gu1tar/journalism

Climate Change Myths

From the page: "In environmental politics, the short-term interests of the eco-establishment count for more than the long-term health and welfare of ordinary Australians, or New Zealanders, or indeed Indians and Nigerians. They count for more than the long-term reputation of scientific institutions.

"Hence, the famous "hockey stick" graph purporting to show climate over the past 1000 years, as a continuous, flat, millennium-long bungalow with a skyscraper tacked on for the 20th century. This graph was almost laughably fraudulent, not least because it used a formula that would generate a hockey stick shape no matter what data you input, even completely random, trendless, arbitrary computer-generated data. Yet such is the power of the eco-lobby that this fraud became the centrepiece of UN reports on global warming. If it's happening, why is it necessary to lie about it?

"Well, the problem for the Kyoto cultists is that the end of the world's nighness is never quite as nigh as you'd like."

A skewering of climate change myths and a healthy dose of rationality to counter "Day After Tomorrow" hysterics.

Joe Who?

From the page: "Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, came out with a big statement on Iraq last week. Did you hear about it? Probably not. Everyone was still raving about his Democrat colleague, Rep. Jack Murtha, whose carefully nuanced position on Iraq is: We're all doomed unless we pull out by next Tuesday! (I quote from memory.)

"Also, the United States Army is 'broken,' 'worn out' and 'living hand to mouth.' If the reaction to Murtha's remarks by my military readers is anything to go by, he ought to be grateful they're still bogged down in Iraq and not in the congressional parking lot.

"It's just about acceptable in polite society to disagree with Murtha, but only if you do it after a big 20-minute tongue bath about what 'a fine man' he is (as Rumsfeld said) or what 'a good man' he is (as Cheney called him) or what 'a fine man, a good man' he is (as Bush phrased it). Nobody says that about Lieberman, especially on his own side. And, while the media were eager to promote Murtha as the most incisively insightful military expert on the planet, this guy Lieberman's evidently some nobody no one need pay any attention to.

"Here's why. His big piece on Iraq was headlined 'Our Troops Must Stay.'

"And who wants to hear that?"

After reading Steyn, you may want to hear that. It's not fashionable now, not a tall au courant. But if there is something more at stake than blasting Bush and electing a liberal ticket, this is one issue we need to think all the way through using the best information from every side.

You've certainly heard the argument for withdrawal. It's everywhere. It must be as right as 50 million Frenchmen. Now for the story conveniently muted by those whose job it is to get the word out. Because the media appear to have become another advocacy group, distorting the news by leaving out the parts they don't like, the whole story needs to get out another way: Steyn and the Joe Lieberman piece.