More of the same

The BBC interviews James Lovelock and I think it's even better than yesterday's version from the Guardian.

You've got to have standards

On the Global Warming front, James Lovelock opines about global warming and human stupidity.

This is quite ironic from a guy who also thinks that science has standards.

Read it and weep.

Fiction and non-Fiction

Fantastic news over at MediaBistro.com:

The pink line there is Cartoon Network's rank among the cable networks. The blue lines are FoxNews and the next highest-rated news network after Fox in each category.

For the record, more people watch Cartoon Network than CNN or MSNBC.

I love that.

You're Fired

Trump says "take away Gore's Nobel Prize."

I love it.

Death from below

You totally needed to know this.

Your seat belt is useless as a floatation device when it's in the belly of a 40-meter long Dino-Shark. Just another reason that people need Jesus: we are helpless to defend against MegaShark.

Yeah, Ok. OK. AWRIGHT AWREADY!

HT:Phil Johnson

The Weekly Standard on the Global Warming melt-down.(PDF version)

The body blows to the climate campaign did not end with the Climategate emails. The IPCC—which has produced four omnibus assessments of climate science since 1992—has issued several embarrassing retractions from its most recent 2007 report, starting with the claim that Himalayan glaciers were in danger of melting as soon as 2035. That such an outlandish claim would be so readily accepted is a sign of the credulity of the climate campaign and the media: Even if extreme global warming occurred over the next century, the one genuine scientific study available estimated that the huge ice fields of the Himalayas would take more than 300 years to melt—a prediction any beginning chemistry student could confirm with a calculator. (The actual evidence is mixed: Some Himalayan glaciers are currently expanding.)

And then this, of course:

The ruckus about “weather is not climate” exposes the greatest problem of the climate campaign. Al Gore and his band of brothers have been happy to point to any weather anomaly—cold winters, warm winters, in-between winters​—as proof of climate change. But the climate campaigners cannot name one weather pattern or event that would be inconsistent with their theory. Pretty convenient when your theory works in only one direction.

OK? Sheesh -- it's a nice day out. Does it have to be a political statement?

The other side of a day like today

The world doesn't turn into gumdrops and soda pop just becuase the sun comes out.

This report from Yahoo!/AFP reports from the UN that 96 million women are "missing" in Asia.

Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have caused a severe gender imbalance in Asia, and the problem is worsening despite rapid economic growth in the region, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report said.

The actual UN report is listed here. And the stunning thing is that this is reported by the Un of all orgnaizations in the world. here's how they describe it:

The problem of “missing girls” ―in which more boys are born than girls, as girl fetuses are presumably aborted, and women die from health and nutrition neglect— is actually growing. Birth gender disparity is greatest in East Asia, where 119 boys are born for every 100 girls.

China and India together account for more than 85 million of the nearly 100 million “missing” women estimated to have died from discriminatory treatment in health care, nutrition access or pure neglect ―or because they were never born in the first place, the Report found.

A tenth of women here report being assaulted by their partners, and a majority of women who do work —up to 85 percent of South Asia’s working women― are engaged in unstable low-end work in the informal economy.

Now, here's something the UN folks don't want to tell you: the population in Asia is still growing. For example, in China the population growth rate is 0.6%, compared to in the US which has a growth rate of 0.98% -- but that means that in the US, our population grows by about 2 million people every year -- and China grows by about 8 million every year.

Here's why I point that out: the problem outlined here by the UN is not that discrimination against women is the cause of economic distress, and it's not causing depopulation (yet). Moreover, improved economic conditions and medical treatment have not diminished this trend.

Somehow women aren't treated well just because there's more money around.

I wonder why.

Briefly today

I don't have any global warming updates today as winter is over and the true believers in global warming don't have to fight off doubt since they aren't freezing to death. And 6 months too late to be trendy, my wife and youngest precious cargo have apparently developed Swine Flu -- or at least "type A" influenza. So I spend my weekend dispensing Tamiflu and doing laundry. I'm also feeling a little run down m'self, so no handshakes or hugs for the next 10 days if you know what's good for you.

All of that to say this: life is full of ordinary things. The seasons change. We get sick, and God willing, we get better because we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and there are doctors in our neck of the woods, and God is also gracious. We have friends who care about what's happening to us. The sun comes out and our pets and our children like to wiggle and romp in the warm, bright light.

And sometimes, we forget how brilliant all of that is. I don't have a short story or a parable about that right now -- I'm just at work, doing the things God has ordained will ordinarily get the job done. And I think I love it.

I hope some of that rubs off on your today, too.

Human interest

This is just a story about a guy who had a rare video game in a stack in his basement, until you get to this part:

"After taxes and tithing, the rest of our part will be going to a retirement account that has been decimated by the dot-com bomb, 9/11, and the recent market problems. Not very sexy, but needed." He's also going to auction off the rest of his Nintendo paraphernalia.

I like it just because they reported what he said. That he did it or would bring it up is pretty good, too -- regardless of your view of "tithing".

What's at stake

Y'all.

Here's the latest op-ed from Al Gore in the NYT (single-page printer-ready format) (and here's the PDF in case the link goes dead).

Here's the money quote from the end of the essay:

Simultaneously, changes in America’s political system — including the replacement of newspapers and magazines by television as the dominant medium of communication — conferred powerful advantages on wealthy advocates of unrestrained markets and weakened advocates of legal and regulatory reforms. Some news media organizations now present showmen masquerading as political thinkers who package hatred and divisiveness as entertainment. And as in times past, that has proved to be a potent drug in the veins of the body politic. Their most consistent theme is to label as “socialist” any proposal to reform exploitive behavior in the marketplace.

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. After all has been said and so little done, the truth about the climate crisis — inconvenient as ever — must still be faced.

I hope none of you are wondering at this point why I have been obsessed with blogging about this anymore. Plainly, this is about which instrument of human redemption we're going to invest our faith.

UPDATED: HotAir.com published a FANTASTIC piece on a report from the UK blasting the ClimateGate perpetrators from East Anglia CRU. Here's the original report.