Per an ongoing literary project, we submit the following historical correspondences:
The current Holocene Interglacial began c. 14,400 YBP (years-before-present), i.e. about BC 12,400. This coincided with the close approach --orbital perihelion-- of the Sun's obscure brown-dwarf binary companion, a Jupiter-size object in eccentric 3,600-year orbit perpendicular to the solar system's plane-of-the-ecliptic. This "Dark Destroyer," so called by ancient Sumer's "portent astronomers," next intercepted the solar system c. 10,800 YBP (BC 8800). In this case, rather than ending an Ice Age (probably by cooling oceans to reduce evaporation inland) the Destroyer precipitated a 1,500-year post-glacial "cold shock," the Younger Dryas-- not a climatic but an extra-solar event due to comet/meteor impacts per disruptions of the solar system's enveloping Oort Cloud.
From 10,800 YBP, this Younger Dryas reset the Holocene's interglacial clock to zero as of 12,300 YBP (BC 10,300). Given an interglacial period's median 12,250-year duration [min. 11,500 years plus max. 13,000 years, i.e. total 24,500 divided by two], the Holocene epoch was accordingly due to end about AD 1950 [12,250-12,300 = -50 years from AD 2000 (present)].
Combining astronomical cycles with climatological patterns, we find that AD 1950 correlates with the Destroyer's projected re-appearance c. AD 2000 [four 3,600-year cycles equal 14,400 YBP, so that the present represents a turning-point]. This implies that a cyclical termination of the Holocene Interglacial from c. AD 1950, i.e. impending re-glaciation, may be amplified by astronomical disruptions involving cloud-cover, geophysical events, impacts, as in BC 8800 (10,800 YBP).
Should this occur, an abrupt glacial "cold shock" could persist for nigh 100,000 years. No-one then or now will have anything to say about it.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Climate Cultists
On January 14, 2009 (Wednesday), Professor Roger Pielke, Jr. of MIT awarded his "bone-headed move-of-the-year" trophy to GISS/NASA's notorious climate cultist Dr. James E. Hansen of Columbia University. As cited in ICECAP, after consecutively forecasting that 2006, 2007, 2008 would register as "warmest years on record," Dr. Hansen has now --despite mountainous evidence-- plumped for the same ludicrous scenario in 2009: "It seems ... that a new global temperature record will be set ... despite the moderate negative effect of reduced solar irradiance."
Hansen's evidence? Absent any valid long- or short-term data whatsoever, Team GISS [for Goddard Institute of Space Science] has apparently begun "manually adjusting" satellite reports without acknowledgement or scientific rationale. This means that Dr. James E. Hansen et al. are cheats, engaging in purposeful fraud to promote alarmist scenarios for partisan political gain (grant monies). By no coincidence, fellow warmists at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have just bestowed on Hansen their Rossby Research Medal "for outstanding contributions to climate modeling ... in the public arena."
As Pielke and other disenchanted colleagues note, such recognition grimly subverts all aspects of the scientific enterprise. Hansen's spurious Rossby Medal not only "encourages manipulating data to keep the warmist hoax alive ... (with its) grant gravy-train" but marks "another sad ... embarrassment for the once-great (American Meteorological Ssociety), which has lost its way."
Hansen's evidence? Absent any valid long- or short-term data whatsoever, Team GISS [for Goddard Institute of Space Science] has apparently begun "manually adjusting" satellite reports without acknowledgement or scientific rationale. This means that Dr. James E. Hansen et al. are cheats, engaging in purposeful fraud to promote alarmist scenarios for partisan political gain (grant monies). By no coincidence, fellow warmists at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have just bestowed on Hansen their Rossby Research Medal "for outstanding contributions to climate modeling ... in the public arena."
As Pielke and other disenchanted colleagues note, such recognition grimly subverts all aspects of the scientific enterprise. Hansen's spurious Rossby Medal not only "encourages manipulating data to keep the warmist hoax alive ... (with its) grant gravy-train" but marks "another sad ... embarrassment for the once-great (American Meteorological Ssociety), which has lost its way."
Friday, January 2, 2009
Welcome to Yellowstone
Over last Christmas weekend --December 27 - 28, 2008-- more than 250 minor earthquakes "rattled the Yellowstone super-volcano" in central Utah. Though such "seismic swarms" are not uncommon, geophysicists at the University of Utah report that quakes up to 3.9 on the (logarithmic) Richter Scale may portend escalating tectonic activity over wider areas.
"Quakes this powerful, of this extent, bear watching," said Prof. Roger Smith of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which monitors volcanic activity throughout the State. "Let's hope this isn't a precursor of a much larger-scale eruption... but we haven't logged such frequent, high-level tremblors in many years."
In passing, Professor Smith noted that Yellowstone's last major eruption some 640,000 years ago coincided with a cyclical reversal of Earth's geomagnetic field. For whatever reason, such periodic occurrences tend to engender cataclysmic volcanism, extremely lethal though short-lived. Should Utah's underlying magmatic plume blast skyward, the entire western United States would be at risk.
By the statistical Principle of Mediocrity, extremes at any given time will be unlikely. But in cyclical context, recurrent catastrophes become all too predictable. Regular as Old Faithful, Yellowstone's super-volcano apparently erupts on average every 640,000 years. Since the mid-1960s, geophysicists have known by deep-ocean plate-tectonics that regular magnetic reversals follow this same pattern. All anyone can do is watch, and vacate premises in haste at any sign of imminent disaster.
As we recite elsewhere, numerous low-key, unrelated indicators may possibly be reinforcing each other preparatory to upheavals not seen since Indonesia's Toba Eruption reduced humanity to about 1,000 breeding pairs in Africa some 72,000 years ago. Can't Earth just hold fire 'til (say) 2075 - 2100, when we'll have moved off-planet so that Ice Time, meteor strikes, massive Yellowstone convulsions need not return us permanently to Old Stone Age venues?
"Quakes this powerful, of this extent, bear watching," said Prof. Roger Smith of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which monitors volcanic activity throughout the State. "Let's hope this isn't a precursor of a much larger-scale eruption... but we haven't logged such frequent, high-level tremblors in many years."
In passing, Professor Smith noted that Yellowstone's last major eruption some 640,000 years ago coincided with a cyclical reversal of Earth's geomagnetic field. For whatever reason, such periodic occurrences tend to engender cataclysmic volcanism, extremely lethal though short-lived. Should Utah's underlying magmatic plume blast skyward, the entire western United States would be at risk.
By the statistical Principle of Mediocrity, extremes at any given time will be unlikely. But in cyclical context, recurrent catastrophes become all too predictable. Regular as Old Faithful, Yellowstone's super-volcano apparently erupts on average every 640,000 years. Since the mid-1960s, geophysicists have known by deep-ocean plate-tectonics that regular magnetic reversals follow this same pattern. All anyone can do is watch, and vacate premises in haste at any sign of imminent disaster.
As we recite elsewhere, numerous low-key, unrelated indicators may possibly be reinforcing each other preparatory to upheavals not seen since Indonesia's Toba Eruption reduced humanity to about 1,000 breeding pairs in Africa some 72,000 years ago. Can't Earth just hold fire 'til (say) 2075 - 2100, when we'll have moved off-planet so that Ice Time, meteor strikes, massive Yellowstone convulsions need not return us permanently to Old Stone Age venues?
Hills and Hills
Confederate General A.P. Hill, 1825 - 1865, is not to be confused with railroad magnate James J. Hill, 1838 - 1916. A West Pointer in ante bellum days (1847), Ambrose Powell Hill rose from the ranks to command the Confederacy's famous Light Division. "Resplendent in red battle-shirt," he led the charge which saved Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from defeat at Sharpsburg. Though illness prevented Hill from attaining full potential, he battled to the end, killed a week before Appomattox while commanding one-third of Lee's remaining forces. Dying, both Lee and Stonewall Jackson called on A.P. Hill.
Canadian born James J. Hill proved a visionary of another sort. Accidental loss of an eye precluded a career in medicine, plus active service in the Civil War. But in his early twenties, based in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hill not only organized the First Minnesota Volunteers but applied himself as agent for the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad to learn every aspect of military commissariats from taking bids to warehousing. Ambitious and knowledgeable by war's end, Hill first partnered with Hudson Bay Company officials, then used financial contacts at the Bank of Montreal to acquire the St. Paul & Pacific at a steep discount in the Panic of 1873. Pressing hard, Hill laid a mile of track each day to win a $2-million Minnesota Land Grant for expanding railway links on schedule. Two virgin-harvest seasons followed, enabling him to promote mass-immigration from Norway and Sweden with the promise of fertile farmland at $2.50 - $5.00 per acre along his right-of-way.
From surveying to materials and construction, James J. Hill personally oversaw every aspect of his operations. By 1882 he had advised the Canadian Pacific Railroad on routes to the Northwest, and dealt with J.P. Morgan to tap Wall Street capital. Pushing hard as ever, Hill's Great Northern Railway mobilized 8,000 workers and 3,300 four-horse teams to reach Puget Sound in 1893. Despite legal difficulties, another panic that same year enabled him to absorb competitors, always pricing goods and services near cost. Together, he and Morgan fended off raids by E.J. Harriman, imported 6,000,000 Northern European immigrants in just two years, and began exporting American cotton products from Seattle to China and Japan.
Still battling Harriman, Hill retired to St. Paul during the Panic of 1907, dying in 1916 at age 79. Every train and steamship of his Great Northern empire halted for five minutes; as his New York Times obituary stated, "Greatness became him, and was a condition of his errand here."
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Landscapes
As a certified "mad walker" who sets a goal of 1,250 miles per year (5,000 miles every four years), indulging occasionally in insensate literary projects, we appreciated Joyce Carol Oates' essay "Running and Writing" in Great Writers on the Art of Fiction (ed. James Daley, Dover Books 2007), pp. 153 - 158. To wit:
"A good run ... is (akin) to a good dream ... as musicians experience the uncanny phenomenon of tissue memory in their fingertips, so runner(s) feel ... extensions of an imagining self.
"Writers and poets (famously) love to be in motion ... English Romantic Poets were inspired by long walks in all weathers: Wordsworth and Coleridge in the Lake District, Shelley in Italy ("I walk until I am stopped, but I never am stopped"). New England Transcendentalists, most notably Henry Thoreau, were ceaseless walkers. Thoreau acknowledged that if he spent less than four hours a day outdoors "in motion," he needed almost "to atone for sin."
Like Samuel Johnson before him, who ranged London at all hours, Charles Dickens in his middle years suffered an insomnia "that propelled him onto the London streets at night." His haunting essay Night Walks hints that this terrible "night restlessness" revealed a soul-in-passage, compelled to press on "through darkness and pattering rain." Walt Whitman "tramped impressive distances ... we feel the walker's pulse-beat in his breathless, incantatory poems." Henry James (of all people) "loved to walk for miles in London."
"Stories come to us as wraiths, embodying a vision," writes Joyce Carol Oates. "Outdoor movement amounts to meditation ... (as if) waking dreams keep us from actual madness." St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354 - 430) was notorious for perambulating night and day. An entire philosophical school, the Peripatetics, marched up and down their 100-yard long colonnaded Stoa engaged for hours in speculations purposely divorced from inkpots and scrolls.
As large, hairless, bipedal primates, humans inherit a compulsive kinetic tendency-- nature designs us to range in long, loping strides across primordial grasslands, savannahs, spreading veldts. From earliest times human minds have focused of necessity on end-points, covering intervening distances in easy, fluid steps. Awake and aware yet strangely disembodied, our streams-of-consciousness bear onwards to far-distant goals. Like floating or flying, this sense of sweeping forward relegates doubts and fears to an imaginary realm where dangers pose no obstacle, however real.
Serious walkers accept their fate neither as an accident nor by design, but rather as a discipline imposed by that most rigid of all task-masters-- themselves. Walking surfaces unbidden; like flotsam washed ashore, by meditative wind-and-tide it's something you just do. "The greatest poverty is not to live in the natural world"... and we recall in 1996 noticing a small, skyward patch of light which turned out to be a "long period" comet called Hale-Bopp in 150,000-year hyperbolic orbit on the Sun. Hale-Bopp shone briefly opposite Earth across our entire solar system, and will re-appear in due course after 75,000 years.
We could do without Hale-Bopp, but we cannot do without the vision such a body represents. Here is a phenomenon so remote in Space and Time, yet real, that contemplative steps become imperative. Eventually we all will take a final step, beyond which lies another road. Meantime, pursue your Journey looking skyward, for that way lies the stars.
"A good run ... is (akin) to a good dream ... as musicians experience the uncanny phenomenon of tissue memory in their fingertips, so runner(s) feel ... extensions of an imagining self.
"Writers and poets (famously) love to be in motion ... English Romantic Poets were inspired by long walks in all weathers: Wordsworth and Coleridge in the Lake District, Shelley in Italy ("I walk until I am stopped, but I never am stopped"). New England Transcendentalists, most notably Henry Thoreau, were ceaseless walkers. Thoreau acknowledged that if he spent less than four hours a day outdoors "in motion," he needed almost "to atone for sin."
Like Samuel Johnson before him, who ranged London at all hours, Charles Dickens in his middle years suffered an insomnia "that propelled him onto the London streets at night." His haunting essay Night Walks hints that this terrible "night restlessness" revealed a soul-in-passage, compelled to press on "through darkness and pattering rain." Walt Whitman "tramped impressive distances ... we feel the walker's pulse-beat in his breathless, incantatory poems." Henry James (of all people) "loved to walk for miles in London."
"Stories come to us as wraiths, embodying a vision," writes Joyce Carol Oates. "Outdoor movement amounts to meditation ... (as if) waking dreams keep us from actual madness." St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354 - 430) was notorious for perambulating night and day. An entire philosophical school, the Peripatetics, marched up and down their 100-yard long colonnaded Stoa engaged for hours in speculations purposely divorced from inkpots and scrolls.
As large, hairless, bipedal primates, humans inherit a compulsive kinetic tendency-- nature designs us to range in long, loping strides across primordial grasslands, savannahs, spreading veldts. From earliest times human minds have focused of necessity on end-points, covering intervening distances in easy, fluid steps. Awake and aware yet strangely disembodied, our streams-of-consciousness bear onwards to far-distant goals. Like floating or flying, this sense of sweeping forward relegates doubts and fears to an imaginary realm where dangers pose no obstacle, however real.
Serious walkers accept their fate neither as an accident nor by design, but rather as a discipline imposed by that most rigid of all task-masters-- themselves. Walking surfaces unbidden; like flotsam washed ashore, by meditative wind-and-tide it's something you just do. "The greatest poverty is not to live in the natural world"... and we recall in 1996 noticing a small, skyward patch of light which turned out to be a "long period" comet called Hale-Bopp in 150,000-year hyperbolic orbit on the Sun. Hale-Bopp shone briefly opposite Earth across our entire solar system, and will re-appear in due course after 75,000 years.
We could do without Hale-Bopp, but we cannot do without the vision such a body represents. Here is a phenomenon so remote in Space and Time, yet real, that contemplative steps become imperative. Eventually we all will take a final step, beyond which lies another road. Meantime, pursue your Journey looking skyward, for that way lies the stars.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
The Destroyer
Speaking of Nuberu, ancient Sumer's earth-like planet in close orbit about our sun Sol's mysterious brown-dwarf companion (a Jupiter-size body called "the Destroyer" in creation myths based on priestly sky-watchers' millennia-long "portent astronomy"): By Hubble telescope and earlier observations, binary stars make up eight out of ten (80%) of all galactic systems. Due to its distance and eccentric orbit, Nuberu's unobserved --conventionally unsuspected-- parent sun approaches Sol only at intervals of 3,600 years. When this occurs we might expect all manner of periodic disturbances, ranging from orbital and Oort Cloud perturbations to climatic, volcanic, and other geophysical effects on Earth.
Interestingly, an esoteric Dark Age work known as the Kolbrin (Culbrian) Bible, said to have been salvaged from Glastonbury Abbey following an arson attack in AD 1184, collects secular historical accounts of worldwide cataclysms datable by Sumerian cuneiform to about 5200 BC. As recounted by Kolbrin's 6-book Egyptian Texts, these events were followed 3,600 years later by Pharaoh's biblical Ten Plagues recounted as divine retribution in the Old Testament's Book of Exodus (c. 1600 BC). Tying Moses to New Testament prophesies, Kolbrin preserves a 5-book set of Celtic Texts in form of a "survivors' diary" rather than a revelation, extrapolating from Exodus and the later Crucifixion to an end-of-days scenario set thirty-six hundred years after Pharaoh's troubles, i.e. in this, our early 21st Century AD.
Well, now! Most dime-a-dozen Doomsday forecasts do not cite Sumerian portent-astronomy from c. 5200 BC in context of Egypt's Ten Mosaic Plagues, nor are they Dark Age manuscripts traceable to 12th Century monastic libraries. Moreover, for Kolbrin purposes Glastonbury Abbey seems singularly a propos. Founded in the mid-6th Century, endowed by Kings of Wessex from AD 712, this "rich and powerful" community in Somersetshire had compiled legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail for centuries before the Conquest. The Abbey's famed collections extended far-afield, most certainly to Alexandrine and Syriac repositories where Sumerian records of interest would remain semi-intact.
The plot thickens. In Crop Circle Connector, a major archive source despite certain, um, credulous or even conspiricist tendencies, an article by one Marshall Masters dated 07/26/2008 discusses a "Planet X / Nibiru" (sic) circle that appeared in Avebury, Wiltshire (U.K.) on 07/15/2008, ten days before (qv). On the basis of this quite elaborate, large-scale diagram, Masters asserts that during the Winter Solstice of 2012 planetary alignments "clearly indicate" that our ninth planet Pluto is poised for violent expulsion from the solar system. This could occur only in context of a major gravitational anomaly such as Sumer's dark Destroyer swinging close to Sol again with Nuberu in tow. Whatever earthly disruptions follow, they are sure to be unpleasant, sweetheart.
Strangely enough, December 22, 2012 is the date specified by Aztec and Mayan astrologic/zodiacal canons for the 26,000-year completion of a Great Cycle, when Earth's precession comes full-circle to "fold the page again." Various New Age doom-sayers have exploited this sophisticated Long Count calendar (which employs zero in its positional notation) to independently predict Earthly disasters ranging from magnetic-reversal to Pole shifts, even plate-tectonic upheavals due to a "galactic realignment" casting Sol off-balance from the Milky Way's vast plane-of-the-ecliptic.
Since Meso-American and Aztec cultures perished many centuries ago, their forecasts are certainly disinterested. Even so, an unseen brown-dwarf Destroyer in an eccentric 3,600-hundred year orbit about Sol impinging on Earth coincident with these antique Codices' 26,000-year calendrical cycle seems far-fetched. But viewed in conjunction with recent Crop Circles, Glastonbury's Kolbrin Bible, and cuneiform astronomical records of Sumer, major upheavals would have ample precedent. Hogwash, say all reputable commentators.
It had better be.
Interestingly, an esoteric Dark Age work known as the Kolbrin (Culbrian) Bible, said to have been salvaged from Glastonbury Abbey following an arson attack in AD 1184, collects secular historical accounts of worldwide cataclysms datable by Sumerian cuneiform to about 5200 BC. As recounted by Kolbrin's 6-book Egyptian Texts, these events were followed 3,600 years later by Pharaoh's biblical Ten Plagues recounted as divine retribution in the Old Testament's Book of Exodus (c. 1600 BC). Tying Moses to New Testament prophesies, Kolbrin preserves a 5-book set of Celtic Texts in form of a "survivors' diary" rather than a revelation, extrapolating from Exodus and the later Crucifixion to an end-of-days scenario set thirty-six hundred years after Pharaoh's troubles, i.e. in this, our early 21st Century AD.
Well, now! Most dime-a-dozen Doomsday forecasts do not cite Sumerian portent-astronomy from c. 5200 BC in context of Egypt's Ten Mosaic Plagues, nor are they Dark Age manuscripts traceable to 12th Century monastic libraries. Moreover, for Kolbrin purposes Glastonbury Abbey seems singularly a propos. Founded in the mid-6th Century, endowed by Kings of Wessex from AD 712, this "rich and powerful" community in Somersetshire had compiled legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail for centuries before the Conquest. The Abbey's famed collections extended far-afield, most certainly to Alexandrine and Syriac repositories where Sumerian records of interest would remain semi-intact.
The plot thickens. In Crop Circle Connector, a major archive source despite certain, um, credulous or even conspiricist tendencies, an article by one Marshall Masters dated 07/26/2008 discusses a "Planet X / Nibiru" (sic) circle that appeared in Avebury, Wiltshire (U.K.) on 07/15/2008, ten days before (qv). On the basis of this quite elaborate, large-scale diagram, Masters asserts that during the Winter Solstice of 2012 planetary alignments "clearly indicate" that our ninth planet Pluto is poised for violent expulsion from the solar system. This could occur only in context of a major gravitational anomaly such as Sumer's dark Destroyer swinging close to Sol again with Nuberu in tow. Whatever earthly disruptions follow, they are sure to be unpleasant, sweetheart.
Strangely enough, December 22, 2012 is the date specified by Aztec and Mayan astrologic/zodiacal canons for the 26,000-year completion of a Great Cycle, when Earth's precession comes full-circle to "fold the page again." Various New Age doom-sayers have exploited this sophisticated Long Count calendar (which employs zero in its positional notation) to independently predict Earthly disasters ranging from magnetic-reversal to Pole shifts, even plate-tectonic upheavals due to a "galactic realignment" casting Sol off-balance from the Milky Way's vast plane-of-the-ecliptic.
Since Meso-American and Aztec cultures perished many centuries ago, their forecasts are certainly disinterested. Even so, an unseen brown-dwarf Destroyer in an eccentric 3,600-hundred year orbit about Sol impinging on Earth coincident with these antique Codices' 26,000-year calendrical cycle seems far-fetched. But viewed in conjunction with recent Crop Circles, Glastonbury's Kolbrin Bible, and cuneiform astronomical records of Sumer, major upheavals would have ample precedent. Hogwash, say all reputable commentators.
It had better be.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Equal Protection
As of Tuesday, 2 December 2008, BHO and Dean's DNC have ignored a Monday deadline for responding to Philadelphia attorney Philip J. Berg's October 30th petition for a U.S. Supreme Court "writ of certiorari" demanding that BHO produce independently verifiable documentation of his eligibility to serve as U.S. Chief Executive.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials charged with protecting citizens' public interests in such cases (there have been many) "dodged questions" concerning the status of Berg's writ. True to bureaucratic form, Federal authorities in the U.S. Solicitor General's Office and the U.S. Supreme Court referred inquiries back to the FEC.
"This reeks of collusion," writes Jeff Schreiber, legal correspondent for various right-leaning "public interest" non-profit organizations. "Perhaps the FEC and other respondents feel they can get away with not taking (Berg's) allegations seriously." Of course as non-partisan Federal agencies the FEC, Solicitor General's Office, and Supreme Court staff are prohibited by statute from favoring --nevermind effectively representing-- private parties such as BHO, his campaign organization, and the DNC. Try this as a Republican and see what happens.
This sets a template for a Banana Administration approach to bureaucratic and judicial challenges from any quarter: Ignore deadlines, treat legal policies and procedures with contempt, act without regard for disinterested, impartial rulings in the --apparently justified-- expectation that no-one (certainly no mere private citizen) will ever bring you to account.
Such run-arounds, in violation of every established code and precedent, will sound a knell for Governance in every constructive sense. What we see here, months before a feckless and malfeasant BHO smirks as he takes his Oath, is but a precursor of the next four years. If U.S. Courts and all-powerful bureaucratic entities such as the FEC and Solicitor General's Office, so quick to rule-or-ruin in most cases, cannot bring themselves to address ultimately simple issues regarding BHO's Hawaiian Birth Certificate, they will compensate by mounting crack downs only in politically safe contexts, meaning against BHO opponents (boy, are we tough!).
Thus perishes American democracy. Having elected this bizarro fraud, who's to say it isn't well-deserved?
Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials charged with protecting citizens' public interests in such cases (there have been many) "dodged questions" concerning the status of Berg's writ. True to bureaucratic form, Federal authorities in the U.S. Solicitor General's Office and the U.S. Supreme Court referred inquiries back to the FEC.
"This reeks of collusion," writes Jeff Schreiber, legal correspondent for various right-leaning "public interest" non-profit organizations. "Perhaps the FEC and other respondents feel they can get away with not taking (Berg's) allegations seriously." Of course as non-partisan Federal agencies the FEC, Solicitor General's Office, and Supreme Court staff are prohibited by statute from favoring --nevermind effectively representing-- private parties such as BHO, his campaign organization, and the DNC. Try this as a Republican and see what happens.
This sets a template for a Banana Administration approach to bureaucratic and judicial challenges from any quarter: Ignore deadlines, treat legal policies and procedures with contempt, act without regard for disinterested, impartial rulings in the --apparently justified-- expectation that no-one (certainly no mere private citizen) will ever bring you to account.
Such run-arounds, in violation of every established code and precedent, will sound a knell for Governance in every constructive sense. What we see here, months before a feckless and malfeasant BHO smirks as he takes his Oath, is but a precursor of the next four years. If U.S. Courts and all-powerful bureaucratic entities such as the FEC and Solicitor General's Office, so quick to rule-or-ruin in most cases, cannot bring themselves to address ultimately simple issues regarding BHO's Hawaiian Birth Certificate, they will compensate by mounting crack downs only in politically safe contexts, meaning against BHO opponents (boy, are we tough!).
Thus perishes American democracy. Having elected this bizarro fraud, who's to say it isn't well-deserved?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Hansen Strikes Again
From an article by Christopher Booker in the U.K. Telegraph, cited in ICECAP, we read, "(In) a surreal scientific blunder [sic] ... NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Science [GISS, Hansen's notorious Warmist platform] (has) announced that last month was the hottest October on record." This despite "plummeting temperatures" worldwide, while GISS's rival National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranked October as only the 70th warmest globally since 1894 (114 years).
An "astonishing discovery" by Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (who originally debunked Mann's hyper-fraudulent "Hockey Stick" graph) reveals that this "glaring anomaly" results from the fact that GISS's data "were not based on October readings at all (!). Figures from ... (September) had simply been carried over and repeated two months running."
Anyone who continues to grant Warmists such as Hansen, recipient of $700k off-the-books payouts by Soros among others, the slightest ethical or scientific credibility deserves a corresponding "carbon credit" deficit bestowed in person by Al Gore on behalf of bottomlessly corrupt official Washington. But then, we ain't seen nuttin' yet.
An "astonishing discovery" by Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit (who originally debunked Mann's hyper-fraudulent "Hockey Stick" graph) reveals that this "glaring anomaly" results from the fact that GISS's data "were not based on October readings at all (!). Figures from ... (September) had simply been carried over and repeated two months running."
Anyone who continues to grant Warmists such as Hansen, recipient of $700k off-the-books payouts by Soros among others, the slightest ethical or scientific credibility deserves a corresponding "carbon credit" deficit bestowed in person by Al Gore on behalf of bottomlessly corrupt official Washington. But then, we ain't seen nuttin' yet.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Paramilitary Stormtroops
From a half-hour BHO TV blitz last night (Wednesday, October 29th), reports are that a Banana administration would budget near a trillion dollars (!) to finance a "National Civilian Defense Force" equipped and trained to military standards. This would not be a citizens' militia, nor a National Guard adjunct under State Governors' command, but a full-fledged uniformed Federal paramilitary force, organized by Platoon, Company, Battalion et al.-- a force-structure parallel to but apart from all existing U.S. military units.
"Uniformed civilians:" Unquestionably, politicized stormtrooper battalions, brownshirts tasked with enforcing extreme-left diktats by Presidential order (meaning BHO) in defiance of any legislative or judicial --read, Constitutional-- prerogative. These would typically be black or Hispanic slum dwellers, recruited for gang-member/street-fighting skills, rewarded not only with public paychecks but with drugs and opportunities for looting "white" central cities and surrounding suburbs for which BHO and his glowering wife have always expressed abhorrence and contempt.
Marrying extreme-left Red Guards with fascist street-thugs is BHO's recipe for race war, the very "helter-skelter" sought by Manson's hippie murderers endorsed by Banana intimates such as Ayers and Dorhn, Farrakhan, putrid Black Supremacists in the Wright mode. Under cover of offering employment and training to oppressed minorities, prominently including illegal immigrants, assembling an NCDF 250,000-strong would take no more than months, say by end-2009 at latest.
The primary mission of this criminal army would be to ensure that no free election ever endangered dictatorial rule by BHO and his adherents. From the Presidential Cabinet to Congress and the Courts, not to mention academic, corporate, and media venues, any slightest opposition would result in "disappearances" familiar to Statist demagogues from Buenos Aires to Peking and BHO's church-burning cousin Odinga in Nairobi, Kenya.
Far-fetched? Like many a grisly creep before him, BHO has laid out his plans and the vile tyranny behind them in articles, books, interviews and theses over near a quarter-century. Given a complaisant and complicit far-left Congress, we submit there are no limits to this creepy dissimulator's destructive ambitions. Voices already call for America's incumbent Administration to resign months before Inauguration Day, the better to hasten the onset of unchecked Rule by BHO Diktat, enforced by his own private army of looting, racist thugs.
Great bridges may stand centuries above roiling streams. But lose one or more strategic bolts, down they crash into the current, washed away as if they'd never been. So too, the American Experiment, even now a mere 220 years a-borning. Down your quiet suburban street will march a singing company of camouflage-wearing, black tee-shirted NCDF recruits, glorying in brutal assaults their Leader and Messiah, BHO, advocated in Kenya less than a year ago.
"Uniformed civilians:" Unquestionably, politicized stormtrooper battalions, brownshirts tasked with enforcing extreme-left diktats by Presidential order (meaning BHO) in defiance of any legislative or judicial --read, Constitutional-- prerogative. These would typically be black or Hispanic slum dwellers, recruited for gang-member/street-fighting skills, rewarded not only with public paychecks but with drugs and opportunities for looting "white" central cities and surrounding suburbs for which BHO and his glowering wife have always expressed abhorrence and contempt.
Marrying extreme-left Red Guards with fascist street-thugs is BHO's recipe for race war, the very "helter-skelter" sought by Manson's hippie murderers endorsed by Banana intimates such as Ayers and Dorhn, Farrakhan, putrid Black Supremacists in the Wright mode. Under cover of offering employment and training to oppressed minorities, prominently including illegal immigrants, assembling an NCDF 250,000-strong would take no more than months, say by end-2009 at latest.
The primary mission of this criminal army would be to ensure that no free election ever endangered dictatorial rule by BHO and his adherents. From the Presidential Cabinet to Congress and the Courts, not to mention academic, corporate, and media venues, any slightest opposition would result in "disappearances" familiar to Statist demagogues from Buenos Aires to Peking and BHO's church-burning cousin Odinga in Nairobi, Kenya.
Far-fetched? Like many a grisly creep before him, BHO has laid out his plans and the vile tyranny behind them in articles, books, interviews and theses over near a quarter-century. Given a complaisant and complicit far-left Congress, we submit there are no limits to this creepy dissimulator's destructive ambitions. Voices already call for America's incumbent Administration to resign months before Inauguration Day, the better to hasten the onset of unchecked Rule by BHO Diktat, enforced by his own private army of looting, racist thugs.
Great bridges may stand centuries above roiling streams. But lose one or more strategic bolts, down they crash into the current, washed away as if they'd never been. So too, the American Experiment, even now a mere 220 years a-borning. Down your quiet suburban street will march a singing company of camouflage-wearing, black tee-shirted NCDF recruits, glorying in brutal assaults their Leader and Messiah, BHO, advocated in Kenya less than a year ago.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Elections
Federal elections are held the first Tuesday in November in even-numbered years; Presidential elections occur in years divisible by four. This practice dates from 1845, superseding diverse voting schedules set from mid-September through early November, a source of multiple-State voting and other rampant frauds.
Early November was chosen because harvests were in and winter storms were not yet a risk to travelers; Tuesdays, because Federal polls were usually in County Seats, typically a day's round-trip for rural residents for whom Sunday was a sabboth-day of rest.
Tax filings are due in April because that gives the maximum six months to Election Day, when voters heeding promises to spread-the-wealth have half a year before the tab comes due. Should that change to (say) mid-October, incumbent politicians could face an electoral backlash endangering their hard-earned 10-hour weeks, 4 - 6 months time-off when out of session, multiple health, travel, pension and other self-awarded benefits.
"Nothing is changed, John Brown-- nothing is changed" (Stephen Vincent Benet). Credit Eugene Volokh's Volokh Conspiracy for suggesting this reprise.
Early November was chosen because harvests were in and winter storms were not yet a risk to travelers; Tuesdays, because Federal polls were usually in County Seats, typically a day's round-trip for rural residents for whom Sunday was a sabboth-day of rest.
Tax filings are due in April because that gives the maximum six months to Election Day, when voters heeding promises to spread-the-wealth have half a year before the tab comes due. Should that change to (say) mid-October, incumbent politicians could face an electoral backlash endangering their hard-earned 10-hour weeks, 4 - 6 months time-off when out of session, multiple health, travel, pension and other self-awarded benefits.
"Nothing is changed, John Brown-- nothing is changed" (Stephen Vincent Benet). Credit Eugene Volokh's Volokh Conspiracy for suggesting this reprise.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Village Blacksmith: Aliens
The Village Blacksmith: Aliens
Aliens may have missed the boat for now, but Dystopian Dreamboy will be out there broadcasting a beacon to show them the way.
Aliens may have missed the boat for now, but Dystopian Dreamboy will be out there broadcasting a beacon to show them the way.
Blowin' in the Wind
Welcome to "Anonymous," who commented on a post below and is now good enough to say we may have some common ground. Your correspondent sincerely hopes so. My response: Attitudes don't interest me, at 68 years old and a survivor of the Tet Offensive. What politicians say matters only as an indication of what they'll do in office, and that judgment is a question of common sense. This election is not politics as usual. Obama is a threat to everything our nation stands for, and to our way of life.
Whether or not the Democrat candidate is a Muslim, there's no doubt he is a terrorist sympathizer endorsed by every totalitarian thug from Libya to Tehran to William Ayers. Elect him and he will gut America's defenses and open our government to our sworn enemies. Tens of thousands will die within six months; we only hope we and our families are not among them.
There is a reality out there, just as there was in the 1930s when Hitler was coming to power in Germany and Joseph Stalin was murdering Russia's kulaks by the millions. Obama broke U.S. law traveling to Kenya and campaigning for his cousin, Raila Odinga, a rancid Marxist gangster. They are birds of a feather. Odinga virtually makes war on his own people, who are black. Obama can't wait to make war on white Americans. That's not racist hate-mongering, that's just a rational expectation from the plain words of his mentors and spiritual advisors, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Anyone who empowers these fascist thugs will deserve what they get. Facts matter, and their agenda is crystal clear.
Abstraction notions of "fairness" and so on are fine, but there's nothing "fair" about slavery, and Obama wants to turn us all into "wards of the state." No civil rights, no control over our own
lives, no rule of law. He is on record saying the Constitution is flawed because it prescribes "negative freedoms" - what the government can't do to you. But if there's nothing the State can't do, then of course it can do anything. Some may look forward to such vile tyranny, or serfdom, as Hayek said, as an "escape from freedom." But they don't understand what this means. I've lived overseas and have felt the oppression Obama stands for. Once a regime like this takes over, it can last 1,000 years. Let's hope Americans stop it now. The crisis is upon us.
Whether or not the Democrat candidate is a Muslim, there's no doubt he is a terrorist sympathizer endorsed by every totalitarian thug from Libya to Tehran to William Ayers. Elect him and he will gut America's defenses and open our government to our sworn enemies. Tens of thousands will die within six months; we only hope we and our families are not among them.
There is a reality out there, just as there was in the 1930s when Hitler was coming to power in Germany and Joseph Stalin was murdering Russia's kulaks by the millions. Obama broke U.S. law traveling to Kenya and campaigning for his cousin, Raila Odinga, a rancid Marxist gangster. They are birds of a feather. Odinga virtually makes war on his own people, who are black. Obama can't wait to make war on white Americans. That's not racist hate-mongering, that's just a rational expectation from the plain words of his mentors and spiritual advisors, Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. Anyone who empowers these fascist thugs will deserve what they get. Facts matter, and their agenda is crystal clear.
Abstraction notions of "fairness" and so on are fine, but there's nothing "fair" about slavery, and Obama wants to turn us all into "wards of the state." No civil rights, no control over our own
lives, no rule of law. He is on record saying the Constitution is flawed because it prescribes "negative freedoms" - what the government can't do to you. But if there's nothing the State can't do, then of course it can do anything. Some may look forward to such vile tyranny, or serfdom, as Hayek said, as an "escape from freedom." But they don't understand what this means. I've lived overseas and have felt the oppression Obama stands for. Once a regime like this takes over, it can last 1,000 years. Let's hope Americans stop it now. The crisis is upon us.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Crisis of Socialism
Delayed since Orwell's time c. 1948, the Crisis of Socialism is now upon us. Something-for-nothing, the pyramiding of ever more volatile financial instruments atop tottering piles of "monetized" (unsecured) debt, now reveals itself for the Ponzi Scheme it is.
For some three generations now, those who experienced the 1930s Depression and survived World War II have engendered a "spread the wealth" mentality that stifles competition, innovation; radically compromises individual initiative and responsibility; blasts healthcare, pensions, self-reliant opportunity at their very roots.
Collectivist Statists must always revert to eating their seed-corn. When previous generations' hard-earned social capital --including education, merit-based employment, housing-- has finally been expended by wastrel "populist" (read Socialist) regimes, the surprise is that economic pies cannot be re-distributed because there are no pies.
Libraries of studies, centuries of cruel experience attest that National or International Socialisms (Nazism, Communism et al.) rapidly degrade to nihilistic death-cults sacrificing acolytes in high proportion on Statist altars glorifying class (Marx), race (Hitler), sectarian dogma (Reformation orthodoxies, today's secular alarmists, always militant Islam).
Must this be our "human condition," or may timeless Enlightenment ideals exemplified by America's founders, unique in history, somehow nurture individual aspirations that hold rapacious Socialisms and their atavistic, reactionary State at bay?
In matters of life-and-death it seems that Eliot's "hollow men," Hoffer's "true believers," benighted Islamists of every stripe will choose the latter. On the most basic level, if parents and children --families-- do not eventually band together in defense of Life, humanity will face a global Dark Age so destructive of civilized relations, so prolonged, that no new Renaissance ever will or likely even can emerge.
For some three generations now, those who experienced the 1930s Depression and survived World War II have engendered a "spread the wealth" mentality that stifles competition, innovation; radically compromises individual initiative and responsibility; blasts healthcare, pensions, self-reliant opportunity at their very roots.
Collectivist Statists must always revert to eating their seed-corn. When previous generations' hard-earned social capital --including education, merit-based employment, housing-- has finally been expended by wastrel "populist" (read Socialist) regimes, the surprise is that economic pies cannot be re-distributed because there are no pies.
Libraries of studies, centuries of cruel experience attest that National or International Socialisms (Nazism, Communism et al.) rapidly degrade to nihilistic death-cults sacrificing acolytes in high proportion on Statist altars glorifying class (Marx), race (Hitler), sectarian dogma (Reformation orthodoxies, today's secular alarmists, always militant Islam).
Must this be our "human condition," or may timeless Enlightenment ideals exemplified by America's founders, unique in history, somehow nurture individual aspirations that hold rapacious Socialisms and their atavistic, reactionary State at bay?
In matters of life-and-death it seems that Eliot's "hollow men," Hoffer's "true believers," benighted Islamists of every stripe will choose the latter. On the most basic level, if parents and children --families-- do not eventually band together in defense of Life, humanity will face a global Dark Age so destructive of civilized relations, so prolonged, that no new Renaissance ever will or likely even can emerge.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Harry Leroy at Agincourt
On October 25th, 1415, St Crispin's Day, English long-bowmen under King Henry V defeated French chivalry at the Battle of Agincourt. Shakespeare's immortal composition of "Harry Leroy's" address to his outnumbered troops lives on 593 years later: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..." Mayhap in these parlous times, beleaguered citizens could use a dose of Harry's spirit, withal the confidence to prevail against great odds in a far better cause:
"And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day."
Fight the good fight, ever keep the Faith.
"And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day."
Fight the good fight, ever keep the Faith.
Communist Takeover
Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama denies that he is a Communist. Yet his mass manipulations, vote fraud, personal corruption, socialist policies, and contempt for the U.S. people and their Constitution would finally succeed in subverting the American experiment in liberty and justice for all under the rule of law. This Manchurian Candidate has no respect for American traditions and is probably not even a U.S. citizen.
As Rome entered on its road to disintegration, ushering in a Dark Age that lasted for 1,000 years, Cicero, one of his country's greatest patriots and statesmen, wrote, " A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly against the city, but the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alley and heard in the very halls of government itself. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist." (Quote from "The American Spectator.")
George Washington agreed. And when asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had agreed to propose, Benjamin Franklin replied, "A republic - if you can keep it." We're about to find out how strong the ideal of democracy is, when a band of traitors has snuck inside the gates.
As Rome entered on its road to disintegration, ushering in a Dark Age that lasted for 1,000 years, Cicero, one of his country's greatest patriots and statesmen, wrote, " A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly against the city, but the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alley and heard in the very halls of government itself. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist." (Quote from "The American Spectator.")
George Washington agreed. And when asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had agreed to propose, Benjamin Franklin replied, "A republic - if you can keep it." We're about to find out how strong the ideal of democracy is, when a band of traitors has snuck inside the gates.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Aliens
Aliens were supposed to be here yesterday
Not that I read the Daily Star or even believed this for more than a second, I discovered it while browsing Fark.com and contemplating economics. The part that stands out, especially in these uncertain financial times, was that the bookies stopped taking bets after they reached a point were their liabilities exceeded the amount they could easily pay off. Let's consider this for a moment.
Bookies unlike banks clearly aren't going to get bailed out and probably have an even tougher time of getting loans, thusly we can say bookies do not carry much if any moral hazard. Although I am unfamiliar with the gambling laws of the U.K. and most other countries, I feel it would be safe to assume that it is a heavily regulated industry, at least the legal portion. In the U.S. casinos and legal gambling institutions are required by law to have available enough cash to cover every bet they take or chip they play. That being said, we all know that casinos and bookies play the odds and the odds are in their favor usually. Obviously the odds of an Alien encounter are astronomical, pun intended.
So here is my question, because legal bookies are heavily regulated and forced to cover their bets, make them act more responsible? or because no one will bail them out?
Perhaps I am making too broad a generalization, but it would appear to me that this would be in conflict with Adam Smith's invisible hand, thusly banks and finincial instituitons need more regulation, or decrease moral hazard?
Not that I read the Daily Star or even believed this for more than a second, I discovered it while browsing Fark.com and contemplating economics. The part that stands out, especially in these uncertain financial times, was that the bookies stopped taking bets after they reached a point were their liabilities exceeded the amount they could easily pay off. Let's consider this for a moment.
Bookies unlike banks clearly aren't going to get bailed out and probably have an even tougher time of getting loans, thusly we can say bookies do not carry much if any moral hazard. Although I am unfamiliar with the gambling laws of the U.K. and most other countries, I feel it would be safe to assume that it is a heavily regulated industry, at least the legal portion. In the U.S. casinos and legal gambling institutions are required by law to have available enough cash to cover every bet they take or chip they play. That being said, we all know that casinos and bookies play the odds and the odds are in their favor usually. Obviously the odds of an Alien encounter are astronomical, pun intended.
So here is my question, because legal bookies are heavily regulated and forced to cover their bets, make them act more responsible? or because no one will bail them out?
Perhaps I am making too broad a generalization, but it would appear to me that this would be in conflict with Adam Smith's invisible hand, thusly banks and finincial instituitons need more regulation, or decrease moral hazard?
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Moose is Loose
GOP VP Candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gets up at 3:00 AM to hunt moose. Today the moose in her sights is Democrat Presidential Candidate Barack Hussein Obama-Soetoro. The Internet has now coined a new word: to be "moosed" means that Gov. Palin has hit her target.
She certainly has. Obama, the Left's lying Marxist stealth candidate, who is probably a non-practicing Muslim and may not even be an American citizen, is down ten percentage points against the McCain-Palin Republican ticket. More and more negative facts are now coming out about Obama and his buffoonish running mate, Sen. Biden. The Village Blacksmith predicts that McCain and Palin will destroy both Dems in the upcoming Presidential debates.
We expect a major Republican victory in November. Question is to what extent it will carry over to the Congressional elections. Dems will probably keep control of the House and Senate, but let's just see. They are so slimy, and so wrong, and so opposed to America's interests on virtually every issue that it's just possible a majority of voters will indeed vote for the real change this country needs.
She certainly has. Obama, the Left's lying Marxist stealth candidate, who is probably a non-practicing Muslim and may not even be an American citizen, is down ten percentage points against the McCain-Palin Republican ticket. More and more negative facts are now coming out about Obama and his buffoonish running mate, Sen. Biden. The Village Blacksmith predicts that McCain and Palin will destroy both Dems in the upcoming Presidential debates.
We expect a major Republican victory in November. Question is to what extent it will carry over to the Congressional elections. Dems will probably keep control of the House and Senate, but let's just see. They are so slimy, and so wrong, and so opposed to America's interests on virtually every issue that it's just possible a majority of voters will indeed vote for the real change this country needs.
Amethyst Initiative
Most people know by now that many college Presidents and Chancellors have signed on to a movement calling for a reduction of the drinking age. With the name Amethyst coming from the Greeks mythology where said stone would protect the Greeks from there own drunkenness. Important to note as this will affect the Greek communities at these institutions directly, but before we get to that let's take a look back at 1984 and see how this began.
The National minimum Drinking Age Act passed Congress in the summer of 1984 any state that did not adopt 21 as the minimum drinking age was deprived of 10%, now 5%, of the highway funds it may attain.
In 1987 South Dakota challenged the constitutionality of the Act in South Dakota v. Dole naming Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole as the defendant as her office was responsible for enforcing the legislation. S. Dakota, a state where at the age of 19, teens could purchase beer with only a 3.2% alcohol content. The Act was challenged on the grounds that it violated the 21st amendment, which repealed prohibition, and the 10th amendment, preventing federal regulation of states. However the Supreme court upheld the act 7-2, saying that withholding highway funds was only to pressure states, and did not compel them and that the 21st did not garuntee the right for persons 18 to drink.
So then what? Teens stayed away from alcohol until 21? Obviously not, it went underground and then it eventually became a problem for the Universities to deal with. Institutions were blindsided by reports of students dieing from alcohol poisoning, violence and sexual abuse related to drinking, the current National Inter-Fraternal Council President says he deals on average with 20 issues a week relating to the above. Being that the most Greek communities dominate or are a large part of the social scene, and most have a limited self-governing system--meaning that they enforce and can make their own laws but answer to the University and subsequently take their cue from the University's Administration--Universities only course of action besides handing out leaflets, was to then regulate the Greeks. It worked for a time, they asked the Greeks to have only BYOB parties, to register them with the respective Greek offices, have lists of all who are attending complete with birthdays and limit the amount people can bring in to parties.
During this time, however, a new binge drinking culture began emerging at Universities one that still remains today. Universities were in a difficult position, they couldn't stop students from drinking, but still were confronted by drinking related incidents. The breaking point and realization that this was a serious problem came not in 2004 when Middlebury Pres. John McCardell, Jr. wrote a notable article in the New York Times, but later in 2007 when the Dean of Students and 2 school officials from the University of Ryder in New Jersey, were charged in relation to a student's death at a fraternity from drinking, he had a BAC of .426. The Mecer County Prosecutor who filed the charges had this to say "The ramifications of this for colleges and universities in New Jersey, and across the country, is that it will send some kind of message that the standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully." The message was heard and Universities realized that not only were their actions were not working but more improtantly the age limit was ineffective. Soon if they are not talking with their students and drinking they will be talking to the police.
The National minimum Drinking Age Act passed Congress in the summer of 1984 any state that did not adopt 21 as the minimum drinking age was deprived of 10%, now 5%, of the highway funds it may attain.
In 1987 South Dakota challenged the constitutionality of the Act in South Dakota v. Dole naming Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole as the defendant as her office was responsible for enforcing the legislation. S. Dakota, a state where at the age of 19, teens could purchase beer with only a 3.2% alcohol content. The Act was challenged on the grounds that it violated the 21st amendment, which repealed prohibition, and the 10th amendment, preventing federal regulation of states. However the Supreme court upheld the act 7-2, saying that withholding highway funds was only to pressure states, and did not compel them and that the 21st did not garuntee the right for persons 18 to drink.
So then what? Teens stayed away from alcohol until 21? Obviously not, it went underground and then it eventually became a problem for the Universities to deal with. Institutions were blindsided by reports of students dieing from alcohol poisoning, violence and sexual abuse related to drinking, the current National Inter-Fraternal Council President says he deals on average with 20 issues a week relating to the above. Being that the most Greek communities dominate or are a large part of the social scene, and most have a limited self-governing system--meaning that they enforce and can make their own laws but answer to the University and subsequently take their cue from the University's Administration--Universities only course of action besides handing out leaflets, was to then regulate the Greeks. It worked for a time, they asked the Greeks to have only BYOB parties, to register them with the respective Greek offices, have lists of all who are attending complete with birthdays and limit the amount people can bring in to parties.
During this time, however, a new binge drinking culture began emerging at Universities one that still remains today. Universities were in a difficult position, they couldn't stop students from drinking, but still were confronted by drinking related incidents. The breaking point and realization that this was a serious problem came not in 2004 when Middlebury Pres. John McCardell, Jr. wrote a notable article in the New York Times, but later in 2007 when the Dean of Students and 2 school officials from the University of Ryder in New Jersey, were charged in relation to a student's death at a fraternity from drinking, he had a BAC of .426. The Mecer County Prosecutor who filed the charges had this to say "The ramifications of this for colleges and universities in New Jersey, and across the country, is that it will send some kind of message that the standards of college life, when it relates to alcohol, need to be policed carefully." The message was heard and Universities realized that not only were their actions were not working but more improtantly the age limit was ineffective. Soon if they are not talking with their students and drinking they will be talking to the police.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Lord Mayor of London
The new mayor of London, England, is a an attractive, intelligent, urbane conservative in the Thatcher-Reagan mold. Boris Johnson is also an American citizen, born in the U.S.A. That makes him eligible to become President of the United States in 2012-2016. We can't wait.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
He Speaks!
Herewith snippets from a refreshingly pithy "Open Letter to Environmentalists" by John Coleman, KUSI meteorologist, founder of TV's "Weather Channel" (May 4, 2008):
"(Your) war against fossil fuels has (degenerated) to a massive scare campaign. ... (Your) science is wrong: There is no significant man-made Global Warming under way, and ... your computer projections of weather chaos are (seriously) flawed.
"(Abandon) this Global Warming frenzy ... stop screaming, 'The sky is falling!'. It is not."
"Weather chaos"-- the modeling problem goes deeper far than that. By mathematical definition, no complex, chaotic system can ever be "modeled" to yield valid projections. In fact, the more complex the model, the less realistic its forecasts become. Climatologists continually "tweaking" inputs and processes guarantee that their creations will diverge from Nature at accelerating rates.
Rational, secular worldviews apparently cannot accept certain fundamental limitations. As Coleman hints, that does not alter Nature's way one whit.
"(Your) war against fossil fuels has (degenerated) to a massive scare campaign. ... (Your) science is wrong: There is no significant man-made Global Warming under way, and ... your computer projections of weather chaos are (seriously) flawed.
"(Abandon) this Global Warming frenzy ... stop screaming, 'The sky is falling!'. It is not."
"Weather chaos"-- the modeling problem goes deeper far than that. By mathematical definition, no complex, chaotic system can ever be "modeled" to yield valid projections. In fact, the more complex the model, the less realistic its forecasts become. Climatologists continually "tweaking" inputs and processes guarantee that their creations will diverge from Nature at accelerating rates.
Rational, secular worldviews apparently cannot accept certain fundamental limitations. As Coleman hints, that does not alter Nature's way one whit.
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