Global Warming, a crock

We in New Zealand have Ian Wishart. Ian doesn’t reply to any of my correspondences, which indicates either mistaken identity or I really did get through to him once. But rabid Christian fundamentalist or not, Ian often makes very good sense and his ‘Investigate‘ Magazine is well worth the perusing next time you’re in Whitties or P’ Plus.

Jesus aside, Ian cheerfully and effectively lifts the lid on other scams and opens many Cans Of Worms. His investigative reporting is effectively peerless and I thought his ‘Air Con‘ definitive. But now I find that the blasted Australians have one of their own, a scientific chap called Ian Plimer.

Plimer’s primer on Global Warming is well covered in the article I’m about to be quoting from—

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/3755623/part_6/meet-the-man-who-has-exposed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

… Besides which, Australia’s economy is peculiarly vulnerable to the effects of climate change alarmism. ‘Though we have 40 per cent of the world’s uranium, we don’t have nuclear energy. We’re reliant mainly on bucketloads of cheap coal. Eighty per cent of our electricity is coal-generated and clustered around our coalfields are our aluminium producers. The very last thing the Australian economy needs is the cap and trade legislation being proposed by Kevin Rudd. If it gets passed, the country will go broke.’ … “

In view of the knife-edge political situation over there in Ozz at the moment this remark is remarkably prescient. Ol’ Ian never offered us anything as interesting as total governmental collapse/implosion, but I’ve still not finished his book yet (blasted leaked ’scientific’ e-mails took my mind off my books).

” … Not for one second does Plimer believe it will get passed. As with its US equivalent the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, Kevin Rudd’s Emission Trading Scheme legislation narrowly squeaked its way through the House of Representatives. But again as in America, the real challenge lies with the upper house, the Senate. Thanks in good measure to the influence of Plimer and his book — ‘I have politicians ringing me all the time’ — the Senate looks likely to reject the bill. If it does so twice, then the Australian government will collapse, a ‘double dissolution’ will be forced and a general election called. ‘Australia is at a very interesting point in the climate change debate,’ says Plimer … “

A nice wishful thought but one never knows. I’m surprised at how often in life and history so-called clever men line up for the shotgun, patiently awaiting their turn to blow their own toes off (aaah, human nature, where would we be without it?).

” … queuing up to impose ever more stringent carbon emissions targets and taxes on their hapless electorates … in the days when most people felt rich enough to absorb these extra costs and guilty enough to think they probably deserved them, the politicians could get away with it … … Reading Plimer’s Heaven And Earth is at once an enlightening and terrifying experience. Enlightening because, after 500 pages of heavily annotated prose (the fruit of five years’ research), you are left in no doubt that man’s contribution to the thing they now call ‘climate change’ was, is and probably always will be negligible. Terrifying, because you cannot but be appalled by how much money has been wasted, how much unnecessary regulation drafted because of a ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist …”

Obviously the writer hasn’t considered the ’so what?’ factor. (Bugger, I think I’ve just formalised a new thingy in current English) — the ’so what?’ factor refers to the human inability to adapt to change, as in the honoured:

“You cannot stop an idea whose time has come”

Drake may well have continued his game of bowls but these days we need move faster in response to genuine threats—and Drake also then went out and kicked their little Spanish butts (we just roll over and whimper, a la ostrich).

” … Does he really believe his message will ever get through? Plimer smiles. ‘If you’d asked any scientist or doctor 30 years ago where stomach ulcers come from, they would all have given the same answer: obviously it comes from the acid brought on by too much stress. All of them apart from two scientists who were pilloried for their crazy, whacko theory that it was caused by a bacteria. In 2005 they won the Nobel prize. The “consensus” was wrong … ”

” … His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change … “

No—

# only some people will buy the book,

# only some of them will read it,

# and of those who do

# only some will try to do anything meaningful.

I guess the writer is hyperbolising. (I do it too sometimes. Oodles. Lots. Millions of times a week. Emissions taxes? I guess we’re stuck with them. Get used to it, even if it’s all a crock …

KISMET

ELEPHANT in the room

Not only is the elephant in the room, he is quite insane. He’s put a lot of time and effort into destroying his currency and his entire economy along with it, he’s quite paranoid and is eyeing the rest of the world and gibbering…

“Not only does one country account for the overwhelming plurality of world military expenditures, but that nation also has troops and bases on all six habitable continents (as well as a 54-year military mission in Antarctica, Operation Deep Freeze) and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups and six navy fleets that roam the world’s oceans and seas at will. It is also expanding a global interceptor missile system on land, on sea, in the air and into space that will leave it invulnerable to retaliation.”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/rozoff1.1.1.html

I’m referring of course to the Great Paradigm of “Truth, Justice, Free Speech, Capitalism etc”; America, the only nation in the world that exports ‘democracy’ at gunpoint.

At a dinner party I was once cried down (the strength of the indignation betokened the power of indoctrination and lifelong propaganda) for suggesting that the time may come — soon — when the rest of the world may need to unite against the American Empire.

I’d hate to see that, but with a rabid elephant trampling everything in the room it may be necessary to shoot the elephant.

Can a foaming at the mouth rabid jackal be reasoned with? No. The only answer to insane brute force is greater brute force (and here’s where it could get messy).

Anyway, the article referred to is worthy of a read — and yes, it did originate in the United States. Not all Americans are hellbent on conquest, thank God. But questions that keeps haunting me:

(a) Why do the Chinese keep funding the American military monster?

(b) Or are the Chinese simply ‘feeding a fool enough rope, and he will hang himself’?

I leave those ones for the Americans themselves to figure out, I’m just a dumb bystander in the room, huddled against the wall and waiting for the trumpeting and screaming to die out.

KISMET

CANCER, new hope?

Over decades I’ve lost friends and relatives to cancer.

I was there when some of them breathed their last; I’ve had prickles rise on the back of my neck when one in particular started grinning and pointing a boney finger at someone he could see but I couldn’t. Brrr. Perhaps it was just the morphine.

But quite early on I concluded from my own uneducated observations that happy people do not get cancer: “If you find a happy soul with cancer look deeper, he isn’t really happy”.

Then I wondered whether cancer wasn’t some kind of ’socially acceptable suicide’ — not a deliberate suicide but one triggered from very deep within and quite beyond the conscious knowledge or control of the individual. An insane idea? Perhaps.

Then recently I found a book which bears out the conclusions I’d been keeping to myself for many years. Perhaps the author is as mad as I, or maybe being a Phd in the field of the human mind he might actually be on to something?

It may sound somewhat ‘New Age’ (or to move with the times perhaps it sounds very ‘quantum’ — I like quantum, you can cover a lot with it). Certainly in light of current medical thinking it doesn’t sound rational (anyway, it would rock the establishment’s boat).

So I try to keep an open mind, which means I’m free to take in almost anything anyone tosses in my direction; and I’m equally as free to apply the basic tools of rational thought, which I do.
But whatever I conclude as true is true, as I see True, and that’s all that matters to me at this stage. I have no need to impress.

The book in question is “You Can Fight For Your Life” by Lawrence LeShan, copyright 1977, ISBN 0-87131-494-0; published in New York by M. Evans and Company Inc. It’s about the “Emotional Factors in the Treatment of Cancer” and includes case histories, background, brief methods and sound advice.

To declare myself up front:
I am not a religious man, being agnostic and tending heavily towards atheist.
Yet having had weird experiences I can’t explain* I admit that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.

The idea of the mind influencing the body, even to death, is a powerful one. Consider placebo and nocebo, juju, curses etc. Mind works. But how?

Perhaps an unhappy mind makes the brain trigger repeated releases of poisonous hormones? I don’t know.

But something happens, some people can handle chemicals with aplomb whereas others ‘catch’ cancer from them. As far as I know I’m cancer-free but my medically very aware relatives were aghast that I love well-buttered burnt toast. Apparently burnt anything is very carcinogeous (which should make most BBQs off-limits for a start). I’ve been eating my toast black for over forty years, since one time in the navy I overcooked two slices but had ‘em anyway and liked it. To each his own.

To summarise LeShan’s book would be to do anyone hoping for answers a disservice, the work needs reading from cover to cover, beginning at the front and not skipping any.

My recommendation if you (or yours) have cancer is to get hold of a copy from somewhere and read it with an open mind — he’s put seven pertinent questions to ask yourself in there, it’s up tp you what you do with your life from then on.

And from the depths of my being, my very best wishes to you …

KISMET
* Precognition, mind-to-mind communication over tens of miles etc; quite inexplicable. I’ll explain more in a future post.

Free Trade deals. Everyone’s doing them. Obama is up to his neck in them, NZ’s Helen Clark ran around like a demented hen scratching them up, China is proud to be one of ours (NZ’s) and now Malaysia is too. Or are we one of theirs?

Who cares, this is the way of the future! Boom boom!

Actually, it’s the way of the past. We aren’t going forwards, we’re going backwards and isn’t it wonderful? Trade can now cross boundaries* without being slapped with extra costs, just as it was in the beginning. And the people who stuffed it all up in the first place are now claiming the credit. Of course.

Claiming the credit for simply getting out of the way. No more tariffs, no punitive taxes, no rewarding the “most-favoured political flavour-of-the-week” at the expense of all others … simply (dare I say it?) a tiny step in the direction of a free market. Whatever will they think of next?

Dare we project the trends into a ‘Free Trade Entire Globe‘?

No. To do so would be to greatly reduce the chances of war, thus America would be out, for a start; and with them their puppies (the UK, Australia, New Zealand etc etc).

Politicians/empires need enemies, which means they also need allies; thus just letting people get on with life is a concept quite beyond their ken. So we will continue dividing into camps, but the camps will get larger.

The world will evolve into regions of ‘free trade’, leading to common accountancy, meaning (eventually) regional currencies, meaning further down the track political/economic amalgamations which some might call empire and others will call supra-nations.

Or not. We will have to watch and see how the “European Common Market” is getting on as a tyro Supra-nation (almost a prototype, but it’s been done before). Peacefully or otherwise the final (3?) great blocs will unite into one Global Governance with just one currency and one set of rules for all. For all commoners, that is … Not a good thing, to paraphrase Lord Acton**.

People are beginning to wake up but I feel it is too little, too late. The future is simply the progression of current trends, and as we all of us are trend-setters the future we leave for our offspring will be the world shaped by us today. Not a pretty thought.

Thus the responsibility is ours, and in so much as every grain in a desert is part of the whole it is not a responsibility that any one of us can delegate. Sorry, life of quiet desperation or otherwise, you owe it to yourself and your descendants to take a more active part in politics*** — to do otherwise is to present the ruthless with a very inviting big butt whilst your head is under the sand.

To digress a bit:

I AM AT A LOSS … the Americans have clichéd the words ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ to death (actually in Orwellian fashion totally corrupting the meanings) and I am at a loss for replacements. Whilst I forlornly grope through my thesauri please ponder the meaning of ‘free trade’; points will be given to any genius who can say what ‘free’ means in the context?

Free from what?

Oh! Of course …

 

KISMET

* Some boundaries, but at least it’s a start, backwards.

** The guy who said “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

*** Not the same old/same old. New politics. (You know, where your votes actually count, directly? Why elect self-serving Januses to power, why not we cut out the middle-idiot and do it ourselves? Could millions of us possibly do any worse?)

FORT HOOD & WW1, the links

Times have changed.

Times are changing.

Yesterday’s almighty military power is today’s sucker for what might once have been dismissed as ‘the lunatic with a grudge’. The USA has recently received a lesson in the military application of modern politics leavened with human nature. Painful for some.

The US leadership will not learn from this single event, too much is invested in the status quo; and the taxpayers who fund that status quo won’t learn anything either, being too spongy (thick and absorbent).

What happened has been adequately predicted mostly under the rubric ‘Fourth Generation Warfare‘ (4GW). As far as I know the concept was pioneered by one William Lind.

Thus far we’ve had dribs and sporadic drabs and long may it be so, but as even the ancients noted: ‘pigeons come home to roost’* . Once the 4G people get their act together there will be hell to pay: “The worst possible enemy is the man with nothing left to lose“.

Gwynne Dyer of international commentary fame has an article in today’s New Zealand Herald and it is well worth reading. He doesn’t mention 4GW, which is a pity, but it’s out there for those with eyes to see—

… A devout Muslim officer serving in the US Army, born in the United States … is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in the near future. He opens fire on his fellow soldiers, shouting: “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic for “God is great”). What can his motive have been? …

… there is something comic in the contortions that the US media engage in to avoid the obvious fact that if the United States invades Muslim countries, some Muslim Americans are bound to think that America has declared war on Islam. It has not, but from Pakistan to Somalia the US is killing Muslims in the name of a “war on terror”

… The US military budget tops half a trillion** dollars …

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10608449&pnum=0

—and being a tad esoteric that way myself I feel the need to once again point out the obvious: If we in NZ do not want similar we should divorce ourselves from Uncle Sam and make our own way in the world.

As for 4GW, that’s when people with nothing much left and feeling a bit grumpy decide to take out as many of ‘them’ as they can at any cost. Any cost … and they have a total dedication that in a person with things to lose would be considered fanaticism. No, these folks have gone waaaay past that.

So while the Big Players can come online with aircraft-carrier battle fleets and nuke subs, tank brigades and casts of hundreds of thousands, the 4GW folks can pop up out of nowhere and wreak small scale havoc. What’s a dozen grunts to a player like Obama, or America? Maybe a dozen families will be a bit put out, but that’s what you get when you sign up (so no-one can complain).

In the meantime whereas the big battalions are out en masse to conquer vast swathes for their State — the little guys are mustering in their ten of millions, not for a bunch of arrogant pratts representing the State, but for their cause.

The Cause is the unifying factor and it cuts across lines drawn on maps. It cuts right through all the “Truth, Justice and Love of Liberty” propaganda pounded into statists from year dot. It cannot be bought, or sold. It can’t be cornered, or brought to the field to be destroyed by overwhelming firepower (bits of it might be, but the Hydra has many heads) (and a singularly annoying habit of growing two new ones for every old one you cut off).

You cannot isolate 4G warriors, they meld, they blend. Fifth column? Hell, you don’t know how many blasted columns you’ve set yourself up against. And get this, they don’t even have to know that any of their brothers exist. They are free, totally free, to act independently as they alone see best; answerable only to the Cause itself. No rules, no limits.

I’ve said before, it is not surprising that Fort Hood happened — the surprise is that it took so long to happen; and that it isn’t happening every day. Perhaps if we give it a bit more time?

WHAT WE NEED AS NEW ZEALANDERS is to decide if we really really really want to infuriate the Hydra on behalf of a bunch of insane foreign administrators most of whom have no idea where the hell NZ is.

Personally I have no qualms if American volunteer grunts get sent to meet their maker, that’s the choice they made themselves when they signed up (and their reward for not thinking).

But I do not want (a) me, or (b) mine to be hurt or killed to feed political egos or otherwise meet ‘treaty’ commitments (possibly secret?) made in my name without my input.

Perhaps you may feel the same?

“Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”

Today is a celebration (you know, bands, bugles, old guys with rheumy eyes and medals) commemorating … commemorating what?

The future, that’s what.

Or not — your call.

KISMET

* The little buggers do, too. Bank on it.

** That’s $500,000,000,000 (five hundred thousand million dollars).

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind26.html

FORT HOOD massacre, viewpoint

There’s now no shortage of comment in the bloggosphere about the US Army major who allegedly shot some of his ‘comrades’.

It’s not surprising that someone actually did, what is surprising is that it took this long.

In the ‘Independent’ this morning a comment was made to the effect that perhaps some (just some—?) of the casualties may have been victims of ‘friendly fire’.
I’d say that one’s a no-brainer, Americans can be wildly enthusiastic with weapons and they believe whole-heartedly in spreading good cheer when they think that they’re on the side of angels. There’s absolutely no doubt that some of the victims fell to the guns of their rescuers, but that’s for the coroner to decide and I doubt that we will ever be told the truth.

In the meantime one of the top bloggers of WordPress has bleated long and loud about the ‘cowardice’ of the good major, who chose unarmed troops to pop off at—unarmed people lined up who couldn’t defend themselves.
He’s ignoring the fact that the major made excellent military sense — isn’t this exactly why the Americans have so much treasure invested in tanks (so that soldiers safely behind armour can loosen up near-naked fighters out in the open) and B52s (so that soldiers safely five miles up in the sky can carpet-bomb fighters, villages etc without fear of retaliation) and so on? Cruise missiles from ships hundreds of miles out to sea, how can a raghead with a rifle compete with that?

I love the American mindset, the same as any other blind fanatic—especially when they couldn’t even begin to see the similarities between what happened to them (microcosm) and what they cheerfully do themselves to innocents abroad with the full arsenal of a modern superpower (macrocosm).
I refer especially to the ‘hero’ sitting at a desk—get this, in Washington—firing Hellfire missiles or 500 pound bombs into weddings, funerals, crowded markets, sleeping villages etc etc half a world away.

But that’s just me. If I were God (I’m not, so we’re all lucky) I’d reverse the course of any weapon loosed against the innocent; intentionally or otherwise* .

In the meantime, here’s a site worthy of a quick peep if only for the statistics—

Fort Hood: The world’s largest military base

# Fort Hood, near Austin, Texas, is the world’s largest military installation, occupying 340 square kilometres.

# It is home to more than 65,000 soldiers, civilian personnel and family members.

# Two armoured divisions are based there, and up to 40,000 US troops.

# It was opened in 1942, as a place to test anti-tank guns that were crucial to combating German blitzkrieg tactics.

# 75 troops at the base have committed suicide between the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and July this year – more than at any other army post.

# The base is home to III Corps, the official counteroffensive force, who are known as “America’s Hammer.”

# In January 2003, then President George W Bush addressed 4,500 troops at the base, and told them to be ready for war.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-army-post-shooting-rampage-leaves-13-dead-1816095.html

—and the Americans wonder why their once great nation is going broke? (Some of them do. The majority have a child-like faith in the power of empty promises to save them) (fiat currency).

KISMET
* Think about it …