Where are they now?

Paul Ehrlich is famous in these parts for two things. First, for his work back in the 70s that scared the beejeezus out us as his doom and gloom end-of-days predictions from his books like The Population Bomb showed up in our elementary school-issued Weekly Readers.

Class, after your coloring assignment please turn to page 5 where we will read about how the planet will experience mass starvation killing hundreds of millions of people by 1995 because of overcrowding.

The second element of his fame is far less noteworthy everywhere else except in BwD Nation. Paul Ehrlich deserves special recognition because of how wrong he was in every single one of his predictions. Not just wrong but spectacularly wrong… fantastically and stupendously wrong. ALL CAPS and bold-faced wrong. A-person-could-write-a-book-about-how-wrong-Ehrlich-was wrong.

In fact, Paul Ehrlich was wrong to the magnitude and degree that what resulted was not being discredited but rather achieving a tenured position in the biology department at the University of Stanford.

That’s how wrong Ehrlich was.

So, of course, it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots and discover that Ehrlich is currently one of the high priests of the faith-based AGW cult which is once again back in the news but in this instance, not for data dumping, data fudging, decline-hiding or any outright lying on the subject of global warming but for going on the offensive and attacking those people that would have the temerity to question the rather un-scientific methods executed to date by the faith-based AGW crowd.

Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.

In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.

"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.

The scientists have been under siege since late last year when e-mails leaked from a British climate research institute seemed to show top researchers talking about skewing data to push predetermined outcomes. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative body on the matter, has suffered defections of members after it had to retract claims that Himalayan glaciers will melt over the next 25 years.

It’s a crazy thought, we know, but perhaps instead of wasting time, energy and resources in discrediting their skeptics, they should stick to being scientists and practice their craft in a straight-up non-partisan manner. Then again, that really hasn’t been their strong suit as the last few months have revealed so this response is entirely predictable.

And speaking of resources, a good chunk of the money that will be going towards this partisan attack is your tax dollars

Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and a chief skeptic of global-warming claims, is considering asking the Justice Department to investigate whether climate scientists who receive taxpayer-funded grants falsified data. He lists 17 people he said have been key players in the controversy.

Cue the outrage from our slopping-at-the-public-trough and put-upon scientists:

That news has enraged scientists. Mr. Schneider said Mr. Inhofe is showing "McCarthyesque" behavior in the mold of the Cold War-era senator who was accused of stifling political debate through accusations of communism.

Cry us a river. The time for debate really is over. Any credibility once possessed by the Paul Ehrlichs and Phil Jones and the rest of the miserable grant-seeking and tax-payer soaking AGW cultists is gone and gone forever. There is no going back – nothing these hacks will ever say again can be trusted.

The climate change scientific community needs to start completely from scratch and the first step is to clean house of every single last one of these alarmists. Get some new blood into these acadamies and universities that don’t have the taint of these scandals and then maybe we can start having a discussion again about man-made global warming. ‘Til that happens, though, please don’t bother us.

H/T: Hot Air

The great 2009-2010 scandal-off (UPDATE #1)

Tiger Woods' alleged mistresses vs. faith-based AGW zealot scandals...

Who ya got?


(Original post, here)

This is starting to look like a rout. Tiger is up to 11 alleged mistresses and the faith-based AGW community only picked up one more today leaving their scandal total at 5. However, believers in quality over quantity that we are, we’re giving the single faith-based AGW zealot scandal that broke today at Gropen-hagen top billing as it’s a doozy.

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The document essentially reverses the Kyoto treaty which put the onus on carbon reduction on the rich nations while largely letting the developing nations off the hook and which additionally cuts the U.N. out of the loop in favor of the World Bank.

Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.

"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

Awesome. Its good to know we are fulfilling our true imperial destiny by bullying around the globe’s weaker nations. All these years of having to deny those nasty charges and soon we will no longer have to waste our breath. Such a relief.

It comforts us to know that we’ve no real intention of actually playing along in this little global-warming charade and instead are playing some Chicago-style back-room, brass knuckle politics.

Paying lip service to global warming while sticking it to the little guys? Now, that's what we call global leadership.

Still stuck below his paygrade

Dude, we get it. We get the “cool reserve”, we get the “refusal to panic”, the “thoughtful repose” and, of course, the “temperment” but say something… anything…take a stand… make a point - you’re not on the campaign trail anymore.

B-Daddy has more, here.

A rush to judgement

We honestly hope Obama, our next Commander in Chief had the common sense to steer clear of Blago and we honestly hope there was no quid pro quo discussed between Obama and/or his camp and any of Blago’s people or Blago himself regarding the vacated Senate seat – we’re suffering from Fatigue fatigue right now – but at this point, we just don’t know.

But you know who is pretty damn sure Obama had nothing, repeat, nothing to do with Blago and any quid pro quo? Big Media and specifically MSNBC, that’s who.

Obama distanced self from Blagojevich early on
Long before Ill. governor was charged, president-elect worked to avoid him

Since this story broke, speculation has run rampant regarding the identity of Candidate #5 and the extent of contacts between Blago and Obama. Unfortuately, Camp Obama can’t get its story straight on whether or not the President-elect had spoken to Blago and it’s against this very fluid backdrop, we have news outlets tripping over themselves to provide cover for the incoming President, and in this particular case, presenting merely anecdotes in a manner that is to be taken as wholesale absolution of Obama. (It’s noted that the article never comes close to addressing the salient issue of whether or not the two principals actually had a sit down to discuss the vacated seat, only that the two don’t apparently like each other very much. OK, then.)

Additionally, news outlets have scrubbed from their archives items and stories on the meeting (past tense stories – as in, the meeting happened) between Obama and Blago discussing the vacated Senate seat.

This is all very strange because Obama certainly did not violate any laws or ethics by merely sitting down to speak with Blago on his preferences for his successor – so then, why all the fumbling around by Camp Obama and why the lap dog puff pieces and the air-brushing of historical fact by the newsies?

We’d like a few answers, especially from an Administration that’s going to “change” the old politics of D.C. but we won’t be getting any help from Big Media who regardless of the possibility of any untoward behavior are papering things over just in case.