Despite the lip service paid to curbing “carbon emissions”, many countries have been slow to pay up. Talk is one thing. Money is another. The WSJ reports that developing countries, the poorer European countries and even the richer European countries are puzzled over where the billions for “climate change” prevention are going to come from.
Cutting carbon costs money. Factories must be retrofit and industries must be prodded to buy more-expensive green technology. … But there is little consensus on how the bill should be paid, how much it will be, and who precisely should pay it. … The EU has led the industrialized world in pushing for a new treaty. Still, even Europe has had trouble sorting out climate financing.
The EU, which “could directly pay between 10% and 30%”, is like a host who has invited a party to a restaurant with only a fraction of the money for the expected bill in his pocket. Euractive says that “last October, EU leaders agreed on the need to provide €100 billion a year to fund climate efforts in developing countries, but failed to commit the EU to any specific sums, delaying their decision until after Copenhagen.” The hope is that when the waiter brings the check, enough nickels and dimes can be pooled from the diners around the table to keep the bouncer from visting unwanted attentions on the destitute patrons.
John Kerry plans to send Barack Obama to the party with an promissory note in his pocket. Euractive writes that “US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry presented a bill which provides international aid for forest preservation and creates a new programme to help deploy low-emission energy technologies in developing nations. It also authorises new adaptation aid.”
China has taken perhaps the most self-interested approach and decided to sell food items to the European and American guests while itself dining at the table. Then not only is China exempted from the financial burdens of “climate change”, it stands to make a pretty penny from them. The Wall Street Journal Blogs suggest that alone of all the major economic powers, China explicit understood that “climate change” was a pet rock business and went into selling the Westerners the worthless environmental indulgences they craved.
China has been the chief beneficiary of the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism, or CDM, which under the Kyoto Protocol set up a system of credits which can be sold and traded, and which are used by companies to offset their own emissions. Some 60% of all globally traded carbon credits originate from China projects.
China’s climate-change regulators have approved 2,232 CDM projects this year through October – but only 663 of those, or just under 30%, have received final approval by the U.N. to issue credits.
The basic idea is that companies in rich countries, to reach their own greenhouse gas quotas back home, pay for carbon abatement projects that wouldn’t have gotten built otherwise in poor countries.
But the system has come under attack, with critics charging that many of China’s projects such as wind farms or hydropower dams would have been built anyway, and that the carbon credit money would have been better spent elsewhere. The credits themselves have spawned a vibrant carbon market in Europe, but there’s uncertainty about what will happen after the Kyoto treaty expires in 2012.
It’s a wonderful arrangement in which Europeans and Americans pay the Chinese to send them a certificate of forgiveness for their carbon transgressions while supplying their competitors not only with the funds to undercut their domestic industries, but pollute the world into the bargain. Does it make sense? Does it have to? In a strange reversal of cultures the Chinese and the Indians seem able to see things for exactly what they are while the West engages in an elaborate game of self-deception. Recently, the German magazine Spiegel wrote an article entitled “Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic”, spoofing the apparent demand for Deus ex machinas solutions to problems. There was a time when colored beads were sold to the East and the West demanded gold. Today it is the West that is buying the colored beads. Gabor Steingart suggests that the Western public wants to be lied to and Barack Obama, in discussing Afghanistan, gave them what they wanted.
Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America’s new strategy for Afghanistan. … One didn’t have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama’s speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.
An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan — and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war — and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate. For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama’s re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.
What those who are addicted to shambolism and fiction may resent the most isn’t the falsehoods they were told, but the fact that the politicians did not lie convincingly enough to carry off the illusion. As Nietzche once said, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you”. It’s a remark that properly belongs in the theater. Try harder and get the magic back.
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The hardest part of this slow motion train wreck is the waiting. We all know how the story ends yet we can’t skip ahead and get to the reckoning. Very frustrating.
I do not want my grand children to have to fight this fight. Although they will be plenty capable if Pop pop has his way…
Re funding
Why not let the little man have a chance at that carbon credit billionaire’s club with a UN global lottery and a $100,000,000,000 payout once a year to a lucky winner who bought his $1 ticket when picking up coffee, TP, detergent and junk food at the gas station?
When I win, I’m going to buy a Prius and a jet, to be just like our green betters.
Re #2/Lawrence:
Because Dubai World or a similar entity would be assigned responsibility for the payout and declare their obligation null and void after the announcement of the winner.
The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.
We are governed by a character from a nursery rhyme. Obama treats the armed forces as a theatrical demonstration project. He thinks of them with all the seriousness as if they were members of the Judean People’s Front Crack Suicide Squad.
The entire Carbon Trading scheme smells of Enron accounting. Are the fingerprints of any of that crowd on this? The deeper one looks into all this the crazier it gets. We pay China to build hydroelectric dams in the name of the environment but dismantle dams in America in the name of the environment. China uses the profits from Western trade, Western investments and Carbon credits, money being fungible, to build big stinking factories that construct a blue water navy and tanks and missiles. Those will be used to challenge America, crush India and secure control over energy and mineral resources.
Lenin almost had it right. Instead of fighting among ourselves to sell them the rope with which they will hang us we are fighting for the privilege of buying the rope from them which they will then get to keep.
Worse things happen at sea.
The WordPress engine is eating comments again. Help!
Addendum things now show up after 5 minutes. Some allow editing, some don’t.
Maybe I’ll win a lottery today, same logic.
This entire climate change hoax has been unbelievable from the very beginning. The former communists and socialists, after the fall of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, needed some other way to convince the West to self-destruct. And so we now have the “watermelon” – “Green” (environmentalist) on the outside, but “Red” (socialist) to the core.
The Earth’s climate has always been changing, and is much more dependent upon the output of the sun, then it is upon how much excess “plant food” (CO2) industrial mankind emits into the atmosphere.
Pres Obama was not believable when he was a senator, nor as a candidate, and my worst fears as to how he would govern have been realized. Go ahead, give Gen McChrystal 30,000 more troops, but DON’T give him enough time to effectively utilize them. Appease your conservative critics by “continuing the fight,” but make sure you throw a bone to your hard-core base on the left, and ensure that the troops will “pull out” and leave you enough time to make the issue go away when you need to get re-elected.
Has it escaped most people’s notice that until the Coalition had soundly defeated Al Qaeda and their allies in Iraq through the surge there, that the Taliban in Afghanistan had almost no support from anyone, including their masters in the Pakistani ISI?
I was reading recently how in California, a state with an ongoing financial emergency, not even the most grotesque abuses of public money- such as $100,000 no show jobs for former legislators- are cut. California is a nominal democracy, with direct public participation in lawmaking, yet nothing is done.
But how is this different from Western government in general? We are told we need the government to take care of some vital matter for us, if not for the survival of society, at least for its civilized existence. Laws are passed, money in appropriated, people are hired. The original issue soon becomes part of the background noise. A self-serving lobby is created that will keep the program alive forever, regardless of the cost or benefit. Rich countries seem to be able to afford this, or at least can’t toerate the screams of the righteous if any cuts are proposed.
The climate change racket is just another version of the same thing. Nothing will stop it. It makes the screamers, or those who ascribe righteousness, feel good, and it profits them, so they will get there way. In a few years something will come along again that will demand legislation, money, lawyers, school indoctrination programs, and more government employees. The same political program for implementing it will be run. The same ineffectual conservative/libertarian response will be made- facts and logic against fear, righteous rage, scapegoating of opponents, and all the other techniques socialists have perfected over the last century.
This will go on until Western society collapses and those who couldn’t give a crap about being called racists- the Chinese, maybe the Indians- take over.
It’s the stupid economy. The stupid economy is giving me problems. I have made the smart economy — Universities and stuff — go gang busters!
But the other day, James Carville says to me, he says, “It’s the unemployed stupid! That’s where the trouble is!” What a silly statement. I know this. If they are stupid they are going to be unemployed. That is the very nature of the Darwinian economic system George Bush put in place. But James says, he says, “Those are your voters, Hussein — I mean Barry.” So now I got to find stupid voters jobs. Apparently jobs smart people wouldn’t do before they are now doing, making stupid people redundant (thanks to the Bush economy). So, OK, I will give stupid people “green old moldy government jobs” that will require a lot of green, un-moldy money (and some bowing to foreign potentates). And if the stupid people ain’t smart enough to want them jobs, too bad! We are going to bring back the draft, only for making wind power, not war. Think of summer camp but with lots of work from dawn till bedtime. We are going to use stupid people to build the smart grid.
I will improve the affirmative action program for stupid people joining the Federal government. No longer will my program consist solely of an outreach for stupid cabinet officers and White House Tzars (or is it Tartars, I forget). Here is the new policy I will put in place: If you fail the Civil Service exam by 10 points, I’ll give you 60 bonus points!
Some say the smart people will purposefully fail the exam. But I will prevent that by making it an IQ test. Think of it as a program of dumb carbon credits, but in this case the dumb carbons will be stupid people. In fact, maybe smart people who do well on tests can sell their useless extra points to the dumb carbons — I mean stupid people. George Soros will work it out.
Under the George Bush economy, we had exceptional people and we had challenged people. But I will change that. America will be washed clean (or is it up?): One nation, under “he who cannot be named” (doing that which cannot be discussed), home of the exceptionally challenged and the challenged exceptional.
#6 cas McChrystal already lost the war by himself with his rules of engagement, we will *never* be able to run a hearts and minds program in Pashtunistan.
Dick Morris predicted on Hannity that the Republicans will take both houses in 2010.
RE: China explicit understood that “climate change” was a pet rock business
Now that’s funny.
2. Lawrence said,
“When I win, I’m going to buy a Prius and a jet, to be just like our green betters.”
—
Google subsidizes workers who purchase Prius.
…and jet to see POTUS by private jet?
Let us not forget this is the first Green Xmas @ the Whitehouse:
LED lights for the Christmas Tree.
Christ replaced by desiccated roots from the hallowed Green WH Garden hanging under LED lighting.
This brings to mind something my Mom relates on occasion.
A young black woman came to work in her state government office. The woman had received a 100% scholarship to attend college, followed by a fellowship program in Wash DC where she worked for the Federal Government. Then she got a job with the state government, working in the pollution and health control organization.
The problem was when she got her first paycheck. It had Deductions taken out of it, for income taxes, Medicare taxes, health insurance, social security – the usual. And she was outraged!
“I don’t have to pay this! I am not required to! I never had to before so why do I have to do so now?”
What I want to know is, how can I get in on the carbon credit scam? I’ll sell all the indugences that the fools will buy.
I’ll especially need to scam the system if tax and trade passes here in the US.
CAS as #6.
The environmental Watermelons may have come to full ripeness during the 1990s, but they actually began to take root and grow during the 1970s. In part it was a legacy of the anti-draft movement, which needed to find a new motivation for street protests once Nixon had ended conscription. Then he made things even worse by trying to divert attention from Watergate by “giving” us the EPA, which behaved like both a bureaucracy and an ideological church.
Thrasymachus at #9
I agree with you that the changed ROEs render the troop reinforcements virtually meaningless, but I did not think they were imposed by General McChrystal. I’m under the impression they were forced upon him from above.
Geeze Louise at #10
It will not matter. Any possible corrective measure they might propose will be denounced as racist and quickly abandoned.
Science is dying
Many people looked forward to Obama’s increased awareness and support of the Sciences. I’m pretty sure that this is not what he or his backers wanted.
How are they to increase their hold on the global economy and decrease industry’s capitalism with emerging opinions like this?
Papa Ray
HDGreene, you’re a really funny guy!
“So now I got to find stupid voters jobs.”
Yummy! Biting political satire in the morning. My favorite!
How bout this shambolism?
Buraq refused to photographed during a recent speech at Elmendorf Air Force Base with an F-22 behind him. He and his staff demanded that the F-22 be removed from the hanger.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/03/obama-refused-to-be-photographed-with-f-22/
I guess we’re not supposed to have air superiority or something. It must hurt the feelings of Buraq’s friends – the terrorists. Oh no! Can’t do that.
Hey, maybe we could outfit all our soldiers in Afghanistan with just bows and arrows, instead of all that imperialistic high tech gear and weaponry that is giving our soldiers an unfair advantage. It is just not fair to the Taliban. We need to level the playing field on the battlefield to make it fair. Just think of the symbolism to the rest of the world; we’ll even fight with two hands tied behind our back. Boy, will that improve our standing at the UN, and around the world!
Ever notice how people talk about “Catholic guilt” or “Jewish guilt”, and that a fundamental tenet of Christianity is that we are “all inherently sinners”, the movements within all faiths that involve self-flagellation, etc etc?
Now, as Michael Crichton has so eloquently pointed out, the modern environmental movement has taken on the trappings of a religious faith, adhered to (largely) by people who have abonded monotheism, and which inlcudes the orignal state of grace (Eden), despoiled by sinners (humans), doomed do the fires of hell (warming) if they mend not their evil ways, etc etc.
And a fundamental part of it? Guilt. WE are the sinners. WE must repent. WE must atone for our sins to Gaia. And of course the high priests of it, like the Catholic hierarchy of old, has no qualms about violations therof (they themselves are holy, are they not?) and are so willing to sell indulgences to us for our sins….. I could of course go on and on.
It is genuinely weird, and even makes me wonder about a Darwinian element to it all. It MUST serve some eveloutionary purpose to be that fundamentally imprinted in us all, but that is all a bit beyond me.
But the number of non-Westerners who must be laughing their sweet a–es off over our narcotic desire for feel-good self-destruction makes me sick at heart.
Socialism (Enviro-socialism) IS political heroin. And it will leave the body politic in the same gutter that heroin will leave the human one.
So who is around us to conduct an intervention?
The Obama Surge Plan:
Send in the surge but pull out early.
Let’s call it the “Catholic Birth Control” counterinsurgency strategy.
“I’ll clobber him”
Webb: “This is the City. Los Angeles, California. Some people rob for pleasure. Some rob because it’s there. You never know…,
…,Webb: “That figures. Now let me see if I got the facts straight here. Cleaning woman Clara Clifford discovered your clean copper clappers kept in a closet were copped by Claude Cooper the kleptomaniac from Cleveland. Now, is that about it?”
Carson: “One other thing.”
Webb: “What’s that?”
Carson: “If I ever catch kleptomaniac Claude Cooper from Cleveland who copped my clean copper clappers kept in the closet…”
Webb: “Yes?”
Carson: “I’ll clobber him!”
It is theft, and fraud. Any government taking any action (other than laughing) based upon this colossal combine of creepy conjured “fact”, is no government of mine. Any government colluding with same, is criminal.
Only thing we have to answer is what to do about such behavior. It cannot be allowed to stand.
Wadeusaf
Unsk #19:
Actually, back during Desert Storm, Coleman McCarthy, one of the Wash Post’s main editorialists, wrote a piece that said that the US Military were a bunch of cowards and sissies for not getting down there in the dirt with the Iraqis and instead just bombing the crap out of them with airpower.
Around that same time they were proposing a new “Rules of War” Treaty that said that you could not take unfair advantage of an enemy by using capabilities he did not have. For example, if you were going to war with , say, Fiji, and Fiji did not have an Air Force then you could not use yours.
shambolism? is that the art and science of putting forth, using, and hiding behind shams?
0bambus doesn’t want to be photographed with an F-22? maybe he’s afraid it will bite him. How about a P-47? How about Mohammed’s flying horse?
OK, back to the topic at hand. Just for perspective, should we review the “logic”, such as it is, that justifies paying China to clean up their mess? It’s basically the suicidal “think global, act local”, and when there’s nothing to clean up locally, you contribute money to clean something global, because you think it is still in your own best interest. That’s one view. The other view is that it comprises a moral hazard, a reward for bad behavior, but that’s only if the money is seen as going to Others. If we’re all one planet then kumbiyah, we’re not giving money to others, but to ourselves. OK, that all makes a kind of sense. Maybe. If not, drink some more kool-aid and get back to me.
Anyway, the problem with it is this, that it should be in the Chinese’ own self-interest to do this. And, it’s hard to see that it’s effective, unless there is first a 100% freeze by them on all non-optimally-clean technologies. THEN it MIGHT make sense to share the cleanup of old stuff with them. But to pay them to clean up X while they have not yet bought the policy of all new things being clean – does not look like it will get the job done.
I suppose, in theory, if there is some super-filthy plant in some backwater nation too poor to do it themselves, and it’s a one-off case, and they’re not going to use the clean-up money to build a new filty plant right next door, it might make sense to soak up some modest external cost.
But the modern European culture is very high on self-deception, unrealizable idealism, willful blindness, and hypocrisy of the highest order. Hmm, … and how is this different from, say, 17th century European culture? Or 7th century? I wonder.
One thing missing from this discussion of tactics and strategy, that was in evidence for the Iraqi surge, is any close notion of how this surge of troops will be used to give the Afghanistan army and police breathing room to grow.
There are a number of ways to make the project a success. Few of them can be accomplished withing 18 months, but are we building on a solid foundation of what is there, and not starting from scratch.
I do not know if the Pashtun are now beyond our grasp. For that to be so all of the tribal elders opposed to the Taliban as well as Al Queda would have to be no more, or be so cowed by the Taliban that they dare not even appear to oppose them. It may be the case that this intervention comes too late with too little to salvage the Pashtun on either side of the border.
What a delicious post. Bravo Richard Fernandez. So many canards nailed dead in such a small space. We are fully supplied with ammunition against a week of MSM obfuscation.
Ya can’t but love to watch the AGW lie unravel. Pure popcorn moment.
The exact opposite with Afganistan; tragedy dark and unavoidable.
I think we need to encourage and support whatever hawkishness Obama is able to muster. For that reason, the apologies (again?) and promised withdrawls I see as so much rhetorical lubricant to help his base, uh, accomodate his uh, surge. Oh the squeals of betrayal from the huffing puffers!
Looking like a fool is ok if you do right. Irony here too; Barry as W; he’s workin hard; not easy being the decider.
Globe Theater Shew
“A Warming Tragedy” as
Houston getteth Snow
Josh #24:
“….should we review the “logic”, such as it is, that justifies paying China to clean up their mess?”
Note that is just what we did with Russia. We paid tens millions of dollars for tem to clean up their nuclear messes, including not only dismantling warheads but also that mess of a sub base they have at Murmansk.
And we paid millions to build a plant over there to dispose of their ICBM rocket propellants – and the plant was never used because they used that fuel to launch Western made satellites and undermine our own launch industry. Do a search for ”Heptyl in Russia.”
The Chinese just want the same deal we gave everyone else.
Dishonesty pays. Both AGW and Afghanistan are examples.
Cap and trade, subsidized development of solar and wind power, and other such irrational measures will all make fortunes for the politically connected. Its the money and power. Screw the evidence and the science. Its all irrelevant.
And as for Afghanistan? The conflict there is a gold mine for the Pakistanis. So long as the infection persists in Waziristan cleaning it out of Afghanistan will accomplish nothing–the infection will return once the antibiotic treatment is stopped. In the meantime Pakistan is getting a hell of a lot of US aid which they wouldn’t be getting without that conflict. They aren’t really our allies, they’re playing the Taliban off against the US. They don’t want either side to win, so they refuse to let us strike within their territories that they claim THEY can’t actually control.
In the meantime the suckers have been conned into playing Russian Roulette … with an automatic pistol.
Wretchard, yes Obama does need to “try harder.” Those poll numbers based on “Adults” are about to cross over, something that happened 5 months ago on Rasmussen’s passion index, i.e. the % strongly approving – % strongly disapproving.
Daily figures are posted here: http://tinyurl.com/daily-basis
The monthly chart is especially revealing: http://tinyurl.com/month-by-month
I find Rasmussen’s numbers to be more reliable because they use samples of likely voters. As they state on their site:
“Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama’s numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That’s because some of the President’s most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote.”
RWE @ 29: So, was it overall a good move for us to support the Russian nuke cleanup? I gather that, for what it cost, probably yes.
Still, that was a very critical issue and a very special time for Russia, and a very narrowly scoped project in time and space.
Jody,
Liv’in large..not doing much sitting in front of the computer watching life pass by….just made my second downhill of the day. See you in Whitefish.
23. RWE:
I remember that piece. Coleman McCarthy is an avowed “Pacifist,” which means nothing in the postmodern multiple-truth narrative. McCarthy himself would never have gotten down into the dirt himself, and he’s a prime example of those miserable crapweasels who love to taunt those they consider “chickenhawks.” The guy was so pathetic he wouldn’t let his kids buy hot dogs at Orioles games, making them eat carrot and celery sticks instead. He’s the kind of effeto-weenie who must love the taste of sand.
And as an update, I wonder what he would have to say about the Marines of Fallujah (and so many thousands of our brave men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan), since they had to engage in the very thing he claimed to approve of and demand for the Gulf War.
Starling,
I don’t think very much of the current malaise is Barack Obama’s fault. He was elected consciously or semi-consciously by a significant part of the electorate to carry out an agenda. Much of this agenda may have been thinly veiled euphemisms for other things, but either for lack of perception or out of consent it went forward. Anybody carrying this banner forward would have come to essentially the same fate. The problem with President Obama isn’t really the man but the platform.
The international character of the crisis seems to reinforce the idea that much of the world has just got it wrong. As the days and months go forward that realization is going to manifest itself in falling polls here, falling governments in Europe, may a crisis in the Middle East; perhaps another war involving Israel. But in some large sense they are manifestations of our inability to keep huge and destablizing forces in check.
I forget the French writer who wrote a gripping short story about an 18th century warship at sea from which the cannons on the gundeck had broken loose from their tie-downs. These were massive pieces of steel and iron and as they rolled around in a storm, threatened to kill and maim anything they crossed and more ominously, smash through the hull planking. The balance of the story was about the sailor whose carelessness allowed the cannons to run loose and his dramatic and ultimately successful effort to rope them in. After he succeeds he is decorated and then sentenced to death for nearly sinking the ship. It is from this story that the phrase “loose cannons” is said to come. I can’t find a quick reference to it.
A lot of powerful forces have escaped from the bindings of the post World War 2 system. It worked for 60 odd years, but it’s nearly moribund now. Yet the new ropes to bind our powerful, dysfuncational and technologically advanced world have not yet been woven. We haven’t learned to control OPEC, terrorism, runaway bureaucracies and opaque financial institutions. They’ve compromised much of our information systems. Like the sailor in the story, the world’s publics must try and get the cannons under control, though ultimately it may cost money and a lot of bother to do.
But I suppose that’s the way history works. Nice if the hard parts would pass us by and leave us with only the gravy. But I think the way the world works is that into every life some rain must fall.
Josh #32:
Narrowly scoped?
I would not say so. In 1999 we were still sending the money over and we also diverted Y2K fix money from DoD to Russia when they allowed as how they could not be sure that the year 2000 change would not cause a few missiles to get sent out way.
I’ll bet the nuclear cleanup money is still going every year to Russia – it has become an Entitlement Program. And they are in no rush to get done. After all they were supposedly a “Union.”
This is for Richard–and, of course, for any one else who may be interested.
Sorry to go off-topic, but I don’t know how to contact Richard directly.
I greatly enjoyed Richard’s recent comments on the film, “The Halls of Montezuma.” I also think this is among the finest movies to be made about World II.
Those who agree with this assessment might want to read my book, “Faithful Warriors: A Combat Marine Remembers the Pacific War,” published in May by Naval Institute Press.
I do sincerely believe that this book provides accurately portrays what of our fighting men endured in history’s greatest conflict–what they thought, said, experienced; and, not least, the valor, heroism, and patriotism they exhibited. It does NOT contain the sort of post-modern drivel that Spielberg and his ilk put out in their films; nor is it in the leastways informed by their ambivalent sensibilities concerning what was done, and what needed to be done.
It is one of the last books of its kind, insofar as it contains first- person accounts by the veterans of the 1/8 Marines, 2nd Marine Division, all in their late 80s and early 90s, all soon to depart our ranks.
You can purchase the book at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble, Borders, and all the other usual suspect. My royalties for each sale amount to a few pennies on the dollar–I’m not advertising this book as a means of making money, but to let people know that there alternative out there to that bilge that Hollywood so often produces when dealing with our armed services. And I want people to know about the men who appear in the book: great Marines, great Americans, great friends.
Readers of the book are invited to contact me if you wish to do so. I will assuredly reply.
R@16: It will not matter. Any possible corrective measure they might propose will be denounced as racist and quickly abandoned.
Haven’t heard much from Al Sharpton or Rev Jackson lately. The party turnover doesn’t concern me as much as the incumbent turnover. The Republican Party apparatus has not changed sufficiently to embrace the kind of agenda that Americans seem to be demanding – through the din of confused voices and signals. The Bush Republicans – definitely not. Doesn’t really matter. As noted above, Americans are going to have to start paying for their “stuff” – said stuff which originated on both sides of the aisle. And once that direct connection is made to the wallet, things will start to change. Neither Party platform is fully cognizant of the modern world, as W. notes above, so my guess is that it’s grass roots time with maybe a few brass knuckles and brass balls thrown into the mix.
Well, using the logic everyone else seems to be using, wouldn’t our best plan be to show up and reveal to the world the US will start IMMEDIATELY building all new nuclear power plants, will forgo using coal or oil power plants and that the rest of the world owes us money (or in China’s case debt forgiveness) for reducing our carbon output in such a dramatic fashion? If these are the rules, we can use them in our favor.
The Chinese are a clever race
They say they’re all ‘bout saving face
And so they’ll never tell a lie
Not even kidding on the sly
They say upfront they only care
To do the only thing that’s fair
And what is fair to them, God knows
Is that their land and money grows
So that is why they’ll sell us goods
From missile parts to parka hoods
And smile at global warming news
‘Cause they’re the ones who get to choose
I forget the French writer who wrote a gripping short story about an 18th century warship at sea from which the cannons on the gundeck had broken loose from their tie-downs.
Victor Hugo. Ninety-three. Maybe.
When I first read about what is now referred to as Climategate I knew it would take a long time for the left to come to grips with the news. The more I think about it the more I’m having a hard time with it myself. So many of our present commercial practices and assumptions are based on the idea that CO2 emissions are bad and must be kept to a minimum. If there is no scientific basis for this idea then just about everything touted as “green” by everybody from your grocer to manufacturers of building materials to the enlightened redneck contractor who will do your next remodel is worthless. That’s an awful lot of worthless stuff and much of it is still on the drawing board.
I do believe that the jig is up although it may take years for public sentiment to reject the nonsense. What the semblance of scientific legitimacy did for the climate change cause was to to make potential skeptics bite their tongues or concede that it just might be possible for man-made climate change to be a threat. Some of them went so far as to declare that the threat was real and imminent a la Sarkozy and many others. The real change we’re about to see is that more people will be openly skeptical and outspoken in demanding scientific evidence to support man made doomsday theories. This will shift the burden of proof to the theorists instead of requiring doubters to prove a negative.
We’re seeing the beginnings of this in Congress. I hope this thing snowballs.
What is most amazing and should be THE KEY take-away here is how close the AGW folks got to pulling this sham off. Even though they could not scientifically prove beyond a shadow of a doubt it was a real problem LARGE numbers of people bought it hook, line, and sinker. If not for the hacked servers, we would still be hurtling toward our own serious wounding (economically, perhaps more). Be well advised, they will not make the same mistake again. Please. please sheeple- WAKE UP!
What’s sadly funny is that the AGW alarmists are generally people who would scoff at those who hold traditional religious vies, and yet THEY are the ones who have taken a true Fundamentalist Religious position on this matter. (Wasn’t it Chesterton who said that the man who believes nothing will believe anything?)
No criticism allowed! No skepticism permitted! Ye Must Believe, or be cast out of the Congregation!!! Heresy must be punished!
This new religion has got a Priesthood, (Jones, Mann, Hansen) dietary restrictions, (Gaia cries when you eat meat!) indulgences (er, carbon credits), and it’s even got the promise of hellfire and eternal damnation for all unless we mend our wicked ways!
REPENT!!! ye will all all perish in flames unless ye REPENT! Hear the word of the Prophet and REPENT!!!
At least they could try to get some new tunes — the hymns they’re singing are already getting pretty stale.
Roughcoat (#37):
Just now I ordered your book on Amazon.com.
Look forward to reading it.
Best,
Jamie Irons
It’s all truly insane, as in completely divorced from reality, delusional. The carbon stuff has no scientific basis, but even if you stipulate for the sake of argument that it does, the actual policies and practices make no sense, which is why Hansen at NASA is going (excuse me) ballistic.
As for Afghanistan, a question I would like to put to VDH, has there EVER been a war where at the time of the declaration or commitment of blood and treasure, one of the parties said that regardless of success or failure, it intends to wind down as of a date certain? I can’t imagine the logic, is there some precedent?
No wander the cadets looked glum.
John Kerry, I think it was, speaking of Vietnam in the early 1970s, asked who would want to be the last soldier to die in a lost cause… words to that effect. One of the few things Kerry ever said that is worth thinking about, even if his motives were bad.
Well, who would want to die for a fight not worth winning, just buying time, and the time not strategic but just to let some pols finesse a domestic political issue?
Who would want to die for that, and even more, what kind of leader would send that person to die?
#41 peterike
Wikipedia says that Victor Hugo is the first one to have used the expression “loose cannon”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety_Three
in this book the action is taking place in the countryside where I was born
I still remember my father calling people who were sucking the bigoted catholic authorities, (the mayor was a former seminarist too) “chouans”
35. wretchard,
Certainly a good deal of the unemployment numbers can be laid on BHO’s Harry’s and Nancy’s doorsteps, from the Healthcare Monstrosity to rumors of Cap and Trade, higher taxes, more rules and regulations, the level of uncertainty about the business climate in the future has seldom been higher.
Few (other than Govt’s Cronies on Wall St.) see any reason to invest in the future.
#35 wretchard:
“But I think the way the world works is that into every life some rain must fall.”
Jeez, I want some of what your drinking. America is about to go bankrupt, we are being led by a group of people who hate America and are trying their very best to bring us down to being a third world country, where the rest of the world is falling apart, where America and the pieces of the rest of the world are to be picked apart by Islamics, commies, world gulping socialism and you can say that.
Like I said, give me some of whatever your drinking today.
I need it. I can’t go anywhere today because my grand daughters have invited three of their friends to have a sleep over and I’ll be damned if I will leave them here to destroy the house.
Have a delivery service bring it over, I will give them a big tip.
Papa Ray
Off topic but needs to be read and understood just how important this decision will be:
“Killing Slaughterhouse”
Keep your eye on it. Your freedoms are at stake. More than you would think.
Papa Ray
OT
From Sean Linnane via Theo Sparks spud farm.
Please help get this story out, they are abusing a 90 yo Medal of Honor Colonel in Virginia. If I was in the area I’d be asking to join an Honor Guard for this gentleman and his flagpole. I hope this story is being printed out and stuck on bulletin boards all around the Pentagon.
Linnane also has a disturbing aviation security related story further down the page.
Let’s help Earth heal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDhoaXZGJHM
Sorry Wretchard, I have to agree with 49/Papa Ray. Markets and businessmen are anticipatory in nature. Once, the polls started indicating an 0bama/Hillary win investors money moved off-shore and businessmen prepared for an economic decline.
Looking back, I don’t think businessmen ever expected the economic decline to be so destructive. We have a con-artist as CinC and the Clinton’s are essentially back in office with their mob of lobbyists. Money is running down the gutter because of those who are in DC.
Hopefully, the snake oil drenched Dolt in office will be tossed out and some sense of sanity will return – but, I am in gold and other inflation hedge investments – and I am not holding my breath.
VDH says We Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!
It’s been two weeks and ABC, NBC, and CBS broadcast news have said nada about Climategate.
Fox the Truth Hander, “There can be only one.”
54. Papa Ray:
Coming from a classical historian, that’s scary indeed.
As for the big 0’s commitment to the war in Afghanistan, Iowahawk has a good description.
[Picture of the big 0 looking like Gen. Patton]
‘…it’s probably a good time for us to review our Afghan battlefield “dos and don’ts.” As in any afternoon overseas contingency operation, the main thing to remember is “safety first.” I don’t want to have to call your parents and tell them you got hurt or killed on the trip. I mean, come on, how do you think that would make me look? The best way to keep that from happening is not to use your guns unless you really, really have to. If you run into some bullies with IEDs or RPGs, the best thing is to just ignore them and walk away. Bullies like that thrive on attention and martyrdom, so don’t give them the satisfaction that they got under your skin enough for you to blow them up…’
‘Like I was saying, it’s critical to remember our dos and don’ts. Remember, we’re the visiting superpower so we have to show some extra good sportsmanship. I don’t want to hear about you guys shooting anywhere there are women, or children, or civilians, or anywhere everybody isn’t in an enemy uniform. I don’t want my team labeled a bunch of spoiled war criminals. If you really really need to shoot someone, make sure you ask your chain of command to call me for permission first. And when the final whistle blows at 5 pm, I want you to go over and high five the other team…’
See:
Brigadier General Barack H. Obama
Supreme Allied Commander-in-Chief, Operation Minivan Pool
http://tinyurl.com/ydtmo8y
re: VDH,
3 Headlines involving Larry Summers:
Headline #1: Harvard Endowment Fund Losses Reach 11 Billion
Headline #2: Harvard Whistleblower Fired
A former quantitative analyst at Harvard Management Company, the university’s once-vaunted endowment manager, tells the Harvard Crimson she was fired for voicing concern to then-university president Larry Summers’ chief of staff about the money manager’s risky use of derivatives the traders didn’t understand.
The episode dates back to 2002, when analyst Iris Mack, whose website identifies her as the second African American woman to earn a Harvard PhD. in applied math (and someone who likes primary colors) joined the much-venerated Harvard Management Company, which invests the university’s then $18 billion endowment, to find what she termed a “frightening” state of affairs.
“The group I was working for had no background whatsoever to be working on [derivatives],” Mack says, adding that, to her knowledge, several of her colleagues were not licensed securities traders. “Sometimes the ways they handled even basic Black-Scholes models [widely used to price stock options] were puzzling.”
So Mack took inventory of the abuses — high employee turnover, lax risk management practices and a “low level of productivity in the workplace” were among others, and detailed them in an email to Marne Levine, Summers’ chief of staff and a Treasury staffer on the Obama Transition Team. (Summers was the only person to whom Meyers reported, and according to a recent Forbes story he personally ordered the university’s biggest derivatives trade, a purchase of interest rate swaps that cost the university billions this year.)
A month after sending her email, Mack was fired after a meeting in which the endowment fund’s then-chief furnished her the emails and castigated her for making “baseless accusations.” She later sued for wrongful termination and settled out-of-court with the university. But she claims the practices “shocked” her, and — the punchline is — she had joined the company from Enron.
Headline #3:
Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government
The ultralow interest rates the U.S. has been paying on its colossal debt may not last much longer, and the White House estimates that the tab will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019.
Wretchard, the whole piece is great but this is just outstanding:
“It’s a wonderful arrangement in which Europeans and Americans pay the Chinese to send them a certificate of forgiveness for their carbon transgressions while supplying their competitors not only with the funds to undercut their domestic industries, but pollute the world into the bargain. Does it make sense? Does it have to? In a strange reversal of cultures the Chinese and the Indians seem able to see things for exactly what they are while the West engages in an elaborate game of self-deception. Recently, the German magazine Spiegel wrote an article entitled “Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic”, spoofing the apparent demand for Deus ex machinas solutions to problems. There was a time when colored beads were sold to the East and the West demanded gold. Today it is the West that is buying the colored beads.”
ledger #53 wrote: “Once, the polls started indicating an 0bama/Hillary win investors money moved off-shore and businessmen prepared for an economic decline.”
I don’t disagree, but this is does not explain the whole story.
In early September, McCain had a small lead. And Obama was really flailing and looking like he might blow the easiest election in history.
Then Lehman collapsed and the financial crisis started. The economy deteriorated rapidly enough to get Obama to the Whitehouse.
I don’t attribute any causality from the political to the economic/financial from this episode. (I don’t believe the financial crisis happened because it looked like McCain would win)
“The economy deteriorated rapidly enough to get Obama to the Whitehouse”
—
The lemmings that voted for BHO did not need a deteriorated economy to get them to the polls.
The economy was what it was.
The Obama Team’s insistence on repeating Japan’s mistakes (Now entering it’s third decade of malaise) leaves us with the economy we have now.
To imply that businessmen and investors would not take actions in response to the upcoming election of a Marxist-Leftist, defies credulity.
Angel Martin,
There are some regulars in the Club who have advanced the theory that McCain’s implosion after a strong Convention showing was engineered by deliberately crashing the economy using offshore pools of money. It is possible to consider that credible, or at least worth considering, without wandering into tin foil hat territory.
McCain suspended his campaign for two days,thinking he’d get credit for being a “Statesman.” The Press took the opportunity to savage him.
I just heard NPR’s Saturday morning show – it is climate change/global warming/blah blah…they dismissed the East Anglia emails or “Climategate” as just a spat between scientists. My question is where are the young investigative journalists who should be exposing this hoax? What happened to journalism? I thought it was the perfect tool for the rebellious young to make their mark on a world of official pompous buffoons and idiots. Instead, we have and entire generationn of young people going along with their boomer grandparents hippy/stoner ideas. The near blackout in the media about the Climategate emails is not to be believed. Where is the competitive spirit among journalists? What happened to the ambitions of young journalists? Do they just ignore these stories and write about house fires? I’m looking for a cadre of sharp and cynical young journalists to do research and expose all the flim-flam of their boomer elders…where are you?
to: #62 Lifeofthemind
re: financial crisis was deliberate and engineered in favour of Obama.
I don’t think so. The precipitating event was allowing Lehman to fail. I am sure that if they had known the result, Paulson, Bernanke and co would not have done it.
I never assume conspiracy when cluelessness / bad judgement will explain it.
“I’m looking for a cadre of sharp and cynical young journalists to do research and expose all the flim-flam of their boomer elders…where are you?”
—
Steve Crowder at Pajamas Media is one.
Fox, talk-radio, do their parts.
All that’s left is for us to mount up in support of the cause!
65. Thanks Doug; even so, doesn’t it seem like the competitive system would throw up a few rebellious types even within the MSM? What a bizarre culture of conformity it must be over there…
59. Angel Martin, I agree; I would like to see Richard Fernandez put together a book of short paragraphs on various topics of the contemporary scene. I’m thinking of the books that Eric Hoffer came out with in the 1970s. Short evocative paragraphs that get you thinking along different tracks. I think it could have great power and effect on the national conversation.
Good morning all!
I think Lehman’s failure shows things had already precipitated.
McCain lost because he was a bad candidate – gave up his base thinking them locked in, campaigned as the RINO that the MSM loved, has always been a loose cannon and a maverick, was older than I personally felt was acceptable, had a campaign staff and organization that was less than ideal.
Obama was a lovely figurehead for the left, they were all able to get behind him with hope and change, he was clean and articulate, and had not a single idea in his pretty little head to get in the way of a good campaign.
Argh.
And VDH is wrong in that oil prices are already too high and almost as much as other factors is a cause of CURRENT, not future, problems.
In the face of the revelations of climategate, we all can be relieved that our Dear Leader Buraq has not given up on imposing draconian carbon emission regulations, from “The Swamp” :http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/12/obama_moves_back_copenhagen_vi.html
President Barack Obama will push back his visit to the international climate change treaty negotiations in Copenhagen from the first week of the conference to its final scheduled day, a senior White House official said this afternoon.
The move comes in response to greenhouse gas emissions reduction pledges made in recent days by China and India. It will put Obama at the conference at the same time as dozens of other heads of state, and it immediately raises expectations anew for some type of climate agreement to result from the talks.
By switching his visit from Dec. 9 to Dec. 18, Obama appears to be betting that his presence can – as he has expressed hope for several times in the past – push the negotiations “over the top” toward an agreement.”
Either Buraq is absolutely clueless, or I see a looming constitutional crisis where Buraq and friends impose draconian environmental treaty obligations on America without the necessary Senate approval ( which he’ll never get).
When you move your schedule to visit just the closing ceremonies, then all you need is a flat tire to miss the whole thing.
I’ve been going at it with the warmists at other places the last few days. In particular defending Steve McIntyre’s honor. (Not that he needs much help from little old me … ) In the process I’ve come up with an analogy that I think the Club might appreciate:
During the canonization process of Mother Theresa, Christopher Hitchens, noted atheist and Mother Theresa critic, was invited to the Vatican to serve as the “Devil’s Advocate” in the proceedings, arguing freely against sainthood. He was surprized by the respectful treatment and the assistance in the Vatican library that he was given. How is it that the Catholic church, explicitly grounded in faith, is more confident than climate scientists, ostensibly gounded in scientific method?
I think that the very public deployment of the
more preditors and the public discussion US Paki
negotiations to get US bombing rights over AQ headquarters in quetta–is meant to force AQ hand. Its meant to force them out of their comfort zone.
One result of that was the recent boming of a paki mosque full of ranking paki army officers. AQ wants to play the same kill your leaders game as the US–but that’s sure the force the screws on them harder ie make quetta a target. Another example is reports that Mullah Omar has moved to karachi. Is he more or less vulnerable there? seems to me he is more vulnerable.
The result of AQ moves is to daily force the paki’s to turn away from the double game they’ve been playing for years.
#72 Charles writes:
The result of AQ moves is to daily force the paki’s to turn away from the double game they’ve been playing for years.
And that is the bitter price from trying to pretend that you can serve two masters, and you have the conceit that you can hide your service to one from the other. When all is said and done it just demonstrates that stupid is as stupid does, and ultimately, when things get rough, the stupid become organic fertilizer.
70. Josh:
73. Tcobb:
and you have the conceit that you can hide your service to one from the other.
….
the Pakis are worried that the deployment of more US troops will force the taliban/aq over the border back into pakistan where they will cause more mayhem.
what can the pakis do to defend themselves? because they’re going to need a whole lot more defending.
that also means that AQ and Taliban every day make more enemies among the elite and people of Pakistan–since they now see the paki gov as equally bad as the USA. (they didn’t before.)
This asia times piece does a good job of telling the story.
>>The same ineffectual conservative/libertarian response will be made- facts and logic against fear, righteous rage, scapegoating of opponents, and all the other techniques socialists have perfected over the last century.
This will go on until Western society collapses and those who couldn’t give a crap about being called racists- the Chinese, maybe the Indians- take over.<<
I'm with you, Thraz. Facts & Logic versus Emotions: Emotions win, with most humans, every time.
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