Hot! Hot! Not!

I

t’s one of those cognitive dissonance moments: They tell you this October was the hottest October ever recorded - excuse the pandering Paris photo - and you’re asking yourself, “Yeah, but wasn’t I freezing my fanny off for most of the month?” Yes you were, and you should believe your fanny, not Warmie “scientists,” who live to feed bogus data into the global warming industrial machine.

Fortunately, they don’t get away with this malarkey like they used to. Here’s Christopher Booker from the UK Telegraph, with emphasis added by Okie:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore’s chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China’s official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its “worst snowstorm ever”. In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

As the Okie says,

Innocent error, or intentional manipulation of the data sets because the reality of the situation just doesn’t fit into the Anthropogenic Climate Change catechism? Shoot, I don’t know. But, the Global Warming proponents have been willing to use funny numbers before. At the very least it’s sloppy work that went unnoticed by GISS because the information was exactly what they wanted to see.

Yup. And there’s much, more more. Read the Okie’s post.

W

ho energized the conservative Republican base?

Who got millions to open their wallets and purses and contribute big bucks to the campaign?

Who stood up to corrupt, sold-out, old-school party hacks and demanded a new, greater level of integrity?

Who best manifests the conservative principles we need to get back to in order to leave the political wilderness?

Who can we trust to speak unflinchingly and apologetically on behalf of American conservatism?

There’s only one clear choice for the new head of the Republican National Committee - the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

Mysteries Of Evolution

H

ere’s a story that might give Darwin pause:

Amoebas glide toward their prey with the help of a protein switch that controls a molecular compass, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered.

Their finding, recently detailed in the journal Current Biology, is important because the same molecular switch is shared by humans and other vertebrates to help immune cells locate the sites of infections.

The amoeba Dictyostelium finds bacteria by scent and moves toward its meal by assembling a molecular motor on its leading edge. The active form of a protein called Ras sets off a cascade of signals to start up that motor, but what controlled Ras was unknown.

Amoeba have a sense of smell? They know how to build a molecular motor? Darwin certainly never suspected a single-cell critter could have all that!

It requires more faith to believe such a complex system can evolve out of the primordial mud than it takes to believe the amoeba is part of God’s design.

G

ood luck finding anyone on the sane side of this campaign who’s happy that the GOP spending $150,000 on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.  No one is.  But that doesn’t make it a bad decision.

First, McCain/Palin reported the expense and were up-and-up about it.  It’s up to the lawyers and regulators to haggle out its legitimacy, and if there’s any question, a quickly pulled together charity auction of the Palin suits and accessories will certainly raise more than $150,000 for charity.  Done deal.

But that must makes the move legal, not wise.  What makes it wise is this:

The Alaska-shoppin’ Sarah Palin was an utter and complete fashion disaster.  Can you imagine what the media and leftyblogs would have said if Palin had hit the campaign trail in her Wasilla-purchased finest?  The campaign knew that the Palin wardrobe was a political disaster in the making.  They knew what would happen if they rolled out this Sarah Palin:  a laugh fest,  endless parodies, loud mocking, nasty gossipy news coverage.  Well, we’re getting that even with the new wardrobe.  It would have been much, much worse without the helpful intervention of Neiman and Marcus.

So the crazy, vicious Left forced the campaign’s hand, and now that it’s out, they’re howling in outrage.  Why do they always get to butter both sides of their bread?  Why is it so difficult for the McCain camp to portray the Left and the Leftist media for what they are?

And, by the way, the original Politico report was just another Palin Derangement Syndrome hatchet job.  Here’s the pivotal part of the entire report … where is it now … oh, there it is … way down in paragraph 13:

A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending.

A review of similar records.  Reporter Jeanne Cummings (it had to be a woman writing, huh?) was sitting on such a choice, catty story she couldn’t risk screwing it up by finding out that the Obama campaign had in fact purchased clothing but not reported it.  No, folks, there’s no show of reportorial curiosity here; no evidence of actually picking up the phone and calling the Obama campaign with a few directed questions.  Cummings just took their word for it.

She took the word of the man who sat in Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years and never heard anything anti-American, et. seq. ad infinitim.

Update:  Thanks to Bookworm for this info:  According to The Weekly Standard, the over-the-top podium get-up for the Dem National Convention cost $140,000.  Who got the better deal here, the GOP that continues to benefit from Palin’s ongoing and well-dressed appearances, or the DNC, which turned off millions with the whole Greek column thing?

Funny thing, though … I don’t remember the media jumping all over the DNC for its podium expenses.

D

ana Milbank at the Washington Post made a curious and difficult to believe allegation the other day:  that the Secret Service was keeping reporters from interviewing attendees at Palin rallies.

My source for this story is ProPublica, the “investigative journalism” sham that is funded by the far-left (as in by Herbert and Marian Sandler of SNL fame, who exploited the poor with junk mortgages, then sold their junk-ridden S&L to Wachovia, almost single-handedly bankrupting it).  ProPublica, of course, leads with the Milbank claim, without questioning it.

Question it they should.  Why would the Secret Service ban this line of questions?  The only reason they’d keep the reporters at bay (other than they one the Secret Service provides, which I’ll get to in a minute)  is (1) if the Secret Service were non-neutral and in the pocket of the McCain campaign, which is a slam to the Service’s professionalism, and (2) the crowds at Palin rallies are so hate-laced the McCain campaign wants to keep reporters away from them.

Contrary to these assumptions, the Secret Service is only concerned with security, not politics, and takes warranted offense at comments like this.  And, obviously, the McCain campaign likes getting quotes from Palin rallies in the media because these are folks who are very strongly supportive of the ticket.

Nonetheless, Milbank swallowed these assumptions, along with any remaining dregs of professionalism he could muster, and said:

“I wasn’t at the Scranton event, but I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they’ve started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty — protecting the protectee — and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it’s unfounded because the reporters can’t get close enough to identify the person.” (Emphasis added.)

Of course, there were no people shouting “Kill him” at the Scranton event, so Milbank is guilty of faulty reporting and faulty assumptions.  The Secret Service agrees:

“It’s not a function of the Secret Service to prevent or limit reporters from interviewing the people at events,” said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan. “We’ve never been asked by any campaign to do that.”

Donovan said that at rallies for all the candidates, the Secret Service sometimes separates the press corps that is credentialed to cover the event—known as the pool—from the general public. That is for logistical and security reasons, he said.

“Being in a press pool gives them special access,” said Donovan. “But the other side is that they have to stay together. You keep national press away from the local press for the same reason.”

Any journalist can get around these restrictions simply by attending the rally as a member of the public rather than a part of the press pool, he said.

If Milbank knows anything, he knows that presidential campaigns work on tight schedules.  It is the Secret Services responsibility to account for eveyrone traveling with the candidate, and to make sure they leave on schedule for the next leg of the day’s travel.  This is so elementary it would take a paranoid or a politico to miscast it as a conspiracy.

Oh.

Obama’s Big Three-Year Ayres Lie

S

o we know Obama and Ayres worked together and knew each other, yet Obama continues to slither away from big negatives from the association. In fact, if we’re to believe the MSM, the Obama/Ayres meme may actually have hurt McCain among some voters who merely see it as “negative campaigning” - or who may actually like the idea of having a president who likes hanging out with terrorists.

But there are two ways to tell this story that McCain hasn’t pursued. One he’s had a long time to develop - that Obama and Ayres share a radical approach to education that should raise fears with any parent. And two, a story that’s still developing, the depth of lying Obama has foisted in order to minimize his friendship with the unrepentant domestic terrorist.

The lying meme got a big boost recently from Verum Serum, which tracked down documentation that the two shared an office for three years - a level of familiarity far beyond Obama’s “guy in the neighborhood” lie.

Bill Ayers and Barack Obama shared an office. Ayers’ Small Schools Workshop, the one Obama directed all that money to is located at 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607 [Note the link is to a year 2000 version of their website]. Here’s a screen grab from the website’s footer:

In 1998, the address for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama presumably worked, was 115 S. Sangamon Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607. Here’s a copy of their 1998 tax return with that address:

The CAC moved to a new address sometime in 1999 or 2000, but the shared office probably persisted for at least three years. I can’t say for sure because 1998 is the earliest tax information available online. [Correction: I can say for sure that they shared the same building for the years 1995-1998. Here is a 1995 progress report from the CAC with the same address.] …

I’m going to suggest that two guys working in the same building for a period of years probably crossed paths pretty often. For all we know, they had lunch together on a daily basis. Maybe, in an effort at conservation, they were even carpool buddies. After all, Ayers is a guy from Obama’s neighborhood.

The message here is simple and devastating: You just can’t trust what comes out of Obama’s mouth.

hat-tip: What Bubba Knows

I

‘m just a little shell-shocked here, so bear with me. I just can’t believe that MSNBC - MSNBC! - put together and aired this sympathetic and extremely positive little profile of Sarah Palin - Sarah Palin!!

[Can't load the clip; view it here]

I actually teared up a bit. Of course the hate-mongering maniacs of the Left saw it differently; check out this comment from the LAT’s Top of the Ticket blog item on the clip:

Sarah Palin is shameless, even dragging a young infant around as she campaigns, standing before crowds holding the child as if she were running for the new mother-of-god image, dragging a young daughter out on hockey rink ice in the midst of screaming and booing. While I’m making a leap here, let me tell you a person whose morals permit this behavior is not a person of vice-president caliber, let alone a potential president.

Sigh. Isn’t it weird that the same people that don’t recognize evil in the world can’t recognize the good in it either?

hat-tip: Jim

T

oday in the Chicago Sun-Times, Andrew Greely has a comment recommended by 11 nitwits that is not dissimilar to yesterday’s rant in the Boston Glob (not a typo) by Derrick Jackson. You know, the Republicans are poisoning the campaign because one guy stood up at one Palin rally and shouted “Kill him!” Here’s Greely:

She can stir up crowds to shout “Kill him!” at the mention of the presidential candidate of the other party a couple of weeks before the national election.

Greely is lying of course, as is the wont of the wags on the Left. Palin was not speaking of Obama at the time; she was speaking of Ayres. The “kill him” was directed at an unrepentant domestic terrorist, not a Dem candidate for president. [Update:  Actually, there was no "Kill him!" yell.] That doesn’t make the sentiment right, but it certainly doesn’t justify this:

It is all part of a plan cooked up by John McCain to turn the major issue in the election from the economy to the character [as you'll see, he means "race"] of the Democratic candidate. … Playing the race card explicitly merely guarantees what I have thought from the beginning — racism in this country precludes the possibility of a sepia-colored man becoming president. However, the last-ditch attack on him guarantees that McCain and Palin will be blamed as the candidates who were content to hear crowds calling for the death of Obama.

There’s that lie again. But it’s hardly the big lie. The few decorum-breakers on the right, who are frightened by the prospect of a hard left, even socialist, president being elected, can’t hold a candle to the hatred of the left, which even Greely espouses.

He calls Palin “an All-American girl as racist, this time a racist with her eye on the White House.” He makes no effort to prove her a racist beyond the one person shouting “kill him.” And if these numbskulls are going to insist that “hockey mom” is racist, isn’t “All-American girl” just as racist as “hockey mom?” It certainly is dismissive and misogynistic, ignoring Palin’s accomplishments and passing her off as some bimbo white chick.

Worse, he calls McCain “an angry, befuddled cancer survivor,” and says he is “troubled and distracted.” Greely is an ageist, holding McCain’s age against him and mischaracterizing this very robust and sharp individual who just happens to be 73 as an Alzheimer’s sufferer unable to function.

But Greely is a cupcake. A stupid, biased cupcake that can’t see the reality before him because he is steeping in his own ugly biases against conservatives, Christians and Republican women, but still a cupcake when compared to what the pillars of the left are now offering up.

Wake Up America found the picture I was looking for. I’m going to put a page break in here to protect any kiddies that might be hanging around while you read this. Plant them in front of the TV and then click the “continue reading” header.

Global Warming Update

W

e haven’t been hearing much about global warming lately - economic reality vs. bogeyman theories, you know - so I thought it a good time to provide an update on just how the nasty warming of our planet is going:

Big snow flakes fell early Friday evening, turning Downtown Boise into a giant snow globe for people on their way home from work. The snow caught many people off guard, including this bicyclist heading down Idaho Street between 8th and 9th around 5:45 p.m. Across the Treasure Valley, tree branches heavy with wet, snow-covered leaves fell on power lines, causing scattered power outages.

This is the earliest measurable snowfall in Boise since recordkeeping began in 1898, according to the National Weather Service. At 10 p.m., the Weather Service said 1.7 inches of snow had fallen. The previous earliest recorded snowfall was Oct. 12, 1969, when a little more than an inch fell.

Pesky reality, dropping like thick, wet snow all over their lovely computer models.

Hat-tip: Jim

UPDATED

W

hen in doubt, go to the source, so off I went to the Anchorage Daily News to see what was being written there about yesterday’s ethics finding in the Troopergate affair. The report led off with what we’ve heard elsewhere:

“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired,” concluded investigator Steve Branchflower [right] in his report made public Friday.

The governor let her husband, Todd, use the governor’s office and its resources, “including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired,” Branchflower wrote.

Much has has been made of this. Much hay has not been made of the fact that Barack Obama acted unethically or perhaps illegally when he funneled Annenberg money to ACORN while he was serving as Illinois state counsel to the radical community organizers. And precious little is being written about Obama’s $800,000 payment to ACORN this election cycle.

Further down the story, we begin to see another side to the investigation:

Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole [gotta love that!], said the report is flawed because Branchflower didn’t take into account statements and other materials submitted earlier this week by Todd Palin and administration employees who earlier had resisted subpoenas.

Therriault said Todd Palin’s written response indicates that Gov. Palin, at some point, urged her husband to drop his efforts against Wooten. That information goes to the heart of Branchflower’s conclusion that the governor violated the ethics law, Therriault said.

Therriault said Branchflower was unable to consider those late-arriving materials “because we had this artificial deadline today.”

“Why?” he continued. “Because we’re in a political season.”

Anyone who doesn’t get that - the release of the report in the final month of the campaign as an indication of how politically motivated the report is - is simply choosing to ignore reality.

Note that Branchflower was appointed by a committee led by State Sen. Hollis French, of whom Palin said last July:

“The project manager, Sen. French, already elevated this by publicly suggesting ‘impeachment’ before the Senate laid out any rules or an investigator was named. Publicly elevating this to ‘impeachment’ raises doubts as to how fair a process some senators may intend for this to be.”

Indeed. The same article describes Branchflower as a colleague of French; the two worked together as prosecutors. And Branchflower’s wife, a police detective, held the other party in the investigation, Police Superintendent Monegan, in high regard:

Monegan is a respected supervisor because he listens to his employees and isn’t afraid to change course if something isn’t working out, said detective Linda Branchflower. ‘A lot of us see that as more courageous,’ she said.

All in all, Branchflower’s report was more critical of Todd Palin than his wife - but who’s to say a wife has the power to control everything a husband does, whether she’s governor or not. After all, officer Michael Wooten was married to his sister. The Anchorage Daily News provides that defense:

Two other lawmakers said the Palins’ actions were understandable.

“Who is going to blame Todd Palin for protecting his family?” said Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole. ” Not me.”

Another member of the Legislative Council, Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, said he thinks Branchflower’s findings are wrong, and that Palin didn’t violate the ethics act. “She and Todd Palin were trying to defend their family,” Lynn said. “I think any normal person would do the same.”

In the end, we learn that even Branchflower admits Palins’ ethics isn’t the real problem. Reverting to his former role as victims rights watchdog, he got to the nub of the problem - the state:

Branchflower also recommends the Legislature change the way complaints against peace officers such as troopers are handled. He says lawmakers should consider making it possible for people who file such complaints to get feedback about the status of their complaint and whatever action was taken about it.

The initial complaint against Wooten was filed by Gov. Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, before she was elected governor in 2006. Branchflower says the inability of the family to get information about what was happening with the complaint was frustrating to them.

“I believe their frustration was real as was their skepticism about whether their complaints were being zealously investigated,” Branchflower’s report says. “The irony is that the complaints were taken very seriously, and a thorough investigation was underway. However, the law prevented the Troopers from giving them any feedback whatsoever.”

The state failed the Palins during the Wooten investigation, and it failed them again yesterday in rushing out a flawed ethics report so that it could be exploited in the final month of the campaign.

UPDATE - Guest-blogging at Hugh Hewitt, Beldar writes:

Please understand this, if you take nothing else away from reading this post: The Branchflower Report is a series of guesses and insupportable conclusions drawn by exactly one guy, and it hasn’t been approved or adopted or endorsed by so much as a single sub-committee of the Alaska Legislature, much less any kind of commission, court, jury, or other proper adjudicatory body. It contains no new bombshells in terms of factual revelations. Rather, it’s just Steve Branchflower’s opinion — after being hired and directed by one of Gov. Palin’s most vocal opponents and one of Alaska’s staunchest Obama supporters — that he thinks Gov. Palin had, at worst, mixed motives for an action that even Branchflower admits she unquestionably had both (a) the complete right to perform and (b) other very good reasons to perform. …

Here’s a note to Mr. Branchflower, who clearly is verbose, but obviously none too keen a scholar of logic: Gov. Palin’s so-called “firing” of Monegan (it wasn’t a firing, it was a re-assignment to other government duties that he resigned rather than accept) can’t simultaneously be a violation of the Ethics Act and “a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority.” This, gentle readers, is a 263-page piece of political circus that actually explicitly refutes itself on its single most key page!

Read the whole thing.