Mover Mike

This headline caught my eye: U.S. Wants Polar Bears Listed as Threatened By Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post.

Northern latitudes are warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the globe, according to a 2004 scientific assessment, and by the end of the century annual ocean temperatures in the Arctic may rise an additional 13 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, researchers predict that summer sea ice, which polar bears use as a platform to hunt for ringed seals, will decline 50 to 100 percent. Just this month, researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research outlined a worst-case scenario in which summer sea ice could disappear by 2040. (emphasis added)

No word about differing opinions except this:

"This proposal is sort of like a scientific hypothesis. You put this out there and say to the world, 'Tell us, is this right or is this wrong?' " the official said, adding that Interior will hold several public hearings about its proposal. "We're projecting what we think will happen in the future, not just what's happening at this moment."

I googled "Are Polar Bears at Risk? And article after article says yes Polar bears are at risk of extinction. Then I happened upon the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA)

a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983. The NCPA's goal is to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector.

They have a report out entitled Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really!

A new NCPA study by Dr. David Legates, director of the University of Delaware's Center for Climatic Research and state climatologist, examines the claim that global warming threatens to cause polar bear extinction and finds little basis for fear. By and large, the study finds that polar bear populations are in good shape.

I know all you global warming hoaxsters won't believe this but the report says

Legates finds that their claims of an impending, human-induced Arctic meltdown are not supported by the evidence. For example, the Arctic Assessment proclaimed that Arctic air temperature trends provide an early and strong indication that global warming is causing polar ice caps and glaciers to melt. However, current research suggests that coastal stations in Greenland are instead experiencing a cooling trend, and average summer air temperatures at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet have decreased at the rate of 4°F per decade since measurements began in 1987.

Sure makes you wonder where everybody gets their funding.

My grandaddy always said when everybody is going one way go the other. Buy when they are sellin' and sell when they are buyin'. You'll have less problem of getting trampled when they do a 180!

Polar Bears National Center for Policy Analysis Mover Mike

The newspapers are filled with lookbacks at 2006, the biggest stories, the most blogged words, the best toys, cars, stocks, mutual funds, ad infinitum. Me, I am more pessimistic about the trend and the future than ever before.

We argue over politics, but it makes no difference who gets elected. We will spend more money that we don't have, we will send more men to foreign countries to die, we will have more regulations, and our government will employ more people. Those who will run for the presidency will turn my stomach, the schools will want more money, yet only 50% of the students can pass minimum standards at graduation. The hoax that is global warming will make headlines and the few who will say anything intelligent about the lack of proof will be overwhelmed.

In Socialism Again, J. R. Nyquist shares my pessimism.

Over the past thousand years the West has "evolved" from the simple Iron Age economy of post-Roman feudalism to the ultra-complex global economy of today. This development occurred because economic freedom and governments with built-in checks and balances gave ordinary people a chance to build something for themselves and their posterity. But that wasn't all. Aristocratic and Christian idealism successfully mitigated the usual course of enslavement and pillaging. The lords and nobles of England, in particular, exercised a noble self-limitation (and constitutional restraint). Quite logically, the fastest development of wealth went to the freest and ablest societies, the ones least encumbered by tyrannical or rapacious overlords. England and its offshoot, the United States, were the leading countries in this process.

So why do I say that this process approaches a dead end?

My analysis has nothing to do with resource depletion, global warming or Marxian pauperization. We can all see that Western ideals of freedom have been eroding away. Welfare entitlements, environmentalism and wealth redistribution have proven irresistible. Liberty is giving way to regulation. The noble creed of aristocratic culture based on a mix of classical and Christian ideas has fallen before a demagogic cycle of political promises, a regime of gross flattery aimed at the common man, increased government bureaucracy, further promises, and further bureaucracy. The education system follows the logic of socialism, with a subtle tendency to indoctrinate the next generation. The economic system is Keynesian, with no long-term future and no guiding principle other than short-term enjoyment. Here the logic of Late Antiquity, with its emphasis on bread and circuses, finds its Electronic Age variant. The resulting culture presents us with a stupefied general public and a debased politics. Where there is a will to confront present dangers there is no wit. And more often than not there is neither the will nor the wit. When we look at immigration policy, trade and national security (particular pertaining to counterintelligence), the government will not admit that dangers threaten because democracy hasn't the stomach for tough decisions.

Nyquist concludes with these words:

Things are going to get very nasty before they get better. And don't expect a political leader to say anything truthful about the situation until our illusions are thoroughly extinguished.

I will continue to write about our preference for socialism, the hoax of global warming, the debasing of our currency, the mess we call politics, the government's lies about inflation and the coming rise of gold. However, I don't expect to change many minds. The babble of the stupid is just too loud!

J. R. Nyquist USD Inflation Mover Mike