What's REALLY happening Al ?

...The declaration that the science of global warming / climate change is settled and the debate over, was a great clarion call to the interested but uninvolved global warming sceptics of the world. With all the goodwill in the world (and President Barack Obama has 99% of it) no fair thinking person could conclude that the debate on climate change is settled.
The general public (at least in the USA where the Pew Research Centre has surveyed) is totally unimpressed by global warming fears.
Hence the colossal challenge for President Obama. What is he to do ?
Will he worsen the perilous US economic situation and penalise the least well off in the USA with higher sales taxes and utility prices in the name of saving the planet; or back pedal, appease Al Gore and his cronies, and give lip service to the hard left anti-capitalists he allies himself with by tinkering with emission standards for vehicles.
Mr ex-President, what do you think your successor will do ?
from the UK Spectator Melanie Philips ...
...the Great Global Warming Terror – with sceptics even compared to Holocaust deniers – has intimidated many scientists into silence and cost other braver souls their jobs. With the global financial crisis likely to bring the green fantasy of crippling the capitalist world to a crashing halt, it is possible that the greatest scientific scam in history will simply fade away without the charlatans who perpetrated it being brought to book. But their names are on record; and no-one should take seriously what they say about anything at all ever again...
...and from Climate Change Fraud...
...So-called "global warming" has shrunk from problem to punch line. And now, Leftists are laughing, too. It's hard not to chuckle at the idea of Earth boiling in a carbon cauldron when the news won't cooperate:

Nearly four inches of snow blanketed the United Arab Emirates' Jebel Jais region for just the second time in recorded history on Jan. 24. Citizens were speechless. The local dialect has no word for snowfall.
Dutchmen on ice skates sped past windmills as canals in Holland froze in mid-January for the first time since 1997. Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop, who inhabits a renovated 17th Century windmill, stumbled on the ice and fractured his wrist.
January saw northern Minnesota's temperatures plunge to 38 below zero, forcing ski-resort closures. A Frazee, Minnesota dog-sled race was cancelled, due to excessive snow. Snow whitened Surf City, North Carolina's beaches. Days ago, ice glazed Florida's citrus groves...More from Climate Change Fraud, here...

Tales from the sharp end of medicine...

...any contributions gratefully received...

....One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her on her mobile phone reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a 'massive internal fart.'
Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg Royal London Hosp...

...While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked 'How long have you been bedridden?' After a look of complete confusion she answered, 'Why, not for about twenty years - when my husband was still alive.'
Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson- Maidenhead Royal Kent...

...more here, with thanks to MostlySafeforWork.com...

The crack in global warming consensus...

...is fast becoming a gaping chasm...
...Today, a founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, and International Symposium on Forecasting, and the author of Long-range Forecasting (1978, 1985), the Principles of Forecasting Handbook, and over 70 papers on forecasting, Dr J. Scott Armstrong, tabled a statement declaring that the forecasting process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lacks a scientific basis.
What these two authorities, Drs Theon (NASA supervisor of global warming guru James Hansen, see Stop Press, below) and Armstrong, are independently and explicitly stating is that the computer models underpinning the work of many scientific institutions concerned with global warming, including Australia’s CSIRO, are fundamentally flawed...
...more from Jennifer Marohasy at Watt's up With That, here...
and this startling observation from the head bureaucrat himself...There is no clear evidence that global warming is an imminent danger to the world, says Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change...more here...
And, quote of the day..."It’s also worth re-stating at this point that fear is to the insurance industry what oil is to Exxon." More from Climate resistance here...
So now folks we have it, an admission from the IPCC itself that Al Gore's propaganda was basic fear mongering . Break out the silly hats and let the street parties begin !

For something completely different...

...The Kansas City Library...now, how many of these have you read ? (Click on image to enlarge.)
More, from Unusual Architecture, here...

Jihad against The House of Lords...

... The venerable Cranmer risks life and limb from the beheaders with his ongoing defence of free speech. In this case a threatened assault on The House of Lords for daring to invite Dutch MP Geert Wilders (see below) to address them. Cranmer doesn't mince words. Must be an Aussie...
...the Lord Ahmed (left) is a repugnant individual. Not only in appearance, but in association, character and morality... to hear that he has threatened jihad on the House of Lords if their lordships should fail to meet his demands only serves to intensify Cranmer’s loathing of the man. It appears that a member of the House of Lords had invited the Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, to a private meeting in the Palace of Westminster. She had intended to invite her colleagues in the Lords to a private viewing of his ‘documentary’ Fitna, followed by discussion and debate in true parliamentary fashion. This is, after all, a liberal democracy, and their lordships enjoy the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of association, not to mention certain parliamentary privileges for the protection of their function in the legislature...
More from Cranmer here...
...and see Christopher Hitchens on Salman Rushdie, fatwa and the snivelling cowardice of the western media, masquerading as cultural sensitivity, here...

Stop Press...

... James Hansen’s Former NASA Supervisor Declares Himself a Sceptic - Says Hansen ‘Embarrassed NASA’, ‘Was Never Muzzled’, & Climate Models ‘Useless’ ....
another serious crack appears in the crumbling facade of "scientific consensus"...

...Washington DC, Jan 27th 2009: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results...”

...Al Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released, Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to counter man-made warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges 'notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming' & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ...

...more from award winning science blogger Anthony Watts, here...

and for a short resume of James Hansen's climate activism...

...NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews See: Don't Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom - Get the Facts on James Hansen, UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' - June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming - June 23, 2008... more from SmallDeadAnimals, here...

...and an overview from Freeborn John, here...

Global warming BS alert...

With thanks to ProCommerce...

...The average global temperature for December was just posted yesterday. That gives us the average global temperature for 2008. It was .325 degrees centigrade above the year 1940 (the zero point for the 20th century). This temperature is lower than nearly every year since 1997. The temperature of the earth has been level or declining for more than a decade. If you want to get hysterical about this data...go ahead.
(I can't help mentioning the absurd fact that the Clinton/Gore years were an average of .2 degrees centigrade above 1940 and the Bush/Cheney years were only .3 degrees above. A rather small change, one tenth of a degree, over a 16 year period.)
Anyone who looks at this data and believes we are in a long term warming period due to human CO2 emissions has to be suffering an ideological malady...

How long can the mantra of runaway global warming be maintained ?

Greens under fire...

...from the political left...
Surely it would be good news, greeted with rapture and relief if the IPCC said, sorry people, we got it a bit wrong, we misinterpreted the computer models, we made some mistaken assumptions, the planet's not doomed like we thought after all... Yay !
Week long street parties with endless conga lines, champagne and silly hats all round you'd think... Yeah right...
The far left anti-capitalist greens would be crestfallen to think humanity wasn't under threat. Their cause would be lost.
Some commentators on the left, (in the UK at least) are beginning to express disquiet over the transparently wrong, and inherently malignant and anti-human attitude of their comrades.
Tom Harris, a UK Labour MP writes...for some (probably a minority) (don't go overboard now Tom ) of environmentalists the fight against global warming has another aim: the defeat of capitalism, of economic growth, of prosperity.
Which is why I find their arguments so nauseating. It must be lovely to be a high-profile journalist whose own income is high and reasonably secure... (Attention George "Moonbeam" Monbiot of The Guardian )...And it must be so easy to offer to sacrifice the jobs and the livelihoods of millions of working people for the good of the environment.
But unless we can find a way of saving the planet without sacrificing prosperity – here and in developing countries – then the fight is already lost...
...A very frank admission from a Labour MP, probably already aware that the PR battle re climate change is lost, and that economic imperatives will put sweeping and radical climate change programmes (small scale tinkering allowed only) on the back burner for at least President Obama's first term. More from Tom Harris M.P., with some very entertaining and heated comments/dialogue and discussion, here...

As Samizdata observe... In fact, if there is an upside to this period of economic turmoil, is that it might, just might do serious damage to part of the Green cause. Well, it's Monday and one might as well kick off the week on an optimistic note...
...with the posting of the day if not the year so far from DavidNcL...

..."This is what the (Fascist) greens want:“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
Professor Maurice King

..."There should be common ground between elements as diverse as the libertarian free marketeers, progressive socialists and even elements of the “scientific” hard left... all of which are “for” mankind and the working classes but have huge differences about the means whereby. All should be able to make common cause against the deep greens who want to put the lights out, impoverish and kill us. More lovely deep green quotes here: The Green Agenda..."

...And for the latest developments re the BBC doctoring of President Obama's inaugural speech, see the US site StinkyJournalism.org. Will this scandal reach our newspapers ? Doubt it...will the BBC apologise for its unethical and misleading editing ? Watch this space...

A day in the life...

...of George W. Bush, who returned to his home in Texas today a free man.
Who can begin to imagine the feelings of an ex-President ?
Who can begin to comprehend the impact on the human ego of such media scrutiny, responsibility and power and understand the release of an imposed 8 year sentence?
"Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power", said Thomas Jefferson...
We might if we are lucky see out our allotted 3 score and ten years. We all do with our years what we can and what we are taught. Most of us try hard to do what we know is right, obey the golden rule, raise our kids and make our choices and take our chances, and at the end of the day, and in the middle of the night we all have to agonise over our choices and decisions.
The terror and beauty of the American ideal, and President Barack Obama has proved it and validated it, is that presidential superhuman stature and unimaginable responsibility can be thrust upon anyone. The lifting of that burden of responsibility and power from George W. Bush has occurred now, and the world raises its eyes towards President Obama.
Here's one pair of eyes still looking towards towards the ex President, and his choices, chances and decisions.
Speaking about the United States, but involving all people who share the American ideal, Theodore Roosevelt said, "If we are to be a truly great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill."
The defining moment for President George W. Bush as he stood and met his great issue on our behalf, with the weight of history and the liberal free world on his shoulders was on the 9th of September 2001.
On that day, President Bush committed the USA to its values. History will determine the verdict on his decisions and history and humanity's emergence from the cave of superstition and fear will prove his response to that great challenge correct.
Are we, as Theodore Roosevelt opined a "truly great people"?
Yes, we damn well are; and unlike Osama bin Laden and his followers we have left the cave and the oppression, ignorance, superstition and bigotry of the Dark Ages behind us for ever.

The warming of Antarctica...

The top picture shows the geographic distribution of Antarctic volcanoes . (Mount Erebus centre above, and above left Mt. Erebus being admired by a penguin.)

The lower right hand picture is one of several published by NASA, showing satellite observations of temperatures recently obtained and analysed concluding that the sub-continent is warming. The usual suspects, ie, CO2 and depleted ozone are presumed guilty... more here...

The recently honoured Watt's up With That? (Winner, Science blog 2008) has a problem with NASA's paper and asks quite politely and with respect whether new volcanic activity may have much more to do with west Antarctica's warming than the twin villains of ozone depletion and CO2...

... the entire western side of the Antarctic continent and peninsula is dotted with volcanoes . Recent discovery of new volcanic activity isn’t mentioned in the paper at all. From January 2008, the first evidence of a volcanic eruption from beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet has been discovered by members of the British Antarctic Survey.
The volcano on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet began erupting some 2,000 years ago and remains active to this day. Using airborne ice-sounding radar, scientists discovered a layer of ash produced by a ’subglacial’ volcano. It extends across an area larger than Wales. The volcano is located beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet in the Hudson Mountains at latitude 74.6°South, longitude 97°West..

More to this warming pattern than meets the uncritical eye of NASA perhaps ? More here...

...and for a snapshot of the general public's attitude to global warming in terms of importance, see here...
...and for IPPC cooking of the temperature books, see here...
...and now we find the apparent warming is all based on decidely dodgy data from Harry...more, here...

Dutch MP Geert Wilders to be prosecuted for criticising Islam...

...the suicide of the West continues...
From The Australian...
...when complaints in the heart of Enlightenment Europe lead prosecutors to put Wilders on trial, facing a jail term of two years for expressing his opinions, then the tyranny of thought police has truly taken hold in the West...
From Cranmer...
...Mr Wilders has not criticised individual Muslims, or defamed Mohammed, or blasphemed against Allah (directly). But what if he had? Is one no longer free to pour scorn upon a god in whom one does not believe, mock a prophet one deems to be false, or question an ideology one considers repugnant?
Mr Wilders is simply of the view that in 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe; in 1989, communism was defeated in Europe; and in now Islamic ideology has to be defeated.He has called the decision to prosecute him for making a film about this view ‘an attack on the freedom of expression’.And he is not wrong.This will be a defining trial of the age. It will polarise communities, divide the Netherlands, and the eyes of the world shall be upon the European Union as it wrestles with the seismic consequences of whatever verdict is delivered.
Geert Wilders called the Qur'an a ‘fascist book’.This is apparently a crime; specifically that of inciting racial hatred.Cranmer would like to know why those Muslims who refer to the Holy Bible as flawed and full of lies have not been similarly prosecuted for inciting racial hatred...
...Make no mistake about it, this is a founding nation of the EU limiting freedom of expression by appealing to a notion of blasphemy, under the pretext of preventing civil strife. The only religion which is being protected in law is Islam. Cranmer has previously observed this development in the UK.
...Atheists/satanists/goths/dingbats of all persuasions beware. It is obviously no longer tolerable to advertise your beliefs, at least in the EU...people of religous persuasion will enforce prosecution... although why is this protest (left) not subject to similar legal threat ?
More from the incandescant Cranmer here...
and from CityLife...The appalling decision to try Wilders, the Freedom Party’s head and the Dutch Parliament’s only internationally famous member, for “incitement to hatred and discrimination” against Islam is indeed an assault on free speech. But no one who has followed events in the Netherlands over the last decade can have been terribly surprised by it. Far from coming out of the blue, this is the predictable next step in a long, shameful process of accommodating Islam—and of increasingly aggressive attempts to silence Islam’s critics—on the part of the Dutch establishment....
From Mark Steyn...
...The Dutch, like the Canadians, think they can maintain social peace by shriveling the bounds of public discourse and bringing what little remains under state regulation. But one notices that the coercive urge, which comes so naturally to Euro-progressives, only goes in one direction. The Swedish Chancellor of Justice shuts down the investigation into the Grand Mosque of Stockholm for selling tapes urging believers to kill "the brothers of pigs and apes" (ie, Jews) because that's simply "the everyday climate in the rhetoric". The masked men marching through the streets of London with placards threatening to rain down another 9/11 on the infidels are protected by a phalanx of Metropolitan Police officers. The PC nellies of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, happy to hound the last neo-Nazi in Saskatchewan posting to the Internet from his mum's basement, won't go anywhere near Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus al-Hayitia, the big-time Montreal imam whose book says infidels are "evil people", Jews "spread corruption and chaos", and homosexuals should be "exterminated"...
A suggested letter to the Dutch Embassy as protest, follows...
With respect, may I offer a protest to you on behalf of free speech ?
I refer to the intended prosecution of Mr Geert Wilders, MP, for expressing views likely to incite hatred.
Irrespective of Mr Wilders' film and opinions, it is remarkable that your Government has seen fit to attempt to discourage any opinion on religious or political matters.
If it is considered acceptable to protest against and offend Christians, then I cannot see that it should be unacceptable to protest against and offend people of other persuasions.
Again, with respect, I point out that this intending prosecution risks labelling The Netherlands as a laughing stock throughout the free and liberal world society.
Sincerely...

President Barack Obama...

...the full text of President Obama's inaugural address, here... words of history, crafted by a 27-year-old in Starbucks more here...
and speech with critique here...
and Cranmer's view on the new President here...
...and note the brazen and startling BBC editing/doctoring of the speech here...
...and the BBC response to criticism of their "cut and paste" journalism here at Climate Resistance...
...and this excerpt from the President's speech is particularly interesting, "...each day brings further evidence that ways we are using energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics." (My emphasis added.)
...and an eminently sensible proposal from EcoWorld...
...Revisit the Global Warming Debate: Start by appointing two international peer review teams of respected scientists, one of skeptics, and one of alarmists. Let them report and compare findings based on observational data and model simulations in an intellectually honest manner. Meanwhile, ban global warming related fees and taxes, they are being used to delay government budget and spending reform...

It's time to pray for global warming...

...the mantra is; atmospheric CO2 levels are escalating and this is unquestionably causing earth's temperature rise. But - if global temperatures are experiencing the biggest sustained drop in decades, while CO2 levels continue to rise - how can the mantra be true?

If you're wondering why North America is starting to resemble nuclear winter, then you missed the news. At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 scientists from around the world stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?" and...

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
I asked myself, why would such obviously smart guys say such ridiculous things? But it turns out they're right.
The earth's temperature peaked in 1998. It's been falling ever since; it dropped dramatically in 2007 and got worse in 2008, when temperatures touched 1980 levels...more here...

Yet, from James Hansen..."Before the end of Obama's first term, we will be seeing new record temperatures. I can promise the President that." As the article in the NZ Herald observes..."Hansen's uncompromising views are, in some ways, unusual. "

P.S. Although to be fair, note this survey...

Ahh so...

It's not called crimate change any more, it's grobal cooring...
...The Japanese Society of Energy and Resources (JSER) has published a new study on the causes of Global Warming. Entitled, "Global warming: What is the scientific truth?”, the report highlights the differing views of five prominent Japanese scientists.
All but one of the scientists disagreed that global warming is the result of human activity...While all the researchers agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) statement that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", four of the five disagreed with the claim that the primary cause of the increase was due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The only researcher to agree with the IPCC's assertion was Emori, who is himself a member of the IPCC.
Akasofu countered with the statement, "CO2 emissions have been increasing, but the rise in air temperature stopped around 2001. Climate change is due in large part to naturally occurring oscillations". Akasofu says the earth's warming trend began prior to the industrial age, and believes much of the warming seen may simply be a natural recovery from the so-called Little Ice Age, that ended in the 17th century...more here...

And if, like me you are fed up with the usual anti-technology green dogma, yet hate pollution and waste wherever they occur, checkout Eco-World for a refreshing new look at environmental issues...

The 4th Reich...

From the blog ProCommerce ...Reading the daily news is very disturbing for me. I keep saying, in this blog, that we live in the 4th Reich and we do. Hitler's ideas have conquered the world. Only a few American Jews, all Israelis and a few of our friends have the slightest grasp of the extent and horror of this hate Jews era.
Every national leader except Germany's (the U.S. is now equivocal) and the entire U.N. is saying 'Die Jews die'.
We've just lost the only important friend Jews have had in 2,500 years (George. W. Bush). We have been thrown to the dogs. Jews are to be hunted like rabbits and offer no more resistance than rabbits are allowed.
Proportional response, ceasefire, negotiate with Hamas, excessive civilian casualties...these are all euphemisms for 'Die Jews die.'...more from ProCommerce, here...

O ye ratbags of little faith...

...the left wing Huffington Post (motto "I'll blow your house up, and down" founder the late Hubert H. Huffington left) is sounding the huffing alarm over growing public scepticism about global warming. An analysis of opinion polls and Google searches indicate that the debate is annoyingly alive and public opinion is moving away from huffing green dogma...indeed, (excuse me while I slip into bold alarmist mode) going on these trends, by 2012, hardly anyone will believe in AGW at all, see graph here... The main reasons for public scepticism and cynicism are the cooling trend of the last decade together with the growing lack of interest and trust in main stream news sources. People are turning to the internet/blogosphere in ever increasing numbers.

Cometh the hour cometh the technology...although according to the huffing Laughington Post...

...Outside of a small band of ideologically motivated outlets, the majority of the mainstream media is unwilling to cover the nonsensical junk science of the right-wing think tanks and their cadre of scientists for hire. With this the case, the Internet is exploding with such information. And at the same time that we're seeing significantly more of this misinformation being spread about global warming online, we're also seeing more people than ever using the Internet as their main source of news and information...

...Opinion polls conducted in the United States over the last year confirm the upward trend in people who believe that global warming is not caused by human activity. One series of polls conducted by Rasmussen Reports found that between April and December, 2008 the number of respondents who attributed global warming to "long term planetary trends" and not human activity increased from 34 percent to 43 percent...see A Troubling Trend in Global Warming Denial on the Internet...here...

H/T to Independent Womens Forum...

Vaclav Klaus, the new EU President...

...and noted global warming sceptic is putting his stamp on his presidency via the provocative and appropriately named sculpture "Entropa".
Bulgaria is depicted as one giant toilet, Denmark by Lego cubes evoking the Mohammed caricatures that outraged some in the Muslim world, France is permanently on strike and Spain's construction industry has concreted the entire country. Britain has disappeared from the European community altogether.

When they arrive at work, diplomats will be exposed to a satirical portrayal of Poland's Roman Catholic Church and an image of the Netherlands, submerged in seawater, with just minarets still visible. Italy is represented by a display illustrating its "autoerotic" obsession with soccer.

While the EU officials fume, the installation has met with widespread approval.

The work was commissioned by the Czech Republic to mark the start of its EU presidency, and it took three trucks to transport it from Prague to the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, where the EU's governments meet.
Mounting some form of display is customary when taking on the rotating EU presidency, but normally they are uncontroversial "He is OUR president," said sculptor Cerny "we elected him, so let's show him off to the world with joy in our hearts...he's a great guy!"
Although worried that they might have gone too far for some tastes, the Czechs defend their exhibit, perhaps aware that censoring it would provoke more criticism than anything in it...more here...

As the world turns...

...the children still play in the street (remember those summer nights ?) and the thought of human extinction via climate change, suicide bombers and religous fanatics at war in another hemisphere fades into an insignificant twilight...
This is Mount Maunganui, New Zealand at 7.25pm looking north east. (Click on image to enlarge.) Food is cooking on the BBQ and the calls and laughter of the children playing up the street are audible from my deck.
End times ? Nostradamus and his mumbo jumbo revisited ? Climate catastrophe ? Not a bit of any of it. Just the usual human anger, frustration, ego and guilt masquerading as concern...and the happy noise of children enjoying a summer evening.
My grandmother long dead reassured my mother aged 13 and dead 3 weeks ago that the German bombs seen falling over RAF St Athan in 1940 did not represent the end of the world. "Life goes on girl" she said...

What will history say ?

...and how will the historians view the GWB presidency ?
They will not judge it by consulting the oracles within the MSM, who lampoon Bush as a moron and possibly the worst president ever. They will not judge it by consulting Osama bin Laden or Ken Livingstone or Martyn Bradbury. (Who ?)

They will simply review the objective facts with the benefit of the clear hindsight.

One historian's perspective...WARNING... prepare to be shocked...when virtually the entire military, diplomatic and political establishment in the West opposed it, Bush insisted on the surge in Iraq that has been seen to have brought the war around, and set Iraq on the right path. Today its GDP is 30 per cent higher than under Saddam, and it is free of a brutal dictator and his rapist sons.
The number of American troops killed during the eight years of the War against Terror has been fewer than those slain capturing two islands in the Second World War, and in Britain we have lost fewer soldiers than on a normal weekend on the Western Front. As for civilians, there have been fewer Iraqis killed since the invasion than in 20 conflicts since the Second World War.
Iraq has been a victory for the US-led coalition, a fact that the Bush-haters will have to deal with when perspective finally – perhaps years from now – lends objectivity to this fine man's record...more from Andrew Roberts (author of 'Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West' Penguin ) here...and from Samizdata, here...

Got your invitation yet ?

...and can we expect Obama to echo these great words and sentiments from JFK at his inaugruation?
...Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself...

So many (lefty) maniacs share the same delusions...

...and for proof look no further than the comrades at Tumeke. Soon to be joined in domestic anti-Israeli protest by the Aryan Brotherhood. As SmallDeadAnimals point out; "When the Nazis march with the jihadists you're meant to pray for an asteroid, not provide a police escort." Let's sing. All together now...
"When the boom fills the sky,
Like a big pizza pie,That’s jihadi.
When you’re in dar al-harb, (or Palmerston North )
Dressed up in Muslim garb,that’s jihadi..."
Do yourself a big favour though, and enjoy another sensible analysis (he continues to surprise) of the Gaza spat by self-proclaimed Marxist Chris Trotter. Savour the howls of rage from the left lunatic fringe at Trotter's blog Bowalley Road. Sober up by considering the implications of the unholy alliance between the sympathisers of Marx and radical Islam. With respect to President (elect) Obama, a growing national security issue..
...It’s sadly obvious that those Communists who waltz with the Islamists in their hope to see a world engulfed in flames are subject to precisely the same delusion that drove Charles Manson and his followers. Despite the manifest insanity of their view, they vocally believe that they’re the Phoenix, and it’s up to them to stoke to fire to create the ashes. One wonders were it will end. Manson’s mania-driven murders numbered in the double-digits. If these fellow-travelers have their way, mere millions of deaths may ultimately seem like small numbers...more here...
And one US poster's view on the conflict resonates with me...
...let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m wrong, that the people in Gaza truly hope to just coexist peacefully and go about their lives without Israeli occupation or control. If this was the case, in my opinion, they would need nothing more than to hold their leadership accountable. Look at our country. The finger is automatically and relentlessly pointed at our leadership for every single failure or deficiency imaginable. Doubt and political skepticism are engrained in our culture, oftentimes to our detriment... not in Palestine though. And why not? The US, the EU, and Israel all recognize and label Hamas as a terrorist organization... The solution is simple: stop shooting rockets, and stop throwing stones. Abandon or overthrow the hapless and corrupt Hamas government. Elect strong leadership whose objectives and goals are founded in what’s best for their people’s survival and progress rather that what’s best for their own wallet or their insane fanatical religious beliefs of world domination. Look what we in America are going to accomplish in just 8 days...But just picture it….a bunch of Palestinian’s yelling “Yes We Can! (in Arabic of course) from the roof tops of Gaza city. The outcome of our country under new administration is yet to be seen, but the sheer optimism of “Change” and “Hope” have already transformed our nation and the big O hasn’t spent a single day in office yet...more, here...and a synopsis...

What's the world coming to...

...here's the present day state of play, more here, and here... and meanwhile..
THE planet Earth has dismissed claims it is in danger from global warming... The Earth spoke out after a series of books, television programmes and environmental campaigns urged people to do everything in their power to 'Save the Planet'. Earth, 4,000,000,000, said last night: "I'll be absolutely fine, seriously. I might get a bit warmer and a bit wetter, but to be honest, that actually sounds quite nice. Try living through an ice age. Pardon my French, but it's f***ing freezing. Look, I'm just a planet doing its thing, alright? If you want to live on me, that's your business, but I've got important planet stuff to do, okay? Try being in elliptical orbit for five minutes, or balancing your gravitational pull with a medium-sized moon. Let me assure you, it's no f***ing picnic." The planet said environmental campaigners should change their slogan from 'Save the Planet' to something more relevant such as 'Save Your Sorry Arse'...more here...

Proved. There is no climate crisis...

...is there a cycle in climate hysteria that requires nutters to oscillate between proclaiming that the world is getting too hot and proclaiming that, on the contrary, it is getting too cold? And if you are a paid-up climate hysteric, how do you know which side to champion on a given day? Back in 1975, Newsweek wrung its hands that “Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climate change, or even to allay its effects.” What sort of action? Well, there were proposals to melt the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot, for example. Why didn’t political leaders act then to save the earth? Was that because they sensed that, a couple years down the line, the same people that were shouting that ice was about to engulf the world would be screaming that the polar ice caps were melting? Who knows. Someone should ask Al Gore...more here...

Quote of the day...

... As GW Bush bows out, and in the process honouring fellow Kyoto sceptic John Howard with the US Medal of Freedom, courageous self professed Republican, barfly and heterosexual male Mickey Rourke observes...I was in London recently and I couldn’t believe all these hate-talking fanatics you have over here who are allowed to carry on doing their thing even when a bus full of women and children gets blown to pieces… I know you’ve deported one or two of them, but it seems crazy. I think there is worse to come, something terrible will happen to either America or the U.K., or France even. I don’t think these fundamentalists should be allowed to talk all this crap, and brainwashing these young kids.” more from tough guy Mickey Rourke here...

On a bright sunny day...

...in October of 1991, Suzanna Gratia went to lunch with her parents at Luby’s restaurant in Killeen, Texas. In order to be in compliance with an unconstitutional law that forbade the possession of a concealed weapon, Ms. Gratia compromised and left her .38 caliber pistol in her vehicle. Suddenly, a madman, George Hennard, drove his truck into the cafeteria, got out of the truck and opened fire on those inside.
Ms. Gratia and her father, Al, turned over a table to use as cover. Ms. Gratia stated she reached for her purse to retrieve her .38, but then realized she had left it in her car.
Believing the madman was going to shoot everyone, Al Gratia, exhibited uncommon courage in rushing the killer. Hennard shot him in the chest, an obvious mortal wound. Ms. Gratia spotted a window, broken by another patron trying to escape, told her mother to follow her and then made her escape. Her mother decided she could not leave her wounded husband, sat on the floor and cradled his head in her arms. Hennard would return to where Mrs. Gratia sat and shoot her in the head. The couple had just celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary.
Ms. Gratia, now Dr. Suzanna Hupp, has become a crusader for the Second Amendment. Here she shows she inherited her mother and father’s courage as she addresses the Charles Schumer led committee on banning assault weapons...more here...

In the defence of Israel...

...from the indomitable Cranmer...
...Saudi Arabia has not given its support to Hamas. Egypt has roundly condemned Hamas, blaming them for provoking the conflict. Jordan has remained detached, Syria has been decidedly lukewarm, and let us not forget that there have been voices raised among the Palestinians themselves in condemnation of Hamas.With Iranian influence and involvement in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, there is a feeling in many Arab countries that they are all beginning to share borders with Iran, and this is far too close for comfort. President Ahmadinejad may want Israel wiped off the map, and he would not be too bothered if a few Sunni nations were casualties in the process. If one were to believe the media narrative on this conflict, the whole of Arabia and all the world’s Muslims are incandescent with rage at Israel's ‘unjust’, ‘disproportionate’ and ‘illegal’ offensive against Hamas. But things are seldom what they seem. Skimmed milk masquerades as cream. There are some leading Arab nations and hundreds of thousands of level-headed Muslims who secretly long for an Israeli victory...But the media dare not say so, for it conflicts with their prejudicial worldview and their foreordained, liberal, left agenda...more here...
As Cranmer observes the main stream media and the international left within NGO's have always had a selective bias when it comes to human rights issues. In the Middle East the present day media refrain is straight from George Orwell's Animal Farm; Hamas good, Israel bad. While the mainstream left and the apologists for terrorism continue to wring their hands and suck their thumbs, TVNZ broadcasts the same story, same sentiments night after night ( and for an expose of TVNZ plagiarism, see Karl du Fresne, here...)
However, for an overview of the present crisis in Gaza, this is worthwhile...The pictures do not lie...For all Israel's claims to have launched only targeted strikes on Hamas targets, it has shown scant concern for civilians caught in Gaza's crossfire in the past two weeks. Yet this is as nothing next to the contempt shown by Hamas.
Unlike the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the paramilitary overlords of the Gaza Strip use civilians routinely for protection in the knowledge that many will be sacrificed to Israeli airstrikes...
More, from the Timesonline, here...

Thought for the day...

“We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.”
The late Michael Crichton.

Cooler heads will prevail...

....From World Climate Report...Further evidence that global warming/climate change is largely a natural phenomenon... and that feared huge sea level rises, as a consequence of massive sudden ice melt are alarmist scenarios inspired by BS rather than science...

... The data is just in from the National Climatic Data Center and it shows that for the year 2008, the average temperature across the United States (lower 48 States) was 1.34ºF lower than last year, and a mere one-quarter of a degree above the long-term 1901-2000 average.

The temperature in 2008 dropped back down to the range that characterized most of the 20th century.
Figure 1 (above) shows the U.S. temperature history from 1895 to 2008. Notice the unusual grouping of warm years that have occurred since the 1998 El Niño. Once the 1998 El Niño elevated the temperatures across the country, they never seemed to return to where they were before. Proponents of catastrophic global warming liked to claim that is was our own doing through the burning of fossil fuels, but others were more inclined to scratch their heads at the odd nature of the record and wait to see what happened next...more from World Climate report here...and...

... a European (Belgian) perspective...H/T JenniferMarohasy...

Defence debate May 2001...

A startling and unexpected post from Chris Trotter's blog Bowalley Road. Startling because it is a realistic and courageous article, written by an avowed Marxist in 2001 when pro-defence sentiments were way out of tune with then Prime Minister Helen Clark's ludicrous "incredibly benign strategic environment" attitude.
Trotter plainly identifies expansionist PRC as the likely source of friction and instability in the Pacific and argues for closer defence links with our traditional allies.
The article was reposted last week... for two reasons. First, because elements of it now seem strangely prophetic, and second, because, with a new National Government and a new Defence Minister, the key elements of that pre-9/11 debate are probably due for a re-airing..."...By decommissioning the combat wing of the RNZAF, the Labour-Alliance Government has fundamentally compromised the future combat readiness of our defence force. Without the contribution of close-air-support training, the capability of the New Zealand infantryman and woman will rapidly diminish...As a Marxist, I consider myself to be a part of the West’s long pursuit of human emancipation, and so my choice is simple. Though the United States has been guilty of many crimes in its brief history as an imperial power, its extraordinarily open society has always proved equal to the task of challenging the delinquency of its leaders. Vietnam was a terrible error of American policy – but it was an error corrected by the robustness of American democracy. The "mistakes" of the PRC’s leadership – be they the 25 million dead of the Great Leap Forward, or the thousands massacred in Tiananmen Square, have never been the subject of popular correction – for the simple reason that the Chinese people are not free. And if the 20th Century taught me nothing else, it is that the freedom which socialism is supposed to deliver can never grow out of the barrel of a gun..."
Read the full article here...

2009, the end of the beginning...

...for global warming alarmists, the year that global warming ceased...Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century...more here...

You can't solve gang problems...

...without understanding the root causes...challenge...name the gangs involved...

Thanks to SmallDeadAnimals.

Protester of the year (so far)...

...a clear leader in the field so far, Mustafa a Wini here displays his righteous wrath. Careful with the detonator wiring Mustafa...H/T to Last of the Few...

Quotes for the day...

“As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fearmongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science.
From the El Niño year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.250 C. From Jan., 2007 until the spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.750 C.”
Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a physical chemist and retired Navy meteorologist USA Today September 26th 2008.

The Brussels summit symbolizes a turning point. The watered-down climate deal epitomizes the onset of a cooling period in Europe's hitherto overheated climate debate. It may lead eventually to the complete abandonment of the unilateral climate agenda that has shaped Europe's green philosophy for nearly 20 years.
Benny Peiser, The Wall Street Journal, 16 December 2008

The polls are clear...

.... Despite the media's increasingly shrill tone and ever-more unrealistic predictions, the public has lost all faith in global warming. After all, how many times can you say that this time the science is now finally proven, without being laughed at? More here...
But of course, Al Bore's "inconvenient truth" has now morphed into climate change, not global warming. The problem therefore for the green church is simply this ; without warming, apocalyptic end of the world sea level rises are not an issue. So...what can the propagandists and alarmists say now to frighten a cynical and unfrightened general public ? Beware the big freeze ? Watch this space. Look out, and be prepared !