Brutally Honest

Putting the 'whacked' in Environmentalist Whacko

Tom Flake has a few questions for a select, but influential, few:

I hear people use the term save the planet.  I must confess I am confused.  Save it from what?  Save it for whom?  Save it to what end?  Is it in danger of destruction?  If so, destroyed in what manner?  Do people who use this term speak English as a first language?

People who use this term usually are trying to motivate people to take some type of action.  eg. You should recycle to save the planet.  Does that mean if I don't recycle, the planet will be hit by a meteor?  Clearly, that isn't the case.  There is no connection (that I've heard anyone make) between my recycling and the course of asteroids in their path.  The only thing I can figure is that they must not mean "saved from utter and complete destruction" as in asteroid collision, sun going nova, black hole destruction.  Even nuclear weapons would likely leave roaches and critters in the oceans.

Perhaps when people use the term they mean save the planet from being made unlivable to human beings.  Have any of these people seen pictures of slums in the worst of South America or Asia?  People can live quite successfully in the worst kind of filth.  My observation is that pollution, litter, clutter, debris, man-made detritus, while not pretty don't make an area uninhabitable.  This means that when people use the term "save the planet" they don't mean saved so that the planet will continue to support human life.  There is no evidence that my failure to recycle will leave the planet uninhabitable.

Perhaps when people use the term save the planet, they mean improved so that the carrying capacity of the planet for human habitation is increased.  That since the human population is increasing, they are concerned for future generations reaching some level of overpopulation and thus they wan't to increase the amount of arable land that is being farmed.  Their actions though, preserving forests, protesting population growth, advocating abortion, doesn't support the hypothesis that these people are into preserving and extending the species.

This can only mean that people who use the term save the planet must mean "lower the carrying capacity of the planet for human beings".  Use less to preserve a natural environment for other species use.  Because somehow when a whale kills and eats a fish, that's better than when a human kills and eats the fish.  From the fishes point of view I don't see the difference. 

There's more and it's worthy, so go check it out. 

And speaking of more, Chuck Colson has a few related thoughts:

The last time that Britain’s population was cut in half was the 14th century. The cause was the Black Death.

Seven centuries later, a leading British environmentalist is urging a similar decrease in what Ebenezer Scrooge famously called “the surplus population.” Only this time, he’s asking for volunteers.

In February, Jonathan Porritt, the chairman of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission, said that couples with more than two children were placing an “‘irresponsible’ burden of the environment.”

He accused his fellow environmentalists of “betraying the interests of [their] members” by not telling people to be responsible for “their total environmental footprint.”

Not surprisingly, Porritt’s comments didn’t sit very well with a lot of Britons. But he’s convinced, as he wrote on his website, that “logic” and “sound evidence” are on his side.

So, six weeks later, he upped the ante: he declared that the UK must cut its population from its current 61 million to 30 million “if it is to build a sustainable society.”

Porritt told attendees at the annual conference of Britain’s Optimum Population Trust—yes, that’s the organization’s name—that “population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.”

According to Porritt, “each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries.” The “impact” he’s referring to is the emission of greenhouse gases believed to cause man-made global warming.

Porritt and his supporters, like Chris Rapley, the director of Britain’s Science Museum, are fuzzy when it comes to details about how to cut the population in half, and I don’t blame them: not even China’s infamous “one-child” policy will achieve Porritt’s goal.

One industrialized country that may, however, is Russia. A combination of plummeting birth rates, substance abuse, infectious disease, poor nutrition and other factors has reduced the life expectancy of Russian males to 59 years, 10 years less than at the end of the Soviet Union. As a result, Russia’s population is projected to drop by a third by 2050 and a half by 2100. A sustainable society? I think not.

Of course, a few good wars could reduce the human population, but all that ordnance, you see, would be bad for the environment.

The common thread between Tom and Chuck's posts is clear... there's more to the environmentalist movement than meets the eye (or the ear).  There's a fascination with saving the planet that doesn't necessarily include saving the humans dwelling on that planet.

And that friends makes the movement wickedly non-philanthropic and worthy of our vehement opposition.

Is Obama a Neo-National Socialist?

Yesterday, we continued to try to figure out whether Obama is evil. 

Tonight, Tom Flake is adding to the discussion by suggesting strongly that Obama is indeed a Neo-National Socialist:

While President Obama has only been in office for about three months, he has been prominent in the public eye for about three years.  And while certain political opponents have tried to tag him with nicknames none have appeared to gain any traction. 

...

As we search for the appropriate appelation for President Obama and his adminstration, there are some rules that must be followed for it to be effective:  

1. It has to be cute and memorable 

2. It has to be short

3. There has to be a ring of truth to it

I've thought about several and rejected several, one that seemed at first blush was "The Anti-Christ".  While it has a ring of truth to it (meeting rule 3) and it is short (meeting rule 2), it is in no way cute and therefore must be rejected. 

So one I'd like to propose is "Neo-NatSoc".  This is short for New National Socialist.  This is unfortunately, true (meeting rule 3) it is short (meeting rule 2) and it is memorable as a play on neo-con.  I know that there may be some trademark problems because it is owned by the "National Socialists" and they are a prickly crowd who aren't into sharing.  I also know that it is going to be difficult to brand a non-aryan such as Barak Obama as a National Socialist, but since words mean things and he is a trying to turn the Nation of the United States into a Socialist version of utopia, it does seem accurate, no matter how distasteful.  So what do you think?  Does this work as a nickname that will stick and can be used to deride President Obama, or can you come up with something that will work better?

Since Neo-Nazi may be premature and has connotations that don't yet seem to fit, Neo-National Socialist seems more than apt, much more than fair and absolutely descriptive.

I give Tom's suggestion a big thumbs up.

You?

Faux role modeling

Guest blogger and co-worker Tom Flake is talking modeling at his place and why we should all be most skeptical of experts flinging modeling data at us:

... there are some basic rules about modeling and simulation that will help you understand the point of this post:

1) Natural systems - markets, weather, etc. are far more difficult to model than synthetic systems (such as assembly lines or traffic patterns)

2) The greater the level of detail required of the model the less accurate the results are going to be.  In other words if you want to know if the economy is going to grow or shrink in 2010, that is far easier to predict than by precisely how much that in turn is far easier to predict that if a particular stock is going to go up or down and that is easier to know than how much a stock will go up or down.

3) Any model has a limited number of inputs that each drives the model in  a certain direction and among those inputs are some assumptions that the modeler makes each one of which has a different degree of impact on the results.  The amount of sensitivity can have significant impact on the model results even when the modeler makes seemingly modest adjustments to only one or two assumptions.

4) Lastly- anyone, no matter how much education or experience who tells you that they know precisely what will happen in the future, by a certain amount, because a model they built tells them so, is wrong, misapplying the tools, or lying.  If by chance they happen to be right, it is simply luck, not skill.

With that said, I want to change your focus from the budget to global warming.  If the budget guys can't predict within 20% of each other what the economy will look like in the next ten years.  And through tax policy, monetary policy, law making and regulatory policy they control many of the inputs.  Common sense should tell you the degree to which some quasi-meteorologist is going to be right.  Particularly when you consider that they are using essentially the same tools and mathematical techniques to forecast global warming over the next 50-100-200 years as are being used by the economist inthe administration.  I can tell you with 100% certainty that when someone says, “The median temperature of the earth will increase by 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2080 and that the increase will have effects A B or C" they are wrong, period.

The whole thing should be read for context.  Do so and be better for it.

Money laundering by the criminals who are stealing our children’s future

Posted here and at The Right is Wrong and The Left is Wronger by guest blogger Tom Flake.

When John Gotti laundered $10 of millions of dollars, it’s considered the crime of the century.  When Hillary Clinton does it, it’s considered just another day at the office.  I am at a loss, I don’t even know what to call it, but “we” in the form of Hillary Clinton just promised $900 Million to Hamas to rebuild their “country” after the Israeli’s destroyed it.  Wow, where to start…

First thing to think about when attempting to put this in perspective, the United States has no money. When you are running a $1.75 trillion deficit, by definition you not only have spent all of your money, you’ve spent a GREAT deal of the bank's money as well.  We are borrowing the money from China.  Therefore, but for the laundering, China is giving/borrowing $900 million to Hamas.  If they were to do this directly, we’d likely have a problem with this.  Why? The only reason I can come up with is we wouldn’t be getting to “dip our beak” in the transaction.  The problem here is that when gangsters use this term they are expecting to make a profit.  When our government takes this tact, they are talking about paying more interest.  At this point I’d like to turn the government over to the mafia, at least then we’d make a profit.

Second thing to think about, as discussed in previous posts, since this is all money spent in deficit, it is debt piled on non-voting, unborn generations.  This means that the next million babies born, in addition to the $43,333 they are already in debt the moment they are born, are an additional $900 dollars in debt.  We as their parent or guardians ought to at least be allowed to ask what they are getting for their money.  It turns out even more debt.  Not only do we never pay down the debt, interest is always piled on interest.  In addition, WE FUND BOTH SIDES, with money borrowed from the Chinese.  So we pile on debt to buy Israel arms, so that they can destroy Hamas towns, so that we can borrow more money to rebuild those towns, so that Israel can in turn destroy them with money we borrowed from the Chinese.  Is it only me, or does anyone else see that the only people who are losing in this war are the American taxpayers?

Third thing to think about, there are about 1.5 million Lebanese.  This works out to about $700 per person for every man woman and child.  Aren’t there 1.5 million Americans who could use $700, I don’t know, for a week’s unemployment, for economic stimulus, for a weekend vacation?  Seems to me my future unborn grandchild has a better claim on it than the gangsters in government and the gangsters in the Middle East.

I’ve got an idea.  Stop funding Israel, stop funding any Lebanese: the government, Hamas, Hezbollah all of them.  Stop borrowing money from the Chinese in order to do it and stop the criminal insanity of screwing the American tax payer, who in this deal is getting it coming and going.

"What happened to that America Dad?"

Posted here and at The Right is Wrong and The Left is Wronger by guest blogger Tom Flake.

I am “Old School”. In a previous era I may have been considered macho. I prefer combat sports (boxing and mixed martial arts) to team sports (baseball and basketball). I prefer outdoor activities (rock climbing, whitewater rafting and camping) to video games. I prefer competition to cooperation, and may the best man win. All too often today, macho self-confidence is confused with “a*shole”, “arrogant”, or “pig-headed” particularly when it entails any interface with the gentler gender. I believe that in this era of feminized, emasculated, gender-neutral, neutered, politically-correct, “my right to not be offended, trumps your freedom of speech” era, many men who would otherwise voice their opinions have chosen instead to be quiet and pine for a better yesterday. Yet, straight shooters who opt to solve problems rather than wring their hands over them, is exactly what we need.

One method of compensation I have adopted is to collect movies of a John Wayne, Chuck Norris variety. I prefer a simple life where problems can be dealt with head on. The other night, my family was deciding on a movie to watch, and I suggested, that because my son was studying American history and WWII that we watch Patton. The monologue at the beginning is famous and parts bear repeating. “Americans traditionally love to fight…” “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser…” Within five minutes, of the beginning of the movie, my son turned to me with wonder and admiration in his voice and asked, “Dad, what happened to that America”? I suddenly got tears in my eyes, I hadn’t realized how far off the path we had gotten. My response was as accurate as it was politically incorrect, “Son, the last two generations in power have pissed away that America and I fear that if my generation doesn’t do something to reverse the slide, there won’t be anyone who remembers what was once noble and admired about cowboys and firemen and soldiers”.

It has become common in business literature and B School classes to deride the “charismatic leader”. To portray the team as paramount and the lone wolf as dangerous, this in the face of all of the facts. Some things to consider, Steve Jobs has saved Apple not once but twice. Microsoft has gone nowhere since Bill Gates backed away from his day to day responsibilities. When Dell got into trouble several years ago, the first thing they did was bring Michael Dell back. In Organizational Behavior they stress the fact that group decisions are often better than what an individual leader will come up with. This is after discussing “sub-optimization” and “group think” and failing to discuss at all, the time cost associated with group dynamics. Give me a decisive, informed, engaged, ethical visionary to a group anytime.

It is interesting to note the difference between Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address and Barak Obama’s. Both inherited an America on the ropes. In each case unemployment was high and getting higher. Arguably in Reagan’s case the scenario was worse, interest rates were MUCH higher, and inflation was higher. I don’t know for sure, but is suspect in Reagan’s first thirty days he never claimed that they were in the worst economy since the Great Depression and I suspect he never used the terms "catastrophic", "crisis" or any other similar panty-waste, hand-wringing, pussy whipped, "I feel your pain", BS for what he saw, as a job that needed doing with an outcome measured in the quality of people's lives, NOT in how many poll percentage points a certain stance was worth.

What we need in America today is more Patton’s and fewer Powell’s, more Apple‘s and fewer Lehman Brothers, more leadership and fewer focus groups.

'Sphere expands

Wanted to take a quick moment to alert regular readers that two of my guest bloggers have recently begun posting at their own respective places.

Locutisprime has had a blog at Townhall for some time and tells me that his participation at Brutally Honest has spurred him into posting more regularly there.  Hope you'll bookmark his place and pay him a visit often.  I also hope he'll soon have an RSS feed established so that I can add him to my blogroll.

And Tom Flake has established his blog home at The Right is Wrong and the Left is Wronger.  Tom goes on the blogroll under my Offspring section.  He's got a few posts up already and promises much more in the coming days.

Brutally Honest good wishes to them both along with my sincere communication that they are welcome to continue to post here as often as they'd like.  And here's hoping BH readers will pay them frequent visits as they add their voices to the litany of those available.

The Immorality of Christianity

Posted by Guest Blogger Tom Flake.

In my last post, “Intellectual Honesty on the Right” I got the impression that people thought that I was an Obama apologist and a left wing loon. I suppose the title of this post will remove all doubt. The truth of the matter is, that I’ve completely written off the left as a total loss and I hope that the right can still be salvaged.

So here goes. I think the right has the environmental issue all wrong. We ought to be leading the charge for greener technology and for higher fuel efficiency, not being pulled reluctantly along by the left who have clearly taken leadership on this topic. The thinking here is simple: first there is only so much of the various non-renewables on the planet, second shipping vast sums of money to the middle east that in turn funds people who want to kill us is idiocy and finally (polar bears and global warming aside) breathing more carbon dioxide, rather than less can’t be a good thing, can it?

Whether you believe the planet is 7000 years old or 4 billion, you have to believe that there is a finite amount of everything, oil, coal, tuna, everything. There is no evidence that God is, for instance, keeping the Dodo Bird (man’s actions) or Mammoth (nature’s actions) from extinction. Therefore there is no reason to believe he will prevent tuna or coal from exhaustion. It is important to note though, that some resources replace themselves on a timescale that humans can appreciate (tuna), while others (oil for instance) well, who really knows? Saudi Arabia estimates their reserves at about 264 billion barrels. The rest of the world is about four times that in proven reserves about 1.3 trillion barrels. Take a stab that there are unproven/unfound reserves of twice that factoring in improved recovery techniques and you arrive at about 2.6 trillion barrels. This sounds like a fantastical amount, the world is swimming in oil, right? Problem is, that's all there is, and it has to last FOREVER.

With 6 Billion people on the planet that's 433 barrels per person. Good for your lifetime? Probably. Good for your 2.3 children's lifetime? Possibly. Good for your grandchildren? Unlikely. So as an outside estimate, the world’s oil at the current rate of consumption runs out in 200 years and that, is far less than FOREVER. What do we tell our children and grandchildren?  “We got ours, screw you?” When do we start to solve the problem? Now, when we have time? -or-  At the last minute when the results will be truly catastrophic? This is an ethical question about how fairly we treat our fellow man, our descendants.  Yet on the right our plan is, apparently, to mock the left. I agree they deserve ridicule, when former Vice-President Gore claims the polar caps are disappearing yet I can go to Google earth and see they are still there…

Let me compare the oil example to solar power. True it is more expensive than grid power at this time for everywhere in the U.S. except the most expensive locales. But as fuel prices rise and solar manufacturers achieve better efficiencies and production economies of scale that will change. Best guess is about five year to grid parity. Regardless, if it were fifty time more expensive the ethical question would still hold. The sun is estimated to last another 5 Billion years. Currently 10,000 x more energy hits the surface of the earth than we need. Solar, nuclear and wind are the only energy resources where we can grow capacity (hydro in the U.S. is considered fully developed) and we won't use it all up in a span of decades. In fact, exhaustion of solar and wind won't occur until the sun burns out. These are the only fuels we can use without having guilt about the endowment of resources we leave our children. In my book that makes them the only ethical choice.

Second, does anyone contend that shipping boatloads of money to the Middle East is not bad foreign and domestic policy on a scale so unimaginable as to be insanity? The number one way to balance our trade imbalance and to create thousands of domestic jobs would be to invest in a domestic energy strategy designed around national security. This would serve to balance our trade deficit, create jobs, promote national security and end our funding of terrorism (albeit indirectly). Is there a downside? I cannot think of one.  Oil and energy in general may become more expensive, but we will stop depreciating the dollar and our cost for national defense will drop, these savings may or may not completely offset the added expense of energy but this is a saner approach, no?

The atmosphere is a big place, and plant life does soak up some C0₂ but if we could be more energy efficient, and extend the planet’s endowment of oil from 200 years to 300 years while we, at the same time, create jobs, and rationalize the trade imbalance, would anyone argue that breathing more C0₂ is better than breathing less?

The arguments I have just put forward, apply to many aspects of our lives. Other hydrocarbon fuels such as coal come to mind. But resources such as fish that grow in the wild also need to be managed.  As a society we have to agree that the maximum rate of usage needs to be no more that the maximum rate of replacement. This policy is the only way to ensure that our grandchildren will have the opportunity to enjoy some of the natural endowment this planet has to offer. We are perhaps the first generation to have such a clear and present choice as to the condition of the planet and it's endowment of natural resources that we would leave to future generations. Sustainability must not be a fad as it is the only ethical choice for good stewards of a planet that is only theirs in trust.”

Finally, why was this post titled the immorality of Christianity? In general, it has been my observation that Christians, and here I am stereotyping, are arrogant with respect to the environment, because God gave us dominion over the planet, right? We all, I suspect, believe that the world is going to end, the perfection of the planet is going to occur, during our lifetimes. Therefore we don’t have to give much thought to tomorrow, much less future generations. But I believe we aren’t much different from past generations, who also believed the second coming would occur during their lifetimes. (See Paul's advice on marriage) Who knows, we may be the first generation to be right. On the other hand the odds are, we are just another, in a long line of generations to get it wrong. Who will pay that price? Our kids kids.

Christ said, “I come as a thief in the night” and “no man knows the hour”, shouldn’t we act as though he knew what he was talking about?

Intellectual honesty on the right

Posted by Guest Blogger Tom Flake, as referenced in my post yesterday.

We on the right claim to have the corner on intellectual honesty.  When we are intellectually honest it lends a ring of truth to our positions that is difficult to refute in open, honest debate.  On the other hand when we are putting forth argument to damage a political opponent and we don't live up to the merits of our argument then we are guilty of hubris and the same type of intellectual dishonesty of which we accuse our opponents.

Case in point, recently numerous political commentators have taken Senator Obama to the political woodshed over his association with Pastor Wright.  I don't know enough to judge Pastor Wright, five or six sound bites taken from twenty years worth of ministry is not enough data to make a judgment of his character in my view.  But for the sake of discussion I'll acknowledge that his rhetoric lends itself to negative interpretation and that Senator Obama, by associating with Pastor Wright for the last twenty years has supported Pastor Wright by his presence and, I assume, his tithes and this in turn calls into question his judgment in general, and in particular as it relates to choices of association.

At the same time, if we are intellectually honest we must impose the same standard upon ourselves.  When our ministers and church leadership support and condone conduct that is contemptible we must separate ourselves from the congregation and stop supporting by our presence and our tithes, behavior that even casual Christians find repugnant.  Sean Hannity, perhaps more than any other pundit, has lambasted Senator Obama for his association with Pastor Wright.  At the same time, while verbally condemning the Catholic hierarchy for its lack of action in the church pedophilia scandal, where, not only were individual priests guilty of serial pedophilia, but various Bishops and Arch-Bishops were accessories after the fact, shuffling know pedophiles from parish to parish and from diocese to diocese all in an effort to protect the guilty from exposure and perhaps prosecution.  This in turn allowed them to victimize others.

None of these facts are in dispute, particularly in the Boston, L.A. and Richmond diocese, yet those same commentators (particularly Hannity) who call for Senator Obama to separate himself from Pastor Wright and denounce his rhetoric, continue to support by their presence and with their tithes a Catholic leadership that is guilty of far worse than speaking evil.  They are guilty of doing evil.  These pedophile priests and their accessories after the fact in the hierarchy perpetrated this evil not upon the powerful that, in some cases rightfully deserve criticism, but upon the weak and innocent who in no way deserved what was done to them.

The conservatives among us, in order to protect our "intellectual capital" must be intellectually honest and at least as critical of ourselves and those of like mind as we are of our opponents.  We must always hold ourselves to at least as high a standard as we do our fellow man.  If not, we are simply guilty of hubris and worse, but we lose all claim to the moral high ground.  It is possible that Pastor Wright deserves criticism for his fiery rhetoric but we on the right need to worry about the beam in our eye, before we worry about the mote in Senator Obama's.  Let me be clear, I believe Senator Obama is a socialist, and too inexperienced on foreign affairs to lead effectively during this period.  I don't agree with the path he would lead America down.  But until conservatives are willing to take the same medicine we would prescribe Senator Obama on his church affiliation we ought to leave the Pastor Wright subject alone.  Either Sean Hannity should leave the Catholic Church and denounce its leadership or he should drop the Senator Obama/Pastor Wright topic entirely.  Because the sin of Senator Obama's church is nothing in comparison to the sin of Sean Hannity's church.