Really? Why won't he debate?

Joe Bastardi responds to Gore's Comments
Our own long-range forecast expert Joe Bastardi posted a strongly worded response to some of Al Gore's comments from the 60 Minutes Interview in his blog on the AccuWeather.com Professional site Friday . Here it is................
UNBELIEVABLE: Gore to 60 MINUTES: Doubting Global Warming Is Manmade Like Believing Earth Is Flat.
I am absolutely astounded that someone who refuses to publicly debate anyone on this matter and has no training in the field narrated a movie where frames of nuclear explosions were interspersed in a subliminal way in scenes of droughts and flood, among other major gaffes, can say these things and then have them accepted... by anyone.
The list of degreed meteorologists, climatologists, scientists, that signed the Manhatten declaration stating their disagreement with Mssr. Gore's premises grows by the day.
What gets me most is he goes on unchallenged one-on-one on this. Never in all my years of competition have I seen someone elevated to a level that he is, in any thing, without any face-to-face competition to establish credibility.
When someone gets a PhD, his or her thesis is normally attacked, for lack of a better word, in something known as the "orals," at least it was for those venturing into those waters at PSU.
In other words, a group of people still in a higher academic standing than you, one you want to ascend to, will try to get you to defend what you do in a way where you show what you know, not by some programmed unchallenged remark, but by competition with the people that are criticizing. Why? Because you can defend what you know, if you have worked hard enough. It is typical of the mentality of this person, that he thinks that he should be able to get something for nothing, just go on unchecked, hurling insults at people who have forgotten more than he will ever know.
You be the judge of this statement, and consider the source: Gore to 60 MINUTES: Doubting Global Warming Is Manmade Like Believing Earth Is Flat.
In fact, here is an excerpt : "...I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they're almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat," says Gore. "That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off," he tells Stahl.
I want to say that I have tried my best to be opened minded about this issue. But the more research I do, the more some of the claims of Bill Gray and John Coleman ring true.
However, I am all for non-carbon based energy as a way of increasing the quality of life, and that has nothing to do with what I consider grossly overstated scare tactics. Let me direct you to a site to keep an eye on: http://www.francis.edu/ActionCenter.htm I have been told they are developing some kind of home-based energy generator powered by wind. The idea is you store the energy created by wind. Given I live in the Boulder, Colorado of the East, count me in. As it is, we are getting a house with a geothermal unit in it that cuts electric bills by up to 50%. So I don't need to hear I am some kind of nut that thinks the Earth is flat, especially from a man who refuses to stand up one-on-one with anyone that can confront him fact for fact.
Last night I read an interesting story. GLobal warming is responsible for 770,000,000 people on Earth starving. Is that so? Never mind it could be a myriad of things, let's say that is right. The article also says that my 2085, that number may be 880,000,000.
These people have to assume that we are plain stupid. Seriously. The Earth's population has increased four-fold in the last 100 years. Suppose we assume in the next 80 years we only double the population. Right now the percentage of people starving because of global warming (and I am being nice in giving them their figure, even though any objective person would question that) is about 13 percent of the world's population. In 2085, assuming 12,000,000,000 people, (it's liable to be more) if only 880,000,000 million are starving because of the climate, that means the percentage has dropped to less than 8 percent. So if we use that reasoning, global warming would have increased the chance of feeding a greater percentage of people.
But you see what is done here. It's the same thing that is done across the board. Games played, and unless you look, you'll get taken.
It is funny. Lenin said, in his statement that was meant to say the ends justify the means as far as building his utopian society, that one has to break a few eggs to make an omelet. We can argue if that is valid, for one would have to assume almost a messianic quality to the person to know they are right about the future. Is Mssr. Gore assuming that about this issue? But if one destroys the entire egg itself, one cannot make an omelet (I hard boil my eggs and only eat the whites, so maybe that is why all this is hard for me to understand).
It's astounding, I am constantly reading and re-reading counter arguments to this idea. Let's remember, some of the major proponents with high powered doctorates that are on the other side, brilliant minds no doubt like Dr. Hansen and Dr. Mann, did not get their doctorate DEFENDING their global warming stance. It is not like there was a PhD dissertation with six PhDs, three pro and three con, challenging the assertions here. These come out of the natural curiousity and good will of these men, and I do not think they are anything less. However, you see the same thing with me in a way, when convinced of an idea on the future, because of hard work and research it's very tough to back away. There is a difference, though, of blowing the 3-inch line on a snowstorm, or that Omaha's winter was colder than I thought. We are talking issues that ORIGINATE WITH THE WEATHER, but have far reaching tentacles.
Now, anyone that believes he knows absolutely what is going to happen with the climate in the future, well you be the judge as to who is the card carrying member of the flat Earth society, that person, or the skeptic.
Nice way to start the weekend.

No warming in the ocean

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

" Ya'll People"

Trying to explain his attendance at a black seperatist church, Obama says his grandmother is a typical white person. That's right, "typical white person", amazing isn't it. If a white person would have said the same about him or any other place person, they would have been branded,tarred, and feathered in the media. But not Obama, for that matter any liberal black person to mention it. This guy is going to be our next president? A friggin black seperatist?

Doubt it. But it would be nice

It basically says that global warming has plateaued over the last ten years and shows that co2 follows the warming, not the other way around.






http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

What happened to our party?

I think this article by VDH is eeactly why we are going to lose this year to Obama and lose for the next four years. Until they go back to their roots of small government and balance budget, we're stuck as the minority party.

Victor Davis Hanson

February 22, 2008 2:33 PM

The Way Ahead

What Brought Us Here?

One wonders how the United States has come to the brink of nominating and probably electing someone with almost no experience as either an executive or national legislator, replete with ratings and rankings that suggest he will be about the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern.

1.Spending. The Republicans spent a fortune between 2001-5, at rates far above inflation to fund new federal programs at a time of war. No vetoes, no remorse. The ensuing deficits then discredited the wonderful effect of the tax cuts that brought in more revenue, but today are somehow blamed for the shortfall.

2.The Half-measure. Conservatives did not articulate what we sought in Iraq. They did not give the public some historical perspectives about the cost versus the benefits of a stable constitutional Iraq. The looting, the pullback from Fallujah, the escape of Sadr, etc. were half-measures when double measures were needed, while no counter-narratives to "Bush Lied, Thousands Died" were offered. So now we are in the situation where a supposedly "failed" and "worst" something will be looked back within ten years as a heroic feat of arms in fostering a constitutional government in the heart of the ancient caliphate, after removing Saddam and defeating al Qaeda, and at a cumulative cost that in past wars might have been exceeded by single campaigns.

3. Scandal. The Republican Congress—Mark Foley, Tom DeLay, Larry Craig, Duke Cunningham, and the Abramoff reciepients—was as messy as it was hypocritical.

4. Open Boders. There was no humane argument advanced to end illegal immigration as a phenomenon that aided a corrupt Mexican government at the expense of its own dispossessed. What is so liberal about tile-setters, cooks, and pruners scrimping on their $15 an hour wages to send back $5 to Mexico to support their families whom Mexico City ignores—all the while expecting a liberal U.S. government to make up their ensuing shortfall with health, food, housing, education, and legal subsidies? Yet somehow Republicans could not find a way of identifying the real insensitive culprits and so were either demonized as racists and nativists or reduced to impotent complicity in keeping the borders open.

The Obama Message

I've now listened to almost every Democratic debate, watched at least three long Obama speeches on C-Span, and read his website. There are two messages I distill from all that.

One, he is an extremely good speaker, quick and humorous, perhaps the best natural orator and politician we've seen since Ronald Reagan and JFK—far better than Bill Clinton, inasmuch he rarely loses his temper or pouts on camera. So far, in Clinton fashion, he has not started shaking his finger.

I note in passing he almost never receives hostile questions. His debates have been limited to those with like-thinking liberal Democrats,. His political races were against other liberals or a weak conservative. And in general the press has bent over backwards to be considerate. Bottom line: we have no idea how he will react when crossed, although Hillary's dig about his plagiarism in the Texas debate made him squeamish and moan.

Two, is the message. Early last year, Obama started out as the post-racial candidate, a sort of liberal version of Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell. His handlers even worried whether he would solidify his African-American base ("not black enough?") given Hillary's liberal credentials, apparently sure-thing candidacy, and Bill's honorific title as the first "black" President.

But sometime by December, the Obama candidacy had transmogrified, as his wife and Oprah, in style and substance, vouched for his African-American fides—and suddenly 90% of the black vote was unexpectedly won in many primaries. If his worry in the cauldron of Chicago politics was that he was too "white", suddenly those fears were assuaged in the current election.

Second, at about the same time the hope and change message began to morph as well into a prophetic, near messianic sermon along the self-righteous lines of something like, "You, America, have a final chance to show that you are still good, after all, by voting for a brilliant African-American charismatic leader. If you don't, then you are captive to race, and we were right all along about your America."

The Racial Paradox

Racial solidarity or perhaps racial atonement is the subtext of Michelle Obama's controversial speech, and the lame meae culpae that followed. So now we are in this Orwellian paradox of seeing Obama's base turn out in record numbers on the basis apparently of race, but on the other hand the implied warning that if anyone else were likewise to consider that fact, then he would be racialist.

So is he an identity-politics candidate or a post racialist unifier? Or both? It all reminds me of the perennial complaints of the National Council of La Raza (the race) lecturing insensitive others about their unfair consideration of race in matters of illegal immigration. This is very disappointing, because lost in Obamania is the complete repudiation of his original promise precisely not to become a racial candidate.

Instead, in brilliant fashion, he has not only done so to secure his base, and out trump the identity politics of the possible first female nominee, but added a narcissistic and minatory twist that only by voting for someone who denies he is running on race do others have a chance to prove that they are beyond race. The country is soon to be in a position, thanks to the Obamas, that voting for a national hero, with three decades of governmental experience, and prior national campaign savvy over a half-term U.S. Senator is proof of being illiberal.

There are two general themes to his message that he has begun, to be fair, to articulate in more detailed fashion. At home, there will be an increase in taxes—income, estate, payroll—to fund more government health care, education, and general entitlement programs. The old Reaganesque notion that government subsidies can make one more dependent, angrier, and envious is forgotten, along with the notion that lower taxes stimulate economic growth and encourage risk-taking, innovation, and independence. I worry especially about the lifting of income caps (how far?) on social security taxes inasmuch as they were part of the original covenant justifying the caps on benefits paid out.

NAFTA and other free trade agreements would be repealed; illegal immigration would either not be an issue, or more a problem of finding the right way, with borders still open, to grant amnesties. Appointments would hinge on a belief in bigger government and the theme that the individual is currently suffering due to reactionaries in government and corporations, barely housed, fed, or educated, and deserves more federal dollars appropriated from others who either don't need all their income or didn't deserve the compensation they were given.

Abroad, there is a general argument that things are going terribly. Forget that the Taliban and Saddam are gone. Forget that we have not suffered another 9/11 attack. Forget that there is far more democratic promise in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Lebanon than was true in 2001. Forget that the Merkel and Sarkozy governments, along with Eastern European leaders, are more pro-American than their predecessors in 2001.

Instead, we are disliked by everyone, and for good reasons. The fact that Iranian mullahs, the House of Saud cousins, Hugo Chavez's communists, European mullahs, and the Arab street don't approve of America says more about us than it does them. The solution is to follow more the dictates of European Union and United Nations, where sophisticated internationalists can guide us through the maze of global power, instructing mostly ignorant Americans how and why we tend to cause so many of the world's problems. Misunderstanding and our own obtuseness explain global tension, not the agendas of enemies who know exactly what they want and how to get it.

Our military is not so much an offensive force, designed to defeat and kill our enemies, that needs support and constant honing; better to see it as a large social organization that we must look at in terms only of proper rotations, health care, and benefits. We are to support the troops not in the sense of doing everything we can to ensure they win, and gain the proper recognition for their courage and sacrifice, but rather in consideration of their victimhood, offering proper sympathy and remediation for the defeat in Iraq, the unwise use of their skills, and the needless loss of their lives.

Come on, WIll it ever end.

I really thought Obama was a decent guy. A liberal albeit, but still an honorable man. And then I find out that his pastor for more than twenty years has been preaching this hate, with Obama sitting in the pews listening??? Now you can't say that it is no big deal. That these are Wrights opinions and they don't have to be shared by Barrack. Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope." That should tell folks a little about how important Wright is to Obama.

A few more of his most memoable quote's:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."


"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.


The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Mr. Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, gave the sermon at the school's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel in Washington on Jan. 15, 2006. "We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."
Mr. Wright thundered on: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."
His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ." Concluding, Mr. Wright said: "We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

The most disturbing thing about all of this, is that he will be our next president. This will hang out in the media for the weekend maybe a few more days and then " poof" nothing more. Like Michelle Obama being proud of her country for the first time. I am ashamed of the folks in my country who will vote for this man because he is a cool young good looking black guy.

Will we see this poll in the news this week?

I know there is only a couple of days left in the week but lets see if the MSM can report on as many casualties, civilian or otherwise, instead of reporting on how most Americans are starting to believe the surge is working.


http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=A553EE3A-3048-5C12-00094F73CEC7BAD1

Another independant

Different Michael but great coverage of the Iraq war. Wonder what would happen if the MSM ever reported any of these guy's work.



http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/guitar-heros.htm

In the Villages of Al Anbar

This guy is an independant photo journalist in Iraq.

One of his best stories to date.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/03/in-the-villages.php

The Arab socialist utopian town is classic

If we lose

If we don't win this now, this is what we all lose later. If the below doesn't want to make you fight, nothing will - enjoy the "submission." .I know this is a lot to take in but with out voicing your opinion as a liberal or conservative hate the President or not. Just be as un-bias as you can and think about it.


Life under Islamic ruleLet’s begin with 1-10: No more abortions
No gay marriage;homosexuals put to death
Capital punishment on an epic scale
No women’s rights;women may not go to school or hold a job.
No religious freedoms for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans or others. Eventually, all will be forced to convert (revert) to Islam or be killed.
The elimination of science & scientific inquiry, to be replaced by strict Koranic study.
Absolute centralization of authority in the hands of mullahs, imams & religious scholars.No separation of mosque & state. They are one & the same.
The elimination of trial by jury.
The elimination of the right to vote, as democracy is an affront to Muslims.

Continuing with 11-20:
No music -no iPods, instruments, bands, CDsNo dancing - hard to dance w/o music anyhow
No alcohol - Sayonara bars, pubs, discos, etc.
No gambling - No lotteries, casinos, poker games, etc.
No sports (deemed un-Islamic) as soccer - stadiums for executions
No art depicting humans or animals - Goodbye Mt. Rushmore No Playboy, Penthouse, or other adult entertainment mags No X-rated films or adult movies
No back pain - forced to pray 5 times a day
No sleeping in - rise and shine, morning prayersMoving along with 21-30:
No women’s fashion - don’t worry, only seen by one man entire life
No “I love my man” - “We four wives love our husband"No messy divorces - man says 3 times “I divorce you” and it’s final
No pre-marital sex - Hymen restoration/replacement biz booms
No need for daughters/sisters to find men - can be given away
No court delays - just “honor kill” wives, kids, mothers, sisters in case of rape
No legal confusion - 1 man=2 women or 1 woman=1/2 a man
No damn women drivers - oops, sorry if that was insensitive
No more Domestic Violence - can legally beat wife/wives
Reduced skin cancer - women forbidden from sunbathing

Warming up with 31-40:
No more toilet paper - environmentally friendly advantage
No left-handers - left hand is dirty and used for above
No more bacon, ham, sausage, pork chops, BLTs, etc.
No animal rights - sorry PETA
No vegetarians - Vegans learn to “kill and grill” - ask Ted Nugent
No need for progress - Great Leap Backwards to 7th Century
No need for English - must learn Arabic to read Koran
Free Copies of best selling book by Adolph Hitler - Mein Kampf, now Jihadi
No need for critical thinking - cradle to grave taught how to act and think
No Winnie the Pooh - Piglet is deemed offensive
Cruising with 41 onwards: No Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hannukkah
No more ADD, memories are awesome - forced to MEMORIZE entire Koran
No more minorities as slaves - entire population of women instead
No more Amnesty Intl., United Nations, Human Rights Watch etc. etc. etc.

I can't help but go to this and think that in a generation we will be seriously contemplatingthe survival of our country. We as a nation haven't figured it out. Or attention span is too short.Most people believe that the first attack on our country was 9/11. They believe that this whole"war on terror" thing ( the quotes are there because that is how media outlets write it.Another example of how our country as a collective doesn't get it).We have been attacked several times for who we are not who's in office. Al Qaeda Started therewar on us when we left Somalia after the Black hawk down episode. That is the moment wherewe were labeled as paper tigers because of our quick exit for the country. Remember our Deltaforce and Rangers didn't lose that battle, over two thousand somalis were killed to nineteen ofour soldiers. Please don't say inoccent somalis, the battle had been raging for hours those whowere out in the streets were active participants. Soon after Jan 25 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, aPakistani, fires an AK-47 assault rifle into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the CentralIntelligence Agency headquarters, killing two and injuring three others.
February 26, 1993, Thefirst world trade center attack. A truck bomb parked in the garage kills six and injures 1,042.
March 1: In the Brooklyn bridge Shooting, Rashid Baz kills a Hasidic seminary student andwounds 4 on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York city
March 8 1995: Terrorists in Karachi,Pakistan, armed with automatic rifles, murdered two American consulate employees andwounded a third as they traveled in the consulate shuttle bus. March 1995 : Khobar Towersbombing -- In all, 19 U.S. servicemen and one Saudi were killed and 372 wounded, by HizballahAl-Hijaz (Saudi Hizballah) with Iranian support,
February 24 1996: An armed man opens fire ontourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, , killing aDanish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland andFrance before turning the gun on himself. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims thiswas a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine". August 7: U.S. embassy bombingsin Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000,by al-Qaeda.
December 14: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States–Canada border inPort Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles InternationalAirport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.

These are just a few of theattacks that were either failed our succsesful leading up to 9-11.I only want to ask why we are not on the same war footing that our grandparents were duringworld war 2. Most of the response I get is that we lost the high ground when we attacked Iraq. That arguement though is ridiculous. Was FDR wrong for invading Itlay, North Africa, andGermany? Of course not, We were in a war against a tyranical ideology. Not just Japan hadattacked us but because once they did we knew that we would have to stop all the fascist in ourworld that could threaten our nieghbors. But I have to say that our nation is too divided to tkaeit serious. In 2008 we will withdraw from Iraq, leaving it to Iran or the jihadis that are there,and just sit back and wait for our attacks that will occur every two to three years. I just wishthe world can see it. But they are too afraid to confront the reality of radical islam.

Strange world we live in

It's the same crap, different day.
Black Democrats = Natural
Black Republicans = Uncle Tom
Gay Democrats = Natural
Gay Republicans = Dirty immoral sex whores who deserve to be publicly lynched!

Why things are this way

This was at my old blog and think it is still very relevant today. especially sine the MSM has won the propaganda war.


What CNN will show: Abu Ghraib photos, American soldiers' coffins, 25 war protesters when they claim they will have thousands, more Abu Ghraib photos, videos of jihadists picking off American soldiers, enemy propaganda, a running death toll of Americans in Iraq eagerly awaiting the next thousand mark, Sheehan, and on and on.What CNN will not show: 9/11 footage or photos, the running death toll of jihadists, ANY continuous footage of the riots from France or anywhere else in Europe, any tapes from MEMRI, Muhammad cartoons, jihadist beheading of innocent people (even journalists), the thousands of successes of our troops in Iraq, and on and on.We all know who's side they are on. They are so blinded by their hatred of one man that they have sold their souls to the death cult of radical Islam.