Category: Miscellaneous

… Michael Mann is a witch.

The Washington Post today editorialized that the Virginia attorney general is on a witch hunt. [Click for Cuccinelli’s new investigative demand to the University of Virginia.] But even the Post is not too thrillled with Mann’s work, labeling it “not unacceptably poor.” At least now we’re all only debating how “poor” Mann’s hockey stick is.

The Post tries to exonerate Mann by claiming that he was cleared by the National Academy of Sciences and his employer, Penn State. Neither claim is true.

First, while the post refers to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, it was actually a panel of the non-prestigious, for-hire National Research Council that actually reviewed Mann’s work. Below is the NRC’s conclusion about the hockey stick:

In response to a request from Congress, this report assesses the state of scientific efforts to reconstruct surface temperature records for the Earth over approximately the last 2,000 years and the implications of these efforts for our understanding of global climate change. Because widespread, reliable temperature records are only available for the last 150 years or so, scientists estimate temperatures in the more distant past by analyzing “proxy evidence,” which includes tree rings, corals, ocean and lake sediments, cave deposits, ice cores, boreholes, and glaciers. Starting in the late 1990s, scientists began using
sophisticated methods to combine proxy evidence from many different locations in an effort to estimate surface temperature changes during the last few hundred to few thousand years. This report concludes that large-scale surface temperature reconstructions are important tools in our understanding of global climate change that allows us to say, with a high level of confidence, that global mean surface temperature
was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 to 1600, although available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about A.D. 900, primarily because of the scarcity of precisely dated proxy evidence. [Emphasis added]

No part of that conclusion, of course, exonerates Mann or his hockey stick. Where in that conclusion, for example, does it say that the hockey stick appropriately deleted the Medieval Optimum or the Little Ice Age? Where in that conclusion does it say that Mann appropriately grafted late-20th century thermometer data onto the tree ring data (while deleting tree ring data not favorable to his case for warming) to give the impression of dramatic, manmade warming during the 20th century? For more on Mann and his hockey stick, check out JunkScience.com’s “Michael Mann: Defamed or defined by ‘Hide the decline’?”

As to Penn State’s “investigation” into Mann’s hijinks, click here to read about that whitewash.

By labeling Cuccinelli’s request for data from a state university a “witch hunt,” the Post is trying to liken the Virginia AG to Sen. Joe McCarthy. In that case, I’m all for such witch hunts, because Sen. McCarthy was correct. The U.S. Government was chock full of Soviet agents, communists, fellow travelers and other security risks during the mid-20th century. These “witches” did real damage to the U.S. and other nations around the world. Similarly, Mann and his ilk have done real damage to science and our educational system, while helping to advance the misanthropic “progressive” (read Marxist-socialist/neo-communist) political agenda.

The Red Menace is back — although it never really went away in the first place. We should all hope that Cuccinelli has the same fortitude, persistence and resilience as McCarthy.

[Note: Readers interested in Joe McCarthy and the supposed communist “witch hunts” should read M. Stanton Evans’ shocker “Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies.” What you’ll learn is that “McCarthyism” isn’t what Joe McCarthy did to others; it;’s what the communists and their enablers did to him. Ann Coulter called Evans’ book “The greatest book since the Bible.” At this point in our nation’s history, though, I disagree. “Blacklisted by History” is the greatest book ever.]

This video from the 10:10 climate activist group speaks for itself. Watch it and pass it around before YouTube pulls it down.

Also, note that Sony and Kyocera Mita, among other corporations, are sponsors of the 10:10.

Following up on yesterday’s post about greens urging violence now that they’re are losing politically on cap-and-trade, here’s another Grist.org commenter’s suggestion:

I think Karl Marx might be more relevant than Gandhi or MLK. This is essentially a PROPERTY issue. GCC isn’t really about oppression and prejudice; its ultimately about wealth and material things.

We don’t want to hurt people, or be hurt ourselves. But there are ways to target property that could make a statement.

Here’s an example: What if we start by throwing green paint on parked Hummers and similarly offensive vehicles? These vehicles are, in and of themselves, a statement. And the public roadway is a public forum vis-a-vis the 1st Amendment.

Why not make the potential buyer of a high-end SUV consider the fact that their vehicle might be targeted for this kind of political expression?

We could make it a liability to own these vehicles. It already IS a liability for all of us, and our society.

All it would take is 1000 people and one night to begin the campaign.

Are you scared of what this might lead to? Me, too. But at this point, I’m even more scared we’re going to waste our time on feel-good bulb replacement drives and peaceful marches that merely confirm what most people laready [sic] know: GCC is a major, immediate threat to our planet.

I think we’re past that point, friends.

The leaders of Greenpeace, 350.org and the Rainforest Action Network published an article today on Grist.org entitled, “A call for direct action in the climate movement: we need your ideas” — and boy did they get one.

Less than one week after Discovery Channel gunman James J. Lee went down in a blaze of violent ignominy, one commenter wrote,

… When someone is proud of taking advantage of another human being shoot the bastard. John Brown would have killed everybody who thought slavery was boss, or groovy, well we feel the same way, pollute and die, its that easy especially for Corporations and their laziest of all people CEOs. We declare war on CEOs and corporations that kill our brothers and sisters. Don’t need courts or judges, we got ropes. Scare the crap out of those who pollute, hang a few and our air will improve. Bill is that what you had in mind, the Crystalline Matrix has formed like a giant spider’s web, who will understand the “burning bright.” This is the year of the Tigeress.
the Director [Emphasis added]

The radical green management can call for non-violence all it wants — the zombies it has created seem poised to achieve their ends by other means.

BTW Grist, incitement to violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.

The radical green movement is rapidly trying to distance itself from Discovery Channel gunman James J. Lee. That will be difficult to do.

Wednesday afternoon, an armed Lee walked into the offices of the Discovery Channel, took hostages and demanded that the TV network alter its programming to suit his demands as laid out in an 11-point manifesto. The incident ended when police shot him dead.

Lee called for saving the Earth by getting rid of people, whom he referred to as “filth,” and stopping global warming. He called for TV programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility, and exposing civilization’s “disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed.” “All human procreation and farming must cease,” he raved, because “the planet does not need humans.”

Curious to see how the greens would react to the incident, I visited the Grist.org web site, perhaps the most popular green website, where I found an article by Grist senior editor Lisa Hymas entitled, “Discovery hostage taker is a population-obsessed eco-wacko.” [Suggested link is http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09-01-discovery-hostage-taker-population-obsessed-kid-hating-eco-wacko]. I read on as I had never seen one green refer to another as an “eco-wacko.”

Although Hymas wrote that, “Lee is giving us sane and humane enviros and childfree people a bad name,” her effort to distance her cause from Lee was soon challenged. The first comment following her post stated, “So, what is wrong with [Lee’s] logic that he deserved to be shot? He wasn’t wrong.” Two comments later, a commenter stated, “I pretty much agree with what he said… In reality, at this point, the human race is like a growing fungus covering and consuming a grapefruit…”

Like Dr., Frankenstein tying to escape the reputational stain of his eponymous monster, the radical green movement cannot runaway so easily from Lee.

While Lee clearly popped his cork, the comments to Hymas’ article indicate there are apparently others out there whose corks are under similar pressure — thanks to green publications like Grist and green personalities like Al Gore, whose movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Lee reportedly credited for “awakening” him to global warming.

Gore, Grist.org and others have urged their followers to civil disobedience. Grist staff write Jonathan Hiskes says he’s all for the easy stuff first (like weatherization and energy efficiency), but if that doesn’t work, Hiskes calls for civil disobedience and ensuing prison, if need be. Ironically, Lee tried civil disobedience with the Discovery Channel in 2008 and wound up in prison. His probation from that incident ended just two weeks ago.

Greens have tried using civil disobedience (even if it involves criminal trespass) to shut down coal mining, coal-fired power plants and gas stations. None of these efforts have succeeded. So what’s next when civil disobedience fails? More James Lees?

Some greens have already leap-frogged over civil disobedience and moved straight into terrorism. In the wake of fire bombings at new housing developments, car dealerships and a ski lodge, the FBI has labeled the Earth Liberation front as a domestic terrorist group. Then there’s sawmill worker George Alexander who was almost decapitated in 1987 when his saw blade hit a tree spike embedded by the California chapter of Earth First!

The greens would also like to harness the power of the state to do violence to their opponents. About so-called global warming “deniers,” Grist writer Dave Roberts wrote in 2006, “we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

It’s true that James Lee was a psycho, but he was just taking radical environmentalism to its logical conclusion. People threaten planet and, if they won’t stop voluntarily, then they must be made to stop. Lee believed that because he steeped himself in today’s radical environmental movement.

By Steve Milloy
GreenHellBlog, August 10, 2010

Speaking about the likelihood of climate bill being passed by Congress in 2010, Al Gore told a conference call of supporters tonight that, “this battle has not been successful and is pretty much over for this year.” Gore bitterly denounced the Senate and federal government stating several times, “The U.S. Senate has failed us” and “The federal government has failed us.” Gore even seemed to blame President Obama by emphasizing that “the government as a whole has failed us… although the House did its job. [emphasis added]”

Gored urged his listeners to take the “realistic view that they had failed badly.” Gore said that “Comprehensive legislation is not likely to be debated” and that a “lame duck debate” is a “very slim possibility indeed.” (N.B. We thought, because Gore told us, that “the debate” was over.)

Gore said “the government was not working “as our founders intended it to” and laid more blame at the feet of fossil fuel interests who conducted a “cynical coordinated campaign” with “unprecedented funding” and “who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars just on lobbying.” He criticized “polluters” for “dumping global warming pollution into the atmosphere like it was an open sewer.”

Gore blamed the skeptics for “attacking science and scientists.” “They [the skeptics] did damage and cast doubt,” Gore said.

Asked why the alarmists were ineffective in addressing Climategate, Gore bitterly blamed a “biased right-wing media… bolstered by professional deniers.” Gore claimed the Wall Street Journal published 30 editorial and news articles about Climategate and “not a single one presented [his] side of the science.”

Speaking about the post-2010 prospects for a climate bill, Gore tried to boost morale by stating that “the battle is not over” and that “we [alarmists] have no choice but to win the battle.” Gore said that “reality is [the alarmists] ally” and then, among other things, blamed recent flooding in Nashville and the Russian heatwave/forest fires on global warming.

He concluded by observing that “it is darkest before dawn” and “we have not yet begun to fight.”

In a warm-up discussion before Gore addressed the call, National Wildlife Federation chief Larry Schweiger referred to the skeptics as “enemies” and that he hoped the alarmists would “outlive the bastards.”

A Daily Kos contributing editor has suggested that “Steve Milloy and his buddies” commit suicide or be euthanized apparently for the crime of opposing global warming alarmism.

Amid a rant on his Examiner.com blog about skeptics “carpet-bomb[ing] newspaper editorial pages with climate change disinformation…], Steven Alexander, who writes for Daily Kos under the nom-de-plume “Darksyde,” wrote that,

… if only Milloy and his buddies could check into one of the [Soylent Corporation’s] lovely medical suites for a short nature movie and a glass of wine…

The reference is to the assisted suicide scene in the 1973 movie Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston.

The Clarity Digital Group, which owns Examiner.com, removed the offensive posting immediately upon notification.

Former Washington Post reporter David Weigel was recently fired from the paper for privately writing on the Journolist listserv that Matt Drudge should “… set himself on fire.”

Now Alexander has publicly wished a similar fate for climate skeptics.

If you wonder why the skeptics fight so vigorously against the greenshirts, the sort of intolerance exhibited by Alexander over a mere difference in opinion is one reason. God help us all, if they prevail.

In this LOL-interview with CleanSkiesTV, hockey stick inventor Michael Mann blames the current East Coast heat wave on manmade warming!

The interview is 10+ minutes. Blaming the heat wave on manamde warming occurs at about 6:45 into the interview.

Below is an excerpt of a column I wrote for the old CNSNews.com about Al Gore’s character. Consider it as you weigh the credibility of the claims in the police report concerning Gore’s alleged sexual assault of a masseuse.

A Child's Tragedy, A Parent's Character

By Steven J. Milloy
Copyright 2000 CNSNews.com
February 28, 2000

One can scarcely imagine a worse event – the death or severe injury of your child.

For a parent, the grief may be compounded by the guilt associated with partial or even imagined responsibility for the harm occurring. How one deals with the challenge of guilt-on-grief provides unique insight into one's character. Consider the cases of Al Gore, Robert Sanders, and John and Reve Walsh.

Environmental Activism Sparked by Tragedy

On April 3, 1989, then-Sen. Albert Gore, Jr. and his son, Albert Gore III, were leaving the Baltimore Orioles opening day baseball game when, according to news reports, Albert III "let go of his father's hand" and darted into the street near Memorial Stadium. Albert III was hit by a car and injured severely with broken bones, ruptured spleen, bruised lung and concussion.

The driver of the car, Jasper McWilliams reportedly was not speeding and the police did not charge him at that time.

The accident was understandably distressing to Gore, but his behavior in its aftermath was curious. In his son's hospital room, the elder Gore began writing his well-known book and environmental call-to-arms "Earth in the Balance."

Gore wrote, "For me something changed in a fundamental way. I don't think my son's brush with death was solely responsible, although that was the catalyst. But I had also just lost a presidential campaign; moreover, I had just turned 40 years old. I was, in a sense, vulnerable to the change that sought me out in the middle of my life and gave me a new sense of urgency about those things I value the most."

Albert III's accident spurred Gore's now famous activism on the "rapidly deteriorating global environment," a battle which Gore wrote includes "completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-year period" and "embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action — to use, in short, every means to halt the destruction of the environment and to preserve and nurture our ecological system."

The fact that a car accident precipitated a call to eliminate the internal combustion engine is bizarre enough, but it's not the end of the unusual events following the accident.

A week after the accident, blame for the accident somehow got displaced. McWilliams was suddenly charged with speeding and failing to exercise proper precaution upon seeing a child in the road.

He was tried in Baltimore District Court in July 1989. McWilliams was acquitted of all charges, leaving Gore, as the parent holding his child's hand while crossing the road, with responsibility for the accident.

But why did Gore, a powerful Democrat, allow Baltimore City, a Democratic stronghold, to prosecute McWilliams at all?…

Gore claimed to invent the Internet, claimed to be the basis of “Love Story,” uses 20 times as much electricity as the average American while urging the rest of us to cut back, made a bundle off scaring people about the climate, blamed the tobacco companies for his sister’s death from smoking even though his family raised and sold tobacco, sat by while an innocent man was prosecuted for his own negligence, and now, at the very least seems to have betrayed his wife and possibly committed a violent sexual assault.

What part of Al Gore’s character is not simply creepy?

The same day that Al Gore allegedly sexually attacked a masseuse in Portland, Oregon, he said the following at a presentation of his infamous slide show:

“[Global warming] will give us the chance to experience something few generations ever know — a sense of moral purpose.” [Source: The Columbian (Vancouver, WA), Oct. 25, 2006]

The Columbian went on to quote one Jonathan Potkin who said,

“I admire that fact that he could just as well have left well enough alone [and left public life]. I think he is a pretty genuine character. It’s too bad there aren’t more people in government who have that same integrity.”

POP QUIZ: Which of the below isn’t like the others?

• Moral sense
• Integrity
• Sexual assault

California attorney general Jerry Brown is trying to sabotage the state anti-cap-and-trade ballot initiative by changing its name.

The ballot initiative would rollback the California cap-and-trade law (AB 32) pending a decline in state unemployment.

The original name of the ballot initiative was the:

California Jobs Initiative

The initiative’s new Brown-ized name is the:

Suspends Air Pollution Control Laws Requiring Major Polluters To Report And Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions That Cause Global Warming Until Unemployment Drops Below Specified Level For Full Year Initiative

Who wouldn’t vote for that?

The official announcement is below:

25 February 2010 – Update

Assemblyman Dan Logue, along with Congressman Tom McClintock and
Edward J. Costa INITIATIVE –

Received by Attorney General Office 25 November 2009- assigned number 09-0094 to the initiative titled California Jobs Initiative

On 03 February 2010, was renamed by Attorney General Jerry Brown to:

SUSPENDS AIR POLLUTION CONTROL LAWS REQUIRING MAJOR POLLUTERS TO REPORT AND REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS THAT CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING UNTIL UNEMPLOYMENT DROPS BELOW SPECIFIED LEVEL FOR FULL YEAR. INITIATIVE STATUTE.

The INITIATIVE is to SUSPEND implementation of AB 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) until unemployment in California drops below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters; it also prevents any agency from implementing any regulation of AB 32.

Negotiations are underway to modify the title authored by Attorney General Brown to more satisfactorily and truthfully reflect what the INITIATIVE really is intended.

To monitor progress of this INITIATIVE:
AG.CA.GOV/INITIATIVES/ACTIVEINDEX.PHP –
Select 2009 Initiatives and this is filed under 09-0094.