Wearily Looking Back

This is one of those years that you would like to simply pass quietly into the night. Much like a book that was completely disappointing in its story line and then surpassed by a lousy ending. That's not a book you keep on your shelf. You throw it in the collection bin at the library and let it pass from your memory as soon as possible. This past year was in that category.

Before I join the many Americans putting together prognostications for the future it is time to grade last year's completely random and inept guesses as to what might have transpired in 2009. Here for the record is the list.

1. The stock market did start to turn around after the third quarter and earnings were disastrous. I had predicted a finish over 11,000 however came up about 500 points short.

2. The pirate problem became even greater and of course the U.S. deployed more warships than anybody else in trying to deal with the problem. Score one for us as a couple of pirates bit the dust when they foolishly exposed their heads to three Navy Seals who promptly delivered three shots and three dead pirates.

3. Castro did not pass away. This guy has more resiliency than a plastic six pack holder floating in the ocean.

4. The news coverage of the presidency did get better. Obama had a longer than usual honeymoon and still is using the prior administration as an excuse for what is still going wrong.

5. Ahdmadinejad did win re-election or did he? The streets in Tehran are in chaos at the moment. The opposition has grown more bold and is actually reported to be mocking the supreme leader. Tehran has responded with threats to crush the opposition without mercy. How do you think that will work out in the long run?

6. There was increased social unrest in China according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Six different outbreaks occurred including one with over 200 deaths.

7. It was a bad year year for Boston fans as the Celtics did not repeat as the hated Lakers took the crown. Even worse was the Evil Empire finally spending it's way to a World Series Championship.

8. Caroline Kennedy did not get the New York senatorial appointment replacing Hillary Clinton. After hearing her interviews it came as no surprise.

9. The state budget deficit did soar to nearly two billion and taxes were raised but the big surprise was not that local aid was cut but state employees actually increased! If I was Governor Patrick I would better be prepared to defend that bit of nonsense

10. The Boston Globe was not sold for a very small price. Some would argue that the New York Times would actually have to pay someone to take it off their hands. The ever supportive of organized labor Times managed to use on the Globe employees some of the worst union busting tactics seen here in a very long time. Of course, the Globe editorial board was silent on that topic.

11. Lastly of course was my most accurate prediction. I didn't lose ten pounds.

So what is in store for 2010?

The Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots will all win championships. You know I am an insufferable Boston homer so what did you expect?

Samuel Huntington was prescient in Clash of Civilization, as he predicted where ever Islam intersects with other cultures there will be conflict. This trend is going to continue and will likely break into open hostility in a number of places. Two possible combatants are India and Pakistan. Another repeat of the Mumbai bombings and India most certainly will retaliate.

Somalia will definitely be a target if there is continued attacks on shipping. At some point the world will tire of paying ransom and actually do something. Yemen may also be a target if Al Qaeda continues to grow in influence there.

There will be more incidents in the U.S. such as Fort Hood and the Northwest Airline flight 253. Perhaps water boarding will make a comeback in 2010?

This may not be the year but the time is getting close to some sort of action on Iran's nuclear program. There may not be a full out aerial assault by the Israelis but perhaps a mysterious explosion will damage the Iranian centrifuges.

President Obama's strategy of reaching out to the various regimes such as Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba has been unsuccessful so far and will fail miserably in 2010. If he lets John Kerry visit Iran we will know for sure the man is in well over his head.

Cap and trade and other carbon trading schemes are dead in the United States. Our own Massachusetts duo of Rep. Ed Markey in the house and John Kerry in the senate are co sponsors of climate change legislation with Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Barbara Boxer. You can bet their colleagues can read the poll numbers that most Americans simply do not believe the climate alarmism any more.

The damage that has been done to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by the East Anglia whistle blower is irreversible. Rajendra Pauchuri has been the chairman of the IPCC since 2002 and this will be his last year as he is likely to be a victim of his own investments in climate politics.

Deval Patrick may win re-election but it will be by a fraction of a whisker and only because Tim Cahill as an independent and Charles Baker as the republican will evenly divide the opposition so that Deval's 34% approval will win.

Martha Coakley will win the senate seat and provide a completely uninspiring performance as senator eclipsed only by her completely uninspiring effort as attorney general.

The democrats will suffer a significant defeat in the mid terms. Not enough to reverse the majorities but still enough to still the idea of any more radical swing to the left.

Government takeover of health care may come about by legislation but it is certainly no shoe in to be fully implemented at this point. There is enough public opposition so there may be a significant revolt amongst the states.This may result in many mandates in the plan landing in the U.S. supreme court. Health care legislation should really be called the lawyer full employment act, primarily because there is no tort reform and now there will be so many more cases to pursue.

Tiger Woods will lose a hundred million in a divorce, He will be back on the golf tour simply because the big business of golf is in dire straits without him. The drop off in public interest without Woods at a tournament is enormous.

President Obama will play more golf and attend more fundraisers in one year than Bush did in four. Quite frankly I hope for all our sakes it is a quiet year and that the president has plenty of time for golf and more importantly that the Secret Service is more diligent in preventing party crashers ( or others) from getting near our leader.

Sarah Palin will continue to be the target of that nasty spinster, Maureen Dowd. You have to love the way Palin makes the likes of Keith Olberman, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews on the Left go crazy. They ask the themselves how could the American people possibly like her more than them!

Interest rates will not start to move up until late in the second quarter. The Fed Funds rate will finish the year under two perccent. Unemployment will continue to be a challenge to the president and will not get below 8%. Inflation will remain relatively low however the ten (to 4.10%) and thirty (to 5.20%) year treasuries will jump in yield. After all, how much more debt can congress get us into and how much more U.S. paper will the Chinese buy?

It is a new year and a new decade but the challenges facing us on a local, state and national level have not changed. So to do the every day challenges of life in general remain the same. So damn the torpedoes, open the champagne and warm the butter for the lobster. Happy New Year all you wonderful American knuckleheads!

The Relationship is on the Rocks.

We were introduced by an IBM salesmen in 1985. You were new and relatively inexpensive. You had software that was now available to the average business. Accounts payable and recievable and inventory management were all at the flip of a switch. Your dot matrix printer would spit out reports that would normally take hours. Your ten megabytes of hard drive was more than I would need for ten years the salesmen said.

After a couple of months of dual entries you became a member of the family. Inventory cards, paper spreadsheets and manual entries became a thing of the past. After a while having one of you wasn't enough, there had to be one on every desk and then one at home as well.

Then came the net and computer games and you further ingratiated yourself at every level of my life. The world was at my finger tips. No waiting for the paper or network news. No getting information from a few completely biased outlets. Now the information age was truly available to me and I have you to thank.

At first it was easy to overlook your faults. Hard drive crashes, freezing and lockups, and lost data were all bearable because you were so new and exciting. These things were understandable because you were offering so much, how could you be expected to be perfect? The solutions were simple, higher amounts of ram and storage, operating system upgrades and new and faster microprocessors all solved the problems.

Lately the bloom has come off the rose. You are tempermental and fickle. You have had relationships with hackers, malware, adware, popups and viruses. You can longer be relied upon to perform at a high level in the relationship. You keep falling back on your bad habits. Visits to the PC doctor several times have not changed your attitude.

This is it, your last chance. One more incident, just one and I will be leaving you forever. Apple is waiting for me with open arms. Go ahead PC, make my day!

Hero of East Anglia

Science is not a cult, movement, political party or belief system. By one definition it is "A branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws."

Now that the Copenhagen meetings have ended in abject failure, it is important to give credit where credit is due. More than any one person, the University of East Anglia whistle blower should go down in history as an American folk hero.

It is more than the fact that this person saved American tax payers from becoming obligated to a deal that would involve an enormous taxing scheme and transfer of American wealth. The more important aspect is that perhaps now a much more critical level of public attention will be brought to bear on the current environmental orthodoxy of the sky is falling alarmism regarding climate change.

It is clear from the information released in the emails and computer files that the leaders in this field were involved in a systematic effort to shape the facts of their science to match the conclusions of their thinking. No amount of skepticism from outside of this little cabal was going to change the "facts" as they arranged them.

It is also clear that the bulk of the raw data that was used n the Climate Research Unit and subsequently the basis for the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was either lost or compromised severely through "alterations."

As the fraud became more public, the fraud deniers sprang into action. Al Gore was quoted as saying the following, "To paraphrase Shakespeare, it is sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven't read all the emails but the most recent one is more than 10 years old." Unfortunately for Al, the most recent ones were two months old.

Al further damaged his dwindling credibility when during a Copenhagen presentation he stated, "These figures are fresh," Mr Gore said, pointing to the slide. "This is the volume metric measure of the ice and some of the models suggest to Dr Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years. This was simply a lie as shortly there after Dr. Maslowski repudiated Gore by saying he mentioned only such a possibility in a conversation with Gore over three years ago.

The Cap and Trade legislation that was the United States law makers reaction to the Global Warming hysteria is likely now dead. However, the EPA's recent announcement that it's unilateral decision to regulate carbon dioxide as a dangerous emission (your breath is dangerous?) is still very much alive. The decision was rendered shortly before the Copenhagen conference and in many quarters was viewed quite suspiciously as a political effort to force the senate's hand on CO2 emissions.

Any effort by the EPA to enforce regulations based on the findings of the existing data will ultimately end up in very long and expensive court battles.

Climate change is happening as it always has during the 4.5 billions years since the birth of the earth. What is not settled science is whether or not it will get hotter or cooler over the next few hundred years. What also is very far from settled is whether or not the United States has any responsibility in Mother Natures over all climate plan. Before the U.S. government commits to any transfer of wealth from the American taxpayers by a non elected U.N committee, a lot more objectivity and skepticism should be brought to the subject.

As for the Massachusetts congressional delegation, they should be acting a lot less as citizens of the world and denizens of Washington and a lot more like citizens of Massachusetts and in the interests of our residents.

Pundit Induced Dust Up

The latest pundit induced dust up in the Boston area surrounds last Sunday's game involving the Carolina Panthers and our own New England Patriots. The subject of course is Randy Moss and whether or not he"quit" on the team.

Apparently it had been a relatively quiet early week in Boston sports. Tiger seemed to be running out of mistresses and the Sox hadn't made news with the Lackey and Cameron acquisitions yet. So some sensationalism needed to be produced and so the Sunday Moss performance became the crisis du jour.

Did Moss have a lousy game? Yes he did. He caught one ball for a 16 yard gain which he promptly fumbled. In another effort it appeared that he cut a route short on a ball that was intercepted. However, despite his lack of production it was also obvious that as usual for most of the game Moss had double coverage. In addition unless my eyes deceived me he was quite active blocking in the run game.

Did he quit on the team? No, he didn't and if you examine his tenure here in New England it is apparent that he has been more than we ever hoped for when Belechick picked him up off the Oakland scrap heap for a fourth round draft choice.

This isn't the first time that Moss has been accused of being a dog but one need only look at his career stats and wonder if it is his peers or simply self important so called experts in the viewership that make these claims.

You can view his entire body of work here: http://www.nfl.com/players/randymoss/profile?id=MOS699912 But let me make a few observations. In his first year as a Patriot he was a large part of a team that went 16 and 0 in the regular season. In that season he caught 98 balls for 1498 yards and 23 touchdowns.

They then marched through the playoffs and was a miracle catch by David Tyree and a botched interception by Asante Samuel from winning a Super Bowl. In that game, the biggest of his life, he caught the go ahead touchdown with 2:45 left to go in the game.

In his second year in the very first quarter of the first game the Patriots lose the best quarterback in the NFL as Brady goes down with a knee injury and is out for the season. Matt Cassell, a guy who had not started a single football game since high school becomes the Patriot starter. Did Moss quit? No, in fact for the ninth time in his career he went for over a thousand yards. Moss was a big reason why that team went 11 and 5 and Cassell went on to score a huge contract. Thank you very much Randy!

This year Moss has already exceeded last years production after 13 games. This from a guy who is in his 12th season which is about 6 seasons beyond the life of the average NFL wide receiver. He certainly has to be in his twilight years and is bound to have a game or two where he is simply human. There is also the distinct possibility that he is injured like most people who are in the 17th game of the NFL season (13 regular and four pre-season) along with countless practices.

But make no mistake about it, Moss is durable and he shows up game after game. Out of a total of 189 possible regular season games over his career, Moss has only missed 6. During that career he has caught 912 balls for 14,275 yards and 144 total touchdowns which is second all time. Out of all that production in catches, yards and touchdowns and an untold number of hits from angry opponents, Moss has fumbled a total of 12 times.

Moss may have bad taste in clothes or hairdo's and he may not be as cooperative as the Punditocracy might like. He may even sulk a little when things don't go his way. His team mates have no question about his work ethic and Belechik has never entertained the idea of sitting him down.

Moss is one of the best 2 or three wide receivers that have ever put on shoulder pads. He certainly is no quitter. My guess is he bounces back and we get to enjoy watching this gifted athlete play out the rest of his career. Oh, and we did win the game.

A Norwegian Surprise

It is hard to imagine what the Norwegian Nobel committee were thinking when they awarded President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, he had only been in office 11 days when he was nominated. Norway is not a very significant player on the world stage so perhaps the committee thought that somehow they would be affecting future world events by such a dubious choice.

If they thought they were choosing an award winner that would somehow repudiate American actions on the world stage in recent history then they got a very big surprise from our president. So to did American conservatives and dyed in the wool nationalists who believe in American exceptionalism.

The opening remarks were for the Nobel Committee when President Obama stated the obvious, "And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage." Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize- Scwheitzer and King, Marshall and Mandela- my accomplishments are slight."

In diplomatic parlance, this is the equivalent of asking what the Hell were you dummies thinking?

The rest of the speech essentially was a no nonsense embrace of American foreign policy since our arrival as a major power on the global scene. The president simply laid out the obvious, when referencing the non violence of King and Ghandi he said,

"But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitlers armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaidas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."

What Obama made clear is that when the smoke and rhetoric of elections clears it is the interest and the values of the nation that come first. By fully embracing the policies of the president's who have come before him (yes Geo Bush) he has made clear that we are not likely to abdicate our responsibilities on the world's stage. Nice job Mr. President.

Attached is the complete text.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iRWjTDaT4JuS0nFj9APZAues8vjAD9CGEQTO4

12 Days and Counting

I am no climate change denier or skeptic. After all the climate changes on a daily basis in New England. When you think the sun will shine it rains, when you think it will snow it's warm and when the alarmists tell you the worst hurricanes seasons are coming they usually don't.

Global history is full of climate changes. Ice ages, volcanoes, meteor hits and primordial soups have all been part of the mix. So the climate is going to change and frequently. What I wasn't convinced of is that science has advanced far enough yet that specific global climate change can be predicted with any truly accurate results.

What I do believe in however is the scientific method. You know, where you ask a question, do research, construct a hypothesis, test your hypothesis by doing experiments, draw a conclusion and then tell all the skeptics in the world about your results and challenge them to prove you wrong.

I was starting to be convinced that indeed science was on to something with this global warming issue. After all, Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar touting the science behind global warming. Lots of actors, writers, politicians and even royalty were sure of it. Captains of industry were beginning to put substantial money into being green. The United Nations was building a whole bureaucracy around the threat to humanity.You knew it was gaining momentum as congress was considering a monumental taxing scheme to combat the imminent danger. The up coming meetings in Copenhagen were going to be a resounding victory for the renowned climatologists.

All of that momentum however came to a grinding halt on or around the 20th of November when some party pooper poked a finger in the eye of climate change science. By releasing the East Anglia emails the curtain was drawn and what we see behind the curtain is nothing but a bunch of technical politicians who have no interest in the scientific method. They only want their point of view to be the consensus and to Hell with anybody who thinks otherwise.

It is not the fact the director of the Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones has now admitted that the original data on which his conclusions were built has been lost, or that he systematically refused legal freedom of information requests, or that he attempted to exclude papers skeptical of his work or that he deleted emails pertaining to data that disagreed with his findings that is most irksome. It is that the information in the Harry.read.me files tells the tale of computer programs that he knew simply were not producing accurate or even consistent data. For a hypothesis that exists almost solely on the basis of computer modeling doesn't the old adage garbage in garbage out count for anything? Any eighth grader with a computer at home knows this.

Not only are poor scientific practices on display in this drama, so to is journalistic malfeasance.

This whole ( building) storm began rather innocuously. Apparently, a whistle blower at East Anglia thought this information important enough to leak to the BBC. Paul Hudson of the BBC had done a semi negative piece on global warming asking where was temperature decline? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm This must have been enough for the whistle blower to think Hudson might be an ally and think the information contained in the emails to be newsworthy. Hudson now admits that he received them five weeks ago and sat on the information. No reasons explained yet as to why.

Getting no response this intrepid guy or gal decided to go all out by releasing the emails in a variety of places on the web. Traditional media had no interest in them but the blogosphere has gone wild. The climate change establishment had held out hoping for it to blow over by pointing out such things as the emails were stolen! The comments were simply collegial conversation taken out of context! After all don't you and all your friends regularly delete emails that are the subject of Freedom of Information requests? All of this obfuscation was dutifully carried by the main stream water boys in the U.S. big media.

Our own Boston Globe is now a full 12 days and counting without so much as a whisper of the controversy. Well all of that is going to change very quickly. This scandal can longer be contained. Tonight it has been announced that Phil Jones has temporarily been relieved of duty. Michael Mann of Penn State and Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research may not be far behind.

The geo political ramifications are being felt as far away as Australia as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's consensus is rapidly falling apart with open rebellion in the oppositions ranks. The U.S. Senate may conduct investigations and even the New York Times ran a critical piece on the subject.
The whole issue of climate change is finally going to get the non peer review it so desperately needs.