How to get screwed by Algore

PRS's Jim has read the contract: Al Gore’s Dog, Pony and Global Warming $how

$100,000 is just the beginning, folks... and he can cancel any time for no reason at all.

Gotta give the guy credit: a pile of money for each 45-minute rehash of the same old powerpoint presentation of years ago, can cancel at his whim and as a special bonus he even gets Bono to apologize for hair gel.

Sweet.

UPDATE
Via Instapundit, Al Gore And Climate Ka-Ching

We have a prediction all our own — that disastrous global warming will not occur. Then the greenies will take credit for preventing it and ask us if we're glad we spent trillions in fighting it. Al Gore will be laughing all the way to the bank.

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Bono apologizes to Algor for carbon fumes and hair gel

Global Warming is a religion and Algor's its priest:
Bono confesses sins to 'Father' Al Gore

"It's like being with an Irish priest"

Who are famous for their love of whiskey...

"You start to confess your sins," he said. "Father Al, I am not just a noise polluter, I am a noise-polluting, diesel-soaking, gulfstream-flying rock star."

You flatulent oil guzzler, you!

"I'm going to kick the habit. I'm trying father Al, but oil has been very good for me -- those convoys of articulated lorries, petrochemical products, hair gel."

Bono said in the video, "My wife is sleeping with Algor", which we all hope is a figure of speech. Bono's pretty funny and one hopes he's kidding, at least for Tipper's sakes.

The article concludes,

Bono and Gore were in Davos to push their respective campaigns for poverty alleviation and reducing carbon emissions.

Cutting down on the bulls**t and the hypocrisy wouldn't hurt, either.

Say "Halleluyah!"


Technorati: Bono
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Another Anthropogenic Global Warming killjoy: fast cars

The Church of Antrhopogenic Global Warming alarmism continues to try to impose a new morality among us.

A new morality, I must point out, that at times ignores basic sanitation. For instance, there's that year-without-toilet-paper family who uses "bowls of water and lots of air drying" instead, and are writing a book about it.

When I read about them I was truly thankful I don't live in their building.

All through 2007 we have been preached at by hypocrites who don't have a problem with generating 100,000 tons of CO2 so they can get together in a tropical island to blab about "climate change" and bash the US while we're freezing here. Even divorce isn't sacred anymore.

Well, add another one to the list:
Chief scientist in sports cars warning to women

Women must stop admiring men who drive sports cars if they want to join the fight against global warming, the Government's chief scientist has urged.

And he singled out women who find supercar drivers "sexy", adding that they should divert their affections to men who live more environmentally-friendly lives.

The chief scientist might also want to warn men who like women in fast cars, too, lest he be accused of sexism. But, after all, if the chief scientist is a purist, he'd be advocating abortions to reduce carbon imprints. Here's what Mark Steyn had to say about that:


But back to cars, Is new Corvette the last supercar? Go take a look and drool:



Heck, even Edgar would look sexy driving one of these.

So let's ponder this for a moment: Embrace the Church of AGW, or buy a 2009 Corvette?

What would those 15,000 people who went to Bali drive?

Leave it to Gerard to skewer Al Gore as the Powerpoint Jesus

After his ecospasm of the vision of the tides passes, Bono wipes himself off with a damp towel and closes with a post-coital sigh about the object of his affections.

Not to be confused with the "bowls of water and lots of air drying". Never mind, Saturday is (post not suitable for work) Global Orgasm time.

How green is a fake Christmas tree made in China from petroleum-based plastics polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride that may contain lead?

Not very.

Makes you want to rush out and buy some Vuitton instead, doesn't it?

UPDATE:
Shuddering Succotash!!!

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007



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More icy roadblocks for Global Warming

UPDATED
Scroll down
As I mentioned yesterday, winter hasn't even started, and we have ice:


As I looked at the icy crust on the deck, the Beeb was interviewing a Friends of the Earth guy who travelled to Bali for the Conference. The 5-minute interview went like this:

BBC anchorwoman: question
FoE guy: Blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Bush...
BBC anchorwoman: question
FoE guy: Blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Bush, blame Bush...

and on and on for the full five minutes.

It's starting to get repetitive: Al flew his private plane to Bali to do exactly that.

"Fresh from receiving the Nobel Peace prize", let's go to the videotape:


And it's going to cost you money: Global Carbon Tax Urged at UN Climate Conference

The Bali roadmap is the new Kyoto treaty.

Meanwhile, 100 scientists urge the UN to give up the futile attempts to combat climate change:

"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," the scientists wrote.

The letter states, UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

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 ( 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.

Via Memeorandum, Ronald Bailey writes from Bali,

On December 11, Greenpeace distributed slices from a gigantic chocolate cake to participants at the U.N. Climate Change conference (COP-13) to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. Since many Kyoto Protocol signatories are not meeting their obligations to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to levels below those of 1990, I'm not sure what the festivities are all about. In fact, Japan, Canada and many EU countries are emitting more GHG than they did in 1990.

Oh, well. It's the thought that counts.

One of the hottest topics being negotiated the COP-13 is technology transfer. I was under the impression that technology usually got transferred when one party sold it to another. That's how I got the Sony Vaio on which I am typing this dispatch. Apparently that's old-fashioned thinking. Under the new post-Kyoto climate treaty, poor countries are demanding that rich countries create some kind of tech transfer fund that would be used to subsidize their purchases of new low-carbon energy and carbon sequestration technologies.

If that weren't enough there are rumblings among poor country negotiators that they want the right to simply seize the patents (nicely called "compulsory licensing" in trade talks) and make the equipment themselves. "If there is insistence on the 'full protection of intellectual property' in relation to climate-friendly technology, it would be a barrier to technology transfer," declared Martin Khor, director of the leftist Third World Network. Is threatening to confiscate their patents really the way to encourage companies and inventors to invest in creating the innovative low-carbon energy technologies that world is being told are vital to stopping dangerous climate change?

More on Global warming's icy roadblocks and Pope Benedict - follow the links.

UPDATE
Via Gateway Pundit, Arctic Sea Ice Re-Freezing at Record Pace

The Sound of Silenced Science

UPDATE, Saturday 15 December
Via Marzo, (PDF file) Carbon Emmissions Don't Cause Global Warming



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Global warming's icy roadblocks

Ice storm in US claims 15 lives

An ice storm sweeping the central United States has left at least 15 people dead amid warnings of more freezing weather to come.

More than 600,000 homes and businesses were left without electricity after icy winds toppled power lines and trees.

Forecasters have issued winter storm warnings for parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Texas.

Winter hasn't even started yet.

While Al Gore gives his acceptance speech, I'm freezing here in The Principality, and some more scientists are declaring that Climate warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence:

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant.

Their Lack Of Faith Is...Disturbing, isn't it?

Via Instapundit, How green was my Bali? Not very.

While all of this is going on, Gerard manages to find all the doom of the world in one sentence.


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100,000 tons of CO2 for Global Warming

UPDATED
Via Blue Crab Boulevard, Climate conference's impact on climate

Around 15,000 politicians, civil servants, green and industry lobbyists and journalists will fly in for the summit, emitting the estimated equivalent of more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide - on a par with the annual emissions of the African state of Chad.

Not one of Algore's hanging chad but the country of Chad, that is.

Ponder that: 15,000 politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, activists, journalists and Thcelebrities are heading to a luxury resort in Bali to talk about global warming. You got to admit, when it comes to religions, the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) does things in style. Much much nicer to be at a luxury resort surrounded by tropical beaches and every amenity than to be holed up with a bunch of old fogies in the conclave.

But it you're not feeling guilty enough about getting a divorce, not to worry: the CAGW would rather have you living in misery for the sake of the earth all the same.

All those tons of CO2 would have been put to better use in cooling the beer

Eco-hypocrisy: "I really do think they haven't a clue of how hypocritical they look."



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Gone are the days when you actually had to work for a Nobel Peace Prize

Linus Pauling, who is the only person to win two undivided Nobel Prizes, won one in Chemistry in 1954 for his work applying quantum mechanics to chemistry, and eight years later one in Peace for his work against above-ground nuclear testing. In his spare time Pauling also worked towards developing the electrical car. While most people of our parents' generation remember Pauling as the guy who wanted you to take vitamin C, Pauling is regarded as one of the outstanding scientists of all time.

Back in the olden days people like Albert Schweitzer, who was a medical doctor, a concert organist and a great humanitarian, won Nobel Peace Prizes. Schweitzer was also a theologian and a philosopher who believed that Western civilization was in decline for having abandoned the affirmation of life as its ethical foundation. He lived by his beliefs and spent most of his life working as a doctor in what is now Gabon, Africa.

Now you get a Nobel Prize for making a movie about yourself.

Al Gore, who the Nobel Prize announcer called Albert Arnold Algore Jr., made a movie that British courts found partisan, ruling last week that it contains no fewer than eleven material inaccuracies that need to be drawn to students’ attention if it is going to be shown in schools. That's the movie the Nobel Prize Committee praises as an effort "to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change".

Gore, unlike Schweitzer, is not depriving himself of the pleasures of a home that consumes electricity at a rate of about 12 times that of a typical house in Nashville. Gore also favors private jets instead of public airlines when he travels.

The Committee says that climate change (what ever happened to global warming?) might lead to wars and violent conflicts, hence the Prize. Those involved in the fight of their lives, the fight for liberty and democracy while oppressed by dictatorships, like the Buddhist monks in Burma, or the Ladies in White in Cuba, better come up with their own movies or they'll get no prize at all.

I have referred to the Peace Prize as the Norwegian Badge of Uselessness, as we look at the awardees:

1988: The UN Peacekeeping forces, who have distinguished themselves after receiving their prize by their rapes and sex abuse, along with bribery and corruption, in places like Kosovo, Angola, Guinea and Congo.

1992: Rigoberta Menchu Tum, who lied about her life in Guatemala.

1994: Yasser Arafat, the inventor of skyjackings and father of modern terrorism.

2001: The UN and Kofi Annan, perpetrators of the largest scam in the history of mankind, the $30 billion dollar Oil-For-Food scandal.

2002: Jimmy Carter, who goes around the world certifying the elections as "open and democratic", after spending less than twenty-four hours in country.

2004: Wangari Maatai, who preaches that AIDS is a virus created by Da Man.

2005: The International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed el-Baradei, who have yet to stop North Korea or anyone else from developing nuclear weapons.

I'm not even counting Betty Williams (1976) who earlier this year said she could kill George Bush, or Mikhail Gorbachev (1990) who embraced peace after losing the Cold War, and let's not forget Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973) for that "peace with honor" bit.

Small wonder that the Venezuelan government news agency wants us to believe that Hugo Chavez was a finalist for the prize in 2005. Hugo's certainly buying enough weapons and making deals with Russia and Iran to earn himself a Prize down the line.

This year Al Gore won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel Peace Prize. At this rate he may run for president again, or instead he may star on a one-man show on Broadway featuring the world’s most famous Powerpoint presentation. If he wins a Tony award for that, he'll then outdo Rita Moreno, who hasn’t won a Nobel Peace Prize yet.

And here are the ones who didn't win:

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

Or to Colombian President Àlvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.

Or to Garry Kasparov and the several hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed, for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.

Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target civilians.

Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color" revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.

Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.

Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to their countrymen.

Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy campaigners in Egypt.

Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian control.

Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck; Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean refugees escape to safety in free nations.

But leave it to Paul Krugman who is (finally!, after being freed from the Times Select premium) getting some mileage out of being ridiculous,

What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane?

What, indeed, Paul, why don't you tell us?

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He's taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

That must be it! Of course!

And how can Paul be wrong, when he knows that the French got it right when it comes to healthcare?

Erik at No Pasaran's been giving Al the respect he is due:


Maybe if Paul keeps it up, he'll get his own poster, too, green camo shirt and all.

For a Nobel Peace Prize, Paul's going to make himself a Powerpoint presentation and a movie.

Update
Jules Crittenden and Siggy take on the goracle. Tim Blair looks at the unclean Europe, but Mark Steyn remembers the cows.

(The first part of this post was cross-posted at Heading Right)

Technorati: Al Gore, Paul Krugman
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Gore wins Nobel, remains coy

As expected, the Nobel Prize committee has awarded Algore the Norwegian Badge of Uselessness

Gore, 59, has been coy, saying repeatedly he's not running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, without ever closing that door completely.

The coy former Vice-President may run for president again, may choose to stay home admiring his Oscar, Emmy, and Nobel, or may do a one-man show on Broadway, which may in turn win him a Tony award, thus outdoing Rita Moreno, who hasn't won a Nobel Peace Prize yet.

According to the WaPo,

The science showcased by the panel and Gore's advocacy have helped to "build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change," the committee said.

Tripping over themselves to further asininity, the Committee bypassed true heroes of the worldwide struggle for freedom, such as the Burmese monks and the Ladies in White, by saying

it wanted to bring the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change into sharper focus.

The Committee carefully ignored the British court ruling that found eleven inaccuracies and nine errors with Algore's movie.

While the Nobel Peace Prize winner gets $1.5 million, no one has yet claimed the Ultimate Global Warming Challenge's $125,000.

Previous winners of the Norwegian Badge of Uselessness are Yasser Arafat, Rigoberta Menchu, and Mohammed al-Baradei. In 2005 Hugo Chavez was one of the finalists, at least if one is to believe the official Venezuelan news agency.

UPDATE
Gina Cobb:

"The first climate wars." Puh-lease! It's not as if we have a shortage of real, actual, ongoing, violent conflicts and wars, currently killing thousands and tens of thousands, that need addressing. "Nomads and herders" and farmers are in conflict? How many dead bodies is that? How does it compare to the massive, ever-growing death toll of the worldwide Islamic jihad?

Update
Welcome, New York Times readers. Please visit often.



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Don't snow for me, Argentina, and today's Latin American items

UPDATED
Reading the news, you would think Al was in the Southern Hemisphere:

Buenos Aires sees rare snowfall

Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, has seen snow for the first time in 89 years, as a cold snap continues to grip several South American nations.
Temperatures plunged to -22C (-8F) in parts of Argentina's province of Rio Negro, while snow fell on Buenos Aires for several hours on Monday.
...
In Bolivia, heavy snowfall blocked the nation's main motorway and forced the closure of several airports.
...
In Chile, temperatures dropped to -18C (0F) in parts of Araucania region in the south.

Last month The Economist was reporting about Peru's poor infrastructure. Infrastructure problems are more evident now that the Peruvians are chilly, too,

Cold snap prompts Peru emergencyThe Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in several Andean regions hit by unusually cold weather.

Of course, it's all due to climate change

Scientists say the unseasonable droughts, heavy rains and frosts are due to climate change.

I've known all along that the weather is constantly changing, and I'm not a even a scientist (but I'm married to one).

Now, whether climate change = global warming, that's another crock altogether.

Not worried about the carbon footprint, Evo wants to drill in a Bolivian national park, the Madidi:
This photo is captioned,
Activists want sustainable development in the constitution.

Of course they do.

In financial news, Argentina's inflation rate is about 7 percentage points higher than what is being officially reported, even when The Economist reports that

Helped by high prices for its farm exports, Argentina has recovered vigorously from its economic collapse of 2001-02. Unemployment has fallen from a peak of 21% to 10% (excluding those on workfare programmes); today, 27% of Argentines live in poverty, compared with more than half in 2002.

The BBC says that Cuba's municipal elections will be held on 21 October, and that

This marks the start of an electoral process which could clarify early next year whether his brother Fidel Castro will resume power as head of state.

Let me explain a thing or two:

• Since Castro took power in 1959, Cuba has not held free elections
• They're not about to start

Cuban tourism is flagging since Cuba is not as cheap as people are led to believe.

Of course a round-up of Latin American news must include Venezuela:
Jane's Intelligence reports,

Oiling the axis - Iran and Venezuela develop closer ties
This Iran-Venezuela alliance within OPEC has caused friction with Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a nominal ally of the US, which favours more modest crude prices by seeking higher output. Nonetheless, the Venezuelan and Iranian goal of higher prices has come about owing to a number of factors, including a lack of refinery capacity, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, an increase in demand and climatic conditions, helping to drive up the price of crude oil from around USD28 per barrel in 2000 to an average of USD65 during 2006.

Caracas and Tehran have found common cause in favouring higher oil prices for political ends: as a lever to pull the balance of power away from oil-consuming countries, especially the US, which is still the world's biggest consumer.

According to Alberto Garrido, a Venezuelan political analyst who has charted the historical rise of Ch�vez: "Chavez sees himself and Ahmadinejad as brothers defining a strategic anti-US alliance that is part of an ambitious and well-structured global project."

Chavez's Plans Worry Catholic Leaders, and they should be worried.

However, there might be good news for Mercosur:

Mercosur: A falling-out with Hugo Chávez could be good news for a paralysed trade group

Mr Chavez's absence from Asuncion may, however, mark a turning point. He took umbrage at a resolution passed by Brazil's Senate criticising his recent silencing of the main opposition television channel. Brazil's Congress (like Paraguay's) has yet to ratify Venezuela's entry to Mercosur, and after insults from Mr Chávez is unlikely to do so soon. That leaves Venezuela in the oxymoronic situation of being a "full member in process of accession". Mr Chávez said this week that he would withdraw Venezuela's application unless it was approved in three months. He seems interested in Mercosur chiefly as a political platform. Free trade would expose the big inefficiencies engendered by his statist economic policy.

I continue to be optimistic about Lula:

Since Lula's re-election last October Brazil's foreign policy has seemed more pragmatic and less driven by leftist ideology. Lula has not concealed his irritation with Mr Chávez's antics. There is no sign yet that Brazil's president wants a clear breach with his oil-rich friend and rival. But if Mr Chávez's brinkmanship backfires, that might just be the best thing that has happened to Mercosur for years.

A while ago when I read that the Immigration Bill exempted illegals from paying back taxes, I said I should have declared myself an illegal alien. Here's yet another reason: Mexican Migrants Take Free Flight Home

Hernandez was one of 74 migrants who flew to the Mexican capital Monday under a U.S. summer program, now in its fourth year, that gives participants free transportation all the way to their hometowns instead of simply deporting them back across the border.

A little bit of r&r, and it starts all over again:

Hernandez said he volunteered to get a free trip to rest and visit his family in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. In a couple of weeks, he said, he'll try his luck again in the desert.

At the blogs
Gateway Pundit: FARC Leader Palmero Found Guilty in US Courts

Venezuela News and Views: RCTV comes back, sort of, while Globovision fights back to stay

Now, what does that mean exactly? Not much. Cable, even if Supercable were to be included, does not reach 25% of Venezuelan homes. Even adding Internet (by the way, those who can watch RCTV through Internet and YouTube certainly can afford cable), even adding those who steal the signal of some cable company, no more than 30% of Venezuelan homes have access to some form of cable TV, and mostly in upper income areas: poorer areas simply cannot afford a cable bill unless a few pool together and steal the signal with the complicity of the payer. One of the reasons by the way why you see many Direct TV satellite dishes in the barrios is that Direct TV signal cannot be stolen that easily. Besides, installing expensive and vulnerable ground line in popular district is a deterrent for other systems than Direct TV. The paradox is that the poor are forced to buy the more expensive satellite system if they want to escape Chavez blabber.

The result is that RCTV will go from a 100% national coverage to a 30% coverage AT BEST. With the consequent decrease in advertising revenue. The implications for RCTV is that it will be difficult to keep its large staff and producing capabilities and news coverage, at least as long as it does not manage to sell enough production overseas. Right now, outside the US and Colombia I do not see that many buyers for anything Venezuelan except soap operas.

Now go read that whole post, and also Housing in Venezuela: propaganda and reality.

The Devil's Excrement: Not much new, but for some submarines and more conflicts

Publius Pundit: Ecuador: If you have to deny you're an idiot...

Memo to Rafael Correa: If, as head of state, you have to deny being stupid to the author of a book whose title is 'The Idiot Returns' where he's made you Exhibit A, it's a pretty forgone conclusion that you are even stupider than you were written about! If you had a lick of sense, and you don't, you might like to keep it all as quiet as possible.

I don't have a link to The Idiot Returns, but here's the first one in the series,


Sorry, Colombia! is up and running. Please go visit. Also don't miss my two latest podcasts, on human rights in Cuba, and on Colombia, Congress and the FTA with Robert Mayer of Publius Pundit and Sorry, Colombia!.

Meanwhile, way up North, Canada asserts its claim to territorial waters in the Arctic,and they're staking out their borders.

Update
A Jacksonian's must-read.

Here's a video of the UN Human Rights Council move last month to remove Cuba and Belarus from its blacklist (h/t UN Referendum):


Update 2
The Democrats' Colombia Agenda by Mary Anastasia O'Grady

In the five years between the 2002 kidnapping of 12 state legislators by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the rebels' recent announcement that 11 of those hostages have been killed, much has changed for the better in Colombia. The lawmakers were taken at a time when the state was very weak. Their murders, on the other hand, appear to be a desperate act by a frustrated band of thugs who have failed to achieve their desired results with terror.

Colombia today is significantly more secure and economically healthier than it was in 2002. Yet as events in recent weeks reminded us, two dark clouds remain parked over the country.

The first is the ruthlessness of organized crime networks like the FARC, which have blossomed during the U.S. war against cocaine. Thanks to the policy of prohibition coupled with strong demand, the FARC remains a well-funded menace even though it has no popular support.

The second source of trouble -- most recently evidenced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's announcement that her party will block the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement -- is the unrelenting opposition of Congressional Democrats to anything that could be considered helpful to defeating terror and putting Colombia on surer economic footing.

The U.S. war on drugs, which is backed by both Republicans and Democrats and blames Colombia for the fact that Americans use cocaine, is immoral on its own. But as the guerrillas have gotten into the narcotics trafficking business, Democrats have added insult to injury by arrogantly micromanaging the war from Washington with advice from left-wing NGOs. Passed in 1997, the Leahy Law (named for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D., Vt.) mandates that any officer charged with "credible allegations" of human-rights violations be relieved of his command lest the country lose its U.S. aid to the military. It didn't take the rebels long to see opportunity in the law. They promptly began ginning up accusations against the country's finest generals. It didn't matter that the evidence almost always turned out to be suborned perjury. Careers were destroyed and the armed forces leadership gutted.

President Álvaro Uribe, who took office in August 2002, recognized what was happening and set out to rebuild the military, strengthen the presence of the state and end any speculation that the government might seek a path of appeasement in the face of violence. He has made great progress. The guerrillas are now back on their heels and kidnapping and murder rates are down substantially. Bear Stearns analyst Tim Kearney, who just returned from a trip to Colombia reports that the economy is "firing on all cylinders" due to "a combination of a better security environment, as well as the government's market-oriented reforms." He adds that, "with investment driving a powerful rebound, we now think that real GDP growth will reach 6.4% in 2007."

If Colombia's hard left was upset before with Mr. Uribe, this has really stirred up the nest. Their only hope is help from Washington so they are returning to what worked before, this time recyling tired old charges that the president has links to paramilitary groups and insisting that the government has been protecting assassins who target union leaders.

Democrats seem only too happy to help. They can't invoke the Leahy Law against civilians but blocking the FTA in the name of "human rights" is just as good. It satisfies the "sandalistas," who still dream of a Cuban revolution for all of Latin America, and it makes the most important Democratic Party constituent, the AFL-CIO, happy by knocking off any threat of new international competition.

This may be good for shoring up the Democrat's base but it is harmful to U.S. geopolitical interests in the Western Hemisphere and to an important U.S. ally and it will dash the hopes for a better life of millions of impoverished Colombians. Either the Democrats have very poor foreign policy judgment or they have sympathy for the devil.

Read every word, and watch the video included in that post.

AGDS

UPDATED
Scroll down for the hologram
Psychologist Licensed professional counselor GM Roper has made it official: Acquired Green Delusional Syndrome

Don't miss the symptoms:

This diagnosis requires any 4 of the following criteria during any six consecutive months since the publication of "Earth In The Balance."
1. A belief when not smoking dope or other mind altering chemicals that all the glaciers are going to melt and cause a world wide rising of the ocean of 20 to 40 feet.
2. A belief that Owlgore is a prophet and has the real skinny on the climate discounting that Owlgore was a politician, a dropped out divinity student and didn't complete law school but does sound earnest in spite of the fact that he has no scientific training what-so-ever.
3. Has come to believe, despite training in science and the scientific method that "consensus" means the same thing as proof.
4. The duration of the disturbance appears to last until "The Next Big Thing" comes along and diverts attention away from Green issues or Global Warming

Go to his blog and read the rest.

And yes, I remember the Good Old Days when people were panicking over Global Cooling...

Update
Green is the new yellow.
The folks at demand Debate were flying banners over the concert in the Meadowlands.
I had posted the links before, but you can watch The Great Global Warming Swindle on You Tube


Update
Any of you trekkers who thought the holodeck would be a great place to be, here's one hologram that creeps me out:

Just a mirage, but just as preachy as the original!
(h/t Ella and M.)

Among the greenery

UPDATED
NJ is toast as Corzine signs a law mandating sharp greenhouse gas reductions by 2050 to help fight climate change.

That won't do much to help the NJ jobs deficit and its continued economic low gear.

I know that I'm planning to leave the state, which has been my home for decades now, as soon as conditions allow me to.

I'm not alone in that sentiment. If you browse through Jew Nersey Magazine while you wait in line at McCaffrey's, you find page after page of ads from adjacent states (particularly Delaware and Pennsylvania) inviting businesses and individuals to relocate to their states, which are more tax favorable and business friendly.
Meanwhile, over at PRS...

In other green news
Larwyn sent a whole round-up of Live Earth posts:
Death-for-Rushdie Advocate Headlining Live Earth Concert
7 Things to See That Are More Entertaining Than Watching Al Gore and Fellow Deranged Narcissists Pollute the Atmosphere: A great selection of videos, among them "Tell us about the drying paint"
Live Earth Performers Urge Earthlings to Sacrifice for Green Future. Enrique Iglesias's house makes Vizcaya look humble.
More greenflation: Green Fuels Could Raise Food Prices by Half
And a Live Earth postmortem that would make Horatio proud,

but it sure didn't sound like the kind of music we might be listening to in our putatively greener future

Heh.
Live Earth a Bust
Via Jeremayakovka, Jihadists against climate change
Updates
Via Maria, Live Earth London's Glacial Pacing
Mixing Music and a Serious Message Gives Concert a Clunky Rhythm
Al Gore's Scientific Consensus Collapses
Ella sent this, and says, "Raise your hand if you're Sure!"

Strong enough for a man, but unused.

A haircut and a Carnival
Dr Sanity has The Carnival of the Insanities, and GM Roper shows John Edwards How To Get A Good Haircut And Save $387.00

At Johnny's you could save $387.00 if you went to Johnny's when you get down here and then you could donate the difference to say The Food Bank where it might help poor people more than rhetoric does. And, you would even get a tax deduction. AND, if I may be so bold, you could even use that in your campaign against Hillary who asked for a deduction based on giving Bills "used silk underwear" to charity. That ought to be worth something don't you think?

GM Roper has pictures to prove his point, and I like his haircut.

Wimbledon, or Live Earth?

Updated
Right now I'm here at casa de Fausta looking at the TV in the kitchen. Two things are on:
Venus Williams and Marion Bartoli are slugging it out on the court. Great match.
Some girls in tight clothes with thin voices are singing on Live Earth in front of a Definitely.NOT,Carbon.Neutral wall of lightbulbs.

On the one hand, a really good tennis match. On the other hand, a vacuous exhibition of symbolic tokenistic behavior.

You know what I'm watching.

But fret not, Tim Blair and Mark Steyn are covering LE for you.

I'll be enjoying the beautiful Summer day after the game is over - have a wonderful day!

Update, Tuesday 10 July:
Via The Corner, we might have a consensue

The BBC blamed the poor figures on Saturday's good weather and said its Wimbledon tennis coverage had drawn away afternoon viewers.

You heard it here first.

Consensual dissimulation, and today's other items

As I posted Tuesday on So much for the "unsophisticated terrorist" meme, Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word "Muslim" in connection with the terrorism crisis and the phrase "war on terror" is to be dropped, too. AP thinks of terrorists as a diverse group.

Melanie Phillips writes about The strategy of consensual dissimulation

On BBC Radio Four’s Today programme this morning (0755 approx), the reformed Islamist extremist Hassan Butt patiently spelled out to presenter Jim Naughtie that Islamist terrorists carry out their acts of mass murder as an expression of religious faith and fervour. They do it, he said, ‘for the pleasure of God’. Far from being acts of despair, these terrible atrocities are acts of religious exultation.

If we don't understand, even now, that what we are facing is a religious war, a jihad against the unbeliever and backsliding Muslims across the world we cannot possibly hope to defend ourselves against it. Yet while former Islamist extremists such as Hassan Butt and Ed Husain are urgently telling us the truth, Gordon Brown’s new administration is shutting its ears and embarking on a suicidally stupid and cowardly strategy. Astoundingly, it has decided to deny the religious element of this jihad altogether, to redefine Islamic terrorism as mere criminality and to ban all terms that call this horror by its proper name.
...
For 'consensual', read bowdlerised, censored and dissimulatory; and for 'united', read defeated. This is a disastrous beginning to Brown's premiership. The terrorism we face is a jihad carried out in the name of Islam, mandated by the principal religious authorities in the world of Islam and drawing on theological concepts in Islam. That doesn’t mean all Muslims go along with it; many do not, and many are indeed its victims. But to deny that it is a war which draws its authority from Islamic precepts is to deny the truth. That is why it is not enough for British Muslims to condemn these acts of terror. They have to acknowledge that what drives these acts is a part of the faith to which they subscribe — a part which they must renounce.

In the light of that, the Commons statement yesterday by the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith — whose performance had our terminally frivolous and ignorant media drooling in pleasure this morning — was an absolute disgrace. Clearly following instructions to avoid telling the truth in this new strategy of 'consensual' dissimulation, she conspicuously avoided talking about Muslims or Islam. Instead, she spoke — absurdly — about 'communities' and insisted that these terrorist outrages were merely 'criminal' acts.

And now go read waht Laura Mansfield translated from a video by a pediatrician in hiding - Jay has a round-up on that.

Nothing consensual about this guy (via Larwyn and Don Surber).

Update
Follow-up post: The war against women rages on
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Leading Yemeni Journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani Arrested
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Iraq, WMDs, and the Truth
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What is carbon footprint of Prius doing 100 MPH?
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Smashing.

Kilimanjaro in the news

Study: Kilimanjaro's shrinking snow not sign of warming

POSTED: 12:34 p.m. EDT, June 12, 2007
Story Highlights
• Researchers: Global warming has little to do with the decline of Kilimanjaro's ice
• Kilimanjaro's decline in ice has been going on for more than a century
• Shrinking occurred two decades before any conclusive evidence of warming
• They attribute the decline to the shape of the ice and decreased snowfall

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania have been diminishing for more than a century but probably not due to global warming, researchers report.

While the retreat of glaciers and mountaintop ice in the mid-latitudes -- where much of the world's human population lives -- is definitely linked to global climate change, the same cannot be said of Kilimanjaro, the researchers wrote in the July-August edition of American Scientist magazine.

Kilimanjaro's icy top, which provided the title for an iconic short story by Ernest Hemingway, has been waning for more than a century, according to Philip Mote of the University of Washington in the United States and Georg Kaser of the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Most of the retreat occurred before 1953, nearly two decades before any conclusive evidence of atmospheric warming was available, they wrote.
...
Unlike mid-latitude glaciers, which are warmed and melted by surrounding air in the summer, the disappearance of Kilimanjaro's ice is driven by solar radiation, since the air around it is rarely above freezing, they wrote.
...
The researchers attributed the ice decline to complex interacting factors, including the vertical shape of the ice's edge, which allows it to shrink but not expand.

Decreased snowfall, which reduces ice buildup and determines how much energy the ice absorbs, also plays a role.

Much of Kilimanjaro's ice is vanishing by sublimation -- where ice at very low temperatures converts straight to water vapor without going through a watery phase -- rather than by melting, the scientists said.

Fluctuating weather patterns related to the Indian Ocean also could affect the shifting balance between the ice's increase, which might have occurred for decades before the first explorers reached Kilimanjaro's summit in 1889, and the shrinking that has been going on since.

Don't expect AlGore to adjust his powerpoint presentation.

Tim Blair says Enough of global warming - let's hear it for local cooling!
Here's my entry:

I hope I'm not too late for the Blair Fridge Project.

Did you listen yet? and today's items

I'll post more about Venezuela later today, but here's the morning round-up:

Did you listen yet?

Last Monday my guests were Dymphna and Baron Bodissey of Gates of Vienna and Siggy co-hosted. Listen to a most enjoyable podcast, and tell your friends. If you listened already, go back and listen again.

Soldier's Family Needs Immediate Help

Victor Davis Hanson writes about The Global Immigration Problem

The moment illegal immigrants arrive, a sort of race begins: Can these newcomers become legal, speak the host language and get educated before they age, get hurt or lose their job? If so, then they assimilate and their children are held up as models of diversity. If not, the end of the story can be welfare or jail.
...
Governments in countries such as Mexico and Morocco usually care far more about their emigrants once they are long gone. Then these poor are no longer volatile proof of their own failures, but victims of some wealthy foreign government's indifference. And these pawns usually send cash home.

Don't miss also The Legal Visa Crunch: The Senate bill is worse than current law for skilled immigrants.

And Now...British Academia

Investor's Business Daily continues its series on Jimmy Carter, Friend of dictators

Via Red State, Sen. Byrd: "Allowing the public to actually see earmark requests...isn't a good idea"


We beat global warming, and "Al's the guy!"

Via Larwin, Ace posts that Jon Corzine didn't think of wearing a seat belt, and zoomed down the turnpike going 90 miles an hour, but he's going to keep you from getting fat. Maybe Corzine should call Michael Moore for diet tips.

Mitt gets heckled in New Hampshire for being a Mormon. Harry Reid better stay away.

Also from Ace, some fool at Newsweek thinks wussy men are hot. Where is Pullo when we need him?
Here's a short list of other non-wussies. And the ever-popular Swiss.

Speaking of wusses, Betsy has The humbug that is John Edwards, who, by the way, may have some trouble getting some of the treasure money as Spain sues over shipwreck bonanza

Harry Potter theme park planned in Orlando. It'll take real magic to duplicate the terrain and the weather, for sure.

And last, but not least, The Studied Linguist (a poem)

Traveling bloggers, and today's items

Heading to the Middle East:
Jeff Emanuel and Academic Elephant are on their way to Iraq, and Judith and Mary are on the way to Israel.

Saturday afternoon I had a delightful time with Mary and Judith. Among the topics we discussed was the Vanilla Jesus (read the comments). Thank You Mary!

Does Al know that Greenland just had a baby? Or is the baby a reincarnation?
---------------------------------------------
3 TRACTOR TRAILERS, 4 BUSES, 6 CARS - and ONE SHEET, along with 12 bottles of Grolsch beer, 6 bottles of "local" beer, and a bottle each of "good Australian Cabernet" and "good Merlot."

Lord knows a "bad Merlot" can ruin one's carbon footprint.
---------------------------------------------
Speaking of drink,

The Beeb says, When rulers die, Russians keep shopping. At least now there's merchandise in the stores.
---------------------------------------------
From Larwyn,
Cartoons Condemning the Terrorist Attacks in Algeria and Morocco

Road to Nowhere from the Dem Cong.

What Would It Take for Joe Lieberman to Fire Harry Reid? If he can find him, that is.
---------------------------------------------
After all this talk about the Dem Cong, I made an appointment for a facial
---------------------------------------------
Bob has the post on Alec Baldwin.
---------------------------------------------
When I first met Ed, I hugged him - which is a capital offense in some parts.
---------------------------------------------
In other news,
"Would you like another schnitzengruben?"
Man cuts off his own penis in busy restaurant
And he didn't leave a tip:

The paper reported that police subdued the man with CS spray and recovered his severed penis, which surgeons at St Thomas's hospital in south London attempted to re-attach. It was not known if the operation had been a success.

{{shudder}}

Where's my global warming?

After a much too brief respite from the cold weather we've been having, I'm waiting for the promised Global Warming to start.

As I wait, I've been wearing winter clothes under a winter coat in April, reminding people at dinner that this winter was so cold (how cold was it?) that young kids were contemplating skating on the canal all the way from West Windsor to Kingston (their mother put the kibosh on that idea), the Scouts are swearing never to go winter camping again, and the Weather Channel right now has some ugly pictures of blizzards in the Mid-West.

Which are heading East - it's already snowing in upstate NY. Of course, it only stops snowing in upstate NY for three weeks, and then it starts again.

George Will, who I hope by now has recovered from his orange condition, points to the media hype

In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 percent of whom now call global warming a ``serious problem.'' Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness.

As part of the indoctrination, the media's doing its darnest to raise our awareness of global warming.

Then there are the concerts. (Will Pink Floyd get together again, and will they play uninterrupted by ads? But I digress.)

Tim Blair asks,

Apparently the point of these Gaiapalooza concerts is that they'll raise awareness of global warming. You know, just in case you've never heard of it and require a seven-nation, 120-network Woodstock of warmening to bring you up to speed.

But if raising awareness is so crucial, why does Al Gore place restrictions on media coverage of his awareness-raising speeches?

Blind belief in Medieval Environmentalism will make you do that.

Of course, this was to be expected: Hugo Chavez: new icon of global warming cult. Aleksander Boyd of VCrisis fisks Derek Wall of Britain's Green Party:

Venezuela lives in the real world, not in the make-believe world that some commenters create in order bash Chavez.

Chavez's fiefdom, otherwise known as Venezuela, does not live in the real world. Instead the reputation of the country is in an ever decreasing curve thanks to the antics of its deranged militaristic president. Take for instance the issue with ethanol. Not long ago Chavez was all hyped and cheerful for he had signed 11 agreements with the Cuban dictator to develop the ethanol industry in Venezuela. He did the same with his other 'partner' Lula. Not a day had passed after the Texan offered trade and ethanol deals to the nations he visited, and we saw how the 'green' Chavez backpedaled in all his signed agreements and went as far as stating that he would make Lula reconsider Brazil's position on the issue. The bearded pimp got out of his deathbed to lend a hand, all very... green should we say?

Over in Cuba, Fidel's green... with ethanol envy!

While the Alaskan otters are suffering because an unbudging sheet of sea ice has blocked off the waters where the Alaska Peninsula's sea otters forage, forcing the starving animals inland on a search for food and making them easy prey for wolves and humans, Ahnuld wants to make the environmental movement "hip and sexy""

Speaking at a conference in Washington, he urged campaigners to focus on the positives of cutting carbon emissions rather than making people feel guilty.

The movement must change its image just as he helped transform the "sketchy" reputation of bodybuilding, he said.

Ahnuld said,

Weight-lifting was once considered a pursuit for weirdos

Was once considered?

Obviously, I'm in denial.

But never mind that; I can't wait for the day when I can start wearing my summer uniform,

Look at the bright side: by the time it's warm enough to wear this, the blouse will probably be on sale.

Anyway, here are some otters enjoying happier times:

I bet they're glad they're not in Alaska freezing their little otter butts.

Let's hope it doesn't snow in two weeks when the Scouts go camping or the guys will come back groaning.

Update Camille Paglia is another Global Warming skeptic (via The Dumb Ox)
It's snowing in Ann Arbor

Bamboozled with Global Warming piety

Via Francisco, "We Have to Take Away People's Fear of Climate Change"

Hans von Storch is one of Germany's leading researchers on climate change. DER SPIEGEL spoke with him about why fears of global warming are exaggerated and the doom-mongering tendencies of German scientists.
...
SPIEGEL: Are there only negative consequences when the temperature increases by two or three degrees on the planet?

Storch: Detailed forecasts are not possible, because we don't know how emissions will in fact develop. We climate researchers can only offer possible scenarios. In other words, things could end up being completely different. But there are undoubtedly parts of the world that will benefit on balance from climate change. Those areas tend to be in the north, where it has been cold and uncomfortable in the past. But it's considered practically heretical to even raise such issues.

Finally, a believer in global warming who's not globalarmist. He's a heretic.

Meanwhile Jeff Goldstein posts on Secular Piety and the New Age Orthodoxy (h/t Larwyn), since Time Magazine has come up with 51 things to make us globally pure. Among the 51 things Time Mag recommends for saving the Earth/your soul/whatever is

Plant a bamboo fence
Bamboo makes a beautiful fence, and because it grows so quickly (as much as 1 ft. a day or more, depending on the species), it absorbs more CO2 than, say, a rosebush. Most homeowners have to restrict its growth, lest it get out of control. Do this, however, and you reduce bamboo's capacity as a carbon sink. Only large-scale plantings, which absorb CO2 faster than they release it, can favorably tip the scales. How big is your yard?

Aside the fact that Time's also saying to "ditch the mansion" (are you listening, Al?), and "move to a high-rise", which would not permit you to plant bamboo, let me tell you the first thing you need to know about bamboo: You can not just plant a bamboo fence
Down the street where I live there's a modest house on a corner where the original owners planted bamboo, thinking it'd make a nice hedge. That was in the 1950s.

This is what the yard looks like this morning:

This bamboo website says,

On the other hand, bamboo is the fastest growing plant on Earth. Some species have actually been measured to grow over 4 feet in 24 hours. A pole of bamboo can regenerate to its full mass in just six months! Bamboo can be continuously re-harvested every 3 years, without causing damage to the plant system and surrounding environment. During the time it takes to regenerate, the bamboo plant's root system stays intact so erosion is prevented. Continuous harvesting of this woody grass every 3-7 years, actually improves the overall health of the plant.

They are not kidding.

Bamboo is extremely invasive in this part of the country. By extremely invasive I mean that it not only takes over the entire land mass you allocate to it and the neighbors' yards, it breaks through concrete sidewalks and curbs.

If you try to fool yourself into believing the bamboo will be a carbon sink, I guarantee you that you'll produce more than enough carbon trying to contain the bamboo. Like the song says,

I'm tellin you
When you're blue
Why there's a lot to do
In the house of bamboo

Why there's a lot to do, because you'll be trying to contain the bamboo.

When you cut the bamboo down to the roots and dig all the stumps and roots out of the ground, it comes back. No matter how cold the winter, how flooded the spring and fall, how hot and dry the summer, bamboo will be there for you forever.

Bamboo is the kudzu of the North East.

The people who own that house have had not only to constantly cut back the bamboo because it obstructs the view of the intersection, they've had to repair the public sidewalk at their expense, and once had to redo the foundation of the house because of root damage.

Take my advice and DO NOT PLANT BAMBOO.

And while you're at it, forget about mint, too.

If you still want bamboo, buy one of these and keep it indoors:

Update: for the love of everything holy do not plant a bamboo fence. You will end up wanting to invent time travel solely so you could go back to your previous self and beat yourself with a bamboo club.

Technorati tags Global Warming, Time Magazine

The case of the cricket coach, and today's items

The cricket coach was strangled.
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Liberals Relent on Iraq War Funding because of course they support the troops...
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Jay sent a video of the Cuban Ladies In White (wmv file)

Friday fast for all political prisoners and the Ladies In White.
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Read Stefania Lapenna's article on The Human Cost of Iran's Islamist Rule
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Rob Bluey sent a video on Showdown Over U.S. Attorneys:

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Two from Maria:
Dr Sowell writes about Our greedy government
Al's warming lies and the real "inconvenient truth"

If you establish that the Earth is warming, it doesn't necessarily follow that we have a moral duty to reduce emissions. What should follow is an informed debate about the costs and benefits of various policies to address that warming - reducing emissions is just one possible answer. Another debate should focus on those policies' economic costs.

Al Gore doesn't want to have those debates, because the majority of evidence suggests that emissions reduction will be very costly and will have little effect. Kyoto, fully enacted by all its parties, would for all its cost reduce global warming by a mere 0.07 degrees Celsius by 2050 - a barely detectable amount.

-------------------------------------------
In a lighter mode,
The reason I coudln't wait to buy a house was because I had neighbors like Darren's.

Medieval environmentalism

Medieval envoronmentalism is the "let's get back to the way things were in Medieval times before these dreadful cars and machines" movement.

Pajamas Media has The Great Global Warming Swindle, where I found the above definition:

As a commenter in the PJM thread points out,

How many people realize the ridiculously small levels of carbon dioxide that are actually in the atmosphere? 390 parts per MILLION.

Richard North sheds some light on Light bulbs and Eco-Fascism,

In fact the virtues of these "low energy" bulbs are nothing like so wonderful as naïve (self-serving) enthusiasts like Ms Lucas imagine them to be. Indeed in many ways, the experts warn, by banning incandescent bulbs altogether the EU may have committed itself to an appallingly costly blunder.

Jules is Getting Warmer

First Channel Four's "Great Global Warming Swindle," now the New York Times, "hype" and "exaggeration." The flood waters rising around Gore, warmglob enthusiasts. Oh, the treachery!

Dan's examining Al Gore's Global Swarming, and asks,

Should we really tell Africa and other nations they must not develop, thereby costing them years off their lives and actual lives because they will not have adequate services? Should we saddle everyone with hidden and seen taxes to combat a thing we don't really know is there? Reading between the lines of the Times piece, the answer has to be no.

Scott casts a jaundiced eye on The Guardian of Hypocrisy, and ends in the perfect note:

Help me pay my outrageous gas bills. Thank you.

If you grew up in the 1960s and 70s you heard a lot about global cooling - best-selling books and all. Back then I was living in Puerto Rico, where cooling would have been a welcome respite from the hot humidity.

Now we have Global Warming. Now I'm living in NJ, where we had a really cold February, cold enough that Lake Carnegie totally froze over for the first time in years, and warming is most definitely welcome.

Last year I became convinced that belief in Medieval envoronmentalism and Global Warming is a religion. I was attending a conference and during lunch break the subject of global warming came up. I politely stated, "I'm not totally sold on global warming".

Mind you, I didn't say "I don't believe in global warming", or "antropologically-induced global warming is a scam", or "this is such hooey", or anything like it. I just said (in a near-whisper at that) that I wasn't totally sold on global warming.

The reaction around the table was that of intense shock and disgust. One man put down his sandwich and turned red.

Had I verbalized the most appallingly obscene blasphemy I would not have received such disgust. I even speculate that some of those present might have even admired my "courage" and "honesty" in the name of "diversity".

After much animated conversation, and intense placating from a very conciliatory lady sitting next to me who got everybody to calm down by agreeing not to kill me on the spot (I belive the sandwich guy was contemplating where to hide my corpse) and my saying that "climate changes", I knew I was, definitely and beyond a doubt, in the presence of True Faith: they had Seen the Light, and the Light was set on Warm.

But you gotta give Al credit - he's the only man in history to have won an Oscar for a souped-up powerpoint presentation.

Here's a part of Friends of Science's documentary, Climate Catastrophe Cancelled:
go watch the whole thing at YouTube, especially if you're recovering from the frostbite:Trek Mounted To Prove Global Warming Ends Early When Explorers Suffer Frostbite

Again, there is no "consensus" on global warming. However, no matter what the evidence is,

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming,"

Al and his True Believers will carry on. After all, the hardest thing for Al to do is to admit he's wrong - he used to be "America's next president", or something like that.

To paraphrase Bette Davis, Tighten your belts - it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Special thanks to Larwyn.