Tar and feather them
Having converted from Republican to Democrat before the guns began to shoot I feel empathy towards members of the GOP who are now jumping from the president’s badly listing Iraqi ship. Lugar, Domenici and many others are fast jumping to the ship of common sense and converting to the Church of Political Pragmatism, and they want us to know that the new oaths are being taken freely and without mental reservation. Should we not welcome the prodigal? Hell no!
This conversion represents the end of Reaganism, and those pushed it well beyond the Gipper’s wildest fantasies of national greatness must pay for their sins and stupidity.
Just as the Democrats had to spend decades in the wilderness for their folly in Vietnam and for the excesses of the Great Society that signaled the end of the New Deal, so these enablers of the neoconservatives and the evangelicals who pushed for world hegemony with hubris that would make a Roman emperor blanch with shame must climb the mountain and meet the gurus of realism.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pearl, Wolfowitz, Feith, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Bolton, Coulter, the late Gerry Falwell, and literally thousands of other political and religious zealots nearly took our nation over the abyss of ignorance and into the folly of remaking the world in our image. But it was the millions of enablers who waved the flags and beat the drums for these artists of madness and their representatives in the Congress who until they saw the end of their power coming quickly into view and got the new time religion and who now make a turn to the middle and point their fingers at Bush and his lackeys as being responsible for it all.
Now that the gash made by the iceberg in the ship of state is becoming visible to all, the Republicans on Capitol Hill blame it all on George. He made them spend and spend on bridges to nowhere; he led them down the garden path on Iraq; and he twisted their arms on diverting us from the war on terror to the fool’s errand of remaking the world. They never wanted to bankrupt our grandchildren. They only wanted to save the world, and they followed George because he said he had the plan.
What are we to do? Welcome their late conversions? Hell no! Drive them to hell out of Washington and tar and feather them on the way out and order them to contemplate their sins from the heartland.
Democrats, vote the straight ticket; Republicans, vote against any of your brethren who enabled these morons; Independents; vote Democrat. Nobody who leans to toward the center or right should worry; the Democrats, true their base, are already laying plans for the next Republican resurgence.
A decade in the desert will do wonders for the GOP. Their younger adherents can work on their tans as they contemplate what might have been. Actually being Bush’s proconsul in Iraq really wouldn’t have been much fun. They’ll soon see that they’re better off learning how to do political dirty tricks for their return to power.
America is already recovering from the nightmare. The Republicans are taking the first steps themselves; we just have to help them along. Do not be fooled by those proclaiming their recovery from folly and inoculate yourself from their phony bleating. They have to be treated and the pharmacy is the ballot box.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Sky is Falling
This is a review of Nemesis: The Last days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson. This is a big seller and, therefore, an important work.
In Nemesis: The Last days of the American Republic Chalmers Johnson makes strong claims about the danger we’re in from our own leaders. I’ll stipulate to many of his warning signs and dangers, but I come up way short of his conclusions.
We’re an empire. I have no trouble with that; we’ve been acting like one since the days of Jefferson and Monroe. Certainly we acted like an Empire in the Mexican War, in our behavior during the Spanish American War and in the period since World War II. But Johnson makes us sound like the only nation to exhibit such behavior since the British started assembling their world of pink and we’re not. The Italians, Germans, and Japanese got all caught up in imperial thinking, and don’t forget them old Soviets.
With the end of the Cold War, we were the only ones left standing tall and with money to burn, and we’ve been throwing a lot of that money and our hard power around, often recklessly, and Johnson points out many of our flaws and warts, sometimes very effectively. But, frankly, despite being riveted by the tale, I didn’t like the book very much.
Those like me in the middle of the political spectrum don’t have many people screaming for our side – I suppose the center isn’t a side. We‘re caught between those on the right trying to scare the bejesus out of us with the idea that every Muslim woman in Kansas City has a bomb up her burka and that every young adherent of Islam in Detroit wants to cut off our heads with his scimitar. On the left we have writers like Johnson pointing out every action by George IV and Dick Cheney, aka Richard III, as another step in our enslavement under the new tyranny of President for Life George W.
Unfortunately for Johnson, the book came out prior to the November 2006 Congressional election, and the Democrats have made the emperor and his prime minister look something less than Augustus and his head of the Praetorian Guard. That’s not to say that we in the middle don’t see all or many of the dangers that Johnson points out in his `sky is falling’ style.
To Johnson it seems that every soldier is a jack booted maniac intent on terrorizing innocent civilians. Frankly, I think our warriors come off pretty badly but through little fault of their own. In Johnson’s world half the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen stationed across the globe do little but act as hooligans and rapists in terrorizing the locals. Here again a little truth goes a long way. I’m not excusing our troops with a boys will be boys escape clause. Certainly, many horrible acts have been committed, and we should be cracking down on all violence against our allies. But the vast majority of those wearing our uniform have got to be half way decent men and women. Exceptions can’t be used to prove the rules, and Johnson really does this.
Johnson’s thesis is that we use our soft power to force allies across the globe to swallow our presence. Let’s get real, the leaders of the host countries have to see some benefits to having our bases in their countries, or they simply wouldn’t do it. Not everybody in power in other countries is on the take. I know that many of our bases are unwelcome. Guantanamo comes to mind, and certainly Fidel would like us out of there permanently, but, in the absence of the ability to chuck us into the Atlantic, he does permit Cubans to go to work each day and bring greenbacks to his side of the fence.
The author’s complaints against the military industrial complex are right on the money, but he’s hardly the first to see the danger. Washington and Madison were way ahead of Johnson and I heard Ike’s direct warning loud and clear. The dangers and techniques of the practitioners are well known and we are indeed in danger of tyranny if we don’t do better in dealing with this threat. I’ll also grant Johnson that he’s right in his fears about missile defense and space warfare.
He’s also right that Bush and Cheney were overly aggressive in aggrandizing executive power, and I support his views on this. His fears that the imperial presidency and the military industrial complex have neutered the Congress is scary, on target, and not to be dismissed lightly, but it’s also true that the Democrats – joined now by more than a few on the other side – are beating that jack back into his box. It’s an unending battle between branches, but my friends and I have been preaching the benefits of divided government for the entire period of these present abuses. The people, despite the bombardment of fear from both sides, seem to understand the problem and are supporting the new found courage of the Congress.
Before closing, I want to say something personal about Bush and Cheney. I hate what they’ve done in Iraq and despise the tactics they’ve used to gain power to diminish those who oppose them. But I do not for a minute believe that their intent was to become tyrants and dictators. They’ve done a lousy job, but they’re not of the evil intent to destroy the Republic.
Johnson is quick with `some say’ and `some think’ arguments that cannot be truly tested, and there are some technical errors – I think. For example, he points to an air base in Asia that has a 13,800 foot runway and which is manned by 3,000 Americans, all this on 37 acres. They must be packing those troops into a mighty tall high rise barracks building and the planes must have a very narrow wingspan.
Despite all my complaints, I recommend this book, but as a practicing propagandist I warn you that it’s a little more than over the top in its assertions and accusations.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
In Nemesis: The Last days of the American Republic Chalmers Johnson makes strong claims about the danger we’re in from our own leaders. I’ll stipulate to many of his warning signs and dangers, but I come up way short of his conclusions.
We’re an empire. I have no trouble with that; we’ve been acting like one since the days of Jefferson and Monroe. Certainly we acted like an Empire in the Mexican War, in our behavior during the Spanish American War and in the period since World War II. But Johnson makes us sound like the only nation to exhibit such behavior since the British started assembling their world of pink and we’re not. The Italians, Germans, and Japanese got all caught up in imperial thinking, and don’t forget them old Soviets.
With the end of the Cold War, we were the only ones left standing tall and with money to burn, and we’ve been throwing a lot of that money and our hard power around, often recklessly, and Johnson points out many of our flaws and warts, sometimes very effectively. But, frankly, despite being riveted by the tale, I didn’t like the book very much.
Those like me in the middle of the political spectrum don’t have many people screaming for our side – I suppose the center isn’t a side. We‘re caught between those on the right trying to scare the bejesus out of us with the idea that every Muslim woman in Kansas City has a bomb up her burka and that every young adherent of Islam in Detroit wants to cut off our heads with his scimitar. On the left we have writers like Johnson pointing out every action by George IV and Dick Cheney, aka Richard III, as another step in our enslavement under the new tyranny of President for Life George W.
Unfortunately for Johnson, the book came out prior to the November 2006 Congressional election, and the Democrats have made the emperor and his prime minister look something less than Augustus and his head of the Praetorian Guard. That’s not to say that we in the middle don’t see all or many of the dangers that Johnson points out in his `sky is falling’ style.
To Johnson it seems that every soldier is a jack booted maniac intent on terrorizing innocent civilians. Frankly, I think our warriors come off pretty badly but through little fault of their own. In Johnson’s world half the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen stationed across the globe do little but act as hooligans and rapists in terrorizing the locals. Here again a little truth goes a long way. I’m not excusing our troops with a boys will be boys escape clause. Certainly, many horrible acts have been committed, and we should be cracking down on all violence against our allies. But the vast majority of those wearing our uniform have got to be half way decent men and women. Exceptions can’t be used to prove the rules, and Johnson really does this.
Johnson’s thesis is that we use our soft power to force allies across the globe to swallow our presence. Let’s get real, the leaders of the host countries have to see some benefits to having our bases in their countries, or they simply wouldn’t do it. Not everybody in power in other countries is on the take. I know that many of our bases are unwelcome. Guantanamo comes to mind, and certainly Fidel would like us out of there permanently, but, in the absence of the ability to chuck us into the Atlantic, he does permit Cubans to go to work each day and bring greenbacks to his side of the fence.
The author’s complaints against the military industrial complex are right on the money, but he’s hardly the first to see the danger. Washington and Madison were way ahead of Johnson and I heard Ike’s direct warning loud and clear. The dangers and techniques of the practitioners are well known and we are indeed in danger of tyranny if we don’t do better in dealing with this threat. I’ll also grant Johnson that he’s right in his fears about missile defense and space warfare.
He’s also right that Bush and Cheney were overly aggressive in aggrandizing executive power, and I support his views on this. His fears that the imperial presidency and the military industrial complex have neutered the Congress is scary, on target, and not to be dismissed lightly, but it’s also true that the Democrats – joined now by more than a few on the other side – are beating that jack back into his box. It’s an unending battle between branches, but my friends and I have been preaching the benefits of divided government for the entire period of these present abuses. The people, despite the bombardment of fear from both sides, seem to understand the problem and are supporting the new found courage of the Congress.
Before closing, I want to say something personal about Bush and Cheney. I hate what they’ve done in Iraq and despise the tactics they’ve used to gain power to diminish those who oppose them. But I do not for a minute believe that their intent was to become tyrants and dictators. They’ve done a lousy job, but they’re not of the evil intent to destroy the Republic.
Johnson is quick with `some say’ and `some think’ arguments that cannot be truly tested, and there are some technical errors – I think. For example, he points to an air base in Asia that has a 13,800 foot runway and which is manned by 3,000 Americans, all this on 37 acres. They must be packing those troops into a mighty tall high rise barracks building and the planes must have a very narrow wingspan.
Despite all my complaints, I recommend this book, but as a practicing propagandist I warn you that it’s a little more than over the top in its assertions and accusations.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Mea Culpa
Mea maxima culpa!
I thought it was just a little white fib designed to carry Iowa, Nebraska and Alabama. When during the race for his first term for president Bush was asked, “What political philosopher do you identify with…?” his disingenuous reply of, “Jesus Christ,” seemed to many viewers, including me, to be just a little hokey. I was wrong; he meant it. And his behavior since has shown that he still doesn’t know the difference between philosophy and religion.
Yale graduates should know the general difference between the two with philosophers pursuing the truth and theologians (and I’ll place the Lord in this category) possessing it. The president has demonstrated time and again that he is governed more by theology than by an objective view of the world around him.
Mr. Bush’s messianic behavior and his certainty and stubbornness in all things have brought him and his followers (that includes all of us) to grief. His certainty that Saddam’s government had weapons of mass destruction and in failing to show patience with the U.N. inspection program before attacking Iraq has led to his standing with the public and America’s low standing in the community of nations.
I blanched when Dubya named his political philosopher, but I went to the polls in November 2000 and pulled the lever next to his name. And while I was among the earliest of Republican defectors when the war drums began beating for an attack on Baghdad and only lately has that trickle away from the GOP turned into a flood, it was my great fault for not seeing that the man was telling the truth and portending all that has come to pass with his simple and direct reply.
Mea culpa America; mea maxima culpa. It’s my fault as much as George’s. I should have known.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
I thought it was just a little white fib designed to carry Iowa, Nebraska and Alabama. When during the race for his first term for president Bush was asked, “What political philosopher do you identify with…?” his disingenuous reply of, “Jesus Christ,” seemed to many viewers, including me, to be just a little hokey. I was wrong; he meant it. And his behavior since has shown that he still doesn’t know the difference between philosophy and religion.
Yale graduates should know the general difference between the two with philosophers pursuing the truth and theologians (and I’ll place the Lord in this category) possessing it. The president has demonstrated time and again that he is governed more by theology than by an objective view of the world around him.
Mr. Bush’s messianic behavior and his certainty and stubbornness in all things have brought him and his followers (that includes all of us) to grief. His certainty that Saddam’s government had weapons of mass destruction and in failing to show patience with the U.N. inspection program before attacking Iraq has led to his standing with the public and America’s low standing in the community of nations.
I blanched when Dubya named his political philosopher, but I went to the polls in November 2000 and pulled the lever next to his name. And while I was among the earliest of Republican defectors when the war drums began beating for an attack on Baghdad and only lately has that trickle away from the GOP turned into a flood, it was my great fault for not seeing that the man was telling the truth and portending all that has come to pass with his simple and direct reply.
Mea culpa America; mea maxima culpa. It’s my fault as much as George’s. I should have known.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Damn Them
As Republican and Democratic lawmakers and office holders and seekers seek to cover their slimy butts over their roles in the Iraq fiasco there is only one universal: George Bush made them do it. George Bush’s incompetence in making the policy to go to war and his total ineptitude in prosecuting it created all of life’s problems and is now the mantra for both parties to rise from the ashes by stepping on him as they grasp for straws.
Even the neoconservatives are laying it all on George’s foolish errors of not invading with a sufficient force, disbanding of the Iraqi army, firing of all Baathists, failure to recognize the signs of insurrection and just about every other sin known to man. Now George Tenet lays the blame on those around the great man (who, of course hired all of them.)
But it’s always the incompetence thing! This just doesn’t wash; while the mess was indeed managed totally incompetently, the bottom line is that we should never have invaded Iraq and all of the current posturing is an effort to get the American people to take their collective eye off of that terrible decision.
While you and I had no sources to refute the intelligence that Bush and his lackeys (actually his masters) used to flimflam us into war - that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction is the least of the sins in the run up to war. Based on the information in the public domain, I firmly believed that Iraq had both biological and chemical weapons and that he was seeking nuclear capability. Even if this were true, that is not the basis for preemptive war.
Under international law, preemptive war requires and imminent threat of attack by the opposite party. Even with all the baloney about mushroom clouds that Bush, Rice, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld and untold numbers of neocons used to scare the crap out of the populace, they never claimed that Saddam’s potential to attack us or our allies was anything but in some far future time frame.
The United States under President George W. Bush, despite much internal misgiving about the quality of the intelligence concerning the actual status of Saddam’s weapons stocks and programs, preventively attacked a sovereign state that all of the decision makers knew was no immediate threat to us, our allies or our interests.
All of the dancing by those members of congress of both parties, the neoconservatives inside and out of government and all the drum beaters in talk radio and elsewhere cannot change the real situation which existed, that we violated international law and badly damaged our country and the nation of Iraq. All the songs about the world being a better place without the monster Saddam is so much bull. He posed little threat to us our interests and containment was working, and we have spent more than 3,000 lives and committed $2 trillion in treasure for that fool’s errand.
While I am committed to whomever the Dems run in ’08, don’t be fooled into thinking that they have no culpability in this disaster. They only look good in comparison with the others. The Republicans beat the drums and deserve to be driven from Washington. The neoconservatives are fools actively involved in rewriting their part in the mess; do not ever forget that the greatest responsibility for this calamity is theirs. All of them (GOP, Dems and neocons) have failed us.
But try to remember the few on the Hill and in the media who stood for principal as the drums were beating so very loudly, and,God, they are very few indeed.
George Bush is the greatest fool of all, but don’t you be fooled into believing that it was all him, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith. Many now pointing fingers have blood on their hands. A pox on all their houses!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Even the neoconservatives are laying it all on George’s foolish errors of not invading with a sufficient force, disbanding of the Iraqi army, firing of all Baathists, failure to recognize the signs of insurrection and just about every other sin known to man. Now George Tenet lays the blame on those around the great man (who, of course hired all of them.)
But it’s always the incompetence thing! This just doesn’t wash; while the mess was indeed managed totally incompetently, the bottom line is that we should never have invaded Iraq and all of the current posturing is an effort to get the American people to take their collective eye off of that terrible decision.
While you and I had no sources to refute the intelligence that Bush and his lackeys (actually his masters) used to flimflam us into war - that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction is the least of the sins in the run up to war. Based on the information in the public domain, I firmly believed that Iraq had both biological and chemical weapons and that he was seeking nuclear capability. Even if this were true, that is not the basis for preemptive war.
Under international law, preemptive war requires and imminent threat of attack by the opposite party. Even with all the baloney about mushroom clouds that Bush, Rice, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld and untold numbers of neocons used to scare the crap out of the populace, they never claimed that Saddam’s potential to attack us or our allies was anything but in some far future time frame.
The United States under President George W. Bush, despite much internal misgiving about the quality of the intelligence concerning the actual status of Saddam’s weapons stocks and programs, preventively attacked a sovereign state that all of the decision makers knew was no immediate threat to us, our allies or our interests.
All of the dancing by those members of congress of both parties, the neoconservatives inside and out of government and all the drum beaters in talk radio and elsewhere cannot change the real situation which existed, that we violated international law and badly damaged our country and the nation of Iraq. All the songs about the world being a better place without the monster Saddam is so much bull. He posed little threat to us our interests and containment was working, and we have spent more than 3,000 lives and committed $2 trillion in treasure for that fool’s errand.
While I am committed to whomever the Dems run in ’08, don’t be fooled into thinking that they have no culpability in this disaster. They only look good in comparison with the others. The Republicans beat the drums and deserve to be driven from Washington. The neoconservatives are fools actively involved in rewriting their part in the mess; do not ever forget that the greatest responsibility for this calamity is theirs. All of them (GOP, Dems and neocons) have failed us.
But try to remember the few on the Hill and in the media who stood for principal as the drums were beating so very loudly, and,God, they are very few indeed.
George Bush is the greatest fool of all, but don’t you be fooled into believing that it was all him, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith. Many now pointing fingers have blood on their hands. A pox on all their houses!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Careful Now
I’m going to support the Democratic nominee for president in’08 - period! That said there is no doubt in my mind that among those running, some of those Democrats will look better to independent and moderate Republican voters than others, and I’m more than a little concerned that the Dems are being snookered by right wing pundits and party stalwarts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Barack Obama described by our kindly conservative friends as a phenom who is taking America by storm, a wunderkind galvanizing the voters, and a dozen other great adjectives.
It’s wonderful that Obama has the likes of David Brooks of the New York Times almost speechless with admiration. But I really don’t buy this baloney. Frankly, I think they’re trying to set up the Dems with a `don’t throw me in the briar patch defense’.
The Republicans are in grave danger of having overplayed their trump suit of strength on national security matters. The adverse impact of the Iraq War on the electorate and the incompetence of the Bush administration in prosecuting that conflict and the war in Afghanistan has the political right frightened silly, and I perceive their mock horror at the freak of nature Obama possibly sweeping them from power is simply a sham.
They overtly call on the Dems to nominate Hillary so that they can get a four year extension on the lease at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and openly cringe at the prospect of an Obama headed ticket. But do they mean it? I don’t believe it for a minute. I think Hillary is truly the one they fear and that they’d welcome the chance to fire away at the relatively inexperienced Obama.
I’m convinced the Republicans are begging to be thrown into that old thicket. Beware of frightened neocons!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
It’s wonderful that Obama has the likes of David Brooks of the New York Times almost speechless with admiration. But I really don’t buy this baloney. Frankly, I think they’re trying to set up the Dems with a `don’t throw me in the briar patch defense’.
The Republicans are in grave danger of having overplayed their trump suit of strength on national security matters. The adverse impact of the Iraq War on the electorate and the incompetence of the Bush administration in prosecuting that conflict and the war in Afghanistan has the political right frightened silly, and I perceive their mock horror at the freak of nature Obama possibly sweeping them from power is simply a sham.
They overtly call on the Dems to nominate Hillary so that they can get a four year extension on the lease at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and openly cringe at the prospect of an Obama headed ticket. But do they mean it? I don’t believe it for a minute. I think Hillary is truly the one they fear and that they’d welcome the chance to fire away at the relatively inexperienced Obama.
I’m convinced the Republicans are begging to be thrown into that old thicket. Beware of frightened neocons!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Thank your local neocon today
Neitzian supermen - and women – have been in charge of American foreign policy for six years with clear results: we’re isolated in the world community of nations; these ubermen have committed us to internationally illegal preventive warfare against a state that posed virtually no risk to us or its neighbors; in the name of saving a people, they’ve caused them more harm to its citizens than the immoral regime we toppled to help them; by their blundering they’ve empowered the two most important members of the `Axis of Evil’ that they intended to cow; they’ve lost more than 3,000 American lives; and they’ve committed the nation to spending more than two trillion dollars as a result.
In addition, they’ve strengthened the hands of our major rivals China and Russia. They’ve turned the vast majority of people of one of the world’s largest and most important civilization from probably mild dislike of America to open hatred of us. They’ve stretched our Army and Marines to the breaking point. It goes on and on.
Frankly, you’d expect a reaction from the White House that would diminish the power of these neoconservative ubermen – and women - who pointed the president and the nation on this course, but, of course, you’d be wrong. Instead the president has doubled down his bets in Iraq. Next time you’re out, thank your local neocon.
In mitigation of this madness, however, we have to take into account that those in charge, Dubya and Dick, are really lost and confused souls. Need I mention Katrina again? How about their inability to get their stories straight on firing a bunch of U.S. Attorney’s; hasn’t anyone ever told them that they shouldn’t write down their most brilliant Machiavellian schemes? Actually, underlings always write that baloney down because they assume that their ideas are going to work out just as they dreamed and they want full credit for them. And poor Scooter, has there ever been a nobler one man hara-kiri? Instead…
By the way, Dubya’s surprised about the scandalous treatment of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed and elsewhere. Of course he’s surprised. The only thing he ordered was that the DOD budget be wrung out to the point that the costs of the war are back loaded to the greatest extent possible. How could he ever know that brain damaged men and women wouldn’t be afforded the best possible long term care? He couldn’t, but something had to give if he was to escape to Crawford with his successor left holding the big bag of manure.
Dubya and Dick have lost control of almost everything but their war powers. Real Republicans and conservatives are diving for cover in foreign policy, the Iraq War, education and law enforcement. While I might have been a few days premature in naming Bush a limping water fowl in January of ’06, have you seen his imitation of Walter Brennan or heard his imitation of Donald Duck over these past few months? Sure bears a resemblance to a sorry duck in my book.
Not to worry, only 677 days from noon today.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
In addition, they’ve strengthened the hands of our major rivals China and Russia. They’ve turned the vast majority of people of one of the world’s largest and most important civilization from probably mild dislike of America to open hatred of us. They’ve stretched our Army and Marines to the breaking point. It goes on and on.
Frankly, you’d expect a reaction from the White House that would diminish the power of these neoconservative ubermen – and women - who pointed the president and the nation on this course, but, of course, you’d be wrong. Instead the president has doubled down his bets in Iraq. Next time you’re out, thank your local neocon.
In mitigation of this madness, however, we have to take into account that those in charge, Dubya and Dick, are really lost and confused souls. Need I mention Katrina again? How about their inability to get their stories straight on firing a bunch of U.S. Attorney’s; hasn’t anyone ever told them that they shouldn’t write down their most brilliant Machiavellian schemes? Actually, underlings always write that baloney down because they assume that their ideas are going to work out just as they dreamed and they want full credit for them. And poor Scooter, has there ever been a nobler one man hara-kiri? Instead…
By the way, Dubya’s surprised about the scandalous treatment of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed and elsewhere. Of course he’s surprised. The only thing he ordered was that the DOD budget be wrung out to the point that the costs of the war are back loaded to the greatest extent possible. How could he ever know that brain damaged men and women wouldn’t be afforded the best possible long term care? He couldn’t, but something had to give if he was to escape to Crawford with his successor left holding the big bag of manure.
Dubya and Dick have lost control of almost everything but their war powers. Real Republicans and conservatives are diving for cover in foreign policy, the Iraq War, education and law enforcement. While I might have been a few days premature in naming Bush a limping water fowl in January of ’06, have you seen his imitation of Walter Brennan or heard his imitation of Donald Duck over these past few months? Sure bears a resemblance to a sorry duck in my book.
Not to worry, only 677 days from noon today.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Sky is Falling
The fat’s in the fire. The two most argumentative people in the Washington, DC suburbs are at it fast and furious. Walt Francis, economist know it all v. Wild Bill, just plain vanilla know it all, are going to discuss climate change for the masses of our readers.
Walt is in the corner of the debunkers of global warming and Bill is kind of half way between an agnostic and a follower of the consensus. We invite your comments to brennan01@cox.net and WaltonJF@aol.com.
As usual, this round began with Walt’s flinging of a take no prisoners gauntlet to his large mailing list. Naturally, I couldn’t resist commenting. And Walt could not restrain himself from a point by point refutation of the pearls. Since it’s my blog that he invited me to use, naturally, I won the debate, but I leave it to our readers, known and unknown, to judge if the sky is truly falling.
The first item is the gauntlet; the second the response and, finally, the refutation. It began with this from Walt:
Friends:
For your amusement and edification, I pass this along.
Sparked by an article in this morning's NYTimes science section, quoting the scientific disagreement with the "chicken little" global warming "apocalypse coming real soon" crowd, I googled one of the quoted scientists, "Don J Easterbrook", a distinguished climatology expert with more credentials on this subject than the entire Board of Directors and President of the AAAS combined.
He's done a superb Power Point slide show on the science and facts on this topic, which I hereby append. Or you can simply go to the following URL: gsa.confex.com/gsa/viewHandout.cgi?uploadid=215
After you've watched it, which will take only five or ten minutes, see if you don't agree with me that we have more to fear from an ice age than from CO2-driven global warming.
A couple of days ago the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, a distinguished economist, issued an attack on "ideological environmentalism" after the European Union leaders struck a deal to cut carbon emissions in Europe that would create economic havoc in the Czech Republic. "Mr Kaus said the global warming movement was just the latest environmental scare campaign, following on the short-lived fears of a population explosion in the 1970s and the expanding ozone hole in the 1980s." "They keep shooting at a moving target," he said (Wash Times article. The Post doesn't cover global warming "deniers".)
Too bad that the Bush Administration isn't more careful on this topic. They're wasting billions on climate research that could better be spent elsewhere. But I guess all politicians have to follow the latest fad scare, until it is forgotten and replaced by another fad.
Walt "Keep Pumping that Carbon" Francis
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Walt,
As laymen involved in the political process, we’ve got to decide between dueling scientific scenarios. The possibilities for the planet include: the earth is warming; the earth is cooling; the earth is warming and the engine is man’s degradation of the environment by various means; the earth is cooling but that trend is being overridden by man’s activity; the earth is warming and one of the (major) factors is man’s use of fossil fuels, etc. There may well be other options that I haven’t thought of but these will do for my points.
Based on what I’ve read and the number and qualifications of the vast majority of scientists who seem to be on that side, I’ve pretty much made up my mind that man is having an adverse impact on global warming. I do note, however, that in addition to the many crackpots who have taken it upon themselves to debunk the role of man in what is happening there are a number of highly qualified scientists and engineers who have participated in the process and have examined the data and do not agree with the majority. The latter group may be right, but none of this will mean anything in my lifetime or in the several decades that follow.
Let us assume that only two of the possibilities are correct: first, man is not having an adverse impact, and second, that he is. Let us further assume one of the implications in your note to us: that in fact the globe may be cooling and we’re merely part of a long cycle. If the earth is cooling, my question would be what’s the harm of man cutting the use of fossil fuels and limiting green house gas emissions? If we’re in such a cycle and man isn’t impacting the process, then cutting back would not harm the environment or adversely impact human and animal health and well being. This not to say there is no economic impact, but that would have to be considered in the light of all other plusses and minuses on health and well being.
I think the cleaning up of the environment would not have a very great adverse impact on the world economy, assuming the very difficult prospect that all of the world’s great economies participate, including North American countries, Brazil, Argentina, the EU, Russia, China, Japan, India, etc.
In the scenario in which the fears of the vast majority of scientists now seem to agree - that man is adversely impacting the climate – let us suppose they are correct and the world’s governments cannot agree on a program and we do little or nothing to mitigate the problem. The results would almost certainly be tragic. Even assuming that the rate of the impacts is only a fraction of those stated by the `Chicken Littles’, clearly the ocean levels would rise when the ice caps retreat and the warming water expands. This alone would adversely impact the highly populated Bangladesh and some of the small island nations. I think it is not challengeable that hurricanes (cyclones) would do considerably more damage to these low lying areas and others such as the Gulf Coast and Florida in the U.S. In this latter point, I’m going to ignore the `Chicken Littles’ who say that that storms would be more common and more severe; my basic point is if the water level is higher coastal areas will be more adversely damaged even if storms are not more frequent or numerous.
My basic bottom line is that I’m going to go along with the vast majority of the scientists in this case. They may not be correct, but I see a lot less harm in trying to hammer out a consensus of world governments on this course than doing nothing. My fear is that those on the other side may be profoundly wrong and that their obduracy will do grave damage to our planet and our species. I’d rather be wrong in my position then have you be wrong in yours. We’ll never know – those of us who are adults today, but if we’re wrong and do nothing, our grandchildren and theirs will have a lot more to curse their ancestors about than they should.
An imperfect analogy might be the tobacco fiasco. For decades the federal government, the industry and many highly qualified scientists opined that smoking was not overly harmful. Many of these people were stating honest positions. Six or eight decades later we find that they were gravely wrong and hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they believed the product was not harmful. Had a more conservative position been taken by the government, a lot of folks now pushing up daisies would still be among us.
In any event, I’m going to keep an open mind on the subject, but I’m leaning against your position at this minute.
Bill
----------------------------------------------------
The rebuttal (alternatly, my comments then Walt's):
Walt,
As laymen involved in the political process, we’ve got to decide between dueling scientific scenarios. The possibilities for the planet include: the earth is warming; the earth is cooling; the earth is warming and the engine is man’s degradation of the environment by various means; the earth is cooling but that trend is being overridden by man’s activity; the earth is warming and one of the (major) factors is man’s use of fossil fuels, etc. There may well be other options that I haven’t thought of but these will do for my points.
Based on what I’ve read and the number and qualifications of the vast majority of scientists who seem to be on that side,
Bill, I believe that of the qualified scientists, normally called climatologists, the majority are on the "we don't know enough to reach any conclusions, but there are likely other causes of this minor blip" side. The messianic believers include dogcatchers and sociologists and biologists and chemists and other unqualified folk to pad their totals. Regardless, science is not about consensus, but truth. A lot of people used to believe the earth was flat, and still others in phlogiston, etc.
I’ve pretty much made up my mind that man is having an adverse impact on global warming. I do note, however, that in addition to the many crackpots who have taken it upon themselves to debunk the role of man in what is happening there are a number of highly qualified scientists and engineers who have participated in the process and have examined the data and do not agree with the majority. The latter group may be right, but none of this will mean anything in my lifetime or in the several decades that follow.
You are correct that nothing of import wll happen in our lifetimes, or our childrens'. Sure seems like a good strategy to engage in watchful waiting.
Let us assume that only two of the possibilities are correct: first, man is not having an adverse impact, and second, that he is.
Pardon me, but what oracle decided that global warming was "adverse"? Best as I can tell from the actual literature (not news stories) it will have mostly positive impacts on both humans and critters.
Let us further assume one of the implications in your note to us: that in fact the globe may be cooling and we’re merely part of a long cycle. If the earth is cooling, my question would be what’s the harm of man cutting the use of fossil fuels and limiting green house gas emissions?
What's the harm? You jest. However, the Francis plan is to make it illegal for anyone believing in global warming to use any electric power, natural gas, or gasoline. We will distribute polar bear rugs to you folks in the "consensus". That will not "cut the use" of fossil fuels, but will reduce the rate of increase slightly. What is your plan for cutting the use? A $100 a gallon tax on gas? A $1 a kilowatt hour tax on electrictiy? You won't do a damn thing except impoverish Americans. Are we going to enforce those taxes on the Chinese? The Africans? I am unaware of any sane proposal to change energy utilization that would do anything more than reduce slightly the rate of growth. An all out nuclear program, which I support on national security grounds, with 500 new nuclear plants in the USA in the next 50 years, would not reduce the use of carbon. Get real! (I trust you know enough to understand that solar and wind power are jokes in this context, advocated only by the scientifically and economically illiterate.)
If we’re in such a cycle and man isn’t impacting the process, then cutting back would not harm the environment or adversely impact human and animal health and well being. This not to say there is no economic impact, but that would have to be considered in the light of all other plusses and minuses on health and well being.
There are no consequential minuses. No one has shown any adverse impact of global warming, if that is real, worth talking about. I hope you don't believe any of the nonsense about 20 foot increases in ocean level, or the polar bears being wiped out, or Malaria wiping us out (did you know that Malaria was endemic in the USA until we wiped it out a hundred years ago, during the little ice age?) that you read in the religious sermons on this issue. Not one reputable scientist in the world agrees with that crazy fearmongering stuff. Only reporters and newscasters repeat it.
As to "cutting back", that is, in a word impossible. There aren't enough machine guns in the world to make any nation impoverish its citizens in the name of this religious cause, based on the phony "consensus" of unqualified "scientists" speaking on subjects of which they are ignorant.
I think the cleaning up of the environment would not have a very great adverse impact on the world economy, assuming the very difficult prospect that all of the world’s great economies participate, including North American countries, Brazil, Argentina, the EU, Russia, China, Japan, India, etc.
Not one, not one single one of them, will "participate." You had better plan to relax and enjoy it. As to "not have a very great adverse impact" that is right up there with the tooth fairy. Just try and find one single study, by competent economists, that asserts we can reduce carbon use with no adverse impact that is not ten times greater than the great depression. P.S. I have a great book on the "solar power scam" that debunks that nonsense.
In the scenario in which the fears of the vast majority of scientists now seem to agree -
The "great majority" of scientists are not competent to render an opinion on any subject, let alone this one. They specialize, and the cosmic ray guys don't have a whole lot to say about the fruit fly guys, or vice versa. Where on earth did you get the idea that the "great majority" agreed on anything except the chicken little theory of the apocalypse, a religous rather than scientific belief?
that man is adversely impacting the climate – let us suppose they are correct and the world’s governments cannot agree on a program and we do little or nothing to mitigate the problem.
Well la de da. Who said the "world's government's" would consider, let along implement, the economic destruction of their own countries. The EU just voted to reduce carbon emissions below 1990 levels 20 years from now. That is what they agreed in Kyoto. In total, they are 10 percent above those levels after 10 years of lip service. The latest proposal, according to the papers, is to impose speed limits on the German autobahns. The Germans are enraged. But if the EU bureaucrats get their way, that little move will increase, not decrease, carbon emissions. I leave it to you to work out why.
The results would almost certainly be tragic. Even assuming that the rate of the impacts is only a fraction of those stated by the `Chicken Littles’, clearly the ocean levels would rise when the ice caps retreat and the warming water expands.
I beg your pardon! The global warming scam IPCC says sea level in the next century will rise one foot, six inches above the natural level of increase as we come out of the last ice age. Al Gore says 20 feet. Guess who doesn't agree with the alleged scientific consensus? As to Bangladesh, even in the Al Gore scenario they can do what the Dutch did. It is a no brainer. Of course, they can't do what the Dutch did if we reduce them to the stone age by banning coal and petroleum.
BTW, under global warming the ice caps grow, not decrease. They are growing today. True, the arctic ice is shrinking but that is not an ice cap and if that trivial amount of ice melts completely, which it won't, the oceans will not rise one tenth of an inch. Meanwhile, the real ice caps in Antartica and Greenland grow rapidly, fed by increased precipitation from warming, freezing that increased precipitation, and thereby reducing the ocean levels. I think you've been reading too many scare headlines by Washington Post envirofreaks, and not enough of the actual literature on the subject.
This alone would adversely impact the highly populated Bangladesh and some of the small island nations. I think it is not challengeable that hurricanes (cyclones) would do considerably more damage to these low lying areas and others such as the Gulf Coast and Florida in the U.S. In this latter point, I’m going to ignore the `Chicken Littles’ who say that that storms would be more common and more severe; my basic point is if the water level is higher coastal areas will be more adversely damaged even if storms are not more frequent or numerous.
The actual scientific consensus among meteorologists is that storms are NOT going to get worse, Al Gore to the contrary. I totally fail to understand your concern. Yes, countries that put their buildings on low lying shores will get pounded, with or without global warming. We call it the "New Orleans Syndrome." Yawn. Bangladesh will have no greater problem a hundred years from now than it has today, but a great deal more national income to use in building dikes. Yawn.
My basic bottom line is that I’m going to go along with the vast majority of the scientists in this case.
I prefer to go along with the vast majority of flat earthers, who certainly have more credibility than whomever you think you are believing. And just what is it they say that you believe? Suppose you believe the alleged consensus put out by the ICC, and the oceans rise a foot a hundred years from now. So what? Just what are you "going along" with? Do you think that a single one of those physical scientists, sociologists, and soothsayers has any competence whatsoever to estimate the economic impacts of any actions whatsover? Let us assume, illustratively, that biologists can "prove" that global warming will wipe out 90 percent of the frog species in the world (it turns out, in fact, that a human spread fungus is the problem. But let us ignore that inconvenient truth). Let us "go along" with them. Just what are we supposed to do? Mandatory sterilization of all women? Ban the automobile? What is their proposal and what competence do those frog scientists have even to discuss the subject? I would rather "go along" with witch doctors than biologists.
They may not be correct, but I see a lot less harm in trying to hammer out a consensus of world governments on this course than doing nothing.
There won't be a consensus to do a damn thing, let alone "this course", whatever that is. The reasons are that few climatologist believes there is a problem beyone that one foot ocean rise, and irregardless no government is going to shaft its citizens for the apocalyptic fears of the scare mongers. The United States response so far is "better" than average: we subsidize the corn farmers to produce ethanol that burns more carbon than it saves.
My fear is that those on the other side may be profoundly wrong and that their obduracy will do grave damage to our planet and our species. I’d rather be wrong in my position then have you be wrong in yours. We’ll never know – those of us who are adults today, but if we’re wrong and do nothing, our grandchildren and theirs will have a lot more to curse their ancestors about than they should.
Some of us think that the coming ice age is a bigger problem, and we should burn more carbon to prevent it. About half the climatologists are on that side. Suppose I agree with you that no price is too high: which side of the qualified scientists do I beleive? And why would I believe any of them when the science on this subject is not even in its infancy? Some would think being cursed for doing the wrong thing out of irrational fear is a lot worse than being calm, cool, and watchful.
An imperfect analogy might be the tobacco fiasco. For decades the federal government, the industry and many highly qualified scientists opined that smoking was not overly harmful. Many of these people were stating honest positions. Six or eight decades later we find that they were gravely wrong and hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they believed the product was not harmful. Had a more conservative position been taken by the government, a lot of folks now pushing up daisies would still be among us.
A "conservative" government position is to ban anything someone thinks, correctly or incorrectly, kills people? We tried that once before, and the "ban it completely" crowd was right: alcohol kills. Are we going to ban gasoline? Ban home heating oil? Ban automobiles? What on earth are you talking about doing that could possible slow down, let alone reverse, the growth of carbon emissions on this planet? (I can actually think of a workable option: nuke the Chinese and bring on nuclear winter. That will stop the warming!)
In any event, I’m going to keep an open mind on the subject, but I’m leaning against your position at this minute.
My position is that we don't know enough to be on one side or another. Your position is to do something, you don't know what, at some price in human misery you have not calculated, to prevent an imaginary harm that you can't even describe. I don't know what basis you have for disagreement. Apparently you believe the nonsense you read in every Washington Post story on this subject, in the grotesque distortions they print. If you decide you are interested in the science, I have a half dozen books by qualified scientists on this subject who ravage and ridicule the true believers. The latter have published no rebuttals.
Meanwhile, if you actually read the powerpoint slides with any care, ask yourself the following question: is there a single scientist in the world who can dispute what you saw? If so, what is his name? What is his counter evidence? And what data does he have on all those dreadful things that happened to Bangladesh or the polar bears or whomever the last ten times we entered a global warming cycle?
BTW, did you know that the oceans have risen 400 feet in the last 12,000 years. We are still coming out of the last ice age. Human used to walk across the English channel and the Bering Straits. Just what awful thing will happen if the oceans rise another foot in the next hundred years? If the January temperatures in the arctic rise on average from minus 40 to minus 30, but are unchanged in the continental USA? Until someone can describe with some particularity the harm, the consequences, the alternative, and its consequences, this is all rubbish.
Walt responding to Bill. Just pass this along in your blog or whereever.
The issue here is not science, but irrational religious fears of armageddon and apocalyse by true believers. There is actually nothing to discuss except what causes their peculiar mental state, and whether or why it may or may not be different than the mentality of the Salem witch trials or the people who fled hearing the Orson Wells "War of the Worlds" martian invasion radio show. By all means pass this one.
---------------------------------------------------
That's it.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Walt is in the corner of the debunkers of global warming and Bill is kind of half way between an agnostic and a follower of the consensus. We invite your comments to brennan01@cox.net and WaltonJF@aol.com.
As usual, this round began with Walt’s flinging of a take no prisoners gauntlet to his large mailing list. Naturally, I couldn’t resist commenting. And Walt could not restrain himself from a point by point refutation of the pearls. Since it’s my blog that he invited me to use, naturally, I won the debate, but I leave it to our readers, known and unknown, to judge if the sky is truly falling.
The first item is the gauntlet; the second the response and, finally, the refutation. It began with this from Walt:
Friends:
For your amusement and edification, I pass this along.
Sparked by an article in this morning's NYTimes science section, quoting the scientific disagreement with the "chicken little" global warming "apocalypse coming real soon" crowd, I googled one of the quoted scientists, "Don J Easterbrook", a distinguished climatology expert with more credentials on this subject than the entire Board of Directors and President of the AAAS combined.
He's done a superb Power Point slide show on the science and facts on this topic, which I hereby append. Or you can simply go to the following URL: gsa.confex.com/gsa/viewHandout.cgi?uploadid=215
After you've watched it, which will take only five or ten minutes, see if you don't agree with me that we have more to fear from an ice age than from CO2-driven global warming.
A couple of days ago the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, a distinguished economist, issued an attack on "ideological environmentalism" after the European Union leaders struck a deal to cut carbon emissions in Europe that would create economic havoc in the Czech Republic. "Mr Kaus said the global warming movement was just the latest environmental scare campaign, following on the short-lived fears of a population explosion in the 1970s and the expanding ozone hole in the 1980s." "They keep shooting at a moving target," he said (Wash Times article. The Post doesn't cover global warming "deniers".)
Too bad that the Bush Administration isn't more careful on this topic. They're wasting billions on climate research that could better be spent elsewhere. But I guess all politicians have to follow the latest fad scare, until it is forgotten and replaced by another fad.
Walt "Keep Pumping that Carbon" Francis
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Walt,
As laymen involved in the political process, we’ve got to decide between dueling scientific scenarios. The possibilities for the planet include: the earth is warming; the earth is cooling; the earth is warming and the engine is man’s degradation of the environment by various means; the earth is cooling but that trend is being overridden by man’s activity; the earth is warming and one of the (major) factors is man’s use of fossil fuels, etc. There may well be other options that I haven’t thought of but these will do for my points.
Based on what I’ve read and the number and qualifications of the vast majority of scientists who seem to be on that side, I’ve pretty much made up my mind that man is having an adverse impact on global warming. I do note, however, that in addition to the many crackpots who have taken it upon themselves to debunk the role of man in what is happening there are a number of highly qualified scientists and engineers who have participated in the process and have examined the data and do not agree with the majority. The latter group may be right, but none of this will mean anything in my lifetime or in the several decades that follow.
Let us assume that only two of the possibilities are correct: first, man is not having an adverse impact, and second, that he is. Let us further assume one of the implications in your note to us: that in fact the globe may be cooling and we’re merely part of a long cycle. If the earth is cooling, my question would be what’s the harm of man cutting the use of fossil fuels and limiting green house gas emissions? If we’re in such a cycle and man isn’t impacting the process, then cutting back would not harm the environment or adversely impact human and animal health and well being. This not to say there is no economic impact, but that would have to be considered in the light of all other plusses and minuses on health and well being.
I think the cleaning up of the environment would not have a very great adverse impact on the world economy, assuming the very difficult prospect that all of the world’s great economies participate, including North American countries, Brazil, Argentina, the EU, Russia, China, Japan, India, etc.
In the scenario in which the fears of the vast majority of scientists now seem to agree - that man is adversely impacting the climate – let us suppose they are correct and the world’s governments cannot agree on a program and we do little or nothing to mitigate the problem. The results would almost certainly be tragic. Even assuming that the rate of the impacts is only a fraction of those stated by the `Chicken Littles’, clearly the ocean levels would rise when the ice caps retreat and the warming water expands. This alone would adversely impact the highly populated Bangladesh and some of the small island nations. I think it is not challengeable that hurricanes (cyclones) would do considerably more damage to these low lying areas and others such as the Gulf Coast and Florida in the U.S. In this latter point, I’m going to ignore the `Chicken Littles’ who say that that storms would be more common and more severe; my basic point is if the water level is higher coastal areas will be more adversely damaged even if storms are not more frequent or numerous.
My basic bottom line is that I’m going to go along with the vast majority of the scientists in this case. They may not be correct, but I see a lot less harm in trying to hammer out a consensus of world governments on this course than doing nothing. My fear is that those on the other side may be profoundly wrong and that their obduracy will do grave damage to our planet and our species. I’d rather be wrong in my position then have you be wrong in yours. We’ll never know – those of us who are adults today, but if we’re wrong and do nothing, our grandchildren and theirs will have a lot more to curse their ancestors about than they should.
An imperfect analogy might be the tobacco fiasco. For decades the federal government, the industry and many highly qualified scientists opined that smoking was not overly harmful. Many of these people were stating honest positions. Six or eight decades later we find that they were gravely wrong and hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they believed the product was not harmful. Had a more conservative position been taken by the government, a lot of folks now pushing up daisies would still be among us.
In any event, I’m going to keep an open mind on the subject, but I’m leaning against your position at this minute.
Bill
----------------------------------------------------
The rebuttal (alternatly, my comments then Walt's):
Walt,
As laymen involved in the political process, we’ve got to decide between dueling scientific scenarios. The possibilities for the planet include: the earth is warming; the earth is cooling; the earth is warming and the engine is man’s degradation of the environment by various means; the earth is cooling but that trend is being overridden by man’s activity; the earth is warming and one of the (major) factors is man’s use of fossil fuels, etc. There may well be other options that I haven’t thought of but these will do for my points.
Based on what I’ve read and the number and qualifications of the vast majority of scientists who seem to be on that side,
Bill, I believe that of the qualified scientists, normally called climatologists, the majority are on the "we don't know enough to reach any conclusions, but there are likely other causes of this minor blip" side. The messianic believers include dogcatchers and sociologists and biologists and chemists and other unqualified folk to pad their totals. Regardless, science is not about consensus, but truth. A lot of people used to believe the earth was flat, and still others in phlogiston, etc.
I’ve pretty much made up my mind that man is having an adverse impact on global warming. I do note, however, that in addition to the many crackpots who have taken it upon themselves to debunk the role of man in what is happening there are a number of highly qualified scientists and engineers who have participated in the process and have examined the data and do not agree with the majority. The latter group may be right, but none of this will mean anything in my lifetime or in the several decades that follow.
You are correct that nothing of import wll happen in our lifetimes, or our childrens'. Sure seems like a good strategy to engage in watchful waiting.
Let us assume that only two of the possibilities are correct: first, man is not having an adverse impact, and second, that he is.
Pardon me, but what oracle decided that global warming was "adverse"? Best as I can tell from the actual literature (not news stories) it will have mostly positive impacts on both humans and critters.
Let us further assume one of the implications in your note to us: that in fact the globe may be cooling and we’re merely part of a long cycle. If the earth is cooling, my question would be what’s the harm of man cutting the use of fossil fuels and limiting green house gas emissions?
What's the harm? You jest. However, the Francis plan is to make it illegal for anyone believing in global warming to use any electric power, natural gas, or gasoline. We will distribute polar bear rugs to you folks in the "consensus". That will not "cut the use" of fossil fuels, but will reduce the rate of increase slightly. What is your plan for cutting the use? A $100 a gallon tax on gas? A $1 a kilowatt hour tax on electrictiy? You won't do a damn thing except impoverish Americans. Are we going to enforce those taxes on the Chinese? The Africans? I am unaware of any sane proposal to change energy utilization that would do anything more than reduce slightly the rate of growth. An all out nuclear program, which I support on national security grounds, with 500 new nuclear plants in the USA in the next 50 years, would not reduce the use of carbon. Get real! (I trust you know enough to understand that solar and wind power are jokes in this context, advocated only by the scientifically and economically illiterate.)
If we’re in such a cycle and man isn’t impacting the process, then cutting back would not harm the environment or adversely impact human and animal health and well being. This not to say there is no economic impact, but that would have to be considered in the light of all other plusses and minuses on health and well being.
There are no consequential minuses. No one has shown any adverse impact of global warming, if that is real, worth talking about. I hope you don't believe any of the nonsense about 20 foot increases in ocean level, or the polar bears being wiped out, or Malaria wiping us out (did you know that Malaria was endemic in the USA until we wiped it out a hundred years ago, during the little ice age?) that you read in the religious sermons on this issue. Not one reputable scientist in the world agrees with that crazy fearmongering stuff. Only reporters and newscasters repeat it.
As to "cutting back", that is, in a word impossible. There aren't enough machine guns in the world to make any nation impoverish its citizens in the name of this religious cause, based on the phony "consensus" of unqualified "scientists" speaking on subjects of which they are ignorant.
I think the cleaning up of the environment would not have a very great adverse impact on the world economy, assuming the very difficult prospect that all of the world’s great economies participate, including North American countries, Brazil, Argentina, the EU, Russia, China, Japan, India, etc.
Not one, not one single one of them, will "participate." You had better plan to relax and enjoy it. As to "not have a very great adverse impact" that is right up there with the tooth fairy. Just try and find one single study, by competent economists, that asserts we can reduce carbon use with no adverse impact that is not ten times greater than the great depression. P.S. I have a great book on the "solar power scam" that debunks that nonsense.
In the scenario in which the fears of the vast majority of scientists now seem to agree -
The "great majority" of scientists are not competent to render an opinion on any subject, let alone this one. They specialize, and the cosmic ray guys don't have a whole lot to say about the fruit fly guys, or vice versa. Where on earth did you get the idea that the "great majority" agreed on anything except the chicken little theory of the apocalypse, a religous rather than scientific belief?
that man is adversely impacting the climate – let us suppose they are correct and the world’s governments cannot agree on a program and we do little or nothing to mitigate the problem.
Well la de da. Who said the "world's government's" would consider, let along implement, the economic destruction of their own countries. The EU just voted to reduce carbon emissions below 1990 levels 20 years from now. That is what they agreed in Kyoto. In total, they are 10 percent above those levels after 10 years of lip service. The latest proposal, according to the papers, is to impose speed limits on the German autobahns. The Germans are enraged. But if the EU bureaucrats get their way, that little move will increase, not decrease, carbon emissions. I leave it to you to work out why.
The results would almost certainly be tragic. Even assuming that the rate of the impacts is only a fraction of those stated by the `Chicken Littles’, clearly the ocean levels would rise when the ice caps retreat and the warming water expands.
I beg your pardon! The global warming scam IPCC says sea level in the next century will rise one foot, six inches above the natural level of increase as we come out of the last ice age. Al Gore says 20 feet. Guess who doesn't agree with the alleged scientific consensus? As to Bangladesh, even in the Al Gore scenario they can do what the Dutch did. It is a no brainer. Of course, they can't do what the Dutch did if we reduce them to the stone age by banning coal and petroleum.
BTW, under global warming the ice caps grow, not decrease. They are growing today. True, the arctic ice is shrinking but that is not an ice cap and if that trivial amount of ice melts completely, which it won't, the oceans will not rise one tenth of an inch. Meanwhile, the real ice caps in Antartica and Greenland grow rapidly, fed by increased precipitation from warming, freezing that increased precipitation, and thereby reducing the ocean levels. I think you've been reading too many scare headlines by Washington Post envirofreaks, and not enough of the actual literature on the subject.
This alone would adversely impact the highly populated Bangladesh and some of the small island nations. I think it is not challengeable that hurricanes (cyclones) would do considerably more damage to these low lying areas and others such as the Gulf Coast and Florida in the U.S. In this latter point, I’m going to ignore the `Chicken Littles’ who say that that storms would be more common and more severe; my basic point is if the water level is higher coastal areas will be more adversely damaged even if storms are not more frequent or numerous.
The actual scientific consensus among meteorologists is that storms are NOT going to get worse, Al Gore to the contrary. I totally fail to understand your concern. Yes, countries that put their buildings on low lying shores will get pounded, with or without global warming. We call it the "New Orleans Syndrome." Yawn. Bangladesh will have no greater problem a hundred years from now than it has today, but a great deal more national income to use in building dikes. Yawn.
My basic bottom line is that I’m going to go along with the vast majority of the scientists in this case.
I prefer to go along with the vast majority of flat earthers, who certainly have more credibility than whomever you think you are believing. And just what is it they say that you believe? Suppose you believe the alleged consensus put out by the ICC, and the oceans rise a foot a hundred years from now. So what? Just what are you "going along" with? Do you think that a single one of those physical scientists, sociologists, and soothsayers has any competence whatsoever to estimate the economic impacts of any actions whatsover? Let us assume, illustratively, that biologists can "prove" that global warming will wipe out 90 percent of the frog species in the world (it turns out, in fact, that a human spread fungus is the problem. But let us ignore that inconvenient truth). Let us "go along" with them. Just what are we supposed to do? Mandatory sterilization of all women? Ban the automobile? What is their proposal and what competence do those frog scientists have even to discuss the subject? I would rather "go along" with witch doctors than biologists.
They may not be correct, but I see a lot less harm in trying to hammer out a consensus of world governments on this course than doing nothing.
There won't be a consensus to do a damn thing, let alone "this course", whatever that is. The reasons are that few climatologist believes there is a problem beyone that one foot ocean rise, and irregardless no government is going to shaft its citizens for the apocalyptic fears of the scare mongers. The United States response so far is "better" than average: we subsidize the corn farmers to produce ethanol that burns more carbon than it saves.
My fear is that those on the other side may be profoundly wrong and that their obduracy will do grave damage to our planet and our species. I’d rather be wrong in my position then have you be wrong in yours. We’ll never know – those of us who are adults today, but if we’re wrong and do nothing, our grandchildren and theirs will have a lot more to curse their ancestors about than they should.
Some of us think that the coming ice age is a bigger problem, and we should burn more carbon to prevent it. About half the climatologists are on that side. Suppose I agree with you that no price is too high: which side of the qualified scientists do I beleive? And why would I believe any of them when the science on this subject is not even in its infancy? Some would think being cursed for doing the wrong thing out of irrational fear is a lot worse than being calm, cool, and watchful.
An imperfect analogy might be the tobacco fiasco. For decades the federal government, the industry and many highly qualified scientists opined that smoking was not overly harmful. Many of these people were stating honest positions. Six or eight decades later we find that they were gravely wrong and hundreds of thousands of people die each year because they believed the product was not harmful. Had a more conservative position been taken by the government, a lot of folks now pushing up daisies would still be among us.
A "conservative" government position is to ban anything someone thinks, correctly or incorrectly, kills people? We tried that once before, and the "ban it completely" crowd was right: alcohol kills. Are we going to ban gasoline? Ban home heating oil? Ban automobiles? What on earth are you talking about doing that could possible slow down, let alone reverse, the growth of carbon emissions on this planet? (I can actually think of a workable option: nuke the Chinese and bring on nuclear winter. That will stop the warming!)
In any event, I’m going to keep an open mind on the subject, but I’m leaning against your position at this minute.
My position is that we don't know enough to be on one side or another. Your position is to do something, you don't know what, at some price in human misery you have not calculated, to prevent an imaginary harm that you can't even describe. I don't know what basis you have for disagreement. Apparently you believe the nonsense you read in every Washington Post story on this subject, in the grotesque distortions they print. If you decide you are interested in the science, I have a half dozen books by qualified scientists on this subject who ravage and ridicule the true believers. The latter have published no rebuttals.
Meanwhile, if you actually read the powerpoint slides with any care, ask yourself the following question: is there a single scientist in the world who can dispute what you saw? If so, what is his name? What is his counter evidence? And what data does he have on all those dreadful things that happened to Bangladesh or the polar bears or whomever the last ten times we entered a global warming cycle?
BTW, did you know that the oceans have risen 400 feet in the last 12,000 years. We are still coming out of the last ice age. Human used to walk across the English channel and the Bering Straits. Just what awful thing will happen if the oceans rise another foot in the next hundred years? If the January temperatures in the arctic rise on average from minus 40 to minus 30, but are unchanged in the continental USA? Until someone can describe with some particularity the harm, the consequences, the alternative, and its consequences, this is all rubbish.
Walt responding to Bill. Just pass this along in your blog or whereever.
The issue here is not science, but irrational religious fears of armageddon and apocalyse by true believers. There is actually nothing to discuss except what causes their peculiar mental state, and whether or why it may or may not be different than the mentality of the Salem witch trials or the people who fled hearing the Orson Wells "War of the Worlds" martian invasion radio show. By all means pass this one.
---------------------------------------------------
That's it.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Slopping the Hogs
How could so many petty scandals and corrupt practices occur under the noses of President Bush and his administration? Actually, there are several simple explanations.
Maintenance is neglected at Walter Reed Army Hospital; outpatient treatment there and in other facilities is a scandal; classifying of disabilities among the wounded is late and adversarial; in Iraq, Humvies continue to be fielded with inadequate armor; national guard and reserve forces are not adequately supplied, VA hospitals are not prepared to handle the problems of continuing care casualties; and on and on. What’s going on?
First, one that I and many others have been yelping about for years, divided government works. The Democrats are able to investigate what the unified Republicans have been able to paper over during the entire period of the Iraq War. The administration and its lackeys on the Hill routinely tabled investigations of such scandals until this year.
Second – related to the first – the media now has access to a branch of government that is ready to hear the truth about the war and its consequences and is ready to call the administration to account at committee hearings. These hearings, broadcast into the homes of Americans by C-Span and the cable news networks make it impossible for the administration to deny or reject the obvious as it has for the past four years.
Okay, the scandals are there; why? As always, it’s about the money. The president and his sycophants are in a war that has gotten completely beyond their ability to control. The cost in blood and treasure is way beyond their wildest projections and instead of being honest with the congress and the voters, they’ve gone to great lengths to fight to the last dime of veterans benefits, military health care funds, and equipment for our ground troops in order to hide the true costs of the war until they can get out of town.
They must continue to slop the military industrial pigs and can’t cut high tech programs in which they wallow and that have little to do with the Iraq. Thus, fighter planes designed to control the skies in a war against a super power opponent two decades hence cannot be slowed. The same goes for other high tech weapons systems; we simply can’t cut them or even slow them as the military industrial complex might turn on its nominal masters.
That military experts opine that the most likely conflicts in the near and mid-term are likely to be similar to those being waged today in Afghanistan and Iraq means little when it comes to the suppliers of high tech – and very high cost - systems be they land, sea, air or space based. Arming ground troops and their support systems is costly and it puts far too little in the pockets of those becoming rich designing futuristic systems for wars generations down the road. Rifles, bullets, body armor, medical care, field rations and land troops themselves are expensive and put little lucre in appropriate larders.
Thus to assure that the fattest pigs continue to be slopped, cuts must be made from the least politically powerful of the defense accounts, the protection and long term care of those who actually do the fighting. Mold on the walls of out patient rooms at Walter Reid would have remained until the transfer payments from poor to the corporations supplying the high tech equipment not now in use in Iran was actually in the appropriate accounts. So we must satisfy the poor troops and ourselves with symbolic yellow stick on ribbons on our SUVs until some later date when the magnitude of the full bill for Iraq becomes obvious – some time after January 20, 2009 when Bush takes up brush cutting in earnest.
Until the new president takes office, we will also have to be satisfied with the canning of a few scapegoats so that we can continue to shovel defense dollars to the fat cats who buy the television ads proclaiming that they love the troops – usually shown operating high tech devices.
Why the Republicans rail against transfer payments is beyond me. Between tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for corporate farmers and carving the defense budget out of our wounded and dead, I just don’t get their beef - or ham. Oh, you may be sure that these petty scandals will be solved, but be further assured the funds will come from the hides of some other poor constituency rather than from the rich and high tech defense sectors.
Blog on! Only 688 more days until Inauguration Day.
Wild Bill
Maintenance is neglected at Walter Reed Army Hospital; outpatient treatment there and in other facilities is a scandal; classifying of disabilities among the wounded is late and adversarial; in Iraq, Humvies continue to be fielded with inadequate armor; national guard and reserve forces are not adequately supplied, VA hospitals are not prepared to handle the problems of continuing care casualties; and on and on. What’s going on?
First, one that I and many others have been yelping about for years, divided government works. The Democrats are able to investigate what the unified Republicans have been able to paper over during the entire period of the Iraq War. The administration and its lackeys on the Hill routinely tabled investigations of such scandals until this year.
Second – related to the first – the media now has access to a branch of government that is ready to hear the truth about the war and its consequences and is ready to call the administration to account at committee hearings. These hearings, broadcast into the homes of Americans by C-Span and the cable news networks make it impossible for the administration to deny or reject the obvious as it has for the past four years.
Okay, the scandals are there; why? As always, it’s about the money. The president and his sycophants are in a war that has gotten completely beyond their ability to control. The cost in blood and treasure is way beyond their wildest projections and instead of being honest with the congress and the voters, they’ve gone to great lengths to fight to the last dime of veterans benefits, military health care funds, and equipment for our ground troops in order to hide the true costs of the war until they can get out of town.
They must continue to slop the military industrial pigs and can’t cut high tech programs in which they wallow and that have little to do with the Iraq. Thus, fighter planes designed to control the skies in a war against a super power opponent two decades hence cannot be slowed. The same goes for other high tech weapons systems; we simply can’t cut them or even slow them as the military industrial complex might turn on its nominal masters.
That military experts opine that the most likely conflicts in the near and mid-term are likely to be similar to those being waged today in Afghanistan and Iraq means little when it comes to the suppliers of high tech – and very high cost - systems be they land, sea, air or space based. Arming ground troops and their support systems is costly and it puts far too little in the pockets of those becoming rich designing futuristic systems for wars generations down the road. Rifles, bullets, body armor, medical care, field rations and land troops themselves are expensive and put little lucre in appropriate larders.
Thus to assure that the fattest pigs continue to be slopped, cuts must be made from the least politically powerful of the defense accounts, the protection and long term care of those who actually do the fighting. Mold on the walls of out patient rooms at Walter Reid would have remained until the transfer payments from poor to the corporations supplying the high tech equipment not now in use in Iran was actually in the appropriate accounts. So we must satisfy the poor troops and ourselves with symbolic yellow stick on ribbons on our SUVs until some later date when the magnitude of the full bill for Iraq becomes obvious – some time after January 20, 2009 when Bush takes up brush cutting in earnest.
Until the new president takes office, we will also have to be satisfied with the canning of a few scapegoats so that we can continue to shovel defense dollars to the fat cats who buy the television ads proclaiming that they love the troops – usually shown operating high tech devices.
Why the Republicans rail against transfer payments is beyond me. Between tax cuts for the rich, subsidies for corporate farmers and carving the defense budget out of our wounded and dead, I just don’t get their beef - or ham. Oh, you may be sure that these petty scandals will be solved, but be further assured the funds will come from the hides of some other poor constituency rather than from the rich and high tech defense sectors.
Blog on! Only 688 more days until Inauguration Day.
Wild Bill
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Beware of Counterfeits
There they are – tall, straight, lantern jawed, square shouldered, pin striped suits, perfect smiles – just waiting to wave and smile at you, our counterfeit men and women. Six years ago, they bore these same marks but they were smoother then and we could not determine their authenticity. But now we can; they’re as phony as three dollar bills. Look closely, the veneer of confidence is worn and cannot cover their angst; the surface lines are etched six years more deeply. These are actors struggling to make their exits, hoping you won’t notice that they’re totally inauthentic human beings, mere knock offs of those confident beings who took office on January 20, 2001. The lines they mouth were written for an audience that has long ago soured on this failed and rotten play.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and a half a hundred more – some already gone - simply mouth their lines in what was supposed to be a pleasant melodrama that has turned fatefully calamitous. Now they face tomatoes being tossed from the cheap seats and beg us to listen to their words.
The chorus of loyalists in congress and even in the audience can no longer quiet the cat calls. For six years, they had center stage and played to the crowd with happy words and phrases as the set fell apart about them. Now they’re alone with just their frayed costumes and worn makeup spouting repeated lines that used to inspire but which now are simply comic, tragically comic.
Give ‘em the hook, the Gong Show’s over.
Be gone you phony bums!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and a half a hundred more – some already gone - simply mouth their lines in what was supposed to be a pleasant melodrama that has turned fatefully calamitous. Now they face tomatoes being tossed from the cheap seats and beg us to listen to their words.
The chorus of loyalists in congress and even in the audience can no longer quiet the cat calls. For six years, they had center stage and played to the crowd with happy words and phrases as the set fell apart about them. Now they’re alone with just their frayed costumes and worn makeup spouting repeated lines that used to inspire but which now are simply comic, tragically comic.
Give ‘em the hook, the Gong Show’s over.
Be gone you phony bums!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Thursday, February 08, 2007
How the Republicans got Snookered
It’s very sad to see how the party of Ike, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, the party of little government, got taken in by the neoconservatives. It’s really poignant because I don’t even blame the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld or George W. Bush. (I do, but for the purpose of entertaining you, you’ll have to bear with me.)
A couple of postings ago, I talked about the influence of Machiavelli on our founders and how old Nick’s ideas were incorporated into our constitution. Students of republics, like Nick, saw that a major flaw in republican government is that factionalism, even during times of war, prevented such states from acting effectively in their own defense. I opined – and not being a real scholar - can only assume that I wasn’t the first - that our most brilliant founders such as Jefferson, Madison, Jay and Hamilton took the views of the author of The Prince into account when they drafted the role of our chief executive.
Having drifted from the liberalism of my youth to the moderate conservatism of my middle years, I was becoming an advocate of the `that government governs best which governs least’ crowd. Of course, I had to do the requisite mental gymnastics to get past the buying of loyalty by Reagan and Bush 41 as the federal budget became the ATM machine of powerful congressmen and the military industrial complex.
The story of how the neoconservatives - and others not relevant to this posting - bucked up the federal government in the years following the debacle of Vietnam and who found in The Gipper the perfect man to represent their philosophy of over the top hubris and world hegemony has been expressed many times by me and dozens of others.
The neocon philosophy melded perfectly with the deficiencies and weaknesses noted in our system of government by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney when they saw power flow from the executive to the legislature when Dick Nixon drowned in the tsunami of 1974. So, as a philosophy of power prescribed by the founders for times of true crisis was seen by those who saw a classic imbalance in the powers of the presidency and the legislative branches, there came a confluence of actors and events that has come to lay low the Grand Old Party.
Until 9/11, Cheney, Rummy and like minded malcontents who failed to recognize that the wisdom of the founders in permitting the likes of Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Wilson to assume the great and very awesome and fearful powers of the Machiavellian inspired powerhouse of a chief during only in times of very real crises of near total war had to squirm in their seats as uppity congressional members whipped the men – and women – of Tricky Dick and later presidents like so many whipped dogs.
But – to call upon another member of the permanently disgraced who cannot be asked for assistance in governing – the neoconservatives saw a Rasputin like opening and they drove through it. While the first reaction of most Americans to 9/11 was righteous anger towards al Qaeda, the Taliban in Afghanistan and toward other terrorist organizations, especially of radical Islamic origin, the neocons saw an opportunity to solve a whole host of power imbalances all at once, and they were as quick as a mad monk to whisper into the eager ears of those in power.
It was time to attack Iraq. Look what this could accomplish: teach more powerful members of the Axis of Evil that the U.S. and George W. Bush were not to be trifled with; demonstrate that we could topple any tyrant who threatened us or our allies; demonstrate far better than the rural and mountainous backwater of Afghanistan the fighting ability of U.S. forces; AND MOST IMPORTANT, TO CREATE A FALSE PREMISE FOR SEIZING THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS RESERVED FOR PRESIDENTS IN TIMES OF TRUE NATIONAL CRISES.
Thus, sadly, did the dimwits and innocents who called themselves Republicans get caught up in the martial airs of Hail to the Chief and sell out their true beliefs of limited government, avoidance of foreign entanglements, and tightwad spending, and become champions of a hubris that ranks with Rome, Napoleon, and nineteenth century England, with the notion of building bridges to nowhere and to centralizing power that would make our greatest war time leaders blanch.
Now our dear friends – innocent, decent, warm and fuzzy cloth coat Republicans worthy of Cal Coolidge and Ike – face being turned out of power for a generation because they were led down the – dare I say – the primrose path by these neoconservatives. Sad, but their wrath should not be directed solely upon the cynical neocons but rather on Dubya, Dick and Darth who should have known better.
Now the innocents circle like so many retarded musk ox before modern weapons to defend leaders they now see through. If they really believed in Republican and conservative principles, they’d be the ones calling for impeachment instead of avoiding a debate on Iraq.
Never mind, it will all turn out well. They’ll pass this fiasco off to the next crowd and the nation will survive, and they’ll have thirty years to lick their wounds and think about their folly. Well they can say to historians with honest hearts that they impeached a president, the wrong one, but they did it.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
A couple of postings ago, I talked about the influence of Machiavelli on our founders and how old Nick’s ideas were incorporated into our constitution. Students of republics, like Nick, saw that a major flaw in republican government is that factionalism, even during times of war, prevented such states from acting effectively in their own defense. I opined – and not being a real scholar - can only assume that I wasn’t the first - that our most brilliant founders such as Jefferson, Madison, Jay and Hamilton took the views of the author of The Prince into account when they drafted the role of our chief executive.
Having drifted from the liberalism of my youth to the moderate conservatism of my middle years, I was becoming an advocate of the `that government governs best which governs least’ crowd. Of course, I had to do the requisite mental gymnastics to get past the buying of loyalty by Reagan and Bush 41 as the federal budget became the ATM machine of powerful congressmen and the military industrial complex.
The story of how the neoconservatives - and others not relevant to this posting - bucked up the federal government in the years following the debacle of Vietnam and who found in The Gipper the perfect man to represent their philosophy of over the top hubris and world hegemony has been expressed many times by me and dozens of others.
The neocon philosophy melded perfectly with the deficiencies and weaknesses noted in our system of government by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney when they saw power flow from the executive to the legislature when Dick Nixon drowned in the tsunami of 1974. So, as a philosophy of power prescribed by the founders for times of true crisis was seen by those who saw a classic imbalance in the powers of the presidency and the legislative branches, there came a confluence of actors and events that has come to lay low the Grand Old Party.
Until 9/11, Cheney, Rummy and like minded malcontents who failed to recognize that the wisdom of the founders in permitting the likes of Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Wilson to assume the great and very awesome and fearful powers of the Machiavellian inspired powerhouse of a chief during only in times of very real crises of near total war had to squirm in their seats as uppity congressional members whipped the men – and women – of Tricky Dick and later presidents like so many whipped dogs.
But – to call upon another member of the permanently disgraced who cannot be asked for assistance in governing – the neoconservatives saw a Rasputin like opening and they drove through it. While the first reaction of most Americans to 9/11 was righteous anger towards al Qaeda, the Taliban in Afghanistan and toward other terrorist organizations, especially of radical Islamic origin, the neocons saw an opportunity to solve a whole host of power imbalances all at once, and they were as quick as a mad monk to whisper into the eager ears of those in power.
It was time to attack Iraq. Look what this could accomplish: teach more powerful members of the Axis of Evil that the U.S. and George W. Bush were not to be trifled with; demonstrate that we could topple any tyrant who threatened us or our allies; demonstrate far better than the rural and mountainous backwater of Afghanistan the fighting ability of U.S. forces; AND MOST IMPORTANT, TO CREATE A FALSE PREMISE FOR SEIZING THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS RESERVED FOR PRESIDENTS IN TIMES OF TRUE NATIONAL CRISES.
Thus, sadly, did the dimwits and innocents who called themselves Republicans get caught up in the martial airs of Hail to the Chief and sell out their true beliefs of limited government, avoidance of foreign entanglements, and tightwad spending, and become champions of a hubris that ranks with Rome, Napoleon, and nineteenth century England, with the notion of building bridges to nowhere and to centralizing power that would make our greatest war time leaders blanch.
Now our dear friends – innocent, decent, warm and fuzzy cloth coat Republicans worthy of Cal Coolidge and Ike – face being turned out of power for a generation because they were led down the – dare I say – the primrose path by these neoconservatives. Sad, but their wrath should not be directed solely upon the cynical neocons but rather on Dubya, Dick and Darth who should have known better.
Now the innocents circle like so many retarded musk ox before modern weapons to defend leaders they now see through. If they really believed in Republican and conservative principles, they’d be the ones calling for impeachment instead of avoiding a debate on Iraq.
Never mind, it will all turn out well. They’ll pass this fiasco off to the next crowd and the nation will survive, and they’ll have thirty years to lick their wounds and think about their folly. Well they can say to historians with honest hearts that they impeached a president, the wrong one, but they did it.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, February 04, 2007
A Life
Life is good! Sometimes I fear that people reading this electronic rag think that I’m a pessimist; nothing could be further from the truth. While evil deeds are committed daily and there are truly malevolent people among us and only fools believe that man is perfectible, the species can better itself by degrees and there are members who give lie to the idea that we cannot do good.
Every day, the news is filled with man’s inhumanity to man and we hear the lament that that good news is never reported. That’s not quite true, as once in a while the story of life so extraordinary as to be almost divine comes to our attention and makes us happy to have lived in its time. Such a story was reported yesterday. A person who lives not far from me whom I have never met has done something so extraordinary that I cannot let it pass without comment.
A professor at George Mason University was awarded a one million dollar prize for his life’s work. That’s the least important part of the story. This great person devoted his being and overwhelming gifts to solving a problem that was the bane of the existence of millions of people living in poverty stricken parts of the world.
Abul Hussam, professor of Chemistry at George Mason, devoted his life and extraordinary talent to discovering a cost effective way to remove arsenic from the drinking water available to those living in many parts of the third world. This problem has killed literally millions of human beings before their times. And he did it, really.
I am pleased to be able to incorporate the AP article about this great person in this posting so that you can see that life can be very, very good. Professor Hussam proves that devoting ones life to solving a great problem is far more important than celebrity or in achieving material success. That he has been financially rewarded for this breathtaking breakthrough is simply icing on the cake.
I am pleased to include this article and I hope that you will read it and find it as inspiring as I did:
The Associated Press
Saturday, February 3, 2007; 8:32 AM
FAIRFAX, Va. -- A professor who developed an inexpensive, easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic from well water has won a $1 million engineering prize _ and he plans to use most of the money to distribute the filters to needy communities around the world.
The National Academy of Engineering announced Thursday that the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability would go to Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor at George Mason University in Fairfax. Hussam's invention is already in use today, preventing serious health problems in residents of the professor's native Bangladesh.
After moving to the United States in 1978, Hussam got his citizenship and received a doctorate in analytical chemistry. The Centreville, Va., resident has spent much of this career trying to devise a solution to the arsenic problem, which was accidentally caused by international aid agencies that had funded a campaign to dig wells in Eastern India and Bangladesh.
The wells brought fresh groundwater to farmers and others who previously had been drinking from bacteria- and virus-laced ponds and mudholes. But the aid agencies were unaware that the groundwater also had naturally high concentrations of poisonous arsenic. As infectious diseases declined, arsenic-related skin ailments and fatal cancers began to increase _ a problem that attracted much attention in the 1990s.
"I myself and all my brothers were drinking this water," said Hussam, who added that his family did not get sick, possibly because they had a good diet, which can help stem the effects of digesting arsenic.
Allan Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said arsenic poisoning affects millions of people worldwide and it has been difficult to convince people that what seems to be good water might be toxic.
"You can't see it or taste or smell it," Smith said. "The idea that crystal-clear drinking water would end up causing lung disease in 20 or 30 years is a little weird. It's unbelievable to people."
Hussam spent years testing hundreds of prototype filtration systems. His final innovation is a simple, maintenance-free system that uses sand, charcoal, bits of brick and shards of a type of cast iron. Each filter has 20 pounds of porous iron, which forms a chemical bond with arsenic.
The filter removes almost every trace of arsenic from well water.
About 200 filtration systems are being made each week in Kushtia, Bangladesh, for about $40 each, Hussam said. More than 30,000 have been distributed.
Hussam said he plans to use 70 percent of his prize so the filters can be distributed to needy communities. He said 25 percent will be used for more research, and 5 percent will be donated to GMU.
The 2007 sustainability prize is funded by the Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Ill., and the contest was set up to target the arsenic problem. Among the criteria for winning was an affordable, reliable and environmentally friendly solution to the arsenic problem that did not require electricity.
Hussam's award will be presented Feb. 20 at Union Station in Washington.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Every day, the news is filled with man’s inhumanity to man and we hear the lament that that good news is never reported. That’s not quite true, as once in a while the story of life so extraordinary as to be almost divine comes to our attention and makes us happy to have lived in its time. Such a story was reported yesterday. A person who lives not far from me whom I have never met has done something so extraordinary that I cannot let it pass without comment.
A professor at George Mason University was awarded a one million dollar prize for his life’s work. That’s the least important part of the story. This great person devoted his being and overwhelming gifts to solving a problem that was the bane of the existence of millions of people living in poverty stricken parts of the world.
Abul Hussam, professor of Chemistry at George Mason, devoted his life and extraordinary talent to discovering a cost effective way to remove arsenic from the drinking water available to those living in many parts of the third world. This problem has killed literally millions of human beings before their times. And he did it, really.
I am pleased to be able to incorporate the AP article about this great person in this posting so that you can see that life can be very, very good. Professor Hussam proves that devoting ones life to solving a great problem is far more important than celebrity or in achieving material success. That he has been financially rewarded for this breathtaking breakthrough is simply icing on the cake.
I am pleased to include this article and I hope that you will read it and find it as inspiring as I did:
The Associated Press
Saturday, February 3, 2007; 8:32 AM
FAIRFAX, Va. -- A professor who developed an inexpensive, easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic from well water has won a $1 million engineering prize _ and he plans to use most of the money to distribute the filters to needy communities around the world.
The National Academy of Engineering announced Thursday that the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability would go to Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor at George Mason University in Fairfax. Hussam's invention is already in use today, preventing serious health problems in residents of the professor's native Bangladesh.
After moving to the United States in 1978, Hussam got his citizenship and received a doctorate in analytical chemistry. The Centreville, Va., resident has spent much of this career trying to devise a solution to the arsenic problem, which was accidentally caused by international aid agencies that had funded a campaign to dig wells in Eastern India and Bangladesh.
The wells brought fresh groundwater to farmers and others who previously had been drinking from bacteria- and virus-laced ponds and mudholes. But the aid agencies were unaware that the groundwater also had naturally high concentrations of poisonous arsenic. As infectious diseases declined, arsenic-related skin ailments and fatal cancers began to increase _ a problem that attracted much attention in the 1990s.
"I myself and all my brothers were drinking this water," said Hussam, who added that his family did not get sick, possibly because they had a good diet, which can help stem the effects of digesting arsenic.
Allan Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said arsenic poisoning affects millions of people worldwide and it has been difficult to convince people that what seems to be good water might be toxic.
"You can't see it or taste or smell it," Smith said. "The idea that crystal-clear drinking water would end up causing lung disease in 20 or 30 years is a little weird. It's unbelievable to people."
Hussam spent years testing hundreds of prototype filtration systems. His final innovation is a simple, maintenance-free system that uses sand, charcoal, bits of brick and shards of a type of cast iron. Each filter has 20 pounds of porous iron, which forms a chemical bond with arsenic.
The filter removes almost every trace of arsenic from well water.
About 200 filtration systems are being made each week in Kushtia, Bangladesh, for about $40 each, Hussam said. More than 30,000 have been distributed.
Hussam said he plans to use 70 percent of his prize so the filters can be distributed to needy communities. He said 25 percent will be used for more research, and 5 percent will be donated to GMU.
The 2007 sustainability prize is funded by the Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Ill., and the contest was set up to target the arsenic problem. Among the criteria for winning was an affordable, reliable and environmentally friendly solution to the arsenic problem that did not require electricity.
Hussam's award will be presented Feb. 20 at Union Station in Washington.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Shame of Virginia
Shame! Shame! Shame!
Virginia’s House of Delegates has passed a bill that would strip charities of state and local funds if they provide services to illegal aliens. The land of Jeffersonian ideals has become the home of fear driven reaction.
Under this bill, if enacted, when the homeless and hungry ask for food, clothing or shelter, instead of living their lives in imitation of Christ, the volunteers who give of their time and their humanity will, instead of providing succor to the down and out, have to demand valid green cards before providing the most basic of human assistance. By law, they will be forced to choose between providing for the diseased, hungry and homeless or forfeiting the funds essential for assisting the many legitimate and legal among us who are truly needy as well.
The Virginia House of Delegates is intent on turning the most altruistic among us into a reactionary police force. That President Bush and his administration who are charged by law with enforcing the immigration laws of the land have failed so miserably in this task that those challenged by the blind fear of illegal immigrants have turned to their state representatives and these gutless wonders, instead of demanding that the federal government do its sworn duty, turn to churches and other selfless groups and demand that they become the Nazis of the new millennium.
Those guided by the Bible or just simple altruism who would serve as Good Samaritans will be destroyed by representatives of the Commonwealth of Virginia. If they wish to maintain their ability to receive public funds to assist the legal recognized poor, these kind, Christ like people will be required to turn away those pathetic creatures, hungry, homeless, and cold, standing at their doors unless they can document their immigration status.
How cruel! How Pathetic! These delegates, in their cowardice and desire to maintain their offices at the price of their souls and character, would instead of demanding that the federal government enforce or change its immigration laws force the best and kindest among us to act as Fascists.
This bill is the epitome of cruelty. As these fools and charlatans in Richmond play with the lives of the truly needy who are among us only by the wink and nod of President Bush and the Congress of the United States, and, instead of demanding redress by those charged by law with protecting our borders and our citizens from being overwhelmed by illegals from abroad, play to the mob by turning the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and other religious and secular charities into the brown shirts of our times.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Virginia’s House of Delegates has passed a bill that would strip charities of state and local funds if they provide services to illegal aliens. The land of Jeffersonian ideals has become the home of fear driven reaction.
Under this bill, if enacted, when the homeless and hungry ask for food, clothing or shelter, instead of living their lives in imitation of Christ, the volunteers who give of their time and their humanity will, instead of providing succor to the down and out, have to demand valid green cards before providing the most basic of human assistance. By law, they will be forced to choose between providing for the diseased, hungry and homeless or forfeiting the funds essential for assisting the many legitimate and legal among us who are truly needy as well.
The Virginia House of Delegates is intent on turning the most altruistic among us into a reactionary police force. That President Bush and his administration who are charged by law with enforcing the immigration laws of the land have failed so miserably in this task that those challenged by the blind fear of illegal immigrants have turned to their state representatives and these gutless wonders, instead of demanding that the federal government do its sworn duty, turn to churches and other selfless groups and demand that they become the Nazis of the new millennium.
Those guided by the Bible or just simple altruism who would serve as Good Samaritans will be destroyed by representatives of the Commonwealth of Virginia. If they wish to maintain their ability to receive public funds to assist the legal recognized poor, these kind, Christ like people will be required to turn away those pathetic creatures, hungry, homeless, and cold, standing at their doors unless they can document their immigration status.
How cruel! How Pathetic! These delegates, in their cowardice and desire to maintain their offices at the price of their souls and character, would instead of demanding that the federal government enforce or change its immigration laws force the best and kindest among us to act as Fascists.
This bill is the epitome of cruelty. As these fools and charlatans in Richmond play with the lives of the truly needy who are among us only by the wink and nod of President Bush and the Congress of the United States, and, instead of demanding redress by those charged by law with protecting our borders and our citizens from being overwhelmed by illegals from abroad, play to the mob by turning the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and other religious and secular charities into the brown shirts of our times.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, January 26, 2007
Ralphie Rules
As I’ve said many times, the second most disastrous decision ever made by George W. Bush was to choose Dick Cheney as his running mate. That decision led almost directly to the worst blunder ever made in American foreign policy history, the attack on Iraq. Whew! That’s pretty heavy stuff. Maybe I ought to go to the third worst; that’s easy it was putting Dick in charge of finding Dubya’s running mate. And guess what? Only one person in 280 million fit the bill – and we know who that was. As the ship lists from leaks sprung fore, aft, starboard, port, top and bottom, it’s very difficult to see it ending happily for the crew.
Case in point, the trial of Scooter Libby is both horrifying and riveting. Everybody is scrambling to save their butts as the most disciplined administration since that of Tricky Dick Nixon simply implodes and explodes at the same time. (Is that a violation of the laws of physics?)
You’ll remember – those of you old enough anyway – that as Watergate unraveled the same phenomenon was exhibited. Insiders pointed fingers at everyone else to avoid stays at the Graybar Motel, and dimes were dropping on the Justice Department and the FBI like confetti at a ticker tape parade.
Things are so bad that the big bad guy had to come out of hiding and save the turf from the dweebs and geeks in the media and in the prosecutor’s office. For those of us who love to see the Scut Farkuses of the world get their comeuppances. (Note to the very few not familiar with The Christmas Story: Scut was the bully who tormented Ralphie and his buds to the delight of his toady, Grover Dill, until Ralphie turned the tables.)
So Scut, I mean the Vice President, decided to smack down Ralphie, I mean Wolf Blitzer, and show the American public how a real pro handled the media. Sadly for Dick, Wolf Blitzer was in his best Ralphie mode and exposed Cheney for what he is: a bully with nothing to back himself with but bluster.
You’ve all seen the clips of the interview and roared at the cartoons that resulted. Great things are happening in Iraq, and, if it weren’t for Ralphie and his playmates, the American public would see that we’re winning. But Ralphie wouldn’t back down and Scut’s nose got plenty bloodied.
But Cheney’s mistake is far greater than having stumbled on CNN. He’s now a laughing stock and sends no fear into the hearts of prosecutors. He’s going to have to testify in the Libby trial, and, damn, it’s hard to look like a credible bully with a packed nose.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Case in point, the trial of Scooter Libby is both horrifying and riveting. Everybody is scrambling to save their butts as the most disciplined administration since that of Tricky Dick Nixon simply implodes and explodes at the same time. (Is that a violation of the laws of physics?)
You’ll remember – those of you old enough anyway – that as Watergate unraveled the same phenomenon was exhibited. Insiders pointed fingers at everyone else to avoid stays at the Graybar Motel, and dimes were dropping on the Justice Department and the FBI like confetti at a ticker tape parade.
Things are so bad that the big bad guy had to come out of hiding and save the turf from the dweebs and geeks in the media and in the prosecutor’s office. For those of us who love to see the Scut Farkuses of the world get their comeuppances. (Note to the very few not familiar with The Christmas Story: Scut was the bully who tormented Ralphie and his buds to the delight of his toady, Grover Dill, until Ralphie turned the tables.)
So Scut, I mean the Vice President, decided to smack down Ralphie, I mean Wolf Blitzer, and show the American public how a real pro handled the media. Sadly for Dick, Wolf Blitzer was in his best Ralphie mode and exposed Cheney for what he is: a bully with nothing to back himself with but bluster.
You’ve all seen the clips of the interview and roared at the cartoons that resulted. Great things are happening in Iraq, and, if it weren’t for Ralphie and his playmates, the American public would see that we’re winning. But Ralphie wouldn’t back down and Scut’s nose got plenty bloodied.
But Cheney’s mistake is far greater than having stumbled on CNN. He’s now a laughing stock and sends no fear into the hearts of prosecutors. He’s going to have to testify in the Libby trial, and, damn, it’s hard to look like a credible bully with a packed nose.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Ready, Set, Go!
No matter what time Google says this was posted, I pressed the button at high noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2007. George W. Bush has exactly two years left in his second and final term as President of the United States. Seven hundred and thirty-one days may not seem long to some, but to those of us who feel we’re serving prison sentences, it looks like an eternity.
As I cross off the days one by one from base camp, the mountain of 731 days looks like Everest. My only hope is that in being superannuated, I’ve served such terms and even longer ones in the past. I only hope that my oxygen supply is sufficient to get me to the peak and back.
These six years have not been without ups. I supported John Kerry, and I’m happy that he lost. Had Bush lost, Kerry and the rest of us appalled by the fiasco in Baghdad would be blamed for losing Iraq. Hard as it is to believe in retrospect, George Bush was able to fake out 51% of the voters in 2004 and convince them that he was the answer. Again, what was the question?
Another positive, the neoconservatives are losing credibility as rapidly as the Titanic took on water. John McCain is done as potential president. Joe Lieberman is the president’s leading publicist and is outed for what he really is, a Republican neocon. These people are dangerous to America, and the voters now fully perceive it. Many evangelicals are also awakening and are beginning to understand that separation of church and state may have some good points and are splitting down the middle.
In every era good ideas are carried to illogical extremes. Ronald Reagan was indeed the embodiment of neoconservative and evangelical hopes and dreams after Vietnam. Republicans following him carried out his philosophy far beyond what reasonable and pragmatic politicians should have, and George W. Bush, clearly a messianic zealot, took Reaganism to heights of folly.
Sadly, the downs of this presidency are beyond discussion. The costs of this madness will be with us for decades. Since we’ve been over them hundreds of times, I’ll simply close by saying that I intend not to miss a single opportunity to cross out another day in this horrible term. The decider has been working too hard, and thinking is not his game. Count with me to the day we can send him home where he can ride his bike and cut brush without ever having to strain his brain again.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
As I cross off the days one by one from base camp, the mountain of 731 days looks like Everest. My only hope is that in being superannuated, I’ve served such terms and even longer ones in the past. I only hope that my oxygen supply is sufficient to get me to the peak and back.
These six years have not been without ups. I supported John Kerry, and I’m happy that he lost. Had Bush lost, Kerry and the rest of us appalled by the fiasco in Baghdad would be blamed for losing Iraq. Hard as it is to believe in retrospect, George Bush was able to fake out 51% of the voters in 2004 and convince them that he was the answer. Again, what was the question?
Another positive, the neoconservatives are losing credibility as rapidly as the Titanic took on water. John McCain is done as potential president. Joe Lieberman is the president’s leading publicist and is outed for what he really is, a Republican neocon. These people are dangerous to America, and the voters now fully perceive it. Many evangelicals are also awakening and are beginning to understand that separation of church and state may have some good points and are splitting down the middle.
In every era good ideas are carried to illogical extremes. Ronald Reagan was indeed the embodiment of neoconservative and evangelical hopes and dreams after Vietnam. Republicans following him carried out his philosophy far beyond what reasonable and pragmatic politicians should have, and George W. Bush, clearly a messianic zealot, took Reaganism to heights of folly.
Sadly, the downs of this presidency are beyond discussion. The costs of this madness will be with us for decades. Since we’ve been over them hundreds of times, I’ll simply close by saying that I intend not to miss a single opportunity to cross out another day in this horrible term. The decider has been working too hard, and thinking is not his game. Count with me to the day we can send him home where he can ride his bike and cut brush without ever having to strain his brain again.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Making it UP
This is the continuation of my series on how you – yes, you - might write the Great American Novel. Those of you who have already made up your stories should ignore this posting and keep on typing. This note is for those stuck staring at a blank document.
I guess we might begin by attempting to figure out what kind of story might make a novel for you. I think the novel must have a plot rather than simply relate a story. Think about it; stories are simply recitations of the facts in sequence while plots are stories that have causes.
A pretty straight forward story might be: `Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.' There is no plot here; rather it is a recitation of what happened in time order.
For there to be a plot causation must be added. Even in this little fairy tale the possibilities for cause are almost infinite. Jack might have fallen because he tried to get fresh with Jill and when she reacted badly he stumbled and fell on his head. Conversely, she might have surprised him with attention and he fell down in trying escape. And on and on go the possibilities.
There have been successful novels written without conflict and barely a hint of causation but they’re few and far between, so you might want to add a little conflict. A violation of one or more of the Ten Commandments is always a good starting point when you’re seeking trouble. Murder, adultery, and coveting one’s neighbor’s wife or goods have been the sources of lots of ideas. War is a solid starting point for many great stories, and the battle of the sexes is the fodder of many tales. Coming of age is big so is court room drama. But you get the point; the more rage the better.
As I’ve said, novels may be characterized as belonging to an almost endless number of genres from private eye, Gothic, anti-war, fantasy, to whatever, but, in addition to plot which I discussed above all genres spend time on character development.
I hate to say it, but the process of creating novels gets a little dicey at this point because there’s no clear line of distinction between character and plot. One of my favorite books on writing novels, Oakley Hall’s The Art & Craft of Novel Writing, cites one of the great novelists of the past who was also one of the first and best analysts of the craft, Henry James, whose opinion was that character determined incident and incident was the illustration of character.
Let this very humble novelist try to clarify the difference. Writers who emphasize plot leave character development to a secondary role. Action books such as those written by Tom Clancy stress the intricacies of plot and their heroes demonstrate character by tending to punch, shoot, sweat and bleed a lot. Ian Flemming easily fits into this mode as well, and his James Bond, while memorable, is not a person with whom we can empathize, except in fantasy.
Character driven novels on the other hand stress the impact of events and conflict on the ethical, moral, or psychological aspects of their protagonists. Anna Karenina, David Copperfield, Huckleberry Finn, and Atticus Finch are memorable for their moral courage, ethical dilemmas, or epiphanies rather than for scaling tall buildings in a single bound.
I might pause here to opine that if in this day and age your goal is to become rich from your writing – truly a long shot but there’s no harm in trying – you might stress plot. On the other hand, if you want to try your hand at literary excellence then character driven tales might just be for you. I’ve chosen the latter without great material reward to date. Although the annual pizza parties for the grandkids is a very happy affair even if I have to dip into capital to spring for the tip.
Those of you already well along with your story might wish to take time to make judgments on whether to stress plot or character. Those still working on your opening sentence, how about: “Call me Ishmael.” Or, “It was love at first sight.” Just kidding, these have been taken by people who sat before the blank page too.
I’ll be back.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
I guess we might begin by attempting to figure out what kind of story might make a novel for you. I think the novel must have a plot rather than simply relate a story. Think about it; stories are simply recitations of the facts in sequence while plots are stories that have causes.
A pretty straight forward story might be: `Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.' There is no plot here; rather it is a recitation of what happened in time order.
For there to be a plot causation must be added. Even in this little fairy tale the possibilities for cause are almost infinite. Jack might have fallen because he tried to get fresh with Jill and when she reacted badly he stumbled and fell on his head. Conversely, she might have surprised him with attention and he fell down in trying escape. And on and on go the possibilities.
There have been successful novels written without conflict and barely a hint of causation but they’re few and far between, so you might want to add a little conflict. A violation of one or more of the Ten Commandments is always a good starting point when you’re seeking trouble. Murder, adultery, and coveting one’s neighbor’s wife or goods have been the sources of lots of ideas. War is a solid starting point for many great stories, and the battle of the sexes is the fodder of many tales. Coming of age is big so is court room drama. But you get the point; the more rage the better.
As I’ve said, novels may be characterized as belonging to an almost endless number of genres from private eye, Gothic, anti-war, fantasy, to whatever, but, in addition to plot which I discussed above all genres spend time on character development.
I hate to say it, but the process of creating novels gets a little dicey at this point because there’s no clear line of distinction between character and plot. One of my favorite books on writing novels, Oakley Hall’s The Art & Craft of Novel Writing, cites one of the great novelists of the past who was also one of the first and best analysts of the craft, Henry James, whose opinion was that character determined incident and incident was the illustration of character.
Let this very humble novelist try to clarify the difference. Writers who emphasize plot leave character development to a secondary role. Action books such as those written by Tom Clancy stress the intricacies of plot and their heroes demonstrate character by tending to punch, shoot, sweat and bleed a lot. Ian Flemming easily fits into this mode as well, and his James Bond, while memorable, is not a person with whom we can empathize, except in fantasy.
Character driven novels on the other hand stress the impact of events and conflict on the ethical, moral, or psychological aspects of their protagonists. Anna Karenina, David Copperfield, Huckleberry Finn, and Atticus Finch are memorable for their moral courage, ethical dilemmas, or epiphanies rather than for scaling tall buildings in a single bound.
I might pause here to opine that if in this day and age your goal is to become rich from your writing – truly a long shot but there’s no harm in trying – you might stress plot. On the other hand, if you want to try your hand at literary excellence then character driven tales might just be for you. I’ve chosen the latter without great material reward to date. Although the annual pizza parties for the grandkids is a very happy affair even if I have to dip into capital to spring for the tip.
Those of you already well along with your story might wish to take time to make judgments on whether to stress plot or character. Those still working on your opening sentence, how about: “Call me Ishmael.” Or, “It was love at first sight.” Just kidding, these have been taken by people who sat before the blank page too.
I’ll be back.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Friday, January 12, 2007
UP and DOWN
People tell me they could write a book but don’t know how. In my last posting, my bona fides as a novelist were clearly established and, based on this great track record, I’m going to tell you in one sentence the great secret of how to write a novel. MAKE IT UP AND WRITE IT DOWN.
I’ve read more books on how to write novels than anybody I know and probably more than people paid to tell you how to create the great American novel. The answer is always the same: UP and DOWN. For those of you that are among those included in the first sentence of this posting, you should already be at your work station and working right now. You’ve already made it UP so now write it DOWN.
You’re skeptical? Don’t be. If you really want to write a novel you have to have story. It could be a Tom Clancy knock-off, a bodice ripper, a private eye story, or, like mine, a story from history, whatever. Tolstoy went to a coroner’s inquest on the suicide of a young woman. It seems she threw herself under the wheels of a train after an adulterous affair ended badly. Voila: Anna Karenina. Hemingway went off to the Great War as an ambulance driver. Enough blood and gore to turn his stomach and he produced A Farewell to Arms.
I’m not advocating that you have an affair or join the marines and go off to Iraq. My point is that inspiration is all around us. It’s up to you. J.D. Salinger went to a museum and got an idea, and people are still reading about that little snot, Holden. I museumed too and wrote my novel, Au Revoir, L’Acadie, about ethnic tensions during the Great Depression.
How the bodice rippers do it is beyond me, but they do. And so could you.
The experts, those that have written books explaining the process, can’t make it any simpler or say it more clearly than this: MAKE IT UP; WRITE IT DOWN. You got your story from this morning’s newspaper. Eureka!
So now it’s down to business, and, as you write, you just have to figure out what makes it interesting to others. There’s where the experts come in. It really is just technicalities and tricks that great writers like Tolstoy, Austen, Hemingway, Dickens, Alcott, and hundreds of others have discovered and applied, and you can use them too. But not now; for now, just write your story down.
Obviously, the enemy is inertia. Hemingway, when asked how he went about writing a best seller, replied as any honest procrastinator would, “First you clean the refrigerator.” Okay, so you’ve cleaned the fridge, cut the grass, and put the dog to sleep. No more excuses? Go!
It’s as simple as that. UP and DOWN.
Remember your high school English class; write your topic sentence. Done? There, you’re already crawling, and, in future postings, I’ll describe more baby steps you can easily take. Goodness, before you know it you’ll be racing to the climax of that great novel. Your grandkids deserve pizza as much as mine; do it!
Remember: UP and DOWN. Till then,
Blog on!
Wild Bill
I’ve read more books on how to write novels than anybody I know and probably more than people paid to tell you how to create the great American novel. The answer is always the same: UP and DOWN. For those of you that are among those included in the first sentence of this posting, you should already be at your work station and working right now. You’ve already made it UP so now write it DOWN.
You’re skeptical? Don’t be. If you really want to write a novel you have to have story. It could be a Tom Clancy knock-off, a bodice ripper, a private eye story, or, like mine, a story from history, whatever. Tolstoy went to a coroner’s inquest on the suicide of a young woman. It seems she threw herself under the wheels of a train after an adulterous affair ended badly. Voila: Anna Karenina. Hemingway went off to the Great War as an ambulance driver. Enough blood and gore to turn his stomach and he produced A Farewell to Arms.
I’m not advocating that you have an affair or join the marines and go off to Iraq. My point is that inspiration is all around us. It’s up to you. J.D. Salinger went to a museum and got an idea, and people are still reading about that little snot, Holden. I museumed too and wrote my novel, Au Revoir, L’Acadie, about ethnic tensions during the Great Depression.
How the bodice rippers do it is beyond me, but they do. And so could you.
The experts, those that have written books explaining the process, can’t make it any simpler or say it more clearly than this: MAKE IT UP; WRITE IT DOWN. You got your story from this morning’s newspaper. Eureka!
So now it’s down to business, and, as you write, you just have to figure out what makes it interesting to others. There’s where the experts come in. It really is just technicalities and tricks that great writers like Tolstoy, Austen, Hemingway, Dickens, Alcott, and hundreds of others have discovered and applied, and you can use them too. But not now; for now, just write your story down.
Obviously, the enemy is inertia. Hemingway, when asked how he went about writing a best seller, replied as any honest procrastinator would, “First you clean the refrigerator.” Okay, so you’ve cleaned the fridge, cut the grass, and put the dog to sleep. No more excuses? Go!
It’s as simple as that. UP and DOWN.
Remember your high school English class; write your topic sentence. Done? There, you’re already crawling, and, in future postings, I’ll describe more baby steps you can easily take. Goodness, before you know it you’ll be racing to the climax of that great novel. Your grandkids deserve pizza as much as mine; do it!
Remember: UP and DOWN. Till then,
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
You can do it
I’m beyond outrage and have said everything within – and even beyond - the bounds of propriety about George Bush and his war in Iraq. Since my goal is to build and store bile until the 2008 election cycle, I have little to add to my displeasure with the president over the coming months; besides, Ted Kennedy and other Democrats are giving voice to my complaints and there’s little need for me to pile on. But I do want to maintain your interest until the time comes to gear up for the big one that will send the decider back to Crawford and let him settle on what brush must face the machete.
Since I am a professional novelist, I thought you might find some of my experiences and observations about writing interesting. This especially true since I make enough money from my royalties to indulge each of my grandchildren with half of a pizza (medium) and a soft drink (small) every year. I’m actually one of the better sellers among present day American novelists, so don’t give up your day job until you hear me out.
Should every one of my readers give authoring a novel a try? That’s for each of them to decide; George Bush won’t help with this one. You should consider, however, that more than 10,000 novels come on the market each year, and most of them, like mine don’t make much – or even any - money for the owners of their rights. In addition, tens of thousands additional tall tales fail even to make into print every year. Are you clear on my point? This isn’t really something that most people can do to keep the wolf at bay. Do not give notice or describe in detail the talents of your bosses until you have a satisfactory publication advance in hand – make that cashed and in your account.
Let me begin by saying it’s easier to get published today than ever before. You write it; it can be printed. I self published my first book, A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick. I had a fairly high opinion of it but couldn’t get a single agent or publisher or agent to even read it. Had they read and rejected it, I might have given up and there never would have been the market for half pepperoni and half onion and green pepper pizzas that has surged since I plunged. The cost of self publication is small and has never been easier; more on this in a later posting.
My three published novels represent but the tip of the iceberg. I began by attempting to be a commercial novelist and wrote two thrillers. They weren’t bad, but let me tell you the people who successfully write in this genre are very good, very competitive and very well connected. After looking over the products I was seeking to displace, I concluded that I wasn’t up to the task. I’m proud to say that draft copies of these two great books along with hundreds of rejection slips make up a significant part of the highest point on the South Coast of Massachusetts. Methane from these rotters will be lighting homes in the Bay State for decades to come. Those trees did not die completely in vain.
But should you attempt such a work for your personal satisfaction? Why not? The Young and the Restless, the soap opera my wife has been watching for more than thirty years, preaches that everyone has at least one novel in them and there is almost always one author in residence on the set at all times. It appears that a working writer provides the show the necessary gravitas to keep the homebound intellectuals glued to their chairs with minimal guilt.
My friends, after much private laughter, now treat me as if I am a real writer, albeit one who starves. A thick skin and a decade of work will do that for you. I can remember the shame and unworthiness felt when I told the local bookstore owner that I was a writer and wanted to have a signing for my self published masterpiece. She didn’t laugh in my face although there were same strange noises emanating from the back room when she excused herself to get writing material.
I’ll drop it here and pick it up next time. Perhaps Home Depot can provide our motto: “You can do it; we can help.”
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Since I am a professional novelist, I thought you might find some of my experiences and observations about writing interesting. This especially true since I make enough money from my royalties to indulge each of my grandchildren with half of a pizza (medium) and a soft drink (small) every year. I’m actually one of the better sellers among present day American novelists, so don’t give up your day job until you hear me out.
Should every one of my readers give authoring a novel a try? That’s for each of them to decide; George Bush won’t help with this one. You should consider, however, that more than 10,000 novels come on the market each year, and most of them, like mine don’t make much – or even any - money for the owners of their rights. In addition, tens of thousands additional tall tales fail even to make into print every year. Are you clear on my point? This isn’t really something that most people can do to keep the wolf at bay. Do not give notice or describe in detail the talents of your bosses until you have a satisfactory publication advance in hand – make that cashed and in your account.
Let me begin by saying it’s easier to get published today than ever before. You write it; it can be printed. I self published my first book, A Tattered Coat Upon A Stick. I had a fairly high opinion of it but couldn’t get a single agent or publisher or agent to even read it. Had they read and rejected it, I might have given up and there never would have been the market for half pepperoni and half onion and green pepper pizzas that has surged since I plunged. The cost of self publication is small and has never been easier; more on this in a later posting.
My three published novels represent but the tip of the iceberg. I began by attempting to be a commercial novelist and wrote two thrillers. They weren’t bad, but let me tell you the people who successfully write in this genre are very good, very competitive and very well connected. After looking over the products I was seeking to displace, I concluded that I wasn’t up to the task. I’m proud to say that draft copies of these two great books along with hundreds of rejection slips make up a significant part of the highest point on the South Coast of Massachusetts. Methane from these rotters will be lighting homes in the Bay State for decades to come. Those trees did not die completely in vain.
But should you attempt such a work for your personal satisfaction? Why not? The Young and the Restless, the soap opera my wife has been watching for more than thirty years, preaches that everyone has at least one novel in them and there is almost always one author in residence on the set at all times. It appears that a working writer provides the show the necessary gravitas to keep the homebound intellectuals glued to their chairs with minimal guilt.
My friends, after much private laughter, now treat me as if I am a real writer, albeit one who starves. A thick skin and a decade of work will do that for you. I can remember the shame and unworthiness felt when I told the local bookstore owner that I was a writer and wanted to have a signing for my self published masterpiece. She didn’t laugh in my face although there were same strange noises emanating from the back room when she excused herself to get writing material.
I’ll drop it here and pick it up next time. Perhaps Home Depot can provide our motto: “You can do it; we can help.”
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Congratualtions Connecticut
Congratulations to moderate Democrat, Republican and Independent voters in Connecticut. In polls taken prior to last fall’s election it was clear that while the vast majority of these folks were unhappy with the Iraq War, they were reluctant to vote for the ultra-liberal Ned Lamont who was painted by Joe Lieberman as a Senator likely to call for precipitous withdrawal from the fray.
It is very clear that these voters wanted as rapid an end to the conflict as possible consistent with the best national security interests of the nation so they stuck with tried and true Joe Lieberman for their senator. Joe promised to remain an independent voice in congress and to caucus with the Democrats.
Now that President Bush is in the final stages of planning a major surge in troop levels in Iraq and especially around Baghdad despite what even strictly objective observers such as Wild Bill viewed as a repudiation of the entire misbegotten venture by the electorate last November, he has two major cheerleaders in the Senate, John McCain and JOE LIEBERMAN.
So to you good folks in Connecticut who thought you were voting for a rational phased withdrawal from Iraq, welcome to the new world of building up the troop levels and preparations for allowing the next president to begin the escape from this nightmare with all of its attendant casualties and costs to our troops and to the Pin The Tale on the Donkey Party for the winner of the Who Lost Iraq Contest.
If you’re unhappy with the way things seem to be turning out, tune in to the lamentations emanating from the Senate Democratic Caucus which I guess Joe uses as source of information on Democratic strategy for his Republican cohorts and blame the face in your own looking glass.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
It is very clear that these voters wanted as rapid an end to the conflict as possible consistent with the best national security interests of the nation so they stuck with tried and true Joe Lieberman for their senator. Joe promised to remain an independent voice in congress and to caucus with the Democrats.
Now that President Bush is in the final stages of planning a major surge in troop levels in Iraq and especially around Baghdad despite what even strictly objective observers such as Wild Bill viewed as a repudiation of the entire misbegotten venture by the electorate last November, he has two major cheerleaders in the Senate, John McCain and JOE LIEBERMAN.
So to you good folks in Connecticut who thought you were voting for a rational phased withdrawal from Iraq, welcome to the new world of building up the troop levels and preparations for allowing the next president to begin the escape from this nightmare with all of its attendant casualties and costs to our troops and to the Pin The Tale on the Donkey Party for the winner of the Who Lost Iraq Contest.
If you’re unhappy with the way things seem to be turning out, tune in to the lamentations emanating from the Senate Democratic Caucus which I guess Joe uses as source of information on Democratic strategy for his Republican cohorts and blame the face in your own looking glass.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
Monday, January 01, 2007
2007
As the New year begins, we are filled with the need to resolve to make changes in ourselves. The media is filled with the contemplations of wise men and women, and there is little need for Wild Bill to add to your woe.
The following piece from the New York Times is the effort by one very old historian to shed a little light on his passion and our guidepost. As an amateur historian, I felt a real kinship with the assertion.
I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.
Published: January 1, 2007
MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. “The longer you look back,” said Winston Churchill, “the farther you can look forward.”
But all historians are prisoners of their own experience. We bring to history the preconceptions of our personalities and of our age. We cannot seize on ultimate and absolute truths. So the historian is committed to a doomed enterprise — the quest for an unattainable objectivity.
Conceptions of the past are far from stable. They are perennially revised by the urgencies of the present. When new urgencies arise in our own times and lives, the historian’s spotlight shifts, probing at last into the darkness, throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier historians had carelessly excised from the collective memory. New voices ring out of the historical dark and demand to be heard.
One has only to note how in the last half-century the movements for women’s rights and civil rights have reformulated and renewed American history. Thus the present incessantly reinvents the past. In this sense, all history, as Benedetto Croce said, is contemporary history. It is these permutations of consciousness that make history so endlessly fascinating an intellectual adventure. “The one duty we owe to history,” said Oscar Wilde, “is to rewrite it.”
We are the world’s dominant military power, and I believe a consciousness of history is a moral necessity for a nation possessed of overweening power. History verifies John F. Kennedy’s proposition, stated in the first year of his thousand days: “We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only 6 percent of the world’s population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”
History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience. Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings — to a recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.
Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity — the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture. Three decades ago, we suffered defeat in an unwinnable war against tribalism, the most fanatic of political emotions, fighting against a country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests. Vietnam was hopeless enough, but to repeat the same arrogant folly 30 years later in Iraq is unforgivable. The Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna famously said, “Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.”
A nation informed by a vivid understanding of the ironies of history is, I believe, best equipped to manage the tragic temptations of military power. Let us not bully our way through life, but let a growing sensitivity to history temper and civilize our use of power. In the meantime, let a thousand historical flowers bloom. History is never a closed book or a final verdict. It is forever in the making. Let historians never forsake the quest for knowledge in the interests of an ideology, a religion, a race, a nation.
The great strength of history in a free society is its capacity for self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing — the search to reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated by those ever-changing prisms that continually place old questions in a new light.
History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation’s history must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its citizens.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who has won Pulitzer Prizes for history and biography, is the author, most recently, of “War and the American Presidency.”
The following piece from the New York Times is the effort by one very old historian to shed a little light on his passion and our guidepost. As an amateur historian, I felt a real kinship with the assertion.
I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
By ARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER Jr.
Published: January 1, 2007
MANY signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people. I trust that this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going, so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. “The longer you look back,” said Winston Churchill, “the farther you can look forward.”
But all historians are prisoners of their own experience. We bring to history the preconceptions of our personalities and of our age. We cannot seize on ultimate and absolute truths. So the historian is committed to a doomed enterprise — the quest for an unattainable objectivity.
Conceptions of the past are far from stable. They are perennially revised by the urgencies of the present. When new urgencies arise in our own times and lives, the historian’s spotlight shifts, probing at last into the darkness, throwing into sharp relief things that were always there but that earlier historians had carelessly excised from the collective memory. New voices ring out of the historical dark and demand to be heard.
One has only to note how in the last half-century the movements for women’s rights and civil rights have reformulated and renewed American history. Thus the present incessantly reinvents the past. In this sense, all history, as Benedetto Croce said, is contemporary history. It is these permutations of consciousness that make history so endlessly fascinating an intellectual adventure. “The one duty we owe to history,” said Oscar Wilde, “is to rewrite it.”
We are the world’s dominant military power, and I believe a consciousness of history is a moral necessity for a nation possessed of overweening power. History verifies John F. Kennedy’s proposition, stated in the first year of his thousand days: “We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only 6 percent of the world’s population; that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind; that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.”
History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience. Self-knowledge is the indispensable prelude to self-control, for the nation as well as for the individual, and history should forever remind us of the limits of our passing perspectives. It should strengthen us to resist the pressure to convert momentary impulses into moral absolutes. It should lead us to acknowledge our profound and chastening frailty as human beings — to a recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future outwits all our certitudes and that the possibilities of the future are more various than the human intellect is designed to conceive.
Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity — the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture. Three decades ago, we suffered defeat in an unwinnable war against tribalism, the most fanatic of political emotions, fighting against a country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests. Vietnam was hopeless enough, but to repeat the same arrogant folly 30 years later in Iraq is unforgivable. The Swedish statesman Axel Oxenstierna famously said, “Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.”
A nation informed by a vivid understanding of the ironies of history is, I believe, best equipped to manage the tragic temptations of military power. Let us not bully our way through life, but let a growing sensitivity to history temper and civilize our use of power. In the meantime, let a thousand historical flowers bloom. History is never a closed book or a final verdict. It is forever in the making. Let historians never forsake the quest for knowledge in the interests of an ideology, a religion, a race, a nation.
The great strength of history in a free society is its capacity for self-correction. This is the endless excitement of historical writing — the search to reconstruct what went before, a quest illuminated by those ever-changing prisms that continually place old questions in a new light.
History is a doomed enterprise that we happily pursue because of the thrill of the hunt, because exploring the past is such fun, because of the intellectual challenges involved, because a nation needs to know its own history. Or so we historians insist. Because in the end, a nation’s history must be both the guide and the domain not so much of its historians as its citizens.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who has won Pulitzer Prizes for history and biography, is the author, most recently, of “War and the American Presidency.”
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