Oct 12 2007

Hey Al, Why Is The Antartic Ice Sheet Growing?

12 responses so far

12 Responses to “Hey Al, Why Is The Antartic Ice Sheet Growing?”

1. MerlinOS2 says:

   October 12, 2007 at 1:46 pm

   Erica Jong posts how the left is spining their version over at HuffPo

   If you want to know why Al Gore would be crazy to run for president, look at the New York Post‘s reaction to his Nobel Prize. The Post dredges up the thoroughly discredited notion that a British High Court judge found nine errors of fact in Gore’s “eco film,” An Inconvenient Truth. These smear tactics follow Gore wherever he goes. May I suggest that his intelligence scares us and that we prefer dumb frat boy draft dodgers for our presidents? We are not up to a president as clever as Al Gore. He challenges our self-destructiveness. We would rather wallow in gutter with George W. Bush whose stubborn stupidity comforts us.

   So I guess by their yardstick even English judges are now swift boating Gore.

   Damn that Karl Rove is a genius I tell you.

    

    

2. MerlinOS2 says:

   October 12, 2007 at 1:52 pm

   More Goracle praise and pure analysis from the HuffPo crowd

   Okay, he’s not really there, but would it surprise you? Nearly seven years to the day after the Bush/Rove machine stole the Florida election from Al Gore and Al Gore from America, the truth wins. The most prestigious global prize has been handed to the former vice president, not for his government service, but for his passion to teach the world, one person at a time, about the perils we face here on our fragile planet. Frankly, it makes Bush seem smaller than ever and it makes us wonder all the more what these past seven years would have been had Al been president.

    All you have to do and you can see how the “reality” based community operates, it is out there in plain site for all those that wish to look for it.

3. MerlinOS2 says:

   October 12, 2007 at 1:59 pm

   Melanie Phillips is her consistent way hits to the heart of the matter with brilliant analysis as usual.

    

    

   After today, no-one can take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously ever again. Al Gore??

   How very unfortunate that in the very same week a British High Court Judge, Sir Michael Burton — in a case brought against the government by a parent who objected to the Gore film An Inconvenient Truth being taught in school as fact when it was trash — ruled that this film contained no fewer than nine, ahem, inconvenient untruths.

   These nine scientific errors were not minor. They were fundamental to the film’s claim that there was a scientific consensus that man-made global warming was a catastrophe that was already upon us. True, the judge said of the film:

   It is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme

   with propositions that were

   supported by a vast quantity of research published in peer-reviewed journals worldwide and by the great majority of the world’s climate scientists.

   However, since the judge made clear that the barrister representing the aggrieved parent had decided for the purposes of this court case not to contest the broad argument for made-made global warming but to focus instead on specific errors in the film, the judge could hardly have said anything different on that specific point. But where evidence was presented to him that Gore had said things that were demonstrably untrue, he agreed:

   There are errors and omissions in the film, to which I shall refer, and respects in which the film, while purporting to set out the mainstream view (and to belittle opposing views), does in fact itself depart from that mainstream, in the sense of the ‘consensus’ expressed in the IPCC reports… some of the errors, or departures from the mainstream, by Mr Gore in AIT in the course of his dynamic exposition, do arise in the context of alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis.

   And these were the errors — by which the judge meant claims where Gore departed from the scientific consensus:

4. WWS says:

   October 12, 2007 at 2:00 pm

   although the following quote has crude language, this one paragraph is the core of all of Erica Jong’s “success”, and summarizes her talent level succinctly. Pretty amusing to see her, of all people, lecturing others on anything.

   and for anyone who might object, I want to point out that this passage is one of the absolute pinnacles of modern literature – at least according to the New York Times, of course.

   “The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game . The man is not “taking” and the woman is not “giving.” No one is attempting to cuckold a husband or humiliate a wife. No one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one.”

   – Erica Mann Jong, Fear of Flying (1973)

5. MerlinOS2 says:

   October 12, 2007 at 2:13 pm

   Here is the “debunking” of the Judge’s ruling the HuffPo is hanging on a logical thread by

   One of the most over-the-top spins came from the far right Heartland Institute, funded by tobacco and Big Oil, which issued a widely copied press release this week saying that “the British High Court properly recognized that Al Gore’s movie is nine parts political propaganda and one part science.”

   There’s just one problem: These are all lies, and the British Court said no such thing. In truth, the judge agreed with Gore and the film’s thesis, and it is inconvenient for the Right to admit it. A review of what the judge actually wrote in his ruling proves it.

   Here are the facts. A global warming denier, a British truckdriving father of two teens, sued to ban the showing of the film in the public schools. In a blow to the father, a High Court judge ruled that the film can be shown, but that teachers must emphasize to students that it’s political, with a point of view. As the judge put it, “It is now common ground that it is not simply a science film – although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion – but that it is a political film.”

   There were some things in the film the father objected to, and the judge found that while the film was “broadly accurate” in its presentation of the cause and effect of climate change, there were some representations with which he took issue.

    They somehow overlooked the judge’s ruling that the parts he based his ruling on were where the film departed from the scientific consensus and jumped the shark into pure political spin and snake oil salesmanship.

6. MataHarley says:

   October 12, 2007 at 3:10 pm

   I do have to wonder if the IPCC panel, getting first billing on the award, is a little miffed that the press constantly proclaims “Gore won”, virtually ignoring their inclusion in the bootie. Also, it’s the time the award was given for work that actually has nothing to do with “peace”. Bizarre…

   But it’s hard to me to take the Nobel Peace Prize stuff seriously. He stands in the company of other “peace” winners… Jimmy Carter in 2002. The guy funding radical Islam elements in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Looking at it today, Communism looks like apple pie compared to Shariah law. And of course, his “stellar” job with the hostages in Iran. Uh huh.

   Then the absurdity of the UN and Kofi Annan in 2001. The same bunch who refuse to use the “g” word (genocide) when assessing Darfur because it would mandate UN action instead of grandiose words. Another uh huh here.

   They gave Mikhail Gorbachev the award in 1990 for helping bring an end to the Cold War. Reagan and Thatcher must have just been a pieces of lint to these people….

   Then of course, one of the most absurd ones. The sharing of the prize between Arafat, Perez and Rabin for the attempt to “create peace” between Palestine and Israel. All which was little more than show and tell for Arafat. Considering it was Israel who “gave” and Palestine who could have, but didn’t “take”, he should have been dropped off the list. But they had to give him the ol’ “atta boy” anyway.

   Then again, as a former film business union worker, I see Oscars as recognition just as narcissistic and useless. IMHO, Gore merely has some crap to put on his expensive mantles in his big, non-green friendly home.

7. Terrye says:

   October 12, 2007 at 3:54 pm

   a zipless fuck? what fun is that?

   AJ might not approve. I think he runs a family friendly kind of place here.

8. MerlinOS2 says:

   October 12, 2007 at 3:59 pm

   Terrye

   If you read the book the final climax (pun intended) is that she is approached on a train at night going through a tunnel with the opportunity she was looking for and rejected the advance and waxes with lament after.

   Oh the irony.

9. Terrye says:

   October 12, 2007 at 4:19 pm

   I am proud to say I never read that book.

   I just finished Middlesex, great book.

10. sashal says:

    October 12, 2007 at 7:28 pm

    Justice Burton:

    “Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”

    Don’t make it seem like this judge was ruling the film completely ridiculous.

    Again. The court said that while Gore’s film is substantially correct, it is not perfect. So? Fine. Let the film be shown and be criticized. Interpreting this decision as undermining Gore’s basic points is not accurate.

    But I guess hope springs eternal even among people in denial.
    wow, this is kind of embarassing….

    This is a really embarassing attempt at spin.

    Gore Derangement Syndrome, anyone?

11. BarbaraS says:

    October 13, 2007 at 12:40 am

    Time for global cooling. Good thing they changed the name to Climate Change. That’s so they won’t have to go through that pesky name change every ten years or so.

12. Dc says:

    October 13, 2007 at 11:31 am

    But, but, but…liberals don’t believe in the politics of “fear”???