INCONVENIENT GLACIERS
Al Gore says the world's glaciers are melting because humanity has emitted too much CO2. However, a new peer-reviewed study shows that in South America‘s Andes Mountains the glaciers' advances and retreats have not been governed by CO2, but by small variations in the sun's intensity.
The study, led by P.J. Polissar of the University of Massachusetts, found that Andean glaciers expanded only four times during the 600 years of the Little Ice Age, which lasted from 1250 AD to 1850.
Each of those glacier advances occurred during a solar minimum, when the sun's lowered activity apparently dropped the mountain-top temperatures by 2-4 degrees C and increased precipitation by about 20 percent.INCONVIENENT FALSEHOODS
"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film An Inconvenient Truth. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia gives this assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites? No. Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change.THE CONFUSION OF BILL GATES
No doubt he is a genius when it comes to software and innumerable gadgets and such; I am really pleased he got into computers big time. I certainly got a lot from that in my own line of work.
But Bill Gates really needs to shut about some other things he is confused about. Like his claim the other day, when he announced his impending retirement and turn to full time philanthropy, that he "needs to give back to the community."
Why? Did he steal something from people? Did they lend him something he needs to return? What on earth was he talking about?IS ALLAH TICKED OFF AT IRAN?
The mullahs have had a lot of bad news in recent days - news with a particularly sinister aura, in fact. So sinister that they are asking themselves what they have done to incur the Wrath of Allah.
I kid you not. First is the loss of one of their terrorist stars, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the deus ex machina of the terror war against us in Iraq. Not only does that deprive the mullahs of a prime instrument for generating Sunni/Shia civil war, but it is a serious blow to recruitment throughout the terror network.
But the loss of Zarqawi is nothing compared to the clear message from Allah on the soccer fields of Germany. No, I'm not talking about the demonstrations against President Ahmadinutjob, I'm talking about the Mexican victory over Iran in the first round of the World Cup.IT’S THE PROSECUTORS WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTED
There was anger, anguish and incredulity in the fever swamps this week when Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald make it clear he would not indict White House political guru Karl Rove in his apparently endless investigation of the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
This should remind us the greater threat to our civil liberties comes not from the measures the Bush administration has taken to protect us from terrorists, but from prosecutors who abuse their power for political purposes.
Liberals wanted Rove indicted only because he is a skilled political adversary. The interest among liberals in an indictment of the person who actually told columnist Robert Novak about Ms. Plame (thought to be former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage) is zero, because there would be no political gain from it.
Their efforts to criminalize policy differences stem from two related beliefs, both inimical to democracy.PUTIN’S ANTI-REAGAN DOCTRINE
The most beautiful women in Europe are not in Paris. They are in a country, as Joel Wade and I discovered to our delight, called Moldova. On every street corner in the capital of Chisinau, Joel and I stood transfixed, watching one spectacularly gorgeous woman after another walk by. Back then, in 1989, the place was stilled called the Soviet Republic of Moldavia. The Principality of Moldova had emerged independent out of the Middle Ages, only to be colonized by the Russian Empire in 1812. During the Russian Revolution in 1917, it broke free and joined Romania for safety. Stalin had his troops seize it in 1944, incorporating it within the Soviet Union as Moldavia. It was an exciting time to be there in 1989, as Moldovans saw the USSR disintegrating and their liberty finally around the corner. By mid-1991, they had declared their independence and Moldova was once again free. But there was a little problem.
BLACKS TO THE RESCUE
Here's the hottest question being asked this week by Republicans in Washington: Would you trade the Hispanic vote for the Black vote? It's not being asked too loudly, of course, but that it's being asked at all shows some smart guys in the GOP have figured it out: Bush's desperate attempts to retain and expand the Hispanic vote (40% for him in ‘04) by refusing to protect our border with Mexico and demands for amnesty for Mexican illegals is a loser. Sure, there are muchas Mexicano-Americans who understand that a border fence shutting down the illegal invasion would be the best thing that could happen to Mexico. If folks have to stay there rather than escape, the pressure for real reform could build irresistibly. Nonetheless, when the question is met with scoffs and denial that blacks will ever vote Republican, the smart guys ask: What do readers of Esquire Magazine and Southern Baptist evangelicals have in common?
DEMOCRAT HELL WEEK
The hit on Zarqawi has been described, quoting Churchill, as "the end of the beginning" towards winning the war in Iraq. What it and so much else also portends is the beginning of the end for the Democrat Party's dream of regaining power in Congress this November. Week before last, the Dems were riding high. Bush's poll numbers were so disastrous Time Magazine ran a cover asking "How low can he go?" The liberal rag followed this with a cover story on the "massacre" of Haditha. Nancy Pelosi went on a speaking tour describing what she'll do as House Speaker next January. Harry Reid told his staff to start planning for when he becomes Senate Majority Leader. Yep, the Dems had the Republicans on the ropes, and were gleefully acknowledging their impending victory to the cheering crowd - when without warning and out of nowhere, the Pubbies unleash a series of such punishing blows the Dems find themselves stunned, dazed, and on the canvas.
THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT AMERICA
[Nothing could better illustrate the Left's depression over George Bush's military killing Zarqawi than this morning's headline in the Washington Post: After Zarqawi, No Clear Path For A Weary Iraq. The media's relentless pessimism has infected America in general. It is about time conservatives stop being suckered by liberal pessimism, and start celebrating what's right with America. Peter Wehner, Deputy Assistant to President Bush at the White House, here provides grounds for doing so. ---JW] Americans hear a great deal about the problems they face. We hear hardly anything about the encouraging developments. So here is an empirical assessment of where we are. Social Indicators: We are witnessing a remarkable cultural renewal in America.
JOURNALISTS AS ENEMY PROPAGANDISTS
The Marine incident, and its aftermath, at Haditha last November tells us much more about the media than it does about the Marines. And what it tells us ought to outrage us to the core.
On every radio and television show I appeared on last week (and all I observed) in which this topic came up, without exception at least one of the media people immediately attempted to implicate not just the still-presumed-innocent Marines, but the American military's leadership and methods in general.
The "Drive By Media" (Rush Limbaugh's scientifically accurate description) has already started to report this story in a manner that is likely do vast damage that may last for several years to the morale (and possibly recruitment) of our military. It will create a propaganda catastrophe of strategic proportions in our mortal struggle with radical Islam and their terrorist spear point.
And all this is being done by journalists who should be considered enemy propagandists.