There has been a bit of unrest lately over Obama’s performance, as his first year in office comes to a close. This DailyKos diary sums up my feelings about his performance. Essentially, he falls short of idealist progressive changes and of his campaign promises. But progressives constitute a minority of the American public; the rest of the country is moderate or conservative. Their voices mean we have to compromise. The Democratic majority is not completely progressive and does not give 100% support to Obama. So he is a dealbreaker, a pragmatist, that wants to work with everyone in order to move forward. This means our ideal progressive values must remain ideals for now, and only bits and pieces of progressive legislation will find themselves in his policies. Through a conservative lens, Obama is essentially a fascist for having progressive/socialist leanings. Conservatives also have the ability to take over next term. We don’t want Obama to make progressivism look so terrible to moderates and conservatives that they take over. His job is to keep their anger and irritation at bay so that he can continue to serve as President.
A professor on the Democratic scorecard program on KPFK put it well: Our leaders are only as progressive as its people are able to mobilize and assemble to keep leaders in check.
While the rest of the nation stagnates and one out of five Americans is out of a job, President Obama, in the still of the night, approved UNLIMITED FUNDING for mortgage giants Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac. The two entities that are probably singularly most responsible for the crash of the sub-prime housing loan market.
Although they were successful in lining the pockets of many Democratic operatives along the way, in 2008 Fanny and Freddie exploded, taking Bear Stearns with them and leading to the failure of many other smaller entities, as we have seen. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd were all beholden to Fanny and Freddie for substantial contributions. The US government has bailed Fanny and Freddie out to the tune of ONE POINT FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS in direct and indirect aid. Those are TAXPAYER dollars, it should be noted.
What was going on was these two quasi-government backed Corporations, being major purchasers of SUB-PRIME mortgage paper, were BUNDLING these dubious assets and selling them as bonds. This precarious process worked as long as housing prices continued to rise. As early as 2003, regulators were warning of looming catastrophe “in the unlikely event that the two giants failed”.
Republican efforts to regulate Fanny and Freddie were defeated BY DEMOCRATS, IN PARTY-LINE VOTES. Since their failure in 2008, the two mortgage giants have consumed 1.1 trillion dollars in Fed backing and thus far this year have lost 124.4 billion dollars which has had to be picked up by the Federal Reserve.
Now the treasury has removed the 400 BILLION dollar cap on funding losses AT THE DIRECTION OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, replacing it with an UNLIMITED FUNDING CAP! That’s like handing a chronic alcoholic a half gallon of booze and telling him to knock himself out.
THIS is Obama’s much vaunted fiscal responsibility?
Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac are headed down the same road as before and we have the SAME Democrats running interference for them. Wonder who they’ll blame it on this time?
It took a tough question from Matt Lauer, but after having laughably claimed that “the system worked,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has now conceded the obvious: that the security system that permitted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board NWA 253 with explosives “failed miserably.”
On Today and in other interviews this morning, Napolitano attempted to use her own ignorance as a shield. Each time she was hit with a hard question, her response was to the effect “yeah, we’re wondering about that ourselves.” She also continued to point the finger back at George Bush, repeatedly mentioning that the security procedures in place were formulated under the Bush administration. Whatever happened to “change you can believe in“?
But back to Today, where Lauer laudably asked Napolitano the necessary question: how could she possibly have claimed, as she did yesterday, that the “system worked”?
MATT LAUER: You made a comment over the weekend and I want to call attention to that because a lot of people are disagreeing with it this morning. You talked about this incident aboard this Northwest flight and you said “when it came right down to it, the system worked.” A lot of people don’t think the system worked at all, that the only thing that prevented outright disaster was luck. Can you respond to that?
JANET NAPOLITANO: Sure, I think the comment is being taken out of context. What I’m saying is that once the incident occurred, moving forward, we were immediately able to notify the 128 flights in the air of protective measures to take, immediately able to notify law enforcement on the ground, airports both domestically, internationally, all carriers, all of that happening within 60 to 90 minutes, so –
LAUER: So you’re only talking about what happened after this man tried to ignite this explosive device on the plane.
NAPOLITANO: Indeed.
LAUER: You would then concede that the system prior to that, the system that’s supposed to prevent something like this from happening, failed miserably?
NAPOLITANO: It did. And that’s why we are asking a lot of the same questions I heard you asking before this interview. How did this individual get on the plane? Why wasn’t the explosive material detected? What do we need to do to change perhaps the rules that have been in place since 2006 for moving somebody from the generic database to more elevated status. All of that under review right now.
LAUER: So many man-hours, so much money, Madam Secretary, has gone into securing fliers in this country and around the world, and so let’s talk about it: how does a guy who’s on this general terror list, who then buys a one-way, trans-Atlantic ticket with cash, checks no luggage, a man whose own father has written a letter to authorities both in his own country and U.S. embassy authorities, saying he’s worried that his son has become more radicalized and might attempt some kind of a suicide mission. How is this guy not the perfect candidate for a strip search or a full-body scan?
NAPOLITANO: I’ve asked the same questions.
We’ve got another question: what is Janet Napolitano, head of a department that she now admits “failed miserably,” still doing in office?
Note: As part of her “it’s Bush’s fault” defense, on Morning Joe Napolitano mentioned that young Umar had been issued his US visa “in June, 2008,” i.e., during the Bush administration. OK, but that would have been before his father was frantically trying to alert the Obama admin that his son had apparently turned into a terrorist.
Wouter Bos heeft hem gebeld om hem namens de Nederlandse regering te feliciteren, hij was te zien op alle belangrijke tv zenders in de Verenigde Staten, en misschien mag hij nog wel op audientie bij Obama. En terecht.
Jasper Schuringa deed wat je moet doen, maar bijna niemand doet, in dit soort situaties: handelen op instinct, om te overleven.
The Climategate revelations and the snowstorm that swept through Europe gave the Copenhagen global warming meetings an air of unreality. The spectacle of politicians gathering in Denmark with the goal of impoverishing their own societies provided that others do the same sets a new historical standard for idiocy. It isn’t just Climategate and snowstorms. Icecap reviews the evidence (HT: PowerLine):
• The most effective greenhouse gas is water vapor, comprising approximately 95 percent of the total greenhouse effect.
• Carbon dioxide concentration has been continually rising for nearly 100 years. It continues to rise, but carbon dioxide concentrations at present are near the lowest in geologic history.
• Temperature change correlation with carbon dioxide levels is not statistically significant.
• There are no data that definitively relate carbon dioxide levels to temperature changes.
• The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide logarithmically declines with increasing concentration. At present levels, any additional carbon dioxide can have very little effect.
We also know a lot about Earth temperature changes:
• Global temperature changes naturally all of the time, in both directions and at many scales of intensity.
• The warmest year in the U.S. in the last century was 1934, not 1998. The U.S. has the best and most extensive temperature records in the world.
• Global temperature peaked in 1998 on the current 60-80 year cycle, and has been episodically declining ever since. This cooling absolutely falsifies claims that human carbon dioxide emissions are a controlling factor in Earth temperature.
• Voluminous historic records demonstrate the Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO) was real and that the “hockey stick” graphic that attempted to deny that fact was at best bad science. The MCO was considerably warmer than the end of the 20th century.
• During the last 100 years, temperature has both risen and fallen, including the present cooling. All the changes in temperature of the last 100 years are in normal historic ranges, both in absolute value and, most importantly, rate of change.
In short, there is no global warming crisis. There is no health crisis, either. These things are manufactured by politicians, for politicians, with utter disregard for the common good.
Reports of what happened in Copenhagen further increase the sense of unreality. Did the talks succeed? Fail? And what was Obama’s role? Some startling reports have emerged that help to answer the last question, even if they raise further questions. Richard Fernandez reprints the translation of a German article that portrays Obama in an extremely unflattering light (smart diplomacy, indeed!), and reflects:
The fundamental article of faith among the lowlife is that it doesn’t matter if the world runs out of money as long as you don’t run out of it. A grifter’s optimization algorithm is to be the last man to die; the last guy to run out. Economists might argue that it is “more rational” to create an orderly society where the tide lifts all boats. But they forget that it isn’t called the Prisoner’s Dilemma for nothing.
If politicians are fundamentally controlled by the societies to which they are accountable, then they will act as rational agents of that society. Once control is lost, they’ll act like grifters. Copenhagen is a preview of what happens when a lump of money is up for grabs. Every bluebottle on the planet — dictators from Africa, professional mourners, court jesters and fast-buck artists — converged on the Copenhagen because it was, to a large extent, unaccountable. But this also limited its ill-effects. The players were too busy knifing each other to turn against the publics of the world.
The fascination of Copenhagen lies in the juxtaposition of is purported high-mindedness with the brutality in the streets, the lunacy of the public theater and the tawdriness of the proceedings. And at the conclusion everyone leaves by private jet in the middle of the night.
I think this explains a lot of what we’re seeing around us. As Glenn Reynolds repeatedly observes, we have the worst political class in our history. (Maybe the guys in Congress in the years immediately preceding the Civil War beat them out. Maybe. But I doubt it. I think they actually believed in something other than themselves, however wrong it might have been.) Why are our politicians so terrible? They’re acting as grifters. They no longer represent us. We’ve lost control of them. I think Rousseau foresaw this possibility when he worried that mass communication could split the will of the people as expressed in elections from the general will. (As Homer Simpson put it, “The problem is communication. Too much communication.”) If the people can be massively misled, then politicians can avoid accountability, and the people have no vehicle for expressing their true preferences. This lies behind much of the frustration that has found expression in tea parties. Hence, as well, health care reform, cap-and-trade, Copenhagen, and a seemingly pro-Islamist, pro-Communist foreign policy. Our politicians seek out graft instead of the common good.
Fernandez nevertheless expresses a limited optimism:
We are coming to the end a phase and should be glad of it. The sooner the charade ends the sooner things can be fixed. And since there’s a lot of real wealth and talent in the world, and because technology is powerful, I have no doubt that we have the power not only to put things right but to build an incomparably better world….
If we have a crisis in 2010 it could lead to greater democracy, a world in which we develop real energy sources and build things. The year 2015 could be the finest year on the planet. But to get there a huge almost glacially immovable mass of bureaucracy and faux aristocracy has to be moved out of the way. And I think they will largely do it to themselves. The trick is to harness the discontent which I think is inevitably coming in positive and nonviolent ways. That’s not to say unfortunate things might happen unintentionally here and there. But that’s the friction of history. The important thing is to transition to a better world in democratic and political ways rather than in dysfunctional ones.
The generation of the 1920s and 1930s failed to find an orderly way into the new world and fell prey to demagogues. In any given crisis, new demagogues will rise and many will be tempted to follow them. Let’s hope we’ve learned enough, or read enough about the last 70 years to realize that demagogues often take one from bad to worse.
I think 2010 may be both a good and a bad year. Bad in that it will be full of bad news. Good in that it will give the world a chance to truly fix things. All they really need is faith in common sense and a little bit of common decency. This, plus an extraordinary slug of uncommon daring and extraordinary luck.
I sincerely hope he’s right. But I don’t see the mechanisms by which they’ll do it to themselves. The people may utterly lose faith in Obama and company, the mandarins of the EU, et al. But they have been constructing insulation between themselves and public opinion, and I expect the coming year to witness much more insulation in the form of immigration “reform,” allowing felons to vote, blatant voter fraud, legal challenges to elections (as in Minnesota), and the like.
The real Obama in his own words. Listen closely.Obama makes it very clear in these videos who he really is. This isn’t made up. This is real folks.http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t=28
Gordon Kuhn “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government” Thomas Jefferson www.Cloudweavers.com
If you’ve followed the debate over climate change even a little, you likely know the main causes of global warming: concentrations of greenhouse gases build up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and create a “greenhouse,” or warming effect. You’re likely also aware that evidence of past warming periods has fueled the argument that natural causes are largely responsible for current global warming, and thus, our choices of ways to reduce global warming are limited. If Nature’s calling the shots, is there any reason to change human activities that increase levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases?
While arguments persist, there’s little doubt that human-produced greenhouse gas emissions play a major role in the current warming trend. Nature has a role, but it pales in the face of increasing emissions from human activity.
What are some of the natural causes of global warming?
Think back to science classes from school. You undoubtedly learned at some point that carbon dioxide is a naturally-occurring compound, that it provides food for plant life, and that animals breathe it out. You may have also learned that decaying organic material releases CO2. There’s no need to question these facts. Greenhouse gases can be emitted into the atmosphere from a variety of natural sources.
Skeptics of climate science, however, have latched onto a number of natural phenomena, and attempted to argue that they’re primary global warming causes. Some of the natural occurrences you may have heard discussed include:
Volcanic eruptions: Yes, volcanoes emit CO2 when they erupt; as Grist’s Coby Beck showed, though, volcanic CO2 emissions do not outweigh those produced by humans.
Solar cycles and cosmic rays: If you followed discussions about the causes of global warming at all, you’ve run across this argument. A recent study released by a group of European scientists concluded that “The chance of the natural cosmic-ray or solar irradiance explanation being responsible for more than 14% of the observed warming is quite negligible.”
Water vapor: You may have heard the claim that water vapor’s the most prevelant greenhouse gas, and therefore is the main cause of global warming (not CO2). This is half true. Water vapor is the most prevalent gas; however, it’s produced as feedback of increased CO2 emissions, and is not a “forcing” of global warming.
Why human causes of global warming are a much bigger problem
Many of the activities you take for granted ultimately contribute to global warming, including
Driving your car
Turning on your air conditioning or heat
Eating food that is locally out of season (or not locally grown), and shipped from other parts of the country or world
All of these activities rely on the use of fossil fuels. Burning of these fuels releases carbon dioxide… but CO2 that exists in a very different part of the carbon cycle. Fossil fuels are sequestered carbon: the elemental remains of organic entities (plants, animals) that were “stored away” by natural systems in order to maintain stability in the climate. You may find it ironic that many scientists and engineers are searching for ways to sequester carbon emissions: Nature had already done it quite well!
When you release carbon from fossil fuels by burning them, you’re essentially contributing to an “overflow” of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This overabundance of heat-trapping gases can lead to:
Rising sea levels
Changes in seasonal weather and precipitation patterns
Increased severe weather effects
Lower rivers and lakes that are fed by snow and ice melt-off
Habitat changes for a wide variety of plants and animals
So, can you claim a straight-line, cause-and-effect relationship between climate change and these phenomena? No… but we do know that climate change increases the probability of these effects. Consider Colorado University climate scientist Brad Udall’s analogy: the climate is like a six-sided die, with “Two faces [that] say warm, two normal, two cold. That is your normal climate… We have now changed it. Now it says three warm, two normal and one cold.” “Rolling the die” becomes much more treacherous.
Do natural events and occurrences play a role in global warming? Definitely. But if we’ve learned anything from studying the geological record, it’s that nature’s time table is very different from the one for the current warming cycle — the climate has never warmed at this quick a pace. We also know that extreme climate changes produce extreme results for life on Earth… and that you want to do your part to ensure that such results don’t occur more quickly than they might otherwise.
If you’re looking for more detailed scientific information about the evidence for human-caused climate change, check out the International Panel on Climate Change’s “Summary for Policymakers” of its Fourth Assessment Report.
Image credits: takomabibelot and flydime at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
Tagged as: Carbon dioxide, global warming, greenhouse gases, human causes, natural causes
Source: Sustainablog and WIH Resource Group
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