The Fall of Global Warming Alarmism

Logical people have understood that global warming is media alarmism for a while now, but the media still presses the issue. If you've ever had a hint of doubt or was on the fence, read the following address. If you have time, read the whole thing, otherwise I've tried to highlight some key points.

SENATOR JAMES INHOFE CHAIRMAN, SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media pedaled a coming ice age.

From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming the fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. Recently, advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate to try to convince the public that global warming is the greatest moral issue of our generation. Just last week, the vice president of London’s Royal Society sent a chilling letter to the media encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism....

One of the key aspects that the United Nations, environmental groups and the media have promoted as the “smoking gun” of proof of catastrophic global warming is the so-called ‘hockey stick’ temperature graph by climate scientist Michael Mann and his colleagues. This graph purported to show that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century presumably due to human activity. Mann, who also co-publishes a global warming propaganda blog reportedly set up with the help of an environmental group, had his “Hockey Stick” come under severe scrutiny. The “hockey stick” was completely and thoroughly broken once and for all in 2006. Several years ago, two Canadian researchers tore apart the statistical foundation for the hockey stick. In 2006, both the National Academy of Sciences and an independent researcher further refuted the foundation of the “hockey stick.” ..

The National Academy of Sciences report reaffirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1850. Both of these periods occurred long before the invention of the SUV or human industrial activity could have possibly impacted the Earth’s climate. In fact, scientists believe the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings grew crops in Greenland. ...

The alarmists freely concede that the Kyoto Protocol, even if fully ratified and complied with, would not have any meaningful impact on global temperatures. And keep in mind that Kyoto is not even close to being complied with by many of the nations that ratified it, including 13 of the EU-15 nations that are not going to meet their emission reduction promises. Many of the nations that ratified Kyoto are now realizing what I have been saying all along: The Kyoto Protocol is a lot of economic pain for no climate gain...French President Jacques Chirac provided the key clue as to why so many in the international community still revere the Kyoto Protocol, who in 2000 said Kyoto represents “the first component of an authentic global governance.”

Here is a quote from Newsweek magazine: “There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth.”
All of this sounds very ominous. That is, until you realize that ...[it is from] 1975 edition of Newsweek Magazine...They weren’t referring to global warming; they were warning of a coming ice age. ...
“[Those] who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right… weathermen have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer.” Before you think that this is just another example of the media promoting Vice President Gore’s movie, you need to know that the quote I just read you from Time Magazine was not a recent quote; it was from January 2, 1939. Yes, in 1939. Nine years before Vice President Gore was born and over three decades before Time Magazine began hyping a coming ice age and almost five decades before they returned to hyping global warming....

A front page article in the October 7, 1912 New York Times, ...declared that a prominent professor “Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age.” ...Which raises the question: Has this embarrassing 100-year documented legacy of coverage on what turned out to be trendy climate science theories made the media more skeptical of today’s sensational promoters of global warming? ...
Breaking the cycles of media hysteria will not be easy since hysteria sells -- it’s very profitable. But I want to challenge the news media to reverse course and report on the objective science of climate change, to stop ignoring legitimate voices this scientific debate and to stop acting as a vehicle for unsubstantiated hype.

Many scientists are opposed to global warming, but their views are not conveyed in the media:

The words "global warming" provoke a sharp retort from Colorado State University meteorology professor emeritus William Gray: "It's a big scam." And the name of climate researcher Kevin Trenberth elicits a sputtered "opportunist." ...At Boulder-based NCAR, researchers project a world with warmer temperatures, fiercer storms and higher seas.

From CSU, Gray and Roger Pielke Sr., another climate professor emeritus, question the data used to make those projections and their application to regional climate change. The models are trying to project a future world, Essex said, without a complete theoretical base on how climate works and the risk of small errors being amplified.

Another problem, [Christopher] Essex said, is in the inability to do controlled experiments - one of science's key tools. "There's only one atmosphere, so you can't hold everything steady and change just one variable to see what happens," he said. ... Gray...demanded: "Should we base national policy on these models?" Gray is among the most strident critics, quick to use words like "fraud" or "gang" to describe the modelers.

Instead of model projections, Gray looks at the history and patterns of weather to find trends. "We'd gone through a warming trend in the '40s, and everybody was saying we were going to win World War II but face terrible droughts...Soon after, temperatures went into a cooling trend and by 1975, Gray points out, there was talk of a coming ice age. The Earth does have natural cycles of cooling and warming - during the past 740,000 years there have been eight cycles with four ice ages. The cycles appear to be tied to slight variations in the tilt of the Earth toward the sun. During the last ice age - which ended about 10,000 years ago - Earth was on average about 4 degrees Fahrenheit cooler, and what is now Manhattan was buried under ice. Denver Post

AP's Puff Piece on Lack of "Aid" to Palestinians

We're supposed to feel sorry for the Palestinians who voted in Hamas, because we cut off aid. Why don't they start trying to build an economy instead of bombing Israel and then whining that they don't have money? I kinda bad for the average Palestinian, but all the aid over the years has filled the coffers of the PLO and Hamas. I also do remember them cheering after 9/11. Why should we, taxpayers of donating states, continue to pump money into that region? The AP is trying to get people to feel sorry for them, in order to get us to donate money to Hamas. So they can by more bombs?

Gaza's children used to light colorful lanterns to mark Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. But this year, many parents can't afford those small $1 toys as the coastal strip sinks deeper into poverty amid an aid cutoff to punish the Hamas-led government.

"These days, I just want to cry," said Umm Emad, a mother of six. The only lantern in her house is a paraffin lamp she keeps for Gaza's frequent power cuts.

Ramadan, which began Saturday in the
West Bank and Gaza and other parts of the Muslim world, is a time of fasting from dawn to dusk, piety and giving to the poor. It's also a festive month, with large family meals after sundown, social get-togethers and new clothes for everyone.

But Gaza is poorer than ever, and many will not be able to observe all Ramadan traditions. The U.N. feeds some 1 million of Gaza's 1.4 million people. One of the U.N. agencies, the World Food Program, added some 60,000 needy people — for a total of 220,000 — to its roster in September alone.

Foreign aid, which helped prop up the
Palestinian Authority for more than a decade, dried up in March after the Islamic militant group Hamas came to power. For long periods, Gaza also was cut off from the world, particularly after Hamas-allied militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier in June.

In the past three months, Israeli incursions to stop rocket fire and find smuggling tunnels have killed more than 200 Palestinians, most of them militants. Electricity is rationed, in six-hour blocks, after
Israel's military bombed Gaza's main power plant following the kidnapping of the soldier.

On the political front, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has so far failed to set up a national unity government that would be acceptable to the West. His efforts are "back to zero," he said Saturday, after Hamas said it would not participate in a government that recognizes Israel.

Gaza's poor have tried to infuse some joy into Ramadan. In a holiday cleanup, Hamas youth swept a main city street, and burned garbage, including dozens of old shoes, leaving the smell of rubber in the air.

But many are feeling the strain.

Umm Emad, 45, said her husband beat their 10-year-old daughter after she pleaded for a Ramadan lantern. The mother of six, who would not give her real name because she said she is ashamed of being poor, works part time selling clothes in a relative's shop, for $3.50 a day.

Her husband sells clothes at a stand outside a U.N. office. On a good day, he makes a profit of $5. Before Hamas came to power, he earned about $22 dollars a day as the owner of a small clothing factory.

"In the good days, my husband used to buy lanterns for all the children, and the neighbor's children, because their father died, so they wouldn't feel left out," she said.

Like many Gazan families, Umm Emad has not yet bought any food for the household, although traditionally this is done a day before Ramadan begins.

In Gaza City's Shati refugee camp, grocer Adel Mudalal said he is not stocking ingredients for Ramadan desserts, like dried apricot paste. "I have no capital to buy and the neighborhood has no money to buy," he said.

Camp resident Deeb al-Ras' 11 children rarely buy from Mudalal's grocery. Al-Ras' restaurant went bust when the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began in 2000, and just one of his sons works, as a policeman, but hasn't been paid for months. The family will get by on rice and lentils donated by the U.N., al-Ras said, but with few vegetables or meat to supplement their diet.

Umm Saber, 58, a widow living with her son's family, said she was hungry most of the time. "I don't know what I'll be breaking my fast on," she said, "but I will eat something. Even if it's just a spoonful of yogurt. God always finds a way."

In a sweets shop in the upper-class Gaza City suburb of Saqallah, five or six people stop by every day, asking for leftovers, said salesman Osama Qandil, 24. "We don't turn them away, there's always a little extra for the poor," he said.

Gaza's shrinking middle class can still afford to spend $5 — or the day's wage of an unskilled laborer — at Qandil's shop for 2.2 pounds for kunafa, a popular holiday dish of vermicelli drenched in butter, wrapped around white cheese, then soaked in syrup.

But those who are still relatively well off try to keep a low profile.

Umm Ammar, 42, a mother of eight, said the family no longer eats out.

"Our situation is fine, but it's the general atmosphere that's depressing. We don't barbecue on the beach anymore, because that's insensitive and rude. Some people smelling the meat can't afford bread," she said.

She said years ago, colored lights were strung up in Gaza's main streets during Ramadan. Now, she said, "even if Gaza had the lights, there'd be no electricity for them to work." AP via front page of Yahoo by Diaa Hadid

The Only Thing People Learn From History...

Al Qaeda's goal as clearly stated is for Islam to take over the world. So how will being nice to them in any capacity change anything?

The only thing people learn from history is that people don't learn anything from history. After WWII (remember the subject, History, which no one studies anymore), there was criticism that leaders never read Hitler's book which detailed a lot of his plans. Today, Iran's leader Iwannajihad is telling the world press exactly what he wants to do but many don't believe him.

Al Qaeda in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI yesterday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world, and Iran's supreme leader called for more protests over the pontiff's remarks on Islam
NY Sun

AN ITALIAN nun was killed by gunmen at a children's hospital in Somalia yesterday in an apparent revenge attack for the Pope¿s speech about Islam last week..

Sister Leonella Sgorbati, 65, left, was shot four times in the back by two men at the entrance to the hospital in the capital, Mogadishu. Her bodyguard was also killed. The Vatican said that it hoped that the “horrible tragedy” was an isolated incident. The Times

On the Passing of Orianna Fallaci

One of my biggest shocks was that since 9/11, liberals have been defending militant Islam even though it treats its women like cattle and stone homosexuals. Oriana Fallaci was a liberal in the classical sense. She did what NOW (National Organization of Women) and other groups should be doing.... taking a stand against abuses against women worldwide. Instead they cower, make apologies, and find minor offenses to pick at in the US. It's because they are cowards. Orianna was not. Rest in Peace

Oriana Fallaci, one of Italy's best-known writers and war correspondents who goaded the world's great and issued a vitriolic assault on Islam after the September 11 attacks on the United States, died on Friday aged 77.

Fallaci died in her home town of Florence after battling cancer for several years, a hospital official said.

She quarreled with Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat, provoked U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger into likening himself to a cowboy, and tore off a chador (enveloping Islamic robe) in a meeting with Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

De Bortoli first published the angry essay that turned into Fallaci's controversial best-seller, "The Rage and the Pride," which described Islam as oppressive and Arab immigrants in Europe as dirty, foul-mouthed and bigoted.

She called on Europeans to defend their culture and values instead of adjusting to immigrants' needs.

"The book was a great appeal to be proud of our identity," De Bortoli, former editor of Corriere della Sera newspaper, said. "It's the strongest testimony to the emotional and intellectual reaction to the September 11 (2001) attacks."

In a later book, "The Force of Reason," Fallaci wrote that the Islamic faith "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

According to Fallaci's own anecdotes, she had a shouting match with Arafat and opened an interview with Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi by ridiculing his political manifesto as "so small and insignificant it fits in my powder puff." al-Reuters

Press to Crucify Pope

The global socialists are trying to put Pope Benedict in hot water for reading a quote from someone who died over 500 years ago. They want to create so much of an uproar as to censor himself in the future.

Benedict quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and a Persian scholar on the truths of Christianity and Islam.

"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war," the pope said. "He said, I quote, 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"

Benedict did not explicitly agree with the statement nor repudiate it.

The comments raised tensions ahead of his planned visit to Turkey in November — his first pilgrimage to a Muslim country. AP

The AFP goes on today:

By unwittingly angering Muslims with his comments on Islam, Pope Benedict XVI has shown that he has yet to shake off his academic theological roots and master the global media machine with the same deftness as his predecessor.
In clinging to theology and orthodoxy, the bookish Benedict has shown little regard for media management in getting his message across, unlike the communications-savvy John Paul II. AFP

That means that Benedict isn't willling to placate the "Arab street", therefore he isn't savvy. Well, we've had a lot of savvyiness from leaders for decades and look were it has gotten us?! Then in typical leftist fashion, the talk about what he was doing when he was 13 and speculate about his health. It has nothing to do with the article (a poor one to begin with) and it serves as an underhanded ad-hominem attack.

September 11th, 5 years on

I can't duplicate some of the great memorials produced by Michelle Malkin or various other sources. However, I spent some time reviewing the photos, the videos, and the stories. The last phone calls goodbye, the horror the decision of those that jumped, the fear of those who knew the end was immiment. There's a lot of people on the left who would like us to forget, but we will not.

There's been a lot of courage shown since then by better men than I. The first resistor was Danny Lewin, then those on Flight 93. It has continued through the War against Islamic Miltancy. Here are some stories about our heroes. Other heroes exist too... a few bloggers and writers (Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, etc) who routinely expose the truth behind the jihadists do so at their own risk. Many have to live a life where they have to have security, varying their routines, or change their identities, because they get death threats. Judging by what happened to Theo Van Gogh, they are serious. Not many people are willing to risk the comfort and normality of their lives. For that, those few writers are hereos too.

For me, during a period in college, I worked on Vesey Street diagonally across the street from the WTC. John worked Downtown for a couple years. We both took the Path train to the World Trade Center. It's a lot more different when you've known the places so well.... the hustle of people on the long escalators up from the underground, the mall on the ground floor (a few floors below) of the WTC, the bagel store at the entrance to the WTC off Vesey st, the transit cops, the clerks behind the counter. Buildings can be rebuilt, but the lives cannot be reclaimed.

The Economies of State-run Healthcare

NY State is getting into financial problems and Eliot Spitzer is saying that hospitals would have to close. NY is now paying for the sins of past politicans who promised government intervention into healthcare. NY is learning economics 101: As cost of something goes to zero, demand will skyrocket. NY also has a unique solution to the fact that illegals and bums walk into hospital emergency rooms for routine care and don't pay for anything: close the whole hospital!

So NY will be rationing of healthcare after all. Instead of using prices, NY will institute the rationing of service and quality.

BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 7— Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Thursday that if elected governor he would close hospitals and drastically cut spending in an effort to restore fiscal discipline to New York State.

Giving his most candid glimpse yet of his plans to put the state’s fiscal house in order, Mr. Spitzer said that to fulfill his pledge to cut property taxes he would have to take aim at the state’s health care system.

“We’re going to take the tough medicine,” he said at a campaign stop in this Syracuse suburb, adding: “I’m saying to folks this isn’t all milk and honey. These are going to be tough decisions. Nobody likes to hear that a hospital is going to close, or a wing of a hospital, or beds are going to be shifted, but that is what we have to do.” NY Times

UPDATE:

Michael Moore plans his next film on healthcare. In typical Moore fashion, he will take a few odd examples and make them the norm in order to showcase why national healthcare is wonderful, but he will ignore the multitude of problems which nationalized healthcare faces. I doubt he'll talk about people who have been denied service or been forced to wait months for service. An NHS doctor, writes a blog, in which he sometimes recounts his horror.

"The segments presented stories of personal health care nightmares, including that of a woman denied payment for an ambulance ride after a head-on collision because it was not preapproved.

"They try to find every way they can to deny it to you or not sell it to you," he told a packed theater. "Or they try to find anyway they can not to pay the bill." AP

Texas Governor's Race

With two months until the election, there are four major candidates in this November's race to be the Texas governor. The odd thing is, in a state as conservative as Texas, there is no real conservative candidate. Interesting enough, they are all of them who seem to be polling decent numbers. Perry has about 35%, with the other three having 15-20%.


Rick Perry - Incumbent, former Democrat. He's socially conservative staking a pro-life and anti-gay marriage platform. He got tort reform passed, which limited pain and suffering damages in medical melpractice suits. His two big flaws are his pro-illegal alien stance and the Trans Texas Corridor. The TTC is a $184 billion, yes billion, highway project. It's supposed to be big super highways that will carry expressways, rails, and utilities. $184 billion is the GDP of many countries. When has a government estimate of a project ever been completed on budget? That means, that $184 billion could be much more. It also involves a huge grab for land, 580,000 acres in total. They take land using emminent domain and can lease it or sell it to potential businesses along the corridor. Infrastructure and transportation are vital to a vibrant economy, but you have to look at the investment verses the potential returns (in gains to the economy, not taxes). He has the big-government Republican view on illegal immigration -- open borders. While some influx of immigrants is good, turning a blind eye to massive border crossing is not.

Chris Bell - He's your run of the mill liberal Democrat. Big government spending, high taxes. His website never mentions spending or taxes, so you know they are going up.

Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn - Texas Comptroller and another former Democrat. She doesn't use all those names, but has at one time or another in the past.On her website she doesn't have a platform, which I don't like. How can I vote for someone when I don't know where they stand? She claims to be a tax fighter but in an interview with Chris Matthews, she says "I am a common sense fiscal conservative. You know, I would rather pay $98 a month and insure a kid with prescription drugs and get that 72 percent match from the feds, rather than pay $6,700 for one hospital stay picked up by the property taxes going right through the roof. I am a common sense conservative. I would rather educate our kids than incarcerate our kids. " To me, that seems to be like a fake fiscal conservative. "We'll save more later if we spend more now" is not my idea of fiscal conservative. Besides, it's rare to meet any candidate who doesn't claim to be a fiscal conservative? She originally was a proponent of the TTC, but since entering the race, she has switched views. The 2002 Democratic nominee, Tony Sanchez, has endorsed her.

Kinky Friedman - The oddball candidate. He's has liberal social views, but takes the toughest stand on illegal immigration, the TTC, and isn't afraid to share his views frankly. While his concern for Texas children is admirable, it could lead to yet another state run healthcare program, which utimately gets abused. Insuring children shouldn't be that expensive, but leave it to the government to make it so. I don't like his stem cell research funding on fiscal grounds (and moral for embryonic research). If there are potential cures in stem cells, companies will fund the research. The problem with government funding, is that scientists could ulitmately know that there is no cures to be found in stem cells, but continue working because they are on the government dole. A company will seek results, while the government would continue to pour money into a dead issue for years.

Current Opinion
Perry is competent, but the long term effects of illegal immigration and the looming TTC could bankrupt the State. I am generally displeased with the big-government Republicans which have dominated Congress and their stance on illegal immigration. Many have had a "well, who else are you going to vote for attitude?" I can't vote for Bell or Strayhorn. Kinky is defintely odd and hold liberal social views. However, Perry could bankrupt the State, while Kinky's view of abortion is irrelevent as long as Roe vs. Wade is in effect. Kinky also could prove to be horribly incompetent. Decisions, decisions.