"Be Worried, Be Very Worried"
I'm taking a break from doing my taxes, so I can bash the mainstream media yet again. I'm just in that kind of mood.
Here it is, April 14, 2006, and it looks like we're on the verge of a second Holocaust. The Iranian madman, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the scariest shit today that's probably been said since the Wannsee Conference.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.
"Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation," Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. "The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."
. . .
He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: "Believe that Palestine will be freed soon."
"The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat" to the Middle East, he added. "Its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations."
You may remember that in October, Ahmadinejad said that Israel
should be wiped off the map. He's now replaced "should" with "will."
That should make everybody worried.
On this day after Passover, this Good Friday, this Easter weekend, I think we all should take some time out to pray very hard. Pray for Israel. Pray for ourselves. And pray for civilization. Because there is a madman out there who wants to finish the job Hitler started.
And I don't want to hear about how it's all rhetoric, and we shouldn't worry because the Iranians would be foolish to attack Israel. Just listen to the man, and then try to tell me he doesn't want to be known as the guy that killed all the Jews.
This is also the week we found out that they've successfully enriched uranium, by the way.
And yet... and yet! Time magazine tells us we should be worrying about global warming. Even though scientists don't even agree whether it exists. Talk about sexed-up intelligence reports! Talk about fake threats! Those guys need to pull their heads out of their asses and smell their own shit.
Ahmadinejad has been going crazy since at least October of last year, and do you know how many cover stories Time has done about Iran?
Zero.
In fact, Time has not done a cover story even remotely dealing with Iran since 1991, when the title piece was called: "Ollie North Tells His Story: Reagan Knew Everything."
Just out of curiosity, do you know how many times global warming has made the cover of Time since 1987? If you guessed nine (twice in '87, once in '88, twice in '92, and then again in 2001, 2002, 2005 and most recently this month), you were right.
This is not surprising. Time is after all the news organization who brought us "the whistleblowers" as persons of the year. But I think it's "time" they actually started paying attention to what's really important, and putting it on their cover.
Or not. Either way, I won't be buying that rag.
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1
Nine cover stories on global warming? I guessed twenty one.
Seriously, who DOES buy Time Magazine? Or Newsweek and US News for that matter. Not only do they not have any credibility but they are anachronisms.
I'm surprised those dinosaurs are still gasping for air.
Posted by: Thomas Galvin at April 14, 2006 09:28 PM (KjUHH)
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re: Iran
I've been reading rumors of a coming October Surprise that President Bush has up his sleeve.
I don't think we can wait.
Posted by: Cameron at April 14, 2006 10:41 PM (yvK17)
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Fortunately more and more are discovering that they don't need to rely on rags like Time. Elites often cite the increased diversity in media as the cause of an ever deepening divide between the political aisles but I think talk radio, cable T.V. and the internet have given us what we knew was possible all along: An opposing veiw.
Unfortunately there are still tons 'o voters that really don't take an interest at all, and someday they may outnumber the rest of us.
Posted by: Mike C. at April 15, 2006 03:35 AM (y6n8O)
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They already do outnumber the rest of us, but when the wolf is at the door, they can focus for short periods.
Once upon a time, way back in high school, I'd read all of the news mags every week. I slaked off over time until my military years when I found them wanting, and rejected them altogether. There always were opposing views, National Review for one was started to be the lone anti-communist voice in a very dark time.
But this is the natural progression of all things. Like the oak, 100 years growing, 100 years in strength, 100 years in decline. Whittaker Chambers edited The World section of Time during WWII, and in 1947 Joe Kennedy bought a place for JFK on the cover of time from Henry Luce for $75,000, and that was real money then.
Now the old media is in the hands of the poseurs who climb bureaucracies, not a group of original thinkers. Life is good. Were I to choose an enemy, he'd be foolish and blind. Have another drink Ted.
Posted by: Casca at April 15, 2006 04:25 AM (2gORp)
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Two thumbs up on the last sentence, Casca. I'm just glad I had already swallowed my coffee.
I can't criticize Mass too much for electing that bozo and Mr Heinz Kerry, because my state elected Mrs Bill and Chuckles Schumer...
I can't wait to retire and leave.
Posted by: MarkD at April 15, 2006 04:45 AM (X9njN)
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Iran is insane, heck they all are insane. They sure live to make threats. We are going to have to deal with these vile people soon in Iran.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a "permanent threat" to the Middle East that will "soon" be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened."
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 15, 2006 09:00 AM (tj1zH)
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>And yet... and yet! Time magazine tells us we should be worrying about global warming. Even though scientists don't even agree whether it exists.
An overwhelming number of climatologists agree that human activities is having adverse effects on Earth's climate. Just this week, Sir David King, the UK's chief scientist said the Earth is likely to experience a temperature rise of at least 3C. About the only people arguing against climate change are those who've accepted money from fossil fuel companies for slanted 'analyses'.
> Talk about sexed-up intelligence reports! Talk about fake threats!
Please provide evidence of falsification by climatologists of the climate disruption threat.
> Those guys need to pull their heads out of their asses and smell their own shit.
This type of talk is far beneath you; you've led us to expect clear, rational thinking, not cheap shot trashtalk.
Posted by: will at April 15, 2006 05:12 PM (h7Ciu)
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"In this case, many studies ("the Hockey Team") outside of Mann et. al. 1998 have come to the same conclusions about the climate of the last 1000 years and the current anomaly."
Will, I was following your argument until here. What do you mean by "the climate of the last 1000 years"? What's the "anomaly?" Is the anomaly, the current "warming?" Also, Earth's climate has varied over the past 1000 years. As you might recall, it is certain that Europe's climate changed fairly dramatically from the 10th century to the present. Of course, this variance in climate doesn't fit well into the current template that man is responsible for climate change. So, there have been attempts (in my opinion more political than scientific) to try and argue that there really was not a "Little Ice Age" from the 14th to the 19th century and, of course, no true "Medieval Climate Optimum" that preceeded it. The argument being that, if these periods did exist, they were confined to Europe and were not a global phenomenon.
Posted by: Blu at April 17, 2006 08:55 AM (j8oa6)
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Well Blu,
Why is it difficult to incorporate into a "civilisation influenced global warming hypothesis" the concept of local climate change? It has been obvious that there have been serious but local changes in many places but now there appears to be enough world wide data to support a global change that probably is being influenced by industrialization.
I have been very skeptical of the Global Warming people for many years.
I have always looked at the amount of time, about 25%, of the last 500,000 years that the earth was NOT in an ice age and felt the cycle was way too long for scientists, whose data, other than core and tree ring, really only goes back 2-3 hundred years, could grasp the forces or see the details that influence this very slow cycle. All of the history of man on this planet has occured after the last major ice age
Look at this chart-
http://www.iceagenow.com/Pacemaker.htm
Iceages seem to be about 11.5 thousand years apart and warming peaks about every 100,000 years. The question is not is the earth warming but are the effects of industrialzation pushing it a bit higher and faster.
If the last 7000 years are positioned on the graph it is impossible to see small but very important pertubations of temperture change. Since A relativly small change is capable of producing catastrophic changes to our way of life; even if there is a slight upward influence due to CO2 and other effuents to the natural warming trend of the last 50K years, it is foolhardy, given the enormity of the consequences, to ignore it.
Posted by: strawman at April 17, 2006 01:48 PM (o/gnC)
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Yeah, if the climate keeps warming, those damned Danes will establish viable colonies on Greenland,and rape and pilage Europe, Newfoundland, and north-central Asia. Fortunately their quest for expansion and global conquest will turn into a rout, when they encounter a strain of giant reptiles far better suited for the coming tropical environs.
Posted by: Jasen at April 17, 2006 08:01 PM (+0hWL)
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> Will, I was following your argument until here. What do you mean by "the climate of the last 1000 years"? What's the "anomaly?" Is the anomaly, the current "warming?"
Take a quick look at the references I provided, which cover all of this in appropriate detail.
> Also, Earth's climate has varied over the past 1000 years. As you might recall, it is certain that Europe's climate changed fairly dramatically from the 10th century to the present.
That depends upon what you mean by dramatic; do you have any numbers in mind? What are the sources, and what were the data points they were derived from? How are these compared to the larger aggregate of data sets described in the references I provided?
> Of course, this variance in climate doesn't fit well into the current template that man is responsible for climate change.
Until you answer the points above, this is simply an unsupported assertion.
> So, there have been attempts (in my opinion more political than scientific) to try and argue that there really was not a "Little Ice Age" from the 14th to the 19th century and, of course, no true "Medieval Climate Optimum" that preceeded it.
One should rely on a critical examination of the data first and foremost. I haven't seen any arguments against a Little Ice Age or Medieval Climate Optimum, but I have seen debunking of arguments that said those were significant in light of the current warming.
> The argument being that, if these periods did exist, they were confined to Europe and were not a global phenomenon.
Whose arguments are you referring to?
Posted by: will at April 24, 2006 06:23 AM (GzvlQ)
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