The Ship of Global Warming Folly

Das Narrenschiff - Albrecht Durer

I ponder the 1549 German woodcut, “Ship of Fools,” Albrecht Durer’s illustrations, and even Hieronymus Bosch’s artistic allegory of humanity’s folly sailing aboard a ship without a pilot, a stark reflection of what humans do, sometimes ignorant of their own direction, pursuing untrue and unattainable objectives.

The January 2, 2014 article in The Australian, “Stuck on a ship of (cold) fools,” talks about the Australasian Antarctic Expedition from the University of New South Wales, led by Professor Chris Turney, on a mission to trace the Antarctic expedition of 1911 when Douglas Mawson’s ship was not icebound. Since then, the sea ice has been increasing despite United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) faulty forecasts based on its global warming modeling. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/stuck-on-a-ship-of-cold-fools/story-e6frg71x-1226793309195

The global warming scientists, journalists, and concerned individuals, stuck aboard a ship in 15 ft. thick ice, have set out to prove that “the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting.” The University of New South Wales website describes in alarming tones “an increasing body of evidence” that proves “melting and collapse from ocean warming.”

The irony of the mission which had to be rescued by the icebreaker Aurora Australis, plucking scientists from the stuck Russian MV Akademik Schokalskiy, is that helicopters and other fossil fuel-driven, carbon-emitting machines and ships were used; there is no green energy, wind or solar vessel yet that could perform such a rescue job – the scientists would have been stuck until the ice melted. A second ship, the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon, sent in to help, called off the mission about 6.7 nautical miles from the Russian ship.

According to Fox News, when the ship was trapped, it was 2 miles from open water. The rapidly expanding ice placed it 13 miles from open water. It was so bitter cold, the extreme low temperatures coupled with the chill factor, were unforgiving to unprotected human skin. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/12/27/icebreakers-racing-to-rescue-ship-trapped-in-ice-near-antarctica/

Does the overwhelming evidence that temperatures around the globe have been cooler in the last 17 years and polar ice caps have increased in size in 2013 by 65 percent deter the global warming scientists and their alarmist Gaia worshippers from imposing their insane agenda? The answer is a resounding no. Controlling how we live is more important than reality and fact. As a savvy person said, “You might be a climate denier if… You get your ship trapped in ice that you denied was there.”

The same scientists from the University of New South Wales where the ill-fated cruise ship to the Antarctic originated are doubling down on global warming/climate change agenda, saying that the “world’s climate is warming faster than feared because predictions were too ‘optimistic’ and overestimated the cooling impact of clouds.” Professor Steven Sherwood from the University of New South Wales told The Sydney Morning Herald that “The net effect of [climate change] is you have less cloud cover.” (Jonathan Pearlman, Telegraph, Jan. 2014, www.telegraph.co.uk)

Meanwhile, the blizzard dubbed Hercules is slamming northeastern United States, dumping so much snow that nearly 2,300 flights had to be cancelled, JFK airport was shut down, highways were closed, and the governor of New York declared a state of emergency. It is so bitter cold, exposed skin can freeze in 15 minutes.

“Consensus” scientists have been successful in convincing the EPA under the Bush administration to remove the inexpensive Edison bulbs on account that they used up too much electricity, causing global warming through the use of “dirty” coal that generates the said electricity (Thomas Edison must be rolling in his grave), and replace them with expensive and toxic CFL bulbs that contain mercury, a potent neurotoxin too dangerous for thermometers. “When a CFL breaks in your home, it releases mercury vapor.” To clean up the mess, the EPA instructions are:

1.      Seal off the room and turn off the air condition system (HVAC).

2.      Don’t vacuum because the mercury will spread.

3.      Follow 3 pages of detailed instructions (www.epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.pdf)

You might as well wear a Hazmat suit to protect yourself when removing a broken CFL bulb. Don’t you feel protected and secure in our home, a safe haven for you and your children, compliments of environmental zealots who know what is best for you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiger Paws

Princess, the cat we babysat for a military family assigned overseas, was pregnant. What a joy! We had no idea because she was a plump kitty. She gave birth on January 18 to three smoke-grey kittens and a yellow one. She dropped him on the garage floor far from warmth and his mother’s care. We found him meowing weakly on the cold cement and we decided to adopt him. Who can resist the determined and lucky runt of the litter with such a will to live? We gave the other three to good homes and returned mom, Princess, to its rightful owners when they returned.

Little Tiger picked up weight rather quickly and became stronger. Playful and brave, he was the first one to crawl out of the laundry basket where we kept the four adventuresome bundles of fluff. He became an indispensable part of our family, ready to cuddle with anyone who napped on the couch, but particularly with my youngest daughter.

He played in boxes, preferred sleeping on freshly laundered and folded clothes, and slid like a pro athlete on ice, diving into empty grocery bags left on the floor. There was no sink in the house or closet shelf he had no slept in.

Tiger fancied himself a dog – he answered to commands like a dog, followed us outside, up and down the street for regular walks and for mom’s daily gardening routine. He watched her and kept her company, occasionally chasing playfully a butterfly or a humming bird.

Tiger brought us a daily live catch and dropped it on the back steps: a tail-less salamander, a gecko, a snake, a mouse, a mole, a squirrel, a bird, or whatever critter crossed his path that was not fast enough to get away from his hunting prowess.

Tiger was fearless! He never backed away from territorial encounters with the neighborhood possum, stray dogs, or the resident raccoons. He would return home often with bleeding wounds from his encounters and with sharp teeth embedded in his skin or nose.

He always lost his cat collar with vaccination info the same day we would return from the vet. He would snag it on bushes as far away as the Lutheran Church two streets over. The priest would often call us to say that he had found Tiger’s collar again. We never bothered reattaching it until he got a new one at the next vet visit. He was not dumb enough to get caught by animal control and everyone knew him already – a more slender and active replica of Morris.

One summer he got stuck in a very tall pine tree in front of the house. To the next door neighbor’s amusement, we had to call the fire truck to extricate Tiger from the tree – he was wedged in very tightly, meowing pathetically.

The same next door neighbor, Mark, who hated cats with a passion, ran over Tiger one morning while backing out of his driveway. We did not know whether it was an accident or not, we just heard tires screeching and never gave it a thought since Mark was very eccentric, he did this often with his motorcycle or truck tires just to annoy people.

Thirty minutes later we found Tiger huddled behind the house, close to the back door, barely breathing and bleeding out of every orifice. He had crawled home to die. We followed the trail of blood to Mark’s driveway.

We rushed Tiger to the vet and he was hospitalized for a week. Doc did not think Tiger was going to make it. We waited and prayed for a miracle. Because Tiger had gained so much weight and had extra padding, he survived the ordeal that would have killed most cats, and lost 25 percent of his weight in the process. We had put him on a diet for a while but he never lost any weight – he was smart enough to steal dog food next door and ate to his heart’s content. One thing for sure, Tiger had used up several of his nine lives during his accident and convalescence.

We brought him home a week later and prayed for the best. He recovered and lived four more years because it was not his time to die and he had some lives left over.

On a beautiful spring day, while we were playing outside, taking pictures, and enjoying the sunshine and mom’s beautiful flowers, Tiger urinated on my daughter’s leg. She was annoyed and surprised; unknowingly, we even captured the moment on camera.

A month later, we left him home alone while we drove to a recital two hours away at Ole Miss. When we returned late that night, we could not open the door, something heavy was blocking it. It was Tiger, lying on the floor in front of the door as if trying to escape. We rushed him to the vet again and this time it was really bad – kidney failure, typical for yellow male cats.

He lingered for one week, we visited him daily at the vet and each time it broke my heart. He would get up and try to come home with us. He was purring even though he was in pain. Cats purr both when happy and when in distress. I prayed for a miracle, I hoped the vet could fix him, but it was not possible.

We decided to do the humane thing and end his pain and misery mercifully. We said good bye one last time, we picked him up, kissed him, and loved him. I could barely watch when they gave him the first injection. His beautiful green eyes were begging me, “Mommy, take me home!” before they closed for the last time.

I took Tiger home one last time - to bury him in the back yard. I was sobbing uncontrollably and could barely see to drive - a flood of tears was washing down my cheeks. Tiger was still warm when I touched his fur. I kept saying, I am sorry, I am so sorry, Tiger, that we could not save you. He was eleven and a half years old. He grew up with my children, was a constant part of our lives, he was our child.

In death, his body seemed much heavier to me. I dug his grave with difficulty in the sloping back yard and buried him after a short prayer. He had given us so much joy and love for so many years! I eventually fashioned a cross with his name on it and planted an azalea bush to mark the spot.

I still own that house - I visited the untended back yard last spring. All my beautiful plants and rose bushes were overgrown with weeds. The cross on Tiger’s grave disappeared but the azalea bush is as tall and as beautiful as ever. He lives in its beautiful blossoms each spring and in our cherished memories and photographs.

 

 

 

 

Butler on Business, Liberty Express Radio, 12-19-13, Hate Mail

Alan and I discuss the hate mail I get every day but particularly on articles that go viral. I come on at the 28 minute mark.
http://host1.cyberears.com//23463.mp3

Falsifiers of History

“The absolute worst – and often irreparable – damage done to the Free World has been caused by the Kremlin’s disinformation operations designed to change the past.”
– Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa

The Oxford dictionary defines “disinformation” as false information that is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media.” The word originated in the 1950s with the Russian word, “dezinformatsiya.”

According to Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the KGB manual he perused long time ago clearly described on the first page in upper case letters, “IF YOU ARE GOOD AT DISINFORMATION, YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING.” (p. 80)

Pacepa reveals that Kremlin’s “dezinformatsiya” goes back to 16^th century Russia. In his opinion, the most successful disinformation attack had been launched against the Vatican and the Catholic Church, culminating into a “vicious war against Pope Pius XII and the Judeo-Christian world that broke out in 1945 and has never ended.”

Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable, he clarified. “Misinformation is an official government tool while disinformation is a secret intelligence tool.”

Lt. Gen. Pacepa, who defected from the Soviet bloc and was intimately knowledgeable of its security, explained that “During the Cold War, more people in the Soviet bloc worked for the disinformation machinery than for the Soviet army and defense industry put together.” (p. 38)

Disinformation is channeled in many ways. It is daily manufactured news, programs, and statistics from the main stream media, giving voters false impressions that the economy is quite rosy and recovering although stark reality reflects a different story.

Disinformation is telling naïve voters what they want to hear, making false promises of better and cheaper health insurance, of health care readily available for all, practically free, of redistribution of wealth of the “evil rich” who built their wealth on the backs of the poor, and of “social justice” reigning supreme.

The reality is that millions of Americans have already lost or will lose private insurance because their insurance plans, which they liked and afforded, were deemed inferior by the Affordable Care Act. The actual health care delivery will be hampered by the total chaos, faulty exchanges, ill-prepared and dishonest navigators, the lack of sufficient doctors and nurses, and by new patients who will rush to see doctors for basic services that are free under ObamaCare. Meanwhile, patients with serious illnesses will have to wait patiently their turn in line behind younger Americans and illegal aliens.

Disinformation is manufactured history spoon-fed by teachers and college professors to our nation’s youth, creating false narratives that our country has committed countless atrocities. The current and future Americans are thus obligated to redress such real or imagined atrocities through endless apologies, sensitivity training, and “white guilt” driven wealth redistribution caused by the invented notion of “white privilege.”

Did the current citizens of the United States engage in the slave trade or suffered from slavery? No. Yet race baiters continue to strain race relations through blatantly false storylines because keeping the Civil War alive, slavery, and racial division is very lucrative. The real slave holders and traders around the world today are never discussed.

Disinformation is the main stream media telling the public that a “study found” that mercury, a known neuro-toxin, is actually beneficial for infants when given in vaccines.

Disinformation is the media advising listeners and readers that they are wasting time and money taking daily vitamins; they are not beneficial to overall health. Never mind that the actual study was done on individuals who had suffered a heart attack. One of the stated biases in the study was that the subjects did not take the vitamins regularly or the proper dosage daily, making the reliability of the findings questionable.

Disinformation is portraying Mitt Romney and other conservative Christian political candidates as enemies who wage a fictitious “war on women” while the real war is waged on women around the world: abortions of millions of potential Americans at taxpayer subsidized clinics, genital mutilation, forced late-term abortions in China in order to comply with one-child policy, honor killings of women when these women are raped and falsely accused of adultery, or facial acid burnings when pubescent girls refuse to marry old men.

Disinformation is continuing to implement public policy affecting all Americans and billions around the globe based on the manufactured “consensus science” of global warming/climate change, costing taxpayers billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses, taxes, and fees in order to line the pockets of interested parties, individuals, and NGOs who gain immensely from taxing CO2 and from destroying the use of cheaper fossil fuels through unreasonable and costly regulations. The energy derived from cheaper fossil fuels must be replaced by more expensive and dirty “green” energy.

The MSM gave little coverage to the news that the global warming/climate change “team of scientists and members of the public retracing the footsteps of the Australian Antarctic expedition of 1911” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/25/antarctic-expedition-scientists-trapped-ice found themselves and their cruise ship trapped in 15 ft. thick ice in the Antarctic, in need of rescue from ice breakers and helicopters. http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/30/world/antarctic-ship-stuck/

Was it a fact-finding mission, looking for dead polar bears and melted ice caps?

Disinformation is propagandizing the idea of Green Growth and Sustainability Everything for the better good of the planet while planning on massively moving people off their lands and from the suburbia into urban micro-pods, 200 square feet of space, stacked 9-story high, without cars and elevators, just walking and biking, in order to re-wild private lands because environmentalists have decided long time ago that suburban sprawl is bad and there are too many destructive humans on the planet. When challenged and presented with the evidence of all the Smart Growth plans and Agenda 21 documents, American citizens are “framed” and vilified as dangerous loons.

Disinformation is dismantling piece by piece, executive order by executive order, judicial decision by judicial decision, Congressional Act by Congressional Act, the American family, the military, the labor force, the stellar American healthcare system, the education system, decency and morality, the justice system, businesses, and our Christian faith while telling low information voters that it is done for the greater good, for the collective that will eventually rob them of their freedom.

Disinformation is allowing Islamic infiltration into America’s cities because our government has decided that we are so “intolerant and hateful” that we must be taught lessons in how to get along and “coexist” with invading cultures whose values and laws are incompatible with our Constitution and who wish to bring their third world slums to America. The sensitivity training and reeducation must include a healthy dose of welfare to make illegals and those who follow the religion of peace feel at home in our country.

Disinformation was creating a non-existent “well-organized white-supremacist movement” responsible for black church fires during President Clinton’s years in office.  Lt. Gen. Pacepa describes in his book, Disinformation, how the National Fire Protection Association disclosed that “there had been far fewer church fires than usual, and law enforcement officials in the South could not confirm any as having been racially motivated.” Pacepa concluded that, after the National Council of Churches was accused of manufacturing “a great church-fire hoax,” nobody investigated why this hoax was created. (p. 2)

Disinformation is justifying by the MSM the violent attacks of black individuals against white and Hispanic elderly as a “knockout game,” while condemning only two attackers who happened to be white.

Pacepa used in his book an example of disinformation that was meant to vilify Americans as careless Neanderthals who do not appreciate museum artifacts. The MSM reported that “170,000 items of antiquity dating back thousands of years” were destroyed in April 2003 at the National Museum in Baghdad. In reality, treasures were safe in American custody and only 25 items were eventually listed as missing. (p. 36)

The “falsifiers of history,” the disinformation agents, have created the myths like Che Guevara, the darling of liberals and college students in this country. They wear with pride t-shirts and berets with the mug shot of a criminal who was sentenced to death and executed for mass murder and terrorism.

As part of the Soviet dezinformatsiya campaign, the “framing” of ordinary citizens as “uncooperative” or “Nazi collaborators” has resulted in the death of millions of innocents behind the Iron Curtain. 

Lt. Gen. Pacepa believes “respect for Marxism and admiration for murderous communist leaders” to be “the greatest political hoax perpetrated in history.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

EPA, the Enforcer of Federal Pollution Control Laws

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created in 1970, is the primary federal agency and key player with boundless authority to develop and enforce regulations to allegedly protect human health and the environment from harm caused by pollution. EPA regulations are issued based on the following Acts enacted by Congress:

-          Clean Air Act

-          Clean Water Act

-          Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund)

-          Safe Drinking Water Act

-          Solid Waste Disposal Act/Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

-          Oil Pollution Control Act (1990)

-          Environmental Planning and Community-Right-To-Know Act

-          Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act

-          Toxic Substances Control Act

-          Pollution Prosecution Act of 1990

“EPA promulgates national regulations and standards” with help from the Department of the Interior, Army Corps of Engineers, states, tribes, and NGO stakeholder groups. (CRS Report RL32240, The Federal Rulemaking Process: An Overview, Maeve P. Carey)

EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance in coordination with the Department of Justice and EPA’s 10 regional offices provide day-to-day federal enforcement activities, monitor compliance, provide incentives, and fines.

Disagreements between the federal EPA and state governments occur in regards to environmental priorities and strategy, compliance assistance, and enforcement.

Enforcement issues debated in congressional hearings and legislation:

 

      -          Constant increased compliance monitoring and reporting

-          Environmental enforcement and penalties to the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy

-          How to measure success – via measurable health and environmental benefits or via total dollar value of penalties

-          Are penalties enough to deter polluting or too harsh, causing economic hardship? The EPA and environmentalists say that it is not enough while Americans believe that penalties not only cause hardship but actually harms business, freedom, and property rights.

-          How effective is pollutant trading programs and enforcement?

-          Are punishment and pollution deterrence effective through litigation?

“There is no readily available, current, comprehensive list and description of the complete universe of those who are regulated under all of the major pollution control statues. EPA has been criticized for not adequately defining the regulated universe, a step that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined to be a critical component necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of enforcement.” (p. 15, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34384.pdf)

The EPA monitors 31 economic activities and industries: aerospace, agriculture, automotive, chemicals, computers/electronics, construction, dry cleaning, education, federal facilities, food processing, furniture, health care, local government operations, marinas, metals, minerals/mining/processing, paints and coatings, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, ports, power generators, printing, prisons and correctional institutions, pulp/paper/lumber, ready mix/crushed stone/sand and gravel, retail, rubber/plastics, shipbuilding and repair, textiles, transportation, and tribal.

EPA monitoring is achieved by:

-          Self-monitoring/reporting

-          Review of records

-          Full and partial inspection/evaluations

-          Area monitoring of the vicinity of a facility

EPA enforcement includes:

-          Notice of violation (the initial process)

-          Requirement of a violator to take specific action

-          Revocation of a violator’s permit to discharge

-          Penalty for non-compliance

-          Negotiated settlements through civil administration actions

-          Civil judicial process (lawsuits filed in federal district court by DOJ on behalf of EPA and for states by State Attorney General)

The EPA’s criminal enforcement program had an estimated 191 investigators assigned in 2013. In 2009, the EPA built the “EPA Fugitives” website http://www.epa.gov/fugitives/) which

contains “photographs and information about alleged violations of individuals who have avoided prosecution for allegedly committing environmental crimes.” (p. 26, CRS Report RL34384)

Finally, some members of Congress showed interest in the sanctions and penalties imposed by EPA in settlements that require redress of environmental damages known as “injunctive relief,” fines, “permanent or temporary closing of facilities or specific operations, increased monitoring/reporting, revocation of existing permits, denial of future permits, and barring of receipt of federal contract funding or other federal assistance.” (CRS Report RL34384, p. 27)

Fines collected by the EPA are deposited with the U.S. Treasury. But, under the Superfund and Clear Water Acts, money collected for replacing or restoring natural resources must be used to restore the resources. In the November 6, 2013 Federal Register, the EPA published the “Civil Monetary Penalty Inflation Adjustment (Final) Rule. www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-11-06/pdf/2013-26648.pdf

EPA and DOJ use the following templates to calculate civil penalties:

-          BEN, to calculate economic advantage/savings if the violator does not comply

-          ABEL, to measure a corporation’s ability to afford compliance, cleanup, and civil penalties

-          INDIPAY, to assess an individual’s ability to afford compliance, cleanup, and civil penalties

-          MUNIPAY, to gauge a municipality’s ability to comply, to cleanup, and to pay civil penalties

-          PROJECT, to evaluate a violator’s ability to fund instead a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) to mitigate pollution compliance such as a public health project, an emergency preparedness project, etc.

Waiving “sovereign immunity” the EPA assessed nearly $615 million in penalties in 2012 against 61 federal agencies. Regulated businesses and individuals were charged in 2012 $9 billion for judicially mandated pollution controls, cleanup and “beneficial” SEP projects.

In 2012 EPA claims that 2.2 billion pounds of pollutants were removed from air and water, $208 million were levied in civil penalties (administrative and judicial) and $44 million in criminal fines and restitution. EPA issued 1,780 penalty orders and referred 215 civil cases to the DOJ. (Congressional Research Service, RL34384, December 16, 2013, Robert Esworthy, Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced?)

To fund the EPA’s enforcement/compliance activities, the President FY 2014 budget request was $625 million, more than the previous year’s $615.9 million. Detailed allocations for the EPA were not available. The DOJ’s FY2014 budget request funding for its Environment and Natural Resources Division was $112.6 million and 520 FTEs.

According to Robert Esworthy, one important issue for the 113^th Congress regarding EPA should be “additional oversight hearings,” review of grants award process associated with EPA-states’ partnerships, and “statute-specific legislation to address long-standing concerns that affect certain aspects of EPA enforcement/compliance activities under the various pollution control laws.”

American taxpayers, business owners, and some members of Congress are concerned about more legislation that would further expand the overreaching power of the EPA while environmental groups (NGOs) are upset about reining in and constraining the enforcement/compliance power of the EPA.

EPA’s unchecked power has been blamed for destroying economic prosperity, the supply of food, Americans’ means of support, and preventing the exploration of much needed resources that fuel the economy, in an effort to protect the habitat of a small fish, a rare bird, a mouse, while wind and solar farms are given federal permission to chop and fry thousands of birds with their “green” wind turbines and solar panels, including the endangered bald eagle in California.

 

 

 

Butler on Business, 12-20-13, Budget Deal

Alan Butler and I discuss the new budget deal as it relates to the military pension cuts and the continuation of giving illegal aliens earned income tax credit, a form of welfare to illegals with taxpayer dollars. I come on in the second hour at the 6 minute mark.
http://host1.cyberears.com//23489.mp3

Butler on Business, 12-19-13, Hate mail

Alan Butler and I discuss some of the nasty e-mails I get because of my anti-Agenda 21 stance. I come on at the 28 minute mark.
http://host1.cyberears.com//23463.mp3