(Re: “Climategate,” Danish Plan, Dec. 3.) That Paul Danish finds “corrupt science” in the “Climategate” e-mails says less about how science is actually done and more about his own willingness to distort and omit facts.
What is the evidence for his accusation that Michael Mann did “graft the actual temperature data from 1960 onwards to the end of a graph of the tree-ring data up until 1960”? Mann and co-authors did not “graft” anything, but did combine both kinds of data in an appropriate way. Don’t rely on me. Because of their work’s scientific significance, over the 11 years since it was published, it has been scrutinized and critically compared in numerous scientific publications, as well as by specific reviews by the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council in 2006.
This practice of good science ultimately found that any methodological flaws in the original work had small effect, and also that subsequent research verified the main finding: Recent decades have been much warmer than during at least 400 years before.
Aimé Fournier/Boulder
We must halt Iran
Stop Iran. Don’t be fooled by a terrorist. Please vote with your heart and your God-given knowledge and wisdom. Let us all stop being so politically correct and apologetic for our great country. Our goodness has turned into our own worst enemy, and the terrorists know how to take advantage of that. Be smart. Stand up to the threat of terrorism.
Penny Missirlian/Fort Collins
Iran’s nuclear project(s) must be halted immediately one way or another. Iran supports Hezbollah and Hamas and interferes with the governments of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and most of the Gulf Arab states. If Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, it is a certainty that several terrorist organizations will be supplied with these weapons.
Europe will certainly be put at risk, as will Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt. The United States will be threatened from several bases in Latin America. The world is at a critical junction. Iran simply must be stopped before it develops nuclear weapons.
Fred Nadel/Westminster
Dirty political wrestling
Recently, former Vice President Al Gore took on a notorious ex-governor over climate change. Does he not realize that wrestling with certain life forms only gets you dirty? And that those life forms actually like it?
To tell the truth, I am no longer concerned that the hockey mom can run for higher office. First, the necessary brain transplant would take at least a year and a half from which to recover. Then there’s the matter of a heart transplant; every GOPer seems to require one of those.
One cannot do both simultaneously — look what happened to Dick Cheney when he chose not to undergo that procedure.
Greg Iwan/Longmont
Looting Social Security
High Social
Security payroll taxes have contributed to yearly Social Security Trust
Fund surpluses until the proclaimed surplus is now in excess of $2.42
trillion. However, Congress has elected to sacrifice Social Security on
the altar of corruption by spending the entire surplus, requiring the
U.S. Treasury to cover the embezzlement by issuing non-negotiable IOU
bonds to the Trust Fund. Such economically irresponsible and morally
reprehensible behavior by the politicians demonstrates total disrespect
for working people.
Congress must now
determine how to legally fund the IOU bonds when they mature. The
choices are increase taxes, sell legitimate T-bonds or monetize the
debt. It is doubtful China will buy additional T-bonds,
so Congress will select the easy way out and ask the Federal Reserve to
create money out of thin air. Of course, debasing the currency means
that the dollar becomes a peso and your Social Security check will only
buy some coffee beans or, at best, a bowl of java.
After
a long string of yearly Social Security program surpluses, the program
will show a deficit this year, thus our gold hoard in Fort Knox should
be distributed to future Social Security recipients. Congress will
scream out a refusal, claiming that it will doom Social Security.
What
really frightens them is that we will gain control of both our Social
Security program and the gold in Fort Knox. Then let the politicians
destroy the value of the dollar!
In
the future, when the Social Security eagle takes off on its monthly
mission, what would you rather receive in your hand — a gold coin, a
worthless Federal Reserve note, or an IOU? The choice is yours.
Robert Dahlquist/Orange, Calif.
Bennet should lose job
Sen. Michael Bennet
should lose his job for voting for mandatory health insurance. By his
support of mandatory health insurance, he is rewarding a liar. He is
saying to those who started health savings accounts and bought
high-deductible health plans that you will be fined and go to jail if
you don’t buy into Obama Care — “Heath Care at Gun Point!” Obama said
that he was against mandatory health care to get elected, and now he
wants to fine us and jail us for something that he said that he was
against! That is not change you can believe in.
Joseph DuPont/Towanda, Pa.
Define ‘moral obligation’
Rhetoric should have meaning. Language should have value.
What, then, is meant by the phrase we are now hearing so often from the politico, “We have a moral obligation to pass this legislation”?
Morals
must be based on some standard. Among the most frequent standards used
as a basis for moral values are scripture, tradition, reason and
experience.
Most
of our government officials have totally rejected scripture. They have
also rejected traditional values. When scrutinized, the legislation
they are trying to pass does not hold to sound reason. And, when you
compare the policies being put forth by those in power to the
experience of history, you find that experience teaches that big
government and total government control don’t produce anything good.
So, other than just being persuasive words, what value, what basis, do these so-called “moral obligations” have?
In
recent decades, contrary to traditional values, we have been taught
that when it comes to morals there are no absolutes. So why is the
government that has propagated the educational system that teaches no
absolutes telling us that we absolutely have a moral obligation to do
what they are demanding?
Added to this reasoning without rationalization coming from our government is the “duty” on our part to pay the bill for all their dictated moral obligations!
I
guess my point is simple. Listening to our present leadership talk
about moral obligations is about as logical as listening to Larry Flint
and Hugh Hefner talk about chastity!
Steve Casey/Stonewall, La.
Obama shows leadership
President Obama
and many of his followers have dwelled on the past and attempted to
blame George Bush for the country’s ills. The Obama administration has
been in charge for almost a year and should have made more progress
towards solving our problems, especially with a Democratic-controlled
Congress since 2006. It is the easy way out to blame others for
problems. Bush could have blamed Clinton for decimating our military,
but he didn’t.
Bush was castigated
for the Iraq war, but it was Rumsfeld who promoted the “shock and awe”
war of taking Iraq with 125,000 troops (Rumsfeld originally requested
75,000 troops) when Gen. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, said we
needed 250,000 troops to subdue the Iraqi military and the countryside.
The general was correct, and the result was the military mess in Iraq.
Gen. Petraeus finally got enough troops into Iraq to do the job.
Now,
President Obama has added 30,000 troops in Afghanistan to try to
decimate the Taliban and al Qaeda. We are in Afghanistan and have to
win the war or we risk emboldening and encouraging potential attacks of
terrorists throughout the world.
I am pleased President Obama is showing some leadership.
Donald Moskowitz/Londonderry, N.H.
