Posts Tagged → India
This hemlock log shows climate change
Climate change has been a normal and natural fact of life on Planet Earth since the planet was created. Volcanoes explode and the earth warms up as a result. Glaciers that build up covered entire mountain ranges underneath, then recede and create new mountain ranges, then melt again, and their flood waters created new rivers, several times. Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek in the “PA Grand Canyon” used to flow north into the Genesee River watershed, until a huge ice dam from the last glacial period melted, broke, and caused an enormous torrent of water to flood southward. In that brief moment about ten or twelve thousand years ago, naturally occurring climate change forced Pine Creek to flow south, where it has become a major tributary to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.
Climate alarmism is quite another thing, a false thing, a made-up thing, a silly thing, a destructive thing, and it is ruining a basic scientific fact that should be easy to study and understand.
Climate alarmism is where political activists falsely claim that “scientists agree that humans are causing Planet Earth’s climate to change” and that all Americans and Europeans (not the Chinese or the Indians) must therefore make drastic changes to our lifestyles, to our diets, to our freedoms. This is a fake emergency, a fake crisis, designed to help political activists get political outcomes they can not otherwise get through the democratic voting process where informed voters choose elected officials and policy positions themselves.
To illustrate how climate change naturally occurs all on its own, I took a picture and posted it here. Below is a picture I took of a roughly 160-year-old hemlock tree that a logger I work with cut down in Clinton County, PA, a month ago. If we look at the growth rings in the base of this tree, we see clusters of rings that are very wide, where the tree grew a lot in one growing season (April – September), and we see clusters of rings where the tree grew very little in one season. What is really interesting about looking at tree growth rings is that we can easily understand the climate surrounding that tree at the time of each growth ring.
Wide growth rings are associated with both an open forest canopy and lots of sunlight reaching the tree, and also with years of plenty of rain and warm temperatures conducive to plant growth after the canopy has grown up and over.
Thin or narrow growth rings are associated with a dramatic lack of sunlight, a lack of water, and/ or colder temperatures.
As we can see from this picture, this 160-year-old tree has experienced several major climate shifts over its lifetime. Each colored box is a clump of similar growth rings, which represents a period of about ten to twenty years. See how this tree went for a decade or two subject to long stretches of either very wet and warm climate, or very dry and cold climate? And we know that this tree’s life experience was largely outside of the period where the climate alarmists say humans have had the greatest influence on climate.
This tree’s life, as we see it in its growth rings, clearly shows that northcentral Pennsylvania’s climate has naturally fluctuated on its own, with no meaningful human intervention, for a long time. The picture also shows that within periods of intense dryness, there were single years of abundant rain, and then the dryness returned for years.
Today, climate alarmists seize upon every dry spell, every rainy period, every storm, to falsely claim evidence of human-caused “climate change.” If what the climate alarmists say is true, then this poor tree has had both a schizophrenic life in a natural world where equilibrium is more the natural rule, and it also experienced a lot of human caused climate change while the planet had very few humans on it to affect the climate.
In other words, this tree shows that the climate alarmists are wrong. Really wrong. The trees don’t lie, but the political activists do lie. And that fact is alarming to me.
Hemlock log cut in July 2023, in Clinton County, PA. This tree has experienced widely varying climates over its long lifetime, especially while there were very few humans on Planet Earth. There is no such thing as human caused climate change. Environmental damage, yes, of course, but not climate change. Climate alarmism is a political claim, not a scientific claim.
Time to create Kurdistan out of Iraq
Now that a slim majority of the Iraqi parliament has voted to demand the full exit of American everything from Iraq, it is time for America, the liberator and vanquisher of Iraq, to decide what to do next.
Note that Iraq is roughly 60% Shia Muslim, who identify closely with Shia-majority Iran. That 60% of Iraq’s population lives in a relatively small region adjoining Iran, and despite holding such a small geographical area, about 15% of Iraq’s surface area, the population dominates the entire country.
One of the enormous mistakes made by the Bush administration when invading Iraq were these assumptions: 1) Iraqis will welcome Americans as liberators the same way Europeans welcomed American GIs in World War II; 2) Iraqis will be forever grateful for America’s liberation of Iraq, and they will therefore become a key ally in the region; 3) Iraq was, is, and will be fertile ground for planting western-style democracy, thereby creating some form of democratic government that will naturally cooperate with America and other Western nations.
These assumptions were rightly questioned at the time of the Iraq invasion, and they were further questioned during the occupation and subjugation of the native jihadis there. In recent years a kind of quiet war of careful positioning has followed, and so the newest assumption was that America had been successful in all ways, and had brought lasting peace to Iraq. And so, the thinking has gone, America can just pull up stakes and move everyone back home.
Not so fast.
Being anti-war is understandable if it applies to unjust wars, unwarranted wars, stupid wars, wasteful wars, and artificially inhibited wars, all of which applied up front to the American invasion of Iraq and then the occupation. Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the Iraq occupation was the ridiculous “rules of engagement,” created by Bush and further tightened by Obama, whereby our own troops pretty much had to bleed before they were allowed to return fire against aggressors. These insanely restrictive rules of engagement inhibited American forces from doing their job effectively, quickly, and safely. These rules led to years of IEDs and snipers killing and badly wounding American military personnel who were in Iraq to bring peace and prosperity to Iraqis, and to an anti-warrior culture at the Pentagon back home, whereby devoted fighters like Navy SEAL operations chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher were often held to impossibly impractical standards for conduct on the field of battle against merciless enemies. And then made an example of by desk jockeys and armchair generals.
Almost all of those IED and sniper attacks on American forces could have been prevented by having either no rules of engagement, or rules of engagement that greatly and quite naturally favored the interests of our forces over vague concerns about perceptions and lingering “feelings” of Iraqis.
However, the rules of engagement stayed on and what was done was done; now twenty years later, America has spent trillions of taxpayer dollars and tanker trucks of American blood to bring peace and prosperity to yet another group of Middle East/Near East/ Muslim people who really don’t value peace and prosperity, nor democracy, either. None of these things that Americans and Europeans value are valued by Muslims, plain and simple. This is proven by the lack of peace, the lack of prosperity, and the lack of democracy or the rule of law in every..single…Muslim country.
So now that the vanquished are demanding that the conqueror leave Iraq, what should America do?
Our main options are to stay and fight all over again, or to appease the Iraqi government, which is now largely a Shia proxy of Iran’s theocracy, or to turn and leave.
Staying and fighting is unappealing, because we did that already, at great cost. The “no blood for oil” cries of the initial invasion were prophetic, as America stupidly declined to take any payment of any sort for our efforts. Not even in abundant Iraqi oil, which could have been easily and fairly shipped home to offset our huge investment in Iraq’s freedom and stability.
Appeasing the Shia-led Iraqi government is also unappealing and impractical, as appeasement never works, it just delays the inevitable conflict while our enemy prepares overtime for violent conflict. Thus prolonging the inevitable.
Finally, America can turn and leave, pulling up stakes and bidding farewell to Iraq with a “pox on your house” tossed over our shoulder as we send everyone home. This option has the greatest emotional appeal, and for good reason: Those who love and cherish American military personnel are loathe to see them sacrificed once again or any longer in the pursuit of vague, poorly defined, or improbable geopolitical goals. And the oil-less Iraq war and occupation was nothing if not poorly defined with vague, improbable goals at huge cost. But leaving cold turkey is a terrible option, because it will mean America invested trillions of dollars and thousands of wonderful young men for nothing. Not even for oil, and yet we will be in a worse position than we were when we first invaded.
A fourth option exists, and will take some creativity to implement. But it is doable, and is the best of all our options, because it allows America to meet all of its geopolitical and strategic goals at minimal cost to our servicemen and taxpayers.
This fourth option is to subdivide Iraq into new states, based on ethnicity and or religious makeup. Similar to how Pakistan was created out of India in 1948.
We will support those new states that share our interests, and we will harass and undermine those states that ally themselves with our sworn enemies, like Iran (and yes, theocratic Iran has been America’s sworn enemy long before Israel had a dog in that fight). Thus, breaking up Iraq into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish states will allow us to more easily identify and help our friends, and more easily isolate and fight our enemies. It will take the vast majority of Iraq’s Shia Muslims and keep them in the smallest geographical area of Iraq where they already live. It will also enable America to finally begin to take payment from the vast oil fields that are mostly surrounded by pro-America Kurds. Most of Iraq’s geography is already divided up along ethnic and sectarian lines, so the new state lines on the map can be pretty easily drawn to match.
By creating the modern Kurdistan, America will implement several goals. First, we will be placing most of the existing oil fields in the hands of a people who have been and who still are naturally inclined to ally with America. America will benefit from the oil not going to Iran, and we can always set up a long-overdue financial debt repayment program with the Kurds, in oil or in oil receipts.
Second, we will be undermining two of the most dangerous states in the region, Iran and Turkey, both of whom have openly demonstrated clear goals of regional domination at any cost and with any method. Recall that Turkey has been quietly allied with ISIS, and also has been openly in pursuit of genocide against the Kurds while lusting after their oil fields. Iran’s ideological threat needs no explanation, as they openly wish to explode many nuclear bombs across America, and for years they have been quietly exploiting our open southern border in preparation to do just this.
In the spirit of the times, I propose the creation of Shiastan (capital city of Najaf), Sunnistan (capital city of Baghdad), and Kurdistan (capital city of Kirkuk) in response to Iraq’s declaration of war against America.
Source: Ohio State University Department of History, which in turns attributes the US government
Some observations on knives sold at the Great American Outdoor Show
Knife production is reaching an apex, it appears. Never before in one place have I seen so many higher quality production knives as I have seen at the Great American Outdoor Show. Many booths selling hundreds and hundreds of better quality folding knives, with some custom and semi-custom knife sellers sprinkled around.
Oddly, you can’t find a sharpening stone in the entire Farm Show complex to save your blade’s life. No one is selling sharpening stones. Blades out the wazoo, yes. Ways to keep them functioning, no. Whether it is a sign of the throw-away society meeting Pleistocene Man, or too much optimism about modern steels’ edge retention capability, it is an odd sign indeed.
Once the purview of expensive custom knives, Damascus blades are now ubiquitous, although most are probably made in Pakistan and India, so their quality cannot be real high, and you’ve got no idea of their cadmium, arsenic, or lead content, either, although I am willing to bet these blades are positively toxic to human health. They do look nice, though.
[Damascus steel is a mix of different types of metals that when folded over and over and then hammered out reveal an appealing variety of patterns. Because metal types used in Damascus steel vary widely, quality varies widely. I use only Alabama Damascus in my knives]
Clearly, there is a bleeding over from the custom knife market into the high production market, where quality used to suffer badly. Knife buying Americans evidently have improved tastes and higher expectations for their over-the-counter knives. That’s a good thing. But do they have to be made in those rainbow colors? They hurt my eyes. Camo handles are humorous – drop your knife, never find your knife, lose your knife. Maybe those rainbow colored handles work, after all.
One other observation is the high number of bug-out bags being made. Man, Americans seem ready for the apocalypse. After seeing so many of these grab-and-run packs, I now realize that I need one, too. No, my oh-so-1970s Kelty backpacks do not seem up to snuff, even though they have served me well on rugged wilderness trips for many years. Nope, camo is de rigeur here, too.
Come on by the PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs booth and buy a raffle ticket for our Bushmaster AR-15 M4. Just ten bucks gets you a lot closer to having your bug-out bag fully equipped with a state-of-the-art rifle.