Tag Archives: climate

Why You Should Vote Republican

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I got this email about “Why I am Voting Democrat.” The reasons were not very sound, so I replied with reasons why the author should instead be voting for the Republicans.

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WHY I AM VOTING DEMOCRAT

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

Then you should vote Republican, because they’re the ones that doubled the $5,000,000,000,000 debt after Clinton balanced the budget.

>I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

Then you should vote for Palin since she’s for trying to censor books at the library.

> I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people.

Then you should vote Republican since they’re the ones bitching about Obama going into Pakistan to get Bin Laden.

> I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

Then you should vote Republican since they’re the ones who keep finding weather forecasters to talk about the completely unrelated topic of climate science instead of climate scientists.

>I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

Then you should vote Republican, because when the Health and Human Services redefines abortion to mean using any contraception, as they’ve proposed with the support of the religious right, the rate of real abortions is going to skyrocket.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/15/hhs-moves-define-contraception-abortion

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.

Then you should vote Republican since it’s their deregulation and supply side policies that have ensured businesses will not be taking in much profit for the next few years.

> I’m voting Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

Then you should vote Republican since they’re the ones who want to rewrite the Constitution in order to exchange the right to pursue happiness with a conservative definition of marriage.

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe that open borders and government giveaways to foreigners is a great way to grow a nation.

If you believe that, you must either be a Libertarian or a businessman who wants cheap labor, in which case you should vote Republican like they always do.

> I’m voting Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

Seeing how Biden has already promised that no one’s taking his guns away, you should vote Republican since you seem to have a lot in common with Dick Cheney.

>I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

If you’re that interested in taboo sex and want to see more of it on t.v., you should vote for the Republicans since they not only have more sex scandals, but also pursued a $60 million investigation into Clinton’s sex scandal, or in the case of Newt Gingrich, both at the same time.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october172007/repub_scandals_10_17_07.php

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

Then you probably would not have liked voting for Hillary if she had won, since she went along with McCain on the “gas tax holiday” that nearly every economist and even the Bush Administration said would only get pocketed by the oil companies. (Although one noted Libertarian economist, Bryan Caplan, said “we could do a lot worse”, adding that he agreed that it would not seriously reduce prices due to increased demand, but it would help distract the public with “a relatively cheap symbolic gesture that makes truly bad policies less likely”.)

>I’m voting Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my butt it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have another point of view.

Actually, the science journal Nature Neuroscience published a study last year showing that liberal brains are wired to be more adept at processing new information and dealing with and resolving conflicts than conservative brains. One would think that would be self-evident given the very definition of their names, but chalk this one up to science proving something we already knew.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,5982337.story

Putting Politics Ahead of Country

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Ok, so McCain “suspended his campaign”, consisting of moving his appearance on David Letterman to a piece with Katie Couric. (McCain insiders say they are looking for another way to suspend the campaign; William Kristol has also called for a second suspension.) The rest of his campaign continued attacking Obama and McCain very slowly made it back to Washington to “lead” on the crisis even though he admitted he had not read the 3-page report on the crisis even after several days. Before he got there, we heard word that they discussions were going good, but soon after McCain got there, House Republicans rebelled. We know that Obama talked during the meeting and McCain didn’t. House Republicans tried to force Democrats to accept the elimination of the capital gains tax (which of course has nothing to do with the crisis) or watch the economy go into a downward spiral, which is pretty much like the cops joining the rioters they’re supposed to bring down and adding in their own demands. So the deal failed. The Dow fell about 780 points and the S&P dropped 8% (as a side note, we all know Phil “America are whiners” Gramm, but McCain’s other economist is Kevin Hassett, who wrote DOW 36,000 right before the Dot Com bubble burst). Now Republicans are blaming the failed vote on Nancy Pelosi giving a speech in which she said the problem was due to a failed economic philosophy of “anything goes” and McCain is blaming Obama and the Democrats for “putting politics ahead of country.”

Noah Millman writes:

> There are lots and lots of reasons not to like this bill. But most of those reasons are Democratic talking points. The GOP alternative proposal was borderline illiterate.

> I’m writing this in haste, without a lot of reflection. But the whole way this has played out has been something of a watershed moment for me. There is only one party in Congress that thinks we are in a financial crisis, only one party in Congress with a functioning leadership.

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/09/29/bluff-called

Megan McArdle writes:

> A journalist friend who spends way more time on politics than I do suggests that if the Democrats cave and include a capital gains tax, it will probably pass–but puts the odds of the Democrats caving at slim to none, since they can now blame any resulting crash on the Republicans.

> I didn’t think it was possible to be more disgusted with politicians than I usually am, but I find it impossible to express the seething contempt that I feel at this kind of opportunism. I don’t mind when they screw with the normal operation of the economy for venal personal gain. But risking a recession in order to get a cut in the capital gains tax? Letting it tank because you can always blame it on the Republicans?

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/so_what_happens_now.php

From Justin Fox, regarding House Republicans’ plan:

>…that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to “encourag[e] corporations to sell unwanted assets.” But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn’t be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

Bail Out Graph

The Lies of Palin

“Palin could not have asked her girls for permission to accept McCain’s veep offer if she also says she accepted the offer unblinkingly and right away. Palin did fire a police chief even as she insisted to a reporter she hadn’t. She did violate the confidential medical records of Mike Wooten. She hasn’t met with any trade missions from Russia. She does not have any gay friends that anyone can find. She did not oppose the Bridge to Nowhere. She did not sell that plane on eBay. Her Teleprompter did not fail in her convention speech. Alaska’s state scientists did not conclude that polar bears were in no danger. She did deny publicly that humans had anything to do with climate change.

“Alaska does not provide “nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy,” as she claimed. The gas pipeline she touts as her major “mission accomplished” has not broken ground and may never do so. She did not take a pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla. And on and on. Anyone with Google can check all of these out. Including reporters.”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-odd-lies–5.html

Global Warming Links

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Climate Change Fight “Can’t Wait”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6096084.stm

Climate Change is Not a Consensus of Opinion
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/27/global_warming_deniers/

Antarctic Ice Shows Earth Carbon Dioxide at an 800,000-Year High
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php

List of Scientific Organizations That Accept Man-Made Global Warming
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/02/there-is-no-consensus.php

Climate Change: A Guide for the Perplexed
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

Climate Change Questions Answered
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/302176_whatabout02.html

Climate Change FAQs
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_change_FAQs
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/globalwarmingfaq.htm

Climate Change Timeline
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_Change_Timeline

Guide to Fact and Fiction About Climate Change
http://royalsociety.org/downloaddoc.asp?id=1630

Climate Change Outline of Topic
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_change:_outline_of_topics

IPCC Drafting Process
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/index.htm

IPCC Summary for Policy Makers
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Approved_05Feb.pdf

IPCC 2007 Reports
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm

IPCC Predicts Climate Change Disaster If Action Not Taken By 2012
http://climateprogress.org/2007/11/17/must-read-ipcc-synthesis-report-debate-over-delay-fatal-action-not-costly/

NASA on Global Warming
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/

NASA Says Climate Change Approaching “Tipping Point”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070531073748.htm

NASA Study Finds World Warmth Edging Ancient Levels
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/world_warmth.html

NASA Head Looks Back on 20 Years of Climate Change Denial
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf

NASA Describes How Lost Arctic Ice Causes a Warming Feedback Loop
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html

REPORT: First Identification of Model-Predicted “Fingerprint” of Tropopause Height Changes
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/santertext.pdf

REPORT: New Detection Studies Show Anthropogenic Climate Change is Detectable
https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/315840.pdf

Detection and Attribution of Climate Change
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_ccdetect.html

Ice Cores Reveal Greenhouse Gases at an 800,000-Year-High
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080514131131.htm

Royal United Services Institute Warns Global Warming May Cause World Wars
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/23/eaclimate123.xml

North Pole “Melting Faster Than Ever”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/28/2349041.htm

North Pole Will Be Ice Free In 5 Years Instead of 60
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/10/climatechange.arctic

Antarctica is Losing Ice to Oceans
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4767296.stm

Rate of Greenland Ice Melting Increased 250% Between 2004 and 2006
http://climateprogress.org/2006/11/26/the-glaciers-are-melting-and-we-are-the-cause/

Drought Has Doubled in Past 30 Years
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/drought_research.shtml

Fresh Water Supplies Are Already Drying Up

Studies Warn Global Warming is Rapidly Raising Sea Levels
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0323_060323_global_warming.html

2006 Was 5th Warmest Year in Century
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17553

2004: The Year Global Warming Got Respect
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1229_041229_climate_change_consensus.html

Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502150.html

Former Surgeon General Discusses Republican Adversity Towards Science
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jul2007/surg-j17.shtml

Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange

List of 400 “Climate Skeptics” Includes the Unqualified and People Who Want Off the List
http://climateprogress.org/2008/01/16/more-on-the-laughable-padded-inhofe-400/

“Republicans have shown a marked preference for politically inspired fringe theories over the findings of long-established and world-renowned scientific bodies”
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/09/chris_mooney.html

Mar. 2006: “The partisan gap on global warming seems to be shifting, according to the poll. In 1998, 31% of Republicans and independents alike were sure that global warming was happening, compared with 39% among Democrats. Today, 46% of Democrats and 45% of independents are certain, but only 26% of Republicans feel that way, according to the poll.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1176967,00.html

May 2008: “Only 49% of Republican now even believe that the earth is warming!”
http://climateprogress.org/2008/05/09/the-deniers-are-winning-especially-with-the-gop/

“In the history of global climate research, the research budget in Lindzen’s native United States has been inflated twice — once during the presidency of the first President Bush and once during that of his son, George W. Bush. In both cases the injection of funding was preceded by a sentence uttered by the president: We know too little. If climate researchers wish to secure or expand their budgets, they shouldn’t be saying: We are 90 percent certain that the lion’s share of climate change is manmade. Instead, they should say: We know too little.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,480766,00.html

The Cruel Off-Shore Drilling Hoax
http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/10/the-cruel-offshore-drilling-hoax-part-1/

Inaction on Climate Change Will HURT Our Economy
http://climateprogress.org/2006/10/29/inaction-on-climate-change-will-hurt-our-economy/

Energy Efficiency R&D Could Return 75-to-1 on Investment
http://climateprogress.org/2008/09/08/energy-efficiency-part-5-the-highest-documented-rate-of-return-of-any-federal-program/

Mammoth Dung and Prehistoric Goo May Speed Global Warming
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1076886120070917?sp=true

Dirty Snow May Warm Arctic as Much as Greenhouse Gases
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070606113327.htm

Animals Already Evolving to Keep Pace With Global Warming
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article673034.ece

Ancient Warming Caused Chain Reaction in Temperature Growth
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071219-ancient-warming.html

Climate Change May Have Helped Bring Down Neandertals, Mammoths, and the Maya
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080103-neanderthals.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080331223843.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080229-servir-maya.html

Ten Reasons Why Climate Change May Be More Severe Than Projected
http://climateprogress.org/2006/09/25/ten-reasons-why-climate-change-may-be-more-severe-than-projected/

Standards of Proof for Global Warming
http://climateprogress.org/2008/02/11/how-do-we-really-know-humans-are-causing-global-warming/

Sunspots at 50 Year Low

Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1978

Global Warming or Climate Change?
http://bahumuth.bitfreedom.com/global-warming-climate-change

Global Warming Disinformation Tries to Match “Lord Monckton” With Gore
http://bahumuth.bitfreedom.com/global-warming-disinformation

Washed Up Viscount Manages to Publish Crackpot Theory on Non-Peer-Reviewed Newsletter
http://bahumuth.bitfreedom.com/lord-monckton-ur-blog-dising-ur-cred

Using Polar Bears as a Back Door

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An article at CNN reads:

“Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said late Monday the changes were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a “back door” to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.”

Yes, we wouldn’t want the sudden disappearance of polar bears making people notice that there’s no more ice at the north pole:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/11/bush.endangered.species.ap/index.html

There is also a lot of talk lately about a forged letter the Administration had done to link Saddam to 9/11:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93319762

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/08/suskind-to-release-cia-intervi.html

Also, the Health Dept. is drafting a rule to classify using any contraceptives as abortion:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=agclip2V0QNk&refer=home

And Christopher Hitchens finally got the last laugh on his arch-rival in debate, George Gallaway:

http://www.slate.com/id/2170981/

Lord Monckton Is In Ur Blog, Dising Ur Cred

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Here’s an idea of how badly conservatives are scraping the bottom of the barrel in their attempts to get their propaganda passed off as legitimate science and legitimate “news.” Conservative circles became very excited about the American Physical Society apparently making an about face to their long-held stance supporting the science behind global warming. The story was pushed off by Drudge Report, Jonah Goldberg, and conservative blogs on — of all days — the same day Gore is giving a speech on the subject, using headlines like “Group Repping 50,000 Physicists Opens Global Warming Debate…” and “Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate”! The title of this “exploding” news story should actually read: “Washed-Up British Viscount Manages to Publish Crackpot Theory on Non-Peer-Reviewed Online Newsletter.”

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/19/the-rights-misguided-frenzy-over-the-american-physical-society/

The editor didn’t even bother to get a scientist. “Lord Monckton” has no degrees in the subject. He inherited his title from his dead father and was a former policy adviser to Margret Thatcher. The bogus news story has forced the association to put a disclaimer on both the header of the article and the front page of their website. The front page points out the newsletter is from the “APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS.” Hardly something that represents all 50,000 members. The writings themselves are not new and have long been debunked as a “sleight-of-hand.” Quoting from the Sunday Times and the Times, Monckton’s science is “self-taught and his paper qualifications nonexistent” and “he is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the strength of a classics degree from Cambridge.” One of the models used by Monckton was made up by himself, but another one comes from JunkScience.com, a front end for Steve Milloy, a long time tobacco, drug, and oil industry lobbyist, which has published other ‘cuckoo science’ pieces over the years.

http://climateprogress.org/2008/07/19/american-physical-society-stomps-on-monckton-disinformation-thank-you-climate-progress-readers/

Cuckoo Science


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton%2C_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley

http://www.aps.org/

If you recognize the name, that’s because Lord Monckton is the same guy that the Heartland Institute was using as their resident expert when they were trying to double dog dare Gore to get into a debate with him in that ludicrously-titled article “Gore Confronted by Own Scientists- ‘Confusion Between Hypothesis and Evidence’,” which was raked over the coals in one of the first posts I made on this blog. (Although only 5 short paragraphs long, I still somehow managed to elicit 5 pages worth of explainable errors with the article.) It kind of gives you an idea about how pathetically low conservative hacks are stooping that they aren’t even bothering to switch out the henchmen they use to fictionalize the news.

Here is a good article by a real scientist:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/27/global_warming_deniers/index.html