Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who supported government run healthcare and voted for the House bill, died Monday from complications after government healthcare.
Rep. Bob Brady says Murtha's large intestine was damaged during gallbladder surgery at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and the complications led him to be hospitalized.
Perhaps Tennessee Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen was not aware of this fact when, on the Cavuto Show, Cohen suggested Murtha's botched surgery was a reason we need healthcare reform. One can only assume Cohen didn't know the scalpel in Murtha's surgery was wielded by a government employee.
Friday, January 22, 2010
It's interesting to see which countries have given more and which have given very little to Haiti relief. Some very rich countries are not helping very much.
One of the first aid planes to arrive in Haiti was Israeli. The Canadian government has pledged a lot: $130 million. China, Japan and some Arab states have been picked at for not giving much, although China lost 8 peacekeepers in the quake and 10 are missing.
For the latest on who is giving what, you can go here.
The left-wing London Guardian, a paper that few would call a big fan of the United States, seems to want to make it look as if America, on a per capita basis, is not giving much.
But, Claudia Rosett in Forbes explains that when you combine the total U.S effort, including all the private donations to NGOs, our very expensive military operations in Haiti and our existing major role in funding UN relief structures, U-S giving dwarfs the rest of the world.
Conspicuously absent from the list of givers? Saudi Arabia. The oil-rich Islamic kingdom has apparently only sent a letter of condolence to the Haitians.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Surprise! The Himalayan glaciers won’t be gone by 2035 after all. That environmental “crisis” was cooked up from the “speculation” of a professor to an eager reporter in 1999, and then enshrined as a scientific fact. Turns out it wasn’t based directly on hard data at all, but on an article in a magazine.
Anyone terribly shocked?
India is hopping mad, understandably. The Indian environment minister said "The IPCC (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has to do a lot of answering (for creating) such a scare."
Meanwhile, the chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri,is in serious hot water himself with the media, some of whom 
seem to have finally awakened from their pc-induced stupors. It seems Dr Pachauri has a major conflict of interest in the form of a network of business interests that attract many million of dollars in funding thanks to IPCC policies. That might be a good reason for Dr. Pachuri to be campaigning for a climate doomsday, yuh think?
Climate scientist Peter Taylor told the London Express: “I am not surprised by this news. A vast bureaucracy and industry has been built up around this theory. There is too much money in it for the IPCC to let it wither.”
On another front, a BBC weather forecaster has suggested that the U.K. Met Office, Britain’s National Weather Service, uses a super-computer with a 'warm bias' which has stopped it from predicting the bitter cold that recently blasted through Blighty. Now the BBC might drop the Met Office after a 90 year relationship, thanks to some embarrassingly warm, and wrong, forecasting of late.
And we now know that a Penn State scientist in the middle of the ClimateGate scandal, Professor Michael Mann, creator of the discredited "Hockey Stick Graph," received economic stimulus funds last June. The National Center for Public Policy Research says Mann received $541,184 in economic stimulus funds last June to conduct climate change research. Reporters are on it.
Could the vaunted climate change “consensus” be starting to melt?
I’d say yes, but that would be mere “speculation.”
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Boy, aren’t you glad the Copenhagen Climate Summit flopped? Just think how much colder it would be if that gathering of brilliant minds had actually saved the planet from global warming. Kidding. But are you thinking what I’m thinking? If we really care about our freezing (and dying) fellow man, we all need to do our part to warm up the planet. We should be outside producing as much greenhouse gas as possible in our whopping SUV’s. And take those flatulence trapping bags off the butts of bovines, brother, and let ‘em fly. Burn more coal. The Earth could use some heat. Check out these headlines:
Winter of 2009-2010 Could Be Worst in 25 Years
We're at 30 (degrees) Below Normal (Iowa)
Seoul Buried in Heaviest Snowfall in 70 years
Gas Supplies Running Out As Britain Shivers
Winter-Related Death Toll Rises to 22 As Britain Braces for Coldest Night Yet
Miami Shivers from Coldest Weather in Decade
All-time Record Snowfall in Burlington (Vermont)
Why is it so cold? January is a good reason. But the other possible answers quickly become mired in politics and political correctness which currently hold science and even the thermometer hostage.
It could be that it’s colder because the Earth has entered a cooling cycle,
as some have predicted and
I have reported. But if you believe that, in light of the
hard data at hand --record breaking snowfall and temperatures--the climate establishment says that you’re ignorant. These are the experts who rely on sophisticated (and faulty) climate models. They and their minions in Big Media and education want you to know that your bum is freezing
because of climate change. They instruct that if we could only stop the earth from warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions, we’d be
warmer now, and lives would be saved. In an astonishing article about Peru’s mountain people who face extinction because of freezing temperatures,
The London Guardian writes,
“In a world growing ever hotter, Huancavelica is an anomaly. These communities, living at the edge of what is possible, face extinction because of increasingly cold conditions in their own microclimate, which may have been altered by the rapid melting of the glaciers.”
By the way, Guardian, the Earth stopped warming 12 years ago. But, as we have learned with the climate change crowd, one should never let facts get in the way of a good crusade against capitalism, or in the way of a new religion. The mental gymnastics and denial used to defend the climate change doomsday theory are both breathtaking and depressing. Cue the Tooth Fairy.
Oh, and here’s a blast from the past: remember
Climategate? You know, hacked emails showing climate scientists were fudging temperature data to make it look like the earth is warming? It’s been called one of the worst scandals in the modern scientific era. But it undercuts climate change dogma, so Big Media took a nap and forgot about it.
But the temperature continues it's mean, selfish, uncaring, politically incorrect direction: down.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Climategate, the release of emails showing that the climate change threat has been fabricated by scientists, presents the Left with a grave spiritual crisis. Yes, for the bloviating UN climate bureaucrats and some unscrupulous scientists, the climate hoax was perhaps nothing more than a
jobs program. But the Save the Planet crusade was, for the hard core, a de facto religion that required faith, sacrifice and personal standards of "holiness"—saving energy, recycling, driving hybrids, etc. (Please, no emails about being a good steward of the Earth. I recycle too, voluntarily. We’re not talking about that.) This was a program that wanted to mandate the correct way a human should live and what they should be allowed to consume.
So, with the reputation of some key climate scientists--the environmental movement’s religious scholars--
now in tatters, the reaction by the Left to Climategate--
alternately defensive and dismissive-- is to be expected. And that the Copenhagen Climate Summit is still happening next week is no surprise. Having long ago rejected the traditional Judeo-Christian worldview and capitalism, the radical environment movement--including it's elite in suits and ties--is a group that spiritually and ideologically must feel that it has nowhere else to go. Will the faithful suddenly make peace with capitalism and limited government and enjoy living guilt-free in a wealthy civilization? Can they just roll up their banners, go home and say it's ok to drive the SUVs they once denounced as symbols of selfishness and evil? Will they finally allow themselves and others to enjoy cheap energy from the abundant supplies of coal in this country? How about reviving the simple luxury of incandescent light bulbs? Or seeing that the Earth was created for man, and that mankind is not a sinister outside force destroying it?
Some will, maybe. The fellow travelers who bought into climate change because of the global media campaigns are now leaving the faith in droves. But 20 years after the fall of communism, the communists still march in Moscow and Paris. Faith persists when the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The apocalyptic climate change scare has always been a incestuous scheme by which some unprincipled scientists were able to wrest major research funding from governments and institutions, and thus stay employed and published. They have been aided and abetted by left-wing politicians and journalists who knew that supporting the climate change doomsday theory was a way to look caring and politically correct while advancing the only potent anti-capitalist agenda left after the fall of Communism. Scientists who push findings supporting a man-made climate change doomsday get their grants and stay gainfully employed, while giving their benefactors, left-wing lawmakers and big media, the alleged "scientific" basis for stories and laws that bash capitalism. And just as during the Cold War, we have misinformed fellow travelers, including some conservatives, who repeat the climate change mantra on cue for the microphones.
Well, lookie here. It seems
some hackers broke into the electronic files of one of the world's foremost climate research centers this week and
posted embarrassing, informative emails from prominent climate scientists. To climate change skeptics,
the e-mails show that scientists manipulated data in order to make the case that human activities were causing global warming. Here are all the alleged emails,
in searchable form. Enjoy!
Ah, but we're supposed to ignore this scientific bimbo eruption and remain calm because, as The Washington Post reassures us, long ago "the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence (for man-made, catastrophic climate change) was unequivocal." Look, when the IPCC says that we're all gonna die from too much CO2 in the upper atmosphere, it's like the Beef Board telling us to eat more steak, with sincere apologies to the good people at the Beef Board for the comparison. Steak is wonderful. The IPCC on the other hand is the horrible United Nations repository for politicized temperature science where unscrupulous bureaucratic creatures make fat paychecks by scaring governments into gutting their own economies, lowering standards of living or putting bags over the butts of cows for a non-existent problem.
And be sure you understand that that word "unequivocal" above was carefully chosen so that you won't question the wisdom of the high priests. For only the clergy in this false religion understand the gravity of what we face. Your common sense is only an obstacle to faith. And it will never matter how cold it gets or how wrong the experts have been about our imminent destruction from monster hurricanes or rising sea levels.
Nor will it matter that we now have these instructive emails demonstrating the corruption of climate science. They won't matter because there must be a climate change threat. Because if we're not facing doomsday, a lot of bureaucrats and their minions in labcoats will be out of work.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary reports that “Republicans won a pair of special elections on Tuesday in Tennessee and Oklahoma, picking up seats held by Democrats for decades. Combined with this month's capture of the Albuquerque mayor's office by a Republican for the first time in 28 years, Democrats have reason to be nervous about the approaching November 3 off-year elections. Given their lackluster performance in these races, they could face serious turnout problems that will boost GOP performance."
One of the Democratic losers quoted in the piece blamed his defeat on the fact that "a lot of people based their opinions on national issues . . . the health care issue was the main one."
CBN News Political Editor John Waage tells me “The thing that's striking is that Republicans are winning seats that Democrats have held for decades. They're also winning with 56 percent of the vote. Too soon to say if it's a trend, but if it continues into November, next year is likely to be a "wave" election
Pundit George Will asked today, “Could a Wave Be Building?" Uh, do you think? Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, seeking a sixth term, has an approval rating of just 43 percent. Nevada's Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, is below 40. Some think Republican Mike Castle will win Joe Biden’s Delaware senate seat. In Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln trails all four of her Republican challengers. And Donald Lambro at the Washington Times thinks "even Mr. Obama's old Senate seat is at risk in heavily Democratic Illinois."
The congressional approval ratings for both parties are in the cellar. But on the question of which party Americans want to run congress, the Democratic lead has been trimmed from 9 percentage points to 3.
Waage says, “If the GOP candidates win in New Jersey and Virginia this November, and especially if Republicans make big gains in the New Jersey State Assembly, it's probably an indicator that voters are expressing their anger against the Dems' excesses.“
And the political ground could really shake next year.
Of course, if the Republican Party had somehow stayed true to the principles of limited government during the big spending Bush years, instead of turning into Fabian Socialists, next fall would be even more interesting. As it is, a lot of Americans now curse both parties.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Remember Al Gore’s predictions of monster hurricanes created by global warming?
You know, that other Nobel Peace Prize Winner?
The silence you hear is the 2009 hurricane season. It was a bust; the least eventful hurricane season in more than 10 years, which in my mind is progress, since I live a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
But for the climate change cult, this is depressing news. A discouraged BBC was forced to ask plaintively, “What Happened to Global Warming?”
Maybe the Left should consider putting the weather on trial; prosecute it for seriously impeding the climate change crusade. After all, human climate change skeptics have already been compared to holocaust deniers and sexual predators. And no person or group is doing more to undermine the cause of climate change and world salvation from carbon than the weather.It’s cold!
Look at the Sun
The sun continues to be extraordinarily quiet. This is a snapshot from today, October 14.
Spaceweather.com says, “Today, the sun is entering its 13th consecutive day without sunspots. Just a few years ago, such a stretch of blank suns would have been unthinkable. Now it's routine. So far this year, the sun has been spotless 79% of the time, topping the 73% mark recorded in 2008. Long after many forecasters thought solar minimum would be finished, the quiet is not only continuing, but actually deepening. Are sunspots gone for good?”
Here is my piece on the lack of sunspot activity and the threat of global cooling. In it, climate expert Dr. Pat Michaels told me, “Most scientists and economists would agree that a moderate warming would probably be beneficial, and a cooling of a couple degrees would probably be very, very bad. Remember that cooling it just a few degrees brings on an ice age, and that's quite a bit different than what would happen if you warmed it a few degrees. “
Don’t think it can’t get much, much colder? The year 1816, toward the end of what is known as Little Ice Age in North America, was called “18-Hunded and Froze to Death,” and “The Year Without a Summer.” In July and August, lake and river ice was observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Crops failed and commodity prices skyrocketed.
So don’t give away those old woolies just yet.
Friday, October 09, 2009
When I saw that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, my reaction was similar to that of two White House aides. When they heard the news,
the aides asked a reporter if it was an April Fools Day gag.
In order to win, Obama had to be nominated for the award before February 1, after just 11 days in office. And he was bestowed the award after a tough week in which
the media questioned, criticized and even mocked him for not accomplishing anything, so far.
A London Times columnist
calls it an “absurd decision.” Even a lowly day laborer on the streets of Baghdad told Reuters that Obama “doesn't deserve this prize. All these problems -- Iraq, Afghanistan -- have not been solved ... man of 'change' hasn't changed anything yet."
Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin, no flaming conservative, told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough this morning that “not since Marisa Tomei won her best supporting actress award (for "My Counsin Vinny," has someone been less deserving of an award)”. Halperin added, between laughing, that “the best thing you can say about this is, it’s premature.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." This is code for Obama’s efforts to make America more like Europe. European elites don’t like traditional American values and habits like American exceptionalism, driving SUV’s, praying, protecting the unborn, or using our military to actually fight. And European elites are keen on promoting politicians who seem really smart and talk great and don’t actually accomplish a lot, except for making people more dependent on big government. Sounds familiar.
The president would have been better served by refusing this medal, which is going to feel heavier and heavier as the criticism of his administration grows.
Friday, September 11, 2009
I was sent to New York on 9/11 and left from Virginia Beach with a camera crew at mid-day. All flights were grounded, so we drove. We stopped first in a largely deserted Washington. I remember it feeling like I was in a real life Hollywood "end of the world" movie.
We arrived in Newark around midnight and could see from across the river the dust cloud hovering over lower Manhattan, illuminated by the work lights from ground zero. I have said many times that it seemed to me to be a reminder of the presence of God.
The bridges and tunnels into Manhattan were closed, so we continued north some 20 miles, crossing over at Tarrytown and headed back down into Yonkers. We talked our way through some police road blocks and into the Bronx, and then drove down into the deserted streets of New York City in the early hours of September 12.
All of Manhattan smelled of an electrical fire, and that ubiquitous gray dust from the remains of the World Trade Center was blowing through the air and down the streets.
We went to ground zero and interviewed police officers and watched dump truck after dump truck carry debris away from the crater.
The next morning after a live shot we walked to Washington Square and saw all the desperate notices with photos pinned to a wall at the memorial. "Have you seen?" spouses, fathers, mothers, friends, brothers, sisters; all who had worked in the World Trade Center.
I think about that feeling that I was somehow in an "end of the world" movie. It certainly was the end of one world, and the beginning of another. It was the end of a world in which we felt invulnerable to the forces that have for so long wanted to kill us. It was the beginning of a new world in which those of us who experienced 9/11 would never again take national security for granted.