parianocafeneio

parianocafeneio

Lorin Maazel (1930-2014)

Former PSO conductor Lorin Maazel has passed away at the age of 84.

Some obituaries:

• New York Times
• The Trib
• The Post-Gazette

Maazel conducting Beethoven:

Scaife Must Be So Proud

From Dana Milbank at the Washington Post:

Representatives of prominent conservative groups converged on the Heritage Foundation on Monday afternoon for the umpteenth in a series of gatherings to draw attention to the Benghazi controversy.

But this one took an unexpected turn.

What began as a session purportedly about “unanswered questions” surrounding the September 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Libya deteriorated into the ugly taunting of a woman in the room who wore an Islamic head covering.

Yea, no one would have expected that!  I mean look at who was on the panel:

Unanswered Questions, Unaccountable Officials, Broken Trust

Chris Plante, WMAL Talk Radio Host (Moderator)
Clare Lopez, Member, Citizens' Commission on Benghazi, and Vice President for Research &; Analysis, Center for Security Policy
Brigitte Gabriel, Founder, President and CEO, ACT! for America
Frank Gaffney, President, Center for Security Policy

So we have of the 4 people on the panel half are from the Center for Security Policy.

That would be the same Center for Security Policy that got about 52% of its foundation support from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife ($5.126 million from Sarah Scaife and an even $1 million from Carthage out of a total $11,612,809, according to the Bridge Project)

And, of course, it was a Heritage Foundation event so which got about 20% of it's foundation support from foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife ($24.235 million from Sarah Scaife, $2.544 million from Carthage and $1.35 million from Allegheny out of a total of about $146 million, according to the Bridge Project)

Go read Milbank for the ugly Scaife funded details.

Yea, he must be so so proud of himself.

Congratulations, Newlyweds!

"Mayor Bill Peduto presides over Pittsburgh's 1st same-sex wedding"

(Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2014/06/16/Mayor-presides-over-1st-wedding/stories/201406160066#ixzz34oBoYiWb)

(Photo via Twitter)

The President On Climate Change

From his Commencement Address at the University of California at Irvine:

Now, part of what’s unique about climate change, though, is the nature of some of the opposition to action. It’s pretty rare that you’ll encounter somebody who says the problem you’re trying to solve simply doesn’t exist. When President Kennedy set us on a course for the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldn’t be worth it; it was going to be too expensive, it was going to be too hard, it would take too long. But nobody ignored the science. I don’t remember anybody saying that the moon wasn’t there or that it was made of cheese.

And today’s Congress, though, is full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence about climate change. They will tell you it is a hoax, or a fad. One member of Congress actually says the world is cooling. There was one member of Congress who mentioned a theory involving “dinosaur flatulence” -- which I won’t get into.

Wait. Dinosaur flatulence?  Who the heck said that?  It was Representative Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA):


Yea, T-Rex farts. That's the reason.

Rohrbacher seems to be saying that since we don't know that it wasn't dinosaur farts that raised the temperatures millions upon millions of years ago, then we can't say for certain what NOAA says is undeniable.

You know what else hasn't been disproven regarding the current rising climate cycle?

• The Illuminati
• Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot
• The Harvest Goddess, Demeter, is now approaching middle age and is having hot flashes
• God is punishing the world for being just so nice to teh gays

Look each of them up.  You'll find nothing to disprove any of those theories (and remember, climate change like evolution is only a theory) anywhere.  So therefore, climate science can't be trusted.

Or...or you can go with science and rational thinking.

How NOT To Do It

Ok, so my weekly issue of The Nation arrived yesterday   The cover in blaring red and white reads "1 in 5 Women Is Sexually Assaulted in College" and so I immediately turned to the cover story.

The writer, Michelle Goldberg, wrote a very important piece about a very important issue, without a doubt.

But she made a mistake.  Perhaps not a big mistake, but perhaps a mistake big enough so that someone inclined to disagree with her outright might use it to discredit her general argument.  The mistake's in this paragraph:

As months of harrowing headlines have made clear, the dimensions of that crisis are staggering. According to an April report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, “One in five women is sexually assaulted in college.” This figure, which comes from the National Institute of Justice’s 2007 “Campus Sexual Assault Study,” has been much disputed by conservatives, but according to a detailed analysis by PolitiFact, “the overall findings in the study were on par with similar surveys conducted over the years that have measured sexual assaults on campus.”

Here's the 2007 report and here's Politifact's analysis of it.  And that's where Goldberg errs.

Whereas it's absolutely true that Politifact says (twice, in fact) that the "overall findings...were on par with similar surveys..." and so on, the analysis also says (and this is the sentence immediately preceding one of the times it's quoted):

Experts we spoke with said that while that statistic is commonly used, the source, a survey of just two colleges, may not be representative of the entire population.

Leaving that part out is the mistake as it misrepresents the entire analysis.

But why might not the study be representative?  Here's why:

[T]he Web-based survey yielded a relatively small response rate of about 42 percent, which the researchers note is lower than other methods, like face-to-face interviews. They hoped, however, that anonymity provided more candid answers and better data.

Additionally, as we noted, only students at two large universities were included in the survey. Experts we spoke with said this is a glaring caveat that makes it difficult to create a national estimate from the results.

"This ‘one in five’ statistic shouldn’t just be taken with a grain of salt but the entire shaker," said James Fox, professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University.

Large universities may not be representative of experiences at mid-size or small colleges. Further, the two colleges selected may not even be representative of large campuses, Fox said.

Which poses another smaller problem for Goldberg as she opens with this incident as an example of the mistreatment of rape victims on campus:

During her freshman year at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 2010, Audrey Logan says, she was raped on two separate occasions by a young man she considered a friend. Because she knew him and had been very drunk both times, it took a while for her to identify what had happened as an assault. “I really believed rape happened in the dark, by people you barely or don’t know, and weapons or group force were always involved,” she says.

Occidental College describes itself as a "a small, highly selective and diverse liberal arts college in a big city" by the way.

If it's the case that the CSA study, as it's based on web surveys at two large universities, might not be representative of mid-sized or small-sized institutions, then including an illustration from an admittedly small liberal arts college only blurs the lines.  And if the study might not even be representative of large campuses then using it at all only blurs those lines further.

And certainly supporting an argument (even if only in part), by citing a Politifact analysis that doesn't completely support the statistic at the center of that argument is, simply a mistake.

In fact, Mary Koss (author of the 1988 study "Hidden Rape: Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of Students in Higher Education") is quoted by Politifact saying:

[T]he Campus Sexual Assault Study "is not the soundest data (the White House) could use."

Needless to say:

"Without a doubt, sexual assault and date rape are of great concern on college campuses," Fox said. "It should not be dismissed. At the same time, we should be careful not to cite national estimates that are shaky, at best."

And I'll leave it at that.

Yea, This Is One Reason We Separate Church And State

Look at what's surfaced in Oklahoma:

Voters in Oklahoma could be literally stuck in a rock and a hard place with Tea Party candidate Scott Esk.

Esk, who is running for a seat in the state’s House, reportedly discussed the stoning and killing of homosexuals in July 2013 Facebook conversations, which were discovered and posted by Oklahoma-based website The Moore Daily Tuesday.

The link gets us to this facebook conversation.  In it candidate Esk cites Romans 1:26-27, Romans 1:32, Leviticus 20:13 to justify the stoning and the killing, even though (and these are his words):

I think we would be totally in the right to do it. That goes against some parts of libertarianism, I realize, and I'm largely libertarian, but ignoring as a nation things that are worthy of death is very remiss.

He also says:

Men were commanded to put guilty parties to death who were guilty of certain acts, like homosexuality. Laws to put people to death who were guilty of such practices have been in existence in various countries in Jesus' time and afterwards, too. If men wink at such perversions, God may have no choice than to judge such nations with calamities. [Emphasis added.]

And that would be "commanded by God" of course.  A direct command from the Creator hisself.  And then Esk explains his federalism:

If it helps any, I consider it a violation of federalism to deal with such things on a national level, and different states will have different laws on the matter. I would hope that libertarians who don't think perversion should be punished in any way between consenting adults would be open-minded and look at the different results between a state that ignores it, and 1 that punishes it severely. And within a state, cities and communities may well have different policies, and I cheer that. That way, people can decide for themselves whether they want to live in a particular community based in part on how things like this are dealt with.

So if a large enough section of our population (one that believes that The Bible is inerrant truth and that God's law should be THE law) votes for stoning teh gays, that's fine with Esk.

And if you don't like it you're free to simply move to someplace that tolerates the perversions that God detests.

Yea separating church and state suddenly sounds a bit more rational, don't it?

Ten Commandments Follow-Up

Well, the meeting mentioned in this blog post went (I suppose) as planned.

From The Trib:

A Monday night rally by the Thou Shall Not Move group in front of the covered Ten Commandments monument at Connellsville Junior High School was followed by the group encouraging the school board not to give up the fight to keep the monument.

“We want to see this all the way through legally,” said the Rev. Ewing Marietta before a group of Thou Shall Not Move members around the boarded-up Ten Commandments monument.

The group held the rally prior to Monday's agenda session of the Connellsville Area School Board.

And again there was the usual practice of changing the subject (subtly) in order to confuse the issue:

Gary Colatch of Connellsville told the board that the argument of separation of church and state is a falsehood. The nation's capital has many religious symbols that remain to this day, he said, recently shown to him by evangelist and historian David Barton.

“In the Capitol Rotunda, there's a painting on the wall, not hanging on the wall, but painted on the wall, of the baptism of Pocahontas,” Colatch said.

Yea, but again we're changing the subject aren't we?  The issue is not the placement of romanticized 19th Century presentations of historical events on public places that just happen to have a religious story to tell but whether the state has the authority to post this in a public school:

The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
I Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

III Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Where the Supreme Court has clearly found posting the Ten Commandments at a Public School clearly "impermissible."

I suppose this is why they keep changing the subject.  They have to know they're fighting a losing battle.  The only question is: just how expensive will it end up being?

Climate Science - One View From The Party of Stupid

From Talkingpointsmemo:

Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) said Monday that it is "foolish" to believe humans can cause climate change.

MSNBC host Richard Lui had asked Miller if he thought messaging against man-made climate change would be detrimental to Republicans' 2014 and 2016 election prospects. Lui cited a poll of Florida voters who said that on the issue of climate change they trusted scientists over Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who does not believe human activity contributes to global warming, by a margin of 56 to 33 percent.

"Well, I think anybody would answer a poll and say that they believe the scientists, but you have to understand that it is not settled science," Miller said. "The issue of climate change has been happening for a long time, and for us to be able to think that we, as matter of fact, can change what's going on right now to any substantive measure is really kind of foolish in my opinion."

Except we know the science is settled.

But that's not just where Miller's silly happens.  That happens next.  He said that it's always going from hot to cold and so on and when asked whether this warming is manmade, he answered:

Then why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Were there men that were causing -- were there cars running around at that point that were causing global warming?

I guess he's not a young Earth creationist.

But with that pair of questions, Miller jettison's whatever science credibility he has.  Mankind didn't produce that asteroid 66 million years ago either.  So that of course means that mankind can't influence the climate.

The Party of Stupid, sorry.

Colin McNickle Of The Tribune-Review: Science Denier

In yesterday's Tribune-Review, columnist Colin McNickle uses a rather old-fashioned logical fallacy in his paper's ongoing crusade to discredit the undeniable - that Climate Science is valid and the Earth is warming up due to us..

Here's what he does:

“The Arctic seems to be warming up,” wrote George Nicolas Ifft, the American consul to Norway, in a report submitted to the State Department. “Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers who sail the seas ... all point to a radical change in climatic conditions and hitherto unheard of high temperatures on that part of Earth's surface.”

But this was no contemporary dispatch from a modern-day climate-clucker flapping his wings and his beak, squawking that the world as we know it will end unless the world reorders the world economy by essentially destroying the world economy to “save the world.” (Such fanatic rhetoricians typically repeat the word “world” far more times.)

No, Mr. Ifft's report was filed nearly 92 years ago, on Oct. 10, 1922. A month later, it was published in the Monthly Weather Review. And “change” hardly was framed as a pejorative. In fact, and if anything, Ifft's dispatch contains the hint of potential new business opportunities and, sorry, cluckers, intimations of the recognition of the vagaries of climate.

See that?  The arctic warmed up way back in 1922!  So all the science that says it's going on now is obviously false, right?

The only problem with this whole argument?

It was debunked 4 years ago.

Professor Goreau's explanation of this "Wagga Wagga" logical fallacy:

Those who seek to deny global warming constantly use transparently obvious tricks, selecting data from a single time, a single place, or both, to deny the larger long-term global patterns. This is easily done as climate is constantly fluctuating, so picking out the mean patterns and trends requires that one integrates the data over the largest time and space scales possible. So if one dishonestly wants to misrepresent the larger patterns, one can always find a particular place at a particular time that does not agree with the all the rest averaged together. This is sometimes referred to as the “It’s a cold day in Wagga Wagga” approach, and is repeatedly used by the climate change deniers to fool people who haven’t looked at the data themselves. The changes in Arctic Ice are no exception!

And he specifically cites Ifft's publication:

This set of observations from a limited area (Spitzbergen) in one year has been used by deniers to suggest that there are huge natural fluctuations, and to imply that there is no global warming.

Globally however the sea temperature trend is obvious:

Regionally, though, there does seem to be a rise in Arctic temperatures in the 20s:

But notice what McNickle decided not to tell you.  According to the data, there was a big increase in Arctic temperature followed by a big decrease that ended sometime in the early 60s.  Then another rise (one that corresponds with a rise in the "various sources of energy used during the century" (gas, coal, oil among them).  Imagine that.

So so interesting that Colin McNickle decided not to tell you the full truth.  It's either that or he failed to fully research his topic before writing his now debunked column.  Which is it?  Incompetence or dishonesty?

Colin, my friend, you really really need to do your homework better than this.  If you had, you wouldn't look as foolish as you do right now.

Ten Commandments Update - Connellsville Edition

It's been a while but what with the warmer weather and a court date approaching I am guessing there'll be more updates like this in the near future.

Though I could be wrong.

Here's the latest from the Tribune-Review:

The Thou Shall Not Move group plans to hold a Ten Commandments rally at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the covered monument located at the Connellsville Junior High School. After the rally, the group plans to attend the Connellsville Area School Board agenda session at 8 p.m. where members will present a special gift to board members for standing up to support the monument.

A court battle to remove the Ten Commandments monument from Connellsville Junior High School began more than a year ago when the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of an atheist who wanted the monument removed and the case remains in the courts.

More specifically, it's the placement of the monument at a public school that's at issue (this becomes important in a minute).

I'd like to point out some of the errors presented by the Trib.  First there's this:

[The Rev. Ewing Marietta, pastor of Liberty Church in Oliver] said the group plans to donate a Ten Commandments monument to a local city or municipality in the future.

“The courts have been on the side of municipalities in this fight,” Marietta said, adding that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove, Utah in a recent Ten Commandments court case. The American Civil Liberties Union asked the courts to force the municipality to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property.

“There have been cases where the courts ruled that municipalities could keep Ten Commandments monuments,” Marietta said. “We're hoping that happens in the Connellsville case.”

I'm sorry but the good Reverend has to do his homework better.  The case to which he's referring is Pleasant Grove v Summum which doesn't have much to do (as far as this non-attorney can see) with Ten Commandment monuments erected at public schools but with whether a municipality has to erect any permanent religious monument offered to it if it has erected others.  From the decision:

This case presents the question whether the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment entitles a private group to insist that a municipality permit it to place a permanent monument in a city park in which other donated monuments were previously erected. The Court of Appeals held that the municipality was required to accept the monument because a public park is a traditional public forum. We conclude, however, that although a park is a traditional public forum for speeches and other transitory expressive acts, the display of a permanent monument in a public park is not a form of expression to which forum analysis applies. Instead, the placement of a permanent monument in a public park is best viewed as a form of government speech and is therefore not subject to scrutiny under the Free Speech Clause. [Emphasis added.]

See that?  Nothing about removing a religious monument from a public school.  Even in the Jay Seculow of the conservative ACLJ describes it thusly:

The Court ruled in favor of Pleasant Grove unanimously. In an opinion by Justice Alito, the Court held that when it comes to displaying monuments on public lands -- a historical practice of governments since time immemorial -- the government is the speaker and has the right to “speak for itself,” “say what it wishes,” and “select the views it wants to express.” In other words, the Free Speech Clause doesn’t require the city to display Summum’s Seven Aphorisms because the city displays a Ten Commandments monument.

So the placement of the next sentence in the Trib:

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the courts to force the municipality to remove a Ten Commandments monument from city property.

Is simply incorrect - as the case was never about removing the Decalogue but forcing Pleasant Grove, Utah to accept Summum's "Seven Aphorisms" because it was already there.  Summum is the name of the church that wanted its monument in the same public park as the Ten Commandments, by the way.

That's error #1.

Here's error #2:

“If they take the Ten Commandments away from the kids in the Connellsville School District, I believe they will have no basis to give them any rules to follow,” said Tammy Marietta. “This would take away the foundation of the laws that we have.”

The Pastor's wife, unfortunately, has invalidated their entire argument right there.  If the purpose of the Ten Commandments monument at that Junior High School in Connellsville is to impose some religious instruction, then it's clearly impermissible.

ATTENTION PITTSBURGHERS!

If all goes according to George Soros' nefarious plans, I'll be on KDKA Radio tonight at 9pm.

Discussing all things political (or at least as much as we can get in an hour!) with John McIntire.

Announcement

Absolutely No Apologies

Transcript:

We have a basic principle: We do not leave anybody wearing the American uniform behind.

We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated and we were deeply concerned about, and we saw an opportunity and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that.

We had discussed with Congress the possibility that something like this might occur. But because of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did. And we're now explaining to Congress the details of how we moved forward. But this basic principle that we don’t leave anybody behind and this basic recognition that that often means prisoner exchanges with enemies is not unique to my administration -- it dates back to the beginning of our Republic.

And with respect to how we announced it, I think it was important for people to understand that this is not some abstraction, this is not a political football. You have a couple of parents whose kid volunteered to fight in a distant land, who they hadn’t seen in five years and weren’t sure whether they’d ever see again. And as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces, I am responsible for those kids. And I get letters from parents who say, if you are in fact sending my child into war, make sure that that child is being taken care of. And I write too many letters to folks who unfortunately don’t see their children again after fighting the war.

I make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents and that the American people understand that this is somebody’s child and that we don’t condition whether or not we make the effort to try to get them back.

Obviously, there are enough questions to warrant an investigation into why and how Bergdahl left camp that day.  If the investigation shows that a court martial is warranted, then court martial the guy.  If he's found guilty, then let him face the consequences.

Tracking Teh Crazie

From infowars (so you know it's got teh crazie):

Libertarian pundit and and former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano has called for the impeachment of the President over the Taliban prisoner release, stating that he has aided the release of the worst terrorists in the world.

Nevermind that according to this interview at Foxnews, John Berger, former advisor to President George Bush  (who, let's remember, used signing statements to get away with an actual impeachable offense - torture), says:

I’m not saying this is clearly an easy choice but frankly I think a Republican, a president of either party, Republican or Democratic confronted with this opportunity to get back Sgt. Bergdahl, who is apparently in failing health, would have taken this opportunity to do this. I think we would have made the same decision in the Bush administration.

But let's take a look at the guys released.  Were they terrorists or were they POWs?

Here's an interesting thing to consider that a former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor said on Democracy Now!:

There is information available to the public about the five individuals and how they were captured. Two I believe surrendered to the Afghan government. There is one captured I believe in Pakistan. There’s no indication that any of these people — I think the picture that is trying — that’s being painted is that in the midst of battle that the U.S. forces captured these guys and lives were lost in the process, and that simply is not the case.

I think the president is right when he said, you can’t guarantee there will be no recidivism. I mean, if we’re waiting for the risk to be reduced to zero before you release people from Guantánamo, then they’re going to be doing a life sentence because we can never reduce the risk to zero then they’re going to be doing a life sentence, because we can never reduce the risk to zero. But, you have to take some reasonable risk. As for talking to and negotiating with terrorists? I’m just not aware of any war ever that has ended where the parties to the war don’t have negotiations and discussion. I just don’t know how you end a war without talking to the other side. And as for these five men, when I was chief prosecutor, we had screened all of the detainees and we had focused on about 75 that had the potential to be charged with a crime. When I saw the names the other day, wasn’t familiar with any of these names. So we had more than 12 years if we could have proven that they had done something wrong that we could prosecute them for I’m confident we would have done it, and we didn’t.

Or this from ThinkProgress:

When wars end, prisoners taken custody must be released. These five Guantanamo detainees were almost all members of the Taliban, according to the biographies of the five detainees that the Afghan Analysts Network compiled in 2012. None were facing charges in either military or civilian courts for their actions. It remains an open question whether the end of U.S. involvement in the armed conflict in Afghanistan requires that all Guantanamo detainees must be released. But there is no doubt that Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan must be released because the armed conflict against the Taliban will be over.

Then there's this from Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey:

In response to those of you interested in my personal judgments about the recovery of SGT Bowe Bergdahl, the questions about this particular soldier’s conduct are separate from our effort to recover ANY U.S. service member in enemy captivity. This was likely the last, best opportunity to free him. As for the circumstances of his capture, when he is able to provide them, we’ll learn the facts. Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty. Our Army’s leaders will not look away from misconduct if it occurred. In the meantime, we will continue to care for him and his family. Finally, I want to thank those who for almost five years worked to find him, prepared to rescue him, and ultimately put themselves at risk to recover him.

You don't leave troops behind.  You negotiate for POW releases at the end of conflicts.  As distasteful as it may be here, that's what you do.

But the lesson here is this:  the last guy (Bush) gets a pass from the right on the torture and doesn't get impeached. The current guy gets the release of a POW and now they're screaming about signing statements and impeachment.

Yea, go figure.

A Local Story To Watch

From The Trib:

A Downtown attorney filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the president, the heads of the FBI and NSA, and others alleging the government is illegally monitoring his Internet communications, including email.

Elliott Schuchardt filed the nine-page complaint in U.S. District Court, Downtown, claiming such a collection of data is unconstitutional without a warrant. Schuchardt said the government is collecting data through Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook and other means and storing information that includes bank account numbers, credit card numbers, health records, financial data and trade secrets.

I haven't been able to track down the complaint yet (so Attorney Schuchardt, if you're reading this please email it over).

Until can snag a copy of the complaint I don't have anything to say about it.

In the meantime, please peruse Glenn Greenwald's NSA documents.

Doesn't Anyone At The P-G Fact-Check Jack Kelly?

How surprising is this?

In a column titled "The facts don’t add up for human-caused global warming" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette comedy writer conservative columnist Jack Kelly gets, well, his facts wrong.

Which facts?

Well, let's start with HIS FIRST PARAGRAPH:

The first five months of 2014 have been the coldest since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1888. If “climate change” alarmists got out more, they might have noticed.

I am not really sure where he got his data, but it simply doesn't conform to the "year-to-date" data at NOAA. Here's the YTD for Jan-Apr, 2014:

See that last red column wa-ay over on the right?  That's this past January-April.  As far as I can tell, it says that globally (and that's the only data that counts) it was about 1 degree Fahrenheit above average. See all those blue columns on the left?  Those are all the years colder than the average.

Show me where, Jack, it says that it was colder globally than 1888?

So I'm not sure where Jack got his data.  Given the extraordinary claim, shouldn't this be backed up by some sort of reference?  Where did he get this?  How does he explain how it's at odds with the expert's data?

Shouldn't this have been checked at the P-G?

Then there's Jack's SECOND PARAGRAPH:

Between 1979 — when weather satellites started measuring temperatures in the lower troposphere — and 1997, they rose about 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit).

This was explained in 2006:

In November 2005, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz at Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) performed an independent analysis of the satellite data. In the process, they found an algebraic error in the UAH [University of Alabama in Huntsville]analysis. With the correction made, the UAH trend was now 0.12°C per decade - larger but still less than the surface trend. However, RSS released their own results based on their data analysis - a trend of 0.19°C per decade.

And:

Part of the discrepancy between UAH and RSS was the methods used to splice the data from different satellites together. However, the major source of discrepancy was the way they corrected for diurnal drift (Mears et al 2005). The satellites orbit the earth from pole to pole. The satellites possess no propulsion so slowly over time, the local equator crossing time (LECT) changes. This is exacerbated by decay of the satellites orbital height, dragged down by the thin atmosphere. As a satellite's LECT changes, it takes readings at changing local times, allowing local diurnal cycle variations to appear as spurious trends (Christy et al 2000).

So once they corrected for diurnal drift and orbital drag, in 2006, this discrepancy dissolved.

And that's just Jack's first two paragraphs.

Didn't anyone at the P-G bother to check his science?

Someone once said that you're entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own facts.

But if you're named Jack Kelly and you're a conservative columnist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, apparently you are.

Look How BIG The Conspiracy Is!

From today's Tribune-Review editorial board:

And milking the cash cow that's climate change, a report issued by a Pentagon think tank rings a global-warming alarm and urges the Defense Department to step up spending to combat a “man-made” problem, The Washington Times reports. The report, based on “absolute objectivity,” was funded by a climate change group that's one of the think tank's customers. Such stunning “objectivity” is the foundation on which the Church of Global Warming is built.

Let's try to unweave some of the rather confusing prose in the above.

The Washington Times piece is here and it says:

Retired military officers deeply involved in the climate change movement — and some in companies positioned to profit from it — spearheaded an alarmist global warming report this month that calls on the Defense Department to ramp up spending on what it calls a man-made problem.

The report, which the Obama administration immediately hailed as a call to action, was issued not by a private advocacy group but by a Pentagon-financed think tank that trumpets "absolute objectivity." The research was funded by a climate change group that is also one of the think tank's main customers.

The May 13 report came from the military advisory board within CNA Corp., a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes the Center for Naval Analyses, a Navy-financed group that also gets contracts from other Pentagon units. CNA also operates the Institute for Public Research.

Ok, so now we're getting somewhere.  The port came from a board within the CNA Corp and the CNA Corp operates the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Public Research.

But Scaife's braintrust charges that the people who wrote the report are doing so to line their own pockets.  So what sort of people are these that wrote this report?  Here's the press release page announcing the report:

As a follow-up to its landmark 2007 study on climate and national security, the CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board's National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change (PDF) re-examines the impact of climate change on U.S. national security in the context of a more informed, but more complex and integrated world.

The Board’s 2007 report described projected climate change as a “threat multiplier.” In this report the 16 retired Generals and Admirals who make up the board look at new vulnerabilities and tensions posed by climate change, which, when set against the backdrop of increasingly decentralized power structures around the world, they now identify as a “catalyst for conflict.”

Ok, so it was the Military Advisory Board who wrote the report.  So who are THEY?

Here they are.  Here's the bio of the Chairman of the Board (sorry, Frank):

General Paul Kern, USA (Ret.), Chairman, Military Advisory Board Former Commanding General, U.S. Army Materiel Command General Kern was Commanding General, Army Materiel Command from 2001-2004, and senior advisor for Army Research, Development, and Acquisition from 1997-2001. He was commissioned as an Armor Lieutenant following graduation from West Point in 1967 and served three combat tours – two in Vietnam as a platoon leader and troop commander and the third in Desert Shield/Desert Storm. In the 1990s, Kern served as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense William Perry. In June 2004, at the request of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Kern led the military's internal investigation into the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

So the guy Donald Rumsfeld asked to investigate Abu Ghraib is in on the climate change conspiracy.

This is the level of their argument, the braintrust.  It's all a conspiracy to get more money out of the Pentagon.  The facts are false, the reasoning is false it's all a big conspiracy - git aht yer tin hats!

But if the source of the funding can, in fact, skew the research, then why are they silent about the money Big Oil has poured into the "research" denying climate science?

Meanwhile, Just Outside...

From Time Magazine:

April was the first time the monthly average of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million, a threshold that the U.N. says has "symbolic and scientific significance"

It's from this press release from the World Meteorological Organization:

CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Its lifespan in the oceans is even longer. It is the single most important greenhouse gas emitted by human activities. It was responsible for 85% of the increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate - over the decade 2002-2012.

Between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing because of greenhouse gases, according to the latest figures from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

According to WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 393.1 parts per million in 2012, or 141% of the pre-industrial level of 278 parts per million. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased on average by 2 parts per million per year for the past 10 years.

I am wondering if Pennsylvania's Republican senator, Pat Toomey, has changed his mind from a few short years ago when he was quoted as saying:

My view is: I think the data is pretty clear. There has been an increase in the surface temperature of the planet over the course of the last 100 years or so. I think it’s clear that that has happened. The extent to which that has been caused by human activity I think is not as clear. I think that is still very much disputed and has been debated.

Actually Senator, it's not in dispute.  Hasn't been for a long long time.

But the quote is still from a few years ago, has there been a change of mind from the Club For Growth Senator?  I tried searching for the word "climate" at his Senatorial webpage and found nothing.  Samething for the phrase "global warming" - nothing.

I haven't been able to find any change - but that could be my lack of google skills.  Does anyone know if we can still assume Pat Toomey to be among the science deniers in the Senate?

Unless there's evidence to the contrary...

Pennsylvania Science Deniers In The US House Of Representatives

I can hear you all asking, "Science denier?  That's pretty strong language, isn't it?  How are you defining that term in this context?" I can hear you following up with another question.

So many good questions, my faithful inquisitors, I'll answer them simply:

In this instance, a "Congressional Science denier" is one who voted for this amendment.  

Here's Huffingtonpost for some context on the amendment:

The House passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill on Thursday that would bar the Department of Defense from using funds to assess climate change and its implications for national security.

The amendment, from Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), passed in what was nearly a party-line vote. Four Democrats voted for the amendment, and three Republicans voted against it. The bill aims to block the DOD from taking any significant action related to climate change or its potential consequences.

Or as Representative Henry Waxman said on the House Floor:

Well, I think that is science denial at its worst to say that the Defense Department cannot recognize damage caused by climate change. It looks like it is trying to overturn the laws of nature.

So we would tie the hands of the Defense Department and tell them that even though we might have exacerbated heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, water- and vector-borne diseases, diseases which will pose greater risk to human health and lives around the world, and wheat and corn yields are already experiencing the negative impact and we have a larger risk of food security globally and regionally, if scientists tell us that, we are not allowed to have our Defense Department pay any heed to it.

Huffingtonpost said it was a near party line vote so who broke with their party?

The four Democrats who voted for the amendment were:

Barrow (of Georgia)
Cuellar (of Texas)
Mcintyre (of North Carolina)
Rahall (of West Virginia)

And the three Republicans who voted against where:

Garrett (of New Jersey)
Gibson (of New York)
LoBiondo (of New Jersey)

Other than that, all House Demorats voted NO and all House Republicans voted YES.  Here's the Pennsylvania delegation and how they voted (the list is arranged by Congressional District) and here's the roll call if'n y'inz wanna check my work, en'at:

1. Bob Brady (D) - Voted NO
2. Chaka Fattah (D) - Voted NO
3. Mike Kelly (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
4. Scott Perry (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
5. Glenn Thompson (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
6. Jim Gerlach (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
7. Pat Meehan (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
8. Mike Fitzpatrick (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
9. Bill Shuster (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
10. Tom Marino (R) - Science Denier, Voted YES
11. Lou Barletta (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
12. Keith Rothfus (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
13. Allyson Schwartz (D) - Voted NO
14. Michael F. Doyle (D) - Voted NO
15. Charles Dent (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
16. Joseph R. Pitts (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES
17. Matt Cartwright (D) - Voted NO
18. Timothy F. Murphy (R)- Science Denier, Voted YES

And finally, since you're all shivering with anticipation, here's what they were voting on - it's an amendment to HR 4435:

None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation's Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866.

That's what the science deniers don't want.  As Representative Waxman pointed out in his comments:

This is incredible, because the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review called climate change ``an accelerant of instability or conflict'' that ``could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments.'' But the McKinley amendment tells the DOD to ignore these impacts.

But that was waay back in 2010. What does the 2014 Quadrennial Review have to say about Climate Change?

This:

Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating. These changes, coupled with other global dynamics, including growing, urbanizing, more affluent populations, and substantial economic growth in India, China, Brazil, and other nations, will devastate homes, land, and infrastructure. Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.

Yea, but...to Representative McKinley (this from his comments on the House Floor):

[T]his amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from spending money on climate change policies forced upon them by the Obama administration.

We shouldn't be diverting our financial resources away from the primary missions of our military and our national security in pursuit of an ideology. [Emphasis added.]

So face it, if you live in Pennsylvania and if you live in a "red" Congressional District, you're represented by a science denier.  Get used to it.

A Doubly Rare Event

It's a rare event when the editorial boards at the Tribune-Review and the Post-Gazette write about the same thing on the same day.

It's even rarer when they actually agree.

Well, they did yesterday.

Since I give them (and rightly so) a hard time on their stubborn science-denial, I'll let the Trib's editorial board go first. They point out that like slavery, enshrined discrimination, the denial of due process, the ban on marriage equality is "egregious" and that:

...its blatant unconstitutionality becomes so apparent that it trumps the bigotry and prejudice that we rationalize as acceptable mores and folkways.

And:

On Tuesday in Harrisburg, U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III, a Republican, ruled the commonwealth's laws banning same-sex marriage violate both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment and permanently enjoined their enforcement. “(T)hat same-sex marriage causes discomfort in some does not make its prohibition constitutional,” wrote Judge Jones. “Nor can past tradition trump the bedrock constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection.”

Astutely, the Corbett administration will not appeal.

Yes, there comes a time. And that time has come in Pennsylvania and the nation.

And here's what the editorial board of the Post-Gazette had to say:

Americans who were told that gay marriage would subvert traditional marriage have seen for themselves that this isn’t true. They have seen the unfairness of fellow citizens living ordinary lives refused the fundamental right to marry because they happen to be gay. In language both eloquent and practical, Judge Jones concisely sums up why Pennsylvania’s law violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.

And:

Some will resent that it was a judge, not the Legislature, who caused this momentous change. But fundamental rights are not for a majority to veto.

I am guessing they'd both agree with how the P-G tied up it's editorial, namely that "history is now on the side of those whose definition of freedom is inclusive of all Americans."

The Party Of Stupid (Texas Edition)

It's the campaign season, you know.  And in a number of states a number of different races are being one - one of them for Lt Governor for the great state of Texas.

In a recent debate among the republican candidates for that seat, the question of how much money could or should be spent to "cool the environment" was raised to the front runner in that race, state Senator Dan Patrick (who's a republican, of course) and he delivered the stupid - three times over.

Time one:

Patrick said he would spend "zero dollars" to combat climate change.

"I understand why Obama thinks he can change the weather — because he thinks he’s God," he said, as recorded by Raw Story. "He thinks he is the smartest person in the country. He thinks he knows better in Washington what we do in Texas. He thinks he’s the one, through all of his executive orders, that Congress isn’t even up to his level, so I’m not surprised that he also thinks he can change the weather."

Time two:

"First of all, when it comes to climate change, there’s been scientific arguments on both sides of the issues," he said. "But you know, if you want a tiebreaker, if Al Gore thinks it’s right, you know it’s wrong."

And finally, time three:

"I’ll leave it in the hands of God. He’s handled out climate pretty well for a long time," he said.

This is what passes for intelligent discourse among Texas republican candidates regarding the warming climate.

Meanwhile, in reality, NOAA declared that globally, the month of April tied for the warmest April on record.  Some details out of NOAA:

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for April 2014 tied with 2010 as the highest on record for the month, at 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F).

Meanwhile, in Patrick's own state of Texas, they've been experiencing a massive drought:

See all that brown and reddish brown in the northwest of Texas?  That's what NOAA's calling "extreme" and "exceptional" drought.

So I guess God hasn't been handling the climate very well in Texas.

Wherever He Is, Rick Santorum's Probably Having A Bad Day

Of course, it's about the ban being declared unconstitutional:

Same-sex couples across Pennsylvania could begin tying the knot on Friday or Saturday under a landmark federal court decision in Harrisburg that had some people celebrating and others crying foul.

An order on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III overturned the state's 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, positioning Pennsylvania to become the 19th state in which same-sex couples can marry legally. Jones declared the 1996 act a discriminatory violation of the Constitution that belongs in “the ash heap of history.”

“We now join the 12 federal district courts across the country which, when confronted with these inequities in their own states, have concluded that all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage,” Jones wrote in a 39-page opinion.

Daryl Metcalfe defined the problem a few paragraphs later:

“We're not going to stand by silently while an activist judge tries to strike down an institution that has been preserved throughout history,” said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry. He introduced an earlier impeachment resolution against [Attorney General Kathleen] Kane, who refused to defend the marriage law.

Here's the decision if y'inz wanna read it.

And here's why Lil Ricky's probably having a bad day today: He endorsed Jones for the seat on the District court (h/t to slate).  Here's Santorum's statement by way of the way back machine where he said that Jones was:

...highly qualified to assume the important role of Judge and the duty of protecting the Constitution and ensuring the effective operation of our judicial system.

But Rick had more to say about Judge Jones (h/t to the Washington Blade).  Take a look:

Santorum said he was excited about Jones' federal judgeship because Jones "understands our values and traditions."

But did you see the date on the endorsement?  March 1, 2002.  That means that it was during George W. Bush's first administration.  He was also confirmed unanimously by the Senate.  That means that every Republican member of the United States Senate in 2002 voted for the guy.

Oh, and he was also the guy who struck down the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools.

So I'd say, yea, Rick Santorum's have a bad day today.

Poor Rick.

Congratulations, Pennsylvania!

Congratulations, Pennsylvania! You are the 19th state to be on the right side of history.

Joy in the streets of Pittsburgh (Photo courtesy of Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh)

And Now They're Back To Confusing Weather and Climate

They just can't help themselves, I guess.

Any, again, by "they" I mean Scaife's editorial board - his braintrust.

Take a look at what they published this morning:

More chicken squawking: Theologians of the Church of Global Warming gathered in Pittsburgh on Monday. Before a conference sponsored by Allegheny County and Pitt, Penn State oceanography professor Raymond Najjar told the Trib that the Keystone State summers will feel more like Virginia, even if carbon emissions are not reduced. Be very afraid. And pay no attention to frost advisories on May 19 or forecasts of a cooler summer in the region. [Bolding in original] 

See that?  The long term predictions of raising temperatures by legitimate climate science is to be doubted because there were local frost advisories on one day in May - or that this summer might be cooler.

Meanwhile in reality across the globe, the first quarter of this year (January - March, 2014) has been the seventh warmest since 1880.

(But that can't possibly be true because yesterday there was frost on my car.)

Sad News This Morning.

I learned something that made me sad this morning.  It was when I read this from Richard Mellon Scaife:

Nothing gives perspective to life so much as death.

Recently, doctors told me I have an untreatable form of cancer.

Some who dislike me may rejoice at this news. Naturally, I can't share their enthusiasm.

For the record, while I have spent a great deal of time over the past few years criticizing both the tone and the content of his paper in general and his editorial page in particular (and I reserve the right to continue to do so), I do NOT rejoice at the news of Mr. Scaife's failing health.

Having lost my father to cancer 7 years ago and my mother to a particularly unforgiving combination of diabetes and congestive heart failure just 3 months ago, death's sting can be particularly piercing to me these days.  Yes, it's a part of life and all that but it's almost always sad when we hear the news that the unavoidable punctuation to the sentence we'd almost always like to have extended by a few more phrases is closer than we'd like.

Very sad, this end that awaits us all.

Whoever he was and whatever he did, Richard Mellon Scaife is someone's partner, someone's friend and someone's father.  They'll all be mourning their loss in one way or another - and it's a loss, I imagine, they'll feel for a long time.  Rejoicing in that loss, rejoicing in the knowledge that people are hurting on that deep a level, is simply inhuman. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen; denn sie sollen getröstet werden.

To Mr. Scaife personally, I'll use this venue to say that I am sorry to hear the news of your untreatable cancer - everything else aside, no one deserves that.

More Non-Science At The Tribune-Review

Something must be in the water over there at Scaife's Tribune-Review.  They seem to be pushing the anti-science a bit more these days.  Three days in a row, I think.  Well if they want to keep going, I can keep debunking.

Eric Heyl's doing his best to spread the word with this week's "Q and A" column.  Let's get the easy stuff out of the way first.  Here's Heyl's opening:

James M. Taylor is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank, and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, a national publication focused on free-market environmentalism. He spoke to the Trib regarding a White House report released on Tuesday on the supposedly dire effects of climate change.

Here's Taylor's bio at the Heartland Institute website.  And here's what it says about his academic background:

Taylor received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College where he studied atmospheric science and majored in government. He received his Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

You'll note, of course, that he's not actually a climate scientist. He's a lawyer with, according to desmogblog, no research published in any peer-reviewed science journals. So, no. He's not a climate scientist.

But he works for the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank funded by (among others) Exxon Mobil, and two foundations controlled by the owner of the Tribune-Review (The Sarah Scaife and Carthage foundations).

Summing up - James M. Taylor's a non-scientist funded (at least in part) by the petroleum industry and a buncha conservative foundations - I am sure he's completely non-biased.

But let's take a look at what he said (now that we've undermined whatever scientific credibility he would claim to have).  When asked about the "obvious flaws" in the recently released National Climate Assessment, he said:

Most prominent among the flaws are the assertions that global warming is causing an increase in extreme weather events and similar climate catastrophes. The assertion is that global warming is not only increasing extreme weather events, it's also increasing drought, it's increasing wintertime temperatures that have negative consequences for pine beetles, etc.

But all of these assertions are clearly contradicted by the objective data. For example, we know that winter temperatures in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years. Yet here we have in this document the assertion that winters are becoming warmer and this causes pine beetle outbreaks. There is nothing more obviously and blatantly false than that assertion.

(The study) goes on to make other assertions about heat waves and extreme weather events, and it's the same thing. The objective data are clear that as our planet has been modestly warming, we are seeing less frequent and extreme severe weather events. And this is just not reflected in the document. That just speaks to the overt political agenda in this document rather than objective science.

Well then, let's take a look at the scientific data, if only to see if the non-scientist is right.  First we'll take a look at his contradictory data.  Taylor asserts that "winter temperatures in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years" as a counter to the whole of the global data.  This should raise more than a few cherry-picking red flags.  Three by my count:

• winter temperatures - why not yearly temperatures?
• temperatures in the United States - why not global temperatures?
• the past 20 years - why not a larger time frame?

Each of those filters, presumably, would allow Mr Taylor to show you only what he wants you to see.  But let's open up a few of those filters.  If, as he asserts, "winter temperatures in the United States have been declining for the past 20 years," then how is it possible for Canadian winters to be getting warmer over a longer period?  Our friends up north even have a graph to illustrate:

How about Europe over an even longer period, say 100 years?  NOAA has a map for that:

See all the browns and yellow?  Those are the places where it's been colder on average in the United States over a century.  You see, by concentrating on a limited time frame (only winters and only in the last 20 years) and a limited geographic space (the United States), Taylor's able to skew the numbers as he sees fit.

By the way, he attempts to undermine the credibility of the authors of the report with this:

This report is the predictable result of setting up the environmental activists to write a report for the Obama administration. Among the lead authors you have staffers for the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Nature Conservancy and then other environmental activist groups.

Let's just look at the section of the report dealing with "Recent Temperature Trends."  Who wrote it?  Here's the list of Lead Authors:

Katharine Hayhoe, Texas Tech University
James Kossin, NOAA, National Climatic Data Center
Kenneth Kunkel, CICS-NC, North Carolina State Univ., NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Graeme Stephens, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Peter Thorne, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
Russell Vose, NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Michael Wehner, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Josh Willis, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

I checked.  Each earned a Ph.D. in an actual climate science.  Each is an actual climate scientist.  And yet the non-scientist with a JD from Syracuse University seems to think he has a better handle on the science than they do.

What nonsense.

And Now They're Confusing Science and Non-Science

And, again, by "they" I mean, of course, Scaife's braintrust on the editorial board at his Tribune-Review.

Take a look at this morning's nonsense (Get it?  Nonsense and Non-science  Get it?):

Surveying genuine science excluded from the one-sided reports with which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) supports its radical alarmism, the latest report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) shows global warming is no crisis — and even has benefits.

The previous NIPCC report showed that alarmists' climate models are inaccurate, warming (before the current plateau) is within natural variability and humanity's climate impact is negligible. Its new report, “Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts,” concludes that warming and rising carbon dioxide levels cause “no net harm” and often result in “net benefits to plants, including important food crops, and to animals and human health.”

The NIPCC says that with CO2 — which isn't a pollutant — rising, there's “a great greening of the Earth” that brings “rising agricultural productivity” with “little or no risk of increasing food insecurity.” Plants and animals on land and in the sea either feel no impact or see “habitats, ranges and populations” expanding. And because warming more than offsets deaths related to cold, it actually saves human lives.

Independently evaluating scientific evidence without taking government or corporate money, the NIPCC confronts climate alarmists with inconvenient truths that expose the IPCC's real mission: slanting genuine science, blaming mankind and forecasting doomsday to justify governments' drastic anti-growth diktats.

The braintrust is looking (again) to counter the scientific IPCC report with the non-scientific NIPCC report, obviously.  What do you think we'll find if dig a little into the NIPCC report?

Actually, we've already done this - this past September.

Let's review, then.  Back then I linked to this piece in The Guardian:

The report is the latest in the Heartland Institute's "Climate Change Reconsidered" series and the cornerstone of its campaign against the IPCC's fifth assessment. Heartland is aggressively pushing the report in op-eds, blogs and in articles in conservative newspapers and news stations. Among others, it has received coverage in the Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Times and the UK's Daily Mail, in an article that had to be "significantly" changed due to errors.

Other groups participating in the report include the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a research and advocacy group founded by climate skeptic Fred Singer—who is also the director of Heartland's Science and Environmental Policy Project—and the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an Arizona-based climate skeptic group partly funded by ExxonMobil.

And then from there I found the money trail from (among other places) The Sarah Scaife Foundation to the Heartland Institute - the organization that puts out the NIPCC report.

Funny that the braintrust never ever seems to mention that.  But I'm not the only one to find the connection.  Here's Rollingstone Magazine (sub req'd) from a coupla years ago:

The Hack Scientist
Fred Singer
Retired physicist, University of Virginia

A former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry, the 85-year-old Singer is the granddaddy of fake "science" designed to debunk global warming. The retired physicist — who also tried to downplay the danger of the hole in the ozone layer — is still wheeled out as an authority by big polluters determined to kill climate legislation. For years, Singer steadfastly denied that the world is heating up: Citing satellite data that has since been discredited, he even made the unhinged claim that "the climate has been cooling just slightly." Last year, Singer served as a lead author of "Climate Change Reconsidered" — an 880-page report by the right-wing Heartland Institute that was laughably presented as a counterweight to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's scientific authority on global warming. Singer concludes that the unchecked growth of climate-cooking pollution is "unequivocally good news." Why? Because "rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests." Small wonder that Heartland's climate work has long been funded by the likes of Exxon and reactionary energy barons like Charles Koch and Richard Mellon Scaife.

Independent?

And the part (in the Trib) about how the rising levels of CO2 have no net negative harm?  Take a look at this from the National Geographic:

Crops grown in the high-CO2 atmosphere of the future could be significantly less nutritious, a new study published today in Nature suggests. Based on hundreds of experiments in the field, the work reveals a new challenge as society reckons with both rising carbon emissions and malnutrition in the future.

Scientists generally predict that crop yields could fall in a warmer world—though higher atmospheric CO2 by itself should raise yields, as plants find it easier to extract CO2 from the air to make carbohydrates.

Here's that paper in Nature.  Do you need to know that Nature is a peer-reviewed journal?  That means it's science and not "non-science."

So how much more do I need to tell you about the NIPCC, Peter Singer, and the scientific illiteracy on Scaife's braintrust for you to accept that they've written complete non-science nonsense today?

And Now They Confuse "Weather" and "Climate"

And by "they" I mean the editorial board at Scaife's Tribune-Review.

Take a look at what they're pushing today:

The New York Times reports that the stubborn cool spring in the Midwest has produced the most dismal start to the nursery season in decades. Darn that “climate change.”

Here's the Times piece upon which they're basing their contra-evidence.  Amazing how far flung they now have to go.  It's a piece on gardening.

But it illustrates one of the faux "debunkings" of climate change: namely that it's cold outside my window now, so therefore the climate can't be warming up.  Here's now the Times piece begins:

The freakishly cold Midwestern winter of 2014 has given way to the frustrated Midwestern gardener.

The stubbornly cool spring, on the heels of a bone-chilling winter, has produced the most dismal start to the season in decades, nursery owners say. In previous years, some garden centers may have sold half their stock at this point in the spring. Now they are barely getting started.

So this is about, at least in part, about the Polar Vortex that it the midwest and east coast this past Winter.  But did you know that while we were freezing the otherside of the world was burning?

Take a look.  From the AP:

Bats are dropping from trees, kangaroos are collapsing in the Outback and gardens are turning brown. While North America freezes under record polar temperatures, the southern hemisphere is experiencing the opposite extreme as heat records are being set in Australia after the hottest year ever.

Weather is localized.  Climate is global.  And what's the story on the global picture?

Let's go to NOAA:

The average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for the first quarter (January–March) of 2014 was the seventh warmest such period on record. This is particularly notable since February ranked only as the 21st warmest on record. However, January and March were both among the five warmest for their respective months. The warmth was relatively evenly distributed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, with each also observing their seventh warmest January–March on record.

In fact according to some new data:

While April was an uneventful month temperature-wise in the U.S., with most areas experiencing near-average temperatures, the month was the second-warmest April on record globally, according to new NASA data.

That makes April the 350th month in a row — more than 29 years — with above-average temperatures, largely caused by the buildup of manmade greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

And yet because the braintrust reads that gardeners in the midwest are having a hard time this year because of the localized cold, all that science is wrong.

The Braintrust Confuses Antarctic "Sea Ice" and "Ice Sheet"

In today's Tribune-Review (the op-ed page), the braintrust writes:

The West Antarctic ice sheet has begun falling apart, two papers published in the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters conclude. And many of the usual players in the “climate change” game are sounding the alarms of gloom, doom and holy moley pumpkin pie, we're all going to die.

But curiously not mentioned in The Times' report — and woefully too few other reports — is this salient fact:

East Antarctic sea ice coverage reached a record 3.5 million square miles in April, reports the National Snow and Ice Data Center. And the center says ice formation thus far in May continues at a record pace. The development has caught more than a few climate scientists by surprise — which is what happens when data that contradict the theology of global warming are ignored.

Thus "confirming" the "two sides to every story" meme and further "confirming" that only one side is being told by the climate scientists.

Too bad they get their science wrong.

You see, my friends, there's a difference between the Antarctic ice sheet (which, when melted would contribute to a rise in sea levels) and the Antarctic sea ice (which, when it freezes and melts, doesn't).

The braintrust tries to show how this debunks the climate science evidence of global warming.  Too bad the very same page that pointed out the data of the Antarctic sea ice, we can read:

However, across much of the far Southern Hemisphere, temperatures have been above average: for example, in the southern Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures have been 1 to 2 degrees Celsius (2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) above average; in the southern South Pacific, temperatures have been 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius (3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, and up to 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in the area near the South Pole.

So how can it be that a warmer climate can cause more Antarctic sea ice?

Skeptical Science has the answer:

Antarctic sea ice has shown long term growth since satellites began measurements in 1979. This is an observation that has been often cited as proof against global warming. However, rarely is the question raised: why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? The implicit assumption is it must be cooling around Antarctica. This is decidedly not the case. In fact, the Southern Ocean has been warming faster than the rest of the world's oceans. Globally from 1955 to 1995, oceans have been warming at 0.1°C per decade. In contrast, the Southern Ocean has been warming at 0.17°C per decade. Not only is the Southern Ocean warming, it is warming faster than the global trend.

And then:

If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). This strengthens the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002). The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas lead to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).

Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier, warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted (Zhang 2007). An increase in melting of Antarctic land ice will also contribute to the increased sea ice production (Bintanga et al. 2013).

In summary, Antarctic sea ice is a complex and unique phenomenon. The simplistic interpretation that it must be cooling around Antarctica is decidedly not the case. Warming is happening - how it affects specific regions is complicated.

Amazing what happens when you actually look at the science.

And it's amazing how stupid you look when you don't.

The Next Truther Demand For The "Truth"

And now, ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove has given us a peek at the next truther meme.

From Rupert Murdoch's NYPost:

Karl Rove stunned a conference when he suggested Hillary Clinton might have brain damage.

Onstage with Robert Gibbs and CBS correspondent and “Spies Against Armageddon” co-author Dan Raviv, Rove said Republicans should keep the Benghazi issue alive.

He said if Clinton runs for president, voters must be told what happened when she suffered a fall in December 2012.

And then the lying starts.

The official diagnosis was a blood clot. Rove told the conference near LA Thursday, “Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she’s wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what’s up with that.”

The pagesix writer notes one of Rove's mistakes:

Despite Rove’s claims, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was discharged from New York Presbyterian Hospital after spending three days undergoing treatment for a potentially life-threatening blood clot.

3 days, 30 days, what's the difference when you're lying to the American public?

But what were the glasses for?

Let's turn to ABC for that one:

The thick glasses Hillary Clinton has been wearing in public since returning from a concussion and blood clot last month are the result of lingering effects of her health problems, a Clinton aide confirms.

"She'll be wearing these glasses instead of her contacts for a period of time because of lingering issues stemming from her concussion," said spokesman Philippe Reines. "With them on she sees just fine."

But here's the kicker.

Didn't Rove's friends on the right say that she was faking it all along?  Why yes they did - including, oddly enough, Murdoch's NYPost:

Clinton’s story beggars belief: While traveling in Europe, she contracted a stomach virus . . . which made her dehydrated . . . which made her faint at home . . . which caused her to fall and hit her head . . . which gave her a nasty concussion.

But back to page six. A Clinton spokesperson is quoted as saying:

Karl Rove has deceived the country for years, but there are no words for this level of lying.

But it's probably the new normal.

They're Doing It Again

And by "it" I mean, they're omitting their conflict of interest.

And by "they" I mean, of course, the editorial board at Scaife's Tribune-Review.

Take a look:

North Korea appears to have the ability to launch nuclear warheads atop ballistic missiles that can reach the United States. Yet the Obama administration, bent on eliminating nuclear weapons, downplays that growing threat.

Sounding the alarm in the journal Comparative Strategy is National Institute for Public Policy scholar Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon strategic analyst and policy official. He writes that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) last year publicly expressed “moderate confidence” that North Korea has nuclear warheads for its ballistic missiles. But Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and other administration officials maintain its nuclear-strike capabilities are untested or limited.

The omission is about the National Institute for Public Policy.

According to the Bridgeproject, the NIPP has received a total of $6,554,065 in foundation support.  Guess how much of that came from foundations controlled by the Trib owner, Richard Mellon Scaife?  $3,450,000 or just under 53% of the total.

And the journal Comparative Strategy?

That's "sponsored by" the NIPP.

And the story?  The DIA's report "Dynamic Threat Assessment 8099: North Korea Nuclear Weapons Program (March 2013)" is about a year old. This is from Time Magazine, April 11, 2013:

The news flashed around the world late Thursday afternoon, East Coast time, after Representative Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, read a mistakenly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) excerpt aloud at a congressional hearing

And this is what he said:

DIA assesses with moderate confidence the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles. However, the reliability will be low.

At the time, though, the Pentagon issued a statement that contained this sentence:

It would be inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage.

And Time goes on:

The U.S. government is taking the North Korean threat seriously. Kim Jong Un no doubt watched Lamborn’s clip, over and over again, chortling at the impact his efforts, viewed through the always distorting prism of U.S. intelligence, are having on the U.S. Over the past month, the Pentagon has boosted missile defense throughout the western Pacific and announced plans to boost a West Coast missile shield designed to protect the U.S. mainland from North Korea attack.

Time also said:

The DIA was saying similar things about Iraq slightly more than a decade ago. That turned out to be flat-out wrong — just like how U.S. intelligence failed to foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks.

So where does this leave us and the Scaife funded research by the NIPP?

I'll let you answer that yourselves.