I have long been opposed to ethanol (and many bio-fuels) on many grounds, not the least of which is that I feel it immoral to use foodstuffs to create fuel while millions starve in the world.

Many others have noted that as the population increases, along with standards of living in the developing world, that the most basic resources will become scarce, including the two most basic: Food and Water.

I will leave speculation on the coming water wars for another time, as shortages of food are far more pressing today.

I had not given much thought to food shortages in the past, as, like most Americans, I was content that the Breadbasket of the World (in which I include the US and Canada) could easily produce enough to feed not only the North America, but the world. 

Snow fell today in Baghdad for the first time in at least 100 years.  This Flickr photo of a man and his dog by myndtheef is from somewhere in Iraq.  Have a great weekend, all.

I believe that one reason for my decline in posting over the last few months, besides time constraints due to business, is that so many things that I want to say, have already been said, and far more eloquently, by others.  Case in point is a Two-fer from Big Lizards last week:

“The Courage to Do Nothing”

And here’s a nice round-up of forbidden knowledge from the Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK, 100%), ranking member (and former chairman) of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW). Inhofe is a national treasure, one of the few Republicans not only willing to stand up against the greedy socialists at the UN (many Republicans do that), but also willing to put in the time to educate himself on the actual science involved.

Here’s a bit of news that you probably won’t be reading on the front page of the New York Times…

The scare over global warming, and our politicians’ response to it, is becoming ever more bizarre. On the one hand we have the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming up with yet another of its notoriously politicised reports, hyping up the scare by claiming that world surface temperatures have been higher in 11 of the past 12 years (1995-2006) than ever previously recorded.

Driest-ever autumn to follow wettest summer

Damian Lanigan: The eco-nihilists

Britain’s worst polluters

This carefully ignores the latest US satellite figures showing temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

Leave it to politicians to turn politicized theory into public policy. In Tuesday’s Seattle Times we find this lovely gem…

Builders in Seattle would be required to identify the impact of large projects on climate change if legislation by City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck wins approval.

…

Steinbrueck said if his legislation passes, any proposal to rebuild the Alaskan Way Viaduct would have to identify how many single-occupant vehicle trips would be added. Steinbrueck opposes an elevated replacement.

Now we see the TRUE motive. The Seattle City Council has threatened in the past to do everything they can to obstruct and slow roll the rebuilding of the Alaskan Way Viaduct if they didn’t get their tunnel option. Now they’re going to use the rather dubious excuse of “global warming” to aid them in that noble cause.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct has been a “public safety emergency” for more than six years now.

She was an activist of Polish Underground and Polish anti-Holocaust resistance in Warsaw, a courageous woman who was responsible for saving the lives of 2500 children in the brutality of Hitler's regime.

During the early 1940's was a Catholic social worker who had gone into the Warsaw ghetto to rescue Jewish kids who were destined either to starve there, or die in death camps. She would sneak the kids past Nazi guards, sometimes hiding them in body bags, or would provide them with false documents - inevitably getting them to Polish families for adoption, or hiding them in convents or orphanages. She also made a list of the children's real names, put them in a jar and buried them, so that some day she could dig them up and find the kids to tell them their true names. 

The battle between reason and hysteria continues unabated.  I hear daily the same tired misrepresentations, emotional appeals and useless calls for change.

The fact is that the truth has not really slowed the Man caused Global Warming Alarmists as much as it has caused the skeptics to fight a little harder for rationality before we spiral into a morass of knee jerk policies.

In gravely narrated special on TV yesterday the fact that China has passed us as the leading CO2 producer, and India is not long in joining them was mentioned.

You may recall that India and China were exempted from the Kyoto Treaty, and it was their exemption that caused Al Gore to note that the treaty was useless without their inclusion.

And now we see the result of that exemption, they have continued unabated to become the worlds leading befoulers.

I typically ignore the writings of newspaper columnists in the pacific northwest, as they tend to be as predictable as they are boring.  Every once in awhile, though, a piece just cries out for a response.

So, for reference, I give you Joel Connelly, from the Seattle PI, and his piece "Deniers of Global Warming harm us".

Remember my post about CODE WORDS put forth from the left?  Well, DENIERS of Global Warming is replacing Sceptics.  Why? Read on…

From the outset, Mr. Conelly repeats that canard that "THE WORLD'S scientists near consensus on human causes of climate change".  Even if this statement were true, it is necessary to point out that not all the worlds scientists are Climatologists, or in any field remotely related to the the study of earths climate now, or in the past.  One might, in the Connelly world, take a Podiatrists view on a Brain Tumor as authoritative. 

It should come as no surprise that conservatives and liberals are wired differently, have different priorities and think differently.

As public service, I am going to do a week long series detailing some of the fundamental differences in how they think.

As a quick disclaimer, as in all things any time you resort to generalities you risk finding and offending the exceptions.  It will be pointed out to me that not all Liberals think this way, or that way, and the same will go for the Conservatives.

I readily admit that.  This is not a scientific study, and I make not claim about anything beyond this:  These observations are my own, based on the people I see locally, in the media and on the national stage.  I humbly defer to any exception you may note.

Todays lesson is about Patriots and Traitors.  First, let's agree on the simple definitions:

In her most recent book, Ann Coulter makes the case for Liberalism as a religion to Liberals.  While I admit the notion is inflammatory, her argument is interesting in that she equates the practices and elements of a religion to the practices of liberals and the elements of liberalism, and she makes a good parallel.

As she says:

"Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion.'"

Now in fairness, a lot of that could be equally directed at any ideology, but in the case of liberals she is correct that liberalism contains several elements common to religion, particularly in the environmental arena.