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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (64439)	2/28/2008 5:53:42 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Cold Water on "Global Warming" By Thomas Sowell Thursday, February 28, 2008 It has almost become something of a joke when some "global warming" conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather. But stampedes and hysteria are no joke -- and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming "crisis." They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all "scientists" and then claim that "all" the experts agree on a global warming crisis. Their biggest argument is that there is no argument. A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching. Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days? A new and very different conference on global warming will be held in New York City, under the sponsorship of the Heartland Institute, on March 2nd to March 4th -- weather permitting. It is called an "International Conference on Climate Change." Its subtitle is "Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?" Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions. They come from universities in England, Hungary, and Australia, as well as from the United States and Canada, and include among other dignitaries the president of the Czech Republic. There will be 98 speakers and 400 participants. The theme of the conference is that "there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming." Many of the participants in this conference are people who have already expressed skepticism about either the prevailing explanations of current climate change or the dire predictions about future climate change. These include authors of such books as "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years" by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and "Shattered Consensus," edited by Patrick J. Michaels. This will be one of the rare opportunities for the media to hear the other side of the story -- for those old-fashioned journalists who still believe that their job is to inform the public, rather than promote an agenda. The subtitle of the upcoming conference -- "Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?" -- is also the title of a British television program that is now available on DVD in the United States. It is a devastating debunking of the current "global warming" hysteria. Nobody denies that there is such a thing as a greenhouse effect. If there were not, the side of the planet facing away from the sun would be freezing every night. There is not even a lot of controversy over temperature readings. What is fundamentally at issue are the explanations, implications and extrapolations of these temperature readings. The party line of those who say that we are heading for a global warming crisis of epic proportions is that human activities generating carbon dioxide are key factors responsible for the warming that has taken place in recent times. The problem with this reasoning is that the temperatures rose first and then the carbon dioxide levels rose. Some scientists say that the warming created the increased carbon dioxide, rather than vice versa. Many natural factors, including variations in the amount of heat put out by the sun, can cause the earth to heat or cool. The bigger problem is that this has long since become a crusade rather than an exercise in evidence or logic. Too many people are too committed to risk it all on a roll of the dice, which is what turning to empirical evidence is. Those who have a big stake in global warming hysteria are unlikely to show up at the conference in New York, and unfortunately that includes much of the media. Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (64439)	2/28/2008 6:23:58 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 90947

McCain's Canal Birth Best of the Web Today by JAMES TARANTO Thursday, February 28, 2008 3:08 p.m. EST Having failed to gin up a sex scandal, the New York Times tries a new tack to stop John McCain: <<< Mr. McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office. >>> The Times labors mightily to present this as an actual controversy. It notes that in 1790 Congress passed a law "that did define children of citizens 'born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born,' " and, further, that "laws specific to the Canal Zone," then a U.S. territory, leave no doubt that McCain was born a citizen. So why does the Times think this is an issue? Because "whether he qualifies as natural-born has been a topic of Internet buzz for months." And if it's on the Internet, there has to be something to it. The Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post have both dealt with this question, the latter way back in 1998, and both concluded with little trouble that McCain is indeed natural born. So he should have no problem--unless, perhaps, his mother had a caesarian section. opinionjournal.com

To: Sully- who wrote (64439)	3/8/2008 1:56:54 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 90947

Built by the most corrupt administration in recent history: The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad The new American Embassy in Baghdad will be the largest, least welcoming, and most lavish embassy in the world: a $600 million massively fortified compound with 619 blast-resistant apartments and a food court fit for a shopping mall. Unfortunately, like other similarly constructed U.S. Embassies, it may already be obsolete. [Edit. Scratch the $600 million figure......its now approaching $1 billion.] vanityfair.com