Will The Scales Fall From Media Eyes?

Whether the media admits it or not, they are rapidly becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic party and Obama campaign. Maybe the openly stated plan to attack television stations that dare to air anti-Obama ads didn't get their attention. (The Obama campaign pledged to coordinate attacks on those stations, but the media largely yawned.) Maybe the arrest of one of their own for daring to attempt to film lobbyists and Democratic Senators will finally enlighten them as to what they are involved in. Perhaps they'll pay attention to the story of Asa Eslocker, an ABC News producer.

A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker's neck, then twisted the producers arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.

Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.

Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.

The sheriff's officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.

The media better wake up. Or they will be completely owned and will have no one to blame but themselves.

For all the screeching from the left that they were being oppressed under the Bush presidency, I don't recall network personnel being herded off to jail. Thuggish tactics seem to be the forte of the "liberals".

Moon (Bats) Over Denver

Or all over Denver, as the case may be. Zombie (with an assist from El Marco) has documented many of the opening ceremonies in the Mile High City. The ones that began even before the opening of the Democratic National Convention.

Somewhere, there are mothers weeping.

You, There! Step Away From The Bird Feeder!

Yep, some elements on the left want the United States to be more like Europe. Like this? A local council in Britain has threatened a pensioner and his wife with legal action - unless the couple cease and desist the hideous practice of….

…..feeding birds.

Far from an attempt to live in harmony with nature, the customary ritual of helping birds in their daily search for food has been branded a dangerous practice that must be stopped.

After receiving a complaint from a neighbour, environmental health officers wrote a letter to the Dunnys informing them they were causing a noise nuisance and attracting dirt and possibly disease to their village.

The letter, from Berwick Upon Tweed council, said: 'Birds cause some considerable problem in forms of noise and dirt.

Not only do their droppings damage and contaminate property, the birds also carry various diseases such as salmonella.

'If they are encouraged into an area and build nests, these nests can cause problems, such as blocking chimneys, flues and gutters. Food put out for the birds will also attract rats and vermin.

'If we establish that a nuisance or pest problem does exist, we may have to consider further action.'

Mr Dunny, 69, a retired foreman and joiner, has branded the demand as 'completely crazy' and vowed to continue putting food out for his feathered friends.

He and his wife live in the Northumberland village of Belford, where garden bird tables are a common sight.

He said: 'Let them put me in jail. . . it's just crazy. What do they mean by  noise?

Yep. I really want to be more like Europe, don't you?

My ancestors had the good sense and taste to either be thrown out of old Europe (father's side) or flee the oppressive policies there (mother's side). I have no intention of being "more like Europe." Neither should you. 

Paternalism? No, Not Exactly

Steve Chapman notes the new trend of what he calls paternalism.

In Los Angeles, driving out certain businesses is not a potential side effect — it's a conscious policy. The city council recently prohibited the opening of fast-food outlets in the poor, 32-square-mile area known as South Los Angeles. If you're a global corporation selling inexpensive meals to go, Los Angeles has a message for you: Invest anywhere but here. Apparently a vacant lot is better than a Burger King.

Councilwoman Jan Perry believes the measure will assure the locals "greater food options." The Los Angeles Times reports she "said the initiative would give the city time to craft measures to lure sit-down restaurants serving healthier food to a part of the city that desperately wants more of them."

Of course, it could do that without punishing outlets that don't need luring. But if vegetarian and seafood restaurants didn't see the area as profitable before, this law won't change their calculations. It takes an Orwellian mindset to imagine that shutting out McDonald's and KFC will expand, not diminish, the range of dining options in South Los Angeles.

All it will accomplish, as several fast-food workers told the city council, is to deprive residents of jobs in the forbidden outlets. Does anyone think unemployment will improve their diet? Or that a community with fewer jobs will be a more inviting place for preferred restaurants?

As I said, Chapman calls it paternalism. I think it is authoritarianism, pushed hardest by the left these days. The same folks who howl the loudest about the "government in your bedroom" have no problem whatsoever with the government in your refrigerator or in your food choices.

When Karbon Kings Go Yachting

Oh, good lord.

And now, in order to complete his hypocrisy trifecta, Al Gore may now be extending his excessive consumption to the water as well. In an amazing display of conspicuous consumption, even for Al Gore, his new 100-foot houseboat that docks at the Hurricane Marina in Smithville, Tennessee is creating a critical buzz among many of his former congressional constituents. Dubbed “Bio-Solar One,” which may reflect some latent Air Force One envy, Gore has proudly strutted the small-town dock claiming that his monstrous houseboat is environmentally friendly. (Only Al Gore would name his boat B.S. One and not get the joke. Or perhaps the joke is on us?)

The yacht is - literally - bigger than the house my family and I live in. There are only four of us here now, but it was six not so many years ago. It may be "eco-friendly" to run, but I'd sure love to see how much carbon entered the atmosphere building Al's new toy.

Hypocrisy. Look it up in the dictionary. Gore's picture should appear next to it.

National Health Vermin Service

Barack Obama, at the behest of his left-wing supporters, wants "Universal Health Care" aka socialized medicine. Britain has had free health care for years now. And it comes with many benefits.

Like free maggots in your slippers.

Official figures obtained by the Tories show that 80 per cent of NHS trusts reported problems with ants, 66 per cent with rats and 77 per cent with mice.

Cockroaches were reported at 59 per cent of trusts, biting insects or fleas at 65 per cent, and bed bugs at 24 per cent.

There were infestations of maggots at a further 6 per cent of trusts. And many of the pests were in clinical areas.

The data, revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that, on average, every trust in the country calls out pest controllers once a fortnight.

At one hospital, a horrified patient awoke to find maggots in her slippers. At another, expectant mothers were dismayed to find the ward overrun with rats, while at a third hospital, a store for sterile materials was infested with mice.

Still think socialized medicine is a good idea? Enjoy your slippers.

Canute Get There From Here

Andrew Revkin at the New York Times Dot Earth blog does his best to annotate Al Gore's latest climate hysteria. From the perspective of an engineer who has worked in the utility area, I think Revkin misses an important point. Simply put, Gore has no clue - whatsoever - what he is talking about. None. Take this quote:

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity.

The fact is, we do have an interconnected grid - or nothing would be working the way it does. The other fact is that the laws of physics dictate how line losses work. It is not possible to transmit power from "where the sun shines and the wind blows" to anywhere all that distant from those places. This has to do with the pure physical constraints of how electricity is produced and transmitted. All those overhead transmission lines have real - and absolute - physical constraints on them. Al Gore cannot wave his magic wand and remove those constraints.

When Gore can pull off what King Canute could not and repeal the laws of physics that govern how things work in the real world, I'll listen to him.

I rahter doubt I'll ever have to.

The Seasonal Principles Of Obama

Charles Krauthammer chronicles the dizzying reversals Barack Obama has made recently. Obama has abandoned many of the left-leaning "principles" he used to woo the hard left of the Democratic party. And he has only just begun:

In last week's column, I thought I had thoroughly chronicled Obama's brazen reversals of position and abandonment of principles — on public financing of campaigns, on NAFTA, on telecom immunity for post-Sept. 11 wiretaps, on unconditional talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — as he moved to the center for the general election campaign. I misjudged him. He was just getting started.

Last week, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, Obama immediately declared that he agreed with the decision. This is after his campaign explicitly told the Chicago Tribune last November that he believes the D.C. gun ban is constitutional.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton explains the inexplicable by calling the November — i.e., the primary season — statement "inartful." Which suggests a first entry in the Obamaworld dictionary — "Inartful: clear and straightforward, lacking the artistry that allows subsequent self-refutation and denial."

Obama's seasonally adjusted principles are beginning to pile up: NAFTA, campaign finance reform, warrantless wiretaps, flag pins, gun control. What's left?

Iraq. The reversal is coming, and soon.

You thought Kerry was a flip-flopper? How disappointed the left must be, their idol has clay feet after all.

Er, Right Again, Paul

Paul Krugman starts his latest column this way:

Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service.

Let's just look at the first two, shall we? Actually, Gore never did use the word "invent" about the internet. That's quite true. However, what he did actually say to Wolf Blitzer of CNN, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.", amounts to the same thing. So Krugman is partially correct, but not in the way he meant it. Dictionary.com lists the following as synonyms for create:

Main Entry:   create
Part of Speech:   verb
Synonyms:   beget, build, cause, compose, conceive, concoct, design, establish, fabricate, fashion, form, found, generate, imagine, invent, make, mold, originate, plan, procreate, reproduce, shape, start

On the second item, that Screamin' Howie never screamed, well, you can believe an agenda-driven columnist from the New York Times or your own eyes:

We report, you laugh at Krugman.

Two Modest Suggestions

Apparently, some of the less hinged protesters who are already planning their disruption of the Democratic National Convention are terribly afraid of a completely nonexistent weapon being used against them. Actually, they are afraid of two weapons. No, not the Nikon dragonfly. It is much messier than that…..

Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon - known as the “crap cannon” - that might be unleashed against them.

Also called “Brown Note,” it is believed to be an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily.

Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.

“We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before,” he said.

Cohen, who described Brown Note as a “sonic weapon used to disrupt people’s equilibrium,” cited eyewitness accounts of its use during free-trade agreement protests in Miami in 2003.

“I think these weapons were mostly intended for military use and so their use for dealing with innocent protesters seems highly inappropriate,” he said. “The idea that they might be field testing them on people who are doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights is disturbing.”

As the article points out, there is no evidence - whatsoever - that such a thing exists. Mythbusters debunked it. Snopes has not at this point as far as I can tell. But hey, it's early yet.

Oh, as to the suggestions mentioned in the title to this post: Brown trousers or a cork. Have fun, kiddies.

The Real Victim Of “Global Warming”

Bird Dog at Maggie's Farm points out the real victim of the "global warming" hysteria: real conservationism.

At the risk of sounding corny, we believe in good stewardship of our inheritance.

What's irrational? The Green Movement is irrational. Most of it represents feel-good ideas that are hooey: symbolic hooey that is meant to make people feel virtuous while accomplishing nothing. Witness the lightbulb craze, "organic" vegetables, "recycling" plastic bottles (totally energy-inefficient), or hybrid cars (which do nothing "for the planet" but which are great on gas mileage). It's empty vanity and fashion, and nothing more (for an example, see this foolish agonizing piece by Michael Pollan), who has caught a bad case of the vain and guilt-ridden sanctimony of the "I can make a difference" disorder.

Pure organic pixie dust for the latte liberals.

The CO2 obsession is similarly irrational, and, deep down, everybody must know it. It is irrational because it is futile, regardless of whether there is any current warming, and regardless of whether there is any man-made warming.

I've pointed out that it has never been easier to rape the planet right now. Say you're producing biofuel and you have a free pass to eradicate a rain forest. But true conservation is being dragged down into the insanity of the extremists. Bird Dog has it exactly right here. Go read it all.

The Starving Peasants On The Far Horizon.

Mark Steyn has rather a lot to say about Time Magazines "Iwo Tree-ma" photo that I posted about yesterday. But the only thing the tree is good for is to block the view of the starving peasants.

Heigh-ho. In the greater scheme of things, a few dead natives keeled over with distended bellies is a small price to pay for saving the planet, right? Except that turning food into fuel does nothing for the planet in the first place. That tree the U.S. Marines are raising on Iwo Jima was most-likely cut down to make way for an ethanol-producing corn field: Researchers at Princeton calculate that, to date, the "carbon debt" created by the biofuels arboricide will take 167 years to reverse.

The biofuels debacle is global warm-mongering in a nutshell: The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries. In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death. On April 15, the Independent, the impeccably progressive British newspaper, editorialized:

"The production of biofuel is devastating huge swaths of the world's environment. So why on Earth is the government forcing us to use more of it?"

You want the short answer? Because the government made the mistake of listening to fellows like you. Here's the self-same Independent in November 2005:

"At last, some refreshing signs of intelligent thinking on climate change are coming out of Whitehall. The Environment minister, Elliot Morley, reveals today in an interview with this newspaper that the Government is drawing up plans to impose a 'biofuel obligation' on oil companies … . This has the potential to be the biggest green innovation in the British petrol market since the introduction of unleaded petrol."

Etc. It's not the environmental movement's chickenfeedhawks who'll have to reap what they demand must be sown, but we should be in no doubt about where to place the blame – on the bullying activists and their media cheerleaders and weather-vane politicians who insist that the "science" is "settled" and that those who question whether there's any crisis are (in the designation of the strikingly nonemaciated Al Gore) "denialists."

Green is the new red. As always, read the whole thing, Steyn is in rare form over this one. The media might want to rethink their biased cheer-leading. The first victim of totalitarianism is freedom of the press.

Three Words Too Many From Time

Jonah Goldberg points out the pure, unadulterated propaganda Time Magazine pumped out for their celebration of Earth Day.

Time magazine recently doctored the iconic photo of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima in order to "celebrate" Earth Day. Instead of Marines valiantly struggling to lift the stars and stripes, they are depicted planting a tree.

No doubt Time's editors think they will be celebrated in poetry and song for generations to come for their high-minded cleverness. Still, if the symbolism wasn't clear enough, Time writer Bryan Walsh spells it out: "Green is the new red, white and blue."

There are any number of problems here, starting with the fact that this is simply a lie. Green is not the new red, white, and blue. Concern over climate change may be the most honorable and vital thing imaginable. But if "the red, white and blue" means anything, it means patriotism or love of country. Patriotism and environmentalism simply aren't synonymous terms. Two things can be good without being the same. Fatherhood and all-you-can-eat chicken wings, for example, don't describe identical phenomena.

Time should have left off the words "white and blue" and they would have been accurate in their assessment.

The yearning for a moral equivalent of war is an understandable desire, perhaps even noble in its intent. But it is not democratic. It is fundamentally authoritarian, which might explain why so many environmentalists envy China's ability to ban plastic bags without reference to a vote or a court or anything other than the will of the China's technocratic rulers. Indeed, the authors of "The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy" openly question whether the crisis of climate change should render liberal democracy obsolete. For some it seems the moral equivalent of war requires the moral equivalent of a police state.

Green is the new red. Go read it all. Goldberg hits it right on the head. I have posted about the increasingly authoritarian green movement for some time. Others have been pointing this out for quite some time as well.

Meanwhile, what Time is apparently unable to grasp is that there is heavy snow in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Or that the south polar ice extent is almost 2 million square kilometers greater that the average (which only goes back a very short time indeed.) 

The Iron Law

Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal pronounces Hillary Clinton's campaign over. Primarily the defeat can be blamed on two things: what Henninger calls the "iron law of Democratic primary politics" and filthy lucre. What is the "iron law", you ask? Simple:

No centrist can secure the party's nomination in a primary system dominated by left-liberal activists. The iron law produces candidacies such as McGovern (1972), Mondale ('84), Dukakis ('88), Gore ('00) or Kerry ('04), who pay so many left-liberal obeisances to win in the primaries that they cannot attract sufficient moderates at the margins to win the general election.

But what is the other big reason, then? Why it is money. Cold hard cash and lots of it.

Money. Barack Obama's mystical pull on people is nice, but nice in modern politics comes after money. Once Barack proved conclusively that he could raise big-time cash, the Clintons' strongest tie to their machine began to unravel. Today he's got $42 million banked. She's got a few million north of nothing.

That is why Hillary will never sit in the big chair in the Oval Office. More so than even the iron law. But said law may well be enough to end the chances of Barack Obama ever sitting in that chair, either. Despite the money, he has run well left of where the majority of the country is comfortable. The protracted fight with Clinton has made him stay far to the left even as he should have been trying more for the center as people begin paying attention to the elections.

Dearth Day

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace who left the organization in 1986, explains why he has turned against Greenpeace. It's quite simple, really, it is the dearth of science in the hysterical warnings of the group. Many of those hysterical warnings are either baseless or completely self-serving.

But I later learned that the environmental movement is not always guided by science. As we celebrate Earth Day today, this is a good lesson to keep in mind.

At first, many of the causes we championed, such as opposition to nuclear testing and protection of whales, stemmed from our scientific knowledge of nuclear physics and marine biology. But after six years as one of five directors of Greenpeace International, I observed that none of my fellow directors had any formal science education. They were either political activists or environmental entrepreneurs. Ultimately, a trend toward abandoning scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas forced me to leave Greenpeace in 1986.

The breaking point was a Greenpeace decision to support a world-wide ban on chlorine. Science shows that adding chlorine to drinking water was the biggest advance in the history of public health, virtually eradicating water-borne diseases such as cholera. And the majority of our pharmaceuticals are based on chlorine chemistry. Simply put, chlorine is essential for our health.

My former colleagues ignored science and supported the ban, forcing my departure. Despite science concluding no known health risks – and ample benefits – from chlorine in drinking water, Greenpeace and other environmental groups have opposed its use for more than 20 years.

The latest hobbyhorse Greenpeace is riding is trying to force a ban on the common plasticizer diisononyl phthalate (DINP), which has been tested repeatedly, used for years and is perfectly safe. Greenpeace wants it banned and untried, unstudied compounds substituted. That and the opposition to chlorine points to more than a dearth of science. It also shows a dearth of compassion for their fellow humans.

Incidentally, I have posted about Patrick Moore in the past. He has become an eloquent advocate of nuclear power - which Greenpeace also froths unscientifically about. Greenpeace has, as Moore points out, become a politically-motivated organization more interested in its agenda than in really saving the earth. Or caring about the human beings who have to live here.