The Great Global Warming Swindle

So I see that "The Great Global Warming Swindle" has been deleted from Google, from private hosting pages, and almost everywhere. But you can still get it here:

The Great Global Warming Swindle



And here: To download, embed, and access other advanced options like fast forward, click here - Veoh view and download - you'll need to run the Veoh web player to view it online!

Enjoy, on this day in the dark days of the coldest winter, worldwide, in 100 years!

As suggested by the apt title, this program — essential viewing for politicians, teachers, motorists and the entire transport sector, grass roots environmentalists and all 'True Believers' in man-made climate change — will reveal and confirm:

- How the Sun is an overwhelming influence on continuous climate change over decades and centuries (there is no way for taxation or lifestyle fascism to alter the Sun's eruptivity and irradiance)

- How carbon dioxide levels are predominantly an effect and not a cause of climate change (a very inconvenient truth)

- Why politicians have been so enthusiastic about embracing the fallacy of human impact on global climate (trojan horses aren't a protected species)

- What lies behind the green industry (courtesy of a founding member and former leader of Greenpeace)

- How forecasts of warming and its impacts are grossly exaggerated, with stasis and cooling ahead, and therefore why the UN IPCC needs urgent fundamental reform - or abolishing completely

Now to the point, as this article shows. We may be entering a period of global cooling, not warming. As the graph below shows, all the recorded warming in the last 100 years has been wiped out in one year! Solar activity has decreased in exact correlation with the recorded cooling.

The global warming scare is designed to force us, the USA and the industrial world, to give up our standard of living, as a back door to achieve what they could not though the ballot box - socialism. The leftist intelligentsia, the leftist political parties, the UN, and the drive-by MSM all have shared interest in this, which is why contrary opinions are so rare to hear. They exist though, with at least 50% of the scientific and academic community claiming CO2 is an effect, not a cause of warming, and that there is no longer any warming at all















World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
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Good Riddance

Say goodbye to these faces once and for all. Ding Dong, the Witch is dead!...T

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The Cult of Obama

Feels a lot like this these days doesn't it?...T

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If Churchill were a Democrat

A nice companion to the post below...T

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Democrats Dug In For Retreat

Iraq is a huge victory for global stability, and a great victory in the war against Islamo-Fascism to boot. To have succeeded in deposing a brutal dictator with largest army in the middle east and simultaneously defeat an insurgency and a scorched earth Al-Queda campaign, all while slaughtering them in scores, is truly astonishing. The fact that we have killed so many that they must resort to blowing up old and mentally incompetent women, attests to this. All this at the historically tiny cost of 4000 troops killed. The greatest military and political achievement in at least 100 years.

This military analyst, Anthony Cordesman, WAS the biggest ant war voice in the MSM, and even he now sees victory, while the democrats, shamefully and to their everlasting shame, do not...T

"No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. ... If the U.S. provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state." -- Anthony Cordesman, "The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing from the Battlefield," Feb. 13, 2008

WASHINGTON -- This from a man who was a severe critic of the postwar occupation of Iraq and who, as author Peter Wehner points out, is no wide-eyed optimist. In fact, in May 2006 Cordesman had written that "no one can argue that the prospects for stability in Iraq are good." Now, however, there is simply no denying the remarkable improvements in Iraq since the surge began a year ago.

Unless you're a Democrat...How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation.

First, a provincial powers law that turned Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but elections by Oct. 1... (this) will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni.

Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenues -- about 85 percent of which are from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

What will the Democrats say now?

Despite all the progress military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our "very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

Why? Imagine the transformative effects in the region and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda. Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now achievable victory?
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Pinch Sulzberger's Legacy

So the NYT has done it again. First, they leak every secret terrorist surveillance program they can sniff out, thereby compromising America's security, and prolonging the war, basically killing people! Now, after losing 2/3 or their circulation, they publish rumor and innuendo, completely unsubstantiated, against John McCain. This is also the same "newspaper" that relegated a credible rape accusation (see below) against Bill Clinton to the back pages, and more, ad nauseum. And they wonder why they are known today as the "drive-by" media?...T

The decline and fall of the New York Times accelerates, with today's anonymously-sourced hit piece on John McCain. I will leave to others like Rick Moran and Ed Morrissey the debunking of the story itself. What concerns me is the manner in which the CEO of the organization has jettisoned standards that once would have ruled out publication of such material.

"A fish rots from the head" goes an old Chinese saying. If it is true, as reported, that the story was controversial within the Times, and only ran because the paper feared that The New Republic would publicize the office politics at the Times over publication of the story, the Sulzberger's responsibility is all the greater. His inability to set clear guidelines, hire capable editors, and maintain newsroom harmony and discipline was about to be exposed to the public. To protect his hind quarters, he went with a disastrously bad story...Such an approach (is inconsistent) with the Times' previous practice of seriously downplaying similar and much worse stories about Bill Clinton's sexual behavior...
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The Audacity of Selling Hope

A great insight into the "Cult of Obama" that is sweeping the left (and finally sweeping away Hillary Rob-em and Clintonism's foul oder)...T

This kind of sale is hardly new. Organized religion has been offering a similar commodity -- salvation -- for millennia. Which is why the Obama campaign has the feel of a religious revival with, as writer James Wolcott observed, a "salvational fervor" and "idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria."

"We are the hope of the future," sayeth Obama. We can "remake this world as it should be." Believe in me and I shall redeem not just you but your country -- nay, we can become "a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest."

And believe they do... even as his mesmeric power has begun to arouse skepticism and misgivings among the mainstream media.

That was too much for Time's Joe Klein. "There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism," he wrote. "The message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."

Obama has an astonishingly empty paper trail. He's going around issuing promissory notes on the future that he can't possibly redeem. Promises to heal the world with negotiations with the likes of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...Promises to fund his other promises by a rapid withdrawal from an unpopular war -- with the hope, I suppose, that the (presumed) resulting increase in American prestige would compensate for the chaos to follow.

Democrats are worried that the Obama spell will break between the time of his nomination and the time of the election, and deny them the White House. My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude.
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The Real Phony

Yeah, this is like the great redemption for democrats - to finally wash the stench of Clintonism from their bodies...T

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What are they Smoking?

I don't think the Obama supporters are inhaling incense these days!...T

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Election - Won or Lost on Taxes

This is where this election will be won or lost, and what it is all about. It's what every national election is about each 4 years, but more so than ever this year. Both democrats are on record, proudly proclaiming that they will raise taxes. The republican, McCain, has pledged not to, under any circumstances, and further has pledged to reduce them across the board - McCain on Taxes -

Want proof? look at the tax tables from the Clinton years and compare them to the Bush years, here - Taxes - Clinton vs. Bush Years

The 2001 tax cuts literally saved the US economy, mitigating a 9/11 worsened recession from becoming a possible depression, and in turn setting the stage for the strong economy of the past several years.

Yes, this election will be about economics, about taxes, and about national security. The difference is that this year, the most liberal politician ever to run for president is competing with the second most liberal, for the right to run and then to radically change our society, our courts, and yes, raise our taxes...T

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were midway through a joint ode to big government in their last debate when a disbelieving Wolf Blitzer interrupted. Were they both really going into a general election proposing "tax increases on millions of Americans," inviting the charge of tax-and-spend liberals?

"I'm not bashful about it," said Mr. Obama. "Absolutely, absolutely," chimed in Mrs. Clinton...
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Finally, the Explanation

The Great Global Warming Swindle

Don't see the video? get the player here - DivX Download

"Global Warming" is back in the news lately. McCain, B. Hussein Obama and Hitlery all agree. Michael Bloomberg, the fatuous mayor of New York said it is more devastating than Nuclear War! (never underestimate the power of a political hack to exagerrate). So, here, again, proof positive to the contrary, from the BBC, Greenpeace, and the world's foremost climatology experts.

As suggested by the apt title, this program — essential viewing for politicians, teachers, motorists and the entire transport sector, grass roots environmentalists and all 'True Believers' in man-made climate change — will reveal and confirm:

- How the Sun is an overwhelming influence on continuous climate change over decades and centuries (there is no way for taxation or lifestyle fascism to alter the Sun's eruptivity and irradiance)

- How carbon dioxide levels are predominantly an effect and not a cause of climate change (a very inconvenient truth)

- Why politicians have been so enthusiastic about embracing the fallacy of human impact on global climate (trojan horses aren't a protected species)

- What lies behind the green industry (courtesy of a founding member and former leader of Greenpeace)

- How forecasts of warming and its impacts are grossly exaggerated, with stasis and cooling ahead, and therefore why the UN IPCC needs urgent fundamental reform - or abolishing completely...T

Note: be sure and download this video by clicking the title link, as the link may not last for long...T

TAXES - CLINTON VS BUSH YEARS

No presidential candidate has been successful with the promise to raise taxes. The last to try was Walter Mondale, who then promptly lost 49 states.

Every current democrat candidate has, this time, promised to raise taxes, explicitly or by not extending the current Bush tax cuts.

Democratic Congressmen have also promised to not extend the Bush "tax cuts for the rich".

Wonder how many voters can be scammed into giving more of their paycheck back to the IRS?

Based on using the actual tax tables (view data source via title link or below), here are some examples on what the taxes were/are on various amounts of income for both singles and married couples. so let's see if the Bush tax cuts only helped the rich.

Taxes under Clinton 1999 vs. under Bush 2008

- Single making 30K - tax $8,400 - Single making 30K - tax $4,500

- Single making 50K - tax $14,000 - Single making 50K - tax $12,500

- Single making 75K - tax $23,250 - Single making 75K - tax $18,750

- Married making 60K - tax $16,800 - Married making 60K- tax $9,000

- Married making 75K - tax $21,000 - Married making 75K - tax $18,750

- Married making 125K - tax $38,750 - Married making 125K - tax $31,250

If you want to know just how effective the mainstream media is, consider these figures. It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and that Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If any democrat is elected, they all promise to repeal the Bush tax cuts - and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen.

eerily reminiscent of "The Sting" - the secret is to scam people out of their money in a fashion that they don't even realise what has happened.

note: thanks to James for the data!...T
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Clinton Amnesia - The Other Side of The Coin

And now for the other side of the coin. The previous post laid out the case for McCain. This post reminds us of the devastating case against the Clintons, and why defeating their extra-constitutional power grab, willingly assisted and promoted by the drive-by M.S.M., must be defeated at all costs.

Remember this: Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. Bill Clinton was sleeping with Rich's wife, Denise, who in turn was a huge contributor to Clinton's presidential library (i.e. bank account). Marc Rich was convicted in absentia for selling nuclear weapons technology to the Iranians, and of selling large arms caches to terrorists. What are we dealing with now in Iran? How about with terrorism? Question then - why did Bill Clinton pardon Marc Rich?...T


A form of collective amnesia, powered by media bent on forgetting inconvenient truths, continues to shield the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Despite setbacks and surprising obstacles to the cause of the inevitable one, the Clinton Teflon retained its remarkable durability in the weeks prior to Super Tuesday. The campaign that shall not engage in the mean-spirited politics of personal destruction discovered that Barak Obama worked with a slumlord in Chicago. The Clinton's were shocked! Shocked! To discover that the "remarkable candidate" they always refer to in public, you know, the quasi-Muslim, cocaine snorting, uppity Barak Hussein Obama, may have had dealings with a shady character in his past!

But damning photos of the righteous pair smiling happily with Barak's criminal friend were unearthed, and so the whole episode was dismissed.

Lesson: The colossal Clinton gall is matched only by the sure hand with which they manipulate events masterfully, in the face of the knowing contempt of the news media, the Democratic Party and lastly, of course, the American people.

Try and recall the actual Clinton Administration that seems to have disappeared from the collective memory. Bill blessedly closed his sordid time in power with an appropriate and delightful flourish, pardoning one hundred and forty convicted felons at the last hour while Hillary and her minions stole White House furnishings and property. They were, and are, beyond parody.

Yet today, with everything that has come to pass they are still frighteningly close to a second act. How can this be? Is it all the fault of a complicit and corrupt news media aligned to a left-wing agenda unconcerned by the means to power? Mostly. But not all.

A little history: In early 2001, focused on a new administration and amidst the turmoil of Florida chads still unsettling the political waters, Washingtonians and the political elite of both parties were understandably content to let the past malfeasance of Clinton and company go unpunished (and largely unexamined.) Remember also that there were FBI files, known to have been perused by who-knew-what Clinton operatives, and the considered opinion of the conscience-challenged was to live and let live.

And so the most corrupt administration in history fell into a vague pre-9/11 memory hole of carefree times and a booming tech bubble. Little wonder the sins of Bubba look amusing when viewed through the prism of Bin Laden, Al Queda and five years of war.

Bill was allowed to move on to give his expensive speeches and write his fictitious memoirs in tony Chappaqua, far from his white trash origins. Here, he imagined, a Nixon-like rehabilitation could occur. Meanwhile, his wife moved in on Patrick Moynihan's turf and wrested a secure Senate seat in liberal New York. (I find it charming that Hillary chose the home of Boss Tweed Tammany Hall as the destination of her carpet bag.)

With the coming of the new media, the 24-hour news cycle, and ubiquitous cable news operations, ample time and resources are now available to seriously consider the history and meaning of the recent past. Hillary's History is available for review.
Here is a list of the most popular Golden Oldies:

-Whitewater,
-Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan,
-Rose Law Firm,
-1000% profit Cattle Futures,
-Castle Grande,
-The McDougals,
-Web Hubbell,
-Tyson Foods,
-Lippo Group,
-Vince Foster,
-Travel Office firings,
-David Hale,
-Paula Jones,
-Jim Guy Tucker,
-Chinagate,
-James Riady,
-Mike Espy,
-Billy Dale,
-Monica Lewinsky,
-John Huang,
-Ron Brown,
-Gore Buddhist fund-raising,
-"No controlling legal authority",
-FBI filegate,
-Hillary's missing subpoenaed Rose Law firm files reappear in White House,
-Janet Reno,
-Charlie Trie,
-Bruce Babbitt,
-Maria Hsia,
-Kathleen Willey,
-Sidney Blumenthal,
-Vernon Jordan,
-Juanita Broderick,
-Pardongate,
-Marc Rich.

Each scandal attached to each of the above names and events is both serious and abounding with investigative possibilities. And so many remain unresolved. Surely a rich harvest awaits the intrepid journalist investigator, but major news media will never take on the Clinton record. The treatment of Sandy Berger's theft of classified pre-9/11 documents is only the most recent and egregious example of a media scandal written in water.

Former associates and supporters of the Clintons that prefer Obama are catching on to the media double standard with chagrin. Poor Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey Senator and Democrat presidential candidate, has been reduced to begging ineffectually on MSNBC for the list of donors to the Clinton Library to be released. He is metaphorically talking to a wall. For the pugnacious and relentless foes of Scooter Libby, the Clinton Administration scandals simply did not happen.

The fact that this couple is being seriously considered for another run is as damning a fact as any moral, economic or political evidence of our decline as a nation. For, more than the usual apathy and healthy cynicism directed towards the political system, it betrays an immaturity and irresponsibility that questions the wisdom of universal suffrage.
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A Rapprochement With the Right?

Ok, just to get this straight, first, before considering the merits of his argument: Pat Buchanon is a wierd man. Formerly a strong Reagan conservative and foreign policy hawk, he has become a nativist and isolationist crank. But grant me here, if you will, this point - he remains a great communicator and a powerful intellect.

This being said, then, his two points here make a powerful impression. His stated views here on McCain's conservatism, his prosecution of the war, and his prospective Supreme Court nominees all justify strong support from conservatives.

I find myself hearing the same defeatest, almost Neo-Jacobite thoughts echoed herein by some of my conservative friends. I find these thoughts dangerous - to our movement and to our nation. For your consideration...T

On Thursday, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Sen. John McCain stood before thousands of conservatives he has done his level best to anger and alienate for a decade -- to ask for their support.

And he made a not unconvincing case.

What he said essentially was this. We have fought each other in the past, and we have fought side by side. And I admit to having made my share of mistakes. But if we do not work together, we lose the presidency. And if we lose the presidency, your causes will be lost, as well as my last chance to be president.

But if you will work with me, many of the causes for which you have fought -- one more justice like Roberts and Alito, retention of the Bush tax cuts, further reductions in tax rates, a more secure border -- will be taken up as the causes of my presidency.

Moreover, my door will be open and your voices heard. And none of this will happen if Hillary or Barack Obama wins, which will happen if we do not join forces and fight together.

Bottom line: If we don't hang together, we all hang separately. If my end of the dinghy sinks, yours will not stay afloat. And if I lose, you get your pound of flesh, but we will both be out in the cold as a Democratic Congress and president undo what was right about the Bush presidency as well as what was wrong about the Bush presidency.

So it is your call.

McCain is no orator. But the speech had humility and humor -- and put the ball back squarely in the court of the conservatives. For John McCain had just taken the first step toward a rapprochement with the right, by asking for an armistice and offering an alliance.

In 1964, as an even more acrimonious battle for the GOP ended at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, where the right hooted and booed Nelson Rockefeller, another Arizonan was far less compromising than John McCain. Barry Goldwater told that convention of conservatives that had just nominated him: "Anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we welcome. Those who do not care for our cause, we don't expect to enter our ranks in any case."

Conservatives now have a decision to make, though months before they have to make it. That decision: Is it better to cede the White House to the Democrats than have McCain become president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party and the nation?

Many have already made that decision: Better, they argue, to lose to Hillary than win with McCain. Better to be principled than pragmatic. As John F. Kennedy once said, "Sometimes party loyalty asks too much."
If the issue were simply, "Does McCain deserve the support of conservatives?" the answer would be simple and emphatic: No. Indeed, John McCain has fully earned the repudiation he received in the Arizona primary, when Mitt Romney ran far ahead among conservatives.

However, there is a question other than whether McCain deserves the support of the right, and it is this: Would it better serve the causes in which conservatives believe to have McCain in the White House or to have Clinton there?

If Hillary or Obama wins, as Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in 1976, there is, argue some conservatives, a chance for a restoration in 2012, just as happened in 1980 when Reagan ousted Carter, sweeping 44 states and bringing in the first Republican Senate in a quarter century. And we got the Reagan Decade.

But if Hillary or Obama wins, the likelihood is good that either would nominate the next two justices to the Supreme Court. And there is no doubt that any Clinton or Obama nominee will be in the mold of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, not Antonin Scalia, and the long battle for the Supreme Court will be lost irretrievably.
The most powerful case against McCain is that, put brutally, he is not to be trusted.

Many on the right believe that if he wins, he will have no further need of conservatives and will revert to the McCain of McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy and McCain-Lieberman, the John McCain of the Gang of 14, who will never nominate justices like Sam Alito, because that would alienate his true constituency, the media, who are at his feet every time he undermines the conservative cause.

There is another consideration. McCain has said he will stay in Iraq another 100 years if necessary, that Russia should be thrown out of the G-8, that he will do whatever it takes to halt Iran's nuclear enrichment program. He has told us: "There's going to be other wars. ... I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender, but there will be other wars."

John McCain seeks to be a war president. Indeed, it is the role of commander in chief of a nation at war that seems to commend itself most to John McCain. But is that good for America, let alone the right?
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Therapeutics 101

This rumination, below, pretty much sums up the electoral process so far - fear of the return of Bill Clinton. Though I have to agree (as I share it!), one still wonders what would happen were Obama to be the dem nominee? The two seminal events that are shaking American Political life to it's very core are these:

1: The 8 years of corruption and decline under the cabal of Bill Clinton with the willing collaboration of the drive by MSM -
2: The following 8 years of the so-called "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - stoked 1st by the Clinton Impeachment and then by the 2000 election recount and the war in Iraq -

These 16 years have torn our body politic to its core, literally uprooting our republican (small "r") heritage and traditions. I truly wish there was a transcendant figure out there now, such as a Reagan or FDR, to bind our wounds. We are left with hoping for the best...T

"My interest is not antipathy to Mitt Romney. I met and liked him. I have no grudge against Mike Huckabee. But I fear, I confess, another eight years of Bill Clinton—never brought home more than by his recent multimillion-dollar glad-handing trip to Kazakhstan to cement a uranium deal for Frank Giustra, who then donated generously to his various foundations"

Bill can’t stop campaigning if he wanted to. He can’t cease talking about himself if he was paid a billion dollars. He can’t stop lusting after the limelight of the White House at any price.

But he can change his approach after almost losing the nomination for his wife and himself. So today’s appearance at a Los Angeles African-American Church saw a reconstituted Bill Clinton as the Reverend Swaggert begging for forgiveness after one of his assorted sins.

Yes, he still talked about his brilliant administration as the chief reason to have his wife continue it. In praising Al Gore he talked of “we”. But now there was no more finger pointing, no more red-faced, cheek-swelling outbursts, and no more flashing eyes and thundering voice...

If Bill before slandered, accused and lectured at poor us who did not appreciate his genius, he now evoked Jesus, as his prophet to politely beg us to vote for him and her. “We all want to be in a gang,” he tearfully stammered to his African-American audience, as he reminded his listeners that he learned about gangs from none other than Maxine Waters—the most prominent Californian African-American to endorse his wife.

One final note. Bill kept talking of “Our government doesn’t————”. Fill in the blanks how we shortchange veterans, blacks, students, the poor, the indebted, the homeowner, and the sick. Aside from whether his accusations are true (most are not), one wonders, are not these so-called pathologies of longer standing than the past seven years? Were there no foreclosures, none without health insurance, no homeless, no racism, no evil whatsoever during his own tenure? Did George Bush alone undo all that Bill Clinton had bequeathed?...

I understand that the base is angry not just because of McCain’s immigration or tax cut heresies, but mostly one of attitude and past pride in opposing conservatives. The complaint then is often that ‘McCain snubbed us once in an unnecessary condescending manner, but kisses up now since he can’t win without us” . Perhaps all that is true. But I would prefer to look to conservatives’ own self-interest—and it is not with Hillary or Barack.

My interest is not antipathy to Mitt Romney. I met and liked him. I have no grudge against Mike Huckabee. But I fear, I confess, another eight years of Bill Clinton—never brought home more than by his recent multimillion-dollar glad-handing trip to Kazakhstan to cement a uranium deal for Frank Giustra, who then donated generously to his various foundations.
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The Root of our Perceptions

Fantastic summary in today's WSJ online by Bret Stephens. Titled "Marinating in Decline", he points out that: though we are thought by the MSM drive-by thug-ocracy to be in steep decline, both economically, militarily, and in global prestige, that the opposite is both true and provably so, and that these ideas are entirely the result of liberal horror at having an agressively successful republican in the White House for 8 years.

- Our economy will remain the largest in the world by far, no matter what happens, for many decades
- Our military budget and our commitments abroad are low and minor respectively, and historically
- our prestige is underrated: Our allies have mostly all been reelected, while our adversaries have all been defeated or gone down to electoral defeat, such as Chirac and Schroeder in France and Germany, and replaced with staunch allies in Sarkozy and Merkel...T

In 1788, Massachusetts playwright Mercy Otis Warren took one look at the (unratified) U.S. Constitution and declared that "we shall soon see this country rushing into the extremes of confusion and violence." This, roughly, is the origin of American declinism -- and it's been downhill ever since.

A couple centuries later, an international relations theorist at Yale named Paul Kennedy sought to explain the decline of great powers in terms of a ratio between military commitments and economic resources. The Reagan military buildup and the deficits that went with it, he warned, had brought the United States to the point of "imperial overstretch." Not quite. Within a few years, the Soviet Union collapsed, Europe and Japan (with no military burdens to speak of) entered a long period of economic stagnation, and the U.S. consolidated its position as the world's only true superpower.

Declinism is again in vogue. "America's unipolar moment has inspired diplomatic and financial countermovements to block American bullying and construct an alternate world order," writes Parag Khanna in a recent New York Times Magazine cover story titled, cheerfully, "Who Shrank the Superpower?" In Sunday's Los Angeles Times, Fred Kaplan observes that "the United States can no longer take obeisance for granted." Mr. Kaplan's new book, "Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power," sounds just a bit derivative of Nancy Soderberg's "The Superpower Myth" (2005), Roger Burbach's "Imperial Overstretch" (2004) and Charles Kupchan's "The End of the American Era" (2003).

American "decline" is the foreign-policy equivalent of homelessness: The media only take note of it when a Republican is in the White House. Broadly speaking, declinists divide between those who merely accept America's supposed diminishment as a fact of life, and those who celebrate it as long overdue. As for the causes of decline, however, they tend to agree: declining (relative) economic muscle, due in large part to the rise of China; an overextended military bogged down needlessly in Iraq and endlessly in Afghanistan; the declining value of America's "brand" on account of Bush administration policies on detention, pre-emption, terrorism, global warming -- you name it.

Yet each of these assumptions collapses on a moment's inspection. In his 2006 book "Überpower," German writer Josef Joffe makes the following back-of-the-envelope calculation: "Assume that the Chinese economy keeps growing indefinitely at a rate of seven percent, the average of the past decade (for which history knows of no example). . . . At that rate, China's GDP would double every decade, reaching parity with today's United States ($12 trillion) in thirty years. But the U.S. economy is not frozen into immobility. By then, the United States, growing at its long-term rate of 2.5 percent, would stand at $25 trillion."

Now take military expenditures. Yesterday, the administration released its budget proposal for 2009, which includes $515.4 billion for the regular defense budget. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this would be the largest defense appropriation since World War II. Yet it amounts to about 4% of GDP, as compared to 14% during the Korean War, 9.5% during the Vietnam War and 6% in the Reagan administration. Throw in the Iraq and Afghanistan supplementals, and total projected defense spending is still only 4.5% of GDP -- an easily afforded sum even by Prof. Kennedy's terms.

Finally there is the issue of our allegedly squandered prestige in the world. There is no doubt America's "popularity," as measured by various global opinion surveys, has fallen in recent years. What's striking, however, is how little of this has mattered in terms of the domestic political choices of other countries or the consequences for the U.S.

In the immediate aftermath of the Iraq War, nearly every government that joined President Bush's "coalition of the willing" -- Australia, Great Britain, Denmark and Japan -- was returned to power. France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, the war's two most vocal opponents, were cashiered for two candidates who campaigned explicitly on a pro-American agenda. The same happened in South Korea, where the unapologetically anti-American President Roh Moo-hyun has been replaced by the unapologetically pro-American Lee Myung-bak. Italy's equally unapologetic pro-American Silvio Berlusconi seems set to return to office after a brief holiday.

None of this is to say that perceptions about America play a decisive role in the politics of most other countries. It is to say that anti-Americanism, like illegal immigration, is fool's gold politics. Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel were not installed in office principally to mend relations with Washington. But to the extent that both seek to liberalize their economies, or strengthen NATO, or take a responsible position vis-a-vis Iran, it brings them closer to Washington's way of thinking.

Meanwhile, McDonald's -- the icon of everything anti-Americans detest about the U.S. -- is doing a booming business overseas even as sales in the U.S. flatlined last year. Another icon, Boeing, is having no trouble booking orders (meeting them is another matter) for its new 787 Dreamliner to such customers as Spain's AirEuropa and Bahrain's Gulf Air. The quintessentially American film, "National Treasure," has earned nearly half its gross revenue -- about $160 million -- in foreign ticket sales since its release in late December. So much for America's loss of "soft power."

Happily for Mr. Kaplan, I look forward to receiving his forthcoming book. I'll put it right up there on the shelf with another favorite: "19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England's Unbeatable Patriots." I'm guessing it will fetch a price on eBay.
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Dyspepsia on the Right

I agree wholeheartedly with Krystal - but I'd go farther. The conservative movement has been getting more and more puritanical in it's zeal for idealogical purity since, oh, the failed impeachment trial of Billy boy in 1997. Every nominee must be perfect, every decision or piece of legislation untarnished by compromise.

It's not a wonder we lost both houses of congress in 2006. Polls show that conservative voters stayed home. It was NOT, contrary to perception, anything to do with Iraq war. Our voters were mad at our congress, and now we have "madame speaker" to look at on TV every night (urp, turning green). McCain can win the war, seat the judges, cut the spending, and ...AND...keep Hitlery and her "man behind the curtain" Bill, away from the oval orifice...T


The prospect of John McCain as the likely Republican presidential nominee has produced a squall of anger on the right. Normally reserved columnists and usually ebullient talk-radio hosts vie to express their disgust with McCain, and their disdain for the Republicans who are about to nominate him. The conservative movement as a whole appears disgruntled and dyspeptic.

Now I have nothing against a certain amount of disgruntlement and dyspepsia. The ways of the world, and the decisions of our fellow Americans, occasionally warrant such a reaction.

But American politics tends to be unkind to movements that dwell in anger and relish their unhappiness. In the era from Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy, liberals tended to be happy warriors — and that helped their cause. The original civil rights movement succeeded in part because it worked hard to transcend a justifiable bitterness. Liberalism faltered when it became endlessly aggrieved and visibly churlish.

The American conservative movement has been remarkably successful. We shouldn’t take that success for granted. It’s not easy being a conservative movement in a modern liberal democracy. It’s not easy to rally a comfortable and commercial people to assume the responsibilities of a great power. It’s not easy to defend excellence in an egalitarian age. It’s not easy to encourage self-reliance in the era of the welfare state. It’s not easy to make the case for the traditional virtues in the face of the seductions of liberation, or to speak of duties in a world of rights and of honor in a nation pursuing pleasure.

One reason conservatives have been able to navigate the rapids of modern America is that they’ve often gone out of their way to make their case with good cheer. William F. Buckley, the father of the conservative movement, skewered liberals, but always with wit and élan. By 1980, bolstered by the growth-oriented doctrine of supply-side economics, and speaking the language of American uplift more than that of conservative despair, Ronald Reagan won the presidency.

Since then we conservatives have had a pretty good run. We had a chance to implement a fair share of our ideas, and they worked. In the 1980s and 90s, conservative policies helped win the cold war, revive the economy and reduce crime and welfare dependency. American conservatism’s ascendancy has benefited this country — and much of the world — over the last quarter-century.

This is an important moment for the conservative movement. Not because conservatives have some sort of obligation to fall in behind John McCain. They don’t. Those conservatives who can’t abide McCain are free to rally around Mitt Romney. And if McCain does prevail for the nomination, conservatives are free to sit out the election.

But I’d say this to them: When the primaries are over, if McCain has won the day, don’t sulk and don’t sit it out. Don’t pretend there’s no difference between a candidate who’s committed to winning in Iraq and a Democratic nominee who embraces defeat. Don’t tell us that it doesn’t matter if the next president voted to confirm John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, or opposed them. Don’t close your eyes to the difference between pro-life and pro-choice, or between resistance to big government and the embrace of it.

And don’t treat 2008 as a throwaway election. If a Democrat wins the presidency, he or she will almost certainly have a Democratic Congress to work with. That Congress will not impede a course of dishonorable retreat abroad. It won’t balk at liberal Supreme Court nominees at home. It won’t save the economy from tax hikes.

If, by contrast, McCain wins the presidency — and all the polls suggest he’d be the best G.O.P. bet to do so — he’ll be able to shape a strong American foreign policy, nominate sound justices and fight for parts of the conservative domestic agenda.

One might add a special reason that conservatives — and the nation — owe John McCain at least a respectful hearing. Only a year ago, we were headed toward defeat in Iraq. Without McCain’s public advocacy and private lobbying, President Bush might not have reversed strategy and announced the surge of troops in January 2007. Without McCain’s vigorous leadership, support for the surge in Congress would not have been sustained in the first few months of 2007. So: No McCain, no surge. No surge, failure in Iraq, a terrible setback for America — and, as it happens, no chance for a G.O.P. victory in 2008.

Some conservatives can close their eyes to all this. They can choose to stand aside from history while having a temper tantrum. But they should consider that the American people might then choose not to invite them back into a position of responsibility for quite a while to come.
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Don't Turn Left!

Talk about a hard left! LMAO! Thanks to CornetJim and James!