Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Drawing down more lies

Another day, another insult to journalism. Self-promoting troll summa cum laude of Alabama university economics from Texas, Drew Thornley has written an article at the Heartland Institute exhibiting a textbook case of he-said-she-said reporting.

The structure of the article goes as follows:
Introduction: Lie. Lie. Lie. Falsehood. Lie. No references of any kind.

"Blah, blah, blah," observed Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). "Trash. Garbage. Filth. Junk. Penguin poo."

"Unsourced data. False statistics. Lie. Rubbish. Hogwash," Horner added.

"Dipsy-doodle. Intestinal leakage. Oily vomit. Sour piss," Horner continued. "Bears eat toxic sludge."

Recap on bogus statistics. According to the European Environmental Agency, selected quote. Ignore all other information.

Smear. Lie. Bonejaw.

"Allegation. Religion. Slander," noted Myron Ebell, CEI's director of energy and global warming policy.

"Lie. False consequences," Ebell said. "Dumb-fool. Racoon droppings. Poisoned mind."

CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis agreed. "Junk. Garbage. The usual jackass," said Lewis. "Hogwash."

Lewis continued, "One key lie that should be stressed. Die-off. Extinction of human life."
The rumour the article was actually trying to spread was: "Carbon Dioxide Emissions Fall in U.S., Rise in Europe", and therefore there is no connection between having policies to reduce greenhouse emissions and letting it all hang out and stink.

I can find no source anywhere on the internet for their figures, though it's easy to find loads to contradict everything mentioned, including many references to the extremely high levels in absolute terms released by US Americans themselves.

While there has been no decline in US carbon emissions until now, so the premise for which the free market dogmatists are attempting to take credit for is false, I will be happy to lay any future decline in US carbon emissions at their door for the coming year. This decline will be the consequence of a recession triggered by a mass criminal mismanagement of the financial system by their deregulated friends.

We can't actually pretend this square-jawed, coiffured, summa cum lauden Texan, Drew Thornley, is any kind of journalist. He probably doesn't know of the existance of documents like the Human Development Report 2007/2008, until Myron Ebell tells him about it after having scanned through every red inked chart and table to find and quote the one case out of thousands of screaming numbers that appear to go his way.

Facts. They're not good for extremists.

Earlier, this same guy wrote that Computer Models Fail to Predict Climate, an article which ignored ten years of climate change denialism on his side, citing an already discredited study (what's an error bound?) co-authored by tobacco cancer denialist S. Fred Singer.

Need we say more?

Included below is a good lecture entitled "The American Denial of Global Warming" (schedule here). Enjoy.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Calling all mother bears



A TV clip from yesterday's Morning Joe on NBC which you can watch here exposes the mental sickness that is the heart of the anti-environmental movement. It's a man thing, about cruelty and death, and Myron Ebell happens to be a man according to latest reports.

The message is: It's going take women acting up to stop this madness, since it's only the children of future generations who will suffer the consequences, and men don't care, whatever they may say.

For men, life is about screwing around and having a good time acting like idiots. If this happens to cause widespread irreparable damage to all life on Earth, well, that adds to the thrill.

"I chose not to choose life. I chose something else."

The problem with this game is everything gets hurt, and it's not going to heal. The force that causes females to fight with untold violence when their cubs are immanently threatened must awake. This is no time to hold back.

Read on.
Newsgirl: Meanwhile a federal judge is rejecting President Bush's attempt to bypass environmental law by allowing the navy to train with potentially harmful sonar technology. Environmentalists argue that the sonars will harm endangered whales...

Scarborough: Good lord. Yeah, national security. Whales, they're beautiful. Shamu, go. I'm a little more concerned about my national security, but go on.

Newsgirl: In other environmental news, scientists say global warming could trigger potential catastrophic consequences all at a quicker pace than previously thought. (I think you should care about that.) Researchers cite...

Scarborough: I'm sorry, but I was just thinking: really nice, but did Al Gore write the news this morning?

Newsgirl: No.

Scarborough: And coming up next: Little cubs.

Newsgirl: I'm not done.

Scarborough: Little polar bear cubs in the North Pole are being separated from their mothers by ice floe breaks.

Newsgirl: Researchers cite the small shifts in nature that may bring out widespread effects on ice shelves possibly melting completely in 300 years.

Scarborough: Thank you so much. It has been an inconvenient...

Newsgirl: A government report says that the nation's most treasured monuments are vulnerable to lax security.

Another stupid white guy: Because of environmental problems.

Newsgirl: Yes, the report says that police are cutting corners putting sites just like the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty at risk.

Scarborough: We're going to go to break now. We'll talk about that later. There is global warming, especially in this room. Thank you so much for an Inconvenient Newscast. We really appreciate it. When we come back, more environmental news, I'm sure. Let's go to Jack who will be lecturing me on global warming also.

Weathergirl: [newsgirl] Mika, just for the record, I really enjoyed your environmentally themed newscast. I thought it was a breath of fresh air. It sounds like your co-host may be taking the fresh air that they currently breath for granted. Back to you.

Scarborough: I guess so, I guess so.

Newsgirl: We have important things to talk about, and he again tried to silence me.

Scarborough: I'll watch An Inconvenient Truth in the movie theatres rather than have it in my newscast.