Global Warming Strikes Out Again

Yep, it's official: I'm a Global Warming Denier.

And, as usual, the science remains on my side.

Two stories to get us riled up this time. The first is last year's temperature data, which shows a global cooling in 2007 mean temps of between 0.65 and 0.75 Celsius degrees. (Graph above).

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Then there's the Canadian National Post story which basically refutes everything Al Gore has ever said - the Arctic Ice is growing, and is now between 10cm and 20cm thicker on average than it was one year ago. Money quote:

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

Can someone please get this information into the hands of John McCain, quick? This thoroughly discredits the need for a "cap-and-trade" system, which just begs for socialist control of energy resources and a prolonging and worsening of global poverty. If Johnny Mac can use this data to reverse course on the issue, it can be used very effectively against the liberals in the Fall campaign.

Not that he'd ever listen to me, but maybe he'd listen to the data. We all should start paying attention to good scientific data, and not the hyperventilating alarmism of the environmental left.

William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925 - 2008)

Sad news today - William F. Buckley, one of the founders of modern conservatism has passed away today at the age of 82. Buckley will be remembered as the founder of the National Review, who report this morning that Mr. Buckley passed away in his study. Somehow appropriate.

Buckley will also be remembered as the host of Firing Line, as one of the most gifted writers American conservatism has ever produced, and as a one-time CIA spook turned author and societal commentator. He was a fervent anti-communist, a staunch supporter of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, and one of the most formidable masters of English vocabulary.

He will, most certainly, be missed. Feel free to post your own tributes in comments.

***

Michelle Malkin quotes Reagan at a Buckley/National Review tribute:

One final note: I think eventually the pundits and analysts are going to catch on to the enormous force and deep roots of the conservative movement. Some of them even seem to have finally realized that I actually am one and that I mean it. And when that happens, they are going to realize something not only about this journal, but about its founder and editor: that Bill Buckley is perhaps the most influential journalist and intellectual in our era — that he changed our country, indeed our century...

So, Bill, one last word to you. We thank you for your friendship. You are, of course, a great man. And so we thank you also for National Review, for setting loose so much good in the world. And, Bill — thanks, too, for all the fun.

God bless you.

Baby Why Don't We Go Down To Kosovo

OK, so this has been percolating in my head for a few days, ever since I flipped past a news channel showing protesters burning the walls of our embassy in Serbia.

Why are we still pursuing a pre-9/11, Clintonian policy regarding Kosovo?

Do we, in our wildest imaginations, think an Islamic state in Europe is a good idea?

Do we consider ethnic breakaway states to suddenly be a good idea?

I happen to think that pursuing an Islamist “democracy” in Kosovo (and encouraging the break from Serbia) is a bad idea, but clearly our State Department disagrees – and therein lies the real problem.

No matter who wins this fall’s elections, the State Department rolls along, career lefty diplomats pushing their own agenda regardless of who takes the White House reins. That’s the only real explanation for why we’d continue on the 1990s path of pushing Islamic breakaway states in Europe.

You’ll notice we backed way off of pushing for an independent Chechnya once the attacks of 9/11 and Beslan showed the Chechen rebels to just be more of the same Islamist thuggery as we’re currently fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So why do we persist with pushing that self-same agenda in Kosovo?

Spain, it seems to me, has the right perspective here. Long campaigns from Basque and Catalan separatists leave the Spanish knowing that an independent Kosovo provides a bad example for their own ability to remain united as a nation. So Spain was one of the countries fighting against Kosovar independence - good for them, bad for the rest of us.

Keep in mind – this was “Monica’s War” the first time around, the “Wag the Dog” scenario (same country, even!) used to change the subject from the Lewinsky/Willey sex scandals of Bill Clinton’s making. We’re still paying for those mistakes. (You will recall the other military strikes done with the same purpose – the slap on the wrist bombing of the Sudanese aspirin factory rather than actually getting Osama bin Laden. Seems Billy Boy went oh-for-2…) Odd timing, this Kosovo thing coming just as Barack Obama looks to put the finishing blows to Hillary's chances...

Other thought – the Kosovar Muslims have spent the better part of a decade trashing orthodox churches. (Yes, the Serbs have retaliated in kind, trashing mosques). In any case, why would we encourage or reward that kind of behavior? This smacks of weakness to me, that we would reward that behavior with a state will resonate in the Islamic mind as proof that the West can successfully be pushed around. That’s not a healthy example to set.

Also: did we do this just to get into the Russians’ grill and make a mess? I would think shooting down a satellite is enough nose-tweaking for one month. (which looked spectacularly like the Death Star scene from Star Wars…) Breakaway Islamic states (Kosovo along with Chechnya) are an area where we should be building bridges with the Russians, not bombing them (see Tim’s excellent notes on what’s been wrong with Russia lately – shouldn’t we be encouraging their youth to see us as reasonable rather than pig-headed?) If the Russians were pushing for New Mexico to become independent (or rejoin Old Mexico), I think we'd have some serious anger issues with them; why don't we see that in this case, I wonder?

So… BOO to the Bush Administration’s decision to encourage and recognize an independent Kosovo. And BOO to our State Department for pushing this along.

Ted Kennedy SINGS! (en espanol)

There is very little to say to describe this. One need only see it.

Unreal.

Behold the power of influenza

woke up this morning and wondered if anybody got the license plate number of that truck... Yikes.

I'll be light blogging for a while to avoid light-headed blogging...

Abolish Parole?

I find it interesting (and a tad ironic) that I start off with a state topic that surfaced during the Presidential campaign – abolishing parole.


Those of you with long memories will recall that one of my first posts on the old blog (and the most regrettable) was one that was particularly rough on Jon Ozmint, SC Corrections Department Director. The upshot is that after my printed apology, Jon and I have actually become friends, which is truly a testament to his willingness to forgive.


Well, as fate would have it, Jon is involved in this latest discussion over parole, or more specifically Attorney General Henry McMaster’s proposal to abolish parole.


General McMaster points to cases where parolees have committed heinous crimes, or where violent sexual predators are up for parole after mere months. He has proposed a new “Middle Court” for non-violent offenders that could keep those folks out of the prison system, focusing prison time for violent offenders and making sure they do more of the time to which they are sentenced.


In response, Mr. Ozmint points to a chronically underfunded prisons budget and asks how we will pay for the increased time for criminals behind bars. With prison guards getting hand-me-down body armor to protect themselves in dangerously overcrowded prisons, we’re one really bad meal away from disaster. We need to be looking to build another Supermax facility, and now we want to hold more folks and for longer? Will the legislative folks pay for all this?


Keep in mind, Ozmint’s been working with a bailing wire and duct tape budget that still manages to keep the prisoners fed (at the lowest per-capita cost in the nation). When I went on a tour of the prison system last summer, I was truly impressed by what this state has been able to accomplish using inmate labor (for cost savings, food production, and inmate workforce rehabilitation training purposes). Under the circumstances he’s been working under, Jon has been doing a terrific job.


Jon also looks at prisoner behavior and suggests that removing the parole option would make managing prisons more difficult, if prisoners know that they have less wiggle room for good behavior.


Here’s the rub: they’re both right.


As long as we have a criminal justice system that lets violent offenders serve miniscule sentences, only to be released to terrorize the citizenry time after time, we don’t truly have justice in our criminal system. Abolishing parole for violent crimes would be an excellent start towards real “Truth in Sentencing”, especially for the violent sexual predators that Attorney McMaster targets most often.


But none of it matters if the Prisons folks can’t get the substantial funding increases necessary to make it work.


Too often, the prison budget process has been misused, either as a political pawn in the Legislature’s ongoing war with the West Wing, or as a place for funds to be diverted from for the latest pork project or legislative slush fund.


What’s needed? Attorney General McMaster’s ideas about alternative sentencing and courts for non-violent offenders show real promise for keeping some folks out of the prison system in the first place. That’s a good start.


More than that, though, is the realization that prisons, as a critical function of state government, must be treated with greater priority by the Legislature. The full funding would be a start, including new facilities to house the growing number of violent gang members and predators that our state is incarcerating every year.


I would hope that some of the wiser heads in the Legislature could work out the compromise deal on this that gets both men what they need – tougher sentences on violent criminals and the funding to do the job right.


***


TIMELINESS UPDATE: Jon Ozmint has an OpEd in this morning's State newspaper.

Yep, I'm Back

I know - you knew I'd be back, eventually. I'm too opinionated to keep away.


The Thompson campaign thing didn't work out as planned (I'll probably end up blogging about that at some point, but those thoughts still need to organize themselves in my brain first) so here we are again...


Before I re-start this in earnest, a few housekeeping notes on what will (and won't) be on this blog, and in the comments.


First, I'm unlikely to discuss the relative merits of those still running for President. If you haven't figured out by now that I was supporting Fred Thompson because he was the consistent conservative, that's your problem, not mine. In the mean time, I just don't find myself enthused enough about the remaining choices to actually discuss any of them. I will probably post mortem those who fall by the wayside as they go (both of my former bosses sadly included), and note any truly interesting developments in the race, but all in all, don't expect this site to talk much Presidential politics.


I am likely to talk conservative issues - that has always been my passion and will remain so. These include: life, liberty, small government, the conflict between Western Civilization and Islamism, taxes, immigration, crime, national defense, government incompetence, school choice, and the myth known as "Man-made Global Climate Change". (OK, I'm pretty sure a large number of you just cringed on one or more of those lines, including in the Governor's Mansion. Heh. Told you I'm back...) I'm also likely to experiment with polls, pictures, video, and the rest of the whole "web 2.0" technology stuff. I don't know what web 3.0 will look like, but if I'm still around, we'll all get to play with that, too.


Now, at the moment, I'm a consulant without much in the way of a clientele (an unfortunate, but natural after-effect of working 110-hour weeks on an all-consuming campaign...) I am quite glad to be back on SC talk radio (on occasional Charleston mornings with Andy Thomas on WQSC), and as the next round of elections approach, I expect to be busier with work (and thus less blog-busy). Those of you who read my work on the old "Body Politic/SCHotline" site know that's happened before, but I'll still try to stay on top of the blogging thing.


Affiliations: with the new blog name comes a split with SCHotline - but this is merely in name. I'm still good friends with Mike and Jeffrey, and still wish them the best with the site (and am very grateful for our past work). I never was a co-owner of Hotline (much to the confusion of many), nor was I remunerated for work there (outside of a few free lunches...) Still, they're doing good work over there, and we're all on friendly terms. Bierbauer is a great addition to what they're doing, and I encourage folks to read his stuff.


Comments: Still moderated. No profanity, no weird baseless/conspiracy theory accusations about the author, and no comments promoting Ron Paul's Presidential campaign (which pretty much count as profanity anyways, but that's a separate issue). Civil discourse that disagrees is not only acceptable, it's encouraged; I'm not interested in quashing points of view. That said, if you keep posting long passages in comments, you might consider starting your own blog instead of trying to hijack mine - most blog sites are free, y'know. Don't assume that just because your comment doesn't come up that I've blocked it - I may just not have gotten to comment moderation duties yet that hour... patience is appreciated - I do have to make money somehow...


Speaking of making money... I need a good name for the new consulting business. I've got a few ideas kicking around the brain, but nothing firmed up yet. Probably want something witty, filled with multiple meanings, having to do with either music or animals (or both). (Ok, hidden talent moment - I write and play music. If you knew that, you're definitely a friend...) Anyhow, any name suggestions are welcome in comments of this post. (as long as they follow the other comments rules...)


Also welcome in comments or email: suggestions for additions to the blogroll. I reserve the right to accept or reject any applications. For the national roll, bloggers should be hitting major national/international topics from a conservative perspective, and be willing to reciprocate linkage. For the SC roll, a conservative perspective is also strongly recommended, though with more room to maneuver within the right-middle sphere, or just be objective on relevant SC topics. If you routinely bash conservatives, conservatism, or our ideals (or me by name), don't expect a link here (Michael Reese, the aptly named "notverybright", and Harden Gervais/Ross Shealy - this means you. Don't waste the bandwidth or the time.)


So... it's good to be back in the 'sphere. I'll see y'all around the 'net. More to follow...