JROTC Decision Revisited

This story missed my attention recently:

SAN FRANCISCO
Board approves year extension for high schools' JROTC program
Classes allowed to count for physical education credit

(12-11) 20:09 PST San Francisco -- The Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps gets to stay in San Francisco high schools for one more year, the district's school board decided Tuesday night.

More than 100 students packed the meeting as the board voted 5 to 2 to extend the program through the 2008-2009 school year.

Board President Mark Sanchez and board member Eric Mar voted against the measure.

The board also decided to allow JROTC courses to continue to count toward up to two years of physical education courses, which is required for graduation.

Last November I posted a heartfelt rant about the SFUSD's decision to get rid of the JROTC. I even wrote a letter to Dan Kelly and the rest of the school board members who voted in favor of the ban. He was kind enough to reply to me, and we exchanged ideas for a while, until he quit replying anyhow. That's easier than admitting that you hate the military and are using your postion of power to end a popular military-related program evidently. It does not matter anyhow since Dr. Kelly did not get re-elected to the Board of Education last year. I'll sure miss him.

The board voted a year ago to eliminate the 90-year-old program at the end of this school year, with a majority of members then saying its connection with a discriminatory and homophobic military means it has no place in public education.

At the time of the vote, the board also required a task force to identify an alternative program to replace the popular leadership program that now serves 1,200 students in seven of the district's high schools.

That task force, however, didn't meet until April. This fall, the group - consisting of district staff as well as JROTC supporters and critics - requested an extension of JROTC at all the high schools, saying there wasn't enough time to develop an alternative by this fall.

I knew at the time that they would run into trouble when they actually had to come up with an alternative. How does one re-create a program that teaches responsibility, commitment, respect for authority and physical fitness; especially when those traits are anathema to the Board of Education's personal beliefs? Besides, a football program already exists. A year later, it is no surprise that the "task force" came up dry. This is just further proof that bitching and moaning is far easier than actually coming up with viable alternatives.

So the JROTC is safe for another year from the bloviations of our local anti-military/suicidal-pacifist nannies. I can't wait to see what really bitchin' alternative they offer next year. At least they won't be able to say they did not have enough time to come up with something.

A Brief History of Christmas

No other holiday seems to polarize people quite like Christmas. Depending on your relationship with your family, your god and/or your neighbors, Christmas can be either a time of great joy, an inconvenience to be endured, a time of profound depression, or any combination thereof. My wife often feels steamrolled by Christmas since her birthday is just 10 days prior. Growing up, woe to the relative that decided to combine her birthday and Christmas present into one "big" gift. That still holds true today by the way.

Every year the same scrooges trot out the same grievances in an effort to give the rest of us the same case of the "bah-humbugs" from which they suffer. Atheists demand the removal of Nativity scenes lest they gaze upon one and singe their eyes. Anti-consumer groups point out the amount of money wasted on junky gifts for people we don't even like. Health officials highlight the dangers of overconsumption. The fact that Christmas has been commercialized to the point of self parody hardly needs to be mentioned; and the last minute rush to the stores is never enough to save the retail establishment from yet another mediocre shopping season.

John Steele Gordon opining in the Wall Street Journal last Friday points out that Christmas is actually a celebration of two distinct and separate occurrences:

Christmas famously "comes but once a year." In fact, however, it comes twice. The Christmas of the Nativity, the manger and Christ child, the wise men and the star of Bethlehem, "Silent Night" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" is one holiday. The Christmas of parties, Santa Claus, evergreens, presents, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells" is quite another.

But because both celebrations fall on Dec. 25, the two are constantly confused. Religious Christians condemn taking "the Christ out of Christmas," while First Amendment absolutists see a threat to the separation of church and state in every poinsettia on public property and school dramatization of "A Christmas Carol."

The Christmas of parties and presents is far older than the Nativity. Most ancient cultures celebrated the winter solstice, when the sun reaches its lowest point and begins to climb once more in the sky. In ancient Rome, this festival was called the Saturnalia and ran from Dec. 17 to Dec. 24. During that week, no work was done, and the time was spent in parties, games, gift giving and decorating the houses with evergreens. (Sound familiar?) It was, needless to say, a very popular holiday.

Proof that it was not all about skull crushing and raping and pillaging your neighbors during the Middle Ages:

By the high Middle Ages, Christmas was a rowdy, bawdy time, often inside the church as well as outside it. In France, many parishes celebrated the Feast of the Ass, supposedly honoring the donkey that had brought Mary to Bethlehem. Donkeys were brought into the church and the mass ended with priests and parishioners alike making donkey noises. In the so-called Feast of Fools, the lower clergy would elect a "bishop of fools" to temporarily run the diocese and make fun of church ceremonial and discipline. With this sort of thing going on inside the church to celebrate the Nativity, one can easily imagine the drunken and sexual revelries going on outside it to celebrate what was in all but name the Saturnalia.

Those looking to place blame on somebody for making Christmas a national holiday need look no further:

In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law a bill making the secular Christmas a civil holiday because its celebration had become universal in this country. It is now celebrated in countries all over the world, including many where Christians are few, such as Japan.

My feelings regarding Christmas are pretty simple: if you don't like it, don't celebrate it. If you are really, truly offended by all things Christmas, consider a vacation to Saudi Arabia this time of year. I bet you won't hear Jingle Bells even once. Most of all, don't use Christmas as an excuse to feign some grievance in an attempt to advance your own agenda; whatever it may be. It's also probably not wise to do what these Kiwis recently did as you may end up in jail.

If there's one thing that we can all agree upon it's that jail is no place to spend Christmas.

Iraq in the Context of American Military History

Victor Davis Hanson chronicles our past military blunders and determines that most of the wars the U.S has been involved in since our nation's inception started under dubious circumstances, involved bad intelligence and were fought by ill-equipped troops in the beginning.

...what is missing from the national debate over the "worst" (Iraq) war in our history is any appreciation of past American military errors—political, strategic, technological, intelligence, tactical—that nearly cost us victory in far more important conflicts. Nor do we accept the savage irony of war that only through errors, tragic though they may be, do successful armies adjust in time to discover winning strategies, tactics, and generals.

Read the whole article. There's much to digest.

Global Warming: OUT Climate Change: IN

Here's a fun exercise: Try to note the shift in language being employed by those who are desperately trying to jam their grand social engineering experiment disguised as reverent regard for the sacred environment down our throats. Increasingly, it seems that "climate change" is being substituted for "global warming." You see, with climate change any outcome is possible; even cooling in the Antarctic, snow in Buenos Aires and a decrease in hurricane activity.

Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Since any outcome is possible, it means one can never be wrong, which means never having to apologize for anything. It's a good thing too, because that means we do not have to be concerned with this report from the U.N. Bali Climate conference:

The air-conditioning system installed to keep more than 10,000 delegates cool used highly damaging refrigerant gases - as lethal to the atmosphere as 48,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and nearly the equivalent of the emissions of all aircraft used to fly delegates to Indonesia.

Staff from Australia's Natural Refrigerants Transition Board and the London- and Washington-based Environmental Investigation Agency noticed the stockpiled cylinders of hydrochlorofluorocarbons - a refrigerant likely to be phased out over the next few years because it devours ozone in the upper atmosphere.

In addition, the refrigerant is a potent greenhouse gas, with each kilogram at least as damaging as 1.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Investigators at the Balinese resort complex at Nusa Dua counted 700 cylinders of the gas, each of them weighing 13.5 kilograms, and the system was visibly leaking.

It also means, thankfully, we can keep our democracy; for now at least:

Hillman, senior fellow emeritus at the Policy Studies Institute, says carbon rationing is the only way to ensure that the world avoids the worst effects of climate change. And he says that the problems caused by burning fossil fuels are so serious that governments might have to implement rationing against the will of the people.

"When the chips are down I think democracy is a less important goal than is the protection of the planet from the death of life, the end of life on it. This has got to be imposed on people whether they like it or not."

I'd like to see the army made up of listless, Birkenstock-clad, overly idealistic, cocksure soldiers marching arm-in-arm with the limo-lib/Hollywood elite "special forces" Dr. Hillman would raise to impose his carbon rationing policy on us infidels. At least he's honest in revealing that fighting global warming, sorry, I mean fighting climate change, is really just warmed-over nihilistic Marxism.

My Favorite Liberal Feminist Lesbian

I was first introduced to Camille Paglia by a girl I used to work with during the summers back in my college days. While waiting for our turn in the rotation for the privilege of serving the unwashed masses of the greater Narragansett Bay area all-you-can-eat clam cakes and chowder, we would do a lot of reading. Sometimes we would read each other's books; and that is how I happened to pick up Paglia's Sexual Personae. I'll never forget that it was the first book I ever read for pleasure that required me to keep a dictionary on hand.

One of my biggest beefs with the left these days is that there are woefully few outspoken members who are not stricken with Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). For example, they would prefer to see us leave Iraq defeated and humiliated--regardless of the consequences-- because any other outcome might possibly make Bush look good. They do not see the difference between being an outspoken member of the loyal opposition (which they're not) and indirectly or directly supporting those who wish to destroy our civilization (more often the case). While I do not agree with everything she says, I do not think that Camille Paglia is one of these shrill BDS suffers; and it is why I respect her. It is also why those who lay claim to the leftist-progressive megaphone shun her like a drug-addled aunt at Thanksgiving.

In this Salon piece, she touches on a point I made in a previous post about how cultural secularism is destroying our society.

Religion is becoming an endless political distraction -- but cultural secularism is not the answer.

...I agree with him (Mitt Romney) that the founders of the U.S. social experiment were Christians (even if many were intellectual deists) and that our separation of church and state entails the rejection of an official, government-sanctioned creed rather than the obligatory erasure of references to God in civic life.

This is something that those who wish to wipe "In God We Trust" off of our currency, for example, and stamp out all references to God in civic life either fail to grasp or willfully ignore. Regardless of the number of times history is revised by those who do not like its outcome, the United States of America will always be a nation founded by men of faith; and their indelible stamp will remain.

But what does Romney mean by the ongoing threat of a new "religion of secularism"? The latter term needs amplification and qualification. In my lecture on religion and the arts in America earlier this year at Colorado College, I argued that secular humanism has failed, that the avant-garde is dead, and that liberals must start acknowledging the impoverished culture that my 1960s generation has left to the young. Atheism alone is a rotting corpse. I substitute art and nature for God -- the grandeur of man and the vast mystery of the universe.

Here she acknowledges humanity's need to believe in something beyond the, "if it feels good do it" frame of mind that defines secular humanism.

But primary and secondary education, which should provide an entree to great art and thought, has declined into trivialities and narcissistic exercises in self-esteem. Popular culture, once emotionally vibrant and collective in impact (from Hollywood movies to rock music), has waned into flashy, transient niche entertainment. The young, who are masters of ever-evolving personal technology, are besieged by the siren call of materialism. In this climate, it is selfish and shortsighted for liberals to automatically define religion as a social problem that needs suppression or eradication. Without spirituality in some form, people will anesthetize themselves with drink or drugs -- including the tranquilizers that seem near universal among the status-addled professional class of the Northeastern elite.

Europe, which has settled into a comfortable secularism, is no model for the future. The great era of European achievement in arts and letters seems to be over. There are local luminaries but no towering figures any longer of the stature of James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann or Ingmar Bergman. Europe is becoming a museum and tourist trap, as people from all over the world flock to see the remnants of Europe's royal and religious past -- the conservative prelude, in other words, to today's slack liberalism.

Europe as a "tourist trap"--just like our own Fisherman's Wharf. Though with the Euro trading where it is lately, I'll stick to visiting Fisherman's Wharf.

Regarding education:

There was an excellent Op-Ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week about the urgent national need for technical education -- which has been a recurrent theme in my Salon columns for a decade. Walt Gardner, who taught public school for 28 years in Los Angeles, calls for a "shift in our attitude to grant career and technical education the same recognition, respect and value that we reflexively accord academic education."

Gardner predicts severe dislocations for the college-educated middle class over the next two decades: "Auto mechanics, plumbers, and electricians will be earning a comfortable living and deriving deep satisfaction from their work, while many graduates from marquee-name colleges will find themselves unemployed when their jobs are off-shored."

Exactly! And as a career college teacher, I want to insist yet again that the general education offered by American public high schools and even elite colleges and universities has become blatantly mediocre and not worth the price. Soaring tuition costs are a national scandal that the presidential candidates have failed to systematically address. Families and students themselves have incurred monstrous debts in their deluded search for brand-name cachet, which only marginally relates to a quality education. The college admissions race in the United States is a gigantic marketing scam that most mainstream journalists, desperate to get their kids into the overrated Ivy League, have shamefully neglected.

Whenever somebody asks me if I've started a college fund for my 10 month old daughter (yes I have), I often reply, "well now I'm not so sure she's college material." I am joking, but only half-joking. Prof. Paglia makes another point I touch on from time to time: college in its current dumbed-down form isn't necessarily worth the price; and a good technical education is underrated.

Al Gore got the Nobel Prize this week for his role as chief propagandist in spreading global warming hysteria into every nook and cranny of credulous minds. I expect that this baseless panic, like all fads, will evaporate when apocalypse doesn't arrive on schedule. Meanwhile let's focus on legitimate practical issues -- such as the grotesque volume of pollution belched by big-rig trucks, which in the absence of an efficient interstate rail system in the U.S. are absurdly carrying freight for thousands of miles from coast to coast. Exhaust from family SUVs is nothing compared to the environmental damage wrought by trucks, whose massive weight and deadline-driven high speeds also constitute an unacceptable risk to passenger vehicles on the highway... Nature is not our victim but an awesome, uncontrollable force.

I'd like to see the study that helped formed her opinion regarding the relative costs and benefits of rail versus truck transportation, but she puts an arrow right through the hubristic heart of the Eco-vangelists with that last line.

Proof that Climate Change is a Religion

When the Pope condemns global warming alarmists as "prophets of doom", you know that it has reached deep into the religious realm.

If there is one thing organized religion hates, it is competition for dues-paying believers; especially from young upstarts.

Symbiotic Enablers

Something that continues to confound my logic is this: how is it that so many people who confess to be secular liberals can march arm and arm with Islamofascists who have openly declared that it is their intention to destroy the West and it's secular liberal values?

Spengler, writing in the Asian Times last week, skillfully sketches the connection between what draws fundamental religious zealots and secular leftist atheists into each other's arms.

It is easy to change what we think, but very hard to change how we think. Contrary to superficial impressions, Islam is much closer in character to atheism than to Christianity or Judaism. Although the "what" of Muslim and atheistic thinking of course are very different, I shall endeavor below to prove that the "how" is very similar.

Secular liberalism, the official ideology of almost all the nations of Western Europe, offers hedonism, sexual license, anomie, demoralization and gradual depopulation. Muslims do not want this. In Africa, Christian missionaries go to Muslims and offer them God's love and the hope of eternal life. But I am aware of no Christian missionaries active in the Muslim banlieue (outskirts) of the Paris suburbs or the Turkish quarters of Berlin.

A major reason this secular liberal mindset is pervasive in western pop-culture today results from the increasingly popular belief that college is a "right" to be had rather than a "privilege" to be earned. As such, there are more people attending college than ever before. On the face of it, a more educated population is preferable to a less educated population. But if one peaks behind the curtain, one may be surprised to see numerous examples of political grievances turned into college majors being taught by professors who are not shy about sharing and propagating their political dogma. This liberalism--hedonism, sexual license, etc.--so entrenched in the never, never land of our universities can only be characterized as childish; it is certainly not the underpinning of an education that should prepare one to be a productive and critical thinking member of society. That's all fine and well when one is young, the problem arises when this mindset endures outside the halls of academia where it becomes a corrosive cancer on society. Anomie, demoralization and depopulation are predictable symptoms of this cancer.

Allah is everywhere doing everything at all times. He sets the spin on every electron, measures the jump of every flea, the frequency of every sneeze. That notion of a god who accepts no limitation, not even the limit of laws of nature that he created, characterizes mainstream Muslim thought since the 11th century. St Thomas Aquinas wrote of its deficiency, drawing on the critique of the 12th-century Jewish theologian and philosopher Moses Maimonides.

It is a commonplace observation that Islam is "fatalistic". Muslims typically conclude any statement about the future, eg, "I'll see you at work tomorrow morning," with the qualifier, "Insha'Allah", "God willing". Because God is everywhere and in every action, acting without intermediate causes, the Judeo-Christian concept of divine providence is inconceivable in Muslim terms. If Allah refuses to be entangled by intermediate causes, no divine plan could possibly exist that humankind cannot understand directly, but works itself out through God's intermediaries. Rather than providence, Islam believes in the old pagan fate, the summation of the innumerable capricious acts that Allah in his absolute transcendence performs at every instant.

Allah is everywhere, which is to say that Allah is nowhere in particular. Allah's world is indistinguishable from the primeval world of paganism, in which the "colorfully contending pantheon" of nature-gods arranges a chaotic and incomprehensible show at every moment. The world without Allah would look not much different; if Allah acts in a whimsical manner without the constraint of laws of nature, we cannot tell the difference between Allah's actions and chaos.

The empty and arbitrary world of atheism is far closer to the Muslim universe than the Biblical world, in which God orders the world out of love for humankind, so that we may in freedom return the love that our creator bears for us. Atheism is an alternative to Islam closer to Muslim habits of mind than the love-centered world of Judaism and Christianity.

Muslims, in their fatalistic world view, believe that everything that happens is a result of Allah's will. The result is chaos. Secular liberals, in their ultimately nihilistic world view, deny that God exists. The result is chaos.

Different causes, same effect; each enabling the other.

The Fevered Pitch at the Crescendo

I am officially calling a market top on global warming hysteria. As evidence, I submit the following list of headlines compiled by Wretchard and a few of the commenters at the Belmont Club.

• Christmas causes Global Warming
• Kangaroo farts could ease global warming
• Flatulent sheep cause global warming
• The Koran inveighs against global warming
• Canadian beer drinkers are causing global warming
• Using toilet paper causes global warming
• Hanukka causes global warming
• Making pasta causes global warming
• Divorce causes global warming
  
• Having children causes global warming
• Breathing causes global warming
• Global warming causes baldness in hedgehogs
  

For an even more complete list, follow this link.

Consider that if everybody who believes that global warming is the greatest threat to mankind would simply hold their breath for 15 minutes, we would not have a global warming problem.

Meanwhile at the climate conference in Bali, forget about toleration, dissent will not even be heard.

Global Warming Proof by Assertion

Lenin is attributed with saying, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."

Knowingly or not, Lenin was referring to what today is known as Proof by Assertion which is defined as, "a logical fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction. Sometimes this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to its not being contradicted argumentum ad nauseam. In other cases its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief fallacies."

There are numerous examples of this phenomenon in what passes for conventional wisdom today. The most popular example in my opinion is when one asserts that "Bush lied" about WMDs in Iraq. A lie, by definition, implies that the one doing the lying knows the truth. So in order for Bush to have lied about WMDs, he would have had to have known that they did not exist in the first place. Since they did not exist, he would know for certain that none would be found after the invasion, at which point he would be exposed as a liar. Even the biggest idiot in the world, a label that seems to stick quite well on our president, would know that being exposed as a liar during one's first term in office is not the best path to a second term.

Consider the following:

What if everyone believes in global warmism only because everyone believes in global warmism? That's the question that was asked in this opinion piece in the WSJ yesterday.

The media will be tempted to blur the fact that his (Nobel) medal, which Mr. Gore will collect on Monday in Oslo, isn't for "science." In fact, a Nobel has never been awarded for the science of global warming. Even Svante Arrhenius, who first described the "greenhouse" effect, won his for something else in 1903. Yet now one has been awarded for promoting belief in man-made global warming as a crisis.

How this honor has befallen the former Veep could perhaps be explained by another Nobel, awarded in 2002 to Daniel Kahneman for work he and the late Amos Tversky did on "availability bias," roughly the human propensity to judge the validity of a proposition by how easily it comes to mind.

Their insight has been fruitful and multiplied: "Availability cascade" has been coined for the way a proposition can become irresistible simply by the media repeating it; "informational cascade" for the tendency to replace our beliefs with the crowd's beliefs; and "reputational cascade" for the rational incentive to do so.

In addition to Lenin's sage wisdom as quoted above, Mark Twain best summarized the attitude that has seized the collective imagination of the whole global warming doomsday crowd when he said, "the average man is destitute of independence of opinion. He is not interested in contriving an opinion of his own, by study and reflection, but is only anxious to find out what his neighbor's opinion is and slavishly adopt it."

Seems like Mr. Twain defined "availability bias" over 100 years before Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Tversky.

Mortgage Crunch "Solution"

Consequences be damned! It seems the solution to the increasing number of mortgage defaults by people who should not have mortgages in the first place is to place a 5 year freeze on their "teaser" rates which will give the banks time to "renegotiate" the terms of the loan and work through their increasing inventory of foreclosed homes.

The financial services industry applauded the administration for negotiating a plan that will allow free-market forces to operate. The hope is that the five-year freeze will buy time for the housing industry to work down record levels of unsold homes and for sales and prices to start rising again.

The financial services industry has chosen an interesting definition of "free-market forces." If they are to be believed, the free market only works when prices are rising. Obviously, all the money being spent on K Street lobbying is starting to reap dividends. Though technically this is not a tax payer-funded bailout (not yet at least), due to the amount of government intervention involved, I will chalk this up as another one of the increasing number of federal subsidy programs currently in existence.

Back in the days when one would save enough money for a 20% down payment then go down to the local bank to take out a mortgage from a loan officer who knew they were going to keep the loan in their books--and thus be motivated to do their due diligence--working to renegotiate the terms of a mortgage with a homeowner who had fallen on hard times was in the best interests of all involved. However, in the current era where mortgages are tranched up and sold off as Wall St. structured derivative products, it is hard not to view this or any other mortgage "bailout" scheme as a ruse for delaying all of the afflicted their castor oil moment.

As my friend Tony summed it up perfectly last night, "I wish I was dumb enough to have taken out a mortgage I couldn't afford."

Bali Hoo-ey!

The only thing I do not doubt is that the irony is lost on every single one of these brave eco-warriors.

What Would the McKenzie Brothers Think, eh?

Is nothing sacred?

Study: Canadian Beer Drinkers Threaten Planet

Scientists have found a new threat to the planet: Canadian beer drinkers.

The government-commissioned study says the old, inefficient "beer fridges" that one in three Canadian households use to store their Molson and Labatt's contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas- and coal-fired electricity.

Why are they picking on Molson and Labatt's-- just because they're the biggest? There are several other brands of beer brewed in Canada that are just as likely to be found in the beer-fridge, and therefore guilty of contributing to global warming.

One in three households still use these old, inefficient contraptions. The article fails to mention the remaining two in three households have either placed them in the front yard where they form the centerpiece of the weed garden, or they're out back leaching lead and rust into the water table and freon into the atmosphere.

"People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles," British environmental consultant Joanna Yarrow tells New Scientist magazine. "Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people — let's hope it has an effect."

Frivolous luxury? Them is fightin' words! Funny coming from a Brit, too. Though generally served warmer and therefore environmentally friendly, U.K. liter per capita beer consumption is almost twice as high as it is in Canada.

The problem is that the beer fridges are mostly decades-old machines that began their second careers as beverage dispensers when Canadians upgraded to more energy-efficient models to store whatever Canadians eat besides doughnuts and poutine.

Ah, poutine. If Quebec had a national dish, it would be poutine. There's nothing better that a plate piled high with french fries, gravy and cheese curds after a long night of drinking a "two-four" of environmentally hostile suds.

University of Alberta researcher Denise Young, who led the study, suggests that provincial authorities hold beer-fridge buy-backs or round-ups to eliminate the threat — methods that Americans use to get guns off the streets.

It's not often that Canada looks to the USA for guidance, unless it's for an example of what not to do. I bet if the government funded a beer fridge buy-back program, it'd be just as successful as our gun buy-back program--that is, not very successful.

When beer-fridges are outlawed, only outlaws will have beer-fridges.

U.N. Climate Summit

One could be forgiven for thinking this story was a parody:

U.N. Report: poor hit hardest by climate change

The poor, poor. Always taking it in the keester. Has there ever been a time when this has not been the case?

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Developed nations must immediately help fight global warming or the world will face catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters, according to U.N. report released this week.

Before global warming appeared on the scene, I wonder what caused catastrophic floods and droughts? They're not exactly new phenomenons. Just in case you do not acknowledge your responsibility to engage in this battle for the future of our planet, there might be other disasters, too. Perhaps fire and brimstone, or plagues of locusts that black out the sky. Just imagine the worst disaster you can conjure up, and it's gonna happen!

The report said rich nations will need to provide $86 billion a year by 2015 to "strengthen the capacity of vulnerable people" to cope with climate-related risks.

Because it's our duty, as "rich nations" to care for the rest of the world, since it's only an accident that some nations are rich and others are poor. And hey, what's $86 billion anyhow, especially at today's exchange rates? That's only $57.9 billion euros, the currency of the future.

"The scenario is that our generation will experience reversals on a grand scale in the areas of health, education and poverty. For the future there is real threat of ecological catastrophe," Kevin Watkins, the report's lead author, told reporters in Brasilia, the country's capital.

Global warming will render people unhealthy, and unable to work and go to school. And not just a few people, it's gonna happen on a grand scale. I'd like to see the methodology behind that conclusion.

Half the cost, $44 billion, would go for "climate-proofing" developing nations' infrastructure, while $40 billion would help the poor cope with climate-related risks. The other $2 billion would go to strengthening responses to natural disasters, the report said.

"Climate-proofing" is what we used to do in the winter when we would put clear plastic sheets over our windows to improve heat retention. $44 billion seems like a lot of money for plastic. Really though, it sounds like a pork barrel spending spree to me; another chance for 3rd world kleptocracies to feast at the trough of misplaced and mismanaged international largess.

Here's the best part:

The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before the world's nations convene in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate a new climate treaty.

At the report's release ceremony, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on rich nations to do their part.

"In Bali we are going to very seriously discuss the price rich countries have to pay so that poorer countries can preserve their forests," Silva said. "Because you're not going to convince a poor person in any country that he can't cut down a tree if he doesn't have the right to work and eat in exchange."

I give you this from the Bali News website:

A Lack of Apron Area Will Compel Delegations Attending the UN Climate Change Conference to Park their Planes Outside of Bali.

11/3/2007) Tempo Interaktif reports that Angkasa Pura - the management of Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport are concerned that the large number of additional private charter flights expected in Bali during the UN Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) December 3-15, 2007, will exceed the carrying capacity of apron areas. To meet the added demand for aircraft storage officials are allocating "parking space" at other airports in Indonesia.

The operational manager for Bali's Airport, Azjar Effendi, says his 3 parking areas can only accommodate 15 planes, which means that some of the jets used by VIP delegations will only be allowed to disembark and embark their planes in Bali with parking provided at airports in Surabaya, Lombok, Jakarta and Makassar.

Climate change is so serious that our U.N. Climate Knights in Shining Armor have to fly with their VIP entourages in C02 belching private jets to a beautiful, remote, tropical South Pacific island to discuss the imminent crisis that threatens to end the world as we know it. If this were truly a crisis, shouldn't the U.N. moral preachers just hold a video conference? I think the carbon footprint might be just a tad smaller. They tell us the goal is to reduce the world's carbon footprint after all.

I do have a feeling that the lack of tarmac parking space is the only thing they really feel is an immediate crisis. At the minimum, shouldn't they jetpool?

Developed countries, meanwhile, are failing to meet their targets under the current climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, for cutting greenhouse gases by 2012, the report said. France, Germany, Japan and Britain have reduced their emissions somewhat, it said, but the European Union is falling short of its goal of a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Kevin Rudd of the center-left Labour Party, was just elected as the new prime minister of Australia in a landslide victory. Best I can tell, the sum of his platform was that he promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol after years of resistance under John Howard. Never mind that Kyoto is ineffective, what's important is that you posture correctly.

Olav Kjorven, head of the U.N. Development Program's bureau for development policy, said help is only natural "when we know that the frequency of droughts and floods is going up."

Because of global warming, he said, 600 million more people in sub-Saharan Africa will go hungry from collapsing agriculture, an extra 400 million people will be exposed to malaria and other diseases and an added 200 million will be flooded out of their homes.

"We're suggesting 1.6 percent of (global) GDP -- still very affordable," Kjorven said. "The countries of the world that are the principal culprits, if you wish, for creating this problem in the first place need to act strongly to safeguard the future of those that have done nothing to cause this problem but are the most vulnerable."

If global warming were not happening, 600 million people would not go hungry, 400 million would not be exposed to malaria and 200 million would not be flooded out of their homes. How about, if you wish, 600 million people would not go hungry if they had roads on which to get their crops to the marketplace, and were not bullied into not planting genetically modified crops by the EU. If you wish, consider that if DDT were not vilified, 400 million would not be exposed to malaria. Imagine, if you wish, that if deforestation weren't rampant, 200 million people would not be flooded out of their homes.


I would like to see a poll of what the average third world citizen thought were the 10 most pressing problems facing them today. I'd wager global warming wouldn't make the list.

When the United Nations moves its headquarters to, say somewhere in Namibia, I might start to take them slightly more seriously. It's hard not to conclude that their only function is to hold endless jaw-jaw sessions in exotic places like Bali. That is, when they're not enjoying all that New York City has to offer.

U.N. OUT OF NYC! Now that's a bumper sticker.

0 for 3

Unless you're the guys that write the Farmer's Almanac, it seems that predicting the weather over any length of time--even only one season--is a tough business.

Another hurricane season is about to end, and for the second year in a row, expert predictions overstated the number and intensity of storms that materialized. This is in stark contrast to 2005 when experts were wide to the other side of the mark when their predictions understated the number and intensity of storms.

Nevertheless, NOAA is not deterred:

'The seasonal forecasts are quite good,'' said Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal forecaster. ``Last year, we over-predicted and this year we over-predicted, but our track record, I think, is excellent.''

If you put your monopoly money chips on "black" long enough, you're bound to come out a monopoly money winner sooner or later; as opposed to the real people who earn real money and have real livelihoods on the line and make decisions based on what these hurricane experts are saying.

This reminds me of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics does when they report the Consumer Price Index numbers each month, then back out food and energy and call it the "core CPI" because food and energy prices are "volatile." At some point, one must ask, "what's the point?"

If hurricane forecasting is wrong as often as it is right, what's the point in forecasting at all?

I wonder how this news will affect the opinions of those that believe Global Warming is supposed to cause an increase in hurricane activity?

The Intersection of Politics and Science

I've been trying not to blog about Al Gore and the peace prize as it's old news at this point, but today the following story crossed the newswires, and once again he was on my mind:

Al Gore Joins Venture Capital Firm To Focus On Clean Tech

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Nobel Peace Prize winner and former vice president Al Gore announced Monday he is joining a Silicon Valley venture capital firm to guide investments that help combat global warming.
Gore will join Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as it and dozens of other venture firms headquartered in Silicon Valley expand beyond software, computer hardware, the Internet and biotechnology to so-called "clean-tech" investments worldwide.
Gore is expected to be a high-profile, active partner at Kleiner Perkins. He is already a senior adviser to Google Inc. (GOOG) and a member of the board at Apple Inc. (AAPL). Alliance for Climate Protection, the advocacy group he co-founded, is based in Palo Alto.
Also Monday, Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr announced he's joining the advisory board of Generation Investment Management, the $1 billion investment firm that Gore founded with David Blood, who previously managed $325 billion in assets out of Goldman Sachs' (GS) London office.
Gore said in a statement that he'll donate 100% of his salary as a Kleiner Perkins partner to the Alliance for Climate Protection, which focuses on accelerating policy solutions to the climate crisis.

To his many disciples, the fact that Al Gore recently won half of the Nobel Peace Prize only serves to reinforce and legitimize what they already knew and have been endlessly bleating about: "The end is nigh! Curb your CO2 emissions or suffer the wrath of Gaia!"

Or something to that effect.

The first thing that cynically occurred to me upon hearing the news of his big win was that the Nobel committee must have been fresh out of science prizes. Man-made global warming is supposed to be all about science after all, isn't it? So why would he win the peace price?

It may be worth recalling that the 5 member committee that chooses the winner of the peace prize is itself nominated by the Norwegian parliament. This means that the peace prize winner is selected in a purely political process. That's all fine and well, but when science and politics mix, you can bet the farm which will trump the other (hint: it ain't science that comes out on top).

The following press release is from the Nobel prize website:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

Nowhere is a delineation drawn between what is man-made and what is naturally occurring. That is because it is impossible to do. I have not waded through all of the IPCC report, but I understand it is not as one-sided to Gore's bias as global warming fear-mongers would have us believe. We're celebrating their courage in laying the foundations to counteract change. Counteracting an unquantifiable amount of change on this scale seems like an exercise in futility to me, especially when change is as natural as life and evolution itself.

Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

Notice how many times the word "may" is used in that paragraph. Of course, the opposite of may is may not; as in many of these apocalyptic forebodings may not happen at all. Justification for taking action now against an unknown quantity is defended by citing the precautionary principle, which is defined as:"...a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action."

Without acknowledging that science does not need consensus, the whole global warming debate is so hopelessly politicized that there will never be a scientific consensus. Since there's no consensus, those that advocate taking action against global warming are burdened with proving it's real, and that it poses an imminent danger. That explains the junk science used to justify acting now. But how many times have we heard from Al Gore himself that the debate is over, and there is in fact a scientific consensus concerning global warming?

I've got news for the Nobel Committee--wars for resources have been happening since, forever.

Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.

As I already stated, real science has no need for consensus. Either something is verifiable using the scientific method, or it is not. In fact, If the science is so convincing, why are we talking about the peace prize right now?

Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.

In the preceding paragraph we're told that the 1990's produced firmer evidence to support man-made global warming. Al Gore was Vice President of the United States of America for 8 of those years. Does anybody recall anything he did during those years to combat this imminent threat--aside from make a symbolic attempt to get the U.S. to sign on to the Kyoto Accord in 1997--a treaty that our Congress said they'd not sign?

He in fact may be the single individual who has done the most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that "need" to be adapted to combat man-made global warming. If true, he's achieved this feat largely by using dishonest fear-mongering scare tactics. That's nothing to be proud of. For this he's earned the peace prize.

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.


Oslo, 12 October 2007

Protect the world's future climate--like it's a spotted owl or some other endangered species. The last sentence is my favorite; it reveals the underlying hubris that motivates the man-made global warming agenda pushers.

Back to the big news, Mr. Gore joining Kleiner Perkins.

I am wondering what Kleiner Perkins stands to gain from making Mr. Gore a partner? They're wildly successful in their own right, after all. His name certainly has billboard appeal, but the VC world exists mainly in the fine print of the business page, so cache is generally not part of their charter. I am sure they'd be able to spot the next big thing in green energy without him, since they're very good at what they do. If campaign donations are any indication--and they are--Wall St. and "big business" in general are betting heavily that the Democrats will take the White House next year. I'll be waiting to hear the deafening silence from our good left-leaning citizens who make big business-bashing part of their daily routine, when it's big business funding their side of the aisle.

The fact that he's donating his salary to a favorite enviro-hippie charity should not be treated as evidence of his selfless nature. VCs don't make most of their money off their salaries, they make their fortunes instead on "carried interest" -- a share in the profits from their investments -- and management fees. Recently there's been chatter about changing the tax code to treat hedge fund and VC gains in the same manner as corporate earnings are treated. So far, Charles Schumer, the other Democratic Senator from New York, has successfully blocked this legislation at the behest of the HF/VC industry.

I am betting that making Mr. Gore a partner is a business hedge. John Doerr, a PK partner, has been and remains a big supporter of the Democrats, so it makes sense. Mr. Gore can surely provide a hefty amount of influence on Capitol Hill.

Tom Perkins recently designed and built the largest and most expensive sailing vessel in the world, the Maltese Falcon. To say that it is an impressive sail boat is a wild understatement. Maybe Mr. Gore is finally going to swear off private jet travel--for the sake of the environment--and traipse the globe aboard the Maltese Falcon.

Three things need to happen before I take seriously the proclamations of the man-made global warming crowd:

1) Politicians and movie stars need to stop traveling in private jets, helicopters and large limousines and instead fly coach (OK they can fly first class) and take the bus like they advocate for the rest of us.

2) Barbara Streisand surrenders her Malibu home to the rising tide; and the price of beach front property worldwide needs to plummet in general.

3) Self-proclaimed environmentalists need to present solutions to problems that don't conform to their preconceived biases.

I've been of the mind that conservation and developing alternative energy sources are good ideas long before Mr. Gore made it fashionable; and I believe the solutions to our energy problems will come about not from punishing people for the way they live, but from innovation germinated and nurtured in places like Silicon Valley. So from that perspective, I am happy to hear that Mr. Gore is joining the VC world. Perhaps it is his first step away from his fantasy world of misleading bar charts and killer powerpoint presentations.

Now, if he'll just shut up.

UPDATE 11/20/07: The Wall Street Journal has an editorial piece today that more eloquently captures the gist of my post.

X-Con

I don't know why, but today is the second time in a week that Douglas Coupland's 1991 book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, has come to my attention. I first read it 16(!) years ago; and though I do not remember many of the specifics of the novel, I do remember later thinking that it captured the zeitgeist of the age rather well.

My politics do not fit any specific mold: fiscally conservative (you want it you pay for it), socially liberal (marry a goat and a sheep while dressed up like Harry Potter as long as it's consensual, just be good to them both), and a foreign policy hawk (act in your national self interests or else you'll be a slave to a nation that does).

I'd consider myself a Republican if they had not abandoned fiscal responsibility; I might consider myself a Democrat if they ever did anything other than whine and chip away at the foundation of our nation (so never mind about ever being a democrat); I'd consider myself a Libertarian if they weren't so isolationist.

I don't even know how I found this particular blog, but today there's an excellent post titled, X-Cons: The Conservative Mind of Generation X

X-CON!

A Generation X Conservative...Perhaps I've found my niche...Let's dissect each paragraph:

Talk radio has had the most profound impact in shaping their political sensibilities. Just as William F. Buckley, Jr. shaped conservatism in the 1950s, Rush Limbaugh shaped the conservatism of X-Cons in the '80s and ‘90s. Limbaugh provided not only the content but the style in which these conservatives would engage in political discourse – assured, confrontational, snarky. Talk radio taught the X-Cons to appreciate confirmation of one's own political views. Arguments needn't be persuasive if you know not only that you are right and your opponent is wrong but also that you are right and they are wrong-headed.

With confirmation came a sense of (virtual) community and a realization that a PhD in Political Science wasn't required in order to express a valid opinion on politics. Imbued with a sense of confidence from a young age, X-Cons grew comfortable expressing themselves—calling into radio shows (or simply talking back to the radio) and later in written forms, such as blogs.

I've probably listened to Rush Limbaugh, and talk radio in general, a total of 2 min and 30 seconds over the course of my life, so I can't really say that it's been a factor in shaping my political sensibilities. However, there's NPR which I listen to regularly, but that's only because I find great sport in identifying their snarky liberal bias disguised as informed intellectual opinion; and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer is good. I'll agree that blogs are a great way to express oneself.

***

X-Cons tend to be vehemently pro-Israel and warm toward the Jewish people. Oddly, they also have very limited actual knowledge about Jewish culture or modern Israel. Their ideas about the Jewish people are mostly based on what they've read in the Bible or seen in documentaries about the Holocaust.

"Vehemently" might be too strong a word, but I am certainly pro-Israel inasmuch as it has a right to exist as a nation. I probably know more about Jewish culture than the average non-Jew; I lived in NYC and Boca Raton for a while afterall and count a handful of Jews as close friends today. I even dated a few Jewish girls in college, but I digress...

***

Having either grown-up in a broken home or had friends who did, X-Cons recognize the value of traditional family structures. They may not always be successful in building permanent relationships themselves, but they value the bonds of family more than the previous generation.

Broken home, I know all about that. Statistically I should probably have 8 illegitimate children and a rap sheet as long as my leg. Fortunately I am smarter than that, and I recognize the value of the traditional family structure in a way that only somebody who did not grow up in one can.

***

Irony is one of the most pervasive traits in Gen X culture. Not surprisingly, this has affected the outlook of X-Cons. For example, they tend to be ambivalent about heroes. While they have an intuitive understanding of the need for virtue and heroism, they are too realistic and/or sarcastic to put their trust in politicians or statesmen. Instead, they prefer to champion ideas themselves rather than relying on fallible leaders.

I think "hero" is an overused word. Heroic acts occur every day, and most go unnoticed. I've never made the mistake of calling a politician a hero, and I have little faith in the power of politicians beyond furthering their self-interests. Sometimes they happen to align with their constituency, and they come out looking like "heroes"; though one should not be considered a "hero" when one merely does one's job.

***

In theory, X-Cons have a preference for federalism and state's rights. In actuality, they prefer to focus on the national level rather than on local and state politics.

Disagree. All politics are local. What works at the national level does not always work at the local level, but I agree with the Framers' intent that the states should be the laboratories for federal legislation.

***

X-Cons are often apathetic about flag-burning and displays of the Ten Commandments. They also don't remember when prayer was in schools and never paid much attention to the words “under God” in the pledge. Although they express an ironic detachment from the standard symbols of civil religion, they remain fiercely patriotic. Curiously, though they don't get goosebumps upon hearing the Star Spangled Banner, they are often stirred by patriotic kitsch such as Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the USA.”

I agree, but I wouldn't say I'm apathetic about flag-burning. While it's within a citizen's rights to burn the flag, I would feel completely justified in exercising my right to bludgeon them with a flag pole afterwards.

***

Unlike previous generations, X-Cons do not associate conservatism with the East Coast preppie-class Republicanism. WFB, Jr. and George Will may still command respect, but they are considered eccentric curiosities rather than the exemplars of conservative intelligentsia. X-Cons associate such elitism with liberalism and consider the GOP, rather than the Democrats, to be the party of the “little guy.”

Yup, this is especially true in San Francisco, where the GOP really is the party of the "little guy." By little I mean in the minority.

***

X-Cons are extremely religious in a “mere Christianity” sort of way. Their political views are shaped by their theology but they are willing to cross theological lines when it comes to political alliances. They tend to be either Catholic-friendly evangelicals or evangelical-influenced Catholics.

Disagree. Though I grew up in an evangelical home, I could hardly be labeled as "extremely religious" today. I respect people's right to worship an ice cube if they want; as long as it doesn't interfere with my right not to. I believe religion is best kept a private affair between you and God.

***

They have an ambivalent attitude toward pop culture. They recognize the corrosive impact that race-to-the-bottom media can have on society. Yet they are as likely to listen consume media as the rest of society. They may rail against the worst of it; but they will be intimately familiar with what they are criticizing.

Agreed. There's nothing good to come from seeing Britney's bald beaver grimacing while she climbs out of a sports car; and its certainly not something I wish to be intimately familiar with.

***

X-Cons consider it axiomatic that that “mainstream media” has a liberal bias and that it must be subverted rather than reformed.

Outside of sports and weather, I think it should be mostly ignored rather than subverted.

***

On matters of economics, X-Cons believe they stand on an indubitable foundation. They grew up in an era when socialism and communism where discredited as economic models, leading them to believe that free-market capitalism is not just preferred but the only route to freedom and prosperity. X-Cons believe that if liberals would only take a class on economics that they would see the light and repent of their collectivist ways.

I most certainly agree. The fact that many liberals know nothing about economics, and even take certain pride in their ignorance, rarely stops them from spouting off about all things economic.

***

Like others from their generation, X-Cons are not “joiners” in the typical sense. They are often more motivated to align in opposition than join in agreement. X-Cons vote for Republicans not because they agree with the GOP's platform (a document they've never read) but because they have a deep disdain for the views of Democrats.

Again, I agree. I would not be so disdainful of Democrats if: a) they learned the difference between loyal opposition and active subversion; b) They did not preempt everything they do with, "let's donkey-punch Bush." Childish, not to mention dangerous.

***

X-Cons are often “Goldwater conservatives”, holding views that are more individualistic than historical conservatism. They also tend to be "cafeteria libertarians", picking and choosing certain areas without fully embracing the libertarian ideology. They may, for example, be in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana while opposing the legalization of prostitution.

I wholeheartedly agree. It's a shame that the GOP seems to be Republican in Name Only (RINO) these days. They mostly resemble Democrats if the enlargement of government over the past 7 years is any indication; and the first party that successfully does away with our ridiculous, wasteful "war on drugs" will be the one I support.

***

And lastly...

X-Cons are pragmatic idealists. They have strong faith in religion, small government, and the free market. Yet they are not Utopian and have no illusions that politics will make life much better (though they believe government can make it much worse).

I agree, except for the strong faith in religion part, though it must be remembered that the name of the blog I am quoting from is called, "The Evangelical Outpost". I do believe that faith--in anything really--is an important part of the human condition. Without it, we're reduced to nihilism. But please people, keep your faith to yourself, and I'll do the same.

Care for a shag?

Globally Men Average 13 Sexual Partners, Women Seven

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Following are the results of a
survey of 26,028 people on sexual practices conducted by
Harris Interactive on behalf of Durex.

Men have had more sexual partners than women in every
country surveyed with the exception of New Zealand, where
women average 20 partners compared to 17 for men. The
following results are for heterosexuals only:

Country	Men		Women			Difference
Austria	29		17			12
Russia	28		17			11
Greece	28		10			18
Brazil	27		11			16
Australia	25		10			15
Switzerland	24		14			10
Canada	23		10			13
Spain	21		8			13
Italy	19		7			12
South Africa	18		7			11
New Zealand	17		20			-3
Germany	17		9			8
France	17		7			10
UK	16		10			6
Netherlands	14		8			6
Japan	14		8			6
Mexico	14		6			8
Hong Kong	14		4			10
USA	13		9			4
Poland	12		5			7
Thailand	12		2			10
Nigeria	9		3			6
Malaysia	9		2			7
Singapore	8		3			5
India	6		2			4
China	4		2			2
Global average	13		7

NOTE: The survey was conducted from Aug. to Sept. 2006.

On average worldwide:
Heterosexual men have had 13 female partners.
Heterosexual women have had 7 male partners.
Homosexual men have had 108 male partners.
Homosexual women have had 11 female partners.
Bisexual men have had 21 male and 14 female partners.
Bisexual women have had 13 male and 3 female partners.

I don't know about you, but I wonder if the fact that New Zealand has more sheep than people has anything to do with the fact that the women there have more sexual partners than the men? If only the sheep could talk....

The data on homosexuality is interesting. It's been widely publicized that men think about sex on average every six minutes, so it should come as no surprise that homosexual men have far more partners than heterosexual men. Also interesting is that bisexual men prefer men, and bisexual women also prefer men. It would seem that ya just can't beat a good ol' fashion rogering.

Something worth considering when looking at this data is the conventional wisdom that says men generally overstate the number of partners they've had by a factor of three, and women understate the number of partners they've had by the same factor. Ah you promiscuous hussies--we love you!

In case you were wondering who has sex the most often, wonder no longer:

Greeks Have the Most Sex, Japanese the Least

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Greeks have the most active sex
lives while Japanese are the least active, according to a
survey conducted by Durex.
The survey found that 87 percent of respondents in Greece
have sex weekly while only 34 percent of those in Japan
reported having sex weekly. Greece has one of the lowest
birth rates in the world according to World Bank data.
The survey questioned 26,028 people, of which 22,040 were
non virgins, in 26 countries. Following is a table based upon
the latest report:

Country	% of respondent having sex weekly	Birth rate per 1,000
Greece	87%	9
Brazil	82%	20
Russia	80%	11
China	78%	12
Poland	76%	9
Italy	76%	10
Malaysia	74%	22
Spain	72%	11
Switzerland	72%	10
Mexico	71%	19
South Africa	71%	24
Austria	70%	10
France	70%	13
India	68%	24
Germany	68%	9
Thailand	65%	16
Netherlands	63%	12
New Zealand	63%	14
Hong Kong	62%	7
Singapore	62%	10
Australia	60%	13
Canada	59%	10
UK	55%	12
Nigeria	53%	41
USA	53%	14
Japan	34%	9

Interestingly, the Greeks have the most sex and one of the lowest birthrates. Either they take their contraceptives very seriously, or there's a kernel of truth to the old joke, "how do you separate the Greek men from the boys?" (answer: with a crowbar)

Let's look at China for a moment shall we? The survey says the average man has 4 partners and the average women 2, yet the second dataset puts them near the top in frequency of sex per week at 78%. Sounds like the ladies might be getting a better work out than they're telling us.

What's going on with the Japanese? I have a feeling they're not quite telling the whole truth. My wife (then girlfriend) and I traveled to Japan about 8 years ago, and based on the number of "love" hotels where you could rent virtually any kind of fetish room imaginable by the quarter hour, I'd have guessed that sex was on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Whether or not Mrs. Myagi was involved is another question altogether, and may be why the number is so low. Conversely, the answer may have been found in those creepy vending machines where you could buy teenage girl's used underwear, but this practice was unfortunately outlawed some time ago; or maybe it was just forced underground. Either way, I imagine putting a pair of pre-owned "hello kitty" thong undies over your head and breathing deeply in between sake bombs would go a long way towards dulling the urge to "service" Mrs. Myagi after an 18 hour day at the office.

Conspicuously absent from the survey are any Scandinavian countries; specifically Sweden. Everybody knows the Swedes screw like we shake hands. I'll wager they were too busy getting "busy" to answer a silly survey.