One Cancer or Another, it's Still Death.

I think about this every fall when the breast cancer awareness campaigns kick into gear: What about the people who die from other forms of cancer, especially prostate cancer?

First, some statistics from the Center for Disease Control:
In 2004 (the most recent year numbers are available),
- 186,772 women and 1,815 men were diagnosed with breast cancer
- 40,954 women and 362 men died from breast cancer
(http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/statistics/)

In 2003 (the most recent year for which statistics are currently available):
- 185,891 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer
- 29,554 men died from prostate cancer
(http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/statistics/)

The difference in the number of cases of breast cancer in women versus the number of cases of prostate cancer is .0047 percent. That's a difference of less than half a percent; the difference is statistically insignificant. Therefore, we can say that there are, essentially, the same number of cases of each kind of cancer per year.

So, given that information, why so much emphasis on breast cancer awareness? Why is there not an equal emphasis on prostate cancer awareness? My very smart wife says it's because breasts are more obvious and prettier than prostates, and breasts are sex objects and we are a sex-oriented (obsessed?) society.

Although she may be right, I think it's got more to do with the power of the feminist agenda. The media, corporations and organizations are so afraid of offending feminists that they ignore the suffering of other demographic groups. They have bought into the feminist agenda so much that the issue is no longer human suffering, it is feminine suffering, masculine suffering is callously ignored. Or, on the other hand, it is an acknowledgment that women are weak and need the help of the rest of society to deal with their health problems. If equality between the sexes is the goal, then they have failed. (On another hand, if the feminist agenda is about dominating men, then they are wrong and are just creating another repressed minority.)

Aside from that, not all breast cancer patients are women (yes, men can get breast cancer, too), but the emphasis is on women (notice all the pink stuff: ribbons, bags, packaging, etc.). To me, this is further evidence that it isn't so much about cancer as it is about feminism.

Now, to clarify: I don't mind feminism, I've been told that I am a feminist, and I am in favor of equal opportunities and rights for women. I believe that all people, regardless of gender, should be allowed to do what they want with their lives, whether it's the spouse-homemaker-parent option, or the career option. Although I also believe that the wife-homemaker-mother option is the best one for most women, and has the potential for a much more positive influence on the world, and that mixing career, family and home-making is a challenge that very few people are up to.

Here is a more recent article that reflects my point of view: "The politics behind the pink ribbon"

What's with the changes at NewsMax.com?

Has anyone else noticed the changes at NewsMax.com? I don't necessarily mean the new web site or the new video feed and things like that, but the changes in content: It just doesn't seem as conservative as it used to. Yes, it is still much more conservative than any other mainstream news source, but it just doesn't seem to be as conservative as it used to be; they seem to have taken it more mainstream, more middle-of-road. Have they caved to market pressures, or worse, political pressures? Have they changed their position to a more moderate one?

What's more, I never saw any editorial notice or commentary about the changes or anything else. It just got changed, as if they expect the users to not notice and to continue as usual. Or as if they hoped to hide something from the users. Hmmm. . .

This concerns me because these conservative news sources help maintain a balance in the marketplace of ideas. To paraphrase a very popular radio talk show host: They are equal time. In order to make an intelligent decision regarding the issues, people need to see all sides of them and to get exposure various opinions and points of view. Sites like NewsMax and CNSNews help do that by providing a more conservative perspective than the mainstream news sources. If they start to migrate to the middle of the road, then what is the fate of the conservative view?

However, the one thing that really bothers me the most about any of these web sites is the profit motive. I'm not opposed to capitalism, in fact I'm very much in favor of it, but it seems to me that it might be to the publisher's advantage to go soft on advertisers and their ideologies, simply because they are the sources of the money. Similarly, government sponsored news sources, like NPR and the BBC, concern me for much the same reasons: reporters will be very wary about biting the hand that feeds them. (You may notice that, even though it's available, and very tempting, I have no advertising here.) Edit (11/5/2008): I've decided that a small, unobtrusive banner ad at the bottom of the page is OK, and wouldn't affect my "objectivity".

So, what I would like to see is an independent, non-profit, truly objective, news outlet. One that doesn't depend on advertising revenue for its survival; one that doesn't depend on government approprations and tax dollars for its existence. Sort of a Consumer Reports of the information market. However, the problem is how to fund such a news organization, especially since people aren't used to paying for their news.

I'm still thinking about the solution to this one; any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

What's wrong with us?

In the Middle Ages, peasants and serfs usually paid a third of their income to their landlord, (who owned the land, and provided protection in the event of invasion), and that was considered servitude. But, now, people don't even blink at paying 40-70% in taxes. What's wrong with us, why do we allow this?

Nobel Prize for Deception

Now Al Gore gets a Nobel Prize for his work in relation to global climate change. I guess the Nobel committee are idiots, too. Have they no objectivity, no scientific curiosity, no skepticism? The Nobel Prize has become like the UN: irrelevant and meaningless.

Of course Gore has no desire to run for the Presidency of the US; he can make much more money with a lot less work and stress with his global climate change work. I gotta give him credit, he may not be real honest, but he's not stupid.

Here's some more food for thought:
"Dr. William Gray, one of the world’s foremost meteorologists and a pioneer in the field of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a lecture hall filled with meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth. 'We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was.'"
Source: Al Gore's Inconvenient Nobel Prize

Global Warming as Capitalism

I just finished reading an interesting article on Human Events called The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade. While I haven't had the chance to check the background or primary sources, it does reveal some interesting issues. The basic gist of the article is that:

1. Global warming (and the carbon cap and trade plans that go with it) is a sham to make the rich richer and to impose draconian laws on the general public that would keep people under subjugation and cripple the economy.
2. Al Gore is the leader (at least in public; his investors and backers aren't revealed) and cheerleader of this plan.
3. The mainstream media has conspicuously ignored these issues and just plays along.

Here are a few interesting quotes from the article:

"Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain?"

"In fact, the World Bank now operates a Carbon Finance Unit that conducts research on how to develop and trade carbon credits. The bank works with Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain to set up carbon-credit funds in each country to purchase emission credits from firms for use in developing countries. In addition, it runs the Carbon Fund for Europe helping countries meet their Kyoto Protocol requirements. These funds are traded on the ECX (half of which is owned by CCX, itself a creature of Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management). Can we connect the dots?"

"In 2006 Al Gore established his own global-warming non-profit group, the Alliance for Climate Protection, a 501(3)(c) charitable organization. The group favors more stringent environmental policy regulations on the private sector and especially wants cap-and-trade legislation so that companies will be forced to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and buy carbon credits."

"There are billions of dollars to be made in trading emissions credits. But first the federal government must force everyone to play the game."

Follow the money. These are the last days, and greed and deception are everywhere.

Read the article in its entirety, right now. I'll wait.

. . . waiting . . .

OK, now that you've read the whole article, what's going on here? Al Gore & Co. will be making a huge amount of money from this plan, and they just need to get enough people scared about it to buy in to it. So, these people who say that capitalism and its accompanying greed, consumption and materialism are ruining society and the earth are themselves indulging in capitalism.

(I don't mind greed or capitalism, per se, I think that capitalism and a certain amount of self-interest are an excellent vehicle to prosperity for all. What I do object to is capitalism/greed/self-interest unchecked my morals, (true) charity and self-restraint.)

Never mind the fact that the whole global warming thing is questionable to begin with, and the effectiveness of the carbon credit plan unproven, the media and the promoters just keep harping on how we'll destroy the planet if we don't do something. This is the wrong "something."

What we should be doing is exposing these guys for the deceptive schemers and crooks that they are. We should be demanding more research and REAL, objective, solid evidence from the global warming advocates! We should be taking back our government(s) from the socialists, communists, and megalomaniacal tyrants that currently occupy its offices. We should be demanding more research, development and promotion of alternative energy sources. We should be rejecting the Kyoto protocol and futile stabilization programs, and, in case the gloom and doom forecasts do come to pass, adopting some adaptations to higher temperatures (See "Focused Adaptation").

The global warming scare is an example of the "evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days".

So, now you may be wondering where I get my ideas about global warming. Well, for the intellectually honest and objective reader, may I suggest a few texts:

• State of Fear by Michael Crichton. This book, although a fictional novel, is written by one of the greatest minds of our time, and is very well-documented. Even if you don't enjoy the story (which is, admittedly, lame), at least get it for the data, the charts, the footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography--very revealing.
• A speech by Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming. A sample: "Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." And: "Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough." Good stuff, baby!
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) by Christopher C. Horner. An entertaining examination of the claims and science behind the global warming dogma. Very eye-opening.
• And another article by Horner: Cooking up Global Warming Again, very revealing and thought-provoking: "If you place your measuring equipment in the wrong place you could help start a global warming panic. " Hmmm... suspicious...
• And, one more easy read, from the National Center for Policy Analysis: Get the "Global Warming Primer" a graphic explanation of a number of statistics and phenomena associated with the global warming argument. (If you can't get it there, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy.)

Furthermore, the honest and objective thinker will evaluate the arguments and consider all the possibilities. So let's just sit and think about it for a moment:

• Are we, as puny humans, so powerful as to be able to destroy a planet that has taken care of itself, through disaster after disaster, for so many thousands (perhaps millions) of years?
• Are we really so knowledgeable as to be able to predict the weather in a hundred years, when we still have trouble predicting the weather next week? The weather is a chaotic system, and, as such, defies prediction.
• Do we really have enough data to truly understand what is happening with the earth?
• Is there no God who is in control of the universe and the elements?

One day we will know whether or not we are right about global warming, and whether we are too late or not is irrelevant, if it's going to happen, then it's going to happen; there is very little we can do about it. But, with the evidence under reasonable doubt, do we really need to ruin our economies and line the pockets of the elite based on their suppositions and "consensus science"?

Disclaimer: The writer of this blog is not associated with Human Events, Regnery Publishing, the National Center for Policy Analysis, Michael Crichton, Amazon.com, nor any other person or organization mentioned here, except as noted. (That goes for all of these posts, not just this one.)