The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has filed a petition to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. to overturn the EPA's recent greenhouse gas "endangerment" ruling.
The ruling states that gases believed to cause global warming pose a human health risk and is the first step toward their regulation by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. The NCBA and other producer groups fear the ruling could lead to lawsuits and new restrictions on the nation's livestock industries.
The NCBA plans to argue the government's finding is based on faulty and incomplete science and that the Clean Air Act is the improper vehicle for regulating greenhouse gases, said Tamara Thies, the organization's chief environmental counsel.
"We are taking a position that we do not believe the science with regard to alleged manmade climate change is there," Thies said. "The EPA has a responsibility to conduct a rigorous scientific analysis and look at all the science out there instead of just cherry-picking certain studies that agree with its position about manmade climate change."
Capital Press
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Neda Soltan is the Times Person of the Year
Neda Soltan was not political. She did not vote in the Iranian presidential election on June 12. The young student was appalled, however, by the way that the regime shamelessly rigged the result and reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ignoring the pleas of her family, she went with her music teacher eight days later to join a huge opposition demonstration in Tehran.
“Even if a bullet goes through my heart it’s not important,” she told Caspian Makan, her fiancé. “What we’re fighting for is more important. When it comes to taking our stolen rights back we should not hesitate. Everyone is responsible. Each person leaves a footprint in this world.”
Times of London
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Happy Birthday Ludwig!
Everybody likes the 4th movement of the 9th Symphony, I like the 2nd.
Read somewhere that listening to the late quartets make the listener more noble.
Read somewhere that listening to the late quartets make the listener more noble.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Allen West: What it takes to win in Afghanistan
Lt. Col. Allen West (US Army, Ret.) speaks to the Center for Security Policy's National Security Group on Capital Hill. Col. West was a senior advisor, Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command.
h/t
Hoa Hao
h/t
Hoa Hao
Thursday, December 3, 2009
What? Oil isn't a fossil fuel?
Do dead dinosaurs fuel our cars? The assumption that they do, along with other dead matter thought to have formed what are known as fossil fuels, has been an article of faith for centuries. Our geologists are taught fossil fuel theory in our schools; our energy companies search for fossil fuels by divining where the dinosaurs lay down and died. Sooner or later, we will run out of liquefied dinosaurs and be forced to turn to either nuclear or renewable fuels, virtually everyone believes.
[...]
Today, Russians laugh at our peak oil theories as they explore, and find, the bounty in the bowels of the Earth. Russia’s reserves have been climbing steadily — according to BP’s annual survey, they stood at 45 billion barrels in 2001, 69 billion barrels in 2004, and 80 billion barrels of late, making Russia an oil superpower that this year produced more oil than Saudi Arabia. Some oil auditing firms estimate Russia’s reserves at up to 200 billion barrels. Despite Russia’s success in exploration, most of those in the west who have known about the Russian-Ukrainian theories have dismissed them as beyond the Pale. This week, the Russian Pale can be found awfully close to home.
In a study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden and the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington joined colleagues at the Lomonosov Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology in publishing evidence that hydrocarbons can be produced 40 to 95 miles beneath the surface of the Earth. At these depths — in what’s known as Earth’s Upper Mantle — high temperatures and intense pressures combine to generate hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons then migrate toward the surface of the Earth through fissures in the Earth’s crust, sometimes feeding existing pools of oil, sometimes creating entirely new ones. According to Sweden’s Royal Institute, “fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world.”
[...]
The Nature study follows Kutcherov’s previous work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that created hydrocarbons out of water, calcium carbonate and iron — products in the Earth’s mantle. By superheating his ingredients in a pressure chamber at 30,000 times atmospheric pressure, simulating the conditions in the Earth’s mantle, Kutcherov’s alchemy converted 1.5% of his concoction into hydrocarbons — gases such as methane as well as components of heavier oils. The implication of this research, which suggests that hydrocarbons are continuously generated through natural processes? Petroleum is a sustainable resource that will last as long as Planet Earth.
Energy Probe
via
greenspirit
[...]
Today, Russians laugh at our peak oil theories as they explore, and find, the bounty in the bowels of the Earth. Russia’s reserves have been climbing steadily — according to BP’s annual survey, they stood at 45 billion barrels in 2001, 69 billion barrels in 2004, and 80 billion barrels of late, making Russia an oil superpower that this year produced more oil than Saudi Arabia. Some oil auditing firms estimate Russia’s reserves at up to 200 billion barrels. Despite Russia’s success in exploration, most of those in the west who have known about the Russian-Ukrainian theories have dismissed them as beyond the Pale. This week, the Russian Pale can be found awfully close to home.
In a study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden and the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington joined colleagues at the Lomonosov Moscow State Academy of Fine Chemical Technology in publishing evidence that hydrocarbons can be produced 40 to 95 miles beneath the surface of the Earth. At these depths — in what’s known as Earth’s Upper Mantle — high temperatures and intense pressures combine to generate hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons then migrate toward the surface of the Earth through fissures in the Earth’s crust, sometimes feeding existing pools of oil, sometimes creating entirely new ones. According to Sweden’s Royal Institute, “fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world.”
[...]
The Nature study follows Kutcherov’s previous work, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that created hydrocarbons out of water, calcium carbonate and iron — products in the Earth’s mantle. By superheating his ingredients in a pressure chamber at 30,000 times atmospheric pressure, simulating the conditions in the Earth’s mantle, Kutcherov’s alchemy converted 1.5% of his concoction into hydrocarbons — gases such as methane as well as components of heavier oils. The implication of this research, which suggests that hydrocarbons are continuously generated through natural processes? Petroleum is a sustainable resource that will last as long as Planet Earth.
Energy Probe
via
greenspirit
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Let's get Christine a van!
A Story of Survival
By Christine Kent
On August 4th, 2007, I was the victim of a horrible crime that has left me changed forever. On that date, I was attacked by a stalker at my home in Oakland Park, FL. Allan Sinclair IV, a man I had considered to be just an acquaintance, had become obsessed with me when I did not want to be his girlfriend. I politely rebuffed his advances and told him that we could only be friends. After not seeing Sinclair for three years, he showed up at my house and said that he was in the area and thought that he’d stop by to say hello. He wanted what he couldn’t have, and put a gun to the back of my head. I spoke to him about God and told him that he needed to let me go. When I fled for my life, he shot me twice. One of the bullets obliterated the T-12 section of my spine, which paralyzed me. I lay in the gravel conscious beside my driveway as Sinclair ran over me with his SUV and turned the tire while on top of my abdomen, further shattering my body. He fled the scene and I desperately screamed for help, but no one came. My neighbor’s phoned the police when they heard the shots fired, but they were too afraid to come to my aid. I was shocked to find that my attacker came back within minutes in an attempt to hide me from view. He grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me across the driveway, leaving me behind the hedges. Being left there to die, I prayed for my life and to be saved while waiting to be rescued. I survived by a miracle, by the grace of God.
Fortunately this dangerous man was apprehended the very next day. Sinclair pled Guilty to Attempted Rape and Attempted Murder First Degree on Oct.2, 2009 and was sentenced to Life without the possibility of parole. Now I have some closure and peace of mind knowing that he’ll never get out, to hurt me or anyone else again. The Doctors confirmed that the injuries to my spine are so severe that I’ll never walk again. Having spent over six months in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, I am so grateful to be back in my own home. I try to remain positive despite my pain and disability, believing that everyday is a gift and life is a blessing. Sheer will, determination and support helps to keep me pushing forward. I want to make the most of my life and be an inspiration to others as well, striving to make a difference where I can.
I wish so much to be independent again and look forward to progressing in my recovery. However, the costs associated with my injuries are quite high and involve everything from home modifications to medical related. I’m also hoping to save for a handicapped accessible van as well. Could you please help?
To assist with my injury related expenses, a fundraising campaign has been established with the Catastrophic Injury Program of the National Transplant Assistance Fund (NTAF). NTAF is a nonprofit organization that has been serving the transplant and catastrophic injury community for 25 years. All contributions are tax-deductible and are administered for injury-related expenses only.
If you wish to make a donation:
Make check payable to: NTAF Southeast Spinal Cord Injury Fund
Write on check memo line: in honor of Christine Kent
Mail to: NTAF
150 N. Radnor Chester Road, Suite F-120
Radnor, PA 19087
To use a credit card, please visit www.catastrophicfund.org and type “Kent” into the yellow box on the left or call 800-642-8399. My newspaper reports and videos can be viewed on this website.
Thank you for your prayers, support and donations. ChristineKent@bellsouth.net
By Christine Kent
On August 4th, 2007, I was the victim of a horrible crime that has left me changed forever. On that date, I was attacked by a stalker at my home in Oakland Park, FL. Allan Sinclair IV, a man I had considered to be just an acquaintance, had become obsessed with me when I did not want to be his girlfriend. I politely rebuffed his advances and told him that we could only be friends. After not seeing Sinclair for three years, he showed up at my house and said that he was in the area and thought that he’d stop by to say hello. He wanted what he couldn’t have, and put a gun to the back of my head. I spoke to him about God and told him that he needed to let me go. When I fled for my life, he shot me twice. One of the bullets obliterated the T-12 section of my spine, which paralyzed me. I lay in the gravel conscious beside my driveway as Sinclair ran over me with his SUV and turned the tire while on top of my abdomen, further shattering my body. He fled the scene and I desperately screamed for help, but no one came. My neighbor’s phoned the police when they heard the shots fired, but they were too afraid to come to my aid. I was shocked to find that my attacker came back within minutes in an attempt to hide me from view. He grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me across the driveway, leaving me behind the hedges. Being left there to die, I prayed for my life and to be saved while waiting to be rescued. I survived by a miracle, by the grace of God.
Fortunately this dangerous man was apprehended the very next day. Sinclair pled Guilty to Attempted Rape and Attempted Murder First Degree on Oct.2, 2009 and was sentenced to Life without the possibility of parole. Now I have some closure and peace of mind knowing that he’ll never get out, to hurt me or anyone else again. The Doctors confirmed that the injuries to my spine are so severe that I’ll never walk again. Having spent over six months in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, I am so grateful to be back in my own home. I try to remain positive despite my pain and disability, believing that everyday is a gift and life is a blessing. Sheer will, determination and support helps to keep me pushing forward. I want to make the most of my life and be an inspiration to others as well, striving to make a difference where I can.
I wish so much to be independent again and look forward to progressing in my recovery. However, the costs associated with my injuries are quite high and involve everything from home modifications to medical related. I’m also hoping to save for a handicapped accessible van as well. Could you please help?
To assist with my injury related expenses, a fundraising campaign has been established with the Catastrophic Injury Program of the National Transplant Assistance Fund (NTAF). NTAF is a nonprofit organization that has been serving the transplant and catastrophic injury community for 25 years. All contributions are tax-deductible and are administered for injury-related expenses only.
If you wish to make a donation:
Make check payable to: NTAF Southeast Spinal Cord Injury Fund
Write on check memo line: in honor of Christine Kent
Mail to: NTAF
150 N. Radnor Chester Road, Suite F-120
Radnor, PA 19087
To use a credit card, please visit www.catastrophicfund.org and type “Kent” into the yellow box on the left or call 800-642-8399. My newspaper reports and videos can be viewed on this website.
Thank you for your prayers, support and donations. ChristineKent@bellsouth.net
A pedal-operated butter churn
The concept:
"I want to build a pedal-operated machine that churns butter and powers a toaster. It's basically a modified bicycle that attaches directly to an old hand-crank butter churn. It also charges a battery that is hooked to a power converter so I can plug in a toaster."
h/t
the Arianna Huffington of the local foods movement
Universities take action on Climategate
The Obama administration might think Climategate is a nonevent, but on Monday, Pennsylvania State University announced it was launching an investigation into the academic conduct of Michael Mann, director of the school's Earth System Science Center. Yesterday, it was announced that Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, would step aside while his university conducts an investigation. With so much fraud being exposed in the academic community that studies and promotes global-warming theories, an example has to be made of someone.
There are dozens of researchers at other institutions involved in this scandal surrounding leaked e-mails that discuss covering up evidence of global cooling and destroying research that discounts global warming. For example, in the United States, the National Center for Atmospheric Research is in the thick of the e-mail chain.
Mr. Mann is front and center in the debate over what constitutes unethical research. In the current controversy, he is named in about 270 of the more than 1,000 leaked e-mails, many of which detail disturbing and improper academic behavior. On Monday, he told the Penn State student newspaper that the controversy over the leaked e-mails was simply part of a systematic smear campaign to prevent climate researchers from doing their work and that the leaks were timed to derail next week's climate summit.
The evidence suggests that his troubles were not created by a smear campaign but are the result of his own shenanigans.....
....the rest of the article
h/t
joseffy
There are dozens of researchers at other institutions involved in this scandal surrounding leaked e-mails that discuss covering up evidence of global cooling and destroying research that discounts global warming. For example, in the United States, the National Center for Atmospheric Research is in the thick of the e-mail chain.
Mr. Mann is front and center in the debate over what constitutes unethical research. In the current controversy, he is named in about 270 of the more than 1,000 leaked e-mails, many of which detail disturbing and improper academic behavior. On Monday, he told the Penn State student newspaper that the controversy over the leaked e-mails was simply part of a systematic smear campaign to prevent climate researchers from doing their work and that the leaks were timed to derail next week's climate summit.
The evidence suggests that his troubles were not created by a smear campaign but are the result of his own shenanigans.....
....the rest of the article
h/t
joseffy
Monday, November 30, 2009
CRU Source Code Explained
h/t
Wolf Howling, who is back to posting after an extended hiatus. The Wolf is back with a vengeance, some sharp analysis and many excellent links at his site.
'Botch after botch after botch'
A random sampling of internal memos from the world's leading climate research agency:
"But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)
- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)
- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)
- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)
- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)
- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)
- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)
- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)
- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)
- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)
- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)
- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).
- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
And based on stuff like this, politicians are going to blow up our economy and lower our standard of living to "fix" the climate?
Are they insane?
Lorrie Goldstein
via
Lindy Bill
The original raw temperature data has been dumped - what academic tosses out source material?? They didn't factor in the Medieval Warming Period, they hardcoded the hockey stick.....and we're just scratching the surface. Meanwhile, Obama, Browner, and Holdren are happily oblivious as they lurch toward Copenhagen....pray to God he doesn't actually sign anything.
"But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)
- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)
- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)
- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)
- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)
- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)
- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)
- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)
- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)
- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)
- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)
- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).
- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
And based on stuff like this, politicians are going to blow up our economy and lower our standard of living to "fix" the climate?
Are they insane?
Lorrie Goldstein
via
Lindy Bill
The original raw temperature data has been dumped - what academic tosses out source material?? They didn't factor in the Medieval Warming Period, they hardcoded the hockey stick.....and we're just scratching the surface. Meanwhile, Obama, Browner, and Holdren are happily oblivious as they lurch toward Copenhagen....pray to God he doesn't actually sign anything.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
"Climategate is a destroyer of world-views"
This may be the best post to date on Climategate, every point is hit and every dot connected. The Anchoress is in top form, every word is gold.
>>There is a lot to read about Climategate, but none of it is in the Mainstream Media, with the exception of the Obama-Administration described "not real news" organization. That would be Fox News, which is covering the story.
The New York Times, in a stunning bit of hypocrisy, says they won't report on Climategate because they didn't like the way the information was discovered. To the NY TImes, the real story, if they ever deign to cover it, will be about the method in which the story was found, and the ends not justifying means.
There is a valid nit to pick over hacking and how it threatens not just programs but governments and individuals. But when an entire global movement, with accompanying financial interests and public bullying has been founded on "science" that is -at the very least- now confirmed to be "unsettled," that information, regardless of how it was brought to light, needs to be reported on and investigated.
The NY Times' prim distaste for the means of disclosure on this issue rather reminds me of a few years back, when someone leaded a memo from the Senate Intelligence Committee, whereby Sen. Jay Rockefeller suggested strategies to undermine "Bush's war," and the mainstream media ignored the content of the memo, while waxing indignant over the leak.
The standard media, it seems, only like leaks when they serve their own agendas, or take down their perceived enemies, foreign and domestic.
So, they don't like this Climategate Story, not at all. Troubling links and trouble, trouble for the narrative.
Let me tell you why the press is blacking out the Climategate story:
In a nutshell, Climategate is a destroyer of world-views. As someone who has always maintained that the AGW hype was a matter of politicians and grifters seizing an opportunity to use unsettled science as a means of getting filthy rich while imposing harsh measures against human freedom, I am very familiar with the world-view of the alarmists. Whenever I wrote about the "hoo-hah" of AGW (and particularly of Al Gore's stupendous, international fake-out and hypocrisy), my email would load up with people telling me I was "a stupid hick," unschooled in scientific method (just like Al Gore) and therefore unentitled to opine on anything, so I should just "shut up" and "go away" and of course, I was a "nazi." These emails occasionally ended with a diatribe against George W. Bush for good measure, and suggested he and I were both "criminals" against humanity. One person even accused me of being Barbara Bush, in disguise.
All of that was standard-issue hate, but nowhere as amusing as the occasional "Sinner, fry in hell" emails I will get from a Jack Chicker, so I stopped reading them long ago.
But I also had a journalist I admired, and who I still consider a friend, privately and gently suggest that if I doubted the truth about AGW then I was as deluded (and perhaps as evil) as a "holocaust denier."
Yes. The left went that far. The press went that far. They embraced this unsettled science, this unproven theory, with a fervor of moral righteousness; to dispute AGW was to be a bad and stupid person, even if were a dissenting scientist.
To question the point of "environmentally sound" lightbulbs that give bad light and create a dangerous and toxic risk when they break was to "not get the point," which was that the planet was "dying" thanks to Hanukkah candles and incandescent lightbulbs.
To suggest that large-numbers of privileged people flying scores of private planes to exotic locals, gorging themselves on fine fare while deciding how the common folk ought to live, in order to "save" the planet from AGW was bizarre, wasteful and hypocritical in an era of video-conferencing, was to be sniffed at as "insipid." Didn't one understand the power of the Gore Indulgence carbon-offset? Just pay some money to the man with the absolute moral authority on all things green, and your sins are covered. Somewhere, a tree is planted.
The scam of AGW was permitted to gain the foothold it did, because of George W. Bush.
It's Bush's fault: if Bush had not fought back when CBS News called Florida for Al Gore before polls in the panhandle had closed, if Bush had not taken Gore's selective re-count to the Supreme Court, if Bush had just taken those hanging chads like a man and allowed Al Gore to ascend to the presidency (as he'd been groomed to do before he sighed and fumed his way through debates, put his common sense into a lockbox and stumbled into the Buddhist convent, discovering the existence of "no controlling legal authority,") whether the Vice-President actually won or not (the NY Times eventually admitted "not") then Al Gore would not have had to seek redemption and his fortune in climate hucksterism, and the left would not have had to over-indulge him in it, overcompensating in order to "kick Bush in the leg."
That's basically it. The AGW/Climate Change question became a rigorous boondoggle that got out of control not because the scientist who first suggested a connection between human carbon emission and a change in climate were bad people, or that the question was not worth asking, but because bad people then took the uncertain hypothesis, put it on media-fueled steroids, demonized anyone who disagreed with them, made it political -so much so that even the scientists got caught up in the good/bad, smart/stupid, Gore/Bush, Left/Right identifiers- and found real power there; they allowed the AGW movement to become the dubious centering pole upholding the giant circus tent of their worldviews.
As such, it is not permitted to be shaken. Shake the centering pole, and everything could come tumbling down: Oh. My. Gawd! If the Gore-doubters were right about this, what else might they be right about? And if they're all stupid, and I'm smart, but they're right and I'm wrong . . .
Implosion.
If the true-believers of AGW got this wrong, and they'd attached it to all of their politics, all of their hate, all of their superiority, then everything is in a free-fall.
And this is why the mainstream media cannot possibly report on Climategate until they have an acceptable counter-narrative that they can haul out in order to either debunk the story or soften its edges, even as they break the news.
The press, who spent a huge portion of their credibility convincing America that President Bush was a "liar" and a "power-abuser" and an "arrogant chump who made the world (read Chirac and Schroeder) hate us" and then spent the balance of their capital carrying into office a man whose every utterance comes with an expiration date, who seems to have very quickly abused his power and has treated our traditional allies (who were partnering well with the United States from 2004-on) with contempt or disinterest. The press really cannot afford to admit that almost nothing they have said in the past 9 years has escaped ideological or political framing to suit their agenda. Implode, they will.
So the story must not be told, until it can be told from their self-protective angle which is undoubtedly under development as you read this.
[...]
There is an anvil-heavy irony to all of this. Part of the smart/stupid, left/right narrative was built on the fantastic strawman that the AGW-doubters on the right were "enemies of science," that first they were not allowing science to use human embryos for experimentation, and now they were daring to doubt the most imperative scientific advice in the history of mankind.
But if the excesses of the weather-sciences are about be discredited to the degree that -as some worry- may "bring all science into dispute", then that harm comes not from the right, who simply dared to question, but solely from the left, who refused to permit questions, openness, transparency.
Well, let's get to the bottom of all of this, and then let us try -if it is possible, any longer- to become a saner world, say I.
Let Al Gore keep his ill-gotten booty and his stupid Academy Award and his worthless Nobel Peace Prize, and let him go away, somewhere, to an abode that is at least as "green" as President Bush's despised ranch in Texas.
Let people once more get on a commercial air flight without being pestered about how they are guilty of earth-murder.
Let's name the grifters, disassemble the dubious global policies that have been hovering for landing in Copenhagen, admit that the greatest threat to the world and its people is predicated on bombs and hate rather than some feckless, unprovable idea, and then let's prepare for the cold, cold winter with some good old-fashioned oil-drilling while we finally begin to debate a nuclear future.
In truth, I just want my incandescent lightbulbs back, please.
h/t
Lindy Bill
>>There is a lot to read about Climategate, but none of it is in the Mainstream Media, with the exception of the Obama-Administration described "not real news" organization. That would be Fox News, which is covering the story.
The New York Times, in a stunning bit of hypocrisy, says they won't report on Climategate because they didn't like the way the information was discovered. To the NY TImes, the real story, if they ever deign to cover it, will be about the method in which the story was found, and the ends not justifying means.
There is a valid nit to pick over hacking and how it threatens not just programs but governments and individuals. But when an entire global movement, with accompanying financial interests and public bullying has been founded on "science" that is -at the very least- now confirmed to be "unsettled," that information, regardless of how it was brought to light, needs to be reported on and investigated.
The NY Times' prim distaste for the means of disclosure on this issue rather reminds me of a few years back, when someone leaded a memo from the Senate Intelligence Committee, whereby Sen. Jay Rockefeller suggested strategies to undermine "Bush's war," and the mainstream media ignored the content of the memo, while waxing indignant over the leak.
The standard media, it seems, only like leaks when they serve their own agendas, or take down their perceived enemies, foreign and domestic.
So, they don't like this Climategate Story, not at all. Troubling links and trouble, trouble for the narrative.
Let me tell you why the press is blacking out the Climategate story:
In a nutshell, Climategate is a destroyer of world-views. As someone who has always maintained that the AGW hype was a matter of politicians and grifters seizing an opportunity to use unsettled science as a means of getting filthy rich while imposing harsh measures against human freedom, I am very familiar with the world-view of the alarmists. Whenever I wrote about the "hoo-hah" of AGW (and particularly of Al Gore's stupendous, international fake-out and hypocrisy), my email would load up with people telling me I was "a stupid hick," unschooled in scientific method (just like Al Gore) and therefore unentitled to opine on anything, so I should just "shut up" and "go away" and of course, I was a "nazi." These emails occasionally ended with a diatribe against George W. Bush for good measure, and suggested he and I were both "criminals" against humanity. One person even accused me of being Barbara Bush, in disguise.
All of that was standard-issue hate, but nowhere as amusing as the occasional "Sinner, fry in hell" emails I will get from a Jack Chicker, so I stopped reading them long ago.
But I also had a journalist I admired, and who I still consider a friend, privately and gently suggest that if I doubted the truth about AGW then I was as deluded (and perhaps as evil) as a "holocaust denier."
Yes. The left went that far. The press went that far. They embraced this unsettled science, this unproven theory, with a fervor of moral righteousness; to dispute AGW was to be a bad and stupid person, even if were a dissenting scientist.
To question the point of "environmentally sound" lightbulbs that give bad light and create a dangerous and toxic risk when they break was to "not get the point," which was that the planet was "dying" thanks to Hanukkah candles and incandescent lightbulbs.
To suggest that large-numbers of privileged people flying scores of private planes to exotic locals, gorging themselves on fine fare while deciding how the common folk ought to live, in order to "save" the planet from AGW was bizarre, wasteful and hypocritical in an era of video-conferencing, was to be sniffed at as "insipid." Didn't one understand the power of the Gore Indulgence carbon-offset? Just pay some money to the man with the absolute moral authority on all things green, and your sins are covered. Somewhere, a tree is planted.
The scam of AGW was permitted to gain the foothold it did, because of George W. Bush.
It's Bush's fault: if Bush had not fought back when CBS News called Florida for Al Gore before polls in the panhandle had closed, if Bush had not taken Gore's selective re-count to the Supreme Court, if Bush had just taken those hanging chads like a man and allowed Al Gore to ascend to the presidency (as he'd been groomed to do before he sighed and fumed his way through debates, put his common sense into a lockbox and stumbled into the Buddhist convent, discovering the existence of "no controlling legal authority,") whether the Vice-President actually won or not (the NY Times eventually admitted "not") then Al Gore would not have had to seek redemption and his fortune in climate hucksterism, and the left would not have had to over-indulge him in it, overcompensating in order to "kick Bush in the leg."
That's basically it. The AGW/Climate Change question became a rigorous boondoggle that got out of control not because the scientist who first suggested a connection between human carbon emission and a change in climate were bad people, or that the question was not worth asking, but because bad people then took the uncertain hypothesis, put it on media-fueled steroids, demonized anyone who disagreed with them, made it political -so much so that even the scientists got caught up in the good/bad, smart/stupid, Gore/Bush, Left/Right identifiers- and found real power there; they allowed the AGW movement to become the dubious centering pole upholding the giant circus tent of their worldviews.
As such, it is not permitted to be shaken. Shake the centering pole, and everything could come tumbling down: Oh. My. Gawd! If the Gore-doubters were right about this, what else might they be right about? And if they're all stupid, and I'm smart, but they're right and I'm wrong . . .
Implosion.
If the true-believers of AGW got this wrong, and they'd attached it to all of their politics, all of their hate, all of their superiority, then everything is in a free-fall.
And this is why the mainstream media cannot possibly report on Climategate until they have an acceptable counter-narrative that they can haul out in order to either debunk the story or soften its edges, even as they break the news.
The press, who spent a huge portion of their credibility convincing America that President Bush was a "liar" and a "power-abuser" and an "arrogant chump who made the world (read Chirac and Schroeder) hate us" and then spent the balance of their capital carrying into office a man whose every utterance comes with an expiration date, who seems to have very quickly abused his power and has treated our traditional allies (who were partnering well with the United States from 2004-on) with contempt or disinterest. The press really cannot afford to admit that almost nothing they have said in the past 9 years has escaped ideological or political framing to suit their agenda. Implode, they will.
So the story must not be told, until it can be told from their self-protective angle which is undoubtedly under development as you read this.
[...]
There is an anvil-heavy irony to all of this. Part of the smart/stupid, left/right narrative was built on the fantastic strawman that the AGW-doubters on the right were "enemies of science," that first they were not allowing science to use human embryos for experimentation, and now they were daring to doubt the most imperative scientific advice in the history of mankind.
But if the excesses of the weather-sciences are about be discredited to the degree that -as some worry- may "bring all science into dispute", then that harm comes not from the right, who simply dared to question, but solely from the left, who refused to permit questions, openness, transparency.
Well, let's get to the bottom of all of this, and then let us try -if it is possible, any longer- to become a saner world, say I.
Let Al Gore keep his ill-gotten booty and his stupid Academy Award and his worthless Nobel Peace Prize, and let him go away, somewhere, to an abode that is at least as "green" as President Bush's despised ranch in Texas.
Let people once more get on a commercial air flight without being pestered about how they are guilty of earth-murder.
Let's name the grifters, disassemble the dubious global policies that have been hovering for landing in Copenhagen, admit that the greatest threat to the world and its people is predicated on bombs and hate rather than some feckless, unprovable idea, and then let's prepare for the cold, cold winter with some good old-fashioned oil-drilling while we finally begin to debate a nuclear future.
In truth, I just want my incandescent lightbulbs back, please.
h/t
Lindy Bill
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Grinch Who Moved Thanksgiving
Always a pleasure to get a history lesson from Bill Kauffman. A couple of snippets:
It seems that in 1939 Thanksgiving was to fall on November 30th, a matter of consternation to the big merchants of the National Retail Dry Goods Association (NRDGA). The presidents of Gimbel Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and other unsentimental vendors petitioned President Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving to the previous Thursday, November 23, thus creating an additional week of Christmas shopping—and to the astonishment of those Americans without dollar signs in their eyes, the President did so. (Not all merchants favored the shift. One Kokomo shopkeeper hung a sign in his window reading, “Do your shopping now. Who knows, tomorrow may be Christmas.”)
Opinion polls revealed that more than 60 percent of Americans opposed the Rooseveltian ukase; dissent was especially vigorous in New England. The selectmen of Plymouth, Massachusetts informed the President, “It is a religious holiday and [you] have no right to change it for commercial reasons.” Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks to the Almighty, harrumphed Governor Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, “and not for the inauguration of Christmas shopping.”
[...]
Twenty-three states celebrated Thanksgiving 1939 on November 23, and another 23 stood fast with November 30. Two states, Colorado and Texas, shrugged their shoulders and celebrated both days—Texas did so to avoid having to move the Texas-Texas A&M football game.
Bill's article is at Front Porch Republic
It seems that in 1939 Thanksgiving was to fall on November 30th, a matter of consternation to the big merchants of the National Retail Dry Goods Association (NRDGA). The presidents of Gimbel Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and other unsentimental vendors petitioned President Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving to the previous Thursday, November 23, thus creating an additional week of Christmas shopping—and to the astonishment of those Americans without dollar signs in their eyes, the President did so. (Not all merchants favored the shift. One Kokomo shopkeeper hung a sign in his window reading, “Do your shopping now. Who knows, tomorrow may be Christmas.”)
Opinion polls revealed that more than 60 percent of Americans opposed the Rooseveltian ukase; dissent was especially vigorous in New England. The selectmen of Plymouth, Massachusetts informed the President, “It is a religious holiday and [you] have no right to change it for commercial reasons.” Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks to the Almighty, harrumphed Governor Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, “and not for the inauguration of Christmas shopping.”
[...]
Twenty-three states celebrated Thanksgiving 1939 on November 23, and another 23 stood fast with November 30. Two states, Colorado and Texas, shrugged their shoulders and celebrated both days—Texas did so to avoid having to move the Texas-Texas A&M football game.
Bill's article is at Front Porch Republic
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