Freedom? Cri-me-a River

                Russian President (for life?) Vladimir Putin has annexed Crimea, threatened and bullied Ukraine and is promising to build a bigger military presence in and around former Soviet “States”. He has done all this by insuring there was no internal debate about any of these moves. No downsides discussed, no pros and cons debated. It’s good to be king. This is what happens when you smash political opposition and suppress independent media. (Sounds like another current, powerful world leader’s wish list). The Federation Council voted 90-0 a couple of months ago to authorize deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine. Ninety to zero! Of course, this was after Russian troops were actually deployed to Ukraine. (The Supreme Soviet usually had one or two fake dissenting votes just so it might appear to the most naïve that there was debate or dissent going on in that august body). Public protests without government approval have been banned. Dissenting voices have been silenced, charges of defamation or treason thrown at them. Arrests and beatings have occurred. My God, it’s like they questioned Global Warming/Climate Change or something!

                These government crackdowns are taking place all over the world. Protesters for liberty are being harassed and threatened. Hong Kong is the latest of a long string of these. Whether it’s China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Cuba, etc., people want freedom and independence. Where has the United States been? Sadly, our government has been more concerned with oppressing and stifling liberty and its supporters in this country than defending them in others. The IRS scandal, “tea-baggers” being mocked and vilified, the president actually calling out a particular major news outlet he abhors, center-right speakers continually being banned from speaking at (supposedly) open-minded, liberal, diversity-loving, tolerant educational institutes of higher learning. This is unprecedented and unbearably tragic.

                Putin just wants to accrue all power and money to himself. Sadly, he is almost certain to be “re-elected” in 2018, in part due to “constitutional” changes he engineered. Some in Russia like that he is making Russia strong again. Like most people- and governments- around the world, the only thing he respects is strength. Putin has portrayed himself as “a leader with no alternative.” Even those who hate him admit that there is no one else.

                That is sad and speaks of a defeated people. A people who certainly aren’t capable of bringing back democracy on their own.

                Yet, there is a potential alternative.

                If the people of the United States, themselves faced with a Presidential election in 2016, select as President a person who truly believes in liberty- as the Founders did-  and is committed to projecting that belief with strength and will- as President Reagan did- then there may be hope yet for all of us.

               

               

Cooling Planet, Heated Rhetoric?

                NASA consultant and climatologist John L. Casey is warning that the Earth is cooling, and cooling fast. In the new book, “Dark Winter: How the Sun is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell”, he warns that the Earth is rapidly growing colder due to diminished solar activity. The former space shuttle engineer says trends indicate we could soon see temperatures similar to those seen in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s when the sun went into a “solar minimum”- a phase of significantly diminished solar activity such as solar flares and sunspots. He further states that this cold period has already begun, and that the frigid temperatures and food shortages that inevitably result could potentially lead to riots and chaos.

                He told Newsmax magazine, “All you have to do is trust natural cycles, and follow the facts; and that leads you to the inevitable conclusion that the sun controls the climate, and that a new cold era has begun.” He claims that the planet’s oceans have been cooling for over a decade and that, since 2007, the atmospheric temperature has fallen as well.

                “If you look at the 100-year global temperature chart, you look at the steep drop off we’ve had since 2007, it’s the steepest drop in global temperatures in the last hundred years.”

                Isn’t this at odds with the conventional wisdom? Casey suggests that climate-change theorists have wedded themselves to the wrong theory, that global temperatures respond to the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and that any scientist suggesting otherwise is immediately branded a heritic. Yet Russian astrophysicist Habibullo Abdussamatov has actually argued that a mini ice age has begun. While Casey isn’t willing to go that far, he states that the real driver of global climate is solar activity, in particular sunspots. He says that these historically correspond to shifts in global temperature with a greater than 90% accuracy.

                The greenhouse- gas warming theorists are demonstrably wrong on two counts. First, as Casey says, “the greenhouse-gas theory, and the global climate models that they produced, never permitted a pause. As long as C02 levels were going up, the only thing that could happen was global temperatures could go up. That has not happened. Number 2, there could be absolutely no cooling, much less a pause. And yet we’ve been cooling for 11 years now.”

                “There is no human on Earth, much less here in the U.S.,” Casey warns, “who has experienced the depth and duration of cold we’re about to experience.”

                Casey first developed these and other theories pertaining to the topic in 2007. So far, all of his predictions have come true.

                He even speculates (see Habibullo Abdussamatov) that one of the reasons Vladimir Putin is so eager to retake the Ukraine is to "re-secure" what was the primary source of wheat for the Soviet Union during cold weather in the Cold War era.

                He further claims that we are going to experience the worst crop damage in human recorded history, and that the U.S. might at some point have to cut off food exports in order to feed her own people. And, since almost 50% of corn is now going to ethanol fuel, he believes future historians will look back on using food for fuel as one of the worst decisions human beings ever made.

                A Clinton administration global warming report of some years ago relied on two vastly different, indeed mutually- and comically- exclusive, greenhouse-gas simulation models. One predicted a catastrophic drought that would kill off all of the trees in the American Southeast. The other forecasted significantly increased rainfall and forest expansion in the Southeast.

                 Tragically, we are likely preparing for the wrong calamity.

                "Climate change" is, at best, an inexact science. Despite the feverish rhetoric of the left, let's hope that cooler heads prevail. Cooler temperatures likely will.

               

 

               

               

          

               

               

Russia: The Return of the Evil Empire

                The Russian foreign minister issued a blistering attack on the West and NATO on  Saturday, accusing them of being unable to change their Cold War “genetic code” and also stating that the United States must abandon its claims to “eternal uniqueness”.

                Who is the party delivering this verbal attack? Who is invading their neighbors? Who can’t shake their “Cold War” mentality? That would be Russia.

                Sergey Lapdog’s (Lavrov’s?) assault (perpetrated at the U.N. in New York City) was the more ridiculous given that the U.S. has already abandoned its claim to “eternal uniqueness” under “Dear Leader” Barrack Obama. Remember Obama’s comment to  Vlad the Impaler a few years ago when he thought he was “off mike”? “I’ll have more, uh, flexibility, after the elections…”. He really wanted to be Putin’s Pal. Yet now Putin trots out Sergey to foam at the mouth in front of the United Nations.

                The United States’ claim to uniqueness was based on the concept of Natural Law. And it was unique…and led to utterly unique results. Putin has to share his belief in Natural Lawlessness with North Korea, Iran and many others. No uniqueness there.

                And it appears Russia’s leadership certainly hasn’t abandoned its claims to “eternal Evil Empire” status.