A letter to my local radio station

Mr. Cates;

Having been a listener to your show for a while now I’ve tried to call in several times, but have been greeted each time by the dreaded “busy signal.”

Having said that, I have something I’d like to say. And while I’d love for you to read this on the air, I realize the odds of that happening are somewhere along the lines of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) actually producing a black hole. It is possible in theory, but I shouldn’t like to hold my breath waiting for it. Yes, it could happen … in a few hundred trillion years or so. Give or take a ten billion.

The United States is facing a number of crises right now, and one of the most pressing is the crisis of apathy. You’ve met these people as you go through life: they are the people who will tell you that the politicians on both sides of the aisle are out of control … and then promptly do nothing about it.

Mr. Cates; this next is not for effect, I sincerely believe this. If I had a dime for every person who said that this ‘health care reform’ was a bad idea and then did nothing, I’d have several thousand dollars which I could put to good use.

Sure, talking to the radio (or screaming at it) has told your radio how you feel, but what have you actually accomplished? Is your radio going to contact those politicians and tell them how dissatisfied you are?

Not very likely.

The same goes for those people who only shout at the television or only tell their friends how they feel. Again, have you actually accomplished anything?

Mr. Cates, I wonder how many of those people who have called your show have actually called their politician? How many have actually written them? How many have emailed them? How many have written about it on their blogs or on a social networking site?

Not too many.

This, then, is the crisis of apathy. Mr. Cates, I realize that, unless we all live in caves, we’ve all got busy lives that we live. I’m no different in that regard in that I have my own life I need to live. But if somebody’s going to tell me they can’t spend five minutes emailing their representative or calling them or writing them, I’m going to tell them the same thing I told my supervisor at work when she told me she couldn’t cobble together 30 free minutes in a month.

I pulled her into a room, closed the door and told her “You’re a (goshdarn) liar. Now let’s try this again, only this time tell the truth. It’ll go much better that way.” (Only I didn’t say ‘goshdarn.’)

You might’ve noticed Mr. Cates that I’m not afraid to be blunt. Frankly, more people need to be … at least in my opinion.

The Founding Fathers said as much when they wrote this: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” (emphasis added) (*1)

What does this mean in ‘modern’ English? Simple: It means that those who have the ability to make a change have the responsibility to do so. Now there’s a Politically Incorrect word: responsibility. Plenty of people these days can tell me (and you as it turns out) about their ‘rights,’ yet mighty few mention their responsibilities. Here’s a news flash: your responsibilities come with your rights. They cannot, they must not be divorced from one another.

Even our elected officials are to blame. How many of them were ready to use the “Slaughter Solution” and to ‘deem’ the health care legislation as passed without having to vote on it? Therein lies another “problem,” the United States Constitution.

Specifically Article I Section VII which reads in part: “Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it.” (*2) You’ll notice it didn’t mention that a bill was ‘deemed’ to have passed, yet many politicians were ready to throw away the Constitution until a number of people, myself included, made them aware of Article I Section VII.

What am I leading up to Mr. Cates? This: Those that have the ability to make a change (the People) have the responsibility to do so. If you can make it to a Tea Party protest, you have the responsibility to do so. If you have the ability to write or otherwise inform your representative (or Congressperson) you have the responsibility to do so.

As Martin Luther King once said: “There is a special place in Hell reserved for those who stand by and do nothing.”

And in my book, Mr. Cates, those that have the ability to do something … but through inaction do nothing have abrogated (*4) their right to complain.

People these days are too interested about sports. They’re too interested about who Tiger Woods is sleeping with. They’re too interested in who Jesse James is bedding. These are not the things we need to be worried about, Mr. Cates.

So if you’ve read this on the air, I’d be very interested to hear what your audience thinks.

It’s time to get off the toilet, folks. It’s time to stop complaining to the television.

It’s time to get involved.



Notes:

(#1) - http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/
(#2) - http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section7
(#3) - http://steadfastlutherans.org/?page_id=4315
(#4) - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abrogated

Respectfully;

More snow?

Not likely. The current forecast says 1-3 inches tonight.

1-3 inches tomorrow (Thursday daytime)

1-3 inches Thursday night

Additional snow on Friday.

I wish.
I wish. I'd LOVE another foot.

Overheard on Bob Brinker's "Money Talk"

... that the Treasury Department is talking about (at this point, that's all this is ... talk) converting money from IRA and 401(k)'s into treasury annuities. They take all your money (again, this is just talk at this point, but they have opened the 'discussion' to take public comments) and then send you a monthly cheque.

Mr Brinker called this (correctly, in my opinion) 'confiscation.' Confiscation of all the money that you worked hard for, sweated for, perhaps bled for. Remember, all the money that you put into those accounts to take care of yourself in your older years and those in your family? Yeah, all that money. All that money (if this bone-headed plan goes through) won't be yours anymore, it'll be the government's.

Let's face it, these types of accounts have literally trillions of dollars in them. Trillions.

Do you honestly think the government would use that money to pay down the debt? Do you honestly think the government would use that money to pay for already-existing programs?

Please.

You and I both know they'd find new ways to spend this money ... new programs.

Here's the worst part of this: this wouldn't be an option, this would be mandatory. Mandatory; you'd have no say and no choice.

The sad fact is that Mr Brinker is right: there are two parties in this country when it comes to social issues, but there is only one party when it comes to financial issues.

And that is sad.

UPDATE:

Mr Brinker said this had made it into the mainstream media (MSM) ... and here's the link: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-09/insurers-test-market-as-obama-opens-annuity-door-for-401-k-s.html

UPDATE 2: The link Mr Brinker mentioned. Read it and weep: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jan2010/pi2010018_130737.htm

And a note to Mr Brinker: Do you know what the meaning of the word 'teabagger' is? Please don't call the Tea Party Activists 'Teabaggers.' I had to look the sexual meaning of 'teabagging' and 'teabagger' up. I didn't know. Do you?

Please do better.

New Forecast

Tonight's and tomorrow's forecast calls for 8-12 inches of snow total by Wednesday night. However, the heavy accumulation should be over 70 miles north of here.

Personally, I'd love to get another foot.

But, and I could be "shooting myself in the foot again" but I don't think we'll get it. Five inches maybe. If we're lucky. (Personally, I'd love the foot.)

Might We Get More Snow?

To believe the weather forecast, the answer is "quite possibly." As of this posting, Tuesday and Tuesday night say "snow likely" with "moderate snow accumulation" which is the same language that was used before they warned us of the foot of snow that we got.

Personally, I'd love another foot of snow. Like I said last time, BRING IT ON! They're not giving a total accumulation, however. But like I said, I'd love another foot of snow.

Granted, with my last "prediction" I was the one that failed ... and in rather spectacular fashion to boot. I wasn't just "off" I was way off. But - I don't know. I'd love more snow, but I don't know how much (if any) we'll get.

I've learned to be a skeptic. But I'd love another foot. Even 6-8 inches would be nice. :)

Article: "I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones"

The link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece

" THE scientist at the centre of the “climategate” email scandal has revealed that he was so traumatised by the global backlash against him that he contemplated suicide. "

While I agree that the man should be reprimanded severely, he doesn't deserve the death threats he's getting. I think we can all agree that he shouldn't have crossed the line from scientist to advocate, but he doesn't deserve death threats. Duct taping his mouth shut and keeping him away from a keyboard, possibly.

" In emails that were hacked into and seized upon by global-warming sceptics before the Copenhagen climate summit in December, Jones appeared to call upon his colleagues to destroy scientific data rather than release it to people intent on discrediting their work monitoring climate change. " (emphasis added)

Another "oops."

Article: "The Great Global Warming Collapse"

The link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-great-global-warming-collapse/article1458206/

" But the claim [that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035] was rubbish, and the world's top glaciologists knew it. It was based not on rigorously peer-reviewed science but on an anecdotal report by the WWF [World Wildlife Fund] itself. When its background came to light on the eve of Copenhagen, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, shrugged it off. But now, even leading scientists and environmental groups admit the IPCC is facing a crisis of credibility that makes the Climategate affair look like small change. "

Let's distill that down: That now infamous shock claim was based on an anecdotal report, not on peer-reviewed science. The head of the IPCC (the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) shrugged it off as a one-time error, a "one-off."

" “The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.” " said Walter Russell Mead.

Does anybody else remember Alex Jones and others talking about the global carbon tax? The intrusion of UN rules into American politics?

It turns out that this wasn't just a "one-off."

" For example, it warned that large tracts of the Amazon rain forest might be wiped out by global warming because they are extremely susceptible to even modest decreases in rainfall. The sole source for that claim, reports The Sunday Times of London, was a magazine article written by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. One scientist contacted by the Times, a specialist in tropical forest ecology, called the article “a mess.”

" Worse still, the Times has discovered that Mr. Pachauri's own Energy and Resources Unit, based in New Delhi, has collected millions in grants to study the effects of glacial melting – all on the strength of that bogus glacier claim, which happens to have been endorsed by the same scientist who now runs the unit that got the money. Even so, the IPCC chief is hanging tough. He insists the attacks on him are being orchestrated by companies facing lower profits. "

" Until now, anyone who questioned the credibility of the IPCC was labelled as a climate skeptic, or worse. But many climate scientists now sense a sinking ship, and they're bailing out. Among them is Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria who acknowledges that the climate body has crossed the line into advocacy. Even Britain's Greenpeace has called for Mr. Pachauri's resignation. India says it will establish its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the IPCC. " (emphasis (and colour) added)

Oops.

So let's review: Several of the IPCC's "shock" claims are based not on peer-reviewed science but on anecdotal reports, some of which came from the WWF, which has a conflict of interest if ever there was one.

The claim about the rain forests was made by a pair of climate activists, one of whom worked for the WWF. Another conflict of interest.

The leaked emails have shown that the global body kept contradictory evidence from being published, withheld information from skeptics, and made bad data appear to look better. All this from a body that was supposed to be based on rigorous scientific standards.

They look more like school-yard bullies.