Jonah Goldberg -- more dishonesty about global warming

I guess Jonah figures that on the pages of National Review or the cyberpages of The Corner, he's dones enough lying on behalf of BushCo and the War in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, etc.

Because he's now, in his latest syndicated column, switched his smoke and mirrors to global warning. Specifically, he's calling Al Gore a "scaremonger" for his new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Jonah does admit global warming is happening. But, he downplays its severity through several tactics. One is through trying to play the old "balance" game by trotting out global warming-skeptic climatologists. That's when he talks about 60 climatologists writing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Another, an oldie but a goodie, is talking about the temperature change of 1-2 degrees with the insinuation that's degrees Fahrenheit instead of degrees Celsuis, twice as much. So, here's what I e-mailed the schmuck:

First, Harper is the leader of Canada's Conservatives. By inserting strongly right-wing conservative evangelicals into positions in Ottawa where their anti-scientific "faith-based" stances have oversight over Canadian science policy, he's already shown his true colors. He doesn't need to learn much from Shruub.

And BFD about the 60 climatologists anyway, Jonah. I suppose Bjorn Lonmborg has 59 climatologist friends he was able to round up to pretend that global warming is no big deal.

And, in case you missed it, the case for global warming is actually worse — WORSE — than we once thought, as we now know smog particulates have partially offset warming in the past 50 years. But, cleaner fuels, factories and power plants are removing more particulates and reducing that offset.

As for the change, even MORE CONSERVATIVE climatologists say 1-2 degrees CELSIUS change over the current century.

Way to NOT TRANSLATE THAT into 2-4 degrees Fahrenheit. Example No. 972 of your intellectual dishonesty on this issue.

Update, April 26:
As evidence of the Bushism of Harper’s Conservative government, I now present the proof-bearing pudding. The Conservatives want to join BushCo’s “Kyoto-lite” climate group.

Canada's new Conservative government, which is openly skeptical about the Kyoto climate change protocol, said on Tuesday it backs a breakaway group of six nations that favor a voluntary approach to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.

Environmentalists said the comments about the partnership — which is being heavily promoted by Washington — show the Canadian government is not serious about tackling climate change.

Iranian oil blustering is getting downright Orwelian

I couldn’t but laugh when I read that George Orwel (sic) admitted that Iran has us, and the Strait of Hormuz to boot, perhaps, by the oily short hairs if President Shrub keeps his twitchy finger near the hair trigger of an attack on the Islamic Republic. (How’s that for a boatload of clichés, to boot?)

While discounting (Iranian President) Ahmadinejad’s seriousness in his Wednesday comments about the value of oil, Orwel conceded the oil industry could not do without the 2.5 million barrels that Iran exports daily.

“Ahmadinejad is trying to show his muscle so that the Bush administration can realize the consequences on the oil market of further confrontation with Iran,” Orwel said, adding that he fully expected Iran to threaten to cut off oil if the confrontation with the West continued.

While Ahmadinejad did not say he would use oil as a weapon in his dispute with the West, Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said last month the oil card was in play.

"If (they) politicize our nuclear case, we will use any means. We are rich in energy resources. We have control over the biggest and the most sensitive energy route of the world," he said, referring to the Straits of Hormuz.

What next? Some Aldus Huxley to warn about Venezuela?

IDer lying about National Geographic and Gospel of Judas

Noted on-the-sly Intelligent Designer Stephen Bainbridge claims National Geographic is “peddling heresy” for for its stories on the Gospel of Judas.

Well, he’s engaging in the same type of tactics and thought that led to people like him getting their legal heads on a plate in the Dover, Pa. ID-in-public-schools suit.

Here’s what I told him both on his blog comment space and via e-mail:

NG is NOT a religious magazine. Of course, since IDers obviously, as Dover demonstrated, don't know the difference between science and religion, or deliberately obscure the difference, or both, you either are too clueless to grasp that NG is not a religious magazine or else you are engaging in more Dover-type tactics.

In short, Professor Bainbridge, in either case you are again engaging in intellectual dishonesty.

Steve Snyder
Master of Divinity, 1992

Now, as the the theological background of the Gospel of Judas.

Dualism of some sort (evil vs. good gods, matter vs. flesh [cf. Judas being thanked by Jesus for “releasing” him from the fleshly prison) is a commonplace of Gnosticism. “Twinning” even becomes part of this dualism.

In fact, some Gnostic writings claim Thomas/Didymas (Aramaic and Greek for "twin") was Jesus' twin.

And many postulate his first name as Judas (Jude), as in the brother of Jesus associated elsewhere with the biblical book (unless you're an orthodox Catholic rejecting Jesus' brothers).

And, this Jude/-as is in some writings considered to be "that" Judas. Remember, Paul's authentic letters were written before any of the "orthodox" gospels.

What did European governments know about CIA renditions, when did they know it, and how much did they participate?

The question is raised in my mind by a story about the Khaled El-Masri rendition, reported in the Spring 2006 issue of Civil Liberties, the official magazine of the ACLU.

El-Masri claims that he is "90 percent" certain a man who interrogated him three times in Afghanistan was a German. That and other details of the story have me wondering whether some German intelligence agency was participating more in renditions than the government knew, or maybe even if Gerhard Schroeder DID know and Berlin's official hands are a lot dirtier than it wants to say.

Update: We may soon have the answer, as Germany’s three opposition parties have forced the opening of a Reichstag investigation. The leading party in the current ruling coalition, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, not pushing for the investigation doesn’t surprise me. But, that the Social Democrats, the party of former Chancellor (during the time of el Masri and other renditions) Gerhard Schroeder also not pushing for the investigation is a silence that speaks loudly.

Holy shit, the Hammer quits!!

This is a day to be happy, to quote Monty Python. And yet, for Democrats, it can't quite be. There's seven months left until the general election and DeLay won't be around (with his Abramoff albatross) to pin on individual GOP candidates.

Question: How much did Rove lean on him?

California pollution control gets a boost

Good news for environmentalists: California’s tougher vehicle emission standards should keep their independence, the government’s National Research Council said.

While not a direct ruling on California’s efforts two years ago to set its own CO2 standards, the council’s ruling should certainly bolster that regulatory item against attacks from both the Big Three and also, sadly, the Japanese automakers.