Brainwashing

A well known expert on hurricanes has, once again, used an annual conference on the subject of his expertise to bash global warming zealots. He stated that there is no less than an attempt to brainwash the young into believing the teachings of the Al Gore cult.

William Gray, the well-known Colorado State University hurricane forecaster, routinely uses the annual National Hurricane Conference as a platform to bash global warming. In a statement to Florida Today, Gray argued that the scientific consensus on global warming is bogus — and "a mild form of McCarthyism has developed toward those scientists who do not agree" that mankind is in danger.

"We are also brainwashing our children on the warming topic. We have no better example than Al Gore's alarmists and inaccurate movie which is being shown in our schools and being hawked by warming activists with little or no meteorological-climate background," Gray wrote.

Some scientists believe global warming will actually decrease — not increase — the number of hurricanes that form over the Atlantic Ocean each year. Last Friday, in the final session of the hurricane conference, a pair of climate experts said rising sea-surface temperatures in and near the Caribbean could strengthen vertical wind shear. Robust wind shear is the bane of hurricanes, as it tends to tear apart cyclones during their formative stages.

Gore's movie has been proven in a British court to contain materially false statements. The "Cascade Effect" is in full flower in the "consensus" on global warming. Cold weather continues throughout much of the Northern hemisphere this year. The big new cure-all for global warming, biofuel, is rapidly losing its sheen, even to the gullible media. 

A Prickly Assault

A New Zealand man has been arrested for assaulting a teenager with a weapon. Now while this might not normally be all that big news, the weapon of choice made it into global news. One does not often read of assault with a deadly hedgehog, after all.

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," police Senior Sgt. Bruce Jenkins said Monday. The teen did not need medical treatment, he added.

The Herald on Sunday newspaper reported that it was not known whether the hedgehog was dead or alive at the time of the attack, but that it was dead when collected as evidence.

There is, of course, more to this story than the report indicates. First of all, hedgehogs are not native to New Zealand and are actually a rather severe pest there. They are causing immense damage to native species. They are also, according to that article, good eating. W can already see a smart lawyer trying to get the hedgehog hurling hooligan off on the claim that he was either eradicating a pest or offering a gift of food that was misunderstood. But we here at Blue Crab Boulevard are having none of that. This is a shocking violation of hedgehog etiquette. Everyone knows that hedgehogs are never hurled. They are only to be struck firmly with a flamingo to send them sailing. Not that this is all that easy to do.

UPDATE: Daily Mail article on the same crime.  

The Turkeys Of Madison Go Postal

Mail carriers in Madison, Wisconsin are the victims of a gang of stalkers. At random intervals, the postal workers are attacked by wild turkeys. 

About five to 10 of the birds have been pecking at the postal workers as they make their rounds, and some of the birds have attacked the letter carriers with the sharp spurs on their legs. One of the birds went through the open door of a mail truck and scratched the driver.

Wilhite sought help in the matter from Eric Lobner, regional wildlife program supervisor for the state Department of Natural Resources.

Lobner said the behavior is clearly tied to the breeding season, which started recently and runs through about mid-May.

Color plays an important role in turkey breeding, he said, with the color of the male's head during mating season changes from gaudy blue to white to red. Lobner speculated that perhaps the turkeys are attracted to the red, white and blue postal trucks.

Which, of course, does not explain why this has not happened before, since postal vehicles have been painted in that particular color scheme for a very long time. Regular readers will recognize the obvious criminal tendencies of wild turkeys, who have been known for acts of bad behavior for years. There are the terrible turkeys of terror who have been running amok in Brookline, Massachusetts for years now. They have been stealing lunch money for ages. We suspect that the Turkeys of Madison City (not soon to be a major motion picture starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep)  are after more than lunch money. Note the time of year. We think they are after the refund checks.

Here’s A First

I think this is the only time Paul Krugman and I have agreed on anything. Today he notes the skyrocketing price of food and lays the blame for it where it belongs: diverting food to make biofuel. Oh, he notes several other factors, but he really cuts loose on the production of ethanol.

The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as Time magazine bluntly put it, a “scam.”

This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. But it turns out that even seemingly “good” biofuel policies, like Brazil’s use of ethanol from sugar cane, accelerate the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation.

And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders are terrible on this issue.

Amen to that. I have spent a good deal of time writing about the problems biofuels are causing globally. It is interesting that Krugman is on the same page. Mind you, his "solution" is rather ridiculous: more food aid. How in the world does giving away more correct a short supply? What is really needed is a complete rethinking of the value of biofuel and serious attention being paid to the real energy equations involved rather than the spin of advocates. 

UPDATE: Tom Maguire calls out Krugman for a patently false statement in his column: 

Paul Krugman, who wrote in Jan 2007 that "There is a place for ethanol in the world’s energy future — but that place is in the tropics" today tells his readers that even Brazilian ethanol is contributing to food shortages worldwide.  Hmm, maybe ethanol is not such a great idea - who knew?

So how does this affect our assessment of the Presidential candidates?  Here is Krugman:

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders  are terrible on this issue.

Oh, and in case you are wondering - Krugman is lying.

Obama has consistently supported ethanol subsidies and voted in favor of those subsidies in a 2005 energy bill.

Hillary favors some subsidies but opposed the relevant 2005 amendment.

And John Sidney McCain has consistently opposed ethanol subsidies and voted on Hillary's (losing) side in 2005.

Tom has quite a bit more as well. I have been calling ethanol a boondoggle and a scam for quite some time. But then I work in the energy field and understand the science involved. Or rather, lack thereof when ethanol proponents go on about it.  

Penn Thrown Under Bus

Not that he didn't deserve it, mind you, but the Clinton campaign has finally thrown Mark Penn under the bus. Frankly, he exercised an appalling lack of judgment by meeting with Colombian officials who had hired his firm to lobby for passage of the free trade deal. (Clinton has been opposed to that deal because she is courting the unions.) But I'm surprised he has lasted this long, given the terrible performance of the campaign to date.

Mr. Penn, who has been associated with Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton for a dozen years, has come under withering criticism for continuing to consult with clients as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, the international lobbying and public relations firm.

He has also been held responsible for the flawed electoral strategy considered partly responsible for Mrs. Clinton’s difficult political position, trailing Senator Barack Obama by more than a hundred delegates and with a very narrow path to winning the Democratic nomination.

In a terse statement, Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, said, “After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as chief strategist of the Clinton campaign.”

His polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign, the statement said.

Geoff Garin, the newly hired pollster, and Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s longtime communications director, will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message team going forward.

Campaigns that start firing senor members are generally well down the road to ruin before they do so. Had Clinton been ahead at this point, she probably would have figured out a way to keep him in his position. With her behind and with an obvious problem with the unions over Penn, all she could do was throw him overboard.