Wisdom from Thomas Sowell

This is one of Sowell's Random Thoughts. Read the others here.

In response to news of President Obama receiving the Nobel Prize for peace, an e-mail from a reader recalled a black classmate's comments upon graduating from high school many years ago. When asked to list the advantages and disadvantages of being black, the black student facetiously listed as an advantage "being praised for infinitesimal accomplishments."

The Conservative Approach to Environmentalism

BestView has been critical of the fraudulent climate change (nee warming) propaganda, but this should not construed as opposition to all such efforts. Instead, we should direct efforts toward:

(1) Combating general forms of pollution, (2) cutting energy bills, (3) reducing dependence on energy imports from rogue regimes and (4) increasing the diversity of our overall energy supply. I'll support almost any 'green measure' that makes significant contributions to those four policy goals.

Obama's Next Trip

President Obama will travel to Copenhagen for one day of climate summitry next month and then proceed to Norway to get his laughable Peace Prize. BestView will follow the trip closely to learn who he finds to bow down to and for on this trip.

Remember this?

P.J. O’Rourke quoted in his book “All The Trouble In The World”, one noted environmentalist who said back in the Eighties;

“We have to strike a balance between offering up scary scenarios- and actually telling the truth.”

The fellow who said that was none other than then U.S. Senator Al Gore.

Fraud in New Zealand Climate Data Revealed

First the incriminating e-mails and now proof that the climate scientists in New Zealand manipulated temperature data to enhance the notion that there has been global warming to an extent that suggests man contributed to the phenomenon. Read it all here. Soon we will all be forced to concede that the science of climatology is as sound as the science of astrology or phrenology.

Sympathy for Liberal Press

BestView has profound sympathy for the New York Times, the liberal TV networks, and other outlets which have been duped by Al Gore and fraudulent scientists who have perpetuated the anthropogenic global warming (now change) myth. It will be tres painful to climb back off that limb which any reasonable person must do now that the e-mails have confirmed there is no there there in the climate change data. In an earlier day, the flat earth proponents had a similar problem. Don't look for idiots like Barbara Boxer and John Kerry to give up easily as they try to tax carbon as a pollutant, however. The interesting situation to watch is fellow travelers like John McCain and Lindsey Graham climb off the wagon. It will be fun to watch.

Gold

Demand for gold is growing faster than supply. In London, market makers are trying to settle gold futures contracts with more contracts, not bullion, because there's not enough gold to deliver. Buyers who elect to forego payment in gold are offered cash premiums for doing so. If you really want the bullion, you can buy the ZKB Gold ETF on the Zurich Stock Exchange and take it to the Zurich Cantonal Bank, owned by the Canton of Zurich. There you are given the actual bullion, which can then be stored in Zurich. This situation could lead to what is known as a short squeeze in gold. If there is enough demand for physical gold (instead of paper with promised gold) the price of gold will be bid up just to satisfy the demand and if the commodity is scarce, the price could be truly fantastic. That would not be good, but if it happens, you want to own some gold. This situation has come about due to the loss of confidence in the dollar and the budget deficits in U.S.'s future which will lead hedge funds and countries to put their money into something that will not lose its value over time. Evidence? We're seeing demand for gold all over the world. Pension funds allocate about 5% as protection against the weakening dollar. Chinese citizens are encouraged by their government to hold gold, not dollars. On Nov. 18, Russia's central bank announced it would buy any and all gold its sister organization, the State Depositary for Precious Metals and Gems, was willing to sell. Now the Vietnamese central bank has granted quotas to import 10 tons of gold for use by its banking system and gold traders. India just bought 200 tons of gold and announced it is in the market for more.

BestView has U.S. gold coins in the safe deposit box and will be adding more with an intention of having 5% of assets in gold. If you think Obama is going to reduce spending, forgo his plans to pass new taxes, and defend the dollar, buying gold is not a good idea. If you want to buy some gold coins, the company I use to buy coins online is Coast to Coast Coins at http://www.coastcoin.com/
They have reasonable prices, good communication and reliable delivery of quality coins which are as advertised. Can't ask for more than that.

The jobless demographics

Copy and paste.

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

The California Budget

In California the current budget is $6.3 billion out of balance and the 2010-11 budget has another $14.4 billion hole. If some of the bleaker economic forecasts kicking around are accurate and/or the state doesn't act quickly to close the gap, the $20.7 billion problem could easily balloon to $25 billion or more. As temporary tax increases expire and deferred spending promises come due, the state faces annual deficits in the $20 billion range for many years to come. What to do? Raise taxes, cut spending or create more budget gimmicks? The California Teachers Association-led Education Coalition fired a salvo of complaints about past cuts on schools, and the powerful Service Employees International Union declared, "Budget solutions must include new revenue." February's temporary tax increases have already stirred a backlash, and hitting taxpayers again in the midst of this record-deep recession would be politically almost impossible. They've scraped the bottom of the gimmick barrel, voters are livid and new taxes are functionally off the table. This will be one of the bloodiest skirmishes the Capitol has ever seen – with the only option being that the most populous state in the nation default on its debts.

Read it all here and remember this when you see unions asking for more power.

Climate fraud analysis

Summary of the best analysis of the climategate fraud. Read it all here

This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It's the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being "confused" by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

This is the scandal of the century. It needs to be thoroughly investigated-and the culprits need to be brought to justice.

Get a set, Bush

When G.H.W. Bush was President the liberal press tagged him with the "wimp" label. BestView now concludes that his son is disgustingly wimpy as manifested by his silence. Day after day Obama goes on television and utters degrading appraisals of his performance as President. It is perhaps understandable that Bush wait a year or so, but the time has come for George to stand up for himself. Staying silent is not justified by any measure. Man up, George.

World's Greatest Scientific Scandal

BestView was wrong the other day when it was posited that the world would ignore the damning evidence that anthropogenic global warming was a hoax, but evidently, and thankfully, this is not to be. The world has taken note and conclusions such as this one in the U.K. is beginning to shake up the Al Gore crew. Read the entire article here.

These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

Sad wealth transfer

From IBD: Read it all to confirm how the young people in the U.S. are being scammed by us old folks and their government. The sad thing is the young are too distracted, too unsophisticated, and even too poorly educated to realize what is happening to them as they fall for the glib Obama message that "change" and a new way of doing business in Washington will accrue to them during his administration. In fact their future will be severely compromised by the socialist they helped elect.

In fiscal 2008 — the last "normal" year before the economic crisis — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (programs wholly or primarily dedicated to the elderly) totaled $1.3 trillion, 43% of federal spending and more than twice military spending.

Because workers, not retirees, are the primary taxpayers, this spending involves huge transfers to the old.

Comes now the House-passed health care "reform" bill that, amazingly, would extract more subsidies from the young. It mandates that health insurance premiums for older Americans be no more than twice the level of younger Americans. That's much less than the actual health spending gap between young and old.

Spending for those aged 60-64 is four to five times greater than those 18-24. So, the young would overpay for insurance which — under the House bill — people must buy: 20- and 30-somethings would subsidize premiums for 50- and 60-somethings. (Those 65 and over receive Medicare.)

Saturday Night Live skewers Obama

This segment of SNL is really telling. When he loses the liberal comedy folks, Obama is not winning. Listen here.

The British Press on Scientific Fraud

From the London Times. Read it all.

Last week an apparent hacker obtained access to their computers and published in the blogosphere part of their internal e-mail traffic. And the CRU has conceded that the at least some of the published e-mails are genuine.

Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.

Fraudulant Science Revealed

Any scientist who had looked at the data for 5 minutes knew immediately that the science behind anthropogenic climate change claims was bogus and didn't make sense. Al Gore, of course, called the science "settled". Well, now a series of E-mails between some of the scientists responsible for the hoax has been obtained via computer hacking. A very good rundown of these e-mail exchanges is given here, but the important thing to look for is how long---if ever--- the scam remains out of the main stream media which has bought so completely into the story. As of right now, the bloggers have it to themselves, but maybe Fox News will blow the thing open and others will not be able to avoid it. Should be interesting.

From the blog:

A CEO is going to hire a new accountant and summons a series of candidates. He asks each applicant, "What is two plus two?" The first two candidates answer, "Four." They don't get the job. The third responds, "What do you want it to be?" He gets hired. The climate alarmists' attitude toward data appears to me much the same as that fictional accountant's attitude toward arithmetic.

Climate change causes prostitution

Since there never has been prostitution before, this must be right: Read the rest of this nonsense here.

The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade, a United Nations official said.

Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.

“Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection," Mukherjee said during the Wednesday launch of the UNFPA annual State of World Population Report in Pasay City.

Youtube test

BestView is looking into putting videos up, but until this is done, copy the following and paste in the address line of a web page to see the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysKAVyXi0J4&feature=player_embedded

World's Biggest Idiot?

Al Gore may not be the world's biggest idiot, but BestView has him in first place right now. This clown recently claimed, in support of geothermal energy, that the core of the earth was "several million degrees" and thus a good source of alternative energy. (Read about it here)

The temperature at the earth's core, 4,000 miles down, is usually quoted as 5,000 degrees Celsius, while some contrarian geophysicists have posted claims up to 9,000 degrees. The temperature at the surface of the Sun is around 6,000 degrees Celsius, while at the center, where nuclear fusion is going on, things get up over 10 million degrees.

This the same grasp of science this moron brings to the global warming situation.

Obama's loss of vision

During his campaign for the White House President Obama said, “We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there… I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan.”
He promised to send another ten to fifteen thousand troops to help those already there. He also declared that the war in Afghanistan was the proper front in the war against terror. Now that he is Commander-in-Chief, his vision seems to be less clear. The military commanders gave the President four troop deployment options earlier this week but he refused all four. Not for military reasons but because of some hooey about the corruption of the government in Kabul and their inability to run a fair election. Mr. President, if our support for governments was based on whether they are corrupt or not and could run a fair election, we would have pulled federal funding from Chicago years ago. The problem with pulling out of Afghanistan, or Chicago for that matter, is that they would fall into violent anarchy.
Read it all here.