Canadian, Conservative and Sour. Satire, Cynicism, Snark and Sarcasm is Often the Best Medicine............... Stephen Harper's Favorite Blog
Monday, December 31, 2007
No Democratic Epiphany on the Road to Des Moines
One would think that with 7 complete years of hammering away at the Presidency of GW Bush, that the Democratic Party would be able to come up with someone who could be perceived as a capable, competent and charismatic candidate to be President of the United States. But Nooooooo.
Burt Prelutsky gets it right:
Burt Prelutsky gets it right:
I honestly don’t understand why liberals are always so anxious to settle for the likes of Obama, Edwards, Clinton and Gore. After all, what do they offer us? John Edwards has pretty much promised that no working man will ever lose his job. All that means is that 25 million of us will be flipping burgers if he’s elected. Obama has vowed to bring us all together, although he hasn’t explained how he’ll pull off that trick, seeing how far apart we are when it comes to abortion, capital punishment, the war in Iraq, same-sex marriage, raising taxes, gun ownership, Iran’s nuclear plans, school vouchers, the Palestinians, Supreme Court appointments, Islamic terrorism and whether Brad Pitt was right to leave Jennifer for Angelina.
For her part, Hillary offers us universal health care, a chicken in every pot and four more years of Bill back in the White House chasing chicks.
Kudos for Dec 2007 CBL Golden Lemon Award Winner
HT to Celestial Junk
Videos that tell the entire AGW Fraud Story from Coyote Blogger here...
The simple fact - the Occam's Razor - about so-called Anthropogenic Global Warming is that times change, so does weather and the climate, always has, always will. And that the theory is wrong and those who promote it are liars, hypocrites, band-wagoners, and self-interested.
Videos that tell the entire AGW Fraud Story from Coyote Blogger here...
The simple fact - the Occam's Razor - about so-called Anthropogenic Global Warming is that times change, so does weather and the climate, always has, always will. And that the theory is wrong and those who promote it are liars, hypocrites, band-wagoners, and self-interested.
AGW - More Sacred and Holy Than Ever
Paul at Celestial Junk has a great piece this morning on the intellectual bankruptcy of the IPCC and it's followers. I commented, but thought it worth while to post here.
Almost a year ago I wrote about how the AGW movement bore a striking similarity to religious movements.
It's becoming even more clearly so - preachers, pastors, acolytes, charlatans, hierarchies, gospel, catechisms, doctrine, liturgy, homilies, use of fear, censorship, a path to salvation and a firey hell for non-believers.
Rid us of these pestilent priests.
Meanwhile, Kate at SDA proves that the level of polar ice is 99% of normal.
Let's all be afraid. Very afraid.
Almost a year ago I wrote about how the AGW movement bore a striking similarity to religious movements.
It's becoming even more clearly so - preachers, pastors, acolytes, charlatans, hierarchies, gospel, catechisms, doctrine, liturgy, homilies, use of fear, censorship, a path to salvation and a firey hell for non-believers.
Rid us of these pestilent priests.
Meanwhile, Kate at SDA proves that the level of polar ice is 99% of normal.
Let's all be afraid. Very afraid.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Savage Reveals Agenda of CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations)
Great Find by and Hat Tip to our friend "Just Right"
47. CAIR filed a frivolous lawsuit filed against American Citizens who alerted security when they observed six Muslim Imams boarding US Airways Flight 300 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 20, 2006. The Imams deliberately acted as if they were terrorists in order to create an incident. The lawsuit by CAIR was intended, among other things, to intimidate American citizens so that they would be afraid to report terrorist activities when they observed them. To protect Americans from such tactics, Congress passed legislation to protect reporting citizens.
48. CAIR launched a public act of misinformation against Dr. Laura Schlessinger when she criticized the taking of school children to a Mosque to learn morals. Such a field trip likely violated the separation of church and state and Dr. Schlessinger's comments were protected by the First Amendment. Despite this, CAIR sought to sanction Dr. Schlessinger for her comments.
49. In August 2005, CAIR pressured ABC radio to terminate radio talk show host Michael Graham for criticizing terrorism and Islam. The did this by making threats of economic harm against ABC.
50. Threatened legal action against Young America's Foundation to stop them from allowing a speaker critical of CAIR address their group. There was no legal basis for CAIR's position, it was a threat of economic extortion as YAF would be forced to expend funds to defend the frivolous lawsuit.
51. On March 31, 2004, CAIR sued Andrew Whitehead who operated the website anti-CAIR.org.net. This lawsuit alleged that Whitehead's articles showing CAIR's connection to Islamic terror were libelous. CAIR dropped the lawsuit when discovery requests were filed by Whitehead's attorney and the website continues to carry the same material.
52. CAIR sued North Carolina congressman, Cass Ballenger who called CAIR "the fund-raising arm for Hezbollah" and raised the possibility that it would try to blow up the Capitol Building. CAIR responded with a $2 million defamation suit. This lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. Apr. 11, 2006 update: A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Washington (made up of David Sentelle, Judith Rogers, and Thomas Griffith) ruled unanimously to uphold Judge Leon's March 2005 decision to dismiss CAIR's case. Arsalan Iftikhar, CAIR's director of legal affairs, had described the purpose of the lawsuit as follows: "With this lawsuit, we are sending a clear message to all those who make malicious and defamatory statements against American Muslims or their institutions that they will be held accountable in a court of law.
53. CAIR again targeted American students when the attacked Sara Townsley a columnist with the Cornell Daily Sun a Cornell University student newspaper, who wrote an article on Oct. 19, 2004 "A Vote for Kerry is a Vote for the Enemy," in which she stated that CAIR officials "have defended suicide bombers, funneled money to Hamas, and at least five of its leaders have been deported, indicted, or convicted on terrorism charges." CAIR responded that same day with an accusatory letter ("Ms. Townsley uses regurgitated smears against CAIR from right-wing websites and noted Islamophobes such as Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson") that also demanded the column's immediate removal, apologies for "these vicious attacks," and permission for CAIR to submit an oped. The CAIR letter also threatened that "If you elect to publish or distribute this confidential letter to any person or entity in any form; suit will be filed forthwith." Andy Guess, editor-in-chief of the Cornell Daily Sun, responded on Oct. 25 by denying any infraction and offering CAIR just a letter-to-the-editor for its response. On Oct. 26, CAIR responded that its "mentioning a possibly impending lawsuit is not merely a hollow gesture on our part".
Original Link at Savage Productions
47. CAIR filed a frivolous lawsuit filed against American Citizens who alerted security when they observed six Muslim Imams boarding US Airways Flight 300 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 20, 2006. The Imams deliberately acted as if they were terrorists in order to create an incident. The lawsuit by CAIR was intended, among other things, to intimidate American citizens so that they would be afraid to report terrorist activities when they observed them. To protect Americans from such tactics, Congress passed legislation to protect reporting citizens.
48. CAIR launched a public act of misinformation against Dr. Laura Schlessinger when she criticized the taking of school children to a Mosque to learn morals. Such a field trip likely violated the separation of church and state and Dr. Schlessinger's comments were protected by the First Amendment. Despite this, CAIR sought to sanction Dr. Schlessinger for her comments.
49. In August 2005, CAIR pressured ABC radio to terminate radio talk show host Michael Graham for criticizing terrorism and Islam. The did this by making threats of economic harm against ABC.
50. Threatened legal action against Young America's Foundation to stop them from allowing a speaker critical of CAIR address their group. There was no legal basis for CAIR's position, it was a threat of economic extortion as YAF would be forced to expend funds to defend the frivolous lawsuit.
51. On March 31, 2004, CAIR sued Andrew Whitehead who operated the website anti-CAIR.org.net. This lawsuit alleged that Whitehead's articles showing CAIR's connection to Islamic terror were libelous. CAIR dropped the lawsuit when discovery requests were filed by Whitehead's attorney and the website continues to carry the same material.
52. CAIR sued North Carolina congressman, Cass Ballenger who called CAIR "the fund-raising arm for Hezbollah" and raised the possibility that it would try to blow up the Capitol Building. CAIR responded with a $2 million defamation suit. This lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. Apr. 11, 2006 update: A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Washington (made up of David Sentelle, Judith Rogers, and Thomas Griffith) ruled unanimously to uphold Judge Leon's March 2005 decision to dismiss CAIR's case. Arsalan Iftikhar, CAIR's director of legal affairs, had described the purpose of the lawsuit as follows: "With this lawsuit, we are sending a clear message to all those who make malicious and defamatory statements against American Muslims or their institutions that they will be held accountable in a court of law.
53. CAIR again targeted American students when the attacked Sara Townsley a columnist with the Cornell Daily Sun a Cornell University student newspaper, who wrote an article on Oct. 19, 2004 "A Vote for Kerry is a Vote for the Enemy," in which she stated that CAIR officials "have defended suicide bombers, funneled money to Hamas, and at least five of its leaders have been deported, indicted, or convicted on terrorism charges." CAIR responded that same day with an accusatory letter ("Ms. Townsley uses regurgitated smears against CAIR from right-wing websites and noted Islamophobes such as Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson") that also demanded the column's immediate removal, apologies for "these vicious attacks," and permission for CAIR to submit an oped. The CAIR letter also threatened that "If you elect to publish or distribute this confidential letter to any person or entity in any form; suit will be filed forthwith." Andy Guess, editor-in-chief of the Cornell Daily Sun, responded on Oct. 25 by denying any infraction and offering CAIR just a letter-to-the-editor for its response. On Oct. 26, CAIR responded that its "mentioning a possibly impending lawsuit is not merely a hollow gesture on our part".
Original Link at Savage Productions
CBL Review and Endorsement
In over two years of blogging not once has CBL endorsed a commercial product.
Until now.
I got Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special Video compendium for Christmas.
Wow, does it rock. Heart-pounding, breath-taking and back-shivering.
The music of our lives in original performances, non-pretentious, sincere and fantastic.
Young Van Morrison, Young Bonnie Raitt, Living Marvin Gaye.
80 performances by artists at their collective peaks.
Do they ever look young.
Buy it...
Until now.
I got Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special Video compendium for Christmas.
Wow, does it rock. Heart-pounding, breath-taking and back-shivering.
The music of our lives in original performances, non-pretentious, sincere and fantastic.
Young Van Morrison, Young Bonnie Raitt, Living Marvin Gaye.
80 performances by artists at their collective peaks.
Do they ever look young.
Buy it...
Raphael Unveils Blogging Tory Mole . . .
Raph Alexander is one of my top five Blogging Tory sites.
And this morning he posted on a new site in the BT realm that isn't what it seems.
Rather than delete from the BT aggregator, I suggest that Stephen leave it to show the ridiculous lengths that Cdn Cynic and his pathetic posse go to for attention.
Friday, December 28, 2007
PETA - As a Chicken Thinketh . . .
Epicurious
PETA's Vice President Bruce Friedrich, cheerfully admits that he and his colleagues ultimately want the world to swear off meat. "But we're realistic," he says. "Nobody thinks were going to have animal liberation tomorrow. So it's all about the Golden Rule: If I were in the chicken's place, what would I want?"
I've always thought that PETA-maniacs were bird brains. Now they admit to actually knowing what birds think. The truth is told.
PETA's Vice President Bruce Friedrich, cheerfully admits that he and his colleagues ultimately want the world to swear off meat. "But we're realistic," he says. "Nobody thinks were going to have animal liberation tomorrow. So it's all about the Golden Rule: If I were in the chicken's place, what would I want?"
I've always thought that PETA-maniacs were bird brains. Now they admit to actually knowing what birds think. The truth is told.
Suzuki Admits Climate Change not Really About 'The Planet"
It's about changing society:
Major social change is not possible without public support and momentum. All of the major battles of social progress, such as allowing women to vote, were made possible because people got involved and decided they would no longer stand for business as usual. The public knew it was time for a change, and they made sure their legislators knew too.
Kinda good to see him come out of hishole estate on Salt Spring Island after getting hammered for lying about the support he receives from energy corporations, driving across the country spewing diesel and ordering everyone else to live in tiny houses when he lives in a personal resort.
Major social change is not possible without public support and momentum. All of the major battles of social progress, such as allowing women to vote, were made possible because people got involved and decided they would no longer stand for business as usual. The public knew it was time for a change, and they made sure their legislators knew too.
Kinda good to see him come out of his
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Draft Petraeus Movement
So Time Magazine chose Vlad Putin as their Why? Because he's the Patriarch of a new Russian Empire.
Which is hardly news; Russia's successful leaders over the years have all shared in common the desire to consolidate territory and strangle dissenters.
But in the USA, there's growing consensus that the man of 2007 was General David Petraeus, he who has run a campaign that promises fulfillment of promises of democracy in Iraq.
Seventy senators voted last Tuesday to provide $70 billion more to fund the Iraq War, and the latest cash came free and clear. No timetable for withdrawal. No deadlines. No strings attached.Why not the guy who hired him?
Who would have thought this possible a year ago? Or a half-year ago? Surely not the Iraq Study Group, which wanted a staged withdrawal. Surely not the nation's media-cracy, which had decided Iraq's "civil war" was "lost." Surely, not Democrats, who'd taken control of Congress and wanted out of Iraq. Surely, not their sunshine Republican allies, who wanted either to play commander-in-chief or buck up their 2008 election prospects. If President Bush wouldn't declare defeat and bring the troops home, Congress would defund the war by hook or by crook.
How to explain last Tuesday's 70-30 vote? One man and the troops he would represent if he had been named Person of the Year: Petraeus, the architect, implementer and public face of a surge and counter-insurgency strategy that's pacified Baghdad, Anbar province and, apparently, even Washington, D.C.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
How Roe v Wade Changed the US Constitution Forever
Just what is "a compelling state interest"? Could there possibly be a more amorphous term, abusable term? More importantly, who defines it? Remember that whoever gets to define compelling state interest becomes our de facto ruler.
I think there is a really good reason that the framers of the Constitution did now write that "the government has all powers that there is a compelling state interest to have". This line would have made the document a license for totalitarianism, but for some reason, our courts have basically rewritten the Constitution to read just this way.
The only thing stopping us from being a totalitarian state today are judges that are willing to read "compelling state interest" narrowly. And these judges just slow the process of creeping statism.
After a respite, from CBL's December 2008 Golden Lemon Award Winner: Coyote Blog
I think there is a really good reason that the framers of the Constitution did now write that "the government has all powers that there is a compelling state interest to have". This line would have made the document a license for totalitarianism, but for some reason, our courts have basically rewritten the Constitution to read just this way.
The only thing stopping us from being a totalitarian state today are judges that are willing to read "compelling state interest" narrowly. And these judges just slow the process of creeping statism.
After a respite, from CBL's December 2008 Golden Lemon Award Winner: Coyote Blog
Friday, December 21, 2007
Proponents of Man-made Climate Change Playing Children's Game to Scare
Washington DC – An abundance of new peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and data error discoveries in the last several months has prompted scientists to declare that fear of catastrophic man-made global warming “bites the dust” and the scientific underpinnings for alarm may be “falling apart.”
The latest study to cast doubt on climate fears finds that even a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would not have the previously predicted dire impacts on global temperatures. This new study is not unique, as a host of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast a chill on global warming fears.
Here
The latest study to cast doubt on climate fears finds that even a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would not have the previously predicted dire impacts on global temperatures. This new study is not unique, as a host of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast a chill on global warming fears.
Here
Cda, USA, Norway Data Table and Methodology
Here are the data.
I know that lefties have a hard time with math so I'll walk you through.
You take the raw data for CO2 emissions. You calculate how much they grew or were reduced each year.
You calculate this as a percentage against the previous year.
Too bad Green Jeans didn't apply the same scrutiny to the Hockey Stick.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
More on Dion's Norway Slip
If all of us do no more than reveal to whatever audience we have of the lies spread by those who make their living and derive their power by scaring the bejeezus out of the people with false tales of the end of the world, then our blogs are worthwhile.
News from Norway
Norway's emission of greenhouse gases increased by nine percent from 1990-2003 and the nation is not on course to meet the environmental obligations laid out by the Kyoto agreement.
The new figures stem from the United Nations climate convention and were presented by Statistics Norway (SSB) on Wednesday.
Emission increases continued in 2004 with Norway discharging 11 percent more greenhouse gases compared to 1990 levels. The Kyoto agreement demands that countries reduce their emission levels by 2008-2012.
Norway's increase is mainly due to a 77 percent increase in emission from the oil and gas sector, and pollution from road traffic, up 34 percent in this period.
Sweden is the only Nordic nation to manage an emission reduction in the period 1990-2003, and based on 2003 figures, the UK, France, Greece and some Eastern European nations are on course to meet Kyoto requirements.
Courtesy of a CBL Reader
News from Norway
Norway's emission of greenhouse gases increased by nine percent from 1990-2003 and the nation is not on course to meet the environmental obligations laid out by the Kyoto agreement.
The new figures stem from the United Nations climate convention and were presented by Statistics Norway (SSB) on Wednesday.
Emission increases continued in 2004 with Norway discharging 11 percent more greenhouse gases compared to 1990 levels. The Kyoto agreement demands that countries reduce their emission levels by 2008-2012.
Norway's increase is mainly due to a 77 percent increase in emission from the oil and gas sector, and pollution from road traffic, up 34 percent in this period.
Sweden is the only Nordic nation to manage an emission reduction in the period 1990-2003, and based on 2003 figures, the UK, France, Greece and some Eastern European nations are on course to meet Kyoto requirements.
Courtesy of a CBL Reader
Stephane Dion Screws Up on Norway and CO2 Emissions
VIDEO
The thing that gets me, is that the pro-AGW side can get away with saying anything and never be held accountable.
Here he is, holding up Norway as a stellar example of an oil producing country that is doing great with CO2 control, when the exact opposite is true. They're doing worse than Canada and the USA.
The AGW Scientific Consensus is In - And Gorezuki Ain't It !!
Found by The Politic here's link to the Original Source
Israel: “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”
Russia: “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact.”
Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.
Netherlands: “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit. I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."
Brazil: “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming.”
France: “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance.”
Norway: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”
Finland: “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases. “
Germany: “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong.”
Canada:“To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”
Czech Republic: “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,”
India: “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”
USA: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”
Italy: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."
New Zealand: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”
South Africa: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”
Poland: “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”
Britain: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”
China: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated."
Denmark: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”
Belgium: “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”
Sweden: “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”
USA: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this. The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”
Israel: “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”
Russia: “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact.”
Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.
Netherlands: “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit. I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."
Brazil: “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming.”
France: “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless acceptance.”
Norway: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”
Finland: “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases. “
Germany: “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong.”
Canada:“To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”
Czech Republic: “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,”
India: “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”
USA: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”
Italy: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."
New Zealand: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”
South Africa: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”
Poland: “We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”
Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”
Britain: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”
China: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated."
Denmark: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”
Belgium: “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”
Sweden: “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”
USA: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this. The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Santa's Fantastic Voyage
Could He Really Do It?
1) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
2) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical).
This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.
Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
3) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight.
On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine.
We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
4) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.
In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second.
Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.> In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
(This appeared in the SPY Magazine (January, 1990)
1) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
2) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical).
This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.
Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
3) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight.
On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine.
We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
4) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.
In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second.
Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.> In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
(This appeared in the SPY Magazine (January, 1990)
The Bali Fallacy - Part Two
Viscount Monckton Batters Bali.
I especially like his forecast of criminal prosecution of the Gorenut for racketeering.
I especially like his forecast of criminal prosecution of the Gorenut for racketeering.
It is surely only a matter of time before a complaint is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that, through the numerous, extreme and scientifically-unwarranted exaggerations which Gore has relentlessly continued to peddle notwithstanding the warning in the UK judge’s verdict, he is in effect fraudulently promoting a false prospectors to potential investors. Indeed, his exaggerations are on such a scale, and have commanded such attention, and have done so much damage, that he may even have committed an offence under the Federal racketeering statute. I wanted to ask Gore about his failure to disclose his financial interest, but – as usual – he does not dare to take questions.Tip to Peters
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Bali Fallacy
Browsing the Nat'l Newswatch this morning I came across the following para from the Ottawa Citizen:
Try getting four people to agree on where to have lunch...
But that's not my point. My point is that 188 of these countries don't matter; can add nothing to the solution and aren't part of the problem (assuming there actually is one).
The debate (and that's all it is - a cruise, booze, shmooze and snooze fest) should only have been between US, China, India and Russia. No body else matters. So why is anybody else involved? (Except for the cruise, booze, etc., of course.)
Not that posturing is wrong: it's the very first step toward reaching any agreement on anything, and it's important to understand what everyone's thinking when 180-some countries are trying to agree on something as complex as a treaty to take over from the Kyoto Accord when it runs out in 2012.180-some countries? (actually 192) involved in coming up with a solution?
Try getting four people to agree on where to have lunch...
But that's not my point. My point is that 188 of these countries don't matter; can add nothing to the solution and aren't part of the problem (assuming there actually is one).
The debate (and that's all it is - a cruise, booze, shmooze and snooze fest) should only have been between US, China, India and Russia. No body else matters. So why is anybody else involved? (Except for the cruise, booze, etc., of course.)
More Climate Change Bafflegab from Toronto Star
Willingness to talk climate change what counts
Really.
Should the crisis be AIDS, would it be willingness to talk that counts? Or Nuclear Disarmament? Or Middle East Peace?
Then again, not surprising that this comes from a commentator that states:
"The climate crisis has been caused virtually entirely by the developed world's extravagant use of fossil fuels."
Really.
Should the crisis be AIDS, would it be willingness to talk that counts? Or Nuclear Disarmament? Or Middle East Peace?
Then again, not surprising that this comes from a commentator that states:
"The climate crisis has been caused virtually entirely by the developed world's extravagant use of fossil fuels."
Monday, December 17, 2007
The Only Liar Worse Than Big Fat Liar Al Gore is His Big Fat Lying Former Boss Bill Clinton
Watch and Listen as he takes credit for reducing AIDS and feeding the starving.
Here
Here
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A Guide To The Lies of Al Gore
Lead to Christopher Monckton's Original Article came courtesy Hat Tip to Paul at CJunk
1/ "Sea Level Rising 6 metres"
Gore exaggerates sea-level changes by 10,000%. Gore says that the world as we now it will have sea-levels up to 20 ft. higher from arctic melt. The IPCC says an increase of this scale would only occur after several millennia and that the arctic melt would only contribute about 2.5 inches. The IPCC report also estimates that the likelihood of humankind having any influence on sea level at all is little better than 50:50.
2/ "Pacific Islands Drowning"
Gore says low-lying inhabited Pacific coral atolls are already being inundated because of AGW. There have been no mass evacuations of populations of islanders as suggested by Gore; the tide-gauges maintained until recently by the National Tidal Facility of Australia show a mean annual sea-level rise over the past half-century equivalent to the thickness of a human hair.
3/ "Thermohaline Circulation Stopping"
Gore says “global warming” may shut down the thermohaline circulation (i.e. the Gulf Stream) in the oceans, plunging Europe into an ice age. It will not. Indications of a sustained thermohaline circulation weakening are not seen during the last few decades. Instead, a strengthening since the 1980s is observed.
4/ "CO2 Driving Temperature Change"
Gore says that in each of the last four interglacial warm periods it was changes in carbon dioxide concentration that caused changes in temperature. It was the other way about. Changes in temperature preceded changes in CO2 concentration by between 800 and 2800 years, as scientific papers including the paper on which Gore’s film had relied had made clear.
5/ "Snows of Kilimanjaro Melting"
Gore says “global warming” has been melting the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is not. The melting of the Furtwangler Glacier at the summit of the mountain began 125 years ago. More of the glacier had melted before Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936 than afterward. Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing and is at an average of –7 Celsius.
6/ "Lake Chad Drying Up"
Gore says “global warming” dried up Lake Chad in Africa. It did not. Over-extraction of water and changing agricultural patterns dried the lake, which was also dry in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Ms. Kreider says, “There are multiple stresses upon Lake Chad.” However, the scientific consensus is that at present those “stresses” do not include “global warming.”
7/ "Hurricane Katrina Man-Made
Gore says Hurricane Katrina, that devastated New Orleans in 2005, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. It was caused by the failure of Gore’s party, in the administration of New Orleans, to heed 30 years of warnings by the Corps of Engineers that the levees – dams that kept New Orleans dry – could not stand a direct hit by a hurricane. Katrina was only Category 3 when it struck the levees. They failed, as the Engineers had said they would. Gore’s party, not “global warming,” was to blame for the consequent death and destruction.
8/ "Polar Bears Dying Out"
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide now there are 25,000.
9/ "Coral Reefs Bleaching"
Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.” They are not. There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly severe El Ninos over the past 250 years also caused extensive bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.
10/ "100 parts/million of CO2 will melt mile-thick ice"
Gore implies that the difference of just 100 parts per million by volume in CO2 concentration between an interglacial temperature maximum and an ice-age temperature minimum causes “the difference between a nice day and having a mile of ice above your head.” It does not. Gore’s implication has the effect of overstating the mainstream consensus estimate of the effect of CO2 on temperature at least tenfold.
11/ "Hurricane Caterina Man-made"
Gore says that Hurricane Caterina, the only hurricane ever to strike the coast of Brazil, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. In 2004, Brazil’s summer sea surface temperatures were cooler than normal, not warmer. But air temperatures were the coldest in 25 years. The air was so much colder than the water that it caused a heat flux from the water to the air similar to that which fuels hurricanes in warm seas.
12/ "Japanese Typhoons a New Record"
Gore says that 2004 set a new record for the number of typhoons striking Japan. It did not. The trend in the number of typhoons, and of tropical cyclones, has fallen throughout the past 50 years. The trend in rainfall from cyclones has also fallen, and there has been no trend in monsoon rainfall.
13/ "Hurricanes Getting Stronger"
Gore says scientists had been giving warnings that hurricanes will get stronger because of “global warming.” They will not. Over the past 60 years there has been no change in the strength of hurricanes, even though hydrocarbon use went up six-fold in the same period.
14/ "Insurance Losses from Big Storms Increasing"
Gore says insurance losses arising from large storms and other extreme-weather events are increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” They are not. Insured losses, as a percentage of the population of coastal areas in the path of hurricanes, were lower even in 2005 than they had been in 1925. In 2006, a very quiet hurricane season, Lloyds of London posted their biggest-ever profit: £3.6 billion.
15/ "Mumbai Flooding"
Gore says flooding in Mumbai is increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” It is not. Rainfall trends at the two major weather stations in Mumbai show no increase in heavy rainfall over the past 48 years.
16/ 'Severe Tornadoes More Frequent"
Gore says that 2004 set an all-time record for tornadoes in the US. More tornadoes are being reported because detection systems are better than they were. But the number of severe tornadoes has been falling for more than 50 years.
17/ "Sun Heats the Arctic Ocean"
Gore says that ice-melt allows the Sun to heat the Arctic Ocean, and a diagram shows the Sun’s rays heating it directly. It does not. The ocean emits radiant energy at the moment of absorption, and would freeze if there were no atmosphere. It is the atmosphere, not the Sun that warms the ocean. Also, Gore’s diagram confuses the tropopause with the ionosphere, and he makes a number of other errors indicating that he does not understand the elementary physics of radiative transfer.
18/ "Arctic Warming Fastest"
Gore says the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the planet. It is not. Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler than it was in the 1940s.
19/ "Greenland Ice Sheet – Unstable"
Gore says “global warming” is making the Greenland ice sheet unstable. It is not. Greenland ice grows 2 inches a year. The Greenland ice sheet survived each of the previous three interglacial periods, each of which was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present. It survived atmospheric CO2 concentrations of up to 1000 ppmv (compared with today’s 400 ppmv). It last melted 850,000 years ago, when humankind did not exist and could not have caused the melting.
20/ "Himalayan Glacial Melt Waters Failing"
Gore says 40% of the world’s population get their water supply from Himalayan glacial melt waters that are failing because of “global warming.” They don’t and they are not. The water comes almost entirely from snow-melt, not from ice-melt. Over the past 40 years there has been no decline in the amount of snow-melt in Eurasia.
21/ "Peruvian Glaciers Disappearing"
Gore says that a Peruvian glacier is less extensive now than it was in the 1940s, implying that “global warming” is the cause. It is not. Except for the very highest peaks, the normal state of the Peruvian cordilleras has been ice-free throughout most of the past 10,000 years.
22/ "Mountain Glaciers Worldwide Disappearing"
Gore shows several before-and-after pictures of glaciers disappearing. However, the glacial melt began in the 1820s, long before humankind could have had any effect, and has continued at a uniform rate since, showing no acceleration since humankind began increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. Total ice volumes in three of the last four Ice Ages were lower than they are today, and “global warming” had nothing to do with that.
23/ "Sahara Desert Drying"
Gore says terrible tragedies are occurring in the southern Sahara because of drought which he blames on “global warming.” There is no drought caused by “global warming.” In 2007 there were record rains across the whole of the southern Sahara. In the past 25 years the Sahara has shrunk by some 300,000 square kilometers because of additional rainfall.
24/ "West Antarctic Ice Sheet Unstable"
Gore says disturbing changes have been measured under the West Antarctic ice sheet, implicitly because of “global warming.” Yet most of the recession in this ice sheet over the past 10,000 years has occurred in the absence of any sea-level or temperature forcing. In most of Antarctica, the ice is in fact growing thicker. Mean Antarctic temperature has actually fallen throughout the past half-century.
25/ "Antarctic Peninsula Ice Shelves Breaking Up"
Gore says half a dozen ice shelves each “larger than Rhode Island” have broken up and vanished from the Antarctic Peninsula recently, implicitly because of “global warming.” Gore does not explain that the ice shelves have melted before, as studies of seabed sediments have shown. The Antarctic Peninsula accounts for about 2% of the continent, in most of which the ice is growing thicker.
26/ "Larson B Ice Shelf Broke Up Because of Global Warming"
Gore focuses on the Larsen B ice shelf, saying that it completely disappeared in 35 days. Yet there has been extensive ice-shelf break-up throughout the past 10,000 years, and the maximum ice-shelf extent may have been in the Little Ice Age in the late 15th century.
27/ "Mosquitoes Climbing to Higher Altitudes"
Gore says that, because of “global warming”, mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes. They are not. Most recent outbreaks have been at lower levels than those of a century and more ago. He says that Nairobi was founded 1000 m above sea level so as to be above the mosquito line. It was not.
28/ "Many Tropical Diseases Spread Through Global Warming"
Gore says that, as well as malaria, “global warming” is spreading dengue fever, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, arena virus, avian flu, Ebola virus, E. Coli 0157:H7, Hanta virus, legionella, leptospirosis, multi-drug-resistant TB, Nipah virus, SARS and Vibrio Cholerae 0139. It is doing no such thing. Only the first four diseases are insect-borne, but none is tropical. Of the other diseases named by Gore either in his film or in the accompanying book, not one is sensitive to increasing temperature.
29/ "West Nile Virus Spread Through Global Warming"
Gore says that West Nile virus spread throughout the US in just two years, implicitly because of “global warming.” It did not. The climate in the US ranges from some of the world’s hottest deserts to some of its iciest tundra. West Nile virus flourishes in any climate. Warming of the climate, however caused, does not affect its incidence or prevalence.
30/ "Carbon Dioxide is Pollution"
Gore describes carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution.” It is not. It is food for plants and trees. Tests have shown that even at concentrations 30 times those of the present day even the most delicate plants flourish. Carbon dioxide, in geological timescale, is at a very low concentration at present.
31/ "The European Heat Wave of 2003 Killed 35,000"
Gore says, “A couple of years ago in Europe they had that heat wave that killed 35,000.” The scientific consensus is that extreme warm anomalies more unusual than the 2003 heat wave occur regularly; extreme cold anomalies also occur regularly. In general, warm is better than cold, which is why the largest number of life-forms are in the tropics and the least number are at the poles.
32/ "Pied Flycatchers Cannot Feed Their Young"
Gore says “The peak arrival date for migratory birds 25 years ago was April 25. Their chicks hatched on June 3, just at the time when the caterpillars were coming out: Nature’s plan. But 20 years of warming later the caterpillars peaked two weeks earlier. The chicks tried to catch up with it, but they couldn’t. So they are in trouble.” Yet adaptation is easy for the flycatchers: they merely fly a few tens of kilometers further north and they will find caterpillars hatching at the appropriate time.
33/ "The Famous Ice Collapse Footage"
Gore misuses spectacular footage of a glacier apparently calving off enormous slabs of ice into the sea – footage that is often shown on television to accompany stories about “global warming.” It is in southern Argentina, where its snout crosses – and eventually dams, Lake Argentino. Water builds up behind the ice dam and eventually bursts it, causing the spectacular collapse of ice into the lake that is so misleadingly used as the iconic image of the effect of “global warming” on glaciers. The breaking of the ice dam used to occur every eight years or so: now, however, it occurs every five years, not because of “global warming” because of the regional cooling of the southern Atlantic.
34/ "Thames Barrier Closing More Frequently"
Gore says that rising sea levels are compelling the operators of the Thames Barrier to close it more frequently than when it was first built. They are not. The reason is a change of policy by which the barrier is closed during exceptionally low tides, so as to retain water in the tidal Thames rather than keeping it out.
35/ "No Fact In Dispute by Anybody"
Gore says that his prediction that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will rise to more than 600 parts per million by volume as soon as 2050 is “not controversial in any way or in dispute by anybody.” However, not one of the half-dozen official projections of growth in CO2 concentration made by the IPCC shows as much as 600 parts per million by 2050.
1/ "Sea Level Rising 6 metres"
Gore exaggerates sea-level changes by 10,000%. Gore says that the world as we now it will have sea-levels up to 20 ft. higher from arctic melt. The IPCC says an increase of this scale would only occur after several millennia and that the arctic melt would only contribute about 2.5 inches. The IPCC report also estimates that the likelihood of humankind having any influence on sea level at all is little better than 50:50.
2/ "Pacific Islands Drowning"
Gore says low-lying inhabited Pacific coral atolls are already being inundated because of AGW. There have been no mass evacuations of populations of islanders as suggested by Gore; the tide-gauges maintained until recently by the National Tidal Facility of Australia show a mean annual sea-level rise over the past half-century equivalent to the thickness of a human hair.
3/ "Thermohaline Circulation Stopping"
Gore says “global warming” may shut down the thermohaline circulation (i.e. the Gulf Stream) in the oceans, plunging Europe into an ice age. It will not. Indications of a sustained thermohaline circulation weakening are not seen during the last few decades. Instead, a strengthening since the 1980s is observed.
4/ "CO2 Driving Temperature Change"
Gore says that in each of the last four interglacial warm periods it was changes in carbon dioxide concentration that caused changes in temperature. It was the other way about. Changes in temperature preceded changes in CO2 concentration by between 800 and 2800 years, as scientific papers including the paper on which Gore’s film had relied had made clear.
5/ "Snows of Kilimanjaro Melting"
Gore says “global warming” has been melting the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. It is not. The melting of the Furtwangler Glacier at the summit of the mountain began 125 years ago. More of the glacier had melted before Hemingway wrote The Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936 than afterward. Temperature at the summit never rises above freezing and is at an average of –7 Celsius.
6/ "Lake Chad Drying Up"
Gore says “global warming” dried up Lake Chad in Africa. It did not. Over-extraction of water and changing agricultural patterns dried the lake, which was also dry in 8500BC, 5500BC, 1000BC and 100BC. Ms. Kreider says, “There are multiple stresses upon Lake Chad.” However, the scientific consensus is that at present those “stresses” do not include “global warming.”
7/ "Hurricane Katrina Man-Made
Gore says Hurricane Katrina, that devastated New Orleans in 2005, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. It was caused by the failure of Gore’s party, in the administration of New Orleans, to heed 30 years of warnings by the Corps of Engineers that the levees – dams that kept New Orleans dry – could not stand a direct hit by a hurricane. Katrina was only Category 3 when it struck the levees. They failed, as the Engineers had said they would. Gore’s party, not “global warming,” was to blame for the consequent death and destruction.
8/ "Polar Bears Dying Out"
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide now there are 25,000.
9/ "Coral Reefs Bleaching"
Gore says coral reefs are “bleaching” because of “global warming.” They are not. There was some bleaching in 1998, but this was caused by the exceptional El Nino Southern Oscillation that year. Two similarly severe El Ninos over the past 250 years also caused extensive bleaching. “Global warming” was nothing to do with it.
10/ "100 parts/million of CO2 will melt mile-thick ice"
Gore implies that the difference of just 100 parts per million by volume in CO2 concentration between an interglacial temperature maximum and an ice-age temperature minimum causes “the difference between a nice day and having a mile of ice above your head.” It does not. Gore’s implication has the effect of overstating the mainstream consensus estimate of the effect of CO2 on temperature at least tenfold.
11/ "Hurricane Caterina Man-made"
Gore says that Hurricane Caterina, the only hurricane ever to strike the coast of Brazil, was caused by “global warming.” It was not. In 2004, Brazil’s summer sea surface temperatures were cooler than normal, not warmer. But air temperatures were the coldest in 25 years. The air was so much colder than the water that it caused a heat flux from the water to the air similar to that which fuels hurricanes in warm seas.
12/ "Japanese Typhoons a New Record"
Gore says that 2004 set a new record for the number of typhoons striking Japan. It did not. The trend in the number of typhoons, and of tropical cyclones, has fallen throughout the past 50 years. The trend in rainfall from cyclones has also fallen, and there has been no trend in monsoon rainfall.
13/ "Hurricanes Getting Stronger"
Gore says scientists had been giving warnings that hurricanes will get stronger because of “global warming.” They will not. Over the past 60 years there has been no change in the strength of hurricanes, even though hydrocarbon use went up six-fold in the same period.
14/ "Insurance Losses from Big Storms Increasing"
Gore says insurance losses arising from large storms and other extreme-weather events are increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” They are not. Insured losses, as a percentage of the population of coastal areas in the path of hurricanes, were lower even in 2005 than they had been in 1925. In 2006, a very quiet hurricane season, Lloyds of London posted their biggest-ever profit: £3.6 billion.
15/ "Mumbai Flooding"
Gore says flooding in Mumbai is increasing, by implication because of “global warming.” It is not. Rainfall trends at the two major weather stations in Mumbai show no increase in heavy rainfall over the past 48 years.
16/ 'Severe Tornadoes More Frequent"
Gore says that 2004 set an all-time record for tornadoes in the US. More tornadoes are being reported because detection systems are better than they were. But the number of severe tornadoes has been falling for more than 50 years.
17/ "Sun Heats the Arctic Ocean"
Gore says that ice-melt allows the Sun to heat the Arctic Ocean, and a diagram shows the Sun’s rays heating it directly. It does not. The ocean emits radiant energy at the moment of absorption, and would freeze if there were no atmosphere. It is the atmosphere, not the Sun that warms the ocean. Also, Gore’s diagram confuses the tropopause with the ionosphere, and he makes a number of other errors indicating that he does not understand the elementary physics of radiative transfer.
18/ "Arctic Warming Fastest"
Gore says the Arctic has been warming faster than the rest of the planet. It is not. Gore does not mention that the Arctic has been cooling over the past 60 years, and is now one degree Celsius cooler than it was in the 1940s.
19/ "Greenland Ice Sheet – Unstable"
Gore says “global warming” is making the Greenland ice sheet unstable. It is not. Greenland ice grows 2 inches a year. The Greenland ice sheet survived each of the previous three interglacial periods, each of which was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present. It survived atmospheric CO2 concentrations of up to 1000 ppmv (compared with today’s 400 ppmv). It last melted 850,000 years ago, when humankind did not exist and could not have caused the melting.
20/ "Himalayan Glacial Melt Waters Failing"
Gore says 40% of the world’s population get their water supply from Himalayan glacial melt waters that are failing because of “global warming.” They don’t and they are not. The water comes almost entirely from snow-melt, not from ice-melt. Over the past 40 years there has been no decline in the amount of snow-melt in Eurasia.
21/ "Peruvian Glaciers Disappearing"
Gore says that a Peruvian glacier is less extensive now than it was in the 1940s, implying that “global warming” is the cause. It is not. Except for the very highest peaks, the normal state of the Peruvian cordilleras has been ice-free throughout most of the past 10,000 years.
22/ "Mountain Glaciers Worldwide Disappearing"
Gore shows several before-and-after pictures of glaciers disappearing. However, the glacial melt began in the 1820s, long before humankind could have had any effect, and has continued at a uniform rate since, showing no acceleration since humankind began increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. Total ice volumes in three of the last four Ice Ages were lower than they are today, and “global warming” had nothing to do with that.
23/ "Sahara Desert Drying"
Gore says terrible tragedies are occurring in the southern Sahara because of drought which he blames on “global warming.” There is no drought caused by “global warming.” In 2007 there were record rains across the whole of the southern Sahara. In the past 25 years the Sahara has shrunk by some 300,000 square kilometers because of additional rainfall.
24/ "West Antarctic Ice Sheet Unstable"
Gore says disturbing changes have been measured under the West Antarctic ice sheet, implicitly because of “global warming.” Yet most of the recession in this ice sheet over the past 10,000 years has occurred in the absence of any sea-level or temperature forcing. In most of Antarctica, the ice is in fact growing thicker. Mean Antarctic temperature has actually fallen throughout the past half-century.
25/ "Antarctic Peninsula Ice Shelves Breaking Up"
Gore says half a dozen ice shelves each “larger than Rhode Island” have broken up and vanished from the Antarctic Peninsula recently, implicitly because of “global warming.” Gore does not explain that the ice shelves have melted before, as studies of seabed sediments have shown. The Antarctic Peninsula accounts for about 2% of the continent, in most of which the ice is growing thicker.
26/ "Larson B Ice Shelf Broke Up Because of Global Warming"
Gore focuses on the Larsen B ice shelf, saying that it completely disappeared in 35 days. Yet there has been extensive ice-shelf break-up throughout the past 10,000 years, and the maximum ice-shelf extent may have been in the Little Ice Age in the late 15th century.
27/ "Mosquitoes Climbing to Higher Altitudes"
Gore says that, because of “global warming”, mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes. They are not. Most recent outbreaks have been at lower levels than those of a century and more ago. He says that Nairobi was founded 1000 m above sea level so as to be above the mosquito line. It was not.
28/ "Many Tropical Diseases Spread Through Global Warming"
Gore says that, as well as malaria, “global warming” is spreading dengue fever, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, arena virus, avian flu, Ebola virus, E. Coli 0157:H7, Hanta virus, legionella, leptospirosis, multi-drug-resistant TB, Nipah virus, SARS and Vibrio Cholerae 0139. It is doing no such thing. Only the first four diseases are insect-borne, but none is tropical. Of the other diseases named by Gore either in his film or in the accompanying book, not one is sensitive to increasing temperature.
29/ "West Nile Virus Spread Through Global Warming"
Gore says that West Nile virus spread throughout the US in just two years, implicitly because of “global warming.” It did not. The climate in the US ranges from some of the world’s hottest deserts to some of its iciest tundra. West Nile virus flourishes in any climate. Warming of the climate, however caused, does not affect its incidence or prevalence.
30/ "Carbon Dioxide is Pollution"
Gore describes carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution.” It is not. It is food for plants and trees. Tests have shown that even at concentrations 30 times those of the present day even the most delicate plants flourish. Carbon dioxide, in geological timescale, is at a very low concentration at present.
31/ "The European Heat Wave of 2003 Killed 35,000"
Gore says, “A couple of years ago in Europe they had that heat wave that killed 35,000.” The scientific consensus is that extreme warm anomalies more unusual than the 2003 heat wave occur regularly; extreme cold anomalies also occur regularly. In general, warm is better than cold, which is why the largest number of life-forms are in the tropics and the least number are at the poles.
32/ "Pied Flycatchers Cannot Feed Their Young"
Gore says “The peak arrival date for migratory birds 25 years ago was April 25. Their chicks hatched on June 3, just at the time when the caterpillars were coming out: Nature’s plan. But 20 years of warming later the caterpillars peaked two weeks earlier. The chicks tried to catch up with it, but they couldn’t. So they are in trouble.” Yet adaptation is easy for the flycatchers: they merely fly a few tens of kilometers further north and they will find caterpillars hatching at the appropriate time.
33/ "The Famous Ice Collapse Footage"
Gore misuses spectacular footage of a glacier apparently calving off enormous slabs of ice into the sea – footage that is often shown on television to accompany stories about “global warming.” It is in southern Argentina, where its snout crosses – and eventually dams, Lake Argentino. Water builds up behind the ice dam and eventually bursts it, causing the spectacular collapse of ice into the lake that is so misleadingly used as the iconic image of the effect of “global warming” on glaciers. The breaking of the ice dam used to occur every eight years or so: now, however, it occurs every five years, not because of “global warming” because of the regional cooling of the southern Atlantic.
34/ "Thames Barrier Closing More Frequently"
Gore says that rising sea levels are compelling the operators of the Thames Barrier to close it more frequently than when it was first built. They are not. The reason is a change of policy by which the barrier is closed during exceptionally low tides, so as to retain water in the tidal Thames rather than keeping it out.
35/ "No Fact In Dispute by Anybody"
Gore says that his prediction that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will rise to more than 600 parts per million by volume as soon as 2050 is “not controversial in any way or in dispute by anybody.” However, not one of the half-dozen official projections of growth in CO2 concentration made by the IPCC shows as much as 600 parts per million by 2050.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Who Finances Hippies' Protest Junkets?
They're in Bali, at the G-8 and WTO.Wherever and whenever world leaders hang out to develop programs to deal with world issues, those clad in love beads, sandals, tie-dye and camo masks are sure to show up.
This blogger has always wondered where the money came - I mean who would expect all these kids to have the trust funds necessary to pay for the airfares, make all the signs and buy all those gas masks.
Several years ago I asked someone deep inside the government from whence all the cash came, and his response was simple - "Who benefits from destabilizing the western economy?"
The answer - communists, islamists and various other ne'er to wells.
Well, we learned this week, thanks to research done by Plonka that now, these creeps trying to bring down America and its allies are financed by - wait for it - Americans.
"Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and MoveOn.org, an online community that has pioneered internet advocacy in the United States."
MoveOn.org is funded by American billionaire George Soros:
Soros is famously known for "breaking the Bank of England" on Black Wednesday in 1992. With an estimated current net worth of around $8.5 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 80th-richest person in the world.
In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003, Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, "if someone guaranteed it".
The enemy is within.
Friday, December 14, 2007
More Evidence of Global Warming
From Toronto Star - Jan 7, 2007
Yup - Last year when we had a warm (and wonderful) winter it was because of Global Warming.
This year?
Sarah Wong, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the city could see as much as 25 centimetres of snow by Sunday evening.
“It’s quite significant for December that we’re getting this much snow,” she said, adding that 1944 was the last time southern Ontario was covered in 25 cm of flakes.
Ahhh, than shouldn't this be evidence of an end to Global Warming and the start of Global Cooling? Shouldn't we all go out and buy SUV's to save the planet?
Of course, my observation is cheap and tawdry. But so are all those comments from those Gorezuki fans who attribute every el Nino, every hotter than normal day, every drought and hurricane to AGW.
So, I'm just being fair.
Yup - Last year when we had a warm (and wonderful) winter it was because of Global Warming.
This year?
Sarah Wong, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the city could see as much as 25 centimetres of snow by Sunday evening.
“It’s quite significant for December that we’re getting this much snow,” she said, adding that 1944 was the last time southern Ontario was covered in 25 cm of flakes.
Ahhh, than shouldn't this be evidence of an end to Global Warming and the start of Global Cooling? Shouldn't we all go out and buy SUV's to save the planet?
Of course, my observation is cheap and tawdry. But so are all those comments from those Gorezuki fans who attribute every el Nino, every hotter than normal day, every drought and hurricane to AGW.
So, I'm just being fair.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Al Gore Hypocrisy Challenge
A Comment on one of my posts earlier today suggested I present facts.
So I've updated a series of them and reposted.
And, frankly, I'm not posting them all or even scratching the surface.
AGW doesn't stand for Anthropogenic Global Warming, it stands for Al Gore Windbag.
So I've updated a series of them and reposted.
And, frankly, I'm not posting them all or even scratching the surface.
AGW doesn't stand for Anthropogenic Global Warming, it stands for Al Gore Windbag.
A Fisk of a Review of The Latest Gore Book of Bullshit
The event we've all been waiting for has occurred. Al Gore has released his new book "The Assault on Reason" which gives us all a chance to reasonably tear it to shreds. Yippee.
This review is on Amazon.com and was written by the author of The Complete Guide to Walt Disney World. How apt.
I can't post this on Amazon cause I would need to buy a book, which I ain't about to do.
Here's a radical idea: Americans can govern themselves best by having clear-headed, reasoned public discussions on the important topics of the day. A thought from Thomas Paine? Your high school civics teacher? No, Al Gore. That's the theme of this clear-headed, reasoned, and yes, even passionate argument on what's wrong with our country and how we can fix it.
-- I'd rather trust in a high school civics teacher than that ballooned blowhard. But maybe that's just me.
Yes, it bashes Bush, but how can it not? It's impossible to argue against the chatterbox shrillness of today's public debate without mentioning the subjects being debated. And if you're going to seriously examine Iraq, Katrina and the other issues of the last six years, how can our current President come out looking good?
-- By fighting the good fight for the right reasons against Gore and tens of thousands of other self-loathing, America hating Democratic Americans spewing nonsense about the mission in Iraq and what's going on. As far as Katrina, how about the greatest humanitarian relief mission in American history, while dealing with an attention grabbing Democratic Louisianna Governor and a dolt of a NOLA mayor?
Gore doesn't mince his words. He calls Bush a liar and an irresponsible leader. But he backs up these assertions with a 90-minute Powerpoint presentation worth of clear-headed, reasoned and well-documented argument -- complete with hundreds of footnotes.
-- Gore knows all about lying. Check out my profile of him on the new blog I'm working on. His environmental book and movie contains more bullshit than the world's largest cattle farm. Not to mention his claim to have "created the internet" and "been the model couple for Love Story".
Divided into three parts, the book's simple structure makes it easy to follow. The opening identifies what Gore contends are the five enemies of reason -- fear, superstition, ideology, deception and intolerance.
-- How about hypocrisy, deception, intolerance, fear and superstition, Gore style?
Middle chapters examine the damage those things have caused, and the last 30 pages offer a few solutions.
And just what is that damage? Gore breaks it down into five areas:
* The squandering of international goodwill over Iraq has caused a threat to our national security, as the world now fears us instead of respects us.
-- Meanwhile, Gore is trying to scare the bejeezus out of children in the USA. I could write a whole piece on Iraq, but why bother when thousands of others have.
* Ignoring the rational arguments of scientists has weakened our environmental security, as shown by the failure to be ready for the known problems Katrina and global warming would cause.
-- No scientist without his face in the AGW trough blames Katrina on Global Warming. This was just one of dozens of lies in his other book and movie.
* Our excessive dependence on imported oil continues to weaken our energy security.
-- I guess this means that he wants to somehow find more in the Hollywood Hills and plough it up.
* Our liberty is threatened when our government uses fear and raw power -- instead of reasoned argument -- to get what it wants domestically.
-- Gore is the Fear Meister. I guess Gore would have reasoned with the Islamoloonies who flew planes into their targets on 911. And would have reasoned with Sadaam (that worked great), and with Usama.
* And finally, Gore says our general welfare is threatened when our government stops serving the interests of all its people, and instead skews its policies toward the wealthy and privileged.
-- It is to laugh. Gore IS WEALTHY AND PRIVILEGED. He hangs out with wealthy and famous people. His patron and his father's was Armand Hammer (Oxy Petro Owner - to whom the Gore's sold their soul)
As for solutions, the book offers only one: Gore in '08! OK, not really. Just wanted to see if you were still with me.
-- Darlin, I was never with ya on this. Anyone who thinks that a gigantic theme park based around a happy rat is worth a book got a problem. And doesn't know anything about anything serious.
Actually, the book closes by arguing that, now more than ever, our citizens must be well informed and must feel like they are part of the political process. It holds out hope that the internet is the key, and that television could play a part by doing things like scheduling Congressional debates in prime time. Gore also claims that we need additional campaign reform, including making contributions more transparent.
-- Stop. Think for a moment. Congressional Debates in Prime Time. Up against American Idol. Will draw big. Yup. Big. As far as transparency on campaign finance, how about Fat Albert's own brush with the law on this one.
My favorite part of the book is early on, when Gore argues that the main cause of the decline of reasoned political thought is television. He contends that when more Americans started getting their news from TV instead of newspapers, the emphasis changed from reading, an activity that by its nature activates the parts of the brain involved with reasoning, to watching, which elicits emotion but not thought. Recalling the words of Thomas Jefferson, Gore writes: "The 'well-informed citizenry' is in danger of becoming the 'well-amused audience.'"
-- I wish Gore only amused me. I can't disagree with the problems with TV - I produced a program called "The Death of Television". But maybe he doesn't have time to watch the good TV that's out there. And I suspect the first books he would put on anyone's list would be... his.
In my work, I spend many evenings at Walt Disney World, which concludes each day with a gigantic fireworks show. Called Wishes, it closes with children singing "If you keep on believing, a wish that you make will come true." I know it sounds trite, but perhaps those prerecorded kids have a point. Reading this book, I felt like I was back in my 1970s high school civics class, a time when the present had its problems, but the future seemed so bright. Maybe it can still be. If not for me, at least for my daughter.
-- If Gore keeps on believing, does that mean that he'll keep on running for President. Even after he wouldn't be able to fit through the doors of the White House.
This review is on Amazon.com and was written by the author of The Complete Guide to Walt Disney World. How apt.
I can't post this on Amazon cause I would need to buy a book, which I ain't about to do.
Here's a radical idea: Americans can govern themselves best by having clear-headed, reasoned public discussions on the important topics of the day. A thought from Thomas Paine? Your high school civics teacher? No, Al Gore. That's the theme of this clear-headed, reasoned, and yes, even passionate argument on what's wrong with our country and how we can fix it.
-- I'd rather trust in a high school civics teacher than that ballooned blowhard. But maybe that's just me.
Yes, it bashes Bush, but how can it not? It's impossible to argue against the chatterbox shrillness of today's public debate without mentioning the subjects being debated. And if you're going to seriously examine Iraq, Katrina and the other issues of the last six years, how can our current President come out looking good?
-- By fighting the good fight for the right reasons against Gore and tens of thousands of other self-loathing, America hating Democratic Americans spewing nonsense about the mission in Iraq and what's going on. As far as Katrina, how about the greatest humanitarian relief mission in American history, while dealing with an attention grabbing Democratic Louisianna Governor and a dolt of a NOLA mayor?
Gore doesn't mince his words. He calls Bush a liar and an irresponsible leader. But he backs up these assertions with a 90-minute Powerpoint presentation worth of clear-headed, reasoned and well-documented argument -- complete with hundreds of footnotes.
-- Gore knows all about lying. Check out my profile of him on the new blog I'm working on. His environmental book and movie contains more bullshit than the world's largest cattle farm. Not to mention his claim to have "created the internet" and "been the model couple for Love Story".
Divided into three parts, the book's simple structure makes it easy to follow. The opening identifies what Gore contends are the five enemies of reason -- fear, superstition, ideology, deception and intolerance.
-- How about hypocrisy, deception, intolerance, fear and superstition, Gore style?
Middle chapters examine the damage those things have caused, and the last 30 pages offer a few solutions.
And just what is that damage? Gore breaks it down into five areas:
* The squandering of international goodwill over Iraq has caused a threat to our national security, as the world now fears us instead of respects us.
-- Meanwhile, Gore is trying to scare the bejeezus out of children in the USA. I could write a whole piece on Iraq, but why bother when thousands of others have.
* Ignoring the rational arguments of scientists has weakened our environmental security, as shown by the failure to be ready for the known problems Katrina and global warming would cause.
-- No scientist without his face in the AGW trough blames Katrina on Global Warming. This was just one of dozens of lies in his other book and movie.
* Our excessive dependence on imported oil continues to weaken our energy security.
-- I guess this means that he wants to somehow find more in the Hollywood Hills and plough it up.
* Our liberty is threatened when our government uses fear and raw power -- instead of reasoned argument -- to get what it wants domestically.
-- Gore is the Fear Meister. I guess Gore would have reasoned with the Islamoloonies who flew planes into their targets on 911. And would have reasoned with Sadaam (that worked great), and with Usama.
* And finally, Gore says our general welfare is threatened when our government stops serving the interests of all its people, and instead skews its policies toward the wealthy and privileged.
-- It is to laugh. Gore IS WEALTHY AND PRIVILEGED. He hangs out with wealthy and famous people. His patron and his father's was Armand Hammer (Oxy Petro Owner - to whom the Gore's sold their soul)
As for solutions, the book offers only one: Gore in '08! OK, not really. Just wanted to see if you were still with me.
-- Darlin, I was never with ya on this. Anyone who thinks that a gigantic theme park based around a happy rat is worth a book got a problem. And doesn't know anything about anything serious.
Actually, the book closes by arguing that, now more than ever, our citizens must be well informed and must feel like they are part of the political process. It holds out hope that the internet is the key, and that television could play a part by doing things like scheduling Congressional debates in prime time. Gore also claims that we need additional campaign reform, including making contributions more transparent.
-- Stop. Think for a moment. Congressional Debates in Prime Time. Up against American Idol. Will draw big. Yup. Big. As far as transparency on campaign finance, how about Fat Albert's own brush with the law on this one.
My favorite part of the book is early on, when Gore argues that the main cause of the decline of reasoned political thought is television. He contends that when more Americans started getting their news from TV instead of newspapers, the emphasis changed from reading, an activity that by its nature activates the parts of the brain involved with reasoning, to watching, which elicits emotion but not thought. Recalling the words of Thomas Jefferson, Gore writes: "The 'well-informed citizenry' is in danger of becoming the 'well-amused audience.'"
-- I wish Gore only amused me. I can't disagree with the problems with TV - I produced a program called "The Death of Television". But maybe he doesn't have time to watch the good TV that's out there. And I suspect the first books he would put on anyone's list would be... his.
In my work, I spend many evenings at Walt Disney World, which concludes each day with a gigantic fireworks show. Called Wishes, it closes with children singing "If you keep on believing, a wish that you make will come true." I know it sounds trite, but perhaps those prerecorded kids have a point. Reading this book, I felt like I was back in my 1970s high school civics class, a time when the present had its problems, but the future seemed so bright. Maybe it can still be. If not for me, at least for my daughter.
-- If Gore keeps on believing, does that mean that he'll keep on running for President. Even after he wouldn't be able to fit through the doors of the White House.
More Big Fat Lying Liar Al Gore Lies
HereKey Points
The title of Al Gore's latest book, The Assault on Reason, says it all. Illogicalities, non sequiturs, false analogies, fallacies, ad hominem (or rather ad Exxoninem) arguments all tumble forth in profusion from its pages.
... according to Mr. Gore, the president is intent on using the war against terror as an excuse to overturn the U.S. Constitution and set up a corporate plutocracy as part of a plot to achieve world "domination"
...Abu Ghraib, whose horrors increase with the length of the book. (On page 150, 90% of its inmates are declared to be innocent. By page 208, that figure has grown to 99%)
... democracy has been subverted by the decline of the printed word . . . and the rise of television, a "one-way" medium that is controlled by evil corporations in league with a Bush White House. ... However, a newspaper seems pretty "one-way." As does -- come to think about it -- a book. Sure, you can scribble "BS!" in the margins, but you soon run out of lead with a book like this. . . .
presumably, you would never find Al Gore getting on, say, Jon Stewart or David Letterman. And you'd never find the publishing subsidiary of a giant corporation (say, Penguin) from publishing a book by him
But what makes them really sinister is that they have the insights of professional media manipulators at their disposal. So, let's say they were to publish a book by a guy whose physique now resembles that of Orson Welles or Marlon Brando in their latter years, they'd print a much younger and slimmer picture on the dust jacket, making him look like Superman in civvies. The manipulation! But I digress ?
The most stunning -- and frightening -- aspect of Gore's bipolar book is that he constantly calls for more discussion and public input, but when it comes to his obsession, man-made climate change, he declares the debate closed.
Common Sense Reponse to Gore From Lomborg
Amid all the Noise - A Pile of Common Sense Found by Fred at Gay and Right.
Here is a summary of points made in NY Post Article:
AL GORE and the many people he has inspired on the global-warming issue have good will and great intentions. However, he has gotten carried away and come to show only worst-case scenarios. . .
In short, Gore's prescriptions would in effect present an obstacle to saving millions of lives. . .
Climate change is not the only issue on the global agenda, and actually one of the issues where we can do the least good first. . .
Yes, the media often carry far more dire descriptions of warming's consequences. Gore, for example: "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced." A fine phrase for such talk is "climate porn": This kind of language makes any sensible policy dialogue about our global choices impossible.
It is also simply wrong. . .
The 2007 U.N. report on the issue estimated that sea levels will rise a little over a foot during the rest of the century. This is not a trivial amount - but it is also not outside historical experience. Since 1850, we have experienced a sea level rise of about one foot, yet this has clearly not caused major disruptions. . .
THE current raft of policies that are either enacted or suggested to combat warming are costly but have virtually no effect. . . As the nearby chart shows, Kyoto - even if it had been successfully adopted by all signatories (including the United States), and fully adhered to throughout the century - would have postponed warming by just five years, at a cost of $180 billion a year. . .
There are many world problems - like HIV, malnutrition, trade barriers, malaria, lack of clean drinking water - where we can do immense amounts of good. It seem obvious to me that we should focus our attention and our big expenditures there first. . .
Kyoto . . . costs a lot now and does very little for the future.
Chart of Relative Effect of Kyoto v.s. Doing Nothing
Here is a summary of points made in NY Post Article:
AL GORE and the many people he has inspired on the global-warming issue have good will and great intentions. However, he has gotten carried away and come to show only worst-case scenarios. . .
In short, Gore's prescriptions would in effect present an obstacle to saving millions of lives. . .
Climate change is not the only issue on the global agenda, and actually one of the issues where we can do the least good first. . .
Yes, the media often carry far more dire descriptions of warming's consequences. Gore, for example: "We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced." A fine phrase for such talk is "climate porn": This kind of language makes any sensible policy dialogue about our global choices impossible.
It is also simply wrong. . .
The 2007 U.N. report on the issue estimated that sea levels will rise a little over a foot during the rest of the century. This is not a trivial amount - but it is also not outside historical experience. Since 1850, we have experienced a sea level rise of about one foot, yet this has clearly not caused major disruptions. . .
THE current raft of policies that are either enacted or suggested to combat warming are costly but have virtually no effect. . . As the nearby chart shows, Kyoto - even if it had been successfully adopted by all signatories (including the United States), and fully adhered to throughout the century - would have postponed warming by just five years, at a cost of $180 billion a year. . .
There are many world problems - like HIV, malnutrition, trade barriers, malaria, lack of clean drinking water - where we can do immense amounts of good. It seem obvious to me that we should focus our attention and our big expenditures there first. . .
Kyoto . . . costs a lot now and does very little for the future.
Chart of Relative Effect of Kyoto v.s. Doing Nothing
Lemon: If Al Gore Gets His Way . . . Over 600 Million Dead!!!
Now this analysis is slightly facetious, but it is not a whole lot less so than Al's who has had his movie totally and absolutely discredited, while spoiling the credibility of those who actually have some inkling of what they are doing relative to climate.
Data for the table that follows comes from someone who does know what he's talking about - Bjorn Lomborg from his story in the Boston Globe.
Gore, with his Stalinist approach to bending the world to his discredited and dangerous philosophy, promises to make Stalin's death toll look innoculous and humane by comparison.
Data for the table that follows comes from someone who does know what he's talking about - Bjorn Lomborg from his story in the Boston Globe.
Gore, with his Stalinist approach to bending the world to his discredited and dangerous philosophy, promises to make Stalin's death toll look innoculous and humane by comparison.
Gore Scandal on Carbon Offsets
I wonder how the MSM and Gore Defenders will deal with this?????
Dust my Broom and PomoChristian first alerted me to this link.
THIS IS HUGE...
Al Gore has been strongly criticized for using more energy in his homes in one month than an average family does in a year. He also has been strongly criticized for the amount of energy used and greenhouse gases spewed by his vehicles and private jets. (In a previous post we compared this to the selling of indulgences).
Gore's has been defended by his acolytes by his initiative to purchase "carbon offsets" to compensate for his home's use of energy from carbon-based fuels. These are provided by third party companies as a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases."
According to a report in The Tennesseean Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management.
The Chairman of Generation Investment Management is Al Gore. Others have reported how in essence, Al Gore is therefore buying Carbon Offsets from himself.
However, the other big story is that is that GIM is not in the Carbon Credits Business!!
Al Gore's Carbon Offsets are being invested in banks, manufacturers (even a few polluters in the bunch). His GIM is purely an investment company that owns shares in the following companies (not a green company in the bunch and none that plant trees or develop windpower sites).
Aflac Inc - Insurance
Aquantive Inc - Digital Marketing
Autodesk Inc - Cad Systems
Becton Dickinson - Medical Supplies
Blackbaud Inc - Fundraising Software
General Electric Co - Conglomerate
Greenhill & Co Inc - Investment Bank
Johnson Ctls Inc - Engineering
Laboratory Corp - Gene Testing
Metabolix Inc - Bio-Plastics
Northern Tr Corp - Bank
Nuveen Invts Inc - Investment Bank
Staples Inc - Office Products
Sysco Corp - Restaurant Food Products
Techne Corp - Biotech Testing Products
Ubs Ag - Bank
Vca Antech Inc - Animal Hospitals
Waters Corp - Lab Testing
Whole Foods Mkt Inc - Food Retailer
I was not surprised to learn this...
Dust my Broom and PomoChristian first alerted me to this link.
THIS IS HUGE...
Al Gore has been strongly criticized for using more energy in his homes in one month than an average family does in a year. He also has been strongly criticized for the amount of energy used and greenhouse gases spewed by his vehicles and private jets. (In a previous post we compared this to the selling of indulgences).
Gore's has been defended by his acolytes by his initiative to purchase "carbon offsets" to compensate for his home's use of energy from carbon-based fuels. These are provided by third party companies as a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases."
According to a report in The Tennesseean Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management.
The Chairman of Generation Investment Management is Al Gore. Others have reported how in essence, Al Gore is therefore buying Carbon Offsets from himself.
However, the other big story is that is that GIM is not in the Carbon Credits Business!!
Al Gore's Carbon Offsets are being invested in banks, manufacturers (even a few polluters in the bunch). His GIM is purely an investment company that owns shares in the following companies (not a green company in the bunch and none that plant trees or develop windpower sites).
Aflac Inc - Insurance
Aquantive Inc - Digital Marketing
Autodesk Inc - Cad Systems
Becton Dickinson - Medical Supplies
Blackbaud Inc - Fundraising Software
General Electric Co - Conglomerate
Greenhill & Co Inc - Investment Bank
Johnson Ctls Inc - Engineering
Laboratory Corp - Gene Testing
Metabolix Inc - Bio-Plastics
Northern Tr Corp - Bank
Nuveen Invts Inc - Investment Bank
Staples Inc - Office Products
Sysco Corp - Restaurant Food Products
Techne Corp - Biotech Testing Products
Ubs Ag - Bank
Vca Antech Inc - Animal Hospitals
Waters Corp - Lab Testing
Whole Foods Mkt Inc - Food Retailer
I was not surprised to learn this...
Did Chretien Get HIS Post-PM Consulting Work as a Christmas Present?
Naw....
Dec. 12, 2003: Last day as Prime Minister.
Feb. 7, 2004: Arrives in Beijing in the company of a team of Power Corp. executives, including his son-in-law, Andre Desmarais.
March 30, 2004: Delivers speech to the Commonwealth Foundation in London.
March 31, 2004: Begins a tour of West Africa with a two-day visit to Gambia.
April 2, 2004: Visits Nigeria and is feted by his good friend President Olusegun Obasanjo before heading off to Niger to lobby for Calgary-based oil company TG World Energy Corp.
July 1, 2004: Celebrates Canada Day with expats in Ukraine.
July 5, 2004: Has private meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who says Mr. Chrétien will also be travelling to Kazakhstan.
Sept. 3, 2004: Meets with Turkmenistan President Saparmurad Niyazov in Ashkhabad to discuss oil and gas projects.
Sept. 20, 2004: Travels to the United Nations in New York for the opening of the 59th General Assembly.
Nov. 11, 2004: Delivers a speech in Shanghai during the ceremonial opening of Canadian-owned medical-diagnostics company Shanghai CP Adaltis Diganostics Co.
Dec. 8, 2004: Speaks at a conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he criticizes the Russian government's handling of OAO Yukos affair.
Jan. 11, 2005: Arrives in Luanda, Angola, to meet with President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos for a few hours before departing to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Dec. 12, 2003: Last day as Prime Minister.
Feb. 7, 2004: Arrives in Beijing in the company of a team of Power Corp. executives, including his son-in-law, Andre Desmarais.
March 30, 2004: Delivers speech to the Commonwealth Foundation in London.
March 31, 2004: Begins a tour of West Africa with a two-day visit to Gambia.
April 2, 2004: Visits Nigeria and is feted by his good friend President Olusegun Obasanjo before heading off to Niger to lobby for Calgary-based oil company TG World Energy Corp.
July 1, 2004: Celebrates Canada Day with expats in Ukraine.
July 5, 2004: Has private meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who says Mr. Chrétien will also be travelling to Kazakhstan.
Sept. 3, 2004: Meets with Turkmenistan President Saparmurad Niyazov in Ashkhabad to discuss oil and gas projects.
Sept. 20, 2004: Travels to the United Nations in New York for the opening of the 59th General Assembly.
Nov. 11, 2004: Delivers a speech in Shanghai during the ceremonial opening of Canadian-owned medical-diagnostics company Shanghai CP Adaltis Diganostics Co.
Dec. 8, 2004: Speaks at a conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he criticizes the Russian government's handling of OAO Yukos affair.
Jan. 11, 2005: Arrives in Luanda, Angola, to meet with President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos for a few hours before departing to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Gore Knows Hockey Like He Knows Climate
And at that precise moment, the former U.S. vice-president mentioned two of the greatest Canadian hockey players ever to play the game. Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Hull were great, he said, because they saw the play where it was going – not where it's been.
Now Bobby Hull was a great player, but his game was hardly based on prescience or anticipation... It was based on power, muscle, speed, and a shot that made goalies duck; not on brains.
Once again, Gore invents facts to prove an invalid point.
Now Bobby Hull was a great player, but his game was hardly based on prescience or anticipation... It was based on power, muscle, speed, and a shot that made goalies duck; not on brains.
Once again, Gore invents facts to prove an invalid point.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Pearson High Speed Link Stupidity at the Highest Level
Einstein said the biggest difference between genius and stupidity is that there's a limit to genius...
It's an embarrassment that Canada's busiest airport still isn't linked to Toronto's downtown core by public transit, and getting it done should be a priority, federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon said today.
It's an embarrassment that a federal minister should have this opinion (unless he has friends in railroad companies, of course,or wants to do more economic development in other parts of Canada and get Toronto residents to pay for it).
There are only a few really stupid things about a rapid line from downtown to the airport...
All of them.
1/ There are about 60,000 travellers at the Pearson Airport. About 10,000 of them leave from or go to downtown. Even then, for most of those travellers, it will continue to be more convenient (and as we will see cheaper) to take a limo.
2/ A heavy rail gauge system requires about 100000 riders a day. This won't be covered off even if all the commuters from Peel Region that work downtown use it to commute (traffic patterns have way changed - those people don't work downtown anymore - and never did).
3/ Residents along the entire route will be incredibly convenienced for the benefit of visitors.
4/ Downtown ain't where it's at anymore - the downtown area's labour force is the same as it was 15 years ago and more than half the population lives in the burbs. The Downtown ain't what it was and never will be.
5/ What will be the scale of service - every 10 minutes? 15 minutes? half hour? Problem is that the heavy traffic to the airport is rush hour, so the system will ultimately scheduled the same as GO Transit. Hardly a schedule that will meet the needs of airport travellers.
6/ Fares are projected at $30 pp. Think a family is gonna use the service?
7/ Ya think that people are gonna take a subway or taxi from Y&B to Union to wait for a train? Well. No. They won't.
Stupid thought 20 years ago, way stupider today.
It's an embarrassment that Canada's busiest airport still isn't linked to Toronto's downtown core by public transit, and getting it done should be a priority, federal Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon said today.
It's an embarrassment that a federal minister should have this opinion (unless he has friends in railroad companies, of course,or wants to do more economic development in other parts of Canada and get Toronto residents to pay for it).
There are only a few really stupid things about a rapid line from downtown to the airport...
All of them.
1/ There are about 60,000 travellers at the Pearson Airport. About 10,000 of them leave from or go to downtown. Even then, for most of those travellers, it will continue to be more convenient (and as we will see cheaper) to take a limo.
2/ A heavy rail gauge system requires about 100000 riders a day. This won't be covered off even if all the commuters from Peel Region that work downtown use it to commute (traffic patterns have way changed - those people don't work downtown anymore - and never did).
3/ Residents along the entire route will be incredibly convenienced for the benefit of visitors.
4/ Downtown ain't where it's at anymore - the downtown area's labour force is the same as it was 15 years ago and more than half the population lives in the burbs. The Downtown ain't what it was and never will be.
5/ What will be the scale of service - every 10 minutes? 15 minutes? half hour? Problem is that the heavy traffic to the airport is rush hour, so the system will ultimately scheduled the same as GO Transit. Hardly a schedule that will meet the needs of airport travellers.
6/ Fares are projected at $30 pp. Think a family is gonna use the service?
7/ Ya think that people are gonna take a subway or taxi from Y&B to Union to wait for a train? Well. No. They won't.
Stupid thought 20 years ago, way stupider today.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Celebrating Canada's Great Islamic Mass Murderer & Ultimate Misogynist
Marc Lépine (October 26, 1964 – December 6, 1989), born Gamil Gharbi, was a 25-year-old man from Montreal, Quebec, Canada who murdered fourteen women and wounded ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique, an engineering school affiliated with the Université de Montréal, in "the Montreal Massacre", also known as "the École Polytechnique massacre".
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Michael Crichton's Baaaackkkkk...
The ultimate lesson is that science isn't special - at least not anymore. Maybe back when Einstein talked to Niels Bohr, and there were only a few dozen important workers in every field. But there are now three million researchers in America. It's no longer a calling, it's a career. It's practitioners aren't saints, they're human beings, and they do what human beings do - lie, cheat, steal from one another, sue, hide data, fake data, overstate their own importance, and denigrate opposing views unfairly. That's human nature. It isn't going to change.
In NEXT.
But sounds like he could be writing about the IPCC
In NEXT.
But sounds like he could be writing about the IPCC
Ethics Committee a Python Skit
Paul Szabo's prologue today was Pythonesque at its smelliest.
"This is not a political process, but the government of Canada at work."?
Puhleaze.
This is the Liberal Party of Canada trying to find it's own Adscam by hanging the CPC with allegations against Brian Mulroney.
No more no less.
No smoke, no fire, just mirrors held by a convicted fraudster and arms dealer.
The Liberals are trying to blame others for the fart they released in the elevator...
Brian Mulroney was a Progressive Conservative Prime Minister - and a damn good one.
And they're busy trying to tie his can to the CPC tail-pipe.
But the Grits have tried since the CPC was formed to paint it as "The Reform Conservative Party".
Which is it?
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada polled less that the Green Party in the last election, for God's sake.
It's passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. It's a stiff, bereft of life and rests in peace. If the Grits didn't nail it to the perch it would be pushing up daisies. Its metabolic processes are history. It's off the twig. It's kicked the bucket and shuiffled off the mortal coil. It's run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. It is an Ex-Party...
Remember - The PC Party and it's leader were tossed in the dustbin in 1993!!!
Not political? Sure.
"This is not a political process, but the government of Canada at work."?
Puhleaze.
This is the Liberal Party of Canada trying to find it's own Adscam by hanging the CPC with allegations against Brian Mulroney.
No more no less.
No smoke, no fire, just mirrors held by a convicted fraudster and arms dealer.
The Liberals are trying to blame others for the fart they released in the elevator...
Brian Mulroney was a Progressive Conservative Prime Minister - and a damn good one.
And they're busy trying to tie his can to the CPC tail-pipe.
But the Grits have tried since the CPC was formed to paint it as "The Reform Conservative Party".
Which is it?
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada polled less that the Green Party in the last election, for God's sake.
It's passed on. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. It's a stiff, bereft of life and rests in peace. If the Grits didn't nail it to the perch it would be pushing up daisies. Its metabolic processes are history. It's off the twig. It's kicked the bucket and shuiffled off the mortal coil. It's run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. It is an Ex-Party...
Remember - The PC Party and it's leader were tossed in the dustbin in 1993!!!
Not political? Sure.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Enviro Commish Wants to End Urban Sprawl
He would know, being from North Bay and all.
And being a life long bureaucrat, I'd sure that he lives in a little 800 sf condo near work...
How come all these do-gooders that want us to restrict "our" lifestyles, generally don't restrict their own.
And being a life long bureaucrat, I'd sure that he lives in a little 800 sf condo near work...
How come all these do-gooders that want us to restrict "our" lifestyles, generally don't restrict their own.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Please Save us From Global Cooling
We're about to enjoy the coldest winter in fifteen years.
Looks like the CPC's global warming policy is kicking in.
Meanwhile, David Miller has decided not to plough snow this winter.
And, given the logic behind Gorezuki driving to eliminate us (not them) from driving gaz guzzlers, and their success in actually cooling off global warming . . .
there seems to be only one possible solution...
Go out and buy an SUV.
In the USA, of course, given the state of the dollar.
Looks like the CPC's global warming policy is kicking in.
Meanwhile, David Miller has decided not to plough snow this winter.
And, given the logic behind Gorezuki driving to eliminate us (not them) from driving gaz guzzlers, and their success in actually cooling off global warming . . .
there seems to be only one possible solution...
Go out and buy an SUV.
In the USA, of course, given the state of the dollar.
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