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Friday, December 21, 2007
Article published Dec 21, 2007
Scientists doubt climate change
December 21, 2007 By S.A. Miller
- More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says. The scientists — many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis — cast doubt on the "scientific consensus" that man-made global warming imperils the planet. "I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit," said Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, one of the researchers quoted in the report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached," Mr. Tennekes said in the report. Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over." "The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day," he said. After a quick review of the report, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobil Corp. Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the accusation, saying the company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories.
"Recycling of that kind of discredited conspiracy theory is nothing more than a distraction from the real challenge facing society and the energy industry," he said. "And that challenge is how are we going to provide the energy needed to support economic and social development while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions." The Republican report comes on the heels of Saturday's United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, where conferees adopted a plan to negotiate a new pact to create verifiable measurements to fight global warming in two years. In the Senate report, environmental scientist David W. Schnare of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said he was skeptical because "conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models. ... As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain." The hundreds of others in the report — climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, glaciologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists — voice varying degrees of criticism of the popular global-warming theory. Their testimony challenges the idea that the climate-change debate is "settled" and runs counter to the claim that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling. The report's authors expect some of the scientists will recant their remarks under intense pressure from the public and from within professional circles to conform to the global-warming theory, a committee staffer said. Several scientists in the report said many colleagues share their skepticism about man-made climate change but don't speak out publicly for fear of retribution, according to the report. "Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," atmospheric scientist Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in the report. The IPCC has about 2,500 members.
HEATED DEBATE The following are comments from some of the more than 400 scientists in a Republican report on global warming:
•"Even if the concentration of 'greenhouse gases' double, man would not perceive the temperature impact." Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences
•"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] number — entirely without merit. ... I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached." Atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, former research director at the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute
•"The hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The [greenhouse-gas] hypothesis does not do this. ... The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates." David Wojick, expert reviewer for U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
•"The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming." Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo-Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
•"There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried." Anton Uriarte, a professor of physical geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain
Source: Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee
Scientists doubt climate change
December 21, 2007 By S.A. Miller
- More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says. The scientists — many of whom are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis — cast doubt on the "scientific consensus" that man-made global warming imperils the planet. "I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit," said Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, one of the researchers quoted in the report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached," Mr. Tennekes said in the report. Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over." "The endless claims of a 'consensus' about man-made global warming grow less-and-less credible every day," he said. After a quick review of the report, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobil Corp. Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the accusation, saying the company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories.
"Recycling of that kind of discredited conspiracy theory is nothing more than a distraction from the real challenge facing society and the energy industry," he said. "And that challenge is how are we going to provide the energy needed to support economic and social development while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions." The Republican report comes on the heels of Saturday's United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, where conferees adopted a plan to negotiate a new pact to create verifiable measurements to fight global warming in two years. In the Senate report, environmental scientist David W. Schnare of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said he was skeptical because "conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models. ... As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain." The hundreds of others in the report — climatologists, oceanographers, geologists, glaciologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists — voice varying degrees of criticism of the popular global-warming theory. Their testimony challenges the idea that the climate-change debate is "settled" and runs counter to the claim that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling. The report's authors expect some of the scientists will recant their remarks under intense pressure from the public and from within professional circles to conform to the global-warming theory, a committee staffer said. Several scientists in the report said many colleagues share their skepticism about man-made climate change but don't speak out publicly for fear of retribution, according to the report. "Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media," atmospheric scientist Nathan Paldor, professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said in the report. The IPCC has about 2,500 members.
HEATED DEBATE The following are comments from some of the more than 400 scientists in a Republican report on global warming:
•"Even if the concentration of 'greenhouse gases' double, man would not perceive the temperature impact." Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences
•"I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a six-meter sea level rise, 15 times the [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] number — entirely without merit. ... I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached." Atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes, former research director at the Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute
•"The hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The [greenhouse-gas] hypothesis does not do this. ... The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates." David Wojick, expert reviewer for U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
•"The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming." Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo-Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
•"There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried." Anton Uriarte, a professor of physical geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain
Source: Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
You scumbag, you maggot / You [delightful same-sex couple]
Posted on December 18, 2007, 3:34pm Michael C. Moynihan
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, BBC radio has removed the word "faggot" from that classic boozy Christmas song, The Pogues "Fairytale of New York." Pogues lyricist and singer Shane McGowen was asked to comment, but his answer was completely incoherent:
BBC Radio 1's decision to remove the word "faggot" from the classic Christmas song Fairytale of New York has roused the ire of Telegraph readers.Music lovers of all political stripes and sexual orientations have posted messages on Telegraph.co.uk attacking the corporation's censorship of the re-released song by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl.
[...]
BBC bosses said they had decided to remove the word faggot from the song, which experts believe could pip X Factor winner Leon Jackson to the Christmas No 1 slot, because it is a word that "members of our audience would find offensive".But The Guardian is reporting that BBC execs have bent to the will of their thoroughly un-PC constituents, the British taxpayers, and promised that the song will remain unmolested:
Since this story was published earlier today, Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt has reversed the decision to censor the song Fairytale in New York. In a statement released tonight, Parfitt said: "After careful consideration, I have decided that the decision to edit the Pogues song was wrong." So there you have it, "faggot" is back in.It may have been done with the most progressive of intentions, but BBC Radio 1's decision to censor a lyric from Kirsty MacColl and Shane McGowan's Christmas standard Fairytale of New York looks rather to have backfired this morning.A decision by Radio 1 chiefs has meant that Fairytale, a ballad apparently conducted between two rowing drunks, has been edited so as to obscure the lines "You cheap lousy faggot" and "an old slut on junk", a decision that was criticised this morning by MacColl's own mother.
Full Guardian story here. "Fairytale of New York" video, starring Mr. Matt Dillon, here.
Posted on December 18, 2007, 3:34pm Michael C. Moynihan
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, BBC radio has removed the word "faggot" from that classic boozy Christmas song, The Pogues "Fairytale of New York." Pogues lyricist and singer Shane McGowen was asked to comment, but his answer was completely incoherent:
BBC Radio 1's decision to remove the word "faggot" from the classic Christmas song Fairytale of New York has roused the ire of Telegraph readers.Music lovers of all political stripes and sexual orientations have posted messages on Telegraph.co.uk attacking the corporation's censorship of the re-released song by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl.
[...]
BBC bosses said they had decided to remove the word faggot from the song, which experts believe could pip X Factor winner Leon Jackson to the Christmas No 1 slot, because it is a word that "members of our audience would find offensive".But The Guardian is reporting that BBC execs have bent to the will of their thoroughly un-PC constituents, the British taxpayers, and promised that the song will remain unmolested:
Since this story was published earlier today, Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt has reversed the decision to censor the song Fairytale in New York. In a statement released tonight, Parfitt said: "After careful consideration, I have decided that the decision to edit the Pogues song was wrong." So there you have it, "faggot" is back in.It may have been done with the most progressive of intentions, but BBC Radio 1's decision to censor a lyric from Kirsty MacColl and Shane McGowan's Christmas standard Fairytale of New York looks rather to have backfired this morning.A decision by Radio 1 chiefs has meant that Fairytale, a ballad apparently conducted between two rowing drunks, has been edited so as to obscure the lines "You cheap lousy faggot" and "an old slut on junk", a decision that was criticised this morning by MacColl's own mother.
Full Guardian story here. "Fairytale of New York" video, starring Mr. Matt Dillon, here.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Other Steroids Problem
Posted on December 12, 2007, 12:28pm Radley Balko
As the sports world waits to see what names will surface in the Mitchell report, this story came out about a week ago:
...27 NYPD officers cropped up on the client lists of a Brooklyn pharmacy and three doctors linked to a pro sports steroid ring.
Only six of the cops were found to have bought steroids and tested positive for the substance.
"But there were enough names on the original list that the feeling was a message had to go out," a police source said. "Cops had to be put on notice that the department can't have this."
Two police chiefs also acknowledged they either bought a steroid-based cream or were treated by one of the suspect doctors.
It's by no means the first such report. ABC News did its own cops-and-steroids expose a couple of months ago. The AP ran a similar story in 2005, and Men's Health ran a feature in 2004. In fact, you can go all the way back to 1989, when 60 Minutes aired a package on several cops who blamed their own steroid use for a series of police brutality incidents. William Grigg notes that the FBI warned of pervasive steroid use in local police departments in 1991. In 1999, there were reports that Officer Justin Volpe's use of the drug may have contributed to the police station beating and sodomizing of Abner Louima.
Given that police officers carry guns, night sticks, and tasers, and that they have the power to use lethal force when necessary, one would think our politicians would be more concerned about illegal use of a drug known to contribute to fits of rage and violence among law enforcement than use by a bunch of baseball players. Of course, it's easier to score political points with the latter. It's also probably a pretty sweet power rush to make larger-than-life sports icons cower at the sound of your hearing gavel.
Posted on December 12, 2007, 12:28pm Radley Balko
As the sports world waits to see what names will surface in the Mitchell report, this story came out about a week ago:
...27 NYPD officers cropped up on the client lists of a Brooklyn pharmacy and three doctors linked to a pro sports steroid ring.
Only six of the cops were found to have bought steroids and tested positive for the substance.
"But there were enough names on the original list that the feeling was a message had to go out," a police source said. "Cops had to be put on notice that the department can't have this."
Two police chiefs also acknowledged they either bought a steroid-based cream or were treated by one of the suspect doctors.
It's by no means the first such report. ABC News did its own cops-and-steroids expose a couple of months ago. The AP ran a similar story in 2005, and Men's Health ran a feature in 2004. In fact, you can go all the way back to 1989, when 60 Minutes aired a package on several cops who blamed their own steroid use for a series of police brutality incidents. William Grigg notes that the FBI warned of pervasive steroid use in local police departments in 1991. In 1999, there were reports that Officer Justin Volpe's use of the drug may have contributed to the police station beating and sodomizing of Abner Louima.
Given that police officers carry guns, night sticks, and tasers, and that they have the power to use lethal force when necessary, one would think our politicians would be more concerned about illegal use of a drug known to contribute to fits of rage and violence among law enforcement than use by a bunch of baseball players. Of course, it's easier to score political points with the latter. It's also probably a pretty sweet power rush to make larger-than-life sports icons cower at the sound of your hearing gavel.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Michael Schumacher drives taxi in airport dash
By Tom Chivers and Sarah Marcus
Last Updated: 2:42am GMT 12/12/2007
It seems that you can take Michael Schumacher out of racing, but you can't take racing out of Michael Schumacher.
Telegraph motorsports homepage
The seven-time Formula One world champion took over from his taxi driver in order to make it to the airport in time for a flight, it has emerged.
Cabbie Tuncer Yilmaz watched in awe as the racing legend, 38, showed him how his job ought to be done. "I found myself in the passenger seat, which was strange enough, but to have 'Schumi' behind the wheel of my cab was incredible," Mr Yilmaz told German newspaper the Muenchner Abendzeitung. Schumacher, who lives in Switzerland, had flown in to an aerodrome near Coburg, Bavaria, on Saturday and taken a taxi to Gehuelz to pick up a new puppy.
On the 30km (19 mile) return journey, however, Schumacher felt they were short on time, and made a polite request to Mr Yilmaz that he be allowed to take over.
Unsurprisingly, and perhaps with a view to bettering himself professionally, the driver did so.
With his wife, two children and new addition to the family Ed, the Australian Shepherd pup, on board, Schumacher proceeded to put pedal to metal.
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Famously, German autobahns have no blanket speed limits, so the driver was able to put the cab through its paces.
Although he was driving an Opel Vivaro, a minivan-style vehicle which has a top speed of 163km (101 miles) per hour, Schumacher managed to get the most out of it, according to the cabbie.
"He drove at full throttle around the corners and overtook in some unbelievable places," said a white-knuckled Mr Yilmaz.
The retired champion gave the taxi driver a generous 100 euro (71.76 pounds) tip on top of the 60 euro fare.
Despite helping out as a test driver at old team Ferrari, Schumacher has ruled himself out of any return to Formula One.
Ayaan Hirsi
Video: Fareed Zakaria Interviews Ayaan Hirsi
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=28242_Video-_Fareed_Zakaria_Interviews_Ayaan_Hirsi#comments
She should have won the Nobel
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=28242_Video-_Fareed_Zakaria_Interviews_Ayaan_Hirsi#comments
She should have won the Nobel
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