Source: SPPI

If only the world cared as much about African children and families, as they do about dogs.

Cyril Boynes, Jr.

A couple months ago, when its dog-sledding business lost customers, a Canadian company had a hundred of its dogs killed. The incident “shocked” and “angered” people. The employee who shot the dogs said he suffered “post traumatic stress” from killing them and wants compensation.

Animal activists used the incident in campaigns against dog sled rides. “I don’t think society is willing to accept that animals should be killed just because they are surplus or don’t suit the purpose they were born for,” said one. “The magnitude of this atrocity is so shocking – our heads are reeling,” another said.

Huskies are beautiful, gentle animals, and I’m really sad that this happened. But the world needs to put this in perspective. Humans eat animals. Our cars kill them along highways. Wind turbines kill eagles and other birds. More important, what about people?

My wife Fiona Kobusingye lost her son, two sisters and four cousins to malaria. Her nephew is permanently brain-damaged because of it. Almost everyone I know has lost at least one child or sibling to this killer disease. Despite millions of bednets, malaria still kills more African children than any other disease.

I cannot help thinking it would really be nice if, just once in awhile, animal lovers, environmentalists, journalists and other people would care half as much about African babies, children and families, as about dogs.

A hundred dogs are killed, and activists and newspapers make it a huge story.

Last year, almost one hundred thousand Ugandan children and adults were killed by malaria. And yet, nobody seemed to care – certainly not enough to write a story about it, or get outraged that callous anti-pesticide activists lie about DDT risks and prevent the use of DDT and other insecticides that could prevent malaria, yellow fever and other diseases that cause so much suffering, poverty and death on our continent.

It’s as if anti-pesticide greens believe we Africans are “surplus” people on an “over-populated” planet and don’t “suit the purposes” they think people should be born for. It’s as if our misery and deaths don’t mean anything. This is the real atrocity, and our African heads are reeling.

Yes, government agencies, private foundations, school children and other kind people from rich, malaria-free countries do send bednets, so at least some babies and pregnant women can sleep under one. But nets get torn, people don’t always use them or hang them properly, and they only reduce malaria by 20 or 30 percent. That’s why we need additional weapons – like DDT and other insecticides.

DDT keeps most mosquitoes from even going into homes. It irritates any that do come in, so they are less likely to bite. It kills any that land on walls after a blood meal, so they can’t transmit malaria to other victims. DDT is cheap and long lasting: one spray is good for six months or more. No other chemical in existence does all this, at any price.

To break the transmission cycle and stop malaria, we need to reduce mosquito populations, keep them away from people, and treat infected people quickly. Nets are essential. So are better houses and hospitals (with screens on doors and windows), greater efforts to remove mosquito resting areas near homes, and access to the best possible drugs.

But we also need chemicals to kill mosquito larvae, insecticides to kill adults, and DDT as a long-lasting spatial repellant to keep mosquitoes out of our homes. We need every one of these weapons, not just the ones chemical-hating ideologues approve of, or we will forever be burying our children.

We are constantly told the DDT we spray on walls to keep mosquitoes out of our houses, and the insecticides we use to kill these insects, are dangerous, have undesirable side effects and shouldn’t be used. But as Dr. Rutledge Taylor explains in his new film, “3 Billion and Counting,” years of research actually prove that DDT is safe for people and the environment. See http://www.3billionandcounting.com/ and read The Excellent Powder, by Donald Roberts and Richard Tren.)

As Dr. Taylor points out, no one has ever died or been seriously hurt from DDT. Its worst effects are skin rashes and speculative (but unproven) connections to early lactation failure in nursing mothers and various other minor problems. Both Dr. Gordon Edwards and Dr. Taylor have actually eaten large amounts of DDT – and not been harmed.

We all know what malaria does. Besides lactation failure and low birth weights in babies, malaria makes people horribly sick and unable to work, leaves millions permanently brain-damaged, and kills millions more in the most awful, painful ways imaginable. Why anyone – especially Africans – would oppose using weapons that can stop this terrible carnage is impossible to imagine.

But a lot of people listen to the constant lies, told by baby-killing, pesticide-hating activists – and believe them. It’s bad enough that Greenpeace, Environmental Defense, Pesticide Action Network and the Stockholm Convention Secretariat tell these lies and want to ban DDT from malaria programs by 2020. It’s much worse that the Global Environment Facility, United Nations Environment Programme and even some bureaucrats in the World Health Organization support the ban.

But it’s unconscionable that Ugandan companies and politicians are doing it, too.

Organic food companies claim even a trace of DDT on their produce or flowers will keep them out of Europe. That is false. Their crops just cannot have DDT above certain levels – and that will not happen from DDT sprayed on walls. But what’s really absurd is that tobacco companies refuse to allow the barest detectable trace of DDT on cancer-causing tobacco that they are happy to sell to Europeans, and Europeans are happy to smoke.

It’s not just hypocrisy. For these companies, government agencies and activist groups to put their salaries, profits and ideologies ahead of the health and lives of African babies is immoral. It’s manslaughter.

Decisions about using DDT, larvacides and insecticides (along with nets and drugs) need to be made by African health ministers – not by activists, animal lovers, or environmental and agricultural interests. These groups are spending more money trying to get rid of DDT than the world is spending to control and eradicate malaria – when almost three billion people are at risk of getting this disease, and a million die from it, year after year.

We need to use DDT and other insecticides carefully – and we are doing so. However, in the end, if we don’t use them, our wonderful, brilliant, athletic, musical, hard-working children and parents will be struck down, brain-damaged and killed by malaria.

Or more accurately, they will be murdered by self-centered ideologues, businessmen, politicians, and even WHO and other medical doctors who are violating their oath to save lives.

This has to end. We need to get our priorities straight – and understand what the real risks are. We need to pray that this insane opposition to disease-preventing, life-saving chemicals will be replaced soon with a concern for babies and parents that is equal to their concern for sled dogs.

___________

Cyril Boynes, Jr. is co-chair of the  and a tireless advocate for health and prosperity in Africa and all other developing regions.

OPINION

ISLAMISM

It is claimed the Muslim Brotherhood is Islamist, which alarms Israel and some western pundits. This charge is especially relevant in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda Islamists against the United States. An Egyptian, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is is a prominent leader of al-Qaeda and closely associated with Osama bin Laden.

In 1998 al-Zawahiri merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda. Egyptian Islamic Jihad is not affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Zawahiri reportedly said, “[W]e are different from the Muslim Brotherhood because sometimes they do not oppose the government”.**

Given this history, it is understandable the West pauses when considering the prospect of an Islamist role in the current popular unrest in Egypt. Is there reason for pause?

An Islamist is a supporter or advocate of Islamic fundamentalism. While Islamic fundamentalists are motivated by similar objectives, particularly a resurgence of the Caliphate, their methods are markedly different. Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad believe in armed resistance as a method for transforming the social order. Islamic Iran by its Constitution advocates Islamic revolution — even violent revolution — as state policy. The former groups are Sunni while Iran is predominantly Shia, so violent resistance as a tool of advancing the spread of religion is symptomatic rather than sectarian.

Should the Muslim Brotherhood be classed among these groups? Does the Muslim Brotherhood wield violence as a legitimate method to achieve the social change it desires?

What sort of Caliphate is acceptable to the Muslim Brotherhood?

A FASCIST CALIPHATE

In al-Qaeda and the Iranian Revolution of 1979, we are witnessing the the rise of modern Islamofascism in the Muslim world.

For purposes of this discussion, I define fascism as a governmental system led by a dictator having the power to forcibly suppress opposition and regiment all aspects of society, including its economy, to support an aggressive nationalism.

In September 1963, Manfred Halpern of the RAND Corporation published “The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa”. He prepared the report for the United States Air Force.

In chapter eight*** Halpern discusses the sources of totalitarian appeal, tactics, varieties, and the potential and fate of totalitarianism in the Islamic community. While Halpern gives special emphasis to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, he briefly notes Wahhabism, the Saudi Arabian faction of Islam that influenced Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

SPIRITUALIZED POLITICS

Who is an Islamic fascist? According to Halpern, “To call them ‘fanatics’ — for in their concern for Islam they do not hesitate to kill fellow Moslems — is to indicate primarily that we cannot fathom their ambiguous, destructive intensity. To call them ‘extreme nationalists’ is to mistake them for secular politicians. No nationalist in the Middle East, however extreme, is likely to join the leaders of Islamic Islamic totalitarian movements in saying that ‘my religion is dearer to me than my family and clan. My religion is the first country that I take shelter in,’ or to assert that nations have become ‘idols,’ and that national unity should never be purchased at the expense of religion. To say that they advocate ‘the application of religious precepts in the government of Moslem countries’ is to confuse them with moral reformers. . . .

“The neo-Islamic totalitarian movements are essentially fascist movements. They concentrate on mobilizing passion and violence to enlarge the power of their charismatic leader and the solidarity of the movement. They view material progress primarily as a means for accumulating strength for political expansion, and entirely deny individual and social freedom. They champion the values and emotions of a heroic past, but repress all free critical analysis of either past roots or present problems” (pages 135, 136).

As similar apocalyptic movements, Halpern likens modern neo-Islamic totalitarianism to Christian millennialism (page 136). Neo-Islamic totalitarian movements regard themselves as intermediary to the eschatological Caliphate.

ISLAMIC FASCISTS ARE NOT RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES

In their devotion to religion, totalitarians differ from mere conservative or ultra-conservative adherents, who are content to observe every jot or tittle of religious law, either under the paternalistic protection of the host society, or quietly, communally self-segregated but still “present in the world”. Totalitarians identify with a leader and a movement who pledge the violent overthrow of the established order. By the self-admission of their own ideology, totalitarians cannot be reformed.

As soon as the totalitarian movement evolves into a mature totalitarian government, it typically includes a secret police, censorship, terror, and propaganda. An absolute leader incarnates the movement. His thoughts embody the state. Faith is reduced to the raw elements of love and hate.

ISLAMIC FASCISM IS NOT REFORMIST

“A neo-Islamic totalitarian movement has no real interest in a program. Its chiliastic expectation makes the very effort towards producing a program irrelevant; the reformist Islamic component makes its actual program irrelevant since its closed system of deductive procedure insures an inner coherence at the price of isolation from the world; its modern involvement, however, makes an effort to form a program inescapable” (Halpern, page 143).

ISLAMIC FASCISM IS EXPANSIONIST

Neo-Islamic totalitarianism “opposes the abstraction of the nation bound by geographic limits which separate the believers from each other. It is not an extremist nationalist movement; it is anti-nationalist at home and abroad. Far beyond the recapture of Palestine, it advocates conquest and aggrandizement for the sake of the community of believers – an entity without territorial limits” (Halpern, page 147).

Halpern cites “The Call of the Moslem Brotherhood” (Cairo, October 1938):

“‘The Mediterranean and the Red Sea must be two Moslem lakes, as they were before. . . . Following that, we would want to issue our call to the world, and subdue every powerful man to it completely, that there may be no confusion, and that all religions may be Allah’s.’”

THE LEADER IS THE KEY TO FASCISM’S STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS

Halpern believes that the survival of a totalitarian movement depends upon the charisma of its leader. The hierarchical structure of the movement, while at first contributing to its rapid successes, eventually becomes its principal weakness.

Thus, the life-cycle of a totalitarian movement can be cut short by the assassination or natural death of its leader. If the leader fails to appoint a successor, the movement will succumb to internecine conflict as lieutenants vie for the position of leader. Further, the movement may split because, by relying on strong leadership, its members tend to know no way of resolving conflicts peacefully. Splitting results in further weakening.

Source:  SPPI

The UN is becoming increasingly desperate at their failure to convince the “man in the street” about global warming, particularly since the weather is refusing to co-operate over the last few years. They are now seeking to enroll the entertainment industry into their propaganda war and Ban Ki Moon breezed into Hollywood this week to meet writers, directors and producers. The taxpayer of course pays for all these junkets via national contributions to the UN.

U.N. leader asks Hollywood for help in fight against global climate change

By Margot Roosevelt, Los Angeles Times February 27, 2011

“Ban Ki-moon, the normally buttoned-up Secretary General of the United Nations, swept into Los Angeles during Oscar week playing the role of Hollywood pitchman. His message: Make global warming a hot issue.

“I need your support,” he told entertainment industry insiders during a daylong forum Tuesday that focused on recent heat waves, floods, fires and drought, which scientists link to human-induced climate change.

“Animate these stories!” Ban pleaded. “Set them to music! Give them life! Together we can have a blockbuster impact on the world.”

If the pitch sounds a tad desperate, it’s not surprising. In recent years, public concern over climate change has plummeted in the polls, U.N. efforts to craft a new global climate treaty have been unsuccessful, and Congress has rejected federal legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.N. has long courted such celebrities as Audrey Hepburn, Mia Farrow, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie to be “goodwill ambassadors” for peacekeeping and anti-poverty efforts, but reaching out to writers, directors and producers to incorporate climate change issues in movies, television and social media is new.”

Global warming films thus far have had mixed appeal. The apocalyptic 2004 “The Day After Tomorrow” flopped, but Al Gore’s 2006 “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Oscar.

In 2008, the animated hit “Wall-E,” and last year, “Avatar,” both with save-the-planet plots, sparked new interest in environmental themes.

About 400 writers, directors, producers, agents and network executives attended the outreach events: a series of panels at the Hammer Museum, moderated by Larry King; a lunch for selected bigwigs; tete-a-tete meetings between high-powered industry players and top U.N. officials; and a star-studded dinner where Ban was introduced by Charlize Theron, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa took a turn playing the drums.

Some participants had climate-themed projects in tow. Actor Djimon Hounsou said he was developing a film relating climate change in an African village to New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina. Director James Brooke touted his upcoming documentary on Africa’s Lake Victoria, which he called “one of the planet’s early warning points, like the Arctic and the Amazon.”

To coordinate with Hollywood, the U.N. has set up an office, the “Creative Community Outreach Initiative” in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, funded by media mogul Ted Turner. Past projects include an episode of “The Flying Chef” filmed at U.N. headquarters and featuring dishes from seven countries; an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” dealing with children and armed conflict; an episode of “Ugly Betty” highlighting the use of mosquito nets to prevent malaria; and the hosting of the world premiere of the Disney film “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure.”

The climate effort, managed by the same office, has broader ambitions. “You have power and influence to send to millions and billions of people around world,” Ban told his Los Angeles audience. “To make planet Earth environmentally sustainable is a political and moral imperative.”

Also speaking on panels were Indian economist Rajendra Pachauri — chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group of some 2,500 scientists who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for assessing the effects of greenhouse gases — and Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres, who led global treaty negotiations in Cancun as the head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“There’s a huge gap between what governments can do, given political constraints, and what they should do,” Figueres told Hollywood executives. “That’s where you come in. … We need you to make it sexy and cool to bring about the energy revolution that has to happen.”

King asked Pachauri if he had a “sexy story we could make into a film.”

What a hoot, it seems King didn’t know about Pachauri’s steamy novel, A Return to Almora, apparently written while flying the world on UN  and personal business and building up one of the biggest carbon footprints on the planet.

More here

It may be that Ban Ki Moon will get his Blockbuster in the form of a massive snowstorm predicted for the Oscar ceremony: Hollywood sign could be covered in snow for first time in over 50 years – just in time for Sunday’s Oscars.

“The A-list movie stars waltzing up the red carpet at the Oscars this weekend will need to wrap up warm as temperatures plummet in Los Angeles.

And there is even a chance the iconic Hollywood sign which towers over Tinseltown could be covered in snow on Sunday.

The last time the southern California metropolis – with average February temperatures of nearly 60F – encountered snow was way back in 1954 when a third of an inch fell. Today temperatures were a mere 44F.

But forecasters are predicting up to seven inches could coat the 45-foot tall letters as the blizzard which started in Washington state and Oregon continues its assault on California.

Snow is already predicted for downtown San Francisco – itself a stranger to snow for 25 years – after the surrounding hills received a dusting over the weekend.”

Global Warming - Bring it on. Of course, if it does snow, we know what they will blame….human emissions of carbon dioxide, which are warming the planet. I wonder if they ever stop and think to themselves, “is there a disconnect here somewhere”?

BY DENNIS T. AVERY

CHURCHVLLE, VA—Paul Krugman is a big deal: Princeton professor, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate (2008). Krugman wrote last week about the “food crisis, the second one to hit the world in the last three years.”  His key statement: “what really stands out is the extent to which severe weather events have disrupted agricultural production. And these severe weather events are exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see as rising concentrations of greenhouse gases change our climate—which means that the current food prices surge may be just beginning.”

What warming?  The puny 0.2 degrees C we’ve had since 1940?

On food, we’re currently diverting a huge proportion of the world’s crops to biofuels. We’ve created an artificial shortage of the world’s already-scarce cropland. Two years ago, the high food prices were driven by a very high price for oil, so our corn ethanol plants were running full-tilt. World food prices nearly doubled. This year, the high food prices are driven by a combination of high fuel prices, and diverse bad weather in the U.S., Russia, Australia and China, to name a few weather-challenged regions.The farming gods are always fickle. They bring drought, floods, bitter winters, heatstroke summers, hailstorms and untimely frosts—at their whim. When humans started to farm, their most important gods were always the “earth mother” who watches over the crops, and a consort god in charge of rainfall. The farming villages held festivals in their honor, made sacrifices, and pleaded for good crops. Often they pled in vain.

Talking about severe weather, how about Cahokia, the only city ever built by the American  Indians? It was founded on corn, in Illinois, the heart of today’s Corn Belt. And it grew to perhaps as large as 50,000 people. After 1200 AD, Cahokia suffered two 30-year droughts in 60 years. The city disappeared. The people who could walked away.

In 2200 B.C., a “little ice age” hit the whole world. A belt of irrigated agricultures around the world failed simultaneously—and didn’t recover for about 300 years!  Southern Greece, the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and what’s now Iraq and Syria all collapsed. Many thousands died. Nomad shepherds took over the parched land. The first Chinese dynasty collapsed then in the Yellow River Valley due to drought—and “little ice ages” have since brought down five more-recent Chinese dynasties. The last to fall was the fabled Kublai Khan during the Little Ice Age.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the Little Ice Age brought three massive sea floods within a few decades, each of which drowned 100,000 people. The coasts of Europe are lined with huge sand dunes created by hurricanes. Most of these dunes date from the Little Ice Age, not from the Medieval Warming.

The peer-reviewed journal Natural Hazards in June, 2005, published a special issue on extreme weather events over the last century. It found there is less severe weather as the world warms, with no increase in thunderstorms, hailstorms, tornados, blizzards, Asian monsoons, heat waves or floods. Blogger Jo Nova reports that a recent re-examination of global tropical storms and hurricanes found no trend in the past 30 years. Russia frequently has droughts and Australia has  a cycle of flooding.

Krugman is trying to frighten us about what’s very likely the finest weather humanity has ever seen. Obviously, we’re still getting heat waves, blizzards and some hurricanes—but fewer of them. Nevertheless, you are three times as likely to read about the severe weather we do get—because the media are seeking it out.

Our Nobel Prize Winner strikes out on both food and climate change.

DENNIS T. AVERY, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, is an environmental economist.  He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421 or email to cgfi@hughes.net

Rebuttal to “Meet the Denominator”

In a desperate attempt to diminish the value of the list of peer-reviewed papers supporting skeptic’s arguments, Rob Honeycutt from Skeptical Science not only lies but puts on a surprising display of his Google Scholar Illiteracy. It is clear that not only does he not understand how to properly use Google Scholar, he has no idea of the relevance of any of the results he gets.

1. Rob begins with a strawman argument that the list is only presenting one side of the argument. This has never been denied as one of the reasons the list was created was to show the skeptical side of the argument supported by the peer-reviewed literature. This purpose is explicitly stated on the list,

Purpose: To provide a resource for peer-reviewed papers that support skepticism of AGW or the negative environmental or socio-economic effects of AGW and to prove that these papers exist contrary to widely held beliefs.

2. Rob mentions previous criticisms of the list that have been completely refuted,

Rebuttal to “450 more lies from the climate change Deniers”

3. Rob produces erroneous results using a search query without quotes,

He does an advanced Google Scholar search query for the search words,

climate change

In his blog post he incorrectly lists them as a search phrase using quotes, “climate change”. There is no mention that no quotes were used. As you will see this dramatically affects the results.

He then adds two advanced filters,

* Biology, Life Sciences, and Environmental Science
* Physics, Astronomy, and Planetary Science

The results,

climate change (no quotes + filters) – 956,000

When quotes are used you get a dramatically smaller result,

“climate change” (filters) – 635,000

It is clear Rob is only interested in results for the search phrase “climate change” yet by not using quotes he included erroneous results that simply included both words in any context, including having nothing to do with “climate change”. Such as,

Managing the Process of Engineering Change Orders: The Case of the Climate Control System in Automobile Development
(Journal of Product Innovation Management, Volume 16, Issue 2, pp. 160–172, March 1999)
- Christian Terwiesch, Christoph H. Loch

Why is Rob counting results about climate control systems in automobiles?

4. Rob arbitrarily pulls out 10% of the results to remove citations failing to understand that these can be automatically filtered using Google Scholar,

What are the results marked [citation] and why can’t I click on them? (Google Scholar Help)

“To exclude them [citations] from your search results, select at least summaries from the dropdown menu labeled include citations.”

The results without citations,

climate change (no quotes + no citations + filters) – 901,000

“climate change” (no citations + filters) – 600,000

This just further demonstrates his inability to properly use Google Scholar.

5. Rob fails to understand that Google Scholar does not have a peer-reviewed only filter and thus he is counting erroneous results,

What do you include in Google Scholar? (Google Scholar Help)

“Google Scholar includes journal and conference papers, theses and dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature from all broad areas of research. …Shorter articles, such as book reviews, news sections, editorials, announcements and letters, may or may not be included.”

These non-peer-reviewed sources are easily proven to exist in Google Scholar search results; such as 21,000 from the Guardian, 86,000 from Newsweek and 144,000 from the New York Times.

Thus the only way for Rob to verify his numerical result total from his Google Scholar search is by checking that every single search result is a peer-reviewed paper from a peer-reviewed journal. He clearly did not do this.

Note: It is important to remember that every single result needs to be checked that it is a peer-reviewed paper and not simply in a peer-reviewed journal. As Google Scholar makes no distinction between non-peer-reviewed content that appears in peer-reviewed journals from peer-reviewed content.

6. It is impossible for Google Scholar to be used to verify more than 1000 results for any search query because it is hard limited to 1000 verifiable results,

Can I see more than 1,000 search results? (Google Scholar Help)

“Sorry, we can only show up to 1,000 results for any particular search query. Try a different query to get more results.”

Thus it is impossible to verify Rob’s claims as searched, making his conclusions meaningless.

7. Rob gets caught lying about how many papers he “perused”,

“I did a pretty thorough perusal of the 200 pages of articles and it looks like they are all actual papers and not just references to any blogs or websites.” – Rob Honeycutt, Skeptical Science

This is a lie as it is impossible to go past page 100 (1000 results) for any search query using Google Scholar.

8. A Google Scholar search result that includes the search phrase “climate change” does not mean it explicitly endorses “Anthropogenic Global Warming” theory. Explicit endorsement would require the inclusion of that phrase. How many results Google Scholar shows using this search phrase can easily be determined,

“anthropogenic global warming” (no citations + filters) = 662

However inclusion of this phrase can also mean criticism of the theory. The context of the phrase can only be determined by reading each and every result. Implicit endorsement would require reading each and every result for alternate search queries.

Conclusion:

No meaningful conclusion can be drawn regarding the number of peer-reviewed papers supporting AGW theory using numerical result totals from Google Scholar searchs due to the inclusion of erroneous results. Thus no meaningful comparison of these results can be made to the list of 850 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm.

Note: All numerical result totals from Google Scholar searches can change at anytime.

Update: After repeatedly pressed on how he “perused” 200 pages Rob eventually decided to change it to say, “I did a pretty thorough perusal of 200 articles of the 100 pages of results and it looks like they are all actual papers and not just references to any blogs or websites.“. Unfortunately I do not believe this was an honest mistake as he did not immediately admit to the error instead posting six other comments avoiding it. This is not something anyone else would do if they made a legitimate typo. I believe he originally just made up the number so it appears he made a token effort at validation. The word “pages” and “papers” is not easily confused, let alone “pages” and “articles”.

Update 2: Comments on the image (I can’t make this stuff up),

“I would even go so far as to say by using that image in the context of Rob’s name suggests it was a threat of violence by PT against Rob.” – Albatross, Skeptical Science

“PT do you realize that if you leave that picture posted in it’s current context that it constitutes an act of terrorism.” – Ron Crouch, Skeptical Science

Update 3: The moderators at Skeptical Science have conveniently been deleting my comments wholesale instead of editing out whatever part they “claim” violates their policy. This hypocritical policy allows adherents to the site to make personally attacks, state false allegations and make other libelous claims against those they disagree with. Any attempt by the recipient of these attacks to defend themselves is usually deleted. This has created many false criticisms that it appears I did not address.

Federal Authority: At a contentious hearing on legislation to keep the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, Republicans rightly called global warming a power-grabbing hoax that is all pain for no gain.

The assertion came at a Wednesday hearing before the House subcommittee on energy and power on the “Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011.” The measure is designed to reassert the authority of Congress to levy taxes on the American people and direct public policy — powers that are being usurped by the unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency.

In a power grab that rivals ObamaCare in audacity and job-killing effects, the EPA has claimed unto itself the power to regulate carbon dioxide, a byproduct of human and animal respiration and the basis for all life on earth, as a pollutant. At least with ObamaCare, Congress — our representatives — voted to pass it.

The EPA claims science has given it the justification, and the Supreme Court has given it the authority, to regulate CO2 as a pollutant and impose regulations governing virtually every aspect of American business and our daily life almost down to our lawn mowers.

Leading off the witness list was Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and a co-author of the legislation with House Committee Chairman Fred Upton.

Inhofe rightly noted that Congress deliberately did not regulate so-called greenhouse gases with the Clean Air Act, a bill that was designed to deal with air quality, not climate change.

He also observed that EPA Director Lisa Jackson herself has acknowledged the Clean Air Act “is not specifically designed to address greenhouse gases.” The House-passed Waxman-Markey did, but it died with Senate inaction and the election of a new Congress, an election in which it was an issue. Along with Obama-Care, the American people also rejected the idea of taxing and regulating carbon dioxide.

Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., pointed out to Jackson, who was also called to testify, that Congress had rejected federal regulation of greenhouse gases on no fewer than three occasions. “Do you object to an up or down vote in Congress?” he asked her.

“I would not presume to tell Congress what to do,” Jackson answered, saying she was acting under the authority of a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that let the EPA enforce the Clean Air Act, including heavy carbon emissions.

Inhofe disputed this, saying that while the Supreme Court said the EPA had the discretion to “decide whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare,” it did not authorize draconian regulations based on flawed science, regulations that would impose an economy-crushing hidden tax on businesses, energy producers and American consumers.

Source: SPPI

SPPI has published a new Book, The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment.

The full book can be purchased here: http://www.valeslake.com/bookmart.htm

Global warming alarmists tell us the horrors of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Skeptics tell us that it’s not all that bad. Finally, there is a non-apologetic treatise that tells us of the benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment in an alphabetical format. This extensively referenced 360-page color book by Drs. Idso and Idso tells us of fifty-five benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, and belongs in the library of all who study CO2 and climate.

That’s 55 benefits. Fifty-five!

The benefits are not squeezed out of computer models, but are based on real data. CO2, after all, is plant food, absolutely necessary for all of the biosphere.