As IF Times

link Fareed Zakaria on Donald Trump and coded racism – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

Racism again. What else?  When there is no other platform upon which to defend a position, use the default racism one.   This allegorical platform will soon collapse with the weight of all the idiots jumping on board.  I suspect most people roll their eyes at the suggestion of racism whenever there is an allegation of misdeed by a non white person.  With the passage of time and overuse, this accusation loses any bite, much like calling someone a bastard.  Unless of course, they are.

Apart from being desperate, it’s inane and dreadfully unoriginal.  Ironically, the fact that this accusation  can only be levelled against whites and not the other way around is in itself racist.   Typically, when there are no other arguments available to support the actions of a “person of color”, the race card is played like some universal get out of jail free card.  This notion was on grotesque display some 15 years ago during the infamous O.J. Simpson circus, er trial.  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, O.J. was absolved of the murders he was accused of principally because of accusations of racism. 

In the recent U.S. elections, charming members of a social club known as The New Black Panthers, whose members just happen to be all black, wearing paramilitary garb and wielding night sticks,  were posted at voting  stations in the hopes of helping people out who hadn’t decided on how to vote.  In looking at the case, the Attorney General decided that there were no coercive threats implied by these plucky young men and certainly no racism.   In the case of Arizona attempting to control the amount of illegal immigrants in that state with simple rules that ID’s must be shown were met with howls of, you guessed it, racism.  In the case of the on going tragic comedy which is airport security, the entire travelling public is subject to Mexican prison-like search procedures to protect against allegations of racism by avoiding targeting young men of Muslim appearance.  The fact that all aircraft terrorism has been perpetrated by young men of Muslim appearance  is as Al Gore would call it, an inconvenient truth.   This brings up the old joke about the statistic that 2 out of 3 people in the world are Chinese.  In our crowd, that could be Bill, Frank or Sui Chow, but we suspect that it’s Bill. 

Getting back to Zakaria on CNN or Credibility Not Necessary, rather than bleating about racism, he should be thankful that someone brings up the simple idea that there should be full disclosure from a man who is supposed to be the President of all the people.  The fact that there’s any mystery at all regarding the President’s past, his education and his friends should concern everyone, whatever his race.  Typically, if  someone has to resort to a racism accusation to quell any criticism, the argument they are pushing is probably lost. It’s like the ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse in school.  It’s the hail Mary of excuses.  It’s the height of conceit for Zakaria and others to ascribe any criticisms of the President’s shortcomings to race alone.  It’s possible he’s just plain vanilla incompetent.

link There’s a mini ice age coming, says man who beats weather experts.

If this article is accurate, it makes you wonder about the label “expert”.  If the “experts” are generally proven wrong, why would they be called upon for advice?   It’s as if the place kicker for the New York Giants missed all of his field goal tries.  Is he an “expert” place kicker?  Why should the world listen to this lone voice, Piers Corbin, on his forecasts for weather patterns and probabilities when he is endowed with only a computer, a telescope and lots of historical data?  He is up against the accepted mainstream of meteorological thinking with unlimited resources.  I can think of one compelling one:  he’s been right.  According to the article:

“…He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people – notably in farming – are starting to invest in his forecasts. In the eyes of many punters, he puts the taxpayer-funded Met Office to shame. How on earth does he do it?  He studies the Sun.  He looks at the flow of particles from the Sun, and how they interact with the upper atmosphere, especially air currents such as the jet stream, and he looks at how the Moon and other factors influence those streaming particles…”

Hmm, now there’s some frizzy haired theory, the sun exerts more influence on the earth’s climate then people driving SUV’s.  It’s amazing he hasn’t been locked up in a padded room.  Daring to provide forecasts that go against the popular groupthink scientific culture, he manages to best them all with his forecasts.  Maybe he’s a witch.  Rational people, much less scientists, should be assessing Mr. Corbin’s  methods since they seem to track reality a little better than the alarmists’ forecasts which inconveniently are the opposite of what is observed in real life.  Rational people could have come to the same conclusion of course by merely observing who was spreading the global warming fertilizer in the first place.  A lawyer cum politician cum environmental evangelist.  They could assess the braintrust supporting the apocalyptic forecasts of the GW crowd,  which includes such as the soon to be ex Governor of California, The Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzennegger.  Recently, our hero invoked a statement in support of his interest in working as an environmental czar for the Obama administration.   He said:

“..I’m a big believer in environmental issues,” Schwarzenegger said, who added that he wanted a post where he could use his “celebrity power … knowledge and experience” to impact public policy. “I’ve traveled the world. … I’m very familiar with the world…”

This from a guy whose grocery getter is a Hummer H1 and who commutes to work by private jet.  As far as ” very familiar with the world”, I’m sure it will get the same notoriety as Sarah Palin’s alleged ” I can see Russia” comment.  Not.

I would think it behooves people in the policy making racket to pay attention to Mr. Corbin with his 85% accuracy record as opposed to the Celebrity and Political glitterati with their somewhat less impressive 0% accuracy record.  But that’s coming from a numbers guy.  If only Corbin’s forecasts weren’t such an inconvenient truth.