Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

They myth of Sweden as a successful socialist country.

"Indeed, with just a few exceptions, nearly all large Swedish companies were started during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which was not only a period of strong growth, but also the time when the foundation for later economic growth was laid.

Another factor which continued Swedish prosperity was the fact that Sweden was able to stay out of both World Wars, and indeed all other wars as well. Sweden is in fact the country with the longest consecutive period of peace, having fought no war since 1809, when Sweden was invaded by Russia, losing Finland to the invader.

Sweden has thus enjoyed 5 more years of peace than Switzerland, which participated in the Napoleonic wars in 1814. As a result of its free market policies, the resourcefulness of its people, and its successful avoidance of war, Sweden had the highest per-capita income growth in the world between 1870 and 1950, by which time Sweden had become one of the world's richest countries, behind only the United States and Switzerland, and Denmark (who have since also fallen behind because of high taxes)."

Momentum is a key factor on economies. We're wealthy today not because of our policies today, but because of the economic freedom our ancestors enjoyed but we do not and the savings they built up but we do not, powering the accumulation of capital that makes the goods we consume today. But because of our lack of economic freedom and lack of savings, we're consuming capital, ensuring a poorer future.

"Even in the early 1950s, Sweden was still one of the freest economies in the world, and government spending relative to GDP was in fact below the American level."

That's an inconvenient fact for the socialists.

ECONOMY:

China is bursting at the seams with entrepreneurs. Because of the burden of government in the US, the US is not. I think the indexes of economic freedom are inaccurate.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Judge Napolitano illustrates how the Fed creates fiat money and the illusion of wealth out of thin air.

EDUCATION:

Government schools are bad for your kids. You don't say.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Sweet summary of many related stories showing the global warming fraud is falling apart before our eyes.

"The piece was inspired by another bravura performance by Professor Ian Plimer, the Aussie geologist who argues that climate change has been going on quite naturally, oblivious of human activity, for the last 4,567 million years."

Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. I say it all the time, but I prefer, "Climate has been changing for four billion years, and it will continue changing for four billion more." Feel free to use my line. I'm glad to hear at least two scientists are attempting to get the CRU team charged with criminal fraud.

"Their case, quite simply, is that the scientists implicated in Climategate have gained funding and career advancement by twisting data, hiding evidence, and shutting out dissenters by corrupting the peer-review process."

How long have I been saying Al Gore and the other leaders of this movement should be investigated for fraud? Glad to see I'm no longer the only one publicly calling for it. But just because this fraud is unraveling is no reason to quit pressing our congresscrooks. I remember many people proclaiming Obamacare was dead in August and very few of us were saying otherwise.

Excerpts and full summary of climategate from Lord Monckton.

"The whistleblower deep in the basement of one of the ugly, modern tower-blocks of the dismal, windswept University of East Anglia could scarcely have timed it better.
In less than three weeks, the world’s governing class – its classe politique – would meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to discuss a treaty to inflict an unelected and tyrannical global government on us, with vast and unprecedented powers to control all once-free world markets and to tax and regulate the world’s wealthier nations for its own enrichment: in short, to bring freedom, democracy, and prosperity to an instant end worldwide, at the stroke of a pen, on the pretext of addressing what is now known to be the non-problem of manmade “global warming”."

That's quite the teaser intro. I didn't realize the hacker had first sent this data to the mainstream media (outlet or outlets not named), and they refused to report on it. How pathetic.

"He had revealed what many had long suspected:

- A tiny clique of politicized scientists, paid by unscientific politicians with whom they were financially and politically linked, were responsible for gathering and reporting data on temperatures from the palaeoclimate to today’s climate. The “Team”, as they called themselves, were bending and distorting scientific data to fit a nakedly political story-line profitable to themselves and congenial to the governments that, these days, pay the bills for 99% of all scientific research."

Just as we thought.

"Contrary to all the rules of open, verifiable science, the Team had committed the criminal offense of conspiracy to conceal and then to destroy computer codes and data that had been legitimately requested by an external researcher who had very good reason to doubt that their “research” was either honest or competent."

Interesting point. That data was paid for by taxpayers. Since scientists never destroy their data, ownership has never been an issue. This could spill out of the scientific community into a general property rights issue. I kind of doubt it because I imagine a grant is just a grant. These scientists didn't work for the government per se, though they were funded by it. But this is more fuel for my prediction that eventually the politicians who were eyeballs deep in this fraud will call for a government takeover of science. This summary is a great read.

Long description of "Mike's nature trick" and the decline (in post 1960 proxy data) it was intended to hide. The primary goal of this fraud was to hide the Medieval warm period, a time from 900 to 1,300 AD when temperatures were warmer than they are today and then make it appear temperatures started rising dramatically after 1960. Article calls this the greatest scientific fraud in history. I'd like to see a comparison to other scientific frauds. There's no doubt there's more at stake than in any other scientific fraud in history.

"As the mainstream media move from abject denial to dismissive whitewashing, CRU co-conspirators move to Copenhagen for tomorrow’s UN climate meeting, intent on changing the world as we know it based primarily on their now exposed trickery. Add yesterday’s announcement of a UN investigation into the matter, which will no doubt be no less corrupt than those being investigated, and public awareness of how and why that trick was performed is now more vital than ever."

This is the biggest story since the economic collapse or maybe even 9/11, yet the mainstream media continues to ignore it while proclaiming it's more important than the internet and the internet just piggybacks off it.

"After all, the stakes are enormous – perhaps trillions of dollars and unquestionably every American’s personal liberties."

The bias of the mainstream media is making it irrelevant and putting it out of business. Here's why so much is at stake in this fraud:

"And while reconstructions — as past temperature interpretations from proxy data are called — can differ greatly from one source to another, those generated by the CRU have often been accepted as the de facto temperatures of the past.

Largely because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proclaims them to be."

The entire anthropogenic global warming fraud is based on the fraudulent reports from CRU. This is a super explanation and history of how and why this fraud progressed.

Important reminder that we were well aware of rampant fraud in the global warming fraud crowd before this hacker dumped his data. This data provides new info into how the fraud was managed including corruption of the peer review process and the extent it reached. But the computer code is the smoking gun.

"But the computer code is transparently fraudulent. Here, one finds matrices that add unexplained numbers to recent temperatures and subtract them from older temperatures (these numbers are hard-programmed in), splining observational data to model data, and other smoking guns, all showing that they were doing what was necessary to get the answers that the IPCC wanted, not the answers that the data held. They knew what they were doing, and why they were doing it."

That's the effect of poisoned government money on everything it touches.

This article calls Climategate the biggest scientific scandal in a generation. I want to see a list.

"What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
...
The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC's scientific elite, including not just the "Hockey Team", such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC's 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore's ally Dr James Hansen [of NASA - LIW], whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.
...
Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.
...
The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.
...
The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work."

Nice summary of the importance of the scandal.

Calling Climategate the death blow to climate science is premature, but calling the CRU a criminal cabal sounds right.

"[Director] Jones gave a foretaste of his behavior in 2005. Warwick Hughes asked for the data and method he used for his claim of a 0.6°C temperature rise since the end of the nineteenth century. Jones responded, “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” He has stonewalled ever since."

That is not the response of a man of science. It's the response of a politician. Stonewalling is inconsistent with science. Manipulating the peer review process is inconsistent with science. Manipulating, hiding and destroying data is inconsistent with science. It's politics. I hope these guys get prosecuted. At the very least, I hope they never find work doing science again. Anybody who would hire them opens themselves up to concerns of fraud.

"These people controlled the global weather data used by the IPCC through the joint Hadley and CRU and produced the HadCRUT data. They controlled the IPCC, especially crucial chapters and especially preparation of the Summary for PolicyMakers (SPM). Stephen Schneider was a prime mover there from the earliest reports to the most influential in 2001. They also had a left wing conduit to the New York Times. The emails between Andy Revkin and the community are very revealing and must place his journalistic integrity in serious jeopardy. Of course the IPCC Reports and especially the SPM Reports are the basis for Kyoto and the Copenhagen Accord, but now we know they are based on completely falsified and manipulated data and science. It is no longer a suspicion."

More on how significant this is.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

Arguing for jury nullification is barking up the wrong tree. Juries have no incentive to acquit. Individual jurors don't fear that they'll be wrongly arrested, tried and convicted. Nobody does until it happens to them. Especially white jurors. So for a juror who doesn't have that fear, it's in his best interest to convict. If he convicts an innocent man, he loses nothing from his point of view. If he acquits a guilty man, he might be the next victim of crime. As long as people are more afraid of criminals than government, jurors have no incentive to acquit. Our problem is the people lionize government, not that they aren't informed of their power as jurors.

WAR:

Now this is a powerful argument that the war in Afghanistan is illegal based on the war on terror authorization resolution. I want to congratulate this author on taking this issue on head on. Most antiwar activists pretend this authorization doesn't exist. Unfortunately, the authorization is vague enough that you can't conclude the Afghan war is illegal since the authorization includes the text,

"That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

The Taliban harbored al Qaeda, so as likely as it is that Congress did not intend this war resolution to enable long-term nation building in Afghanistan, the sloppily worded text of the resolution did enable an open ended war against the Taliban. Also, Congress has the power to end the war in Afghanistan any time it wants. If Congress thought the war was illegal, it could end it today. Congress controls the purse. Obviously Congress doesn't want to end the war. Bush needed a different authorization for Iraq because Saddam Hussein didn't harbor or aid al Qaeda. I agree with this guy's sentiment, but his argument is flawed. We should end the war in Afghanistan because it's the right thing to do even though it is a legal war. It's funny how people of all ideologies including libertarians try to interpret laws and the Constitution to mean what they wish they meant instead of what they say.

Judge Napolitano makes a bizarrely different argument - he claims that the authorization for the use of military force is not a declaration of war. Unfortunately, he never provides a basis for this distinction. He never explains why he thinks this authorization is not a formal declaration of war. The constitution sets no restrictions on the form of a declaration of war, so on what does Napolitano base his claim?

Here's my email to Napolitano on the subject:

"I think your reasoning on military tribunals in the war on terror is wrong because the authorization for use of military force is a declaration of war.

Here's my reasoning:

The constitution speaks for itself. Any laws including so-called constitutional laws (court decisions) that contradict the constitution are null and void. The constitution grants the power to declare war to Congress. It grants no power to Congress to authorize military force other than declaring war. The constitution puts no requirements of form on a declaration of war, so when Congress authorizes the use of the military against an enemy, it is declaring war.

Based on what you wrote about Ex Parte Quirin, a meaningless decision since the co-equal judicial branch has no power over the executive or legislative branches or war, it seems to agree with me. Since the tools of war cannot be employed without a formal declaration of war, it follows that the authorization for use of military force is a formal declaration of war."

To put it another way, according to the Constitution, an authorization for the use of military force by Congress can't be anything but a declaration of war. To put it another other way, the only power to authorization the use of military force the Constitution grants to Congress is a declaration of war, ipso facto, an authorization for the use of military force by Congress is a declaration of war.

It sounds like those WWII tribunals are the perfect model we should use for all the terrorists, but because Napolitano is wrong about the declaration of war, his conclusions regarding the tribunals are wrong. If Napolitano was right, if this was not a war declared by Congress, then tribunals should be the least of his concerns. If he was right, everybody in the Bush administration who authorized or carried out imprisonment without trials and harsh interrogation techniques would indisputably be criminals. Anybody in the Obama administration continuing those policies or pushing military tribunals would indisputably be criminals too. Maybe this is what the anti-war left is so rabid about.

I don't know when I got in the habit of not capitalizing Constitution. I need to fix that.

I agree with Napolitano about the Cole bombers. Congress had not declared war at the time of the Cole bombing. Actually, I wonder about the jurisdiction in the Cole case. Should those guys be tried in Yemen? Is a warship considered US territory like an embassy or overseas military base? If it is, then they should be tried in federal court. Is a US airplane or truck considered US territory? Where is the line drawn? China sure didn't consider that US spy plane US territory.

"Think about it: If the president could declare war on any person or entity or group simply by calling his pursuit of them a "war," there would be no limit to the government's ability to use the tools of war to achieve its ends. We have a "war" on drugs; can drug dealers be tried before military tribunals? We have a "war" on the Mafia; can mobsters be sent to Gitmo and tried there? The Obama administration has arguably declared "war" on Fox News. Are Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and I and my other colleagues in danger of losing our constitutional rights to a government hostile to our opinions?"

This is a really weak straw man argument. He conveniently ignores the authorization of military force. Neither Congress nor the president can legally declare war on Americans. Treason is a civilian crime. That's not to say that our aristocrats won't wage war on us anyway since they recognize no limits on their power. But this brings up an often overlooked point - without a formal declaration of war (or authorization of military force by any other name), the military cannot legally be employed against drug cartels. We have no legal justification for using the military in the drug war in South America. I wonder where the Coast Guard fits into this. Is it federal law enforcement or military?

"[The Coast Guard] is unique among the military branches in that it has a maritime law enforcement mission (with jurisdiction both domestically and in international waters) and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set."

That sounds contradictory. I'll have to check my Constitution to see how that's constitutional. Seven uniformed services? I can't find any conclusive links, but a number of articles I've looked at claim that warships are considered the sovereign territory of their home country. That straw man argument settles it for me: even Napolitano isn't immune from allowing wishful thinking to infect his reading of the Constitution.

MISC:

Apdesignco.com and lostpolitics.com are still down. Maybe the government shut down H4P.

Man who discovered HIV reports that a strong immune system can overcome it and recommends nutrition, hygiene and clean water to fight it in Africa. Huh? It's obvious that we've been misinformed about AIDS and HIV. AIDS may turn out to be the second biggest scientific scandal of our generation and for the same reason - it's funded by government money poisoned with the political agenda of aristocrats.

I love this headline from the Onion: Christ turns down 3 year, multi-million dollar deal to coach Notre Dame.

""I love Notre Dame and respect their football legacy, but no matter what you've accomplished before coaching there, once you're a Golden Domer, the expectations, frankly, are unrealistic," said Christ, whose family has been involved with the university since its founding. "I've had people turn on Me before, and it really put Me through hell."

Oh man, that's funny.