Monday, April 30, 2007

Changing the Subject II

In the classic lefty trick of changing the subject when confronted with inconvenient facts....

Vice President Dick Cheney [...], accus[ed] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of “defeatism” after Reid told reporters, “This war is lost.” In reply, Reid called Cheney the president’s “attack dog,” and added, “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating.”
Again, no arguing with the facts. Reid said "This war is lost." Cheney used this to justify calling him a defeatist. Kinda hard to argue with Dick there.

So Reid doesn't. Instead, he calls Cheney a name, and in the same breath says he's not going to get in a name-calling match with him. And George Bush is a moron?

Then he resorts to the "the consensus says Cheney's no good, so you should, too" strategy. Maybe that is what the consensus says. But nowhere does it say that he's wrong. Because, as usual, he's not.

Changing Course II

It occurs to me that to the Democrats (Joe Lieberman notably excepted), "Changing Course" in Iraq means "Reversing Course" and nothing else.

Because as I mentioned before, the administration has changed course, but the Democrats continue to insist that it has not.

Guide to U.S. Newspaper Readers

My wife forwarded this to me in an email. Pretty funny:

  • The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
  • The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
  • The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.
  • USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however like the smog statistics shown in pie charts.
  • The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.
  • The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
  • The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
  • The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority, feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are gay.
  • The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

My "Official" Global Warming Position

This post has been rolling in the back of my mind for quite some time -- I just haven't sat down long enough to put it all together. The purpose is really to dispel the notion that I am somehow against behaving in an environmentally responsible way. My position is, rather, that sometimes we are not the responsible party.

When you take a position such as mine that it is doubtful that CO2 drives climate and that man is causing any significant climate change outside of land-use changes, you immediately attract attention as someone who must be "anti-environment". In fact, I believe it is absurd to call just about anyone "anti-environment". I'll acknowledge that there is a small percentage of the human population who may be deranged enough to actually wish, even actively pursue environmental harm as a serial killer or mass murderer might pursue his or her urges... but by and large people do want to protect our environment. I would even go so far as to say that practically nobody is in favor of environmental carelessness. Most acts of environmental harm, I believe, are not intentional, but are a product of laziness, thoughtlessness, ignorance (sometimes willful) or a "just this once won't hurt" attitude. With amnesia.

I consider myself an environmentalist. I'll qualify that here, for reasons that will become clear later. I consider myself a rational, classical environmentalist. I believe in recycling. I believe "renewable" energy is an interesting idea, especially in small-scale applications. I hope we get better at making it more effective and reliable. I believe in keeping pollution down as much as is practical. I love wilderness more than most. I like being in it. My favorite places on the planet are places where you can't see a road, a power line, a building -- anything man-made. I am very thankful that some of our forefathers had the foresight to set some land aside so that I can go be in such a place. I feel thrilled and honored to be there when I am there. I love mountains, especially snow-capped ones, and I don't like the idea that a warmer climate is making large glaciers at mid latitudes a rarer thing.

I believe the earth is nearing or at the peak of a modest warming period. I base this mostly on looking at the reconstructed average global temperature graph over the last 10,000 years and observing a pattern where the earth has warmed or cooled by a degree Celsius or so for a few hundred years -- alternately warmer than "normal" and cooler than "normal". The recent warming trend looks remarkably unimpressive when looked at in context.



I believe that man's activities have little if anything significant to do with this warming.

My beliefs are borne out, it turns out, by the ice core data that Mr. Gore uses to show the correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide. From a distance, and with the lines separated on the graph, it is not apparent that one causes the other, but when you zoom in on a graph where they are superimposed, you see that first the temperature goes up -- then the carbon dioxide goes up. If there is causation, therefore, it must be that higher temperatures drive CO2 levels and not the other way around.

Environmentalism has morphed into a practically full-blown religion. Al Gore appears to be the current Pope. The basic premise seems to be that the earth is in a determinate, delicate balance, and it is our moral imperative not to disturb it lest that balance be thrown off and the planet will be "ruined". Any behavior of any life form on the planet other than that of humans is deemed to be "natural" and essential to this balance, while anything humans themselves do beyond perhaps living in caves and hunting with spears is deemed to be "un-natural".

I believe this planet, like everything else, is a process, and that we are a part of that process. The earth has never been, is not now, nor will it ever be in static balance. There are balances, but they are constantly shifting. There is no "correct" state for the earth to be in. That doesn't mean we can't do things that make it less hospitable to us. But the earth doesn't care one way or another any more than it cares if an asteroid plunges in to it and brings mass extinction and an ice age.

Like any religion, Environmentalism has its good points in the ways that it encourages "good" behavior (in this case conservation and preservation). And like any religion, the more zealous the adherent, the more tunnel vision he develops, and the greater the potential for damage to others and humanity as a whole he becomes. And like any religion, it is ultimately based on a myth. While myths can be powerful, useful, and worthwhile - they also, as I mentioned above, have the potential to drive the over-zealous to all kinds of bizarre conclusions and actions -- in many cases undesirable actions. It has even led to (so far relatively minor, thankfully) cases of environmental terrorism.

A rational human familiar with the history of the planet knows that the planet has changed dramatically, often catastrophically, without any input from humans in the past. Gigantic super-volcano eruptions, asteroids and comets, wobbles in the tilt of the planet, orbital variations, and variations in solar output have all caused massive extinctions, changes in global vegetation, ice, temperature, sea levels, etc over the millennia. These are all considered natural. Only human impact is considered unnatural. It is as if everything on and of this planet is natural except for us, as if we are not on and of this planet.

It is, in effect, an anti-human religion.

For some reason the moral state of balance the Environmentalists insist we preserve is the mean of climate over the last 10,000 years. Not surprisingly, this 10,000 years makes up most, if not all, of mankind's collective memory. Thus it seems, not surprisingly, that the balance we seek to preserve is the mean of the climate during the period humans during which humans have done very well. This would seem to infer that Environmentalism should be a pro-human religion. It sounds like it should be a religion whose focus is to preserve what is good for humans. However, the rhetoric is anything but that. It also seems to ignore the possibility that what was good for humans in the past may not continue to be necessary for humans in the future.

The Global Warming theory -- or as it's more accurately put, the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, has been a God-send ... or rather, a "Gaia-send", for this environmental religion. It has become the lightning-rod rallying point to justify action on practically every cause the faithful believes in. It gives them a powerful tool to curb industry, force conservation and preservation to their standards, stop drilling, curb human population and economic development. It is a powerful tool for socialists to put a regulator on capitalists to blunt the competitive advantage capitalism brings. It helps justify general loathing of the U.S. It argues for increased government regulation of our activities. And it just makes people feel good about themselves to feel like they are among the enlightened few telling everyone else how much better they are for caring. After all, who is going to argue for a hot, poisoned, dirty, ugly environment?

It appears from looking at actual data that the theory that even a small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has a very large impact on Earth's average temperature is just wrong. It was an interesting hypothesis, perhaps even a respectable theory. But theories need to be backed up by testing and corroboration. Despite volumes of research, the main evidence for environmental catastrophe caused by increased CO2 levels is model output. And as Things I Know #3 states, models are not reality. Models are mathematical expressions of belief.

If your theory dictates that CO2 drives climate, then that belief will be expressed in the math of the model. It should be no surprise, then, that the model will predict that more CO2 will produce higher temperatures. Every year, however, the predicted massive increases in temperature are pushed farther and farther into the future as the data doesn't back the alarmism.

After years of the data not bearing that theory out, and research into the relationship between CO2 and global temperature in the past refuting that premise, a rational person would abandon that belief and look for one that fits reality better. But as is the case with most of the religiously over-zealous, Environmentalists don't. Because it's a matter of faith.



See also: My Skeptic's Guide to Athropogenic Global Warming.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Things I Know #11

Anti-fashion is still fashion.

That, of course, is addressed to all of the people who go out of their way not to “follow the crowd” by following the crowd that doesn’t follow the crowd — or by paying so much attention to “the crowd” to avoid doing anything that might remotely be considered “following the crowd” that they are just as enslaved by popular culture as those they love to disdain for being so enslaved by it.

Things I Know #10

Facts don't know right-wing or left-wing. Interpretations do.

Things I Know #9

Narcissism is the realm of the insecure.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Inversionspeak

Missouri Democratic Representative Shomyer on Missouri's $200,000,000 tax surplus:

“I will not allow this to be called a surplus of dollars. It is a deficit of investment, it is a deficit of compassion, and it’s a deficit of forward-looking and putting ourselves in a position in a state to be great.”

I mean, do I even have to add anything?

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Westerns, self-reliance, & passivisity

Mark Steyn, in the timely A Culture of Passivisity


We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. Geraldo-like “protection” is a delusion: when something goes awry — whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision.

:

But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.


Last Sunday we watched a Western from the 70's... set in the early 1900's in America. It was "Bite the Bullett" with Gene Hackman, James Coburn, and Candice Bergman.

Even as I watched it I noted the stark contrast between the self-reliance of the characters and what we see around us in today's nanny culture. Less than 100 years ago, American men -- even 18-22 year old men, would have rushed this loser Cho and taken him out -- even if they were unarmed. Some of them undoubtedly would have died, and several others injured. But Cho was shooting fish in a barell. (save one professor -- who was a product of that older culture or something very much like it.)

Which, incidentally for you losers out there who somehow think killing a bunch of people in such a manner somehow makes you respectable by anyone's standards -- merely confirms that you are among the worst of human beings. You aren't cold-blooded killers. You're unstable children throwing the worst kind of tantrum.

Being unpopular, having few friends... all things I have had plenty of experience with in my past. But I always liked my own company, because I'm one of the good guys. I never lost sight of that, and lo and behold I found out that the popularity rat race is just that. A rat race. You can simply choose not to run*, and it turns out watching it from the sidelines makes you feel better about yourself than trying to prove yourself against percieved, arbitrary standards.

Losers like the Columbine freaks and Cho are the real losers -- so caught up in what everybody else thinks that they lose focus, hope, themselves -- and go on a suicide mission to go out in a blaze of glory for which they will be remembered. And they will be remembered.

As losers.

A decent person would rather be a forgotten honest man than one of these losers.

Anti-gun people want to blame this all on our "gun culture". First of all, if we really did have a gun culture, Cho would have had a very difficult time pulling this off. He may not have even tried. It would have been much harder to achieve the glory he was going for (and thanks very much NBC for helping him out on this -- not) if, say, even 1 in 10 people on campus were packing and everybody pretty much knew that -- including Cho. But thanks to gun laws and a recent re-affirmation of this -- specifically at Virginia Tech -- he pretty much knew he'd be shooting fish in a barrel.

On top of that, I'm familiar with many people the MSM and the anti-gun folks ... but I repeat myself ... would consider "gun culture" people. I'd be considered one of them myself, and I don't fit the stereotype. The vast majority don't fit the stereotype. Most of these people are more like Gene Hackman in Bite the Bullett than anyone else. People I'd like to see walking around every day.

Packing heat.

* note that counter-culture is not the same as chosing not to run. Some people pretend not to run by choosing to run in alternative (on the face) but ultimately very similar to the percieved "mainstream" rat-race they felt they weren't doing so well in. And they do it for the same reasons in the end.

Things I Know #'s 7 & 8

7. Tolerance and acceptance are not synonymous.

8. People (criminals and non-criminals alike) are a lot more afraid of guns than they are of restrictive gun laws. This explains a few things: 1) a lot of people support restrictive gun laws, 2) crime rates are higher where there are more restrictive gun laws, and 3) crime rates are lower where there are less restrictive gun laws.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Whittle Alert, Spring, 2007

Bill pops his head out of his gopher hole with "Seeing the Unseen, Part II", in which he addresses conspiracy theories. His explanation fits ... ah... someone I know very well ... to a "T". As usual, an excellent and eminently readable, digestible piece of work.

Do not, I repeat, do NOT miss the link at the end where Bill invites to to see how he "knows" JFK was murdered by the American Beef Council!

It's a video, likely produced by Bill himself (he's a video editor), and the man on the right in the sunglasses is, I'm guessing with a degree of confidence ... Bill Whittle.

It's hilarious.

Friday, April 13, 2007

General busy-ness - a Random Thoughts post

Yeah, I've been a bit pre-occupied lately with - well, life in general. It happens.

I can't believe we're still hearing about this Don Imus thing. I actually heard someone talking on NPR about the "cruelty" of his comments... they were "particularly cruel" to these "young girls".

Ever hear the term "like water off a duck"? People should re-familiarize themselves with those terms, especially when someone throws out an off-hand, meaningless insult that would have been seen as glorification if it came from a rap star. "Young girls"? They're "young girls" when we want to drum up protective sympathy. They're "Young womyn" when they're speakin' truth to power. Cruel? Cruel????? If you think being called a "nappy-headed ho" is cruel, you don't know "cruel". But leftist indignation is all about hyperbole.

Now I'm no Imus fan. And I think it was a dumb thing for him to say on the airwaves. But as others have pointed out, Rosie O'Donnell is still on The View, and getting applause when she declares that conservative Christians are just as dangerous as Islamists. Lets look at the body count, shall we? 1 point for every 100 dead, and add a point for every Muslim or Christian authority who defends the murders. On a case by case basis, too. As far as I know each and every one of the young women on the Rutgers team are fine young ladies. And no off-handed slur-in-jest is going to change my mind about that. I'm fairly certain, especially after seeing the context, that Don doesn't really think that these girls are "nappy-headed ho's". I think he was saying they looked pretty tough. Which in gangsta talk could easily come out "nappy-headed ho".

Not that I'm any big fan of gangsta talk, either.

Fred Thompson. Haven't looked in to him too much, but he sounds fairly exciting as a conservative candidate. Frankly, I'd like to see the most conservative candidate on constitutional issues, foriegn, and fiscal policies nominated and win the general election, too. My biggest issues by far are not backing down in the defensive war on Islamists, the Second Amendment, and small government (I realize I have to speak in relative terms on this).

The kicker is, whoever gets nominated out of the field of Republican candidates will get my vote vs any of the possible Democrat nominees -- not because one is (R) and one is (D), but because the (R) person is without a doubt going to be hands down closer to my position on at least two of those three issues than any Democrat will be.

As a realist I have to keep in mind that in the end, I want whichever one of these guys gets nominated to be able to beat the nominee with a (D) after his/her name. That is critical in the War on Terror and on the War on the Bill of Rights. And if the most conservative candidate can't do that (and I hope he can and does, but) if he can't, right now Rudy looks real appealing to me. My biggest beef with him is on gun control. I am not pro-abortion ... realistically, I don't think President Guiliani would have any sway one way or the other over that anyway, though. On the other hand, I'm willing to give Fred a chance to prove himself.

I recently rented 1984 -- I'd never read the book or seen the movie, although I had a pretty good idea what it was about. Morgan brought up Newspeak in a post a while back, and after the Obama/Big Sister ad, I decided it was time.

It is shocking how much newspeak we really have around us. "Hate" is a top candidate for the equivalent of "crimespeak" or "crimethink". It's just doubleplus ungood. You're not even allowed to use a word more descriptive of what happened, because then you might actually think about whether the term is actually appropriate.

I was also quite struck by Goldstein Derangement Syndrome during the 10 Minutes of Hate. You can't hear a word the man is saying, there's just this emotional, hysterical reaction to his name and his image. Of course, it looks a lot like Bush Derangement Syndrome. Someone ought to to a YouTube video replacing Goldstien with Bush, complete with views of the hysterical crowd -- that's what the far and even middle left look like to me now. It's apparently catching.

Well, that's it for my blurbing today.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Question for today...

For your consideration.

I see an entity repeatedly referred to as "Mainstream Islam".

I don't see any evidence of such a beast. I see lots of what appear to be mainstream Muslims.

Is it possible that there is a disconnect between "Mainstream Islam" (the Islam preached in mosques) and "Mainstream Muslims" (people who identify themselves as Muslim, but really don't follow closely what Imams say)?

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Life is Not a Bumper Sticker

As Mark Steyn wrote in one of his Op. Eds.

update... that link is outdated, but there's a copy of the article on this guy's blog. Oh, and here, too.

I decided his idea was too good to pass up. I never was a bumper sticker fan. I see cars with their whole rear ends plastered with them like they'd been hit by a bumper sticker shotgun -- and ususally these bumper stickers list a whole bunch of platitudes about peace and military funding and litanies of anti-western sentiment. I consider them, in general, an exercise in narcisism.

In the article, he points this out in passing, refering to the the now omnipresent "COEXIST" sticker that apparently makes these people feel so good about themselves.

On the other hand, I have often felt the urge to counter the barage of fantasy-world sayings and let it be known that there are, in fact, many, many of their neighbors who disagree with them. Most of us aren't the bumper sticker type. But I'll only put one bumper sticker on my car at a time. That's my rule. My first was the "I'd rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy" bumper sticker. It was replaced briefly with one for my local Republican U.S. Senator Talent, and after the election I got a new one... "Right Wing Extremists".

But it's about time to change that one out -- and I really like Steyn's idea. So I'm having one made at Makestickers.Com.




Cheney (no surprise) was right

From Omar at Iraq the Model:

“Evacuate all houses in the area around the Americans’ base for we shall attack it soon… Those occupiers will soon be gone from this land. Who will protect you then?”

These were roughly the words in a leaflet the “mujahideen” distributed in Adhamiya a few days ago. A distant relative who lives there received one.

And just what part of Cheney's assertation that a withdrawal date validates the Islamists' strategy does that not jive with?

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Pelosi is not our President or Ambassador

The people of a certain congressional district in Northern California elected Nancy Pelosi. Slightly over half of the House of Representatives voted her to be Speaker of the House. She has not been appointed by anyone in the Executive branch to be an ambassador.

Now, as an American Citizen, it is perfectly acceptable for Nancy to travel anywhere in the world she wants that they will let her in. Doing so claiming to be some sort of official representative of the United States ... it is not acceptable. She can talk to the Syrians about the wishes of the people of San Fransisco all she wants, as long as foriegn officials and the rest of the world understand that's all she's empowered to do.

I noted she covered her head while visiting certain areas/people. I guess she decided to wow President Bashar Assad with her gams, though. I'm no fan of yours, but hey, Nancy... they're not bad! Don't say I never said anything nice about ya.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Sometimes All I Need is the Air That I Breathe

Supreme Scientists Rule on EPA's Turf

If CO2 is a pollutant because it is a Greenhouse Gas, then so is H2O -- a much more potent greenhouse gas. Do we really want people to be able to sue the EPA for not regulating two of the major byproducts of our own respiratory systems? Once it is settled law that our very act of exhaling is, in fact, a polluting act -- government would be free to regulate our breathing.

Also, note that the headline is that the Court "Rules Against Bush" -- not the EPA. Because, as we all know, it's all that big, bad, ebidoer's doing.

Changing Course

Senator Reid:
“If the president vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period.”

The president has changed course in Iraq. It just isn't the change Mr. Reid et. al. had in mind. Still, Reid's no dummy. He knows that "change course" is much more vague and palatable than "withdraw".

Too Much Hot Air from John Kerry

In today's Seattle Times is an editorial rant on one of my pet topics, AGW.

In it, John (and Teresa -- she's a co-author. Equal opportunity and all. She wanted in on the grunts and nods of approval from the AGW "Amen" crowd, too.)

This man was almost president. It is truly frightening. The editorial basically repeats statements of belief and chastises skeptics as Infidels, led by the Great Satan of Industry. It's long on faith and short on facts.

What's really telling is ... after one of the the authors' two main arguments against skeptics is that they have a vested interest in being skeptics because they are "funded by industry" (I'm not funded by industry. How do I get me some of that?) ... anyway, the editor's author summary at the end of the story is:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, will be signing their book, "This Moment on Earth," at 7:30 p.m. today at Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle.
Yup. That's right. Signing their book. Which they're no doubt giving away for free. Because, you know, having a vested interest in arguing a certain direction would completely undermine your case. Right?

And with that, let's embark on a fact-hunting fisk, to see what we can find.

We have spent the past decade debating a scientific consensus on global warming instead of taking action to fix it. The time is now to move from talk to action.
We repeat the chant of consensus. There is a consensus. There is. There is. As long as we rule out the scientists who disagree with us, everyone is in agreement. And even if there were a few industry hacks who somehow infiltrated the IPCC, they were in the room with our consensus, so they can be counted as a part of that consensus.

For too long, we have allowed our national dialogue on this looming crisis to be distorted by a small group of industry-funded naysayers. They have stalled as evidence mounted along with worldwide temperatures — which are up 1.4 degrees in this new millennium alone.
This new mellenium being the 21st century? Sorry, John. Mean Global Temperatures have remained essentially flat since the late 1990's. Temperatures are, in fact, up by about 1.4 degrees farenheit (~0.6 or 0.7 degrees celsius) in the past one hundred and fifty years -- half of it before 1940. In the context of the history of climate, it is hardly significant.



But why argue facts when your belief is so strong?
They have deployed an unending cascade of hollow arguments and manipulations
— often with the support and sympathy of the current administration.

"Hollow arguments and manipulations" known as facts and hard data, as opposed to model projections and associated scary scenarios meant precisely to manipulate public opinion. Besides, talk about the pot calling the stainless steel black. The unending cascade of such opinion has come from the believers' side, through the sypmathetic mouthpieces of the press and entertainment industry. Only recently have skeptical scientists - and this is not a small group at all, started speaking up loudly -- alarmed that this AGW scare has gone too far and that their rational voices have been the target of censorship and blacklisting.

It was 1987 when we first started talking about climate change, but Washington turned its back on hard realities and great possibilities — on renewables, efficiency breakthroughs and clean technologies. We could have created millions of new jobs and vast new markets, slowed global warming, saved taxpayers money, earned the world's respect, and significantly strengthened our long-term outlook. Instead, the effort in Washington — both Democrat and Republican — too often has been rhetorical, not real.

If renewables were a solution, we'd be using them already. The fact is, renewables are unreliable and take up vast open spaces -- environmental spaces. They're a nice thought and work on a small scale -- as long as there's a large-scale solution in place to back it up. And where would these millions of new jobs have come from, anyway? How would we have saved taxpayers money? And even if additional CO2 did precisely what the AGW believers say, our Global Warming "slowing" would be 0.07 degrees in 50 years.

The Kerrys go on to say:

It is time to do away once and for all with the myth that fixing the environment is bad for business. In the long run, the opposite is true. General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz recently told Business Week, "Being known as the technology laggard is not conducive to selling automobiles."
Which ironically argues against government regulation. Auto manufacturers are apparently motivated to do this on their own. But then they go on to contradict themselves:

Government needs to help America's automakers create cars with higher gas mileage — and to help America maintain its edge in dozens of new "green" markets that will inevitably spring up to meet this challenge. Why shouldn't these new businesses be American businesses?
Because as we all know, Government has historically been better at solving industry's problems than, say, industry. And what are these dozens of new, green markets? And if they are so lucrative, why haven't our greedy capitalistic industries been eager to fill them? Oh, that's right, they need the Government's help to do this. Which they strongly resist, because they're ... so ... um... greedy, yeah. So let me get this straight. There are massive opportunities for making money in "greenness" for industry, and industry cannot take advantage of these markets on their own. They need Government help, so they fight Government help by funding AGW Skeptics to fool us all into thinking there's no problem to solve. Gotcha.

Each of us can do something, and we need to insist on leaders who will. We wouldn't elect someone who said terrorism wasn't a threat, but for too long we've tolerated those who treat the threat of energy insecurity and the truth of global climate change as inconvenient myths. Well, from now on, every American who walks into a polling place can and should vote to kick out anyone standing in the way of energy independence.
We wouldn't elect someone who said terrorism wasn't a threat ... As Mr. Kerry would know from direct experience. So what are you saying, Mr. Kerry? That Americans are smart enough to know a threat when they see it, but too dumb to know a non-threat when they see it? "We're from the Government, and We know better than you." That about sum it up?

The article goes on and on, and they even unashamedly hawk their own book and self-importance right there in the article.

We've decided to speak out about global warming every chance we get. We have written a book about the changing face of environmentalism called "This Moment on Earth" — the book explores what's at stake and explains what people are doing about it.
Good fer you!!!! Thaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnks!!!!!