An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last ~ Winston Churchill

Since 2003, Europe — not the United States — has experienced a series of attacks, and near-constant threats, ranging from bombed subways and rail stations to Islamic demands to censor cartoons, operas, films, and papal exegeses. 

It is in Europe, not in post-Iraq Kansas, where a Turkish prime minister announces to Muslim expatriate residents that they must remain forever Turks and assimilation is a crime; it is in post-Iraq Europe, not Los Angeles, where politicians and churchmen talk of the inevitability of Sharia law; and it is in post-Iraq Europe, not the United States, where honor killings and Islamic rioting are common occurrences.

Why? A number of reasons, but despite all the misrepresentation and propaganda, the message has filtered through the Middle East that the United States will go after and punish jihadists — but also, alone of the Western nations, it will risk its own blood and treasure to work with Arab nations to find some alternative to the extremes of dictatorship and theocracy. Europe, in contrast to its utopian rhetoric, will trade with and profit from, but most surely never challenge, a Middle Eastern thug. Victor Davis Hanson, posting March 14, 2008 at National Review Online

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.  ~Author Unknown

 Global warming hucksters baffled over recent data…

Vow to press on until data support their assertions…

Another global warming oops

From climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, formerly a senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal:

“There are huge error bars on our observational estimates of feedback” used by the UN’s IPCC climate models. In other words, what scientists see doesn’t jibe with what is assumed to build the computer models. SNIP

“The fact is, we DON’T know how much of recent warming is natural,” Spencer says, “simply because we don’t have good enough global cloud observations back to the 1970’s (and earlier) to measure any long-term changes in cloudiness to the required accuracy – 1% or less. SNIP

“I fear that the sloppy science that too many climate researchers have lapsed into could, in the end, hurt our scientific discipline beyond repair. The very high level of certainty (90%) claimed by the IPCC for their manmade explanation for warming can not be justified based upon the scientific evidence, and is little more than an expression of their faith that they understand the causes of climate variability – which they clearly don’t. END EXCERPT, which appears courtesy OC Register.com

Then there’s The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat, excerpted here from a posting at Free Republic (my bold emphasis):

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.

This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.

In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. END EXCERPT

From the Australian (March 22, 2008) excerpted here are some “Climate Facts to Warm to”:

Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, when asked whether the Earth is still warming: 

"No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years." SNIP

The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant." SNIP

When asked to explain the temperature dip in spite of rising levels of greenhouse gases, Marohasy says:

(T)he head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

And it appears that the deep diving ARGO is not the only NASA system returning data that is baffling the so-called climate experts. In 2002, NASA launched its AQUA satellite, equipment specifically designed to collect data not only on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapor. 

By way of backgroud, many of the climate models that predict global catastrophe are based on the assumption that warming caused by rising carbon dioxide levels will result in increased water vapor in the Earth's atmosphere. Feedback from AQUA indicates that carbon dioxide and water vapor levels have risen over the past several years. But the results are contrary to what most global warming models predict. Again from Marohasy:

“What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Marohasy thinks the global climate is more robust than has been portrayed by some of the doomsayers, many of whom are having trouble getting their heads around some of the latest findings:

These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide. SNIP

The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point." END EXCERPT

Even though the planet is not warming up, the argument about global warming figures to get a lot more heated in the next few months. Hey, Goreacle: the debate about global warming is not over; it is just getting started…

Stay red… 

RFTLC, rights reserved

The Hillinator: Badly damaged, and daily taking more hits, but not totally out of commission. It will not stop until it completes its mission or is totally destroyed in the process...

Giving Team Hillbillary hope is the potential for fallout from Obama’s association with Tony Rezko scandal. And this week Obama has been put on the defensive over controversial remarks made by Jeremiah A. Wright, Reverend of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Obama has attended Trinity United for twenty years; Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama and christened the Obama’s daughters.  

Obama has been particularly weak in his attempts to explain his ongoing association with Wright who, among other things has:

·        Blamed the US government for creating the AIDS virus, which was ostensibly developed to kill blacks.

·        Asserted that 9/11 was America’s comeuppance for US foreign policy.

·        Suggested that American blacks should not sing “God Bless America”, but instead should sing “God D*mn America”.

Check out Ronald Kessler’s Op-Ed piece in today’s Opinion Journal for more on Wright and his pal Louis Farrakhan. 

Obama has mildly criticized Wright’s remarks, though his denunciation seems somewhat insincere. Obama compared Wright to “an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with."

Relative or no, it is a pretty safe bet that many Americans, me among them, would head for the door the first time they heard anyone spouting racist or anti-American rhetoric. And, as others have pointed out, one may not be able to choose his uncle, but one can choose his friends; or his minister. Obama had a choice, yet he stayed….for twenty years. 

And Wright remains an advisor and “sounding board” to Obama.

In religion as in politics, leadership is about saying and doing things that resonate with the constituency. Essentially, we tend to follow and support people whose values we share. I wonder which part of Wright’s racist, divisive teachings so strongly resonate with Barack Obama (the great uniter) that he has stayed with the church for more than two decades….

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Just wondering: How does Barack Obama’s mother, a white woman, feel about her son’s willingness to remain close to a man who has spent so much time and energy attacking whites?

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported earlier this week that this year’s average winter temperatures are two-tenths of one degree above the average for the twentieth century. Yet this year’s temps are the lowest since 2001.

The report also noted “record Northern Hemisphere snow cover in January and above-average snow cover in February”.   

Television’s “big three”, ABC, CBS and NBC, have remained very quiet about the NOAA report. Does this merely reflect the big three’s lack of interest in global warming?

According to a recent study by BMI:

Over the last 6 months of 2007, the big three did 205 stories on global warming.

On the three networks, 80 percent of stories (167 out of 205) didn’t mention skepticism or anyone at all who dissented from global warming alarmism. CBS did the absolute worst job. Ninety-seven percent of its stories (34 out of 35) ignored other opinions. Williams’ own network, NBC, came in a close second with 85 percent (76 out of 89) excluding skepticism. ABC was the most balanced network, but still censored dissent from 64 percent of its stories (34 out of 53).

(P)eople with alternative views barely got face time on the networks. Instead, they received insults and hostile questions.

Journalists also called skeptics “deniers,” conjuring images of Holocaust deniers, and cast them as flat-earthers – ironically forgetting that there was once a scientific consensus that the earth was flat.

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Speaking of MSM bias, Newsbusters reports that it took awhile for the big three to get around to mentioning that Eliott Spitzer is a Dim:

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, substitute NBC Nightly News anchor Ann Curry and reporter Mike Taibbi failed to identify disgraced outgoing New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a Democrat, but on Thursday night Curry finally informed NBC viewers of the party affiliation -- a fact network journalists always consider relevant when a Republican gets caught in scandalous behavior.  SNIP

For the record, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric cited Spitzer's party on Monday and Wednesday nights while ABC's World News didn't until Wednesday evening.

The morning shows have completely blacked out the fact Spitzer is a Democrat.   END EXCERPT

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For what it's worth: The same media suppressing dissent about global warming, and dragging its heels in citing Eliot Spitzer’s political affiliation is the same MSM covering Barack Obama…

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New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has admitted that he has been involved in a prostitution ring. This is the same man who when he was attorney general went after the prostitution rings. So apparently for not giving him good service . . . Jay Leno

If Gov. Spitzer resigns over his prostitution scandal, he will reportedly go into private practice as a lawyer. When asked why he wanted to practice law again, Spitzer said, “I like businesses where you charge by the hour and screw your clients."  Conan O’Brien

Earlier today, the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, resigned. In his resignation speech he said, "To whom much has been given, much is expected." Which is the same thing he said to that $5,000-an-hour hooker.  Jay Leno

Political experts say that before the scandal, Hillary Clinton had considered him for a possible running mate. Now, Hillary is considering Spitzer as a possible husband. Conan O’Brien

Stay red…

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Lorne Gunter, National Post  Published: Monday, February 25, 2008

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year. SNIP

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, (here’s a link to Sororkhtin’s piece, which is an informative read-Kevin) a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon. SNIP

Sunspots are actually cool spots on the sun; so how does an absence of sunspots lead to lower solar output? Gary Rottman, SORCE Principal Investigator and a scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, explained this seeming paradox in an August 2004 posting at Space.com:

Sunspots indicate greater solar activity in general. While they do dampen sunlight while on the face of the Sun, they are surrounded by intensely bright regions called "faculae" or "plage." When sunspots are on the limb of the Sun -- just rotating onto or off of the face -- the plage are prominent from our vantagepoint, creating a significant increase in radiation that far outweighs the dip of radiation caused by the rest of the sunspot's transit.

Seen on a graph, total visible and infrared radiation increases just before a sunspot appears, dips slightly for several days as it crosses the surface, then increases again as it disappears.

A lack of sunspots indicates inactivity in the Sun, and less radiation overall. END EXCERPT

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.END EXCERPT (Big hat tip to reader Andrew P. for sending along the Gunter piece, which appeared in the Canada’s National Post).

What the astronomers observed in 1645 was the beginning of a seventy-year period of extraordinarily low solar activity, since named the Maunder Minimum (word of thanks to reader Dan M. for refreshing my memory on this). During the Maunder Minimum, observed sunspots fell to less than 1 percent of normal. Solar activity dropped. The Earth cooled, or kept cooling.