Russians Sign Flawed Kyoto Accords

The Russian Federation has signed the flawed Kyoto treaty that is supposed to limit greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels. The Russians did this to gain entry into the World Trade Organization with the support of the European Union, which had been encouraging Moscow to sign the treaty.

Most observers do not think that Russia will obey the terms of the treaty as it will fall way short of the goals that are now imposed on it by other nations.

The other bad news is that since Russia signed the accords, it now goes into effect worldwide and now all nations who are signatories will have to abide by the treaty.

The treaty calls for nations to cut their emission levels to 5% below 1990 levels by the year 2012. If any signatory nation falls short, it has to cut industrial production under the terms of the treaty.

I’m all for cutting greenhouse gases, but not at the cost of hundreds of thousands of jobs. We ought to be building “green” plants to replace the older ones that feed pollution into the atmosphere and then transfer those workers into the new plants. We don’t simply cut back on industrial production, which will harm our economy more than any other on the planet. We make the processes better by making them cleaner, not by stopping them outright and under threat of international sanctions.

It's better to spend more on building new plants and reducing our greenhouse emissions that way than having a treaty that is based on flawed and tampered-with research to impose penalties on us. The major research done to sell the treaty was exposed as being manufactured and influenced by environmental groups. This is very unfortunate.

You can’t get a straight answer from any group that has dedicated itself to a cleaner Earth. You also can’t get a straight answer from industry either. It’s kind of like the Presidential campaign.

Fox News Beats Combined Rating of Its Competition

No wonder the left wing is so angry with Fox News! They are howling with rage over these just-released ratings and demanding that Fox News play in the sandbox a little nicer with the competition! They've been attacking Fox for months now, while at the same time realizing that Fox was beating them soundly in the daily ratings.

Fox TROUNCED the competition, drawing in more viewers than all of its competition combined! According to Neilson Media Research:

Fox News vs. CNN for 3rd Quarter of 2004:
1.8 million viewers vs. 882,000 viewers

Fox News vs. MSNBC for 3rd Quarter of 2004:
1.8 million viewers vs. 441,000 viewers

Fox News vs. CNN Headline News for 3rd Quarter of 2004:
1.8 million viewers vs. 226,000 viewers

Fox News vs. CNBC
1.8 million viewers vs. 133,000 viewers

Fox News vs. combined total
1.8 million viewers vs. 1.7 million viewers

Bill O’Reilly’s interview with President Bush earlier this week on the “O’Reilly Factor” drew 4.6 million viewers, which is unprecedented. He averages 2.4 million viewers per show. In fact, Fox owned nine of the top 10 rated talk shows in the 3rd quarter of 2004. CNN’s Larry King Live was #6.

Here’s the article.

The question that I have is this: do the results have anything to do with the political leanings of the country right now? Conservatives and right-leaning voters are more likely to get their news from Fox News, while liberals and liberal-leaning voters gravitate more toward CNN, MSNBC and other more-established networks. If these results do reflect the mood of the country, Kerry's in deep trouble going into the debates.

Time will tell.

Ring of Fire Acting Up?

The zone around the Pacific Rim known as the "Rim of Fire" seems to be entering a more active phase. Mount St. Helens is preparing to blow it's top, there was a magnitude 6 earthquake in California yesterday, last week there was an earthquake in Japan, and in the last two days there have been swarms of magnitude 3 earthquakes on the Alaskan part of the Rim. In addition to the magnitude 6 quake shaking California, they have had well over a thousand aftershocks, which is normal for a major earthquake.

In addition to the aftershocks, there have been over a thousand earthquakes in California, Nevada, the Pacific Northwest, Montana (from Mount St. Helens) and Baja California, Mexico. Hawaii has seen some earthquakes in the last week as well.

The debate has started up again whether all of these events are interconnected. I'm no expert on earthquake prediction, nor on earthquakes, nor on plate tectonics, but something's up. The expected Mount Saint Helens eruption is expected to be smaller than the 1980 explosion that leveled and buried communities for miles around the mountain and blew volcanic ca-ca (ash) all over the country.

The government is tracking the increase in activity at their web site. It's updated once every five minutes.

It should be interesting to see what develops.

International Parental Kidnapping: International Scourge

There are currently 11,000 American kids who are being held in Islamic countries against the wishes of their non-Muslim parents.

They have been kidnapped.

How did this happen? Typically, an American woman marries a Muslim man, has kids, decides she doesn’t like how she is treated under Islamic law, tries to get a divorce and is left for dead as her husband returns to his country of origin with the kids, never to be seen or heard from again.

This is an ugly situation, and one that has been going on for years.

This has lead to some remarkable stories of mercenaries being sent in to take the kids back, shootouts with the man’s family member and friends, kids being reunited with their mother; or kids, mercenaries, father, father’s family and friends ending up dead. For more details, do a search on "international parental kidnapping."

International parental kidnapping is a serious crime. There is an international treaty that treats this as a crime, but dozens of Islamic countries haven’t signed the treaty or have shown any interest in returning these American kids.

We should stop giving foreign aid to those countries that have American victims of international parental kidnapping. This means Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Turkey, Yemen, Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Pakistan, Oman and other countries need to condemn this crime, punish the kidnapping parent and return the kids to their countries of origin. This is not just an American problem, but a Western problem. Every Western nation has cases like this. Here’s a Newsday story on this problem.

If they (non-complying nations to the Hague treaty) do nothing to help the problem, then they support it. Just because an idea is popular in a culture doesn't make it right.

Copper Country Celebrates 100 Years of Professional Hockey

Many people do not realize this, but professional hockey began in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Copper Country and spread throughout North America, laying down the roots for other leagues that followed, including today’s National Hockey League.

As part of the celebrations, the Michigan Tech Huskies alumni took on the Detroit Red Wings alumni team and the Stanley Cup was on display in Houghton. Gordie Howe, Randy McKay and Dennis Hextall were among the hockey alumni who were present.

Here’s a link to the birthplace of organized professional hockey. Congratulations to the Copper Country on this great event!

France and Germany Snub Kerry's Promise to Internationalize Iraq War

On Friday the 24th, I wrote about Kerry's disasterous NPR interview. In it I said: I can’t see any difference between the two, except that Kerry is making promises to internationalize the Iraq solution that he can’t keep. France and Germany won’t send troops to Iraq; they’ve already said so.

Well, France and Germany reiterated what they've already said today. Here's the story. Will Kerry keep making promises that he has no way of keeping?

Strange CNN Headline on Abu Ghraib Scandal

CNN is reporting that a soldier featured prominently in the Iraqi prison scandal photos will face a court-martial next year.

That’s good.

However, the way cnn.com is reporting it is strange. The headline on their story reads: “Pregnant soldier faces Abu Ghraib court-martial”

Excuse me, but she wasn’t pregnant when the abuse happened. She got pregnant as the abuse was going on.

The way that CNN has carefully worded it, it’s to draw sympathy for the soldier as she faces her trial for abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Odd way to describe a war crime if you ask me.

U.S./Taiwan Arms Deal Should Go Forward

We should support Taiwan's bid for independence from China by making sure the deal to sell American anti-missile defense systems, diesel-electric submarines and aircraft goes through.

Taiwan is a fledgling democracy and we should not allow a democracy to fall to the evil of communist aggression without lifting a finger. If we can deter Chinese aggression against one of our trading partners, and encourage the Chinese to come to a peaceful settlement, that would be even better. The best-case solution would be for China to unilaterally recognize Taiwan's freedom and independence from China. That will, of course, never happen. If it did, the entire world could recognize Taiwan's government immediately and establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Taiwan cannot beat China in an arms race, or in a war if Chinese shock armies and marines invaded the island. The Red Chinese numbers are too great.

By selling the Taiwanese the defensive weapons, we could possibly help Taiwan delay the Chinese onslaught and buy some time to come up with a diplomatic solution in the event that Red China ever did decide to take over Taiwan by force.

The Nationalist army settled on Formosa in 1945 after being driven into the sea by the Chinese communist armies on the mainland. This happened after the end of World War II and following a Chinese civil war. The Nationalists rejected communism as foreign to their way of life and fought for control of the mainland. They lost.

For us to allow Red China to take over Taiwan by use of force would be like Europe handing over Austria and Czechoslovakia to Hitler (in 1938-1939) in exchange for peace. I hope China's new leaders take advantage of the goodwill it would earn IF it forgot about conquering Taiwan and sponsored Taiwan's membership in the United Nations as a free and independent state.

Taiwan's latest bid to join the U.N. failed three weeks ago due to China's interference as it still clings to outdated "one China" diplomacy. There are two Chinas, one a communist superpower, and the other a struggling democratic nation that we should support.

Carter Says Florida Not Ready For Election

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said that Florida is not ready to handle an election. If he's right, this is bad news for not only Florida, but the entire country as well.

With less than six weeks to go before the nation heads to the polls, the much sought-after reforms that would have taken care of 2000-style electoral problems have yet to be implemented. In addition, Florida is still reeling from the onslaught of four hurricanes, including Jeanne, which is continuing to cause devastation throughout the region at this hour.

Looks like we will be waiting for Florida again. Hopefully the election will be decided with a wide-enough margin that Florida’s electoral votes will not be enough to turn the tide and throw the entire election into turmoil again. We go to the polls to decide questions, not to end up with indecision as we did in 2000.

The first one to go to court on November 2nd ought to be given a swift boot in the butt and be shown the door. The loser should have the grace to acknowledge the loss and go home and write a book.

A prediction:

If it’s close, Kerry will litigate. Bush won’t (unless Kerry does first).

Russia Threatens Georgian Republic

As predicted, a military conflict between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Georgia came a step closer after the Kremlin announced it was suspending all air flights from Russia to Georgia next week. This step is seen by Tblisi as confirmation that Moscow is going to launch preemptive strikes against Georgian territory that the Russians suspect is being used by Chechan guerillas in their war against the Russian occupation of Chechnya.

There's more to this story than first meets the eye.

Georgia is currently embroiled in a confrontation similar to Russia's in Chechnya; the South Ossetia region of Georgia declared independence and Georgia is using force to try and reign it in. Complicating matters, the Russian government has recognized a rebel government in South Ossetia against Georgia's wishes and has sent Russian troops to keep the peace following the unilateral withdrawal of Georgian troops.

Georgia is also trying to join NATO; U.S. Marines are currently in Georgia training the Georgian Army in NATO and U.S. tactics and procedures to prepare Georgia for entry into the alliance. This annoys Russia to no end.

Georgia's problems do not end in South Ossetia; it has another breakaway province near Chechnya called Abkhazia. The Russians are claiming that Chechans are using this province as a staging area to attack Russian forces in Chechnya.

The Russians have vowed to deal with the terrorists using any means necessary. The questions being asked by a worried Georgian public are: will Russia invade? Will it launch air strikes? What will happen?

This preemptive strike strategy being followed by the U.S., Israel and Russia seems very reckless. The U.S. attack on Iraq did not meet the criteria called for by Article 51 of the United Nations charter, Israel's assassination of a Hamas leader in Syrian territory (yesterday) doesn't either, and Russia's threatening Georgia doesn't either.

Very complex situation.

What Happens If a Hurricane Hits Florida on November 2nd?

What will happen if Florida takes another hurricane hit on November 2nd when millions of Floridians are to be voting in the national election?

Does this mean we will be waiting for Florida again to find out who the next President will be?

How long would it take for Florida to be prepared to hold an election if another Category 3 or 4 hurricane slams into Florida just before the elections are to start?

What's the deal? Has this ever happened before?

ROTC Causes Firestorm in Michigan's Copper Country

I am really torn over whether to write about this next topic since I’ve worked alongside the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) unit involved in this situation, but their current crop of cadets went WAY over the line.

The firestorm of controversy began last Thursday when a front-page article appeared in the Daily Mining Gazette, the local newspaper for the Copper Country area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The article described a program that was put on for a group of local sixth graders at Camp Nesbit, a Forest Service camp that is used by many of the local school districts for outdoor camping experiences. I attended this camp as a sixth grader myself and then as a counselor. According to the Gazette article, “…course activities included physical fitness training such as marching and running, along with military exercises such as grenade tossing and a "buddy crawl" using plastic guns.



Of particular concern was a cadence used in the marching exercise that repeated the phrase "I want to hurt someone. I want to kill someone."

The course was put on by Michigan Tech ROTC cadets who were part of a so-called “leadership training” course. Who was in charge of this disaster? And why was this farce allowed to happen? Where were the teachers and the administration? Where were the ROTC commanders? It sounded like the officer in charge wasn't even around when this happened.

I worked with the Michigan Tech ROTC as a Scouting professional and they helped us with staffing some of our events. The cadets that helped us were totally professional and at least one of their commanding officers were there to make sure that things were done right. I got to know several of the cadets personally and followed their careers with great interest. Two of them are in harm's way in Iraq right now and I know that they would be horrified about this.

I am a supporter of the military and it's a shame to see ROTC cadets tarnish the image of those brave men and women in uniform who have graduated from the ROTC and are fighting and dying to spread democracy to other parts of the world.

The Michigan Tech ROTC has let us all down. They should be barred from participating in any school-related activities short of talking to high schoolers for recruitment purposes. Teaching an eleven year-old to throw a dummy grenade. What a bunch of utter BS!

Use Nuclear Weapons To Stop Hurricanes?

It's been suggested (foolishly) that in the light of all the devastation in Florida, we ought to use nuclear weapons to stop hurricanes before they come ashore.

That's all we need. A radioactive hurricane spreading nuclear radiation at 145 mph over an area for HOURS or DAYS. Really smart. Florida would be left uninhabitable after that. So would any other state that the hurricane or tropical storm touched. That would mean radioactive contamination of huge swaths of land as well.

No nuclear weapon in existence is big enough or powerful enough to stop a hurricane. If we used multiple weapons, it still wouldn't blow apart a hurricane. It would just be more radioactive.

The idea is not bad, but the means to do it is.

OPEC Loses Control of Oil Market

According to a brief article from the World Tribune, OPEC members have lost control of oil prices.

Well, duh! That was obvious.

The oil surplus that OPEC produces daily is no longer enough to have an impact on the price of a barrel of crude oil. Are they really unhappy about this development? Higher oil prices=more profits for them.

New York light crude oil hit $48.88 a barrel today.

Kerry on NPR: On-Air Disaster

I listened to John Kerry’s interview on National Public Radio with Robert Seigel this week and came away with some major impressions of the Senator’s comments. First of all, I noticed that he was confrontational when Seigel questioned him about what was different between Kerry’s position and what the Bush Administration was doing. He was completely negative and highly combative when he was laying out the differences between his position and Bush’s. I can’t see any difference between the two, except that Kerry is making promises to internationalize the Iraq solution that he can’t keep. France and Germany won’t send troops to Iraq; they’ve already said so.

Senator Kerry also laid out a plan and demanded that President Bush implement it immediately. How can a man who was sent home after four questionable months in Vietnam and THEN become an antiwar activist lay out a battle plan for a sitting U.S. President and his generals to follow? Kerry’s credibility is stretched almost beyond belief. In fact, he has NO credibility here. If he had kept his focus on the economy and domestic issues (including national security) and international relations, he’d be in a much stronger position than he currently finds himself in.

I’m no military expert, and I don’t know what the military needs for victory, but I know how politics work, and Kerry’s politics are way off-center. Nader, anyone?

I don’t think there has been a more hapless candidate in modern times than Kerry. His flip-flops have become so severe that his base is faltering. He’s down in the polls (if you believe them), he has no clear vision, and people still don’t know who he is. His NPR interview was a disaster.

When Osama bin-Laden is captured next month, Kerry’s going to be foaming at the mouth.

2004 NHL Lock-Out: Week 1

The first week of the NHL lock-out has come and gone.

There has been no progress. In fact, there has been no communication between the two sides, and no meetings.

They ought to get off their duffs and GET BUSY!

Dan Rather Target of E-mail Campaign

Dan Rather has been targeted by an e-mail campaign for his role in the memo scandal at CBS. The campaign seeks to have him replaced as anchor of CBS News; affiliates across the country are getting the petitions.

This campaign was organized by rathergate.com, a conservative blog operated by someone (not me) who is very upset with CBS for the memo scandal and for other media blunders.

Rathergate.com is so big that they are mentioned in the mainstream media. Amazing!

War of Words: Bush Press Secretary vs. Clinton Press Secretary

Joe Lockhart, President Clinton's former press secretary during the Lewinsky scandal, took to the airwaves to snarl about the White House (under Bush) not communicating enough with the press, which led to President Bush's press secretary to return fire.

The press secretaries are clashing now? Or is Lockhart trying to deflect some heat away from his own involvement in the CBS memo scandal?

Whatever. He'll probably be subpoenaed as the CBS libel lawsuit proceeds.

I always thought Lockhart was the only honest person in the Clinton White House. I hope I wasn't wrong about that.

CBS Being Sued Over Memo Scandal

In a new twist to the CBS memo saga, it was announced that CBS is being sued by the former TexAirNatGrd officer who supplied CBS and the Kerry campaign with the forged documents.

According to reports, the individual is claiming that he warned CBS that they had to verify the authenticity of the documents. The lawsuit accuses CBS of libel and defamation of character.

He further accused CBS of violating a (non-binding) confidentiality agreement in which CBS promised to keep the source's identity a closely guarded secret. When the story began to collapse, the agreement unraveled as well.

If this man was so worried about his identity or character being questioned on national TV, he should have said NO to the interview. He MADE that bed, now he should SLEEP in it!

CBS Conspiracy with Kerry Campaign?

Now that the CBS document scandal has been partially settled, new questions need to be asked: how much collaboration went on between CBS, the Kerry campaign, and the liar who passed the documents to both parties?

I've let CBS off the hook for not doing enough research before they ran with the report, but they're still in the hot seat with me on other matters, including the question I've asked above.

We saw the Congressional Democrats get up on stage to blast Bush like I've described in previous posts. I predicted that the Dems would remain silent rather than admit that they screwed up. Much to my surprise they spoke up and did the old "Well, we know what's true and false now, but..." and then totally buried the entire issue. This makes it look like they're avoiding responsibility for defaming another's character.

So we now know that there is a definite connection between CBS and Joe Lockhart, who was President Clinton's spokesperson and a senior Kerry campaign advisor. Lockhart got the memos after getting a tip from CBS staffers that a former Texas Air National Guard officer who has been after Bush for four years. Kerry mentioned the memos before they were aired on 60 Minutes.

So who typed the false memos? I wouldn't be surprised if it came from an ultra-liberal "527" group that hates Bush.