No Runny Eggs

This just popped in the inbox from Americans for Prosperity, who are putting on the Hot Air Tour exposing the economic nightmare that is “Global Warming” (there will be a stop at Miller Park July 26)…

FYI breaking news from our team on the ground in Nashville. The Nashville Parks Department is denying us permission to launch the balloon, citing the fact that our permit says balloon rides but not specifically the word “launch.” This despite the fact that we have explained to them on the phone multiple times our precise flight plan and before today there was no indication that there was a problem or any defect in our permit. Clearly, Gore is calling in favors to stop the embarrassing visual and negative coverage surrounding our event and ratcheting up the beating he is taking over his home energy use. Please post about this on blogs and pass this information along to allies. Thanks.

Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy
Americans for Prosperity and AFP Foundation

Nothing like using dirty pool to protect oneself from ridicule over a house that is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Revisions/extensions (3:00 pm 6/20/2008) - More info from AFP’s blog (thanks Erik Telford)…

Roy Wilson at the Nashville Parks Department must not have liked our earlier post, since he just completely revoked our permit — even though his department’s own rules state that he can’t do that unless we break a law or one of the department’s rules, which we haven’t done and have no intention of doing. Then he hung up on our legal counsel.

In the meantime, good news to report — we’ve secured a private location for this afternoon’s event. We’ll be in a field at the corner of Sneed and Vaughn Roads — just about a mile and a half from the original event location….

If you’re in the neighborhood, head over there. Do also stop in at AFP’s blog for Chris Muir’s answer to the Nashville Parks Department.

R&E part 2 (6:50 am 6/21/2008) - Turned off the computer too early yesterday, but AFP got the balloon off the ground. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

A year ago the King of Gorebal Warming, Al Gore himself, was reported to use energy in his house equal to that of 20 average homes.

Well, Al wasn’t going to be a hypocrite! He immediately went about making his house “green.” According to this report he went about adding…

solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork

However, instead of getting the “Most likely to be Kermit” award for his greening, something went wrong! Al’s energy usage went up 10%! Al now uses nearly 50% more energy, EACH MONTH, than the average household USES IN A YEAR!

The minute I read this article I knew exactly what had gone wrong. After changing his lighting over to the compact fluorescents I’m sure he doubled the number of fixtures so that he had enough light to actually see anything!

Better luck next year Al….We’ll be watching!

According to this article from the AP there’s no reason to pay any attention to the hurricane forecast for the coming year:

It’s a lot like Groundhog Day - and the results are worth just about as much.

is the way the AP views the forecasts.

In fact, it’s not just the AP who doesn’t think there’s much value in them:

The AP contacted the emergency management agency in every coastal state from Texas to Maine and asked whether these seasonal forecasts play any role in their preparations for the hurricane season. Their response was unanimous: They’re a great way to get people thinking about the upcoming season, but that’s about it.

The good news is that the forecasters have developed a bit of humility about their work:

“Honestly, I think people get a lot more excited about it than I do in terms of what its usefulness is,” says CSU scientist Phil Klotzbach, who has largely taken over the hurricane work of Gray, now semiretired.

In fact, the forecasters are starting to use disclaimers and warnings that are longer than the ones on a pack of cigarettes:

NC State’s Lian Xie says in a boldface disclaimer in his 2008 forecast: “Results presented herein are for scientific information exchange only … Users are at their own risk for using the forecasts in any decision making.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The article goes on to describe the process used to develop the forecasts:

Hurricane-prediction researchers are like chefs tinkering with a recipe for the same dish, and working from the same list of ingredients: In this case, decades worth of data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Studying past seasons, scientists look for patterns that might explain why one year was more active than another. Teams have developed computer models that emphasize different conditions - everything from ocean salinity and rainfall amounts over West Africa to sunspot cycles and the influences of the Pacific warm-water current known as El Nino.

(Again, emphasis mine.)

Huh?  What?  The hurricane forecasters are using “decades worth of data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction!  Isn’t that some of the same data that has been used to develop the “world is coming to an end” predictions resulting from global warming?  And yet, hurricane forecasters say that based on their data “users are at their own risk for using the forecasts for any decision making!”

This week the Senate is debating Warner-Liberman. The bill proposes implementing a cap and trade system to reduce our all but certain planet suicide as a result of global warming. Amongst other things, the Heritage Foundation has determined that this bill will:

• Increase average family utilities by $467/year
• Take 500,000 to 1,000,000 jobs out of the economy by 2030
• Reduce GDP by $1.7 to $4.8 trillion by 2030

Hurricane forecasters admit that the results of forecasting using NOAA data should be used with healthy skeptisim and not as fact.  Yet both of our Minnesota Senators along with others, are willing to bet the future economic viability of the country on models and data that should be labeled “For Entertainment Purposes Only!”

On May 14th, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the Department of the Interior was classifying Polar Bears as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The full impact of this action is still to be seen but advocates for the decision have not been coy about their desire to use decisions like these to further the claims of gorebal warming. Further, by having polar bears listed as “threatened” activity in their habitat areas will be much more vigorously monitored and likely severely curtailed. Included in this activity would be drilling for oil.

The folks who brought you the notion of a “threatened” polar bear are not happy with a one animal roadblock to oil exploration, they are looking to add four more. This article documents the new attempts to add four seal species to the threatened list for the same reason that polar bears were added, the ice is melting. Except it isn’t!

I won’t go into the nonsense about the magically shrinking (oh wait, it’s back) polar ice. There are plenty of articles to find on the topic.

Seeing as how we’re allowing the greenies to chip away any ability to drill for our own oil. And seeing that we have no viable alternative to the use of oil short of a return to the 19th century, I’m wondering….

Other countries have no trouble drilling for oil. Some would put a drill head right through a sleeping polar bear or seal if they needed to. If we aren’t going to leverage our investment in Alaska, let’s sell it back to Russia or even China. We’d get some of those excess dollars out of circulation and dump a bunch of real estate that obviously doesn’t have any value.

I’ll guarantee that if Russia or China owned Alaska, they would have oil rigs drilling faster than you could say “Bite me greenie!”

Yesterday out of the UK’s Daily Mail…

Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

What a bunch of pikers! If they were really serious about gorebal warming and truely concerned about the short timeframe we have to correct our horribly abused atmosphere, they would create and enforce carbon credits on food.

It’s a well known fact that between 10% and 30% of all flatulence is CO².  With the dramatic over population that the greenies claim is already on the world, we must surely be gassing ourselves out of existence.  Even Mrs. Shoe is nodding her head in agreement!

Here’s what I propose:

Every person gets a carbon credit card with an allotment of credits.  Older people will naturally get more credits each month because, well, our digestive systems need it. 

Carbon charges will be assigned to all foods.  I would envision a sliding scale with Jello at zero, baked beans and sauerkraut at 100 and everything else scaled in between.

When you go to purchase food, your card will have credits reduced based upon types and quantities of food.  If your diet consists of lots of beef, beans and beer with ice cream for dessert, you’ll probably only be able to eat for a week each month.  After that, you’ll need to either buy credits from the jello eaters or become a jello eater yourself for the rest of the month.

To ensure that no one is cheating on their card or getting black market credits, I propose we outfit vans with methane sniffers and have them comb the neighborhoods.  With all the carbon food cards connected to a central data bank, it should be easy to determine which houses have depleted their carbon credits for the month.  A whiff of methane from from any such house will result in an immediate SWAT engagement to remove any offending foods left in the house.  A second offense will have your family eating nothing but brown rice for a month with aggregious offenders also requiring daily hycolonics.

Now if I could just figure out how to tax belching!

US nears record tornado year; meteorologists don’t know why

WASHINGTON (AP) - Another week, another rumbling train of tornadoes that obliterates entire city blocks, smashing homes to their foundations and killing people even as they cower in their basements.
With the year not even half done, 2008 is already the deadliest tornado year in the United States since 1998 and seems on track to break the U.S. record for the number of twisters in a year, according to the National Weather Service. Also, this year’s storms seem to be unusually powerful.

But like someone who has lost all his worldly possessions to a whirlwind, meteorologists cannot explain exactly why this is happening.

“There are active years and we don’t particularly understand why,” said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Okla.

There’s something happening in weather that the experts don’t understand? You’re kidding me right! Isn’t everything caused by gorebal warming? Apparently not!

Global warming cannot really explain what is happening, Carbin said. While higher temperatures could increase the number of thunderstorms, which are needed to trigger tornadoes, they also would tend to push the storm systems too far north to form some twisters, he said.

La Nina, the cooling of parts of the Central Pacific that is the flip side El Nino, was a factor in the increased activity earlier this year—especially in February, a record month for tornado activity—but it can’t explain what is happening now, according to Carbin.

Carbin explained the most recent tornadoes with just one word: “May.” May is typically the busiest tornado month of the year.

That sounds like scientific lingo for “Shit happens!”

Gee, that’s pretty much what I’ve thought about gorebal warming all along; the most likely and accurate explanation for weather changes is “Shit happens!”

And I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!

(H/T - The FReepers)

That’s right. The Department of the Interior is putting the polar bear on the threatened species list not because their numbers are going down, but because they’ve bought into the Algore Goracle sect of Gorebal Warming.

It’s time to resurrect an old favorite from the dead….

Rather-extensive revisions/extensions (4:40 pm 5/14/2008) - Mary Katharine Ham thoughfully collated some examples of heavy-hitting commentary:

• Iain Murray points out that it would take but one swipe of the pen to eliminate the very-minimal safeguards against the use of the reclassification by envirowhackos to stop energy production.
• Kevin Hassett asserts that it won’t just be ANWR that will be targeted by the envirowhackos because of the use of Gorebal Warming as the reason for the reclassivication, but potentially any item in any state that requires any sort of federal action or permit.
• The crew at Powerline discovered that nobody knows what’s happening with the polar bears, either currently or in the future.

Given that all three candidates are Gorebal Warming acolytes, this steaming pile of horseshit is only the beginning.

That would be the bipartisan Party-In-Government for those new to this place. I just got an e-mail from Team McCain touting the green section of the John McCain store.

If I didn’t have a Drinking Right to go to, I’d explore why the cap-and-trade scheme is just as odious as the ‘Rat command-and-conquer scheme. That’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

I wrote last weekabout a new phenomenon, FED Derangement Syndrome (FDS) and how it had many of the same symptoms as Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). It now appears that there is a new variant of the strain, Global Warming Derangement Syndrome (GWDS).

I know, GWDS seems nearly redundant because to be an adherent of man made global warming you pretty much have to believe that every breath you take is killing the planet due to the release of carbon dioxide. However, there are situations where even a belief in man made global warming tips over to the derangement column.

Last week an unfortunate swimmer was killed by a shark off the coast of California. It was an extremely rare attack. Subsequently, there have been the usual increase in articles written about shark attacks, why they happen, how to avoid one, where the most dangers are, what to do if attacked etc.

Today I see this article where Dr George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert, explains along with other possibilities, that an increases in shark attacks could be Global Warming.

Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. ‘I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s a convenient excuse,’ Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. ‘You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,’ he said.

So our shark expert says that an abundance of seals or overfishing are merely “convenient excuses” of why there are shark attacks but quickly adds that global warming could be a cause? That’s not a convenient excuse? Trying not to read too far into Dr. Burgess’ mind (it appears pretty murky in there), I’m guessing he doesn’t believe global warming to be a convenient excuse. Rather, he would see it as an Inconvenient Truth!

So how can you tell if your loved once has GWDS and not just a simple case of GWS (global warming stupidity?) The difference is when they can ignore or lie about factual information they should know, only for the purpose of blaming something on global warming. In the case of Dr. Burgess, we can see that he indeed has GWDS because as a shark expert, he would have knowledge of the oceans. He conveniently avoided the point that in fact, the oceans are cooling, especially in the area of the California coast line.

Extra seal meals or lack of other natural foods i.e. natural phenomena aren’t news worthy reasons. A reason driven by GWDS, now that’s news worth reporting!

I’ve got two of them for you from today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Item #1 - Older cars to now be exempt from emission testing

Where do I go with this puppy? Before I got my Subaru, I used to cringe every time one of those testers mistook my car for a race car at Road America, so I’m glad that portion of the testing will no longer be done. However, if the goal were to get the most-polluting cars off the road, wouldn’t it behoove the state to test the cars most-likely to be polluting (i.e. the older ones)?

Instead, they’re going halfway to a cost-savings by only testing the vehicles with OBD-II diagnostics by plugging in a code reader. Most cars pass this test with flying colors, at least if the operators remembered to tighten the gas cap all the way for 3 months prior to testing. Moreover, they’re going to start “testing” new heavy-duty and diesel vehicles, and spend boku bucks installing self-service “testing”. Why not just jettison the entire regimen?

Item #2 - Focus of water quality to shift from Milwaukee to farms

I guess the envirowhackos think that almost-somewhat-not-quite-deep-enough tunnel is deep enough now. Either that, or they don’t think they can get us in the burbs to pay for separating Milwaukee’s and Shorewood’s sewers.

Question; if we’re supposed to burn our food, and we’re going to need every available cropland acre just for that, just how is that compatible with the coming assault on farmers?

(H/T - Kate)

Investor’s Business Daily nails the reason for out-of-control fuel prices ($3.20+/gallon for unleaded, $4/gallon for diesel here in the land of cheese and beer):

With demand rising, prices must move up. If they don’t, shortages will follow. Unless, of course, supply is increased.

In the case of oil, though, this isn’t happening.

Naturally, the oil industry is blamed. The popular complaint is that it is holding back because of greed. But the problem is due to government policy, both here and abroad….

As we have noted before, nine of every 10 barrels of crude reserves are either owned by a government or are under the authority of state-controlled companies. Poor policy decisions have made sure that supply has not been able to keep pace with demand.

In the U.S., a Congress cowed by hysterical special interests has refused to allow the development of a rich oil field in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It has similarly forbidden the harvesting of crude from fertile fields off of our coasts.

We watch helplessly while prices at the pump reach $4 point in the priciest U.S. markets and as much as 131 billion barrels of oil remain off-limits beneath our soil and our waters. Even the prospect of that oil hitting the world market would hit crude prices hard. Imagine what its actual arrival on the market would do.

But as long as the governments that run OPEC can be sure there are no plans for the U.S. to allow development in those fields, they can continue to limit production and keep prices high.

Roy Innis testified about this last week, and really blasted the envirowhackos. Thank you for bringing him to Wisconsin, Mark.

When the Washington Times starts reporting problems with the Gorebal warming science, you know it’s bad!

Amongst the highlights:

However, several studies cast doubt on the accuracy of the hockey stick, and in 2006 Congress requested an independent analysis of it. A panel of statisticians chaired by Edward J. Wegman, of George Mason University, found significant problems with the methods of statistical analysis used by the researchers and with the IPCC’s peer review process. For example, the researchers who created the hockey stick used the wrong time scale to establish the mean temperature to compare with recorded temperatures of the last century. Because the mean temperature was low, the recent temperature rise seemed unusual and dramatic. This error was not discovered in part because statisticians were never consulted.

Huh? Statisticians weren’t consulted when doing a statistical analysis? I suggest we force these morons researchers to do appendectomies on each other without consulting surgeons! (more…)

“Smart” people fall into two categories.  There are “smart” people who find answers to problems, find creative solutions and can navigate through the challenges and nuances of everyday life; these people are know to have “Common Sense.”  There are also “smart” people who are able to recite text books verbatim but don’t have enough sense to wear a heavy coat when it’s 50 degrees below outside; these people are known as “Book Smart.”  The latter of the two are running the National Climatic Data Center.
(more…)

(H/T - Gateway Pundit, who I really need to get in on the next roll bloat)

Lorne Gunter of Canada’s National Post has some rather interesting numbers and stats about this not-yet-over winter:

Guess Gorebal Warming isn’t as “real” as the socialists shoveling the bullshit would want us to believe.

(H/T - Michelle)

There is some good news for those of you in California. The nannies that run your state have gone from requiring thermostats you wouldn’t be able to override in a power “emergency” to allowing you to override those new thermostats to now dropping the requirement entirely (technical issues prevented me from getting the link to the story as of the writing):

But the agency backed off even more this week by announcing that the proposed remote-controlled thermostats would be dropped entirely from the 2008 edition of the building-efficiency standards.

Of course, the voluntary plan to stick these PCTs will continue unabated.

Revisions/extensions (7:57 pm 1/18/2008) - Missing link found.

Remember that little blurb from the land of fruits and nuts about the state wanting to control the thermostat? There is a modestly-good update (H/T - DrewM/AoSHQ):

Yet after a public outcry by critics worried about Big Brother dictating home temperatures, officials with the California Energy Commission said this week that they will change the proposed regulation so that customers would have the option of blocking outside control of their thermostats.

No, it’s not the end of the PCT; rather it is the (alleged) end of the ability of the government to order an irreversible change in the temperature.

(H/T - Charlie)

I probably should’ve jumped all over this piece from The American Thinker yesterday, but California is proposing taking ultimate control of one’s home temperature away from the homeowner or renter by requiring either a central energy management control system or a programmable communicating thermostat control any new or re-fitted central HVAC system (Section 112(c), p. 63-64). Of particular note is the section regarding what happens during an ‘emergency event’ - “Upon receiving an emergency signal, the PCT shall respond to commands contained in the emergency signal, including changing the setpoint by any number of degrees or to a specific temperature setpoint. The PCT shall not allow customer changes to thermostat settings during emergency events.”

Who determines what constitutes an ‘emergency event’? Why, the state of California, of course (specifically, the California Independent System Operator).

For those of you who think that 60-degree indoor winters and 85-degree indoor summers will never come to Wisconsin, Peter has a dose of reality for you:

…(L)et me remind you that less than a year ago, California came up with the idiotic idea to ban the incandescent light bulb and force consumers to buy those crappy, expensive bulbs that cost thousands of dollars to dispose of if they break.

Guess what? It’s now the law of the land, as the zealots in Congress passed bipartisan legislation banning the incandescent light bulb and forcing us to buy those crappy, expensive light bulbs. The man Grumps refers to on occasion as “President Rain Man” signed the legislation making it the law of the land.

(H/T - Jon Ham)

The “scientists” that are still pushing human-caused Gorebal Warming are admitting that a natural cyclical flow of atmospheric energy headed toward the Arctic Circle is warming things up there. Somehow I doubt they took into account the cyclical increase in solar energy that is coming to a close when they claim that natural causes are a secondary reason for temperature changes.

Right on cue, here’s tonight’s predicted low temperatures:

Milwaukee - 6 degrees (8 degrees below average)
Raleigh, NC - 19 degrees (12 degrees below average)
Tampa, FL - 29 degrees (24 degrees below average; oh, and they’re under a hard freeze warning tonight)

Yep, a whole lot of Gorebal Warming going on out there.

I know, the Iowa caucii are tomorrow, but I do have to take some time to point you to a pair of broadsides launched at the bipartisan Party-In-Government execution of the common incandescent light bulb. First, we have BrianR over at The View From The Island, who links the coming ban on the good light bulbs to the broader affront to freedom the envirowhackos pose. Next up, Brian M. Carney at OpinionJournal/The Wall Street Journal points out how GE and Philips are making out like bandits.

Once again, Bush proves there is precious little difference between “compassionate ‘conservatism’” and outright lieberalism by signing a piece of Bravo Sierra called the “Energy Independence and Security Act”, which has three major provisions - eliminate every vehicle that is either all-wheel-drive or marginally-utilitarian in nature (and thus kill what is left of the American auto industry), cram compact flourescent lightbulbs down our throats, and mandate higher food prices and worldwide hunger through the conversion of most of America’s cropland into corn-a-hole production. Notably absent from said bill is any effort to actually increase domestic production of energy, be it unlocking ANWR, unlocking the coal deposits that Clinton locked up for the benefit of the ChiComs, or allowing new nuclear plants to start up with a little less tape. The Senate may as well have had ratified Kyoto.

Actually, there are a couple of differences:

- We would be preparing for lives of dhimmitude under Sharia law.
- Lawgivers-In-Black would constitute an absolute majority on the Supreme Court.

(H/T - Allahpundit, with pic credit to Michelle)

…Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain for raising their hands to the “Who thinks Gorebal Warming is serious and is caused by man? Show of hands, now!” question before Fred Thompson laid the smackdown on Carolyn Washburn’s candy ass, and like Captain Tenneal, said, “Well, you’re wrong.” AP notes that Romney stuck his finger half into the wind, then clapped when Thompson laid the smackdown. And yet people wonder why I think there’s more than a bit of Flipper Kerry in Romney.

Bravo Zulus to Thompson, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Alan Keyes for refusing to march to the tune of Nurse Rached (thanks for the name, Fred Barnes).

Revisions/extensions (8:46 am 12/13/2007) - Corrected a typo.

I honestly don’t know what’s more delicious in the latest, too-infrequent Freefly from Uncle Jimbo and Kev; Kev in shorts and a tank top or the typical Madistan bike rider rolling through in the middle of the taping.

Thank you, Algore Goracle, High Priestess Cullen, and the rest of the Gorebal Warming disciples; this wouldn’t be nearly as funny without your pontifications that we’re heating up the planet beyond all recognition.

(H/T - Bryan)

Back in February, the House had to cancel a hearing on Gorebal Warming because of too much snow. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn to cause a significant snowfall in DC by having a committee schedule a vote on a “cap-and-trade” on carbon dioxide emissions to shove Kyoto through the sphincter…

Wednesday: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 36. South wind 5 to 8 mph becoming east. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Fox News is reporting that a Canadian-government-commissioned study found that beer fridges are a threat to the planet.

British environmental consultant (damn, it IS a cottage industry) Joanna Yarrow said, “”People need to understand the impact of their lifestyles. Clearly the environmental implications of having a frivolous luxury like a beer fridge are not hitting home. This research helps inform people — let’s hope it has an effect.”

The kicker comes from U-of-Alberta (and head of this study) Denise Young, who suggest a gun-buyback program for beer fridges.

My response, “Get me another beer, wenches! I need that beer fridge to have any chance of getting beer goggles thick enough to make you look appealing.”

Revisions/extensions (8:34 am 11/30/2007) - Thanks to Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard for pulling up a semi-roundup of this. Meanwhile, Fausta, who also found the story, has a money quote - “For those of you in a hurry for their beer to cool, Adam and Jamie proved that the fastest way to cool a six-pack is to spray it with a CO2 fire extinguisher. Beer + carbon emmissions = cool!”

R/E II (8:46 am 11:30/2007) - Mark Steyn also has a money quote - “I’ve never felt prouder.” (do I have to mention he’s Canadian?)

I’m too wiped to find a better source than a column in the online version of the Telegraph by Christopher Booker, but there’s a couple of items you probably haven’t heard from the Gorebal Warming crowd (who are still crowing over the state visit Algore Goracle had at the White House today):

- Earth’s temperatures as measured by satellites have been falling since 1998, dropping to 1983 levels this year.
- Speaking of 1998, recalculated surface temperatures from the 1930s now indicate that 1998 was not the warmest on record, but 1934. Also, the 1930s boast 4 of the 10 warmest years of the past century.

When will the Nobel Committee realize it fucked up and demand the Peace Prize back from Goracle and company? Oh, that’s right, it never did from Yasser Arafat, who was a warmonger up until the time he died.