So I'm watching Scrubs, a comedy show about doctors on Comedy Central. And the real asshole doctor is giving the old black nurse shit about believing in god and her "everything happens for a reason" bullshit. And of course she gets the last laugh. Her explanation for believing in god, after seeing children die and bad things happening to good people, is that if she didn't believe there was a reason for it, she wouldn't be able to cope with life.

So, the moral of the story is, religious people can't deal with reality. I realize it was a comedy show, but it's a theme that's been repeated on so many shows it's not even funny.

That's why some people believe, others are just stupid. And yet others pretend to believe in order to scam true believers.

Polar Defense Project Deletes The Tough Questions

Originally posted at Watts Up With That.

It's funny. The concept of Global Warming caused by human industrial CO2 activity has a huge following. Countries have been making fiscal policy based on this chimera for a number of years now, yet the evidence just hasn't materialized. Al Gore will tell you "the science is settled", David Suzuki will want to put you in jail for crimes against humanity for denying what he believes, yet there's no evidence that CO2 is driving anything related to climate.

There are plenty of hypotheses, pseudo theories, falsified data (Mann and Hansen, et al), and hyperbole (Hollywood activists, Al Gore, David Suzuki, Greenpeace, WWF, ad nauseum, ad infinitum). But where are the facts? Where is the smoking gun?

There are actually things that humans do which affect regional weather and climate, such as land use changes, soot deposition, etc, but there just isn't any proof that the small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is capable of driving anything. All of the ice core and borehole data proxies show that CO2 almost always follows temperature, whether it's rising or falling. Sometimes temperature will rise while CO2 falls, and vice versa. There just isn't a causal link established by any stretch of the imagination, at least no rational person's imagination.

Of course, people will say "What about the melting ice caps? Are you blind??" Well, this story is a perfect example of how little we know (or how little journalists and activists know), and how soon we forget. We've lost our long-term memory, like we've received a collective blow to the head. Which is why I've decided to start calling AGW proponents "Climate Amnesiacs". They look at a very small snapshot in time, call anything that happens "unprecedented", and declare a catastrophe.

Which brings us to this story. Anthony Watts very eloquently and succinctly shows us that the Pugh "mission" was a farce from the beginning. None of the claims made by the PDF or Pugh are true. It was a publicity stunt, nothing more, and an abject failure.

We know there has been less Arctic sea ice in the relatively recent past than there is now. We know global temperatures have been higher in the more distant past than now (Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, etc). We also know that the average global climate over the last few million years has been that of Ice Ages, or Glacials. The Interglacials, one of which we're experiencing now, are relatively short. We shouldn't worry about a few tenths of a degree of warming, if it's really even "unprecedented", but we SHOULD GREATLY worry about the next ice age. We know it's going to happen, we just don't know when.

By allowing environMENTALists to de-industrialize us back to the stone age we will be woefully unprepared for even small drops in temperature, as the recent plunge has shown those whose blinders aren't on.

Lest you come to the opinion that I'm against any kind of conservation or environmental awareness, I am not. I'm all for renewable energy sources, as long as they're done practically and rationally, not shoehorned into place when they aren't ready and can't handle the load. If you think CO2 is bad, can you imagine what trillions of solar panels and wind turbines would do to the Earth's albedo and wind patterns? Now THAT would be Anthropogenic Climate Change.

Revenant

Expert called in amid fears for O' Connell Bridge

Sunday, 31 August 2008

Concerns are being expressed about the future of Dublin's O'Connell Bridge.

An independent expert has been called in to examine the landmark over fears it is falling apart because of global warming.

Dublin City Council insists the bridge is structurally sound after routine repairs last week.

The National Conservation and Heritage Group believe higher tides caused by climate change are eroding the bridge's structure and may have dangerously weakened its foundations.

That's the entire text of the article. It's hard to just quote part of it without posting a vast majority.

So this is what passes for journalism in Ireland? All I see is a fear mongering, gratuitous statement without corroboration.

Who's the "expert"? Where is a link to a study showing significantly rising tides?

This is really all there is to the "Climate Change" hype, no substance, only fear mongering and money-making.

I'm not a Republican, and I'm not a Democrat. I'm not affiliated with any political party.

But when it comes to moral proselytizing, the Republicans and their media apologists really take the cake with stupidity and hypocrisy.

Case in Point: Republican Vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Palin and Republicans in general deem it necessary to tell you what you can and cannot do sexually. They rail against abortion, even in the case of rape or maternal health issues. They tell us homosexuals are the root of all evil. And of course they think teen pregnancy is a bad thing, since it basically means sex out of wedlock.

So, perhaps a Republican can tell me why Sarah Palin is a good role model with a pregnant teen daughter? The daughter in question is 17 and about to have her baby. So there's a good chance she actually had sex when she was 16, maybe even before that. And where's her husband? Is she not married? You mean the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee will have a bastard grandchild?? How can this be?

Now, I know John McCain didn't used to be your average Repub, but recently he's been leaning further and further right, especially with his endorsement of Falwell's Liberty University, a bane of rational thought everywhere. And of course his irrational support for a failed policy in Iraq. But he had to know that choosing a running mate with such obvious "moral" skeletons in her closet would be a detriment. I guess his judgement has lapsed in recent years, to say the least.

And the media apologists, O'Reilly in particular. He'll call other people pinheads when their teens get pregnant, but when it's a Republican, oh, they're just picking on them because they're Republicans, riiiight. O'Reilly is one of the biggest pinheads in existence, right up there with Limbaugh and Olbermann (on the other side of the fence).

It will be interesting to see how much support McCain/Palin gets from the religious idiots out there. Will they be hypocrites too? Well, we already know the answer to that one, don't we.

Idiots

Revenant

Here I am on a business trip in Chattanooga Tennessee.

Flipping through channels, I come across several religious shows. Same old crap. Moronic-sounding preachers and healers screaming and yelling inane bullshit. And the audiences are yelling and screaming and singing back. I really don't get it. I can't think of any other place I'd least like to be than one of those idiotic events. The collective gullibility is simply mind-numbing. I'm reminded of Hitler and his massive sycophantic rallies, hordes of people feeding his mania and flocking to his cause.

And to top it all off, people give the preachers and fake healers money. I'd also say that 9 times out of 10 the people who give this money probably don't have two dollar bills to rub together. But Jeezus will help them, oh yes, help them empty their wallets and stay on welfare. Wonderful philosophy.

Someone once said that the definition of stupidity is constantly doing the same thing and expecting a different result. So how many times will these people go, scream and yell, give all their money, and no Jeezus?

Idiots

Revenant