Europe's Cultural Future

For my Omnilore class in Great Decisions 2006 I need to prepare a lecture on the future of Europe. Now I don’t pretend to be a seer or a wise man and my prognostications are generally tempered by hope. For example, I’m convinced that the next US President will be another Republican because the American people will not trust the Democratic Party with the nation's defense. At least, that is my fervent hope. When considering Europe’s future I am similarly influenced by our European family ancestry to spice my predictions with a soupcon of optimism.

When thinking about the future it is foolhardy to ignore the past and the historical intersection of America and Europe has been a complex and rich tapestry. Since 1900, hundreds of thousands of Americans have bled and died for the sake of European freedom. We spent a fortune on the Marshall Plan and on continuous military protection of the Continent that allowed European countries to transfer military spending to social areas. We tore down the Berlin Wall freeing Eastern Europe and enabling the Eastern countries to enter the European Union. We have been robust trading partners. For these and many other reasons it is important that Europe regain its economic vitality and renew its commitment to the spread of democracy.

Europe’s future has many dimensions, cultural, political, economic, war fighting and so on. And every dimension has an impact on America, for good or for bad. Indeed many Americans, mostly Democrats, wish that America would become more like Europe. They favor liberal social policies, increased government controls, higher taxes, libertarian cultural mores, global organizations and appeasement over war. Thus it pays to look at Europe as a precursor of what America could be like if it becomes substantially more liberal.

I’ll look first at the cultural dimension which includes religion. It is the most troubling of the European dimensions. Paul Belien wrote in the Brussels Journal that Europe’s current problems are entirely self-inflicted. This does not mean, however, that the result will be less catastrophic. By subverting the roots of its own Judeo-Christian culture – a process that started with the French Enlightenment (as opposed to the Scottish Enlightenment, which was not anti-religious) – a religious and cultural vacuum was created at the heart of European civilization. The collapse of faith in its own values has, not surprisingly, led to a demographic collapse because a civilization that no longer believes in its own future also rejects procreation. Today, a new religion and culture is supplanting the old one. There is little one can do about it, but hope for a miracle.

Now that does indeed sound catastrophic. But what are the consequences? Perhaps the article from Reuters today provides an indication of the collapse of faith in its own values. Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals. The "Charity, Freedom and Diversity" party said on its Web site: We are going to shake The Hague awake! The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.

The Netherlands already has liberal policies on drugs, prostitution and gay marriage but was shocked by the plan. Indeed an opinion poll published Tuesday showed that 67 percent said promoting pedophilia should be illegal. But a third of the population thinks it’s just fine. Ad Van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told Reuters, We want to get into parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals. The party wants private possession of child pornography to be allowed and also supports allowing pornography to be broadcast on daytime television, with only violent pornography limited to the late evening.

Paul Belien contrasts the collapse of European culture with America’s conservative reserves or, as the German sociologist Arnold Gehlen explained, “the reserves in national energy and self-confidence, primitiveness and generosity, wealth and potential of every kind.” Belien writes: Every so often I travel to the U.S. to recharge my batteries, and I am not the only European Conservative to do so. From time to time one needs to breathe the air of freedom before submerging again in the stifling atmosphere of Europe.

America’s “conservative reserves” are far stronger than Europe’s, because America, unlike secular Europe, has remained rooted to a larger extent in traditional Christian values. I do not doubt that if these values continue to decline in the U.S., American culture will collapse as European culture and civilisation have collapsed. However, America can learn from the impending European catastrophe, and avoid a similar fate. The old European civilization – the pre-secular or the pre-post-Christian one – will live on in the U.S. If it perishes there too, mankind will relapse into the dark ages that are now taking hold of Europe, the cradle of Western civilization.

Will we learn the European lesson? The fate of Western Civilization hangs in the balance.

Summer Reading

All the popular magazines are coming out with their summer reading lists. I’ll provide a PalosVerdesBlog list, but first a pitch for our Library.

The Palos Verdes Library District welcomes screenwriter and novelist James Dalessandro for a talk and book signing at the Peninsula Center Library on Thursday, June 15 at 6:30pm. Mr. Dalessandro weaves an incredible story of fact and fiction in his latest novel, ‘1906’, an epic recreation of the great San Francisco earthquake, with rich detail interwoven with crime, corruption, and compassion.

The Library staff publishes a list of their favorites that may be found here. One book that I thoroughly enjoyed and one that looks intriguing are these:

The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman.

James Boswell’s agri-business empire shaped the 20th century history and landscape of California. A chronicle of the rise of the Boswell family and fortune, J.G. Boswell's many conflicts with the worlds of business and politics, and the impact of his forceful presence upon California and America.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

The first book in a series provides a wonderful escape via historical fiction to Scotland and the United States, circa 1700’s. Ms. Gabaldon writes beautifully about romance, civil war, family ties and honor. The reader is swept away with great literary style; a mini vacation for the mind.

For my conservative friends here is the top 10 list of books we think liberals would most like to burn from the editors of Human Events.

10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

An American classic that has long been the subject of attacks by the politically correct. Banned from many libraries, and challenged in many more, for its use of the crude vernacular in dialogue.

9. Treason by Ann Coulter

A cold, hard look at liberals’ “patriotism” in which one of the right’s most articulate pudits re-examines the left’s history of “striking a position on the side of treason.” It offers a defense of the left’s favorite boogeyman, Sen. Joe McCarthy, and a reminder that it was the Democratic Party that excused communism.

8. Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert H. Bork

Details the depths to which American culture has fallen and what it means. Slouching is hated for its reliance upon absolute truth, understanding of good and evil and recognition that modern liberalism is the root of America’s decline. Bork warns that “a nation’s moral life is the foundation of its culture.”

7. Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation by Ronald Reagan

The first book ever published by a President in office details Reagan’s view on the sanctity of life, why abortion is not a right, and why the Supreme Court was wrong in its Roe v. Wade decision, comparing it to the Dred Scott decision for its denying “the value of certain human lives.”

6. Losing Ground by Charles Murray

Murray blasts the social programs of the Great Society for their terrible effects on America’s poor and minorities. It was a major influence in the fights for welfare reform in the mid-1990s.

5. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Written by a leading Oxford scholar during a time (1943) when society was faced with a global war, it is considered one of the truly classic works in Christian apologetics. Lewis provides a reasoned argument for the Christian religion, based on man’s free will and a God of justice, grace and mercy.

4. Wealth and Poverty by George Gilder

Gilder offers an examination of why supply-side economics will best increase wealth and decrease poverty. It argues that the welfare state keeps the poor from achieving success by creating a welfare dependency and harms society by diminishing the role of fathers.

3. The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek

Shows that all “collectivist societies”—socialist, National Socialist, Communist, et al—have the same roots and lead to the same place: tyranny. Details how giving “central planning” authority to the government reduces economic freedom of individuals and results in disaster.

2. Witness by Whitaker Chambers

Witness is the autobiography of an ex-Communist who was the key player in the Chambers-Hiss case, known as the “trial of the century.” It tells how Chambers worked to expose Alger Hiss, a top State Department official who was also a member of the Communist Party and a Soviet spy. Hiss’ treachery was confirmed by The Mitrokhin Archive. The Left has never forgiven Chambers for taking down Hiss. A brief account is in Treason by Ann Coulter.

1. Bible by God

The central work of Western Civilization defines the relationship between God and man and is the foundation of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way have sued to keep it out of government buildings, schools and public discourse.

I have thoroughly enjoyed seven of these books and have been inspired by a few of them.

A new book by Bill Bennett is dedicated to the American soldier, whose fidelity, patriotism, and valor have made this land the last best hope of earth. Bennett is the author of America: The Last Best Hope, the title taken from Abraham Lincoln’s message to Congress in 1862, when he described our country, in as the last best hope of earth. Were it not for the United States, from Lincoln's time until today, what would the world look like? This is my next read.

Historian David McCullough recently warned that we are raising, generation after generation of young Americans who are historically illiterate, we are running a terrible risk for this country. You could have amnesia of a society, which is as detrimental as amnesia of an individual. Books like Bennett’s make ideal gifts for our children of all ages.

I’ll finish with fiction, not my favorite form. Powerline, one of the most popular political blogs, is running a poll to find the best American novel. Here is their list:

Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Melville, Moby-Dick
Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
James, Portrait of a Lady
Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Cather, My Antonia
Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Warren, All the King's Men
Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
Ellison, Invisible Man
Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Updike, Rabbit, Run
Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Heller, Catch-22
Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
Nabokov, Pale Fire
Roth, The Great American Novel

My favorites are To Kill a Mockingbird and The Long Goodbye, but I must read The Sot-Weed Factor!?! Which is yours? Is any great novel missing? How about A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole? The LA Times picked Beloved by Toni Morrison as the best novel of the last 25 years. Set during the Reconstruction era in 1873, Beloved centers on the powers of memory and history. For the former slaves in the novel, the past is a burden that they desperately and willfully try to forget. Part of Morrison’s project in Beloved is to recuperate a history that had been lost. I haven't read it.

American Heroes

Today we honor America's fallen heroes. It is a special day for my wife who never knew her dad. Lieutenant Charles Struck was shot down over the South Pacific on July 19, 1944. Charles Struck and the entire crew of the B-24 Liberator died in the service of their country. His baby girl was just 1 year old.

The Greatest Generation saved the world from totalitarianism, only to be faced with the spectre of Communism and the threat of nuclear destruction. They persevered.

In many ways the current generation fighting bravely in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other trouble spots are the rightful heirs of the Greatest Generation. The great Ben Stein wrote of his gratitude (The American Spectator, June, 2006):

Now I am about to go to sleep in front of the fire. My dog's head is silhouetted by the flickering flames. I am safe. I am free. I have my dogs. All thanks to the men and women in the uniforms. I sleep in a cocoon of peace thanks to men whose names I will never know. What a gift they are from God. They guard the gates of Eden with their lives. They guarded me from Hitler and from Stalin and now from Zarqawi. I LOVE THEM. Thank you glorious men and women in uniform.

My daughter Carolynne sent me the picture above. The soldier is stationed in Iraq, stationed in a big sand box. He asked his wife to send him dirt (U.S. soil), fertilizer and some grass seed. When the men of the squadron have a mission they are going on, they take turns walking through the grass and the American soil to bring them good luck. Sometimes we are in such a hurry that we don't stop and think about the little things that we take for granted.

Charles Struck's great-grandson John Walton served a tour of duty in Iraq and is scheduled to go back there this summer. God bless your son Carolynne, and our Brian Weiss and Dave McCarthy and Rob Barry and all the other warriors who fight to keep us safe.

Democrats to Undergo Spine Transplants

Like Zell Miller (A National Party No More) and millions more JFK and Scoop Jackson Democrats, I bemoaned the loss of backbone in the grand old Party. (See for example Mommy Party, 11/30/05; In Loco Parentis, 12/8/05; Kennedy of Camelot, 5/4/06) Larry Elder perfectly expressed my feelings for the Democratic Party when he said: I don’t like you cause you’re gonna get me killed. My mission became to keep them (the Dems) from winning the Commander-in-Chief derby (the Presidency).

Today I discovered, to my delight, that the Party is not totally devoid of spine. There are more than one Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Party. Jacob Heilbrunn writes in the LA Times: Like Kennedy and Truman, Democratic neocons want to beef up the military and won't run from a fight.

Now two new books are making the case for liberal hawkishness. The liberal New Republic Editor Peter Beinart has written The Good Fight: Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. As Beinart puts it, whatever its failings, the right at least knows that America's enemies need to be fought. Hooray!!

And the Progressive Policy Institute president Will Marshall has just released a volume of doctrine called With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty. Democratic scholars Larry Diamond and Michael McFaul outline a comprehensive democracy-promotion program insisting upon human rights monitoring in the Middle East. Freedom, they exhort, is the fundamental antidote to all forms of tyranny, terror and oppression. Does this sound like the Bush Doctrine? Huh?

Heilbrunn continues: This new crop of liberal hawks calls for expanding the existing war against terrorism, beefing up the military and promoting democracy around the globe while avoiding the anti-civil liberties excesses of the Bush administration. They support a U.S. government that would seek multilateral consensus before acting abroad, but one that is not scared to use force when necessary.

Darn!, this is great (expanding the war on terrorism)except for the part about civil liberties excesses - A large majority of Americans want the wire tapping and data mining to continue; and the multilateral consensus – unless they mean the coalition of the willing that Bush went with.

But Heilbrunn warns that such hawkish rhetoric will lead to an internecine Democratic war. The Moveon.org types, not to mention the party's congressional leadership, are hardly prepared to go down without a fight.

In Connecticut, the left is targeting Senator Joe Lieberman for political extinction because of his pro-war views. Antiwar candidate Ned Lamont captured a third of the delegates at the state's Democratic convention, thus winning the right to challenge Mr. Lieberman in an August primary. That's a remarkable showing against a three-term incumbent who as recently as 2000 was on the party's national ticket and ran for President in 2004. The left's larger goal is to turn the Democratic Party solidly against the war on terror, and especially against its Iraq and Iran fronts.

Mr. Lamont's performance will be noticed by Democratic Presidential hopefuls Al Gore and John Kerry, who are already maneuvering to get to Hillary Clinton's antiwar left. It will be amusing to see the three of them avoiding the spine transplant clinic while Virginia Democratic Gov. Mark Warner and Iowa Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack sign up for theirs.

Al Gore, an Inconvenient Man

Al Gore and global warming are not two subjects you'd expect to add up to the buzziest film at Cannes. But there's Al being celebrated in Cannes for his docudrama “An Inconvenient Truth,” doing the celebrity thing at the LA opening, power-walking a green carpet in Washington. Ana Marie Cox reports from Washington that “the wonky audience generated about much heat as Jennifer Lopez's little finger (a unit of measurement known as the ‘Gigli’).”

The movie is, essentially, a two-hour PowerPoint presentation, enlivened by periodic shots of Al Gore frowning contemplatively at computer screens, and full of dire predictions and horrifying scenarios for the Earth's future: rising sea-levels, hordes of refugees, parching draughts. But the crowd at the National Geographic Society saw it as the world's longest campaign ad.

Still Gore’s gone from media darling to the summer's most unlikely movie star, funny, vulnerable, disarming, self-effacing as NBC's Katie Couric called him. Gore is now a pop culture icon and bona fide member of the scientific intelligentsia.

It’s ironic to hear Gore pitching scientific accuracy. He earned a D and a C+ in his natural sciences courses at Harvard. Though Al got an undergrad degree in government, he dropped out of two graduate programs (in law and divinity). Now Gore has become a teacher/preacher on the subject of climate change.

That didn't stop him from demeaning respected scientists during his Today appearance. There's really not a debate. The debate is over. The scientific community has reached as strong a consensus as you will ever find in science. There are a few oil companies and coal companies that spend millions of dollars a year to put these pseudo-scientists out there pretending there is a debate, complained Gore. Apparently, anyone who disagrees with Gore is a pseudo-scientist in the pocket of the energy companies.

The “Inconvenient Truth” is that this guy could have been President.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of the facts of Gore’s non-debatable consensus.

The average temperature of the earth since it began being measured consistently (from 1880 to 2004) has been 14.0 +/- 0.7 Centigrade. During that time the temperature increased only 0.6 C. Thus the entire increase over 124 years is within the +/- error bars of the average temperature measurement.

Of the 0.6 C increase, about 0.45 C occurred before the end of WWII. Thus the increase during the last 60 years (of the most significant carbon emission from fossil fuel in history) is 0.15 C, or 0.025 C per decade. Based on that measured trend, in the next century we might expect to see a temperature increase of 0.25 C.

What causes the tiny warming then? Well the sun is the major culprit but the greenhouse effect has its way too. The major greenhouse gas is not carbon dioxide, as much as the global warming fanatics would have you believe it is. No, water is the major warming gas, accounting for 90-95% of the greenhouse effect. The other greenhouse gasses include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and traces of a few others.

There is no monotonic relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide change and global mean temperature trend -- global mean temperature has both risen and fallen during the period atmospheric carbon dioxide has been continuously rising.

Of the carbon dioxide emission, humans produce only 3.4% of it by breathing, burning fossil fuels, etc, the remainder comes from natural sources such as volcanoes.

Furthermore the temperature effect of carbon dioxide is just logarithmic, not linear or super-linear. Thus, if we consider the heating since the Industrial Revolution due to carbon dioxide alone, the first half of the heating was due to an increase of only 20 parts per million (from 280 to 300) while the second half of the heating required an increase of another 260 parts per million. It is significantly diminishing returns.

And is this bad? We already saw that the temperature rise was tiny and it’s not obviously detrimental. In fact, a more measurable effect is the benefit of the increased atmospheric carbon on crop yields, accounting for a rise in food production of 15% since 1950. Then there is the benefit to forests and to the natural wildlife habitat and to the reduction of deserts.

Then where do the Inconvenient Truths come from if not from the data? Ah, this is where it gets rather contentious because the big warming numbers come not from measurements but from computer models that make an enormous range of assumptions. What’s more, the climate models include positive feedbacks (multiplier effects) so that a small temperature increment expected from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide invokes large increases in water vapor, which produce exponential rather than logarithmic temperature response in the models. There is no evidence the planet includes any such feedback effects or behaves in a similar manner.

In fact, a new study released this week by the National Center for Policy Analysis, Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts looks at a wide variety of climate matters, from global warming and hurricanes to rain and drought, sea levels, arctic temperatures and solar radiation. It concludes that the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21st century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change.

The Climate Change study concluded that half the observed 20th century warming occurred before 1940 and cannot be attributed to human causes, and changes in solar radiation account for 71 percent of the variation in global surface air temperature from 1880 to 1993.

Yet there is a sense of hysteria permeating the media and intellectual circles driven by the former Vice-President and his movie. A Time Magazine cover story warns us to “be very worried.” A new television ad, sponsored by the group Environmental Defense, depicts global warming as a speeding train headed straight for a little girl standing on the tracks. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle states that scientists have long been warning that the world must cut back on greenhouse-gas emissions by as much as 70 percent, as soon as possible, if we're to have a fighting chance of stabilizing the climate. The Gore movie and web site predict a great many evil things: sea levels may rise by 20 feet, the Arctic and Antarctic ice will likely melt, heat waves will be more frequent and more intense, and deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years--to 300,000 people a year. Polar bears will drown. There is a proposal to create a $300 billion clean-energy fund for developing countries through a tax on international currency transactions.

At a time when millions in Africa and Asia are dying from malnutrition, bad water, AIDS, malaria and genocide while millions more in China and India are being raised from the depths of poverty by industrialization, Gore and his environmentalist friends simply ignore the former and impede the latter. They'd rather worry about global warming and spend enormous amounts of money on a potential future that if it comes will be so gradual that the people of the world will have generations to adjust to it. Have they no shame?

The world should thank President Bush for breathing new life into the stagnant climate-change debate when he announced in 2001 that he wouldn’t pursue ratification of Kyoto and then formed a coalition of the willing to pursue technological solutions. But that’s for another post.

Brian and the Little Guy

U.S. Soldiers Renovate Clinic for Djibouti Villagers

Cooperation between the government of Djibouti and the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has resulted in a refurbished facility that will help improve health care opportunities for the local community. This clinic is more than mortar and paint; it represents the relationship between the United States and Djibouti. We are partners for peace, prosperity, security and a better way of life. -U.S. Army Col. William Porter. Quality medical care equals longer life for you and your children, he said. Healthy children and citizens are vital to the future prosperity of your community.

Working together, the joint task force and local contractors and laborers constructed a maternity ward, waiting rooms and a storage facility at the Mouloud Clinic. Taking care of this clinic and preserving it is a big responsibility, Porter said. We honor the community, doctors, nurses and staff with this task.

The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa includes Colonel Porter's Army unit and Brian Weiss's Marine unit. Here is the latest from Brian.

So we hit the hottest day yet… 117 in the shade and 138 in the sun. The heat isn’t all that bad because the wind has shifted from off the desert now. The desert air is hotter but much drier. I still haven’t figured out why we have hot water valves here?? We have some good training days coming up soon including demolition!

I attach a picture of myself at the orphanage. The little guy and I are trying to give our tough look for the camera, but I think he is better at it than I am. We have been trying to get to the orphanage a couple of times a week but we have all been restricted to base for a little while as there has been a small outbreak of bird flu in town.

The C.D.C. and W.H.O. are here trying to help the infected people and also get samples of blood for analysis to help find a cure before it hits our shores. Two days last week the blood samples have come through my post; the military docs sure laugh at us Marines as we kind of rush them and their deadly little germs through our post. We remind them we will take care of the large threats… i.e terrorists, and they can handle the bugs.

The Djiboutian military has been killing off poultry in town and the towns-people are not happy. Most are poor and live off 1200 bucks or so a year, and chickens are an important source of food and money. The PSC (Provisional Security Company) has been working on a number of projects since we have gotten here. We are painting an entire school and then setting up the students with all new school supplies. My command is trying to keep it organized; when they determine the needs for the school, I will put out another email that has the wish list. We built a soccer field on a dirt lot in town, including goals with nets, chalked sidelines, and a running trail along the outside.

All in all everything is good with me, updates to follow. We are always taking donations for the orphanage, newborns through toddlers. Also there is a young boys and girls orphanage so any kids items including toys ect are welcomed.

Thanks so much for what you all have sent!

Brian

LCPL Weiss, BC
4th PSC 5th Section
OEF
APO AE 09363

Intelligent Design: Religion or Science

I returned from San Francisco on Sunday in order to attend the debate on Intelligent Design at the Rolling Hills Covenant Church in Palos Verdes. The standing room only crowd of perhaps 2500 people was treated to a riveting debate between two ID proponents and two ID opponents. On the ID side were Paul Nelson of the University of Chicago and John Mark Reynolds, Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. The ID detractors were Craig Nelson and James Hofmann, Chair of the Liberal Studies Department, both at CSU Fullerton. The moderator was Craig Hazen, Director of the Christian Apologetics program at Biola.

Paul Nelson began by restating the question. He asked: If the evidence showed that life was designed, would that be a religious or a scientific truth? The better question: Is it true or not?

Craig Nelson made the distinction between ID proponents who believe that God intervenes, for example in the creation of species, and those who believe that God uses the mechanism of Darwinian evolution. He is more comfortable with the latter.

Jim Hofmann claimed that ID could address the question of why creation occurred but not how or when; these he reserved for evolutionary science.

Paul Nelson responded that one can infer design, for example at Stonehenge, without knowing the how and when.

John Mark Reynolds argued that if one can agree that a sublime Mozart concerto was designed, as we all do, then who can doubt that an infinitely more complex and sublime micro-molecular machine was also designed. He noted that faith is not where reason ends.

Jim Hofmann said that scientists like Milton Saier at UCSD are beginning to look at how irreducibly complex (Michael Behe’s term) molecular machines might be created. He also pointed to the oddities of nature as examples of ungodly designs. The proto-example is the Panda’s nearly useless thumb made famous by Steven Jay Gould.

Paul Nelson related the time he confronted Gould with the evidence that the Panda’s thumb is in fact ideally suited to its function.

Craig Nelson claimed that origin-of-life researchers have shown that energy flow through a large collection of interacting particles can lead to emergent novelty. Thus life could be the ultimate emergent system.

John Mark Reynolds commented that clever people can write computer programs that produce surprising outcomes. See fractals. So what?

Jim Hofmann reiterated the need for science to explain the how and when of nature and he quoted the official dogma of the National Academy of Sciences: “The statements of science must invoke only natural things and processes.” Is that a statement of faith?

Warren Straley, the fellow sitting next to me, commented that he didn’t have enough faith to be an atheist, or a neo-Darwinist, I added.

Finally, Jim Hofmann reached for the evolutionary scientist’s silver bullet. He stated that questions of design are too important to be left to the scientists, those humble plodders who may only look at the how and when.

I enjoyed the debate with my good friends John and Rosie, Fred and Carmen, and we all agreed that the ID side won the debate hands down.

Absurd Person Plural

You know you're in San Francisco when the lead Letter to the Editor savages Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi for being too conservative. The writer demanded to know why Nan would not commit to impeach President Bush if the Dems win the House in November. On March 1, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted 7-3 to impeach, citing Bush's wiretapping program and the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. In the US Senate, Russ Feingold (D.-Wis.) has two supporters -- Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa) and Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) -- in his quest to censure President Bush over his wiretapping of international conversations for terrorist intelligence. What’s wrong with Ms Pelosi?

I did have a great time in San Francisco. John and I visited my ninety-eight year old Aunt Marie who is still sharper than I am; we watched my Cousin Lou’s grandkids Anthony and Nicky play little league baseball; went to a designers show at a Pacific Heights mansion; watched the dogs frolic at the beach, wondering why we can’t have a dog beach in Palos Verdes; ate too many wonderful meals, including a fabulous brunch at Rulli’s on Sunday just before we headed to the airport.

One event we passed on was the annual Bay to Breakers footrace where an estimated 62,000 runners staggered through San Francisco on Sunday. From the SF Chronicle: Local bands played while scores of people dressed like smelly hippies from the '60s danced barefoot on the sidewalks. Oh wait. Those weren't costumes. This year's most clever entrepreneur may have been Craig Wong, a Hayes Street resident holding a sign outside his garage reading: "PEE IN OUR SINK -- $1." He said he planned to spend the money on beer.

It reminds me of Cousin Lou’s comment: I love California, but we live in a liberal cesspool.

I was happy to return home.

Continuing the Absurd theme, Al Gore has decided that the world faces a stark choice between the end of civilization and a future for its children. Mr. Gore said global warming was a challenge to our moral imagination to understand it and then to respond to it urgently. Apparently forgetting about his invention of the Internet, Mr. Gore explained: One can only attempt to create one's own reality for so long. Reality proper has a way of insisting itself upon you. Mother nature has joined this debate with a very powerful and persistent voice.

From the Washington Post: Gore stars in a movie An Inconvenient Truth that opens this week featuring the 2000 presidential candidate lecturing about climate change: There are charts, bullet points and diagrams; there are maps of ocean currents and endless iceberg pictures. It's hard to say which menaces the nation more: movie stars who go into politics or politicians who go into movies.

Gore said he was not considering running again for presidential office in 2008. DARN!

Finally, in a stunning reversal of their former reversal the Dixie Chicks have reaffirmed their embarrassment at being Texans. As war in Iraq loomed, the Chicks' Natalie Maines told the London audience: Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas. Then during a London concert in 2003, Maines apologized for disrespecting President Bush. But now, she's taking it back. I don't feel that way anymore, she told Time magazine for its issue hitting newsstands Monday. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever.

Earl’s gotta die, but Saddam’s gotta live.

Are you ready for Chickdom? Repeat The Pledge: I promise that when I hear Natalie sing, or Martie fiddle, or Emily pick, that my heart will fill with admiration and respect for these women who give so much to the music world. I promise that when the day comes when they become (heaven forbid) old and wrinkly, saggy and gray, I will still respect them, still admire them, and have a high regard for the Chicks and all they stand for and do.

Respek?? NOT!!

United 93 and Brian

I arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon and went to dinner with John and Lynora at a little Italian place on Chestnut a block from his appt on Alhambra. I know I am not in SoCal whenever I taste the Bolognese sauce. This was just like New York, and almost as good as Lee's.

After dinner we went to see United 93. I was nearly overwhelmed. It became hard to breathe when the brave Americans finally realized that they were on a suicide mission and decided to take action. When Todd Beamer said Let's roll, I stopped breathing until the screen finally went black. Every American over the age of 12 ought to see it. We need to know what evil looks like.

On a more cheerful note, here is the latest missive from our Palos Verdes hero, Brian Weiss.

Djbouti, Horn of Africa

It's hot hot hot… I know, I always seem to talk about the heat, but since it is a huge factor in all that we do it seems reasonable. It hit 127…the temp in the shade is 105 +. The temp at night is still staying around 85-90 with the same amount of humidity. During the day the humidity is around 40% and even with the temp in triple digits its not too bad, but as it cools off into night the humidity really hangs on you.

Funny thing about the heat is that all the running water on base is hot, all of the tanks are outside and since I have been here I have yet to use the hot water side of any faucet. The hot water side pipes out water that is hot enough to boil eggs. I have been hitting the pool here on base; usually the only time we have to hit the pool is during our sleep time. The pool is full of chlorine, and warm but it’s a great workout.

We hit the pistol range today for our final qualification. I shot expert both on the pre-qual and the qualification. For those of you like my Mom who don’t understand the shooting badges in the USMC, expert if the highest award. We are having a shooting competition in a month or so and I may be shooting on our Executive Officer’s team. He was pretty impressed with my shooting and is considering me to shoot with him.

I'm short on time today so the email will be short. Thanks again for all of the emails and well wishes, boxes, packages, birthday cards, newspapers, ect ect ect… As I’ve said a million times, Mail is Key! I hope all is well with all of you!

Brian

PS
I went to the local orphanage the other day and fed an 11 month old baby who had been abandoned because he had chicken pox. If you have items for babies (bottles, bibs, clothes, ect…) please mail them to me as the orphanage works totally off the generosity of others.
Thanks again.

LCPL WEISS, BC
4TH PSC 5TH SECTION
OEF
APO AE 09363

OK friends, we have our marching orders. Let's take care of those babies. Send baby wipes too. Our grandson always asked for them when he was in Iraq.

Religious Liberty versus Orientation Liberty

Since postmodernism came on the scene as a major force in society, there has been a constant attack on societal norms. There is no truth, only truths. There is no privileged culture, only a multiplicity of cultures, beliefs and norms. There is no universal justice, only interests and the competition of interest groups.

The assault on American values has become a culture war that is fully understood by the barbarians, much like the war on terror is best understood by the terrorists. Most Americans fully appreciate neither war and the results could be devastating. The shocking news from Boston is a prime example.

Catholic Charities of Boston, one of the nation's oldest adoption agencies, was getting out of the adoption business. We have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve. . . . The issue is adoption to same-sex couples. Paula Wisnewski, adoption director for the Home for Little Wanderers, told the Boston Globe: It's a shame because it is certainly going to mean that fewer children from foster care are going to find permanent homes. Marylou Sudders, president of the Mass. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, said simply, This is a tragedy for kids.

Maggie Gallagher in the Weekly Standard 05/15/2006 explained how this tragedy happened. Massachusetts law for a decade prohibited orientation discrimination and the Massachusetts Supreme Court order to permit gay marriage completed the square. To operate in Massachusetts, an adoption agency must be licensed by the state. And to get a license, an agency must pledge to obey state laws barring discrimination--including the decade-old ban on orientation discrimination. With the legalization of gay marriage in the state, discrimination against same-sex couples would be outlawed, too.

Thus a mere two years after the introduction of gay marriage in America, a number of latent concerns about the impact of this innovation on religious freedom ceased to be theoretical.

Doug Kmiec of Pepperdine law school clarified the issue: A successful analogy will be drawn in the public mind between irrational, and morally repugnant, racial discrimination and the rational, and at least morally debatable, differentiation of traditional and same-sex marriage. Maggie Gallagher amplifies this point: For if sexual orientation is like race, then people who oppose gay marriage will be treated under law like bigots who opposed interracial marriage. And the law will intervene in powerful ways, as shown by the closing of the Catholic Charities adoption arm.

Major forces are at work trying to change America, using activist courts as powerful levers. And the majority of Americans, some 60-80% who have voted against same-sex-marriage every time they got a chance, seem helpless to do anything about it. Clearly there is a fear of being labeled a bigot. But the moral paralysis seems to be even more firmly rooted.

In a remarkable new book called White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era, Shelby Steele, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, explains why America seems to lack moral authority. He calls it white guilt because people stigmatized with moral crimes-- racism in America, racism and imperialism in Europe-- lack moral authority and so act guiltily whether they feel guilt or not. And this stigmatization is power because it affects the terms of legitimacy for Western nations and for their actions in the world.

Steele goes on to show that the stigmatization associated with white guilt explains why America since WWII has fought its wars with a policy of minimalism and restraint that makes a space for the enemy. In Vietnam this Johnsonian policy led to our defeat and in Iraq it has led to another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy. The war effort in Iraq is focused more on democracy building and social work than on war fighting; it’s what Steele calls war as the Great Society.

And the result of white guilt is global in its dimension. Anti-Americanism, whether in Europe, or on the American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white Western past--- one need only be anti-American in order to be "good," in order to have an automatic moral legitimacy and power in relation to America.

Steele’s analysis is true, of course, and it also explains why the movements for gay rights and immigration rights have employed the rubric of the civil rights era. Americans will do almost anything to escape from the bonds of white guilt. It’s time we got over it.

Seventy-five and Sunnyville

Our dear friend Terry from New York arrived today for a one week stay. I’m glad she touched down after the fog cleared out, since Terry refers to our Palos Verdes Peninsula as “Seventy-five and Sunnyville.” She has been visiting at least once a year since we moved here in 2000 and the weather has always been splendid. But while Lee and Terry were driving back from the Long Beach airport the fog was coming back up the Hill. Terry, of course, was full of charm, but her look said What’s up here? I had fired up the spa and, thinking fast, took credit for the perfect weather to dunk in the 100 degree water; much better than in the high sunshine. Terry was content. Whew.

I just spent a half hour in the hot bubbly and am now more than usually mellow. Some think that’s comparable to Attila the Hun, but no matter. I’m ready to blog.

I felt compelled to confess to Terry that not all is well here in “Seventy-five and Sunnyville.” While the rest of SoCal frets about an invasion from Mexico, we in Palos Verdes worry about the invasion by The Donald. Yes, Mr. Trump is well ensconced at the former Ocean Trails golf course, now called Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles. Note: it’s not Trump National Golf Club Palos Verdes. The Trumpster thinks we’re just a hick town not up to his exalted standards. So it’s Los Angeles for him.

And now he has petitioned the City to change the name of Ocean Trails Drive to Trump National Drive. From the Trump National web site we find this description: Located on the luxurious Palos Verdes Peninsula just thirty minutes south of Downtown Los Angeles, Trump National serves as the perfect busy executive’s getaway. From the moment you turn down Trump National Drive, the spectacular views and exceptional service embrace you like no place else. But some on the Palos Verdes Peninsula say they are already weary of the mogul's push into their community and have suggested some alternative names: Ego Aisle. Or Narcissism Lane.

In an interview Monday from New York, Trump made it clear he doesn't plan on being strong-armed by Rancho Palos Verdes officials, even as he praised the peninsula as a great area — one of the richest, if not the richest, in California. But Trump is a tough dude. I'm very hard to extort, if they're looking to do that, he said when asked about the city's tough stance. I’m happy to report that our City Fathers have respectfully declined the request, no matter what The Donald thinks.

When Terry visits I give the gals a chance to plot some treason while I visit the Son in San Francisco. So I’ll be leaving on Thursday and may not blog for a few days. Or I may, depending on the inspiration of the gayest city on Earth.

Malthusian Paranoia

The headline of the front page LA Times article read: Emerging Nations Powering Global Economic Boom. I take it as really good news that not one of the 60 nations tracked by the study is in recession, the first such instance since 1969. Then, in the subtitle, we learn some really bad news, the flip side of the zero-sum-game logic: But many U.S. workers are left behind. Lord have mercy, the emerging nations are leaving us behind.

Behind what, you ask? Further down the story we find out that the soaring economies of China, India, Russia, Brazil and other emerging nations are setting the pace, overshadowing the slower growth of the United States, Europe and Japan, where the benefits of the expansion have eluded many workers. Whoa there! Do you mean the people of China have more than two cars per household? Are 80% of the living spaces in India air conditioned? Does Russia have a color TV-VCR in every home, and do more than 70% of Brazilian families own their own home? Oh no - that’s America. So what is it that those devilish developing countries have on us?

Even further down the story I found out the ugly truth: The simplest yardstick of economic success is a country's growth in real gross domestic product, or how fast its total output of goods and services is rising after inflation. For the developing world, that growth is expected to be 6.9% this year — more than double the 3% pace of the developed world. Now if that doesn’t make you feel sorry for your sorry American self, I don’t know what will. Perhaps we can find a way out of this economic pickle by looking hard at the data – that’s plural for datum, because there’s a lot of the stuff.

From the Economist Magazine, 2006 World in Figures, I found that the GDP growth from 1993 to 2003 was 8.9% in China, 6.8% in Cambodia and 6.2% in India, compared to the paltry 3.3% in America, 2.0% in France, 1.4% in Germany and 1.3% in Japan. Point - to the LA Times! It appears that China is leaving us in the dust. But wait just a minute, we here in the good old USA seem to be coasting, not in a panic. Perhaps it’s because we have a multiple mile lead on the Chinese in this marathon race. In 2004, the US GDP per person was $37,200 while China’s was $1,100, only 3% of ours.

So what about that GDP growth discrepancy? Is that going to bite us in the rear? For argument’s sake, let’s allow the Chinese economy to continue growing at 9% indefinitely (an impossibility) and let the US grow at 3% annually (we’re actually doing 4%) and calculate how many years before the Chinese rabbit catches up to the US turtle. First consider the initial year when the Chinese GDP per person grows by $199 (9% growth) while the US GDP per person grows by $1,116 (3% growth) more than the entire Chinese GDP/pp last year. This divergence in our favor will continue for some time until the higher Chinese compound growth rate causes a convergence. To get the answer, I'll pull out my trusty slide rule, do some logs and find that in 62 years, ie. in 2068, the Chinese will finally catch us if the assumptions remain valid. By then we will be making $230,000 per person per year and feeling no pain.

Of course the reality is that the Chinese economy will slow down from 8.9% growth to 7% then 5.5% then 4% over the course of a decade or so while their economy matures. That’s the way it works. History provides many examples. The last Asian rabbit was Japan whose GDP grew at a rate 6.8% higher than the US in the 1960s, 1.7% higher in the 1970s and 1.5% higher in the 1980s, but behind the US in the 1990s and thus far in the 2000s. Meanwhile, the US economy is the marvel of the developed world and will likely continue growing at 3 percent for a long time. We’ll be ensconced in the next ice age before China, India, Russia or any of the other developing countries (or the Europeans, for that matter) ever catch up with us.

Lest we succumb to the temptation of self pity (clearly the motive of the LA Times story) it is sobering to consider the plight of the developing countries. Among the countries with the fastest GDP growth, the GDP per person is just $1100 in China, $560 in India, $300 in Cambodia and $90 in Ethiopia. Thus the Chinese are living (before taxes) on $3 per day, the Indians on $1.53 per day, the Cambodians on $0.82/day and the Ethiopians on $0.25/day (that’s a Quarter!). Helping to raise their living standards by purchasing their products seems to be a humane act. What are the Times writers worrying about?

The GDP of our neighbors in Mexico is $6,000 per person or $16 per person per day, rich by comparison to the Asians but poor compared to America.

And lest we succumb to the temptation that socialism works best for the poor (another motivation of the liberal press) consider the example of Venezuela. A country rich in natural resources, most especially oil, has a GDP per person of $3,300 and it has been decreasing for 15 years. Thank you, Hugo Chavez.

The dilemma is why the richest country in the history of the world worries about competition from the third world. One reason is human nature as described in The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook. The other reason is a sort of collapse anxiety, a fear that people are about to exhaust the world’s resources and that economic progress in developing nations will hasten this outcome. The population theory put forward by Thomas Malthus was turned into a popular prognostication of global tragedy by Paul Erlich in the 1960s. It’s nonsense of course, but still is vigorously promoted by environmental paranoia and elite hubris.

Gay B L T

Ali G interviewing a Marine Colonel recently returned from Iraq:

Ali G: Alo mate. So dose roadside bombs, the so called BLTs, is dey relly dangrous?

The Colonel: You mean the WMDs, yes they have killed many American soldiers and Iraqi citizens.

Ali G: Keep it real,.. but tells me agin, how dem sammitches kills sos many peoples.

Ali G: Respect!

-----------------------

Ali G interviews California Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the Democrat who introduced the Gay History bill.

Ali G: Alo Sunatur, big up to you.

Sheila Kuehl: Hello

Ali G: Is yose like the main bitch bak in England, ya know, Queenie?

Sheila Kuhl: No, I’m just a State Senator, but I have great respect for your Queen.

Ali G: This says yose introduced a piece of legislation requiring gay history to be included in public school textbooks. Tell me why?

Sheila Kuhl: Not requiring textbooks to include homosexuals' and transgenders' contributions to California history amounts to enforced invisibility.

Ali G: Watch you mean? Yose a lezzie, anit-cha, and I sees you fine.

Sheila Kuhl: Yes I am a lesbian, and proud of it, but we already have rules that mandate coverage of the historical contributions of other minorities, women, Hispanics, Chinese, the disabled, Mormons, Jews in our textbooks. Those of us with other sexual orientations are the last great uncovered group. We just want to be treated fairly.

Ali G: Bitches is a minority?

Sheila Kuhl: I assume you mean women; you British underclass certainly need to clean up your language. While women are numerically a majority, by virtue of our historic oppression at the hands of men we qualify as a minority in Federal laws dealing with hiring, promotion, tenure in Ivy League science departments and such.

Ali G: Whatever. Sose you wants them books to feature stories about homosapiens, trisexuals and batty boys? Whose gonna buy dem?

Sheila Kuhl: Well, since California accounts for about 12 percent of the nation's textbook market, millions of parents will be buying the books for their kids.

Ali G: I gots that bill right here, SB 1437, also requires all social studies textbooks to study the role and contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society. Is dat a good thing? I mean me sis is confused enuf.

Sheila Kuhl: Oh, what’s her name?

Ali G: Nevah mind dat. This religious group Campaign for Children and Families testified against the Gay BLT bill, calling it sexual indoctrination and mental molestation.

Sheila Kuhl: That’s a conservative group, it wants to destroy the fabric of American life. I mean the Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgenders have made enormous contributions to American society. Did you know that Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) was gay?

Ali G: Respect.

[Da Ali G Show on HBO is full of such insightful interviews.]

Saving the UN or Not

“So, your father was Jew, yes?" United Nations Undersecretary-General Viacheslav Ustinov asked me abruptly.

"My father was a Basque. I don't believe he was a Jew."

"Yes, yes," Ustinov insisted. "Your father was Jew. I know. I have very good sources in this building. You have a big file here at UN now. Also, I have article about you in newspaper Washington Times . It say your father was composer. I know!"

Several thoughts occurred to me during this seemingly demented confrontation. Are all composers Jews?

This Ionesco-like scene did not take place in seventeenth-century Warsaw, nor in the Kiev ghetto during the reign of Nicholas I of Russia. This was taking place in New York City in 1983, inside an international enclave apparently totally removed from the reality surrounding it.

These excerpts from the book The UN Gang by Pedro A. Sanjuan recounts one of the many bizarre exchanges between our US undersecretary to the United Nations and his UN colleagues from other nations. Sanjuan was in fact a US spy, the only one at the UN, who had been appointed by VP George Bush to monitor the activities of the 274 Soviet spies then in residence at the UN building in New York.

Sanjuan’s book describes the incompetence, corruption, anti-Semitism and criminality rife throughout the UN Secretariat. Former US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger observed that the author had spent more than a decade observing the UN from the inside and the picture is not pretty. Corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, open espionage against the United States are but a few of the warts on the body of this august international institution.

At my Omnilore course on Great Decisions 2006, we debated whether the United Nations was savable and worth saving. Our discussion leader asked whether the UN could make the changes necessary to prevent another oil-for-food scandal, reform its human rights mechanisms, and achieve its development goals. Being new to the group I waited for others to reply, and waited, and… then finally offered that UN investigator Paul Volker had reported a total lack of transparency that made reform utterly impossible.

That kicked off a discussion of what the UN does well, such as the activities of the World Health Organization. I wondered where the WHO stood on the use of DDT to fight malaria in Africa where an estimated one million children die every year of the preventable disease. Unfortunately, a major obstacle to the use of DDT in Africa has been the USAID organization, under political pressure from environmental groups.

But what about the ostensible reasons for the UN’s existence? The United Nations was created after World War II to promote peace and international understanding. By any measure the U.N. has failed to achieve its mission. It has failed to address the most dangerous threats facing the civilized world, refused to condemn terrorist acts, and supported some of the world's most oppressive governments, all while wasting billions of dollars.

These failures are documented in a new book The U.N. Exposed : How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security and Fails the World by newsman Eric Shawn, who writes: Less than five miles from Ground Zero in Manhattan sits an international hotbed of anti-Americanism. And for the honor of hosting our adversaries in our own country, Americans pay 22 percent of the U.N.'s bloated $2 Billion budget.

The U.N. Exposed reveals many disturbing aspects of UN operation that have been ignored by the mainstream media, for instance, that:

1. U.N.-supervised funds were diverted into weapons used against American troops in Iraq.

2. Terrorists and rogue states seeking nuclear weapons flout toothless U.N. resolutions.

3. U.N. workers have repeatedly turned children into their sexual prey.

4. U.N. ambassadors and staff enjoy luxurious and tax-free Manhattan lifestyles and other perks. The sainted UN Secretary General Kofi Anon lives in a Manhattan mansion estimated to be worth more than $40 million. That alone would immunize millions of at risk children in the third world.

At the end of class we were asked whether, with all its warts, we favored keeping the UN. The response was 12 Yes and 1 No (me). This should be an interesting class.

PVBlog Responds to the Energy Crisis

At my Omnilore Great Decisions 2006 class tomorrow we will deal with the issue of energy consumption and its effect on US/World policy. I wrote an introduction to the topic in a recent post (Energy and Freedom, May 6), and sent out five relevant questions to some regular readers. I was pleased to receive 20 rapid responses. Here are the questions and answers, including mine in [….].

1. Are the oil companies (eg Exxon-Mobil) making unaccepable profits?
8 Yes, 12 No [No]

2. Should we increase the supply of domestic oil?
17 Yes, 3 No [Yes]

3. Should we increase US nuclear energy production?
15 Yes, 4 No, 1?? [Yes]

4. Do Hybrids (e.g. Prius) pay for themselves in the time you usually keep a car (at current gas prices)?
4 Yes, 13 No, 3?? [No]

5. Should we tax gasoline so that it is over $7.00 per gallon (to drive down demand)?
0 Yes, 20 No [No]

It is clear that increasing gas taxes to achieve a $7.00 per gallon price is unpopular, but a few respondents thought a more modest tax increase would be useful to reduce demand. I was ammused by Ann Coulter’s take: The Democrats' only objection to current gas prices is that the federal government's cut is a mere 18 cents a gallon. The Democratic brain processes the fact that "big oil companies" get nearly 9 cents a gallon and thinks: WE SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT MONEY!

Increasing the domestic oil supply and nuclear energy production were popular steps, but a few folks mentioned alternative sources and one or two wondered whether nuclear is safe. [It is safe.] The public now favors nuclear power by two-to-one, according to a Rasmussen poll. Nuclear energy is the ultimate solution for clean electrical power and reduced foreign dependence.

The Congressional energy bill requires an inventory of offshore oil and natural gas reserves -- including off the coasts of Florida and California, which prohibit new offshore drilling. But the most promising untapped supply of oil is in the shale beneath the Rocky Mountains. A report by the U.S. Energy Department announced that We've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East. More than 2 TRILLION barrels. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, nearly 300 years of US oil consumption.

Most folks believe that a Hybrid car will not pay for itself through improved gas mileage but a few who keep their cars more than 7-8 years believe that it will. For example, the Toyota Prius gets about 33 percent better fuel economy than a comparable vehicle, according Consumer Reports, at a $5,700 price premium over a conventional vehicle.

A new type of ethanol-boosted, turbocharged gasoline engine could be the answer. The engine would be almost as efficient as gas-electric hybrids, but cost much less. The MIT researchers estimate their engine would add only $500-1000 to the cost of a vehicle, which includes the added costs of the high-end turbocharger, a direct-injection system, and a stronger, smaller engine. This modest premium compares favorably to that of hybrid cars.

The most controversial question concerned the oil company profits, with 60% of respondents believing they are not excessive but 40% thinking that they are. This split is probably related to a couple of other questions mentioned in my May 6 post: How is the price of oil is determined? What about the price of gas? But the simple answer is that the big 3 US oil companies make a modest 5% profit on gasoline sales. This is reflected in the share price. While oil prices were going up since Jan. 2003, Exxon-Mobil shares increased by 85%, not out of line with the DJI that increased 50%. In the stock boom years from 1995 to 2000, the DJI increased by 300% while Exxon-Mobil stock increased 260%.

As for the price of oil and gasoline, the factors are many. The high cost of oil exploration ensures that only the most minute fraction of that oil will be known at any given time. The price paid for crude is determined by the futures market and depends on global supply uncertainty more than any other factor. The high cost of extracting and processing oil ensures that not even half of the oil in a known pool of oil will be brought to the surface and sent off to the refineries. (at today’s oil prices) Refining capacity in the US is a major factor in the price of gas at the pump. Partly due to excessive governmental regulations there has not been a new refinery built in the US since the 1970s.

Other questions supplied by Omnilore include these.

Where do you stand on the continuum between free markets and a command economy? I stand squarely on the side of free markets. If the government did nothing about oil prices, rising prices would lead people to reduce their use of oil and also lead producers to drain some of the more costly oil out of the ground.

How do you choose a car? I start with performance and styling then reliability. Thus my Porsche.

Where does the Hydrogen come from for the future fuel cell powered cars? Hydrogen comes from the electrolysis, splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. It's still far too expensive to be widely practical, but researchers at GE have come up with a less expensive, easy-to-manufacture apparatus that can produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per gal. -- down from today's $8 per gal. The research team came up with a way to make electrolyzers largely out of a plastic (GE Noryl) that is extremely resistant to the highly alkaline potassium hydroxide, easy to manufacture and relatively cheap.

What is your opinion of the fuel ethanol? Biofuels, such as ethanol made from whole plants, could have a significant impact on reducing both carbon dioxide emissions and our dependence on foreign oil. In theory, the same amount of carbon released when the biofuel is burned in engines would be sucked up by the next year's fuel crop. An Energy Department study estimated that the United States could produce 1.4 billion tons of biomass annually for conversion into fuels, potentially supplying 40 billion gallons of fuel a year compared to current US consumption of 110 billion gallons per year. Brazil's ethanol production cost is $1.10 per gallon. Estimates are that oil could drop to $35 per barrel and ethanol producers would still make money.

The bottom line is that there is plenty of fuel of a variety of types and over the long term prices will go down. The economist Julian Simon advised: if you find anyone willing to bet that natural resource prices are going up, take him for all you can. His book The Ultimate Resource showed how human ingenuity had kept driving down the price of energy and other natural resources for centuries.

Brian of Djbouti

Let me start by apologizing for being slow with e-mails as I have been really busy. Life is good here, hottttttttt but good. It is breaking the 120’s daily, and at night when it “cools off” it is still in the high 80’s. The humidity during the day is just under 50% and at night it hits almost 90%. Thank God for friends at the laundry, as cammies and undershirts go really fast.

My company has been doing some really good work; we were appreciated by the Secretary of the Navy during his visit. He was impressed with how well have been performing and thanks to our performance it was decided that we would be replaced by another Marine unit, instead of the Navy. We have stepped up our patrol schedule, and have finished 4 different courses of weapons training, started on our next martial arts belt and much more. We are still working 120 plus hours in our work week, but the time goes by fast. We have also set up a schedule to get some helicopter training with the Helicopter Squadron here on base. We have been told we will get to do lots of missions including into other parts Africa.

Since I have been working in the main entry point on base, I have made several seizures and arrests. The last arrest was pretty significant; it resulted in dismissal of a couple of base employees. It always seems that right at the end of my shift I end up finding something prohibited and by the time I get through with all the incident reports for my Command, ATFP (Anti Terrorism Force Protection), NCI (Navy Criminal Investigation), PMO (Provost Martial Office) I miss evening chow and some sleep. So if you happen to know anyone who works or comes on this base and plans on being foolish please ask them to come at the beginning of my shift so I can still have chow; the heat has taken enough weight off of me.

We are starting to schedule of 96 hour passes. I plan on going to Kenya; the flight is free but only once a week, so it extends my trip from 4 to 7 days…nice! I don’t think I would ever pick Kenya to vacation if I wasn’t in Africa already. I will make sure to take lots of pictures.

Thanks for all of the care packages and letters; my fellow Marines make fun of me because of the way I light up when mail comes, just like a kid at Christmas. I have attached a picture taken about 10 days ago, the scope on the M16 is a Star Light, which amplifies the ambient light to produce night vision, and zoom.

I hope all is well with all of you.

Brian

Energy and Freedom

The 21st century will be marked by a crucial debate: How can we make economic development compatible with the spread of freedom around the world? One might argue that those goals are synergistic, that one will drive the other.

However, in an ironic example of Intelligent Design, it pleased the Creator to put much of the Earth’s oil in turbulent places and under the control of despots. With Iran developing nuclear weapons and threatening to annihilate Israel, terror tactics increasingly used around the world and oil prices above $70 per barrel due to global uncertainty, it seems we must find a solution before long.

In his State of the Union address President Bush said that America is dangerously addicted to oil. We consume nearly 21 million barrels of oil per day, over 25 percent of global oil production, while our known oil reserves make up only 3 percent of global supply. Some dream of a grand compromise: President Bush bucks Big Oil and Detroit by raising auto fuel-efficiency standards, while enviros grind their teeth and support oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But the news is full of conflicting statements. On the one hand we find cause for optimism:

Rising gas prices and home values represent the forces of good, not evil. I say at least two cheers for higher prices because I believe in markets. When the price of energy goes up, demand falls off and supply increases.

Soaring oil prices have revived the old bogeyman that the world is running out of oil. Economics is a great field for nostalgia buffs because the same old fallacies keep coming back, like golden oldies in music.

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world - more than 2 TRILLION barrels.

The amount of accessible oil worldwide could eventually be doubled with the help of new drilling, imaging, and oil extraction technologies, including the use of microbes, say MIT researchers.

A new type of ethanol-boosted, turbocharged gasoline engine design approaches the efficiency of gas-electric hybrids, but could be far cheaper.

In an agroindustrial complex ringed by fields of 12-foot-high sugarcane, a giant mechanical claw dumps stalks by the tons into an even larger crushing machine. Here's where the renewable fuel used to power seven of every 10 new Brazilian cars gets its start.

General Electric says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology.

On the other hand, there are plenty of worries:

What would OPEC do if it wanted to keep America addicted to oil? That's easy. OPEC would urge the U.S. Congress to deal with the current spike in gasoline prices either by adopting the Republican proposal to give American drivers $100 each, or by adopting the Democrats' proposal for a temporary lifting of the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents a gallon. Either one would be fine with OPEC.

If I could change one thing about American foreign policy, what would it be? The answer is easy. I would adopt a serious national program geared toward energy efficiency and independence. Reducing our dependence on oil would be the single greatest multiplier of American power in the world.

Hydrogen fuel cells won't significantly dent fuel consumption for 50 years -- we need to look elsewhere.

The issue is a complex one and all the easy answers need rigorous scrutiny. That is just what we plan to do in our Omnilore Great Decisions 2006 class dealing with energy consumption and its effect on US/World policy. In preparation for the class we were asked to ponder the following questions. I’d be very interested in the opinions of PalosVerdesBlog readers.

1. What do you think of Exxon making $10B/quarter and GM losing $5B? Where do you stand on the continuum between free markets and a command economy?

2. How do you choose a car? (performance, styling, reliability, fuel consumption or other) Do you use Consumer Reports or Road and Track or other?

3. Where does the Hydrogen come from for the future fuel cell powered cars?

4. How is the price of oil is determined? What about the price of gas?

5. What is the best way to shape fuel consumption policy; invisible hand, regulation/mandate/law, tax/credit incentives?

6. Half of cars sold in Europe are diesel, zero in CA. Is that good? What about Ethanol?

7. Should we tax gas so that it is over $7.00 per gallon?

8. Do Hybrids pay for themselves (e.g., Prius)?

9. What are your thoughts on Hybrids?

10. What are your thoughts on wind, solar, nuclear?

11. Does the foreign country supplying our crude oil matter?

12. Is increased nuclear energy production a positive thing?

Kennedy of Camelot

Having come of voting age in the new Camelot defined by the Kennedy presidency, I was mystified by the perverse transformation of Kennedy’s liberal ideology that occurred following his death. Kennedy’s liberalism was immensely attractive, resting on the twin pillars of freedom and optimism. Kennedy was willing to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. He responded to the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 by challenging the nation to beat the Russians to the moon. Kennedy, loving a challenge, said to the nation: We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. On the domestic front he opposed Southern Democrats like George Wallace to enforce school integration and enacted across-the-board 30% tax cuts to spur the economy. This was a liberalism I could embrace.

By virtue of the Democratic Party’s leadership during the Great Depression, the victory in World War II and the creation of post war international order, liberalism had become the pre-emminent political philosophy in America by Kennedy’s innauguration. Radicals on the Left continued their fascination with Communism and sought socialist solutions to problems. On the radical Right the John Birchers continued to find Communists under every rock. Kennedy’s brand of liberalism was fair, tough and optimistic. I was hooked.

Then on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald and everything changed. The newswires immediately assumed that the assassin was a right-wing extremist, probably a staunch anti-Communist, since it was unthinkable that a liberal would do such a thing. Chief Justice Warren proclaimed that Kennedy had been martyred as a result of the hatred and bitterness injected into the life of our nation by bigots.

It came as a shock when the police announced that a Communist had been arrested for the murder.

In a fascinating article in Commentary magazine (Lee Harvey Oswald & the Liberal Crack-Up, May, 2006) James Piereson explores the perverse effects of the assassination on the Kennedy brand of liberalism. Among other effects was the loss of societal memory concerning Oswald’s Communist motivation.

In preparation for this piece I sent out a quickie question to my faithful readers asking: Why did Lee Harvey Oswald kill President Kennedy?

I received almost two dozen rapid responses including these: Oswald was a disillusioned youth; He was against civil rights; He was a conservative; He did not like Catholics; He was crazy, nuts, a loser; He was paid by LBJ, paid by J. Edgar Hoover; It was a conspiracy; Did he really do it?; He was brainwashed by the KBG; It was something to do with Cuba; prevented the assassination of Castro; and my favorite: Kennedy was having an affair with Mrs. Oswald. It looks as though the obvious answer has been well obfuscated.

Piereson explains that Oswald was a died-in-the wool Communist who had defected to the Soviet Union and married a Russian woman, favored Mao and Fidel, was arrested for fighting with anti-Castro demonstrators, issued threats against the life of the President while in Mexico and tried to kill Army General Edwin Walker (he missed) with the same rifle he later used to kill Kennedy. Oswald was incensed that Kennedy had humiliated Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis, permitted anti-Castro extremism (as personified by General Walker) to increase, and ordered the largest buildup of US Armed Forces in peacetime history.

Then why is Oswald’s ideological motivation so little known? Piereson goes on to show that the answer lies in the enduring need of the Left to circumvent the inconvenient fact that Kennedy was killed by a Communist as a result of Kennedy’s anti-Communism. Mrs. Kennedy aided the Leftist spin by feeding the fantasy that the nation as a whole was responsible for Kennedy’s death. James Reston in the NY Times wrote the headline: “Kennedy Victim of Violent Streak He Sought to Curb in Nation.”

Jacqueline Kennedy also orchestrated a transformation of the Kennedy image from that of a tough freedom fighter to an Arthurian liberal hero who was poised to lead the nation into a new age of peace and love, to a new-style Camelot. John Kennedy would have been stunned by his new self. Mrs. Kennedy was convinced that there will never be another Camelot again and thereby foresaw the weakness and pessimism that has come to embody the new liberalism after Kennedy.

Doctor Laura Democrats

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands reminds women that to take proper care of their husbands is to ensure themselves the happiness and satisfaction they yearn for in marriage. This, from the proud mother of an American soldier, speaks to a generation of women and the frequently bewildered men who love them. [In the picture, Dr. Laura Schlessinger participates in the hazardous activity that laid me low with a pulled Achilles tendon; definitely not the sport for men of an elder persuasion.] Doctor Laura also speaks to the demographic class that promises to be the downfall of the national Democratic Party.

Author Caitlin Flanagan explains why the Democratic Party is losing the housewife vote.

I am a 44-year-old woman who grew up in Berkeley who has never once voted for a Republican, or crossed a picket line, or failed to send in a small check when the Doctors without Borders envelope showed up. I believe that we should not have invaded Iraq, that we should have signed the Kyoto treaty, that the Starr Report was, in part, the result of a vast right-wing conspiracy. I believe that poverty is our most pressing issue and that we should be pouring money and energy into its eradication.

But despite all that, there is apparently no room for me in the Democratic Party. In fact, I have spent much of the past week on a forced march to the G.O.P. And the bayonet at my back isn't in the hands of the Republicans; the Democrats are the bullyboys. Here's why they're after me: I have made a lifestyle choice that they can't stand, and I'm not cowering in the closet because of it. I'm out, and I'm proud. I am a happy member of an exceedingly "traditional" family. I'm in charge of the house and the kids, my husband is in charge of the finances and the car maintenance, and we all go to church every Sunday.

The Democrats made a huge tactical error a few decades ago. In the middle of doing the great work of the '60s--civil rights, women's liberation, gay inclusion--we decided to stigmatize the white male. The union dues--paying, churchgoing, beer-drinking family man got nothing but ridicule and venom from us. So he dumped us. And he took the wife and kids with him.

Caitlin really wants to be a loyal Democrat but charges: When did I sign up to be the beaten wife of the Democratic Party?

The liberal Democratic viewpoint is exemplified by the new book, Mommy Wars, where author Leslie Morgan Steiner likens the tensions between working mothers and stay-at-home mothers to "a catfight." According to Morgan Steiner, many working mothers struggle with the stress that comes from playing dual roles — and the guilt that comes from seeing less of their children than they would like. Meanwhile, many stay-at-home moms struggle with feelings of isolation, exhaustion and irrelevance. Each pathway has both benefits and costs for the children. But whether one pathway is "better" is impossible to answer in the abstract.

Caitlin Flanagan, a Democrat, but not for much longer, finds it quite easy to answer that impossible question.

Another demographic that is attracted to Doctor Laura but repelled by the Democratic Party are the American patriots, millions and millions of us. When I wrote that “America is the greatest and most virtuous power in history,” an anonymous reader commented: “It is precisely this kind of hubris that will be our downfall.” That is precisely the attitude of the left and much of the Democratic Party and it repels millions of Americans.

Thankfully, the Republican Party reveres God, Country and Family and happily welcomes the disaffected Democrats.

Mexican Standoff

It appears that Charlie did not appreciate the Day Without Immigrants as much as some on the left did.

I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations. I don’t blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the United States of America, as it is a truly wonderful place. But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal, it is flat out wrong and I don’t care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.

What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it’s tantamount to saying, “I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s an “in your face” action and speaking just for me I don’t like it one little bit. If there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas it wouldn’t be happening. Where are you, you bunch of lilly livered, pantywaist, forked tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution?

This is no longer a problem, it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in France with the Muslims can’t happen here when the businesses who hire illegals finally run out of jobs and a few million disillusioned Hispanics take to the streets? If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grandchildren will inherit. Shame on you.

One of the big problems in America today is that if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians) you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you. Well I’ve been pounded by the media before and I’m still rockin’ and rollin’ and when it comes to speaking the truth I fear not.

All the media shows us are pictures of hard working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life. They don’t show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don’t tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegals some fat cat hired to pick his crop.

I want to make two predictions. No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in Washington drag their toes in the dirt and try to figure how many tons of political hay they can make to the acre. No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced.

I don’t blame anybody for wanting to come to America, but if you don’t respect our immigration laws why should you respect any others. And by the way, this is America and our flag has stars and stripes. Please get that other one out of my face.

Pray for our troops.
God Bless America.
Charlie Daniels
April 10, 2006