The Lemming Watch

The New Chaplain-in-Chief

The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free
of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it's lovely work if you can stomach it.
                                                                        Robert Heinlein
                                                                        Time Enough For Love

Move over Billy Graham; there is a new man ready to take over your job as Chaplain-in-Chief of the United States. He is Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, California.

He is certainly on track to be one of the top religious counselors of the nation. In just 28 years his church has grown to be the fourth largest church in the country. He garnered invaluable name recognition when he hosted the famous forum on TV for the two candidates during the 2008 presidential race in which he first queried Barack Obama and then, independently, John McCain.

Although they come from different backgrounds, Graham and Warren are both essentially Baptists, and they have both authored a number of feel good books based on religion. Their approach to the ministry is somewhat different. Where Graham was a true revivalist (tents and all), Warren is more a pulpit preacher and group facilitator. At any rate, they are both looked up to as national religious leaders.

Warren has been selected by Obama to give the invocation at the inauguration—a sure sign of his ascendancy.

But how does Warren, who is ostensibly a deeply religious man, resolve the discrepancy that Obama is a supporter of abortion, other than Warren’s need for national attention? It only shows that religionists can be as hypocritical as any politician.

Paraphrasing the immortal words of Gelett Burgess’s 1895 verse:

I’ve never seen a Graham or Warren
And I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

Hail to the new Chief Chaplain!

JOBS IN AMERICA

The following was sent to me in an e-mail by a neighbor:

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 am.

While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG).

He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE)
tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA)

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA), he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA), he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY), filled it with gas (from SAUDI ARABIA), and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (MADE IN MALAYSIA), Joe decided to relax for a while.

He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL), Poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE ), and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA ); and then he wondered why he can't find a good paying job in AMERICA.

I considered these observations for a moment, and thought: Isn’t it wonderful that we can have all these low-priced commodities. Why is that so? Here are some of the reasons I came up with:

Many of the items mentioned (dress shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, sandals) are low level commodities made by low paid labor in those countries; people in the U.S. do not do that work. For one thing, Americans gave up that type of work years ago for better paying, more interesting jobs. For another, our minimum wage laws would make those products prohibitively expensive.

Many of the electronic items (clock, calculator, watch, TV, computer, radio) are made by automatic machinery rather than manual labor. No jobs there. Both the product and the manufacturing machinery contain electronics and chips that were designed in America and are licensed by American companies. Even the coffee pot and razor most likely have electronics of some sort.

John Smith’s wine from France is a false alternative. American wines are at least as good and probably no more expensive. Moreover, most of the non-machine labor in American vineyards is done by low-paid migrant farm workers from South and Central America. Not much work there since Americans would not, and do not have to, do that work at those wages.

John’s car made in Germany (or more likely made in Japan) is also his choice; but one can’t be blamed for buying a car that will run better and last longer than an American car that is much less cost effective because of the labor costs imposed by unions (supported by politicians) on American car makers.

One need hardly mention the gas from Saudi Arabia. We know the reason for that is the obstinate short-sightedness of our politicians who will not allow oil to be taken from American sources.

Now, if John Smith had gotten a good education—which is becoming more difficult each year in American schools and universities—he would have studied engineering or science or medicine or finance or any of scores of similar fields that have openings and pay well here in America. Just as an example, the basic science of electronic chips that make most of our modern appliances and electronic devices work and reduce their cost were discovered by Americans and are designed, patented, and licensed by American companies. The software that we use every day is primarily American design. Plenty of jobs in these fields.

So what America and educated American labor provide is the ingenuity, entrepreneurial drive, scientific know-how, and ambition that form the basis for the production of all those items that John uses every day. The computer and calculator chips, the chips used in cell phones and iPods, the electronics of our magnificent, life saving and life enhancing medical devices are all a creation of American brain power rather than plain manual labor. (By the way, it’s interesting to note that many of the people who are involved in this work are from foreign countries and come to America where they find good paying jobs and can apply their knowledge and ambition.)

Our world has been enhanced a thousand fold because of that brain power. Thank goodness for the labor overseas that is willing to take the products of our ingenuity and apply them to produce the manufactured commodities we use every day..

So, I think the denigration of America implied in that e-mail is a bum rap.

Our Global Savior Just Won’t Give Up

Or maybe we should call him the Global Shyster (shyster: one who is professionally unscrupulous in the practice of law or politics; one whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable)

Al Gore s at it again. The success of the Democrats in the election have him all stoked up, and he is again, after a silence of several months, in full battle cry about his favorite theme. But wait. . .iit isn’t the same theme. No more “global warming.” Zounds! And not even “climate change.” No, he has morphed his cry to “climate crisis.” It’s an interesting dance of words he performs to justify his claim that the earth is in dire peril. The term “climate crisis.” of course, is so meaningless that it allows the user to make up any statement he desires to rouse people’s concern without providing any objective information.

Citing “[t]he inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama. . .,” he goes on to equate that event to a need to “begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.”

There is more of the same raving about the election before he moves on to cite the usual suspects—the UN’s IPCC and its “four unanimous reports” developed by a host of scientists that allegedly claim that the earth is dangerously heating up.

But we know that the reports were based on faulty analysis. The “hockey stick” graph that was suppose to show a recent rapid heating, has been shown to be completely bogus. And the latest temperature data from NASA’s “ace“ climate scientist, Dr. James Hanson, is also cooked. One wonders if Hanson shouldn’t be fired for incompetence or sued for malpractice; his data in the past has been completely unreliable for predicting anything about the climate.

Gore strongly implies that these scientists from around the world form a consensus that the planet is threatened.

But as the late Michael Crichton reminded us clearly and concisely, a consensus is not science, and real science is not based on consensus.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus [emphasis added].

The IPCC scientists have yet to provide “reproducible results” pointing to global warming. All they have are models that are not worth much in the real world.

Gore then gives a five-point plan to meet the crisis. The problem with his plan is that it is costly (a national smart power grid), of questionable effectiveness (wind farms and solar thermal plants), and would greatly lower our standard of living.(establish a carbon credit trade).

It seems to be contagious. Obama spouts the same rhetoric. As Marc Sheppard shows, he obviously gets it from Gore and merely gives the matter lip service with no real understanding of the subject.:

Now from whom have we heard such an arrogant concentration of misinformed alarmist hokum before?  Of course - the man that Obama promised "will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem."  The Delphic Goracle himself.

And what is Gore’s reason. I point out here and here that he is in the business of providing carbon credits and is a partner in a firm that will benefit from many of the so-called solutions he advocates.

So much for objective science.