First Post in New Era: Post Trump Election

I had stopped posting several years ago because Blogspot (now Blogger) changed their method of editing posts and I was too busy to figure it out.  This is a test post to see how their many updates to the system work.

 Last week, January 20th, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 44th president.  (Not the 45th as is usually noted because that would be counting Grover Cleveland twice.  There was an intervening president, Benjamin Harrison, between Cleveland's two terms but I don't see that as a reason to count him twice.  Incidentally, probably the last small government, low spending Democrat president.  Because he lowered tariffs, he lost his first re-election attempt, and was not supported by unions. The second time around, tariffs were not as publicly popular.  There was a major recession in his second term.)

Since Trump's inauguration, the left has lost what was left of its mind.  There have been riots, marches, and protests all with the usual hallmarks of the left: property destruction, real or threatened violence, massive littering, and illegal interference with the rights of anyone trying to drive or walk anywhere.  Their speech is reminiscent of the obscene yelling, spitting, and twitching of a tourette's patient, and that's just the Democrats in congress.  They have been saying since the election that he is not their president and they will oppose him in whatever he tries to do.  This demonstrates the principle that liberals are always doing what they accuse the right of doing.  In point of fact, there was never anything remotely resembling this when Obama was elected.

Stewart Woods wrote a book a few years ago in which a fictional group of Republican congressmen held a secret meeting in which they agreed to oppose the newly elected Democratic president.  When this was leaked by a shocked attendee, it was seen by the left as an unspeakable abomination and the worst possible destructive partisanship.  The president, his staff, and ranking Democrats were figuratively shaking their heads for hours when they found out.  To them it was almost the end of the union.  One of the meeting organizers was so fearful of exposure that he murdered the leaker, thus the rest of this very thinly plotted suspense novel.  Now the left opposes the newly elected president in the most repugnant fashion and they see nothing wrong with it.  This exemplifies the above principle and the famous observation of William F. Buckley , that liberals say they want to hear other views, but are shocked and offended to find that there are other views.  I am here to say that there are other views, and they should be respected as any legitimate opposing view.

By the way, Stewart Woods is the de facto chronicler of the Democrat, liberal, progressive, globalist elite, much as F. Scott Fitzgerald was of the elite when they were Republicans.  Woods lacks the literary talents of Fitzgerald but that can't be held against him since he puts out one or two books a year While Fitzgerald only wrote five or six in his lifetime.  I have sworn off Woods several times.  Currently, I am waiting to see his fictional take on the Trump election.  (In his most recent books, he already had the Hillary surrogate in office.)

Given the large scale of the repugnant and reprehensible  (though not deplorable - that's taken) behavior of the left, the name of this blog will remain unchanged for the time being.

Global Warming: I doubt it, so should you

The following is all a quotation from: "The Myth of the 98% By Joseph L. Bast Last updated: May 1, 2012" ...... "Why Alarmists Publish More Anderegg et al.’s assertion that “he who publishes the most must be the most credible” is implausible. There are at least four reasons why skeptics appear in print less frequently than do alarmists, and none of them has to do with credibility or expertise. They are: Publication bias. Articles that “find something” – such as a statistically significant correlation that might imply causation – are much more likely to get published than those that do not. Such “findings” are newsworthy and important to other researchers, while experiments that do not “find something” are less so. Even though falsifying hypotheses with experimental data is the essence of true science, it is the experiment that seems to generate or support a hypothesis that gets all the attention and is most likely to be published, even if that experiment had a small sample size, limited duration, or other defects that increased the odds of a false positive finding. Publication bias is also caused by heavy government funding of the search for one result, but little or no funding for other results. In the case of climate change, hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants have gone to scholars who say they are trying to find a discernible human impact on climate, or of climate change on plants, animals, fish, human health, or a litany of other things. Much less funding is available to scholars who say they are seeking to find natural causes for climate change, or explanations of natural phenomena that don’t involve climate change. Publication bias helps explain why most published research findings are false, not only in climate science but in all disciplines. Thousands of researchers are being paid to “find something,” and they publish whenever they think they might have found something, no matter how slim the evidence. We seldom read that other scholars have tried and failed to replicate their findings, but it happens all the time. Resumé padding. Climate scientist Phil Jones, before the Climategate scandal revealed that he was hiding data and illegally blocking FOIA requests, was identified as a coauthor on articles appearing in science journals an average of once a week, an astounding pace if the findings he was reporting were being carefully vetted. (As reported by Fred Pearce in The Climate Files). His data are still being cited in footnotes for scores of other published articles every week or month. This extraordinary productivity is a function of several things, but one is the practice of having large numbers of coauthors on scientific papers, so that a dozen or even two dozen writers get to list the paper in their resumé. This makes objective peer review difficult or impossible, helping to ensure publication. This practice became pervasive in climate research only in the past decade, and it is entirely a phenomenon of alarmist scientists. Most skeptics continue to publish alone or with only a few coauthors. Age and academic status. Climate scientists who are skeptics tend to be older, and more are emeritus, than scientists in the alarmist camp. This could be the result of two things: Either they are willing to speak out because they either have tenure or are retired and do not fear retaliation for taking an unpopular stance, or they are less impressed by the current fixation on computer models. These “old school” scientists recognize that computer models’ outputs are not data but hypotheses that must be tested by data (empirical observation) – a relationship that many younger scientists, accustomed to working constantly with computers and far less with observations of the natural world, tend to get exactly backward. These older scientists also were considered respected and successful if they published once or twice a year and devoted time to classroom teaching, if they are not fully retired. Climate alarmists tend to be younger, trying to get tenure by appearing in academic journals, and more likely to team up with other scientists to appear more frequently in those journals. Alarmists also are more likely to be environmental activists, drawn to the field by their interest in environmental issues rather than by pure interest in science itself. This again makes them more likely to write and publish articles specifically on the hot topic of climate change. Editorial bias. We know from the leaked Climategate emails that a small clique of influential government scientists worked behind the scenes to get academic journal editors to reject papers that would otherwise have qualified for publication. These scientists even arranged for editors who dared to publish such papers to be fired or pressured into resigning. This is gross editorial bias and likely contributed to some of the disparity in publishing numbers between skeptics and alarmists. More subtle bias, which might not be apparent even to the editors who exercise it, probably accounts for still more of the disparity. ....... For more research and commentary on the dubious claim of a “scientific consensus” on the causes and consequences of climate change, Google “You Call This Consensus?” by this author." Environmentalism (in its current form) is the greatest threat to prosperity and liberty.

The Reagan Revolution v. Fundamental Change

"Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor." - Wikopedia.... If you are too young to remember Ronald Reagan, you may wonder why his name is always brought up. Here is a link to a discussion of President Reagan with a few clips from when he was running for re-election in 1984. His message was a lot different from what we hear today. Go to the site and click on the audio rewind for 6/11/12..... http://www.marklevinshow.com/sectional.asp?id=32930

Link to Phil's Gang

Phils Gang


For the best economic and political common sense listen to Phil Grande.


Phil is heard in Tacoma and Seattle on AM Radio 1300 at noon and a replay at 9 PM, or go to archived programs on the web site.

Needed: Separation between Government and Economy

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/npr.php?id=154579423


Today, at one of his rare press conferences, the president said that the private economy is doing fine. A few hours later, when no one could believe that statement, he said, "it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine." He went on to say, "That's the reason I had a press conference. That's why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger.
"There are too many people out of work, the housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater, and that's precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference," Obama said.
Unfortunately, his policies will not help the economy. Billions of federal tax payer dollars and printed money were spent on stimulus packages much of which went to states and local governments to pay government employees and hire more. Because this did not stimulate the economy, tax revenue did not go up enough for the states to continue to pay the new employees or many of the original ones. Therefore they had to lay some off. They could have limited layoffs by reducing salaries but they hardly ever do that.
The federal government's base line spending has increase by the amount of earlier spending but even that is not enough for the current administration. Government regulation inhibit business creation and growth by increasing costs.  Government spending strangles business even more by competing with private enterprise for recources.

Time for a change.

Vasco da Gama Day May 18

Vasco da Gama, commissioned by the king of Portugal, sighted India on May 18, 1498. He commanded the first European ships to make that voyage. Their purpose was to out flank the Moslem powers that had had cut off Europe from the East. At the time there was no land or sea route between Europe and India (or China for that matter) that was not controlled by Arab traders. Spices had become so popular and expensive in Europe that a significant amount of European gold went to the Arab middlemen. This was as politically unpopular as spending on Middle Eastern oil is today. The Egyptian and Turkish empires had recaptured Jerusalem, driven the crusaders out of the Holy Land, and in 1453 had captured Constantinople, thus ending the Eastern Roman Empire. The road to further conquests to the West was open to the Moslem powers. The power of Christian nations was at a low point. Da Gama's mission was seen as an extension of the Crusades. By opening a trade route around Africa and across the Indian Ocean to India, where the spice markets were, the West would avoid financing the Moslems. Unlike Columbus, who had a similar goal in mind, Vasco da Gama succeeded. The Portuguese had recently developed into a seafaring nation through their explorations down the West African coast. Portugal, like Spain, had recently ended the Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula. While the rest of Europe had grown weary of the crusading spirit, the Portuguese were just adopting it. The eventual goal of a sea route to the east was to regain the Holy Land by an invasion from the rear. Many times during Vasco da Gama’s first Indian voyage, and latter in several naval battles, the Portuguese felt that they were protected and aided by God. Indeed their feats were remarkable. However, their luck seemed to run out. With the success of its eastern trade, Portugal lost its crusading ardor and instead, in the next hundred years, ruthlessly built a commercial empire extending to the East Indies, where the spices grew, and as far as to China. Then as the secrets of their sailing routes became known, Portuguese power in the East gradually declined. Moslem power also declined as European nations slowly began to dominate world trade. The story of Vasco da Gama and how he brought about the shift of power to Europe, is told in a new book, Holy War, published last year. This brings to mind a book published this year, American Covenant by Timothy Ballard. This is the story that starts with Columbus’ voyages and explains how his crusader goals were eventually accomplished through the birth of the United States, when it was instrumental in re-establishing a Jewish state in Israel. Who was the chief agent of God’s purposes in bringing all that about? According to the Mr. Ballard it was George Washington. Annuit coeptis.

Barney Franks, Maxine Waters, and the Useful Idiots

Barney Franks will not be running for re-election to a 17th term as a US Representative from Massachusetts. If you have ever heard him or know anything about his history, you must agree that this is a good development. The bad news is that Representative Maxine Waters will replace him as head Democrat on the House Banking Committee. If Democrats should take the house in the 2012 election, she will head that committee.

This is bad news because she has disdain for the free market. She loves government control and, for all intents and purposes, is a communist. In one of her most famous sound bites, she states something to the effect that “this liberal” would socialize, that is, have the government take over and run all businesses.

She hates business and loves big government projects. At various times over the last few years, she joined in the opinion of other banking committee Democrats and praised the success of the Community Reinvestment Act and of Fannie May and Freddie Mac. She took the lead of Barney Franks responding to concerns of President Bush, Senator McCain, and others, by stating before congress that Fannie May and Freddie Mac were totally sound, that there was no problem with the housing market, and that the government would never have to take them over. (Which of course it did, when they collapsed because the housing market was far from sound.) Maxine Waters stated that The Community Reinvestment Act was quite successful in doing exactly what it was designed to do, which was to force banks to make mortgage loans to poor credit risks to increase home ownership among lower income people. 1

Now Maxine Waters is saying that the crash of the housing market was caused by “greedy Wall Street bankers.” [That is, GWSB’s for short.] Now GWSB’s may indeed be greedy but they did not have the power to create the housing market meltdown of 2008. [See the book, Meltdown.] Democrat talking points were that there was “plenty of blame to go around.” At the time, Rush Limbaugh pointed out when a Democrat says that, you can be sure that the Democrats own about 95% of the blame.

But now, to listen to Democrats,the media, and the Occupy Wall Street movement, it was the GWSB’s and not the Democrats and big government policies at all that caused the housing and all other economic woes. The Occupiers believe this sort of mush because they are 99% mush brains. They are useful to the 1% of the occupiers who are communist agitators who want to bring down the financial system because they have a Marxist replacement all ready to go.


Note 1, Activist ACORN lawyer, Barak Obama, won a Chicago court case obliging banks to lend billions under the Community Reinvestment Act to borrowers who probably could not repay. Housing Secretary Cuomo admitted that this was what banks were forced to do and he thought it was great. Maxine Waters now says that the banks and the GWSB’s tricked the intercity poor into these loans by "predatory lending."