The Stout Republican

I was not going to write anything on this topic because of the risk of sounding like sour grapes or a democrat crying in my self loathing snob-beer. Not to take anything away from the selfless ego stroking that Vice President Gore has shown when championing the cause of global warming but the Nobel Peace Prize?

Why? It certainly isn’t about the “science”.

Follow the money…BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars to be made.

Follow the self loathing logic…many chances to put the USA and BUSHITLER in their guilt ridden places.

Follow the hunting of a president…the forces of irrationality will do anything for the power.

Follow the facism and cries of heracy…why is it that this publically funded “scientific” effort does not submit to true peer review of it’s findings? Why can these “scientists” get away with doing so?

Troothers get more respect than people that question the validity of global warming theory…I’ll write that again.

Troothers get more respect than people that question the validity of global warming theory.

Gore 1 and who cares about anybody else’s score,

GoingThere

ps…I guess this makes up for the discovering the Internet gaff huh Al? OH AL!
gt

Al Gore, Careless, Conspiracy, Environment, Moonbats

Brilliant piece, just brilliant.

In this, a short examination, I will address three parts of this story by Andrew Revkin of the NY Times. The title, the money quote, and the closing line.

Title:

Scientists Report Severe Retreat of Arctic Ice

Money Quote:

“You can’t dismiss this as natural variability,” he said. “We’re starting to see the system respond to global warming.”

Closing Line:

Sea ice around Antarctica has seen unusual winter expansions recently, and this week is near a record high.

Thank you and hat’s off Wizbang for making my night. Tonight I sleep with a smile on my face, chuckling at the absurdity of the NY Times.

Environment

Speaking Trooth For $…The word was spoken and it was…

“The accounts dispel any lingering doubts that the Earth is heating up more dramatically than ever before…”

“Diaries of day-to-day weather details from the age before 19th-century standardized thermometers are proving of great value to scientists who study today’s climate. Historical accounts were once largely ignored, as they were thought to be fraught with inaccuracy or were simply inaccessible or illegible. But the booming interest in climate change has transformed the study of ancient weather records from what was once a “wallflower science,” says Christian Pfister, a climate historian at the University of Bern.”

INACCURACY? ILLEGIBLE? and ?INACCESSIBLE? (not sure how something being at one time inaccessible and now is not works but it gives me a warm and fuzzy science feeling) OH MY. Repeat after me, INACCURACY, ILLEGIBLE and INACCESSIBLE OH MY!

BTW “wallflower science” translates in academia as funded by the local cat lady. NO LONGER THOUGH the global warming gravey train has arrived!

Damn we are in trouble if this is what passes for science and the dispelling of lingering doubts. Worthy research yes, dispellation of doubts lingering or otherwise NO!

Dispelling test sick, (my bad an international audience might be about)…

Dispelled Hell,

GoingThere

Environment

All scientists unanimously agree that while they can’t pin down the facts of what is going on with the environment, whatever it is seems to be caused by global warming.

Since the late 1960s, much of the North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty, in part due to increases in fresh water runoff induced by global warming, scientists say.

—Michael Schirber, LiveScience, 29 June 2005

The surface waters of the North Atlantic are getting saltier, suggests a new study of records spanning over 50 years. They found that during this time, the layer of water that makes up the top 400 metres has gradually become saltier. The seawater is probably becoming saltier due to global warming, Boyer says.

—Catherine Brahic, New Scientist, 23 August 2007

Environment

It’s been a while since I’ve bestowed my “Douche of the Week” honor upon anyone…it’s time I do so, with Zazz.

My roommate is a huge fan of the artist Derek Hess (myspace page here, clothing line here). He’s bought several of his prints online, and they adorn our living room…framed.

His art is incredible…very stylized gesture drawing.

On one of his recent blogs, he posting this in a fit of artistic wisdom.

north pole oil

have you all been following this? it’s incredible, as you know the north pole ice is melting and the polar bears will be extinct within’ our lifetime. the ice is melting as a direct result of global warming. global warming is a direct result of the burning of fossil fuel. underneath the sea floor of the north pole is a vast reserve of oil. 5 countries are claiming it because as the ice melts, the oil will be accessible. so…..do to the destruction of are planet from the burning of oil, there’s now a rush to drill up more to burn. am i the only one that sees the madness in this?

here’s a recent article, although there’s more up to date stuff happening every day

Observer Link

I always love articles that the set up is “as you know…” especially when it frames the argument around something that is factually wrong.

To continue with the story. My roommate, who is as I said a huge fan (and I should mention non-political), saw this blog post…and as any intelligent thinking man would do, questioned the polar bear premise. We watch a lot of discovery channel over here. So he found an article by the National Center For Policy Analysis, and responded to Derek Hess by posting this article in his comment section, I’ll just quote the good parts.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) while arguing that polar bears are at risk from global warming presented data which actually undermine their fear.

According to the WWF there are approximately 22,000 polar bears in about 20 distinct populations worldwide. Only two bear populations – accounting for about 16.4 percent of the total number of bears – are decreasing, and they are in areas where air temperatures have actually fallen, such as the Baffin Bay region. By contrast, another two populations – about 13.6 percent of the total number – are growing, and they live in areas were air temperatures have risen, near the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea. As for the rest, ten populations – comprising about 45.4 percent of the total number of bears – are stable, and the status of the remaining six populations is unknown.

For now the government will be taking public comments on the proposal – let’s hope some science: facts, accuracy and truthfulness make an appearance before this goes too far. The polar bear is not threatened or endangered and should not be listed as such as a backdoor way to restrict energy use in the United States.

So this was posted in response to Derek Hess’ assertion that “as you know” polar bears are dying. Hess’ MySpace account requires that he approve a blog response before it is listed (unlike this site). His response? The comment was not only not approved, but my roommate was kicked off of Hess’ friend list, which is the myspace equivalent of being banned from a blog. This is of course for posting a dissenting view point. I’m assuming that as an artist he would be open to other peoples ideas and or beliefs, but as with many artists, the flow of information is one way, unchecked by fact or dissent…usually rolling around in a mudhole of self congratulation and ego.

Now, the meat of the problem isn’t that Derek Hess is wrong. For all I know, he might be able to provide the real empirical evidence to support his claim, which might have been an appropriate response ([sarcasm] at which point I would delete that evidence, and ban him from my website [/sarcasm]). My contention is only that he is an asshole. When faced with an opposing view, he not only disregards it, but takes effort to cut that person off from what might have been a debate, but was in fact only a dissortation. I’m sure his cocktail parties are just a plethora of assorted ideas, interesting chats, lively debate, and not one minded lock steppers. Now I support anyone’s decision to be a douchebag, and as douchebaggy as ignoring views that don’t conform to ones religious blind faith in the declining environment is…I also support my ability, with my government given freedom of speech rights, to say that Derek Hess, while talented as an artist, is not very talented at being a nice guy. I might go so far as to say that he might be the human version of a penis…while able to create beautiful things when applied properly, most of the time it just runs around indiscriminately Fucking people who might just want to be friends.

Art, Douche of the Week, Environment

According the the UK’s Independent:

Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world’s rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

Hear that VEGANS! Hippies are going to kill us! By refusing to eat meat, you’ve upset the delicate balance that is the food chain, and now the cows are going to kill us with their Acid Rain. I need to pick up the slack. I need to restore balance to the world ,and ensure the growth and success of the struggling human race. For lunch…Double Cheeseburger. For dinner…Prime Rib, lots of it, with gravy made of rendered cow fat.

I knew that hippies would do this world harm. Cosmic justice sucks.

Environment

The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

- HL Mencken

Makes one wonder where these people fall on the spectrum of admiration…

Cigarettes do cause global warming…and terrorists do not want to kill you. There’s no reason to be scared of Islamic Extremists…that’s “fear mongering”, because our real concerns (other than ManBearPig) should be directed towards GLOBAL WARMING (*music crescendo*).

This message is endorsed and has been brought to you complete with bias by The Stout Republican.

Al Gore, Environment, President Bush

I didn’t think she was hearing it right…but as I was banging away at my keyboard last night, the wife was watching the “fearmongering” (I call it entertaining, but hey, why not adopt the venacular of the left) ‘Last Days on Earth‘ special on ABC’s 20/20…but she could swear that a scientist on this special equated other scientists who dispute the “facts” of global warming with Holocaust deniers. I thought to myself “Nooooo…that would make absolutely no sense…and I am a man who is the fan of the analogy.”

But nope…she was right:

See it at Volokh Conspiracy, Cave of the Curmudgeon, Singular Values

Quote from Volokh Article

Among the claims that were repeated multiple times (by Al Gore and others) were that there was no scientific debate over whether the cause of global warming was humans. Not only did ABC liken those scientists who did not accept this orthodoxy to Holocaust deniers and to scientists who claimed that cigarettes were not associated with cancer, but ABC actually showed witness after witness for tobacco companies claiming that tobacco did not cause cancer, as if it were not enough merely to mention the analogy in passing. (Query whether that airtime could have been devoted to at least one reputable expert who disagreed with ABC’s smugly certain experts?)ABC showed experts claiming that the reason that scientific dissenters were unwilling to accept the orthodox opinion is that they were being paid by major polluters to take those positions.

ABC also reported increased hurricane activity as if it were an established scientific fact that there were now more hurricanes and that they were caused by global warming.

ABC trotted out various group studies about the impending environmental disaster, as if ABC was unaware of just how inaccurate group environmental predictions had been in the 1970s and 1980s.

Last, ABC’s experts seemed quite confident that global warming could be solved by human changes, as if the main question were a lack of will. The ABC report never considered whether the drastic GNP losses associated with steps that would be predicted to make a significant difference would cause more death, poverty, and destruction than the likeliest global warming scenarios.

Environment, Moonbats, Rant, msm

The wife brought a magazine home from school the other night, and I was flipping though it…just some mag called “Saturday Night Magazine” (they have a web site here) that they’re giving away at Cal State Long Beach for free, to gain market share or exposure or something, and I’m stunned at how boring it is. It’s like every other “post teen” hip collection of music (drop the f-bomb in the article), movies (drop the f-bomb in the article). Let me give you an example:

• Page 6 – Reference to Enron
• Page 7 – Reference to Katrina
• Page 8 – 9/11 Article on Bin Laden

“America has captured neither Osama Bin Laden not his second in command let alone begun prosecuting them”…What? As if capturing and prosecuting are two mutually exclusive events that are able to take place one without the other.

• Page 9 – Promotion Article for “Loose Change“

“Sure the film raises many questions regarding the government explanation of 9/11, but considering the way all the wiretapping, bank monitoring, WMDs, Iraqi war, Valerie Plame, Downing Street Memo things have gone, we should probably just take their word for it.”

• Page 10 to 11 – Article about Global Warming, and what you can do.

“Past experiences, like those involving the Iraq War or the NSA wire-tapping scandal, tell us that when the President attempts to downplay something we should all be very, very alarmed.” (Does that mean for Bush to get the college liberal crowd to pay attention, he needs to say terrorism isn’t a threat?)

• Page 12 – Martial Law Hypothesis in Los Angeles
• Page 13 – The environment is regard to the California Governor’s election.

Get it yet? This is a magazine that on the cover talks about film reviews and the Movie “Beerfest” (which was fantastic by the way). I’m just shocked at the predictability of these magazines, and more so at the idea that the publishers and editors actually think this is a money making endeavor! It’s a joke…hack articles by hack writers with no research and all opinion present as sourced fact (throw in the f word once or twice to give legitimacy and hipness).

The only worthwhile part of the magazine is the fact that internships are listed on one page in the back, get this one though…

“Writers Guild of America, West

Writing Intern

Requirements: Interns work as writers with any WGA-member company or studio that produces episodic, prime-time television programming in it’s second or subsequent season. Applicates must be Grad students and either be a woman, Latino, African American, Asian American, American Indian, Eskimo, and/or disabled.” (emphasis mine)

Wow…they might as well hang a sign that says “White Males Need Not Apply”…that aside, why would you pay $3.95 for any of this, when the internet offers it all for free.

Predictability is killing the media. I know how people my age are going to respond to any given event the moment it happens, and the idea of inquiry or any sort of in-depth thought…escapes them.

UPDATE: Thanks to Screw Loose Change for the link…I guess we’ve all fallen for the oh-so-believable lie that there’s a group of people apart from the American Government that want to kill us (oh for shame…), the koolaid of rationality tastes so sweet…

California, Environment, Rant, msm

I have to say, the relatively uneventful nature of this hurricane season as we recognize the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, is all thanks to Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth”. Without that movie, we would be where we were a year ago, and instead we’re facing Eduardo, which if I’m not mistaken is a little behind last year’s count:

Eduardo

F

G

H

I

J

Katrina

Seems that the irreversible damage that is going to lead to more and more destructive hurricanes is about as fickle as…say…I don’t know…THE WEATHER?! But, I would be naive to ignore the facts that are being espoused by every scientist that Global Warming is an indisputable fact…so I guess I have no one else to thank but Mr. Gore for the mild Hurricane season that we’ve had thus far…or maybe the President has not yet exercised his magical control over the environment to create the storms…or Rove has done a great job in manufacturing such a horrible season last year that we would appreciate the good season this year, and sing Bush’s praises…or maybe God just got tired of his bad aim, and gave up trying to hit Texas…(my favorite on the lefty blogs).

Environment, Rant