It turns out the warmest period in recent history isn’t the current age, but the Roman warm period 2000 years ago and that since then the globe has been cooling by half a degree Fahrenheit every 1000 years.  Well at least its a relief I won’t have to find a store selling parkas in Florida any time soon. It does beg the question just what were those evil Romans doing to warm the planet ? Did Caesar have an oil company and wear a cowboy hat ? Was Arminius trying to power Germany with coal ? Was the interstate highway system actually built by ancient Americans ?

While it may be fun to laugh at the fact that we have had people screaming that we are going to boil and go to a fiery death for the past 30 years, what isn’t funny is the fact that we have people in Washington operating on the rationale that we must act to save the climate. They can’t explain what we are saving the climate from or even why we wouldn’t want a somewhat warmer climate especially since it means a more productive and healthy world. It would be even funnier, if your food, electrical, and gasoline costs haven’t been sent soaring because it has been decided against all reasonable evidence that CO2 should be treated as a pollutant.

Chris Dodd arguably one of the great exemplars of why Americans feel our political system is broken let loose with this jewel on Fox News today

“Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,”

Full story here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/19/exclusive-hollywood-lobbyist-threatens-to-cut-off-obama-2012-money-over-anti/

The above has managed to spark a petition on the White House’s public petition system to

Investigate Chris Dodd and the MPAA for bribery after he publicly admited to bribing politicans to pass legislation.

Full petition here please add your voice

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate-chris-dodd-and-mpaa-bribery-after-he-publicly-admited-bribing-politicans-pass/DffX0YQv?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

The senator was making his comment, in reference to legislators he apparently thought were in the bag, voting for S.O.P.A. and P.I.P.A started distancing themselves like bacteria in a petri dish fleeing from penicillin. Apparently Google and the Wikipedia’s ability to let voters know when their elected representatives weren’t acting in the country’s best interest trumped the M.P.A.A’s ability to funnel cash through Dodd and provide the occasional celebrity endorsement for elected officials. Wish I could say I was happy about these entities having that kind of power, the only times they seem concerned about protecting people’s freedom is when someone else’s infringes  on theirs.

Whether or not Senator Dodd is indicted for bribery he is undoubtedly going to dinged within his own party for this, the Democrats have long been tolerant of crimes what they have become leery of are blatantly obvious blunders in revealing them. The petition was submitted to the White House early today after the Senator’s appearance on Fox News, as I write this it has gained nearly 15,000 of the 25,000 signatures it needs before the administration is obligated by its own policy to issue an official reply.

I urge you to lend your voice to this. Its an election year and everything we can do remove this kind of influence peddling from our government is a step in the right direction for us.

First:
From the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Expert Credibility in climate change

Second: The list

Skeptic Authors Table

Abstract of the paper.

Although preliminary estimates from published literature and expert surveys suggest striking agreement among climate scientists on the tenets of anthropogenic climate change (ACC), the American public expresses substantial doubt about both the anthropogenic cause and the level of scientific agreement underpinning ACC. A broad analysis of the climate scientist community itself, the distribution of credibility of dissenting researchers relative to agreeing researchers, and the level of agreement among top climate experts has not been conducted and would inform future ACC discussions. Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.

Lets look at what we are talking about here. The National academy of sciences decided to publish in its proceedings a list of researchers that should not be considered credible and whats more the basis for inclusion in this blacklist was the fact that they don’t agree with the “consensus” and their research disputes it.

This is astonishing, and by astonishing I mean I am still trying to put my eyes back in my sockets from when I saw this. This concept not only throws away every ideal of how science is supposed to work, it replaces it with an instant list for character assassination. There is no consideration for strength of argument validity of data its all these people don’t agree with us ignore them. Its what you might expect from a political site like the democratic underground or the daily kos, not the National Academy.

Now Lets look at some of the names on the list

If you don’t recognize the names well Freeman Dyson is probably one of the most respected living physicists, Frank Tipler is amongst the foremost cosmologists in the world, Roy Spencer is a leading expert in the use of satellites to measure the temperature of the earth, Willie Sooon is a leading expert on the effect of changes in solar radiation on the global temperature, whats even more incredible is that as you go down this list you find renowned experts in just about every scientific and technical field listed, and listed on the basis of the fact that they disagreed with the consensus on man made global warming.

Now you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what is happening here. The AGW proponents haven’t been able to make their case on the facts, they have been rocked back on their heels by the revelation that the scientists tasked with finding the truth about climate change actively hid data, and skewed results to reach a preconceived conclusion so they have decided to hit back at the people they think are the cause of their pain. Their problem isn’t the scientists on that list with the courage to say “I call B.S.”, their problem is that they are no longer scientists but advocates and politicians.

This has to be one of the funniest commentaries on the junk science that is global warming that I have ever seen.

“What is abundantly clear, is that an economy-wide program, which the president has talked about for years now, is not doable in the Senate.”

Climate Czar , Carol Browner

From The New York Times

IF President Obama and Congress had announced that no financial reform legislation would pass unless Goldman Sachs agreed to the bill, we would conclude our leaders had been standing in the Washington sun too long. Yet when it came to addressing climate change, that is precisely the course the president and Congress took. Lacking support from those most responsible for the problem, they have given up on passing a major climate bill this year

From The New York Times

It looks like our economy is getting a reprieve from the thermophobes for at least a little while.  Energy use being fundamental to our economy and way of life, the administration is not shirking from trying to destroy both. Unfortunately it looks like they have secondary target which is to further regulate electric utilities and focus on green jobs.

Lets look at the green jobs portion, this article from Human Events: How Much Does a Green Job Cost we get the figure of $100,000 per job over a two year period with that amount having to be spent again periodically. More or less 50,000/year to fund green jobs outside of D.C. people might ask wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just pay the unemployed not to do things ? It would also probably be greener unless the green jobs consisted of picking up toxic waste or trash.

The other big focus the administration is carbon taxes for utilities. I don’t know how anyone can even consider this kind of action in the economy we are having, as it would make virtually every economic and profit making activity more difficult and less profitable. Just go through your life and think of everything you do that involves the use of energy. From the clock that wakes you up in the morning to the stove that cooks your food, to the parts that were used to make the car that gets you to work everything has an energy cost associated. When the President can say out of one side of his mouth that jobs that disappeared aren’t coming back the other side of his mouth isn’t mentioning that raising energy costs is the best way to make absolutely certain they don’t come back.

On a personal note, whenever I hear the green plan for reforming our economy it always seems to get translated into the Allied strategic bombing plan during World War II. First they want to take our the Oil and fuel industries, then they want to take out the utilities and industrial sectors. It would be an amazingly good idea if it was directed at an enemy not at ourselves with the goal of destroying our own economy.

*DRM= Digital Rights Management = A means of crippling both the content and playback equipment

Look at the above. If you are a rock ribbed conservative the fallacy of the comics argument jumps out and hits you in the nose before you have even finished reading it. You don’t steal other people’s stuff and if you don’t like the way a product is provided you either find another source or you do without. Nobody ever told you, you were supposed to have everything in life or that it was supposed to be a bed of roses. Sometimes you will have to do without.

For the left there is no principled choice, the creator of property has no say in the matter. For them there exits an unbounded ability to strip people of the fruits of their labor and if tradition, the law, societal norms or just common decency stand in the way, so what.

Lets make no bones about it. DRM was a horrible business idea. It made consumers feel like fish on hooks and made it damn well apparent you when you bought music/video what have you, you weren’t buying much of anything. Oddly enough though the market actually solved the problem. Because of consumer resistance, there are now numerous outlets that sell restriction media. These include not just all the major record labels but ITunes as well.

Taking a look at the history you see

1. A Perceived problem in the market
2. A reaction by the customers
3. An adjustment by the producers.

Along the way to 3 you had both sides attempting to use government to force their vision on the world. The content producers managed to have the Clinton Administration enact one of the worst pieces of legislation ever conceived.( The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998). On the lefts side you have had attempts to destroy all copyright rights.

The lesson ? We as a nation are far to quick and believing that mother government can and should try to solve our problems. Before you can sell conservatism to people you need to sell them on the idea that they can be and always are responsible for themselves.

If anyone ever had any doubt about it, there is now scientific confirmation that Barrack Obama spins like a turbine in a nuclear power plant. Whats more the bigger the problem and the bigger the issue the more he spins. Take note we may be able to solve our energy issues by hooking him up to a generator and asking him really hard questions.

McCain on the other hand has the lowest spin index and actually provides straight talk. A nice change of pace that a politician is keeping their word even while already in office.

The results were arrived at by having a computer program evaluate the text of speeches from all the candidates and looking for evasive and equivocal phrases. The use of we instead of I that allow the politician to distance themselves from the statement. Or the use of scapegoats or attempts to redirect the answer were counted as adding to spin.

The key graph from the article is a lovely confirmation of what anyone who has been following the depressing candidacy of B. Obama already knew.

So the analysis appears to back up McCain’s claim that he is a “straight talker”. However, for the purposes of political speech-making this may not be an entirely good thing for him. “Obama uses spin in his speeches very well,” says Skillicorn. For example, Obama’s spin level skyrockets when facing problems in the press, such as when Jeremiah Wright, the reverend of his former church, made controversial comments to the press.

Now miss USA, needs lessons in walking. I would be once again be glad to offer her my help.