'Godfather' of climate alarmism has second thoughts

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

 The implications were extraordinary. Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

 Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

 His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

 Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.



LINK:  Al Gore, phone home

Elizabeth Warren (Fauxahontas) gets a birthday gift from the Mass. GOP

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren turns 63 today, and among her birthday gifts is one she probably won’t appreciate very much. She’s in a tight race against the GOP incumbent, Scott Brown.  The state’s Republican party announced this morning that it is gifting Warren, a Harvard Law professor, with a complimentary account at ancestry.com.


                  


LINK:  Fauxahontas gets a gift                    

Libs doing what Libs do... in the White House

 Last Friday, an attaché of important gay people from Philadelphia made a trip to Washington D.C. as invited guests of President Barack Obama for the White House’s first-ever gay pride reception….some of them took advantage of photo opportunities to give the late President Ronald Reagan the middle finger.

 LINK: Libs behaving badly


UPDATE:

The White House on Friday rebuked two visitors who were photographed last week at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue flipping the middle finger below a portrait of the late President Ronald Reagan.
"While the White House does not control the conduct of guests at receptions, we certainly expect that all attendees conduct themselves in a respectful manner. Most all do," Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman, said. "These individuals clearly did not. Behavior like this doesn’t belong anywhere, least of all in the White House." 

LINK:  Libs behaving badly--WH responds

Turkish military jet 'downed by Syria' near border

Turkey's government has called an emergency security meeting amid reports that one of its fighter jets was shot down by Syrian security forces.

The Turkish military earlier said it had lost contact with an F-4 Phantom over the Mediterranean Sea on Friday morning, south-west of Hatay province.

It did not confirm reports that Syrian air defence forces were responsible.

LINK:  Syria shoots down Syrian F-4

UPDATE:
The Syrian military has said it shot down a Turkish plane "flying in airspace over Syrian waters", according to state-run news agency Sana.


LINK:  Syria confirms they shot the Turkish jet down

Executive privilege--political cartoon by Michael Ramirez

First image of Earth as seen from above the North Pole

This new image of Earth, taken from 512 miles over the North Pole, took 15 orbits of the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite to capture. The images were taken by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the satellite, it’s a 22-band radiometer designed to take photographs on infrared and visible light. It also takes "radiometric measurements of the land, atmosphere, cryosphere, and oceans" and measures "cloud and aerosol properties, ocean color, sea and land surface temperature, ice motion and temperature, and fires.”

LINK:  Earth

Wife of high-ranking Chinese official admits to killing Brit

              Neil Heywood

Investigators have said that the wife of the disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai has confessed to killing the British businessman Neil Heywood, according to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun reports that Gu Kailai admitted to killing Neil Heywood to stop him revealing her illicit money transfers





                              Gu Kailai with Bo Xilai

LINK:  Chinese wife admits to murder

Business as usual from a president who promised change

Strassel: Axelrod's ObamaCare Dollars

Emails suggest the White House pushed business to the presidential adviser's former firm to sell the health-care law.

A basic rule of White House ethics is to avoid even the appearance of self-dealing or nepotism. If Mr. Axelrod or his West Wing chums pushed political business toward Mr. Axelrod's former firm, they contributed to his son's salary as well as to the ability of the firm to pay Mr. Axelrod what it still owed him. Could you imagine the press frenzy if Karl Rove had done the same after he joined the White House?

 

LINK: Kim Strassel's column

"Naked lawlessness"

Charles Krauthammer writing in the Washington Post about Obama granting amnesty to 800,000 illegals:


It is shameful that congressional Democrats are applauding such a brazen end run. Of course it’s smart politics. It divides Republicans, rallies the Hispanic vote and preempts Marco Rubio’s attempt to hammer out an acceptable legislative compromise. Very clever. But, by Obama’s own admission, it is naked lawlessness.

.............................................................................................................

But whatever our honest and honorable disagreements about the policy, what holds us together is a shared allegiance to our constitutional order. That’s the fundamental issue here. As Obama himself argued in rejecting the executive action he has now undertaken, “America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the president, am obligated to enforce the law. I don’t have a choice about that.”

Except, apparently, when violating that solemn obligation serves his reelection needs.

LINK:  naked lawlessness

Miami Heat win NBA Championship

'The Fact Checker' at the WashPost gives new Obama ad 'four pinocchios'

The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of “corporate raider” to its examples of alleged outsourcing. Simply repeating the same debunked claims won’t make them any more correct.~~Glenn Kessler (The Fact Checker)



LINK:  Incorrect Obama ad