China, Venezuela and now Brazil soon to be drilling off the coast of Florida while America sits on its own natural resources

Petrobras studying block in deep Cuban waters

Brazilian state oil company Petrobras is studying a block in deep Cuban waters for possible exploration as part of broader cooperation with the Caribbean island, a top advisor to the company said on Friday.

"We are planning to cooperate not only in exploration and production, but lubricants, refining and training," Andre Ghirardi told Reuters in Havana at a one-day meeting of Brazilian and Cuban businessmen.

That way they can all drink our milkshake:

The US Geological Survey estimated the North Cuba basin could contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil, with a high-end potential of 9.3 billion barrels, and close to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Let's take a look at the NO Zone:


What are the US politicians doing?

The Senate will vote this week on a bill that will raise energy prices, create a huge federal bureaucracy when we have too many as it is, and will lower carbon emissions over the next 25 years by half of what we've accomplished over the last six through free-market initiatives

The House & the Senate can bring down the price of oil and raise the value of the dollar if they dared to approve drilling of ANWR and offshore drilling, increasing the coal industry, and approving nuclear power plants and new refineries.

Instead, they are looking for ways to further sink the economy with bills like Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008.

Shame on them.

UPDATE, Wednesday 4 June
Welcome, Protein Wisdom readers! Please visit often.



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Note to Obama: No Arabic spoken in Afghanistan, & today's roundup

Afghans don’t speak Arabic

In Afghanistan, it's any of a half dozen other languages — including Pashtu, Dari, and Farsi.

Maybe he hopes they all indulge in Obamaspeak.

The cult goes on:
Via Allahpundit, Obamatopia.

Obamatopia's the future of this:


Campaign spot and Doug Ross are on the same page.

And let's not forget Sweetie:

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Sadr City Residents Battle The Iranian-Backed Mahdi Army

Basra is now free of the Mahdi Army oppressors, so we can expect Mosul (and therefore Iraq) will soon be free of al-Qaeda. Once this is done it will be time to unfurl some well deserved congratulations for our armed forces, the armed forces of Iraq and the people of Iraq. Hopefully the Democrats will see fit to acknowledge the important milestone when Iraq has purged al-Qaeda from all its strongholds. There will always be dead-ender believers, but that is not excuse to recognize the sacrifices and accomplishments of the final defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Will you find this in the headlines?
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8 yr old girl used as a suicide bomber.
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Towards a More Peaceful World. Anyone who thinks that women are peaceful didn't go to an all-girls' school.
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What Is Justice for A Rape Victim?
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Polar bears are now in the endangered list: not a good thing, says Hugh Hewitt.

Bye-bye, ANWR.
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Via Betsy, Too "Complex"? Thomas Sowell explains why the price of oil is going up.
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Via Instapundit, Race and the 2008 Election
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Twelve year old Faryl Smith wows judges and crowd




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A really bad idea: McCain's Climate 'Market'

Here is John McCain's speech on climate change policy.



He is proposing a cap a trade system, similar to the one that hasn't worked in the EU because it reduces free market policies.

The WSJ explains McCain's Climate 'Market' (emphasis added)

In theory, this would be achieved by imposing emission ceilings on electric power, transportation fuels, commercial business and industries. If a company produced less carbon than it was allowed under the cap, it could sell -- i.e., trade – its extra allowances to other businesses. Under the McCain plan, permits would be given away to industries, at least initially. Mr. Obama prefers to "auction" the permits, meaning businesses would be taxed at the outset. So Mr. McCain's plan would help mitigate the transition costs of putting "the age of fossil fuels behind us."

The problem is that once government creates an artificial scarcity of carbon, how the credits are allocated creates a huge new venue for political rent-seeking and more subsidies for favored industries. Some businesses will benefit more than others, in proportion to their lobbying influence and how well they're able to game the Beltway. Congress itself will probably take the largest revenue grab, offering itself a few more bites out of the economy and soaking politically unpopular businesses.

Then there's the question of whether any of this will even reduce greenhouse gasses. The McCain plan would allow businesses unlimited use of domestic and international offsets to comply with the carbon cap. So a chemical manufacturer, say, would pay an industry not covered by the program – most notably, agriculture – to reduce its emissions. Or it could pay a coal plant in China for plucking low-hanging efficiency fruit, like installing smokestack scrubbers. In other words, U.S. consumers would be paying higher prices for energy in return for making Chinese industries more efficient and competitive. Europe is in the midst of that experience now under the Kyoto Protocol, and most of its reductions so far have been illusory.

The compliance bookkeeping for this new "market" is vastly complex, and a McCain Administration would create a public-private "Climate Change Credit Corporation" to oversee it all. This new regulatory body is likely to morph over time into an "Energy Fed," similar to the one Warner-Lieberman would create. Such an agency would set the price of energy indirectly by fiddling with carbon levies, which will undoubtedly lead to economy-wide distortions.

So here we have it folks - what McCain is proposing:

• Increases the cost of doing business by increasing taxes
• creates an artificial scarcity of carbon
• increases the opprotunities for corruption since it "creates a huge new venue for political rent-seeking and more subsidies for favored industries", as Congress "takes the largest revenue grab"
• Makes Americans pay for making China more competitive
• Creates yet another bureacracy

And if that wasn't enough, it sets the price of energy indirectly, which will lead to shortages.

Bad idea, bad policy.

UPDATE, Wednesday May 14
Quit Freaking Out, Senator McCain



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"Great tits not impacted by global warming"

Brutally Honest has the details.

Here's a pair of great tits:


You and your filthy mind...

UPDATE
Dutch tits not adapting well.



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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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Waxed Ford, in a metaphorical kind of way.

Via Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters, Harrison Ford thinks that having his chest hair waxed is a metaphor for the environment. Or something.

Really: he had his chest hair removed, and now he's Access Hollywood's green star of the week

In an effort to showcase the pain involved in deforestation, Harrison willingly subject himself to the painful process of stripping his chest of all its follicles.

Having worked with CI for 15 years, it was Harrison's hope that his trip to the salon might just shock people into thinking "green."

Like Noel, this is what I think about instead,


And now for a word of advice to the guys:
Chest waxing is a fad, and the reason it's being promoted is that we are obsessing in a culture of eternal youth and unmanly men.

If you have chest hair, ANY woman you are after who does not like men with chest hair is probably the wrong woman for you. Think about it, can you possibly live for any length of time with anyone who is not going to be interested in sex unless you go to the waxing salon every four weeks (or more often if necessary)? If that's the kind of demands she's going to make from the start, what else are you going to have to put up with? Do you really want someone who is that high maintenance?

And look at Harrison: Doesn't he look like he's wearing a hair bra?


Does anyone really believe this can possibly save the environment?

Victor Davis Hanson has more sensible ideas for A New Environmentalism.

And he probably didn't get his chest hair waxed.

(h/t Maria)


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Global warming 'dips this year'

One of the regular visitors to this blog has emailed me each time he's been stuck in Chicago airport because of severe snow. This gentleman has had to travel to Chicago on business several times since last November and has been stuck in Chicago five times so far. He knows this has been the worst winter in a long time.

Even the Beeb noticed: Global warming 'dips this year'

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year due to the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But hey, for as long as Al Gore can continue to sell his snake oil and his acolytes continue to feel good as they sit in the darkness and curse the lighting of even a single candle, we're going to be told to BELIEVE in global warming and that the end is near.



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Green madness roundup

It's not easy being green. Kermit himself said so.

Fuel or folly? Ethanol and the law of unintended consequences

But it turns out that the use of food for fuel is wrought with difficulties. Corn, or some derivative thereof, is a common ingredient in a variety of packaged food products. So it's only natural that, as it becomes a rarer commodity due to the conflicting demands of biofuel production, the prices of those products will go up. The prices of food products containing barley and wheat are also on the rise as farmers switch to growing subsidized corn crops. During a time of economic instability, the last thing Americans need is higher prices at the grocery store, but that's exactly what they're getting.

At the same time, corn is the main ingredient in livestock feed and its dearth is causing prices of those products to rise as well. Farmers have had to scramble to find alternative sources of feed for their livestock and, in some cases, have had to sell off animals they can no longer afford to feed. This, in turn, has led to an increase in the price of meat and dairy products for consumers.

We also have America's largest landowner going on Charlie Rose to make ridiculous statememts: Turner: Global Warming Will Cause Mass Cannibalism, Insurgents Are Patriots. As Michael Goldfarb says,

What an unbelievable crank. But the most disturbing bit is the talk of 'stabilizing' populations. That means you don't get to have babies because Mr. Turner, as the largest land owner in the United States, has decided we don't have enough resources for your family and his environmental conscience. Also, while the rest of us are cannibals, as the owner of 40,000 head of bison, the largest herd in the United States, I think Turner will be eating pretty well. And say, don't I recall reading something about how cattle produce more greenhouse emissions than cars? Surely bison are carbon neutral though...

Last Saturday was the 1-hr blackout for Global Warming night. Gerard Vanderleun and Samizdata agree on its futility:

Life, laughter, love, food, drink, warmth, travel, communication, progress, a world full of unprecedented wonders and it's all too much for them. Better to sit in the darkness and curse the lighting of even a single candle.

Gateway Pundit posts about the green enforcers.

Over in Australia, Melbourne International Comedy Festival is not getting an audience because of bad weather. I'm sure the fact that the Comedy Festival's preocupation with "global warming, species extinction and wars over oil" has nothing to do with keeping people away in droves.

Then there is the April Fool zebras. Will they lose their stripes?

Let's go to the list!

Sing, it, Kermie!


Special thanks to Larwyn for the links.



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FISA, global warming, and the new seal

Brian Faughnan, who I met at CPAC, posts,

So to sum it up: the Democratic leadership threw its weight around to block a bipartisan majority from getting a vote on a bill they supported to allow surveillance of foreign terrorists.

Who says Democrats aren't credible on national security?

Who, indeed!
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The Gore effect?
Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming.
...
All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Gateway Pundit has been noticing.
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Siggy's got a Proposed New Government Seal

Michelle as Hillary redux, and other posts from the FIHMYs

It's time for a Friends I Haven't Met Yet roundup:

The Anchoress says Michelle Obama is just Hillary redux, and The Anchoress is right.

Siggy tackles Confusion And The Crumbling Nation and hits the ball out of the ballpark while I mix my metaphors.

Laurie Kendrick comes across The Stamp of Disapproval.

Jeremayakovka quotes U. S. Grant.

Spanish Pundit has a bilingual post on why Kosovo's independence is not a good thing.

John Chappell ponders the news in Barcelona.

Nothing Is As Lovely As Global Warming On A Tuesday In February

Speaking of global warming, Gateway Pundit's got cold news. Tim Blair wants us to listen to the AAAS.

ShrinkWrapped opens the archive on The Arab Mind.

Mamacita goes shopping.



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Global warming may save lives, my first Yorkshire pudding, and other Sunday items

Via Barcepundit, the Brits are saying that Global warming 'may cut deaths':

While summers in the UK became warmer in the period 1971 - 2003, there was no change in heat-related deaths, but annual cold-related mortality fell by 3% as winters became milder - so overall fewer people died as a result of extreme temperatures.

And why is this?

Rather than physiological changes explaining our ability to adapt to rising temperatures, the report puts this down primarily to lifestyle alterations - our readiness to wear more informal clothes, for instance, and the shift away from manual labour.

Yes, folks, people are... adapting!

Wonders never cease. People are adapting out on their own, without the government having to tell them to.

Here in the USA when old people retire they move to hellishly hot areas like Phoenix, Dallas and Miami while the EUropeans are worrying that heatwaves (where the temperatures remain in the 90s - what constitutes a balmy day in the Phoenix summer) will kill 15,000 elderly and disabled.

In state-run medical care, that sort of thing happens when all the doctors leave on vacation, the hospitals have no air conditioning, and the relatives abandon the elderly.

Even then, We should be shouting this from the rooftops: far fewer people are dying because of the temperature than in the past. Milder winters are far more important than hotter summers in achieving this.

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The first time I went to England it was unseasonably warm. That was in 1979 when global warming was not yet fashionable (and back then there was even talk about the upcoming ice age), but I coped.

I had planned on going with a friend from work, but she chickened out at the last moment because Lord Mountbatten was killed by a terrorist bomb a couple of days before our departure. I had already spent my hard-earned money on the plane ticket and reservations, so I went by myself.

I had a great time.

No, I didn't stay in London to watch the funeral procession. The streets were impossibly crowded and the wait was very long, so instead I went on a day trip out of London. That was the first time I had Yorkshire pudding.

I love Yorkshire pud. It's not American-like pudding. It's good, though.

A few years later on another trip to the UK (which included parts of Scotland and Wales) I had one of the best meals of my life in York: roast leg of mutton, Yorkshire pud, and white aspragus. Oh, that was good.

I still remember it.

Yesterday the WSJ had Gordon Ramsey's recipe:
For the Yorkshire pudding:
4 large eggs
1½ cups whole milk
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons vegetable oil (or beef drippings)

In a blender, combine the eggs, milk, flour, and salt. Blend until well combined and place in the refrigerator until ready to use (allow to rest for at least 30 minutes).

Put 1 teaspoon of the oil (or beef drippings) into each section of a 12-hole Yorkshire pudding tray or muffin tray and put into the oven on the top shelf until very hot, almost smoking. As soon as you take the tray from the oven, pour in the batter to three-quarters fill the tins (it should sizzle) and immediately put back into the oven. Bake until the Yorkshire puddings are well risen, golden brown and crisp, 15 to 20 minutes. Don't open the oven door until the end or they might collapse.

While I don't like Ramsey's outbursts in his TV shows, this sounds Good. The rest of the WSJ article includes his recipe for Roast Beef With Yorkshire Pudding & Red Wine Gravy, and Sautéed Cabbage With Caramelized Onions.

That should keep global cooling at bay.
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This week's WSJ's 5 Best satires on academic life, picked by Roger Rosenblatt:




I must admit that I'm not too fond of the genre and found the characters in Lucky Jim tiresome. After all, how much can you say about academic travail in English departments? But I might give Nabokov a try.

If you like the academic satire genre, you'll probably have a good laugh reading the very prolific Alexander McCall Smith's trilogy about Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology:

Smith catches perfectly the mentality of those who resort to high-culture mental masturbation as a means to fame in some circles.
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Today's shoes: Wellington boots.
For some reason the local stores are carrying them in different prints and colors. I own a pair of classic wellies because I needed them a while ago, but I don't really understand the fad. Here they are, in case you do:

I did see a couple of farmers in the UK wearing the classic wellies.
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Pat has the Presidents' Day Weekend Carnival of the Insanities.



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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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Did Obama get the most Nevada delegates? and other Sunday items

At The Nation

Barack Obama may have won the most delegates in Saturday's Nevada Caucus, even though Hillary Clinton bested his statewide turnout by about six points.

We were discussing just that possibility in last night's podcast.

Bring out Algore and let's count those hanging chads!
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TigerHawk explains how The "public editor" of the New York Times really is nothing but a flack for the lefties

Until I read his post I had no idea who Linda Greenhouse is.
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Princeton blogal marwing alert:
23^oF and sunny.
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Pat has The Carnival of the Insanities.
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Guess who's building the southern border fence?

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This week's WSJ's Five Best books, on fanaticism, chosen by history scholar Alan Charles Kors:




Of the above books, I read Son of the Revolution years ago and highly recommend it. It's compelling, well written, and ultimately heart-breaking.
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Today's shoes: Hiking boots!

Waterproof uppers, Timberland-sturdy, and a good price.



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Waiting for Snow in Ramallah*

Via Bretibart TV:
A First! Snow Falls in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AP) - After weathering nearly five years of war, Baghdad residents thought they'd pretty much seen it all. But Friday morning, as muezzins were calling the faithful to prayer, the people here awoke to something certifiably new. For the first time in memory, snow fell across Baghdad.
...
For a couple of hours anyway, a city where mortar shells routinely zoom across to the Green Zone became united as one big White Zone. As of late afternoon, there were no reports of violence. The snow showed no favoritism as it fell faintly on neighborhoods Shiite and Sunni alike, and (with apologies to James Joyce) upon all the living and the dead.

The snow came as the Iraqi parliament passed the De-Baathification Reform law which will allow Sunnis to once again enter government jobs. This is a huge step towards reconciliation.

Via Gateway Pundit, Snow delights residents of Baghdad

"A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace."

Murtadha Fadhil, who works for the traffic police, huddled under a balcony to keep dry, and declared the snow "a new sign of the new Iraq".

He said the phenomenon was a sign of hope and purity. "We hope Iraqis will purify their hearts and politicians will work for the prosperity of all Iraqis," he said.

It's a snow surge!

* With apologies to Carlos.
------------------------------------------------------------
In other cold news,
Dozens killed in Iran blizzards.

Raw: During Cold Weather Swimsuit Celebration Muscovite's Butt Sticks to Ice. Clearly he'd never watched A Christmas Story.



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Iowa, Laurie's 100k, and more FIHMYs

Huckabee, Obama have huge night in Iowa. Don Surber has the photos.

Betsy says, Poor Hillary: they're just not into you.

Friend I Haven't Met Yet (FIHMY) Jeremayakovka's having huckmares, while Beth (another FIHMY) calls Iowa an archaic, stupid, expensive, absurd process that gives undue weight to voters that do not represent America as a whole.

Update
Iowa caucus critique
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FIHMY Laurie Kendrick is celebrating her first 100,000 views. Go say hi and help her get to 200,000.
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Maria - a very dear friend who's put up with me for decades - tells me that A cold spell soon to replace global warming. Right now it's 14F outside, so I want to know where's my global warming, or has it been replaced already?
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Another friend I haven't met yet, GM Roper, posts on healthcare: Just Give Me A Corner To Die In. The Anchoress (also a FIHMY) realizes that If you're not perfect you might as well just die, while Doug Ross (also a FIHMY) finds a sickening punchline.
------------------------------------------------------------
After Wednesday's troubles with my podcast, which had to be cancelled, I'll be doing a 15-minute podcast today at 11AM. FIHMY Siggy will be calling in, and you can join us by calling (646) 652-2639, and I'll also have live chat. It would be a big help if you could join us.

Hopefully this one will go better than Wednesday's!



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Saving Santa's home, Basil Faulty, and not crossing the Delaware

Change your lifestyle because Santa's watching. And enjoy your lump of coal while you're at it, too!


UPDATE: Give Up Energy or the Fat Man Gets It
The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. (h/t Small Dead Animals)
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Maria tells me that Washington couldn't cross the Delaware this year, again.

The real George Washington crossed the Delaware, a perilous endeavor at this time of year, and made history by winning the Battle of Trenton 231 years ago today.
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Political Correctness- The Fawlty Logic of the Left and Basil Faulty,

Basil Faulty, you ask?
Well, go read about it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Via Instapundit, Illegal immigrants "self deport" as woes mount

The toughening environment has been coupled with a turndown in the U.S. economy, which has tipped the balance toward self deportation for many illegal immigrants left struggling to find work.
...
Mexican consular sources in Phoenix say they are seeing a spike in the number of immigrants applying for Mexican citizenship for their U.S.-born children, which will allow them to enroll in schools in Mexico.

They are also seeing a rise in requests for papers enabling families to carry household belongings back to Mexico, free of import duties.

Members of the Brazilian community in the U.S. northeast, meanwhile, say they are starting to see an increase in the number of illegal immigrants heading back to their homes in Brazil in recent months.

"They are beginning to put in the balance the constant fear of being detained and deported, and many are deciding to leave," said Fausto Mendes da Rocha, executive director of the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Boston.

Enforcing the current laws is having an effect.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
More blog fun,
A beautiful post from Laurie Kendrick, I Know How This Day Ends

Doug Ross has the Motivational posters for Christmas

SheBlogs Carnival's up!

More blogging later.



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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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Still freezing in New Jersey, this week's 5 best, gifts and shoes

For the record, it's still cold in NJ and other places.

For Unto You A No Child Is Born

Right now, brutal winter weather is sweeping across the United States, arctic sea ice is refreezing at rates never before seen, people froze to death in Argentina this summer - their winter and Australia suffered record cold. Yet the Bali conference went on anyway, throwing megatons of carbon into the atmosphere so protesters could parade about in polar bear suits in the tropical weather. The delegates, the media and the activists lived it up in a luxury resort and worked out a way to gut the western economies. With the assistance of the western economies.

How long, do you suppose, until some true believer suggests retroactive birth control? I expect it will happen soon enough.

Mark Steyn: Children? Not if you love the planet

In the seven years between the signing of Kyoto in 1997 and 2004, here's what happened:

•Emissions worldwide increased 18.0 percent;

•Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1 percent;

•Emissions from nonsigners increased 10.0 percent; and

•Emissions from the United States increased 6.6 percent.

Thank You for Not Existing.

It's all about population control, indeed.

(h/t Larwyn)
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This week's WSJ 5 best, picked by A. E. Hotchner:


While this is my least favorite genre, these are five excellent books.

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm a big fan of Noel Coward, so I'm hoping Santa leaves this book under my tree:


This week's shoes, for him: Acorn Men's Ultramoc Slipper


More gift suggestions here.



----------------------------------------------------------------
It's Sunday, and Pat has the Carnival

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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The Pope speaks out on global warming

Last year Pope Benedict caused a big flap by stating NOT TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH REASON IS CONTRARY TO GOD'S NATUREa concept that is thousands of years old, and which the doctors of the Church, most prominently Saint Augustine and Saint Theresa of Avila, have highlighted in their writings.

This week the Pope speaks out on reason, again:

Pope Benedict XVI

has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering.

The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.Particularly,

The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed to care for the environment but not to the point where the welfare of animals and plants was given a greater priority than that of mankind.

Meanwhile, the big pooh-bahs at Bali are saying it's 'Crunch time' for climate change. How's 100,000 tons of CO2 for Global Warming adding to the crunch, one asks?

No wonder Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing’ At UN

"Climate change is a non problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants.

"The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,)" Monckton added.

Amen to that.


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