Everything I Know Is Wrong

"Global Dimming" is back!

In 2005 I blogged about a trial balloon released by the formerly esteemed, but now very in-the-tank pro global warming magazine Science. They called their new idea "global dimming." The idea was that pollution, rather than causing global warming—as they had always asserted—both caused and reduced it. Their contention was that the particles of pollution in the air blocked some of the Sun's light from reaching the Earth, thereby reducing the warming effect and reducing the effects of Global Warming.

Draw your own conclusions from the fact that the post has been removed from their site.

Now we have a new approach to the same "dim" idea. From the AFP:

Through photosynthesis, vegetation transforms sunlight, CO2 and water into sugar nutrients.

Common sense would suggest that air pollution in the form of microscopic particles that obstruct the Sun's rays -- a phenomenon called "global dimming" -- would hamper this process, but the new study shows the opposite is true.

"Surprisingly, the effects of atmospheric pollution seem to have enhanced global plant productivity by as much as a quarter from 1960 to 1999," said Linda Mercado, a researcher at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Britain, and the study's lead author.

"This resulted in a net ten percent increase in the amount of carbon stored by the land," she said in a statement.

What does this mean?

The findings underline a cruel dilemma: to the extent we succeed in reducing aerosol pollution in coming decades, we will need to slash global carbon dioxide emissions even more than we would have otherwise.

"Aerosols offset approximately 50 percent of the greenhouse gas warming," Knut Alfsen, research director at the Centre for International Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, said by phone.

Without this particle pollution, he said, average global surface temperatures would have increased by 1.0 to 1.1 Celsius (1.8 to 2.0 Fahrenheit) since the start of industrialisation, rather than 0.7 C (1.25 F).

Let's recap. Pollution, which is bad, causes global warming, which is reduced by pollution, which is bad. And aerosols, which are so bad that we banned a whole bunch of them, are reducing greenhouse gas warming (bad) by 50% (good?).

This self-contradictory mess is typical of the mental gymnastics required by those who would have you believe that carbon dioxide, which you are breathing out right now, is a pollutant that is causing the world to heat up and become uninhabitable. Despite the fact that their hypothesized connection between carbon and global temperature is contradicted by the the temperature record itself.

Don't think about it too much, you'll sprain something.

St. Paul Minnesota Tea Party Photos

I went to the Tea Party in St. Paul yesterday. They estimated that there were about 10,000 people in attendance. Capitol police estimated that there were about 2000. The Pioneer Press said, "hundreds." I would have guessed about 6,000. Local news outlets emphasized the lower figure and went out of their way to show pictures that made the crowd look small and freaky. Here are some shots I took in Saint Paul, knowing that the MSM would do their thing as they always do.

As protests go this was more like a jazz concert than a rock concert. The atmosphere was festive and determined. No cars were burned.

It was fun.

10,000 or "hundreds," you decide.

The Limbaugh Challenge

Over the lunch table yesterday afternoon my friend Tim and I talked about how liberals say they hate Rush Limbaugh even though they have never heard his show. Then, in the LA Times of all places, there is this:

LA Times

If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration's recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That's the likelihood; here's the certainty: You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Oh no, you haven't. Whenever I interrupt a liberal's anti-Limbaugh rant to point out that the ranter has never actually listened to the man, he always says the same thing: "I've heard him!"

On further questioning, it always turns out that by "heard him," he means he's heard the selected excerpts spoon-fed him by the distortion-mongers of the mainstream media. These excerpts are specifically designed to accomplish one thing: to make sure you never actually listen to Limbaugh's show, never actually give him a fair chance to speak his piece to you directly.

By lifting some typically Rushian piece of outrageous hilarity completely out of context, the distortion gang knows full well it can get you to widen your eyes and open your mouth in the universal sign of Liberal Outrage. Your scrawny chest swelling with a warm sense of completely unearned righteousness, you will turn to your second spouse and say, "I'm not a liberal, I'm a moderate, and I'm tolerant of a wide range of differing views -- but this goes too far!"

There is more untruthfulness in that statement than in a speech by President Obama. Even the commas are self-deceiving. You're not a moderate or you wouldn't be reading this newspaper. You're not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven't listened to Rush Limbaugh.

Which leads to a question: Why not?

{...}

Let me guess at your answer. You don't need to listen to him. You've heard enough to know he's a) racist, b) hateful, c) stupid, d) merely an outrageous entertainer not to be taken seriously or e) all of the above.

Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.

This is a brilliant Op-Ed, and it's printed in exactly the right place—arguably the most liberal major newspaper in the country. Read the whole thing, and e-mail it to your liberal friends.

Update: Patterico notes this article, too, and takes the opportunity to clarify his record regarding El Rushbo. After Rush's CPAC speech this year, Pat criticized his formulation of the "I want Obama to fail" meme. Pat defended the point that Rush was trying to make (Rush wanted Obama to fail in implementing his radial policies, so that America would succeed) while lamenting the choice of words he used to express it. It was fair criticism, though I'm not sure I entirely agree with it (controversy has its palce, after all), and it was presented in the well reasoned manner that is the hallmark of Patterico's Pontifications.

Unfortunately, there are as many on the right as on the left who want their leaders to go unquestioned. Pat has experienced a backlash from these people, who think he doesn't show enough love for the big guy. They couldn't be more wrong.

Putting aside any quibbles about the meaning of Rush’s recent comments, I agree with Klavan that, if you’re going to criticize someone, you should do them the favor of listening to their actual words.

I thought about this recently when a reader wrote me and asked:

Patrick: Just what is it about Rush that you dislike? . . . [T]here seems to be something in his personae that just has gotten under your skin?

Not at all. How could someone ask me that, when I have a long history of defending this man on my site?

If you’re going to criticize my attitude towards Rush, maybe you should do me the favor of looking at my actual words.

As someone who loves both Rush and Patterico, I encourage you to listen carefully to both of them. They agree on almost everything, you know. And I have heard Rush, on his radio show, sharing the love with Patterico.

Well maybe not just a guy in the neighborhood

Bill Ayers has come out of whatever cave he has been hiding in.

Sun-Times
Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, adds few new details about his relationship with Obama in the afterword to Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Anti-War Activist. The book is being reissued this month.

“We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

So, not just a guy... more of a family friend who hosted President-elect Obama's first fund raiser in his living room. Now where have I heard that before?

No evidence of "Bradley Effect" in this years polling

The "Bradley effect"—named after Tom Bradley—who lead in the polls but did not prevail in the actual 1982 California election for Govenor—has hopefully reared it's ugly head for the last time. The assertion of the Bradley Effect is that white people when polled said that they would be voting for Tom Bradley because they they didn't want to be perceived as racist, but then did not vote for him because they really are racist.

Associated Press
Whether whites supported Barack Obama or not, they don't seem to have lied to pollsters about it.

Obama's election triumph on Tuesday presented no evidence of the so-called Bradley effect, in which whites who oppose a black politician mislead pollsters about whom they will vote for. Instead, national and state pre-election polls were generally accurate in reflecting voters' preferences in the presidential contest.

"I certainly hope this drives a stake through the heart of that demon," Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority, said of the Bradley effect.

The Bradley Effect never had any basis if fact. It is just as likely that the results were due to the same over performance that we have seen for Democrats in the presidential polling in 2000 and 2004. The speculation that race was the culprit was a self serving justification. Hopefully we have seen the last of it.

Obama Wins

My congratulations to Senator, now President Elect Obama. Though I disagree with most everything he's ever said, I am pleased, beyond my ability to communicate, that we have elected our first black president. It is truly a great moment.

Am I disappointed by his victory? Yes, most definitely. It's not that John McCain was such a great choice; if you look back through my posts you'll find that, almost invariably, I disagreed with him. It's just that he was a so much a better choice than Senator Obama. A couple of points:

1. If the way Mr. Obama ran his campaign is any indicator, I fear for our freedom of speech. Aided and abetted by the corrupt media, the level of indifference to the truth was unprecedented in my lifetime.

2. After listening to his economic plans I fear for our economy. Everything he has planned will prolong our misery.

3. I am determined that none of the disgraceful disrespect shown by the left for President Bush will enter the discourse on this site. Though obscenity and character assassination seem to be the primary form of argument on many left wing blogs, that will not happen here. Nor, I expect, will it rear it's ugly head in most of the conservative blogosphere.

4. I am also determined to dog his every misstep relentlessly, and fight for conservative principles of government. Something I would have needed to do regardless who won.

5. Mr. Obama will be president to all of us. Lets hope he acts like it.

Bottom line: I look forward to easy pickings for future blog fodder.

Update: this post pinned to the top.

Troopergate: Palin Cleared on All Counts

In a official finding, as opposed to the Democrat orchestrated farce perpetrated a few weeks ago, Governor Palin has been cleared on all counts related to the so-called "Troopergate."

CNN
Alaska’s Personnel Board concluded Monday that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin did not violate ethics law by trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from the state police, contradicting an earlier investigation’s findings.

“There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters,” Timothy Petumenos, the Anchorage lawyer hired to conduct the probe, wrote in his final report.

Even the farce admited that "Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads."

Internal McCain campaign memo warns of exit poll leaks

Drudge has posted another internal from the McCain campaign pollsters. It addresses the likelihood that exit poll results will be leaked throughout the day. Here are the bullet points:

1. Historically, exit polls have tended to overstate the Democratic vote.

2. The exit polls are likely to overstate the Obama vote because Obama voters are more likely to participate in the exit poll.

3. The exit polls have tended to skew most Democratic in years where there is high turnout and high vote interest like in 1992 and 2004.

4. It is not just the national exit poll that skews Democratic, but each of the state exit polls also suffers from the same Democratic leanings.

5. The results of the exit polls are also influenced by the demographics of the voters who conduct the exit polls.

Read the whole memo in the extended post.

SNL Sends Olberman Up the Pole

Frustration and Optimism

My friend Tim e-mailed today. He expresses both frustration and optimism.

The Viet Cong and the Media have tested McCain; he has been given no slack. Obama has been embraced by the weather underground and the media and has been give all the slack he needs. McCain and Palin’s feet have been held to the fire, while the media pours water on any fires that come close to Obama, and then claim he can walk on water.

Americans are being called racist for not voting for a black man. Voters who are not racist know they can vote for anyone based on their politics. By the way, what would we have been if we didn’t vote for a woman, either Hilary or Sarah? Oh yeah, we would have been what the media is… chauvinist pigs.

Why will McCain win? Conservatives, liberals, and middle of the road American’s do not trust the media—and we know who they have chosen. They have an alliance with no checks and balances. Who wants to watch lovers embrace for four years? On the other hand, voters can trust a tested seventy year old war hero and maverick to make independent and wise choices.

As with Lincoln in ’64 and Roosevelt in ’44, in hard times voters will choose a leader who has been tested.

Tim is right on every point. Though it is the left that screams "racist" at every possible opportunity, it is those on the left that are preoccupied with the race of their candidates. The right is concerned with whether someone will govern with conservative principles.

The media has ignored or actively covered up anything that could even remotely be considered negative about Barack Obama; they have magnified out of all proportion anything that was in the least negative about John McCain. They have trumpeted Obama's strengths, and hidden McCain's in their archives—never to be seen again. "Fairness" is their mantra, but it must have some meaning I'm not familiar with. Whichever way the election goes, there will be a reckoning with the media. They have so completely abdicated their mandate as the fourth estate that it cannot stand. Regardless of which side of the aisle you prefer, if you cannot trust your sources of information you will replace them. Already the biggest papers in the land have begun to collapse financially. Their readers have had enough and are moving on.

Will McCain win? I'd like to place my trust in the American people. They generally have enough wisdom to keep us off of truly dangerous paths. But this morning in church my pastor, instead of a sermon, gave a screaming, crying rant about the "religious right," and she exhorted everyone to vote. It was irrational, and rationality and wisdom go hand in hand. Rationality and wisdom are, to be sure, not the same thing. Wisdom, it seems to me, is part intellect, and part heart. Without both you lack wisdom. And a lack of rationality seems to to be the hallmark of the typical Obama supporter this year. It is almost a cliché that his supporters can't name anything he's done, much less something important or good. Yet they are going to vote for him.

Where does that leave us?

The polls are all over the place. In recent history, polls have seldom favored Republicans—even when they have won—and conservatives can take some small measure of comfort in that. It seems that the election will be a close thing. Every vote will count and, if we are lucky, we will have just enough to eek out a victory. But win or lose, the battle will have just begun, and in many ways conservatives will find themselves fighting the same battle either way—a battle for conservative values.  It's just a matter of degree. Obama is a radical leftist, and though for those on the right the choice is an obvious one, John McCain is very far from being a strong conservative.

Either way, conservatives must fill the role of the loyal opposition.