understand what they meant back then.
xhelodriver @ 4
http://alignmap.com/wp-content/Graphics/lampoon-dog-big.jpg
WRE @ 1
Back in the ’90s I watched NOVA (I was in a less evolved state at the time) where they calculated that the US was carbon negative due to our trees and other vegetation. Environmentalists on the show complained that they did not want our forests “held hostage” in this way. I did not understand what they meant back then.
exheliopilot @ 4
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/3116706556_fae8ffc956.jpg
Re the trees in North America the series Planet Earth notes the region with the most biomass is not the rain forest but the taiga region, its all scrubby and sparse but it is vast vast and vast.
Anyway Is anyone shocked by any of this? That nations are coming up with rationales as to why they will not adhere to any agreement? Its like the kids I had to teach remedial math — they were not interested in becoming knowledgeable they were just interested in getting a piece of paper to hang on their walls.
I remember reading in a (IIRC) a Lonely Planet guide on Equatorial East Africa (Kenya & Tanzania) about how the natives there can’t understand the Mzungu (white person) mentality. When they first came to the area they wanted to shoot and exploit everything in sight and now they nobody to shoot anything or to prohibit any kind of exploitation of any natural resource by anyone.
Anyway it all makes me want to emit some carbon dioxide in the form of a raspberry.
At the conference: Hello, Mister Obama, is that a Mandatory Emissions Control Agreement you have in your pocket or are you just happy to see me???
The major, core intellectual corruptions behind this and other energy scams was Amory Lovin’s concept of “negawatts.” He argued that with a rising margin cost of energy, it was efficient to tax all energy users to pay someone to NOT use the marginal kilowatt-hour. That pay was supposedly in the form of subsidized energy efficiency investments.
We can still see this very bad idea floating around in the world of environmentalism, as RWE alluded to.
BTW, what is it with Gordon Brown’s tailoring? I thought the British had the best tailors in the world but Brown’s suits never seem to fit.
The answer is “nej tak.”
Ohamlet will bow.
Copenhagen brings European leftist politics into contact with other systems. One of the reasons why the climate change initiative was rebuffed in Australia was that the greenies thought that Kevin Rudd’s Copenhagen formula didn’t go far enough, while the conservatives were driven by a grassroots belief that the whole thing was a fraud.
This kind of polarization is common in some political systems but it’s jarring in other places. What Copenhagen does is sharpen the debate in ways that are not necessarily favorable for the global warming crowd. The basic demands of the greenies become impossible to hide. But they will settle for being bought off and if Obama gives them enough money they’ll form more quasi government NGOs, give more grants to Greenpeace, buy more airtime on TV. This is what is called “advocacy” and “education” and “sustainable developmental initiatives”. It’s an employment program for the greens and you employ them to come up with more reasons to tax you.
Ultimately it is all about money. The Left in the end is completely about money. It never made a country prosperous, but it did make a few people rich. The environmental movement is the same. It will solve nothing, but it will pay for a lot of exotic vacations and bloated lifestyles.
I was going to write some wise witty 500 word piece with a 3 part example and a youtube thrown in,
really I was
but
every time I come to the words “Danish Climate Minister”
I break down in laughter.
So instead of having the assorted kleptocrats and bottom feeders belly up to the Ford Foundation like honest grafters they now expect the US pResident to put his hand in our pocket for them. Give them points for brass, they really do expect us to borrow the money from China to loan to them so they can buy a gun to threaten us with.
pst314
‘A suitably polite reply would be “effin pay for it yourself.”’
In my opinion it flows better off the tongue as “pay for it your effin’ self”.
Seriously though, its amazing how some Europeans keep trying to take over the world even after the Yanks took their guns away.
Looks like they might do it, too. That’s what the Nobel Peace Prize was for; they know the perfect bribe for the world’s most vain man.
“could be very helpful if he has something in his pocket … when he comes to Copenhagen”
That is what the Danish hooker said. right?
The unvarnished truth laid bare at last, it is all a cash-grab for the UN “redistibution club”.
The hottest thing going in what little building is going now is building green. All the governments are bragging about how they get the highest green rating possible for making their buildings “sustainable” and low or no impact.
There are two rating systems: LEED and Green Globes. The former is the loudest and seems to have the attention of the anointed. Ive been to a couple of presentations on the LEED dodge and have learned enough to be cautious of it at minimum from a cost standpoint. Everything is rated even whether the drywall is recycled or not and where the granite comes from (For instance, the ChiComs sell a lot of really pretty granite and cheap. But since it comes from so far it carries a big Carbon penalty. So the local stuff that aint so pretty gets chosen at a significantly higher cost) LEED reworked their rating scheme last year to raise Global Warming impact to te most influencial level.
The Green Globes thing looks more rational in that it seems truly concentrated in energy efficiency and (real) pollution avoidance.
It doesnt surprise me that governments are so fascinated with such a program that adds cost for in some cases little reward.
Exhelo #4: I was thinking of that, too. Also the scene in Blazing Saddles where the Sheriff holds himself hostage. If they did cut down all their trees (as they did in Haiti) they would be screaming for outside aid as their “right.”
After the fall of the USSR one Russian official said that “the world” owed Russia a huge debt for conducting an experiment that proved that Communism did not work. Okay, if you are a Communist then everyone else owes you part of what they have because it is your ideology. If you are a Failed Communist the everyone else owes you part of what they have because you have proved that your ideology does not work.
And the difference between a Communist and a Failed Communist is: The Communist is not yet out of bullets, missiles, and T-72’s.
Back in the 80’s one reason given for going to space-based solar power was to supply it to the Third World. It seems the primary fuel in the Third World is manure. Such manure used for fires is not available for use as fertilizer, thus decreasing the amount of food that can be produced. Substituting electricity from orbital solar power stations would solve that problem.
But burning manure produces carbon dioxide, which of course is Bad, the AGW people tell us.
However, not burning manure produces methane, which is a worse Global Warming gas than CO2.
Langley #13: That is interesting. I have heard the exact opposite, that we are a net carbon producer. That is not logical, as we not only have raised lots of plants but have built many structures and other items that use carbon. As I have said before, travel around the USA a bit and you come to the conclusion that there must be more trees than there were before the evil White Man came. On the East Coast you can see where people hacked out places to live and grow crops out of what was a vast forest. In the Midwest it is the opposite; people planted trees where there was nothing but a vast plain. Even in Los Angeles, a seasonal desert was made into a modestly dense but large forest.
A couple of comments on global warming as a natural disaster:
(1) It occurs to me that what is going here is the attempt to create a Katrina-like disaster in order to demand government action. IOW, environmentalism is nothing but a strategy for “emergencizing” all existence on this planet as a normal state of affairs.
(2) Waiting to see what America does? What that comes down to is “waiting to see how much money the Obama government is willing to bilk the American taxpayer of in order to turn it over to the rest of the world.”
In brief, this is the World War III we have all been waiting for, and it’s being done, so far, without firing a shot. It’s the world against America because (of course) America is the main perp on the planet by reason of its great wealth.
And as the “relative deprivation” marxoids have been telling us for years, whatever America possesses has been taken away from some other people/nation.
Obama is going to Copenhagen just as Hirohito came to the USS Missouri: to sign a treaty of surrender by which Japan–here America–will agree to be governed by an occupation power, consisting in this case by the Euros and the the U. N.
The assumption is of course that all this will be done without a shot being fired.
wretchard:
It isn’t quite so simple as “left” and “right”. The Left/Right split didn’t exist until the French Revolution, after all.
I think environmentalism is a mixed bag. Good impulses get mixed up with confidence artists and moralistic bullies. Confidence artists infest every ideology; even “conservative” ideologues demand money for their causes. I think the one quality that many Quakers, Temperance advocates, abolitionists, socialists, and environmentalists have in common is a congenital desire to use their moral posture to boss other people around. In essence, they seek to become slave masters on the basis of their presumption of moral supremacy.
One of the reasons why the United States has often been hated in other parts of the world is because a significant portion of the American electorate feels a strong desire to lecture people in other parts of the world on everything, including how to wipe their behinds. Indeed, one of the reasons for sectional rivalry is regional bossiness. Even though the United States may be founded upon the ideals of equality, political power all too often follows a pecking order founded upon elitist derision.
Unfortunately, elitists have learned there is power to be had in proclaiming one’s moral superiority over other people, particularly by shaming them at every opportunity. All too often, the most other people have mustered is an embittered defensiveness rather than reacting with counter-condescension. Elitists lose their power over the rest of the community once their pretensions are not taken seriously.
Where there is a market for getting shamed by self-proclaimed healers who proclaim a crisis and then show their path to some variety of salvation, there will be people who fill that void. Environmentalists fill that void for quite a few people, especially on college campuses.
Meanwhile, Al Gore has canceled his Copenhagen lecture, leaving Danish ticket holders in the same place Michael Mann left Phil Jones:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/03/gore-cancels-on-copenhagen-lecture-leaves-ticketholders-in-a-lurch/
wws@16,
I’d expect it to be called Mandatory Emissions Climate Control Agreement – MECCA?
Voltimand #25:
Yes, I think you have hit upon the strategy they are using.
Back in the summer of 1990 there was a major push underway around Wash DC to frame environmental issues as being urgent. There was no such announcement by any group, but the topic was being brought up for discussion over and over again. The newspapers, local talk radio and local TV shows were all focusing in the subject. Outside the Beltway it was not discernable, but Inside the Beltway it was clear as could be. A Big Push was underway
Then, in August 1990, Saddam invaded Kuwait. It was most interesting and amusing to see the phony crisis they were manufacturing get pushed off the stage by a real crisis. Carl Sagan tried to claim that there could be no war because if Saddam lit up the oilfields the result would be a Nuclear Winter without the nuclear. The last gasp was someone crying out “It does not matter who owns the oil if we destroy the planet!”
I think as a result of that experience the Environmental Left came to realize that they needed to manufacture a bigger crisis next time.
Wretchard — The problem is there is not enough money to go around. Obama is planning Stimulus Part II, with a price tag of $300 billion because that’s all he can afford. Greece and Ireland are about to go belly up, following Dubai. Other nations (Italy, Spain) may follow. Even the basic soundness of the core EU nations, France, Germany, and the UK, are questionable.
There is not enough money to pay off the Greens without provoking a massive populist movement on the Right, identified with majority population rights.
Already in the Financial Times, there are a series of articles showing how the UN CDM credits were a total fraud. Projects in China and Mexico were a total waste of money.
Obama and Dems are caught between a rock and a hard place. Gore, Kleiner/Perkins, Podesta, Axelrod, Emmanuel, Feinstein, and other players stand to make a lot of money from Cap and Trade. Gore can leverage it to become the world’s richest man ala Carlos Slim (a carbon trading monopoly to match Slim’s Mexican telephone monopoly).
BUT … doing so even by Obama’s EPA regs creates an instant, wild-fire populist revolt that because of a crushed economy, can get Obama impeached by spooked Dems and propel someone like Palin into the White House, for generations (Dems would be wiped out electorally).
IF the economy were going well, IF unemployment was at 4%, IF job growth and wage growth were at 4% as well, IF economic prospects looked bright, all the Green Cap and Trade Billionaire dreams would be affordable. But they are not.
Obama may want $10 a gallon gas (he is on record for it) BUT doing so would get him impeached and convicted and Dems electorally wiped out.
Well PA Cat beat me to the Al Gore cancellation. I see that Senator Boxer want’s to shoot the messenger as she starts thrashing around because of her shrinking prospects of getting re-elected. In Denmark they found out that there is fraud in the carbon trading market (I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked!)
Anybody want to start a pool on when the first Climategate arrests are made?
This whole affair is like an episode of the Three Stooges. I keep waiting for “Three Blind Mice” to play and signal the end of the show, but it never comes. I’m ready for global warming to hurry up and end the show before I start misbehavin.
Y’know, I was going to take this all at face value and say the thing speaks for itself – but it’s not really that simple. Look at the Chinese, polluting like all get-out by anyone’s standards, but they are just now getting around to realizing they are killing themselves and starting to find it in their own best interests to clean up. Can they really learn to offset externalized costs, in a place that hasn’t quite figured out stuff like copyright and trademark yet? Well, it’s a cultural thing but they’re smart and I suppose they’ll get there in another generation.
India is just another situation and they have not yet quite come to grips with naked capitalism the way the Chinese have, and so are not yet as successful as the Chinese – nor polluting like the Chinese. So, they are just perfectly positioned to be rational about things. They think it’s rational, and perhaps from their present industrial development level, it is.
Unfortunately, compensation from third parties is not really the way to rationalize external costs, so the wacky misformulation is what catches the imagination here.
And in all of the above, please note that when I’ve talked about “pollution”, I would pretty much exclude the actual topic of Copenhagen and much current discussion – CO2. It just isn’t a pollutant or a problem, as far as I can see. OTOH, I might be in favor of some kind of a cap and trade system ANYWAY, as a structural way to capture the externalized cost of consuming a declining resource that does create NOx, ozone, SO2, and other pollutants in its use.
Except that the bureaucracy to enforce it would be the greatest corruption in world history.
So, we’re cleaning up our act, Europe has cleaned up pretty well, I’m not so sure about Russia or Brazil, China is slowly getting on board, and India is still pretty much a basket case, so … not sure there’s really a problem here. Certainly nothing to play with while the financial markets and economies are as rancid as they still are. Which actually suggests a point – let the wackos pass whatever they want, if and when we get the next wave of economic collapse, it would probably all be tossed in the crapper anyway.
Just noodling on topic here.
groffgo,
I’d expect it to be called Mandatory Emissions Climate Control Agreement – MECCA?
Try the Comprehensive Omnibus Welfare For Less Organized Places Scheme – COWFLOPS.
I used to work for the Bureau of Acronyms and Abbreviations.
whiskey,
doing so would get him impeached and convicted and Dems electorally wiped out.
The rats will cling to the sinking ship this time since there is no place for them to swim to. Impeachment is a physical impossibility. The more egregious the separation from reality the greater their need to stick with each other. The only way they would turn on Obama is if there was a thunderous rejection of them in the mid-terms and a series of shocks of a legal and security nature that would have them scared. Only then would they go after Obama the way the underworld went after the murderer in Fritz Lang’s “M”.
Alexis,
Elitists lose their power over the rest of the community once their pretensions are not taken seriously
Here you touch on how PC has sapped the reflexes needed to defend civilization. The withdrawal of the normal ability to rely on ridicule for those whose conduct is seen as potentially disruptive to the stability of the community was an essential first step that enabled all the otherwise inexplicable projects and behaviors that have arisen unchecked in the last 50 years. This does have its roots in sexual politics but I think that whiskey comes close but misses the mark.
The real masters at the use and abuse of sarcasm, innuendo and ridicule to control a social situation are in the homosexual community. Under the guise of PC they have obtained a near monopoly on the use of those tools to destroy others while denying them to others who had previously used them to identify, shame, and discriminate against gays. The understandable pressure by those within that group to invert from a culture in which they “dare not speak its name” to one in which they can proclaim it from the rooftops but no one else can mention it, or any other personal trait or defect, real or imagined, has had repercussions far beyond the lives of members of a sexual minority. Less defensible but entirely human was their persisting in using the same weapons that they were restricting from general use. Unfortunately now that gays are protected from abuse all of the abusers of the social marketplace can come out and flourish without fear.
In a prior age cranks, charlatans and narcissistic deviants would appear, just consider the Theosophists as an example. The difference was that all persons who considered themselves respectable would treat them with open contempt and a man would not have hesitated to physically throw one out of his way if any had the temerity to block his path. New tools for indicating disapproval are needed and a new cultural understanding that tolerance does not mean approval.
Translation into real meaning:
Gordon Brown is deadly afraid that the Third World will face prosperity unless the USA
keeps them deprived.
The Luddite/Zero Sum mentality is what is behind all of this. Gotta keep people from unauthorized production or we will lose
our status—-and that is a fate worse than
death.
A Pox upon them!
While we’re all hypnotized by Tiger Woods and worrying about CO2 exhalations in Copenhagen, back on planet Economy congress is debating whether to confirm Bernanke to another term, and senator Jim Bunning has joined Bernie Sanders in saying nyetski. Verrrry interesting!
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/washington/story/80036.html
wretchard #19
“The Left in the end is completely about money. It never made a country prosperous, but it did make a few people rich.”
And a whole lot of people dead.
Rich in a relative sense, not an absolute sense.next to the ordinary schmucks, they lived like emperors, next to our middle class , not so much.
The relative is what’s important. Henry Kissinger observed that the most vicious fights were in academia because there was so little at stake. But he misundestands. For egos, it is the relative that is important. Better the king of the lame than a citizen among the hale.
testy, one, two, three. comment not getting through 5x ov3r.
Egged on by third world countries and other panhandlers, the UN is pushing the United States and Western Europe to commit economic suicide in order to fund the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen, all in the name of saving the planet from a non-existent global warming crisis. The president of the United States is committed to fostering this insanity. And Al Gore has just stated that the Copenhagen target of total destruction of the world’s economies is not enough.
Fears for the ice
Will not suffice
When warming turns to hail
Let’s tell those bums
When warming comes
The check is in the mail
The real neat thing
This tack will bring
Is we won’t have to pay
The emails show
The warm winds blow
Out of their a**, okay?
It’s about time
This fraud and crime
Was put to bed I say
A bitter breeze
Some low degrees
Make an Algoregeous day
Issue writ small:
Green for older residences usually entails installing (unattractive) insulated vinyl siding overlayment and (ugly who are you fooling) double-paned faux-divided replacement windows to save energy and, say, $100 to 500 per year per homeowner, at a cost of $5,000 to $20k to the greenie or econo-miser.
Just how green is the transport of raw materials and manufacture of aluminum, fiberglass, glass and petro-based vinyl products, unit shipping to warehouses and stores, delivery to site, taking existing windows to landfills or incinerating them, and often needing to repair structure moisture damage and replace fogged up modren windows after a few years?
Oh so very green. For the contractor.
Man’s seasons grow hot
sweating us into Summer/
Nuclear Winter
We can’t win and don’t want to
It may turn out that the Climategate leaker was a guy who is so convinced the world is going to end he’s going to scuttle Copenhagen because it doesn’t go far enough.
This is not an entirely crazy idea. One of the staff members of the Australian CSIRO has resigned because he feels the government should abandon carbon trading and tax carbon directly. The believers are much more committed than the skeptics, who have an open mind. The believers KNOW.
Now if you look at the way President Obama is President Obama is polling the same kind of Scylla and Charybdis problem appears, but in a different guise. President Obama can’t go on. Yet he must. His political support is collapsing but the urgency to do even more extreme things has correspondingly increased. The weaker you are, the more important it is do things while you can.
This sets up a crisis because a lot of people, though probably not the electorate, see things in Manichean terms. The spectacle of extreme politics over essentially nothing is amazing to behold. These are guys are just spinning themselves into destruction. Problem is, everyone is collateral damage.
wretchard # 38
better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.makes one wonder how we got so far.
#42 wretchard
tom clancy is a scary guy. he seems to see the future(debt of honour) but his stories all have happy endings.unlike history.is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow 6?
#26 writes:
One of the reasons why the United States has often been hated in other parts of the world is because a significant portion of the American electorate feels a strong desire to lecture people in other parts of the world on everything, including how to wipe their behinds.
What utter garbage you speak.
The voices from outside the US don’t lecture the US constantly about what they should do, and how they should wipe their asses? If you believe that go to Wall-Mart and buy a reality. The kind you can afford shouldn’t cost more than $0.50, or rather the kind you have now SURELY couldn’t have cost that much.
Apparently you have been getting by on the cheaper model for quite some time. You might consider an upgrade.
The average American citizen doesn’t give a damn about what world opinion thinks about them, and they have a hard time imagining why citizens of any country would care about what any other countries think about them.
Being focused upon how attractive other people perceive you to be may be a viable strategy if you are a teenager seeking a mate, but for a nation-state its idiocy.
The very idea that the Rat nations–like Somalia, Iran, etc. should be accorded any respect is sure lunacy. But then again, when you have organizations like the UN willing to bankroll insanity for the profit of the greedy all things are possible.
What I always wondered about since I was 12 and I first read Satan’s boast in Milton is what was in it for all the other Rebellious Angels? It may be better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven but sure seems better to serve in Heaven than to serve in Hell. If I was junior Demon Umptysquat who had just traded in a job waving a fan at the Big Guy in Paradise for an eternity if listening to the loser whine and bluster I would have been a mite perturbed. If you aren’t going to pull off the big scam and grow a head as big as Al Gore then why not settle for quiet career pontificating before undergraduates and seducing graduate students? Power is pleasant but getting involved in actual policy is dangerous. Most academics are afraid of being judged, that is why they are there. Eight or nine years before Ghostbusters made the line famous I worked for a future Nobel Laureate who said to me “I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results.”
When I taught about the Inquisition and the incredible bloodshed unleashed by Wars of Religion and schisms, that eventually lead to the waves of Reason, Romanticism, Secularism, Socialism and Totalitarianism, what I stressed was the sincerity of those involved. The Inquisitor operated according to a strict code. First he would use reason and exhort you to repent, then he would warn you. He would have you brought in and he would show you the instruments of torture. He would plead with you to spare him the necessity of using such horrible things. Only at the end would you be tortured. If you were found guilty of heresy the Church would turn you over, they said you were relaxed to the Civil Authority for execution. The same people who tortured you would then pray for you. The only explanation is that all concerned believed that immortal souls were at stake. These modern fanatics can no more be swayed from their path then their spiritual ancestors could have been persuaded to look through Galileo’s telescope, or care about what it showed. There was no Comfy Chair in the Spanish Inquisition.
To be blogged under the title “A Terrible Sincerity.”
The only explanation is that all concerned believed that immortal souls were at stake.
If only indirectly, good enough if the Inquisition saved the Church and the Church did save souls.
That the inquisitors had to believe in the literal truth of their own cant, might be asking a bit too much.
#38 Wretchard
I don’t remember your quote about academic politics as being Kissinger’s but here is what Wikipedia has to say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_Law.
Just sayin’. Thanks for the best blog around.
a significant portion of the American electorate feels a strong desire to lecture people in other parts of the world on everything, including how to wipe their behinds.
That’s right ! see how your people told us to perfume and shave our armpits at the end of the war(in the booklet given to the GI, and apparently still in the minds, cuz the first thing I was told on “conservative” sites I visited a few years ago, was that).
Though soap was available on black markets, but at golden prices, and not many french families could regurlarly afford them.
In prime, this garbage was written by Brits papers, and relyed by the Americans. As if the Brits were smarter people, but who knows them well, can say that they “stink”, if not the feet, the Yardley rose !
And I am not quoting the many “France should have done this, or that…”
Apparently, we are like the avaerage american citizen, we didn’t give a damn of these opinions too, we still make it in our own ways
Could we in lieu of a large financial donation to fix this non-existent problem of global warming just turn all the lights off in Iran with a few ICBMs thus reducing their carbon footprint to 0 contributing to nuclear arms reduction?
compare what Alexis wrote and what this American stated here :
http://www.kvsmith.com/1/2008/01/frenchmen-dont.html
Joe Hill,
… just turn all the lights off in Iran …
A tempting idea but remember, even if we do, we stand for something. They seek darkness, ignorance, poverty and human exposure to either nature or elitist power. We stand for progress, reason, prosperity and security. We do not seek to put their lights out, even if we must to save all from their darkness. We look forward to the day When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World.
To be blogged under the title “Come the Dawn.”
From ‘Watt’s up with that?’
Lord Monckton’s summary of Climategate and its issues
Also, Solar & Heliospheric Observatory shows the sun is quiet(Shh!) and has been for months. It is now the 2nd quietest year since observations began. Can you say global cooling? It is well known that the Maunder Minimum
accounts for falling Earth temps.
Voltimand @ 25:
I agree with the first part but not the second. Once UN blue helmets show up in flyover country look for that 8-10 billion rounds per year of manufacturing base to show up.
Alexis @ 26:
Horsehockey. Please do not try to sell that Tranzi garbage to me. I ain’t buying. I know, I used to sell more of it than you have ever heard.
And then you said:
Which is why the first part don’t fly. You are trying to sell us your version of “embittered defensiveness” to make us feel guilty. Read your last sentence carefully while looking in a mirror.
Marie claude @ 49:
Soap, water, some assembly required?
lifeofthemind – “What I always wondered about since I was 12 and I first read Satan’s boast in Milton is what was in it for all the other Rebellious Angels? It may be better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven but sure seems better to serve in Heaven than to serve in Hell.”
Well Milton would have explained it better than me but gluttony, avarice, sloth, lust, envy, and anger were the lesser demons fondest desires and the Big Guy don’t want you double dipping in the French Onion Dip either. Pride may have been the Big Luboski’s downfall but his henchmen were happy with unlimited internet porn and a couch -probably explains why their side lost:-)
Think about it. Obama wants power because he wants to get even with the USA for some imagined transgressions to the dignity of the oppressed and for his own glory. What do the poindexters who voted for him and continue to support him get out of it? Well for starters they can imagine themselves heroes for wanting to spend other peoples money saving the world, and they can do it from the comfort of an endowed chaired amongst the ivy covered walls of a university built with the proceeds of the triangular trade. Or they can hope for free medical care because their doctors and nurses are the only folks who have to actually listen to what they have to say.
They also serve who only stand around in a Tollyboy and a ball gag and you can’t do that in heaven.
PS – point taken @52
RagnarD
“Soap, water”
that was for the vein of :
“including how to wipe their behinds.”
I got the experience that behinds smell is more appreciated than feet smell by the humans gente, and by the dogs
“That the inquisitors had to believe in the literal truth of their own cant, might be asking a bit too much.”
But of course they believed, just as the good Germans who packed the Jews off into the death camps believed they were creating a new Master Race. Incredible evil *has* to have some overarching and appealingly noble ideal behind it in order to make the evil palatable. Ordinary men are capable of depravity on a small scale, but only a Glorious Ideology is capable of inspiring carnage of such vast proportions. And once men are caught up in such a thing, the very nature of the ideology is always such that they no more question it than they question their own need to breathe.
Tcobb:
Have you ever heard of Woodrow Wilson? Or Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
Have you ever met any American environmentalist who tells you to stop using so much toilet paper?
Many Americans may rail against big government, but there are other Americans who like big government so they can tell everybody else what to do. Quakers used big government to bust up Indian families. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union used big government outlaw booze. Eugenicists used big government to enforce their ideas of “racial hygiene” onto other Americans. Remember “Just Say No” and the “War on Drugs”? (We’re still fighting it…) And on and on and on. Certain environmentalists are merely the latest riders on a bandwagon of Americans who seek to civilize the “savages”. And by “savages”, I am referring to you and me and the other regulars at the Belmont Club.
We may complain about the United Nations now, but the United Nations was the creation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Its precursor, the League of Nations, was the creation of Woodrow Wilson. They weren’t just Americans. They were elected to the Presidency of the United States of America. Although the United States has many moral strengths, the propensity of certain American presidents to lecture foreigners on their flaws has grated.
Many Americans want to be left alone. Others think that “America” is about creating some kind of utopia on the American landscape, a utopia that grants them a glorious opportunity to boss other people around. Slavery is just as much part of America’s heritage as freedom. If you don’t like Jimmy Carter, imagine how it would have felt for a foreigner to get lectured by him on human rights. (Or on anything else, for that matter.) Yes, human rights are important and the United States ought to bring them up on occasion, but Jimmy Carter has shown how there are ways to bring up a topic in a manner that the most offensive manner imaginable.
When America is seen from the outside, people remember Bill Clinton, who bombed Serbia for the crime of acting like the United States in a previous century. They remember a nation that would betray allies in South Vietnam because the war was no longer fashionable. The United States isn’t just about working class people who shop at Walmart. It’s also about hectoring by Thomas Friedman from the New York Times. Thomas Friedman shows how an ideologue in favor of free markets and capitalism can still be a moralizing elitist who thinks he has a divine right to tell other people how to run their lives.
A “cause” can be used to give a self-appointed priesthood the opportunity to criticize other people for their faults. He who truly believes in a cause must be willing to accept the fruits of victory – when the losing side accepts the supremacy of his ideas, he must be willing to accept them as equals. Yet, there are certain nitpicking fussbudgets who see a cause as a pretext to set themselves up as a priestly caste that would tell other people what to do. Actually improving the world is nowhere near as important to such people as loudly proclaiming their moral superiority.
By the way, Barack Obama’s constant apologies also grate, especially on our allies. They don’t want to hear Americans go on and on about America’s sins. If foreigners wanted to watch people flagellate themselves, they’d go to Najaf. An American president is supposed to be dignified.
Nuttin’ new here. . . .
Margaret Dumont [to Chico Marx]: You are one of the musicians? But you were not due until tomorrow!
Chico: Couldn’t come tomorrow — that’s too quick.
Groucho Marx [to Dumont]: Say, you’re lucky they didn’t come Yesterday.
Chico: We were too busy yesterday, but we charge just the same.
Groucho [aside]: This is better than exploring! [To Chico]: What do you fellows get an hour?
Chico: For playing, we get $10 an hour.
Groucho: I see…. What do you get for NOT playing?
Chico: $12 an hour.
Groucho: Well, clip ME off a piece of that.
Chico: Now, for rehearsing, we make a special rate. That’s $15 an hour.
Groucho: For rehearsing? And what do you get for NOT rehearsing?
Chico: You couldn’t afford it. You see, if we don’t rehearse, we don’t play. And if we don’t play, THAT runs into money.
–Kaufman & Ryskind, Animal Crackers
Alexis, in a previous topic
One of the main reasons why village density in France and Germany is so high is because of the high agricultural subsidies and tariffs of European countries to protect their small family farms. If France and Germany had the same agricultural policies as the United States, chances are that there wouldn’t be nearly so many villages and that ones that would exist would be much further apart.
well, this has nothing to be correlated within the agriculture policy of the EU, but rather because of history of populations settlement.
Cities were rebuilt on former civilisational places, Romans used Celt sites, as Franks used Roman sites…
Now, if your explanation was plausible, the the small farms wouldn’t have disappeared since the fifties. Only biggest farms get subsidies, because they can afford to pay back the credits of the charges for normalistion of sanitary. In Fact, the queen of England and the prince of Monaco, as the biggest landowners, get the largest part, millions of €, but the poor farmers (~50 ha) almost nothing, about 50 €.
Also the rural villages were going to depopulate until they became fashionable for the Brits, the Dutchs, the Germans… the french administrative servants, that wanted to repear them ala “authentique”, that cause some concurrency quarrels among the french population, as the prices got higher, even for ruins.
Now, as the Brits are getting poorer, cuz of the money crisis, they are leaving their secondary home, good for the French who can get them back for a cheaper price
Alexis,
I’m with you. We have a lot of busybodies in this country. I agree that to someone in another land being lectured to by the US has to grate. There’s lots of other reasons they hate us, but I’m sure that contributes.
@ 25. Voltimand:
Hirohito never surrendered and never came aboard any US ship, he sent his lackies and agreed to peace not surrender. Obama got that wrong and McCain corrected it on Fox News the other day.
–”whatever America possesses has been taken away from some other people/nation.”
and so i guess the solution to this so called horror is to have the loving and perfect UN UBER-STATE take away from America. because that after would only be JUST and FAIR LOL! obvious tyrant is obvious!
as much as the pin head cultural and political neo marxist want their to be a one world government (and believe me, i’m back in academia as a student and I hear it everywhere!) i think we would more likely break down into smaller autonomous regions before we submitted to some Orwellian nightmare like that. at least my hope springs eternal in that way. but CAUTION, don’t let me start trying to predict the future , now! cuz i might just then have to THROW AWAY THE RAW DATA! oh mY!
OBLIGATORY KUDOS to Richard.belmont club.
keep up the great work. i’ve been a belmont club fan for about 2-3 years. (i used to be known as “graytooth”) i found ya through bill whittle and USS clueless. when life gets busy i can’t frequent as often as i like, but then i come back and love it. you’re commenters are brilliant, your blogs are great, keep up the awesome work. and DONATE to belmont. keep free speech alive! i will keep giving too!! happy holidays.
jason
10. Marie Claude: Merci.
Versailles is a very large place with an enormous number of displays, where one could look for an hour at any one landscape battle painting and not catch all the details.
It’s likely this portrait was hanging in a room and I did not notice, or it was hanging in a room that’s closed to the public when I was there. For instance, one large room (the king’s theatre IIRC) was closed for restoration.
It simply startled me to find Arnauld’s bust in the hall of champions (along with many famous people of later eras like Pasteur), and not find Pascal’s.
[Funny side note: after reading the Babblefish translation of your link at 10, with its merciless literal translation of French grammar into English, I took me exceedingly long to write this short comment with proper English syntax.
)
————————————————————–
As is noted on this thread by very many other BC commentators (LOTM‘s analysis at 34 is outstanding), Pascal’s device (“Elitists lose their power over the rest of the community once their pretensions are not taken seriously.” — Alexis) is greatly diminished in effect in our time. (Thank you Don Rickles and “Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts” for showing the way. {/s} )
Our current crop of despots and charlatans have become calloused. They’ve trained to make it seem they are inured; that any verbal slings and arrows we lowlifes toss will appear to bounce off them. Their self-importance demands it — so naturally I came up with the silliest of posts to counter-balance them.
However, we should all keep on trying in the hopes that we simply have not stumbled upon the proper barbs that will penetrate their thick skulls.
Anybody else remember that National Lampoon “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog” cover?
That cover was PRICELESS!! The look on the dog’s face, the gun at it’s head….
@ Pascal, uh, you’re influenced by the “forms”
“Nothing is more to be esteemed than aptness in discerning the true from the false. Other qualities of mind are of limited use, but precision of thought is essential to every aspect and walk of life. To distinguish truth from error is difficult not only in the sciences but also in the everyday affairs men engage in and discuss. Men are everywhere confronted with alternative routes–some true and others false–and reason must choose between them. Who chooses well has a sound mind, who chooses ill a defective one. Capacity for discerning the truth is the most important measure of minds.”
–Antoine Arnauld The Art of Thinking
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/arnauld.html
I guess that Arnauld is as well interesting as Pascal for you. He seems to have influenced Pascal for his faith and his aversasion for the vanity of the greatest minds
…and his aversion for the vanity of the “greatest” minds. Bien sûr.
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
time repeats its trame ad infinitum, we are condamned to relive our past
“wiseness” isn’t for tomorrow
“According to Reuters, India will do nothing contrary to its interest. Any cooperation will be strictly billed.”
Ain’t that a surprise , they’re looking out for India’s interests. When will we start looking out for ours (the western middle class i mean)?it’s been 64 yrs since the end of WW2, time to stop resting on others laurels.that kind of arrogance will end voluntarily or by rude awakening.but it will end.
The rest of the world knows that Obama feels guilty about everything the USA ever did or didn’t do, so of course moral blackmail is in order.
Hey, watch him go and promise $10B a year forever and be an international hero for 2 days, then come back here and have Congress hand him his cojones to eat. Those 2 days of ego strokes would be worth it to him.
He’s a very sick, insecure man.
Alexis and LOTM, I am advising you that I posted the second half of my post 63 under blog entry Penetrating Their Thick Skulls.
Included is an extraction and emphasis of portions of LOTM’s analysis of the destruction of the ridicule tool.
Marie Claude: I intend tomorrow to build another blog post around the Antoine Arnauld quote you unearthed up at 65. It is such a delightful put-down of our post-normal scientists and postmodernist peddlers I will attempt to find a way of using it to LOTM’s satisfaction (and that’s one tough standard).
Pascal (the derivative),
Thank you.
Pascal, I’m your reader