In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm

Oh, my. You know your cause may be in trouble when the New York Times goes after it.



The Times has a nice article on global warming and the “availability entrepreneurs;” activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels. This group has started an “availability cascade,” a self-perpetuating process: the more attention a danger gets, the more worried people become, leading to more news coverage and more fear.

From the article:

A year ago, British meteorologists made headlines predicting that the buildup of greenhouse gases would help make 2007 the hottest year on record. At year’s end, global temperature average was actually lower than any year since 2001; little news coverage.

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. Meanwhile, a large part of Antarctica has been cooling, but that was pretty much ignored.

Hurricane Katrina was supposed to be a harbinger of the stormier world predicted by some climate modelers. When the next two hurricane seasons were the calmest in three decades, the availability entrepreneurs changed the subject. Droughts in California and Australia became the new harbingers of climate change (never mind that a warmer planet is projected to have more, not less, precipitation over all).

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Mr. Gore didn’t dwell on the complexities of the hurricane debate, nor did he mention how calm the hurricane season had been. Instead, he alluded somewhat mysteriously to “stronger storms in the Atlantic
and Pacific.”

So, I guess the lesson is, no matter what the weather in 2008, be afraid – be very afraid…

A Look Back at 2007 - Part 1

"There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them."
-- Lawrence Welk

For the next few days, Rights Boys takes a look back at the assaults on our rights in 2007 from our nanny state, surveillance state, police state and of course the state of government stupidity.

NSA Spying

By the end of 2007 there were forty pending lawsuits against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other telephone companies, accusing them of violating the law and the privacy of their customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications. This has included the records and full content of the private domestic communications of millions of ordinary Americans. The President and the phone companies hid this information from Congress and the American people for at least six years.

These actions violate at least four major privacy laws that have protected Americans' privacy for over 30 years. The laws deliberately and specifically require telephone companies to safeguard the privacy of their customers’ communications, especially when the government seeks to access them.

Congress is currently considering legislation that would grant retroactive immunity to the telecom companies for the illegal actions

PATRIOT Act

Many provisions of the PATRIOT Act were scheduled to sunset on December 31, 2006, but were renewed and strengthened in March 2007. This increased the ability of the government to search telephone, email communications, medical, financial and other records and enhanced the discretion of law enforcement to detain anyone as a terrorism suspect.

RIAA vs. the People

By the end of 2007, the RIAA had sued over 20,000 of its customers for downloading music. Sending threatening ‘John Doe’ letters that contend hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, the RIAA settles for $3000 with mostly frightened teenagers, thus avoiding court and any chance for due process. Not one penny goes to any artist.

In December, the RIAA’s latest position is that simply copying a CD that you own to your computer or iPod is illegal.

We are approaching an age of perpetual copyright where nothing will even again go into the public domain.

And now, your government at work… funny and sad

TSA watch list, Airport Security

Airport officials in Albany, N.Y., were red-faced because a fake bomb planted by U.S. government inspectors slipped through their security system. The fake bomb was included with carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Airport officials did, however, seize the bottle of water.

Political Correctness

A production of The Vagina Monologues in Tallahassee, Fla., was retitled The Hoohaa Monologues, after a woman complained the title was offensive. Meanwhile in Cross River, N.Y., a suburb of New York City , three honors students were kicked out of their high school for saying the word "vagina" during their own reading of The Vagina Monologues.

Saginaw State University in Michigan now forbids the telling of any jokes that may involve "race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital or familial status, color, height, weight, handicap or disability," reports the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. That place must be a laugh riot.

Don’t Mess with Texas

The State of Texas argued before the Supreme Court that a murderer who had been treated for schizophrenia – and defended himself at his trial wearing a purple cowboy suit and issuing subpoenas to Pope John Paul II, President John F. Kennedy and Jesus Christ -- is sane and should be executed.

Fiscal Responsibility

The State of Iowa sure got its money's worth when it hired a consulting firm to give advice on how to budget properly. The suggestions made by the firm A.T. Kearney ultimately saved the state government close to $3.1 million. The cost of the consultant? Well, $3.9 million.

In September, the Pentagon paid $998,798 US to a small South Carolina parts supplier for sending two 19-cent washers to Cape Canaveral.

The Ig Nobel Peace Prize, not to be confused with the bauble won by Al Gore, was awarded to the Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. The lab was recognized for researching a chemical weapon, the so-called "gay bomb,” which “will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.”