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Thank you for your kind (and unkind) letters from Canada, America, Britain and Australia. Mark reads all the letters, but especially enjoys the vicious ones.  Drop  a line to Mark's Mailbox and if you're chosen to be the one and only Letter of the Week you'll join our roll of winners from four Continents and receive a copy of  Mark Steyn From Head To Toe. It would help if you could indicate your city or town, or, at least, your state, province or country. Failing that, your continent or hemisphere would do.

Letter of the Week
GOD’S LITTLE JOKE
Just at the moment in history when all the political currents are converging to reorder the world's economy to limit carbon emissions, it appears that God may be playing a joke of epic proportions.  In short, the earth is cooling quickly because the energy coming from the sun is at very low levels.

Solar cycles last an average of 11 years and are measured by the number of sunspots. Sunspots release additional solar energy.  Solar cycle 23 began in May of 1996.  It reached its peak (solar maximum) in March of 2000.  Sunspot activity gradually declined until January of 2007.  At that point, a new solar cycle should have begun, but the sun has been bouncing along the bottom of a solar minimum for two and a half years-possibly resulting in the cool temperatures the earth is experiencing this year.  Solar cycle 23 has been the longest since 1755 when scientists started to keep accurate records, lasting 13.2 instead of 11 years.  Here's a chart of solar cycles.

With the appearance of a very large sunspot last week, it appears that solar cycle 24 has begun.  However, NASA scientists and other observers predict that the next solar maximum may be about half as powerful as cycle 23-resulting in even cooler earth temperatures. Here's the link to the NASA article.

Scientists David Archibald and Jan Janssens - two global warming "deniers" - predicted a
year ago that, if solar cycle 24 didn't begin until July of 2009, the new cycle would be much less active than cycle 23.  See this story from August of 2008.

So, we are probably headed for a very cool climate period. Here is a link to a site which shows the historical relationship between solar cycles/sunspot activity and increases and decreases in global temperatures. 

Ed Snow

Re: The Spececutive Branch
and Reading Comprehension
DUTY CALLS
I'm afraid you're becoming a bore on this subject of legislators reading legislation before they vote.  This is unthinkable and absurd, as it would reduce the amount of time our representatives and Senators would be able devote to their most important duty, which is raising campaign funds.

By the way, legislators in California quit reading legislation in the 1960s when the legislature became a full-time operation and the results of that clearly speak for themselves.

Your correspondent citing Sarbanes-Oxley should know better.  Both Messrs. Sarbanes and Oxley (now well-paid lobbyists) vehemently deny having any knowledge that Section 404 (which is the section that is the killer) was ever in the legislation, again since they never read the bill that bears their name. 

Tim Saunders
Half Moon Bay, California

IMPOSSIBLE TO DECIPHER
I will go you one better - no one could read the bill and have any idea what it means. I work as an employment attorney, but the uncodified bills that pass Congress or state legislatures are structured in such a way that is impossible to decipher their impact by reading them. Instead, you have to put them side-by-side with current laws and draw all the connections with those current laws and interpret the whole mess together.

I agree, in that sense, with both sides. First, I agree that the "read the law" cry is, at a practical level, nonsense (although very effective politically). Second, I agree that the complexity and size of these laws is insane and, as you say, the death of representative government. When full-time attorneys cannot decipher the meaning of a law from the text of the bill, something has gone terribly wrong with the system.

James W. Allen
jim@employerslawcenter.com

SUPER-ANNUATED
Maybe Supreme Court opinions are too big for the Justices to read?  Just let the law clerks write them... Shouldn't be too hard for a wise  Latina.

Federal appellate clerk

HOT OFF THE PRESS
I too am sympathetic to Congressman reading executive summaries, and I am sympathetic to the notion that there are many bills floating around.  What I am not sympathetic is the rush to vote.  It’s great to have debate, and it’s ok to debate Ideas in executive summary form.  But once you say I OK this THE BILL that we are voting on, then it’s time to take one or two freaking days to read it along with your staffers.  The outrage among the people is that they are voting on a bill that is hot off the house printer.  Look I understand parliamentary delays and all that junk.  But that is not the same as saying, enough with the delays, debate is over, this is what we got, and we vote in two days.  What we are talking about is the review period.

If I were in a position of leadership, I would introduce a Constitutional Amendment requiring every legislator, the president (and VP in the case of a tie) to initial every page of a every bill prior to a vote (with a signature at the end which states you read the bill).  When you sign on to legislation that will affect 500,000 to 37 million constituents, I don’t think this to be unreasonable. In fact, I would also make it mandatory that if the legislator does not comply with this requirement he/she may not vote on the bill.  The Amendment would have provisions which give ample time to read 2 days, (more time if we have a handicapped legislator).  It would also have the same weight for committee members.

 Call me an optimist but I would venture to say that such action would bring about far better bills.  There is something about signing your name that really grabs your attention, not to mention your opponents.  Lastly, to protect politicians, among their signatures they would be allowed to make notes on their copy (i.e. I disagree with this, but I felt that passage was more important, thus compromised).  These notes would be nonbinding but CYA.

Larry Wagman

PASSING THE BILL
John Locke was quite strong in articulating why this is illegitimate. Second Treatise, Ch XI, sec 141:

"The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated power of the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others....The power of the legislative being derived from the people by a voluntary grant and institution, can be no other, than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, and the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands."

Kent Guida
Houston

WELCOME TO THE OLIGARCHY
A point you should bring up in The Corner: any democracy that creates legislation that is too long to be read and understood by an average citizen is no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy.

In a mere 200 years, we've evolved from the minimalist, "lesser of all evils" representative government established by the Framers to today's unelected and unchosen oligarchy of "staffers," bureaucrats, judges and lawyers doing the work of our elected officials.

At the rate in which legislation increases in complexity, even the staffers and lawyers will all be replaced by computers soon enough.

I, for one, welcome our new robot bureaucrats.  At least they won't sleep with their interns on taxpayer time.

Anyway, I think this should be Civics 101, obvious to anyone: if Congress doesn't understand what they're doing, how can anyone trust them to do anything at all?

Perhaps a new constitutional amendment is in order: "Congress shall make no law longer than one hundred pages."

Dave

A STAKE IN THE RESULT
Another reason that executives can get away with exec summaries and the advice of underlings is that those underlings have a specific stake in being right for the company and for its stakeholders.  A senator's staffers are much more likely to benefit from telling the senator what he or she wants to hear, or what conforms to the polling or electoral math, than what the bill actually means for constituents, for the state, and for the country.

Bill Rambo
Landmark, Manitoba

TOO BAD SO SAD
I have a simple question.  Do the Senators and Congressman have ANY Fiduciary duty to the American people??  Just wondering, for it sure seems they believe they do not.  These guys are basically acting like mini-Bernie Madoffs by saying "we can tax you to the max and we'll spend it as we see fit and if you get no return then that is tough!"

George Hawks
Southlake, Texas

HELD ACCOUNTABLE
Another thing that distinguishes CEOs from Senators, Congressmen, and other Master of the Universe is that they are held accountable for results.  They budget their time carefully and delegate responsibly because they are accountable for everything that happens on their watch. When was the last time a Senator or Congressman was held accountable for the lousy results of the legislation they approved?

Sometimes I think this is also the reason that the military is the only part of the federal government that works reasonably well.

Charles Austin

PEN AND INK ONLY
My coworker and I were discussing this issue the other day and we came up with a solution.  As major league baseball has mandated the use of wooden bats in part to keep the game comparable across eras and the scoring in check, US citizens should mandate that Congress use parchment, quills, inkwells and blotters when writing bills (a necessary clause is that that the congressmen should have to write the bills themselves).  That way the house leaders won't be able to use a few keystrokes to slip 300 pages into a bill the night before it's brought to a vote, and maybe we'll be able to keep the budget numbers in check.

Harley Bailey
Greensboro, North Carolina

SHORT AND SWEET
Thank you so much for the link at the Corner - what a thrill to be scrolling through the Corner as I do several times a day and to see your link.

I appreciate your citation of the Tea Act, but if you want a more modern example, the 1935 Social Security Act would print out at about 36 pages.

I've been trying to discover how long the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 which created the NRA was.  I can't find a link online, but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple hundred pages or less.

Betsy Newmark
http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/

WORD COUNT
1773 Tea Act: how about a new rule in Congress - no bill can be voted upon unless it is shorter than 2263 words?

If a bill needs to be longer, break it up.

Jim Doherty

MINIMUM READING TIME
Perhaps it's time for some populist in gov't to propose a new piece of  legislation requiring a minimum reading time allotted for every x  number of pages in a bill before a vote could be held.  For example, one day for the first 20 pages of a bill, and an extra day (hour?) for  every additional 10 pages.

It would encourage concise writing, fewer special clauses for special interests, removes the "gee, I didn't have time to read that part" excuse for legislators, and it could save us from monstrosities like the stimulus bill in the future.

Kristin Carroll

Re: See you in the Database
TAKE MY WIFE
To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Subject: report
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 07:56:26 -0700

Hello, I'd like to report my wife who has insufficiently pure thoughts about our Dear Leader. Please come get her and provide her an opportunity for re-education. Thank you.
 
Boris

THE NEW DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Hopenstasi.

Very clever. Clever beyond words

I am not worthy.

Mike Florio
Yerington, Nevada

Re: Live slogan-free or die and More government slogans
Here's my suggestion: "Kansas: Where Daddy will always provide."
Might as well be frank.

John  Schedler
Seattle, Washington

"Come visit and feel IL".

Kenneth Kipp

Last time I was in Kennebunkport, there was a store with exactly this name.It’s all about ME! Nothing new under the sun, etc.

P.S. Yes, I unfortunately live in the outlaw province known as Chicrookistan

Patrick
Illinois

I kinda like: "AZ you like it!"

Wayne D Anderson
Tucson, Arizona

All I can do is sigh (somewhat dyslectically): TX, TX!

This is a fun exercise:

Hey baby! You've got big TX.

Ben Rankin

Missouri: Your federal flood tax dollars at work.

Charlie Davis

TX less!

Robert Vargo

No MO!

Anon

KY is for Lovers!

Walt Gilbert

You forgot (or wisely left out) "Kiss my AZ!"
 
Carl Peterson
(A Steyn fan and father of two Steyn fans in ND-not much I could do with
that one)

"You Can Call Me AL"   (for the state where I currently reside)

Leta Hix

Come on IN
You'll feel IL
OH no!
TN ears!
MSing persons
Bring your CAsh
OR what?

The fun goes on and on!  (I had a few for Kentucky.... but they were all borderline obscene....)

Deirdre Mundy

A slogan that combines Military Courtesy and Wyoming:

"AZ You Were"

Here is one for Michigan, my home state:

"MI Casa, Su Casa"

Neil

"CA Boom!"

"VA VA Boom!"

Steve McGann

I support "My state government is CA CA."

John SimutisSeattle slogan is "Metro Natural." Is there a pansier one anywhere else?

Johannes Happonen

Michigan is lately using this slogan to promote itself: "Pure Michigan". Considering the disaster that is the Governor up here -- the Protobama some call her -- Pure Michigan works on multiple levels.

Sean

Don't forget about NJ spending $260,000 to come up with "We'll win you over". Talk about low self-esteem.

Dave Hilbert

Re: Charades and suspicions
THE LATE CARY GRANT
Sadly “the all-time greatest male movie star” is slipping from the popular memory. Earlier this year there was a 'Famous Person' school assembly at my daughter's grade/primary school. She went as the great man but had to have a photo of him taped to her bag to remind people just who this dude was. And that's in his home town!  This is despite the fact that Grant maintained a close connection with Bristol all his life (there are some wonderfully evocative photos of him visiting his mother in the mid-sixties).

Nor has his celebrity entirely survived outside of the Anglosphere. I recently opened a blog for students of English as a second language with a casual boast about Bristol's Cary Grant connection - to thunderous silence. But when I mentioned Wallace and Gromit, the comments page lit up ...

 Incidentally, I'm interested that you can still here the “peculiar west-country sing-song” in his accent. I've always been struck by how he managed to eliminate all traces, but I shall listen again. The Bristol accent is quirky even by west-country standards - think of Vicky Pollard ('yeah but, no but) in the otherwise awful UK “comedy” show Little Britain.

Kieran McGovern 
Bristol, United Kingdom

CAN’T HEAR IT MYSELF
In your Cary Grant article you mention: "Cary could rhyme with “Harry” or “wary” - or, come to that, “marry” or “fairy’ -and in 55 years its owner carefully avoided issuing a definitive pronunciation."
Where I come from, Rochester, NY, these words are all pronounced the same. I have asked people about this difference before, but my Great Lakes ears cannot hear it.

John Dietl
Ithaca, New York

Re: Song of the Week
POOR CHEMISTRY
"A Wonderful Guy" is a wonderful song, but Nellie would never say, or even think of, the word "bromidic."  This always bugged me about this song.  Someone commenting on her might use it, but she never would.

Jim Blanchard
New Orleans

MARK REPLIES: I think that's a fair point. It always struck me that way, too. But then I wondered if Hammerstein, who liked to research his characters very thoroughly, was alluding to the fact that Nellie is a nurse and, therefore, presumably familiar with bromides in the medical sense. On reflection, that's most unlikely. As far as I know, "bromidic" has only ever been applied adjectivally to "bromide" in the non-medical sense - ie, a trite or commonplace observation - or person. In fact, if memory serves, it dates very specifically from Gelett Burgess' once famous book, Are You A Bromide? (1907), which subsequently provided half the inspiration for the Gershwins' duet for Fred and Adele Astaire, "The Babbitt And The Bromide".

MUSACK MEMORIES
1) Reading about the song Moonglow brought back many memories.  It was one of those songs you heard everywhere because I think in the 1960's and 1970's it was a favorite of the MUSACK [sic?] folks.  You heard in elevators, while in the dentist chair waiting for the drill and no painkillers, and in banquet halls while dinner was being served [an accordion required].  It is one of those tunes that, out of nowhere, will pop into my head and refuse to leave for the whole day, but unlike some others, I never seem to mind it staying around for a bit.

Robert Belvedere
www.thecampofthesaints.com

DON’T FORGET GLEASON
I very much enjoyed your Song of the Week piece on Tenderly, even though you omitted the main association that the song has for me and, I assume, many others.  It was almost always the background music used when Jackie Gleason performed a pantomime sketch as his hapless Poor Soul.  Keep up the great work.
 
Glenn Davis

Re: A brewski for Chita, Sid and Harvey
JUST FOUR GUYS AND THE PRESS CORPS
Most awkward beer ever?

Edward Mattimore

Re: Wishing will make it so
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
That William Underhill fellow at Newsweek, to dispel fears of a coming Eurabia, tells us that the demographic statistics on Muslim population trends in Europe are unknown, unknowable and opaque: so everyone should  relax. Is it just me, or is that not hugely reassuring?

John
Ottawa

MODERATES, GET MILITANT
At one point, the Newsweek article says:  "And violent zealotry is for the tiny minority: polls repeatedly reaffirm that Muslims overwhelmingly disapprove of terrorism."

When do we hear from these folks?   When do these secular European Muslims stand up to their radical brothers?   Seems to me that when radical Muslim minorities "diversi-force" governments to put in place Sharia law, which they will do to be accommodating, Newsweek's "decoupled" Muslims will bend to the "submit or die" rules that Islam preaches and create either effective majorities or unstoppable ruling minorities.   Unstoppable except by societies that are committed to individual freedom, which America was in WWII (what percentage of Germans were Nazis?) and what we fear we are losing.

Ellen Anderson

INTEGRATION REDUCES PROCREATION
To be fair, the statement "The worst of the scaremongering is based on the assumption that current behavior will continue" by Grace Davie is truthfully not that bad. There actually does happen to be good statistical evidence that Muslim birthrates do lower once they leave their third world and developing countries behind for the western industrialized ones, and this is a pattern that holds true for other immigrant groups to the west as well, with the declining birthrates of Mexican and African immigrants to the United States by the third generation being the best example.

However, there is a caveat: the declining birthrate usually accompanies a degree of assimilation to western culture and climbing the economic ladder: a degree of being integrated into the larger society. However, if that does not happen, the birthrates remain high, if not quite as high as they were in the regions from which the immigrants came. The best example is actually Israel. Muslims and Arabs that are Israeli citizens and live in Israel proper have a much lower birthrate than the "Palestinians" who live in occupied territories such as the West Bank and Gaza.  So if the vast majority of the Islamic population of Europe refuses to integrate into larger European society, then you may well be right. However, if this integration does occur - even if it is a slow process similar to the integration of blacks into the American mainstream - then Grace Davie is correct. My guess is that it will be somewhere in between. (This is not merely a noncommittal non-prediction, but rather my observation that as with America many Muslims in Europe do in fact choose integration over shari'a, but also large numbers for whatever reason do not.)

The truth, however is that the real problem with Europe is not the Muslim and other non - European immigrants, but with the native European population. The Muslims aren't running Europe into the ground, the Europeans are, and those who refuse to deal directly with that fact are just making the Muslims into scapegoats. Europe would still be facing major problems even if not a single Muslim lived on the continent.

Henry Milton
Memphis, Tennessee

SAD
You are really "anti-Islam"; I have been defending you even in print against others.. But you really do not know the line where the terrorism, culture, etc of Muslims end and where the religion starts.

If one does not respect others religion, one cannot respect his own religion either.

I think you are not a good Christian either.

Sad.. Very sad..

Hakki Ocal

Re: Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
I really liked your take on Matt Carr's review of Christopher Caldwell's book. I also noticed that in discussing the Irish survey, he says that only 37% of Muslims want Ireland to become an Islamic state, and 73% of Muslims "considered themselves 'fully integrated'". In other words, at least 10% of Muslims who considered themselves fully integrated into Irish culture are also calling for their country to become an Islamic state. According to Carr, this is supposed to make us feel better, not make us question how "integrated" these citizens really are!

Anyway, I very much enjoy your writings, so please keep up the good work!

James Klugman

Re: Climatology versus demography
A NEW WORLD ORDER?
In studying your NRO comments regarding demography and climatology, I was struck not so much by the grouping of countries at the bottom of the birthrate rankings as I was by the geographical significance of a middle grouping which represents countries with a birth rate between 2 and 3, starting at #80 (India) and culminating in #131 (New Zealand).  This group includes India, the United States, South Africa and New Zealand from the Anglosphere, but also most of the Caribbean and South American countries as well as the larger spots across  South Pacific.   Perhaps you can explain the absence of Australia from this grouping as I always have thought them a robust lot.  Still, there seems to me to be a block of nations with growing populations, components of economic modernity, and a legacy of western civilization and culture (largely Roman Catholic) ties.

The thought occurred to me that this belt could emerge as an economic refuge and a cultural counterweight to the Islamic block in a post European world.  I suspect that the day is coming when the US will have to decide where it's future lies, either with an anemic and increasingly Islamic Europe, or with a dynamic, but fractious South.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Alex Ridgway

P.S.  Why are the parts of the globe touched by French colonization so much worse off than those touched by the English, Spanish and Portuguese?

IT COULD CHANGE ON A DIME
Where does the figure of 1.3 come from?  What are the examples?  Historically, I can see it resulting from War, Famine, Disease, and Pestilence. A small tribe overrun by the outside world.  That can push  a society over the edge, but that is not the problem.

In Europe, the mini-family is the result of Birth Control and Choice, not irrevocable change.  TFR of 1.3 is certainly, "The Glide Path to History," but it could change on a dime.  If today's young decided to 
have 5 children--as my parents did--then it would change in a snap.  Given Europe's wealth and education, there is no reason why there could be no room in the maternity ward in a year's time.

For example, Ireland suffered a demographic collapse that would make  even your hair curl--the population chopped in half between 1845 and 1850.  The rebound was swift, at home and abroad. There is no reason why, with the economic crisis shaking faith in materialism, that they could not return to having many children in a hovel, as they did for 5,000 years.

Close to Quebec, , "revanche de la creche."

My own eyes do compare the churches full of children in St. Louis, Missouri to the empty cradles of Ann Arbor and Seattle.

Think, "revanche de la creche."  Why is this the end?

Andrew Balet

A BIG COMEBACK?
You write that no society has ever survived a fertility rate of 1.3 or lower.  Do you have any idea why the website you linked to shows a comeback for every country with a fertility rate below 1.3, coming  around 2050?  Check out Russia.

Douglas Johnson

20-PER-CENT CHILDLESS
I thought I'd bring your attention to an article in the German newspaper Die Welt (The World) from a couple of days ago which states that more and more German women are deciding not to have any children. 

Here's part of the article:

“Frauen bleiben in Deutschland immer häufiger kinderlos. Im Jahre 2008 hätten 21 Prozent der 40- bis 44-Jährigen hätten keine Kinder zur Welt gebracht, sagte der Präsident des Statistischen Bundesamtes, Roderich Egeler, am Mittwoch in Berlin. Dagegen seien unter den zehn Jahre älteren nur 16 Prozent und unter den zwanzig Jahre älteren Frauen 12 Prozent kinderlos geblieben.”

I don't know if you speak German, but the article basically says that more and more women remain childless.  In 2008 21% of 40-44 year old women had no children. In contrast, 16% of women who are 10 years older are childless, and only 12% of those who are 20 years are childless.

I wonder how fast the German state can survive with such a low birth ratio...

Cesar Canizales

DEMOGRAPHIC DEPRESSION
David Goldman, who wrote for years for the Asian times under the pseudonym Spengler and who now writes for First Things, wrote in the May issue that our economic downturn is largely due to demographic trends. Single-parent families, no-kid marriages, etc. Thought you might be interested.

Pat Birmingham

ANY SUGGESTIONS?
You've written a lot about demographic implosion. Do you have any suggestions on how to stop it? It seems like pro-natalist policies (paying people to have kids, etc.) always fail.

Noah Smith

FARMING THEM OUT
I'm surprised you didn't mention this gem from that Times online article about China:

"Many young couples are willing to have one child to continue the family line, but they let the grandparents raise it so that they can go to bars and restaurants and go shopping and travelling without being restricted by the responsibilities of children."

It's almost like the Chinese have caught up to Europe so fast that they've just skipped the "widespread prosperity" part and immediately jumped into the hedonistic selfishness phase.

We've already got 'em licked!

John Greene

CURIOUS
I assume you read this article.  Did you ever give your thoughts on the author's conclusions?  I was curious what you thought about his assertions.

Dan

MARK REPLIES: See here. There's no serious argument about what's happening. Only about where it leads.

Re: Warm-mongers prefer you in poverty
and Climate change you can believe in
A CONTROL PLAY
Mr. Steyn, I just finished reading your "Warm Mongers . .  ." over at Jewish Review and I have to say sir, You are a freakin' genius. Anybody with half a brain knows that the Global Warming^(TM) scam is just a control play that looks pretty attractive to those that see themselves on top of the heap doing the controlling. Nothing about it passes the common sense test if you look up the simple facts.

Anyway, thinks for the good laugh. I love seeing the issues of the day filtered through your lens. Very entertaining, very illuminating.

As an aside, take a trip over to my blog (http://mezzanineview.com) and click on the "Environment" section. I have crafted a nice little visual of what man's contribution of CO2 really looks like. Illuminating as your writing.

Steve Prestek

I WAS HERE FIRST
It's the old saw about a developer wanting to build a house in the woods, while a conservationist already owns a house in the woods.

It also seems very anti- human

Paul Schauder

GIANTS’ FOOTPRINTS
I pledge to Gaia...that I will limit my carbon footprint to that of Al Gore and Thomas  Friedman, whichever is less.

Let them explain to me why that isn't good enough

Greg Milligan
Olympia, Washington

BACK TO SCHOOL, BOYS
Per the about-the-author page on Tom Friedman's own website, the guy has a degree in Mediterranean Studies (sounds like quite a grind), with a Master's in Middle East Studies, and that's the sum total of  his formal education.  Those two degrees, plus no practical scientific or engineering experience that I'm aware of, qualifies him as an expert on science about as much as Al Gore's flunking-out-of- Vanderbilt-divinity serves as class credit for the "Goracle."  Which is to say, not in the slightest.

Friedman -- and Gore, and any other self-appointed scientific "expert"-- can call me back just as soon as they pass, say, junior-year  thermodynamics.  Until then, they can shove it.

Will Collier
B.S. Aerospace Engineering, M.S. Aerospace Engineering

HIGH MAINTENANCE MODELS
I enjoy your writing immensely and today's thoughts on global warming reminded me of the statistician George Box's aphorisms about models. Being a mathematician, he said, "Never fall in love with  a model." Elaborating, his other aphorism is "All models are wrong; some are useful." Increasingly, apparently, the models forecasting global warning have a diminished utility

Bob Forrester

CLODS UNITE
Thanks for the clear thoughts on this.   I am an educated clod, although not in climatology (PhD Chemistry), but I must be so simplistic that I am seeing it the same way you do.

Ken Matuszak
Lindenhurst, Illinois

CLEAR AS A MOUNTAIN STREAM
I AM a scientist and your clear-headed analysis of climate change and other issues is as refreshing as a cold drink out of a high mountain stream (I am from Wyoming, after all).
 
Kim J. Mettes

IT’S NOT SCIENCE, IT’S STATISTICS
Your column today did a great job highlighting all that is what is wrong with Climate Science today. I spent 12 years in the Air Force as both a Weather Observer and Weather forecaster. I was stationed in the Pacific, Midwest, Europe and Middle East. And while I do not have to coveted advance degrees in Climate Science or what today is dubbed Environmental Science, and I've left the weather field behind be when I separated from the service in 1992, I don't think I am all that unqualified to offer a few comments about the state of Climatology today. Here are a few of my rough comments:

Most of the climatological studies done today rely heavily on statistics. When NOAA or NASA says that June 2009 was the 4th warmest June since records were kept, they are referring to positive or negative anomalies of the reported data. The raw data (surface observations taken from all over the globe) are sliced, diced, adjusted and then they are compared to some subjective "mean temperature". In theory, a surface observation is suppose to measure the ambient air temperature (as well as other meteorological parameters such as winds, barometric pressure, cloud ceilings, dew point temperature, etc...) for one point 6 feet above the earth's surface. Well, there are a lot of points on the earth's surface (trillions in fact), but NOAA currently has only 1079 reporting stations in its data network (of which 134 are in the US). If one is to compare the number of reporting stations in 1955 and compare them to 2009, about 75% of those stations in 1955 are gone. Most of the reporting stations worldwide are from airports (lots of concrete, jet exhausts, and people - ie Urban Heat Islands). What we've probably been measuring since the 1950s in the growth of urban heat islands, something neither NOAA or NASA says exist in any meaningful way.

Statistics also drive studies global temps derived from proxies (tree rings, ice cores, and sea sediment). Again, this isn't really science, as it is statistical analysis. If you visit Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit site, you will find most of the debate focuses on data sets, statistical algorithms, and statistical adjustments. Whether they are debating Dr Hansen's infamous Y2K problem, or Principle Component Analysis, one cannot avoid the fact that most of the "earth shattering science" put forth by the Climate Alarmists is nothing more than econometrics applied to climate data. Yes, there are some fascinating theories out there concerning how our climate works, but those theories must comply with the collected data. Hence the need for all of this statistical analysis. However, as Dr Wegman (one of the world's foremost statisticians) observed: most of our climate scientists do not specialize in the kind of advanced statistical techniques that they use in their studies. As a result mistakes are often made (the most famous being Dr Mann's iconic Hockey Stick). Now, I don't blame those guys for not mastering a math specialization that requires months if not years to learn. Even Albert Einstein had to "return to the classroom" to learn Tensor Calculus. But Einstein had to learn that specialization in order for him to break the mysteries of advanced physics. But, we should demand the same of scientists today.

Referring to the lack of reporting stations I outlined in Point 1, there is a solution (an imperfect one, but it is better than what our Climate Keepers have). There are polar orbiting satellites that have collected "lower tropospheric" temperatures (via a special IR sensor). Essentially, these satellites take the average temperature of a large slice of our atmosphere (from about 5000 feet above ground level to 14000 feet). These satellite soundings have been in place since 1979, and the folks at the University of Alabama Huntsville post monthly global temperature anomalies derived from those satellites. The temperature data from the satellites is quite different from what NOAA and NASA publish. As a matter of fact, as meteorologists say, the 2 trends diverge (NOAA and NASA are going up, while the satellite data is going down).

Finally, I would like to say (this is my own opinion of course) that Climate Science is going the way of Economics (the other dull science). Like the fights between Marxists and Capitalists, Climate Science now has 2 diametrically opposing views. And these views are separated more by politics than by science. In the 1980s, I can still remember trying to read some of the climate science journals. Most of the studies dealt with inane, esoteric subjects like multi-decadal changes in the Walker Cell, or new techniques in dendro-climatology. I think in 1986 there were less than 2000 people in the world who had PhD in Climatology. Today, it is of course much different. With big bucks from federal and private grants, one can not only carve out a nice career in this field, but also get face time on shows like Good Morning America and Sixty Minutes to boot. Like the ssocialists of the 1930s-1970s, climate scientists found a mentor and friend in the Federal Government. All one has to do is back the Climate Change (or as it was known just a few years ago Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)), and the money, honors, and accolades flow forth. Those who dispute or at least question Global Warming are the Outsiders. One only has to remember what Free-Marketers were once called in the 1950s through 1970s. Today, the language is a bit more viscous (Climate Deniers I think is the term most used to describe those who do not toe the line). There are even some who advocate criminalizing scientific dissent. Dr Heidi Cullen (formerly of The Weather Channel) even advocated stripping the AMS certifications of all television meteorologists who are skeptical of Climate Change.

This is the sad state of affairs of what was once a sleepy, often forgotten sub-discipline of physics. I cannot blame the young people who now flock to Climate Science. There is nothing more exhilarating than to think that one is Saving the Planet or Making a Difference. There are still some very good scientists in this field (such as Dr Peilke), but they are of an older g eneration of scientists who made their bones well before the hysteria began. Unfortunately, men like him are now considered the New Heretics. Unfortunately, Climate Science is now like Economics. It does not belong in the hard sciences anymore. I imagine if things persist, it will find itself a part of the Political Science department someday.

JP

PROPER DEBATE IN AUSTRALIA
We in Australia have witnessed a staggering event. Our pro-greenhouse government actually had to confront some hard questions on this issue. This situation originated with one Senator, Steve Fielding of a conservative but credible minor party Family First. He challenged the government to publicly address some questions about (alarmist) global warming - e.g. why has temperature actually fallen since 1998 despite rising CO2? Had the computer models predicted this? Fielding was trained as an engineer and is anything but a fool. He took four well-credentialed sceptical scientists along to prevent an attempted snow job by the government minister concerned, Penny Wong, and by her advisers. The four sceptics were Bob Carter, David Evans, Willian Kininmonth and Stewart Franks. They gave their opponents hell. In my book Australia should give Fielding and his famous four a medal. We got some proper debate for a change. I see that voices are being heard in the UK and the US along the lines: if Fielding can get this debate going in Australia, why can't we have a decent debate in our own countries?

There are several pieces on the net about this. A particularly good one is:

'The Wong Fielding Meeting on Global Warming - Documents|JoNova', 15 June 2009.

I am not implacably opposed to any and all emission reduction schemes. I just want it properly debated on the basis of science, not alarmism.

David Elder
Australia

Re: I fought the law and I won (eventually)
SWAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?
From a Steyn fan that also happens to be a police officer. I was amused by your blogs in the corner about encountering police (or  government). I am curious about your thought process regarding SWAT  teams. I understand the paramilitary aspect that seems to be somewhat disconcerting to you, but how should police prepare for heavily armed  suspects that are held up in banks or homes for instance? What about responding to Mumbai style attacks where time is of the essence? Unlike India, American police do not have the military to respond quickly and it may not even be legal depending on your view of the law.

Thanks for all of your writing and observations, they keep me smiling throughout a week of policing San Francisco.

Peter D. Walsh

BORED-ER GUARDS
Great post! On a lonely Christmas night in '07 at the Cornwall crossing my girlfriend and I found the bored(er) guard.  After 4-5 questions we got "and how did you two meet?" I took the "It was a dark and stormy night..." route and the poor chap quickly waved us through.

For anyone who gives you static for not getting up in the grill of a Vt Statie late at night in the darkest NEK, refer them to Hunter Thomason's not-so-gonzo dealing with the Highway Patrol in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. A drunk, drug addled Raoul Duke knew better, you knew better, the
only one who can't figure it out is a tenured Harvard Prof.

Roger Patterson
Burlington, Vermont

ps: Lights Out was fantastic, thanks again!

Re: Why do you leave the one you love?
DRIVE-BY SLURRING
Your drive-by slurs against the Serbs are beginning to get on my nerves (e.g. your July 23 column talking about ethnic genocide boosting Bosnia and Herceogovina's llife expectancy). Maybe you should learn something about the Bosnian War  that ended with the Dayton accords before you play the funny man. Or about the former Yugoslavia in general. I have never been to Sarajevo, the capital, but I understand it is almost entirely Muslim now, whereas a decade and a half after the Second World War, Berlin certainly wasn't almost entirely Jewish.
 
By the way, if you have ever been to Serbia recently you might have noticed that the embassy of Bosnia and Hercegovina and the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran share the same building in Belgrade, something which doesn't seem to have attracted any Western reporter's interest. (At least they did so in 2006, the first time I was there.) My tentative hypothesis is that the Bosnian and Iranian embassy officials are talking to each other all the time, co-ordinating their efforts, so for the sake of efficiency they want to be able to speak face to face without even leaving the structure that houses them both. What's yours?
 
Sve najbolje! (That's all the best in Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian or the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian language or whatever happens to be the current politically correct designation of what used to be the official language of Yugoslavia.)
 
Andy Baldwin
Ottawa

MARK REPLIES: Who said anything about the Serbs? I take the view that there are no good guys in the Balkans - which is why the feeble Kosovo intervention was such a joke. As to the demographic shifts in Yugoslavia, I've been pointing that out for years. See page 5 of America Alone: "In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 per cent to 31 per cent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 per cent to 44 per cent." And, as I've written many times in America Alone and elsewhere, Iranian and Saudi money have, in essence, co-opted Balkan Islam - and radicalized the British and other European Muslims (like Daniel Pearl's killer) who passed through there in the Nineties.

Re: The recession is beginning to bite
CRIME RISING YET?
Thew title of your Corner post, "Recession beginning to bite", made me think. Given the liberal policies of the Obama administration, how long will it be before crime begins to rise? If (alas, most likely when) this becomes a political issue, it will be big problem for the Democrats. I think this topic would make a great article. I was reading "The Making of the President 1968" a while back and was reminded that the "law and order" issue was one of the main reasons Nixon won.

Will Pickering

Re: Old West symbol now corralled on welfare
NOT NATIVE
A point that you failed to make in your NRO article is that all Mustangs are descended from the Spanish horses and ponies brought to the New World with the Conquistadors.  It is not a "native" species.  The indigenous North American horse became extinct prior to Columbus (or sometime after, if certain Indian oral traditions are to be believed, but I doubt this).  The Conquistadors were veterans or descended from veterans of the wars against Islamic terror in Spain.  In a sense, then, preserving the Mustangs, is part of a continuity for the war of the West against Islamic terror.  Excuse the redundancies above.  I admit "Islamic terror" is akin to "watery ocean".

Michael Mahon

FARM NAGS
Great column on the mustangs, but it's even better- those horses are NOT the progeny of the Conquistadors' horses. They are descended from farm nags let loose during the Depression by farmers who could no longer afFord to feed them.

Fred Cox

WHOAH
You're inhuman.  Euthanasia is for humans and other inferior species.  Horses should be honored, like cows in India.

Phil Paul

GO EAST
As always, wonderful column. 

I would support ROAM enthusiastically if in fact the area set aside WAS NY, Conn, Mass, NH (sorry) and Vermont.  Giving all that to horses seems to me the highest and best use of the area, and it would instantly solve NY's budget woes...

Todd Hartman
Denver

HORSING AROUND
Re: your recent great column on mustangs....surprise, surprise, Steyn writes ANOTHER anti-big government column. You're nothing but a one-trick pony.
 
Ron Johnson
New York City

Re: Jail order brides
NEW LIFE INTO AN OLD CUSTOM
Perhaps the Iranians are just breathing new life into an old custom.  In the BBC production of "I, Claudius", the Praetorian Guards who just hacked up Caligula are finishing off the imperial family:

Guard: I can't do it. I can't just kill them: they're underage.

Macro: They're on the list. Now get on with it.

Guard: The girl is a virgin. It's unprecedented to kill a virgin. It will bring bad luck to the city.

Macro: Then make sure she's not a virgin when you kill her. Now get on with it!

Patrick Mulvihill
San Diego, California

EXECUTING VIRGINS
The Romans also had a rule against executing virgins, but we only know of one case where they used the Iranian expedient to get around it.  When Lucius Aelius Sejanus got a little too ambitious for the Emperor Tiberius's liking, Tiberius ordered Sejanus, his followers and his family executed.  The soldiers sent to murder Sejanus's children balked at killing his young daughter, Junilla.  Killing a virgin was sacrilege under Roman law, and would call down the wrath of the gods on the perpetrator.  The soldiers were eventually ordered to rape her first, which apparently was supposed to make everything all right.  According to Tacitus, there was no "wedding night" followed by morning execution.  Junilla already had the noose that would be used to strangle her looped around her neck when she was being raped, and she was killed immediately after the violation. 

It is noteworthy that people reacted with horror to the act even at the time, and it was such an abberation and scandal that it is well-known even today.   We are ashamed that our civilization could ever have produced a man like Tiberius, who would order such a thing once.  The Iranians have institutionalized the practice and scarcely blush at it.  Would someone care to tell me again how this ISN'T a clash of civilizations? 

Joseph DeMartino
West Palm Beach, Florida

Re: NO Future
FLEEING OBAMACARE
In your NRO post, No Future, an analysis by Leonard Stern reports:

“The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year.”

I have a solution:  Canadian politicos should quickly return healthcare delivery back to the free market and they'll be swamped Americans immigrants fleeing ObamaCare. Surpassing the immigration of half a million Americans annually will be a walk in the park.

Russ Rosie

RESTRICTED EMIGRATION
Your scenario of the German or Japanese circa 2040 leaving their country made me flash to an alternative nightmare: restricted emigration.  Wouldn't the "caring" governments of the future impose laws to restrict freedom of emigration in an attempt to stop the loss of productive citizens.  Seems like a simple leap for someone like Pelosi or Reed to make.  We must do it for the children, don't you know.

Patrick
B'ham, Alabama

PUT THEM TO WORK
If Japan is short of 21 year olds ready to enter the workforce in 2030, maybe the answer for Japan and other countries will be (gasp) child labor?
 
In days gone by 14 year olds entered the workforce as apprentices. One way to deal with a shortage of young people in the workforce is just to get more work out of the young folks we have. There is really no reason teenagers (and even younger kids) can't work. There is really no reason for young folks to waste years and years propping up a decadent univerisity sector when they could be out in the vineyards toiling with the rest of us.
 
Just a (non PC) thought ...
 
Matt

HAVE LAPTOP WILL TRAVEL
They'll go anywhere. I finished five years of college last summer with a BA and MS in economics from Marquette and I'm still living with my parents a year later looking for a job. If it weren't for my UNBELIEVABLE student loans, I would travel literally anywhere in the world for a job. Who the
hell needs Wisconsin or any other awful midwestern state where it snows eight months a year when you can spend a few hundred dollars to move your entire livelihood after college anywhere? I would not be surprised at all to find in 10 or 15 years that many American students elect to move to places higher on the list of economic freedom than the US just on account of the fact that places like Santiago get fabulous weather and by plugging a $25 wireless device into your laptop you can work wirelessly with people around the world.

Brian

SOCIAL SECURITY: A GIANT PONZI SCHEME
You quote Leonard Stern:

A nation that doesn't replace itself becomes an aging nation, and that's why economists are terrified. Old people no longer generate wealth, yet they require huge amounts of state support in the form of health care, pensions and other programs...

There's quite a large error in Stern's assumption: Old people do not require large amounts of state support in the form of health care, pensions and other programs... The state has entered into an economic compact with its people which requires – obligates - the state to provide social welfare benefits to its old people. Stern has it exactly backwards.

Economists are terrified because a social welfare compact funded on the basis of population replacement is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, i.e. not financially sound. (It's actually worse. Most old-age social welfare systems require a worker-to-retiree ratio of at least 2:1 (in order to fund the social welfare tax burden), and therefore require a geometric or constant population growth rate. Most Western economies have experienced declines in the rate of population growth--some, to below replacement rate, as you've frequently commented.)

Forbes Tuttle
New York, NY

BIRTHS WILL BE ENCOURAGED
There is a scenario I don't recall you ever considering. That is, Japan (and the U.S. for that matter) is overpopulated. Japan's population is shrinking, but at some point when the people decide that it has declined to a comfortable level and crowding is no longer an issue, births will be encouraged to stabilize it. (After all, the land area is fixed. They cannot grow forever.At some point they have to stop and stabilize.) Meanwhile, society will adjust in some way. Immigration - and eventual replacement by an alien population - is not now and never was the solution.

Larry Geary

LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU FIGURE IT OUT
Love your thinking.  Where, though, will they go?  If they flee Japan and Germany, if they don't want to come to America, presumably they will go to where there are lots of young people and a positive 
balance of payments?  They will go to, uh ... Iran?  I’m genuinely curious to get your thoughts.  I have a couple of young kids and want to plan out own escape ...

Jenny

IMMIGRATION WON’T HELP EUROPE
I came to similar conclusions on immigration as did the C.D. Howe Institute, although I focused on Europe rather than Canada. In a short paper that I produced for a conference on international migration policy at St. Gallen University in Switzerland, I noted that plausible levels of immigration cannot -- and indeed nothing but higher fertility could -- alleviate the problem of Europe's demographic aging and decline. The conference panel, which was generally in favour of mass immigration, refused to publish the paper, but it was subsequently accepted for publication elsewhere. The link to the abstract is here.  
I hope that you may some of the arguments as well as some of the sources cited of interest.

David Verbeeten,
PhD Candidate in Politics,
University of Cambridge
Great Britain

Re: L’Etat, C’est Moi
Re: L'Etat, C'est Moi
WITHER JOURNALISM?
"To say that a piece of democracy has died is to suggest the process involving each citizen has undergone a withering."?

Seriously - what the hell does that mean?  What is meant by "the process involving each citizen"?  The sentence makes no sense.

Maybe, if we could understand what they were saying, we'd read their work.

Barry Jay Warsch, Esq.
Miami, Florida

Re: Gaia’s Right
BRILL
Absolutely brilliant piece on Gaia’s Messiah. Thanks Mark.  Your writing is just superb.  I laughed myself sick.

A former Brit turned Conservative American.

Janet

NUMERO UNO
Awesome column, as usual.

I'm a recent college grad and aspiring writer, and I just wanted to let you know that you are my #1 inspiration. You maintain such a tasteful balance of intellectuality and accessibility that I have yet to find in another political writer.

Joseph Sunde

BRAVE NEW OLD WORLD
I agree with your essay, and would like to refer you to a similar one written over 30 years ago (1975) by Isaac Asimov. It is called "Best foot Backwards" and is collected in “The Planet that Wasn't” by him.

As he noted, the anti-technology, pro-"nature" people really only want other people to live that "natural" and "healthy" lifestyle, without electricity, modern medicine, "polluting" internal combustion engines, or "artificially" grown food (but with a 50% child mortality and 45-year average lifespan).

They see themselves in the clean, technology- and pollution-free brave new world as, of course, part of the small cadre of leaders, priests, gentlemen farmers, philosophers, whatever -- never as the 99% of the population who were serfs, slaves, and servants. Their banner is that of "up with slavery and serfdom!" -- or, more precisely, "up with slavery and serfdom for other people!"

For the good of the planet, they are willing to sacrifice billions of people to starvation, poverty, or slavery-- but it is always *always ALWAYS* other people. Never, ever, themselves.

Avital Pilpel
http://www.avitalpilpel.com/

HIS YADA YADA THE PRINCE OF WALES
How, exactly, can anything Prince Charles says be described as "searing?"

Is there a level above searing in case he gets really fired up?

What if someone with at least some actual power - a middle manager at an insurance company, for example - said the same thing?  Would that be super-duper searing?

Michael

Re: Joe Camel, from zero to hero
MIRACLE WORKERS
Mark:  at the Office of Naval Research, we fund scientific investigations.  I forwarded the Saudi Gazette article widely this morning -  "the proud smile on the face of the Principal Investigator is priceless!"  etc etc.  My primary point, though, was the idiocy of using religious text as the basis for scientific research (setting aside whether the PI actually uttered those words about being informed by the Prophet).

One colleague rose to the bait.  His response, in part:  "Why don't we just start up a logistics program where we feed 5000 Marines with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish..."

Mark Stoffel
CAPT, USN

GIVING OZ THE HUMP
Camel urine may help the economy Down Under:

More than 1 million wild camels are wreaking havoc in huge parts of Australia.

Debby

FORBIDDEN KISS
I don't like Uighurs, and I don't like anyone who likes Uighurs. "Lips that touch Uighurs, will never touch mine."

Larry Eubank

OBAMA HASN’T A CLUE
I've traveled around Ghana extensively, and I've been to parts of Cairo that no American readily wanders (the Qaitbay Mosque in the City of the Dead, for instance).

 That Obama can't learn to pronounce either the Ghanaian capital Accra correctly (it has the accent on the second syllable, not the first) or “Shukran” (the common Arabic for “Thank you,” which he kept repeating in Cairo with the accent on the second syllable, incorrectly) only further lends credence to your periodic point that Mr. Everyone Must Learn Other Languages is a bit of the worst kind of American Monoglot, the one who affects worldliness (Pahkistahn) but in the final analysis hasn't the foggiest clue about anything, nor wants to be bothered to do the hard work of learning it.

Jacob Lentz

JUNGIAN INTERPRETATION
Maybe Obama is withholding information from his birth certificate in order to replicate the heroic archetype according to the theories of  Carl Jung.

I had a professor who analyzed literature along Jungian lines.  I  tried it once.

The hero in literature:

1.  Comes onto the scene from a mysterious place or mysterious  parentage.

2.  Kills a father figure.   Think Tarzan and his ape father.  Obama and Rev. Wright.

3.  Marries or partners with a mother figure, sometimes unknowingly.

3.  Must kill or oppose a dear, but unethical, friend.

David Tinney

CHAIRMAN OBAMA
I would only point out that one of the most successful community organizers of the 20th century was probably Mao.

John J. McGuire

PUN HOLDER
Subject:  Justice Dept. OK with black thugs intimidating Philly. Oh well.. beauty is in the eye of E. Holder, I guess.
 
John Gross
Quebec

FEDERAL PREDATORS
The Federal predator control bill introduced by Dianne Feinstein would require ending all human hunts of moose/caribou/deer before a single wolf can be culled under a predator control program.

I wonder how Mark Begich feels about this?

Tim Lindell
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/

BAD
Sorry, you've got to get over your Michael Jackson phobia. 

Just forget your personal prejudices, watch and listen to this classic performance, and then try to explain why you don't think he's talented if you want to change the mind of the masses:

I agree with most of your opinions on people and culture, but you have a strange blind spot here.

JED Greenwald
MAY THE BEST LOONY WIN
Mark, I don't know if you like Sasha Baron Cohen or not. Personally I find him unfunny and to be honest very crude. So your posting about the terrorist who is offended by Bruno and the Martyrs Brigade threatening to do damage to Cohen to me is like two warring factions of the Mafia - no way to lose this one. Have at it boys, may the best loony win. Although as a free-market and free-speech advocate I suppose from the standpoint of freedom, I "have" to support Cohen and his "art" but truly, it makes me laugh at the situation which is more than I can say for Cohen's "art" in the first place.

Michael Roberson, PT, MBA, ACOEM
Phoenix, Arizona

HAPPY YOU’RE HERE
I was born, raised, and still live in NH, and I can't tell you how happy we are to have you, if you ever need a place to hide out from the authorities, drop me a note.

Keep up the fight!

Sam

LAST WORD
What would I do without You, Thomas Sowell and Rush Limbaugh. What a dreary world it
would be. Keep up the good fight.

Everett Pearsall