On the U.S. Supplying Thousands and Thousands of High-Powered Assault Rifles to FATAH and the Fact that a Lot of these Weapons Have Probably Ended Up Squarely in the Possession of the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade

I feel yet another "red-line" coming on.

A Quick Constitutional Tutorial for Senator McCain

The Commander in Chief responsibilities of the American President only materialize AFTER A WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED, and the only branch of government that can do such a thing is the legislative branch. This whole cockamamie notion of yours that a President can do pretty much whatever the hell that pleases him has zero Constitutional backing behind it (I can still remember vividly the look on George Will's face when you shamelessly and moronically uttered this to him) and, while, yeah, the power of the Presidency has certainly grown over time, it doesn't make it right, dude. It doesn't make it right.

Sherman on His Strategy to Deal with the Plains Indians

He referred to it as his "final solution to the Indian problem." Yeah, that's right, folks, THE FINAL SOLUTION.

How those in England Viewed the American Civil War

1) "The struggle of today is on one side for empire and the other side for independence." Wigan Examiner, 1861.............2) "The Southerners are admired for everything but their slavery and that their independence may be speedily acknowledged by France and England is, we are convinced, the strong desire of the vast majority, not only in England but throughout Europe." Liverpool Daily Post, 1862.............3) "Twenty millions (the North) say to the other ten millions (the South), 'You shall continue to live under a government you detest, you shall submit to laws you wish to change, you shall obey rulers you repudiate and abjure.' Their inherent right to secede if they chose, can, it seems to us, be denied by no one but a nisi prius lawyer." Northern British Review, 1862.............4) "The barbarous character of the warfare is a subject too painful to be needlessly dwelt upon....The sacking and burning of homesteads and undermining railway bridges; the infliction of torture and murder for supposed opinion; the suspension of laws and rights - these scandals and miseries are of a nature and extent never required or imagined in international wars." Charles Dickens, 1862.............5) "We do not claim to be carrying on a war of emancipation. We are not fighting for the blacks, but for the whites....The object of the war is to preserve the Union." MacMillan's Magazine (synopsizing what were literally hundreds of interviews with Northerners from all walks of life), 1862.............6) "For the contest on the part of the North is now undisguisedly for empire. The question of slavery is thrown to the winds. There is hardly any concession in its favor that the South could ask which the North would refuse, provided only that the seceding States would re-enter the Union....Away with the pretence on the North to dignify its cause with the name of freedom to the slave!" Quarterly Review, 1862.............7) "The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty." Karl Marx (while living in England), 1861.............8) "Congress was passing a new tariff of the most stringent protectionism to Northern manufacturers!...The untimeliness of the measure has filled all England with astonishment. It is a new affront and wrong to the slave states, and raises a wall against the return of the seceder." Fraser's magazine, 1861.............9) "The North has adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burdens of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North....the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue." American Issues, 1861.............10) "No wonder then that the citizens of the seceding states should feel for half a century they have sacrificed to enhance the powers and profits of the North; and should conclude, after much futile remonstrance, that only in secession could they hope to find redress." James Spence, Northern British Review, 1862.............11) "As a rule, the great mass of the public expenditures were made from the North, not in the South, so that Southerners found themselves doubly taxed - taxed first from the benefit of the Northern manufacturers, and then in the disbursement of the public funds, denied an equal participation in the benefits accruing therefrom." Athenaeum, 1861.............12) "...she (the United States) has become a land of passports, of conscriptions, of press censorship and post office espionage, of bastilles and lettres de cachet....there was little difference between the Government of Mr. Lincoln and the Government of Napoleon 3. There was the form of a legislative assembly, where scarcely any dared to oppose, for fear of a charge of treason." Quarterly Review, 1862.............13) "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." Charles Dickens, 1862.............14) "There must be some degree at least of homogeneousmess; there must be harmony, if not identity, of interests; there must be mutual liking, if not mutual respect. Or, in default of these binding links, there must be power....to enforce Union and compel submission." James Spence, North British Review.

On Ray Allen, The Greatest Three Point Shooter in NBA History and a Class Act

Has there ever been a more professional professional athlete than this fellow? I gotta say, no, folks. I mean, the dude's the second oldest player in the whole league and he's still the first one in the gym and the last one out AND he's an absolute gentleman as well. They say that there aren't any positive role models in sports these days. Bullshit.

Global Warming/Cooling?

It totally depends upon your reference point. Yes, the planet has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age (approximately 1680) but as you can plainly see here, if you use instead the Minoan Warm Period or the two Holocene Warming Optimums (they're referred to as optimums because life has a tendency to do vastly better during warm periods than it does during cold ones), we're not only in a 3-8,000 year cooling trend but we're also in a trend in which the temperature and CO2 variables are showing an INVERSE RELATIONSHIP!!!!!...Please, tell me one more time why we're freaking out huge and threatening to destroy the Western economy for nada.

On the American Civil War

It wasn't a civil war. A civil war is when two participants vie for the control of one government and one piece of territory. All that the American South wanted to do was leave and start a new government (similar to what the New England states has contemplated in the early 19th Century and the Middle Atlantic states and New York City subsequent to that), a concept that even Abraham Lincoln himself had stated was fully constitutional as late as 1848. Big, big, difference, folks.

Historian, Lee Kennett, On Lincoln and His Violations of International Law

"Had the Confederates somehow won, had their victory put them in position to bring their chief opponents before some sort of tribunal, they would have found themselves justified (as victors generally do) in stringing up Lincoln and the entire Union command for violations of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants."............................................................................Oh, and if you think that the black people of the South fared any better under Union occupation, think again. This quote is from Mark Grimsley's 1995 book, "The Hard Hand of War" - "With the utter disregard for blacks that was the norm among Union troops, the soldiers ransacked the slave cabins, taking whatever they liked."...That and there were literally hundreds of first hand accounts (many of which were ultimately put into letters and diaries and currently stored at the University of South Carolina) of black women being brutally raped by these very same soldiers (a large chunk of them having previously been thugs, big city criminals and immigrants recently released from European jails). Really nice, huh?................................................................................P.S. And I also want to point out here that professors Kennett and Grimsley are NOT libertarians and that they are both generally pro the North in their overall analysis. So, no, there isn't any sort of a southern bias period.

The Basic Rules of Civilized Warfare

There are essentially two; a) don't target civilians and b) keep the neutral countries out of it....Not exactly rocket-science, now is it?

James Madison on the Meaning of the Constitution

It was to be sought "not in the opinions or intentions of the body which planned and proposed it, but in those states where it received ALL (emphasis mine) the authority which it possesses."......James Madison, folks, the father of the Constitution.

James Madison on Secession

"A Union of the States containing such an ingredient (a proposal which would have allowed the federal government to suppress a seceding state) seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

The Impoverishment of the Greedy

When are these greedy politicians going to realize that people and their money ARE BOTH MOBILE and that they can leave at any moment? I mean, just take a look at that most majestically mismanaged of all entities; the state of California. According to Travis Brown's book, "How Money Walks", that state alone has lost a total of $46.3 BILLION in annual AGI in just a 20 year period (from 1992 to 2011) - and even as we speak they're still losing approximately $4,800 A MINUTE in lost AGI (this, of course, while other states such as Texas, North Carolina, and Florida have added tens of billions in new AGI)........................................................................................And then of course there's France. Ever since the new government there has been toying with that idea of a top tax rate of 75%, hundreds, if not thousands, of rich, well-to-do families have gotten the hell out of there and moved to London, Geneva, Brussels, Quebec, and a whole host of other destinations (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/10390571/france-hollande-taxes-socialist-farrage.html). And it isn't just the wealthy who are pissed off, either. According economist, Jacques Regniez, 80-90% of recent French University graduates who possess a marketable degree now say that they want to emigrate as well....and if you listen closely you can hear all of those champagne corks popping from Montreal all the way to Singapore (with some folks even having moved to Vietnam).  

W.T. Sherman, I His Own Words - Addendum

And his wife was a real piece of work as well. This is her response to that message of his; her wish that this would be "....a war of extermination and that all Southerners would be driven like the Swine into the sea. May we carry fire and sword into their states till not one habitation is left standing."......Wow, now that's some serious pillow-talk, huh?

On Winnie Mandela

The woman was (and probably still is) a two-faced barbarian and if you don't believe me, just listen to the way that she talked to the West ("peace, peace, love, love") and compare it to the way that she talked to her fellow revolutionaries and thugs (the Mandela Football Club, her hitmen); "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces, we will liberate this country." Add to that the fact that dead bodies always seem to end up in her general vicinity and, yeah, the level of the disgust gets even more pronounced. I think that the late Kim Beazley Sr. (former cabinet minister and member of the Australian Labor party) probably said it best when he articulated (in an obvious reference to Mrs. Mandela) that "People who dance on charred corpses have nothing whatever to offer South Africa."

A Wilsonian Question

If President Wilson was such a hero to the Dixiecrats, and all of the Dixiecrats ultimately became Republicans, then why in the hell is the Woodrow Wilson Center staffed almost predominantly by northern, eastern, and western left of center Democrats TODAY??????? Hm, could it possibly be that they recognize the man as one of the founding-fathers of progressivism? That would be my assumption, people.

W. T. Sherman, In His Own Words

1) His aim, "....the utter destruction of the roads, houses, and people. We are not only fighting a hostile army but a hostile people and must make old and young (senior citizens and toddlers, in other words), rich and poor feel the hard hand of war. I will make the march and I will make Georgia howl."............2) His purpose in the war (as stated to his wife), "....extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least of the trouble, but the people."............3) "The inhabitants are subjugated. They cry aloud for mercy. The land is devastated for 30 miles around."............4) "For five days, ten thousand of our men worked hard and with a will, in that work of destruction, with axes, sledges, crowbars, clawbars, and with fire, and I have no hesitation pronouncing the work well done. Meridian (Mississippi) no longer exists."............5) "....a beautiful sight" - in response to his chief engineer, O.M. Poe, voicing displeasure at the burden of having to see so many charred corpses of women, senior citizens, and children............6) "Cannot you send over about Fairmount and Adairsville, burn ten or twelve houses of known secessionists, KILL A FEW AT RANDOM (emphasis mine), and let them know that it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon from Resaca to Kingston?"............7) Instructing his army on how to fight the Plains Indians - "During an assault (on an Indian village) the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age. As long as resistance is made, death must be meted out."............8) "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extinction, men, women, and children."............9) "To the petulant and persistent secessionists, why, death is mercy."...........................................................................................I could go on (and on) but I think that you fathom the drift here.

On "Mad Men"

Sorry, but I still like the guy on the bottom better (his taste in women, especially).

An "Extremely" Long Time

It's been almost 9 years since the last category 3 level hurricane has hit the America mainland. This represents the longest period without such an event since 1851 and I am betting some serious money here that somebody is going to blame it on global warming.

The Real 97% (97.8%, To be More Precise)

That's the percentage of climate models (88 out of 90) which have overestimated (greatly, in some cases) the amount of atmospheric and surface warming over the past 20 years...............................................................................And as far as that other 97% is concerned, it was based entirely on a couple of very generic questions that even I would have said, yes, to. For example, one of them was, "do you think that human activity influences climate?", and of course the answer is, yes (via CO2 emissions but also through deforestation, urbanization, etc.). But to go from that to saying that human CO2 emissions are the PRIMARY cause of climate change or that a seven tenths of degree Celsius temperature increase over 150 years is something so alarming that the West now has to destroy its economy is absurd and THAT'S where the real disagreement is.

wd's New Netflix Series

"Unsuccessful (On Virtually Every Index Imaginable), Envious, Stultifyingly Stupid/Ineducable, Unemployable, Bizarrely Dogmatic/Unrelenting, Irresponsible/Inept, Depraved/Delusional, Morally Inconsistent, Poorly Read, Inastute/Gullible Beyond All Belief, Self-Absorbed, Socially Retarded, Impudent/Obnoxious, and Hackneyed is the New Black."

On the Celtics Not Being in the Playoffs this Year

Yeah, it sucks, but the fact that the Pricks, err, I mean, the Knicks, aren't participating, either, does soften the blow a bit.

Selling Your Soul/Damned Umbilical Cord

George H.W. Bush was pro-choice, until he ran for President and promptly became pro-life. The Reverend Jesse Jackson was pro-life, until he ran for President and promptly became pro-choice. All that you ever really need to know about American politics IS RIGHT THERE.

On the New Taco Bell Breakfast Menu

You're shitting me, right?......Seriously, though, I guess that when you've already majorly fucked up lunch and dinner, there aren't a lot of other options other than breakfast.

On the Hackneyed Leftist Assertion that all of those Segregationist Dixiecrats Ultimately Became Republicans

I gotta go, false, on this one, folks.  Al Gore Sr. never became a Republican. John Stennis never became a Republican. Sam Ervin never became a Republican. James Eastland never became a Republican. Everett Jordan never became a Republican. William Fulbright never became a Republican. George Wallace never became a Republican. Lester Maddox never became a Republican....I mean, yeah, you did have Strom Thurmond switching over but one is a hell of a lot different than all and this is one bromide that really needs to be put to rest, I'm thinking.

He's Going to Succeed at Something, That's for Sure

Quentin Harris is the finest high school quarterback in the state of Connecticut and it isn't even remotely close. He's narrowed his college choice to UConn, Boston College, and Duke and plans to make his decision Friday. If I had to make a guess at this point (and, no, I don't have any inside information here), I would probably have to say that he's going to Duke. a) He attends the highly prestigious Taft School in Watertown, b) the fellow has a 3.88 GPA, and c) the possibility of a free ride at Duke just might be too hard a temptation to resist for him....Oh, and did I mention that the dude can flat-out play?

On the McKinley Administration Criticizing the Spanish Actions In Cuba While Essentially Doing a Lot of the Same Shit Itself in Hawaii

Typical American Arrogance. Period.

The Not so Surprising Sneak Attack it Appears

While I wouldn't go as far as to say that FDR knew in advance that the Pearl Harbor attack was going to happen (as Richard Hill and Richard Stinnett have both articulated), I can say with a fair degree of certitude that he did in fact egg the Japanese on with a truckload of highly punitive economic and military measures. Here, folks, is just a partial list: a) The unilateral termination of the 1911 Commercial Treaty with Japan.............b) The Export Control Act which limited the export of defense materials to Japan.............c) An embargo of all exports of scrap iron and steel except to Britain and the Western Hemisphere.............d) A total oil embargo on Japan.............e) The construction of U.S. military bases all along the Pacific rim.............f) The relocating of the Pacific fleet from San Diego to Hawaii.............g) The freezing of all Japanese assets in the U.S..............h) A complete refusal on the part of the U.S. to even talk to the Japanese unless they totally vacated China (a ridiculous stipulation in that the British were simultaneously occupying India, Palestine, Rhodesia, etc. and we were obviously talking to them)............................................................................I guess what I'm trying to say here is that, even if FDR didn't know that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor on precisely December 6th, 1941, he at least should have known that an attack at some point was a distinct possibility and our readiness should have been infinitely better....Of course, being that the man DID want us to get into the damned war....

In Defense of Neville Chamberlain

Few world leaders (aside, of course, from dictators) have been as vilified and lambasted as Neville Chamberlain. But just as is often the case with the West's orthodox narrative, an alternative explanation easily emerges.......................................................................................Yes, Adolph Hitler's march into Czechoslovakia in 1938 was clearly an aggressive act but to criticize Chamberlain for a lack of action is patently ridiculous, in my opinion. a) Czechoslovakia had largely been cobbled together by Wilson and the West after WW1 and the northern areas of it contained Bohemia, the Sudetenland, and many other parts of Germany as well as millions of German speaking citizens who were being thoroughly brutalized by the Czech government. b) England had absolutely zero strategic interest in Czechoslovakia and it would have been idiotic for Chamberlain or any other Western leader to draw a red line there. c) Even if he (or they) had drawn one, it is highly unlikely that England could have won a war in Czechoslovakia in that they wouldn't have just been fighting the Germans but the ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, and Hungary AND they would have been fighting thousands of miles from home....A lot of people out there like to talk about Monday morning quarterbacking - I kinda think that this is an example of it.

On the Common Held Notion that Secession Equates to Treason - Continued

Additional contrary evidence - a) "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality; nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of those states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.............b) To expect to hold fifteen States in the Union by force is preposterous. The idea of a civil war, accompanied, by a servile insurrection, is too monstrous to be entertained for a moment." Edward Everett, 1860.............c) "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." Maryland Congressman, Jacob M. Kunkel, 1860.............d) On three distinct occasions in the early 19th Century (in response to the Louisiana Purchase, the embargo with England, and the War of 1812), the six New England states also strongly considered secession and at no point was this ever considered by the rest of the nation as treasonous. Ditto with New York City and the five Middle Atlantic states who for a while favored a Central Confederacy.............e) According to historian, Howard Cecil Perkins, a significant majority of the NORTHERN newspapers were strongly opposed to using military force against any state that might secede. Amongst these newspapers were the Chicago Daily Times, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Cincinnati Daily Press, the New York Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the New York Times, the Hartford Daily Courant, the Providence Evening Press, the Concord Democratic Standard, the Bangor Daily Union, and the Albany Atlas and Argus.............f) For quite a long time, William Lloyd Garrison was actually in favor of NORTHERN secession. And his rationale for it was absolutely brilliant. His specific theory was that if the two regions separated and formed two distinct confederacies, the Fugitive Slave Law, which had literally been sending thousands of runaway slaves back into servitude, would at that point become null and void and institution would atrophy even faster than it had been....Kinda too bad that he hadn't been the President, huh?

On the Common Held Notion that Secession Equates to Treason

It is exclusively a modern construct (originating with Lincoln) and here is the evidence.............a) "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." Thomas Jefferson, 1801.............b) "If any state in the union will declare that it prefers separation to a continuance in union I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate'." Thomas Jefferson, 1816.............c) "If the day should ever come when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collusion of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political association will no longer hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies, to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint." John Quincy Adams, 1839.............d) "To coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying State at war with a noncomplying State: Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another? Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself - a government that can only exist by the sword?" Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers.............e) "....the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." From the Virginia ordinances of ratification of the Constitution, 1789.............f) "It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases a right to determine how they will be governed." William Rawle, 1825.............g) "I will rather anticipate a new confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence of the aristocratic Democrats of the South....There will be a separation and the black and white populations will mark the boundary." Timothy Pickering, 1803 (as the New England states were considering secession in response to the Louisiana Purchase).............h) "....whenever its provisions are violated, or its original principles departed from by a majority of the states or their people, it is no longer an effective instrument, but that any state is at liberty by the spirit of that contract to withdraw itself from the Union." Public proclamation from the Massachusetts legislature, 1809 (as the state was contemplating secession in response to President Madison's Enforcement Act).............i) "During the weeks following the election (1860), editors of all parties assumed that secession as a constitutional right was not in question. On the contrary, the southern claim to a right of peaceable withdrawal was countenance out of reverence for the natural law principle of government by the consent of the governed....We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets. " Horace Greeley, 1860.............j) I have no idea that the Union can be maintained or restored by force. Nor do I believe in the value of a Union which can only be kept together by dint of a military force." James Alfred Pearce, 1860.............k) "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. ANY PORTION OF SUCH PEOPLE, THAT CAN, MAY REVOLUTIONIZE, AND MAKE THEIR OWN OF SO MUCH OF THE TERRITORY AS THEY INHABIT." Abraham Lincoln, 1848.............l) "To secure these rights (of  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness), Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." Thomas Jefferson, 1776.............I rest my case.

Behemoths off the Horizon

And if there's anybody out there who still thinks that wind is a viable alternative to nuclear, you really need to get your facts straight. Fact - nuclear power plants have a power density of 54 watts per square meter while wind turbines only register at 1.2 watts per square meter. SO, in order to replace the energy that you get from JUST ONE large nuclear facility, you would literally have to pave the entire state of Rhode Island and build thousands and thousands of industrial sized wind turbines. And, being that wind turbines are by far the highest resource intensity energy source to start AND the fact that they're only 10-35% efficient (nuclear being over 90% efficient) and hence require a fossil fuel backup, they don't even give you all that much of a reduction when it comes to emissions (nuclear, on the other hand, emits zero carbon emissions), for Christ sakes........................................................................................Look, I'm not necessarily saying that nuclear is perfect or a panacea (issues relative to start-up cost and waste) but if the French can do it, and with all of the new technology on the horizon (thorium instead of uranium and plutonium, smaller reactors, new methods of storing and recycling waste, etc.), you gotta think that we can do it, too - one would think.

On the African National Congress

It was never an indigenous movement (much more of a Western construct) and it never had the full backing of the black South Africans. That, and the power that it did accrue was gained predominantly by violence (99.9% of its victims being fellow blacks; moderates and professionals, mostly), terror, and intimidation ("identify, defame, and destroy" - the tactic, according to Buthelezi). For folks to even attempt to imply that the actions of these people was in any way motivated by a desire to improve the lot of the citizens (as opposed to a bald-faced power-grab) is at the very minimum dubious.

Channeling Winnie Mandela

"We have grievances against the white Afrikaners and so we will therefore char to a crisp and annihilate in the most hideous ways imaginable our fellow blacks. Yeah, that's the ticket!."

On the Idiotic Notion that Liberals and Progressives Don't Like Woodrow Wilson

All that you really have to do is go the web-site for the Woodrow Wilson Center and look at the damned roster; Jane Harmon - director, president, and CEO, Jason Brodsky (former Chuck Schumer flunky) - assistant to the director, John Kerry - board of trustees, Arne Duncan - board of trustees, Robert Litwak (former Clinton aid) - vice president for academic relations. And the list just goes on and one (they have an entire department just on climate change and guess which side that they're arguing).....................................................................................Now, maybe we can give these people the benefit of the doubt and they're just not aware of the fact that Wilson segregated the federal work force AND the military, supported the eugenics movement, pushed into law and signed the Sedition Act which essentially put the entire country under lock-down, etc.. but that would make them totally ignorant, now wouldn't it?

Jersey's Rationale for Why Liberals Can't be Fascists?

Try, his own equally hackneyed assertion/self-serving circular-based argument that fascists can't be liberals....You cannot make this stuff up, folks.

Heat Check - How 'Bout a Seriousness Check?

The western developed country with the lowest carbon intensity is France (.3 tonnes of CO2 for every $1,000 of GDP). And the reason for this is obviously the fact that they have safely and efficiently harnessed nuclear power. I mean, I know that a lot of folks' brains will immediately shut down at this point but for anybody out there who thinks that there are some superior strategies available, I wish 'em a lot of luck. The cold, harsh reality here is that the only energy sources that can a) significantly reduce carbon emissions and b) accomplish this task according to cost and scale are hydro (which the environmentalists don't like because it entails building dams), natural gas (which the environmentalists don't like because it involves using fracking), and nuclear (which the environmentalists don't like because it involves nuclear waste). Everything else (at least at this point), I really hate to tell ya'all, is window-dressing.

On Food From Sonic

I would rather eat the plastic, styrofoam, and paper that accompanies it.

More Perspective on Emissions

China has increased its emissions by approximately 50% over the last seven years. This increase by itself represents as much CO2 emissions as the entire countries of Germany, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, and the United Kingdom COMBINED, and they are literally adding the equivalent of Great Britain's emissions every 9-10 months. The harsh reality here is that even if the West went back to rubbing driftwood together, hunting and gathering, etc., the world would still be increasing its emissions and the only folks who would be worse for ware would be us.

Channeling wd if wd was a Character in "Apollo 13"

"Failure is definitely an option."

Prime Time Stupidity

Of course nothing underscores the absurdity of this whole situation more than the actions of British Prime Minister/resident dolt/lukewarm socialist stooge, David Cameron. In an effort to cut back on his country's carbon emissions, he's decided to take the bold action of opposing a third runway at Heathrow Airport. To say that this is a symbolic gesture at best should be obvious to any sentient human being but when you also compare it to the actions of the Chinese who are currently building not just additional runways but dozens (damned close to a hundred) of brand new ENTIRE airports, damned if he doesn't look even more like an idiot.

On the Futility of Sharply Reducing Carbon Emissions

According to the "Kaya Identity", there are only four ways in which a society can reduce carbon emissions; a) through population control, b) through a reduction in economic activity (i.e., a lower GDP), c) through increasing efficiency, and d) via an improvement in carbon intensity/the switching of energy sources. That's it, and if you think that the fourth option is any sort of grand panacea, get a load of this...................................................................................According to Roger Pielke's  book, "The Climate Fix", in order for the United Kingdom to reach its emission goals by 2015 (the book was written in 2010), it would have to close down X number of coal-fired power plants and replace them with 40 nuclear power facilities. For the United States to reach its emission goals (which are slightly less ambitious than Britain's) by 2020, it would have close down Y number of coal-fired power plants and replace them with 103 nuclear power facilities (there are currently only two under construction). And for the Australians to reach their emission goals by 2020, they would have to close down Z number of coal-fired power plants and replace them with 29,000 solar farms (the Australians don't do nuclear)....As those old GIs used to say when they were mocking the Japanese, "rotsa ruck".

On that Silly Twitter Campaign to Free those Nigerian Girls From the Stant-Headed Terrorist Group, Boko (Please Don't Call Me, Procol) Haram (Please Don't Spell Me, Harum)

Yeah, they're really quaking in their boots over it.

The Dirty Little Secret of Climate Change

There are approximately 1.5 BILLION people in the world who do not have electricity and the vast percentage of policy recommendations out there which address carbon emissions and the necessity to reduce them assumes that this will continue to be the case on into the future. I personally find this repugnant. And I would love to see just one of these SOBs go to India or Guatemala or Togo and try and convince the folks there that this is a prudent idea. Just one.

Some Cold (Or Warm, If You Prefer), Hard Facts Pertaining to Climate Change and Extreme Weather

1) Weather related losses as a percentage of GDP have actually decreased since 1990 by 25%.............2) Hurricanes have not increased in frequency, intensity, or normalized damage since at least 1900 (this, despite the fact that we now have better detection capabilities and a greater population).............3) Floods have not increased in frequency and intensity since 1950 and flood losses as a percentage of GDP have actually decreased by 75% since 1940.............4) Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity, or normalized damage since at least 1950.............5) Droughts have become shorter, less frequent, and have covered smaller amounts of the U.S. over the last century.........................................................................................My source for this information is Senate testimony from Roger Pielke (a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado and a visiting scholar at Oxford), various sections from multiple IPCC reports, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. They are generally accepted by both sides of this debate and I think that they thoroughly debunk this whole notion that human emissions are somehow causing extreme weather.

On Bill O'Reilly Not Needing to See 'That' (Gay Football Player, Michael Sam, Kissing His Boyfriend After Mr. Sam was Drafted into the NFL)"

Why can't this guy just learn to live and let live?....And of course it's a huge story that's gonna get a shitload of coverage, for Christ sakes. HELLO!!

On Fighting Climate Change by Reducing Global GDP

Easy to say when you're already ahead of the curve and preaching this shit from the comforts of a plush air-conditioned penthouse in downtown Manhattan and traveling via a private jet, etc., etc..

The Current (As in the Last 10 year) Global Energy Story?

Nobody's gonna want to hear this, but it's coal. According to energy experts, Robert Bryce and Vaclav Smil, global coal consumption over the past 10 years has outstripped that of oil, natural gas, nuclear, and renewables COMBINED. And the reason for this is utterly elementary. a) Coal is cheap and b) the importance of affordable electricity towards both modernity and prosperity is unimpeachable. And, besides, who in the hell are we to tell these poor people that they can't take the same path to prosperity that we did? I'm certainly not going to attempt it........................................................................................Oh, and if you think that I'm the only person who thinks like this, try again/exhibit A - "So getting the resources to exploit your coal as opposed to being dependent upon imported energy is a choice for you to make, but it is certainly a choice that your neighbors have made. And that's something that should attract foreign investment and should attract capital investment within your own country. And we don't know how we're going to proceed on the climate change issue. We're working hard to come to some framework before Copenhagen, but coal will be, for the foreseeable future, part of the energy mix. And if you have these kinds of reserves, you should seek the best and cleanest technology for their extraction and their use going forward." Hillary Clinton, excerpted from a business roundtable in Pakistan, 2009.

The Last Presidential Press Secretary Who Didn't Totally Creep Me Out?

Wow, I'd probably have to go back to Ron Nessen on that one, folks. A shitload of slim pickins', for certain.

On John McCain, Hillary Clinton, And Ethanol

Both of these two Senators were adamantly (and admirably, from my perspective) opposed to the corn ethanol ripoff (which ended up costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars) of the early and mid 2000s....until, UNTIL, they decided to run for President, and then they suddenly found religion on it and damned if they didn't start pimping themselves all over the corn state of Iowa (who's the idiot who decided to make THAT the first caucus?). You want to know why the country is fucked? Multiply this by the hundreds of other special interest groups (banks, sugar, unions, environmentalists, the Military Industrial Complex, etc., etc.) and maybe there's the answer, folks.

Miscellaneous 177

1) The vast percentage of the CO2 that humans have deposited into the atmosphere has occurred predominantly over the prior three decades and so that huge spike in temperatures that occurred from 1910 to 1940 had to have been due to natural sources (oceanic oscillations, solar activity and magnetism, cosmic rays, volcanic inactivity, etc.) - period.............2) According to a 2001 article from "Nature", proxy data strongly suggests an almost perfect correlation between C14 (a proxy for solar activity) and O18 (a proxy for air temperature). These results are highly consistent with previous studies and it is now almost universally accepted that solar forcings are a major determinant of climate on earth (not to mention the other planets in the solar system).............3) According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, climate is defined as weather averaged over a 30 time period. Using this as our operational definition, the last 150 years represents only 5 data points, hardly enough to make any sort of sweeping claim.............4) According to climate reconstructions by Oregon State geologist, Alan Mix, the earth's temperatures 3-6 million years ago were approximately 2-3 degrees warmer than they are today and there was no biodiversity crisis. Zero.............5) The earth's temperature has risen by approximately seven tenths of a degree Celsius over the past 150 years. And what exactly has been the result of this trend? Try, it has unquestionably been the most prosperous, innovative, and life-sustaining period in all of human history and that if it wasn't for this period in human history we'd all probably still be living in squalor.....Spoiled, we're so spoiled!

On the Climate Models

The good news (for the alarmists, I'm saying) - not ALL of the climate models were wrong. The bad news - 95% of them were; 88 out of the 90 overestimating the satellite temperatures and 86 out of the 90 overestimating the surface temperatures (some of them being way, WAY, off). Wow, huh? That's not even close enough for government work, for Christ.

On ABC News's, Jonathan Karl, Placing and Retaining His Boot to the Throat of White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney

Good for him, and it's good to see that there are still a few decent reporters out there who haven't taken a siesta during these Obama years.

On Roy Spencer and Michael Mann - Continued 3

Of course, what was probably the most despicable action of all by Mann was when he totally mischaracterized the work of pioneering climatologist, the venerable Hubert Lamb. In 1999, Mr. Mann asserted that, "Hubert Lamb in 1965, examining mostly evidence from Western Europe, never suggested that the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon." To say that this is a misleading claim is being generous. What professor Lamb actually said (in 1965) was, "Multifarious evidence of a meteorological nature, from archaeological, botanical, and glaciological evidence in various parts of the world, FROM THE ARCTIC TO NEW ZEALAND, has found to suggest a warmer epoch lasting several centuries between AD 900 and 1000 and AD 1200 and 1300. Both the little climatic optimum in the early Middle-Ages and the cold epochs, the Little Ice Age, now known to have reached its culminating stages between 1550 and 1700 can be substantiated with enough data to repay meteorological investigation."....................................................................................And that isn't even remotely the end of it here. Approximately a decade later, Lamb further stated that, "Evidence already cited at various places in this volume suggests that, for a few centuries in the Middle-Ages, the climate IN MOST PARTS OF THE WORLD regained something approaching the warmth of the warmest post-glacial  times (i.e., the two Holocene Warming Optimums, the Minoan Warm Period, and The Roman Warm Period).".........................................................................................I don't know, folks. The way that I see the thing, Michael Mann is either a liar or he's never actually taken the time to read Lamb. Either way he's an absolute farce and doesn't deserve to be listened to ever again.

On Speed and the Inability to Teach it

Case in point, Brian Sessoms. The dude is a small (5'8" 165) and somewhat unheralded wide receiver out of Carver High in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. But because he runs a 4.36 forty (he also has a 36" vertical leap which is amazing for his size), the dude was awarded a football scholarship from N.C. State which promptly accepted. Coach Doeren probably figured that even if he can't catch the ball all that well, he could probably run back kicks and who's gonna catch the sucker if he breaks contain? A couple of dudes from Florida State and that's about it (in the ACC anyway).

On Roy Spencer and Michael Mann - Continued 2

a) If the Michael Mann hockey-stick graph was such an accurate finding, then why pray tell did the IPCC omit the thing in their 2007 report???? Huh?............b) The satellite temperature readings of the last 35 years are almost identical to the readings of the radiosonde balloons (as opposed to the surface temperature readings which have been contaminated by things such as urbanization and which are quite frankly all over the map), and the vast majority of scientists now accept them as the most accurate data on the planet.............c) In Michael Mann's 1999 attempt at temperature reconstruction of the Northern Hemisphere, of the 12 data sets that the he ultimately utilized, 4 of them (#s 6,7,11, and 12) were actually....FROM THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE! The ass doesn't even know rudimentary geography, for Chris sakes!............d) And, again, Mr. Spencer has been awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and the American Meteorological Society's Special Award for "developing a global precise record of the earth's temperature from operational polar orbiting satellites, fundamentally advancing our ability to monitor climate change." The dude clearly has a much more pedigreed background than Mann, who didn't even have his PhD when he first concocted this whole revisionist fantasy.

On QVC Sex-Kitten, Kerstin Lindquist

Yeah, I'd probably buy some shit from her.

A Little (As in Very Little) Bit of Knowledge is an Ignorant Thing

I challenge the idiot to take a course in experimental psychology or any other discipline that involves research (he would first of course have to take and pass a course in elementary statistics which in and of itself would be a huge long-shot but, yes, I will proceed) and do an experiment in which he merges two separate data sets (he pulls a Michael Mann, in other words) in an effort to support his theory (which of course is also ass-backwards in that you never try and prove a theory in science but instead reject the null hypothesis), and which he also confesses to the teacher of his actions. I challenge him to do these things and then, yes, argue with the university when the teacher either fails him or boots him out of the class for his a) dishonesty and b) impudence ('cause you know that he's gonna put forth an attitude about it). My only request is that I be present to watch it.

Where the Progressives and Libertarians Can and SHOULD Unite

1) Ending or drastically scaling back on the drug war (sorry, Mr. O'Reilly). 2) Comprehensive immigration reform (and especially allowing Masters and PhD graduates to remain in the country). 3) Reductions in military spending (AKA pentagon reform). 4) A much lesser internationalist foreign policy. 5) Ending corporate welfare. 6) Tax reform; reducing the rates in exchange for eliminating loopholes. 7) Entitlement reform involving further means-testing. 8) Visa reform in an effort to reclaim a lot of the tourism which was lost after 9/11. 9) Campaign finance reform. 10) Welfare reform; beefing up the Earned Income Tax Credit in exchange for dismantling much of the bureaucracy. 11) Marriage equality.

On Former Montana Governor, Brian Schweitzer, And His Possible Run for the Presidency

I like this guy (a centrist blue-dog Democrat) and, while I don't necessarily agree with him 100% (he, for example, prefers single-payer, I do not), there is also a strong possibility that I will in fact endorse him, at least for the nomination....I mean, just the mere fact that he refers to himself as the anti-Obama is sufficient enough reason for me.

On the Sordid Donald Sterling Saga 2

I really don't have a problem with the NBA throwing the book at this asshole. But there does seem to be a double-standard. Ron Artest, a player, went into the stands and started beating people up. Latrell Sprewell, a player, strangled his coach. Both of these dudes only got a one year suspension. Is the NBA really saying that idiotic statements said in the privacy of your own home are a more serious offense than criminal acts of violence; assaults and batteries? That certainly does seem to be the case.

On the Alarmist Anti-Science Smear Site, Skeptical Science

It is full of shit. As any sane, fair-mined person can plainly see here (from the uncontaminated satellite data which has since been corroborated by the equally uncontaminated radiosonde balloon data), there has been NO global warming since the El Nino spike of 1997. Bubkas, and the only way that an individual can make any hay out of this fully lipsticked pig is to either a) fool with the data by taking other factors out (the very same factors that these idiots said were insignificant and hence removed from their models) or b) utilize (and probably cherry-pick from) contaminated and significantly less reliable land thermometers. Of course, what makes these tactics even more deplorable is the fact that even Phil Jones ("no statistically significant warming since 1995"), Hans von Storch ("so far no one has been able to provide a compelling answer as to why climate change seems to be taking a break), and Kenneth Trenberth ("the fact that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.") have essentially admitted that the warming has stopped and it cannot get any more embarrassing than that, folks.

On Socialist Madman/Murderous Thug, Robert Mugabe, Embracing the Hitler Analogy

Not the strategy that I would have recommended, absent a bazooka aimed at my forehead.

On Whether or Not I Plan to Endorse Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination

What difference (observe the shoulder shrug)......AT THIS POINT DOES IT MAKE!?

On Why Free Markets are Vastly Superior to Central Command/Socialism

a) Because knowledge dispersed is better than knowledge concentrated. b) Because power dispersed is better than power concentrated. c) Because unencumbered markets are better than cronyism. d) Because millions of individual experiments are better than one enormous experiment. e) Because people spending their own money is better than governments spending other people's money.

My Depiction of the Prophet, Whatshisname

He's the one on the left, obviously.

On the Alarmists' Claim that Global Warming is Hiding at the Bottom of the Ocean

They're just making this shit up as they go along. They have to in that the rest of the evidence just isn't there for them; no atmospheric warming for 17 years (per the satellite and radiosonde balloon data), zero ocean warming for 11 years (per the Argo buoy system), a zero reduction in global sea ice over 30 years (per the University of Illinois's Arctic Science Research Center), no discernible hot-spot detected (with the amount of radiation heading back into space actually INCREASING), and no noticeable increase in cyclonic activity over 20 years (per Ryan Maue of Florida State University). I mean, I know that it's difficult here to throw the towel in and all but if James Lovelock, Judith Curry, David Evans, Freeman Dyson (one of the most brilliant men of the last 100 years), Robert Austin, and Ivar Giaever (a Nobel Prize winning physicist, for Christ sakes) can do it, I really think that people of a much lesser stock should be able to do it as well (or maybe that is the problem here - lesser stock).

On the Upcoming NFL Draft

Not enough (ESPN) coverage leading up the it.

On that Biotch Judge Down in Texas Who Sentenced a Convicted Rapist (The Dude Confessed and Admitted that the Victim Said, NO!) to 45 Days

Is this country so royally fucked up that we can't even get something as simple as this right? I mean, seriously.......Oh, and did I mention that the victim was a 14 year-old?

On Crediting Medicare for the Increase in Life Expectancy

This is so typical of government; jumping to the front of the parade and then taking credit for it. Here are the facts, people. From 1930 to 1960, life expectancy in the U.S. rose from 59.7 years to 69.7 years, a 16.7% increase. Yes, the trend-line did continue to rise after that but the gains from 1960 to 1990 (from 69.7 years to 75.4 years) represented just an 8.2% increase. That's less than half, people, and, so, no, the government really shouldn't be pounding its chest all that much....Not that we can ever stop them of course.

On the President Razzing MSNBC at the White House Correspondence Dinner

Hail to the chief, folks........................................................................................P.S. For those you who didn't hear it, the zinger went something like this. "MSNBC is in the house. They're a little overwhelmed, though. They've never seen an audience quite this big before." In the words of one Kenny Bania, "That's gold, Mr. President, gold!"

More Strong Evidence that the Third Party Payer Construct in Healthcare Stinks

According to David Goldhill's book, "Catastrophic Care" (and reinforced by the group, Physicians for a National Health Program), senior citizens are actually paying a higher percentage of their income in healthcare now (20%) than they were PRIOR to Medicare in 1965 (10%). Granted, some of that increase might simply be due to longer life expectancies but all of it? My suspicion is that it has a hell of a lot more to do with the fact that we've been subsidizing the hell out of healthcare and that whenever you're not spending your own damn money you simply don't spend it as prudently. It's common sense.

On the Ludicrous Notion that the Civil War was Fought Over Slavery

Let's just get the facts on the ground here (in 1861), OK? a) The U.S. Supreme Court was solidly behind the slave-holding states. b) The Constitution expressly protected slavery and mandated the return of fugitive slaves everywhere. c) Lincoln (in his inaugural) declared that he would enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and that he had no right to interfere with slavery (and that he also had no personal inclination to). d) Lincoln also pledged to support a new constitutional amendment (the Corwin Amendment) which would have protected slavery FOREVER (an amendment literally made irrevocable) and another one that would have made nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act illegal. e) Wall Street and the other northern economic powers that be also supported slavery/the status quo. f) The vast majority of northern citizens either supported slavery or were exceedingly ambivalent to it (abolitionists probably representing less than 5% of the populace). g) Yes, a lot of the southern states did emphasize slavery in their articles but that can quite readily be brushed aside by examining the politics. I cite this specifically from the North American Review (Boston, October 1862) - "Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion. Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, to fire the Southern heart, and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced. Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation." So slavery was a political ploy, in other words, and damned if that doesn't make a hell of a lot more sense. h) One could also logically argue that slavery would have probably been more secure IN the union, in that the Fugitive Slave Act would have no longer been applicable (once a slave had escaped and crossed into the North he would have been liberated, period) had the South seceded.

That Does Not Compute

The first mini-computer cost close to $20,000. Today you can get a laptop for less than $400. Does anybody think that those numbers would be even remotely similar if the federal government had been in charge of the industry (and, please, keep in mind here that the projections for Medicare were off by more than 800%)? I sure as hell can't fathom it.

On Roy Spencer and Michael Mann - Continued

a) If the idiot knew anything anything about research (and he apparently hasn't even taken an introductory class in statistics), he would known that it is never, EVER, allowable to combine various data sets - EVER, and when Michael Mann surreptitiously did so (his actions only having surfaced due to Climategate, a despicable series of emails that even George Monbiot had to admit were serious), the stooge was in fact committing an unpardonable sin. But alas the idiot is lacking.............b) And of course there are adjustments whenever a new technology is put forth. But to try and compare the open and aboveboard adjustments that professors Spencer and Christie have made to the absolutely despicable ones that Hansen (adjusting away the 34 year cooling trend from 1945 to 1979, lying about the warmest years on record in America, the utilization of contaminated land thermometers, etc.), Mann (completely doing away with the Medieval Warm Period and the Maunder Minimum), and Santer (chopping off the beginning - with high troposphere temps and end - with low troposphere temps of a key graph in order to exaggerate a warming trend) have engaged in is so far beyond reasonableness as to be utterly absurd.............c) When Mann initially came out with that hockey stick of his, there was not a single geologist or paleoclimatologist in all of North America that didn't laugh his or her damned ass off. The fact of the matter is that there is a plethora of proxy data from all over the planet which has consistently and categorically shown that the Medieval Warm Period (and the Little Ice Age) was not just a real phenomenon but that it was also a global one, AND that it was just as warm as today (warmer still in the Northern Hemisphere - the Vikings harvesting crops in Greenland, building cemeteries, etc.). These leftists say that they champion consensus. Well here it is for 'em, people; a great big fucking boatload of it.

Yeah, They're Greecing Something Over There

According to Bulgarian economist, Simeon Djankov, it takes 11 procedures and 9,000 Euros to start a new business in Athens. Da' ya' think that that might be one of the problems over there, and one of the major reasons as to why that economy continues to be such a frigging basket-case? I do.

Searching for Artemus Gordon

Conventional wisdom is that the 19th Century West was a time and region of extraordinary violence and lawlessness. But was it? If you listen to numerous researchers who've studied the topic at great length, the answer would be, no; that land clubs, private protection agencies, mining associations, and various other formal and informal institutions (all of which were PRIVATE) were more than enough to keep the peace and resolve disputes (threats of ostracism apparently enough).........................................................................................So, then how did this asinine myth of the wild, wild west ever get started? I mean, is the thing simply a Hollywood phenomenon? I would probably have to say, no (that it isn't SIMPLY a Hollywood phenomenon), and point instead to a couple of other factors; a) that the view securely fits the progressive narrative of humans in a constant state of anarchy and hence utterly needful of a strong state to restrain them and b) the harsh reality that there actually WAS violence but that the violence was perpetrated not by the citizens but by the government in their war of extermination on the plains Indians (this, to clear them out for the railroads).........................................................................................I mean, I know that this all kind of disappointing on a number of levels for folks but, hey, you can still watch "Shane", "Red River", "The Wild Bunch", and "The Magnificent Seven" and nobody's really gonna crucify you for it. I sure as hell wouldn't.

The Gulag Maryland

President Lincoln's actions in Maryland on the eve of the Civil War are amongst the most atrocious in U.S. history. I say this in that not only did he jail numerous members of the state legislature (those who his informants had told him MIGHT vote for secession), he actually had his northern soldiers vote in the elections there (a naked, absolute, abuse of power) to ensure his puppet regime.................................................................................And he didn't just go after legislators, either. Anybody with the temerity to even question his policies did so at his or her peril (scores of citizens ending up in Fort McHenry absent any charges). And, yes, this even included the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney, who, after his decision in Ex Parte Merryman in 1861 (in favor of Mr. Merryman who had been arrested in his own home after innuendo), Mr. Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for (refer to the personal papers of Ward Hill Lamon, the issuing Marshall, and also to those of professor Francis Lieber, author of the Lieber Code). Granted, the warrant was never actually given to Taney but that was due to the prudent decision of Lamon and had nothing whatsoever to do with Lincoln.

On Roy Spencer and Michael Mann

Spencer - developed the NASA satellite temperature monitoring system for which he was ultimately awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and the American Meteorological Society's Special Award for "developing a global precise record of the earth's temperature from operational polar orbiting satellites, fundamentally advancing our ability to monitor climate change."......Mann - developed the hockey stick (dishonestly by combining multiple data sets) for which he has quite literally become a laughing-stock.......Take your damn pick.

On the IPCC

It's short for InterGOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change, in case anybody didn't know.

On UMass Being a 6 Seed and Getting Bounced in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament and UConn Being a 7 Seed and Winning the Whole Damned Enchilada

Let's just say that my smile is as long as the Oklahoma panhandle.

On the Assertion that Changing the Atmospheric CO2 Content From 3 Molecules Per 10,000 to 4 Molecules Per 10,000 Over a 130 Year Time-Frame Will Somehow Cause Climate Catastrophe

This is exactly what happens when science and government crawl into bed together.

On Abolishing the Fed, Auditing the Pentagon, And Eliminating the Departments of Commerce and Energy

It's a start.

Note to Mike Huckabee

So, your opposition to gay marriage is the Bible? Really? A profoundly mediocre and absurdity ladened ancient text in which it is considered much more evil to scope out your neighbor's hot wife than it is to enslave a person - that's what you've decided to go with here?...I'm sorry, Governor, but that just isn't good enough - not when a person's civil rights are at issue. You need to go back to the drawing-board.

Back-Scratching

I don't think that rags like Salon and the Daily Kos fully understand just how the science game (and, yes, you can rest assure that it is a game) is played nowadays. In order to even be considered for federal research money, you have to use certain key words in your proposal. You can't, for example, just say that you want to study the mating patterns of the Vietnam ferret badger, in that that will get you nowhere. What you have to say instead  is that you want to study the mating patterns of the Vietnam ferret badger AS IT PERTAINS TO GLOBAL WARMING. That, and you can totally forget about studying the PDO, cosmic rays, underwater volcanoes, etc., as those items pertaining to global warming continue to be a) lacking in cache and b) totally untaxable.