Boxer: Leaked emails are 'crime'

So, California junior senator Barbara Boxer has decided that it is a crime to blow the whistle on a massive fraud. According to The Hill, Boxer is planning to hold criminal investigations into the hacked emails depicting the cover-up, lies and manipulated data produced by the University of East Anglia's global warming factory.

According to TheHill.com, Boxer is quoted as saying,

"You call it 'Climategate'; I call it 'E-mail-theft-gate,'" she said during a committee meeting. "Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I'm looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public."

So Boxer is unhappy with leaked data? Where was all this outrage when the New York Times was breaking laws left and right to blab national security secrets all over its front pages? Front pages that are currently bereft of any mention of the fraud being perpetrated by the global warming - oops, sorry - Global Climate Change proponents. Where was her outrage when the CIA was leaking left and right to try to undermine a sitting President?

It seems to me that the Left only cares about leakers who leak when a Republican Administration is in power. Funny how Obama, even though he is continuing virtually every single one of the previous Administration's policies, doesn't seem to have that problem. This tells me that the bureaucracy in Washington is so highly partisan and so hostile to Republican office-holders that they will commit treason - which is then facilitated by their allies in the media like Eric Lichtblau and James Risen - if they think it will hurt a Republican. Never mind what the results may be for the United States - these partisan hacks care only about putting their preferred political allies into power.

I think that it is time to flush out the entrenched bureaucracies in Washington. Dissolve the CIA. Get rid of all the various bureaus and let's start over. And this time, let's see if we can find patriots, not political partisans. Every member of the bureaucracy, just like every elected official, takes an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. Isn't it time that we demanded that they actually adhere to the oaths they willingly take, instead of preferring to cherry-pick the ones they wish to follow? It's time that they were called to account. And it is time that the government either enforced the laws - including forcing journalists who help lawbreakers to name their sources - or cease pretending that these laws even matter. You can't have it both ways.

About that Global Warming...

Al Gore has made a lot of money and publicity with his crusade against global warming. I have written in the past how this whole crusade seems to be based on a Big Lie, and its real purpose appears more intended to get global government so the rest of the world (ie. the United Nations) can gain control over the United States' many assets without having to go through the awkward exercise of actually getting a their authority recognized by the US Congress.

However, there has been a backlash against the Gore Warming crusade (fueled partly by Gore's own hypocrisy in using large motorcades, private jets and his lavish lifestyle- none of which are designed to show others that he is serious about the entire issue. Not that the press has bothered to do any real reporting- they have fallen in line with Gore's crusade lock, stock and barrel- refusing to report on critics and making statements equating said critics with Nazis and other undesirables. However, the evidence is mounting that Gore and his global warming friends are no more accurate in their claims than Newsweek was in its new ice age campaign in the 1970s.

Recently the critics are becoming more vocal. And today, Fox News is reporting that the founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman, is preparing to sue Al Gore for fraud. According to the report on FoxNews.com,

John Coleman, who founded the cable network in 1982, suggests suing for fraud proponents of global warming, including Al Gore, and companies that sell carbon credits.

"Is he committing financial fraud? That is the question," Coleman said.

"Since we can't get a debate, I thought perhaps if we had a legal challenge and went into a court of law, where it was our scientists and their scientists, and all the legal proceedings with the discovery and all their documents from both sides and scientific testimony from both sides, we could finally get a good solid debate on the issue," Coleman said. "I'm confident that the advocates of 'no significant effect from carbon dioxide' would win the case."

Throughout the controversy, the press has been consistently against any criticism of the global warming meme, muzzling critics and refusing to present a balanced picture of the issue. Only global warming advocates are allowed air-time to present their views- opponents are tarred as being owned by 'Big Oil' and presented as akin to Holocaust-deniers.

Coleman is a long-time skeptic of the entire global warming campaign. Based on his history, there is no doubt he is far better positioned to understand the idea's truth or falsehood than Al Gore- a man whose money came largely FROM the oil companies. In addition, Gore's massive insincerity has been on display before- remember his claim to have invented the Internet? So if the chips were down, I would believe Coleman before I would place credence in Gore. But the Press obviously believe otherwise.

Today's story was front-page news on Fox News, and was linked to by the Drudge Report. But the other so-called 'mainstream' media have pointedly ignored this. I could find no mention of the story on the main pages of the following news outlets- CNN, ABC News, CBS News, MSNBC or the New York Times.

So, it would seem that the media are ignoring what should be a headline story. The question is whether they are ignoring it due to their invested interest in promoting the global warming meme, their known political bias or pressure from their friends in the environmental movement. Any of these rationales makes a mockery of their claims to be professional and unbiased. But we knew that a long time ago, didn't we? Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Reuters Can't Research

Journalists like to tell us about their professionalism and the many layers of editors that ensure their accuracy. However, somewhere in those layers of editors, have reporters lost the ability to perform basic research? In the case of Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, it would seem to be so. Mason wrote an article on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Monday speech on global warming, in which he wrote,

President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the Kyoto accord, saying it unfairly burdened rich countries while exempting developing countries like China and India.

This is a startling revision of history. Apparently Mason forgot, if he ever knew, that although then-President Bill Clinton signed Kyoto, he never submitted the Kyoto treaty to the Senate for ratification. And according to Wikipedia's entry for Kyoto,

The United States (U.S.), although a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the Protocol. The signature alone is symbolic, as the Kyoto Protocol is non-binding on the United States unless ratified.

Mason also neglects to mention the 1997 Byrd-Hagel Resolution against ratifying Kyoto. The Reolution passsed the Senate 95-0 in 1997, and stated that,

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--

(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would--

(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or

(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States; and

(2) any such protocol or other agreement which would require the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification should be accompanied by a detailed explanation of any legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to implement the protocol or other agreement and should also be accompanied by an analysis of the detailed financial costs and other impacts on the economy of the United States which would be incurred by the implementation of the protocol or other agreement.

So to recap, the United States has never 'pulled out' of Kyoto, since we were never in Kyoto. And the treaty, though signed by President Clinton was never submitted to the Senate for ratification since the Senate made clear that they wouldd not ratify Kyoto or any other similar agreement.

All of this information is easily researchable on the Internet, yet Mason neglected to mention it in his rush to accuse President Bush of being anti-environment. Perhaps Mason should tend to his own failings- including learning objectivity and reseach skills before rushing to judgement on easily disprovable accusations such as this. Hat tip to NewsBusters reader Anthony Grafton. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Sense On Environment

At last. After much hyperbole from most members of the media regarding global warming- a topic that no reporter has any real knowledege of and which is certainly still controversial at best- a reporter injects a little common sense into the debate. Doron Levin, a Michigan-based reporter for the Bloomberg News wrote a colomn on July 10 noting that while the command-economists are rightly ridiculed, the global-warming crowd seeks exactly the same thing.

Levin wrote,

The folks against sports cars in Europe and big sport utility vehicles in the U.S. often are same ones who hate McMansion-sized homes, corporate jets, jumbo freezers, yachts, 60-inch flat-screens TVs, overnight-delivery services and other trappings of Western-style wealth and energy use.

Do people demonize these goods because they can't afford them? Or because they think others shouldn't have them? Proposals to limit carbon dioxide often sound like basic opposition to prosperity and rising living standards.

Planet in Peril?

Outside of a handful of command economies, few today would agree that a central authority ought to regulate who owns what. But attacking those who ``waste'' energy achieves the same goal.

Many ardent environmentalists are convinced that the planet is in peril. Why can't they be just a bit cautious, humble or skeptical in their advocacy of reduced energy consumption, which in turn must mean reduced global economic growth?

The main reason I'm wary of Al Gore's call for radical, immediate reduction of worldwide energy consumption is that he's way too sure that the human race is on the cusp of catastrophe. With no credentials of his own, Gore relies on scientists who insist we must hurry because we're approaching a point of no return.

This is completely true. Most environmentalists are the same as the groups who want to ban all luxurues and who wish to cripple Wesstern ecomonmies though somehow they have no provblem leaving much greater-polluting Third-World economies alone. COuld it be that this is because said Third-World countries actually can enforce restrictions on what these do-gooders want? Or is because the population of he third world contains violent fasnatics who are willing to kill to reach their desires- such as is common aomng Muslim countries? in any event, it is telling that the green crowd only tries to enforce their restrictions on wealthy countries where they have access to a Press who supports their goals.

One can only hope that the American people will read Mr. Levin's comments, as opposed to those of hypocritical bloviators such as Al Gore.

Czech Sense

Almost alone among modern politicians, the president of the Czech Republic, one Vaclav Klaus, seems to understand the real priorities of international relations. Despite the clamor from the media about global warming, President Klaus wrote an opinion piece for the Financial Times in which he warns that freedom, not climate is at risk.

Peresident Klaus writes,

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

It is too bad that President Klaus is in the minority. Reporters and politicians, neither group of which is at all knowledgable about climatology may push the global warming hysteria for their own (global governmental) gains, but those of us who wish to continue to live in a free society must push back. Greenpeace and other equally extreme organizations don't like us to recall the hysteria they pushed a mere forty years ago about the "next ice age". They hope that we will forget that they have yet to be correct on a single one of their doomsday predictions, and their shills in the mainstream media are doing everything they can to help in this rush to hysteria.

President Klaus closes with an admirable list of suggestions for those in both politics and in journalism:

• Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures


• Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided


• Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants


• Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority


• Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour


• Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction


• Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

This seems like a wonderful idea. Usually, allowing people to reach their ideas on their own is a better path than forcing change from above. Communism versus the free market provides and excellent example of this, as President Klaus notes. We can only hope that the agenda-driven politicians and media are listening to President Klaus' voice of reason.

For myself, I do not know whether global warming is real or not, though I admit I tend toward skepticism, as I remember the equally strong push for a "global ice age" in the 1970s. But I do know that central planning of the sort being pushed by environmentalists, media and many politicians has never shown good results. So perhaps we should be wary about the motives of those pushing it now.

06/15/2007 UPDATE: Lumo over at The Reference Frame has put together a handy list of the blogs who picked up on President Klaus' remarks and was kind enough to include StoneHeads. I recommend dropping over to his blog and taking a look around- there is some very interesting stuff.

Warming Skepticism

Environmentalists are loud and persistent in claiming that the Earth is undergoing "catastrophic global warming', due entirely to human interference. Reporters, most of whom have no training or expertise whatsoever, have bought into this feel-good campaign just as they did with the "new ice age" mantra thirty years ago. Articles decrying human existence and claiming that the Earth is in imminent danger clog the news media. But how accurate is all this?

Not very, according to a paper released today by the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The release states that, "Many former believers in catastrophic man-made global warming have recently reversed themselves and are now climate skeptics." The paper then follows up this statememt with a list of some of the prominent climatologists who have changed their opinions about global warming based on new research.

This serves to tell us two things:

First, reporters should not be trusted when they opine on topics of this sort, since most of them have absolutely no knowledge or expertise regarding the subjects on which they write. Their pack mentality, coupled with their espousal as a group of far-left ideologies make them prone to emotional, agenda-driven writing, whether the facts bear it out or not. And they also tend to see non-government organizations through a rose-colored lens, applying none of the highly skeptical focii that they would give to a corporate entity. One has only to look at the media's coverage of Hurricane Katrina or the coverage of the Enron vscandal versus the Teamsters scandal to see these trends in action.

Second, climatology is a science of uncertainty. I freely admit I am no expert, which is why I tend to be skeptical. However, please remember that meteorologists can't even predict the weather for a weekly period with any accuracy. Why should we trust them to be able to predict long-term trends with any more success? In addtition, as many meteorologists and climatologists will admit, there is no reliable data for the period prior to approximately 1900. All we have are computer models, and as a computer scientist myself, I know that the output is only as good as the formulations that create said output. Since no one has any real idea, the data parameters are based on guesswork- not the best foundation for research on an issue of this potential magnitude.

A fair sample of journalistic standards (or lack thereof) where global warming is concerned is this article from Sky News. Note the screaming headline and how only a single report (from an environmenttalist group that has heavily invested in convinving us that climate change is necessary) is used as a source. No counter-evidence is included. And of course, when this article ineveitably turns out to be wrong (five years till climate disaster? really?), the staff writers will deny any responsibility for needlessly inflaming fears. The media is infamous for writing screaming headlines and then tyring to pretend that it never happened when they turn out to be wrong, as they have on virtually everything in the last thirty years. I am not surprised that more and more scientists are coming around to skepticism as regards global warming. I am surprised only that so many fell for this alarmist, thinly-sourced campaign in the first place.

Global Warming?

Not according to this story in the Charlotte Observer reporting that temperatures at the Chrlotte airport on April 8 broke the record for coldest day in Charlotte history at 21 degrees. The Observer also reported that the cold weather was not confined to North Carolina- it seems most of the East Coast is dealing with record lows.

This assessment is echoed by Professor Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who wrote an article for Newsweek magazing online wherein he stated that "Much of the alarm over climate change is based on ignorance of what is normal for weather and climate". Lindzen thoroughly debunks the global warming hysteria, concluding by saying that "The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle—Al Gore's supposed mentor—is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate."

I am a confirmed skeptic at this point as far as global warming being a threat to us. Iran is a threat. North Korea is a threat. Militant Islam around the world is a threat. Global warming? The EU is probably a greater threat to the world than global warming. If it is even human-caused (a point about which I hold grave reservations), then I doubt it will pose a greater danger than the afore-mentioned countries- despite the hysterical claims of the Press.

Media folks are not experts, nor are they very knowledgable about-well anything other than how to write and talk well. Journalism is one of the least challenging fields you can possibly enter. It requires no hard study, no logic, no talent other than good writing skills. Would you trust an journalism major to tell you how to program your software? Or to assist you in designing a new mathematical problem? Or to tell you how to compose your new symphony? Of course not. They have no expertise or training whatsoever in any of those fields. Then why do we listen to these folks pontificate about global warming, the war, politics, or anything else? They are not trained, nor have they completed degrees in the fields they cover. Their function is to report, and let their listeners make up their minds. Unfortunately, they long ago decided that ignorant, emotionally-charged rants on topics about which they possess little if any real knowledge was preferable to actually doing their jobs.

More Global Hot Air

It has long been known that the Drive-By Media has bought into the global warming hysteria. It has also been common knowledge for some time that the Drive-By Media has little interest in presenting any stories that show the skeptics of the global warming scare in a positive light. They seem to prefer to try to show the global warming proponents in as positive a light as possible- even when said defenders know less about science than do most reporters.

However, they have now reached what appears to be a new low- even for the Drive-By Media. According to ABC News' own web page, ABC News is begging for 'global warming' horror stories. In their own words, ABC News writes on their web site:

ABC News wants to hear from you. We're currently producing a report on the increasing changes in our physical environment, and are looking for interesting examples of people coping with the differences in their daily lives. Has your life been directly affected by global warming?

Not content with this clear pitch for unbalanced, probably hysterical and certainly unscientific 'reporting', ABC News continues by letting these amateur jounalists know exactly what they are looking for, writing: "Show us what you've seen. You can include video material of the environmental change, or simply tell your story via webcam." They even don't appear to care for any eveidence, writing in conclusion, "No video? Share your story in words here." Uh, what about evidence? What about verifiable facts? What about opposing points of view? What about *gasp* OBJECTIVITY?!

But wait! This is, after all, the same media who published massively false accounts of hurrican Katrina, who tried to sabotage a Presidency with fake memos, who has published countless other fake 'news' stories, and who would rather undermine the security of the United States (are you reading this, Pinch Sulzberger?) than actually recognize that they are the Islamic terrorists' only real allies. So they don't even care if they receive completely unsourced, unverifiable, made up accounts. ABC is determined to stop the United States from worrying about Islamic terrorists- who after all m ight only kill us all and then impose sharia law on any surviivors, and start us worrying about 'global warming'. which has yet to be proven! Note to ABC- If global warming were a real threat, you wouldn't have to beg for enviro-fanatics' home-made scare stories. BThere would be plenty of real eveidnce that was not arguable. But then, that would require actual honest reporting- something ABC News(along with the rest of the Drive-By Media) long ago abandoned.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

About that Global Warming, Al....

Al Gore, the one-time center-left politician from Tennessee, and now a global-warming eco-freak, is running around the world crying wolf about human-induced global warming. And spending lots of money and gas to do it. If Gore is truly concerned about global warming, maybe he ought to think about the consequences of using five cars to go a few blocks for a movie premiere in Cannes? This latest evidence of Gore's arrogance is hilarious if John Lott is correct that walking would have been faster. I love folks who don't practice what they preach, but then that is a failing of lefties- they are so superior to us common folks, so they don't need to follow their own orders, don't you know?

In any event, opponents of the Kyoto Protocol and other international boondoggles have been saying for a long time that the entire idea of 'global warming' is simply not proven. And now there is more evidence that the global warming debate may be lots of hot air about nothing. The National Center for Policy Analysis has just published a new study stating that the science behind the global warming movement is "fatally flawed".

I am not a environmental scientist, and am still up in the air on whether or not global warming actually exists. However, I am firmly in the doubters' camp on the question of whther or not global warming is human-induced. Since there appears to be neither a consensus on the issue nor proof that humans are causeing the Earth's atmosphere to heat up, I am ready to listen to any reasonable argument. However, Hollywood tear-fests based on dubious sciennce and bankrolled by known left-wing moonbats are not my idea of a reasonable argument. The eco-freaks are like a blind religion, and their tactics of pushing their message in their lemming-like Drive-By Media (phrase courtesy of Rush Limbaugh) are not to my liking.

Again, while I have yet to make up my mind if global warming itself is a real issue, I would at least recommend that the opposing side get a hearing. I do not believe we can determine the truth (of lack thereof) in the global warming debate until both sides have an opportunity to present their evidence.

05/25/2006 UPDATE: When I initially posted on Al Gore's five-car entourage to go roughly 500 yards at Cannes, I was unable to find the original press story to link. However, I have been able to recitfy that. Reuters India has the story.