Tuesday, April 29, 2008

NCPPR Senior Fellow Helps Clear the Air on Clean Water

From David Almasi:

On the heels of congressional hearings in both the House and Senate, the Washington Examiner published a scathing editorial against the proposed Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA). The editorial came after National Center Senior Fellow R.J. Smith had a long conversation with Examiner editorial page editor Quin Hillyer about the April 16 House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on the CWRA.

The Examiner editorial read, in part:

With the real estate market already reeling, Congress would be foolish to do anything that would further drive down property values. It would be even worse to do so while also mounting a wholesale assault on private property rights. But that's what would be done by the misnamed Clean Water Restoration Act sponsored by Rep. James Oberstar, D-MN. Oberstar's proposal is so bad it ought to be permanently buried six feet under dry land...

Now comes Oberstar, who is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He held an April 16 committee hearing on his misnamed bill, which would vastly expand the definition of "waters" covered by stringent regulation to include almost any area, "interstate and intrastate," that ever gets wet. Oberstar set a May 1 deadline for interested parties to respond to hearing testimony.

The National Center for Public Policy Research recently spearheaded a coalition letter of over 50 organizations concerned about the CWRA's threat on private property rights and published a National Policy Analysis paper on the threat the bill poses to hunting and sporting activity.

The full Washington Examiner editorial against the CWRA can be read by clicking here.

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Labels: Congress, Environment, Media, Regulation

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 4:42 PM

Friday, April 18, 2008

Washington Post Gets Conservative Concerns About the ANC 20 Years Late, and Almost Too Late Altogether

From David Almasi:

An unsigned house editorial in the April 15 Washington Post is very concerned about post-election unrest in Zimbabwe, where, it seems, President Robert Mugabe is willing to do whatever it takes to remain in power despite indications he lost the popular vote. The twist is that the Post is laying the blame for Mugabe's ability to remain relevant at the feet of South African President Thabo Mbeki.

And they aren't that happy with Mbeki's foreign policy elsewhere, to boot. My, my.

Mbeki is the former president of the African National Congress (ANC), the current South African ruling party that was a terrorist organization mere decades ago. It was the political entity that benefited from the American anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s. Mbeki took over the presidency after Nelson Mandela's retirement.

When I was involved in the South Africa protests of that bygone era, we warned that the ANC was not the moral equivalent of our own Founding Fathers. Mandela, for instance, was a co-founder of the ANC's militant Umkhonto we Sizwe wing. Mbeki was a member. We warned about the ANC's ties and kinship with radical groups and governments across the globe, but we were told we were crazy (and worse).

Now, with the ANC firmly entrenched and South Africa serving on the U.N. Security Council and other U.N. bodies, the chickens are really coming home to roost. In its editorial, Post editors lament:

Since that country began serving a term on the U.N. Security Council last year, the government of President Thabo Mbeki has consistently allied itself with the world's rogue states and against the Western democracies. It has defended Iran's nuclear program and resisted sanctions against it; shielded Sudan and Burma from the sort of pressure the United Nations once directed at the apartheid regime; and enthusiastically supported one-sided condemnations of Israel by the U.N. Human Rights Council...

Every Western democratic government has condemned Mr. Mugabe's maneuvering, and even many Africans have appeared to lose patience with the 84-year-old strongman. That he remains in office is due mainly to Mr. Mbeki, who has used South Africa's considerable influence and prestige to bolster Mr. Mugabe.

Mbeki is crisscrossing Africa to continue to prop up Mugabe. I don't think I could have written it better than the Post editors have, except I and other conservatives could have told you this would happen 20 years ago.

The one thing the world has in its favor is that the old breed typified by Mbeki is dying out. Democracy has held together. Other, younger ANC leaders are already distancing themselves from Mbeki, including his successor in the ANC and the presidency. Mbeki, like the apartheid government he once fought, is becoming isolated in the world as well as in his own country.

But it's a shame, for the people of Zimbabwe in particular, that the world had to suffer his leadership even one day.

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Labels: Foreign Policy, History, Human Rights, Media, United Nations

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 7:13 PM

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Washington Post Treats Insipid Barbara Boxer Comment as News; Ignores Bigger Story Behind Bush's Global Warming Speec

I already knew Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) wasn't a clear thinker, but I still had to chuckle at her quote in today's Washington Post article on climate change:

The president's plan to have America stand by while greenhouse gases reach dangerous levels and threaten America and the world is worse than doing nothing -- it is the height of irresponsibility.

What's the difference between "standing by" and "doing nothing"?

Why, no difference at all.

Even more amusingly, this was probably a prepared quote taken from a statement issued by her office rather than something she said off the top of her head.

Speaking of this Washington Post article, by Juliet Eilperin: It quotes six people taking the alarmist, hurt-the-economy position on global warming, and not one who believes either that alarm is unnecessary or that the hurt-our-economy approach is the wrong way to go. An acknowledgment is made that "senior GOP lawmakers... continue to reject mandatory curbs on emissions," but that's it. No reason why is given. Nor is a reader told that not all of Bush's critics are found on the anti-energy left, and what their take on all this might be.

There's a news story to be found in why President Bush took the action that he did, but the Post had no inclination to cover that story.

A insipid statement by Barbara Boxer was a higher priority.
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Labels: Climate, Congress, Energy, Environment, Liberals, Media, Regulation

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 12:48 PM

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Is Annie Leibovitz Picture of Gisele Bundchen and LeBron James Racist?

Project 21 has weighed in on the question: Is the Annie Leibovitz picture of Gisele Bundchen and LeBron James on the cover of April's Vogue magazine racist?

Here's what Project 21's Deneen Borelli and Darryn "Dutch" Martin had to say:

Black Activists See No Racial Double-Meaning in LeBron James-Gisele Bundchen Vogue Magazine Cover

While some might consider it a milestone that basketball star LeBron James became the first black man to grace the cover of Vogue for the fashion magazine's April issue, critics are saying the photo of him with supermodel Gisele Bundchen is racially insensitive and "screams King Kong." Members of the Project 21 leadership network join with James and others in saying those complaining about the photo are making a big deal out of nothing.

"There are some people who view everything through the lens of racial stereotypes," said Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli, who has worked as a professional model. "LeBron's accomplishments on the basketball court lead him to the cover of Vogue magazine, making him the first black man to do so. Given the numerous disappointing stories involving professional athletes, LeBron's story of success should be a focus and cause for celebration."

Vogue's April cover, advertising its "shape issue" that features articles on top models and athletes, is a photo taken by award-winning celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. In the photo, James - wearing athletic clothing, bouncing a basketball and seemingly yelling at the camera - has an arm around a smiling, gown-clad Bundchen.

Magazine analyst Samir Husni told the Associated Press the cover "screams King Kong" and that "when you have a cover that reminds people of King Kong and brings those stereotypes to the front, black man wanting white woman, it's not innocent." University of Maryland assistant professor Damion Thomas said photos such as this "reinforce the criminalization of black men."

James dismissed the criticism of the photo. He told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "who cares what anyone says?" Regarding his expression in the photo, he said he was "just showing a little emotion."

Others suggest the criticism of the photo is racially-motivated for different reasons. In a Fox Sports column, Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock wrote: "Would we be having this discussion if LeBron struck the same pose on the cover of Ebony while holding [model] Selita Ebanks? Think about it. And if we wouldn't be having the discussion, what does that say about us? Are we only bothered by negative images of black men when the primary/sole consumer of the image is white people?"

"Do you want to know what I think is the real reason behind this non-controversy? There are people who are, and probably forever will be, racially hypersensitive for either personal or professional reasons. Nothing that reasonable people say or do will convince them otherwise," said Project 21 member Darryn "Dutch" Martin. "I believe critics are using this canard of racial stereotyping as a smokescreen to hide their true disdain for any images of interracial closeness or intimacy between black men and white women."

Not everyone agrees.
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Labels: Media, Project 21, Race

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 12:50 AM

Thursday, March 20, 2008

LISTEN LIVE to David Ridenour Discuss Gas Tax Poll on WBAL in Baltimore

From David Almasi:

National Center vice president David Ridenour will be a guest of talk show host Ron Smith on WBAL in Baltimore this afternoon (March 20) at approximately 3:45pm Eastern. David and Ron will discuss the National Center's new poll that indicates most people do not want to pay 50 cents or more extra for a gallon of gas in order to pay for the cost of proposed greenhouse gas emissions. The full press release on this poll can be read by clicking here.

You can listen to the interview live by going to the WBAL web site. Look for the "Listen Live" button on the left-hand side of the home page, just below the station logo.

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Labels: Business, Climate, Congress, Energy, Environment, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 2:13 PM

Thursday, March 06, 2008

CNN's O'Brien Telepathic - Or Conspiring to Mislead?

From David Ridenour:

CNN's Miles O'Brien recently asserted that the Heartland Institute "desperately wants us to believe" there's a conspiracy to distort information about global warming.

O'Brien said so in his Tuesday story about the Chicago-based group's March 2-4 international global warming conference held in New York.

The trouble is, no one from the Heartland Institute said anything about a conspiracy. Without the power of telepathy, O'Brien would have no way of knowing what Heartland Institute wants.

So why did O'Brien have conspiracy on his mind?

Perhaps because O'Brien was busy distorting the global warming debate at the very time he was mocking this straw man of his own creation.

For example, O'Brien cited a Yale University poll showing that an overwhelming number of Americans - 83% -- are concerned about global warming.

To find the poll, O'Brien had to be pretty creative.

For one thing, he had to track down a poll more than a year old while skipping over other more recent ones, including another Yale poll just last September, showing less concern over global warming. Yale's September poll found 62% of respondents believe urgent action on global warming is needed and only 48% believe that most scientists agree that global warming is occurring.

O'Brien also had to be creative in finding a global warming poll that wasn't weighted to reflect the actual composition of the population. Respondents were screened for age to ensure they were 18 years of age, but nothing else.

O'Brien didn't mention that 71% of those polled also indicated that they are "often interested in theories," that 67% "like to lead others," that 26% have already purchased a vehicles getting 35 mpg or more (yet the average fleet mpg is miraculously still 20.2 mpg); and that 66% had a negative view of the overall state of the environment.

Little wonder than 83% of those polled were concerned about global warming!

Seventy-one percent of those respondents, by the way, self-ided themselves as "intellectual."

Must have been an interesting list they polled.

Finally, O'Brien fails to note that those expressing concern about global warming included people concerned about natural global warming, too. At issue is not all global warming, but anthropogenic - human influenced - global warming.

The poll isn't the only place where O'Brien misled.

He cites Dan Fagin, a journalism teacher at New York University, saying that "skeptics have changed their tune as evidence started stacking up against them" - as though changing ones views as new evidence emerges is an indication of a character flaw.

It is, in fact, an indication of integrity.

Scientists on both sides of the global warming debate - although not enough - have refined their projections and analyses as data has improved and their understanding of the climate increased. That's part of the scientific method.

O'Brien then cited Fagin again, saying, "A decade ago they denied global warming even existed."

Absurd. No one suggested anything of the kind as everyone recognizes that global warming is what makes all life on our planet possible.

The Heartland Institute showed no sign of being "desperate" to prove a conspiracy to misrepresent global warming information.

But after seeing O'Brien's report, perhaps it should be.

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Labels: Climate, Conservatives, Environment, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 11:36 PM

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Backdoor Imposition of Fairness Doctrine Opposed

Perhaps because there are so many broadcasters -- and talk radio guests -- among their ranks, Project 21 members have for years taken a keen interest in opposing a restoration of the Fairness Doctrine. This past week, six of them submitted comments (pdf) to the Federal Communications Commission expressing concern that proposed new "local programming" regulations could re-impose a version of the Fairness Doctrine thorugh the back door.

Here's their press release:

Concerned that proposed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding "local programming content and diversity" could lead to a new "Fairness Doctrine," black broadcasting veterans affiliated with Project 21 have submitted comments to the FCC opposing new restrictions on currently-accepted political and social content.

"We've seen an explosion in broadcast content since the FCC set aside the political restrictions of the Fairness Doctrine over 20 years ago," said Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli. "To bring about new restrictions now would hurt businesses, political discourse and the diversity these proposed regulations purport to want to foster. All it will do is hurt free expression and free speech."

The FCC released a report in late January on the topic of "broadcast localism" that ostensibly seeks "to ensure that broadcasters are appropriately addressing the needs of their local communities." Some of the report's proposals include "increase[ing] local content and diversity in programming," "establish[ment of] permanent advisory boards... to consult periodically on community needs and issues" and new licensing guidelines to "ensure that all broadcasters provide some locally-oriented programming."

Project 21 members and other critics of new regulation of accepted broadcast content contend this would set the stage for a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. This defunct FCC rule, requiring broadcasters to present contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues, was abolished in 1987. Between the 1980s and today, talk radio grew from 75 stations nationwide to around 1,800. It is feared that a return of content restrictions would return broadcasting to what former NBC "Meet the Press" host Bill Monroe called "timid, don't-rock-the-boat coverage."

It is also noted that technological innovations such as the Internet - with services such as blogs, YouTube and other web sites - and 24-hour broadcast news outlets now offers an environment in which access to all views is readily available.

"Media is a business driven by success and profit. While this FCC report proposes regulations with a veneer of promoting balance and fairness, a closer examination shows they will likely blunt today's most successful models of discourse," said Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie, a former talk radio host. "Any government interference in content that draws views or listeners and does not violate accepted standards of decency should be viewed hyper-critically."

Project 21 members submitting comments against the FCC's Report on Broadcast Localism and the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (MB Docket No. 04-233) include Chairman Mychal Massie, Fellow Deneen Borelli, and National Advisory Council members Kevin Martin, Bob Parks, the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson and Elder Doctor Levon Yuille. All have been involved in radio and television broadcasting.

The comments submitted by Project 21 members can be downloaded at http://www.nationalcenter.org/FCC-Broadcast-Comments-0208.pdf...

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Labels: Media, Project 21, Regulation

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 11:39 PM

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Moral of the Story...

...don't get your picture on page one of the newspaper on the same day you commit theft in front of a convenience store security camera.

(Thou shalt not steal is a good moral, too.)
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Labels: Media, Social Issues

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:29 AM

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Time Magazine on Drought, 2007 Versus 1974

Time magazine, November 26, 2007 (Michael Grunwald):

[Georgia's] drought was a natural event transformed into a natural disaster by human folly. And while it's still hard to say whether global warming caused any particular drought or flood or fire, it's going to cause more of all of them.

Time magazine, June 24, 1974:

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims... Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

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Labels: Climate, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:04 AM

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Some of Us Support Species, While Others Support the Endangered Species Act

In an article reviewing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's new book, "A Contract With the Earth," Salon refers to The National Center for Public Policy Research thusly:

Gingrich also inspired the wrath of some conservative think tanks for defending the Endangered Species Act.

The entire National Center document Salon linked to shows there was a lot more at stake than us supposedly attacking the Endangered Species Act, while Newt Gingrich "defended" it.

In fact, we were trying to reform a failed Act, and Gingrich was blocking reform.

Here's what Salon linked to, from 1996:

House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the single greatest threat to needed reform of environmental laws, announced the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research on June 24. The Speaker's efforts to stymie meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act, his support for legislation that would threaten private property and subvert efforts to base legislation on sound science, and his efforts to give the environmental establishment veto power over all environmental legislation mean the Speaker should be the poster boy of the environmental movement -- not its villain -- says the group.

In recent months, environmental groups have been attempting to use the Speaker's waning popularity to sink regulatory relief efforts. But Newt Gingrich and the environmental movement are like two peas in a pod. In fact, says the group, Newt Gingrich has staked out environmental positions that are so radical that some of the staunchest environmentalists appear moderate by comparison. For example, Gingrich recently blocked changes to a dolphin protection measure that had been given the green light not only by environmental establishment Republicans like Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), but by environmental groups like Greenpeace. In May he also urged Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS) to abandon eforts to pass property rights legislation -- a measure supported by over two-thirds of the electorate.

"Given the Speaker's apparent contempt for private property rights, his penchant for 'junk science' and his indifference to the plight of Americans suffering under unreasonable regulations, he ought to be the environmental movement's poster boy -- not its villain," said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research. Ironically, at the very time Speaker Gingrich has been villified by the environmental movement, he's been working to ensure that they have greater say in the nation's policies. Recently, Gingrich established a House Task Force on the Environment designed to give environmentalists veto power over all environmental legislation. Gingrich appointed Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) to co-chair the Task Force, one of the House of Representatives' most rabid environmentalists -- Democrat or Republican. Boehlert received a 92% score in the League of Conservation Voters' environmental scorecard -- higher than 53% of House Democrats.

Our complaints about then-Speaker Gingrich on environmental issues only began with the the Endangered Species Act. There was a lot more to it than that.

Yet the Endangered Species Act was, and remains, a failure. Nonetheless, as Speaker, Gingrich blocked reform intended to improve the Act.

Here's what The National Center recommended for Endangered Species Act reform when Gingrich was Speaker, taken from a 1995 press release of The National Center's Environmental Policy Task Force:

The Endangered Species Act has failed to protect endangered and threatened species while needlessly violating the constitutional rights of individual citizens and costing the nation billions of dollars, according to the Environmental Policy Task Force. The Task Force has just released guidelines for effective Endangered Species Act reform that can protect both species and the rights of the American people.

The guidelines, published in two just-released Talking Points on the Economy cards, "Checklist for Endangered Species Act Reform" and "A Species Protection Plan That Works for Both Wildlife and Humans," include four general recommendations for effective reform and six specific policy recommendations. Among the Environmental Policy Task Force's general recommendations is that Congress recognize that the current Endangered Species Act has failed before attempting to reform the law. Some 900 plants and animals are currently listed as either "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act with another 4,000 species either candidates for future listing or in the process of being listed. But in the 21 years the law has been on the books, only 27 species have managed to get off the "endangered" list. Seven of these delistings were due to extinction and the remaining were due to data error, court orders or species improvements completely unrelated to the Endangered Species Act. The Act has been an abysmal failure because it actually encourages the destruction of species habitat.

"The greatest fear of any landowner is that their property will be identified by federal bureaucrats as potential habitat for an endangered species. Federal restrictions on the use of the land that result can render a property worthless," said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research and Director of Environmental Policy Task Force. "If landowners are destroying wildlife habitat today, it is only because the current Endangered Species Act has taught them that if they want to keep any of their investment they must extract whatever natural resources their land possesses quickly and make the land as inhospitable to wildlife as possible."

The fundamental flaws of the Endangered Species Act -- including its failure to protect endangered species -- means that the Endangered Species Act has outlived its usefulness and must go, according to Environmental Policy Task Force. In its place, the Task Force suggests that a voluntary, incentive-based species protection plan be adopted that includes such incentives as tax breaks and even cash payments to reward individuals for wildlife preservation. Rather than using the government's coercive powers to force individuals to shoulder the burden for species protection that the country as a whole desires, individuals would be rewarded for responsible stewardship by the public.

"The Endangered Species Act is out of control because the bureaucrats who enforce it don't have to pay for it. They transfer the cost of protecting endangered species habitat from the public at large to private individuals," said Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ), a member of both the House Resource Committee and the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's subcommittee on natural resources who will likely play a key role in Endangered Species Act reform. "Congress can restore rationality to the system by making the Fish and Wildlife Service pay for what it demands."

The Environmental Policy Task Force's reform guidelines recognize the underlying reasons for the Endangered Species Act's failure and thus represent a bold departure from past reform efforts. If there is to be meaningful Endangered Species Act reform, there can be no room for sentimental attachments and "good intentions" alone simply won't do.

"Now is not the time to be reaffirming the failed approach of the past," said John Shanahan, policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation who helped devise the Task Force's recommendations. "What is called for is a new vision which for the first time protects people and wildlife alike."

The Environmental Policy Task Force is a project of The National Center for Public Policy Research, a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation and resource center based in Washington, D.C. The Task Force was established to find and promote innovative, workable solutions to environmental problems -- solutions that minimize the suffering of working Americans while still protecting the environment.

Gingrich opposed what we suggested; supporting instead the status quo.

Did the Gingrich status quo protect species? It's years later now, so let's examine what happened:

ESA's 32 Years of Failure

In the 32 years the ESA has been on the books, just 34 of the nearly 1,300 U.S. species given special protection have made their way off the "endangered" or "threatened" lists. Of this number, nine species are now extinct, 14 appear to have been improperly listed in the first place, and just nine (.6% of all the species listed) have recovered sufficiently to be de-listed. Two species - a plant with white to pale-blue flowers called the Hoover's Woolly-Star and the yellow perennial, Eggert's Sunflower - appear to have made their way off the threatened list in part through "recovery" and in part because they were not as threatened as originally believed.

A less than 1% recovery rate isn't good. Some environmental groups, however, insist that this statistic proves the opposite - that the ESA has been very effective. These organizations note that, since 99% of all the species given special protection have either recovered or are still on the endangered and threatened lists, these species all "still exist" and, therefore, the ESA has worked. The "still exist" standard, however, tells us little about the true status of endangered and threatened species and certainly does not prove the efficacy of the ESA...

... Just 36% of the species on the endangered and threatened lists are currently believed to be stable or improving - meaning that 64% are declining...

-David Ridenour, 2005

So what Gingrich was "defending" was a status quo that leaves 64% of species in decline.

I guess some of us support species, while others support the Endangered Species Act.
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Labels: Congress, Endangered Species, Environment, Media, Property Rights

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:20 AM

Friday, November 16, 2007

Auto Efficiency Standards Change Little; Auto Efficiency Changes Much -- and New York Times Doesn't Notice

Peyton Knight points out that the New York Times editorial page is so enamored by regulation, it has lost sight of reality:

The New York Times is worried that some of the most anti-energy provisions of the anti-energy bill, which Democratic House and Senate leaders are currently trying to finalize, might get scrapped for expediency's sake.

Arguing in favor a significant increase in fuel economy standards for vehicles, the Times notes: "Efficiency standards have changed little in 30 years."

More important than standards, however, is efficiency itself, which has certainly improved over three decades.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average fuel economy of the U.S. fleet of passenger cars in 1975 was 13.5 miles per gallon (mpg). In 2006 it was 24.6 mpg - representing a fuel efficiency increase of 82 percent.

In 1975 the average fuel economy for light trucks was 11.6 mpg. In 2006 it was 18.4 - representing a fuel efficiency increase of 59 percent.

Market forces have generated a wide array of choices that fit consumers' preferences. Consumers who prefer a four-door sedan that gets 46 mpg, which is 11 mpg higher than what the Senate energy bill calls for by the year 2020, need only go buy one.

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Labels: Energy, Environment, Media, Regulation

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 12:40 AM

Friday, November 09, 2007

Fake Global Warming Study Fools Four, Reuters Runs Wire Story

Reuters tried to make a mountain out of a molehill Thursday with its story "Hoax Bacteria Study Tricks Climate Skeptics."

The story, and a related post on the Reuters blog, implied that a noteworthy number of so-called global warming skeptics had been fooled by a fake "study" purporting to disprove the manmade global warming theory.

Said Reuters:

A hoax scientific study pointing to ocean bacteria as the overwhelming cause of global warming fooled some skeptics on Thursday who doubt growing evidence that human activities are to blame.

Laden with scientific jargon and published online in the previously unknown "Journal of Geoclimatic Studies" based in Japan, the report suggested the findings could be "the death of manmade global warming theory."

Skeptics jumped on the report. A British scientist e-mailed the report to 2,000 colleagues before spotting it was a spoof. Another from the U.S. called it a "blockbuster."

Blogger skeptic Neil Craig wrote: "This could not be more damaging to manmade global warming theory ... I somehow doubt if this is going to be on the BBC news."

It was not clear who was behind the report, which said bacteria in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans emitted at least 300 times more carbon dioxide than industrial activity -- a finding that, if true, would overturn the widely held view of scientists that burning fossil fuels are the main cause of warming...

"Skeptics jumped on the report" implies that a noteworthy number of skeptics -- at least noteworthy enough to warrant a wire story -- reprinted, referenced or endorsed the hoax study. But how many did?

The anti-skepticism website DeSmogBlog catalogued those who fell for the hoax, coming up with this list:

Benny Peiser, who forwards copies of news articles and studies on climate matters to his "CCNet" e-mail list several times each day. Peiser sent a copy of the hoax study to his list Wednesday without comment and sent out a hoax warning to the list about an hour later.

A Scottish blogger (the Neil Craig quoted by Reuters) whose Sitemeter stats shows his blog receives an average of 175 visitors a day.

A North Carolina think-tank (allegedly; the post was swiftly removed and I have not seen it).

Blogger Angry Steve (allegedly; the post is gone), who describes himself as "an angry, violent man, trapped in a lazy, pacifist's body," and whose blog averages 5 visitors a day.

A post by "Mr. G" in a blog called PEER Review FL, which bills itself as "Florida's Premier Conservative blog."

Something called "Test Blog," which doesn't appear to be a real blog.

Ron Bailey on Reason Magazine's Hit & Run blog.

In addition, I know of one skeptic who forwarded the hoax study without comment to his e-mail list, then sent out a hoax warning 30 minutes later.

How many skeptics, then, fell for the hoax?

Of the eight individuals and blogs cited above, three don't appear to be skeptics.

Ron Bailey, who posted the study at Reason's Hit & Run, says he is not a skeptic. I could find no evidence on Angry Steve's blog that he is a skeptic. Mr. G seems to be undecided about global warming. The "Test Blog" doesn't appear to be real. So that leaves Benny Peiser, the North Carolina think-tank, the Scottish blogger with 175 daily readers and the individual I know as the four skeptics who were fooled by the hoax. Three of the four were fooled only briefly.

Reuters ran with the headline "Hoax Bacteria Study Tricks Climate Skeptics." I suppose the headline, "Four Climate Skeptics Fooled by Elaborate Hoax Attempt; Three Briefly" didn't appeal to them. No point in wasting good Reuters ink covering the fact that the vast majority of the skeptics who received copies of the hoax study didn't fall for it. (Look at the obviously fake graphs on the study and you'll see one reason why.)

It's amazing how little it takes to warrant a wire story on Reuters these days.

Note: Radio host Rush Limbaugh apparently also briefly believed the hoax was genuine, though apparently in his case it was because he misread a hoax warning from a prominent "skeptic" scientist. Because Rush mistakenly believed he was receiving an endorsed study from a source who was actually trying to warn him against it, I have not included Rush in my comments above.

Addendum: The hoax architect, David Thorpe, posted here about his handiwork ("Within a few hours, the blogosphere was ablaze with the news, and a number of bloggers fell for the scam."). I draw attention to this because Thorpe used as partial proof that his scam had "smoked out" skeptics that "Reason Magazine’ posted the story and then tore it down..."

As the person at Reason who posted it is open about his belief in the man-made global warming theory, he's no skeptic. So an alarmist runs a scam intended to catch skeptics, catches an alarmist, and call that proof he succeeded.

With reasoning power like that, it is no wonder some of these guys believe in the man-made global warming theory...

Labels: Climate, Environment, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 2:51 AM

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Shooting the Messenger on Socialized Medicine

When Rudy Giuliani said the survival rate for prostate cancer is 82 percent in the U.S. but only 44 percent in Britain, which has socialized medicine, you'd think a typical American response would be sympathy for the Britons, and the logical British response, outrage at its government.

You'd think wrong. The U.S. press corps devoted considerable energy -- and in some quarters, heated emotion -- to knocking down Giuliani's statistic, even when it had to twist logic like pretzels to do so. Meanwhile, the only outrage detected in Britain was against Giuliani -- for mentioning it.

Yet Giuliani's point, which is that socialized medicine systems fare badly compared to our own, remains valid.

Among those springing to the defense of Britain's National Health Service: the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times, Reuters, and, predictably, lefty columnists Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

Take the AP story, which sought to take down Giuliani's statistics this way:

The American Cancer Society says that survival rates are actually higher and that it's misleading to compare the two countries.

The group cautions that screening for prostate cancer is much more widespread in this country — meaning that in the U.S., higher survival rates include many whose lives probably weren't in danger and whose cancers might have gone unnoticed in the U.K.

Five-year survival rates were 95 percent in the U.S. and 60 percent in the United Kingdom, which includes Britain, in 1993-1995, the most recent time period with data to compare, the group said.

Today, rates are higher — 99 percent in the U.S. and an estimated 74 percent in the U.K.

Doctors in the two countries have different approaches. That's because while aggressive prostate cancer can kill, it often grows so slowly, and is found when it's so small, that men die of something else before it ever threatens their lives or even causes symptoms.

So there is disagreement — and studies conflict — over whether the chances of survival for men with low-risk tumors really improve with aggressive treatment, or if they can be closely monitored and treated only if their tumors grow, thereby avoiding side effects such as impotence and incontinence.

When you read that carefully you realize the thrust of the argument is that the U.S. system is not better than Britain's at handling prostate cancer because the U.S. system screens more aggressively for this cancer and catches it earlier.

But isn't catching cancer early a good thing?

You'd think so, but apparently not when it makes socialized medicine look bad. "Doctors in the two countries," says the AP, "have different approaches. That's because while aggressive prostate cancer can kill, it often grows so slowly, and is found when it's so small, that men die of something else before it ever threatens their lives or even causes symptoms."

So if you are a British man using the National Health Service your taxes pay for, the NHS has decided that you don't need to know if you have prostate cancer early. After all, it "often" grows slowly, so why should you have the option of early treatment that could save your life? The British government will make this intensely personal decision for you.

Meanwhile, your brothers in the United States will find out early that they have it, and will decide for themselves if they want to risk side effects by treating it early.

The AP story failed to tell readers that the American Cancer Society is not a neutral party to the debate over the merits of competing health systems. The American Cancer Society is devoting its entire $15 million advertising budget in the coming year to advocating universal health insurance in the United States. It's advocacy arm, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, shills for an expansion of publicly-funded health care in the U.S., as in this statement by its president excoriating President Bush for wanting to expand SCHIP by $5 billion instead of $35 billion over the next five years:

The President today sided with the tobacco industry instead of America’s children with his veto of the bipartisan bill to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The President's action strikes a blow against efforts to provide health insurance to low-income children and to save lives through an increase in the federal cigarette tax.

The SCHIP bill passed both houses of Congress last week with strong bipartisan majorities. We strongly urge lawmakers to do what's right for public health — not what’s most advantageous for the tobacco industry — by overriding this veto.

The American Cancer Society is pushing a petition to all presidential candidates saying, "imagine a world where every man, woman and child has access to the proven screening exams that can detect cancer early and even prevent it," yet when the U.S. does better than Britain at screening for prostate cancer, it calls the early screening a "misleading" factor in comparing the quality of the two countries' systems.

Many of the news stories cited above noted that Giuliani got his statistic from Dr. David Gratzer of the conservative Manhattan Institute, an exceedingly reputable source, but they often went on to deride the reliability of Gratzer's work. None of them fairly represented Gratzer's compelling defense of the accuracy of Giuiliani's remarks. An excerpt:

Let me be very clear about why the Giuliani campaign is correct: the percentage of people diagnosed with prostate cancer who die from it is much higher in Britain than in the United States. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports on both the incidence of prostate cancer in member nations and the number of resultant deaths. According to OECD data published in 2000, 49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it. This means that 57 percent of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; and, consequently, that just 43 percent survived. Economist John Goodman, in Lives at Risk, arrives at precisely the same conclusion: “In the United States, slightly less than one in five people diagnosed with prostate cancer dies of the disease. In the United Kingdom, 57 percent die.” None of this is surprising: in the UK, only about 40 percent of cancer patients see an oncologist, and historically, the government has been reluctant to fund new (and often better) cancer drugs.

The press corps is willing to defend socialized medicine, even if it kills them.

Crossposted at NewsBusters.org
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Labels: Government Health Care, Health Care, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:04 AM

Monday, October 22, 2007

John Stossel on Global Warming

The Stop The ACLU blog has the video.

Hat tip: Brad Wilmouth, writing at Newsbusters (Brad's post inclues a transcript of Stossel's piece).
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Labels: Climate, Environment, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 3:08 AM

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Democrat Leadership Limits Options for Frost Family and Other SCHIP Recipients

Nancy Pelosi has been critical of people who questioned whether the Frost family of Baltimore really needs other people to pay their health insurance premiums. Yet it turns out she's not so pro-Frost herself:

SCHIP-Expansion Backers Oppose Choice; Democratic Leadership SCHIP Bill Blocks Insurance Options for the Frost Family

As the U.S. House of Representatives votes today in what the Democratic leadership hopes will be a successful override of President Bush's veto of its SCHIP expansion bill, The National Center for Public Policy Research wants to know: What does the Democratic leadership have against choice?

"Buried in the leadership's SCHIP expansion bill is a provision restricting the choices of SCHIP recipients," said Amy Ridenour, president of The National Center for Public Policy Research. "Through a part of SCHIP called 'premium assistance,' SCHIP helps recipients pay for health insurance coverage offered by their employers -- but under the Democrat bill, it won't do so if the employer's plan includes either flexible spending accounts or medical savings accounts. If it does, if the Democrats get their way, SCHIP won't subsidize the insurance."

A flexible spending account allows employees to set aside pre-tax dollars to pay for routine medical or other qualified expenses while a low cost catastrophic health insurance policy is purchased to cover large medical bills. A medical savings account allows employers and/or employees to make contributions into a tax-free fund (much like an IRA), which the employee uses to pay for routine medical expenses, while a low-cost catastrophic health insurance policy protects the employee from large medical bills.

"Section 301(a)(1)(ii) of the Democratic leadership's bill specifically forbids SCHIP recipients from participating in employer-sponsored plans that include FSAs and MSAs," said Ridenour, "even when such plans, often the lowest-cost way for families to obtain catastrophic health insurance, are in the best interests of the family."

"If the Democratic version of SCHIP were to pass, Graeme Frost's family would be ineligible to purchase an employer's insurance through SCHIP, should it be available and contain either FSAs or HSAs," said Ridenour. "Nancy Pelosi claims conservatives who wonder about the Frost family's eligibility for SCHIP are conducting a 'vicious attack' on the family. Yet she's pushing policies that would limit the family's health insurance choices. Which is worse?"

The Frosts are an SCHIP recipient family in Baltimore whose 12-year-old son, Graeme, delivered the Democratic Party's response to President Bush's September 29 radio address. The legislation is H.R. 976, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007.

The National Center for Public Policy Research sponsors a website on SCHIP located at http://www.schip-info.org.

Deeds are more important than words, I say. Why do the Democrats want to limit the Frost family's health insurance choices? Do they believe Halsey and Bonnie Frost and other parents whose children are on SCHIP aren't competent to decide which health care plan is best for them?

The press release I reprinted above is posted here.

Here's the relevant section of the legislation:

(ii) EXCEPTION- Such term does not include coverage consisting of--
`(I) benefits provided under a health flexible spending arrangement (as defined in section 106(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986); or
`(II) a high deductible health plan (as defined in section 223(c)(2) of such Code), without regard to whether the plan is purchased in conjunction with a health savings account (as defined under section 223(d) of such Code).

P.S. Does anyone believe this "news" story by Karen Tumulty, entitled "The Swift-Boating of Graeme Frost" is objective journalism? It reads like an opinion piece in Mother Jones.
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Labels: Congress, Government Health Care, Health Care, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:01 AM

Saturday, September 29, 2007

What's Wrong With the Term "Trekkie," Anyway?

National Review Online is running a delightful Star Trek feature this weeked. No conservative Star Trek fan should miss it.

But I do wonder how James Lileks can not know the correct title of the ST:TOS episode guest-starring Joan Collins is "The City on the Edge of Forever."
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Labels: Culture, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 3:02 AM

Friday, September 28, 2007

Inviting Government into the Living Room

David Leonhardt, a male New York Times economics columnist, sees men on the sofa while women are working, and concludes the answer is universal preschool and federally-mandated paid leave for new parents.

Leave it to the New York Times to try to federalize the problem of lazy spouses.

Is there anything the Times won't try to federalize?
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Labels: Culture, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 3:30 AM

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

National Review Institute Hosts Energy Policy Debate

Peyton Knight contributes coverage of an energy policy and global warming debate sponsored earlier today in Washington by the National Review Institute:

This afternoon, the National Review Institute hosted a panel discussion at the National Press Club on energy production and how it relates to national security. The panel was moderated by CNBC's Larry Kudlow. The panelists were:

- Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Member of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee

- David Hamilton, Director of Global Warming and Energy Programs for the Sierra Club

- Steven F. Hayward, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

- Andrew N. Liveris, President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Dow Chemical Company

- James Woolsey, Vice President of the Global Strategic Security Division at Booz Allen Hamilton

Larry Kudlow began the panel discussion with a series of questions. Is global warming real? Is it manmade? If it is manmade, how do we solve it? How do we solve it without wrecking our economy?

What resulted was a mostly congenial discussion energy policy. Congressman Diaz-Balart and the Sierra Club's David Hamilton expressed the two most divergent views, recapped below:

*Congressman Diaz-Balart

Congressman Diaz-Balart stressed that no matter what global warming actions we take, above all, we need to make certain that we don't destroy our economy. When Kudlow asked him about Hillary Clinton's proposal for government to take energy company profits and hand them over to companies that invest in renewable energy projects, the Congressman responded pointedly: "That's a bad idea."

He explained that penalizing companies that produce energy would only create a disincentive for energy production. He noted that increasing the tax burden on domestic energy suppliers, as called for in the House energy bill, would result in fewer domestic energy resources and force the U.S. to rely more heavily on energy imports. The congressman pointed out that while government can play a role in steering the energy market, oftentimes, government intervention in the marketplace creates more problems than it solves.

As for increasing domestic energy production, Diaz-Balart prescribed a "federalist" approach. He said that if states like Alaska want to tap their fossil fuel resources, they should be permitted to do so - likewise with coastal states that wish to harvest natural gas from the Outer Continental Shelf.

There is a role for renewable energy and energy conservation to play in increasing U.S. energy security, according to Diaz-Balart. However, he lamented that too often these two issues are promoted as "silver bullets," when, in fact, they are nothing of the sort. He stressed that there are many pieces to the energy puzzle, and that increased rhetoric, particularly from global warming alarmists, won't help solve the problem.

According to him, the new congress isn't doing much to help solve America's energy problem. "So far, all we've done in this new congress is tax energy," he said. "We have [an energy] bill that doesn't create energy."

He did pay global warming alarmists one compliment, however, pointing out that they were "pure capitalists" in the way they raised money and positioned themselves for lucrative research grants.

* David Hamilton

According to the Sierra Club's David Hamilton, man-made global warming is real and we need to pursue solutions to it immediately. Citing the need for government intervention, he claimed, "Global warming is the greatest market failure in the history of economics."

Hamilton says that global warming is occurring so quickly, that in addition to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions a draconian 80 percent by the year 2050, we will also "need to hope that nature will cut us a break."

When asked if he supported increased nuclear power as part of the global warming solution, he laughed, and said "it's funny when free-marketeers talk about reviving nuclear power" because Americans have long since rejected it.

When asked how effective a tax on carbon dioxide emissions might be in reducing CO2 emissions, he replied that he preferred a cap-and-trade approach, whereby companies would be given a government mandated allotment of "carbon credits." Companies could then use those credits emitting carbon, or, if they don't use all of their credits, they could sell them to other companies who have exceeded their allotment. However, he noted a similar scheme instituted under the Kyoto Protocol and the Clean Air Act in the U.S. was flawed because companies were given too many credits and ended up either emitting vast quantities of CO2, or netting easy money from their surplus credits.

Both Hamilton and James Woolsey tried to convince panelists that reducing CO2 emissions could be a help to the economy, as opposed to a hindrance. Larry Kudlow was quick to rebut that CO2 restrictions would "undoubtedly" harm the economy, cause massive job losses and shave as much as four percent off U.S. GDP.

P.S. Power Line has additional commentary about the event here.
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Labels: Climate, Congress, Energy, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 11:08 PM

Monday, September 10, 2007

2007 Hurricane Update: Have Records Been Broken?

Putting the 2007 hurricane season in proper context, in light of environmentalist and newsmedia hype, is the focus of this post by David Ridenour:

Hurricane Felix was the second category 5 hurricane this season. The newsmedia and global warming alarmists were quick to label Felix as an “unprecedented” and “record-breaking” event.

Record-breaking, perhaps. Unprecedented, not likely.

While two category 5s in a single season may literally break “records,” that doesn’t mean there have never been two such hurricanes in a year.

Weather monitoring capabilities have improved dramatically in recent decades and may explain most, if any, increases in hurricane frequency.

As Dr. Christopher Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center, has noted: “What chance is there that [Chantal, the tropical storm in July that existed fewer than 18 hours] would have been monitored before satellites in 1966? Our ways of observing storms have improved dramatically in the last few decades.”

Government records are therefore of limited value in determining long-term storm trends.

Even if hurricane records didn’t understate the activity in past decades – which is unlikely – the 2007 hurricane season is fairly unremarkable so far.

In the Atlantic basin, hurricane overall activity is currently below the 60-year average. By September 10, the average number of hurricanes is three and there have been just two as of today. We are, however, about two weeks ahead of schedule for major hurricanes (category 3 and above) with two so far instead of one.

Nonetheless, those who get their hurricane-related news from the mainstream media or from environmental alarmist groups and websites may be forgiven for believing that hurricane activity is especially frequent this year, as the ratings-hungry newsmedia seems intent on tantalizing the public with the possibility that every storm satellites spot is one news alert away from becoming a second Hurricane Katrina.

On September 5, for example, cable news channels reported as "breaking news" that satellites had detected a storm system near Bermuda that could develop into a hurricane that could hit New York City and New England. They then reported that hurricane hunter aircraft had been dispatched to the area. Twelve hours later, there were no reports whasoever about the system.

One hundred years ago, the system wouldn't have been detected, wouldn't have been covered by television and there would have been no hurricane hunter aircraft to dispatch.

If a city doubled the number of police officers on the street to provide additional security and criminal prosecutions subsequently rose by 25 percent, no rational person would say there had been an alarming rise in crime (as evidenced by the prosecutions). Yet, that's akin to what we see with hurricane reporting.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) acknowledges that the number of hurricanes in past decades were likely undercounted because detection capabilities were not the same as today. So it is puzzling that the agency issues hurricane outlooks that base "average" and "above average" forecasts in part on inaccurate data from the past without noting its shortcomings.

It should stick with science, not political science.

Pay no attention to the sensationalism: It contains more spin than hurricanes.

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Labels: Climate, Environment, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 5:50 PM

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Global Warming Comment of the Year

After Steve Outing of Editor and Publisher wrote a column encouraging journalists to abandon any effort at objectivity when covering global warming, reader Tim Estes of Phoenix, Arizona wrote in response:

Your whole contention about newspapers giving up objectivity, so as to battle global warming, is akin to a whore giving up her virginity to honor Santa Claus.

Bravo!
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Labels: Climate, Environment, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 4:28 PM

Friday, August 17, 2007

Kansas City Homicide: Media Reports U.S. Health System is to Blame

The pro-socialized medicine lobbyists like to circulate U.S. health care system horror stories, such as this one they are circulating on email lists today (and which Daily Kos editorialized about here) about a man who allegedly murdered his wife, supposedly because he couldn't afford her medical bills.

In covering this Kansas City case, the national and international press has gone along with the activists' thesis:

"Man charged with killing wife over health costs" - Reuters

"Balcony homicide blamed on medical bills" - UPI

"Drowning in medical bills, man kisses ailing wife before throwing her off balcony" - Ottawa Citizen

"US health care costs blamed for wife's murder" - The Scotsman

"Uninsured Missouri Woman Killed By Husband Unable To Pay Her Medical Bills" - AHN

Linda Young of AHN led with:

One of the nation's 45 million uninsured has been thrown to her death by her financially strapped husband who could no longer pay his wife's medical bills.

The Associated Press' lead was typical of many:

A man threw his seriously ill wife four stories to her death because he could no longer afford to pay for her medical care, prosecutors said in charging him with second-degree murder.

Although the Kansas City Star reported Thursday that a sister of the dead woman was "scared to death" that the husband might mistreat the woman, while another sister said the alleged killer "seemed pretty unstable," few media outlets included information about a possible motive other than, or in conjunction with, health care costs.

Likewise, few readers outside of Kansas City were told that the couple had options. The wife had been living with her mother before her husband showed up to visit, the Kansas City Star reported. The husband told her family he was going to take her to dinner, but then "took her away and never came back."

If the bills were overwhelming, he could have returned her. Even divorced her; divorce being less dishonorable than murder.

The dead woman would have been eligible for a number of government and private aid health care assistance programs, especially if her savings were exhausted (the AP reports she had investments of $20,000 as recently as April, and $6,700 in assets at the time of her death). No story of the dozens I reviewed mentioned the availability of assistance.

Several stories reveal their source for the health care system-murder link was the complaint (PDF - hat tip to Crime Blog for the link) filed by the police department in which the husband was charged with Second Degree Murder. The complaint mentions financial issues only once, in this paragraph:

On 8-15-2007 at approximately 0123 hours, detectives interviewed the listed victim's husband, Stanley J. Reimer, W/M, 03-06-56. Reimer read his Miranda Rights, stated that he understood his rights, signed the Miranda Waiver, and agreed to be questioned. Reimer stated that he was in extreme financial difficulties and could not take care of his wife because of her medical condition. Reimer stated that he walked with his wife to the balcony located off of their bedroom. Reimer stated he kissed his wife, picked her up, and threw her off the balcony.

No article I reviewed told readers that the police report did not explicitly say the husband's financial difficulties were caused by, or the degree to which they were caused by, the wife's medical condition.

Addendum: The AP has a report out saying Stanley Reimer's employer, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, "offers full family insurance coverage to its employees" and adds that Reimer had worked in its finance department since 1996.

Crossposted at Newsbusters
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Labels: Government Health Care, Health Care, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 4:21 PM

A Message for the Lady Who is Suing Don Imus

Project 21's Dutch Martin has a few words for the young lady who is suing Don Imus:

As a race, blacks endured hundreds of years of slavery and then legalized segregation, brutal racism and other forms of discrimination well into the 20th century. We emerged from this hardship a stronger and better people. Now, after all that we've been through, a few unkind words from one largely irrelevant white man is causing so many of us to fall to pieces and this one person in particular to be so devastated that she has to sue for damages? This is the kind of knee-jerk victim mentality that makes us, now more than four decades past the civil rights era, look pathetic.

This shows that too many people are still fixated on race, and I'm looking beyond Don Imus. If Ms. Vaughn and other aggrieved black women really wanted to strike a blow against the use of words like 'ho,' 'bitch' and 'trick,' they would be suing Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z and other thug rappers and the record companies that have been proliferating and profiting off this kind of language for years. Don Imus was merely doing a poor job of parroting their words.

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Labels: Culture, Media, Project 21

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:58 AM

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Washington Temperature Records

From David Ridenour:

The Washington Post reports today that "the temperature hit 102 degrees at Reagan National Airport, according to the National Weather Service, breaking by one degree the record for Aug. 8, set in 1930."

The trouble is, this can't be backed up.

You see, Reagan National Airport didn't open until June 16, 1941 -- eleven years after the 1930 record was set. In fact, most of the airport site was under water in 1930.

This means that even assuming yesterday's temperature was adjusted down to account for the urban heat island effect (as the instrument is surrounded by more heat-absorbing asphalt than would have been the case 77 years ago, or, for that matter, ten years ago), the readings were taken in two entirely different locations.

Sorry to break the news to global warming alarmists: The 1930 record still stands.

The National Weather Service states that BWI also broke a record yesterday, hitting 102 for the first time in its history. It's not an incredibly long history. BWI wasn't opened until 1950. It started out as the new Friendship International Airport and was only a fraction of BWI's current size.

On its first day of regular flights, the airport had just 56 take-offs and landings. In January of this year, BWI had 710 -- not including private planes.

The previous temperature record was set, the service says, in 1980, and was 99 degrees. The hottest temperature in 27 years isn't very earth-shattering, even if it were true.

But this is unlikely to be the case.

In 1980, BWI was less than a third the size it is today (635,000 square feet compared to 1.96 million) and had less than a quarter the number of passengers (about 5.2 million compared to about 21 million today).

Greater asphalt, automobile and airline traffic have undoubtedly contributed to higher temperature readings.

One final note: The 102 degree temperature reached yesterday isn't a record for our area. The record is 106 degrees -- 4 degrees higher, set in July 1930.

Addendum: Please note that the original version of this post contained an error for the record temperature in Washington, D.C., citing it as 112 degrees. The correct figure, which now appears in the text above, is 106. I apologize for the error.

Addendum 2: I screwed up when typing the correction to the above, and now have made a second correction to note that the 106 record was set in July 1930, not in August 1930. I apologize for this error as well.
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Labels: Climate, Environment, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 3:03 PM

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Washington Post Cheerleads Conversion of a Small Number of Evangelicals to Anti-Global Warming Activism

Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post had a worthy entry in the category of wishful-thinking opinion-newswriting on page A1 of the Washington Post Wednesday, with her story "Warming Draws Evangelicals Into Environmentalist Fold."

Based on the content of the piece, it might better have been titled, "Assiduous Environmentalist Lobbying Draws a Mere Handful of Evangelicals into Environmentalist Fold," but that doesn't have the pro-environmentalist cheerleading quality the Post goes for in these pieces.

Presumably lacking statistical evidence of mass conversions, Eilperin uses argument-by-anecdote to imply that a significant number of Christian evangelicals are converting into anti-global warming activists:

At 8 on a Saturday morning, just as the heat was permeating this sprawling Orlando suburb, Denise Kirsop donned a white plastic moon suit and began sorting through the trash produced by Northland Church.

She and several fellow parishioners picked apart the garbage to analyze exactly how much and what kind of waste their megachurch produces, looking for ways to reduce the congregation's contribution to global warming.

"I prayed about it, and God really revealed to me that I had a passion about creation," said Kirsop, who has since traded in her family's sport-utility vehicle for a hybrid Toyota Prius to help cut her greenhouse gas emissions. "Anything that draws me closer to God -- and this does -- increases my faith and helps my work for God."

Her conversion to environmentalism is the result of a years-long international campaign by British bishops and leaders of major U.S. environmental groups to bridge a long-standing divide between global-warming activists and American evangelicals.

Eilperin goes on to call Denise Kirsop's pastor, Joel C. Hunter, a "pivotal advocate for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming Earth's climate," leading readers to believe Hunter has been a lynchpin of mass conversions of evangelicals on the topic.

The article's evidence of Hunter's influence is slim, however: He has preached on climate change to five congregations in Florida and his global warming sermons are on the Internet, where they have been seen by 3,000 people. Beyond that, he's signed a statement or two on his personal opinion on climate change, appeared on a commercial (Eilperin doesn't reveal who funded it), and drafted, in concert with a paid employee of an environmentalist organization, some materials for other evangelicals to read on climate change.

Nothing about this appears particularly "pivotal." If Hunter is going to change the way a significant number of the approximately 78 million evangelicals in the United States think about climate change, he hasn't done it yet.

Eilperin discusses the great lengths to which environmentalists have gone to convert evangelical leaders into anti-global warming activists -- even, in Hunter's case, arranging a "Windsor Castle retreat" and a royal audience:

There was a private session with Prince Charles and a tour of the organic garden at the prince's Highgrove estate, as well as intense conversations among the participants about how Genesis 2:15 calls upon Adam to "serve" and "keep" the Garden of Eden.

One wonders just how "intense" conversations about the Garden of Eden can be, particularly among like-minded individuals. (It appears to not have occurred to Eilperin that God tossed Adam out of the Garden of Eden for interacting with nature a little too much, but if there is a Biblical call to care for Eden, it supposed was located somewhere near Baghdad, so our military's been on the job for a while now.)

Given that the environmentalists have been working hard for some years now specifically to recruit high-name-I.D. evangelicals to their global warming cause, the real story -- which we are unlikely to see in the Post -- is why they haven't been more successful.

Eilperin does mention that evangelical leaders James Dobson and Chuck Colson disapprove of "green" evangelism, and she notes at one point that Hunter isn't in the majority. But even this is spun in a manner that implies that Hunter's point of view will become increasingly dominant; that its just a matter of time:

While he remains in a distinct minority, and a number of others on the Christian right disparage his efforts, Hunter and others like him have begun to reshape the politics around climate change.

Despite finding great significance in the conversion of Hunter, along with Ted Haggard, late of the National Association of Evangelicals, to the anti-global warming cause, Eilperin skips entirely the work of the Interfaith Council For Environmental Stewardship, and the many prominent signers in the religious community to its Cornwall Declaration, which takes an entirely different, but still faith-based, position. It's hard to imagine the group would have been left out, had its position been closer to that of Rev. Hunter.

Finally, though it does little good to say so (Eilperin apparently isn't swayed by criticism on this particular point), Eilperin really shouldn't continue to imply ("greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming Earth's climate") that all scientists believe in the human-caused global warming theory. The Washington Post may not acknowledge much diversity when it comes to global warming, but the wider world is more open-minded.

Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

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Labels: Climate, Environment, Liberals, Media, Social Issues

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 10:20 PM

Monday, August 06, 2007

Newsweek's Climate Change Monstrosity

Kudos to Marc Morano of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Minority Staff for surrendering several hours of his life in the cause of debunking an incredibly, almost jaw-droppingly bad article ("Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine," by Sharon Begley with Eve Conant, Sam Stein, Eleanor Clift and Matthew Philips) on global warming in the new, August 13 edition of Newsweek.

I read the Newsweek article after having been alerted to it by Marc, and my thoughts mirrored some of his:

Is Newsweek even a news outlet worth taking the time to respond to in posts like this? Does Newsweek, a quirky alternative news outlet, even have an impact on public policy anymore?

Based on the quality of the Newsweek piece, which, I trust, any thinking person will disregard as propaganda, I suspect the answer increasingly is "no."

Marc, who is more generous to Newsweek than I, does come up with a value in Newsweek's piece:

Journalism students across the world can read this week’s cover story to learn how reporting should not be done. Hopefully, that will be Newsweek’s legacy -- serving as a shining example of the failure of modern journalism to adhere to balance, objectivity and fairness.

It is almost like the Newsweek writers and editors were watching the controversies the New Republic has gotten itself into by publishing stories without properly fact-checking them, and said to themselves: How can we get ourselves some of that kind of attention?

I know that sounds far-fetched, as theories go, but when people go so far out of their way to make fools of themselves, is it not reasonable to wonder if they are doing it on purpose?

The Newsweek article is here; Marc's criticism, which, as harsh as it seems, is actually too nice, can be found here.

Marc's criticism focuses on the issue of climate science, and how Newsweek reported it. I'll add a little extra, on the theme of journalism. The Newsweek piece is nothing but a collection of every canard the environmental left has said about us going back to the late 80s (if not earlier), without regard to accuracy. As anyone who reviews the Newsweek piece will see, allegation after allegation is made in Newsweek about organizations and individuals who oppose the environmental left's agenda on global warming, yet the piece does not even pretend to include even a token rebuttal. It's not as if the facts were unavailable to Newsweek, either: One of the reporters on the story, Sam Stein, called the National Center for Public Policy Research for information on the history of the climate change debate, he said, on July 26, around 2 PM. I called him back personally a bit after 3 PM, told him I would be happy to talk to him about this, and left my direct dial number. I never heard from him again. The way we "patterned" our work was still described by Newsweek, however -- in a quote from former Democratic lawmaker Tim Wirth, a green activist and Clinton appointee who is definitely on the other side of the policy fence, and who has no idea what he is talking about.

The Newsweek article reads like a post on one of the poorer climate alarmist blogs, with a couple of comments from the nutroots tossed in for color. It's that bad.

Take, for example, Newsweek's lead, a broadside attack on the (unnamed) American Entperise Institute:

Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on. "I realized," says Boxer, "there was a movement behind this that just wasn't giving up."

Compare Newsweek's rendition with the facts: The American Enterprise Institute offered scientists, including some who in no way can be seen as allies of the so-called "skeptic" camp, $10,000 to review several thousand pages of scientific material from the most recent United Nations IPCC climate change report and write an original piece of 7,500-10,000 words reflecting their view of it. Hard work, in other words, for an appropriate -- based on the market -- fee. No requirement was made that the scientist disagree with, or criticize, the IPCC report.

Newsweek reported this as "offer[ing] scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on" -- a completely unfair description. (For more on what the American Enterprise Institute was trying to do, and the way the mainstream media, starting with the Guardian, screwed up the story, read "Scenes from the Climate Inquisition" by by Steven F. Hayward and Kenneth P. Green in the February 19 Weekly Standard.)

The Newsweek article doesn't get any better from there. Fortunately, it's so bad it lacks credibility, but Marc Morano's debunking is worth reading anyway.

Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

P.S. Noel Shepherd smacks Newsweek pretty good, too.

P.P.S. Here's how Newsweek describes its own story: "Senior Editor and Science Writer Sharon Begley examines the history of denial of global warming. For more than 20 years, well-funded naysayers, who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change, have obfuscated the science of global warming, misled the public and provided cover for policy-makers to not do anything."

Sounds like an objective news story, doesn't it?

And where do they get the "more than 20 years" bit? Are they also mad at the skeptics of global cooling?
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Labels: Climate, Environment, Liberals, Media

Posted by Amy Ridenour at 1:38 AM