Lord Monckton Is In Ur Blog, Dising Ur Cred

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Jeff Q

Here’s an idea of how badly conservatives are scraping the bottom of the barrel in their attempts to get their propaganda passed off as legitimate science and legitimate “news.” Conservative circles became very excited about the American Physical Society apparently making an about face to their long-held stance supporting the science behind global warming. The story was pushed off by Drudge Report, Jonah Goldberg, and conservative blogs on — of all days — the same day Gore is giving a speech on the subject, using headlines like “Group Repping 50,000 Physicists Opens Global Warming Debate…” and “Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate”! The title of this “exploding” news story should actually read: “Washed-Up British Viscount Manages to Publish Crackpot Theory on Non-Peer-Reviewed Online Newsletter.”

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/19/the-rights-misguided-frenzy-over-the-american-physical-society/

The editor didn’t even bother to get a scientist. “Lord Monckton” has no degrees in the subject. He inherited his title from his dead father and was a former policy adviser to Margret Thatcher. The bogus news story has forced the association to put a disclaimer on both the header of the article and the front page of their website. The front page points out the newsletter is from the “APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS.” Hardly something that represents all 50,000 members. The writings themselves are not new and have long been debunked as a “sleight-of-hand.” Quoting from the Sunday Times and the Times, Monckton’s science is “self-taught and his paper qualifications nonexistent” and “he is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the strength of a classics degree from Cambridge.” One of the models used by Monckton was made up by himself, but another one comes from JunkScience.com, a front end for Steve Milloy, a long time tobacco, drug, and oil industry lobbyist, which has published other ‘cuckoo science’ pieces over the years.

http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/19/american-physical-society-stomps-on-monckton-disinformation-thank-you-climate-progress-readers/

Cuckoo Science

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton%2C_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley

http://www.aps.org/

If you recognize the name, that’s because Lord Monckton is the same guy that the Heartland Institute was using as their resident expert when they were trying to double dog dare Gore to get into a debate with him in that ludicrously-titled article “Gore Confronted by Own Scientists- ‘Confusion Between Hypothesis and Evidence’,” which was raked over the coals in one of the first posts I made on this blog. (Although only 5 short paragraphs long, I still somehow managed to elicit 5 pages worth of explainable errors with the article.) It kind of gives you an idea about how pathetically low conservative hacks are stooping that they aren’t even bothering to switch out the henchmen they use to fictionalize the news.

Here is a good article by a real scientist:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/27/global_warming_deniers/index.html

The Idea of Expensive Gas is Only Psychological

Posted on July 13, 2008 by Jeff Q

We had the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. Just wanted to make sure conservatives caught the reason why:

>Schumer said in a statement that the cause of IndyMac’s failure was “poor and loose lending practices” that should have been prevented by more active regulation.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-indymac12-2008jul12,0,6071779.story

Also, as FactCheck has pointed out, while the Republicans are spending money blaming Obama for not having an energy plan, Obama has proposed a $150 billion program on alternative energy.

>While McCain recently proposed The Lexington Project, which includes spending $2 billion annually toward clean coal technology advancement, McCain doesn’t have a plan comparable to Obama’s in scale of spending.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_false_accusation_about_energy.html

That is, if you believe there really is an energy crisis. Turns out, one of few economists that McCain actually does trust says the crisis is all in our heads and that we’re really just “a nation of whiners”:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/10/1191310.aspx

Glenn Beck’s Thoughtful Analysis

Posted on July 6, 2008 by Jeff Q

Here’s what CNN’s Glenn Beck had to say about the latest Gitmo ruling:

Beck: “This court has done some frightening. frightening things….If I’m president of the US, I would go on National television and say—’ladies and gentlemen, the Supreme Court said that we don’t have Gitmo so that is over. We’re going to release all of them, but I want you to know from here on out our policy is to not have prisoners. We’re going to shoot them all in the head.’

“If we think they are against us, we’re going to shoot them and kill them—period because that’s the only thing we’ve got going for us—cause we can put them away and get information. If we can’t put them away and they’re going to use our court system—kill them.”

Just another example of the “Liberal Media” for you. But I guess we shouldn’t take Beck too seriously whenever he talks about shooting people. He went on camera talking about how he wanted to kill himself over the pain of the butt surgery he had last year. Not that that was the first time he’s admitted to contemplating suicide. But, hey, it’s not like it’s easy to find a conservative commentator with some sort of respect for human life.

Personally, I think you can’t have it both ways. Either the “War on Terror” really is a war and we have to abide by the Geneva Conventions, or it isn’t a real war, and we have to provide them with a fair trial.

Rush Limbaugh Criticizes Katrina Victims

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Jeff Q

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/17/rush-limbaugh-attacks-black-katrina-victims-and-praises-whites-as-the-floods-hit/

You know, I still can’t wrap my head around how conservatives latch onto 9/11 that it’s the end-all-be-all of human events and yet have the cujones to make light of similar devastations. Even after the massive fuckups with Iraq, conservatives are still gunning to attack Iran and Syria, but when a storm causes a similar amount of damage and loss of human life, Bush didn’t even change his schedule! The deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center wasn’t even informed that the levees were breached once the White House found out about it!

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/index.html

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/9523

Bailing Out the Super Rich

Posted on April 13, 2008 by Jeff Q

My brother asked me the other day why I bother arguing with my dad about politics. “It’s not like you’re ever change anyone’s mind.”, he told me. I tried to convince him that I couldn’t speak for my dad but I wasn’t married to my ideas. I like to argue, but with every argument, you have to go in accepting the possibility of changing your mind. But he’s got a point about discussing politics in general. The majority of people, left or right, are incapable of critical thought and only repeat bland cliches they heard from someone else. Conceding defeat on even one topic is tantamount to rooting against your own football team. It seems like political discussion has replaced theology in the practice of mindlessly rattling off articles of faith that have no actual connection to the real world.

For example, Hillary Clinton just lately got caught in a huge lie with with surprisingly little effect on public opinion. I used to think you’d have to be insane to think you could get away with having an affair while in public office, but that’s downright reasonable compared to thinking you can get away with lying about getting shot at. Before Clinton even became the nominee, I laughed off Rush’s accusation about Hillary being a nominee, thinking no party could be so stupid as to allow the Clinton Drama become center-stage in American politics again. Now Rush is asking Republicans to fraudulently vote in Democratic primaries for her (suppossedly to maintain “chaos” but more likely because he is sick of 8 years playing defense). I understand Clinton lost a few points in the poll, but if that “gaff” can’t pry her out of the race, what on earth can?

But the real reason I bring all this up is the economy. That seems to be the one issue that Republicans always use for everything (probably because no one believes in the social issues of the 50’s anymore). Democrats tax and spend. Democrats are socialists. They want to “redistribute the wealth” and waste resources on “nation building.” Never mind that the last Democratic administration gutted welfare, passed NAFTA, and created the first surplus, “leftists” like Clinton and Gore are still said to want a “command economy.” Never mind that people who work for their money pay more taxes than those who make money off their money, or that the top 1% is receiving the largest share of national income since the first year of the Great Depression. According to them, money is only “redistributed” downward.

But by bailing out Bear Sterns, Bush has proven that he believes more in socialism than Clinton ever did, corporate socialism. Now, before I get accussed to “hating corporations,” I should point out that you can’t blame companies for asking for money any more than you can blame hobos. Companies are run by a board of directors who are obligated by their job description to make the most amount of money for their stock holders. So of course it’s no surprise they want to “capitalize” going up and “socialize” going down. But the problem is, they are the ones who caused this mess. Its deregulation that allowed Enron to destroy the job market in Texas and now its allowed banks to scam all these people out of money they didn’t have, and once again, the super rich that owns 90% of the wealth of this country got pissed at the middle class writing checks they couldn’t cash and are now refusing to invest the money that runs our economy. According to conservative and libertarian philosophy, we shouldn’t be bailing anyone out, but the problem with that is volatility. As unethical as it is to reward rich fatcats for failure (something Bush learned in his oil business days), it does stop the cascading effects from hitting the rest of the economy, which is why deregulation doesn’t help anyone.

I hope by acknowledging the banking system as our corporate masters and not wanting the economy to go into choas, no one reads me saying we should bail out Bear Sterns as a betrayal of my own principals. I don’t like playing Monopoly, but when the players break the bank, it’s better to start dishing out paper money. What upsets me more is that there is no new regulation standards that accompany them, because that is the only thing that is going to stop them from doing it again. Now that we’ve shown that we reward risk-taking by paying them whatever they lose at the slots, the banks will now be emboldened to gamble away the taxpayer’s money knowing we’ll bail them out again the next time it happens. I’d much rather see something like Stupidity Insurance for banks, but unfortuantely, this is the game we’re playing now thanks to the Conservative/Libertarian dream of a perfect self-regulating market system.

Then there’s gas prices. Bush complained that it was Clinton’s fault gas was at $1.64 and promised if he was president he would “jaw bone” OPEC. That’s a pretty funny description considering the “tough talk” amounted to saying: “If it’s possible, your majesty, consider what high prices are doing to one of your largest customers.” Actually, the mullahs are right on this one. It isn’t their fault. Supply and demand have little to do with what’s driving up oil. It’s speculation. Bush starts talking about attacking Iran, but doing that would cause oil to go up to $6, so speculators price oil up to $3 to hedge a bet even Bush isn’t stupid enough to call. This could be supplimented by opening up 1% of the strategic reserve, not only bringing prices down but making a profit for the government at the same time, but that’s not going to happen because oil companies like it this high.

So my big question is: what excuse do Republicans have? They have had over 7 years in power with both the Senate and the House on their side for the majority of that time. It seems to me, you have to come to 1 of 2 conclusions: either the presidency and the Senate have little or no effect on the economy, in which case the #1 Republican issue has been nothing but empty words all along, or Republican policy was in fact the cause of it and Right-wing Libertarians have traded away all their social issues for the economy we now have. I’m proud to call myself a Liberal but have never considered myself a Democrat. Still, if I did, I would be embarrassed if the Democrats were in power right now and would refuse to vote for them in the next election. Republicans, however, seem completely unaffected in their own convictions by the financial downturn.

This brings me to my point: is there any good reason to try and compare the effectiveness of economic philosophy with the current economy, or is it there always going to be some excuse that divorces philosophy from real life? Is economic theory really just another form of religion, something that’s pointless to talk about because no one is ever going to change their mind on something their parents told them when they were kids?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Politics/Story?id=4141964&page=1

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/03/08/in-2000-gop-trashed-dems-over-gas-prices/

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/politics/15772329/detail.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/29/business/income.4.php

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=736148

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31krugman.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17krugman.html