Scott McClellan has writtten a book that is highly critical of President Bush. I read that the publisher is funded or somehow associated with George Soros, the well known billionaire Bush hater. Here is an interesting quote from McClelland's editor (I got this from the usually reliable blog Powerline):

Months ago, [McClellan's editor Peter] Osnos wrote:

In nearly 25 years of editing books by public figures intended to provide historical perspective, I have learned that the full story only really emerges in the final editing. Even people who have lived through an experience in, say, The White House, The Pentagon or the Kremlin, can't completely fathom what they've been through. They need help in explaining "what happened" -- which is why that is McClellan's title. . . .[Scott] is very hard at work on the manuscript. We'll then help him be as clear as he can possibly be about what he has concluded.

I recall that McClellan's father wrote a book in which he asserted that Lyndon Johnson had John Kennedy killed. Maybe Scott just takes after his Dad.

For some time now it has been obvous that the IPCC climate models do not accurately predict the earth's temperature. This conclusion must be reached regardless of whether or not one subscribes to the catastrophic AGW hypothesis of the IPCC. Here is an analysis of the actual total heat increase of the earth compared to the predictions:

http://climatesci.org/2008/05/27/a-short-explanantion-of-why-the-monitoring-of-global-average-ocean-heat-content-is-the-appropriate-metric-to-assess-global-warming/

Can The IPCC Model Projections Of Global Warming Be Evaluated From Just Several Years Of Data?
Filed under: Climate Models — Roger Pielke Sr. @ 7:00 am
There has been an interesting and informative discussion on Prometheus regarding how the IPCC models should be evaluated. Climate Science has already shown with several examples (e.g., see) that the models are failing to skillfully predict regional climate. A test for the specific climate metric of global warming has been recommended; see

A Litmus Test For Global Warming - A Much Overdue Requirement

A Global Warming Currency

Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335.

In the Litmus Test, I proposed the values listed below as the amount of global warming that must be achieved so as to NOT reject the IPCC claim of continuing global warming (1 * 10**22 Joules corresponds to 0.61 Watts per meter squared). This value is below the IPCC 2007 estimate of global average radiative forcing of 1.72 Watts per meter squared (see Figure SPM.2 in the IPCC SPM).

The Litmus Test

2003 8*10**22 Joules
2004 9*10**22 Joules
2005 10*10**22 Joules
2006 11*10**22 Joules
2007 12*10**22 Joules
2008 13*10**22 Joules
2009 14*10**22 Joules
2010 15*10**22 Joules`
2011 16*10**22 Joules
2012 17*10**22 Joules

These values can be compared with the best estimate of the annual average upper 700m ocean heat content change averaged over the last 4 years (which is when the data is most robust) based on the analysis of Willis et al. (2008; see) [and thanks to Josh Willis for providing this follow on analysis]. He estimates the global average warming rate for this time period, based on the upper ocean data, as -0.076 Watts per meter squared with one standard error as +/- 0.214 Watts per meter squared. This yields a best estimate of heat change of -0.48 * 10 ** 22 Joules over the last 4 years. The most positive value (using one standard deviation) is 0.88 * 10 ** 22 Joules.

Below 700 m, the heat could be accumulating, however, its pathway to reach the deeper ocean without being sampled higher up is unclear. Moreover, this heat would not be readily available to the rest of the climate system. In any case, it is hard to see how any heat change in the deeper ocean over a 4 year time period could result in large increases in the warming rate estimated in the last paragraph (ocean heat content change is an effective metric to diagnose the global average radiative imbalance as reported by Hansen et al, 2005).

Thus the value of global warming of the last 4 years fails to agree with the IPCC projections (the values are not even close!). The agrument that this is too short of a time is spurious unless the modellers can account for where else in their model results the missing Joules went.

Moreover, this is not too short of a time period to compare with the models. Heat, unlike temperature at a single level as used to construct a global average surface temperature trend, is a variable in physics that can be assessed at any time period (i.e., a snapshot) to diagnose the climate system heat content. Temperature not only has a time lag, but a single level represents an insignificant amount of mass within the climate system.

The answer to the question on this weblog “Can the IPCC model projections of global warming be evaluated from just several years of observed data” is YES. The conclusion for the past four years is that the model projections are not skillful on this time period.

After blogging about how Americans summarily executed Germans found with arms after WWII in the pacification program, I ran across this recollection of a German soldier in Kim du Toit's blog explaining why Germans are now pacifists:

Longtime German Reader Heike D. took some exception to the allusion, and, using English which is exponentially better than my German, offered this rebuttal:

No excuse but there are reasons.

I was a boy when my father told me of the time when WW2 came to an end and American troops occupied the region around Detmold, my home. As war was still going on, fighter planes shot people working in the fields. Grounded airmen were killed when people got them. Many of those people later were executed for murder. War was over, American troops all around, clearing the region of arms, checked homes for weapons. A boy in my street had kept his air rifle—and was shot on the spot.

Here is another perspective on Barack Obama. An interesting question that I hope we never have answered is whether Obama would try to govern as the communist his friends expect, or if he would govern in a manner to get re-elected as his Wall Street supporters claim he would be forced to do. One of those groups would have to be sorely disappointed because the communist policy would destroy the economy as it has wherever it has been tried. My fear is that he might wait until his second term to reveal his true agenda. Of course it is more difficult for a President to get new initiatives going in the second term.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTNkNTU5MjE2MjUwNmQ2MWQ3YWRlYjhmNzQ4OTQyOGU=&w=Mg==

One thing that is undeniable about Barack Obama is that he has had a lot of controversial friends. Many people say that the views of Obama's friends are not necessarily his views. That could be true I suppose, but would be unusual. He claims that he is a uniter and a main stream guy, but his record does not support that assertion. His associates and advisers are not mainstream, so how are we then to know what Obama really believes? Here is an article about his mentor in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis, who was a dedicated communist and Soviet Union supporter.

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-candidates-communist-connections/

The Communist University of Houston History Professor mentioned in the article is no surprise. There were a lot of socialists and communists there when I attended the school in the 50's. I was studying in engineering, so was not much exposed to the liberals. I remember a paper I wrote in a government class in which I predicted the demise of the American auto industry because of their management practices, particularly poor engineering and the benefits packages for workers that would eventually bankrupt them. Of course, at that time there were few foreign cars sold in the US, so there was little competition for the US companies. The Socialist Professor disagreed with my position and gave me a grade of D minus. I wonder what he thinks now.

There is a lot wrong with the catastrophic anthropogenis global warming hypothesis. On is that is is impossible to accurately recontruct the eath's average temperature over time. Recent claims that 1998 was the hottest year on record, for example, are highly questionable since the margin of error of the measurements is probably larger than the claimed increase in temperature. One issue that has troubled me is the reluctance of those making the claims to share their data, or to share the algorithms they used to massage the data, often by values much larger than their proclaimed temperature increases. Another issue is that the massaging of data results in falling temperaturess in the distant past and rising temperatures in the recent past. Here is an article by the Canadian Dr. Tin Ball that discusses these matters:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3151

Democrats are making an issue of John McCain allegedly saying that the US military might be in Iraq for "100 years." That makes me wonder if Democrats are aware that the US military is still in Germany and Japan, 63 years after the end of WWII. Democrats don't seem eager to bring those troops home. Their discussion regarding Iraq makes one wonder if they are aware that the US lost many men (I've seen the estimate of 9000 men) to the German "werewolves" after the end of WWII, and that it took many years to defeat those German insurgents. One also wonders if they are aware of how those insurgents were treated by the US military. It is certain that they weren't locked up for the duration in a nice place like Gitmo. Rumors are that they were summarily executed. It is certain that the British complained about how the US dealt with the insurgents.

John Kerry wants the US to talk to the Iranians as he did to the North Vietnamese communists back in 1971. Presumably he wants to give in to the iranian demands, as he advocated with the communists back then. Here is an article about Kerry's recommendation from the blog neo neocon.

John Kerry advocates talking with the enemy: again

John Kerry has a piece in today’s Washington Post that champions Obama’s policy of talking to any and all comers, friend and foe alike.

It’s full of Kerry’s overheated and outraged rhetoric towards the opposition. Bush’s mention of appeasement in his Knesset speech was “slander” towards Obama (even though he didn’t mention his name), and “toxic rhetoric” as well. I’m surprised Kerry didn’t label it “swiftboating,” but perhaps he’d like us to forget that particular episode in his own past.

Of course, there are other even more relevant episodes in Kerry’s past that he’d like us to forget, although he once seemed quite proud of them. I refer to his own talks with the enemy—this time, an enemy in a hot and ongoing war: Vietnam.

Kerry testified before the Senate in 1971 that he had met with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1970:

In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, who was a leading antiwar activist at the time, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being “murdered by the United States of America” and said he had gone to Paris and “talked with both delegations at the peace talks” and met with communist representatives.

Kerry, now [in 2004] the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, yesterday confirmed through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading communist representative.

This issue was briefly raised during Kerry’s 2004 campaign, but it never got a whole lot of traction. Although Kerry had tried to play up his involvement back in 1971, in 2004 he was eager the play it down; in lawyerly fashion, his spokesman said that Kerry did not actually engage in “negotiations.”

Well, he couldn’t have, not being an official negotiator; he had no power to make concessions. Kerry is a lawyer and is no doubt aware that some consider his actions in talking to the North Vietnamese Communists to have been in violation of US statutes prohibiting private citizens from “negotiating” with foreign powers, so that’s why he’s so eager to disclaim the word.

During his 2004 campaign Kerry also backtracked on another statement he made during that same 1971 hearing:

Asked about the appropriateness of Kerry’s saying that the United States had “murdered” 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the United States was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said “Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate.”

All that misspeaking again, surprising in a man as careful with words as Kerry. I have little doubt he meant to say exactly and precisely what he said in 1971, and he also meant to disown his prior words in 2004 because it was politically expedient. And, since the press was on his side, he knew he didn’t really have to explain what he did mean when he used that word:

[Kerry’s spokesperson] Meehan said Kerry “never suggested or believed and absolutely rejects the idea that the word applied to service of the American soldiers in Vietnam.” Meehan then declined to say to whom Kerry was referring when he said that the United States had murdered the Vietnamese; Kerry declined to be interviewed about the matter.

The title of Kerry’s present piece is “The Wisdom in Talking;” although, from the evidence above, at other times he’s clearly seen the wisdom of not talking—to the press.

Among other flaws, Kerry’s entire piece sets up a strawman; it’s not as though anyone has categorically ruled out talking to Iran under any circumstances, if there is something to be gained from it and the circumstances are right. It is Obama’s statement that he would talk to people such as Ahmadinejad without preconditions, as though talk itself were always a good thing, that’s been criticized.

Kerry wants us to talk with Iran because not talking “hasn’t worked.” This is an illogical position; if something hasn’t worked, it does not mean its opposite will, nor does it mean its opposite can’t have even worse consequences.

Kerry isn’t upset about the possible enhancement of the prestige of the leaders of Iran as a result. He dismisses that contention in an odd way, by saying that critics’ description of Ahmadinejad as an important threat is already raising his stature, as though the two enhancements are equal in force and meaning. And he somehow thinks that a talk with Iran’s leaders would be a good way to give a message of support to the people of Iran in their struggle against those very leaders. Odd.

Kerry is also interested in talks with Iran because they let the world know we “reclaim the moral high ground.” That this might in some way matter in the power struggle between the US and Iran seems dangerously naive and remarkably ignorant of the way the world of nations actually works.

And if someone can explain this sentence of Kerry’s I’d be much obliged; for me, it seems to come from Looking-Glass World:

Dialogue helps us isolate Ahmadinejad rather than empowering him to isolate us.

Oh, and what did Kerry advocate as a result of his own talks with the North Vietnamese enemy? Why, he adopted and promoted all of their demands in his “People’s Peace Treaty.” A record of which to be proud.

Nobel Laureat (for Physics) Freeman Dyson has reviewed two books on global warming. In one book (Nordhaus) the author concludes it is probably better to do nothing to combat global warming than to follow the advice of Gore or the British Stern Report. Dyson finds the attitude of those who think catastrophic anthropogenic global warming towards those who are "deniers" to be disconcerting, and very unscientific.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494

Barack Obama wants to be the first Afican-American President of the US. According to this article, if elected, he would actually be the first Arab-American President. Some of his ancestors were Arab slave traders. Personally one of the things that bothers me about Obama is his autobiography which has altered timelines and composite characters. To me that makes his book a work of fiction rather than an autobiography. According to the referenced article, Obama is only 1/16 black.

http://kennethelamb.blogspot.com/2008/02/barak-obama-questions-about-ethnic.html

S. Fred Singer didn't believe in CO2 induced global warming 20 years ago, and still doesn't. I have been in agreement with him the entire time. I still think that another ice age is more of a threat to humanity than CO2 induced global warming. Here is another article by Singer discussing the issue, and noting how the global warming scare is impeding development of fossil fuel sources, which is going to have a severe negative impact on humankind.

Foggy Science In London
By S. FRED SINGER
May 23, 2008

Tomorrow, May 24, the G-8 environment ministers will be in Japan to commence their annual meeting. Back in London, though, the world's oldest science academy, the Royal Society of London, recently has become a vocal advocate of climate alarmism. RS fellows have included Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.


But, under the previous leadership of Lord Robert May, the Society seems to have taken a wrong turn. They even tried to enlist other science academies into joining them in an alarmist manifesto. However, the U.S. National Academy, though sharing some of these views, decided not to sign up, and the Russian Academy of Sciences has taken an opposing position.

In June 2007, the Royal Society published a pamphlet, titled "Climate Change Controversies: a simple guide," designed to undermine the scientific case of climate skeptics. They presented what they called "misleading arguments" on global warming and then tried to shoot them down.

In countering the RS pamphlet, I have prepared a response that is being published tomorrow by the London-based Centre for Policy Studies under the title "Not so simple? A scientific response to the Royal Society's paper."

Throughout, the Royal Society has relied heavily on the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which used to be regarded as a reliable source of scientific information. The RS thus adopts the IPCC claim that current warming is almost certainly anthropogenic (human-caused) but presents no independent evidence to support such a claim.

In its pamphlet, the Royal Society purports to speak on behalf of a consensus of scientists. But no such consensus exists. Direct polling of climate scientists has shown that about 30% are "skeptical" of anthropogenic global warming. More than 31,000 American scientists recently signed the Oregon Petition, which expresses doubt about the major conclusions of the IPCC, and opposes the drastic mitigation demands of the Kyoto Protocol and the proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation of the U.S. Congress.

My response to the RS is based on the work of some two dozen independent climate scientists from 16 nations who contributed to the report of the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, titled "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate." NIPCC corrects many of the errors and misstatements made in the IPCC report, discusses evidence ignored by the IPCC, and cites evidence available since May 2006, the cut-off date for the latest IPCC Report of May 2007.

The science-based arguments for a more rational approach to global warming and climate change can be summarized as follows:

* The Earth's climate always has changed, with cycles of both warming and cooling, long before humans were a factor. The cycle lengths range from decades, to the 1,500-year cycle discovered in Greenland ice cores, to the 17 ice ages that dominated the past 2 million years.

* The NIPCC report presents solid evidence that any man-made global warming to date has been insignificant in comparison with these natural climate cycles. By contrast, the IPCC has no real evidence to support their claim of anthropogenic global warming.

* While recent man-made increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide may, in principle, make some contribution to temperature rise, the linkages assumed in order to predict significant future global warming are not proven.

* Contrary to the computer simulations of climate models, temperatures have not risen over the last decade — despite a continuing rise in CO2 levels.

* Other factors, such as variable solar activity, solar wind, and cosmic rays, all seem to have a more significant impact on the earth's climate.

* Panicky reactions to exaggerated scenarios of global warming are bound to be costly and do great damage to world economic development.

* Adaptation, not mitigation, is a more appropriate response to climate change — particularly for poorer countries.

Fear of global warming is distorting energy policy. Urgent action is needed to secure future energy supplies: the closure of existing coal-powered stations and old nuclear stations over the next 10 to 20 years risks causing a serious energy shortage until new nuclear power can be brought on stream. Yet resistance by anti-fossil fuel protesters already is retarding the development of much needed conventional generating capacity.

The choices that are being made now about the use of resources and the costs imposed on global development will have a huge impact on both current and future prosperity. It is imperative, for the sake of rational policy development worldwide, that the debate on the true nature of global warming and its causes move from being a matter of assertion and exaggerated scaremongering to a more reasoned debate based on the scientific facts.

It is a pity that the Royal Society, rather than facilitate debate, has tried to misrepresent the honest views of those who are skeptical of what has become climate change orthodoxy.

Mr. Singer, a professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, is the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. As a reviewer of IPCC reports, he shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. His most recent book is "Unstoppable Global Warming — Every 1500 Years."

Hollywood liberals have released a new movie depicting how, in their view, the 2000 election was stolen from Al Gore by a partisan US Supreme Court. Nevermind that Bush actually got more votes, and that a partisan Florida Supreme Court attempted to help Gore steal the election. (Democrats have trouble grasping that, given that Bush had more votes, he could not be termed to have stolen the electio. Similarly, if Gore had succeeded in his attempts manipulate the vote count, he would have actually stolen the election.) After the votes were counted, Gore was told by his pollsters that his only chance at winning was to have a re-count in heavily Democrat precincts that were controlled by Democrats. A statewide recount would not do the job since the Republican controlled districts could be as creative as the Democrats in conducting the recount. Normally a limited recount is done when there is evidence of fraud in particular precincts; in this case the Democrats wanted a recount in areas they controlled, and in which there were no allegations of fraud. The Florida Supreme Court said that the limited recount would be OK. The US Supreme Court said no, there was no indication of fraud in the precints where Democrats had been in charge, so the recount could not be limited to those areas. This is the action that Democrats say "stole" the election from Gore. After the election was over several news agencies recounted all of the Florida votes with the result that Bush had the most votes. Gore could only win if some creative techniques were used, such as devining what the voter actually intended on spoiled ballots. Even that approach required the counter to determine that certain types of errors like a pregnnt chad was a vote for Gore, but a similar mark for Bush was not a vote. So, this is an attempt by certain liberals to re-write history. It may work. After all, the Domcrat's "Big Lie" technique has convinced much of the public that Gore was cheated even though in reality he was the cheater.

Here is an interesting discussion about what liberals want. The answer is, of course, control. I think that may of them realize that their failed economic ideas can only be implemented through power.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/liberals_and_control.html

Democrats say that electing McCain would be the same as giving Bush a third term. As disappointed as I am with Bush in his second term, and particularly the way Rice has mishandled things, I think a third Bush term would be preferable to our current choices for President. I have said before that electing Obama would be a second term for Jimmy Carter, at least in terms of foreign policy. Carter tried his best to turn the USA into a third world nation, and Obama clearly intends to take up where Carter left off. There is a lot of hype from Democrats about how bad Bush is, but he is great compared to Carter who was inept beyond belief. (I don't think Hillary would represent a third term for Bill Clinton; she is a fascist and he wasn't.) Here is an article from American Thinker that discusses the folks, mostly Carter Administration retreads, who advise Obama on foreign policy:

Jimmy Carter's Second term

By Paul Miller

It was a cold and rainy October night when my mother and I stood outside a Skokie, Illinois Synagogue to hear and hopefully meet Georgia Governor James Earl "Jimmy" Carter. My parents and most Americans were still sickened over Watergate, President Gerald Ford's unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon and the disaster of the Vietnam War. They hungered for "change" and "new hope". Many Americans believed they found what they desperately yearned for in a peanut farmer turned politician from Georgia.


Four years later Jimmy Carter's name couldn't be uttered by my father without being proceeded by four-letter expletives. My mother cried herself to sleep believing that Carter's school-busing program was going to take me from my elementary school down the block to a school and hour away on the southside of Chicago. Supporters of Israel began to distrust him as he began showing signs of an anti-Israel bias. The economy was devastating families with double-digit inflation and the Iran hostage crisis made Americans ashamed of their President.


Today there is an eerie similarity to the election that led up to the disastrous Carter administration. All the Presidential candidates are speaking the rhetoric of "change" and "trust" in government. However, assumed Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has based his entire bid for the White House with Carter-style ideas and campaign policy advisers stemming directly from the administration and school of thought of the Carter Presidency.


Obama has already begun running against GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (AZ). He is playing on the fears of Democrats, Independents and some Republicans that the Arizona Senator will be a third term for George W. Bush. While McCain has shown significant policy and philosophical differences then our current President, Barack Obama is a Democrat from the same far-left mold of Carter. I contend that Obama if elected, will be the second term of Jimmy Carter.


The first signs of an Obama/Carter similarity began early on the primary race when the Illinois Senator began hiring former Carter aides and cabinet members to be policy advisers. The biggest name that surfaced was former national security advisor under Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brezinski.


Why Obama would want to be in the same room with Brezinski is mind-boggling. He was the first prominent politician to deny that Islamic extremism was or would become a danger to the world. In a February 2, 1979 memo to President Carter he claimed Islamic fundamentalism is not an imminent threat and will not gain prominence in the Middle East.


Like his former boss, Brezinski has the same "blame the Jews" mentality. The former national security advisor has publicly endorsed the views published in the John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," which has provided endless ammunition for anti-Israel activists, Zionist conspiracy buffs and Holocaust deniers.


Continuing the Carter tradition of employing "blame Israel" advocates, Obama hired former special assistant to President Clinton, Robert Malley. Recently the British newspaper, The Times interviewed Malley in which he admitted that he had visited Syria and held discussions with the terrorist organization Hamas. Last month President Carter also met with the terrorist organization in Egypt and Syria.


As news began to surface about Malley and his meetings with Hamas, he resigned his position with the Obama campaign. Unfortunately the public will never know to what extent Sen. Obama was influenced by Malley. Obama has called for direct talks with Iran, a country that continously calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. Malley and Carter are also vocal advocates for direct talks with Iran, without any stipulations such as denouncing terrorism or their desire to murder millions of Jews.


One of the criticisms facing Obama is his lack of foreign policy experience. Carter was under the same scrutiny during his 1976 Presidential campaign. He relied on Brezinski, Anthony Lake and his eventual Secreatary of State Cyrus Vance. Today Obama also utlizes Brezinski and Lake as well as similar minded foreign policy advisors such as Susan Rice and until recently Malley and Samantha Power, who resigned from the campaign for referring to Hillary Clinton as a Monster. The fact that she was hired by the campaign in the first place shows a dangerous lack of judgement. A judgement that is comparable to President Carter.


Obama's trust of the above mentioned policy advisors has been well documented by the "alternative/new media," so most likely I'm not telling you something you haven't heard before. However it can never be stressed enough that Carter's foreign policy was a disaster for the United States, so it must be asked until properly answered, "why would Obama want advisors who have already demonstrated incompetence under a previous administration?" Maybe Obama doesn't believe Carter's policies were detremental to the America. Does he want to once again go in that direction? America must know before election day.


If Obama's choice of advisers isn't an indication that his Presidency would be Jimmy Carter's second term, than his speech this past Saturday in Roseburg, Oregon undoubtedly was.


In July of 1979 President Carter gave a nationally televised address in which he told America that he believed the nation was facing a "crisis of confidence." His speech would later be known as his "malaise" speech.


During his Oval office conversation with America, Carter did something no President before him has done. He gave a speech that was critical of the attitude and way of life of the American people. Many accurately perceived his speech to be about a defeated America. Carter dwelled on a what he believed was a lack of faith and confidence that had overwhelmed the American people, placing more blame on them instead of the failures of his Presidency as well as the Democrat controlled House and Senate.


"I know, of course, being president, that government actions and legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law -- and I have to admit, with just mixed success," Carter said. "But after listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with America."


Carter would go on to literally chide Americans for their lack of confidence in the country. After campaigning to restore America from the toll taken after Vietnam, Watergate and the energy crisis, he had failed and the blame was going to be placed on the people not his lack of leadership.


Obama's speech this past Saturday had a frighteningly similar "blame the people" tone as Carter's speech. While Obama still emphasizes the failures of Washington he also blames Americans for how they live their lives.


"We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine," Obama said.


Obama later added fear tactics in making his case that Americans have to change their lifestyle. "We are also going to have to negotiate with other countries. China, India, in particular Brazil. They are growing so fast that they are consuming more and more energy and pretty soon, if their carbon footprint even approaches ours, we're goners."


Brian Fitzpatrick senior editor at Culture and Media Institute also believes that Obama's Oregon address is comparable to Carter's "Malaise" speech. He recently wrote about the media covering up his comments blaming Americans and their way of life. Carter had also become a media darling during his 1976 Presidential campaign. The media pass Obama received in Oregon is a blatant attempt to not add credence to the argument that Obama is the Second Coming of Jimmy Carter.


When you take an honest look at the advisors Obama has selected, his desire to meet with leaders who promote genocide and rule their nations with an iron-fist, the comparison to Carter is undeniable. When you add the fact that both men are media favorites, place much blame on the way Americans live and support increased government regulation and big government programs instead of the free-market ideas to solve America's ills, the fear that people have that an Obama Presidency would by Carter's second term, is not just a concern, but a harsh reality.


Paul Miller is a writer; consultant and activist dedicated to issues concerning Israel, limited government and free market ideas. You can read his opinions at http://www.pauliespoint.blogspot.com

Democrat Presidential candidates Obama and Clinton are both disciples of the Saul Alinsky concept for bringing about change. The change Alinsky wanted was to a system that most of us would call communismHis concepts are what they mean by change and hope. Hillary perfected the "politics of personal destruction" from her studies with Alinsky. Alinsky believed that the "end justifies the means," a belief that Hillary has exhibited all of her political life. Her is a long article about Alinsky, his beliefs, his tactics and how Obama and Hillary relate to them. Young people are probably not familar with Alinsky. I suggest that supporters of Obama and Hillary should read this so they will know what is in store for America should one of those two become President.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D6E27ECE-9798-4F01-A378-3F1405F69704

Mark Steyn suggests that we sue Congress over the price of gasoline. I suspect that would not be legal. What we need to do is throw the rascals out. But, socialists like Maxine Water have secure seats, no matter how nutty they are. Here is a piece from Betsy's Page:

Why not sue Congress?


Mark Steyn has some fun with the Congressional interrogation of oil executives. You know - those hearings where Maxine Waters told us about her desire to socialize the oil industry. Congress is passing a bill that would allow us to sue OPEC nations for restricting the supply of oil.

Er, OK. But, before we start suing distant sheikhs in exotic lands for violating the NOPEC act, why don't we start by suing Congress? After all, who "limits the production or distribution of oil" right here in the United States by declaring that there'll be no drilling in the Gulf of Florida or the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge? As Rep. Wasserman Schultz herself told Neil Cavuto on Fox News, "We can't drill our way out of this problem."

Well, maybe not. But maybe we could drill our way back to $3.25 a gallon. More to the point, if the House of Representatives has now declared it "illegal" for the government of Saudi Arabia to restrict oil production, why is it still legal for the government of the United States to restrict oil production? In fact, the government of the United States restricts pretty much every form of energy production other than the bizarre fetish du jour of federally mandated ethanol production.

Nuclear energy?

Whoa, no, remember Three Mile Island? (OK, nobody does, but kids and anyone under late middle age, you can look it up in your grandparents' school books.)

Coal?

Whoa, no, man, there go our carbon credits.

Joe Lieberman has written an article lamenting the course the Democratic Party has taken over the last eight years. He doesn't discuss the battle that took place in the Democratic Party during the time of FDR between the reds and the patriots (who were mostly Southerners. McCarthy was right about the extent of communist influence in the Democratic Party during WWII. Fortunately Truman purged the most of the reds from the Democratic Party, but didn't want it publicized because of potential damage to the Party from admitting there were so many communists in high positions in government. Here is the link to Lieberman's article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121132806884008847.html

Some far left Democrats like communists and terrorists, and they especially like communist terrorists. Many of them say they admire Castro, and they admired Che. Ted Kennedy liked IRA terrorists, and several Democrat congressmen tried to help Saddam. Here is more about the situation in Columbia, where at least some Democrats favor the communist FARC over the capitalist government. (In fairness, there was a RINO Senator, Lincoln Chafee, who liked Chavez.) This is from Patriot Post:

The terrorists’ man in Washington

Last April, in an attempt to kill the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Promotion Agreement, House Democrats removed a requirement that would have brought the bill up for a vote within a specific period of time. This underhanded method of keeping the bill from reaching the White House on President Bush’s watch was the brainchild of Rep. James McGovern (D-MA). Now, the capture of a terrorist’s computer has shed some light on McGovern’s possible motivation for stiffing the United States’ closest South American ally.

On 1 March, the Colombian Army attacked a camp in Ecuador belonging to FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization that is trying to overthrow the capitalist government. FARC leader Raul Reyes was killed, and his laptop computer was captured. Colombia turned the laptop over to Interpol, whose computer forensics lab confirmed that the 37,872 files on the computer’s hard drive were legitimate and had not been tampered with or created by the Colombian government. The files were a veritable smoking gun, indicating that FARC had (among other things) bought 60 pounds of uranium; that they were interested in building a dirty bomb; that Hugo Chavez had offered $300 million and Russian weapons to the terrorist organization; that FARC was responsible for numerous assassinations and bombings; that FARC had met with “gringos” about Barack Obama; and that FARC had links with a certain Democrat from Massachusetts... named James McGovern.

Indeed, it seems that FARC was trying to do business with McGovern. At the time Reyes’ laptop was captured, McGovern was using a go-between to offer the congressman’s services to FARC as a person of influence in America. The intermediary admits that he wrote some of the letters found on the captured laptop, but he excuses his actions on the basis that it is “a mistake to isolate [FARC].” McGovern also attempted to excuse his treachery, saying that “we need to find an interlocutor who could discuss these things including the safe haven” for FARC. So there you have it: Representative McGovern wants to make sure that Colombia gives a terrorist organization “safe haven.” Not only that, but he did FARC’s communists a huge favor by masterminding the holdup of a capitalist free-trade agreement. While correlation does not equal causation, we don’t think it’s a stretch to say that at least some Democrats oppose the Colombia trade deal because they have more sympathy for terrorists than an anti-terror ally.

Fred Singer has written a critique of the anthropogenic global waming hypothesis. It is amazing that Gore and his friends have been able to manufacture a crisis out of results from computer model analyses that do not match reality. Part of the reason is that politicians are looking for problems to solve, and imaginary problems are the best kind since the proposed solutions will always work.

http://www.nzcpr.com/guest98.htm

I have written before abour Senator Chuck "the snake" Schumer's silly assertion that another million barrels per day oil supply from ANWR would have no effect on the price of gasoline. I suspect everyone knows that you have to be naive to believe anything Schumer has to say. This is from Ace of Spades.

<How Much Are Democrats Costing You at the Pump?
—Ace
Charles Schumer says that if Bush can "merely" convince his "Saudi friends" we'd reap great rewards -- an extra million barrels per day would save Americans $0.62 per gallon in gas.

But: ANWR would provide one million barrels per day at a generally agreed-upon basement minimum.

Charles Schumer claims that ANWR would at most save Americans one penny per gallon in gas.

Is Saudi oil magical?

Or is it just caribou that are magical?


Thanks to Larwyn

During the 2006 congressional elections the Democrats said they would stop the war in Iraq if they won, something that everyone knew was not true. Here is what a Democrat Congressman has to say. (I got this from "Ace of Spades.")

Paul Kanjorski has an honesty problem.

More specifically, Paul Kanjorski's problem is that he was publicly honest about the intentional dishonesty of Congressional Democrats (and Democrat candidates) in the run-up to the 2006 election -- particularly with regard to the War in Iraq.


Transcript:

"I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats, That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up."

Congress has been grilling oil company executives again to get them to explain high gasoline prices. (The fact that a world-wide supply of oil of 85 million barrels per day compared to a demand of 87 million barrels per day translates into higher prices eludes congress; they don't understand the law of supply and demand.) The oil company executives blamed congress for actively blocking development of US resources. Maxine Waters revealed her true socialist leanings as she threatened nationalization of the oil companies. She must be feeling good about the prospects of Democrat victories in coming years, because to accomplish that fascist goal it would take Democrat control of the Whitehouse, with large majorities in congress, and enough time to get liberals appointed to the Supreme Court.

Regarding energy, there is some good news, some bad news, and some really bad news. The good news is that there is plenty of energy available, with enough fossil fuel in the US to satisfy demand for several hundred years. The bad news is that it is expensive to get, though not as expensive as oil at current price of oil of $135 per barrel. The really bad news is that Democrats are determined not to allow exploitation of the available supply of fossil fuel, or nuclear energy for that matter. The Democrats have had a long-term goal of forcing the price of energy up to help them discredit free markets and achieve their socialist goals. Sadly, many Republicans, like John McCain, are unwilling to seriously challenge the Democrats in this regard. I wonder how long it will take for the people of America to wake up to what is happening, and to start electing people who will remove the restrictions on development of America's ample supply of energy. This may not happen until it becomes obvious to most rational people that the Al Gore CO2 induced cataclysmic Global Warming hypothesis is invalid. Unfortunately, this may take another 5 or 10 years. We are in for hard times for the next 4 years given the poor quality of the three candidates we have for President this year. The energy policies of all three are going to fail, and the party of the winner will probably be trounced in 2012 if he implements the policies being expounded in the campaign.

I'm often astonished at the ignorance politicians and their advisors are of history, even of events that happened in my lifetime. Obama seems to be less informed than most (but, this may be a factor of his age and the educational system he grew up under: other politicians of his age may be equally ignorant of history. Here is an example from the blog "Betsy's Page. This is closer to what I recall than what Obama said.

Kennedy and Khrushchev


Obama has been citing Kennedy's meeting with Khrushchev as an argument why he believes that his proposal to meet without preconditions, but with preparation, with the leaders of Iran is the right policy. Yes, Kennedy did meet with Khrushchev, but not quite as Obama described it. Obama seemed to be placing the meeting of the two leaders during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"hen Kennedy met with Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war."

The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in October of 1962. The two leaders did not meet during that crisis. But they had met over a year earlier, in the Spring of Kennedy's first year in office in June, 1961 in Vienna. And the results were not pretty as Nathan Thrall and Jesse James Wilkins write today in the The New York Times.

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”

A little more than two months later, Khrushchev gave the go-ahead to begin erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Kennedy had resigned himself to it, telling his aides in private that “a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.” The following spring, Khrushchev made plans to “throw a hedgehog at Uncle Sam’s pants”: nuclear missiles in Cuba. And while there were many factors that led to the missile crisis, it is no exaggeration to say that the impression Khrushchev formed at Vienna — of Kennedy as ineffective — was among them.

So, Obama is correct that Kennedy advocating negotiations with our opponents, but the actual history doesn't provide the sort of historical evidence that supports Obama's argument about the efficacy of such a meeting.

Meanwhile, Karl Rove casts some doubts on Obama's glib citations of Nixon going to China has a predicate for his visits with today's leaders of hostile nations.

I recommend that he read Henry Kissinger's book, "The White House Years." Mr. Obama would learn it took 134 private meetings between U.S. and Chinese diplomats before a breakthrough at a Jan. 20, 1970 meeting in Warsaw. It took 18 months of behind-the-scenes discussions before Mr. Kissinger secretly visited Beijing. And it took seven more months of hard work before Nixon went to China. The result was a new relationship, announced in a communiqué worked out over months of careful diplomacy.

The Chinese didn't change because of a presidential visit. In another book, "Diplomacy," Mr. Kissinger writes that "China was induced to rejoin the community of nations less by the prospect of dialogue with the United States than by fear of being attacked by its ostensible ally, the Soviet Union." Change came because the U.S. convinced Beijing it was in its interest to change. Then the president visited.

Perhaps what Obama needs is a few history courses.

I have noted before that the UN IPCC has serious procedural flaws that make it a political rather than a scientific body. Which is OK except that it pretends to be a scientific body. Here is a thoughtful appraisal of the IPCC.

http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Henderson-2008.htm

At least until recently, when gasoline prices have gone up a lot, it has been more economical to continue to drive an older, less efficient car than to pay a lot of money for a new car. It turns out that it is also better from the standpoint of carbon dioxide emissions, as this article (that I got from "greenie watch")asserts:

CAR TAXES

An email from Dan McLuskey [dan_mcluskey@yahoo.com]

For what it is worth, it takes more energy to manufacture the average car than it will ever consume during its driving life. This means that the government push to drive motorists to buy new cars is the worst possible action with regard to emissions. The best action is to reward people for keeping their cars longer. Of course, if this is effective, it will have major ramifications for the viability of the motor vehicle manufacturing industry.

Most rank and file Democrats cannot believe that the leaders of their party deliberately undermined the war policy of the United States in the war on terror. But, a lot of other people think they did, and this book documents how it was done:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1890626740?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwviolentkicom&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=1890626740

Here is some research that shows tax receipts are a more or less fixed fraction of GDP regardless of the tax rate. To get more revenue, increase GPD. That sounds like supply side economics, so Democrats won't like it. Besides, Democrats don't want more revenue, they want to re-distribute wealth.

http://www.theneweditor.com/index.php?/archives/8036-You-Cant-Soak-the-Rich.html

The Democratic Party is a mystery to me. I understand that the liberal minority that controls the party wants a socialist candidate for President. So, they nominate the most liberal guy around. But, he has some serious issues that will give John McCain at least a chance in the general election this fall. The Democrats had a dozen guys who could romp to vistory over any Republican this year, particularly some of the "blue dog" Democrats. But, none of those guys tried for the nomination, nor could they have gotten it. It appears that the liberal Democrats want a socialist President so badly that they are willing to risk losing the election. I guess that makes sense. They were willing to harm the US effort's in Iraq for domestic political gain. They did the same thing during the Vietnam era, but it backfired on them then.

One of the problems i always had with the Al Gore/James Hansen catyclysmic Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis was the assertion that average temperature was going to monotonically increase, because that was what their vaunted computer models showed. Given the chaotic, dynamic nature of the earth's atmosphere that seemed implausible to me. Now, after years of no temperature increase we are told that the monotonic temperature increase scenario wasn't what they predicted at all; they knew all along that temperature could fall as well as rise. Well, the IPCC guys lied at some point, either then or now. Others have noted this situation, as in this article:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=f6fa4aca-61b4-4824-adb4-78eb8fa9081a

I suspect that most Americans are unaware of the inroads being made by Muslims into America. The Muslims represent a severe threat to our culture and our way of life. Our embrace of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" gives them latitude to establish Muslim communities, and to attempt to advance sharia law in the USA. Their leaders make no secret of their dislike for democracy and intent to plant the green flag of Islam in front of the White House. One success the Muslims infiltrators have had is in getting publically funded Muslim schools established. One of those schools is in Minneapolis. Here is a story about that disgraceful school from the blog "Hot Air."

Muslim school officials attack news crew in Twin Cities
posted at 8:45 pm on May 19, 2008 by Ed Morrissey

I’ve followed the story about the Tarik ibn Zayad Academy and allegations that it abuses its status as a state-funded charter school to teach Islam instead of a public-school curriculum for the last six weeks. Katherine Kersten first brought the story to our attention, for which local journalists have begun petitioning the Star Tribune to fire her. The state department of education found several potential issues for violation of laws intending to keep public schools from providing religious instruction, and notified the school today that it had to make changes to its Friday prayer efforts and the lack of transportation service for students who opt out of prayers, among other issues.

Local ABC affiliate KSTP has also continued to update the reporting on this story. Today they went to the school to determine how TiZA would respond to the state’s demand for corrective action. Instead, they found themselves at the center of the story as two TiZA officials attacked the news crew and stole their camera:
In an attempt to report about the new findings from the Department of Education, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS went to TiZA. While on school grounds, our crew was attacked by school officials. The two men were able to grab our camera and kept it until police arrived.
Our photographer was treated by paramedics after suffering minor injuries. …

Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students.
KSTP has a video report on their website. The tape starts off pleasantly, as the children run up to the camera to smile and wave, just like children anywhere would do. One man walks rapidly towards the camera and grabs it, while another unseen man assaults the cameraman. Later, the police would retrieve the camera, and the video shows the police cars responding to the emergency call from the news crew.

The action by the MnDoE should make clear that Kersten had the story essentially right. Local journalists attempting to intimidate her and the Strib — which has thus far refused to submit to this bullying — have some explaining to do. If she had written a story about a charter school illegally giving instructions in the Catholic or Mormon faith, these same journalists would have nominated her for an award.

Next, the MnDoE should seriously reconsider this school’s accreditation in light of the attack on KSTP’s news crew. If nothing else, it calls into question whether the administrators should have children in their care at a state-funded charter school, given their temperament. They conducted this assault in full view of the students. If TiZA continues to employ these two men, the state should pull all funding from the school.

The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests. (Daily Telegraph) It appears that the British Royal family is IQ-challenged, perhaps due to centuries of in-breeding. One thing that strikes me as curious about the Anthropogenic Global warming hysterics is that they take no note of the fact that temperatures have not gone up for ten years, and have actually cooled recently. Recently there have been a lot of tornadoes in the USA this year, and many pundits and the press have blamed them on global warming. But, it has been cool this year. The logic of the AGW hysterics escapes me.

Barack Obama doesn't bother to hide his socialist outlook. That doesn't turn off his supporters. That really depresses me. I suppose the country is about to give socialism another try. Here is what Obama said today, contrasted with what the worst President in history said in 1979.

Barack Hussein Obama, May 2008: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”

James Earl Carter, July 1979: “I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. . . . And I’m asking you for your good and for your Nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.”

Carter was elected because people thought the country was on the wrong track; not necessarily that things were bad, but just that Democrats convinced people that the country was on the wrong track. After four years of Carter's ineptitude, the USA was sinking to third -world status and people were ready to go back to the wrong track. Half of the country is to young to remember what a disaster Carter was. So, we are set up to repeat history, and elect another idealistic but inept President. After four years of Obama it will be interesting to see what happens. THe USA will once again be heading for third-world status and people will get to choose a future as a third world nation, or go back to free market capitalism. I was confident that people would choose Reagan, but I'm not sure what will happen in four years. There are still a lot of people voting who detested Reagan, and the young usually like socialism. and the foreigners are comfortable with third-world status.

I wonder if Obama realizes that no matter what we do it won't be OK with everyone? For example, California just decided that homosexual marriage is a right. I wonder if Obama thinks his Muslim buddies are OK with that?

Here a guy asks the question, if McCain embraces the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis and proposes state control of energy production, who needs Republicans?

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13211

My guess is that most voters are going to decide that Republicnas no longer are useful, and the Party will be crushed in this Fall's elections.

I had an operator error on the last entry. Here is the item from "Cheat Seeking Missiles:"

Anthropomorphic Hucksterism

More indications that the global warming debate is anything but over:

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) will announce [Monday] that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. The purpose of OISM’s Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis. (source, via ICECAP)

The OISM list doesn't focus on climatologists, so the Warmies will discount the announcement. But all have university degrees in science and over 9,000 of them have PhD's so we can postulate that they know the difference between good and bad research methods, and the difference between evidence and proof.

Meanwhile, as we look at ten years of global cooling having no effect whatsoever on the prognostications and pontifications of our electeds, Richard Rahn writes in WashTimes that global warming constitutes the greatest intelligence failure of our era, concluding:

You may wonder — if the data from the last decade show the Earth is not getting warmer, and the climate models have been making incorrect predictions — why are so many in the political and media classes continuing to shout about the dangers of global warming and insisting the "science" is settled when the opposite is true. (You may recall that Copernicus and Galileo had certain problems going against the conventional wisdom of their time.)

The reason people like Al Gore and many others are in denial is explained by cognitive dissonance. This occurs when evidence increasingly contradicts a strongly held belief. Rather than accept the new evidence and change their minds, some people will become even more insistent on the "truth" of the discredited belief, and attack those who present the new evidence — again an "intelligence" failure.

Finally, many people directly benefit from government funding global warming programs and care more about their own pocketbooks than the plight of the world's poor who are paying more for food. This is not an "intelligence" but an "integrity" failure.

It is curious that just as data are indicating that the catestrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis as promoted by Al Gore and James Hansen is unlikely, politicians are springing into action to "do something." Now some 31,000 scientists in Oregon are publishing a petition that says there is no consensus amongst scientists on anthropogenic global warming. And reporter calls the global warming politics the greatest government intelligence failure of our era. Here is a summary I copied from the blog "Cheat Seeking Missiles:"

Environmental activists, or "greens," argue that the world can go "green" without economic hardship, and in fact, can benefit economically. This is certainly debateable. Eric Englund considers that the current economic downturn is a direct result of "green" activities, and uses the admittedly defective "green" argument that "correlation is cauation" to support his thesis. The article is here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/englund/englund46.html

Englund says, "Please understand that I have written this essay holding myself to the same standards as eco-alarmist Stephen Schneider. In the spirit of scaring humanity straight into the clutches of the green movement, Dr. Schneider (a Stanford University Professor) stated the following in the October 1989 issue of Discover magazine:

To do this, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. This "double ethical bind" we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

For those who haven't followed the global warming issue from the beginning, James Hansen of NASA/GISS said something similar to what Dr. Schneider said back during the 90's. The NASA/GISS temperature history is the one most often cited, and is the record that shows the most warming. The other three temperature records (NCDC/NOAA, HAD/CRU, and RSS/MSU)show much less warming. THe NASA/GISS model is interesting because it gets revised regularly and temeratures in the far past keep going down, while the recentpast keeps going up.

All three leading Presidential contenders promise to embrace a "green" policy that, they say, will bring the US and the world great properity. I don't know them, so I have no way of knowing that this is merely election pandering, or if they are truly delusional. Actually adopting the policies being advanced will cripple the economy of the country. That may be the actual intent of the collectivists, since chaos provides opportunity to impose fascist government of the type FDR attempted to impose. (For those unfamiliar with what FDR actually tried to do, read the book about FDR by Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, and look up the NRA-National Reconstruction Act.)

The major energy issue facing the nation near-term is fuel for transportation. Wind and solar energy can provide electric power and save some coal and natural gas fuel, but at least at present, they cannot provide base power because production from those sources is intermittent, and production does not peak at the same time as demand. Conventional coal fired plants and nuclear plants are needed to provide base power. Natural gas is expensive for electric power generation, and would be better used for transportation. We could be using natural gas to fuel automobiles. This is not new technology, and has been used for a long time. Propane has also been used for transportation fuel for some time. But there is no infrastructure available for re-charging compressed natural gas tanks. Liquid fuel is much more convenient than a gaseous fuel for transportation. Natural gas can be turned into gasoline. The Air Force is working to get half of their jet fuel from natural gas within the next ten years. We could also be converting coal into gasoline. That is also old technology, and was used to fuel the German war machine during WWII. Alcohol is another source of liquid fuel, but converting food to fuel is probably a losing proposition. The world is currently using 85 million barrels of oil a day, and that is close to the production potential. The world's existing oil fields are declining at a rate of 6 or 8% per year, and new fields are not being found to replace the lost capacity. The US government won't even allow oil companies to try to replace the declining capacity. When the Democrats talk about developing alternative fuel sources, it is hard to tell what they mean. They seem to not want to use existing technology such as propane or natural gas or gasoline made from coal or natural gas. I think people are finally realizing that all of the farmland in the USA could not produce enough alcohol to provide the fuel that the USA needs for transportation, and that alcohol alone is not the solution. The Democrats seem to want something magic. They do not want nuclear power, and they want to phase out fossil fuels now. They mention conservation a lot, and seem to think public transportation is one answer. They fail to recognize the time and cost associated with developing a new system, whether public transportation, smaller more efficient cars, alternate fuels, etc.

Electric propulsion is mentioned a lot, but it is not attractive for the entire fleeet of automobiles because huge batteries have to be carried to obtain necessary range, and recharging is slow, making electric propulsion impractical for trips of even moderate length. Electric cars could be used for commuting to work and might be practical for families owning two cars, where the conventional vehicle could be used for longer trips, and the electric vehicle could be used for commuting to work.

Eventually fossil fuels will have to be replaced because the cheap sources will be used up. One long term solution could be fusion power. It could be possible to use fusion power to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could then be used as a transportation fuel. So far practical fusion power has been elusive. Since I was in college 50 years ago, fusion power has been 40 or 50 years in the future. It could also be possible to use solar energy to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen. These technologies may eventually meet the Democrat's desires for practical no-fossil fuel sources. But they are far in the future, and, while we need to develop these, we need to produce fuel to keep our economy strong and our standard of living high now. So, we need to be drilling oil wells in areas declared off-limits by Democrats (and a few confused Republicans like John McCain) and we need to be developing the infrastucture to convert coal and natural gas into gasoline, diesal and jet fuel.

I'm not the only one who thinks that after widespread failure of their pollicies, socialists and communists have joined the environmental movement to try to undermine free market capitalism. I got this review of a book by Roy Innis, chairman of CORE, from the blog Antigreen:

BOOK REVIEW: "Energy Keepers Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle" by Roy Innis

Review from Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise:

This powerful book documents the destruction planned in every community in the United States by the assault of the Energy Killers invading the world.

Already in the news from India to Africa to North Korea to Pakistan and even in New York City, higher grain prices, fertilizer shortages and rising energy costs are combining to spell hunger for millions in headlines shouting "Global Famine!"

Energy Keepers Energy Killers: The New Civil Rights Battle exposes the wrongs done to the poor and minorities by environmental and political elites trying to eradicate fossil fuel production - coal, oil, and gas - supposedly to 'save the world from global warming.'

Author Roy Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, shows how their wrongheaded policies price energy out of reach and violate the civil rights of all Americans, and hurt the poor and minorities worst. Innis demands an end to this 'energy racism' and calls for the opening of all federal lands - which belong to the disadvantaged as much as to well-funded environmental leaders - to more energy production in a sustained campaign to increase supply and lower prices. Innis reveals the flaws in global warming hysteria and makes the stunning fact clear in his 'Energy Reality' chart that so-called 'alternative energy' from wind and solar power actually provided less than one-half of one percent of America's energy needs in 2006 and not much more by 2050.

Here is a story about the Polish woman who just died at age 98 who saved a lot of Jewish children from German death camps during WWII. I am not surprised that some Norweigian Socialists would give the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore rather than her. After all, the Norweigian socialists are in favor of an unelected world government of the sort that Al Gore is promoting, and have little interest in saving Jews.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/may08/irena.htm

As expected the Bsh administration has caved in to hysterics on the left and used incredibally bad science to declare that polar bear's habitat is threatend by CO2 emissions. This is a dream come true for the left, and paves the way for destruction of the economy of the USA. Here is an article by the lawyer Hugh Hewitt that includes comments from some of the environmental zealots on how they view the Bush Administration's proclamation. I doubt anyone follows the defensive course of action Hewitt proposes. The sane people are not as organized as the zealots. We will have to wait and see how this action affects foreign investment in the USA: probably there will be little initial effect, but over time as economic activity ceases due to successful legal challenges to oil and gas production, coal production, air travel, road construction, etc., I expect foreigners will come to realize that the USA is intent on suicide. Here is Hewitt's article:


Polar Bear Pushback

By Hugh Hewitt

After 18 years of a law practice devoted to counseling landowners, home builders and commercial interests affected by the long arm and severe penalties of the Endangered Species Act, I am used to incredulous looks and outraged oaths from clients coming to grips with the Act's incredible burdens on impacted private citizens.

"Are you telling me I can't build my Burger King because a Delhi Sands flower-loving fly that has never been seen and is above ground only a few days a year might be near-by?"

"I can't build a connector road because the noise from construction might damage the hearing of the Stephens' kangaroo rat thus impairing its reproduction?"

"All construction in San Diego involving impacts to road ruts which might contain Vernal Pool Fairy Shrimp is enjoined? All construction?"

Yes, yes, and yes. The list of situations in which the ESA has stopped otherwise legal and fully permitted projects from proceeding is extraordinarily long and getting longer. With Wednesday's decision to list the polar bear as "threatened" the burden on the American economy brought about by the ESA grew exponentially.

I have written here and here on the polar bear controversy. Those columns delineated how the advocates of the polar bear listing planned on using the bear to impose vast new controls on the emissions of greenhouse gases across the United States. When Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the listing, he also made a bold statement that the new status of the polar bear would not lead to such consequences.

To which the environmental activists replied immediately: "Says who?" The law is the law, they correctly noted, and it cannot be cabined by "guidance" issued by the executive branch. Here's one example of the reality of the listing's aftermath from the pages of USA Today:


Kassie Siegel, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the group does not accept Kempthorne's view.

The act requires federal agencies to take steps to reduce or eliminate those impacts on threatened species, she said. "There is no exemption for greenhouse gas emissions."

If the government fails to address global warming, "we can and will go to court to enforce the law," she said.


The industries most likely to be pummeled by the polar bear are energy production, aggregates extraction, transportation, and commercial building because each can be shown quite easily to result in increased emissions of greenhouse gases and each routinely requires federal permits to go about some aspect of their business. (The coal industry may be target number one, followed by oil drilling in the lower 48.)

The Act operates simply. Once an animal is listed, it becomes a felony to harm or harass it without the permission of the feds.

Harm or harassment has been defined to include destruction or impairment of the habitat the species actually occupies. (Some more radical views argue that harm to habitat that could be occupied in the future should also be a felony under the Act, but that view has not yet been upheld by a court of appeals.)

Because the polar bear has been listed as threatened due to alleged deterioration of its ice habitat, and because the alleged loss of the ice habitat has occurred because of global warming caused at least in part by the emission of greenhouse gases, environmental activists will argue that all emissions of greenhouse gases that flow as a consequence of the grant of a federal permit of any sort are now subject to review under the ESA and, crucially, that those permits cannot be issued unless and until the United States Fish & Wildlife Service reviews and approves of the requested permit under Section 7 of the ESA, a process which takes at a minimum months and which can cost millions of dollars even if it is successful.

Because of the generous "citizen standing" provisions of the ESA, expect dozens of "60-day" letters to begin to arrive in the offices of Secretary Kempthorne very soon, announcing that unless the Department and the Service act to invoke Section 7 vis-a-vis this or that federal permit, a lawsuit will be filed to force compliance. Expect most of those suits to be filed in the Ninth Circuit, where the appeals court has been very expansive in applying the ESA.

What ought the industries likely to be burdened by this legal blitzkrieg from the left to do?

First, industry lawyers must intervene in every polar bear suit brought by every environmental group. Trade associations must file and refile FOIA requests for all 60-day notices, and they or their members must force their way into every courtroom where the reach of the polar bear listing is argued and a decision rendered. Incredibly, not one of the industries likely to be impacted by the listing intervened in the court proceeding that imposed a deadline on Secretary Kempthorne. Not one.

Some will no doubt urge that the listing itself be challenged, but not only will proceeding that takes years, it is likely to be unsuccessful because the courts rightly defer to the exercise of scientific discretion by the agencies charged with protecting the species protected by the Act. It is not a hopeless effort, but it is also not likely to succeed.

The key will be to cabin the reach of the polar bear listing's impact by pushing for court decisions on the limits of where Section 7 reaches, and to do so in federal circuits much more cautious about the ESA's intent when passed by Congress and signed by Richard Nixon. In addition to the obvious constitutional arguments about whether the Interstate Commerce power was ever intended to support such far reaching claims of federal regulatory power, and statutory construction arguments on whether the ESA was ever intended to reach future habitat destruction based on predictive models (as well as the obligatory non-delegation arguments which are highly unlikely to be persuasive) the key will be to force the courts to early on confront the limits of causation when it comes to harm to the ice that the act can support. Courts must establish that it is absurd for the federal government to ever argue that project-by-project review of greenhouse gas emissions is required by the ESA or could in any way prevent ice formation or destruction.

Test cases should be brought by industry that argue that various federal permits --import/export permits, private jet landing permits, conservation banking permits-- all have greenhouse gas impacts, no matter how small, and thus that they must be subject to Section 7 review. Courts ought to be forced to the far reaches of Section 7 immediately rather than over years so that the agencies do not develop a practice of automatically referring for review just the projects they want to stop. It is vital that affected industries not trust the executive branch to practice restraint or to push back against the most ambitious of the claims of environmental activist plaintiffs.

One caller to my radio show yesterday suggested targeting imports from China entering via federally-regulated ports as an opportunity to argue that the PRC is the real culprit behind skyrocketing global emissions.

Another urged a focus on the private jets that Al Gore and other activists are so fond of using to carry their climate change gospel around the globe.

An e-mailer asked whether the new Yankee Stadium is depending upon federal money or federal permits in any way as surely the traffic to and from the ball games will punch up the plight of the polar bear.

While there will be a long list of targets for test cases, the key is that industry not react to suits brought by the very accomplished lawyers of the left but that they force the tempo and choses at least some of the battlegrounds.

Swarming the courts has long been a tactic of the left, but private sector firms and sectors threatened by the threatened polar bears need to do more than sit back and wait for bills to come do and projects to be canceled. Congress under Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid will not be offering legislative relief no matter how absurd the consequences of the listing. The best hope to cut-off the imposition of Kyoto through the rulings of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is through the federal courts, and the time to act is now.

President Bush made a speech in Israel to celebrate the 60th birthday of Israel in which he said appeasement of terrorists is bad, and used the run-up to WWII as an example. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party leaders are offended. They say the President's comments were directed at them. Why did they say that? Why didn't they say, yeah, the President is right. Their umbrage seems to imply that, indeed, their policy is to appease terrorists. Since this now makes it clear that appeasement is the Democrat's policy they need to explain that to us, and explain how they can make that work. The leader of Hamas also made a speech yesterday to note the 60th birthday of Israel in which he said he intends to kill all of the Jews, and to chase them to the ends of the Earth to kill them. Some Americans are Jews, so he intends to come here to kill them. I wonder how the Democrats plan to appease such a person. He sounds as implacable as Hitler.

Here is an article from American Thinker that asserts that Hamas in Palestine has been running phone banks calling people in the US to ask them to vote for Obama.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/05/al_jazeera_reports_palestinian.html

I haven't heard that before, but it would not be surprising. Hatem El-Hady, a Hamas fund raiser was working for Obama until he was identified as a member of Hamas. Robert Malley, who is pretty much an enemy of israel, worked for Obama until it was found that he meets regularly with Hamas. Samantha Power was fired from Obama's staff some time ago. Obama still has Susan Rice and Zbig Brzezinski, people who favor Palestinians. The fact that Obama has so many of Jimmy Carter's advisors working for him casts doubt on his judgement in my opinion.

Here is a paper by Lord Monckton on global warming. Appendix I has some analysis that illustrates some of the issues. Lord Monckton refers to the Stefan-Boltzmann constant and the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. It is doubtful that Al Gore could tell anyone what those equations represent. It is curious that these are not even mentioned in the IPCC's reports.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/cost_and_futility_of_trading_hot_air.html

I read an interesting political comment today. The Democrats are saying that a vote for McCain is a vote for a third term of George Bush. (This is a silly comment, but that is the way of politics.) Now someone says a voye for Obama is a vote for a second Carter term. Actually there is some substance to this comment, since obama's foreign policy team includs a lot of Carter's followers, and Obama seems to agree with Carter on foreign policy, particularly with regard to the middle east. For those young people who weren't around during Carter's Presidency, Carter failed in all ways possible, and particularly in foreign policy. Like Obama, Carter wanted to talk to everyone, and to give in to them. Then he was astonished to discover that our enemies were deceiving him all along.

The case for global warming was originally proven on the back of an envelope, and the use of the IPCC's supercomputers hasn't improved the analysis any. It is well known that CO2 absorbs radiation in the wavelengths of 2.7, 4.3, and 15 microns. There's not much energy in the 2.7 and 4.3 micron bands, so the 15 micron wavelength is the most important. The lower bands are pretty much saturated anyway. Considering that all of the energy in the wavelengths absorbed by CO2 were absorbed in the atmosphere, the atmospheric temperature would increase by 2 or 3 degrees Fahrenheit. The global warming hypothesis then assumes that the relative humidity in the atmosphere would remain constant. Then, according to the Clausius-Clapeyron equation the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would increase exponentially. Water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas, so this would cause the atmospheric temperature to go up a lot. I have always had doubts about this assumption. Recent data from the Aqua satellites, as discussed in the article below, does not support the constant relative humidity argument. This article is from Greenie Watch. As the article discusses, Al Gore and other advocates are now cashing in on the hysteria they have created, yet they claim that global warming deniers are being paid by Exxon. What a bunch of hypocrits.

A comment on Bengtsson by Lee Rodgers [sregdoreel@yahoo.com]


I am afraid that in this respect the Nature paper has been misunderstood, perhaps deliberately so, as it does in no way constitute a prediction but only a possible development of the climate system. So a couple of colder years cannot be ruled out.

I don't believe the Keenlyside has been deliberately misrepresented (although there are those industrial apologists who might find far more expansive opportunities at fully exculpating CO2). Even Andy Revkin at the New York Times "dot Earth" column took a similar understanding, that warming would resume in earnest by 2014. Either the press release from Keenlyside was too easily misinterpreted or there's a broader sentiment afoot that is leading people to question a protracted rate of 0.2 degrC/decade. A long, unanticipated lull in temperature increases might have something to do with it. Having Al Gore trying to cash in on anthropogenic climate change hasn't helped (at least here in the States).

We are, as IPCC correctly has stated, now with high probability sure that the long term warming of the climate and corresponding increase in water vapour, are due to more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Any other explanation at our present understanding is simply not credible.

This is where interested lay people like myself find ourselves in a quandary. We have your assertions of "high probability" in one hand, and the apparent, and apparently unexpected, falsification of long-trend warming-only climate model projections on the other hand. It's becoming such that almost any explanation would suffice.

Americans of my generation were drilled throughout our education to not tweak the data, to throw out the outlying data points, and to reject the hypothesis when it's found to be falsified by a particular piece of data. What I keep reading is that the NASA/GISS dataset is an outlier and that the IPCC projections (as recent as IPCC AR4) are now falling outside of statistical litmi. I can sustain a willingness to believe in the proclamations of a young science only so much. To convince me once again means I need a greater preponderance of evidence than before.

Nineteenth century evolutionary biology seemed just as unlikely as creationism. The fossil record (and now genetic analysis) serves up an empirical edifice that reifies theory into the realm of likelihood via the all-important litmus of evidence. It's a relative statement, if evolution seems unlikely, then creationism is nearly impossible. Frustrating as it may seem, this is the litmus test for credibility employed by skeptical laypersons: "Please show me."

What I, and I gather more and more well-read lay people like myself, want is a good, detailed and reasonable explanation, not desperate statements that we're deliberately misconstruing study findings. As recalcitrant as an old horse that is tired of being cajoled, the public is tiring of attempts to spur it into new taxes and bigger government with desperate pleas when the evidence doesn't seem overwhelming or conclusive.

It doesn't help that Al Gore is now deep into TWO big investment funds that derive profits from carbon credit trading. The climatology field might be comprised of earnest and honest researchers, but the scent of opportunism is wafting from the galleries of politicians and activists. Possibly out of naivete, scientists erred in oversimplifying the warming-only case with the hopes that either big perturbations wouldn't rear their ugly heads or the public would be more forgiving of perturbations in the outcome.

To also fail to equivocate about predictive power while also entrusting the dissemination of the science to those least qualified to adequately relay the concepts - the politicians and the media - seems to me rather incautious. I become ever more incredulous when the IPCC itself appears more of a mechanism intended to defend Kyoto than that of a clearinghouse to promote real climate science. I know how big bureaucracies work, and rarely does truth trickle out of the bottom (let alone I could enumerate any number of salient findings excluded from IPCC reports - replete with shenanigans).

What I getting at is this: If by 2015 - 2020 the temperature trend remains relatively stable and doesn't zoom upward to catch up with ever-accelerating CO2 levels, the standard by which climatology will have to be measured is sure to be set ever higher in the minds of the public. I think I'd be justified in concluding that a 15 year lull is more than just a mere perturbation due to natural variations. Frankly, I'd think that 7 years would be enough to cast deep doubts on the whole enterprise, but I'll grant a bit more forebearance yet. Just don't ask me to underwrite some very expensive remedies until then.

With that, I want to put my critique into perspective: I am a climate moderate. I believe that CO2 indeed causes some warming, but I've yet to see evidence of dangerous climate change. Were I only to judge this strictly on the basis of temperature trends, I'd say the current warming trend corroborates CO2's logarithmic warming curve of 1.2 degrC increase in temperature as CO2 levels trend from 280 - 560 ppm. That's a believable baseline and it's canonical in the field.

Trend lines, however aren't enough. When I read that the centennial boreal thaw has been ascribed largely to industrial soot deposition (C. Zender, et al) and is culpable for nearly 20 percent of all global warming, that tropospheric soot may contribute easily 35 percent to all global temperature anomalies (V. Ramanathan, et al), that the Argo autonomous submersibles have yet to locate the bulk of errant heat predicted by warming-only scenarios and the Aqua data is finding less-than-anticipated water vapor in the atmosphere and I find myself seriously tempted to conclude that the moderate warming scenario is far more credible in explaining this ongoing temperature plateau.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but then the sun is being reasonably forecast to be in the full throes of a solar grand minimum by 2020, with half-amplitude solar cycles for the rest of the century. Shindell, et al, of NASA/GISS modeled the results of solar grand minima in 2001 and found that SGM would indeed induce a moderate global cooling trend, with falling inland temperatures characteristic of the Little Ice Age.

I find all my statements to be perfectly reasonable and moderate qualifiers on the state of the art of climatology. Ramanathan himself clearly stated that his findings surprised not only him, but flew in the face of conventional thinking about aerosols. It seems reasonable then to subtract the warming caused by aerosols from the CO2 column. If it isn't reasonable to do so, then why not?

But do I hear mention of this or the other field data reversals from climatologists? No.

And yet these exceptions, these apparent nulls knocking on the side of the warming-only hypothesis, are tremendously salient to the discussion. It would seem then the neglect of their mention is a profession-wide sin of omission.

So where's the biggest credibility problem? With the industrial apologists who played their global cooling hand too early? They're not scientists! I know to already double check their speculations by verifying their sources. But when the media cites the warming-only scenarios to the exclusion of other important data, the field comes to resemble an agenda-driven crusade led by opportunists and activists, not sage and conservative empiricism. Climatology is suffering a crisis of confidence. Consider how it appears in the public eye as we're inundated on a daily basis that global warming causes just about everything, from increased flea bites to more-frequent shark attacks. When laypeople speculate about the thermal exchange capacity of the oceans and wonder if ENSO can offset more atmospheric heating than has been known, they're cast off as a deniers. But when scientists posit equally speculative statements about sharks and fleas, we're supposed to yield to their credentials? Really. Have some researchers no shame?

I think everyone wants to be sympathetic to calls against complacency, but the whole call to mobilize the world has acquired the hysterical tone of a poorly conceived children's crusade. It's time the climatology field did something to clean up its own back yard.

John McCain is not really a consevative, despite what he says. He represents socialism-lite, which would seem to be better than the fascism of Hillary or the Marxism of Obama. Some argue that it might be better to elect Obama and let the public experience some of the "change" Obama represents, after which collectivism would be set back for a few decades. That sounds good, but we don't know how much damage Obama could do. I'm still afraid that we have another civil war in our future because, based on history, Marxist don't easily give up power once they have it.

In the meantime, I am disappointed in McCain's position on global warming, now termed "climate change" since not much warming is happening. Here is Investor's Business Dailey's comments about McCain's global warming speech this week.

“After the coldest April in 11 years, John McCain offers a ‘market friendly’ approach to global warming—saying we ‘have a genius for adapting, solving problems.’ But shouldn’t the problems be real?...[W]e were disappointed when, at an Oregon wind turbine manufacturer on Monday, [McCain] seemed to embrace the shaky environmentalist position on global warming. Saying the costs of our reliance on fossil fuels ‘have added up now in the atmosphere, in the oceans and all across the natural world,’ he proposed that by 2050, the U.S. should reduce CO2 emissions to a level 60% below that emitted in 1990. The question is, why? Cold water was thrown on the climate-change disaster hypothesis by the National Climate Data Center’s recent announcement that last month was the coldest April in more than a decade and the 29th coolest since record keeping began 114 years ago. The average temperature was 1 degree cooler than the average April temperature of the entire 20th century. A few weeks ago, as North America was emerging from one of its coldest and snowiest winters in decades, the climate center issued a statement saying that snow cover on the Eurasian land mass had been the most extensive ever recorded, and that this March had been only the 63rd warmest since 1895. On April 24, the World Wildlife Fund published a study, based on last September’s data, showing that Arctic ice had shrunk from 13 million square kilometers to just 3 million. What the WWF omitted was that by March the Arctic ice had recovered to 14 million square kilometers and that the ice cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska was at the highest level ever recorded... We were pleased that McCain endorsed nuclear power as a pollution-free source of energy that can help us toward energy independence while reducing emissions. But the fact is that we will need more energy, not less, by 2050, from all sources. Both economic and technological growth will demand more... Global warming is debatable, both as to its causes and its effects. By taking the lead on domestic energy, McCain could help solve a real problem and make a clear distinction between himself and his head-in-the-tundra opponents.” —Investor’s Business Daily