From the Fourth Horseman's Mouth

Below, some ghastly quotes of environmentalists from Grant Jones' blog. My emphasis.

“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.” – Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

I've been leaning against introducing new, cheap forms of energy for some time, since it will prop up creatures like Barack Obama and their agenda, but given quotes like these, maybe I ought to dust off that miniature fusion power source I have in mind and put these guys out of business.

http://www.kalapanapundit.blogspot.com/

Sunday, December 06, 2009
What Global Warming Supporters and Environmentalists Really Want

Here is an excellent series of quotes from leading environmentalists courtesy of Ironic Surrealism:

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”
– UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
– Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

“Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
– Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
– Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
– Emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

“We require a central organizing principle – one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change – these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary.”
– Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
– Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
– Professor Maurice King

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
– Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit

“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
– Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
– Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

“The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
– Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

“My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
-Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

“A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
– Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

“… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.”
– Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
– Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
– John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
– Christopher Manes, Earth First!

“Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
– David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
- The Club of Rome’s The First Global Revolution (1991) by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider – Page 75

The Third Pillar

For anyone who doubted my previous assertions that Obama's goal is the disarmament and weakening and eventual destruction of the United States as a superpower, the story at bottom is one more piece of evidence. (See, for instance, "The Next Phase in Obama's Rush Towards Unilateral Disarmament," 4/11/09, http://robbservations.blogspot.com/2009/04/next-phase-in-obamas-rush-towards.html)

As a reminder: the three pillar's of Obama's agenda --three key reasons he sought the presidency--are:

1. Health Care legislation -- Enactment of most key elements required for totalitarian rule.
2. Cap and Trade -- Economic destruction of the United States, plus enactment of more key elements of totalitarian rule
3. Unilateral disarmament -- military destruction of the United States

Coincidentally, as I wrote this, I was listening to the audio of Ayn Rand's West Point speech -- delivered in 1974. (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_pwni) She said:

...It is urgently important for you to understand the nature of the enemy. You are attacked, not for any errors or flaws, but for your virtues... Those who seek to destroy this country, seek to disarm it--intellectually and physically. But it is not a mere political issue; politics is not the cause, but the last consequence of philosophical ideas. It is not a communist conspiracy, though some communists may be involved--as maggots cashing in on a disaster they had no power to originate. The motive of the destroyers is not love for communism, but hatred for America. Why Hatred? Because America is the living refutation of a Kantian universe..."

The universe and philosopher that Obama has embraced his entire life.

Today's mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy. A philosophy out to destroy man's mind is necessarily a philosophy of hatred for man, for man's life, and for every human value. Hatred of the good for being the good is the hallmark of the twentieth century. This is the enemy you are facing.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/01/us-to-stop-counting-new-missiles-in-russia/

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. to stop counting new missiles in Russia
Critics point fingers at Bush and Obama

The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War -- the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line.

The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress, with insiders from both parties arguing over whether the George W. Bush or the Obama administration is responsible.

Republicans are worried by the previously undisclosed agreement between the Obama administration and the Kremlin in October, which formalizes the inspectors' departure this Saturday. This, they warn, would cripple Washington's ability to police Moscow's compliance with agreed reductions in its nuclear arsenal.

Democrats, on the other hand, insist they were "stuck" with an agreement reached late last year between the Bush administration and Moscow but not made public. This, they said, left the Obama team no choice.

The U.S.-staffed Votkinsk Portal Monitoring Facility operates under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant, about 600 miles east of Moscow -- the site where all Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are built.

The monitoring facility's present mandate ends with START's expiration Saturday, and the Obama administration has decided not to seek another agreement allowing Americans to remain, administration and congressional officials said.

"U.S. and Russian officials signed on Oct. 20 a series of documents, which establish the procedures to be followed for the completion of U.S. monitoring activities at the Russian ICBM production facility at Votkinsk," a State Department official said.

The two countries first agreed to "continuous monitoring" under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The reciprocal site to Votkinsk in the United States was the former Hercules Aerospace missile production facility in Magna, Utah, which the Russians left more than eight years ago.

Although the United States does not produce new long-range missiles, Russia continues to do so and has built dozens of missiles since the monitoring started15 years ago. START banned certain types of missiles, which Americans at Votkinsk verified by counting and inspecting every missile that left the facility, analysts said.

missile forces, Nikolai Solovtsov, was recently quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that the assembly and deployment of next-generation RS-24 missiles would start once the treaty expires. Analysts said that could happen, because Moscow was not banned from developing new missiles.

During a visit to Moscow by President Obama in July, both countries agreed to draft a new arms-control treaty that would replace START. They also set a goal of cutting the number of strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years.

It now appears unlikely that the two countries will meet a self-imposed Dec. 5 deadline, but State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Monday the U.S. hopes to have a draft treaty by the end of the month.

"Two main priorities here are reductions in nuclear arsenals and also preserving the verifications and monitoring mechanisms that are at the heart of the START treaty," Mr. Kelly said.

Congressional officials said they were told by the Obama administration that it "got stuck" with a deal made by the Bush administration to close the monitoring facility at Votkinsk. They also said the Bush administration did not want to extend START at all.

Paula A. DeSutter, assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance and implementation in the Bush administration, said she sent the Russians a post-START proposal in November 2008, but it was not a negotiated agreement.

She confirmed that it did not include continuing the Votkinsk mission, but attributed that to the Bush team's decision "not to limit delivery vehicles," so it did not need to count every missile Russia produced. "We didn't need the entire verification regime from START," she said.

In contrast, the Obama team "accepted the START approach to limit both warheads and missiles," so it made sense for them to keep Votkinsk, she said.

"There was nothing in our proposal that precluded the Obama administration from adding Votkinsk or any other verification measure, had they decided to take that approach," Ms. DeSutter said.

However, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the Obama team could not have gone back to renegotiate last year's accord.

Obama administration officials said they take Moscow's missile program seriously, and they are negotiating other verification measures to replace the permanent U.S. presence at Votkinsk. They declined to be more specific.

Mr. Kimball said that other ways to find out how many missiles Russia produces include regular inspections, data exchanges and intelligence gathering, such as tracking missile test flights.

"How significant [the loss of Votkinsk] is depends on what other monitoring mechanisms will be worked out," he said.

Some Republican members of Congress, however, have warned of major negative consequences, saying that nothing can replace everyday on-site monitoring, and that the administration should have sought to extend it under a new agreement.

U.S. officials are trying to complete a "bridging" agreement in Geneva this week, so some verification measures can remain in effect until a START replacement is finalized. The Votkinsk monitoring team, however, will leave, officials said.

"When Votkinsk goes away, Russia could deploy hundreds of missiles," said one senior Republican Senate aide. "Russia is a big country with many satellites passing overhead," so it will not be easy to count missiles based on test flights. "We are worried about what Russia will do that we are not going to know."

Another Republican aide said the "whole point of arms control" was to allow the United States to learn more about Russia's force strength than it could by just estimating it.

"We were radically bad about estimating, but we became better at understanding our adversary" after START and other treaties, he said. "You can't count mobile missiles from space."

The Obama administration points out that the two countries are no longer enemies and that it has gone out of its way to improve relations with Russia. "The nature of our relationship has changed, and we have a pretty good idea about where Russia's missile program is headed," one U.S. official said.

Still, critics say ties are not at a level where Washington can fully trust Moscow.

"For the first time in 15 years, an extensive set of verification, notification, elimination and other confidence-building measures will expire" on Saturday, Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, said on the Senate floor late last month, suggesting that START should have been extended.

Mr. Kimball said another reason the Bush administration should take at least some responsibility for losing access to Votkinsk is that it "did not object to Russia's development of the RS-24 and did not favor the continuation of other types of legally binding verification provisions based on those in START."

"Senator Kyl was not on the floor of Senate railing against the Bush administration's decision not to continue essential START monitoring and verification provisions back in 2008, but now he's complaining that the Obama administration is not doing enough to maintain effective monitoring of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons," Mr. Kimball said. "He was against it before he was for it."

A senior aide to Mr. Kyl said the senator always cared about verification, but he is more vocal now because Mr. Obama wants to cut the two countries' nuclear arsenals well below Mr. Bush's target level of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads.

"If you are going to predicate the prudence of the cuts on the Russians' [compliance], you have to make sure you have high degree of confidence" that they are abiding by the limits, he said.

Ghostbusters 3

Dr. Peter Venkman: Oh, my *God*. Look at all the junk science!
Dana Barrett: Oh, dammit. Look, this wasn't here...
Dr. Peter Venkman: You actually eat this?
Dana Barrett: Look, this wasn't here! There was *nothing* here! There was this... space! And there was a building or something with flames coming out of it, and there were creatures writhing around, and they were growling and snarling. And there were flames, and I heard a voice say "Zuul"! It was right here.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, I'm sorry, I'm just not getting any reading.
Dana Barrett: Well, are you sure you're using that thing correctly?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, I... I think so, but I'm sure there are no animals in there.
Dana Barrett: Well that's just great. Either I have a monster in my kitchen or I'm completely crazy.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [smiles] I don't think you're crazy.
Dana Barrett: [sarcastically] Oh, good, that makes me feel so much better.

Except for substituting "junk science" for "junk food", that exchange comes from a movie that exhibits many interesting and hilarious parallels to the current "Climate-gate" scandal: Ghostbusters. It's a story about three wanna-be scientists who set up shop using outlandish devices and crackpot terminology to convince people they can see and capture ghosts and other demons -- all in their quest to save the world and make a buck.

Ghostbusters wasn't my favorite movie in any sense, but I can't resist taking some actual dialogue from the movie and outlining a new script. Maybe someone cares to remake it in that spirit. If you want to understand the promotion of "Global Warming" by its advocates, this could have been their playbook--just do a little mental switch on the premise and on the good guys and bad guys -- with Prof. Philip Jones, leader of the UK's Climate Research Unit in the role of Dr. Peter Venkman, Dr. James Hansen of NASA as Dr. Ray Stantz, and Al Gore in the role of Winston Zeddemore:

Winston Zeddemore: Ray. If someone asks if you are a god, you say, "yes!"

The ghostbusters (or climate scientists) know how to promote their scam:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Aka, "The Day After Tomorrow":

Dr. Egon Spengler: I'm worried, Ray. All my readings point to something big on the horizon.
Winston Zeddemore: What do you mean, big?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

Winston Zeddemore: That's a big Twinkie.

Where their spirtual guidance and "higher authority" comes from...

Dr. Egon Spengler: The architect's name was Evo Shandor. I found it in Tobin's Spirit Guide. He was also a doctor, performed a lot of unnecessary surgery. And then in 1920, he started a secret society...
Dr. Peter Venkman: Let me guess: Gozer worshippers.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Right.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Ray] No studying.
Dr. Egon Spengler: After the First World War, Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive.
[He pauses, glancing nervously around at the holding cell crowd]
Dr. Egon Spengler: And he wasn't alone, he had close to a thousand followers when he died. They conducted rituals up on the roof. Bizarre rituals, intended to bring about the *end of the world*, and now it looks like it might actually happen.
[pause. Peter spins around to face another of the inmates, and starts singing]
Dr. Peter Venkman: So be good, for goodness' sake!

I'll give Barack Obama the role of "Gozer", an evil spirit who is out to unleash his demons and take over the world, but the overall approach comes from a bit-character played by Rick Moranis, an average Joe-Blow who eventually gets possessed and turned into a demon:

Dr. Egon Spengler: We'd like to get a sample of your brain tissue.
Louis: Okay.

And once possessed, the faithful keep chanting,

Louis: Aw, don't leave yet. Well, listen, maybe if we start dancing other people will join in!

When Phil Jones and the other scientists analyze the latest computer-generated climate models:

Dr Ray Stantz: [astounded] Wow! Talk about telekinetic activity, look at this mess!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Ray, look at this.
Dr Ray Stantz: Ectoplasmic residue.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Venkman, get a sample of this.
Dr Ray Stantz: It's the real thing.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Someone blows their nose and you want to keep it?
Dr. Egon Spengler: I'd like to analyze it.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [gets the slime on his hand] Whoa, ah.
Dr. Egon Spengler: This way.
[Venkman tries to wipe the slime off of his hand]

Insofar as the computers doing the modeling go,

Dr. Peter Venkman: Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.

There's an element of self-delusion, of course,

Dr. Egon Spengler: This is big, Peter, this is very big. There is definitely something here.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Dr. Egon Spengler: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.

Nothing stops them, and here's how they explain it to the public:

Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

Just between themselves, as they jet from climate conference to climate conference,

Dr. Peter Venkman: As a friend, I have to tell ya you've finally gone around the bend on this ghost business. You guys have been running your ass off, meetin' and greetin' every schizo in the five boroughs who says he has a paranormal experience. What have you seen?
Dr Ray Stantz: Of course you forget, Peter. I was present at an undersea, unexplained mass sponge migration.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray, the sponges migrated about a foot-and-a-half.

Or about 0.0001 degree. But they promote mass migrations just the same -- in daily "science" news from AP, Reuters, NYTimes, or CNN:

Larry King: Hi, this is Larry King. The phone-in topic Today: "Ghosts and Ghostbusting." The controversy builds, more sightings are reported, some maintain that these professional paranormal eliminators in New York are the cause of it all.

Well, that's just too much of life imitating art. But when someone in the gullible public notices that their arguments aren't too believable:

Dana Barrett: You know, you don't act like a scientist.
Dr. Peter Venkman: They're usually pretty stiff.
Dana Barrett: You're more like a game show host.

This doesn't prevent Dana (Sigourney Weaver) from being possessed by our version of Zuul, the God of the Global Warming hysteria:

Dana Barrett: [possessed by Zuul, speaking to Venkman] Take me now, subcreature!

The scientists don't really have much affection for the public, however:

[Dana starts passionately making out with him]

Dr. Peter Venkman: I make it a rule never to get involved with possessed people.

Game-show hosts or not, beware the coming end-run in Copenhagen:

Dr Ray Stantz: I think we'd better split up.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Good idea.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yeah... we can do more damage that way.

Michael Moore, where are ya? They know how to enlist the support of the rest of the scientific establishment:

Dr. Peter Venkman: We've been going about this all wrong. This Mr. Stay Puft's okay! He's a sailor, he's in New York; we get this guy laid, we won't have any trouble!

Mr. Stay Puft is a Thanksgiving Day blimp in the shape of a scientist in a white lab coat yearning for research grants. All you gotta do is ape the party line to get your green bunch of bananas. So how do you pitch it to the politicians?

Lenny: Do I believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?

Dr. Peter Venkman: If I'm wrong, nothing happens! We go to jail - peacefully, quietly. We'll enjoy it! But if I'm *right*, and we *can* stop this thing... Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.

The public becomes entranced and you get people like Ed Begley to evangelize for you...

Dr. Peter Venkman: I just whacked him up with about 300 cc's of Thorazaine... he's gonna take a little nap now. I think we can get him a guest shot on "Wild Kingdom."

Which could be Ed's latest meltdown on Fox the other day. And how do the politicians respond?

Winston Zeddemore: Ah, if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say.

Testifying before Congress, Al Gore offers serious evidence and sound scientific foundations for the need to act:

Winston Zeddemore: I'm Winston Zeddmore, Your Honor. I've only been with the company for a couple of weeks, but these things are real. Since I joined these men, I've seen shit that'll turn you white.

For the public, you tell them,

[In a TV commercial]
Dr Ray Stantz: Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Have you or your family ever seen a spook, spectre or ghost?
Dr Ray Stantz: If the answer is "yes," then don't wait another minute. Pick up the phone and call the professionals...
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Dr. Peter Venkman: Ghostbusters!
Dr Ray Stantz: Our courteous and efficient staff is on call 24 hours a day to serve all your supernatural elimination needs.
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Dr. Peter Venkman: We're ready to believe you.

The hysteria builds, even among the adherents,

Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon... what've you got left?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

and Phil Jones asks the Reverend Al Gore,

Dr Ray Stantz: Every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world.
Winston Zeddemore: Myth? Ray, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so busy lately is because the dead *have* been rising from the grave?

Dr. Spengler speaks for good scientists everywhere:

Dr. Egon Spengler: I feel like the floor of a taxi cab.

But Dr. Venkman speaks for "scientists" like Hansen and Jones,

Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?

That's easy! You cross the streams between good and bad, truth and falsehood, fact and fiction...

Dr. Egon Spengler: I have a radical idea. The door swings both ways, we could reverse the particle flow through the gate.
Dr. Peter Venkman: How?
Dr. Egon Spengler: [hesitates] We'll cross the streams!
Dr. Peter Venkman: 'Scuse me Egon? You said crossing the streams was bad!
Dr Ray Stantz: Cross the streams...
Dr. Peter Venkman: You're gonna endanger us, you're gonna endanger our client - the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog...
Dr. Egon Spengler: Not necessarily. There's definitely a *very slim* chance we'll survive.
[pause while they consider this]
Dr. Peter Venkman: [slaps Ray] I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! LET'S DO IT!

This will play in Washington, New York and East Anglia.

Winston Zeddemore: I love this town!

When the demons in Copenhagen vote,

Gozer: The Choice is made!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Whoa! Ho! Ho! Whoa-oa!
Gozer: The Traveller has come!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Nobody choosed anything!
[turns to Egon]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Did you choose anything?
Dr. Egon Spengler: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Winston] Did YOU?
Winston Zeddemore: My mind is totally blank.
Dr. Peter Venkman: *I* didn't choose anything...
[long pause, Peter, Egon and Winston all look at Ray]
Dr Ray Stantz: I couldn't help it. It just popped in there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [angrily] What? *What* "just popped in there?"
Dr Ray Stantz: I... I... I tried to think...
Dr. Egon Spengler: LOOK!
[they all look over one side of the roof]
Dr Ray Stantz: No! It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What is it?
Dr Ray Stantz: It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What did you DO, Ray?
Winston Zeddemore: Oh, shit!
[they all see a giant cubic white head topped with a sailor hat, Peter looks at Ray]
Dr Ray Stantz: [somberly] It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!

That big inflated scientist in the white lab coat, remember. Out to conquer the world.

Their argument to Congress for Cap and Trade goes something like this:

Dr Ray Stantz: [training Winston] This is where we put all the vapors and entities and slimers that we trap. Quite simple really. Load a trap here, open, unlock the system. Insert the trap, release, close, lock the system. Set your entry grid, neutralize your field and... the light is green, the trap is clean! The ghost is incarcerated here in our custom-made storage facility...

Dr. Peter Venkman: Let's talk serious. For the entrapment, we're gonna ask you for 4 big ones. $4,000 for that, but we are having a special this week on proton charging, and storage of the beast, so we are gonna ask for $1,000 more.
Hotel Manager: $5,000? I don't care if you need so much, I won't pay it!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Oh, that's okay we can just put it right back in there.
Dr Ray Stantz: We most certainly can, Dr. Venkman.
Hotel Manager: [Stops Ray] No, no NO! Anything.

What makes this possible is a public that believes in their divine right to vote any idiocy into law:

Louis: [possessed by Vinz Clortho] I am The Keymaster!
Dana Barrett: [possessed by Zuul] I am The Gatekeeper!

As for Climategate, Phil Jones can't take it anymore:

Dr. Peter Venkman: I don't have to take this abuse from you, I've got hundreds of people dying to abuse me...

Dr Ray Stantz: Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You're right, no human being would stack books like this.

Or cook the books. For anyone challenging them in peer-reviewed papers,

Dr. Peter Venkman: Alice, I'm going to ask you a couple of standard questions, okay? Have you or any of your family been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetant?
Librarian Alice: My uncle thought he was Saint Jerome.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'd call that a big yes. Uh, are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol?
Librarian Alice: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Library Administrator: What's has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I'm a scientist.

For the mildly annoying critics,

Dr Ray Stantz: Well, this is great. If the ionization-rate is constant for all ectoplasmic entities, we can really bust some heads... in a spiritual sense, of course.

For the really annoying critics, sic the media on them:

Dr. Peter Venkman: All right, this chick is TOAST. Okay; sticks?
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore: HOLDIN'!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Heat 'em up!
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore: SMOKIN'!
Dr. Peter Venkman: MAKE 'EM HARD!
Dr Ray Stantz, Dr. Egon Spengler, Winston Zeddemore: READY!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown.

Don't you dare challenge the gospel of Global Warming, Phil Jones won't take it anymore...

Dr. Peter Venkman: NOBODY steps on a church in my town!

Now we come full circle to "Climate-gate". As I said, you have to do a little switch in your interpretation of the movie, which holds up ghosts as sorta real and mocks the EPA pretty well, but if you stop laughing at the thought of the critics of Global Warming taking on the role of Walter Peck, and pay attention to Venkman's responses, they could be right out of the lips of Phil Jones as he resists Freedom of Information requests for climate data:

Walter Peck: I'm Walter Peck, from the Environmental Protection Agency, the third district. [Peck shakes Venkman's hand and wipes ectoplasm on his jacket]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Great, how's it going down there?
Walter Peck: Are you Peter Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes, I'm *Doctor* Venkman!
Walter Peck: Exactly what are you a doctor of, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, I have a PhD in parapsychology and psychology.
Walter Peck: And now, you catch ghosts?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yeah, you could say that.
Walter Peck: And how many ghosts have you caught, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm not at liberty to say.
Walter Peck: And where do you put these ghosts, once you catch them?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Into a storage facility.
Walter Peck: And would this storage facility be located on these premises?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes.
Walter Peck: And may I see this storage facility?
Dr. Peter Venkman: No.
Walter Peck: And why not, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Because you did not use the magic word.
Walter Peck: What is the magic word, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: [looking surprised] Please!
Walter Peck: May I *please* see the storage facility, Mr. Venkman?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why do you want to see the storage facility?
Walter Peck: Because I'm curious. I wanna know more about what you do here! Frankly, I've heard alot of wild stories in the media and we want to assess any possibility of dangerous and possibly hazardous waste chemicals in your basement.
[Peck is angered]
Walter Peck: Now you either *show me* what is down there, or I come back with a court order.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [Venkman snaps back] You go get a court order, and I'll sue your funny ass for wrongful prosecution.
Walter Peck: You can have it your way, Mr. Venkman.

What really captures the soul of a Global Warming scientist, however is this:

Dr Ray Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Janine, someone with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.

And what captures the essence of the souls of the Global Warming politicians:

Janine Melnitz: You are so kind to take care of that man. You know, you're a real humanitarian.
Dr. Egon Spengler: I don't think he's human.

For all of the rest of us,

Dr Ray Stantz: You have been a participant in the biggest interdimensional cross rip since the Tunguska blast of 1909!

And the response of the public:

Male Student: [Annoyed] I'm getting a little tired of this.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You volunteered, didn't you? We're paying you, are we?
Male Student: Yeah, but I didn't know you were gonna be giving me electric shocks. What are you trying to prove here, anyway?
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm studying the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability.
Male Student: [Aggravated] Effect? I'll tell you the effect is, it's pissing me off!

Which sums up so well how I feel about this and my judgment of these scientists:

Dr Ray Stantz: Hey, Dean Yeager! Are you moving us to a better office on campus?
Dean Yeager: No, you're being moved off campus. The Board of Regents has decided to terminate your grant. You are to vacate these premises immediately.
Dr Ray Stantz: What?
Dr. Peter Venkman: This is preposterous. I demand an explanation.
Dean Yeager: This university will no longer continue any funding for any of your group's activities.
Dr. Peter Venkman: But the kids love us!
Dean Yeager: Doctor... Venkman. The purpose of science is to serve mankind. You seem to regard science as some kind of dodge... or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable! You are a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman!
Dr. Peter Venkman: I see.
Dean Yeager: And you have no place in this department, or this university.

Amen. And hopefully, future media interviews with Global Warming advocates will go something like this:

Joe Franklin: As they say in T.V., I'm sure there's one big question on everybody's mind, and I imagine you are the man to answer that. How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?

The Gatekeepers of Climategate

The article copied below is really great in summarizing the current scandal surrounding the Global Warming gatekeepers -- the scientists who fudged, faked and concealed the data to support a political agenda. I fully agree with the thesis of the article: these people need to be fully identified and exposed and drummed out of the field of science entirely--and some deserve long jail terms for fraud. They are guilty of attempting to cause orders of magnitude more harm to the world than Al Qaeda ever did. They need to put these key players through the intellectual equivalent of water boarding, find their accomplices and trace the conspiracy back as far as possible to as many people as possible.

But they need to go a step further. They need to ask: why were so many scientists working in collusion (actively or passively) to fake the global warming data? What were their full objectives? Yes, for many it was simply money and prestige and a gravy train of research grants. And for others it was raw power, pure and simple -- let's face it, controlling the world with cap and trade dictates, controlling how people light and heat their homes, how they transport themselves, what they eat (remember methane emissions from cows?), how they breed, ad infinitum--had to be a big trip for many of these guys who were consulted and interviewed and given extraordinary authority.

These are not the goals of low-grade grifters (except in spirit). I don't doubt that you could also find collusion among some foreign powers hoping to cripple the United States or manipulate us for their own gain, and I even don't doubt (no surprise) that you could find communist conspiracies (it's their raison d'etre, after all, and their involvement is well documented if not publicly well known). But none of that identifies the primary motives of the leaders or their many followers.

Look at the large numbers of people who wanted to believe--who wanted to believe in a theory that Mankind is inherently bad, inherently evil, even, and that mankind deserves to be punished, should be punished, and all of us should suffer and sacrifice for the hubris of using our minds, manipulating our environment for our personal survival, happiness and success in life? What attracts someone to the conviction that all that is bad?

There is only one answer.

Consider the ideas so many people are taught and believe in today:

That sacrifice is good--whether it's sacrificing your warmth and light and comfort and standard of living to saving the planet from alleged crises, or to any other purpose.

That the individual is bad, weak, flawed, of no consequence, of no intelligence, powerless before fate, having no worth compared to his race, his group, his countrymen, every member of his gender nor any other lifeform down to the lowest slug.

That individual judgment is of no significance, and any objections to the arguments of global warming from individuals are of no import compared to the assertions, flatulence and bullcrap from a collective herd of esteemed science guys having enough sheepskins and pedigrees.

That reason is impotent and incapable of guiding mens' existence--unless one wants to claim the illusion of reason to manipulate people towards ends such as "cap and trade" and global dictatorship for the alleged purpose of improving mens' lives.

That emotions are primary and feelings are more fundamental guides to action than reason, and if you feel strongly enough about something that gives you the right to impose it on every other man, woman and child on Earth at the point of a gun.

That objectivity doesn't exist (are there facts independent of anyone's perception?) but contradictions do exist (hey, everything is relative and the sun couldn't have more effect on global temperatures than a power plant or even a herd of cattle), and one man's dogma is another man's science (say, Phil Jones or James Hansen).

That reality is malleable (even physical laws are up for a vote) and anyone is entitled to manipulate it towards their ends, including climate scientists and politicians.

That the group (the establishment of any State-run institution, whether of science or public policy) is supreme, to be followed and obeyed unthinkingly.

That individual rights are passe', the pursuit of happiness is naive, personal property outdated, and the embodiment of all these -- capitalism -- is an evil blight consuming the planet, destroying the environment and enslaving people with freedom.

All this has come to be taught in our schools, promoted in our media and discussed endlessly and without question in intellectual colloquia. But who taught the teachers, the pundits and the intellectuals? What made it possible for so many people to subscribe, advocate and participate in such a hoax?

To get to the bottom of "Climategate" and prevent it ever happening again you must go deeper than the concretes of money and power. You must discover the preconditions of the hoax. As Ayn Rand said so often, those are the questions answered by philosophy -- a proper philosophy.

(For anyone new to her philosophy, see especially her essay, Philosophy, Who Needs It, delivered to the graduating class at West Point in 1974. Here it is in audio form online: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_pwni. Also, see other introductory essays http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_advessays)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html

Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation

Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 6:10PM GMT 28 Nov 2009

A week after my colleague James Delingpole, on his Telegraph blog, coined the term "Climategate" to describe the scandal revealed by the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, Google was showing that the word now appears across the internet more than nine million times. But in all these acres of electronic coverage, one hugely relevant point about these thousands of documents has largely been missed.

The reason why even the Guardian's George Monbiot has expressed total shock and dismay at the picture revealed by the documents is that their authors are not just any old bunch of academics. Their importance cannot be overestimated, What we are looking at here is the small group of scientists who have for years been more influential in driving the worldwide alarm over global warming than any others, not least through the role they play at the heart of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Professor Philip Jones, the CRU's director, is in charge of the two key sets of data used by the IPCC to draw up its reports. Through its link to the Hadley Centre, part of the UK Met Office, which selects most of the IPCC's key scientific contributors, his global temperature record is the most important of the four sets of temperature data on which the IPCC and governments rely – not least for their predictions that the world will warm to catastrophic levels unless trillions of dollars are spent to avert it.

Dr Jones is also a key part of the closely knit group of American and British scientists responsible for promoting that picture of world temperatures conveyed by Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph which 10 years ago turned climate history on its head by showing that, after 1,000 years of decline, global temperatures have recently shot up to their highest level in recorded history.

Given star billing by the IPCC, not least for the way it appeared to eliminate the long-accepted Mediaeval Warm Period when temperatures were higher they are today, the graph became the central icon of the entire man-made global warming movement.

Since 2003, however, when the statistical methods used to create the "hockey stick" were first exposed as fundamentally flawed by an expert Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, an increasingly heated battle has been raging between Mann's supporters, calling themselves "the Hockey Team", and McIntyre and his own allies, as they have ever more devastatingly called into question the entire statistical basis on which the IPCC and CRU construct their case.

The senders and recipients of the leaked CRU emails constitute a cast list of the IPCC's scientific elite, including not just the "Hockey Team", such as Dr Mann himself, Dr Jones and his CRU colleague Keith Briffa, but Ben Santer, responsible for a highly controversial rewriting of key passages in the IPCC's 1995 report; Kevin Trenberth, who similarly controversially pushed the IPCC into scaremongering over hurricane activity; and Gavin Schmidt, right-hand man to Al Gore's ally Dr James Hansen, whose own GISS record of surface temperature data is second in importance only to that of the CRU itself.

There are three threads in particular in the leaked documents which have sent a shock wave through informed observers across the world. Perhaps the most obvious, as lucidly put together by Willis Eschenbach (see McIntyre's blog Climate Audit and Anthony Watt's blog Watts Up With That), is the highly disturbing series of emails which show how Dr Jones and his colleagues have for years been discussing the devious tactics whereby they could avoid releasing their data to outsiders under freedom of information laws.

They have come up with every possible excuse for concealing the background data on which their findings and temperature records were based.

This in itself has become a major scandal, not least Dr Jones's refusal to release the basic data from which the CRU derives its hugely influential temperature record, which culminated last summer in his startling claim that much of the data from all over the world had simply got "lost". Most incriminating of all are the emails in which scientists are advised to delete large chunks of data, which, when this is done after receipt of a freedom of information request, is a criminal offence.

But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.

What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.

The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.

Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre's demolition of the "hockey stick", he excoriated the way in which this same "tightly knit group" of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to "peer review" each other's papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang. In light of the latest revelations, it now seems even more evident that these men have been failing to uphold those principles which lie at the heart of genuine scientific enquiry and debate. Already one respected US climate scientist, Dr Eduardo Zorita, has called for Dr Mann and Dr Jones to be barred from any further participation in the IPCC. Even our own George Monbiot, horrified at finding how he has been betrayed by the supposed experts he has been revering and citing for so long, has called for Dr Jones to step down as head of the CRU.

The former Chancellor Lord (Nigel) Lawson, last week launching his new think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, rightly called for a proper independent inquiry into the maze of skulduggery revealed by the CRU leaks. But the inquiry mooted on Friday, possibly to be chaired by Lord Rees, President of the Royal Society – itself long a shameless propagandist for the warmist cause – is far from being what Lord Lawson had in mind. Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with a whitewash of what has become the greatest scientific scandal of our age.

Shanghaied by Forked Tongue

My friend Ed (author of the "Sparrowhawk" series on the American Revolution) makes the excellent point in his latest editorial Fork-Tongue in Shanghai that when Obama said he was a fan of "non-censorship" while visiting China recently, what he really meant was that he was not a fan of freedom of speech. No slip of the forked tongue. As Ed observes,

The satire is that in Shanghai, Obama was subjected to the same censorship that he wishes to impose on America. It was the professional totalitarians showing the ropes to an amateur.

An amateur with grand ambitions to be a pro, I might add.

Ed also makes the cogent point that terms like "providers" are concocted by Leftists to imply a sacrificial obligation (and thereby seize the moral high ground) by businesses to provide free services to everyone else, without rights to control the means of providing. To ensure that, government must therefore have the authority to force businesses to comply. You may note that what is really implied is the destruction of the concept of property rights as such. That is always the real goal of such agendas. To quote Ellsworth Toohey, the arch-Marxist par excellance from "The Fountainhead" (quoted in my own editorial on Toohey vs Obama, "Good Night America", 6/28/09),

"Don't bother to examine a folly--ask yourself only what it accomplishes.

See Ed's column at http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2009/11/fork-tongued-in-shanghai.htm

Rodents of Unusual Size

Or a large man-eating rat by any other name, from The Princess Bride.

A friend sent me an article that makes the point that the Health Care Bill is a sort of Ponzi scheme to make us all dependent on government in matters of health care, but in my opinion, this falls far short of the truth and the nature of the pure evil behind it. Why were 40 Democrats sacrificed to pass the health care bill (they will lose in the next election for voting for this), and why do the people behind this want a "dominant role of government in health care"?

The short form answer is, as I said in a previous post, that I think the guys orchestrating health care "reform" want much more than just that. Their goal is a Chavez-like incremental communism with an end-game of the Cuban model. That's why I often say Obama is a Castroite, and why I'll now append that title to Nancy Pelosi. It was Pelosi's sacrifice of so many members of her own party to her agenda that finally convinced me she is a committed communist and not just a socialist.

She would only do this, by the way, if there was some Plan B, not yet revealed, that would make her and her ilk (including Obama) unconcerned about the next election. Stay tuned.

As I said previously in "The Real Meaning of Health Care Reform" (9/4/09), the primary goal of this "reform" is the enactment of the legal basis for totalitarianism. I do not think the bill was a simple product of the "Far Left", but was concocted as part of a broader plan by committed communists whose ultimate goal is the destruction of capitalism and the United States. The health care bill (like Obama) is a stepping stone to that end.

I make a big distinction between socialists and communists. The latter are active conspirators, whereas socialists are simply "me-too-ers" who aren't part of any conspiracy but just really, really excited to promote their agenda out in the open. (And rank and file average Democrats are simply ballast to them.) Communists have a goal and a plan, and actively work together in secret to implement it.

If you'll pardon the speculation, their plan (and it is a loose conspiracy, I think, that includes a great number of people around the world) is to put their people in all top positions of our government. The Presidency of the United States was the "holy grail" they've sought for 60 years -- access to every single top secret of the U.S. government, and the highest influence of all domestic and foreign policy. Obama's "appearance" on the stage was not accidental. A black man was groomed for this role for a reason -- to get out a large base of normally uninvolved voters, to cash in on all the latent guilt fostered in public schools for decades over the legacy of slavery, and to insulate him from a lot of criticism as just motivated by "racism".

In my opinion the timing of the economic collapse only weeks before the election was also not an accident. It was an essential part of the Plan. The preconditions of the collapse had been building (created and encouraged) for several decades. I think the seizing-up of the credit markets was pushed as far ahead as 2-4 years before the election. These people knew that a bad economy and widespread fear and panic would gain them substantial points in the election.

I think Hank Paulsen (former Secretary of the Treasury) was probably part of the plan because of his central role in bringing the "crisis" to Bush for immediate action only weeks before the election, but it's possible the strings were pulled from below to manipulate him to that situation. When it was evident that Obama had even a small chance of losing (his margin was shrinking rapidly), they had Paulsen pull the trigger on the boldest and most desperate move of all -- Paulsen would take a catastrophic meltdown crisis to Bush (the dumbest shrub on the planet) with the immediate need for a trillion dollars. The point wasn't the state of the economy itself, which was admittedly bad. It was to precipitate a catastrophic crisis, by goading Bush into asking Congress for an emergency authorization of a trillion dollars -- a few weeks before the election. They knew this would scare the living hell out of everyone in the country and get Obama and the Democrats all the swing votes necessary to ensure victory.

The evidence for Paulsen (a Democrat) being more than a dupe and probably a closet communist is that his job as Secretary of the Treasury was carefully orchestrated in my opinion. Paulsen's motivation for wanting the job was simple: at Goldman, he was the one who put the entire company at risk by promoting the mortgage backed securities market (MBSs). Goldman for a time made a lot of money on this, and Paulsen was sitting on $500M worth of stock options as a result of the "success" of that strategy. But his options were going to be worthless soon -- when the MBS house of cards collapsed or when the trigger was pulled on the economy to make it collapse.

As Secretary of the Treasury, Paulsen would be in an ideal situation to not only pull that trigger, but by law required to divest himself of a "conflict of interest" before he had to pull it -- to liquidate his options at Goldman. A key company officer dumping such a large number of options on the market would normally devastate the price of a stock, but everyone knows that stock divestment was a legal requirement for anyone to take the Treasury top job. Paulsen was smart enough to know the MBSs he promoted at Goldman were a ticking time bomb. So it was perfect for him -- he made out like a bandit before chickens came home to roost. Then he had no reluctance at all to go to Bush with an outrageous call for a trillion dollar "bailout" of the banking industry.

Look a step further at how perfectly this all came together for the communist conspiricists. Requesting a trillion dollars not only ensured Obama the election, it got them the authority to seize control of the entire banking industry. And then the auto industry. And then carte blanche to demand more regulation of every other industry.

Seriously, if you were a committed communist, and your goal was the destruction of capitalism and the nationalization of private industry, what could be more perfect?

Most people are very reluctant to openly suggest there are communist conspiracies or that particular people are communists, even in the face of glaring evidence. (Eg, Van Jones making explicit public statements such as "I AM A COMMUNIST", and Obama spending his entire life consorting with communists, including his parents and mentors and preachers and fellow intellectuals.) People think (rightly) that it makes them look wild-eyed and un-credible -- and I would agree in many forums or circles, you just can't do it. Labels are usually a diversion from underlying intellectual issues.

But there are cases where a label is appropriate: when the issue isn't simply intellectual. If a country, for instance, was planning to attack the United States with atomic weapons, you wouldn't mock anyone who used the label of "The Soviets". You would use that label to more precisely identify the nature of the threat and the plans the Soviets were making. Well, the Soviets may be gone (at least in Russia), but their ilk live on and plan and work towards their goal. That is the value of the label "communist".

Belittling of labels was one of the goals of the post-McCarthy era, for that reason. Even if McCarthy and HUAC were temporary (and minor) setbacks, the communists brilliantly spun those hearings to demonize anyone as lunatics for seeing communists under every table.

And communism didn't go away after McCarthy -- it flourished in the twilight for decades, especially after the government and teachers unions cemented control of the school system post-Kennedy. The "black-listing" was an ideal cover, for this -- it made the communists much more cautious about revealing their affiliations. (Van Jones is, relatively speaking, just a loud mouthed moron in those circles.)

So, even if you can't produce "smoking gun" evidence in the form of CPUSA cards for these people (though you could for Jones and for Obama's father, and for Frank Davis, Obama's mentor), that doesn't mean communists and a broad conspiracy aren't out there, but you do have to be willing to risk being called a conspiracy nut to see it. The signs are everywhere, if you know what to look for.

What are the signs? To see them accurately, the key is to not get suckered into thinking all Leftists are communists; most aren't (communists are a very small minority). While Leftists and communists share the appeal of altruism as a moral ideal, communists are not interested in fostering a "greater good" (however flawed that concept may be for Leftists in general).

What differentiates communists in particular are two defining mental traits: first, a sort of megalomaniacal belief in their own superior intelligence (observe Obama's nomination and inauguration), and second, an unbridled power lust (look what he's done and who he has surrounded himself with). The second breeds their over-arching hatred of individualism and capitalism (how can you be superior to everyone if you can't control them?), and the combination leads communists to concoct conspiracies. Altruism is what gives them the means to that end, and conspiracies are their modus operandi. The psychology of a communist is ultimately that of a pathological liar and killer. For more on this, see my post "Good Night, America" (6/28/09).

This reasoning may sound like a self-licking ice cream cone -- "their love of conspiracies is why you have to believe my conspirializing about their conspiracies"-- but I'm not a big fan of chance. As Auric Goldfinger said, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action." Labels can occasionally be useful, and a communist by any other name is a large Rodent of Unusual Size in Grandma's clothes, waiting to devour little Red White and Blue Riding Hood.