"Global Warming: An Official Pseudo Science"

But we already knew that, didn't we?

Noteworthy:

"By now you should have figured this one out. Recent years have witnessed a series of fear-mongering alarmist fads in pseudo-scientific meteorology and climatology, each promoted in succession by news media and mainstream science publications. Perhaps the most expensive example of these mass-hysterias is the pseudoscientific fad of 'global warming'. The present article is an examination of the science behind the ideology of 'global warming', as well as the social and political forces driving its promotion."

"Present-day climatology is vulnerable to these kinds of faddist dogmas - pushed forward as part of a political and media-driven agenda - because it lacks a functional, comprehensive, systematic and interconnected understanding of the nonlinear system formed by the atmosphere, the oceans, the land mass and the biosphere, and their interaction with solar radiation."

"There is perhaps no clearer example of the arbitrary vagaries of mainstream peer-review and its promotion of non-scientific fads, driven by political and economic interests, than the recent promotion of the pseudoscientific myth of 'global warming', systematically accompanied by the recurrent fits of public hysteria it engenders amongst scientists, politicians, environmentalists (another type of politico), mainstream science journals and mass-media."

"But since these fads are supposed to be 'scientific', they are compelled to search for pseudo-evidence which may serve as the excuse (the 'scientific reason') for their promotion in mainstream journals and the media. Typically there is a little truth in this pseudo-evidence, but its generalization or interpretation falsifies the facts and the data, undermining both the value and the quality of the latter."

And those are just from page one......

Take the time to read the whole thing.

A blast from the past regarding climate change

How's this for "scientific consensus"?

Change a few words around, and you have the same thing the "Global Warming" crowd is saying today.

Edwards' base of support marginal

He will need to find a LOT more support and money to be competitive in the race. And Big Labor's support alone won't cut it.

Even if he gains momentum, he needs to understand the message voters sent in the last election, and to rethink his positions to appeal to a much wider range of support if he expects to be the presidential nominee of the Democrat Party.


Larry Kudlow breaks it down in simple terms.

Let's see if Edwards learns that class warfare pandering won't get the job done.

Saddam Hussein is dead

And this is the sort of thing we get from the BDS sufferers in both post and comments.

Unbelievable....but entirely predictable.

(hat tip: Wizbang)

Gerald R. Ford, 1913-2006

He was not one of our greatest Presidents, but he most certainly was one of our greatest Americans.

He set the tone for bi-partisan political cooperation, now a sad memory after almost six years of non-existence by the current minority/soon to be majority congressional group. He served his nation, his family, and his God well.

I thought this little story at NRO, by Peter Robinson said it all about President Ford.


"I met Gerald Ford only once. As a speechwriter for then Vice President George H. W. Bush, I had drafted remarks for the vice president to use in dedicating the Betty Ford Center, and, when we reached Rancho Mirage, the vice president asked me to show the remarks to the former president.

When I knocked on his door, Gerald Ford said simply, “Come in!” Then greeted me with a smile and a handshake and had me take a chair next to his. Ford read my draft in silence, then nodded, smiled once again, and said he liked it. When I asked for his autograph, the former president spent a few moments looking around for a piece of paper — we were in conference room — then simply signed the draft itself. “Well done. Gerald R. Ford.”

An inconsequential meeting, but it provided a glimpse of Ford’s simplicity, modesty, and businesslike, genial decency.

In the bitterest moment since the Civil War, Ford applied those plain traits to the nation, on which they acted like a balm.

Occupying the White House for less than three years, he displayed neither FDR’s ability to enchant nor Reagan’s to inspire; he was, as himself once put it, “a Ford, not a Lincoln.” Yet all the same he proved a great American, and, as chief executive, providential: exactly the man we needed, exactly when we needed him.

Well done, Gerald R. Ford."


Indeed.

"Climate of Fear"

Jeff Jacoby nails it.

Excerpts:

"Over the years, the alarmists have veered from an obsession with lethal global cooling around the turn of the 20th century to lethal global warming a generation later, back to cooling in the 1970s and now to warming once again. You don't have to be a scientist to realize that all these competing narratives of doom can't be true. Or to wonder whether any of them are.
Perhaps that is why most Americans discount the climate-change fear-mongering that is so fashionable among journalists and politicians.

Last spring, as Time magazine was hyperventilating about global warming ('The debate is over. Global warming is upon us -- with a vengeance. From floods to fires, droughts to storms, the climate is crashing'), a Gallup poll was finding that only 36 percent of the public say they worry 'a great deal' about it."

"'The whole aim of practical politics,' wrote H.L. Mencken, 'is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Mencken was writing in 1920, but some things never change.'"


Meanwhile, Bob Novack alerts us to the potentially ruinous legislation being proposed in the new Democrat-controlled Congress.

Noteworthy:

"The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates this measure would reduce gross domestic product by $776 billion, raise gasoline prices 40 cents a gallon, raise natural gas prices 46 percent and cut coal production by nearly 60 percent."

"Ultimate salvation from U.S. self-destructive behavior may come from the real world. Most European Union countries, suffering higher energy costs and constraints on growth imposed by the Kyoto pact, cannot meet that treaty's emission level requirements. Furthermore, China is on pace to exceed U.S. emissions by 2010, meaning that unilateral U.S. carbon controls will have little impact on global emissions while driving American jobs to China."


We need to STOP this proposed insanity in its tracks.

A Christmas Poem

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll'd along th' unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bow'd my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

'Til ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Racism-- Fact or Faith?"

Shelby Steele ponders that question, and comes up with some answers that won't please certain people.

Excerpts:

"While racism continues to exist, it no longer stunts the lives of blacks."

"It is heresy for any white or black to say openly that, today, underdevelopment and broken families are vastly greater problems for blacks than racism, even though this is obviously true."

"The great mistake Americans made after the civil rights victories of the '60s was to allow race to become a government-approved means to power. Here was the incentive to make racism into a faith. And its subsequent life as a faith has destroyed our ability to know the reality of racism in America. Today we live in a terrible ignorance that will no doubt last until we take race out of every aspect of public life — until we learn, as we did with religion, to separate it from the state."

A Military Christmas

Good stuff.


Contrast the Ranger's story with the phony "Christmas in Cambodia" lie we heard a few years ago from someone who continues to disrespect our military people.

A "Four Day Extravaganza"?

They're serious, folks!

Noteworthy (from the author):

"I find it interesting that the liberal trolls think I've gone over the line by using the word hubris to describe Queen Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi's four day celebration of her. Now that I think about it, the word hubris doesn't go far enough to describe what Nancy's doing."

From the comments:

"Nobody voted for Nancy Pelosi as speaker; they voted for a change in Washington. For her to grab the spotlight seems like a cult of personality. I have a feeling that Steny Hoyer is probably having a quiet lunch with his family."

"Too Little, Too Late"

.....about the Duke "Rape" Case, Nifong, and Brodhead.

So say many of us, including Jon Ham.

Noteworthy:

"The rats are now deserting the sinking pro-accuser ship. I know it’s Christmas and a time for forgiveness, but I, for one, am not willing to throw them a lifeline. Let them sink along with the DA."

Agreed.

The lacrosse players are certainly no angels, but they certainly didn't deserve what has happened to them so far.

New Strategy for the Cut and Run Crowd

They're going to be positively ecstatic over this!

Noteworthy:

"'We order you to withdrew your troops immediately, using troop carriers and aircraft, and taking only your personal weapons. Don't withdraw any heavy weapons. Instead you should hand that and your military bases over to the holy warriors of the Islamic State,' he said on the tape."

It's a good thing the Administration is still calling the shots. The Dems just might be dumb enough to do what's being asked.

Jimmy Carter's Betrayal

Carter's supposed legacy is in shambles.


Excerpts:

"I don't recognize Carter any more. I am afraid of him now, for myself and for my children. He has not just turned his back on the balance and fairness that all peacemaking depends on. He has become a spokesman for the enemies of my people. He has become an apologist for terrorists."

"Carter's bizarre book is a poisoned holiday gift for Jews and Christians, and a danger to Jews throughout the world."

Even Carter's former friends see the folly.

Results of James Baker and the Iraq Study Group's Negotiations with Iran Revealed!

(hat tip: jaycee)



A Noteworthy Exclusive!

"Mo' Money, pt 2"

Starring Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and a cast of hundreds of Democrat members of congress.

Pete DuPont gives us a preview.

Meet the New Boss. Worse than the Old Boss.

And YOU and I get to pay the bill!

Regarding CNN's "Skin Deep: Racism in America" series

Blunt words from Star Parker.

Excerpts:

"It ignored the most destructive and widely prevailing racist attitude in our society today, one of which both blacks and whites are guilty. This is the attitude that blacks cannot be held to the same standards as whites."

"These problems will not get solved if the hand of the state remains on the bicycle seat of this community. And the attitude that we can't let go defines today's most virulent strain of racism."

"It's a racism of diminished expectations. A racism that says blacks still need special treatment in education and job placement, that we can't give black parents freedom to choose where to send their kids to school, that we can't let low-income black workers build wealth through a personal retirement account, instead of paying Social Security taxes, because they won't know what to do."

And yet we continue to have various truth and reconciliation processes that call for "reparations" and entitlements, and continued "dialog".

Fusion Politics

Virginia Postrel is on the story.

Excerpt:

"If it's going to happen, such an alliance can only start among honest intellectuals who are not interested in scoring partisan points. How many of those are left, I'm not sure."

I wonder also, Virginia.

How many classic liberals still exist in positions of influence?

The New Afghanistan?

Somalia.

Excerpt:

"The stakes are high. A war between Muslim Somalia and Christian-ruled Ethiopia could rapidly engulf the entire Horn of Africa, sucking in neighbouring Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan and even Yemen. It would give Islamic jihadists the chance to establish a new front in Africa after Iraq and Afghanistan, and to wage another proxy war between East and West."

And yet there are some folks who do not think that "Islamic extremism" is a major world problem.

Constitutional Violations

....are taking place on several levels in Massachusetts.

Noteworthy:

"The response to all this from many supporters of same-sex marriage has been a tortured explanation of why defying the Massachusetts Constitution is actually a good thing. 'It's not a matter of following the constitution,' the legal director of the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU told my Boston Globe colleague Sam Allis. 'It's following the constitution down the drain.' In other words, nothing must be allowed to jeopardize same-sex marriage -- not even democracy and due process of law."

Of course, the pro gay marriage side was quick to applaud the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in 2003 that barring gay marriage was unconstitutional in that state.

Yet another in the long line of incidents showing that situational constitutionality, judicial actions in support of social policy and agendized politics are what it's all about on the "progressive" side.

Jim Webb Keeps Self Destructing

And he hasn't even taken office yet!

First, there was his Boy Behaving Badly episode at the White House.

Now it's stiffing his fellow vets, and sending a comment that flat out disses the people who supported him.


Jim Webb: The new John Kerry.

Virginian vets won't get fooled again.

Political Correctness and Academic Arrogance

....as practiced at the University of Michigan.

Noteworthy:

"University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman apparently believes that the democratic process is valid only when the voters agree with her."

Cherished liberal social policies certainly die hard, don't they?

Hannuka among the Hellenists

Regarding the Israeli Left, and Jewish self hatred".

Noteworthy in its pertinence today:

"If the barbarians murder the Jews, it is because the Jews are evil, selfish people and because they have been too reluctant to abandon their primitive survivalism."

"Enviro-extremists? What Enviro-extremists?"

"Oh, you mean THESE enviro-extremists!"

Excerpts:

“We’re no better than bacteria!” University of Texas biologist Eric Pianka announced last spring. “Things are gonna get better after the collapse because we won’t be able to decimate the Earth so much,”

"Pianka dreamed that disease “will control the scourge of humanity.” He celebrated the potential of Ebola Reston, an airborne strain of the killer virus, to make Earth nearly human-free."

"“There is no denying the natural world would be a better place without people. ALL people!”

"Surely, the Black Death was one of the best things that ever happened to Europe: elevating the worth of human labor, reducing environmental degradation, and, rather promptly, producing the Renaissance. From where I sit, Planet Earth could use another major human pandemic, and pronto!”

Proposed Dem Legislation Will Targt Grassroots Freedom of Speech

Under this, Uncle Sugar gets to find out all about the little people in the political process.

Excerpts:

“Right now, grassroots groups don’t have to report at all if they are communicating with the public,” said Dick Dingman of the Free Speech Coalition, Inc. “This is an effort that would become a major attack on the 1st Amendment.”

“This bill would apply to those who have no Washington-based lobbyists, who provide no money or gifts to members of Congress, and who merely seek to speak, associate and petition the government,” it said. “Regulating the speech, publishing, association and petitioning rights of citizens is not targeted at corruption in Washington, as Public Citizen and its supporters would believe. Instead, it is targeted directly at the 1st-Amendment rights of citizens and their voluntary associations.”

Nice work, Public Citizen and Speaker to be Pelosi......this is one way you can put the screws to these groups, most of whom espouse political and social conservative viewpoints, and many of whom would be forced to shut down as a result.

Next, look for a return of the old FTC "Fairness Doctrine" in an attempt to kill off conservative talk radio.

Count on it......

"Global Warming" Update: The Cows Missed the Movie

More about the recent "global warming"/cow connection we talked about earlier.

Noteworthy:

"If there's one thing that irritates Singer, it is Gore's belief that there is a scientific 'consensus' about human-induced global warming, even as Gore incessantly complains about scientists who deny global warming.

'Well, which is it?' Singer asked. If there is a consensus, there should be no deniers. Singer has co-written a book, 'Unstoppable Global Warming -- Every 1,500 Years'..."

"Hillary Care" is not the answer

(from the Patriot Post US)



"We are well on the way, step by step, to being saddled with the same high-cost, low-yield healthcare system that plagues our Canadian and European friends. A cursory look at the numbers is indeed quite alarming. The U.S. population has reached 300 million, more than 35 million of whom are senior citizens on Medicare. The working-age population is nearly 258 million, and Medicare, Medicaid and military health programs cover 45 million of them, while another 18 million are public-sector employees, with health care covered by taxpayers. That means one third of Americans are taxpayer covered in one form or another, not including dependents. Add in mandated free hospital care for the uninsured, tax subsidies for companies that provide health insurance for employees, and our marvelous new Republican-authored prescription-drug benefit, and the burden on government is roughly two thirds of total healthcare spending! Government spending on healthcare is fast approaching 10 percent of the GDP.

As we’ve said in these pages before, getting the government entirely out of the healthcare business is the direction in which we need to go. Subsidizing in any way can only increase the cost. Of course, when politicians’ power depends on demagoguery, little can really be done to stop the slide into the socialist ditch."

The Real Cause of "Global Warming"

....is finally discovered!

Yet another Incovenient Truth for the True Believers to absorb, which really shouldn't be too difficult, seeing as how they already are full of bovine scatology, but there's always room for a little more on top.

Why do you think most of them have brown eyes in the first place?

(hat tip: Fred Gregory)

Will Wonders Never Cease?

The True Believers are starting to backpeddle (somewhat) on one their cherished talking points in their "Global Warming" agenda!

(Original link: The American Thinker.)

Excerpt from the Thinker:

"The organization still insists on little doubt that mankind is warming the planet, though there is still no explanation for all the huge variations in climate which occurred prior to man having the ability to operate on a sufficient scale to hypothesize such doomsday outcomes. Clearly mechanisms for variation in the global climate exist outside of our control. So how is the UN so certain (subject to substantial revision, of course, but still with little doubt) that mankind is driving change today?"


But we already knew that, didn't we?

Incoming Dem House Intelligence Committee chair

....strikes what is sure to be the standard the Democrats will set when congress reconvenes.

(hat tip: Wizbang.)

Rosie O'Donnell: Bigot

"Ching Chong" indeed.

Where's the outcry over this?

Oh wait, she didn't use the "N" word.

That explains it......

Deconstructing the agenda of those who would encourage class warfare.

Rich Lowry reviews Alan Reynold's new book that reveals the truth about some of the economic nonsense we're bound to hear when the Dems take control of Congress.

Lowry's lede describes what we should soon expect to hear:

"If you don’t yet believe that we live in a de facto caste system, just wait until the new Democratic economic populists take over Congress. They will rely on the usual myths to portray the American economy as an engine of inequity and dispossession, benefiting only the very rich."

The summation:

"It is America — not just the rich — that is getting richer, even if Washington’s newly empowered populists don’t want to hear it. "

Open Letter to the President

Why we need to turn around the repugnant notion of an America that is harmless as an enemy, and treacherous as a friend.

Quote of the Day

"When the history of our times is written, this week will be remembered as the week that Washington decided to let the Islamic Republic of Iran go nuclear. Hopefully it will also be remembered as the moment the Jews arose and refused to allow Iran to go nuclear."

Read the whole story.

(hat tip: Glenn Reynolds.)

The Vast Democrat Culture of Corruption continues

It's just business as usual.

Right on the money quote:

"City Councilman Oliver Thomas said Jefferson's victory would make the recovery more difficult.

'People are watching this election all around the country and I can only imagine what they are thinking,' Thomas said. 'It will be very difficult to go back to them and ask them to trust us with the money we need here.'"

The Dems KNEW about the Foley emails

.... as evidenced here, and it's clear they sat on the info until they could use it in last month's election.

Excerpt from the second link:

"Of course, many of us knew this already.
We also figured the media would not report this until after the midterm election.
We were right."

Imagine that!

A Revisionist's Review of Scrooge

Old Ebenezer 's "before" personality in Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" has always gotten a bum rap.

I LOVE this passage:

"Moreover, there is also a left-wing environmentalist case for Scrooge, in so far as he minimizes his use of nonrenewable resources and energy sources (e.g. - coal) that create pollution. Thanks to Scrooge, nineteenth century London had more resources and less air pollution!"

Early poll numbers for Hillary

.....don't look too hot.

Noteworthy:

"When asked 'whether you personally would, or would not like to see this person run for president in the next election,' 55 percent of respondents said they would not like to see Clinton atop the Democratic ticket. Former Vice President Al Gore got the thumbs down by an even larger margin - 67 percent - while 74 percent rejected another run by Sen. John Kerry, who lost the 2004 election to President Bush."

This news will probably encourage the forces within the Democrat party who really REALLY don't want to see her as the nominee in 08.

It may be false encouragement. Their are a good number of pundits and pollsters who say that the nomination is hers to loose. And that's probably NOT good news for Democrats who have their sights set on retaking the White House.

You have GOT to be kidding!

So now the folks behind the TRC want the taxpayers to subsidize the agenda contained in the report?

Read the article....does THIS sound like something constructive and useful will come from the project?

"The commission's Ad Hoc Committee on Improving Race Relations wants to organize a community dialogue, following a format used by the U.S. Department of Justice, to try to improve race relations, beginning with a half-day forum in which 150 community leaders would gather to discuss issues in various small groups.

Participants would then organize meetings between their own communities or groups and other, similar groups that differ in race, wealth, side of town or some other way.

Then, after six months to a year, the original 150 participants would reconvene and share what they have learned.

The proposal would cost $40,000, mostly to pay a full-time staff person to coordinate meetings and ensure that participating groups met with other groups regularly throughout the period."

"Dialogue"......"community leaders"......and more money down the same rathole that contains the Project Homestead bucks, and God knows how many other projects' resources to satisfy a political/social agenda?

(hat tip: Sam at Piedmont Publius.)

The ISG Report: No Big Surprise

We knew what they were going to say before they said it, didn't we?

Ralph Peters takes it apart.

Excerpts:

"Former Secretary of State James Baker and his panelists are trying to shore up the failing regional system that their generation designed. Released yesterday, their report doesn't offer 'a new way forward.' Its recommendations echo past failures. And it shows no sense of how gravely the world has changed."

" Baker resembles Pontius Pilate in wanting those bedeviling local problems to go away and in imagining that, by caving in to unjust local powerbrokers, he can safeguard the empire's interests.

The difference is that Pilate just wanted to wash his hands of an annoyance, while Baker would wash his hands in the blood of our troops."

Baker and his fellow "Realists" screwed up royally in the first Iraq war, and bear a huge burden for the situation we find ourselves in currently.

Why would we even think about trusting their judgment now?

Political Shock of the Year!

This guy will not seek the Democrat nomination for President in 08.

Bring back Dennis Kucinich!

The anti-War Ends Justify the Means

....if your the AP, as evidenced here.

Noteworthy:

"The AP, once a just-the-facts news delivery service, has lost its rudder. It has become a partisan, anti-American news agency that seeks to undercut a wartime president and American soldiers in the field. It is providing fraudulent, shoddy goods. It doesn’t even recognize it has a problem. "

That could describe a lot of folks in the media and in the blogosphere, couldn't it?

The New Clark Clifford

.....is James Baker, says Geraghty.

Excerpt:

"...it will be hailed far and wide - well, from the editorial page of the New York Times to both parties' congressional leadership to the all-important David Gergen (hey, how did that guy get passed over? He's the Michael Jordan of empty blather from a Washington suit with a distinguished resume) as “just the right call that the President ought to heed.”"


Meanwhile, here's the Podhoretz article.

Noteworthy:

"What do Syria and Iran want more than anything else in the world? To see an American defeat in Iraq. To see an America so crippled that they can work their will in the Middle East without fear of retribution. Syria could swallow up Lebanon whole once again. Iran could do whatever it chooses inside and outside its borders (develop and peddle nuclear weaponry, sponsor terrorism against Israeli and Western targets) with impunity."

Baker bears much of the responsibility for the current situation in which we find ourselves. He and his "Realists" have screwed it up once; WHY are we even considering giving them a chance to let them screw it up again?

A poem in honor of certain Local Greensboro Blogger Buddy Club members

I'm sure you know who they are....

Enjoy!

The Iraq Study Group "Realists"

.... are the new No Nothings.

Excellent expose by Thomas Joscelyn of two major myths.

Key statement:

"Unfortunately, their advice is grounded in a dangerous ignorance of our terrorist enemies."

Britt Whitmire's gonna LOVE this!

Here's some new material for his routine.

Wonder why Dan doesn't get some testimony from HDNet viewers to back him up?

After all, how hard can it be to contact the five or six folks who actually watch them?

I would think they're all on a first name basis anyway.

More on "Loose Cannon" Webb

from Tyrrell at AmSpec. (hat tip Fred Gregory)

Excerpt:


"Webb claims that one of his heroes is President Andrew Jackson. I too admire Old Hickory, but I at least recognize the rough ways of the early 19th century are not to be reprised in the 21st century. What next, will the junior senator from Virginia being challenging those who arouse him to a duel? What century does Webb think he is living in? Believe me Senator Webb is going to be a vast source of amusement, and he will fit in nicely with the unpleasant pols whose political base is the Angry Left."

Making college more"affordable"?

David Frum argues that the Democrat plan won't.

Conclusion:

"Most industries deliver constantly-improving products at steadily declining real prices. Healthcare and higher education, the two great exceptions to this rule, are also the two most government-subsidized sectors in the U.S. economy.

More subsidy is not the solution to the problem. The subsidy is the problem."

To re-use P.J. O'Rourke's quip on health care: If you think higher education is expensive now, just wait until it's free.

More Dem election voting nonsense

They just don't give up, do they?

Noteworthy:

"They want a court to declare Ms. Jennings the winner by--get this--using statistical models to extrapolate that she would have received most of the undervotes."

Unbelievable!

What's next?

Do away with voting altogether, and determine the election winners by polling results?

They'd NEVER lose a race under those conditions, would they?

So the Dems want to "reform" Congress?

They're not off to a very good start, are they?

Key point:

"Yet even before the new session of Congress begins, the Democrats have repeatedly demonstrated that reform takes a back seat to the acquisition of power."

Meet the new Boss....Worse than the old Boss.