By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/26/07

 

            It would appear that the man-made global warming Nazis may have to go back to the drawing board on their “strategery” to usurp capitalistic consumption freedom from us. NASA very quietly last week changed their data of the hottest 10 and subsequently, hottest 100 U.S. years on record.

            It seems a couple of very perspicacious scientists from Toronto, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, found a problem with NASA’s data. To make a long story short, the incorrect data essentially had a Y2K (Year 2000) glitch that erroneously bumped the data readings from not just 2000 on, but even 1998, global-warming crusaders “hottest year” on record.

Not only have the global warming believers maintained that 1998 was the hottest year on record, but that five of the top ten hottest years have been in the last ten years. But because of the discovery by McIntyre and McKitrick, the temperature data that NASA used to compile the temperatures in 1998 have been corrected. The “hottest year on record” is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged hot year, 2001, has now dropped out of the top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of our top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s. Yet CO2 emissions have skyrocketed over the past 15 years. So where’s the empirical correlation between surface temperatures (or even atmospheric temperatures) and CO2 emissions? Don’t feel alone if you fail to see any correlation.

            James Hansen, the vaunted top NASA scientist for climate studies, has been actively evangelizing for global warming causes for years, and is over the department at NASA that monitors and publishes the climatologic readings on global temperatures. As active a proponent as he has been, it’s hard to say whether he knowingly published the bad data, or was clueless on the underlying math used to chart the trends. I will not attempt to ascribe a motive but I’m sure others will, especially since he has admitted exaggerating global warming claims in the past.

            Although the adjustment figures were slight, they make a significant difference in terms of average temperatures. And it makes a huge difference to one of the primary arguments the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) proponents have offered as evidence of mankind induced environmental warming which is the “Hockey Stick” graph. That’s the now famous depiction of global temperatures illustrating the sharp and rapid increase in temperatures in the past century. The data rise so fast for the computer model that the resulting chart resembles a hockey stick, with the sharply rising blade indicating the latest readings. Now with the corrected data, the chart more closely resembles the landscape of Kansas with a little mole hill around the 1930’s and a few spikes here and there, but nothing close to the hockey stick metaphor implemented previously to indicate a sharply increasing warming trend.

            But that isn’t all. Not only was the underlying data incorrect, but there was a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey stick chart. The developer of the program generating the chart was University of Massachusetts scientist Michael Mann who purported to use a standard method known as “principal component analysis,” or PCA, to find the dominant features in a set of more than 70 different climate records. But the same two Toronto scientists, McIntyre and McKitrick, have found serious problems with the program itself. Not only does the program not handle conventional PCA, but it “handles data normalization in a way that can only be described as mistaken,” according to McIntyre.

            The real shocker, according to MIT’s Technology Review, was “This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called Monte Carlo analysis and is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When these random data were fed into the Mann program, out popped a hockey stick shape!”

            In other words, it’s like a pitcher that may be pitching just about everywhere except over the plate, and the umpire sees every pitch as a strike. That’s what the computer model was doing with the slightly adulterated data; calling “strikes” even when the data was a “ball.” So much for the primary graphic metaphor for the global warming crowd.

            As I said nearly a year ago, contrary to recent assertions, every reasonable person should question AGW. The only “proof” that I’m aware of validating AGW is a computer model. Anyone with knowledge of computers knows how a model can easily be tweaked to provide whatever result is desired. It appears that’s exactly what’s been happening.

            Since AGW is more faith based than fact-based, I’m sure the AGW evangelists will have ample explanations and excuses for why the data doesn’t corroborate their assertions. We should see through such efforts as no more than dogmatic efforts to substantiate their pantheistic religion based on faith, for it obviously is not based on science as they purport. But in the meantime, those of us who are “deniers” can add to our scientific documentation on the falsehoods of the alarmists claims.

            And for those who mockingly and smugly refer to us nonconforming skeptics as “deniers,” let’s just say this mockery of the scientific method by some of your premier proponents doesn’t lend itself to much credibility in the rest of your claims. And don’t blame us that we’re not as gullible or as anxious to take that Kierkegaardian leap of faith as you have been.

    With the correction of James Hansen and NASA’s warmest years list, Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” chart discredited, and the debunking of the computer model generating that false association between global temperatures and man-made CO2 emissions, the primary arguments of the AGW advocates have been discredited. But you know they’ll come back with a vengeance with whatever “evidence” they can muster. But now that we know their fraudulent tactical approach, we will be more wary of them than ever.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/19/07

 

            It seems safe to say that the Dragon still has a healthy respect for the Eagle. China has been dealt several blows to its reputation with U.S. consumers over the past few months, and their remedial efforts to correct those blunders should be somewhat encouraging to us, and yet also serve as a healthy reminder of the nature of Communist countries.

            First there was the pet food fiasco. Chinese ingredients in U.S. made pet food a few months ago poisoned and killed a handful of pets around the country. This posed a concern, but appeared to be an anomaly with the U.S. consumption-driven exporter.

            Since then, however, there have been a flood of tainted and poor Chinese products adversely shaping public perception of Chinese goods by global and especially U.S. consumers. Toothpaste laced with toxic substances; cough syrup unsafe due to more toxic ingredients; hundreds of thousands of tires recalled because of defects in the manufacturing process and nearly a million Fisher-Price children’s toys recalled because the paint on them had too much lead. And just this week news of an additional toy recall because of excessive lead in children’s toys. The Chinese have single-handedly added depth of meaning to the consumer truism, “buyer beware.”

            I’m sure there are some among us who because of conspiratorial theories are convinced that China is doing this intentionally to kill us or hurt us. That is highly unlikely recognizing that we have literally bought their way into the 21^st century by purchasing a huge percentage of their annual one-trillion dollar exports. The U.S. imports 40% of its goods from China. In other words, two out of every five products you purchase at the store have the “Made In China” label.

            But the people in oriental countries have a high sense of honor. That was illustrated by the Chinese last month when they executed the former head of their Food and Drug Administration equivalent for accepting bribes to approve shady and shoddy products for export to the U.S. And the CEO of the toy company using lead-based paint in toys licensed under Mattel and Fisher-Price labels hung himself in a warehouse as a way to atone for his failure to the state.

            With these series of export faux pas, China is facing a potential backlash by American consumers that should lead to a little more scrutiny of manufacturing labels. “Made in America” or anyplace but China may prove to the Chinese that we are consumers that cannot be taken for granted, and that we have much more control over their future than perhaps previously thought.

            Milton Friedman, the brilliant Nobel laureate economist maintained that economic freedom must be accompanied by political freedom. He was convinced that as China becomes more of a free market economy, that political freedom would of necessity follow for the one-billion plus people in that Communist country. This has, and undoubtedly will continue to present challenges for that trading partner of ours as it deals with the economic growing pains of its massive quantity of exports and attempting to keep its people subjugated in proper Communistic fashion.

            Just because they’re our trading partners doesn’t mean we should ever be complacent about the fact that they are Communists. Communism as an ideology is responsible for killing more people in recorded history than any other. It would be wise for us to keep in mind that hundreds of millions of people have been killed in the name of the state by communist countries over the past 90 years, with China’s Chairman Mao responsible for nearly 100 million of those atrocities himself. Communists do not recognize the intrinsic value of human life, but only seem to value it as a means to an end, and the end is “the state.” Even loss of life from their products would be viewed more as a public relations failure than a tragedy because of the lives lost from those products. Hence, the execution of their FDA chairman.

            For consistency, we can’t help wonder at why the failed Communist Cuba policy is maintained after 50 years of failure. First established by the Kennedy administration, the U.S. has had in place an isolationist policy toward Cuba that was intended to force Castro into democratic reform. It obviously has not worked. It seems like Friedman’s economic theory should be extended to Cuba to bring about political freedom through economic reform.

            Policies that work should be applied with consistency, especially those that ameliorate the quality of life for those subsisting under the oppression of Communism and yearning for liberty. And I, for one, will be watching “Made In…” labels more closely. I may pay a little more for a U.S. made product, but I have a great deal more confidence in U.S. manufactured products than I do Chinese counterparts. I’ll simply consider that little extra price premium as an insurance policy for a quality product produced in my own country where consumer protection is held as a highest priority.

By Richard Larsen
Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/12/07

I listened with interest to DNC Chairman Howard Dean’s comments in Pocatello on Wednesday, and realized with even greater perspicacity the polarization of our political environment based on party affiliation.

Governor Dean said that people need to know the true Democrat party and not rely on other sources that have “not told the truth about them for 30 years.” In reality, it is not necessary to peruse additional sources to define them. The primary sources, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the gaggle of presidential candidates tell us everyday what they believe. They want more government; increasing confiscation of our income; socialized medicine; more wealth redistribution; “peace” through appeasement, acquiescence, and flight; fight terror with subpoena’s instead of bullets; more control of our personal lives by either limiting or outlawing cigarettes, trans-fats, emotions in crime (i.e. hate), etc., etc. No, I think they define their vision for the future of America very well on their own. And of course, their solution for everything that ails America is more taxes. I think they define themselves very well on their own.

Deans’ comments about Iraq were imbued with the type of rhetorical flatulence we’ve come to expect from the left, all based on the premise that we have to “get out now.” Of course he didn’t bother to explain how our national security is served by getting out now; or how we’re safer or how the world is better.

Dean implemented some circuitous reasoning by claiming that Democrats support the troops, and the best way to support them is to bring them home. For some reason, I always thought the primary function of the military was to defeat enemies seeking our destruction. I’m sure there are some terrorists here on our own soil, but I’m even more sure that there are a whole lot more over there than there are here. Although with a premature withdrawal from Iraq, the likelihood of having many more of them here is certainly augmented.

It appears to me that right now we have the best of both worlds: the Republican way of fighting them where we find them, and the Democrat way of serving subpoenas and using law enforcement to track them down domestically. That sounds like a pretty good combination. I don’t think the law enforcement approach advocated by the Democrats would work very well in the terrorist hotbeds of Iraq and Afghanistan. We’d need too many document servers, for they’d probably be beheaded after serving the subpoenas.

By the way, in light of that comment by the Governor, did you know that we lost more servicemen during “peacetime” from 1993 through 1996 in the Clinton Administration than we have lost in the war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan in four years? According to the Department of Defense, we lost 4,417 servicemen and women in that four-year period, while we have lost about 4,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan. It doesn’t seem that they are more safe conducting training missions than they are in actual battle against the enemy. There is undoubtedly more to be unearthed in the figures, but from a purely quantitative approach, they appear to be safer while doing what they volunteered to do: defeat our enemies and protect the country. And to me, they’re all equally heroic whether they died in training exercises or on the battlefield against our enemies.

Interestingly, Dean also mentioned the genocide in Darfur and how we should do something about it. From a purely moral perspective, it would be good if we could, but I don’t think I heard him explicate what our national security interest there is? And even from a purely moral perspective, shouldn’t we be more concerned with preventing the genocide that would occur in Iraq with a premature withdrawal where we have genuine national security interests?

Regarding the funding of the Iraq conflict, the Governor said we need to take the money going into that effort and put it into our schools, our healthcare, and our roads. Hmm. I guess I missed the part of his recommendation that explains how that’s going to prevent Islamic extremist terrorists from attacking us. They’d have to be very good schools and roads if they’re going to help protect us from the lunatics who would rather behead us than talk to us!

This is not my typical writing style, but I just thought it would be interesting to write a column just like all the liberals who write for the Journal: no documentation, little or no facts, just straight from the hip and replete with simplistic accusations, pejorative innuendo, and aspersions about the incompetence of the opposition party. I can see why they write this way. It’s a lot less work so you can be intellectually lackadaisical in the process, and you don’t have to substantiate anything.

As for Governor Dean, I’m sure glad he’s just chairman of the DNC and not our President. He has even less of a grasp of the primary threat facing America than the aforementioned gaggle of Democrat presidential candidates who haven’t even mentioned the war against terrorism once in their four or five dozen debates they’ve held so far.

By Richard Larsen

Published – Idaho State Journal, 08/05/07

Sometimes truth is substantiated by some of the most unlikely sources. The New York Times, maligned by the right as a purveyor of anti-American rhetoric, intractable criticism of anything related to the current President, and divulger of state secrets associated with the war on terror, this past week published a bombshell of an op-ed column on the Iraq conflict.

Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the left-leaning Brookings Institution wrote the piece titled “A War We Just Might Win.” And lest you think they are just a couple of conservative lackeys for the President, their bona fides are genuine liberal as one was a former Kerry campaign advisor and the other a former member of the Clinton administration.

After spending over a week in Iraq, they stated, “Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with. After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated -- many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work," and they were no doubt demoralized by the debate going on back here.

“Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference. But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq). In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion.””

I apologize for quoting so extensively from the column, but the observations of these two well-informed critics didn’t make it into print anywhere in Eastern Idaho that I could see yet certainly warrant acknowledgement even out here in the hinterland.

When these observations are juxtaposed with comments this week from the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the get-out-of-Iraq-at-whatever-cost crowd are obviously going to be facing some serious political conundrums. Petraeus called the “development of the grass-roots forces the most significant trend in Iraq of the last four months or so” and said that it “could help propel slow-moving efforts at national reconciliation among Iraq's main religious sects and ethnic groups.” He said, “This is a very, very important component of reconciliation because it's happening from the bottom up. The bottom-up piece is much farther along than any of us would have anticipated a few months back. It's become the focus of a great deal of effort, as there is a sense that this can bear a lot of fruit.”

James Clyburn, who is the House Democratic whip, had an interview last week with the Washington Post. When asked what would happen if Petraeus’ report in September was very good, he replied,” I think then it would be a problem for us.” What a refreshing bit of truth from one of the majority leaders in Congress! After all, they are so totally invested in U.S. defeat in Iraq, if the September report is positive, they’re in real trouble.

They can’t provide a viable explanation as to how our national security is strengthened or our war against Islamo-fascism is augmented by a premature withdrawal from Iraq. It’s all political to them. If we pull out early, they see it as a defeat of President Bush’s policy, and an improved prospect for winning the White House in ’08. But if we’re winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, and from the bottom up are building alliances with tribal leaders and the population at large, their investment in defeat proves to be a bad investment.

Chris Matthews on MSNBC this week had an interview with David Ignatius, an associate editor at the Washington Post, Matthews asked Ignatius, “What good does this Iraq war do to reduce the threat of terrorism here?” Ignatius’ response, bucking the journalistic trend, was “These struggles are different fronts of the same war. The notion that, a defeat to the United States and its allies in Iraq is costless in terms of the larger war against Al-Qaeda, is just wrong. I mean, bin Laden said again and again, the Americans are weak; if you hit 'em hard, they'll run away. They were hit hard in Beirut; they ran away. They were hit hard in Somalia; they ran away.”

Yes, indeed, the Iraq war against terrorists is part of the global war against terror! If some of the mainstream media types are starting to “get it,” there may be hope for us after all!

In this short montage of war coverage we find an admission that Iraq is part of the global war on terrorism, an in-dept analysis of “the surge” indicating that it is working very well, a statement by the top military officer in Iraq that the crucial grass-roots alignment with and support of the U.S. mission there is coalescing, and an admission by the 2^nd highest Democrat in the House that if we’re winning there, that the Democrats are in trouble. Just when you don’t think you can handle any more of the one-sided reporting on Iraq, the mainstream media pulls a couple of fast ones and throws some truth at us. Wow! Will wonders never cease? Makes you wonder how much additional truth they have been withholding from us over the past six years.