Sorry Folks, But This Is The Science

I've been saying it for years, and luckily some scientists more interested in the truth than in pseudo-religious ideology making are saying it as well:

One of Australia's leading enviro-sceptics, the geologist and University of Adelaide professor Ian Plimer, 62, says he has noticed audiences becoming more receptive to his message that climate change has always occurred and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

In a speech at the American Club in Sydney on Monday night for Quadrant magazine, titled Human-Induced Climate Change - A Lot Of Hot Air, Plimer debunked climate-change myths.

"Climates always change," he said. Our climate has changed in cycles over millions of years, as the orbit of the planet wobbles and our distance from the sun changes, for instance, or as the sun itself produces variable amounts of radiation. "All of this affects climate. It is impossible to stop climate change. Climates have always changed and they always will."

His two-hour presentation included more than 50 charts and graphs, as well as almost 40 pages of references. It is the basis of his new book, Heaven And Earth: The Missing Science Of Global Warming, to be published early next year.

Plimer said one of the charts, which plots atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature over 500 million years, with seemingly little correlation, demonstrates one of the "lessons from history" to which geologists are privy: "There is no relationship between CO2 and temperature."

Yep. That's right. Al Gore lied to us.

Who could believe a politician would do such a thing?

Reality Bites

Let the casualties begin: NBC Fires Weather Channel Environmental Unit

NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the "Forecast Earth" environmental program during the middle of NBC's "Green Week," as well as several on-camera meteorologists. The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of the workforce, and are among the first major changes made since NBC completed its purchase of the venerable weather network in September....

Forecast Earth was hosted by former CNN anchor Natalie Allen, with contributions from climate expert Heidi Cullen. It was the sole program on TWC that focused on global climate change, which raises the question of whether the station will still report on the subject. Cullen's future role at the network is not known.

It's good to see the "climate change" crowd take the professional beating they so richly deserve. Their political ideology masquerading as science show was an embarrassment. I'm only saddened by the fact that Cullen wasn't fired outright.

From Patterico's place:

Dr. Cullen is famous - or infamous - for urging that “broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming.” Here’s Dr. Cullen’s December 2006 blog entry where she made her remarkable suggestion that climate change skeptics should be decertified by the AMS.

Cullen is a lousy scientist, which is the same thing as saying she is no scientist at all.

Maybe "Forecast Earth" will reappear on the SciFi channel. They like fantasy.

A Timely Reminder

I read a story like this....

The Welsh language, spoken by 600,000 people, got a cultural boost on Thursday when it was heard, and interpreted, at the European Union for the first time.

...and I think, "Hey, I've got a copy of 'Teach Yourself Welsh' on my bookshelf! Maybe I should finally give it a try!"

Then I read...

"Efallai mai'r Gymraeg yw un o'r ieithoedd hynaf sy'n cael ei defnyddio yn y DU, ond mae'n parhau'n un o'r rhai mwyaf bywiog," he told them.

And I say, "Or maybe I'll just stick with something nice and simple, like Chinese or ancient Greek."

Am I The Only One Who Finds This Unseemly?

You know, I'm as much of a free market capitalist as the next right-wing nutjob, but I have to admit the way the whole "bailout" scenario has been playing out looks bad.

SCENE: Senator Bigwig's office in Washington, DC.

Aide #1: Senator, there are some gentlemen from Wall Street financial institutions in the outer office, hats in hand looking for a handout.

Senator Bigwig: Wall Street, eh? Let's see...hmm...lots of good fellows from the country club. They're OK....what about their employees?

Aide #1: Mostly white collar workers, sir. Lots of folks whose professional organizations have given generously to your re-election campaign war chest.

Senator Bigwig: I see. In other words, loyal upstanding Americans, who should not, NAY, must not be allowed to feel the cold sting of a free market correction. My campaign finances...uh um...I mean the very existence of our credit markets require we give them what they want. Yes, that sounds about right.

ANOTHER AIDE ENTERS:

Aide #2: Senator, some gentlemen from Detroit have just arrived claiming they need a helping hand.

Senator Bigwig: Auto makers, eh? That would mostly affect blue collar workers, right? Unions and whatnot...

Aide #2: Yes, sir. Plus most of the supporting industries supplying tool and parts tend to be blue collar workers as well.

THE SENATOR TURNS TO AIDE #1

Senator Bigwig: Hmm...they been adding to the campaign war chest?

Aide #1: Not so much.

Senator Bigwig: Yes, I see.

THE SENATOR TURNS BACK TO AIDE #2

Senator Bigwig: Well, there is absolutely nothing I can do I'm afraid. The free market must be allowed to work through these things. Why, if the government were to get involved whenever a sector of the economy started to feel the pinch, where would that get us? No. Creative destruction is the order of the day. Tell the boys from Detroit they are on their own. Now, on to other business...

Aide #1: But Senator...the gentlemen from Wall Street?

Senator Bigwig: Oh yes...where's the checkbook?

END SCENE

I Don't Trust Many Politicians...

...but I trust Senator James Inhofe.

Dear Colleague,

I write to inform you of the actions I will be taking during the lame duck session of Congress regarding the funding status of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Given the recent news about Secretary Paulson's execution of the TARP program, I firmly believe action is required by Congress. I plan to push for legislation that will require Secretary Paulson's plan for the remaining $350 billion in authorized TARP funds to be ratified by an affirmative vote in the U.S. Congress.

In my statement opposing the Paulson Plan last month, I laid out two primary reasons why I voted ‘no.' The first is that I wasn't convinced that asset-purchase program was the right way to do this, and the second is that it would lead to increased lobbying for handouts and bailouts by any industry facing financial trouble.

I stated at the time that my vote was against the Paulson plan - not against taking extraordinary action to provide necessary confidence to financial markets. I stated that "The Paulson plan would have Washington take $700 billion worth of toxic Wall Street assets from financial firms' balance sheets and put them on the balance sheet of the federal government.... I'm not confident in its success."

The critics were right. On October 14th, in a significant shift, Treasury outlined a plan to directly purchase equity stakes in of major financial institutions. The Wall Street Journal noted that "critics...say Treasury should have formulated a comprehensive plan earlier in the crisis." This past week, Secretary Paulson announced that he has completed a remarkable about face, as summarized by November 13th Investor's Business Daily front page headline, which read, "In Major Reversal, Treasury Won't Buy Bad Mortgage Debt." This is a complete reversal. Why did Paulson reverse course? Thursday's Los Angeles Times provides the answer. "Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's decision to abandon plans to buy troubled bank assets shows that he has come to two conclusions about what was once the chief focus of the government's $700-billion bailout: The first is that it wouldn't work."

I know many of you have serious concerns about how Secretary Paulson has executed the financial rescue program and I share them with you. Congress abdicated its Constitutional responsibility by signing a truly blank check over to the Treasury Secretary. However, the lame duck session of Congress offers us a tremendous opportunity to change course. We should take it.

During the lame duck session, I will be taking the following actions. First and foremost, if Secretary Paulson submits his plan to Congress in order to access the remaining $350 billion while we are in session, a doubtful prospect, I plan to immediately introduce the disapproval resolution pursuant to Section 115 of the EESA and push for its enactment. I will also introduce and actively pursue enactment of legislation to do two things: First, it will amend Section 115 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) to require an affirmative vote on the part of Congress to approve Treasury's plan for the remaining $350 billion, instead of the current statutory process which gives Secretary Paulson far too much latitude. Second, it will require a freeze on any remaining funds of the first $350 billion. It is imperative that we not allow that amount of money to be added to a deficit approaching $1 trillion this year without any input from the legislative branch.

Secretary Paulson stated in a CNBC interview at 2:00pm on Friday, November 14th that "the financial markets have been stabilized." If that is the case, it is Congress's duty to have a say in what happens with the remaining authorized amount of $350 billion. It is clear that it was a mistake to sign a blank check to one man for such a tremendous amount of money. Though there are still significant challenges in financial markets, it appears that the threat of a catastrophic financial crisis, which was the justification for the grant of such sweeping authority, has subsided. Perhaps the additional $350 billion should not be added to the deficit. Congress should have a debate.

"Global Warming" = Fraud

It's funny how its only the worst of the AGW(tm) alarmists that get caught making up data to support their fantasy "theories": The world has never seen such freezing heat

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

Yep. They were using September's numbers, from an out of the way spot on the globe they thought no one would bother to double check, in order to fraudulently claim "record heat."

Funny how their so called "honest random errors" always work out to make things hotter than they actually were. That's just a coincidence I guess.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

Oh, good Lord. Now it seems "fake but accurate" is not just the new standard for journalists anymore.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

So, they are making "scientific" pronouncements based about data the reliability of which they know nothing. Indeed, the data set is chosen because it gives them the results they crave, and not because it is the most accurate or verifiable.

This new "learning" amazes me.

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

All of this begs a question: Why isn't Dr. Hansen being treated like Dr. Hwang Woo-suk?

Gleaned from Power Line.

Amen To That

McQ over at QandO is channelling me:

I love the smell of desperation in the air, it smells of hypocrisy. It is as if Begala and the left have had the scales suddenly fall from their eyes and they’ve realized the depth of their vicious, hateful, nasty, venomous, personal and classless attacks over the last 8 years.

And they’re fearful that the right will engage in the same tactics of personal destruction and smear which has been their hallmark for so long.

They want to embrace Bush for a couple of months and that makes it all ok? You can’t help but laugh at such mewling claptrap.

...

In the meantime, to the left - STFU with all this hugging and loving nonsense. Your hypocrisy sickens me. And besides, I’d rather hug a porcupine.

He's right. They really are sickening.

Typical

Subject #1: Arrested for the crime of being a Republican around supporters of the chosen one.



What was all that post-partisan bullshit again?

Scumbags.

Some Centrist

Why is it that everyone Obama seems intent to hire for his new administration is the equivalent of a middle finger salute to the other side of the aisle?

Post-partisan my ass.

If you need it spelled out for you, Jaime Gorelick is unacceptable based upon gross incompetence alone.

Iowahawk Said It

Yeah, it's kinda mean. Sadly, it's also kinda true: America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster

So for now, let's put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said "I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore.

Obama Doesn't Lie, He "Evolves"

Really:

Despite campaign trail promises that special interests wouldn’t be a part of his administration, President-elect Barack Obama’s has sent signals to the lobbyists that they can get jobs with him.

The Obama policy, which appears to be evolving...

I don't even need to hear more. I'm pretty sure I don't care about what policy he actually adopts, but I'm sure that isn't the point. Remember, this was the guy whose word was supposed to be so much different than any other politician's word. He was sincere.

At least I wasn't stupid enough to ever believe it.

Michael Crichton Dead At 66

Michael Crichton dies of cancer

Michael Crichton, the million-selling author who made scientific research terrifying and irresistible in such thrillers as "Jurassic Park," "Timeline" and "The Andromeda Strain," has died of cancer, his family said.

Crichton died Tuesday in Los Angeles at age 66 after privately battling cancer.

"Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand," his family said in a statement.

"While the world knew him as a great storyteller that challenged our preconceived notions about the Other-- and entertained us all while doing so -- his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes."

He was an experimenter and popularizer known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of "The Andromeda Strain" or the dinosaurs running madly in "Jurassic Park." Many of his books became major Hollywood movies, including "Jurassic Park," "Rising Sun" and "Disclosure." Crichton himself directed and wrote "The Great Train Robbery" and he co-wrote the script for the blockbuster "Twister."

I enjoyed much of Crichton's work, although I hadn't followed his later fiction writing very closely. He could be wildly uneven, ranging from the wildly entertaining ("The Great Train Robbery,") to the thought provoking ("Jurassic Park" and "Sphere,") to the slightly paranoid ("Rising Sun,") to just plain awful ("The Lost World.") He was also prone to repetition (what is "Timeline" except a re-working of "Jurassic Park" with time travel filling in for dinosaurs?)

Still, I've spent many hours in his company, so to speak, and I was rarely bored. Crichton also had guts. He stood up against the Global Warming loons when it was a damn risky thing to do. His novel "State Of Fear" is not particularly good, even by Crichton's standards, but it contains much that needed to be said. His speaking out against the idea of "science by consensus" was an example of his courage and an example of his being in the right.

R.I.P.

Hope

Food for thought from Patterico:

I have endured some criticism for saying that Barack Obama, with whom I disagree about almost everything, is a good man trying to do what he thinks is right for this country.

Some commenters have disagreed, citing Obama’s support for grisly forms of late-term abortion; his attendence of a church with a pastor who said anti-American things in some of his sermons; his relationship with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers; his disturbingly close relationship with corrupt individuals such as Tony Rezko; his broken promises; and his many falsehoods about John McCain. They point to his campaign’s inappropriate use of the race card; his disabling of credit card verification checks; his minions’ attempts to silence free speech with threats; and much more.

There is something to all that, and I don’t think we should pretend these things didn’t happen, or give Obama a false halo. The fact is that John McCain did some things that weren’t too savory during this campaign as well, and as the saying goes, politics ain’t beanbag. Good men do bad things, and in the pursuit of ambition, they almost always do. Barack Obama is not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination.

What’s more, I think he will damage this country with bad policies. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Inevitably, he is going to take actions that I think are disastrous, and somebody will come back and say: “Hey, Patterico! I thought you said Barack Obama was a good man!” Yes, but I never said he wasn’t going to do horrible things. It’s quite clear he will.

Well, I certainly hope Obama is a better man than the one I saw in this campaign. Whatever his positive qualities, I cannot help but see a combination of the weaknesses and character flaws that defined Presidents Nixon and Carter.

I'd love to be proven wrong.

But I'll note that Obama has picked Rahm "Republicans can go fuck themselves" Emanuel to be his chief of staff.

Can't you already feel the healing?

Does Anyone Know?

Anyone have an ETA on all those government controlled thermostats?

Still?

When I went to bed there were four undecided Senate races, and six hours later they are still undecided. (Who counts the votes in Oregon anyway? Some sort of tree sloth?) Republican, as of right now, lead in all four races. The hopes Democrats had of knocking Chambliss under 50% are gone. Coleman has held on and has a 700 vote lead with 99% reporting. Smith in Oregon has a couple percentage lead right now (but only 75% tree sloth counted votes in.) And, believe it or not, Stevens has basically won up in Alaska. The Senate stands, right now, at the Dems holding 56.

Over in the House races, the Dems have picked up 20 seats with 11 calls yet to make.

Neither of those numbers was as bad as I predicted. Interesting.