The WSJ's James Taranto is Full of More Horse Manure Than a Stable of Mares

In a rather convoluted post on the climate change science email scandal this past wednesday, Taranto writes the following:

[NY Times Environmental Reporter Andrew] Revkin reports that the "latest peer-reviewed science" shows that "the case for climate change as a serious risk to human affairs" is "clear, despite recent firestorms over some data sets and scientists' actions."

What we now know about the "peer review" process in this field indicates that this is a predetermined conclusion. Revkin misleads his readers by describing it as if it were a real finding.

It should be considered profound that someone who writes the Wall Street Journal Online's "best of the web" today column could write something either this manipulative, or this inane.

Which is it? Does Taranto know? Does he know why this statement of his is inane? Or is he so driven by lopsided ideological zeal that he can't see it?

"What we know" about the peer review process in this field does not indicate that this is a predetermined conclusion.  It indicates that it was potentially a predetermined conclusion with respect to a few scientists in this field. 

There's a pretty big difference there.  

But then, logic is not Taranto's strong suit. Not by a long shot.  No wonder why he writes an incredibly partisan blog for the Wall Street Journal.  Decent logical skills -- as opposed to the ability to convince others of same (others who simply want their beliefs reinforced, and to be made to think tha they are thinking without actually doing so) -- would get in the way of that, as well as in the Wall Street Journal's editorial philosophy. 

Here's some more from the same column:

"Along similar lines is this comment from Michael Tomasky, the American Washington correspondent of London's Guardian:

One hope I had for the Obama era was that maybe we'd all grow up and have quasi-substantive debates about these things. Well, if anything, this "conversation" in America has become even more immature and batty than it was before. It ain't Barack's fault. But there's very little hope in America of having a serious conversation about anything.

Tomasky has a point, and here's a good example of a statement that is immature in both tone and substance: "It ain't Barack's fault."

Exactly.  Because Obama is doing so much to quash substantive debate!  And it's particularly because of Obama that we don't have any, any more.  

Question for the Wall Street Journal Editors:   What kind of crack is Taranto smoking?  Oh wait, the ridiculously partisan crack of far right wing pre determined belief driven ideology.

Health Care Reform's Individual Mandate -- More Impositions on Freedom

Here is a good debate between David Rivkin and Lee Casey, on the one hand, and Professor Jack Balkin, on the other, on the constitutionality of an individual federal health care mandate.

It's a good debate, however, only because there is considerable question as to whether this is good policy.  Not all things that might be theoretically constitutional, as that document is today intepreted, are good ideas.

Balkin is right. The mandate likely passes constitutional muster. But it is still an imposition on freedom.

Moreoever, without reforming health insurance, all it does is serve as a boon to health insurance companies, and will likely do little to address the underlying problem of excessive cost while forcing people to pay for private coverage that is often cost inefficient. 

The more money that goes to for private health insurance rather than directly into a consumers own health care, the more money that is being expended that is not furthering actual health care or its improvement. An individual mandate then in turn dictates this to citizens, telling them in essence that they must pay money to a for profit entity in order to provide themselves -- not others -- with insurance coverage.

In short, it's a terrible idea. And it's intrusive. And it's invasive.  And it's yet another indirect handout to a large corporate lobbying concern, one that here is far more responsible for the excessive health care costs that are driving the perceived need for reform in the first place, than for mitigating them.

Sarah Palin Wrote That? Yeah, Sure, Right

We have to confess. Our first reaction upon hearing the sentence was -- until the part about the beer bottle in the dogs jaw (which was just bad) -- that it was pretty good.  And we were suprised that Palin had written it. To say the least.

Of course, it turns out, Palin didn't write it.  So who were these ruse's exactly, who pounced all over this Obama as Palin prose?  Readers in a forum? Big deal.  What else is new.   

But Althouse, rabid right wing conservative, bizarrely writes that she liked the quote better after she found out that Obama had (ostensibly) written it.  Which makes no sense, unless she thought that a small apartment with intermittent heat and a downstairs buzzer that didn't work, right up the street from a garage made a lot more sense for Obama's past than Alaska Frontier Palin.

But the grandest part of Althouse's "objectivity" is her announcement that Palin's book and Obama's are almost exactly the same.

Goldberg might -- though she might have needed a few dozen hours rather than 60 seconds -- have been better served pointing out all the hypocrisies, inconsistencies, manipulations and misrepresentations in Palin's work, rather than suggesting, and looking somewhat elitist in so doing, that comparing Palin's book to Obama's "Dreams of My Father," was like comparing "Twilight" to "War and Peace."  Of course, what Althouse says in response is hilarious. Unintentionally. And it's too bad Goldberg was cut off right after going on about "nuance," which seems also to be besides the point.  (Maybe she is techinically right. But Political books are not art shows or depth of character studies. They are to promote and make a point -- ether a valid one, or ones -- or deceptive, misleading, ones. Focusing on how and why noted political books accomplished one or the other, rather than "nuance," is a lot more productive and relevant. But we don't know what else she said. Althouse cut off the tape at that moment.)

The Far Right and Instapundit's Manipulative Obsession with "ClimateGate"

Instapundit's obsession with climate gate was noted here.

Now Instapundit is citing articles (as part of its own pajamas TV site, no less) that call for a delay in climate talks, because of what is otherwise a fairly irrelevant academic scandal. And the article that it links to is truly profound:

Let's just start with the bulk of the first sentence:

Because, apparently, the “dog ate the homework” – more specifically the temperature data on which the whole global warming “can of beans” depends.

How much of this is outright lying, and how much is outright, abject ignorance?  It is hard to say.

But that is what happens when interpretation of facts and events is driven by ideology, rather than vice versa.  A largely irrelevant scientific scandal ensues, and in the world of ideology, all other substance must now fly out the window as well. How convenient. This way we can continue to avoid dealing with climate change!

And of course, to Instapundit,and this souce that Reynolds cites, it means that all of the temperature data on which the whole global warming 'can of beans' depends is now meaningless.

It is hard to accurately describe such idiocy with mere words.

Read the article. Yes, only those at East Anglia had the magic grail of data, with the rest of the world powerless to figure things out, and now, completely data empty. And thus with that data questioned, requoting out of context from an inane Times online article,  "It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years."

No, it doesn't. And in fact it doesn't mean anything of the sort.  And to claim otherwise is abjectly poor journalism, and even worse science. (What it does mean is that academics are not able to check East Anglia calculations that show a temperature rise over the past 150 years.)

But would one expect anything less from an Instapundit article citing an article on its own home grown pajamas TV.  No shocker that this Instapundit site had no less than 120 million visitors in the last 12 month period measured.

The most manipulative and ideology reinforcing crap floats to the top.

More BS from Instapundit Insta-BS

Also from Instapundit, November 28:

GATEWAY PUNDIT: 4000 Patriots Join James O’Keefe At St. Louis Tea Party Protest.

Posted at 8:41 pm by Glenn Reynolds

So if you go to a tea party protest, that makes you a "patriot"?  Most of those at tea party "events" have a hard time even articulating what it is they are protesting about. But it means automatic qualification as a "Patriot"?

Yes, in the misleading, BS world of Instapundit.

Patriotism: To the far right today and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit -- doing everything one can to undermine and attack the president of the United States when it is a Democrat, and not even questioning or criticizing the president or party in power when it is the party the far right voted for. Another way to put it is love not of country but of government, when it is the government one voted for, and knee jerk blind, hatred for government and its leaders, when it is not the government one has voted for.

Word to America. That is not Patriotism. That is very slow, creeping facism.

Once Again Insta-BS Cites a Source that has no Idea what they are Talking About

Here is the inane Instapundit post from earlier today:

MANCESSION: The Jobless Gender Gap: Unemployment for men is growing at a much faster pace than for women. “Imagine the outcry if women amounted to roughly three in four lost jobs in this recession.”

This was not by accident, but a matter of Administration policy in response to interest-group pressure.

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 9:33 pm.

The second link is to this article in the Weekly Standard, which offers no proof whatsoever of its claim. But proof was never relevant to a site like Instapundit: Which wants to believe, and so leaps at any circumstantial evidence, and then cites it as if it is proof.

Maybe the Weekly Standard article makes a good point. Or maybe t is complete horse malarkey. (Both appear routinely in the Weekly standard, with an edge to the latter.)  The point is, there is really no way of knowing, since almost nothing is supported.

In Weekly Standard world: Proposal was for construction stimulus jobs.  Women's groups protested. scant information regarding actual evidence or other considerations is actually provided in the article.  But, what does that matter, since ultimate stimulus package did not emphasize construction jobs, this was then without a doubt a result of women groups protesting!

In Weekly Standard World, if you usually order a chocolate milkshake with your fries, but today you order a strawberry one and ask for a hurricane, and a hurricane comes, then ordering strawberry milkshakes causes hurricanes!

But one thing that the Weekly Standard article does assert that is determinable without additional evidence, one way or another, is the following claim by author Christina Hoff Sommers, so it is no shock that the article appears to be another case of manipulation. That claim -- keep in mind as you read it that the AEI is focused above all else on economics -- is this:

The whole idea of economic stimulus is to use government spending to put idle factors of production back to work.

No, it's not. And when it is, it's a bad idea.  Or a bad expression of what economic stimulus -- good or bad idea iself -- is all about.

What it is all about is increasing aggregate demand in the economy, which has lagged below that of aggregate supply.  That may have the effect of putting idle production back to work -- or, if that idle production has lagged due to competition, replacing it with more efficient competitors or alternatives. But the idea of stimulus is to stimulate demand and spur production and renew job growth, but not necessarily by simply propping up sectors or production capacities that are inefficient and thus have idle capacity.  This AEI "economist" confuses the purpose of such policy, with a potential and often resultant effect.

That's lazy analysis, but one wouldn't expect Instapundit to rely upon anything less.   As long as it throws a theory out there -- right or wrong, without backing it up -- that's against the Obama administration, that's good enough for Instapundit, your one stop shop for Insta BS.

Sarah Palin and Political Coverage: A Wonderfully Bad Question, and an Accurate, but Disturbing, Answer

Here is the on the one hand inane, and on the other hand relevant, question that politics daily asked a handful of conventional political "experts:"

Will [former Alaska Governor) Sarah Palin ever be president?

Here is the answer: It depends. 

What does it depend upon?  How dumb our country becomes. 

We are becoming increasingly dumber. Hopefully, this is a trend that can be arrested, and reversed; but there are not legitimate signs of this yet.  If we become dumb enough, Sarah Palin will be president. If we don't, she won't.

This is not to be glib and say that she will be president if we are "dumb" enough to elect her. But it is to say that if our country continues to get dumber and dumber when it comes to politics, policy, and rhetoric, being led increasingly more by the latter, than by fact, while being manipulated or led by increasing ideological belief that we are in fact being led more by fact, than Sarah Palin will be become president.

Another way of putting it, is if we continue to listen to things like this intensely ideologically driven and abjectively subjective and often manipulative site, then she will.

The Earth Has Continued to Warm the Past 10 Years, Not Cool

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer.  Graphs here. 

The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years.  And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

Not only has the last decade been the warmest decade on record, but the "ten warmest years on record have all occurred in the last eleven years."
And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.  

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun.  Heat drives climate.  Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

John McCain's "Objectivity" on Sarah Palin

McCain called Palin his "soul mate" last year shortly after meeting her -- an unfortunate choice of words given how radically right, and radically bereft of correct information, Palin was.

This was the same Palin, whom the media is quick to point out, that supported the Bridge to Nowhere initially while telling voters she "stood up to it," while not so quick to point out that she "told" voters she "stood up to that bridge to nowhere and told them no!," repeatedly, night after night after night even after the lie was dubunked, in wildly passionate crescendoing, booming eloquent voice, when in fact she remained a supporter of the project even after becoming Governor, and only "turned against" the project when it became a national symbol of pork waste (McCain even contemptously cited it several times on the primary campaign trail even while Palin was still in favor of it), and Congress cut off all further funding for the project.

That's just the tip of the iceberg on Palin.

But pointing these things out -- which still is not sufficiently done as we continue to listen to this person's opinion as if he is an expert when she is nothing of the sort is apparently being unfair to Palin, according to John McCain.

"Attacks" upon Palin are apparently unsettling to her former running mate and "soul mate," who himself, in order to get the nomination, radically shifted to the right, and nevertheless still became the media protected savior of integrity in politics and the untouchable expert on foreign policy and military strategy matters.

Maybe there are some crass attacks out there on Palin which are not non personal, fact based assessments of this person's constant assertions to the American populace. But even if so, this recent assertion by McCain belies a huge disconnect between the Palin issue, and everything else:

"I’m entertained and sometimes a little angry when I see this constant, vicious attacks by people on the left," McCain said of Palin during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren.

"’I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years that I’ve been in politics," McCain continued, "the viciousness and the personalization of the attacks on Sarah Palin."

McCain's "never seen anything like it" in all the years he has been in politics? Really?

He probably didn't see anything like it -- in fact, far worse than it -- in 2008, when Palin herself engaged in a constant and wildly misleading campaign against his political opponent, Barack Obama, repeatedly questioning his integrity, calling him "unfit to lead" as a result of critical facts she got wrong and he got right, questioning his patriotism that even conservatives were calling racially tinged, very insinuatingly said he "doesn't see America like other Americans" in concert with suggesting he was connected to terrorists, suggested that he was two faced, and, as CNN puts it, intoxicated by his own voice; called Obama's actions "appalling" and "atrocious" while wholly mischaracterizing Obama's votes on the issue, and completely lying about the subject matter of a remark that Obama had made in order to falsely make him look horrible on it.

Or maybe McCain just hated Obama too, so much so that such viciousness then, simply did not exist?

The politico article linked to above also points out that McCain "did not mention that some of the harshest attacks against the former Alaska governor have come from former members of his own presidential campaign." Wonder why that is.

And speaking of viciousness and personalization unlike any he has ever seen, here is McCain in 1998:

Q:"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?"
A: "Because her father is Janet Reno."

McCain said that. Not a late night stand up comic. And still it would have been inappropriate. What leading politician has said anything that downright meanspirited on a personal, not policy or factual, level about Palin? McCain didn't only attack the personal looks of the female attorney general, in an extraordinarily disparaging way, he attacked an innocent kid. Publicly.

Calling all Teapots. Get your black out. Seriously.

"Belief" in "Science"

A post earlier today noted some of the science on climate change, and the far right ideologically driven dogma of popular (fake instant credibility building)"law professor" sites such as Intapundit and Althouse.

Conveniently, Althouse writes yesterday:  "I'm having a really hard time believing scientists lately."

Perhaps tipping her hand, Althouse then immediately asserts, as if to put the (rare) objective reader at ease, and further show the (common) subjective reader how "balanced" and "rational" she is, that "I'm a thorough believer in science."

This is an interesting statement. Science is the study and understanding of the physical world around us. In other words, lacking any other dimensional construct, objective reality. So Althouse has to assert that she is a "believer" in this, as if it's a choice? As in one can choose not to "believe" in "science," aka, observable learnings of our physical world. Give her extra credit for being, in her words, a "believer" in this.

Of course, driven by ideological dogma (which sometimes conflicts with science -- or objective, non partian physical reality) and with sources like this (also written by lawyers) -- which she cites in this same piece regarding her "skepticism rubbed raw" by climategate -- it is easy for Althouse to be "skeptical of scientists" as opposed to being skeptical of questionable motives and scientific data, for valid, non political objective reason. That is, a source which mangles the facts through grandiose omission, and comission.

Yes, just read powerline; the aerosol affect of SO2 largely offsets the heat trapping propensities of drastically increasing greenhouse gas concentrations!! (Decades -- or less -- from now, these same ideologically driven groups are going to be saying the same thing that was said on Iraq "no one knew nor could have contemplated how complex the Iraq dynamic was going to be," and be completely oblivious to the fact that they repeatedly fought non partisan objective scientific reality tooth and nail.)

Actually, if we all just turn our air conditioning up a little more, this may offset most of the negative effects of climate change too! Note that such a seemingly moronic statement is only slighly more inane than the claim in the grotesquely negligent piece of abject trash "Superfreakonomics" that solar panels, because they are "black," don't help because they don't absorb much of the energy of the sun and the rest is "reradiated as heat."

Yes, just read powerline. The basic long standing scientific fact that greenhouse gases trap heat (and in almost exclusive concentrations are the main reason why the surface of venus is over 800 degrees Fahrenheit) may not be a myth after all, but S02 particulates block sunlight and so cause cooling! You see, science is such a beautiful thing; if one consumes twenty seven Big Macs a day, but takes a sip of ice water, one will lose weight or remain relatively constant, since Big Macs put on calories, but the body must burn calories in order to bring the ice water up to temperature!

You see how easy science is? Natural SO2 pollution, you dopes. It offsets atmospheric heat trapping gases! Powerline is just grand. And what a grasp of science it has. Just like Althouse.

Althouse, Knee Jerk, Follows Wildly Misleading Ideological Dogma, Once Again

We wrote yesterday about the rather grand disparity between the underlying science facts of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the so called "climategate" scandal.

And we wrote today about the ideologically driven illogic of the overly popular law professor blog, Althouse (In some ways mirroring the even more popular, law professor blog, Instapundit. See here, here, here, and here.)

Not suprisingly, here is Althouse's saracastic take today on this same "climategate scandal:"

That solemn editorial about global warming looks pretty silly...

... with all those comments about Climategate.

Newspapers just aren't what they used to be, when the readers can instantly talk back.

Of course Althouse's link is to the same "Newsbusters" column cited by her major promoter, Instapundit.
As for the fact that "newspapers aren't what they used to be, when readers can instantly talk back," Althouse is correct, but not exactly how she intended.  Now, newspapers can be filled with all sorts of wildly erroneous assertions in comments; unchecked, untested, unchallenged. And relied upon by Newsbusters for its own analysis, which then in turn is relied upon, knee jerk dogma style, by Instapundit, and Althouse, etc.
 
From that original post, let's recap:  

So here is one of the quotes provided to show how alert, informed readers are pushing back in this "hilariously bizarre situation" [note, this is the exact same link that Althouse smugly links to in her Post today to show that newpapers can now be criticized and "corrected" online by readers] where "climategate" is not being given enough "mention" by the media (emphasis added):

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, [temperatures] have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

So the article is all about how some scientists may have tried to push some selective data years back, and how it is bizarre that the media largely ignores this as it examines the actual scientific issue of increasing heat trapping gas concentrations in our atmosphere. And it does this how?  By citing things that are simply made up, and diametrically incorrect.  [Nowithstanding the fact that the hacked emails did little to contradict global warming, as opposed to a shred of potential data in support of it amongst a sea flood of otherwise correlative information.]

Here are some facts, which to Newsbusters -- even in a piece with the express purpose of making much ado about some purposefully selected facts (by trying to quash contradictory data) years ago --apparently otherwise have less relevancy than "climategate."

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer.  Graphs here. 
The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years.  And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.  

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun.  Heat drives climate.  Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

But that's okay.  To a smug Althouse, Newspapers are "not like what they used to be" because now readers will take them to task prompted by their own ideological leanings, instead.  And this is only making newspapers better and better, as they increasingly bend to criticism and mischaracterization from the far right, prompted on by such highly misleading sites as Instapundit, and Althouse.

Just Another Example: Palin the Manipulative Rhetoric King

A post from earlier today suggested that Sarah Palin:

...is not well informed, to say the least; is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven; has a fanastic gift for rhetoric; and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at it, in terms of convincing herself, and many others.

Almost all of these qualities is on display in this article in Politico, as Palin plays the Obama doesn't like or respect our troops card. It almost completely misstates Obama's positions and communications, and is otherwise also complete horsesh*t.

(Note that the phrase "obviously," was not put in front of the phrase "complete horsesh*t," because if it was that obvious, the media and others would not continue to pay attention to this person who is so caught up in her strangely twisted view of the world that she probably wouldn't recognize an objective fact if it jumped up and bit her in the nose.)

But it is a view that has a lot of appeal.  The sort of high rhetoric appeal that extreme authoritarian states tend to take, where the lack of constant national chauvenistic sentiment is taken as a sign of weakness or insult.  (See Fox news, for example, where "apparently they think the art of diplomacy is to get other countries to hate us for no good reason, and to pass up sensible opportunities to build rapore and communication with no attendant loss to our own interests or goals.")

Here, Palin madly spins the latter, very likely without ever even realizing she is doing so:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.

“There’s been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe.”

“They’re making sacrifices,” said Palin, who visited the Army base at Fort Bragg on Monday as part of her ongoing book tour. “They’re putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world. I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them.”

Last year, Republican columnist Kathleeen Parker wrote that "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

And Palin just added a bunch more dollars to the till with her typical, ill informed and wildly misleading exploitation of troop politics.

The Politico article also notes that Palin "urged Obama to adopt the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal by adding 40,000 U.S. troops to the conflict in Afghanistan."

Which is good. Because Palin is such an expert on Afghanistan:

During the Vice Presidential Debate last Autumn, Palin claimed that “Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.“ Later, because of this, she called him “unfit to lead."

Here Palin lied to the American people about what Obama had stated, and was either outright pathological about what was going on in Afghanistan;, or, more likely, had nary a clue. Obama’s point wasn't, what Palin told the American people it was — that we were essentially in Afghanistan to kill civilians, but that our over reliance upon air raids was resulting in too many collateral casualties. This was not morally acceptable, nor strategically sound.

Back in mid August, 2007, when Obama had made the point that Palin looked straight into the eyes of America, and called “reckless, reckless, and untrue,” not only were too many civilians being killed by collateral damage, but more civilians were being killed unintentionally by U.S. forces collaterally, than were being killed by insurgents.

Nor was this a big secret (except, of course, perhaps to ex-Alaskan Governors who despite having a glib and adept rhetorical tongue, could not name a single source (see minute 3:30) of news and information that they read).

Eight days prior to Obama’s statement, Foreign Service Correspondent Pamela Constable had even reported on the Washington Post's Sunday front page that “a mounting toll of civilian casualties, mostly in bombing raids… have inflamed public opinion, turned many Afghans against the foreign forces, and further strained [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai’s credibility.”

Just not in Palin's world, where this reality does not exist, and all those innocent civilians dying must be like a fairy tale that we tell children; like the abominable snowman or something.

What makes Palin's profoundly ignorant assessment on Afghanistan even more mind blowing -- and mindblowing that Politico is giving Palin's "opinion" on what we should do with respect to the vexing Afghanistan challenge right now to the American people as if she is some sort of expert -- is that a month before the vice presidential debate "reckless, reckless,and untrue" Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologized for the numerous civilian casualties in Afghanistan — the same casualties that according to Afghanistan expert Sarah Palin, were not occurring. And the day before that, Senior Afghanistan Commander David McKiernan (whom Palin identified in the debate as "McClellan") noted that an over reliance upon air power, due to a shortage in troop levels, was responsible for the rise in civilian casualties — the same civilian casualties that according to “Wasilla main street reality” Palin, were not occurring.

But now today America should listen to Palin's opinion on Afghanistan, because she is "popular;" and while she gratuitously and manipulatively proselytizes on America's troops, at that -- using them as pawns in her carefully crafted, seemingly subtle, yet wildly misleading, highly charged and emotionally manipulative attacks upon our current Commander in Chief.

Vintage Palin (for more on the blogger in the clip shown, see the recent post referred to at the outset). If BS were currency, she could bail out Wall Street herself. And our media just keeps putting her in the spotlight. And she just keeps getting away with it.

The Delusion of Rhetoric

Here is an example of the type of radically illogical "logic" that the far right wing (and very popular) Ann Althouse engages in. 

Here is another example on a substantive topic which Althouse, as a law professor, should be able to reasonably assess, where Althouse can't even correctly read the Washington Post article that she relies upon, much less assess the situation correctly. (Note, Althouse's Post was considerably altered, and shortened, after this critique of it went up; we are sure coincidentally.) Here Althouse asserts that Barack Obama called the Cambridge police stupid.  Obama did not. He said the police (clearly referring to the arresting officers) acted stupidly. This might seem like a minor miscue, but for a law professor it is anything but. 

Here, on Monday, is an example of a new form of game playing that passes for commentary these days.

Among some of the less radically far right comments to this highly manipulative post, are the following

1.  "I think people are starting to 'get' Ann. One person said she is masterful in picking out holes in arguments, and provoking others to lose it when they become frustrated in not being able to defend their positions."

Actually, Althouse is masterful at manipulating the issue from an ideological perspective, without having to bother with facts, or plain, objective non partisan reason, that cuts against it.This is what makes her wildly popular, among those with potentially similar ideological bent (just as it does Sarah Palin.)

2.   "Ann's a tease of sorts. She knows how to phrase things in such a manner as to call into question someone else's motives and actions in an enticing manner."
.
Actually, Althouse knows how to phrase things in such a manner so as to turn inside out, and outside in.

Consider what she does in this very same post.

In an earlier post, which famous blogger Andrew Sullivan noted here, Althouse took one of the weaker examples of Sarah Palin "lies" by Sullivan -- Palin's claim that the "only" flag that she has in her office is the Israeli flag -- and jumped all over it.

It was a pretty weak example of a lie.  But consider the logic that Althouse uses to address it:

What's odd is his definition of a lie. If I said I was just wearing jeans to a party, you wouldn't have exposed me as a liar if I turned up wearing a shirt and shoes as well. In fact, you'd sound like a dork — or, with good enough delivery, a comedian — if you said, "You liar. You said you were just wearing jeans!"

Except for one very big thing.  "Just wearing jeans" in terms of "going out" attire refers to the outfit, not just the jeans, and everyone knows this. Just as the statement that "I am going over" X's house does not mean that one is literally flying over X's house,and everyone knows this.

The statement "the only flag I have in my office" has no such connotation, whatsoever.  None.

Althouse is a law professor, and yet, apparently, could not see this distinction.  Or chose not to.

But then notice how Althouse failed to respond to Sullivan's point, which was to "debunk" what she bitterly complained of. Instead, she fantasized about just such a list of "lies" by Obama; but of course did not produce one.  And if and when Althouse does -- though it is likely this won't happen -- one can be certain it will be filled with errors, misrepresentations, and manipulations. (And in the event Althouse does produce such a list, this statement that it "will be filled with errors, misrepresentations, and manipulations" will be referred back to for support. One might wonder how this can be so comfortably predicted. Easy: it is the largely unwitting modus operandus of those who are patently driven by intense ideology.  Also, to believe that Palin and Obama engage in disseminating falsity on anywhere near the same level, or even in the same ball park, is either to be driven by such blind ideology, or to know very little of the facts of which Palin speaks.)

Should Sullivan be calling Palin clinically delusional? No, but then that's not the point of Althouse's post, either. 

What Sullivan may not get here is that people are partisanally driven -- the more ideologically so, the more they tend to filter facts to suit their own beliefs. Althouse is a far more educated version of this. Palin is not well informed, to say the least, is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven, has a fanastic gift for rhetoric, and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things, while grasping (albeit often in wildly distorted fashion) a few underlying fundamental truths, or half truths. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at this, in terms of convincing herself, and many others. 

Glenn Beck is clinically delusional.  Palin is not. And Sullivan should probably stay away from pop psychology.

Althouse, in the meantime, should follow her own fairly ironic statement in this same Post on Sullivan that she is "into pursuing the truth."  If she was, she would be a bit more concerned about why a good portion of the country is widly supportive of a women that knows very little about America and is often wildly misleading, rather than concerning herself with word and manipulative game playing over Republican Sullivan's list giving: And thus into finding out the truth or fiction of such assertions (and many other misrepresentations by Palin that Sullivan missed), rather than simply fantasizing the same over her professed deeply ingrained political enemy, Barack Obama.

But Perhaps Althouse is somewhat of a closet Palin supporter herself. After all, a careful read of her wildly popular blog aptly illustrates that with a gift for logical twisting in support of ideology, she is not all that different from her.

National Review's the Corner Out of Touch with Reality on Context

This post provides a pretty apt illustration of the types of mental and logical contortions that are engaged in by the pursuit of "fact" to fit pre conceived ideological purpose, rather than the purpose of fact in order to determine rational direction and response.

Yesterday, Johan Goldberg at the Corner blog at National Review Online suggests the following, regarding "climategate" 2009:

If these were internal Exxon-Mobil e-mails, the trial lawyers would be racing out the door with only one pants-leg filled and every Green press flack would be demanding this lead the evening news and front every newspaper above the fold. If similar e-mails came from the RNC showing racism or homophobia, the New York Times would not demur in the name of privacy, it would call for the GOP to go into federal receivership.

Really?

Well, no.

Instapundit Sources: When Facts Get in the Way, Make up Opposite Ones

Insta BS is all gleeful (and yesterday alone had no less than six other posts) about the largely irrelevant "climategate" scandal, that showed some old data was potentially compromised to support a determined position.

Jeez, where have we heard that before. It's only happened thousands of times with respect to climate change data by anti climate interests. But does a single instance of the latter prove that climate change therefore is as Al Gore claims? 

Of course not.  Nor is the fact of some old perhaps manipulated data scrunching by some concerned climate scientists very relevant to the opposite; that is, it has no bearing on the actual issue and the science and facts underlying it. 

So here is one of the quotes provided to show how alert, informed readers are pushing back in this "hilariously bizarre situation" where "climategate" is not being given enough "mention" by the media (emphasis added):

You are kidding me. Over the weekend we learned a server at East Anglia was hacked and emails were distributed that contradict Global Warming. In addition, they discuss how to overstate the findings in order to further their agenda. Yet, The Chronicle still blindlly pushes the Global Warming agenda. If that is not enough, [temperatures] have not risen over the last ten years. In fact, they have dropped slightly. How can any reader take a publication seriously when they refuse to report facts.

So the article is all about how some scientists may have tried to push some selective data years back, and how it is bizarre that the media largely ignores this as it examines the actual scientific issue of increasing heat trapping gas concentrations in our atmosphere. And it does this how?  By citing things that are simply made up, and diametrically incorrect.

Here are some facts, which to Newsbusters -- even in a piece with the express purpose of making much ado about some purposefully selected facts (by trying to quash contradictory data) years ago --apparently otherwise have less relevancy than "climategate."

The last ten years have not gotten cooler, but warmer.  Graphs here. 

The two hottest years on record; 2005, and 2007. Both in the last ten years.  And from a geologic perspective, it is remarkably accelerated, as would be expected -- with some lag and general mid range variance -- from dramatically increased greenhouse gas concentration levels.

From Bloomberg News:

In 2003, 62 percent of the ocean’s ice cover was older, thicker ice, with 38 percent in seasonal layers, the researchers found. Five years later, 68 percent of the ice cap was made up of seasonal ice.

That is, in five years, the amount of non seasonal, constant ice was reduced by about half.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):, the world’s ocean surface temperature just this past summer was "the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August."

More importantly, "breaking heat records in water is more ominous as a sign of global warming than breaking temperature marks on land.”

Additionally, over the past ten years, "daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States":

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

"Since the 1997 international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated — beyond some of the grimmest of warnings made back then."

And so on, ad infinitum.

But all this really does not matter that much. What does matter is the basic science, unpolluted by desire, ideological bent, politics, or fear of misplaced economic implications due to the glaring need for smarter energy development and agricultural practices.  

Heat trapping gases make life as we know it on earth possible; without it the earth would be a largely lifeless ball of ice slowly circling the sun.  Heat drives climate.  Atmospheric concentrations of heat trapping gases (aka "greenhouse gases") are rising dramatically, and from a geologic perspective, at lightning speed, due to specific and easily identifiable anthropomorphic activities.

But none of that matters in the world of predetermined ideology.  Even though some scientists who acted improperly a while back really has almost no relevance to the scientific issue, data or question and challenge at hand.  As Reuters noted two days ago:

The issue of scientists behaving badly does nothing to invalidate the science,” said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, LLC in Washington. “This does nothing to the U.S. climate bill, which will be decided mostly by economic forces, not environmental ones.”

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, said the release of the e-mails will be remembered mostly as as embarrassment to the researchers.

“It shows that the process of science is not always pristine,” said Leiserowitz. “But there’s no smoking gun in the e-mails from what I’ve seen.”

Leiserowitz, who is a social scientist, said the e-mails would provide fodder for the 2 to 3 percent of the general public that are hard-core climate change doubters. “For that small group it is like meat to the wolves.”

No doubt.

Strange Freudian Slip on Pox News?

Courtesy of here:

At about 10:57 [EST] during a piece about NASA auctioning off some surplus equipment, ["Fox News"]Miami correspondent Phil Keating mistakenly referred to an Airstream camper van as an "Astroglide."

Here is a dodge Airstream camper van.

Here is what Astroglide is.

See the difference? 

One glides down the road. The other glides, um.....  

Palin's Not What?

Yes, there is some nice end of world action footage, and a half clever SNL Spoof of this and Palin; but catch the assertion here that "Palin is not really a political figure."

She just ran for Vice President. She was just governor of a State. She is constantly talked about in mainstream media political discussions. She is considered one of a handful of frontrunners of the GOP Political Party. She addresses policy and political issues publicly. She just wrote a book which is about her and politics.

But she's "not really a political figure." Of course not.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pox "News" -- Finally Someone Gets It

November 19, Jeff Bercovici, the Daily Finance:

Every news organization makes mistakes. But when Fox News makes mistakes, they seem to tilt in a suspiciously consistent direction, favoring Republicans and conservatives over Democrats and liberals.

No doubt.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg of what Fox engages in.

Even so, this pattern of ideologically-slanted errors illustrates the danger of packaging a news operation around a core of opinion programming. As long as Fox News is a network by and for conservatives, the people who produce its shows -- even its "objective" shows -- are going to see in the news what they expect to see rather than what it really is.

What happens is that Fox tends to present those things which those with a certain predisposed idea, or "belief" would want presented as news, and it tends to present them in the way that those with a certain predisposed idea or "belief" would want them presented. By reaffirming what one wants to think, that same audience actually views Fox as "fair and balanced" because it helps present to them their own world view, or the one that they think that they want to have. By posing as a "News" station, rather than as outright advocacy, Fox is far more effective in this regard than if it were openly an advocacy channel, because its viewers are led to believe that it is really a news organization giving them "all sides" and relevant facts, and letting viewers come to their own conclusions, when it is constantly manipulating them by presenting advocacy couched as "news."

As if this were not enough, many of Fox's major stalwarts almost constantly engage in misleading and erroneous information, to further this same end.

Sarcasm on Bush - More Insta BS

More manipulation and ideologically driven blindness from the highly influential and widely read "Insta BS" site -- more formally known as Instapundit.

Facing the reality of the Bush Administration's misunderstanding of the issues, and the facts, would require heavily ideologically driven sites like Instapundit to reconsider their own belief driven orientation. Or at least consider the possibility that belief is helping to shape interpretation of the facts, more so than the idea that facts are helping to shape belief.

One easy way to ignore the realities of the Bush Administration's heavily authoritarian, overly secretive, fiscally reckless, globally myopic and misfocused, constitutionally impinging, corporate favoring, environmentally destructive tenure is to mock the claim to any ties between the conditions that we face today, and the approaches and policies of the Bush Administration for most of this decade.

Thus today we see this little sardonic gem from Instapundit:

November 19, 2009

I BLAME THE FAILED POLICIES OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Kellogg Co. warns of nationwide Eggo shortage.
Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 10:20 am

For the record, the "Eggo" Shortage is due to "interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them." One plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a n...historic amounts of rain in the area. At another plant, its largest, several production lines are closed down for repairs.

Perhaps Reynold's creepy sarcasm is based on the idea that bad storms played a role;one of the things that leading scientists have been saying for over two decades is that increasing the concentration of heat trapping molecules in the atmosphere will lead to more volatile weather patterns; and of course, the Bush Administration, as well as Congress while it was in office, largely ignored the issue of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Or perhaps it is based on pure air. 

Either way, it evinces an unwillingness to look objectively at facts which conflict with a predetermined, and largely ideological mindset. And one of the best ways to do this is to find ways to mock what in fact needs to be looked at, and see in others the very practices that are being engaged in by oneself.

As an example of the latter, Glenn Reynold's on Instapundit also put up this extraordinary, and rather ironic, post:

DAVID HARSANYI ON SARAH PALIN: “All you haters out there force me to root for her.” “The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to non-existent congressional districts — which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one’s nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.”

Apart from capturing the over reliance upon crude and misleading stereotpyes, and one or two other points, Harsanyi's article in the Denver Post is sheer idiocy, from the very beginning, to the very end.  It is no wonder that Instapundit linked to it.

As for the "impelled" to write about Palin point, instapundit is promoting a Denver Post column which actually makes the argument that because Andrew Sullivan, who is not "CNN" but a blogger, chooses to write about Palin rather than a stimulus funding accouting snafu, must be unable to see things right in front of his nose.

This is a specious stretch, to say the least. And it was promoted by non other than a law professsor. (But then here's an even stronger example of Instapundit's law professor logic.)

So by this line of  reasoning one could bring up the many hundreds of key stories that famous blogger Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit chooses not to write on each day, and thus argue this shows that Reynold's can not see what is in front of his nose, every day, hour after hour after hour? After all, we are not talking about one story here, but a constant stream of them, completely missed, by Instapundit. Every day. And Instapundit has dozens of little posts, so it does act more like a news source, than the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who is a true blogger in the sense that he writes columns, and covers more limited, select topics, rather than the scattershot approach that Instapundit takes. And still Instapundit puts up almost nothing on this site which cuts against its excessive ideological orientation. 

(With respect to the second part of this extraordinary post by Instanpundit, a reference to Megan McArdle writing yesterday in the Atlantic on this same general topic, see here.)

Sure We Can Condemn It While Supporting It

A Column in the National Review Online a few months ago called the claim that Obama was not an American citizen (the "birther" argument) "lunacy," and then proceeded nevertheless to spend most of the rest of that column supporting the legitimacy of that very same "lunacy" claim. 

Here is Megan McArdle, writing in the Atlantic, yesterday: 

Y’all well know that I really don’t like Sarah Palin. In fact, more than one of you has yelled at me about this. And I find the whole schtick about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her really grating. That’s why I really wish the media wouldn’t act like, well, a bunch of elitist hooligans who are out to get her.

In other words, it is ridiculous to hear about how the media is just a bunch of elitist hooligans out to get her, but the media, is, well, really just a bunch of elitist hooligans out to get her. Or, in McArdle's (weak) defense, only "act" like it.

The rest of McArdle's piece, very one sidedly, also omits a great deal of highly pertinent information. 

It's Goal is to "Mislead Citizens of West Virginia into Supporting its Outrageously Destructive Product"

We are clearly at the time where it simply does not make sense to proceed forward with fossil fuel reliance. The only real issue is how best to switch over our energy sources while maximizing overall economic growth by virtue of the industry and services attendant to new energy source development and implementation.

But those addicted to coal -- namely, the far right wing who see doing anything sensible wit respect to the environment or otherwise trying to lessen our destructive tendencies, as "meddling" and of course the coal industry itself, can't yet seem to see this glaringly lopsided, non partisan, non ideologically based reality.

And so they fight it, tooth and nail.

The latest comes from the "Friends of Coal," whose mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens  about the coal industry."  In the sometimes ideologically driven, and occassionally exaggerated or dismissive, but otherwise extraordinarily well researched and highly informative blog Climate Progress.org, physicist Joe Romm writes about how Friends of Coal is selling coal to children. 

Kind of trying to inspire them to make a pact with the devil early on, so to speak, while they are young and impressionable?

And why not. "Coal is cheap,"as it tells them, and coal "puts people to work," as it tells them (as does cleaning up disasters, but that point is unmentioned). And it tells them in user friendly fun filled coloring books, too!

Why not indoctrinate kids on the beauty of coal. After all, it's not like we are greatly increasing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, which trap heat, or that heat drives climate, or that this is largely a result of fossil fuel use, or that mining coal often destroys entire mountain tops, poisons watersheds and often entire mini ecosystems, or that the burning of coal itself gives off a wonderful laundy list of other airborne pollutants (including being predominantly responsible for mercury toxicity in consumers of large game fish like tuna, shark, halibut and swordfish).

It's not like any of that stuff is true, so why not let Friends of Coal indoctrinate our kids on how great coal is!

Maybe next year friends of lead can sponsor children related school functions, scholarships, events (all of which Friends of Coal has done) and distribute coloring books showing kids how wonderful lead is. "Lead is cheap. Lead is heavy. This makes great fishing sinkers. Lead is our friend!" Maybe the year after that, we can start with Arsenic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we "need coal." Like we need a rotten tooth in order to eat, as opposed to building a replacement tooth or otherwise fixing it.

We need energy. Energy is all around us. By continuing to foolishly rely upon coal, we only undermine the necessary market motivations needed to move us productively into the development and implementation of job generating -- but not profoundly polluting, environmentaly destructive, or flat out dumb -- cleaner energy sources.