An Inconvenient Snafu

NASA says that 1998 is actually not the warmest year on record? How does this affect all those climate models championed by prophet Al Gore and his merry band of followers? How does it change their rhetoric?

Coyote Blog is all over it:

Climate scientist Michael Mann (famous for the hockey stick chart) once made the statement that the 1990's were the warmest decade in a millennia and that "there is a 95 to 99% certainty that 1998 was the hottest year in the last one thousand years." (By the way, Mann now denies he ever made this claim, though you can watch him say these exact words in the CBC documentary Global Warming: Doomsday Called Off).

Well, it turns out, according to the NASA GISS database, that 1998 was not even the hottest year of the last century. This is because many temperatures from recent decades that appeared to show substantial warming have been revised downwards. Here is how that happened (if you want to skip the story, make sure to look at the numbers at the bottom).

Thomas Sowell: Moral Paralysis

A must-read from Thomas Sowell at the Atlasphere, comparing pacifist Europe in the mid-1930s to America and western world today.

“Moral paralysis” is a term that has been used to describe the inaction of France, England and other European democracies in the 1930s, as they watched Hitler build up the military forces that he later used to attack them.

It is a term that may be painfully relevant to our own times.

This ethanol boondoggle is getting costly

While politicians and corrupt farmers (note: Archer Daniels Midland -- kings of farm subsidies corruption) extol the virtues of ethanol, the opportunity costs (those unintended consequences Washington DC so eagerly ignores), continue to pile up, snowballing into a very dangerous situation that can only get worse from here, as the percentage of US corn slated for ethanol production continues to increase. These disgusting subsidies are the only reason the market has adjusted, and they must stop immediately before it is too late.

Farm land prices are going up. This will inevitably increase the costs of other core food crops that Americans depend on.

Many poor Mexicans are now unable to afford the staple of their diets - tortillas.

The price of nearly every food is going up. Beef, pizza, coffee, everything.

Al Gore's global warming idiocy is being exploited into a government-sponsored raping of our heartland and core food supply, funneling billions of dollars from the poor and middle-class consumers into bullshit farming lobbies. End the ethanol subsidies now!

Scientific Consensus = the law of thermodynamics, evolution of species, the periodic table of the elements, the speed of light, and global warming

Power lust will make you say some pretty stupid things...

Yahoo:

"There has been an organized campaign, financed to the tune of about $10 million a year from some of the largest carbon polluters, to create the impression that there is disagreement in the scientific community," Gore said at a forum in Singapore. "In actuality, there is very little disagreement."

"This is one of the strongest of scientific consensus views in the history of science," Gore said. "We live in a world where what used to be called propaganda now has a major role to play in shaping public opinion."

Some people actually cheer for the pathological liar, John Edwards...

Seriously...there are actually some real, live people out there who clap their hands and stomp their feet and get cherry red in the face dreaming about John Edwards, the "populist" candidate, gutting out a victory over his democratic compatriots, vanquishing GOP cannon fodder in the general election, and carrying this trial lawyer into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, the address from which he will make poverty history, bring Christopher Reeves back from the dead, and end all bad things, period....BAM!

I can't help it. I get a kick out of it. Lots and lots of people love this fraud. He is exposed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. No matter. We have to increase the minimum wage, save the whales from global warming, and help the poor and stuff...

The more his wife Elizabeth dabbles in public discourse, the easier it is to see how much these two are meant for each other. Are they both compulsive liars or just simpletons in over their heads? Sadly, contracting cancer clearly does not make one intelligent or honest.

In spite of it all, it remains quite enjoyable to sit back and watch the ineffectual supporters of these frauds spend money and get excited over a big cloud of nothing.

Yahoo News:

Plunging headlong into the Internet era, all seven candidates fought for the support of the powerful and polarizing liberal blogosphere by promising universal health care, aggressive government spending and dramatic change from the Bush era.

Edwards received a loud cheer when he suggested his rivals were tinkering around the edges — "I just heard some discussion about negotiation, compromise" — rather than overhauling government. He said the nation needs "big change, not small change."

The party's 2004 vice presidential nominee, Edwards called on the field to join him in refusing donations from Washington lobbyists. He suggested that accepting lobbyists' money would make Democrats no better than Republicans.

"We don't want to trade their insiders for ours," said the former North Carolina senator.

As Jack Marshall says:

Why are so many Americans willing to consider candidates for national office who obviously think the public is made up of morons?

Authoritarian Love Fest for the Mentally Challenged

"In the name of the peoples of the world, President Bush, withdraw the troops from Iraq. Enough already with so much genocide," Chavez said before an auditorium packed with his red-clad supporters.

Penn sat near the front, at times applauding and nodding in agreement. He is the latest in a series of celebrities who have visited Caracas, including Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte.