The Global Warming Naysayers, Part 2

This is a continuation of a previous post on the credentials of Delaware's "experts" who have signed the Oregon Petition denouncing the Kyoto treaty and denying the existence of global warming. Looking back on the research I did on that post, it's obvious that many of these folks seem to have ties to one another, making it look rather as if somebody printed out a bunch of these petitions and brought them to meetings or passed them out to their friends. Or just signed 'em all up without asking. The main groups represented are UD's Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) dept. and DuPont chemists, as well as a smattering of folks who seem to work together at smaller firms. In the first part of the list, there are also a couple of women who share a last name with a man on the list but have no credentials of their own anywhere, which leads me to believe they signed because their husbands did, but have no particular expertise of their own except for the ability to join the Junior League, play contract bridge and make donations to Republican candidates, since those were the only kinds of records I was able to find for them.

Since there seemed to be an overabundance of old guys in the "A though G" section of the list, I decided to track their ages for this post. I was able to find the ages of 27 of the 30 individual signers listed here; wonder of wonders, I found that the average signer researched in this section is 73 years old! Now, obviously these folks are intelligent and undoubtedly know a lot about their chosen fields, but I somehow doubt that all of these retired DuPont chemists and engineers have devoted their golden years to keeping up with the latest cutting-edge studies of climate change.

That said, we pick up our list with the H's:

• Chin-Pao Huang, PhD - Dr. Huang teaches in the Civil and Environmental Engineering dept. at UD and lists his interests as "Industrial wastewater management; aquatic chemistry;soil and groundwater remediation; environmental nanomaterials and processes."Age 67.
• Robert G. Hunsperger, PhD - with UD's electrical and computer engineering dept. researching photonic and microwave devices and circuits. Has also collaborated with UDs CEE dept, which is the field many other DE signers specialize in. 64 years old.
• Mir Nazrul Islam, PhD - cites a permanent address in Newark but currently lives in Panama, where he is President of Mir Agro-Industriales, S.A. Panama, a company devoted to the development of food and pharmaceutical industries geared to aging and degenerative disease. Age 50
• Harold Leonard Jackson, PhD - Dupont chemist with patents as early as 1975 and late as 1992. Age 86
• Vladislav J. Jandasek - DelDot engineer, retired. Age 69
• Paul R. Jann - Air Quality Consultant, DuPont Engineering and Technology Section. There is at least one letter from Mr. Jann to DNREC's Air Quality Management section  objecting to a proposed regulation, saying "this regulation will cause financial hardship on small businesses, commercial and institutional facilities, as well as R&D facilities that operate electrical generators and, by this regulation, are required to burn more expensive low-sulfur fuels, install high cost emissions controls that may or may not be able to achieve the proposed emission limits, perform expensive source emission testing, and comply with extensive record-keeping and reporting requirements." I'm sure he's completely impartial on the question of global warming, though.. Age 65
• George K. Janney - only record is a listing of his address in Newark that lists his job as "Dog Gone Geese," and a lawsuit where he sued a property management company for mismanaging a rental property. No professional references anywhere. No age.
• Charles S. Joanedis - retired vice president of Getty Refining & Marketing Co. Hmm, don't suppose there's a bit of bias there, do you? Also made donations to UD's chemical engineering program. 83 years old.
• John Eric Jolley, PhD - another retired DuPont chemical engineer, 80 years old
• Louise Hinrichsen Jones, PhD - another (probably former) UD computing department member. Published a paper on microcomputing in 1973. There's also a Louise Hinrichsen Jones who's received $126,000 worth of federal subsidies in the last 15 years for raising corn and soybeans in Ohio, so I'm confused unless she retired and literally "bought the farm." Age 80.
• Robert John Kallal, PhD - there's a Robert Kallal in his 80's living in Hockessin who's received USDA farm subsidies, and there's a Robert Kallal who wrote about computer languages in the mid-90's. Age 88.
• Robert James Kassal, PhD - another DuPont chemist, age 73
• John T. Kephart - another DuPont engineer, age 84
• Charles A Kettner, PhD - another DuPont chemist, pharmaceuticals this time, age 63
• Charles O. King, PhD - the only Dr. Charles O. King I was able to find is a wealthy dermatologist in Alabama who makes a lot of donations.
• Joseph Jack Kirkland, PhD - another DuPont chemist, age 84
• Henry Kobsa, PhD - another DuPont engineer, age 79
• Theodore Augur Koch, PhD - another DuPont chemist, age 84.
• Robert F. Kock - no record of a Robert F. Kock in Delaware except as a petition signer
• Bruce David Korant, PhD  -- another Dupont employee, a biochemist this time, age 65
• Carl George Krespan, PhD -- another DuPont chemist, age 83
• Palaniappa Krishnan, PhD -- an associate professor in the University of DE's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Seems to specialize in computer modeling. A youngster at 56.
• Wo Kong Kwok, PhD - another DuPont employee, possibly specializing in contamination control, age 73
• Douglas R. Leach, PhD - another DuPont chemist, the baby on the list at age 54
• Bernard Albert Link, PhD - currently vice-president of Leads & Libraries at Athena Biotechnologies, a Newark firm that "provides chemicals and enzymes for pharmaceuticals, agrichemicals, and industrial and therapeutic enzyme markets." According to his bio, he "spent 26 years with DuPont in research, marketing and management positions."Age 69.
• Royce Zeno Lockart, PhD - another DuPont biochemist, age 81.
• Francis M. Logullo, PhD - in a 1996 bulletin board posting, he describes himself as a "Retired DuPont Regulatory Affairs Consultant." 70 years old.
• H. Y. Loken, PhD -- another Dupont employee, probably an engineer. Age 64.
• Rosario Joseph Lombardo, PhD -- only info I was able to find is that he graduated from Penn State in 1951, there's a Rosario J. Lombardo Scholarship in Engineering, and he's 87 years old.
• Ruskin Longworth, PhD - another Dupont chemist, age 82.

To be continued...

The Tea Party's "Grassroots"

Went and checked out the "Contract From America," which consists of 10 principles that the teabaggers have thankfully embraced, grateful to finally have principles to stand for as opposed to just hanging out being angry all the time. HuffPost reported that the principles were chosen by teabaggers who visited the Contract website and selected the ones they liked the best from a list. The question on my mind was "Who made up the list?" According to the website, this initiative represents "a grassroots-generated, crowd-sourced, bottom-up call for real economic conservative and good governance reform in Congress." So, supposedly this was all formulated by "real Americans" of the kind that Sarah Palin loves -- you know, those ordinary patriots with no political experience who have risen up to create this great grassroots movement to protest Obama and his socialist agenda. You know, call me cynical, but I'm just not so sure about that.

The "About Us" section of the site thanks several Tea Party Patriots from local chapters as being instrumental in getting the intitiative going, before going on to thank operatives from a number of organizations that the site lists as "Founding Partners."  Let's see who those "Founding Partners" are:

• Tea Party Patriots - According to SourceWatch, "TPP consists of a website (http://teapartypatriots.org), the ownership of which is masked by ProtectPrivacy, located in the Netherlands." There is no no staff listing or other information identifying any individual as responsible for the site. SourceWatch also states the group was founded not by ordinary patriots, but by FreedomWorks; according to SourceWatch, is still tightly controlled by that organization. A Facebook page listing its National Officers pushes Glenn Beck's 912 Project. One of these officers, Rob Neppell, is the owner of a privately-held new media corporation in California.  Another, Mark Meckler, bills himself as an "internet lawyer" and new media consultant, and moonlights as a GOP operative. A third, Jenny Beth Martin, is a former GOP operative who became a teabagger after she and her husband filed for bankruptcy when their temp agency went belly-up in 2008-- they owed the Feds half a million bucks, so they must have been doing pretty well before that. A fourth, Amy Kremer, left TPP for Tea Party Express, which the TPP regards as overly tied to the GOP. Martin and Kremer are both from Georgia, which is also where the TPP trademark was registered. Hmmm.. isn't that where Newt Gingrich is from?
• American Solutions - Speaking of Newt, he happens to be the founder and chairman of this group, which bills itself as a "citizens' action network." I thought that "Contract From America" title sounded familiar!
• Americans for Tax Reform - founded by Grover Norquist at the request of Ronald Reagan, according to their website. Norquist was also part of Iran/Contra, helped get George W. Bush elected, was a co-author of "Contract With America" along with Newt Gingrich, and served as a staffer on the GOP's Republican Platform Committee in 1988, 1992 and 1996.
• National Taxpayers Union -- group with heavy funding from Big Tobacco. Grover Norquist worked here before going on to found Americans for Tax Reform.
• Liberty Central -- founded by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia
• The Liberty Lab -- one of several sites run by Scott W. Graves, another "new media and political communications" guru and head of an outfit called "Partisan Media Group." Really.
• Let Freedom Ring - Founded by the son of millionaire philanthropist John Templeton, recent projects include a documentary about the faith of George W. Bush, Sen. Rick Santorum and Sen. Zell Miller that the organization hopes will mobilize envangelicals to vote.
• FairTax - founded by three Houston multimillionaires who put up $1.5 million each as seed money.
• Regular Folk United -- founded by Lori Roman, whose previous jobs include stints as Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Chief of Staff of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education. ALEC pushes legislation that favours big business and rollbacks environmental regulations.
• The Heartland Institute - libertarian think tank founded by the millionaire owner of a Chicago investment securities firm
• The Next Right -- founded by Soren Dayton, best-known for getting fired from John McCain's presidential campaign for tweeting a link to a video linking Obama to Malcolm X; Jonathon Henke, who served as New Media Director for the Republican Senate caucus and Online Brand Manager for Fred Thompson's campaign; and Patrick Ruffini, a well-known Republican party new media strategist.
• TeaParty365 - the New York City branch of Tea Party Patriots.

Ya know, there's not actually a lot of plain ordinary folks on this list, are there? It amazes me how easily-led the teabaggers are -- a bunch of rich guys and GOP operatives have created their umbrella organization and now have written their guiding principles, and they still think not only that they're a grassroots organization, but that they actually control their own thoughts and actions. Amazing.

The Global Warming Naysayer Experts

Some time back in the pages of the NJ there was a letter from another tinfoil-hat wearer, telling us that that the 31,000 global warming deniers who've signed up at www.PetitionProject.org are more knowledgeable and more reliable than anyone else who says that global warming is a fact. John Greeg of Wilmington told us:

 Petition signers do not claim to be climate experts but instead that they have earned a bachelor of science degree or higher, giving them a solid foundation for evaluating scientific evidence. Over 18,000 hold advanced degrees.
The site says that credentials are evaluated and identities verified before names are added to the petition, contrary to the writer's claim. The letter writer said he could not verify petition signers, but I verified 25 signers from a list of Delaware licensed professional engineers and another seven from personal knowledge.

I got curious about that, and decided to do a little web research of my own on about who the signers from Delaware are and why they might be uniquely qualified to debunk global warming.

First of all, here's what the Petition Project says about its signers:

All of the listed signers have formal educations in fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical, astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change controversy.

If you want a real good laugh, check out the form that signers mail in to sign the petition and verify their credentials.

On to what I found out about the "licensed professionals" whose word carries so much weight about climatology and global warming. A few observations of my own to start:

1. In my opinion, being a chemist does not make you an expert on climatology, meteorology or global warming
2. If you've been retired for 20 or 30 years, there's a chance you're not quite up to snuff on the latest scientific research and methodologies
3. If you are indeed an acknowledged expert in something, there's going to be information on the web about you; if there isn't, you ain't an expert.

On to the Delaware signers:

• Earl Arthur Abrahamson, PhD - Chemist with Dupont, at 84 probably retired
• Albert W. Alsop, PhD - Chemist with Dupont, several patents in polymers
• Giacomo Armand, PhD - Chemist with Dupont, patents in polymers
• Joseph Bartholomew Arots, PhD - Chemist with Hercules, 86 years old, speaker on corrosion rates at a water conference in 1977, so he's probably retired
• Charles Hammond Arrington, PhD - inconclusive, although OzoneAction lists him under the "Scientists whose fields of specialization are in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, and other Life Sciences." There is a Charles A. Arrington who's quite prominent in chemistry fields, and a C. Arrington who taught physics at UVa and authored at least one paper on magnetic properties. Charles H. Arrington has some connection to UD (he's made donations) and used to live in Charlottesville, VA, so he could be the same guy as the physics prof.
• Andrejs Baidins, PhD - Chemist with Dupont, 78 so probably retired
• Lewis Clinton Bancroft - Chemist with Dupont, at 80 probably retired
• Theo C. Baumeister - Mechanical Engineer with Dupont, 83 years old so probably retired, co-author of Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers
•  Paul Becher PhD - Chemist with Dupont, 90 years old. Editor of Encyclopedia of Emulsion Technology
• Scott K. Beegle - Inconclusive, although this is probably the same Scott K. Beegle who's a Technical Project Manager at BAE Systems, a Philadelphia defense contractor that provides surveillance systems to the military. He's also a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Aerospace; there's no evidence of what his credentials to belong might be, although I'd surmise that he's eligible because of his employment at BAE.
• Oswald R. Bergmann, PhD - Dupont chemist, has written  papers on explosives and made presentations at mining societies, 76 years old so probably retired
• Robert Paul Bigliano - DECEASED 5/2/2008. Former Dupont employee with medical device patents
• William A. Bizjak - U of D mechanical engineering alum. 60 years old, unable to find any professional information about him
• William L. Blackwell - Undetermined, although the phrase "William L. Blackwell, P.E., Mechanical Engineer, Delaware" shows up in a Google search as being used in online comments for a Pennsylvania newspaper
• Charles G. Boncelet, PhD - UD professor, Electrical Engineering
• Frank R. Borger - no Delaware address or phone, no information about profession or qualifications. The only Frank Borger on the web seems to be a doctor in Chicago.
• Ernest R. Bosetti - Engineer. Listed as "Ernest R. Bosetti, P.E." under donations to UD's mechanical engineering program
• John Harland Boughton, PhD - Chemist with Dupont, at 76 probably retired
• Charles J. Brown Jr., PhD - Undetermined. Unable to find any information on a Dr. Charles Brown, Charles J. Brown Jr., or Charles Brown Jr. in Delaware.
• Thomas S. Buchanan, PhD - Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware
• Bruce M. Buker - Principal of Karins and Associates, a consulting firm specializing in land and transportation engineering
• Charles B. Buonassisi - DECEASED. Former Dupont textiles researcher, degree in mechanical engineering
• Donovan C. Carbaugh, PhD - Graduated from University of Maryland in 1962 with a degree in chemical engineering. No other web references except for a high level of activity in local Republican Party politics, including numerous campaign donations
• Louise M. Carter -- only references to a Louise M. Carter from Delaware are campaign donations to local Republican candidates
• William B. Carter - Undetermined, name too common
• Leonard B. Chandler, PhD - DECEASED 9/2/2008. Former chemist for Dupont.
• Robert John Chorvat, PhD - Former chemist for Dupont, now Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at Jenrin Discovery, Inc., a pharmaceutical research and development company
• Emil E. Christofano - Industrial Hygienist at Hercules, 79 years old
• Alexander Cisar - Physics Professor at Wesley College in Dover
• Ian Clark - possibly formerly with Ciba Specialty Chemicals, although main references now seem to be to a California company, Genentech
• George Rolland Cole, PhD - Wrote his doctoral thesis on "Photoconductivity and Formation of Color Centers in Potassium-Chloride Containing Strontium Additive" in 1957. Possibly the author of physical science textbooks/workbooks, may be associated with U of DE. Age 84.
• Albert Z. Conner -- Chemist with Hercules. Possibly retired now, since he was lauded a couple of years ago by UD's chemistry alumni group for being a member of the ACS (American Chemical Society?) for 60 years, and he was presenting papers at pharmaceutical conventions in the 70's.
• Nancy H. Conner - No info other than a Wilmington address. Possibly married to Albert Z. Conner?
• Harry Norma Cripps, PhD - Chemist for Dupont. 83 years old, so possibly retired.
• R. D. Crooks- Chemist, but I don't know where. Only reference is a paper he co-authored on corrosion published in 1995 by the Swedish Corrosion Institute.
• William H. Day, PhD - Biologist with the USDA's Beneficial Insects Research Laboratory in Newark
• Daniel M. Dayton -  no information except an address in Hockessin
• Lawrence De Heer - President of Blaze System Solutions, a company providing prepackaged information/database software "typically employed in manufacturing, petro/chemical, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and environmental laboratories."
• Pamela J. Delaney - No information except that she is married to a "Bill Delaney" and lives in Hockessin. Appears to be the wife of the next signer.
• William E. Delaney II, PhD -- Lives in Hockessin. The only Dr. William E. Delaney in our area is an oncologist practicing just over the line in PA. Among his relatives is listed a "Pamela Delaney."
• Dennis O. Dever - Degree in chemical engineering from UD, 1987. Has given seminars on polymers, associated with Drexel University
• Seshasayi Dharmavaram, PhD -- Appears to work for the Department of Defense on issues involving proper disposal of waste solvents
• Walter Domorod - Deceased at age 84 on 12/31/09. According to his obituary, he had a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and worked first for for Educational Testing Services ((the SAT people) then for Kalex Corporation, a Pennsylvania real estate enterprise.
• Roland G. Downing, PhD - Member of "SAFE" (Secure America’s Future Economy, formerly SENIORS AGAINST FEDERAL EXTRAVAGANCE), a Wilmington organization for people who think the AARP is too liberal, and former Secretary General of Sons of the American Revolution. I''ve found no references to what he might have done before he retired.
• Francis J. Doyle - With the Mechanical Engineering Department at U of D
• Arthur Edwin Drake, PhD -- no information other than he's 90 years old, has made a contribution to the Republican party, and lives in either Dover or Wilmington
• C M Drummund - no references to a CM Drummund in Delaware
• Eric James Evain, PhD - Wilmington attorney with a PhD in Organic Chemistry, represents chemical companies in patent cases
• Elizabeth W. Fahl, PhD - No information on a professional career. 78 years old, plays tournaments in the Mid-Atlantic Bridge Conference, active with The Junior League of Wilmington.
• Stephen R. Fahnestock, PhD - Chemist with Dupont
• Eric R. Fahnoe - Director of Finance and Planning at Elsicon, Inc.,  a company dealing with the research and manufacture of LCDs
• Enrico Thomas Federighi, PhD - Mathematician, but I don't know where. 82 years old.
• Thomas Aven Ford, PhD - Chemist with Dupont. Graduated from the U of Wyoming in 1932 with a BA., had Dupont patents in the 50's -- this would put him somewhere around 100 years old.
• John Frederick Gates Clark, PhD -- the only reference I could find was to an entomologist with the National Museum of History in D.C.
• William J. Geimeier, MD - a Newark pediatrician and allergist
• Joseph Edmund Gervay, PhD - Chemist with Dupont
• Wayne Gibbons, PhD -- Vice President of Elsicon, the same LCD research company that petition signer Eric R. Fahnoe works for.
• Roderick J Gillespie Jr. - Newark architect
• David A. Glenn - Undetermined, name too common
• William H. Godshall -- Bill Godshall of Dover was my spouse's grandfather's best friend. We think he used to work for Playtex, but aren't sure -- he was retired for a long time before he died. He had no qualifications that we know of that would qualify him as a global warming expert. Bill Godshall died two years ago.
• John E. Greer Jr. - Mr. Greer is the author of the letter in the News Journal that sparked this post.  He's a member of the Delaware Rail-Splitters Society (a Wilmington Tea Party group) and is a 1967 UD graduate who played in the marching band. In 1975, a John E. Greer (no "Jr.") was named Director of Purchasing at Hercules, but since the letter-writer is a Jr., I believe this, and most other online references, are to his father. Most frequently the name is mentioned in conjunction with charity work and donations to nonprofits like Hagley Museum and Winterthur.
  
• Alfred A. Gruber - Chemical engineer, retired.
• Lachhman D. Gupta- Professional Engineer, retired.
• Earl T. Hackett Jr. - Chemist with Dupont. In 2003, he was in the medical packaging division.
• R. M. Hagen, PhD - There are emails addresses listed for a Robert Hagen and a Randolph Hagen in Delaware, but no online information about a professional career.
• Thomas K. Haldas - Mechanical Engineer.
• Charles W. Hall - Undetermined. "Charles Hall" too common; only reference to a "Charles W. Hall" in Delaware is a memorial contribution to UD, and an address for a 74-year-old in Newark.
• Priscilla O. Hamilton, PhD - The only reference to a Priscilla Hamilton in Delaware is an address for an 82-year-old in Wilmington. The only "Dr. Priscilla Hamilton" in online references is a Fort Belvoir, VA dentist. No other professional references.
• Thomas W. Harding, PhD - Undetermined, aside from a Wilmington address. A Thomas W. Harding with Lehigh University filed for a patent in 1985 for an apparatus that produces negative ions.
• Charles R. Hartzell, PhD - Chemist, Dupont Institue/Nemours and UD chemistry department
• James R. Hodges - Retired, profession undetermined. Graduate of M.I.T., 1950. Frequent donor to Republican political candidates.
• Winfried Thomas Holfeld, PhD - Chemist for Dupont
• Anthony R. Hollet -No record of any sort for an Anthony R. Hollet, Tony Hollet or A.R. Hollet in Delaware; only one in whole U.S., and he appears to be a teenager
• Roger L. Hoyt - only info on a Roger Hoyt in Delaware is that he's 74, lives in Wilmington, and has spoken at a public hearing and to New Castle County Council about the Brandywine School District.

To be continued...

The Sunday Funny Pages

Today's Forecast: Mostly Conservative Letters, Followed by Partly-Conservative Op-Eds

First, commentary on some of today's articles:

TNJ ratchets up the noise about Attorney General Beau Biden, placing him squarely in its sights with a huge "exposé" on the number of cases where charges were dropped under his watch. The guy may very well be incompetent - he's young and has no experience as AG, plus his office may be in disarray due to his forced vacation in Iraq for most of his term  -- but I wonder if TNJ would be paying this much attention to him if his name wasn't Biden. Online, TNJ's most unbalanced conservatives are going nuts over this one, although the more rational ones appear to be staying away. Liberal commenter BlueTEa, however, states the following:

How can anyone continue to complain about the NJ being too "liberal" when they present a story this way.
Buried in the text, are the facts that the AG's office has recently seen a doubling in the number of homicide cases taken to trial between 2007 to 2009. Also - that the number of murder cases closed by the AG offices in 2009 was 50 - double the 17 to 25 cases closed each year during the end of the Jane Brady years.
Moreover, the % of homicide cases dropped by Brady's team after indictment was 20% - compared to Biden's 16% over the past 3 years. 
This story is told in a way to sell papers to teabaggers and wingnuts who only read the Headline and look at the pictures.

Well said.

A short AP wire article about Obama reinstating "pay-as-you-go" ends, as do most AP political articles that TNJ selects to print, with the Republican talking point on the subject. Although the bill that Obama signed requires that all spending increases include a corresponding spending cut, a process used during the Clinton years that resulted in surpluses, it also raises the debt ceiling - to keep the U.S. out of default. But the article ends like this:

Republicans mocked Obama for signing the “paygo” bill behind closed doors. “With a simple stroke of his pen, President Obama now has the ability to continue his binge spending agenda to the tune of an additional $1.9 tril­lion, the largest one-time in­crease in our history,” Repub­lican Party Chairman Michael Steele said Friday. “Taxpay­ers will continue to foot the bill for the Democrats’ fiscal irresponsibility.”

The conservatives haven't commented at all on this story, probably because it didn't include any pictures or shiny objects to attract their attention.

An unusually liberal AP wire article that lays out the consequences of not overhauling health care attracts three online conservative comments, all agreeing with other that the current Democratic health care bills need to be thrown out. They all contend that all that's needed to overhaul the health care system is tort reform, no denial of pre-existing conditions, and allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines.

The Letters
Writer #1 questions why one party needs to "show deference" to the other party, and asks "Why should loyalty to the competition be expected?" I'm assuming what he really means is "Why should Republicans do anything the Democrats want? They'd be disloyal to their party if they did." His solution? Eliminate the Democrats and move to a one-party system. Da, comrade.

Writer #2 protests a recent Wilmington law setting buffer zones around clinics offering abortion services, saying it infringes on free speech and "prevents anyone from approaching a desperate mother to offer help and explain alternatives." Apparently this jackass thinks women are too stupid to know that there are alternatives to abortion unless some sidewalk counselor like himself screams in their face. The liberals trounce the religious fanatics in the comments on this one, but then they're fighting with the unarmed.

Letter #3 is a love song to Republican Congressman Mike Castle, telling us he'd make a terrific senator.

Writer #4 complains about both parties, then offers this deep thought: "We all agree that unemploy­ment is a very important issue that also affects a very skiddish (sic) stock market." (TNJ editors were apparently asleep at the wheel the day they got this one.)
The writer offers no solutions and finishes up with this tantalizing final sentence: "Politicians can’t do a states­man-like job if they are con­stantly looking over their shoulder at the next election." Uh... what? Is he proposing we do away with elections, and... what? Descend into anarchy? Maybe institute a monarchy? Establish a dictatorship? Yet another half-baked, meaningless letter using up ink on the editorial pages.

Writer #5 thanks TNJ for its lovely editorial promoting abstinence-only sex ed programs that appeared earlier in the week. 


The Op-Eds

TNJ declares "a pox on both their houses" as it chastises Congress for not being able to pass a meaningful jobs bill. Our editor tells us that "(e)ven last year’s huge stimulus package tended to help govern­ment workers more than those in private industry." Presumably this was written with a straight face. But what really made me stop and go "HUH?"was this jaw-dropper: "More disturbing is the fact that this recession is taking its greatest toll on men." Um... precisely why is this more disturbing? There are still more men than women in the workforce, so it's understandable that more men than women have lost their jobs. Would this (male) editor have found it LESS disturbing if more women than men had lost jobs? I'm willing to bet a big fat "yes" on that one.
What's really hilarious about this editorial is that TNJ moans and cries about party partisanship, while totally ignoring the role it and other members of The Fourth Estate have played in fomenting the current discord and division between the parties. 

TNJ darling George Will tells us that Democrats are trying to get as many people as possible dependent on government. His main gripe is that Democrats don't support government vouchers for private school education. Excuse me, George, but how does asking the government to pay for your private school tuition make you less dependent on government?

Dewayne Wickham takes the Obama administration to task for being proud that joblessness declined for whites and Hispanics in January and ignoring that it rose by three-tenths of 1% for blacks.

David Broder chides both parties for not being able to get along and says the public is fed up with them. Tell us something we don't know, David.

Economist Isabel Sawhill also restates the obvious, telling us that government needs to cut spending and balance the budget. She also believes in pay-as-you-go rules, but "in a more serious way than the weakened form in which they were recently enacted." Sawhill is one of the more liberal members of The Brookings Institute, which TNJ doesn't tells us is a right-wing thinktank.

Stephen C. Fehr, staff writer for Stateline.org, which is a part of the Pew Center on the States, lays out the difficulties states are having in the current recession and predicts they'll probably get worse. The article is neutral, but conservative groups have targeted the Pew Charitable Trusts, which funds Stateline.org, for its funding of what they deem "liberal environmental causes."

The Tuesday Funny Pages

Today's Forecast: Partly-Conservative Letters, Followed by Neutral Op-Eds

Today's Biased Letters to the Editors:

I'm assuming this one is a conservative, because the rant is about "do-gooders" who are ruining everything for everybody with rules and regulations, like making companies print calories on menus and warnings on cigarette packs. Conservative buzz-phrase: "In the meantime, the rest of us pay the bills."

Conservative #2 tells us that we should halve the salaries of all politicians until they start working to earn it. Conservative buzz-phrase: "What would happen if we stopped paying taxes?"

Liberal environmentalist is mad at Obama for his lack of support for the environment. Liberal buzzword: "green."

Liberal writer tells Mike Castle to put a cork in his whine about pork, because if funding comes through for Amtrak, Castle will be first in line to get his photo taken at the ribbon-cutting. Liberal buzz-phrase: "The Party of No."

Conservative thinks Senators and Reps should telecommute instead of living in DC because it would save money and keep them away from the party leadership. Conservative buzz-phrase: "when our country was started."

Today's Op-Eds: A Wash

Four op-eds today, none of which takes an obviously partisan side.

• UD prof Muqtedar Khan teaches us more about Islam. I haven't decided if the NJ has given him a regular column because they want to promote peace and understanding, or because they want to make the conservatives mad. I suspect the latter; if they wanted to promote peace and understanding, they'd put this on the religion page.
• David Broder tells us we're headed for fiscal disaster because nobody on either side has a clue.
• Al Hunt, Washington chief at Bloomberg News,says the same stuff as David Broder, except Al singles out Republican congressman Paul Ryan for having sort of a clue.
• Another Bloomberg Newsian, Celestine Bohlen, piles on Switzerland for allowing tax cheaters to have secret Swiss bank accounts.

The Monday Funny Pages

Today's Forecast: Conservative Letters, Followed by Partly-Liberal Op-Eds

Today the NJ offers us five Letters to the Editor, four of them from conservatives:

Conservative #1 is a National Guard wife whose husband has been deployed to Afghanistan several times, complaining about the paper's coverage of Delaware doctors who went to Haiti. Since this is the second letter in a week from a Guard wife complaining about this, I'm wondering if the Wives' Club had a meeting about it. Her claim that neither the black doctors who went to assist in the disaster nor the black victims of the quake are as worthy of coverage as routine National Guard deployments -- which she says are covered, but only with "a small photo with text of each deployment or return" -- is disturbing on many levels.

Conservative #2 informs us that "Obama’s 'I am not an ideologue' refrain is reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook,” and warns us that Obama and the liberals are out to destroy our country in the next three years with "European-style socialism." He's a little behind the times -- conservatives have been saying this in the blogosphere since the SOTU when Obama said it, but this guy probably heard it the other night when Rick Santorum said it on Fox News.

Conservative #3 tells us that the refusal of unions to accept low wages for its members is the reason all our factories are moving their operations to Mexico.

Conservative #4 is on a rant about the money that might get spent on security for civilian trials of terrorists. Conservatives are terrified of these all-powerful superhuman terrorists, who require a lot more security than American criminals to protect ourselves from them. If I belonged to the Mob, I'd be insulted.

Fruitcake Alert: Letter-writer #5 might be a liberal, because he writes about using wind turbines. But he's proposing using turbines and power lines on railroad lines and superhighway cloverleafs to create a new power grid, which causes me to wonder whether he's got his tinfoil hat on straight.
 
Three Op-Ed pieces today:

Big liberal op-ed piece from Ann Woolner pointing out that conservatives didn't get all tied up in knots when the Bush administration tried Richard Reid as a civilian. Score one column for the libs. 

Today wraps up with one normally-liberal columnist and one normally-conservative columnist writing apolitical columns. Liberal Eugene Robinson writes about his visit to the Washington Car Show and what's wrong at Toyota. Arch-conservative Paul Greenberg tries his hand at creative writing with a mock interview with Holden Caulfield talking about the death of J.D. Salinger.

The Sunday Funny Pages

Today's Forecast: Neutral Letters, Followed by Mostly-Conservative Op-Eds

Today's Biased Letters to the Editor:

Conservative chastises the News Journal for referring to the Senate seat formerly held by Veep Joe Biden as "Joe Biden's seat." This is the second letter of this ilk that we've seen on the NJ Opinion page -- either that, or the NJ liked the first letter so much they reprinted it. A splendid illustration of the apoplexy the name "Biden" generates among certain groups in this state -- they'd probably be happier if the seat was referred to as "the seat formerly held by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." This letter also makes me wonder which Repub-... oops, conservative --talk show host first told their followers that "the seat doesn't doesn't belong to the Bidens, it belongs to the people of Delaware."

Letters to the Editor balance out today with a liberal pointing out that the right-wingnuts currently living in a permanent state of "the economy sucks because of Obama OMG we're all gonna DIE" need to remember that it was 8 years of Republican rule that got us here.

Today's Biased Op-Eds:

Article by Roy C. Smith on how wrong the current administration is in their approach to fixing the banking industry. The NJ tells us that Mr. Smith is a professor at NYU. It doesn't tell us that Mr. Smith was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs for more than twenty years before retiring to write books and magazine articles defending investment banker-ing. A tiny samping of Professor Smith's other articles: "Greed Is Good" and "Five Myths About Executive Pay," as well as several articles for The Independent Institute, a libertarian organization whose policy position on the economy is that an unregulated free market will solve everything. Evidently he woke up and smelled the coffee a couple of days ago, though, with an article entitled "How to Protect Taxpayers From the Biggest Banks."

Local Gay Guy Douglas Marshall-Steele tells us gays are mad as hell with Obama and everybody else and aren't gonna take it any more, and vaguely threatens revolution. The real story here is that as of late Sunday morning, not one comment has been posted online in response to it.

Uber-conservative George Will rounds out today's funny pages with an article showcasing his rich fantasy life as he forecasts life in 2013, when our next president is Mitch Daniels and our new Veep is Paul Ryan. Yeah, "Who?" was also the first thing that popped into my mind. Apparently these geniuses -- actually a former Illinois governor and a former Wisconsin congressman -- are going to get elected by virtue of an innovative approach to solving our economic woes, one so bold and new that Will calls Ryan a one-man think tank for dreaming it up, and anoints him as living, breathing proof that Repuglicans actually have Ideas with a capital I. His Idea? Wait for it... A FLAT INCOME TAX. Now, that made me wonder: has Will got his Pauls mixed up? Did he maybe say Paul Ryan when he really meant Ron Paul? No, Ryan's idea is new and different -- it's a 2-tiered flat tax, which nobody has ever thought of before. 10% for poor people and 25% for rich folks. But here's the real kicker: it will guarantee "universal access to the health care system." New. Different. Genius.

The Saturday Funny Pages

Today's Forecast: Conservative Letters, Followed by Neutral Op-Eds

Today's Biased Letters to the Editor:

The NJ revives that reliable old chestnut sure to generate lots of comment, global warming, with the usual crank letter, this time from a "Mr. Whipple" in Middletown. Mr. Whipple states unequivocally that there's no such thing as global warming because NOAA says "the aver­age temperature in 2009 was only '1.01 degree F above the 20th-cen­tury average.'"

Continuing the crazy old fart rant, we have a letter from a disgruntled Repub-... oops, I mean conservative... who wants to point out that our current governor is responsible for the sorry fiscal mess Delaware is in right now because he was treasurer under Minner. Of course, Delaware's current situation has absolutely nothing to do with George Bush running the entire US economy into the toilet, does it? Nah.

Today's Biased Op-Eds:
 The Delaware Voice column is a conservative hymn in praise of St. Ronald - Reagan, that is - from a former Reagan appointee to some obscure committee I've never heard of, now living in Rehoboth Beach and dreaming of glories past. 

Chuck Raasch's neutral column reports on Obama's Q&A with Republicans in Baltimore last week and what various commentators are saying about it.

Liberal columnist Margaret Carlson points out that Sarah Palin is a hypocrite (duh) because she hasn't jumped all over Rush Limbaugh for repeatedly using the word "retard" in a rant against "political correctness," although when Rahm Emmanuel said it (once) last week, she tore him a new one.