As IF Times

link BBC News – Doha UN climate talks to conclude with few conclusions.

Another year, another top level, red carpet grouping of morons, likely paid for by their respective nations, to attend a global hand wringing session.  As readers of this site know, the meetings are coincidentally held at a different venue every year in order to make it interesting for the spouses in terms of shopping.  We’ve had Kyoto, Copenhagen, Sao Paulo, Durban and now Qatar.  Let it be noted that this is the 18th such conference…18! From a purely marketing perspective, Qatar does make sense since delegates can point to the hot dry air there as irrefutable proof of warming and certain impending calamity for the earth.  Sort of like the Mayans’ prediction, but more drawn out and expensive.  (Interestingly, the Mayans are all gone, but somehow their predictions of the end of the world live on. ) We are still waiting for Inuvik to be drawn into the conference rotation.

From the first time that someone decided it was a good idea to fly ‘experts’ together to huddle and moan in an annual formal setting, we’ve been told that the end was near, that time was running out, that man’s irresponsible actions were irreversible and that penguins were missing, this official UN sponsored event has become a regular tradition like the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  Soon, Hallmark will be creating cards marking the occasion and they may sell souvenier moaning towels at the gatherings.   We know there’s only one aim at these somber events; to somehow con the west to give tax money to some self important cadre of sage bureaucrats so they can find penguins and turn off all forms of industry.  Apparently, cars and industry bad; bicycles and loincloths good.

To save the planet, not to mention millions of dollars of taxpayer money, they could just as easily hold a group skype call and figure out what progress the concerned delegates have made since the last conference.

“Delegate A, did you manage to get any tax money?”

“No, exalted leader, we did not”

“Anyone else?”

Silence

“Ok, that’s it, talk to you all next year”.

But no, it’s more important to use demonized fossil fuel resources to fly, drive and otherwise transport the lucky few to dine on canapes and sip ’97 cabs in exotic venues and then craft dire pronouncements on how bad things are.  As I’ve said before, it would be more convincing if the delegates came by bicycle and dogsled rather than by Lear and limo.  Naturally, as the story line above states, there are no conclusions.  Duh! If there were, that would be the end of the conference gig!  Young people out there today looking for careers can do worse than trying to get on as a global warming delegate.  It looks like a place for a long career….despite what they tell you.

link Rochelle Riley: Unions need to remind us about history and why they matter so much | Rochelle Riley | Detroit Free Press | freep.com.

Living in the past is what causes so many problems in the world today.  Whether real or imagined, issues and grievances long laid to rest by the passage of both time and events don’t seem to faze those who would invoke their long dead legacies as justification for ongoing bleating.   Decades and generations have gone by since any real vestiges of worker oppression has been evident in North America.  Like many jobs, the real worker oppression has been sent overseas to developing countries like China and India.  Union apologists point out the history of union sacrifices to achieve the standards of living that all benefit from today. It’s pretty tough to make a sane case for worker oppression when the average UAW wage is about $30 per hour plus benefits.  The guys at the starting end only make about $16 per hour but they are at the tail end of a bubble of people who  have made much more than that in salaries and benefits over the past 20 years.

The old joke was that GM was a medical and pension benefits company that happened to make cars.  Those were the days when American cars were coveted;  before the Japanese, the Koreans and now the Chinese figured out how to make cars just as good if not better for a better price.  Things get cheaper through manufacturing efficiencies.  That’s the way it is.  It’s called progress.  We don’t pay $2000 for a cell phone the size of a brick anymore.   You can now buy a 60 inch flat screen TV for 800 bucks.   No one is going to pay $30,000 for a Chevy when a comparable Honda is $25,000.  Milking the past as justification for behaviour in the present is a well used and successful tactic employed by Jackson, Sharpton et al.  Unions are using the same playbook.  Enough already.

Unions at one time surely had their role to play, but we’ve come a long way from sweat shops and lowering children down chimneys.  They may be as relevant now as the front engine cranks that used to come with Model T’s.  Unfortunately, their once noble legacies have transmogrified from protecting workers to protecting the goons at the leadership level who use the captive union dues to promote political agendas.  Far from protecting the rights of workers, they mostly now run a protection racket on the workers, mandating that they must be dues paying members in order to obtain work.  Sort of like the Mafia… who’s going to protect you from the protectors?

If the union people want to assign blame to anyone, they need to blame themselves along with the general public, a public that insists on paying the cheapest price for all manner of goods from Wal Mart and other big box stores.  How do they think things get that cheap?

The newly signed law in Michigan did not abolish unions.  The new right to work law is scary to the union goons for only one reason.  It only stated that workers did not have to sign on and pay dues in order to work.  That means that the unions must now prove to workers that they are a relevant institution that attracts members and  not a thug outfit that extorts dues to fund political agendas.

Lest people think this is just populist bashing, the fact is, it is normal for groups to circle the wagons and react tribally when their turf is threatened.  If you look at the behaviour of other professional organizations including doctors and lawyers and especially college professors and politicians, they also exhibit similar kinds of protective behaviour.  There really is no reason for the price of their services to be so high given the access to information and education that we have available.  Wait until the public figures that out one day.