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May 24, 2006 ~ Vol. 8, No. 21

Predicting Hurricanes. Not!

Why is it that hurricanes are always treated as unexpected events? The news reports always have someone saying, "We haven’t had one around here in such a long time…" or "We never expected it to be this powerful."

Hurricanes have been showing up off the East Coast for millennia. In the last century alone, the earliest in 1900 killed more than 8,000 people in Galveston, Texas. Routinely throughout the first half of the century, hundreds died from hurricanes that hit Florida, Texas, the northeastern States, and—yes—New Orleans in 1915 when 275 died.

Even when we put weather satellites in outer space to warn us of hurricanes, in 1992 Hurricane Andrew, a category 4, caused an estimated $26.5 million in damage to parts of Florida and Louisiana. Others like Hugo and Camille have etched their names into our history.

The ability to accurately predict how many hurricanes are going to show up in any given year is dubious at best. Despite using all manner of computer climate weather models, studying the records, and trying to deduce trends, last year the most esteemed predictor, Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, concluded there would be 13 named storms with 7 becoming hurricanes. In 2005, there were 28 storms and 15 became hurricanes.

This year he is predicting 17 storms powerful enough to be named. Of these, he says 9 will become hurricanes. If we use his predictions from last year as a baseline, we are in for 18 hurricanes this year! But it just isn’t that easy. Indeed, forecasting hurricanes is akin to counting cards at the blackjack table. Neither Mother Nature nor Lady Luck is going to cut you a break.

There is one thing you can bet on. Environmentalists will declare that the increase in hurricanes this year is the result of the dreaded global warming. Anticipating that, the chief climate control negotiator for the U.S., Harlan Watson, recently told the Associated Press that the Bush administration does not blame global warming or climate change for extreme weather, including the hurricanes that trashed the Gulf States in 2005. Well, that is so nice to know.

Why, indeed, does the State Department need a "climate control negotiator"? And why does another government agency, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predict the increase in hurricanes is a trend "likely to continue for years to come"? The answer to the former question is that all the deceptions and manipulations coming out of the United Nations regarding global warming requires the U.S. to have a negotiator. We need someone to explain why, by a unanimous vote, the U.S. Senate wisely refused to sign onto the UN Kyoto Climate Control protocol.

We need someone to explain that neither China, nor India, two major contributors to so-called greenhouse gases, are not signatories to the Kyoto protocol or that those European nations that did sign up have always exceeded the limits to which they agreed. The Kyoto protocol is a farce,

As to NOAA’s prediction, there’s something called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Man, I love these scientific terms! The AMO cycle, according to meteorologists, run in cycles that last anywhere from 25 to 45 years. They are based on increased or decreased salinity in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as sea-surface temperatures. An increase in salinity and warmth is associated with severe storm activity during a cycle. The last such cycle began in 1926 and ended in 1969.

Scientists report that, in 1995, another cycle of increased salinity and warmer sea-surface temperatures began. If the AMO theory holds true, the Gulf and East Coast of the U.S. will continue to be subject to more severe storms.

Where does global warming fit into this? No where. This doesn’t stop scientists desperate for a big, fat government or foundation grant from predicting global warming and attributing everything from hurricanes to hangnails for this dread phenomenon. That has never stopped Time or Newsweek from publishing utter rubbish on the subject.

What you rarely will read is any scientific study that disputes global warming. However, in April, the Washington Times reported that "Using temperature readings from the past 100 years, 1,000 computer simulations, and evidence left in ancient tree rings, Duke University scientists announced today that ‘the magnitude of future global warming is likely to fall well short of current predictions.’" Published in the journal, Nature, the report concluded that "Ancient and modern evidence suggests limits to future global warming."

So, while global warming is not going to be all that warming, we are still left with those nasty hurricanes. The hurricane season begins officially on June 1 and goes to November 30.

Move over, Dr. Gray, I am going to predict that—yes—there will be hurricanes this year and, further, they will occur somewhere on the East Coast and in the Gulf. Because that’s where they always occur, starting as a nasty bit of weather off the coast of Africa and gaining momentum as they cross the Atlantic and then, despite the best satellite information available, going wherever the hell they want.

Impress your friends. Tell them it is all due to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

In the Paul Newman film, "Cool Hand Luke", the warden of the prison farm utters the now famous line, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." It sums up perfectly what has been occurring with what passes for a debate about the immigration crisis that exists in the United States. Neither the President, nor Congress has demonstrated the least intention to listen to what Americans are telling them.

Americans, who understand that the flow of four thousand people daily and illegally across our southern border has to stop, are told that we are lacking in compassion for the Mexican and "other than Mexican" peasants who only want to feed their families in dirt-poor Mexico and points south.

In the end, it is always our fault. The laws against employing illegal aliens should be enforced. Indeed, if all the existing laws regarding illegal immigration had been enforced, there would be no public outcry and debate. However, let it also be said that Mexico is the co-conspirator with every illegal immigrant or drug smuggler that crosses the border.

An American writer who lives and works in Mexico, Allan Wall, took note of what a Mexican editorial writer and columnist had to say about attempts to seal the border. They were deemed a "harsh, xenophobic and racist message." And "…the attempted unilateral construction of a wall by a country cannot be justified, even on its own territory." Tell that to the Israelis. Tell that to the Saudis who are contemplating a fence between them and Yemen.

Poet Robert Frost mocked the view that "Good fences make good neighbors", but sometimes they do. Especially if one of those neighbors is openly encouraging, aiding and abetting what constitutes nothing less than a wholesale invasion.

In February, Wall quoted Mexican officials in order to debunk the widespread belief that Mexicans are coming to American because they and their families will die of starvation if they do not. At a January 9 press conference, the spokesman for the Vincente Fox administration, Ruben Aguilar, was asked about emigration. He replied, "They don’t emigrate to get a job, but they emigrate…because they hope for a better condition of life despite the fact that they had work here. They aren’t going because they don’t have work in Mexico."

As Wall noted, "The really destitute Mexicans are too poor to emigrate to the U.S." The problem for Mexicans, however, is that per capita income there is about a quarter of that in the U.S. Simply stated, "On the U.S. side, a vast Mexican social network is there to receive them. A vast network of American employers is there to hire them."

Why are things so bad in Mexico? Consider that in 2002 the government spent only 6.1% of its Gross Domestic Product for health care and only 5.3% for education. That was less than nations such as Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua and even Haiti.

What better way to get rid of an economic problem caused by the incompetence of Mexican politicians and the greed of the Mexican elites than to export it to the United States of America?

Citing a Mexican think tank, commentator Paul Driessen recently noted that, "Mexicans working legally and illegally in the United States send more than $25 billion a year back to their families. That’s twice what Mexico gets from tourism, and second only to petroleum production revenue."

Yet the White House and some in Congress remain utterly deaf to those who remind them that the last amnesty in 1986 resulted, not only in the naturalizing of those illegals already here, but the tripling of their numbers when they brought their family members here as well. A similar "guest worker" or comparable program that permits more naturalization will have profound and negative impact on America.

Far from the southern border, my own state of New Jersey is seriously impacted by illegal immigration. A recent editorial in the largest daily newspaper, The Star-Ledger, noted that, "More than 1.5 million of the 8.6 million legal residents of New Jersey were born outside the United States. In addition, an estimated 400,000 people from other nations are in the state illegally."

The financial demands of this illegal immigration have ranged from "the need for interpreters in courts and hospitals to the need for English language and citizen instruction on the local level." In the past immigrants were expected to attend night schools to learn English and prepare for citizenship, but "the funding formula for the program hasn’t change in 100 years. This in a state where 11 percent of the population is not English proficient, and more than 300,000 people who are eligible for citizenship don’t apply, in part because they fear failing the exam." The answer? Go home!

This isn’t about hard-hearted Americans who are racists. This is about Americans who employ illegal immigrants. This is about the need for high fences in areas near urban and suburban populations. This is what happens when more than a million Mexicans and "other than Mexicans" flow across our southern border every year and the government, in effect, does nothing to stem the tide.

There is considerable irony that President Bush, while destroying American sovereignty and undermining an economy is regularly vilified in the Mexican Press. Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers must pick up the tab for the cost of hospitalizing illegal immigrants or for the incarceration of those committing crimes against Americans, or for educating the children of illegal aliens.

George W. Bush and his advisors have concluded that Americans are so stupid that even an act as meaningless as sending National Guardsmen to the border is deemed sufficient political theater to get one of the worst immigration bills in U.S. history passed. The damage will not only continue, but grow worse.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has warned that, "Little or no attention at all has been given to the fact that the bill will quintuple the rate of legal immigration into the United States."

At a time when Islamic fanatics are hell bent on killing millions of Americans, neither the White House nor Congress intends to do anything to actually secure the borders of America. In other words, build as much fencing as it takes. Hire as many Border Patrol officers as it takes. Arrest as many employers of illegals as it takes. And tell Mexico to start cooperating or else. And no "guest worker" programs that are, in fact, another form of amnesty.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Right now, the President isn’t listening. Congress isn’t listening. And Mexico isn’t listening.

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