No Oil for Pacifists

In my post-election quasi-rant, I considered the possibility that the worse, the better: that it would be better in the end for liberty and more limited government if Obama and the Congressional Democrats indulged the wildest policy fantasies in health care, climate change, and domestic government spending. I conjectured that this would set off a popular reaction that would derail these endeavors.

The first part of the scenario has definitely played out. Indeed, Obama, by delegating his agenda to the almost uniformly leftist leadership of Congress, and exploiting the financial crisis and sharp recession, has pursued a far more thoroughgoing attempt to reshape America than I thought possible even in my gloomiest moments.

And now there are clear indications that the second part of the scenario is playing out as well. The tumults at Congressional townhalls in particular are the most palpable evidence of this, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.. . .

For government-dominated health care (and the rest of the Obama agenda) is an elite project; progressivism (and Progressivism) has always been elitist, and more than willing to coerce the great unwashed into doing what their betters know is good for them. It looks to Europe for its inspiration, and is dismissive of distinctively American institutions, and of the vision of the Founders in particular.

But Americans have the infuriating habit of not being Europeans. They are far less deferential to authority, and to the authority of self-styled elites in particular. European society is far-less open access than the US; just consider the dominance of the graduates of a few elite schools in French government. Consequently, the elites have a much rougher time getting their way here, than in Europe.

We are at a historical moment. In my post-election post, I shrunk from hoping for the worse-the-better because I feared that the US had become sufficiently Europeanized that the agenda would be implemented, at the eternal cost of our liberties and future prosperity. The coming couple of months--most notably, the period of the Congressional recess and the first weeks after its return--will be decisive.

The data indicate that members of the treatment group who were attending private schools in the third year of the evaluation gained an average of 7.1 scale score points in reading from the program.

What do these gains mean for students? They mean that the students in the control group would need to remain in school an extra 3.7 months on average to catch up to the level of reading achievement attained by those who used the scholarship opportunity to attend a private school for any period of time. The catch-up time would have been around 5 months for those in the control group as compared to those who were attending a private school in the third year of the evaluation.

Over time, in my opinion, the effects of the program show a trend toward larger reading gains cumulating for students. Especially when one considers that students who used their scholarship in year 1 needed to adjust to a new and different school environment, the reading impacts of using a scholarship of 1.4 scale score points (not significant) in year 1, 4.0 scale score points (not significant) in year 2, and 5.3 scale score points (significant) in year 3 suggest that students are steadily gaining in reading performance relative to their peers in the control group the longer they make use of the scholarship.

[V]ouchers aren't the answer to Washington's school troubles; we enthusiastically support public school reform and quality charter schools, too. But vouchers are an answer for some children whose options otherwise are bleak. In Washington, they also are part of a carefully designed social-science experiment that may provide useful evidence for all schools on helping low-income children learn.

People see this as madness. And they actually get the gist of it. They know it's a new tax and they are asking: 'How does putting another new tax on me change the temperature of the globe?'

Anybody who still thinks it's a good idea to give the federal government total control over health care should consider the case of Philip E. Cushman, a Portland, Ore., resident and decorated ex-Marine whose back was broken when a fellow serviceman accidentally dropped a sandbag on top of him when their unit was under attack in Vietnam.

For the past two decades, Cushman has been unsuccessfully trying to get the Veterans' Administration to hand over some $100,000 it owes him for his service-related disability.

Finally, in an Aug. 12 landmark decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Cushman's statutorily mandated, non-discretionary, service-related disability benefits are protected property under the U.S. Constitution. The court also found that the VA illegally altered Cushman's medical records to avoid having to pay his claim.

Gordon Erspamer, a Walnut Creek, Calif., attorney whose law firm represented Cushman pro bono, told me that somebody at the VA added language implying that the septuagenarian -- who has endured four back operations and has a steel rod implanted in his spine -- could work, provided he was "not doing heavy bending or lifting." The VA then gave the Social Security Administration the altered document, so Cushman was denied Social Security disability benefits as well. "It was a double whammy," Erspamer said.

Two years ago, Social Security backed down when Cushman's lawyers proved that the VA document had a forged entry. But not the VA. "The VA refused to readjudicate his claim, even though the only record suggesting he could work was that entry. The VA fights everything," Erspamer explained. "It's a very bewildering, adversarial system.

Unfortunately, Cushman is not the only disabled vet who's been getting the bum's rush from the government. The number of backlogged cases at the VA is expected to hit the one million mark this year for the first time ever. Cushman's attorneys also discovered that, while it takes the VA just 4.6 hours on average to decide a compensation claim, it takes the agency five years to actually settle the claim. And even after stalling for five years, the VA's cumulative error rate is 90 percent!

"Three thousand veterans die every year while their appeals are pending," Erspamer said. And as death extinguishes their disability claims, their families get nothing. . .

The VA's integrated single-payer system, which the Wall Street Journal describes as a "liberal Shangri-la," sounds great on paper. But if you're a disabled vet like Cushman, getting the VA to do its job often becomes a never-ending nightmare.

And if the federal government treats its own military veterans -- who were disabled fighting for their country -- in such a shoddy and disrespectful fashion, do you really think it'll do any better when you get sick?

On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include "a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!" . . .

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were "health care" and "energy and environment." The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

It sounded, how should I phrase it. . .unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me.

The people running the conference call and rallying the group to get active on these issues were Yosi Sergant, the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve; Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement for Rock the Vote; and Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons.

We were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these "focus areas" as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. Throughout the conversation, we were reminded of our ability as artists and art professionals to "shape the lives" of those around us. The now famous Obama "Hope" poster, created by artist Shepard Fairey and promoted by many of those on the phone call, and will.i.am’s "Yes We Can" song and music video were presented as shining examples of our group’s clear role in the election.

Obama has a strong arts agenda, we were told, and has been very supportive of both using and supporting the arts in creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country. We were "selected for a reason," they told us. We had played a key role in the election and now Obama was putting out the call of service to help create change. We knew "how to make a stink," and were encouraged to do so. . .

Discussed throughout the conference call was a hope that this group would be one that would carry on past the United We Serve campaign to support the President’s initiatives and those issues for which the group was passionate. The making of a machine appeared to be in its infancy, initiated by the NEA, to corral artists to address specific issues.

This function was not the original intention for creating the National Endowment for the Arts.

A machine that the NEA helped to create could potentially be wielded by the state to push policy. Through providing guidelines to the art community on what topics to discuss and providing them a step-by-step instruction to apply their art form to these issues, the "nation’s largest annual funder of the arts" is attempting to direct imagery, songs, films, and literature that could create the illusion of a national consensus.

• Art for politics' sake: The NEA dispenses millions, making it predictable that the art community will turn handsprings to please the agency. So the recruiting effort is likely to succeed. But healthcare reform and cap and trade are "issues currently under legislative consideration," as Courrielche notes. And funding campaigns to advance draft laws is unlawful under the Anti-Lobbying Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1913. It also would be manufacturing propaganda, Soviet style. Wouldn't that, as Jim Lindgren asks on Volokh, "convert [NEA] into a partisan body to advance controversial political positions favored by the current administration"?



• Depends on how you define "independent": The NEA describes itself as "an independent agency of the federal government." How is a conference call with White House staff, and staff of the Corporation for National and Community Service -- a government agency -- independent? Moreover, NEA's statutory mission is (20 U.S.C. § 954(c)) to promote "projects and productions which have substantial national or international artistic and cultural significance," including "projects and productions that will encourage public knowledge, education, understanding, and appreciation of the arts." How is pushing artists "into creating state-sponsored art that glorifies the state" consistent with that role?



• That was then; this is now: So far, the media and the left have mostly been muted or mildly positive. (Among newspapers, a Google search turns up only the conservative Washington Times and Examiner; I could find nothing on DailyKos or Democratic Underground.) Can you picture the firestorm had the Bush Administration funded private speech to promote its political agenda? Actually, no imagination is required: Congressional Democrats, the mainstream media and lefties went crazy when the Bush Administration paid talk-show hosts and journalists to champion its education and health agendas. But, in service of a Democrat, progressive free speech concerns fade.



• Money for nothing: As Ace notes, the NEA's constituency is overwhelmingly leftist anyway. So the Administration's efforts are merely more wasted spending--artists already deify the Obamessiah for free.

One would think that by now most people would have figured out that climate change represents a grave threat to the planet. One would also have expected from Congress a plausible strategy for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that lie at the root of the problem.. . . Mainstream scientists warn that the longer the world waits, the sooner it will reach a tipping point beyond which even draconian measures may not be enough.

Many mainstream scientists disagree. As do economists and statisticians such as Bjorn Lomborg in the August 20th Australian:

Cutting carbon emissions, however, requires a reduction in the basic energy use that underpins modern society, so it also will mean significant costs.

Prominent climate economist Richard Tol, of Hamburg University in Germany, has analysed the benefits and costs of cutting carbon now v cutting it in the future. Cutting early will cost $US17.8 trillion ($21.6 trillion), whereas cutting later will cost just $US2trillion. Nonetheless, the reduction in CO2 concentration -- and hence temperature -- in 2100 will be greater from the future reductions. Cutting emissions now is much more expensive, because there are few, expensive, alternatives to fossil fuels. Our money simply doesn't buy as much as it will when green energy sources are more cost-efficient.

Tol strikingly shows that grand promises of drastic, immediate carbon cuts -- reminiscent of the call for 80 per cent reductions by mid-century that some politicians and lobbyists make -- are an incredibly expensive way of doing very little good. All the academic models show that, even if possible, limiting the increase in global temperature to 2 degrees C, as promised by the European Union and the G8, would cost a phenomenal 12.9 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the century. This would be the equivalent of imposing a cost of more than $US4000 on each inhabitant every year, by the end of the century. Yet the damage avoided would likely amount to only $US700 for each inhabitant.

The real cost of ambitious, early and large carbon-cutting programs would be a reduction in growth -- particularly damaging to the world's poor -- to the tune of about $US40 trillion a year. The costs also would come much sooner than the benefits and persist much longer. For every dollar the world spends on this grand plan, the avoided climate damage would be worth only US2c.

That is why Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- no alarmist -- has warned that "what we do in the next two or three years will determine our future." And he said that two years ago.

Pachauri isn't an alarmist? Only last year, he falsely claimed warming was accellerating. He has a "return to nature" political agenda. And, here's what he said in his speech accepting the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize:

We, therefore, have a short window of time to bring about a reduction in global emissions, if we wish to limit temperature increases to around 2 degrees Celsius at equilibrium. But even with this ambitious level of stabilization, the global average sea level rise above pre-industrial at equilibrium from thermal expansion alone would lie between 0.4 to 1.4 meters. This would have serious implications for several regions and locations in the world.

Sounds as alarmist -- and as pro-Obama -- as the New York Times! Of course in the real world, temperatures have dropped for a decade despite continued increased carbon emissions, suggesting Pachauri's fears are alarmingly overstated.

Proponents of climate change legislation have now settled on a new strategy: warning that global warming poses a serious threat to national security. Climate-induced crises like drought, starvation, disease and mass migration, they argue, could unleash regional conflicts and draw in America’s armed forces, either to help keep the peace or to defend allies or supply routes.

When did the Times start worrying about national security? After the paper leaked classified details of Bush's terrorist eavesdropping program? Or following its accusations of Republican scaremongering at any mention of national security? When did the paper drop its skepticism to U.S. military intervention in regional conflicts? And if external threats to America are rising, why is the Obama Administration cutting the defense budget, to the applause of the Times?

In any event, there is scant evidence warming would multiply disasters or threaten national security. Indeed, such assertions ignore the plausible life-saving benefits of hypothetical temperature increases. Besides, warming would allow us to shave spending on the defense of continental Europe, based on this August 17th Daily Telegraph (U.K.) article:

Prominent French chefs have given warning that the country's wines will lose their complexity and the best produce will come from Scotland if the effects of climate change are not tackled.

A group of chefs, sommeliers and chateaux has issued a call to action, urging the country to secure ambitious targets in the months ahead to limit global warming.

President Nicolas Sarkozy was posed a stark choice: save French wine by clinching a deal at the international climate conference in Copenhagen in December, or see generations of viticulture slowly die out as vineyards cross the Channel and head north.

Talk about a win-win!

I thought folks on the left loved protesters -- the rowdier, the better. Liberals are fond of reminding us that free speech is sacred, and that dissent -- "speaking truth to power" -- is a patriotic duty. Remember the 2008 Republican National Convention? The ACLU of Minnesota went to court to win a parade permit that would have allowed thousands of protesters, including anarchists who had vowed to shut down the convention, to encircle St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center, where delegates convened.

Today's town hall protesters get no such respectful treatment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has branded them "evil-mongers." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have labeled them "un-American." Left-wing journalists have mocked them as buffoons, extremists and crazies.

Most significantly, some Democratic leaders have charged that town hall protesters are not ordinary citizens speaking from the heart, as they appear to be. Instead, they are puppets, part of an "ugly campaign" -- in Pelosi's and Hoyer's words -- orchestrated by shadowy special interests. . .

It's odd, too, to hear Democrats denounce grass-roots organizing as sinister. Their allies wrote the book on "netroots," and groups such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and MoveOn.org helped put Obama and friends over the top in the 2008 elections. These organizations have eye-popping budgets and Washington offices, while town hall protesters pass on e-mails to their neighbors from their kitchens after work.

The greatest irony, of course, is that Barack Obama -- our health care reformer-in-chief -- rose to America's highest office by using skills he mastered as a "community organizer."

They first settled in the forests of Aquitaine, but quickly fanned out to surrounding areas, thriving on rising temperatures linked to global warming and the lack of indigenous predators.

The costs of Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt this country if we don't reduce the cost inflation of health care. You've got families who can't get health care because of preexisting conditions or they bump up against some lifetime cap if a family member gets really ill.

A Basis Is Seen for Some Health Plan Fears Among the Elderly

False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots

What's the climate change scare really about? Not what the alarmists want the public to think.

During an Aug. 5 interview with the BBC, Gerd Leipold, outgoing executive director of Greenpeace, admitted that his organization emotionalizes issues to influence the public. At the time, he was admitting his group had made an error in its July 15 news release that claimed "we are looking at ice-free summers in the Arctic as early as 2030."

"I don't think (the Greenland ice sheet) will be melting by 2030," he said. "That may have been a mistake." . . .

When all the pretense about science is stripped away, it becomes clear that the global warming scare is not about the planet, but about establishing egalitarianism across the world. It's about making everyone more equal by slowing growth in rich nations rather than increasing growth in poor and developing countries.

The mind-set can be found in campaigns such as Climate Justice, which "is not only the right tool for climate stabilization," says Jin-woo Lee, a policy analyst for the Energy & Climate Policy Institute for Just Transition, but also "the underlying principle for global equity."

Greenpeace's Leipold said he believes the world is finally beginning to take global warming seriously. But that seems wildly optimistic. The movement looks to be losing momentum.

Already 20,000 overnight hotel stays that had been reserved for the December United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen have been canceled. Either a lot of people are losing interest -- or they're thinking it will just be too cold.

"They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.

The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israel Defense Forces, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs.

'Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,' relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied," writes author Donald Boström in his report.

Boström's article makes a link to the recent exposure of an alleged crime syndicate in New Jersey. The syndicate includes several American rabbis, and one Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who faces charges of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant.

Boström also cites an incident of alleged organ snatching from 1992, during the time of the first Palestinian intifada. He says that the IDF seized a young man known for throwing stones at Israeli troops in the Nablus area, who was shot in the chest, both legs, and the stomach before being taken to a military helicopter which transported him to "a place unknown to his loved ones".

Five nights later, Boström says, the young man's body was returned, wrapped in green hospital sheets.

"The sharp sounds from the shovels were mixed with the occasional laughter from the soldiers who were joking with each other, waiting to go home. When Bilal was put into his grave, his chest was revealed and suddenly it became clear to the present what abuse he had been put through. Bilal was far from the only one who was buried cut-up from his stomach to his chin and the speculations about the reason why had already started," he writes.

The Swedish government then tried to hide behind a fealty to freedom of the press, which only served to compound the problem. Newspapers ought to be free to publish what they want, but government officials -- and anyone else -- are free to criticize, especially when what is published is presented as fact, not opinion. This entire episode could have been avoided if Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt had only supported his own ambassador to Israel, who rightly called the story "shocking and appalling." Instead, the ministry disavowed her denunciation, and Bildt’s usually bubbly blog went on the defensive.

The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.

October 14, 2008: "And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."

October 19, 2008: "And I want to go through the federal budget line by line, page by page, programs that don't work."

Narrated by Stone, the new one-hour series will feature episodes that focus on human events, that at the time went under-reported, but crucially shaped America's unique and complex history over the last 60 years. Stone and a small group of historians and archivists have meticulously combed through the national archives of the U.S., Russia, South Africa, England, and Japan in search of papers, letters, memoranda, film, and photographs to assist in their documentation of unknown historical figures and events that have rarely, if ever, been revealed. Topics range from President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan to the origins and reasons for the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to the fierce struggle between war and peace in America’s national security complex. Newly discovered facts and accounts from the Kennedy administration, the Vietnam War, and the great changes in America’s role in the world since the fall of Communism in the 1980s will be presented.

Oliver Stone, who has worked on the series for almost 2 years, said today, "Through this epic 10-hour series, which I feel is the deepest contribution I could ever make in film to my children and the next generation, I can only hope a change in our thinking will result."

1) Stone's Showtime project could delay his planned hagiography, I mean, documentary on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

2) As Hugh Hewitt says, "I'd like to thank Oliver Stone in advance for enough material to fuel 50 radio shows."

The Obama folks plan to end their Cash for Clunkers program Monday -- and good thing, since it was rap idly falling into chaos.

By contrast, if Congress passes President Obama's plan for health-care reform, Americans may be stuck with it forever. No matter how much of a "clunker" it turns out to be.

And, indeed, judging by the car-subsidy program, ObamaCare may well be just that -- if not worse.

Sure, the clunker plan always sounded good: Free money toward a new car -- who'd complain about that?

Well, for starters, the money comes from taxpayers. So it's not exactly "free."

And the cash doesn't seem to be reaching the car dealers, for whom the program was supposed to drum up business.

This week, frustrated New York dealers put the pedal to the metal -- in a race to exit the program. About half the 425 members of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association say they dropped out.

Why? Because Washington's bureaucrats were able to send out only 2 percent of the money it owes.

"It's an administrative nightmare," said Mark Schienberg, the association's president.

Now consider health care.

The car program involved all of just $3 billion. Health care is a $2.4 trillion business, about 800 times bigger.

The U.S. Transportation Department, billions of dollars behind in paying "cash-for-clunkers" rebates, has hired private contractors and solicited volunteers from the Federal Aviation Administration and its own executive ranks to work overtime to clear the backlog.

• Blue: As I've previously discussed:

  Gregg Easterbrook noted in his odd, but interesting, The Progress Paradox, we could reduce the number of families living below the poverty line by more than half merely by barring immigration. It's reasonable to presume the same approach also would lessen the number lacking healthcare insurance. But if that's not the preferred policy choice, doesn't that suggest both that it's difficult to compare healthcare here with healthcare there AND that our current system might not be as flawed or as expensive as the "healthcare is a fundamental right" liberals suggest?

• Red: no comment.



• Green: in addition to the 9.1 million uninsured in households earning over $75k annually, there are 17.6 million uninsured in households earning over $50k annually.



• Purple: as of 2002, as many as 18 million people were listed as uninsured by the Census Bureau but in fact enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid.



• Tan: two estimates from 2004 suggested 25 percent (Bush Administration Council of Economic Advisers) or 37 percent (Medical Expenditure Panel Survey) of employees that are eligible decline employer-sponsored health insurance.



• Orange: uninsured isn't untreated: a 2002 estimate from a "universal coverage" advocacy group said that 80 percent of the uninsured had access to needed medical care.

I don't want to give the government a greater role in health care markets. Nay, not even if all the other countries . . . well, all the cool countries, anyway . . . are doing it.

It’s not 47 million. It’s not 36 million. The number of Americans uninsured out of necessity and not economic choice is at most 14 million. Understanding that will bring a much more balanced approach to health-care reform on a scale commensurate with the problem, rather than a hysterical rush to throw out a system that works for hundreds of millions Americans.

Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely available across the border.

Agreements between Detroit hospitals and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for heart, imaging tests, bariatric and other services provide access to some services not immediately available in the province, said ministry spokesman David Jensen.

The agreements show how a country with a national care system -- a proposal not part of the health care changes under discussion in Congress -- copes with demand for care with U.S. partnerships, rather than building new facilities.

Michael Vujovich, 61, of Windsor was taken to Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital for an angioplasty procedure after he went to a Windsor hospital in April. Vujovich said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works.

"I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry.

Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.

Told by Canadian doctors in 2007 he couldn't have the procedure there, Mercado's family and doctor appealed to Ontario health officials, who agreed to let him have the transplant in Detroit in January 2008.

The Karmanos Institute is one of several Detroit health facilities that care for Canadians needing services not widely available in Canada.

Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report in the Canadian Journal of Surgery.

As a result, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in April designated 13 U.S. hospitals, including five in Michigan and one more with a tentative designation, to perform bariatric surgery for Canadians.

The agreements provide "more immediate services for patients whose health is at risk," Jensen said.

[On Von Braun's team's arrival in Huntsville Alabama]. It took the émigrés a while, however, to get used to the local ways. At first, every time a shopgirl in a department store at the end of a transaction said, "Y'all hurry on back now, hear?" a German would immediately turn around and return to the cash register.

With the termination of hostilities against Japan, it is incumbent on all officers to conduct themselves with dignity and decorum in their treatment of the Japanese and their public utterances in connection with the Japanese. The Japanese are still the same nation which initiated the war in a treacherous attack on the Pacific Fleet and which has subjected our brothers in arms who became prisoners to torture, starvation, and murder. However, the use of insulting epithets in connection with the Japanese as a race or as individuals does not now become the officers of the United States Navy. Officers in the Pacific Fleet will take steps to require of all personnel under their command a high standard of conduct in this matter. Neither familiarity nor abuse and vituperation should be permitted.

Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors

SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."

The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

Virtually every progressive recommendation about health policy for the last 20 or 30 years that the drug industry felt might harm its bottom line has been met by the threat that if they don't make as much money before, innovation will cease and there will be no cures for new diseases. It came up around Medicare drug pricing and generic drugs. It's not a surprise to see it come up around health-care reform.

There are a couple reasons that this is a specious argument. One is that according to their filings with the SEC, the drug companies only spend about 15 cents of every dollar on research and development. That's compared to more than 30 cents in administration and marketing and more than 20 cents on shareholder equity. As an investment in R&D, I think any venture capitalist would say a company spending 15 percent on research is not a robust innovation engine.

This makes about as much sense as saying that Dr. Jerry Avorn cannot be that smart because his brain only weighs about three pounds. Presumably, you can't be really smart--really innovative--unless your brain is at least 30 percent of your body weight!

This is obviously ludicrous--so why would Dr. Avorn say it about an R&D department? Like your brain, the R&D department is part of a complex system that does a lot of important stuff. You can argue that the R&D department is the most important part of a company, not least because it couldn't survive long without it. I think the same thing about my brain--but I'd still be just as dead without my liver. You certainly can't prove anything about my effectiveness as a journalist by pointing out that it weighs less than my bones.

So how big should a "brain" be? Hard to say. But let's look at some companies that are generally recognized as pretty innovative, and their R&D as a percentage of revenue:

Apple: three cents out of every dollar

Google: ten cents out of every dollar

Intel: fifteen cents out of every dollar

Genzyme (innovative biotech startup!): sixteen cents of every dollar

US Government: three cents out of every dollar

I can assure Dr. Avorn that any venture capitalist would be happy to invest in these hidebound laggards who haven't had a new idea in centuries. The first few, anyway.

Conservatives should remember that in terms of principles, evaluation, and observation, thinking in itself works to our long-term advantage. We need to retain the confidence in our beliefs that provoking anyone to think, at all, will eventually bear fruit. Will we lose many battles along the way to those who will play off the emotions and social status of liberal views? Absolutely. We will in fact lose most of the battles.

But if better ideas and devotion to the truth does not eventually prevail, and only the few are able to see through the fog, then there is no point in making it better for the others, except for simple kindness. We must give them the dignity of risk as well. If people wish to be manipulated on and on, then they are not ready to be free. Protecting them from their decisions will perpetuate their childhood.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS HELP EXPLAIN SLOW REACTION TO GLOBAL WARMING, SAYS APA TASK FORCE

Report Urges Psychologists to Play Larger Role in Limiting Climate Change Effects

TORONTO-While most Americans think climate change is an important issue, they don't see it as an immediate threat, so getting people to "go green" requires policymakers, scientists and marketers to look at psychological barriers to change and what leads people to action, according to a task force of the American Psychological Association.

Scientific evidence shows the main influences of climate change are behavioral -- population growth and energy consumption. "What is unique about current global climate change is the role of human behavior," said task force chair Janet Swim, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University. "We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act."

APA's Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change examined decades of psychological research and practice that have been specifically applied and tested in the arena of climate change, such as environmental and conservation psychology and research on natural and technological disasters. The task force presented its findings at APA's 117th Annual Convention in Toronto in a report that was accepted by the association's governing Council of Representatives.

The task force's report offers a detailed look at the connection between psychology and global climate change and makes policy recommendations for psychological science.

It cites a national Pew Research Center poll in which 75 percent to 80 percent of respondents said that climate change is an important issue. But respondents ranked it last in a list of 20 compelling issues, such as the economy or terrorism. Despite warnings from scientists and environmental experts that limiting the effects of climate change means humans need to make some severe changes now, people don't feel a sense of urgency. The task force said numerous psychological barriers are to blame.

DIESEL: (As Judge) Right!

Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
He's psychologic'ly disturbed!

ACTION
I'm disturbed!

JETS
We're disturbed, we're disturbed,
We're the most disturbed,
Like we're psychologic'ly disturbed.

DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home.

ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived.

DIESEL: So take him to a headshrinker.

I get asked by readers all the time: how can you go from left to right at such a rapid fire pace? Were you a conservative all along? Are you just yanking our chain; you're really still a liberal in conservative clothing?

Great question. This is a topic I ponder daily.

Now that I look back, I had the seeds of both a conservative and a liberal in me all along. On the liberal side: I was raised a secular Jew, and, for some God forsaken reason, most of us are Democrats. My upbringing lacked meaning and substance, which propelled my devotion to social causes. Of course, arriving in Berkeley in my 20's only hardened my liberal propensity.

I became a therapist, made friends with therapists, and spent tons of money having shrinks dissect my psyche. So my life was focused on problems, complaints, and kvetches. As Milton said, our minds can make a hell of heaven or a heaven of hell. My preoccupation with the darkness put me in a liberal state of mind. . .

I was also victimized early on by do-gooder liberal politics (though I didn't put two and two together until last year). I attended public schools with forced busing that ignited tremendous animosity and racial violence. As an adult, I've been harassed and molested innumerable times on urban streets both east coast and west, and was mugged several years ago in broad daylight.

Unlike most liberals, I never blamed myself or the dominant culture. I placed culpability directly on the thugs and on those in authority who remained silent. Whenever my friends excused immoral behavior, I would get seriously ticked off.

Lastly, my personality has always had elements both left and right. Now that I think about it, it's been dizzying living in my brain. I'm a straight shooter and detest phoniness (conservative), though I wanted to be liked (liberal). I've never been a group think person and don't like to be controlled (right), but at the same time, I wanted to fit in (left). . .

As I got into my 40's, my conservative, logical side started making more frequent appearances. I had some epiphanies: That, even with all my best efforts, the world was pretty much the same as when I entered it -- filled with both good and evil, dark and light. I had to admit, to my disappointment, that utopia wasn't around the corner, and that fate was in the hands of a Higher Power, not humans. I realized that life wasn't supposed to be easy, and that we shape our character through the hard stuff. . .

I woke up from a very long and deep sleep, like Robin Van Winkle. The traits of my arrested development, such as codependency, started melting away like snow in June. I started respecting myself more and requiring others do the same. I ditched friends who needed me as a teat or who treated me unkindly. I guess I was starting to embody conservatism without even knowing it.

My work with clients changed. I stopped reinforcing their stale, rigid stories. Rather than dredge up the past, we talked about how to live now, how to harness inner resources like courage, perseverance, and faith. I hoped to offer them the guidance and wisdom that I lacked in my younger years.

And then two years later, Obama came on the scene. He felt creepy; and I saw before my eyes that the sick, evil fringe of the far left had invaded the Democratic Party. As though I'd been slapped across the face, I snapped out of my trance. The last vestiges of my liberalism flew the coop, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Himalayan glaciers, including the world's highest battlefield Siachen, are melting due to variations in weather and not because of global warming, Jammu University scientists have claimed.

"The field studies from other glaciers in India also corroborate the fact that inter and intra-annual variations in weather parameters have more impact on the glaciers of northwest Himalayas, rather than any impact due to global warming," they said.

Geologists R K Ganjoo and M N Koul of Jammu University's Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research of Himalayan Glaciology visited the Siachen glacier to record changes in its snout last summer.

"To our surprise, the Siachen glacier valley does not preserve evidences of glaciation older than mid-Holocene, suggesting that the glacier must have advanced and retreated simultaneously several times in the geological past, resulting in complete obliteration and modification of older evidences," they said reporting their findings in 'Current Science'.

Ganjoo and Koul dubbed as "hype" some earlier studies which suggested that the Himalayan glaciers were melting fast and caused serious damage to the Himalayan ecosystem.

There is sufficient field and meteorological evidence from the other side of Karakoram mountains that corroborate the fact that glaciers in this part of the world are not affected by global warming, they said.

"Overwhelming field geomorphological evidences suggest poor response of the Siachen glacier to global warming. The snout of the Siachen glacier of 2008 has retreated by about 8-10 metres since 1995, making an average retreat of 0.6 metre per year," the scientists said.

Ganjoo said that the east part of the Siachen glacier showed faster withdrawal of the snout that is essentially due to ice-calving, a phenomenon that holds true for almost all major glaciers in the Himalayas and occurs irrespective of global warming.

The west part of the Siachen has reduced due to the action of melting water released from the retreated tributary glacier, he said.

Ganjoo contended the Siachen glacier shows hardly any retreat in its middle part and thus defies the "hype" of rapid melting.

In the past, the beautiful lagoon remained unfrozen even in winter except for the occasional drifting iceberg.

But now, as these aerial images show, it appears like a solid mass even in the summer.

Having children is the surest way to send your carbon footprint soaring, according to a new study from statisticians at Oregon State University.

The study found that having a child has an impact that far outweighs that of other energy-saving behaviors.

Take, for example, a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models. If she had two children, the researchers found, her carbon legacy would eventually rise to nearly 40 times what she had saved by those actions.

"Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle," the report states.

The impact of children varies dramatically depending on geography: An American woman who has a baby will generate nearly seven times the carbon footprint of that of a Chinese woman who has a child, the study found. . .

"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said Paul Murtaugh, a professor of statistics at O.S.U., in a statement accompanying the study’s release. "Those are important issues and it’s essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."

Under current conditions in the United States, for example, each child adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions. A person’s reproductive choices must be considered along with his day-to-day activities when assessing his ultimate impact on the global environment.

It's tempting to say: By all means, be good liberals and stop reproducing. Except that with liberalism, everything is based on coercion. They want you to stop reproducing. Now consider that the government has been moving aggressively to seize control of healthcare.

When it comes to health care decisions, 51% of the nation’s voters fear the federal government more than private insurance companies. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 41% hold the opposite view and fear the insurance companies more. Seven percent (7%) are not sure who they fear the most.

Among those who have insurance, 53% fear the government more than insurance companies while 39% take the opposite view. Those without insurance fear the insurance companies more.

Adults under 30 fear the insurance companies more while those in their 40s are evenly divided. However, a solid majority of those over 40 fear the government more.

These findings help explain fears by some of a government "takeover" of health care under the reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.

The liberal point of view is that we are subjects to the crown and that the state will take care of us.

The conservative point of view is that we are citizens and the state should mainly stay out of our way.

I found this interesting, "Most of those who attend church at least once a month fear the government more. Those who rarely or never attend church or religious services fear private insurance companies more."

Could it be that a belief in God trumps a belief in government -- or that government has replaced God in the lives of some people?

As Russian attack submarines patrol our eastern seaboard, Moscow signs a deal to help Castro's Cuba drill for oil off the Florida coast. In Moscow and Havana, the cry is "Drill, Comrade, Drill!"

Two Russian nuclear attack submarines have taken up positions along our East Coast in recent days, another sign of renewed assertiveness by the former communist giant. The move comes as Moscow inks a deal with the communist relic of Cuba to drill for oil we refuse to go after.

The submarines are of the Akula class, a counterpart to the Los Angeles class attack subs of the U.S. Navy. "I don't think they've put two first-line nuclear subs off the U.S. coast in about 15 years," said Norman Polmar, a naval historian and submarine warfare expert.

The subs' appearance may be more symbolic than a real threat. More interesting, perhaps, are the four contracts Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin signed in Havana during his recent visit there.

They allow Russia's Zarubezhneft oil concern to work with the Cubanpetroleo monopoly to explore and develop the oil riches of the North Cuban Basin off Florida. . .

The oil and gas resources of the Gulf of Mexico and the Outer Continental Shelf could be fueling cars and heating homes in America, not those in Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi or Havana.

If Russia, Cuba and others can drill off the coast of Florida, why can't we?

The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay.

The National Endowment for the Arts may be spending some of the money it received from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act to fund nude simulated-sex dances, Saturday night "pervert" revues and the airing of pornographic horror films at art houses in San Francisco. . .

But some of the NEA's grants are spicing up more than the economy. A few of their more risque choices have some taxpayer advocates hot under the collar, including a $50,000 infusion for the Frameline film house, which recently screened Thundercrack, "the world's only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla."

CounterPULSE, which received $25,000 in stimulus funds, and which may be best known for its "Perverts Put Out," a "long-running pansexual performance series." The group urges guests, "Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun."

Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that the love stories told in classic Disney and other G-rated children's films -- such as the Little Mermaid -- are partially to blame for the pervasiveness of what they label "heteronormativity."

"Despite the assumption that children's media are free of sexual content, our analyses suggest that these media depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape," wrote researchers Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, in a report published in the latest issue of the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) publication Gender & Society.

Kazyak and Martin said they studied the role of heterosexual relationships in several of the highest-grossing G-rated films between 1990-2005.

The results, say the researchers, illustrate two ways that the children's films "construct heterosexuality": through "depictions of hetero-romantic love as exceptional, powerful, transformative, and magical," and "depictions of interactions between gendered bodies in which the sexiness of feminine characters is subjected to the gaze of masculine characters."

"Characters in love are surrounded by music, flowers, candles, magic, fire, balloons, fancy dresses, dim lights, dancing and elaborate dinners," the researchers observed. "Fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, wind and the beauty and power of nature often provide the setting for -- and a link to the naturalness of -- hetero-romantic love."

The SWS press release on the research blamed what they called the "old ideals" of romantic relationships, specifically those found the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, which in many instances inspired the films' storylines, for "such heavily gendered depictions and glorified portrayals of heterosexual relationships."

The team says the results point to heterosexuality achieving a "taken-for-granted status" "because hetero-romance is depicted as powerful."