Damn that global warming!

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Temperatures crashed to Arctic levels Tuesday as a severe cold wave rolled across the upper Midwest on the heels of yet another snowstorm, closing schools and making most people think twice before going outside. Early Wednesday, the cold front swept into New York, sending temperatures falling from the 30s a day before to single digits or below zero. It hit 8 below in Massena, on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, with the wind chill making it feel like minus 25 degrees.

In Michigan, temperatures Wednesday morning ranged from minus 17 at Ironwood in the western Upper Peninsula to 10 degrees in the southwestern Lower Peninsula and 12 on Beaver Island. Ironwood earlier recorded a temperature of minus 23.

Thermometers read single digits early in the day as far south as Kansas and Missouri, where some areas warmed only into the teens by midday.

Don't they realize that the world is about to turn into a giant ball of flame!

And in other news, water is wet

EL PASO - Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.

The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

The JOE 2008 report also predicted the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union, the defeat of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces by Mao Zedong and warned that continuing hyperinflation in Weimer Germany could open the door for an extremest political party to make significant gains in the upcoming Reichstag elections.

Seriously, Mexico is a basket case and its collapse would be very bad for the US. However the new Obama administration has a plan to prevent a catastrophic implosion of the Mexican government.

By allowing absolutely unrestricted immigration into the US, along with generous welfare benefits, the percentage of Mexico's population resident in the United States will rise from 10%, where it is today, to anywhere between 40 and 55 percent. This should relieve the pressure on Mexico's internal institutions and prevent any kind of civil unrest.

Of course many of the problems plaguing Mexico would flow into the United States with such massive immigration however plans to deal with that are already in place. Plans for the withdrawal of US military forces from the Middle East and other points around the world so that they can be stationed around the nation and put down domestic upheavals have already been drawn up and only await the new president's signature on the evening of Jan. 21.

Truly the United States can look forward to change.

Tonight's Music

Presented without comment.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

After NBC canceled me "for life" on Monday -- until seven or eight hours later when the ban was splashed across the top of The Drudge Report, forcing a red-faced NBC to withdraw the ban -- an NBC insider told The Drudge Report: "We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," explaining that "it's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

In point of fact, I'm not particularly critical of Obama in my new book. I'm critical of the media for behaving like a protection racket for Obama rather than the constitutionally protected guardians of our liberty that they claim to be. So I think what the NBC insider meant to say is that NBC is not interested in anyone so highly critical of NBC right now. It's such a downer, it's just not the time, and it's not what their audience wants right now, either.

In fact, I think my book is the downer America has been waiting for! So herewith, I present an excerpt from the smash new book out this week, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America":

When the Obama family materialized, the media was seized by a mass psychosis that hadn't been witnessed since Beatlemania. OK! magazine raved that the Obamas "are such an all-American family that they almost make the Brady Bunch look dysfunctional." Yes, who can forget the madcap episode when the Bradys' wacky preacher tells them the government created AIDS to kill blacks!

Still gushing, OK! magazine's crack journalists reported: "Mom goes to bake sales, dad balances the checkbook, and the girls love Harry Potter" -- and then the whole family goes to a racist huckster who shouts, "God damn America!"

Months before network anchors were interrogating vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the intricacies of foreign policy, here is how NBC's Brian Williams mercilessly grilled presidential candidate Barack Obama: "What was it like for you last night, the part we couldn't see, the flight to St. Paul with your wife, knowing what was awaiting?"

Twisting the knife he had just plunged into Obama, Williams followed up with what has come to be known as a "gotcha" question: "And you had to be thinking of your mother and your father." Sarah Palin was memorizing the last six kings of Swaziland for her media interviews, but Obama only needed to say something nice about his parents to be considered presidential material.

The media's fawning over Obama knew no bounds, and yet, in the midst of the most incredible media conspiracy to turn this jug-eared clodhopper into some combination of Winston Churchill and a young Elvis, you were being a bore if you mentioned the liberal media. Oh surely we've exploded that old chestnut. ... Look! Look, Obama just lit up another Marlboro! Geez, does smoking make you look cool, or what! Yeah, Obama!.

The claim that there's no such thing as a left wing press is a patent lie said to enrage conservatives. Newspapers read like the press under Kim Jung Il, which, outside of a police state, looks foolish. The prose is straight out of The Daily Worker, full of triumphal rhetoric with implicit exclamation points. Still, their chanted slogans fill your brain, like one of those bad songs you can't stop humming.

There is no other explanation for the embarrassing paeans to Obama's "eloquence." His speeches were a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark card bromides. It seemed only a matter of time before Obama would slip and tell a crowd what a special Dad it had always been to him.

The major theme of Obama's campaign was the audacity of his running for president. He titled his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, "The Audacity of Hope" –- named after a sermon given by his spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, whom we were not allowed to mention without being accused of playing dirty tricks. (Rejected speech titles from sermons by Rev. Wright included "God Damn America!," "The U.S. of K.K.A." and "The Racist United States of America.")

What is so audacious about announcing that you're running for president? Every U.S. Senator has run for president or is currently thinking about running for president. Dennis Kucinich ran for president. Lyndon LaRouche used to run for president constantly.

But the media were giddy over their latest crush. Even when Obama broke a pledge and rejected public financing for his campaign -- an issue more dear to The New York Times than even gay marriage -- the Times led the article on Obama's broken pledge with his excuse. "Citing the specter of attacks from independent groups on the right," the Times article began, "Sen. Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would opt out of the public financing system for the general election."

So he had to break his pledge because he was a victim of the Republican Attack Machine. When Obama broke his word and voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill (FISA), the Times' editorial began: We are shocked and dismayed by Sen. Obama's vote on ... oh, who are we kidding? We can't stay mad at this guy! Isn't he just adorable? Couldn't you just eat him up with a spoon? Is he looking at me? Ohmigod, I think he's looking at me!!!! Couldn't you just die?

It has ever been thus.

As usual Miss Ann uses humor to tell truth and the truth is scary in this case. The functioning of a democratic society depends upon the free press serving as a watchdog against government abuse of power. When the press voluntarily becomes what it is forced to become in totalitarian societies liberty cannot survive.

It is extremely fortunate for the American people that at just the time that the traditional media (otherwise known as the mainstream media) gleefully abandoned its last tattered vestige of credibility in favor of what is at best a schoolgirl crush and at worst pure pagan idolatry for a done-nothing, knows-nothing corrupt Marxist Chicago machine politician - solely because of the color of his skin - that the new media, centered on talk radio and the Internet finally reached the point where it can begin to carry the weight.

Think about where the nation would be today if the press had turned itself into nothing but a propaganda machine for the hard left back in 1959 when there was no way for an opposing voice to have been heard?

It's official now

Matt Drudge informs us:

NBC BANS COULTER FOR LIFE; CUT FROM 'TODAY' SHOW OVER BOOK'S CLAIMS, NO MORE CABLE
Mon Jan 05 2009 17:50:57 ET

The nation's top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Banned for life!

"We are just not going to have her on any more, it's over," a top network source explains.

NBC's TODAY show abruptly cut Ann Coulter from its planned Tuesday broadcast, claiming the schedule was overbooked.

Coulter was set to unveil her new book, GUILTY.

But one network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist.

"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."

For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.

The TODAY show eagerly invited the author months ago, for her first network interview on GUILTY.

The exclusive was to air during the show's 7 AM hour. The cut came Monday afternoon.

I'm glad that the media has made it explicit, they simply won't allow any criticism of the little messiah. Certainly not when it comes from someone as effective as Miss Ann.

As for who replaced the Blonde One NewsBusters has this:

defense of Presumably a last minute replacement for the possibly NBC banned Ann Coulter, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow appeared on Tuesday's "Today" show to drop invective about the Bush administration's "torture" policies. Instead of the rousing bit of Barack Obama bashing and criticism of the fawning coverage of him by the liberal media that would've surely been delivered by Coulter, "Today" viewers were treated to the following slam of Bush policies via a MaddowObama's choice of Leon Panetta as CIA Director. . .

So if we still hand any doubt NBC quickly moved to dispel it.

Again, I'm glad this happened. For one thing this will be far better publicity for Miss Ann's book than a simple appearance on a vapid network morning show. For another NBC has officially come out and officially announced their bias. This will have an impact on the upcoming debate on bringing back the Orwellian "Fairness Doctrine" since it will no longer be possible to claim that the broadcast networks would not be affected by an "equal time" rule.

Deja Vu

WASHINGTON (AP) - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract.

Richardson's withdrawal was the first disruption of Obama's Cabinet process and the second "pay-to-play" investigation that has touched Obama's transition to the presidency. The president-elect has remained above the fray in both the case of arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the New Mexico case.

Leftists desperately want to see the Obama presidency as a return of Camelot where they can recapture the magic and mystique of the Kennedy administration. However every day seems to bring more evidence that we are in for a rerun of the Clinton years.

Maybe this is simply the best the Democrat party can do nowadays. After all if JFK were in politics today he would be a Republican neo-conservative. He campaigned against Nixon by claiming that the Eisenhower administration had let the US fall behind the USSR in strategic weapons. He cut the top marginal income tax rate dramatically in order to stimulate economic activity. He created the US Army Special Forces (Green Berets). He promised to help any friend and fight any foe in defense of liberty. He deployed troops to Vietnam to fight the communists. The budgets he submitted to congress had 60% of their spending on defense and 40% on domestic programs (as opposed to Ronald Reagan's budgets which spent 60% on domestic programs and 40% on defense). He placed an economic embargo on Cuba in an attempt to starve out the communist regime of Fidel Castro. He faced down the Soviet Union over their stationing of nuclear missiles in Cuba.

When you think about it there are really only two things which tie Jack Kennedy to the modern Democrat party. One was his almost unbelievably massive appetite for adulterous affairs, which unites him with Bill Clinton. The other was the fact that he only got elected through voter fraud committed by the Daley machine in Chicago. This puts him squarely in the camp of Barack Obama and Al Franken (and Al Gore, remember he at least tried to steal Florida).

To be fair Democrats aren't the only people to this sort of thing. Republicans like to call themselves "The Party of Lincoln" even though Lincoln's political philosophy was far down the road to socialism. In fact Lincoln was so far down that road that Karl Marx wanted to dedicate an English translation of The Communist Manifesto to Lincoln. Surviving correspondence between the two men reveals that Lincoln demurred only because Marx's atheism would have offended American voters.

The GOP also likes to wrap itself in the mantel of Teddy Roosevelt however his political philosophy was that the Constitution ought not stand in the way of the people getting the legislation that they want and need. And there was also the small matter of him being certifiably insane (however, I still love The Wind and the Lion).

Weekend knowledge training

This is one of the weapons I would like to have in my collection.

The new faces of the left

From The Hill:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) threatened Friday to filibuster any attempt to seat Democratic Minnesota Senate candidate Al Franken next week.

The newly minted National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman said he had not whipped votes in the GOP caucus, but added that he could not imagine any members defecting and seating Franken without a certificate of election.

Franken will not have that certificate as long as the election is challenged in the courts — a likely scenario, with Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn.) legal team already attacking the credibility of the recount process.

Good for the Republicans. The Democrats are hardly even bothering to pretend that this is anything other than a stolen election. The GOP must go on record challenging and protesting this. To do otherwise would be to, in effect, become an accessory after the fact to the Jackass party's criminal behavior.

And that will be fatal in 2010. The Republican party has a bit less than two years to draw a clear and meaningful distinction between itself and its opponents. The GOP must learn the lessons of the 2006 and 2008 elections.

One, despite the very high profile takeover of the legislature in 2006 most Americans on election day, 2008 still believed that the Republican party was in control of both houses of congress! The single-digit congressional approval numbers hurt the GOP despite the fact that they were not setting the agenda in either chamber.

Two, the GOP's embrace of "me-too Republicanism" (led by George W Bush's big-government "compassionate conservatism") and abandonment of its core limited-government values blurred the distinction between the parties so badly that B. Hussein Obama (a man whose disagrees with Karl Marx only on the topic of Marx's atheism - and nothing else) was actually able to campaign to the right of his "Republican" opponent in the last election on fiscal issues!

Which brings us to the third and most important lesson for the GOP. Don't nominate someone who has built his reputation on stabbing you in the back. If our candidate is someone who is most proud of all the ways in which he has helped the enemy do things which hurt the country we should not even consider him for the office of president.

Now on a related story I bring this to your attention:

New York (CBS) - New York Gov. David Paterson says the search is ongoing, but two people close to him tell The Associated Press they believe Caroline Kennedy will be appointed to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.

Following continuing criticism of Kennedy, Paterson on Thursday threw down the gauntlet. Though Kennedy appears to be the front-runner to replace Clinton, Paterson said the next junior Senator from New York will have to win re-election on his or her own.

The Governor of New York has the right to appoint anyone he wants to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and there is no provision in the NY State constitution that the person be qualified in any other way than the age and citizenship requirements set forth for any other Senator.

The fact that she is a woman of no accomplishment, no political skill and apparently only a very limited intellect is not a legal obstacle to her appointment.

The GOP should publicly note the fact that this woman's only qualification for office is her maiden name, so we'll be on record as warning New Yorkers that this is a bad idea, and then step out of the Democrat's way and let them appoint her.

The fact is that the more dim-bulbs the Democrats have in congress the better it will be for the GOP and the United States.

The time when smart Democrats would oppose their party's more idiotic lurches to the left are long past. Now it is the Democrats with the highest IQ who are leading the charge leftward with all the concomitant losses of liberty and prosperity that socialism will bring.

The less intellectual firepower the left has to push its poison agenda the better. I am convinced that one of the principle reasons for the collapse of the mainstream media is the sheer stupidity of so many of its leading figures. Think about it, if you were a liberal would you want to read Maureen Dowd or watch Keith Olbermann and be reminded every day of the fact that all the most brainless morons seem to be attracted to your cause?

So get out of the way and let this half-witt "Princess of Camelot" become the face of the Democrat party. And we should not grieve overmuch if the Democrats do manage to seat Franken in the US Senate. A man like Franken, who cannot conceal his true nature for long, being seated in an openly stolen election will do nothing to help the Democrat party in the long run.

Let them both become the new face of the Jackass party and 2010 will be a very good year indeed.

Tonight's Music

On August 1st, Corvus Corax headlined the world famous Wacken Open Air Festaval with a performance of their new orchestral work CANTUS BURANUS II. This number is called "De Mundi Statu".

One Down. . .

From the Jerusalem Post:

The IAF on Thursday bombed a building in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, reportedly killing seven people, including senior Hamas leader and cleric Sheikh Nizar Rayyan, and injuring thirty others.

Army Radio reported that according to Palestinian sources, his family was warned before the attack but did not leave the building.

Earlier, the IAF launched a quick-fire response shortly after a Grad-type missile slammed into the top floor of an Ashdod building.

The army said that the air force struck both the Gaza terror cell that launched the projectile and the launching device. Several Hamas homes which were used to store weapons were also bombed in the afternoon air raid.

Since Thursday morning, the IAF struck over 20 targets, including rocket launching sites in northern Gaza, as well as tunnels and a car in the southern Gaza Strip, killing several Hamas operatives.

In addition, the IAF bombed the homes of three senior Gaza terrorists.

As I've said before this whole Israeli/Palestinian business does not end until one side loses so badly that they lose the will to continue the fight.

This means either the Jews evacuating the land or accepting the harshest form of dhimminitude or the Arabs permanently abandoning the hope of destroying the Jewish state.

If the Israelis want to emerge the winners in this conflict they had better stop listening to "The World" and fraking around with "proportionate responses" and crush the Palestinians utterly.

Nothing else will cause the Arabs to abandon even so much as an idle fantasy of eradicating the Jews.

By the way. . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We lived through another one.

Many are saying that 2008 was a bad year, and it was, but I'm afraid that 2009 is going to make it look like a golden age.

At least in '08 some of the people in charge were grownups.

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

Fresh off my triumph over Kwanzaa, I thought I'd mention a couple of other facts that some of us are forced to keep repeating because liberals refuse to learn.

Ravens can learn to snatch fishermen's untended lines to get fish. Worms learn not to eat harmful bacteria (as opposed to the tasty nutritious bacteria they normally feed on). Fruit fly larvae can learn to detect the scent of predators.

But liberals cannot learn that the Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." had not a speck of what we call "useful information."

I described the Aug. 6 PDB in detail in my 2006 book "Godless: The Church of Liberalism." The memo read like a fifth-grader's book report that he left to the last minute and had to quickly cobble together with old information on Google. The only "warnings" of future actions by al-Qaida were completely wrong -- for example, suggesting that terrorists might be planning an attack "with explosives" or preparing to attack "federal buildings in New York."

But liberals cite the Aug. 6 PDB as if it were a clarion warning of the 9/11 attacks.

On Dec. 3 this year, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann angrily announced that the Aug. 6 PDB "could have included copies of the terrorist itineraries and the message from the future," but if the president didn't "act on it or perhaps did not even read it," it wouldn't make any difference.

In fact, if Bush had directed all members of the executive branch to drop everything and jump on the "warnings" in the Aug. 6 PDB, bomb-sniffing dogs would have been prowling the nation and police lookouts would have been stationed at federal buildings in New York City -- as planes smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

True, the title of the PDB was "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." I have a memo on 10,000 waitresses in Los Angeles titled: "Aspiring Actresses Determined to Succeed in Hollywood."

But liberals endlessly repeat the same falsehoods like Stalinist party members, long after normal people have learned the truth and moved on.

Another Stalinesque classic is the left's claim that Sen. Saxby Chambliss ran an ad challenging Max Cleland's patriotism in the 2002 Senate campaign. I've seen the ad. You can see it, too: It's all over the Internet. It does not challenge Cleland's patriotism.

The ad begins by noting that America is facing "terrorists and extremist dictators" -- briefly showing pictures of them -- and goes on to say that although Cleland said he "supports Bush at every opportunity," in fact he had voted against "the president's vital Homeland security efforts 11 times."

Again, as I noted in "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," Cleland voted against the establishment of a Homeland Security Department ... because it didn't allow for unionization of the work force:

OH MY GOD! THERE'S A PLANE HEADED FOR THE WHITE HOUSE!

Sorry, I'm on my break. Please call back in two hours.

It was a completely legitimate campaign ad -- urgent in fact -- having nothing to do with Cleland's patriotism, but rather addressing his voting record (and, I would add, his sanity).

And yet, on MSNBC'S "Countdown" the host and guests vented their spleens at the ad all over again this year, during Chambliss' runoff re-election.

On Nov. 7, Olbermann called it "one of the most shameful moments in the history of American politics." His equally screechy guest Craig Crawford exclaimed: "I was horrified by what Chambliss did to (Cleland) in that campaign!"

On the Dec. 1 "Countdown," Margaret Carlson said: "I don't think enough attention can ever be paid to the ads that were run against Max Cleland. I'm waiting to hear if Chambliss apologizes for that someday."

At least liberals no longer lyingly claim Cleland lost his limbs because of a Viet Cong grenade. So there is that small victory. Soon, perhaps they'll learn to stop eating harmful bacteria.

Someday, I could stop writing new columns altogether and could just repost columns and book excerpts I've already written disproving the same yarns liberals spin over and over again.
** ** **
CORRECTION

Although I am usually stunningly error-free, due to the obvious urgency of getting my next book out as soon as possible after the election, the recession necessitating a proofreader from Bangalore and the sun being in my eyes, there are some minor editing errors in the first printing of "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America." (Out next week!) This will make the first edition something of a collector's item, rather like postage stamps with an upside-down airplane.

One error requires advance warning. On Page 89 of my new book, Frank Rich is quoted as referring to a "barrage of McCarthyesque guilt-by-association charges against [the media's] candidate, portraying him as a fellow traveler of bomb-throwing, America-hating, flag-denigrating terrorists."

Due to an editing error, the brackets around "the media's" in the above quote were left out, making Rich sound like me. I regret the error, and if Rich doesn't think it's an improvement, I apologize to him.

The reason the left endlessly repeats the same lies over and over again is that they understand the sad fact that the American public has the attention span of a goldfish and the memory retention of a paperclip.

Remember the Thomas/Hill affair? When the hearings were actually going on and people were watching them with there own eyes and listening to the testimony with there own ears the overwhelming majority of the American public believed that Clarence Thomas was being truthful and that Anita Hill was not.

Yet just one year later, after the televised hearings were over and the public's only recent exposure to the events was the mainstream media's commentary on them, the same percentage of the American people believed Hill's version of events.

Starting with the original "Father of Lies" himself evil has always known that even the largest and most grotesque lie can be sold if one simply repeats it so often and so loudly that it drowns out the truth.

2008 - the year the myth of global warming died?

Christmas vacation is over and it's time to go back to work, and to resume blogging.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and to those who were able to spend the holiday in the bosom of their extended family - you have my deepest sympathy.

I won't have time to put anything other than this up today due to some end-of-year work issues, but I couldn't let this go by without sharing it. This is from the Telegraph and is by Christopher Booker:

Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.

Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.

I have said before that global warming is the most effective hobgoblin that the left has ever invented to terrorize the masses into surrendering their wealth and liberty. I have gone on to say that it will not be abandoned, no matter what the actual science says, until a new hobgoblin is contrived.

It is possible that our politicians will see the current global recession as just that hobgoblin and we will soon see the increasingly fragile global warming house of cards collapse once and for all.

This would be a very good thing since the earth is probably entering a protracted cooling period which will see shorter growing seasons and a reduction in arable land. This will result in food shortages and increasing prices for agricultural products and sharp increases in the demand for energy as people try to keep warm.

The measures which were/are being proposed to combat the fantasy of global warming would dramatically increase the cost of energy while just as dramatically decreasing its supply. This would be a recipe for disaster on a global scale. Famine weakens the population's resistance to disease and creates a fertile ground for pandemics (Black Plague got a foothold in Europe only after lower temperatures reduced the food supply and led to widespread hunger).

A few moments thought will reveal what a dangerous mix this is even for the advanced nations of the West. How hard will it be for the Unites States to control its southern border when Mexicans see the US as not a good job or a welfare check but as the only refuge from starvation and plague?

How will Europe, which is already being overrun by Muslim immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, cope with even greater numbers of even more destitute - and radical - and possibly diseased - refugees? Will the EU be able to refuse them entrance when so many European nations are already infested with so many of their brethren who have already demonstrated a propensity for violent rioting when denied any whim?

It would be a marvelous example of the providence of God if the current financial troubles hit us at exactly the right time to derail the global warming juggernaut before it could send the world into another dark age.

Today's lesson

White Trash Republican passed this along on her blog and I thought it needed even wider exposure. She says that the author is a Dr. Rossi from somewhere in Florida.

"Once upon a time there was a very happy couple. Their names were Freedom and Capitalism. They married and had many wonderful children. Their names were Independence, Self-worth, Hard Work, Dignity, Charity, Faith and Hope. They all lived happily for many years and the children respected their parents and loved them both very much.

But Freedom and Capitalism later had several naughty children; very naughty. They weren't so respectful and never appreciated their parents. Their names were Wealth Envy, Environmentalism, Animal Rights Activism, Racism, Feminism,and Liberalism. These evil children blamed their parents for everything and hated their parents, Freedom and Capitalism.

In fact, these unappreciative children began to despise their parents since they didn't realize their parents gave them everything they had and didn't realize that they wouldn't even exist without their parents. They hated their parents so much, they began to plot with their neighbors to kill their parents and to keep their home.

Their neighbors' names were Socialism and Communism, who on the outside were a very lovely couple, but inside they were very, very ugly. They and their children, whose names were Despair, Poverty, Suffering, and Repression had been welcomed into every neighborhood they had lived in. But then thrown out after years of suffering and the loss of many lives.

So late one night in total darkness (because Socialism and Communism did everything in darkness and away from the light of the truth,) while everyone was asleep, Wealth Envy, Environmentalism, Feminism, and Animal Rights, with the help of their younger obnoxious brother, Hollywood, disguised Socialism and Communism and all went into the house of Freedom and Capitalism. It wasn't hard because the two parents, Freedom and Capitalism, always left their gates and their door open for everyone. Wealth Envy led the way because he knew the house oh, so well. The evil children led Socialism and Communism throughout the house, one room at a time. And one at a time they killed Hard Work, then Dignity, then Independence, Self-worth, Charity and Faith.

They finally found the room of Freedom and Capitalism and killed them as well. It wasn't hard to do, since Freedom and Capitalism always left their door unlocked and open for everyone. Only Hope survived. Hope survived hiding in the closet. She ran out during the ensuing celebration. After Socialism and Communism moved in, things went well for a while but then they decided they didn't like Freedom and Capitalism's evil children, either. They wanted their own children to have the rooms in their new house. So late one night in total darkness (because Socialism and Communism did everything in darkness and away from the light of the truth,) they sent their children to kill Freedom and Capitalism's remaining evil children.

Poverty and Suffering killed Environmentalism and Animal Rights first, for they were so hungry, they had to kill all the animals for food and the trees for their wood. And besides, why should animals have rights if people don't? Hopelessness killed Liberalism. Then Poverty, Suffering, and Repression killed Feminism. And Hollywood, the young obnoxious son of Freedom and Capitalism, was also killed. Finally, Wealth Envy, who led the attack on his parents, died at the hands of Poverty since there was nothing left to envy.

So Socialism and Communism and their children, Poverty, Despair, Hopelessness, Suffering, and Repression lived in the once beautiful home of Freedom and Capitalism which was now in great disrepair and they all lived sadly ever after.

All that was left of the family of Freedom and Capitalism was Hope who was quietly hiding in the woods."

If Hope's first cousin, Second Amendment, had been visiting from the country things might have turned out differently.

Today's Music

We couldn't let the first day of Winter pass without welcoming it with Enya's On My Way Home.

Tonight's Music

Here is Trans-Siberian Orchestra performing Faith Noel.

Truth, from an unlikely source

CNN, of all things, tells the truth about global warming:

Unprecedented snow in Las Vegas has some scratching their heads – how can there be global warming with this unusual cold and snowy weather?

CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers had never bought into the notion that man can alter the climate and the Vegas snowstorm didn’t impact his opinion. Myers, an American Meteorological Society certified meteorologist, explained on CNN’s Dec. 18 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” that the whole idea is arrogant and mankind was in danger of dying from other natural events more so than global warming.

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.

Myers is the second CNN meteorologist to challenge the global warming conventions common in the media. He also said trying to determine patterns occurring in the climate would be difficult based on such a short span.

“But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long,” Myers said. “That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers continued.

Dr. Jay Lehr, an expert on environmental policy, told “Lou Dobbs Tonight” viewers you can detect subtle patterns over recorded history, but that dates back to the 13^th Century.

“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13^th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”

Lehr suggested the earth is presently entering a cooling cycle – a result of nature, not man.

“The last 10 years have been quite cool,” Lehr continued. “And right now, I think we’re going into cooling rather than warming and that should be a much greater concern for humankind. But, all we can do is adapt. It is the sun that does it, not man.”

Lehr is a senior fellow and science director of The Heartland Institute, an organization that will be holding the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York March 8-10.

Like I said, off all the places to hear the truth about the official religion of the modern politically correct left - CNN!

But it is the truth. The Earth is entering into a cooling period and that it going to have a far more profound impact on the climate than any imaginary global warming.

It was a cooling period like the one we are entering now which caused a famine in the Meideval period and that famine weakened the population enough that the Black Plague could gain a foothold.

The end result was about a third of the population of Europe dead.

Modern science and technology won't allow things to be that bad this time around, at least in the developed world, but it can still be very bad.

And consider this. Just as the world is entering a cooling period which will shorten growing seasons and lower the world food supply while placing environmental stresses on populations already weakened by poor diet and lack of access to modern medicine the world enters a global economic downturn.

And just as the world enters this global economic downturn the United States, the world's primary economic engine, is taken over by socialists whose ideas for how to fix the economy and bring about a return of prosperity are guaranteed to do the exact opposite.

Just as FDR's "New Deal" lengthened and deepened a serious recession into a Great Depression Obama's plans, if enacted, have the potential to send the US, and the world with it, into a steep downward spiral. All this at the exact time that Mother Nature is conspiring to send us food shortages and global pandemics.

It would seem that we may be standing in the path of a perfect storm of natural, political and economic factors not seen since the fall of Rome. Especially if you add in the possible responses of rogue states with nuclear arms like North Korea and (soon) Iran.

It would seem that we've been cursed by an ancient Chinaman.

Tonight's Music

Here is another Celtic Woman video. The song is O Holy Night.

Cry me a fraking river

CINCINNATI – An Ohio agency director resigned Wednesday in the wake of a finding that she improperly used state computers to access personal information on the man who became known as "Joe the Plumber" during the presidential campaign.

Two other officials who were suspended from their positions for their role in the computer search will not be returning to their jobs, an agency spokeswoman said.

Department of Job and Family Services Director Helen Jones-Kelley said in a statement accompanying her resignation that she won't allow her reputation to be disparaged and that she is concerned for her family's safety.

This woman abused her authority in allowing a fishing expedition through the private information of a private citizen because he dared to stand up and ask a real question of a political candidate.

This is an actual crime and she ought to do some time in the Ohio state womens' prison but she will escape justice and is being allowed to frame her departure in disgrace as though she were reluctantly being forced to leave in order to protect her family from the death threats of the evil right-wing hit machine.

Ever notice how when members of the Party of Grotesque Corruption get caught they always start crying like sniveling little girls about the death threats they supposedly get? What's next, will she claim to find a noose tied to her doorknob?

I'll say it again. This woman should be sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial. The fact that she is not is a perversion of justice and she should just shut up and be glad that she's not going to spend the next few years showering in groups.

Tonight's Music

Here is Celtic Woman performing Carol of the Bells live at the Helix Center in Dublin.