June 30, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Three new categories have been added to this blog:

deficit: ….1 a (1) : deficiency in amount or quality <a deficit in rainfall> (2) : a lack or impairment in a functional capacity <cognitive deficits> <a hearing deficit> b : disadvantage <scored two runs to overcome a 2–1 deficit>
2 a : an excess of expenditure over revenue b : a loss in business operations

debt: ….1 : sin, trespass
2 : something owed : obligation <unable to pay off his debts>
3 : a state of owing <deeply in debt>
4 : the common-law action for the recovery of money held to be due

propaganda: ….1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

(The preceding definitions are quoted from Merriam Webster ONLINE.)

Over the years I made a good number of comments on this blog but I never once wrote anything about the term deficit.  A search for “debt” produced just two entries, one on the surprising tendency of  large number of instances of expensive “absolutely essential” new stadiums to turn into “old stadiums” that need to be disposed off and even demolished after relatively short intervals of service.  The other comment that had mentioned “debt” pertained to the Dec. 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, in which developing nations clamored that the developed nations had to atone for their climate debts through transfer of wealth from the latter to the former; as Carl Marx and his followers put it, “From those who have to those in need.”

Having followed the progress of the Toronto G-20 Summit, it became obvious that apparently nothing was said (at least not publically) by any of the G-20 leaders debating the health crisis of the world’s economy about the major cause of the financial crisis, namely the massive and escalating debt-financing that most of the world’s nations have become accustomed and addicted to.  The domestic and international mainstream media failed to pay any attention to that or, if otherwise, remained silent.

The riotous orgy of vandalism that we all saw much of and read much about had the (perhaps) desired effect.  Whether the effect was intentional or not, it diverted attention from what mattered, the absence of any discussion on what must be done to effectively cure the critically-sick world economy.

Things still did not quite crystallize in my mind in relation to that, but then something jogged me.  That was the recurring and all-pervasive assertion in the media that Stephen Harper hosted the Toronto G-20 Summit! That assertion, at least for me, is the key to understanding what is going on.

Was Stephen Harper not just the master of ceremonies, wasn’t it Canada (more correctly, its taxpayers) that was the host?  Wasn’t it Stephen Harper who was the organizer responsible for the fiasco that causes the Canadian taxpayers to shell out more than a billion dollars for the security measures that failed to prevent the calamitous consequences of the conjunction of rioters and plate glass windows in Canada’s largest metropolis?

A fraction of the cost of the inadequate security measures would have been more than sufficient to house the G-20 leaders and their media retinue in luxurious comfort in the far less expensive and far more effective security of one of many of Canada’s more appropriate and smaller localities.  Not only would it have required only a tiny fraction of the cost of the security fiasco in Toronto, but the facilities that would have been constructed in a much smaller location could have excluded some of the kitschy frills that were used to spice the mix, such as the construction of the fake lake.

Moreover, the facilities in a more suitable location could have been a permanent asset that could have been used time and again for any number of G-20 Summits slated to be held in Canada.

Rather than focusing on the failure of the Toronto G-20 Summit and the true cause of the economic crisis, the riots served as well as any well-planned propaganda action would.  The media gorged on the riots and largely ignored the failure of the Summit. The real problems with the economy remain largely unnoticed.  No plan at all to address them emerged.

How could that happen?  It was clear in my mind that the focus on “deficits” misses the point, that excessive debt-financing is the more important and primary issue that must be addressed, but why was and is that being overlooked? The assertions that Harper was the host of the Summit clinched it for me.  Propaganda is the unnoticed but essential component in the mix that caused the obvious lack of attention.

It has been quite a few years since I last tried determine the extent of Canada’s government debt.  The federal deficit was then at about $600 billion, but the total debt (by all three levels of government) was about $3.5 trillion dollars. It would surprise me if that debt load had decreased to less than $3 trillion dollars by now.  It would not surprise me if the figure would be the same or even a bit higher than $3.5 trillion.  After all, the demand on the Canada Pension plan, for example, has increased substantially from the time a few years ago.

The media’s take on all of that is that Canada needs to be commended for having a deficit of only $59 billion.  That is like ignoring the elephant in the china store.

Things are no better in the U.S.  A few years ago, the total U.S. national debt, including inter-state transfer payments, had reached $46 trillion.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall that just in his first few months in office Barack Obama added about $11 trillion to that pile of debt.  So what is the use of drawing attention to the fact that the U.S. annual federal deficit now regularly exceeds $1 trillion and to suggest that it would be a good idea to cut that in half by about three years from now?  That doesn’t even feed more than just a few peanuts to the much bigger elephant that is being ignored.

However, that is an example of what effective propaganda can achieve.  It diverts attention from important, vital and essential issues.

My wife relishes an anecdote that shows how even very young children know how to apply propaganda tactics.  More than 30 years ago she babysat a little girl who had committed a fairly serious transgression over which the girl’s father was trying to take her to task.  The girl’s reaction was to divert her father’s attention by pointing at the kitchen window and to exclaim, “Daddy! Daddy, look at the bird!”

Our “leaders” and their media retinue who glorify our leaders’ soft, weak and considerably meaningless promises do something similar by saying, “Oh, look at the deficit!”

A budget is a plan for how much we will pay on our financial obligations.  The objective of a budget is that the amount of money paid out over the budget period will be equal to what was budgeted for.  If we fail to budget properly, or if we pay little attention to what the budget requires, we will have a deficit or a surplus at the end of the budget period.  However, all that means is that we either planned correctly and paid according to plan, or, if there is a deficit at the end of the budget period, that we did not live up to what we promised to ourselves and to others about our financial performance.  If money is left over at the end of the budget period, we either paid little attention to what the budget required, or we did a lousy job of budgeting. In any case, it says nothing about whether our debtors will be forced to call in their loans and foreclose on us.

It remains to be seen whether the next G-20 Summit in November will produce something more concrete than non-binding promises to cut deficits.  No-one should get their hopes up that it will, but a few things are certain.  The media will glory in a propagandist orgy and assure everyone that the outcome will be good.  The taxpayers, as always, will foot the bill for the November Summit and its consequences, while we all accelerate our slide down to Hell in a hand-basket.

–Walter Schneider

Posted in Deficits and Debts, Taxes, Propaganda debunked | Print | No Comments »

June 29, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

I had to set up a new category: Alarmist Insanity, under which to collect extreme, totally insane and often very expensive proposals or projects intended to counteract alleged injuries to climate trends, the environment (collectively, injuries to Mother Earth, a.k.a. Gaea)

The items identified under this category do not constitute a complete list.  Some of the items have already been under implementation for years, but what they all have in common is that they require extraordinary amounts of money while being futile and providing dubious, if not outright damaging returns on investment.

An example of large-scale damage over the long run for absolutely no discernible returns is the concept of carbon (CO2, that is) capture and sequestration (CCS), the only obviously discernible consequence of which will be increased taxation and vastly increased fuel and electricity prices.

The fact that CO2 generated by human activities constitutes no more than 3 percent of the CO2 contained in the atmosphere and all atmospheric CO2 is naturally sequestered in a very short time through very effective biological and geological processes is never  mentioned by the proponents of man-made CCS.  That is due to a number of factors and motivations, of whom the most important one may well be politicians’ and government bureaucrats’ visions of vastly increased tax revenues through putting taxes on the air we breathe.

Another fact, that CO2 is essential to sustain all life on Earth is also hardly ever mentioned, nor that without CO2 all life would cease to exists, or that increases in atmospheric CO2 cause the biosphere to thrive and agricultural production to experience enormous increases.

Furthermore, have the proponents of CCS ever mentioned that when they sequester CO2, they remove not only life-giving carbon from the atmosphere but also essential oxygen?  How does anyone justify that the sequestering of substantial amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere will cause the loss of a substantial amount of oxygen?

Some of the insane aspects of alarmist insanity in relation to man-made or government-imposed CCS schemes have already been covered in articles identified on this blog.  Links to the category “Alarmist Insanity” for those articles will be installed as time progresses. New articles that fall into the “Alarmist Insanity” category will have those links assigned as they are being posted.

Today I came across a couple of items of absolute insanity that spawned various ideas for combating global warming.  For Heaven’s sake, why do we pursue such insane ideas?  Have we not left the superstitions of the dark ages a long time ago, and are we truly now leaving the age of enlightenment?

Inventor paints mountains white to combat climate change
An inventor has set out to paint the peaks of the Andes white in an attempt to combat the effects of climate change. 

That little jaunt is funded by the World Bank, to the tune of £135,000 (Can$212,625), but why worry about that.  In 40 years from now it will all be over.  I know, the title of the congress.com alert at the following link states: “within 50 years,” but congress.com obviously became confused by their own hype.  Given that we are now in the year 2010, the year 2050, by which year the extinction they predict could have happened, will leave only another forty, not fifty years for Gaea to be purged of all human presence.

Global Warming could make Humans EXTINCT within 50 years

The publisher of that article, congress.org, apparently a U.S. government organization (although they don’t say so directly) claims to be “a nonpartisan news and information Web site devoted to encouraging civic participation. Our mission is to provide information about public policy issues of the day and tips on effective advocacy so that citizens can make their voices heard.”

Nonpartisan?  News? Perhaps so in relation to impartiality in regard to one party of the other, but definitely not impartial on issues of objectivity and the truth versus being biased towards untruth, lies and alarmism.  There is no other way to look at their climate alert, and news it definitely is not, but hysterical, alarmist propaganda it most definitely is. It is not just the title of the alert.  Consider the introductory paragraph:

Global Warming could make the human race EXTINCT. The #1 kill mechanism is famine. See “The Long Summer” by Brian Fagan and “Collapse” by Jared Diamond. Shifting winds and warmer oceans have already created a weird moving checkerboard of drought and flood that has interfered with agriculture here and elsewhere.

The alert gets worse, much worse, and contains nothing but unsubstantiated opinions that transmit alarmist hype and hysteria to the mind of anyone eager, willing and dumb enough to revert to the superstitions of the dark ages.  With all of the reading I have done on the subject of climate change, I never yet found that any climate scientist ever made so many exaggerated claims. Even Al Gore has not ever made so many extreme and bizarre assertions in so few words as congress.com have made in their alert.

It appears that congress.com is not intent, as they assert,

“to provide information about public policy issues of the day and tips on effective advocacy so that citizens can make their voices heard…. [with] software [that] assures that your letter will be delivered directly to the decision-makers whose opinions you hope to influence,”

but that they primarily wish to inundate as many people as possible with outrageous propaganda.

I never noticed that anyone reported that Barack Obama has a sign on his desk that states, “The buck stops here.”  Furthermore, given that the congress.com climate alert is not dated, is cannot be discerned whether the alert was published during Barack Obama’s term of office.  One thing is certain, though.  Barack Obama is responsible for that article.  Sign or no sign, the buck stops with him.  He owes Americans an apology and a correction.

Posted in Alarmist Insanity | Print | No Comments »

June 20, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

This does not exactly fall into the fraud and corruption category, but it is so mind-boggling and so nonsensical that it takes quite a bit of effort not to consider it fraudulent at least with respect to the lack of practicality as to the primary intention of coming up with better and effective ways of producing energy from renewable, alternative sources.

From wattsupwiththat.com:

Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing

Posted on
June 20, 2010
Britain’s biggest wind farm companies are to be paid not to produce electricity when the wind is blowing.
From The UK Telegraph.

Published: 9:00PM BST 19 Jun 2010

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing Photo: ALAMY

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.

(Continue reading →)

Posted in Corruption & Fraud, Alternative Energy Sources | Print | No Comments »

June 19, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The Climate Scientists’ Register

“We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming.“

CLIMATE SCIENTISTS’ REGISTER ENDORSERS

Complete Endorser List (109 names)

In contrast, the IPCC’s claim that 2,500 scientists endorse is latest climate science summary boils down to a few dozen scientists.

National Post

The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider

Lawrence Solomon  June 13, 2010 – 8:50 am

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change misled the press and public into believing that thousands of scientists backed its claims on manmade global warming, according to Mike Hulme, a prominent climate scientist and IPCC insider.  The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,” he states in a paper for Progress in Physical Geography, co-authored with student Martin Mahony….

Read more

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Posted in Corruption & Fraud, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

June 18, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

This is a must-read:

A suggestion for meeting the UK Government’s renewable energy target because the adopted use of windfarms cannot meet it,

By Richard S. Courtney, Thursday 26th October 2006

Source: The 2006 Annual Prestigious Lecture to
The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers
and
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (North East)

On 2010 06 18, Richard S. Courtney posted an excellent and easy-to-understand illustration of the uselessness of windfarms to the blog of Anthony Watts, the most popular science blog in the world.  In that posting, Richard Courtney compares the reasons for constructing windfarms to the reasons for construction the Wall of China: Useless, impractical and extremely costly for meeting the ostensible purposes but very, very effective as widely-visible propaganda efforts.

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources | Print | No Comments »

June 18, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The other day, some one sent some information to me about a vastly greater catastrophe that is surely bound to happen in consequence of the Gulf Blowout.  Here is another option that will most likely not be used either, although it would be the cheapest of all.  It won’t be used because it is not politically correct.

The Nuclear Option against British Sabotage in Our Gulf
by Laurence Hecht
Editor, 21st Century Science & Technology

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/BP_nuclear-option.pdf

The option that will be used, successfully, is most likely the one that was used to plug Atlantic #3, which blew March 8, 1948, near Edmonton, I don’t know exactly where it was and assume that it was in the Leduc Area, SW of Edmonton (that is where the Nisku formation is located into which it had drilled).  That well blew and spilled about as much oil per day as the well at the bottom of the Texas Gulf does right now.  It blew that oil for a lot longer than the Texas Gulf well has been blowing it until now.  It blew for the same reason the Gulf well blew.  Someone decided to dispense with using drilling mud.  It seems that BP learned nothing from Atlantic #3, and it should be severely punished for that.

The June 14, 2010 edition of the Edmonton Journal had an article on Atlantic #3.

Read the article at that link.  You will find that there is little but one difference between the two blowouts.  The pressures involved are about the same, and so are the daily volumes of oil spilled.  Other than that, Atlantic #3 was on top of solid ground, and the Texas Gulf well is at the bottom of the ocean.  Here are some quotes from the article.

Atlantic No. 3 blew wild for six months, spewing 10,000 to 15,000 barrels per day of crude, which made it the biggest blowout in Alberta history. When it later caught fire [in September of 1948] and burned for two months in a spectacular inferno, it made movie theatre newsreels around the world….

Oilpatch historian David Finch says the Atlantic No. 3 disaster created a massive oil spill that was five times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989.
Fortunately, most of the 1.2 million barrels of oil pouring out of Atlantic No. 3 was corralled by dikes and pumped through a pipeline to Leduc where it was being shipped to refineries in rail cars. But some escaped into the nearby North Saskatchewan River and temporarily contaminated Edmonton’s drinking water supply.

Oilpatch historians have suggested drilling “dry” — without drilling mud — was a flawed technique that led to the disaster. When the rig drilled into the Nisku formation, the uncountered pressure caused the well to blow, and months of effort by wild well fighters failed to stop it. They tried using everything, including tons of sawdust and even chicken feathers to plug the hole, but it blew wild until a relief well was drilled and the formation was flooded with river water…..

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Alberta+blowout+disaster/3150830/story.html#ixzz0rD8DxpTv

Notice that nothing stopped the fire resulting when the blowout eventually caught on fire until river water was pumped through a relief well into the oil-bearing formation.  Do you recall an oil volcano blowing its top at that time?  No, that did not happen then and won’t happen now.

Nevertheless, stories about “unprecedented” spills, sea floors erupting into oil volcanoes and catastrophic tsunamis resulting from that do get a lot more attention.  To attract attention it is not necessary to tell the truth or what is most likely to happen.  All it takes is to engage in wild, unsubstantiated speculation about extreme possibilities, however unlikely catastrophes.

Posted in Fines & Penalties, Explosions & Fires, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

June 11, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Global warming is just propaganda

Talk by Nigel Calder, Savile Club, London, 9 Dec. 2008

(Full Story)
__________________
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nigel Calder (born December 2, 1931) is a British science writer.

Between 1956 and 1966 [when the magazine still covered science objectively], Calder wrote for the magazine New Scientist, serving as editor from 1962 until 1966. Since that time, he has worked as an independent author and TV screenwriter. He has conceived and scripted thirteen major documentaries and series concerning popular science subjects broadcast by the BBC and Channel 4 (London), with accompanying books. For his television work he received the Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science during 1972. During 2004, his book Magic Universe was shortlisted for The Aventis Prizes for Science Books.

Nigel Calder is the son of the late Lord (Peter) Ritchie-Calder, a brother of the historian Angus Calder and the father of travel writer Simon Calder. His other children are Sarah (business writer), Penny (museums writer and consultant), Jo (working in an IT company) and Kate (public relations consultant). His wife Liz is his literary agent and was formerly an adviser on language teaching for the London Chambers of Commerce.

Calder is a long-standing sceptic [sic] of global warming. As early as 1980, he predicted that within 20 years “the much-advertised heating of the earth by the man-made carbon-dioxide ‘greenhouse’ [will fail] to occur; instead, there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age”.[1] Calder participated in the polemic film The Great Global Warming Swindle. He also co-authored The Chilling Stars. Regarding global warming, Calder has said that “Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.”[2]

(Full Story)

Wikipedia’s CV for Nigel Calder is, of course, somewhat heavily biased in favour of the global-warming hype and hysteria, for reasons explained exceptionally well in the text of Nigel Calder’s speech.  Yes, when it comes to subjects like climate change, Wikipedia is anything but an objective source of information.

For instance, Wikipedia states:

As early as 1980, he [Nigel Calder] predicted that within 20 years “the much-advertised heating of the earth by the man-made carbon-dioxide ‘greenhouse’ [will fail] to occur; instead, there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age”.

Nevertheless, Wikipedia quite brazenly fails to point out that Nigel Calder’s prediction is correct.  Global temperatures failed to rise in a statistically significant manner since 1998 and have been gradually dropping during the last ten years.  The only part in Nigel Calder’s prediction that has not come true is that “there [will be] renewed concern about cooling and an impending ice age.”

Well, that is not quite correct.  Some prominent climate scientists lately expressed those concerns.  It’s just that the main-stream media so far provided virtually no coverage of that.  The details of why that is so are contained in the text of Nigel Calder’s speech.  I can’t think of anyone who explains the subject any better or in a more enlightening manner.

Posted in Propaganda debunked, Corruption & Fraud, Weather, Climate Change | Print | No Comments »

June 6, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

EurActive

Impoverished SE Europeans turn to wood for heating

Published: 03 June 2010 | Updated: 04 June 2010

Rising electricity prices are increasing the use of wood for heating in South Eastern Europe to alarming levels, posing a serious threat to health and the environment, experts warned….(Full Story)

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »