The president said he believes the United States has a “moral obligation” to act and lead the world in reducing nuclear stockpiles.  He continued, “I say this as president of the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons.  I say it as a Commander-in-Chief who knows that our nuclear codes are never far from my side.  Most of all, I say it as a father, who wants my two young daughters to grow up in a world where everything they know and love can’t be instantly wiped out.”

His comments build upon stuff he talked about in his Prague Speech a couple of years ago, and I mention it here.

I’m not sure what the end goal really is behind this kind of rhetoric.  It is hard to believe that the man occupying the Presidency actually believes that we can eliminate nuclear weapons.

As Bill Kristol says,

Yet to justify a world without nuclear weapons, what Obama would really have to envision is a world without war, or without threats of war.

I would take it further.  To eliminate any kind of weapon that gives you any advantage, you have to remove human nature from humans.  Evil exists in the hearts of men across the world, and to deny that is to deny reality.  Past, present and future.  I know Obama said that the rise of the oceans began to slow during the primary last cycle, but can he really perfect us all?  Has the messianic vision of himself extended beyond his followers of 2008 and permanently affixed itself upon his mind?

More concisely explaining the general theme of that point of perfection, Jonah Goldberg was recently on Uncommon Knowledge and explained how progressives will never be satisfied because they believe in perfection.  Conservatives recognize that humans are flawed and that perfection is not attainable.  At least for the time being.  It is these diverging world views that drive much of the political debate.  (An unconstrained vision versus a constrained vision.)  Progressives believe that a utopia exists somewhere out there, and will enact policies in an attempt to achieve their vision of it.  Conservatives recognize the failings of humans and are more interested in establishing conditions through which imperfect beings can best thrive and prosper, despite their imperfection.  The US Constitution, traditional morality and ethics, etc…

This ambition to reduce nuclear armaments, with the goal of reaching zero, embodies this difference in vision of what is real, and what is not.

I was surprised at his delivery of prepared remarks.  This is a seasoned actor we’re watching, right?

Certainly nothing compared to his fine parody on Olbermann.

Fallows reports that 15 years from now China expects that 350 million people will be living in cities that do not exist yet. This will require adding to China’s electrical system a capacity almost as large as America’s current capacity. The United States, China, Russia and India have 40 percent of the world’s population and 60 percent of its coal.

A climate scientist told Fallows that stabilizing the carbon-dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would require the world to reduce its emissions to Kenya’s level – for America, a 96 percent reduction. Nations with hundreds of millions of people in poverty would, Fallows says, have to “forgo the energy-intensive path toward wealth that the United States has traveled for so many years.”

If only Obama was truly interested in American exceptionalism and integration, instead of political pandering and non-enforcement.

One of the articles that caught my eye was one about military spending & size when taking wealth and population into account.

It doesn’t seem fair to not factor in the wealth of a country when assessing its military budget.

So, if you take military budgets as a proportion of each country’s GDP, a very different picture emerges.

The US is knocked down into 8th place by such nations as Jordan, Burundi and Georgia. The UK plunges to 29th.

But yes, some people are openly wondering if anthropogenic global warming is to blame for recent seismic activity.

Yet something else is lately worrying geologists: the likelihood that the Earth’s crust, relieved of so much formidable weight of ice borne for many thousands of years, has begun to stretch and rebound.

As it does, a volcano awakens in Iceland (with another, larger and adjacent to still-erupting Eyjafjallajokull, threatening to detonate next). The Earth shudders in Haiti. Then Chile. Then western China. Mexicali-Calexico. The Solomon Islands. Spain. New Guinea. And those are just the big ones, 6+ on the Richter scale, and just in 2010. And it’s only April.

Does any of this ring familiar to claims about more intense hurricanes, despite no scientific evidence?

I’m no geologist, and neither is Alan Weisman, but his ambiguous assertion certainly plays into the humorous propensity to blame anything bad on human caused global warming.  In the article, it links to an article about James Lovelock, with whom I apparently share some opinions.  Those being that if global warming is happening because of human activity (I think he is more sure than I am), then all the actions we think we can take to save the planet are in the end, pointless.  There is nothing we can do, according to Lovelock, because we’re already past the tipping point.  Enjoy the ride.  If transformational global warming is happening, I don’t know if we’ve passed a tipping point, but my view is that no one is actually willing to literally abandon our carbon rich energy lifestyle in any kind of meaningful way.  So anything short of resorting to an agrarian lifestyle that is car and electricity free, is not going to stop AGW, but will instead just give government more oversight, power and authority without solving anything.

On another note, I recently saw this roundup of global warming mistakes and scandals on HotAir.  A good resource for the inquisitive skeptic.

I think that as stories like this become more and more prevalent, people might start to question how hard they are willing to go to fight anthropogenic global warming.  I feel quite strongly that those dedicated to “saving the planet” are fighting a losing battle.  Instead of a win-win, its a lose-lose.  Not only are they not going to get humans to return to hunter/gatherer status to actually cut carbon emissions to a level that can affect the planet (or so we are told we ought to), but in the process of trying to cut emissions at least some, it is just going to cost a lot in lost productivity, money or quality of life.  All of it without really changing global warming all that much.  Or will it?  Oh, right.  No one really knows.

In other news, the Washinton DC metro area just had the biggest December snowstorm on record.

I’d heard about scrubbing ideas before, but I had never heard about them being close to production.

If you were to install 10 million of them, you would pull back on the order of 3.6 gigatons of C02 a year. The world right now produces 30 gigatons of C02 a year. In 2006, the world made 73 million cars. They are comparable in size, and ultimately comparable in cost.

“It is not productive, given the history of US and Iranian relations to be seen as meddling in Iranian elections,” he said.

“But when I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed… it is of concern to me and it is of concern to the American people.”

 Honduras:

Leaders from across the Western Hemisphere and beyond called for return to power of Zelaya, who arrested on Sunday morning by soldiers who stormed his residence and forced him into exile. The country now has another president appointed by its Congress, Roberto Micheletti, who insisted that Zelaya was legally removed by the courts and Congress for violating Honduras’ constitution and attempting to extend his own rule.

“We are very clear about the fact that President Zelaya is the democratically elected president,” Obama said.

Hat tip: Townhall.com’s Carol Platt Liebau