WE Blog

Boxlock
Posted May 23, 2008 at 11:07 pm | Permalink
“Brownlee doesn’t care, he thinks its funny.”

“Regular, you and I both know that frankly the whole Eagle staff, as well as anyone that reads but doesn’t post, thinks most the folks (DemLibs) here are mentally ill. …They are laughing their….you know what’s off at the juvenile antics expressed here….Remember the old saying that if you play in the dirt you will get dirty? Well, that applies here except here we’re playing with degenerate crazies.”

Of course mere moments later the “NOT MENTALLY ILL” Boxlick posted:

Boxlock
Posted May 23, 2008 at 11:15 pm | Permalink
Roswell Facts

July 8, 1947

Many of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, just over 60 Years ago, witnesses claim that an unidentified flying object (UFO) with
five aliens aboard crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico.

However, what you may NOT know is that in the month of March 1948, nine months after that historic day, the following people were
born:

Albert A. Gore , Jr.
Hillary Rodham
John F. Kerry
William J. Clinton
Howard Dean
Nancy Pelosi
Dianne Feinstein
Charles E. Schumer
Barbara Boxer

See what happens when aliens breed with sheep?
You get DemLibs!
I certainly hope this bit of information clears up a lot of things for you.

It did for me.

KansasNative,

I am pretty sure he was being tongue-in-cheek with his comments.

Boxlock,

Don’t forget to add: “They are real”

“Boxlock” gets up on his hind legs and brays –

“See, there you go again…can’t refrain from altering ‘nics’…

“…your ‘nic’ alterations are vulgar as well. That speaks badly of your character…”

Does that mean, “Boxlock,” you share the same disdain for “Regular’s” use of such name-calling as “CrapnAmerica” and “MonkeyHock?”

Didn’t think so.

“Boxlock” –

Cite one example — just one — where I have altered “Regular’s” nym.

Shouldn’t boxtop be at church this morning praying for our poor, “DemLib” souls?

Pray away to your invisible sky-god.

……..I guess I must resign myself to “eternal death” because boxtop says so.

Isn’t death, by definition, “eternal”?

“Oedipus, you are one of the most resentful people I ever encountered. Must be miserable.”

………..only “resentful” toward your miserable kind boxtop. I think that is the proper usage of the word “miserable”.

Turner Classic Movies is having a weekend of classic war movies (I didn’t remember that comedian Red Skelton made a few war movies).

Check out their schedule at TCM.com

Any one else remember the old black and white series from the 50s and 60s “Victory at Sea” — Naval war footage from the different battles we read about “battle for Midway / Guam etc ..P It was how many of us old timers formed our impressions of the military back then —- honorable, herioc, brave, service to country and didn’t fear the draft — thought service is what we owed the country —— Today — Not so much

Being as the gestation period for sheep is 144 to 151 days, the list of people provided by either bl or kn couldn’t be the offspring aliens and sheep. However, a casual search for neocons born in December of 1947 might reveal some interesting social misfits:-)

JM Walker,

With all due respect, we don’t really know how breeding with aliens might have effected the gestation of sheep.

#
Nathaniel
Posted May 25, 2008 at 10:23 am | Permalink

JM Walker,

With all due respect, we don’t really know how breeding with aliens might have effected the gestation of sheep.
===============================================
Nathan, you volunteering:-)

JM with all due respect I think the Chavez referred to was the would be king of Venezuela. He started out as their elected president and then moved up to lifetime king by his own declaration.

Someone needs to say it…what the hell was she thinking?

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=&vid=ebc8ba12-d72b-456b-884a-baa8ff0ed48c

#
Nathaniel
Posted May 25, 2008 at 10:42 am | Permalink

JM Walker,

Somewhere, someone, has a picture of me sleeping with an inflatable sheep….

I just know one day I will be famous or running for a high political office and you will see it on the news.

Stupid Marines and their jokes.
================================================
I got a Christmas present one year from my best friends family of a HUGE sheep in a HUGE cardboard box. I laughed until I had tears. Sadly, my friend passed away last year, but I’ll always remember his sense of humor . . . and the damn sheep:-)

That’s right JM.

Nathaniel Posted May 25, 2008 at 10:23 am |
“JM Walker,
“With all due respect, we don’t really know how breeding with aliens might have effected the gestation of sheep.”

Ha…ha, very good Nathaniel!!! Quite perceptive, and demonstrates the informed, logical mind winning out over the mindless DemLib.

Looks like this is gonna be a waste of time today — at least so far…

Psssst – Clark… They already did that!! LOL

Maxine Waters is an complete idiot, an embarrassment even for liberal Californians. What a completely uniformed crackpot.
Why the petroleum executives didn’t simply laugh outright in her face I can not understand, they exhibited phenomenal self-control as she showed what a clueless ass she is.
She sounds like a sister of Hugo Chavez’s, except much more stupid.
She couldn’t even express her idiotic idea of nationalizing the petroleum industry and sounded like she had a speech impediment when actually it was simply her brain dead condition.
What a joke of a U.S. Rep., what an embarrassment to this country.
I don’t give the DemLibs much credit as it is, but allowing that cow to remain in office is a disgrace.

WSClark Posted May 25, 2008 at 2:14 pm |
“Why do presumably normal people post stupid stuff, knowing that it is false?”

WS, because it was a joke, never intended to be taken seriously….though it makes completely logical sense when you look at that list of socialist crackpots.

Chas
Posted May 25, 2008 at 2:31 pm | Permalink
Boxlock = B. D. P.

Chas that was so insightful I didn’t get it. As a new poster to this blog maybe I have misjudged your intellect. What does this mean?

My bad —

Boxlock = B. D. E. P.

“WS, because it was a joke, never intended to be taken seriously.”

Just a waste of bandwidth.

Ksagnostic it is the intent of powerful democrats in the house and senate that worry me. Give them a democrat president and where will the stop sign be. Obama by his own statement shares many of the thoughts she expressed.

Did you miss the part where the world will no longer allow us to drive our SUVs, cool and heat our homes and eat what we want?

Listen to what the man says. It is scary. Nothing to do with the ACLU.

“okobserver” beats his meat personal dead horse by repeating –

“Did you miss the part where the”" world will no longer allow us to drive our SUVs, cool and heat our homes and eat what we want?”

… by ignoring the rest of Obama’s sentence.

The rest of the sentence was, “…without expecting consequences.”

Hey, “okobserver,” guess what the consequences are? $4.00 a gallon gasoline. A dollar that’s tanking vis a vis the Euro. Corporatocracy sending middle-class jobs overseas to slave labor.

There are consequences to George WMD Bush’s Reign of Error. And you seem to be advocating Four More Years of Republic Party dogma while you remain oblivious to the consequences of the policies of the last seven-and-a-half years.

John Sidney McCain is more of the same.

Good luck with that agenda.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton were walking down the street and came to a homeless person. The Republican, John McCain, gave him his business card and told him to come to his office for a job. He then took $20 out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person. Hillary was impressed, so when they came to another homeless person, she stepped forward to help. She gave him directions to the welfare office, then reached into McCain’s pocket and got out another $20. She kept $15 for administrative costs and gave the homeless person $5.

Maybe the solution isnt nationalizing the oil industry… But Federalizing it… Putting oil production under tight governmental controls — instead of ownership like Chavez in Venezuela… Force big oil to accountability and alleviate some of this horrendous price gouging at the hands of big oil, and big oil speculators… Maybe thats the solution here…

Actually, it happened 9 minutes ago.

But we have to allow for the travel time of the telemetry at the speed of light.

It’s nine light minutes from Mars to Earth.

TOUCHDOWN!

Pheonix is alive and well on the Martian arctic cirle!

Space craft Pheonix is now science station Pheonix.

First pictures from the Martian actic circle about 9 o’clock Central time.

“I believe that Clinton was only pointing out that the primary was still going on in June.”

No she wasn’t – she was hoping that Obama would be assassinated so that she could Humphrey her way to the nomination.

Environmentalists’ Wild Predictions

By Walter E. Williams

Now that another Earth Day has come and gone, let’s look at some environmentalist predictions that they would prefer we forget.

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.” In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore’s hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and “in the 1970s … hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich’s predictions about England were gloomier: “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

In 1972, a report was written for the Club of Rome warning the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987 and petroleum, copper, lead and natural gas by 1992. Gordon Taylor, in his 1970 book “The Doomsday Book,” said Americans were using 50 percent of the world’s resources and “by 2000 they [Americans] will, if permitted, be using all of them.” In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, “The World as we know it will likely be ruined by the year 2000.”

Harvard University biologist George Wald in 1970 warned, “… civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” That was the same year that Sen. Gaylord Nelson warned, in Look Magazine, that by 1995 “… somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

It’s not just latter-day doomsayers who have been wrong; doomsayers have always been wrong. In 1885, the U.S. Geological Survey announced there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California, and a few years later they said the same about Kansas and Texas. In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last only another 13 years. In 1949, the Secretary of the Interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight. Having learned nothing from its earlier erroneous claims, in 1974 the U.S. Geological Survey advised us that the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. The fact of the matter, according to the American Gas Association, there’s a 1,000 to 2,500 year supply.

Here are my questions: In 1970, when environmentalists were making predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age and millions of Americans starving to death, what kind of government policy should we have undertaken to prevent such a calamity? When Ehrlich predicted that England would not exist in the year 2000, what steps should the British Parliament have taken in 1970 to prevent such a dire outcome? In 1939, when the U.S. Department of the Interior warned that we only had oil supplies for another 13 years, what actions should President Roosevelt have taken? Finally, what makes us think that environmental alarmism is any more correct now that they have switched their tune to manmade global warming?

Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth’s average temperature would be zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun’s output. On top of that, natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/05/07/environmentalists_wild_predictions

Williams is no scientist, Ameican/et al

I am not a scientist.

Neither are you James.

Neither is Walter Williams.

The debate is over.

BlueJay,

I am American.

I am not James.

I do not know who James is.

OK?

So you are completely disagreeing with what Williams is saying?

Care to answer?

So you do not CARE about history and what was forecasted, incorrectly, in the past about global cooling, etc., basically all that Williams said?

BTW — C/D = Civil Defense

My best rebuttal to you is that at the time you reference, in the ’40’s, our knowledge of climate science, as we know it now, was non-existant… we didnt have satellite capabilities until the ’60’s!!

Right — new ice age caused by nuclear winter… not caused by climate change, — MAN made nuclear winter!!

Nuclear power seems like a good idea on the surface… but, last I checked it takes what, TEN YEARS to build a nuke plant?? How much will fossil fuel cost in TEN YEARS… given that they start a new one Tomorrow??

try CNNSI.com

“Ksagnostic it is the intent of powerful democrats in the house and senate that worry me. Give them a democrat president and where will the stop sign be. Obama by his own statement shares many of the thoughts she expressed.”

What particular statement is that? Also, right now given the consistency of the Republican Party (consisting largely of coalition conservatives molded from Christian Right activists and states’ rights southerners), I am right now far more concerned about the excesses of the right than the left. Maxine Walters hardly represents the mainstream of anything. Unfortunately, your own idiot Senator, James Inhofe, does represent a large constituancy of Republicans.

“Did you miss the part where the world will no longer allow us to drive our SUVs, cool and heat our homes and eat what we want?”

Oooooh, scary. How will the “world” stop us from doing that, since we are, right now, the primary customers of the “world”. It is unlikely there will be such limits imposed by the “world”. Why would the “world” cut off its primary retail customer?

And finally, did Barack Obama say that the “world” was going to not let us eat what we want, etc.? Was that some exaggeration from Faux News that I missed?

As for wind energy, it doesnt work that way… your gripe is just plain bogus!! ONE wind tower can power a small TOWN in its daily output!!

Williams is a libertarian economist.

American posted May 25, 2008 at 7:40 pm

“In 1970, when environmentalists were making predictions of manmade global cooling and the threat of an ice age…”

‘The global cooling mole’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/03/the-global-cooling-mole
“During the period we analyzed, climate science was very different from what you see today. There was far less integration among the various sub-disciplines that make up the enterprise. Remote sensing, integrated global data collection and modeling were all in their infancy. But our analysis nevertheless showed clear trends in the focus and conclusions the researchers were making. Between 1965 and 1979 we found (see table 1 for details):

* 7 articles predicting cooling
* 44 predicting warming
* 20 that were neutral

In other words, during the 1970s, when some would have you believe scientists were predicting a coming ice age, they were doing no such thing. The dominant view, even then, was that increasing levels of greenhouse gases were likely to dominate any changes we might see in climate on human time scales.”

American posted: “Here are a few facts: Over 95 percent of the greenhouse effect is the result of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere.”

False.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/
“The overlaps complicate things, but it’s clear that water vapour is the single most important absorber (between 36% and 66% of the greenhouse effect), and together with clouds makes up between 66% and 85%.
CO2 alone makes up between 9 and 26%, while the O3 and the other minor GHG absorbers consist of up to 7 and 8% of the effect, respectively.”

American posted: “Most climate change is a result of the orbital eccentricities of Earth and variations in the sun’s output.”

Very incomplete — those triggered small changes, and then GHG’s and ice albedo amplified that.

‘The lag between temperature and CO2. (Gore’s got it right.)’
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
“Second, the idea that there might be a lag of CO2 concentrations behind temperature change (during glacial-interglacial climate changes) is hardly new to the climate science community. Indeed, Claude Lorius, Jim Hansen and others essentially predicted this finding fully 17 years ago, in a landmark paper that addressed the cause of temperature change observed in Antarctic ice core records, well before the data showed that CO2 might lag temperature. In that paper (Lorius et al., 1990), they say that:

changes in the CO2 and CH4 content have played a significant part in the glacial-interglacial climate changes by amplifying, together with the growth and decay of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, the relatively weak orbital forcing”

American posted: “natural wetlands produce more greenhouse gas contributions annually than all human sources combined.”

Irrelevant.

Natural “sinks” absorb the natural “sources”.

Humans have added large amounts of CO2 and other GHG’s, which nature has not been able to “sink”. CO2, which has a lifetime of a centruy or longer, has increased from about 280 ppm back in the 1700’s to 380 ppm today.

Fans are invited to watch the NCAA Baseball Selection Show with the Wichita State baseball team on Mon., May 26 at A.J. Sports Grill at 3232 N. Rock Road. The show will air at 11:30 a.m. on ESPN.

http://www.goshockers.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=7500&SPID=2844&SPSID=61178

OK — how much data did you elminate at the “…” point?? Hmmm??? Verbatim quotes dont have “…” gaps… LOL

okobserver,

‘Greenhouse gases highest for 800,000 years’
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1440399320080514
“Greenhouse gases are at higher levels in the atmosphere than at any time in at least 800,000 years, according to a study of Antarctic ice on Wednesday that extends evidence that mankind is disrupting the climate.
…
“We can firmly say that today’s concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are 28 and 124 percent higher respectively than at any time during the last 800,000 years,” said Thomas Stocker, an author of the report at the University of Berne.”

More at link.

More, and graph of CO2, methane, and temperatures over the past 800,000 years (starts 1000 years from present)

‘Ice cores reveal fluctuations in the Earth’s greenhouse gases’
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/uoc-icr050808.php

Let’s check some sources for co2 emission. How about your local friendly school?

Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide levels within the areas revealed interior levels ranging from 474 ppm to 1,558 ppm. Exterior levels were at approximately 396 – 655 ppm range. 100% of the areas sampled were within OSHA permissible exposure range. Approximately 88% of the areas sampled were within the acceptable range per ASHRAE Standards.

OSHA currently sets 5,000 parts per million (ppm) as their Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) for occupational exposure to CO2.

http://www.ri.net/middletown/facilities/reports/iaq/iaq_report_nov2006.pdf
——————————

That’s one school and just a few hundred ‘mouth breathers.’

Let’s multiply that by 100s of millions of buildings in the world and we can see who the culprit is – mouth and nose breathers! So, stop breathing out!

Of course, some say there is an equilibrium of co2 gases everywhere! How can this be? I mean, it varies from building to building and around the building.

Perhaps those OSHA people just don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to co2 levels?

I mean, we should be concerned about 380ppm out there is the upper or lower atmosphere (where btw, we can only survive if we wear oxygen masks at altitudes above 35,000 feet.)

(chortles)

GMC Envoy = Chevrolet Tahoe = Hybrid Vehicle!!

Want to try a different attack line??

And thank you for providing the ENTIRE quote of Obama… As you can see, the entire quote is much more detailed than the piece you offered previously…

Interesting, American. One of the leaders of the project said the lander could detect organic material.

Anyway, as Ray Bradbury said, “We are the Martians.”

Major congrats NASA!!!!!

Amen to that Walker — The Martins are us!!

I ain’t no Martian.

Just because it’s a hybrid, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fuel efficiency is good as compared to most hybrids, such as the best in the Prius.

An “SUV Hybrid” is somewhat of an oxymoron.

Of course, but I am not the one who said it… LOL Go to bed old man!!

“The Legacy of the 1936 Election”

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2007&month=09

Amity Shlaes
Author, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

Amity Shlaes is a syndicated columnist for Bloomberg and a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a graduate of Yale University and pursued postgraduate studies at the Free University in Berlin. In the 1990s, she served as a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. In 2007, she won New York’s Deadline Club Prize for Commentary. In 2003, she was J.P. Morgan Fellow in Finance and Economics at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2002, she was co-winner of the Frederic Bastiat Prize, an international award for free-market journalism. She is the author of two national bestsellers, The Greedy Hand, a profile of the tax code, and the currently bestselling history of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man.

The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on July 24, 2007, during a Hillsdale Hostel on the American Constitution.

——————————————————————————–

WHAT MAKES the current field of candidates so timid? It is clear listening to figures from both parties this year that they still believe Social Security is untouchable. This despite the fact that bringing Social Security into solvency is a relatively easy task. When it comes to the more serious fiscal burdens upon our grandchildren, the candidates are likewise timid. This despite the fact that those burdens only become heavier as we delay. We speak of 2008 as an election year, but it is also the year when the tide of Social Security cash begins to recede with the retirement of Baby Boomers.

But where is the origin of the problem? Traditionally historians have focused on the slow rise of American progressivism over the past century and a half. I’m going to do something different, and undertake an almost artificial exercise. Here I will compress history and argue that this destructive hesitation comes out of a single political campaign, the presidential campaign of 1936. This campaign marked the virtual end of old-fashioned American federalism and the rise of a new kind of politics. It was 1936 more than any other campaign that created modern interest groups and taught us that Washington should subsidize them.

Pinning blame on a single campaign (and its run up) may seem facile. Still, the story is well worth telling.

The Run Up

In 1932, total federal spending was still only five percent of gross domestic product. Spending by states and local governments represented by contrast ten percent of GDP. Even well into the Depression, it was to state and local governments that many looked for a means to recovery. There was no big tax redistribution. The word “liberalism” still signified a belief in individual liberty rather than paternalistic government. Nor did American workers view themselves so much as a class in those years. They viewed themselves as moving up and down the economic ladder. Even our greatest union, the American Federation of Labor, was more of a craft and trade union than a class union. But all this was soon to change.

In his 1932 campaign, Franklin D. Roosevelt had talked about helping someone he called “the forgotten man.” He was thinking of the poorest man, or as he put it—invoking the time of the pharaohs—“the man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” His speechwriter, Ray Moley, had inserted the phrase into an address on The Lucky Strike Hour. Moley wrote to his sister Nell that he didn’t know where the phrase came from. But in fact it did have a provenance. It came from an essay (and later a book) written decades before, called The Forgotten Man. Written by a famous Yale professor named William Graham Sumner, this essay defined “the forgotten man” differently.

Sumner employed an algebra to explain what he meant: A and B want to help X, he wrote. This is the charitable impulse. The problem arises when A and B band together and pass a law that coerces C into co-funding their project for X. Sumner identified C as the forgotten man. He is the man who works, the man who prays, the man who pays his own bills, the man who is “never thought of.”

But this did not matter to Roosevelt, who of course won handily in 1932 without thinking much about the phrase again. He spent the next few years trying to help the poor through the now famous New Deal measures. But three years into his presidency, his efforts were still failing. The New Deal was having mixed results. Unemployment in May 1935 stood at what we today would compute to 20.1 percent—a large share of Americans were still forgotten men. The Brookings Institution wrote a nearly 1,000-page report on the New Deal’s centerpiece, the National Recovery Administration, concluding that it “on the whole retarded recovery.” The Dow was stuck in the low hundreds, nowhere near even the 250 it had been in 1930 under Hoover, well into the downturn. As a result, in July 1935— the year before the 1936 election—Roosevelt made a decision to give up on trying to help the general economy. Instead, he decided to refine his definition of “the forgotten man.” No longer would this man be simply the poor person at the bottom of the economic pyramid. The forgotten man would now be the member of certain defined constituency groups—groups like senior citizens, farmers, writers and artists, and union members.

Federal Largesse

Critical to FDR’s plan was to invent ways to alter the bonds of towns and individuals with their states and establish bonds with Washington, D.C. One of the first important institutions through which this was accomplished was an old office that we rarely talk about anymore, the Public Works Administration or PWA. The PWA was placed under the control of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes—father of Harold M. Ickes, the prominent Democratic strategist who has worked with Bill and Hillary Clinton. The PWA’s role was to fund buildings, bridges, and other structures in towns and villages all over America.

The PWA went to counties and towns to offer them a combination of grants and loans to build schools or dams or power plants, or any kind of public buildings. PWA regional offices sent all bids for structures back to the national office, where Ickes reviewed them. Then, every week, with a manila envelope, he went to the White House and Roosevelt looked them over personally, just as he looked, say, over his stamp collection in the evenings.

On the local end, the experience was a pleasant one for mayors or officers of the county. They were able to allocate the cash, to pick the architect and even the contractors. The money made them feel empowered.

The scale of the spending of the PWA was unprecedented. Its budget was $3 billion in its first few years, or half the size of the federal budget in any given year. Ickes himself was stunned by the magnitude: “It helped me to estimate its size,” he wrote, “by figuring that if we had it all in currency and should load it into trucks, we could set out with it from Washington, D.C., for the Pacific Coast, shovel off one million dollars at every milepost,” and at the end “still have enough left to build a fleet of battle ships.” It is hard now, when we have become accustomed to imperious Washington bureaucrats, to imagine the high of the brand new experience Ickes was enjoying. Riding up and down the East Coast and across the country on a train with the President—in special cars with a new luxury that Ickes in his diary calls “cooled air”—he felt that his job gave him the ability to reshape the country. And indeed, the pyramid image appeared again: people called Ickes a pharaoh. And in fact, the PWA enabled him to be like a pharaoh—simultaneously grandiose and petty. On each PWA structure were placed the words: “Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior.”

There were more than 3,000 counties in the United States, and all but 33 of them received a PWA project. Many received several. At Michigan State University alone—just up the road from Hillsdale—nine PWA buildings went up.

What did the country think of it all? The critic Frederick A. Gutheim wrote an article at the end of the 1930s complaining that the entire PWA produced “not one architectural masterpiece.” But that in a way was the point. Roosevelt knew that masterpieces were not what was needed for his purpose. On the contrary, a masterpiece from Washington might stand out too much in small town America. This was a task of ingratiation.

The goal was to make the towns feel that the buildings were theirs, to get people used to Washington’s hand being involved in projects that formerly were entirely local. Relatedly, Ickes was attacked on all sides for the pickiness with which he reviewed PWA projects. But Roosevelt told Ickes that he did not mind. “This slowness did not displease him,” Ickes wrote. “On the contrary, he said to me, ‘I do not want you to move any faster.’” The extra months that the process took were extra months of activity that held the eye, evidence that Roosevelt the candidate was doing something.

With this advertisement campaign in place, Roosevelt went on to connect with all his targeted groups. The Wagner Act, the Public Utilities Law, the Social Security Law, and the Works Progress Administration—WPA, not to be confused with PWA—were all passed in great haste, beginning in the summer of 1935. Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan was so aghast at the scale of WPA spending that he decried the “four or five billion worth of lost liberty.”

The WPA served much the same purpose as the PWA. Many here will recall those humble, high quality WPA guidebooks to cities, states and regions. They were another way of making the new federal role seem less threatening. Just like the building projects of the PWA, they symbolized a new relationship between the federal government and the counties and localities, from which states are cut out.

The WPA also developed a direct form of propaganda: writings and theater that supported the New Deal. In October 1935, the Agency announced that it was producing a play in New York about agriculture called Triple A Plowed Under (Triple A was a New Deal agency). The WPA also produced Power, a Marxist play that caricatured private-sector utilities executives as old men who exploit American households. The New Deal produced some real art—we all remember the compelling photo of the migrant mother by Dorothea Lange. But it also produced pure propaganda.

It is hard for us now to overestimate how welcome it was for so many journalists, photographers, artists, sculptors, and actors, to be on the Washington payroll. There was no Hatch Act in those days, no federal law precluding political activity by government officials. The WPA was the equivalent of Congress or the White House today moving, after a market crash, to put the staffers of Slate and Google on its payroll as bloggers.

Even by the end of 1935, what the federal government was doing was so changed that it would have been scarcely recognizable to someone from the minimalist 1920s. Washington spent $5.6 billion for the year, double the level of 1930—and this was before the first Social Security check was cut.

Interest Group Politics

It is worthwhile to pause and consider what all these New Deal programs were doing. They were not bringing the economy back to health. Indeed, they frightened participants in the economy. Utilities, for example, were seeing increased use of electricity, even in the Depression. But utility stocks were not booming because Roosevelt was attacking utility companies as enemies of “the forgotten man.” In fact, Ickes was giving towns power plants in exchange for their commitment to use government power instead of private power. The Dow, as mentioned before, was still in the 100s. Unemployment was still through the roof —19 percent in March 1936. Nonetheless, Roosevelt saw what his work at identifying groups to receive federal largesse would do: it would get votes. He continued to reach out to the mythical figure of “the forgotten man” through the spring, summer, and fall of 1936. Interestingly, people especially preferred the projects that were not for the poorest—the ones that instead helped the middle class along, not with relief, but with work and entitlements. This foreshadowed our own attitudes today.

Toward the end of the 1936 campaign, near the elections, Roosevelt moved into a frenzy, reaching out even to those groups he might have neglected before. He announced a $2 million expansion at Virginia State College, a black institution. In late October of 1936, days before the vote, he told an audience at Howard University that there are “no forgotten men and no forgotten races.” By the last days of the election Roosevelt therefore had cemented his party’s position vis-àvis his revised “forgotten man”—now a member of a group, not an individual. The job of everyone in the “unforgotten” groups henceforward would be to pay for the larger Washington that in turn would pay for the “forgotten” ones.

In 1936, federal spending moved to nine percent of GDP, up from two-and-a-half percent in 1929. If the gift to the 1932 electorate had been liquor—with the promise of Prohibition’s repeal—federal spending was the gift in this election cycle. Historian Jim Couch of the University of North Alabama has shown the precision of the targeting of this money as a way of buying votes. He documents that Roosevelt poured money into battleground states and gave short shrift to safe states, including those of the poor South. Richard Vedder of the University of Ohio has data that suggests that the creation of jobs was also targeted politically. Reckoning unemployment rates month-by-month for 1930 to 1939, he found that though the average for 1935 or 1936 is between 15 and 20 percent, there is one month where unemployment dropped to 13.9 percent: November 1936, the month of the election. It went below that, and then rose again.

In other words, it is true that FDR was at his most popular in 1936, taking 46 of 48 states; but that fact cannot be credited entirely to his radio voice. Nor to the heroic popularity of an ailing president leading a nation through World War II—as we now, anachronistically, remember the 1930s elections. That would come later. In 1936, Roosevelt’s was also the popularity of a leader who had invented a new way to reward the constituencies that he needed to win.

* * *

The overall lesson of this is that we can continue to respect many aspects of Roosevelt’s presidency today. But we shouldn’t have false nostalgia about it. After all, it was Roosevelt’s political machinations in the 1936 campaign—symbolized by the PWA—that gave us the “earmarks” that bedevil Congress today, on both sides of the political aisle. Action is more important today because of our fiscal challenge—the new forgotten men are the grandchildren who will pay if we do not give up some of that costly nostalgia. John Marini was right when he said, right here at Hillsdale and earlier this year, that the country must choose now between Reagan and Roosevelt. That Reagan himself did not have to choose was because of demography. Unfortunately, now we must.

When I was writing my book on the Great Depression, I kept thinking back to William Graham Sumner, who originated the idea of “the forgotten man.” Sumner was a Victorian who died in 1910. But I continued to hear him in the background as I studied Roosevelt and Ickes, and what Sumner said continued to apply—both to the 1930s and to our current political life. He spoke prophetically about the voter who was not included in preferred interest groups—the man or woman who everyone fails to think about. He spoke of the forgotten voter for whom there is “no provision in the great scramble” for federal largesse. Our elections are not good elections until they welcome back that voter, too.

My goodness – a Mini-Book!! LOL

Being new to the blog I was wondering if Blue Jay is the blog monitor? He seems to have inside knowledge of other peoples identity.

Chas the rest of that quote added nothing. The point is that Obama seems to think that the US needs other countries ok to consume. I think a man like this would be a danger in the Oval Office.

Some Envoys are hybrids some not. Even so my Towncar gets better mileage that the hybrid version.

Ok — if you are new to this Blog, I am Pope Benedict… LOL!!! :-D

Observer, I think you are reading Obama’s statement totally wrong!! He is only stating a fact…

Of course not

Any conservative not vetted IS you James McCluer.

That was what you wanted. For nics to be meaningless.

Well, they are. For cons.

Still want to meet me James? I’ll try and get you the help you need.

cosmos is not knowing his isotopes. :D

Let’s see, ice core samples – co2 – no humans around then – used as basis for measurement to compare – oops

Where did that co2 in ice cores originate – from co2 spewing SUV’s?

cosmos is not understanding the respiration cycle of biology.

cosmos is back to his old name-calling days, nothing has changed. :)

‘Regular posted May 23, 2008 at 10:55 pm

http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/05/mccain%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98respectful-disagreement%e2%80%99-on-same-sex-marriage/#comment-355702

“I’ll tear this blog a new one and make it like times of old if they don’t stop harassing me. Brownlee doesn’t care, he thinks its funny.

The moment one of the Lib hoodlums start up, I’ll going to rip a new asshole out of someone or someone(s). It’s really that simple.

This is why I came on the blog in the first place, to rid the blog of the likes of Clark, Junior, CapnAmerica and MonkeyHawk.”
——–

You are not doing a very good job at that, are you ‘Regular‘,‘JM’, ‘Republikhan’, (stolen) ‘JM Walker’, ‘blank’, ‘** K H A N **’, ‘Republican’, ‘Kansas’, , et al… ?

However, ‘Regular’s‘ multi-nic’d posts are doing an excellent job of proving that he is a liar and a troll, and/or dumb, with a bad memory.

Very interesting — Regular calls for help from Hank, and voila!! Nathan pops up!! LOL!!

It was a meetup called by me and Steven Nathan.

YOU horned in.

And did not show up.

But we could not know that.

SO Steven asked me not to show. But I couldn’t resist the chance to get a confirmation on James.

He is in appearance as he is here.

‘Regular‘ posted May 26, 2008 at 12:21 am

“cosmos is back to his old name-calling days, nothing has changed.”

No… I simply pointed out the facts about well-mixed global CO2 levels, and your inability to understand them.
———-
Poor ‘Regular‘ is just too dumb to understand that well-mixed global CO2 levels are measured at very many sites.

Like a short distance above sea level, at La Jolla Pier, California.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-ljo.html

Graphs of CO2 data from towers at different heights in North Carolina and Wisconsin. Lower heights show the diurnal changes.
http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/diurnal.html

CO2 measured at Barrow, Mauna Loa, Samoa, and the South Pole. Except for different seasonal variations, the trends are very similar.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/insitu.html

More sites,
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm
———-
But thank you multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘, for again proving that you are a liar and a troll, and/or very dumb, with a bad memory.

What is weird, Nathan?? Everybody who watched the Blog knew the date and place. Anybody here could have driven by, and seen what JR saw.. How is that weird?? Even you could have been there, Nathan!!

My friend Steven asked me not to show.

Nathan invited himself and did not show.

It was Steven’s decision. I agreed.

The meeting place was one he frequents.

Both James and Nathan are…..ill.

Steven is more diplomatic than I. I admitted to him that I would not be nice to James or Nathan.

The decision to eat outside was shared by Steven and James. Steven had no knowledge that I would drive by.

I will meet you if you wish James.

But on my terms. I want one of your many people I say are puppet nics of yours there as well.

Just you and another nut con and me.

It can be Nathan even. I have some things to say to him I would like to in person.

Well then Junior, Steven Davis lied to me or you are lieing to me, because at the time of the meeting Steven Davis said he didn’t know why you haven’t shown up.

So which is it Junior? Is Steven Davis a liar or are you the liar? :)

‘Regular‘ posted May 26, 2008 at 12:59 am

“Notice how cosmos always ‘butts’ in, you know just to get his shot in at me.

Kind of makes you wonder if cosmos went to the BTK school of stalking along with CapnAmerica. Interesting concept perhaps.”

Thank you again, multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘, for again proving that all you can do is false ad hominems — and you are a liar and a troll, and/or very dumb, with a bad memory.

Pretty much states Regular’s purpose on the Blog — not terribly impressive… Regular believes he can “rid” the Blog of anybody??

Delusion of grandeur?? or what??

Ah Lake Wobegon…

Garrison Keillor is one of my favorite radio personalities. :)

So who is lying Junior?

Which one of you is going to step up and admit to lying?

Steven Davis or you Junior?

It was me let Steven down there James.

There was an agreement.

In Steven’s words, he wanted to meet someone he disagreed with together with someone he agreed with.

Nathan seems to have a history of disrupting meetups. I cannot say since I was absent when this happened. But he horned in on a meetup where he was not invited.

I regard you as crazy and dangerous James. I feel the same about Nathan.

It was my concerns that caused Steven to ASK me to stay away.

Let me be clear on that.

Steven agreed to meet you. YOU invited Nathan.

Nathan chose not to show up. I was asked not to show up.

I am agreeable with meeting you James. But I will not be nice to you as Steven was.

You make this too easy James.

And I am eating up your posts in other nics keeping you fighting here.

You and Steven met and ate outside. I just drove by.

You use a cane yes?

You are unkempt and have a long beard.

I have been to 3 or 4 public blog meet ups with many of the posters here.

I have been to one of the Eagles meetings at the Eagle downtown.

My father and I hosted a blog meetup at our home before I left for Iraq.

My father and I have met several times in smaller groups with other posters here on this blog.

My father and I have met with and talked with several of the posters here in real life in other places when we have randomly met.

My father and I have been to other posters homes.

Not once have I ever caused any touble or tried to start a fight with anyone.

The only meetup which I have been a part in adversly effecting was the one on the other blog.

I say I was a part of it, only because it was WS Clark who made far to big a deal out of something I had said and refused to let it drop and through his crying as loudly and as often as he did, the meeting flopped.

I have apologized for my part in that.

I don’t believe that WS Clark ever has for his.

Go get another nic James.

I’m going to bed soon. If you want an audience with me? Do it under your latest known nic.

THINK on it.

You can plot to shoot me, as you often have.

But it will be just me and you….

and you can invite anyone you like.

And I will be glad, in person, to steer you to the help you need.

After I tell you exactly what I think about you.

Regular,

Don’t forget, that if you don’t respond to cosmos, he will also follow you around to the other threads as well.

As Junior slinks off into the night, one wonders if he can ever be trusted again to show up at a meeting.

On one hand he states he wasn’t at the meeting, only to state later he saw me there.

Then, Junior states that Steven Davis asked him not to show up.

Of course, Steven Davis told me at the meeting, he did not know why Junior did not show up.

So, one has to ask themselves, “Who is lying and why are they lying?”

It appears that Junior is scared of the dangerous man and his beard. heh

multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘ posted May 26, 2008 at 1:37 am

“There’s an old expression, “In order to get respect, you have to give respect.” ”

Liars like ‘Regular‘ do not even respect themselves.

Regular, I think it would be wise to wait until Steven is HERE, and then ask him… Then you wont have to spin it to come out the way you want it… I seem to recall Steven posting here that he asked JR to not show up.. I could be wrong, but I dont think so…

Just ask Steven…

Interesting — ON the one hand, observer claims to be “new” to the Blog — On the other hand, he claims to know so much about events here, to be able to call anybody a liar… SO, which is it??

Not the way I remember it at the meeting Chas. Steven Davis did say that here on that blog as you wrote, but it makes me wonder who instigated the lie.

Junior or Steven Davis?

Why did Steven Davis tell me he did not know why Junior hadn’t shown up if it was a lie?

Someone lied, who was it?

Pope I just read the posts and call em as I see em. You got a problem with that?

I’ve met more posters than anyone else here James.

How many have you met?

Only Steven. And only because Steven chose to meet you.

Dunno Nathan,

Perhaps Junior has a fear of canes. :)

We have met face to face 4 times my count Nathan. You are much more reserved in person.

“And if you ever got a look at JR you would probably have more material to make fun of him”

Fire away Nathan.

multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘ posted May 26, 2008 at 1:37 am

“There’s an old expression, “In order to get respect, you have to give respect.” ”

Liars and trolls like ‘Regular‘ do not even respect themselves.

Liars and trolls like ‘Regular‘ do not deserve respect from honest people.

You and your Dad Nathan.

At the very first meetup, I stayed to help clean up.

Just me, and you and your Dad.

I didn’t hold my tounge at that meetup.

Pope I think he said he disputed it.

Observer, there is nobody here posting with the “nic” of Pope… You might want to not be such a Troll!!

Oh yea, I wasnt in Sioux City in June, 2005 — I was in aa small little town in northeast Nebraska in June, 2005

Oh, so you can lie too, eh??

That is NOT what I said…

No Regular… it was Sioux City, 2004…

So, what was the relevance of the “I was in aa small little town in northeast Nebraska in June, 2005″

…if you were here in Wichita on the blog, Mother’s Day, 2004?

And what was your nic back then James?

You change it so often since you began to be noticed.

I first knew you as JM. How many other nics have you used before?

You are gonna go James. Through the door or out the window or in a padded wagon.

Chas
Posted May 25, 2008 at 11:46 pm | Permalink
Ok — if you are new to this Blog, I am Pope Benedict… LOL!!!

Wasn’t this you. Or did someone post it using your name?

“Why did Steven Davis tell me he did not know why Junior hadn’t shown up if it was a lie?”

I did ask Jay to not show up. But, since I did not control his behavior, I did not know if he would or not.

Are these false dichotomies always necessary with some of you people?

Observer — do try to keep context… I was simply stating that I do not believe you are NEW to the blog… Get it??

Thus — IF you are new to the Blog, then I am Pope Benedict (or insert any other name you choose) Geez!! TROLL!!!

I’m a shift worker and not usually on here at night. What a blog. People call each other for back up in the middle of the night. The Pope’s meds kick in just as he is telling me why I am a liar. The jaybird with the fowl temper just wants to fight everyone.

What a gang. Better call it a night. Not nearly this much fun in the daytime.

tra la la la la…I love you…

sorry, an old soul song popped into my mind…

Multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘,

When are you going to post your Congressional and Justice Dept. links that prove your false claim that the Sierra Club “screwed” the New Orleans levees?

Never… because there aren’t any.

When is multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘ going to post a link to a credible science paper that supports E. G. Beck’s 100% totally unscientific CO2 claims?

Never… because there aren’t any.

Chas
Posted May 26, 2008 at 2:51 am | Permalink
Get over it, ya friggin TROLL… Flaming SOB!!
———————-
Don’t worry about it okobserver, Chas is a minister, he can swear and call names like that. :D

No one drove by that didn’t park or was leaving from a spot. I know, becaused I watched.

Also, I would be very hard to see behind that first row of cars from the parking lot as I was sitting down.

Ah, there goes Junior again bringing my sister into the blog.

I guess that’s all the coward Junior has left. You know, Junior who refuses to meet me face to face in a public place when he had the opportunity.

I wonder if WSClark will be outraged that Junior used this type of language towards me implicating my sister and vice versa?

“After your sister linda comes to change you or you have to go change her? You better get started.”

Probably not and neither will any of the Libs be outraged with those kind of comments.

It’s because, they can lie, insult, show hate, use nics, steal nics and do all those other things they accuse others of and do it because they are the hate mongers, the Liberal Progressives, the Liars of the U.S.A.

Kind of makes one wonder about SWDecker.

Good night Sammie Wilson. :D

You were at Oliver and Douglass you feeb.

I know what Steven looks like. I saw you when I drove by.

You are crazy and want to make it some big covert thing.

YUP. It was James. I have pictures and video of you as well.
Sheesh what a kook!

The multi-nic’d ‘Regular posted May 26, 2008 at 3:11 am

“Good night Sammie Wilson.”

The very obvious lies, and obnoxious troll behaviour from the multi-nic’d ‘Regular‘ are stored in the WE Blog archives.

And elsewhere.

It’s a permanent part of the multi-nic’d ‘Regular’s‘ long Kansas family “heritage”.

“So Steven Davis, why did you tell me at the meeting you didn’t know why Junior hadn’t show up?”

Simple: I did not know. I recall speculating that he was unable to get away from work. I distinctly recall you acknowledging that.

J R will sometimes go days without answering his email. I did not know if he got my message or not. I sent it early that Monday morning.

For full disclosure, I know the woman who owns the bookstore and cafe we ate at. With Nathan inviting himself (which I thought was rude and obtuse – but that is just how he is on a good day, even), I thought it might be difficult for J R to meet civily. I knew I could no matter what. It was out of courtesy (to everyone) that I asked J R not to come.

As Regular says, we ate outside to watch for them. I never saw J R drive by – but that does not mean that he didn’t.

I am surpised this whole thing is such a big deal. It did not seem that way on the day in question. Which was beautiful day in Kakeland, btw.

Could there possibly be more earth-shattering issues to discuss here? Because, frankly, this whole discussion seems very petty and silly.

Reg,
Newsflash: There are some people who are just unworthy of conspiracies. I would include my self in that group, and definitely, yoo too.

Sorry. My freudian slip was showing this morning:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/02/yoo/

:)

People, get over yourselves. This is only a blog. You were up all night with this argument?

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!

I did not think it obligatory that I tell you about my conversations with J R. I explain in detail, that I did not know what he was going to do or not that day at noon. I can’t think this is worth more bandwidth.

If it makes you happy, call me a liar. I can’t think of a situation in which being called that would bother me less. I did not know what J R was going to do that day. I suggested we go outside to wait on J R and Nathan as you might recall. You could say that was some sort of conspiracy if you want, but that is just silly or paranoid. With you, I confess it is hard to tell.

My last word on this subject. Thanks.

“I didn’t mention anything about a conspiracy, just trying to ferret out the truth.”

You, of all people, McCluer, should go easy on calling anyone a liar.

As for SWDecker………………

Part of my dummy e-mail addy. Got a problem with that?

interesting = interestingly

Okay WSClark. Was just curious, cause I recognized the email address on a boat sale that was in Florida.

Lesson learned: try to be decent to trolls and you get called a liar. Now, why is that a surprise?

McCluer, please remind me of any prior agreements we had about the lunch. I’m not recalling any.

Nathan said he was going to show up and he was also someone we were waiting on. He waited until after the lunch to explain why he did not show. So does that make him a liar? Hmmm… maybe by you guys’ definition.

Very sad. The both of you. But, I think anyone who has eyes, and can read, can tell what you guys are all about.

Not a problem Steven Davis. I’ll just remind myself that any future statements you make might not be entirely truthful.

Regular
Posted May 26, 2008 at 2:34 pm | Permalink
Not a problem Steven Davis. I’ll just remind myself that any future statements you make might not be entirely truthful.
**********

No problem, James,
I consider this an honor coming from the pathetic likes of you.

“Then Clark must be confused as well and has no clue what he is talking about?”

Sigh………………………………

What am I confused about now, McCluer? My father doesn’t own a boat?

Well, I have to confess – I lied – he did own a twelve foot aluminum fishing boat.

Yes, that is true.

He sold it – 42 years ago – in Michigan – to my Uncle.

My bad.

make that Bill and Dot Decker…

Hmm seems I left this one too early.

Nathan has this thing for coming back after the fact with a last shot.

“The only problem here was JR. Not me.

As I have already shown, I have never caused any problems at any meet up.”

Oh I don’t think I’d say that.

I wasn’t posting at the time. I haven’t asked much about it. Friends have filled me in a little.

I understand you threatened to bring a gun to a meetup Nathan? And did so in a way that some saw as threatening? And in doing that, pretty much cancelled the meetup for everyone involved? Is that about right?

And I hear that also while I was not posting, James “Regular”, “Kansas” etc. threatened to break into someones house? And of course he has threatened on several occasions to shoot me.

The matter we are discussing was a meetup Steven called. There are lingering concerns as to how many nics James has. Steven invited James and I to meet him.

Nathan invited himself.

Now, if I ever meet “Kansas” James, I am going to tell him exactly what I think of him. That is just who I am. And I am damned unhappy with what he has done to this blog. IF I ever see Nathan again ( and I would rather not) I have a few things to say to him as well.

This meetup was to happen at a place Steven frequents and has friends. Nathan carries a gun. Maybe “Regular” does too. And certainly I am not alone in thinking that neither of these two is entirely stable.

Nathan invited himself and Steven ASKED me not to come. It happened as he says it did. Each word true. I think I even still have the email.

But I was not going to pass on a chance to at least get a look at the bane of the blog. That and I didn’t like the idea of ducking out on Steven up against “Regular” AND Nathan. So yeah, I drove by.