"Consensus": As Vast A Fraud As "Global Warming" Itself

Now Playing: There Is A Hot Lady In My Bedroom And I Need A Drink" from Terje Rypdal's "Singles Collection"

The purveyors of the concept of a "scientific consensus on global warming" continue to get slammed by, errm, cold reality. The last two weeks in particular saw the "consensus" unravel further as two new groups of prominent scientists directly refuted, on the record, the entire edifice of anthropogenic "global warming" and all proposed government force applied on its basis.

On December 13, 2007, one hundred prominent scientists, representing disciplines of climatology, meteorology, hydrogeology, physics, computer science, biology, remote sensing, oceanography, atmospheric physics, isotope geophysics, molecular genetics, paleoclimatology, chemical engineering, marine geology/sedimentology, etc., signed an open letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon which reads as follows:

"Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
Dec. 13, 2007

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by ­government ­representatives. The great ­majority of IPCC contributors and ­reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

* Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

* The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

* Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,

[List of signatories]

Copy to: Heads of state of countries of the signatory persons."

Ouch, that's gotta hurt.

Yesterday, December 20, 2007, the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a press release titled U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007, subtitled "Senate Report Debunks 'Consensus.'"

That's: Four hundred scientists.

That report is particularly damning in that it reproduces some of the creepy attempts, from Gore to a number of "nonbiased" media personnel, to quash dissent. This is an indication that the McCarthyism being employed against Climate Armageddon dissenters, described by MIT atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen a year ago in Climate of Fear, is still in full force.

The Global Warming Petition, which has been on the books - and strenuously evaded by the Left and their media - for a number of years, is now well past the 19,000 mark in signatures from interdisciplinary scientists. The Global Warming Petition states:

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

That's: Nineteen thousand scientists.

From the Left...no comment.

To be fair, RINO Republicans in Congress and in the White House appear utterly oblivious to this as well. Enlighten them.

Reports on specific scientific findings are similarly confronting the eco-totalitarians with uncomfortably cold, hard facts. In summer of 2007 a loudly-trumpeted junket to Greenland was indulged in by a group of Senators, which trip conferred the status of Climate Science Expert upon each of the Senators, incidentally. Sen. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland summed up the emotions of all present: "Seeing the receding glaciers in Greenland showed us visible signs of global climate change. It helped me to understand our universal responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases, to protect our planet and our Maryland economy."

Unfortunately for the Good Senators, their instant expertise has hit a similarly-instant snag, for a new study shows evidence that Greenland's melting is in large part due to volcanic activity deep beneath that land mass:

From Ohio State University: Earth's Heat Adds to Climate Change to Melt Greenland Ice

And in a story from Agence France-Presse titled Extreme weather? Sure. Blame global warming? Not so fast", Barry Gromett of Britain's Met Office says "There's a danger in taking isolated incidents in any given year and attributing this to something like climate change. It's really important to look for trends over a longer period of time. More heat equals more moisture equals probably higher rains, so in that respect some of it ties in quite nicely (with climate change). But there are many different facets that appear to contradict each other."

French IPCC climatologist Jean Jouzel says "Several more years would be needed to establish a link, or to not establish a link, between these extremes and global warming."

Uh-huh.

Yes, "the science is settled." Definitely.

There is a reason behind this climate armageddon push - and it has nothing whatever to do with the environment, the climate, nor with concern for humanity. 'Care to take a guess?
 

Romney Tips His RINO Hand

In the December 12 Iowa debate Romney made the following statement, which he clearly believes is acceptable and perfectly ethical:

"I don't stay awake at night worrying about the taxes that rich people are paying, I'm concerned about the taxes middle-class people are paying."

Think about that for a minute.

In other words:

"Americans, under my Presidency, would forfeit their natural rights - e.g. property and economic liberty - upon crossing some arbitrary threshold of 'acceptable' income. It's fine to strive for success, but if you actually achieve success, well then to hell with you."

In yet other words:

"Screw ethics, this is all about populism, votes and getting elected, and the 'middle class' is a way, way bigger group of voters than 'the rich.'"

And this is the GOP candidate who dares pose as a moralist?

- I wonder if anyone will ever sit down with Romney and explain to him the relationship between taxation and force, then the relationship between force and ethics.

- I wonder if he'd comprehend a word of it if anyone did.

- To keep it simpler for him, I wonder (ha!) if he could come up with an answer to the question of what criteria he would use to define someone as "rich," and how he would validate that definition.

- I wonder, on a purely pragmatic note, if Comrade Romney has ever contemplated the fact that economic income groups are not static in their composition.

Romney's sneering disdain for the property of "the rich" is pure poison in its perpetuation of an amoral collectivistic premise. It's a simplified manifestation of what economist George Reisman calls Platonic Competition. What that ethical blackout means in practice is something that was amply demonstrated under Bill Clinton: Taxation-at-will is simply a matter of expanding the definition of "the rich."

Bottom line:

Romney is no defender of individual rights, no defender of economic liberty, therefore no friend of core Americanism.

To repeat to Romney what I wrote to talk radio's Resident Lightweight, Laura Ingraham, after she made a similar statement the first - and last - time I listened to her show:

"With 'Republicans' like you, who needs socialists?"

Romney and leopards and spots, oh my!

Arrgh.
 

Barack O'Brien Dumps Reagan Into The Memory Hole

Now Playing: Winston Smith Takes It On The Jaw from Utopia's "Oblivion" - the Orwell reference made a listen mandatory.

Amid the endless, tired regurgitations of shopworn collectivism that was today's Democrat Debate was a subtle yet interesting omission. In response to a question about using Clinton-era advisors on foreign policy, Obama/O'Brien makes a strange temporal leap:

Moderator:"Senator Obama, you have Bill Clinton's former National Security Advisor, State Department Policy Director, and Navy Secretarial[sic] among others advising you. With relatively little foreign policy experience of your own, how will you rely on so many Clinton advisors and still deliver the kind of break from the past that you're promising voters?"

Obama:"...I want to gather up talent from everywhere... I think that there are a lot of good people in the Clinton years, the Carter years, George Bush 1, who understand that our military power is just one component of our power, and I revere what our military does."

Ummm, anyone we're forgetting from that time frame? Anyone who might have some foreign policy expertise? Someone, say, from an administration that inherited a foreign policy rat nest and not only cleaned it up but, after an enormous struggle, engineered the successful, history-altering defeat of the Soviet empire?

Hmmmm...

Nope. The Clinton years, the Bush 1 years and the Carter years - that about covers it.

I can only assume that the prospect of bringing even Reagan's name into the picture presents a crisis of comparison so intolerable that it demands an Orwellian memory-wipe.

...And these recidivistic socialist clowns want to play President again - at a time when we're in a fight for the survival of Western Civilization.

Wow.

OK, Mitt - We're Clear On Your Religion, But...What About...?!

Now Playing: Les Petites Notes by Liane Foly. Sublime, and...very Christmassy

Today GOP Presidential contender Mitt Romney gave his speech on religiosity and Mormonism, ostensibly to clear the air in defense of his and every American's right to his own creed. Fine, that's his bag, whatever.

Buuuuuuut....

Am I the only one out here driven to shirt-rending paroxysms by the pin-drop silence on, errm, that thing called politics?

WHAT ABOUT THE POLITICAL DIRECTION OF THIS COUNTRY?

'Last time I checked, the American people weren't suffering from any marked lack of religiosity. On the contrary, religion-fueled altruism has been making alarming inroads into public policy - most recently in President Bush's asinine decision to freeze subprime mortgage rates so that the 6% of Americans irresponsible enough to get themselves into hot water on real estate can get a free ride, courtesy of a forced bailout by...the rest of us. The examples of the wreckage done to public policy by smarmy altruism are legion - another of them, not surprisingly, is precisely Presidential candidates evading the hard, crucial issues in favor of cultivating religious populism.

Could it be that there might be other things to which Presidential candidates ought to be paying attention?

It's been nearly a year since Romney declared his intent to seek the Presidency, roughly six months since he and the rest of the GOP lineup wrapped themselves in the mantle of "Reaganism," and we have yet to hear a peep out of him on what he plans to do - nay, even what, if anything, he thinks should be done - to get control of our leviathan government.

Where is the clarity and uniquivocal dedication to reversing - not "slowing the rate of growth of," but reversing - the out-of-control size, scope, cost and intrusiveness of American government?

- Where are the goal-oriented, uncompromising plans to attack - and dismantle - entitlements head-on?

- Where are the goal-oriented, uncompromising road maps to the full divestiture and privatization of Social "Security" á la Chile and... Ethics?

- The commitment to counter, head-on, the Democrat-Socialists' health care nationalization scheme with the exact, polar opposite: a full separation of medicine and State, on Ethical and practical grounds?

- To link, in principle and in legislative practice, all government action to the limited sphere stated in the Declaration of Independence, namely: "...To secure these rights (Life, Liberty, Property,) governments are instituted among men..."?

- To end, once and for all, the litigation cancer that is destroying our rights and freedoms via litigants' end-runs around the Bill of Rights?

- To replace the multi-rate Income Tax with a sales tax having - take note, Mr. Thompson - a single rate for all with no exceptions?

- To drain the industry-killing swamp that is environmental regulation?

- To end, once and for all, our involvement with - and physical hosting of - the international septic tank that is the "United Nations"?

- To blow apart the retro-Marxian fraud that is anthropogenic "global warming" and the toxic retro-Medievalist industry that's grown up in support of that fraud?

- To obliterate every last trace within American law of the atrocity known as the McCain/Feingold/Shays/Meehan Campaign Censorship Act of 2002?

- To obliterate every last trace within American law of the atrocity known as the Kelo v. New London decision, i.e., to abolish "Eminent Domain" nationwide, totally and permanently?

- To pull America at least up to the level of bureaucratic Japan, socialist Britain, and Ahmad-In-A-Jar's Iran(!) on privatizing the Postal "Service"?

- etc.


But...Silence.

Romney gave his speech on religious liberty for the ostensible purpose of clearing away the negative perceptions of his Mormonism (primarily among Evangelical Christians, an eagerly-sought voting block for him.) But all Romney has done is underscore the fact that he is a virtual carbon copy of G.W. Bush: A man of deep religious conviction who...hasn't got the slightest shred of political vision, much less of philosophic grounding.

Romney's - or any other candidate's - professions of religious belief tell us nothing except that he has an ethical credo. Swell. But without a cohesive, integrated political agenda, the only conclusion to which we out here in Realityland can arrive is that Mitt Romney's sole focus in running for the Presidency is to promote religiosity.

Sorry Mitt, but we've kinda-sorta got some other, rather pressing problems on our plate, and the President sits at the head of the table.

Obviously, it is precisely that set of religious core premises that makes it impossible for Romney to formulate a cohesive philosophic framework for individual rights and a properly-limited government. As I wrote to Fred Thompson's campaign a couple months ago, how do you propose to dismantle unjustifiable government programs, agencies, regulations and taxes, when your ethical credo - which you're promoting as your highest purpose in seeking office - holds that self-sacrifice for the sake of others is a primary virtue?

What we need is political vision, specifically in the vein of "Reaganism," only with real teeth on government downsizing and significantly less compromise with the purveyors of intellectual poison (e.g., Democrats.) The above examples are goals that sound radical in an age of craven "moderate-ism," but they are valid, achievable, and long, long overdue. Even if we had a President willing to set those goals and fight for them we wouldn't get them in total, nor in many cases even in part. But the point of goal-setting is to advance relentlessly in the direction of those goals without expectation of overnight success.

Absent even the articulation of those policy goals by the Presidential candidates, we can know one thing with certainty: The battle to recapture core Americanism will be dead at Square One.

So far we've got the full, detailed dope from Romney on religion, and meanwhile we're...dead at Square One.

We're waiting, Mitt...

Rudy...

Fred...

George...

Arrgh.


Postscript, 12-07-07:
Yes, what we really need are this-worldly metaphysics, reason in epistemology and egoism in ethics, but the context here is the current crop of GOP Presidential candidates, none of which is likely to embrace objectivist philosophy any time soon. We have what we have to work with, dismal as it is...
 

Election '08: CNN's Egg and the GOP's Decision Point

Now Playing: Io Ameró, from Eros' Dove C'e Musica

With the unearthing of every new leftwing connection among the "undecided Republican voters" at the November 28 Republican debate, DNCNN's fraud is further illuminated. At this point we can enjoy the spectacle of that once-reputable news source's implosion, but one further thought:

CNN chose the video "questions" used in the debate, and they chose them for obvious reasons. Contemplate the magnitude of insularity in their assumption that hard-left "gotcha" questions straight from the DNC playbook could be successfully passed off as random GOP voters; the sneering condescension in the assumption that the GOP rank-and-file wouldn't notice.

Amazing. But...not particularly surprising.

Again, call your cable company and ask them to drop CNN networks from their channel lineup in favor of other news outlets - the BBC perhaps, one of Europe's state-run newspeak channels, or maybe Russia's Pervy Kanal.

You know, something a little more honest than CNN.

* * * *

Meanwhile, the current dust-up among the GOP candidates illustrates yet again the destructive power of mixing religion and politics (not to mention the altruist ethics,) or more specifically of its incompatibility with core Republicanism. That, folks, is why this Presidential election has become a kind of decision point on those two opposing alternatives: GOP principles vs. religion.

To the religious wing of the Republican Party, the ideals of Republicanism - indeed, of Americanism in the Founders' conception - have always languished at a distant second place to "social conservatism," i.e., enlisting the power of government in the promotion of religious mores. The results have become a predictable reality: a bloated, slobbering, out-of-control monster government, unchecked even in its growth for decades; a foreign policy riddled with compromise on vital principles even in wartime; subversion of the American electoral process, narrowly averted by an alert SCotUS; an alarming, recent escalation of legislative attacks on the Constitution itself.

Today we are seeing that Republicanism vs. religionism conflict coming to a head, in the full-bore promotion of Huckabee for the GOP nomination - under the auspices of some of the worst exponents of RINOism - the former political director of the NRSC, etc.

Huckabee is best described as one of those horrid political creatures who has the "fiscal" vs. "social" mix exactly backward: fiscally "liberal" and socially conservative - which means he represents the worst elements of left and right, albeit watered-down in both cases. That guarantees him at least temporary support by a mainstream media petrified by the prospect of a Giuliani/Clinton contest a year from now - which, again, I predict will be Giuliani by a heavily-lopsided margin, if not landslide, should those two end up as the contenders.

Huckabee doesn't have the proverbial snowball's chance of winning the nomination, but the MSM - and by extension the Left in general - are all about strategic propaganda. To their reckoning, any second-tier candidate (third, in Huckabee's case,) who can make a strong showing in the primaries will dilute the strength of the first-tier GOP candidates in the eyes of the public, particularly the one they dread most (with good reason) - Giuliani.

More instructive is the phenomenon of Huckabee's support from the vestiges of the religious right.

As I've said, the entire '08 GOP lineup is dismal for anyone loyal to core GOP principles, to wit: advocacy of individual rights; of aggressive and radical reduction of the size, scope, intrusiveness and expense of government in every sphere except those identified by the Founders as justifiable (e.g., the armed forces, the police and the courts); of secular governance; of intransigent, uncompromising defense of America and American sovereignty.

Given what we have to work with, given the current geopolitical situation, and given that the opposition party is populated by frothing maniacs, I've argued that the most rational choice left to us is a placeholder, the candidate with the best chance of beating any Democrat-Socialist and who is solid on at least the one most vital issue facing America, national security.

This forced reduction to crude pragmatism is something that approaches physical pain, but I see no alternative.

That placeholder is: Giuliani.

One need look no further than at the behavior of the leftwing media for confirmation, but Giuliani's status as most likely '08 winner stands to reason: Giuliani, more than any other GOP candidate, enjoys the broadest cross-partisan appeal in terms of both ideology and populism. Whatever votes he loses to the hardcore religious right will be compensated for amply by independents and moderate Democrats disgusted with what their party has become. His imminent nomination could very well prompt the Democrats to snub Clinton in favor of their apparent next-strongest candidate, fellow arch-leftist Obama.

At any rate, the Democrat left clearly see Giuliani as their most formidable opponent in the GOP, particularly if his choice of running mate is strategically sane.

The hardcore religious wing of the GOP have an inter-sectarian abhorrence for Romney's Mormonism so he's out - a good thing too, given that any more RINOs in political office are easily as destructive, if not more so, than radical leftists. That leaves Huckabee. Since for the religious fundamentalists religious affiliation trumps even a political record one would be hard-pressed to distinguish from a big-government Democrat, the religious right have thrown in with him - and by that fact, with the Democrats.

Perhaps it's a premature evaluation, pending Huckabee's elimination. We shall see.

The bottom line is that the majority of rank-and-file Republicans have to decide whether they're voting for President of the United States or Pastor of the National Church. If it's the latter, we can count on a new clutch of rabid leftists in the White House - and likely majorities in both Houses of Congress - at a time when:

- Islamofascism remains a growing threat, with the potential for nuclear attack on America by terrorist elements a new reality;

- Vladimir Putin seems bent on returning Russia to collectivist totalitarianism;

- The Communist Chinese are showing disturbing signs of belligerence and of meddling in Central and South American politics;

- A fool by the name of Rudd has ascended to power in Australia and signed that nation onto the bizarre global totalitarian push calling itself "The Kyoto Protocol," which means America must have an unbending advocate for American sovereignty and human liberty in the White House;

- A number of Supreme Court vacancies are likely to come about through retirement of Stevens, Ginsberg, possibly Kennedy - left-leaning all;

- American governments, Federal, State and local are approaching a critical mass of...sheer mass;

- The state of American education and culture is at a veritable crisis point;

- etc.

The "error buffer" left us by Reagan has been largely burned up - we need someone who is at least semi-sane in charge. That rules out the Democrat Party - and their enablers within the GOP.