Global Warming charade just another Intelligent Design

The big red flag in the history of the Global Warming thesis should have been the declaration that the science is settled. The science is never settled. It's an egregious claim even for politicians to make let alone scientists who should know better. By issuing this heavy handed statement they gave themselves permission to begin the process of shaming governments, business and the populace into compliance with their agenda for good or for ill.

In advanced societies people and business will only go so far, eventually the proscribed remedies cost real money. As well, people are smart enough to understand the concept of throwing money down a rat hole. It's when the limit has been reached as to what people will do voluntarily to mitigate their so-called "carbon footprint" that the anthropogenic global warming pushers resort to dangerous and destructive activities. 

The pushers have every right to their opinion. They have every right to express their opinion and try to convince others that theirs is the right and moral position. They don't, however, have the right to declare the truth and then get laws passed or create regulations based on that truth that will severely degrade the economic destinies of the multitudes while enriching the few. Yet, this is exactly what has happened - even as evidence pours in that the science is not settled and that the pushers routinely lie about and obscure their own "facts".

The fact is that climate and its variables are not that well understood. The effect of solar variability and cosmic influences are not well understood. The very nature of the self correcting biosphere is not well understood. Then with all this uncertainty to claim that  the effects of mankind's activity and particularly an increase in the trace gas C02 makes it conclusive that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is upon us is the height of scientific arrogance. (please refer to  http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com/ )

I'm reminded of another thesis that has no place in the law or the school house. After the Christian fundamentalist failure to elevate Creationism to level of Darwinian Theory in the schools (primarily because it was clearly theistic and not science) a new idea emerged called Intelligent Design. ID was presented as an answer to Darwinism by auguring for irreducible complexity among other things and against natural selection. The issue for ID arises when you wind up in a spiral of infinite regression trying to identify the designer as being anything but God. There is no empirical evidence of a first cause or prime mover if you will, and there never will be. Therefore it isn't science. While there are gaps and holes in Darwinian Theory there is empirical evidence that aspects of the theory are true and demonstrable.

I happen to believe in a "first cause" or God, but I do so on faith because all any of us can ever observe or hope to measure are second causes. The wonders and mysteries of this beautiful world and awesome creation may forever be hidden from us, because until we are unleashed from our mortal coils we are on the inside looking out. We will never be in a position to report on the ultimate "truth". Like a drop of water flowing downstream we can't see the river to even understand that we are in the river.

ID proponents unable to prove it is even a workable theory try to use public opinion and the courts to get into school curriculum along side evolution. Science isn't done in a courtroom or with sound bites.

So too with the proponents of AGW, unable to sufficiently tip public opinion or persuade the corporate world to go all in due to their own untrustworthy science they have used the tremendous power of governments and a willing mainstream media to shove wasteful and damaging policies down our throats toward their end goals. The thing to ask is are they even being honest about those goals? Is it really about green energy and saving the Earth?

So-called “Green” energy is dubious because it doesn't come close to living up to its hype and it harms taxpayers: inefficient technologies like solar and wind energy survive only through taxpayer-funded subsidies. The federal government investing billions in numerous “green” energy projects that have gone bankrupt has literally stuck taxpayers with the tab. Green energy is also destructive because it has been used to enrich government cronies and the war-chests of politicians, while established industries are unreasonably regulated with the specter of punitive expense to companies and rate payers. People will gladly pay for value, and a clean environment has value, but a scam is a scam.

A scam always has an ultimate goal underlying the mechanisms of the play. Obviously this is usually money, of course. It may well be the case with the Climate Change industry, and probably is, but I think it's more sinister than just money. I think there are two things that drive this scam at its core. One being the destruction of Western Civilization and the other a massive reduction in the human population. The two go hand in hand. Western Civ represents growing economies and wealth and thus a support base for more and more consumption. World poverty is going down faster than at anytime in history - this is bad for the saviors of the planet.

The saviors themselves will never suffer nor will their families, but everyone else will.



Ugh

How the Washington Post Survives: (Hint) Government subsidies

Not direct subsidies of course, but just the same, without them the paper would fold. What I'm talking about is a wholly owned subsidiary called Kaplan University. Kaplan is for-profit university similar to Capella University and the University of Phoenix with most of its 66,000 students studying online. The Washington Post bought Kaplan a decade ago in what now looks like an incredibly shrewd move. Kaplan accounted for 58 percent of the company's revenue — and it was profitable. In contrast, newspaper and magazine publishing accounted for only 19 percent of revenue, and those activities lost money. Barron's reports that the Washington Post Co. is worth about $8.5 billion — and $5 billion of that value is from Kaplan.

So, one of the country's most influential newspapers survives and Kaplan educates thousands, what could possibly be wrong with that?

Critics claim Kaplan operates vocational training programs that over enroll students using Federal loans that leave low-income student indebted and unemployed. A quick search online and one can easily find hundreds upon hundreds of complaints lodged against Kaplan for financial abuse and impropriety regarding student billing practices. Also, Kaplan is known to market directly to black single mothers with three children or more - that is what the training manuals for their telemarketers actually instruct them to do - as this is the demographic which defaults at the highest rate. Not coincidentally, they have one of the highest default rates of any such university, only about thirty percent of their enrollees actually earn a degree. Yet they still collect the full amount from the federal government. This is what is said to keep the Washington Post afloat.

With the Post Co. raking in the kind of money they get from an operation like this, you begin to understand that the newspaper is a mere sideline - a tax write-off. It's all a bit unseemly for a reputable guardian of the people - "the press" to operate an outfit like this. Some of this is just coming to light in the last few years as reports that their training manual's also directs their telemarketers to target returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets, because, basically, they're dupes with lots of government benefits to drain. It's been alleged more money, real estate, and staff are directed to their telemarketing operations, than to their actual educational faculty and operations. The allegations have some weight. "If you look at some of the reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, you will see that the advertising budget is immense … on par and even sometimes exceeding the instructional costs of the institution," says David Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

There have been official investigations into specific Kaplan programs and like any operation with vested interest in getting government money they have deflected, obfuscated and misled their students and the government. In 2007 the Department of Education (DOE) began looking into the allegations of Title IV fraud on behalf of Kaplan. Suddenly, in late 2008, SurgeTech program curiously disappeared from Kaplan’s degree offerings even though it was one of the college’s most popular programs.  At the time the program vanished we now know state accrediting agencies were threatening to withdraw accreditation.

The program in question, one of their most profitable disappeared overnight. Interesting. Why? It seems that Kaplan knowingly, over a ten year period, misled by omission, prospective students, their accrediting body, and the U.S. DOE causing the government to approve tens of millions of dollars of Title IV student loans for a program that students would be unable to finish. All this based upon false data.

Meanwhile Kaplan, and their investors and shareholders skated to the bank on government subsidies and the Washington Post conveniently concealed the story.
The university system, both private and public have become a massive special interest group, whose actual interest is the government student loan gravy train. They overwhelmingly support Democrats and liberals who promise more and more government spending on "higher education". With one of the most important newspapers in the nation involved at this level we can be assured that reporting on abuse of the financial aid system will be squelched.

Guardians of the people huh, keeping the government honest. Yeah. But who is going to keep them honest?


CW