...The very mild warming that the earth experienced over the last century: does that have more to do with mankind's activities or the sun?

It seems like it must be the sun. The reason we say that is because 70% of the warming we've had since 1850, when the Little Ice Age ended -- 70% of that warming came before 1940. 85% of the human emitted greenhouse gasses came after 1940. In fact, the net warming of the earth since 1940 is a miniscule 2/10 of 1 degree celsius....

Another question related to your last book: if you listen to global warming alarmists, they'll tell you that the earth is warmer than it ever has been during mankind's history. Is that true?

No. Absolutely untrue. The...warming before our last ice age was much warmer than anything we've had since. We had a warming that peaked 9000 years ago, another warming that peaked 5000 years ago. Both were warmer than today. Probably the Roman warming and the medieval warming were both warmer than today -- and we've had 8 warmings of the earth since the last Ice Age.

The whole thing is interesting - the coming outlook for global temperature?

You've recently said you believe we're about to experience mild global cooling. Can you tell us about that?

We are experiencing now, mild global cooling. We had a peak temperature in 1998, at the end of a hot El Nino and the climate model said this is just the beginning, it's going to get much hotter. But, it didn't. For 10 years, the temperature held stable.

During this time, from 2000 onward, the sunspots were predicting cooling. Let me point out to your readers that sunspots have had a strong history of predicting our temperature changes 10 years from now. A 10 year lag in predicting how solar activity will warm or cool the ocean. But, from 2000 on, they were predicting cooling.

2007, we got it. 2007 was significantly cooler and that was the first major downturn in the temperature in 30 years. That cooling has persisted -- at this point, in temperature, about back where we were in the year 1900.

And this kind of information just completely unhinges the section of the population that has decided that they have finally gotten the tool they can use to make Western Civilization destroy itself.  The flecks of spittle that I have seen sprayed around on this blog are nothing compared to the vitriol poured out by the true believers on those who actually stand athwart their ideas and stay "STOP".

But remember this too:

Another thing I have noticed is that even the global warming alarmists were right: the solutions that they're suggesting don't come close to fixing the problems. Kyoto, these cap and trade schemes, they are really expensive and actually do very little to reduce greenhouse gasses. Any thoughts on that?

They're really talking about going back to the Great Depression. Nobody has a car, nobody could afford the fuel if they had a car. They're talking about living a hundred yards from the factory, except there isn't going to be a factory because there is not going to be any coal burning to power it. No nuclear power, no drilling for oil, no hope.

I just want to remind you that there are millions of people in the Third World, women and children, heating and cooking with cow manure, firewood that they gather off the mountainside. The air pollution in some of those areas is equal to a 2 pack a day cigarette habit. ...If there's no kerosene, no propane, no nuclear electricity, are we all going to be in that situation?

North America's first carbon tax rolls out under fire
Reuters, 6.27.08, By Allan Dowd

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Civic leader Scott Nelson says he is as worried as anyone about global warming, but that does not make him happy to be one of the first North Americans to pay a carbon tax to curb climate change.

Nelson, the mayor of Williams Lake, British Columbia, says record high energy prices mean that the levy, for all its good intentions, could not come at a worse time for residents in his community, a small lumber and ranching town about 525 km (340 miles) north of Vancouver.

"The last thing they need now is a tax on top of these soaring prices to add insult to injury," said Nelson, predicting that a taxpayer revolt will eventually scuttle the new tax, which takes effect on July 1.

Carbon taxes already exist in Europe. But the tax on fossil fuels will make the Pacific province of British Columbia the first North American jurisdiction to bring in a broad-based levy designed to cut emissions of the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming.

...The provincial government estimates the tax will reduce carbon emissions by about 3 million tonnes a year, or the equivalent of the emissions from about 787,000 cars, as people reduce their use of carbon to save money.

But Nelson says rising energy prices are already doing what the taxes is intended to do by forcing people to cut energy use....

B.C. introduces carbon tax Vancouver Sun, 2.19.08

"We know from our surveys that over 80 per cent of business owners are already taking action to get cleaner," she added, saying that (was) happening without a tax in place.

More Holes Exposed in Dion Carbon Tax
July 08, 2008

After repeatedly assuring Canadians that his permanent new carbon tax will be applied equally across the country, Stéphane Dion has gone back on his word and begun offering special side deals and exemptions to individual provinces.
British Columbia Premier confirms that Stéphane Dion offered him a special side deal

After repeatedly assuring Canadians that his permanent new carbon tax will be applied equally across the country, Stéphane Dion has gone back on his word and begun offering special side deals and exemptions to individual provinces.

“The Dion Liberals have flip-flopped on the so-called ‘revenue neutrality’ of their plan.  They have flip-flopped and admitted that their carbon tax will drive up gas prices.  Now they are flip-flopping on their promise that every region will be treated equally,” said Conservative MP Jason Kenney.  “It is clear that there is a wide gap between what Stéphane Dion says and what he really means.”

As recently as July 3rd, Stéphane Dion was desperately trying to reassure nervous Canadians that “his own carbon tax plan is simple and would be standard across the country.” (Calgary Herald, July 3, 2008)

Yet during a weekend television interview, BC Premier Gordon Campbell acknowledged that Stéphane Dion had privately assured him that British Columbians could count on special side deals and exemptions, saying, “Mr. Dion actually called me and said there would not be a double taxation, that he does not want to impose something that will not work on British Columbians.” (Question Period, CTV, July 6, 2008, 12:00-13:00 ET)

“It speaks volumes about the true nature of the Dion Tax Trick that the only way to sell anybody on it is by promising to exempt them from it,” Mr. Kenney said. “We’ve already seen one of Mr. Dion’s top lieutenants, Scott Brison, offer a special side deal for his home province.  Now Stéphane Dion himself is getting in on the act.  The Dion Liberals are proposing to arbitrarily divide Canada into tiers, with some families forced to pay more because they’re guilty of living in the ‘wrong’ region.  With so many questions still unanswered by Mr. Dion, why would anybody want to take such a risk?”

But how was our planet? And how long ago was it when the environment was better? Disregarding the terrible grammar of that last sentence, the point still stands. The consensus of the general public is that the environment is in a terrible state and the planet is headed for oblivion, but can anyone remember when that wasn't true? Now, the problem is Global Warming, but back in the 1970's and  1980's, it was the coming of a second Ice Age. Interesting progression, isn't it? It is like we are trying to balance on a solo stalagmite rising out of a dark abyss.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is call "alarmism". In the media business, it has been used for decades if not centuries. It makes sens if you think about it. News stations get funding from companies paying the station to run their ads. The more people who watch Channel X News at 4, the more valuable the air time is during that news segment. How do the news media attract more views? The answer is simple: by scarring them. It's the same concept as a car crash, it's terrifying and an awful occurrence, but as long as it didn't happen to you, it is captivating.

Getting caught up in the hysteria is normal. Most people are unaware that they are and it happens to all of us at some point in our lives., just do not let people use it to take advantage of you. Recently, a bill known as the Lieberman-Warner Bill came before Congress. This bill was supposed "to establish the core of a Federal program that will reduce United States greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough between 2007 and 2050 to avert the catastrophic impacts of global climate change"  (See Bill here). It really was a fancy way of introducing government control into the economy. That is a bad thing. Thankfully, the bill was defeated. It would have allowed the government to auction of "Greenhouse Gas Credits (GHG's)", thus turning carbon into a commodity. I'm sorry Ladies and Gentlement, but the economy does not work like that.

Now, as for you carbon footprint, Steve Boler's article from The American Thinker website, explains it best. My big problem with the whole issue is people are starting to treat carbon like a poisonous chemical. Unlike Arsenic, Mercury, and certain forms of Chromium, which appear in very small amounts in nature but are lethal, Carbon is just the opposite. If you ingest arsenic, you can die. If you are exposed to mercury, you lose you hair and experience severe dementia (hence the concept of the "Mad Hatter"). If you inhale too much carbon, you yawn.

On another point, if we reduce the amount of carbon in our atmoshpere, there could be unintended consequences. In 7th grade biology, kids learn about plans and photosynthesis; the process all members of the Plantae kingdom use to convert water, light, and CARBON DIOXIDE into glucose and OXYGEN to survive. (I know this is a review and almost infintile for about 99% of my readers). If carbon dioxide goes down too much, we will start to see stunted plant growth. This would affect the out put of food growth and production worldwide. Domino effect blah blah blah... I think you see where I am going with this.

Again, we arrive on top of our stalagmite. What do we do? My advice is "Don't be stupid." Burning vegetation just to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is not the way to go, but neither is trying to force a complete 180 on our lifestyle because the sirens and flashing lights of the environmentalist alarm disorient us. After all, it's just a passing fad.

Rotten Tomatoes Caused by Climate Change? by Thomas Kostigen

Global warming skeptics have been compared with holocaust deniers, and media reports routinely present the issue as "settled." Those opposed to the global warming agenda are being openly mocked and attacked - but they are being mocked and attacked based on a straw-man misrepresentation of their position.

Most global warming skeptics readily acknoweldge that the planet is warming. What they deny is that man is causing that warming (anthropogenic global warming), or that man can do anything that would have more than a trivial impact on the warming that is occuring. And they question whether the warming that is occuring is even bad for the planet or for humanity.

There is clear evidence of a persistant natural global warming cycle that has dominated Earth's temperatures for the past 10,000 years and extends back through several ice ages and warm interglacials for at least 1 million years. The evidence shows this cycle is responsible for most of Earth's warming since 1850. The scientific evidence is found in more than 200 peer-reviewed papers published in professional journals representing the conclusions of more than 500 scientific experts. But that information is simply ignored by a frankly biased and leftist media, compressed into sounbites and buried in the back pages of newspapers, or spun by being "put into context."

For example, it was front-page news when the 2007 UN Intergovernmental Panal on Climate Change (IPCC) report proclaimed near-certainty that the cause of global warming was human; but how much coverage did the 2006 US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report get that presented clear evidence to the contrary?

Similarly, the statement in the IPCC Climate Change 1995 report claiming that scientists had found a "human fingerprint" in the current global warming received a great deal of attention. But the fact that that statement had been inserted into the report for political, not scientific, reasons, and that the accompanying "science volume" had been edited to remove five different statements by the scientific panel specifically saying that no such human fingerprint had been found, received very little attention. The author of that IPCC science chapter - a US government employee - had to publicly admit that he had inserted the scientifically indefensible language because of "back room" pressure from top US government officials (see Frederick Seitz, former president, National Academy of Sciences, "A Major Deception on Global Warming" in the 12 June 1996 Wall Street Journal; see also S. Fred Singer, Climate Policy from Rio to Kyoto: A Political Issue for 2000 and Beyond (Palo Alto: Hoover Institution, Standford University 2000, p.19).

The truth of the matter is that scientists from around the world are having to gather to discuss academic misconduct - the falsification or misrepresentation of research data - which is described as an "open sore" in scientific research. But the media does not seem to be interested in anything that would undermine their narrative of a crisis caused by global warming.

History professor Naomi Oreskes' 2004 paper purporting to show "a unanimous, scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of recent global warming" garnered a great deal of media exposure. However, Dr. Benny Peiser's devastating refutation of that paper by revealing its terrible methodology was largely shunned. Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte provided another refutation of Oreskes' work. No matter: Oreskes paper is accepted as gospel by global warming advocates and by the media. Thus a history professor with an obviously biased and flawed methodology declares a scientific consensus on man-caused global warming, and that view has become the gospel-truth with the media which disregards the truth in favor of a footnote that supports their agenda.

Dr. Benny Peiser went on to present an 18 April 2007 paper titled EDITORIAL BIAS AND THE PREDICTION OF CLIMATE DISASTER: THE CRISIS OF SCIENCE COMMUNICATION at the conference "Climate Change: Evaluating Appropriate Responses" before the European Parliament. He said:

Over the last 10 years, the editors of the world’s leading science journals such as Science and Nature as well as popular science magazines such as Scientific American and New Scientist have publicly advocated drastic policies to curb CO2 emissions. At the same time, they have publicly attacked scientists skeptical of the climate consensus. The key message science editors have thus been sending out is brazen and simple: “The science of climate change is settled. The scientific debate is over. It’s time to take political action.”

Instead of serving as an honest and open-minded broker of scientific controversy, science editors have opted to take a rigid stance on the science and politics of climate change. In so doing, they have in effect sealed the doors for any critical assessment of the prevailing consensus which their journals officially sponsor. Consequently, their public endorsement undoubtedly deters critics from submitting falsification attempts for publication. Such critiques, not surprisingly, are simply non-existing in the mainstream science media.

Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, one of the invited expert reviewers for the 2007 IPCC documents, has decried the myth of "scientific consensus," and pointed out the flawed review process used by the IPCC scientists. He has also pointed out that an increasing number of scientists are now questioning the hypothesis of GHG-induced warming of the earth's surface and suggesting a stronger impact of solar variability and large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns on the observed temperature increase than previously believed. But he has largely been ignored by the media. Other scientists, such as Dr. Richard S. Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have similarly come out to declare their scientific skepticism of global warming alarmism. "I must state at the outset, that, as a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios being popularly described. Moreover, according to many studies I have read by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. Such was also the conclusion of the recent National Research Council's report on adapting to global change."

Such views are not only dismissed, but are all-too often being ferociously attacked by every means possible with tactics that could legitimately be called Stalinist.

Dr. Lindzen - the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the leading scientific university in the world - wrote an article titled, "Climate of Fear" detailing the Orwellian tactics routinely used by the global warming alarmism industry to stifle or outright destroy skeptical scientists. He says, "there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis."

In one troubling case, a revered hurricane expert and global warming skeptic is being released from Colorado State University. Dr. William Gray, whose dean has publicly acknowledged that "He's a great faculty member," is being forced out of his position - not due to any allegations of incompetency or misconduct - but simply because "handling media inquiries for Dr. Gray's work requires too much time and detracts from efforts to promote the work of other professors." Question: are scientists who believe in anthropogenic global warming being fired because of media inquirees regarding their position? Universities generally like it when their faculty receive media exposure because it translates in increased student applications. Dr Gray rightly says, "This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to be a cover for the department's capitulation to the desires of some who want to rein in my global warming and global warming-hurricane predictions."

And if anything, the real "dirty secret" is that the "industry stooges" are actually working on the side of the global warming alarmist industry, such as the Pew Foundation, according to an article by climatologist Dr. Patrick J. Michaels.

A blatant example of this is Goddard Institute of Space Studies' Dr. James Hansen. Hansen wrote his first alarmist climate model - which showed the world was about to experience severe global cooling - in 1971. NASA colleagues used it to warn the world that immediate action was needed to prevent the catastrophe of global cooling. Now his models just as stridently hype global warming catastrophe. He has appeared on numerous friendly media formats decrying "the politicization of science," when he himself has politicized science more than anyone. He has received millions of dollars in funding from liberal activist sources such as George Soros and the Heinz Foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry. He also served as a paid consultant to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and has personally promoted the film.

I personally never had any axe to grind on "global warming" until a one-sided version of it was repeatedly imposed upon me. If there truly was a problem, I would have wanted to take steps toward a solution (I drive the speed limit to reduce my fuel consumption, carefully watch my water consumption, avidly recycle, and routinely pick up other people's trash). But I became very suspicious way back in 1995 when UN officials began to call for draconian steps on the part of wealthy Western European economies, yet imposed nothing upon Russia, China, India, and the devoloping world. We were either facing a genuine global crisis - in which case coal burning developing countries needed to stop their coal burning and developing along with everyone else - or it was not. I began to suspect that the effort to combat global warming was far more a radical socialist redistribution campaign rather than a legitimate effort to truly combat an actual global crisis. And I have never seen anything that has ever revealed this view to be incorrect since.

I see the overwhelming evidence for constant warming and cooling climate cycles throughout the planet's history simply dismissed as though it is utterly irrelevant to the question of current global warming, even as the global warming establishment categorically states that global warming is anthropocentric based on the flimsiest of evidence largely based on theoretical computer climate models.

I see the "experts" arbitrarily deciding to fixate on the 3.2 percent of carbon dioxide that is caused by humans and ignoring the 96.8% that is completely natural and out of human control. I see the claim that the United States must totally alter its entire way of life to reduce anthropogenic CO2 when anthropogenic CO2 produces less than 0.1 of one percent of the greenhouse effect.

I see Al Gore receiving a Nobel Prize for science when his work is filled with one alarmist and exaggerated claim after another. Giving such an award to a man whose tactics represent those of Joeseph Goebbels more than those of objective science demonstrates what an ideological mockery the scientific project is increasingly becoming.

I see the theoretical future threat to polar bears as grounds for sweeping powers being granted to the Environmental Protection Agency despite the fact that the bear population has clearly doubled in the past thirty years. If global warming is truly having such a terrible impact on our environment, then advocates ought to have the ability to provide species whose population is truly being impacted.

I see the media hyping the melting northern ice caps and simultaneously ignoring the fact that the Antarctic ice levels have hit record highs.

I see the best available observations showing a global warming pattern (in latitude and altitude) that differ dramatically from the pattern calculated by computer greenhouse models being ignored. It doesn't seem to matter that the observed and theoretical fingerprints simply do not match.

I see global warming alarmists continuing to point at severe weather as being caused by global warming when the science says otherwise. One of the most influential scientists behind the theory that global warming causes hurricane activity to intensify has recently reversed his position, with little fanfare. Hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of MIT now says that hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise over the next two centuries.

I see (and laugh!) one global warming conference hyping catastrophe after another having to be canceled every single year due to cold weather. I see (and laugh at!) the hypocrisy of UN "global warming experts" flying to Bali to have a conference saying the very thing they're doing is destroying the planet!!! I see Al Gore's home creating a carbon footprint that is 20 times larger than anyone else's while he's out telling people to ride their bikes everywhere to save the planet.

I see liberals advocating "carbon credits" the way the Catholic church at its worst sold indulgences to bribe God to ignore their sins. Apparently, if a pedophile molests a kid but gives money to an anti-child-molesting organization, his net molestation is zero. Carbon credits give wealthy global warming alarmists the ability to pay their way out of being forced to live the way they want to force everyone else to live.

I see liberals and environmental activists routinely using every means to block any effort to resolve our energy crisis by exploiting our abundant domestic oil resources, even as they constantly demagogue those who have been proposing how to increase the energy supply and reduce the increasingly shockingly-high price tag of energy that is essential to our economy. If your car will run on wind, then by all means let's build more windmills. But otherwise, by all means, please let us increase our oil supply.

I see all this and more, and am therefore very skeptical as to why I need to support the most massive socialist redistribution program in world history and the complete undermining of the American economy in order to fight a theoretical threat - when all human history has shown that global warming is actually good for humans and it is ice ages that are bad. Civilizations such as the Roman and Mayan empires thrived during warming that is hotter than it is today; and it was during the cooling that occurred during the so-called Dark Ages that human civilization struggled to survive.

Also see my article, "What the Science REALLY Says About Global Warming."

Next: I remember reading a copy of the Journal at the kitchen table in the family homestead over Christmas and seeing a full-page ad for Lifelock - an identity theft protection service. In this ad, which I'm sure you've seen since, Todd Davis, CEO of Lifelock, stood in front of block text declaring his Social Security Number to the world. So confident was he, apparently, in his company's product.

Well, according to a class action lawsuit filed last week, the inevitable happened:

“The lawsuits allege that LifeLock and its multi-million-dollar advertising campaign provided false and misleading information about the limited level of identity protection the company provides, and failed to warn them about the potential adverse impact the company’s services could have on their credit profiles,” according to the press release.

Additionally, the release alleges that Lifelock CEO, Todd Davis has been a victim of identity theft multiple times since using his SSN as a marketing tool to sell the service.

Oops.

Next up: could the "obesity epidemic" plaguing America have anything to do with ... the shifting definition of obesity?

“Overweight:”Definition changed from BMI ≥ 27 to BMI ≥ 25 by the U.S. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute in 1998, instantly increasing by 43% the numbers of Americans, an additional 30.5 million, deemed ‘overweight.’

“High cholesterol:”Definition changed from a total cholesterol ≥ 240 to ≥ 200 in 1998 increasing by 86% the numbers of Americans labeled has having high cholesterol, an additional 42.6 million adults.

“Hypertension:”Definition changed in 1997 from 160/100 to 140/90, instantly adding 35% more Americans, 13.5 million, to the rosters of hypertensive. A new definition for ‘prehypertension’ in 2003 increased to 58% the Americans believing they have hypertension.

“Diabetes:” Definition changed from a fasting glucose of ≥ 140 to ≥ 126 in 1997 by the American Diabetes Association and WHO Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus, increasing by 14% and 1.7 million the people diagnosed with diabetes. With the proposal of a new term, ‘prediabetes’ by the First International Congress on Prediabetes, and promoted by the International Diabetes Federation (sponsored by 12 pharmaceutical companies), 40% of the adult population was added to the rosters believing they have diabetes and are in need of treatment.

I've still seen plenty of fat Americans, but this explains a lot.

In news abroad, Jesus tapdancing Christ, don't fucking invade Burma in the name of humanitarian aid, you fucking stupid fucks:

One of the illusions that convinced some otherwise well-meaning people to go along with the conquest of Iraq in 2003 was, “Iraq is so bad, how could we make it worse?” But we could. So with Burma. I know almost nothing about the junta that rules Burma. But I know that it’s the junta that rules Burma - that is, that they’ve extended their writ over a preponderance of the territory we think of as Burma, more or less. That is to say, they successfully maintain power.

The junta apparently numbers 19 guys, but 19 guys don’t run a place like Burma by themselves. They’ve got people for that. Cops, soldiers, secret policemen, bureaucrats. And those people have families and friends and hangers-on. Stakeholders. And apparently “regional commanders enjoy a great deal of autonomy in their respective areas.” So they and their retainers and whoever else profits from existing arrangements have a stake in the existing system. And the habits and attitudes of the bulk of the population are the habits and attitudes that enable one to survive under tyranny. It’s not about knocking off that one bad guy and his eighteen friends. There’s a whole set of structures and class interests and cultural patterns, local peculiarities and regional fault lines to cope with. I don’t know much about Burma, but I know that much about any place. It’s hubris to be sure you can start rearranging such a society without a good chance of making it even worse.

And, because I haven't ragged on President Dog in a while:

“I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

[...]

Asked if he thought Mr. Obama was an appeaser — the Democratic candidate has said he would be willing to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran — Mr. McCain sidestepped and said, “I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That’s what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people.'’

I should barely need to open my mouth to refute something this illiterate, but:

(1) Reagan had no problem sitting down with Iranian religious extremists when he needed some loose cash to fund Nicaraguan guerillas.

(2) Not that I want to defend Obama's foreign policy acumen, but: Senator Obama would probably want to sit down with the head of Iran for the same reason Reagan sat down with Gorbachev, or the same reason Nixon shook hands with Mao Zedong. I know these aren't strictly analogous cases, as Russia and China were threats to the U.S. and Iran is not, but I hope everyone can still follow along.

From the Washington Post, an op/ed that examines the social cost of terrorism:

Fear, in other words, is a tax, and al-Qaeda and its ilk have done better at extracting it from Americans than the Internal Revenue Service. Think about the extra half-hour millions of airline passengers waste standing in security lines; the annual cost in lost work hours runs into the billions. Add to that the freight delays at borders, ports and airports, the cost of checking money transfers as well as goods in transit, the wages for beefed-up security forces around the world. And that doesn't even attempt to put a price tag on the compression of civil liberties or the loss of human dignity from being groped in full public view by Transportation Security Administration personnel at the airport or from having to walk barefoot through the metal detector, holding up your beltless pants. This global transaction tax represents the most significant victory of Terror International to date.

The new fear tax falls most heavily on the United States. Last November, the Commerce Department reported a 17 percent decline in overseas travel to the United States between Sept. 11, 2001, and 2006. (There are no firm figures for 2007 yet, but there seems to have been an uptick.) That slump has cost the country $94 billion in lost tourist spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and $16 billion in forgone tax revenue -- and all while the dollar has kept dropping.

[...]

What is happening to the American character? True, the country has gone through crises of confidence before, some of them cresting in sheer hysteria -- from the Alien and Sedition Acts to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's search for a commie under every State Department desk. But the worst acts from 1798 were repealed or allowed to lapse within three years, and the senator from Wisconsin was censured a few years into his red-baiting career. Alas, the USA Patriot Act and DHS have already endured longer than either earlier excess, and neither is fading.

I vaguely recall someone mentioning how important it was that American citizens live out their lives as normal - without fear, in other words - in the days immediately following the September 11th attacks. My mistake.

Next, you might have seen this on a CNN scrolling banner last week: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risks. Of course, the beauty of modern cable news comes from not having to tell you the interesting parts of the story:

The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history, the researchers said.

78 joints per week makes 11 per day, or one every hour and a half while awake. 350 joints per week makes 50 a day. Drinking 50 glasses of distilled water per day would cause kidney problems, but you don't see that making the news.

Was there some mythical era of American journalism when obviously bogus news stories like this one would have been caught at the editor's desk? Or is that wishful thinking?

Finally, I worry about the rising price of oil as much as anyone, but I hope that my worries sound more literate than those of the dumbest man with a Times byline, Paul fucking Krugman:

Now, speculators do sometimes push commodity prices far above the level justified by fundamentals. But when that happens, there are telltale signs that just aren’t there in today’s oil market.

[...]

The only way speculation can have a persistent effect on oil prices, then, is if it leads to physical hoarding — an increase in private inventories of black gunk. This actually happened in the late 1970s, when the effects of disrupted Iranian supply were amplified by widespread panic stockpiling.

But it hasn’t happened this time: all through the period of the alleged bubble, inventories have remained at more or less normal levels. This tells us that the rise in oil prices isn’t the result of runaway speculation; it’s the result of fundamental factors, mainly the growing difficulty of finding oil and the rapid growth of emerging economies like China. The rise in oil prices these past few years had to happen to keep demand growth from exceeding supply growth. [emphasis mine]

Speculators? Hoarders? Heaven forfend, Dr. Krugman! Are the Freemasons poisoning the wells? Should I let some blood to dispel the bad humo(u)rs? Quick, without peeking at a calendar: what century are we living in right now?

The bizarre distinction between "speculators / hoarders" and the "fundamental" business of the market belies an odd, illiterate bias on Krugman's part. To demonstrate why, substitute the word investor for every instance of the word speculator or hoarder. They're the same thing: people who buy a commodity in the expectation that its price will rise. But one can be found in every basic Econ textbook in print today - none of which, apparently, Krugman has ever read - while the other evokes images of a miser in a mud hovel on the outskirts of a Prussian village. Speculators! Hoarders! Assemble a posse! Notify the burgomeister!

Maybe I wouldn't be so mad all the time if I lived in Iceland:

Iceland, lodged in the middle of the North Atlantic with Greenland as its nearest neighbour, was too far from the remit of any but the more zealously obstinate of the medieval Christian missionaries. It is a largely pagan country, as the natives like to see it, unburdened by the taboos that generate so much distress elsewhere. That means they are practical people. Which, in turn, means lots of divorces.

'That is not something to be proud of,' said [city councilor and single mom] Oddny [Sturludottir], with a brisk smile, 'but the fact is that Icelanders don't stay in lousy relationships. They just leave.' And the reason they can do so is that society, starting with the parents and grandparents, does not stigmatise them for making that choice. Icelanders are the least hung-up people in the world. Thus the incentive, for example, 'to stay together for the sake of the kids' does not exist. The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them and, likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody for the children will be shared.

Fewer Puritans, a high GDP, greatest number of books per citizen and hot springs? I now have a designated escape country.

You see, the "scientists" over at the big Stan U. are twisting up a previously accepted theory so that it fits their continuing theme of "climate change is serious and we must all fear it like God". Except they didn't figure that people would actually search out or know about the original theory that actually, ya know has evidence to support it.

The incident I'm speaking of is the eruption of the Lake Toba Super Volcano in Sumatra. The eruption plunged the entire planet in to a volcanic winter for many many years and is thought to have killed off about 60% of the human population at the time, and considering that humans were a fledgling race around then it pretty much just left anywhere from about 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs left to repopulate the planet and survive.

Funny how the Stanford piece doesn't mention this explanation that was already studied and supported back in 1998, and has had grand conclusive evidence supporting it as soon as 2005. Then again, after 2005 the whole Global Warming alarmism scares began and natural disasters were no longer to blame for shifts in climate.....humans were.

So, yes, I'm calling out Stanford on this one. They have blatantly ripped a previous theory and have twisted it to make it fit their climate change agenda.

Grassfire fully supports the very "conservative" concept of being good stewards of the earth. But conservatives cannot sit by silently as Al Gore and the Climate Alarmists attempt to pull the wool of American's eyes. The claim that global warming is a "crisis" has been thoroughly debunked by leading scientists around the world. Surveys show that most scientists do not buy into the hype that the modern warming is due to human activities. The majority of scientists agree that the Earth's climate is very complex and insufficiently understood to make an accurate forecast.

However, Al Gore and his radical Alarmist Agenda are steamrolling ahead. All United States citizens are about to pay mightily, for Gore's extremist view point, with a $1.3 trillion tax increase. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being pushed into a massive effort to expand the government's power. Al Gore's Climate Alarmism will cripple the U.S. economy and give bureaucrats the power to tax air!

If you are unsure or oppose Climate Alarmism and want to the facts to argue your position please view the Links below to read articles that explain the truth and answer your questions about global warming.

(See the links at firesociety.com)

Sign Grassfire's Petition Against Climate Alarmism Here