Global Warming Heresy

Global Warming Heresy
By Walter E. WilliamsWednesday, March 28, 2007

Most climatologists agree that the earth’s temperature has increased about a degree over the last century. The debate is how much of it is due to mankind’s activity. Britain’s Channel 4 television has just produced “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” a documentary that devastates most of the claims made by the environmentalist movement. The scientists interviewed include top climatologists from MIT and other prestigious universities around the world. The documentary hasn’t aired in the U.S., but it’s available on the Internet.

Among the many findings that dispute environmentalists’ claims are: Manmade carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 5 percent of the total; the rest are from natural sources such as volcanoes, dying vegetation and animals. Annually, volcanoes alone produce more carbon dioxide than all of mankind’s activities. Oceans are responsible for most greenhouse gases. Contrary to environmentalists’ claims, the higher the Earth’s temperature, the higher the carbon dioxide levels. In other words, carbon dioxide levels are a product of climate change. Some of the documentary’s scientists argue that the greatest influence on the Earth’s temperature is our sun’s sunspot activity. The bottom line is, the bulk of scientific evidence shows that what we’ve been told by environmentalists is pure bunk.

Throughout the Earth’s billions of years there have been countless periods of global warming and cooling. In fact, in the year 1,000 A.D., a time when there were no SUVs, the Earth’s climate was much warmer than it is now. Most of this century’s warming occurred before 1940. For several decades after WWII, when there was massive worldwide industrialization, there was cooling.

There’s a much more important issue that poses an even greater danger to mankind. That’s the effort by environmentalists to suppress disagreement with their view. According to a March 11 article in London’s Sunday Telegraph, Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five death threats since he started questioning whether man was affecting climate change. Richard Lindzen, professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, said, “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labeled as industry stooges.” Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said, “Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system.”

Suppressing dissent is nothing new. Italian cosmologist Giordano Bruno taught that stars were at different distances from each other surrounded by limitless territory. He was imprisoned in 1592, and eight years later he was tried as a heretic and burned at the stake. Because he disagreed that the Earth was the center of the universe, Galileo was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy in 1633. Under the threat of torture, he recanted and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Today’s version of yesteryear’s inquisitors include people like the Weather Channel’s Dr. Heidi Cullen, who advocates that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) strip their seal of approval from any TV weatherman expressing skepticism about the predictions of manmade global warming. Columnist Dave Roberts, in his Sept. 19, 2006, online publication, said, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

There are literally billions of taxpayer dollars being handed out to global warming alarmists, not to mention their dream of controlling our lives. Their agenda is threatened by dissent. They have the politician’s ear; not we, who will suffer if they have their way.

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.

Shooting Elephants in a Barrel, by Ann Coulter

Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence.
It was not a crime to reveal Valerie Plame’s name because she was not a covert agent. If it had been a crime, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have wrapped up his investigation with an indictment of the State Department’s Richard Armitage on the first day of his investigation since it was Armitage who revealed her name and Fitzgerald knew it.
I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, prepares to board his vehicle as he leaves U.S. Federal Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb.. 22, 2007, with his wife Harriet Grant, left rear. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
With no crime to investigate, Fitzgerald pursued a pointless investigation into nothing, getting a lot of White House officials to make statements under oath and hoping some of their recollections would end up conflicting with other witness recollections, so he could charge some Republican with “perjury” and enjoy the fawning media attention.
As a result, Libby is now a convicted felon for having a faulty memory of the person who first told him that Joe Wilson was a delusional boob who lied about his wife sending him to Niger.
This makes it official: It’s illegal to be Republican.
Since Teddy Kennedy walked away from a dead girl with only a wrist slap (which was knocked down to a mild talking-to, plus time served: zero), Democrats have apparently become a protected class in America, immune from criminal prosecution no matter what they do.
As a result, Democrats have run wild, accepting bribes, destroying classified information, lying under oath, molesting interns, driving under the influence, obstructing justice and engaging in sex with underage girls, among other things.
Meanwhile, conservatives of any importance constantly have to spend millions of dollars defending themselves from utterly frivolous criminal prosecutions. Everything is illegal, but only Republicans get prosecuted.
Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was subjected to a three-year criminal investigation for allegedly buying prescription drugs illegally to treat chronic back pain. Despite the witch-hunt, Democrat prosecutor Barry E. Krischer never turned up a crime.
Even if he had, to quote liberal Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz: “Generally, people who illegally buy prescription drugs are not prosecuted.” Unless they’re Republicans.
The vindictive prosecution of Limbaugh finally ended last year with a plea bargain in which Limbaugh did not admit guilt. Gosh, don’t you feel safer now? I know I do.
In another prescription drug case with a different result, last year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (Democrat), apparently high as a kite on prescription drugs, crashed a car on Capitol Hill at 3 a.m. That’s abuse of prescription drugs plus a DUI offense. Result: no charges whatsoever and one day of press on Fox News Channel.
I suppose one could argue those were different jurisdictions. How about the same jurisdiction?
In 2006, Democrat and major Clinton contributor Jeffrey Epstein was nabbed in Palm Beach in a massive police investigation into his hiring of local underage schoolgirls for sex, which I’m told used to be a violation of some kind of statute in the Palm Beach area.
The police presented Limbaugh prosecutor Krischer with boatloads of evidence, including the videotaped statements of five of Epstein’s alleged victims, the procurer of the girls for Epstein and 16 other witnesses.
But the same prosecutor who spent three years maniacally investigating Limbaugh’s alleged misuse of back-pain pills refused to bring statutory rape charges against a Clinton contributor. Enraging the police, who had spent months on the investigation, Krischer let Epstein off after a few hours on a single count of solicitation of prostitution. The Clinton supporter walked, and his victims were branded as whores.
The Republican former House Whip Tom DeLay is currently under indictment for a minor campaign finance violation. Democratic prosecutor Ronnie Earle had to empanel six grand juries before he could find one to indict DeLay on these pathetic charges — and this is in Austin, Texas (the Upper West Side with better-looking people).
That final grand jury was so eager to indict DeLay that it indicted him on one charge that was not even a crime — and which has since been tossed out by the courts.
After winning his primary despite the indictment, DeLay decided to withdraw from the race rather than campaign under a cloud of suspicion, and Republicans lost one of their strongest champions in Congress.
Compare DeLay’s case with that of Rep. William “The Refrigerator” Jefferson, Democrat. Two years ago, an FBI investigation caught Jefferson on videotape taking $100,000 in bribe money. When the FBI searched Jefferson’s house, they found $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer. Two people have already pleaded guilty to paying Jefferson the bribe money.
Two years later, Bush’s Justice Department still has taken no action against Jefferson. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently put Rep. William Jefferson on the Homeland Security Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, engaged in a complicated land swindle, buying a parcel of land for $400,000 and selling it for over $1 million a few years later. (At least it wasn’t cattle futures!)
Reid also received more than four times as much money from Jack Abramoff (nearly $70,000) as Tom DeLay ($15,000). DeLay returned the money; Reid refuses to do so. Why should he? He’s a Democrat.
Former Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger literally received a sentence of community service for stuffing classified national security documents in his pants and then destroying them — big, fat federal felonies.
But Scooter Libby is facing real prison time for forgetting who told him about some bozo’s wife.
Bill Clinton was not even prosecuted for obstruction of justice offenses so egregious that the entire Supreme Court staged a historic boycott of his State of the Union address in 2000.
By contrast, Linda Tripp, whose only mistake was befriending the office hosebag and then declining to perjure herself, spent millions on lawyers to defend a harassment prosecution based on far-fetched interpretations of state wiretapping laws.
Liberal law professors currently warning about the “high price” of pursuing terrorists under the Patriot Act had nothing but blood lust for Tripp one year after Clinton was impeached (Steven Lubet, “Linda Tripp Deserves to be Prosecuted,” New York Times, 8/25/99).
Criminal prosecution is a surrogate for political warfare, but in this war, Republicans are gutless appeasers.
Bush has got to pardon Libby.

Chris Mattews wishing he was Monica Lewinski GAG ME!!

Chris Matthews: Bill Clinton ‘Sounds
Like Jesus in the Temple’

Explaining how Hillary Clinton isn’t as popular with African-American voters as Bill was, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pointed to the former President’s verbal skills as one of the reasons why when he proclaimed on Wednesday’s Hardball: “There are times when he sounds like Jesus in the temple.” Matthews made that observation during a discussion with the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson where both cited Bill Clinton’s performance at Coretta Scott King’s funeral as a prime example of Slick Willie’s oratory abilities.

[This item, by Geoffrey Dickens, was posted Thursday on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

The following exchange took place about 30 minutes into the February 28 Hardball:

Eugene Robinson: “I mean, it’s the one memorable speech from, from that funeral.”
Chris Matthews: “And everybody else gave some written speech, and he said, ‘There’s a woman in there!’”
Robinson: “‘A woman in there!’”
Matthews: “Oh!”
Robinson: “He just captured the moment-”
Matthews: “And cut to it!”
Robinson: “It was just amazing. It was amazing. But she didn’t do that. She spoke next, and it just went completely flat.”
Matthews: “I hate to pass on his lifestyle and questions like that, but there are times when he sounds like Jesus in the temple. I mean, amazing ability to transcend ethnicity, race, we call it, it’s really ethnicity, in this country and, and speak to us all in this amazingly primordial way. And that’s the only good thing I’ll say about him tonight. Okay.”

The following is the full discussion:

Chris Matthews: “A new poll by The Washington Post and ABC News shows that black voters are abandoning Hillary Clinton to support Barack Obama. How’s that, how bad is that for Clinton? Let’s bring in the Hardballers. Today’s Hardballers are Kate O’Beirne, I just love that phrase, Hardball, political analyst and Washington editor of the, I`m sorry, the Washington editor of The National Review. That was John McLaughlin’s old job. And Gene Robinson is a columnist for the Washington Post itself. Your poll came out, sir, today. It showed that Hillary Clinton was beating, among African-Americans, Obama 60 to 20, beating him like a drum, and now he’s beating her by about 10 points. What’s happening?”
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: “Well, you know I thought this would happen. People-”
Matthews: “Look at, look at how fast it moved! She was beating him three to one. Now he’s up by 10 and he`s got the hot hand, it looks like.”
Robinson: “Yeah, well, he, he’s getting around, and, and African-Americans are getting to know Barack Obama. I mean, he was, he was you know, a two-year senator from Illinois.”
Matthews: “He’s passed the test?”
Robinson: “She, Hillary Clinton, has been around forever. And, and look, you know, it may be true, as Chris Rock said, that Bill Clinton was our first black president, but nobody every said that-”
Matthews: “I thought it was the poet who said that. What’s her name?”
Robinson: “It could have been.”
O’Beirne: “Maya Angelou.”
Matthews: “Not Angelou the other woman, Toni Morrison.”
O’Beirne: “Toni Morrison.”
Matthews: “Toni Morrison.”
Robinson: “Yeah, I guess it was. But in any event, they never said-”
Matthews: “Toni Morrison is correct.”
Robinson: “They never said that Hillary Clinton was our first black first lady, I mean, and, and you know, you and I were sitting here during the Coretta King funeral-”
Matthews: “I don’t think she has the advantage he has. I’m not black, obviously, but she had, he had the advantage of growing up in a black environment in the deep South where-”
Robinson: “And he had, he has this ability to speak to and really for black America that, that few people have, few white guys from Arkansas would have. But, but she doesn’t have that, so.”
Matthews: “He’s alone in that way, isn’t he?”
Robinson: “Yeah he is. He’s quite something.”
Matthews: “Jimmy Carter had a different kind of connection, but I mean, he strikes me as a guy that could, well, when I watched him at Mrs. King’s funeral, I just have never seen anything like it.”
Robinson: “You and I were sitting right here. It was the most amazing thing.”
Matthews: “I have never seen anything like it.”
Robinson: “I mean, it’s the one memorable speech from, from that funeral.”
Matthews: “And everybody else gave some written speech, and he said, ‘There’s a woman in there!’
Robinson: “‘A woman in there!’”
Matthews: “Oh!”
Robinson: “He just captured the moment-”
Matthews: “And cut to it!”
Robinson: “It was just amazing. It was amazing. But she didn’t do that. She spoke next, and it just went completely flat.”
Matthews: “I hate to pass on his lifestyle and questions like that, but there are times when he sounds like Jesus in the temple. I mean, amazing ability to transcend ethnicity, race, we call it, it’s really ethnicity, in this country and, and speak to us all in this amazingly primordial way. And that’s the only good thing I’ll say about him tonight. Okay.”