AL Gore drones on...

Al Gore has returned from the seclusion of his palatial estate, where he had been secretly hiding away from the fallout of the Hadley CRU document dump. His ALness re-entered society by submitting an editorial piece, dutifully presented by the New York Times. In it he made a series of inane comments on the state of affairs in the Global Warming Hysteria hoax business, summing up that he is ready to go back to business as usual, scaring the crap out of school children and shaking down the rest of us over an unproven theory that has no grounding in empirical evidence.

"But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

I suppose that is true as far as it goes. The reality of the danger has not changed - it is still as negligible as it ever was. Furthermore, the science the alarmists have been pushing has not changed either. They continue to ramble on endlessly about the physics of long wave radiation absorption of CO2 and the cataclysmic consequences of the minuscule rise in this 'trace gas'. What has changed, AL, is our perception of the validity and integrity of the rather small scientific community that has been pushing this nonsense upon us. This has been changed dramatically, and we have not lost our place with the passage of a few months time.

Wesley Smith has a great break down of AL Gores entire piece here at his blog Second Hand Smoke.

More AL:

"In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer."

Very true. 1995 CO2 levels stood at 359.7 ppm, and the 2010 level has exceeded 388 ppm. That is an 8 percent increase in the earths CO2 blanket. Fortunately for us, and rather unfortunately for you and your argument, the earth has not warmed during this same period of time. It hasn't warmed up at all.

If CO2 was the dominant force agent you have presented it to be, you would think there would be some increase in the global climate with an 8% increase, but no. Even one of the Hadley CRU scientists, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, famously complained in the document dump e-mails:

"The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t."

There are clearly many factors that influence the global climate. What is increasingly well defined is that whatever effect CO2 may have, it is remarkably weak.

"But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged."

It may be important for you personally AL, but it is not important for everyone else. What is important for us is to understand our world better to allow us to make informed choices.

Speaking of mistakes, now that you are writing in the New York Times, I would think this would be a perfect opportunity to clear the air if you will, about another of the many mistakes in the farcically titled An Inconvenient Truth. Remember that tear jerking scene bemoaning the shrinking ice caps of Mt. Kilimanjaro, melting away because of the long ranging effects of Northern Hemisphere factories and automobiles? Oops. Scientists from the Netherlands recently concluded a study of the snow cap in question, and concluded the changes were a part of the natural cyclical events related to the Indian Ocean monsoons, and had nothing to do with CO2 levels, man made or otherwise. (For you more dedicated readers, you will recall what fun we had with the previous posting on this topic here).

The Hadley CRU document dump and subsequent revelations of the undermining of the peer review process and the political intrusion into the 'science' utterly undermined the entire enterprise of global warming alarmism. Go away with your tiresome fear mongering AL, and keep away from our kids. Its over, and we've all already gotten off the train.

As to the winner of the best title to an AL Gore piece, the prize has got to go to Pundit and Pundette, whose gut busting Gore goes Full-Bore easily takes away the prize. Yikes! A Full-Bore AL Gore - how much Bore can we take?





Couple of shysters.
AL Gore stands alongside discredited IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri as they accept their Nobel Prize.

Carly comes clean

Carly Simon has finally answered one of the iconic questions of popular music, namely who was she singing of in the inimically titled 'You're So Vain'.

Well, Carly has disclosed the target of her disdain...










Come to find out it was her gay record producer and non-love interest David Geffen, the wealthy and very successful fashion and cultural sophisticate.


And not...this guy.










Who would've thunk it?

You know, my aversion to the handsome and charming Mr. Beatty was largely a measure of the rumors that he was unkind to the women that loved him. Turns out it was never like that. He never spoke of the women he was entwined with, except to praise them. And all the criticism directed towards him he simply shrugged off as though nothing had happened. He never spoke up to defend himself, conducting himself in a remarkably disinterested and chivalrous manner.

Having been the subject of false accusations myself, I have a great appreciation for the hits he weathered for the sake of being a stand-up kind of guy. Hat tip to you, Mr. Beatty.

Now in his later years, the former high school sports star continues to rise in my estimation. I'm going to have to watch his portrayal of Bud Stamper in 'Splendor in the Grass' again, opposite the young Natalie Wood as Wilma Dean 'Deannie' Loomis. That was a heart rending tale of good intentions gone awry. As a young actor, he was remarkably good in it.

Update:
So Robert Stacy McCain goes to the trouble to put his finger in my eye over the whole Carly Simon thing. Like what, I'm a reporter now? I'm supposed to know that English tabloids don't always fact check their stories before going to print?

Anyways, no more links to Stace.
That's it for me.
I mean it. The guy is a royal pain.

Obama hits consistently sour note in 'Bipartisan' healthcare discussion.

The tinny sound of Barrack Obama belittling Senator McCain summed up nicely his maladroit management of his entire administration thus far.

"So I hope that that would be an argument for us to go through this 2,400-page document, remove all the special deals for the special interests and favored few, and treat all Americans the same under provisions of the law so that they will know that geography does not dictate what kind of health care they would receive. I thank you, Mr. President." offered Mr. McCain.

"Let me just make this point, John, because we're not campaigning anymore -- the election's over." countered the President.

"Well, I -- I'm reminded of that every day."

"Well, I -- yes. So, the -- we can spend the remainder of the time with our respective talking points, going back and forth. We were supposed to be talking about insurance."

What a twit.

Didn't his own party heads Pelosi and Reid start off the proceedings with the typical Democrat play for sympathy with stories of 'real' Americans suffering because the 'law makers' had yet to make enough laws? (Ans: Yes). The fact is if you stood by while that was going on you have no reason to complain about McCain pointing out some of the problems in the bill, however you may view his motives.

The fact is that it is a good idea for all Americans to be treated equally before the law, and that tax exemptions for union members and members of Congress, along with the entire state of Nebraska just doesn't play here. The type of backroom deals the Dems worked out strike all Americans as being ...un-american. The president called for this discussion, so he is going to have to prepare himself for hearing what the other side has to say about the bill. It should be fine for someone like John McCain to point out those obvious deal killers with the American people. Point of fact is those were political blunders of the Democrats who formed this monstrosity, and there is no getting away from that fact.

Iranian nuclear 'power' project progressing nicely

What, me worry?

What's wrong with this picture? Just a harmless nut-job Islamic fundamentalist who wants to usher in the twelfth imam and the end of the age spooling up the centrifuges on his way to weapons grade uranium. It's kind of like a home science project, just to see if they can do it!

Iran said on Monday it is considering plans to build two new uranium enrichment plants concealed inside mountains to avert air strikes, drawing condemnation from the United States.

"Inshallah (God willing), in the next Iranian year (starting in March) as ordered by the president we may start the construction of two new enrichment sites," or so said Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi.

Of course Iran, sitting atop one of the world's largest oil reserves, merely wishes to enrich the uranium so that they may take their place amongst the other advanced nations of the world. Nuclear fuel is the future, and the Iranians have the future in mind when they go nuclear.

Last November, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Iran would build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, after Tehran was strongly rebuked by world powers for building a second enrichment plant near the Shiite holy city of Qom. Salehi said the enrichment capacities of the new sites would be similar to the existing facility in the central city of Natanz, where a defiant Tehran is refining uranium despite three sets of UN sanctions. According to the latest UN nuclear watchdog report, Iran has installed in Natanz 8,610 centrifuges, the device which rotates at supersonic speed to enrich uranium. Of these, 3,772 centrifuges are actively enriching uranium under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

What the...? Wasn't it just yesterday the Iranians reported closing down their program for uranium enrichment?

Iran today promised to stop building centrifuges for uranium enrichment, in a move that could herald a new era of openness and co-operation with the United Nations. Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, said the country would "voluntarily" suspend its centrifuge work from Friday. Iran "is interested as quickly as possible to bring this case to a close," he said.

April 6th, 2004

I guess that position is no longer 'operative.'

Salehi said the new plants will be equipped with new generation centrifuges and the facilities would be hidden in mountains so as to protect them from "any attacks."

That's reassuring.

Elsewhere on the diplomatic front, European nations meeting in Brussels appeared divided over boosting sanctions against Iran. "Unhappily all the actions by the Iranian side for weeks confirm that we must move to (more) sanctions," French European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche said.























Tensions rose further after Iran began work on enriching uranium to 20 percent purity from 3.5 percent, which according to experts brings it closer to the 93 percent level required for making a bomb.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, warned in a newspaper interview that a pre-emptive Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would be a "disaster of unpredictable consequences." "We have to find a solution through diplomatic means," he told the leading Spanish daily El Pais. "We must not leave the negotiating table."

Heavens, no. Let us keep talking. We're making headway, aren't we?

Miss me yet?

With all the 'hope and change' running down the collective leg of the nation, most of us have simply had enough. Not surprisingly there has been a rising tide of sentimentalism for that awkward sounding straight shooter from Crawford Texas. One online store that has seen a particular rise in interest for the old guy is CafePress, who saw a spike in demand for items featuring the image above on T-shirts and the like.

"by the fall, the enthusiasm for Obama caps, t-shirts, commemorative plates and so forth, seemed to fizzle. U.S. News and World Report noted earlier this month that even the Obama Store, located in tourist-filled Union Station, has closed"

Wow. Now you can't even give that Obama stuff away.

Conrad Black not forgotten

Conrad Black, the Canadian news editor and author will have his appeal heard by the US Supreme Court on March 1st of this year.

Mr. Black is held in extremely high regard by this author, who watched in shock and amazement as his trial slowly wound through the court system . His subsequent conviction shattered my faith in the US justice system. His jury conviction seemed to be based on the juries perception of Mr. Black as a peer and wealthy business man more than on any clear evidence of wrong doing to his company. The subsequent near total loss of value in the publishing entities since his removal bare out the truth.

The key aspect under which Mr. Black was convicted is the so-called Honest services fraud statute, a statute so broad and ill defined that a third of the nation would qualify as being in breech of it.

Mark Steyn:

Justice Antonin Scalia described the law as "mush" and "inherently vague" and engaged in a number of raucous exchanges with the Deputy Solicitor General during his argument. Justice Scalia decried giving the law meaning that Congress failed to provide:

"You speak as though it's up to us to write the statute. But that's not our job."

Early indications are that the Supreme Court will find the statute too poorly defined to be valid law, and righly so. Thus, Mr. Black may soon find his long sought for justice will in some ways be fulfilled. It would be the most amazing of judicial reversals, and long overdue.

Best of luck to you, Mr. Black!

Mr. Black contiues to write, and is a NRO contributor. He has recently penned this fine piece as a diary entry from jail.

Falling upon hard times

Revelers in Dusseldorf, Germany portray the President as a Fallen Angel. (His shirt reads: Obama, The Redeemer).

Still pondering the 'possibilities'?

A recent Jay Currie post ponders the counter of the alarmist community, with Jay summing up:

"My hunch is that whether innocently or fraudulently, there has been a systemic warm bias in the adjustment process"

Jay?
Ya think?!

I thought we had been all over this. The 'adjustments' skew the data.

Intrigued by the curious shape of the average of the homogenized Darwin records, I then went to see how they had homogenized each of the individual station records. What made up that strange average shown in Fig. 7? I started at zero with the earliest record. Here is Station Zero at Darwin, showing the raw and the homogenized versions.


























Yikes again, double yikes! What on earth justifies that adjustment? How can they do that? We have five different records covering Darwin from 1941 on. They all agree almost exactly. Why adjust them at all? They’ve just added a huge artificial totally imaginary trend to the last half of the raw data! Now it looks like the IPCC diagram in Figure 1, all right … but a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven?

Stairway to heaven!

I'll say. Just homogenizing the data. Love that old homogenization process. If its good for milk its got to be good for weather station data.

Nothing like it!!

Alarmists out in the cold

A recent report indicates that the UN global warming data has consistently been falsely elevated due to the proximity of many of the measuring equipment to heat islands such as mechanical equipment and buildings. The report shows photographs of weather stations near heat-generating equipment which would distort their readings.

The findings cast further doubt on evidence put forward by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which claims the science supporting rising temperatures is unequivocal.

In response, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the chapter of the IPCC report that deals with the observed temperature changes, acknowledged that there were problems with the global thermometer record but said these had been accounted for in the final report.

“It’s not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,” he said. “We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40 per cent and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.”

According to whom? On what basis? Has the reporting been held up to scrutiny and subject to review by anyone interested in the question? Are the results reproducible? Given what we now know about the handling of Global Warming 'science', is there any reason to take anything AGW proponents propose seriously?

As we see here, what has been 'hacked' or used for political and financial purpose, is not the Hadley CRU files, but the entire field of science as it pertains to global warming.

"The interests of Hulme and Pachauri are clear. Use the science arm at CRU to drive conclusions in the IPCC that will drive funding into Tyndall and drive money into TERI, Pachauri’s organization, and CRU."

The following recommendations seem sound to me if we are ever to trust anything emanating from this field of science again:

"The notion that science can move forward while individual climate scientists hide data from their critics is antithetical to the dictates of reason. CRU and others have no more excuses. All and any data used in climate science should be published under a Creative Commons like license, free for anyone to view and use. Confidential data should not be used; it is not necessary to the science. Phil Jones should be removed as an advisor to NOAA on data archiving and access. That’s having a black hat hacker in charge of the hardware. The code of climate science should likewise be freely available. In particular, we should press climate science to adopt a GPL license, one that enforces sharing of code."

There are no sources of information that I find to be compelling, simply because it is clear that the science was kidnapped to advance an agenda.

Cheney chides hapless Obama adminsitration

Former Vice President Dick Cheney sharply criticised the Obama Adminsitration over the weekend, underscoring his previous criticisms of the handling of the Christmas Day bomber

Cheney, a chief architect of former President George W. Bush's counterterrorism policy and a harsh critic of President Barack Obama's approach, said Biden was "dead wrong" to have recently deemed another Sept. 11-style attack on the United States to be unlikely.

Biden said his Republican predecessor "either is misinformed or he is misinforming"

"Dick Cheney's a fine fellow, but he is not entitled to rewrite history without it being challenged. I don't know where he has been."

This from the senator that said the surge wouldn't work and that did everything in his power to undermine the efforts of our military in Iraq.

It is always interesting to place the two Vice-President comments side by side and contrast them.

Thinking of you

"Now let me be perfectly clear about this...

















Happy Valentines Day!

Hugs and kisses!

Barrack

Dr. Jones splains it all

In a recent response to a series of questions by the BBC, former Hadley CRU director Dr. Phil Jones attempts to answer his critics:

The phrase 'hide the decline' was shorthand for providing a composite representation of long-term temperature changes made up of recent instrumental data and earlier tree-ring based evidence, where it was absolutely necessary to remove the incorrect impression given by the tree rings that temperatures between about 1960 and 1999 (when the email was written) were not rising, as our instrumental data clearly showed they were.

This "divergence" is well known in the tree-ring literature and "trick" did not refer to any intention to deceive - but rather "a convenient way of achieving something", in this case joining the earlier valid part of the tree-ring record with the recent, more reliable instrumental record.

The manipulation of the tree ring data is problematic in two ways. First, it is asserted that the tree ring data corresponds well to global temperatures, and the findings based on the tree rings indicate that there has been a warming of the global climate. However, from 1961 on, the tree ring data indicates a significant cooling of the global climate. As this is apparently contradictory to observed temps, the conclusion must be one the following: either tree ring data are a poor indicator of global temperature, or something else is going on with the climate. Thus one of the three main information sources for the 2007 IPCC report should have been thrown out, or should have caused a general reconsideration of the reports findings.

Instead we have Dr. Jones doing a little 'doctoring' to the record, and the doctoring is hidden in the code, with code instructions such as:

"MXD - but shouldn't usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

Given the IPCCs statement of purpose:

“The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers with an objective source of information about human-induced climate change.”

the whole thing is rather exploded.

This is the primary problem with the tree ring data manipulation. The evidence is that a significant effort was made by at least one of the principle proponents of AGW theory to mislead the citizens of the world, and that in and of itself utterly undermines his position.

Global Warming Alarmists unconcerned by deceitful practices

From our good friend and frequent commenter Wakefield Tolbert, who was kind enough to forward this retort to a recent Mark Steyn article on Climategate:

"The so-called ‘climategate’ is climate change denial’s last gasp. Hackers stole ten years worth of emails, and they were scoured for anything that might appear damning, finding only two that have been endlessly paraphrased since. The term ‘trick’ is commonly used in science journals as an accepted clever methodology rather than an intent to deceive, and the study mentioned in the email that includes the word ‘trick’ plays no part in official IPCC findings. The ‘can’t explain the decline’ email refers to a study of tree ring formation, and rather than being a secret, the scientist who wrote the email also wrote a public article about his inability to explain his findings."

Thus said the ostrich as he placed his head in a hole.

The nature of the files made available in the document dump lead one to believe that it was a collection of files in preparation for a FOI response, and though the compilation could have been located, hacked into and downloaded if the computer where the file was stored was active on the net, it is still true that someone at Hadley put the file together and that the information disclosed was all subject to FOI requests anyway. In essence, the document dump partially satisfies multiple FOI requests which Phil Jones had been stonewalling for years. The other possibility is that a whistle blower at Hadley CRU had access to the files and dumped them on the web. Either way there is hardly cause for concern as to how the files came to be available. In fact, of particular interest in the material contained was Jones' own advice on how he goes about blocking FOI requests. He advises scientists working with him on how to avoid releasing information that they were required by law to release. I'm sorry, but the plea for compassion on the grounds that the files were "ill got" gains them no favor from me.

As to the claims regarding the tricks Dr. Jones, so often defended as being innocent and taken out of context, Steve McIntyre has an excellent analysis of the context for the ‘trick’ used to hide the decline of the tree ring data discussed here. Drawing from the e-mail records made available from Hadley CRU, the context becomes clear:

the late 20th century decline in the Briffa reconstruction was perceived by IPCC as “diluting the message”, that “everyone in the room at IPCC” thought that the Briffa decline was a “problem” and a “potential distraction/detraction”

The study referred to that Phil Jones was trying to trick out was Dr. Keith Briffa's tree ring data, which was presented in the IPCC report. It's details were initially hidden physically by being covered over by Michael Mann's and Phil Jones' data, all presented on the same graph. When McIntyre requested details of the covered section, that is when Jones decided to replace the tree ring data with the land temperature data from 1961 onward, thereby invalidating the information source. Obviously, you cannot do that with any integrity. From my perspective, science is not about hiding the data to streamline the discussion. Such manipulation is done in the realm of politics.

By far and away the most damning information from the Hadley document dump was the code itself. As you recall, the Harry Read me file was clearly a very poor tool, having been patched together and branched onto, rather than being managed with its future growth in mind.

Shannon Love has done an excellent series of articles on the problems with the computer codes used in the models that were being used to tell us of impending global overheating. Her most recent offering includes the following helpful quote from The Guardian:

"Computer code is also at the heart of a scientific issue. One of the key features of science is deniability: if you erect a theory and someone produces evidence that it is wrong, then it falls. This is how science works: by openness, by publishing minute details of an experiment, some mathematical equations or a simulation; by doing this you embrace deniability. This does not seem to have happened in climate research."

In addition to this, it is now known that the IPCC 2007 Report predicting the complete loss of the Himalayan glaciers in the next twenty five years was based on no scientific evidence whatsoever. In point of fact, it was inserted into the report purely as a political ploy to apply pressure on the governments in question. This is absolutely outrageous, and utterly undermines the alarmists.

Ultimately, it is not a question of whether or not the skeptics have proven that warming is not taking place. It is up to the alarmists to prove that it is. The tricks and deception employed by the alarmists undermines everything they have attempt to foist upon us. They have failed to make their case, the science is not settled, and the efforts to "settle" the science have been purely political in nature.

Meanwhile, you just gotta love this:

“Today, Michael Mann was scheduled to give a colloquium on climate change at the University of Pennsylvania, where I am a graduate student. As you may know, Philadelphia has been hit by multiple snowstorms in the past week. Today, for what I am told is the first time since the mid-1990s, the university suspended normal operations due to snow, and his colloquium on climate change has been postponed.”

Hmmm.

Sarah Palin knows a good deal about Tea

Sarah Palin displayed her obvious appeal to regular folk at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday, February 6th. Ms. Palin, who has previously demonstrated herself to be the only person who could put a pulse on the McCain campaign, struck a chord on conservative issues and was warmly embraced by the crowd.

"She also promised to support primary challenges to unseat sitting Republican office-holders who were part of the 'establishment'."

Oh yeah, no party hack here. Go to the right or get run over. I like this gal...and the Dems and Republican party elites are worried.

Canadian Journalists Have Feathers Ruffled

Chris Woods piece over at the Canadian professional journalists blog (j-source) continues to have legs, as the egg heads attempt to stave off Jay Currie's well thought criticism of their professions conduct throughout the Climategate controversy. Unable to post there due to some 'reCapture' requirements of the web site, I have brought my response here:

"A journalist's job is to consider all those "sides" and make a reasonable determination, with the help of people doing the heavy work, about what is fact and what is flake.

That, I submit, is that the MSM is doing with global warming."

This contention is supported with what evidence?

On the contrary, the evidence is that the media has shown little to no interest in anything other than what the 'climate scientists' have spoon fed them. Narratives are fine for fictional stories, but science is not worked out in narratives, nor should the political implications of theories by advanced along narrative lines.

The true 'news story' if you will, is that the Hadley CRU document dump places beyond question the fact that the presentation of the science has been manipulated to preserve a story line of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

The science is not settled. At present we really do not understand the factors that drive the global climate, nor are we certain that we have identified the major force agents, nor do we know the degree to which each of the identified factors influence the global climate, nor do we have a way to predict the future climate. The role of CO2 levels is unknown.

To that I would add that it is clear we have no means by which we could manipulate the global climate anyway.

How do you solve a problem like Al Franken?

"When I'm with him I'm confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am"

Al Franken has been anything but a timid junior Senator cognisant of the political debts he 'owed' following the lengthy recount that had to be finessed to get him his seat, squeezing him in for the Democrats highly cherished sixtieth vote in the Senate. No, he clearly feels quite at ease giving what for to the political establishment of either party, with nary a thought to how he will work with these people in the future.

"Unpredictable as weather
He's as flighty as a feather
He's a darling! He's a demon! He's a lamb!"

In today's latest bruhaha, he decided to let the Obama administration know that he had no idea what it was they were telling the collected Senators before them.

"A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!"

Al, take a chair. You want to know how he wants the plan worded? What the heck do you think he cares how it's worded? He wants something... anything. He doesn't care what it says or how you do it.. just get it to him.

"I'd like to say a word in his behalf
Al Franken makes me laugh!"

I mean, I'm all for throwing a wrench into the Obamanation of the healthcare industry, but just politically speaking I thought this was all pretty well understood. By everybody in the room! What is this guy thinking?

"Many a thing you know you'd like to tell him
Many a thing he ought to understand"

"In his public session with the senators Wednesday, Obama urged them to “finish the job” on health care but did not lay out a path for doing so. That uncertainty appeared to trigger Franken’s anger, and the sources in the room said he laid out his concerns much more directly than any senator did in the earlier public session."

"He'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest"

My God Al, how could you be so dense?

"A Democratic source said that Franken directed his criticism solely at Axelrod.

Franken — a comedian turned liberal talk show host — vowed to keep a relatively low profile when he arrived in the Senate over the summer after a protracted legal battle with former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman. But he has developed a reputation among his colleagues as one of the more aggressive personalities on the Hill."

"He's a headache! He's an angel!
He's a twirl!"

The Dems are fine when he is breaking Senate protocol in beating up Republican staffers, but they will not take to him bucking the leadership openly in a public forum.

"Oh, how do you solve a problem like Al Franken?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?"

Too much sorrow, too great a loss

This story is one of great sadness, which I bring here to remind us all humbly that it is a fallen world we live in.

God bless and keep these little boys, and God have mercy on us all.

Chris Woods presses forward in mind numbing ignorance

Chris Woods of the Canadian Journalism Project has managed to put his foot in it just when the pile is really starting to stink.

"Even were an East Anglian cabal plotting to subvert the global temperature record (and independent reviews by The Associated Press and FactCheck.org found no support for that charge), to declare human-induced climate change thereby proven a hoax that Canadians can safely ignore goes beyond cherry-picking facts to reckless endangerment."

Well, that's completely assbackwards, isn't it?

The journalistic fraud in this story is the uncritical willing acceptance of the Global Warming narrative with nary a skeptical thought among the thousands of main stream journalists that have covered it. Journalism is about truth finding, not theme building or consensus building.

"The poison filling the theatre is revealed in real-world records. Arctic ice sheets are collapsing and their collapse accelerating. Rivers on the Prairies, in Asia and Latin America, have dwindled along with mountain glaciers. The most violent rainstorms, persistent droughts and powerful storms are all increasing."

You forgot to add that Level 5 hurricanes are now commonplace, that Himalayan glacial fields are wasting away and will be gone by 2035, and that the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro is losing its frosty white cap and will soon be barren of snow. Of course, those stories which journalists enthusiastically advanced as supporting evidence that the end of the world was nigh have all been shown to be bogus. Thank you, professional journalists of the world, and Chris Woods in particular, for your plodding, slave like adherence to an embarrassingly unsupportable and unfounded theory.

"I can’t speak with authority on science."

Now there is an honest statement.

"But after 35 years and a score of honours for documentaries, articles and books, I do know a thing or two about journalism."

Well, those two go together like milk and pretzels. Besides the outright arrogance of the statement, one is struck with the emptiness of it all. What Mr. Woods may not realize is that his insistent support of this bogus "scientific theory" undermines his credibility, and castes doubt on the accuracy of his previous work. If he could be this much in the dark this far into the story, what kind of critical analysis did he bring to his earlier projects?

"I can imagine innocent explanations for why a journalist might overlook these facts. But I don’t believe any of these writers is stupid or lazy. I think they chose to ignore the only value that justifies our trade at all, and conceal the truth. We used to call that dishonest reporting—a fraud on the consumer."

Now here I agree whole heartily, but the criticism is properly directed to you and your fellow alarmist apologists. Running around scaring children and the uninformed among us?

For shame, sir. For shame.

Update: Mark Steyn

Well, though my argument fell along similar lines, I shall not deprive you, my friends and readers, of the master artist.

Sarah Palin is for honoring and valuing women

Who would have guessed it?

Sarah Palin

"My message to these groups who are inexplicably offended by a pro-woman, pro-child, pro-life message airing during the Super Bowl: please concentrate on empowering women, help with efforts to prevent unexpected pregnancies, stay consistent with your message that for too long women have been made to feel like sex objects in our “modern” culture and that we can expect better in 2010."

I love that: 'We can expect better in 2010'.

Women (and men) are more than mere objects. They are intrinsically valuable.