So why is this self-inflicted?  The key piece of evidence is what the Palestinian leader is asking for from Israel: a cessation of settlements in the Gaza strip and a return to the indefensible 1967 borders.  I wonder where he could have gotten the idea that that was ever on the table?

Obama’s gaffe in May, that the talks should start “with the 1967 borders with mutually agreed swaps” certainly emboldened Abbas to ask for what was never on the table.  Add to that, Obama’s confused and counterproductive statements on settlements.  It’s clear that Abbas is trying to leverage Obama’s gaffe-a-day administration into an unsustainable position for Israel.  So congratulations, Obama, your speeches have finally had a real-life impact.

Smiley tries to re-define the word “lie” as giving information that turns out to be incorrect, whether or not you knew it to be at the time.  Logically, then Tavis Smiley must think Obama lied about the stimulus plan’s impact on unemployment.  Obama said that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8%.  It’s been over 9% for almost his entire presidency.  By Tavis Smiley’s definition, Obama lied to the American people.  He wanted a Kenseyian solution, and he sold the stimulus bill to the American people.  The fact that Obama honestly believed the stimulus would work is, according to Smiley, irrelevant.

By Tavis Smiley’s confused attempt at logic, Merle Hodge lied when he said the Rams would beat the Eagles this week; and the entire sports world lied when they said the Patriots would beat my beloved Giants in Superbowl XLII.  It’s an idiotic stance to take, and if liberals at PBS think NPR was right for firing Juan Williams, PBS should take a long look at Tavis Smiley’s contract.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.
But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

At the time, the Spanish empire was crumbling and the United States had just purchased its newest territory, Florida.  Adams was arguing that America should not be involved in the wars for independence, and should instead remain a passive example of hope and democracy.  In the almost 200 years that have passed since Adams’s speech to Congress, a lot has changed.

It is true that stomping around the world, looking for monsters can draw unwanted attention, and can even create new monsters.  One could argue that al Qaeda would not have attacked the United States, had we not kept a base in Saudi Arabia.  Osama bin Laden’s 1996 and 1998 fatwas certainly support that view.  But leaving Saudi Arabia alone in the 1990′s would have meant empowering Saddam Hussein, the only leader ever to order the use of nerve gas.

Just as leaving England would have meant allowing Adolf Hitler to grow in power, or leaving Germany would have strengthened the Soviets and leaving Japan would have meant ceding the Pacific to China; allowing despots and dictators to grow to regional powers allows the monster to feed, to fester and to search abroad to satisfy its power lust.  Our strength does not feed tyrants–our weakness does. “None of the four wars in [the twentieth century] came about because we were too strong. It’s weakness that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments.”

An environment that allows despots and tyrants free reign over their people or a region may have be tolerable when oceans served as moats, and men flew only in poetry.  Today’s monsters may still live abroad, but their reach has grown.

In 1821, the force required to raze a city would have been carried by ships–plural.

Only two years before Adams made his remarks, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic did so in 18 days.  Today, you can fly from LA to Singapore in 18 hours.  Correspondence that once was done by letters delivered on horseback, by train, by sail or steamboat, over the course of weeks or months, can now be done via satellite video conference in an instant.

Trips that would take a lifetime to plan and a fortune to finance can now be booked casually as a week-long holiday.  There is no place on Earth that cannot be reached from any other within 24 hours.  But the same technology that lets us relax in another hemisphere can also be used to kill thousands without warning on a clear, Tuesday morning.

In 1821, the force required to raze a city would have been carried by ships–plural.  It’s hard even for the federal government to miss an armada, and they don’t even have to grope coeds in the airport.  In 1821, Governments waged wars. Guerilla warfare was in its fledgling stages, and major conflicts were fought between standing armies.

Today, religious fanatics slaughter civilians indiscriminately.  One fanatic can kill hundreds. 19 fanatics can kill thousands.  The power to destroy a city can be carried in a suitcase, or in a plastic bag, wrapped in newspaper.  There are weapons that can wipe out entire cities in a blinding flash, infect millions with horrible disease or set an economy back for decades.   All that is needed is for one guard to miss a clue as the Ryder truck drives past; one TSA agent to be distracted; one metal detector to click when it should beep.

The monster may still walk abroad, but it can slip through our defenses without warning, act quickly, and leave nothing but tattered steel and broken bodies.  Do we trust our lives and our safety to our untrained citizens to see something and say something?  Do we rely on the TSA to succeed 100% of the time? Or do we ask SEAL Team 6, Army Rangers and the 10th Mountain Division to hunt the bastards down where they live?  I know who I trust more to get the job done.

To keep our lives and our liberty, rough men must slip into its cave at night and slit its beastly throat.

The first, and most important function of government is to protect its citizens from harm.  It is the primary purpose of the social contract–we join together to hold off the Hun.  In today’s world, protecting ourselves here, means slaying the monster abroad.  It cannot be allowed to grow, to breed, or to fester.  To keep our lives and our liberty, rough men must slip into its cave at night and slit its beastly throat.

Isolationism, whether out of economic conservatism or a laissez faire diplomacy, is institutional negligence.  If our government is to meet its primary responsibility, it must go abroad in search of monsters to slay.  To do otherwise is to invite the monster here–and it has no reservations about slaying us.

The implication, then is that Reagan’s handling of the Cold War was a misstep; that America’s success in the Cold War was not worth the negative press and hurt feelings it brought. Perhaps Obama is right; perhaps the world was better off with a divided Germany, an ever more powerful and belligerent Russia and a feeble and weak America, just the way Obama’s predecessor in ideology left it.

But perhaps not.  Perhaps the world is better off with peaceful (though perhaps corrupt) democracies spreading globally.  Perhaps the world is better with a united Germany, able to drag Europe, kicking and screaming, out of the next Dark Ages. Perhaps, by freeing the world, we will finally be at peace because a democracy free to choose will never choose war.

Reagan was famously asked what his strategy was for the Cold War.  “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.” was his reply.  More and more it seems that Obama’s response to a similar question today would be “We lose, they win.” This seems more likely to be the Obama doctrine than the laughable “leading from behind,” but perhaps it’s the same thing.

The thing about Obama is that he is too naive to realize that dictators are not just poor, misunderstood people who weren’t hugged enough as children. Simply saying that Qadaffi should step down is useless. Saying that and then saying that you are tying the hands of the most powerful military in the world so they will not do anything about it, is shooting yourself in the foot.

There are three ways to get rid of a brutal dictator:

1. Convince him that you’re willing to come into his home at night and slit his throat.
2. Convince his army and mercenaries that they are better off coming into his home at night and slitting the dictator’s throat–and let him know that.
3. Wait for him to die in power.

By waiver and waffling, Obama has taken 1 and 2 off the table. That’s the trouble with Barry.

Before Obama won election in 2008, a typically frank Joe Biden had this to say to supporters of his then candidacy:

“Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate, and he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

“Gird your loins,” he told Obama’s supporters.  Since that time, several international crises have occurred.  Here is Obama’s response and the effects so far:

So ask yourself, are our relations with the countries mentioned above better or worse than they were before Obama became president?  Are we, and is the world, safer or more perilous thanks to Obama’s policies?

We may need to gird more than just our loins in order to survive the next three years.

To the north, the increasing costs of healthcare and a burdensome welfare state, drives Canada to a more benevolent form of socialism.  Poverty and cost of goods increase as free markets dry up.  Canada is not openly hostile to the United States, but it turns a blind eye as our enemies filter in and cross our mutual border.

In 2013, Venezuela, backed by the surging price of oil, becomes a regional power.  It begins to manufacture and distribute its own weapons.  It comes to terms with Canada, allowing it access to high-end military hardware and know-how.  By 2014, every Latin American dictator has Venezuelan arms.

Cuba becomes an even more fetid cesspool of communism and anti-Americanism.  Charities and putative non-governmental agencies form to offer “moral and charitable” support to Cuba, as it faces the American’s cruel, 50+ year embargo.   These charities, of course, serve another purpose: arming and training Cuban militias and infiltrators.

A steady stream of militant Cubans and their supporters flow into Florida, and our border states.  The violence escalates as the United States takes ever more aggressive measures to stem the violence.   Each Cuban killed or captured sparks outrage in all of Latin America.  Flags are burned daily and schools teach children of the Evil Empire based in Washington.  They indoctrinate their children into believing that their only hope is to give their lives for La Raza, the race.

In 2015, in response to economic sanctions, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and a handful of satellite states declare war on the United States and attempt an invasion.  The invasion fails epically.  The U.S. military seizes parts of Mexico along the border as a buffer.  The U.S. also keeps Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

By 2019, the violence is constant.  Florida cities constantly face Cuban rockets, sabotage and homicide bombers.  Thousands of citizens are killed and maimed each year.  The U.S. military periodically attacks Cuban installations, but the rockets and violence continue.

To stem the violence, in 2020, the United States Navy and Coast Guard establish a blockade around Cuba.  It searches and seizes every ship headed for Cuban ports.  It offloads legitimate aid and delivers it directly to Cubans on the island.  The violence drops precipitously.

By 2024, attempts to run the blockade grow more and more intense.  Navy SEALs are used to interdict suspicious vessels.  In one incident, the Navy SEALs repel down from a helicopter armed only with paintball guns and their sidearms for personal protection.  The allegedly “peaceful” protesters throw stun grenades, and swarm the Navy SEALs as the reach the boat.  One is thrown overboard.  Others are beaten with metal pipes, chairs and, in one case, a box of plates.  Several of the “peace activists” brandish knives.  A few of the SEALs have their weapons taken.

Battered, beaten and outnumbered by an armed, rioting crowd, the SEALs fire their weapons in self-defense.  They disarm their attackers, 12 of whom are killed.  7 SEALs are injured, 2 critically.  It is later found that the boat, ostensibly carrying humanitarian aid, was also carrying gas masks, night vision goggles and bullet proof vests.  The ship was registered in Mexico and owned by a group known to fund Cuban extremism.

So the question is, how harsh should the U.N. sanctions be against the United States as the aggressor?

On June 13, 2009, thousands of Iranians risked their lives to protest a patently rigged election.  CNN reported over 150 casualties from one day of protest.  But still, Iranians came out to protest for democracy.  3 days later, Obama finally expressed “grave concern” for the protests.  His administration refused to comment on or off the record, fearing Iran would claim the U.S. was meddling, which Iran claimed anyway.  The greatest chance for a peaceful, democratic revolution in a generation, and Obama sat on his hands.

Nearly a year later, on May 30, 2010, Israeli Defense Forces intercept a ship trying to run the Gaza barricade.  The Gaza barricade was set up to prevent smuggling of weapons to Hamas to feed the constant attacks on Israel. The Israeli military offers to transport legitimate aid over land to Gaza.  The boarding party that approached the Mavi Marmara was armed only with paintguns and their side arms.  They were met with metal pipes and chairs.  The “peace activists” used knives to commandeered guns from the boarding party and shot at them.  12 “peace activists” are killed in the firefight. 7 of the boarding party are injured, 2 critically.  The news breaks late on the 30th,  by afternoon on the 31st, Obama is demanding answers from his putative ally, Israel.

The contrast could not be more stark.  Iran conducts a brutal crackdown against peaceful protesters, and the most Obama can muster is “grave concern.”  An ally is ambushed policing its waters, several armed civilians are killed and Obama demands answers.  Never in our history has any leader treated our enemies with such care and our allies with such contempt.  If Obama is elected to a second term, we will deserve the coming reckoning brought about by his naive and destructive policies.  If America and her allies grow weak, God help humanity, because no one else will.

In case you have missed it a hacker–who shall never go thirsty or hungry if he or she is within range of the Daily Danet’s expense account–hacked into the East Anglia Climate Research Unit email server and found and published some telling gems of Global Warming alarmist fraud.  As a reformed atmospheric scientist, many of my friends and colleagues have asked my opinion on the matter, which I am all too happy to give:

The rigor and challenge of being a scientist is to prevent yourself from cheating to get a result subconsciously.

First, the emails are and should be shocking.  No scientist should be manipulating data, studies or conclusions to achieve results.  The rigor and challenge of being a scientist is to prevent yourself from doing this subconsciously.  To do this openly, and with such childish joy (and in writing) should end careers.  As an aside, when I started my legal career at a very prestigious law firm, I was given one piece of advice by the chairman about email: never put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want printed out of context on the front page of the Wall Street Journal the next day.  (I was also told to “err on the side of not erring.”)

Second, generally, the development of Global Warming and the manipulation of data is understandable (ironically) at a capitalist level.  Scientists survive on grant money, which is far easier to come by if there is a crisis or a problem that needs solving.  If Global Warming is either (a) not occurring or (b) not man-made (caused by the sun, for example), and there is nothing we can do about it, funding will dry up.  (This, by the way, is why it does not matter whether the Earth is warming or cooling–Climate Change® is enough, so long as it is man made.)  This is not to say that integrity should be compromised, but anyone would hesitate before biting that hand that feeds them.

Third, the irony of Global Warming™ as a religion is that it started in the early ’80s as Margaret Thatcher’s way of breaking the coal unions.  She wanted to prove that coal was damaging to the environment and nuclear energy was safer, and so fostered research on a then little known theory called the greenhouse effect.  Of course, today, that theory is being used to oppress entire regions of the globe, keeping most of Africa and Asia in the dark ages by starving them of the one thing that modern civilization needs: fossil fuels.  Secondarily, Global Warming™ is also being used as the liberals’ second pet cause: redistribution of wealth.  Senator Kerry is spearheading (or charging into the jungle like he sees an unarmed Vietnamese teenager) a drive to throw billions of your tax dollars into developing nations in order to “offset” the effects of Global Warming™ legislation.  The greatest wealth transfer in history, all because of a sick joke meant to break a union dispute.

Senator Kerry is spearheading, or, rather, charging into the jungle like he sees an unarmed Vietnamese teenager…

Finally, to go further down the rabbit hole, why would truly smart people (not the scientists, but the businessmen and power brokers) get behind a belief system so obviously built on shaky evidence and doomed to destroy developing nations and burden developed ones?  Put aside liberal guilt as the easy excuse, and you’re left with two reasons: control and protectionism.  Paternalistic liberals like Kerry want to control the purse strings and dole out huge (trillions) amounts of international aide to developing countries, rather than allow them to develop and stand up on their own.  Unions like the SEIU and their backers are terrified of regions like Africa developing into the next Taiwan and China.  Imagine the entire continent of Africa developed into a first world capitalist society competing with the unionized labor forces of Detroit, Chicago and New York for business not just here, but in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

So you have a situation where the scientists, the politicians and the masters all have unified in pushing an agenda where Global Warming™ had to true, and it had to be man-made.   Surprise, surprise, it was.

In advance of yet another international climate change conference, the media and liberal fear-mongers (but I repeat myself) are fretting over what might not be done in Copenhagen.  In the medal for the most idiotic overstatement, Gordon Brown is currently in the lead for saying “we have only 50 days to save the world.”  In the spirit of a far better, and far more intelligent Englishman, Douglas Adams, and with full knowledge that “stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the galaxy and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following fact[] will now be revealed in advance:” Nothing of significance will be accomplished in Copenhagen.

(Except, perhaps, someone may sustain a slight bruise to their upper arm.  The safe bet is that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden will both later claim sniper fire was involved.)

Here is why, in a bulleted list, nothing will come of the Copenhagen Climate Council:

1. Global Warming™ is only a theory (and growing less accepted each day).
2. The Earth has not warmed, but in fact has cooled, over the past 11 years.  Yes I said 11.
3. In order to noticeably reduce CO2 emissions on any meaningful time frame, draconian measures are required that would destroy every civilized economy. That is not a point capable of exaggeration.  Every world economy would grind to a halt.
4. Politicians, regardless of their political stripe, are not that stupid.

Taking each point in turn, allow me to explain:

Global Warming as a Theory.

Science is a funny business.  Even if everyone agrees that something is true, it is still, in almost every case, a theory at some level.  Generally accepted scientific principles like Evolution and Relativity (general and special) remain merely “theories.”  But all theories are not equal.  For example, Flat Earth is also a theory, as is Nemesis Earth.  These are discredited theories, but they are still, technically theories.

The theory of Global Warming™ is built on successively weaker bricks, in much the same was as a government highway project would be.

Global Warming, like many theories that liberals embrace, is simple on a third-grade level.  (They love that poster: everything I needed to know, I learned in Kindergarten.)  The problem, however, is that real life is played at the graduate level and above.  But at a simple level, Global Warming says the following:

1. CO2 absorbs light more efficiently in the IR end of the spectrum than in the visible end. (True)
2. So it acts like a filter, allowing sunlight in and “trapping” heat coming off of the Earth–much like a greenhouse.  (Maybe).
3. As humans continue to emit more CO2 (by burning fossil fuels, among other things), we will continue to add to the levels of atmospheric CO2–in other words, there is no removal mechanism.  (Not so sure.)
4. As the amount of atmospheric CO2 increases, the “trapping” factor will cause the global temperature to increase and nothing will act to counteract the effect–in other words, there is no negative feedback mechanism. (Probably not true.)
5. All of this will lead to polar bears drowning, or swimming to your house in St. Loius and killing you in your bed. (Now you’re making stuff up.)

The theory of global warming is built on successively weaker bricks, in much the same was as a government highway project would be.  Point 1 is absolutely true and has been verified in laboratory experiments.  CO2 molecules do absorb more IR light than visible.  The rest, however, is just a theory and has never been proven.  When you get to point 2, the problem becomes that you have to move from a controlled laboratory environment to the atmosphere.   And there, things get messy.  CO2 is barely noticeable in the atmosphere.  If you took 1,000,000 Poland Spring bottles and filled them with air; and then separated them into the different gases in the atmosphere, you would have about: 781,000 bottles of Nitrogen, 209,250 bottles of Oxygen; 9,350 bottles of Argon; and only about 350 bottles of CO2.  (You would also have 18 bottles of Neon; 1 bottle of Methane; and 1 bottle of Kryton, plus some trace gases.)  This also assumes a static atmosphere.  The atmosphere is not static, lightning strikes, particulate matter, ozone and a host of trace chemicals acts as catalysts to scrub and convert atmospheric gases constantly.

In terms radiative transfer (the transfer of heat through light), atmospheric CO2 is not going to have a noticeable impact on global temperature, regardless of its absorption profile–there just is not enough of it in the atmosphere.  But that is my opinion.  Other scientists have their opinions.  Many people, scientists and lay people, base their opinions on climate models.  A quick word about those: useless.  A climate model is a large, expensive, horribly complicated program that is only as useful as the theory you put into it.  They are very useful at telling you what your theory means, but they are utterly useless at telling you whether or not your theory is accurate.

For example, if you programmed into a climate model that a .5% increase in CO2 would cause a zombie virus to infect mankind–guess what?  You would find that, if what don’t cut down our emissions, we would all living a Will Smith movie.  Using a climate model to prove the theory that went into it is complete idiocy.  That brings me back to the essential difficulty with point 2.  We do not actually know what happens in the atmosphere when CO2 interacts with the menagerie of gases and particles.

Moving on to points 3 and 4 in the immediately above list, there are natural feedback mechanism that cutoff any impact that CO2 might have on temperature.  Mother nature may abhor a vacuum, but it also abhors excess.  We are already seeing huge increases in CO2 absorption in seaweed as the oceans act as a sink, causing predicted levels of CO2 to drop off.  Moreover, as temperatures rise (whether or not due to CO2) convection will usually increase, leading to cloud cover and rainfall.  This acts as a natural break in any runaway temperature increase.  Just as with tax increases, liberals have applied their rules and assumed nothing will changed because of their rules.

The Real Inconvenient Truth

The second important reason why nothing will happen in Copenhagen is that, as the BBC noted last week, the warmest year on record was 11 years ago.  How is that possible to reconcile with the prophecies of doom?  Al Gore and the IPCC can talk about El Niño and solar variability (when it suits them), but 11 years is a long, long time.  No one is willing to destroy their economy on the word of a former Vice President when faced with the coldest winter in decades and there has been no net warming since their teenager was in diapers and Clinton was in office.  The thing that amazes me is that no one has thought to say that this means Kyoto, which occurred in 1997, was a success.  (It was a patent failure, but moving on….)

If you want to know what it will really take to cut CO2 emissions in half by 2050, look at the person next to you; now kill them.

Draconian Measures

If you want to know what it will take to cut the world’s CO2 emissions in half by 2050, look at the person next to you; now kill them.  CO2 comes from everything. It is a natural part of the human biological process–you are emitting it right now–you filthy polluter–just by breathing.  Of course, it is also part of the Krebs cycle (one deranged lunatic’s pollutant is another man’s plant food.)  Even if you could (and you cannot) switched overnight to solar, wind and other “renewable” power sources–where would those power sources come from?  How can you manufacture an enormous wind turbine without plastics?  Plastics are made from refined petroleum products, which, in refining, produce CO2.

In addition, a lot of “greenhouse” emissions are not even fossil fuel based, but are from farm animals, rice paddies and termites, all of which give of methane, another “greenhouse gas.”  In order to actually reduce true greenhouse emissions, you would have to convince the worlds population to stop eating beef and rice and stop making their homes out of wood–oh, and stop using plastics as well.  And don’t forget–give up your car and take the bus or bike to work.  And you can forget about air travel unless you are the type of person who now takes a private jet anyway.

All of this in an environment where, again, the weather is getting colder (long-range forecasting is calling for the coldest winter in a decade or longer) and there has been no global warming in 11 years.  The scientific consensus (which never really existed, as much as a code of silence in exchange for funding) is collapsing and the climate of fear is giving way to one of ridicule.

Politicians are not that Dumb.

This brings me to my final point.  Politicians are not that dumb.  They know that businesses have to kowtow to environmentalists, as do they, the politicians.  They also know that the hemp wearing, no soap, trust fund hippies will never be happy no matter what you do, so there is no point in trying to satisfy them anyway.  The point of these conferences is to give the appearance of moving forward, blame the large developing countries (India and China) for not being able to reach a meaningful agreement and agree to meet again in a few years.  On the plus side, the weather in late fall is gorgeous in Copenhagen.  Try the hot chocolate.