An Actual Victim Of The “Global Warming” Hysteria

Just call it theme night here at the Crabitat!

From the Houston Chronicale: Hurricane forecaster's dispute with school focuses on global warming debate

By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting and teaching 70 graduate students who now populate the National Hurricane Center and other research outposts, William Gray turned a city far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca.

But now the institution in Fort Collins, Colo., where he has worked for nearly half a century, has told Gray it may end its support of his seasonal forecasting.

As he enters his 25th year of predicting hurricane season activity, Colorado State University officials say handling media inquiries related to Gray's forecasting requires too much time and detracts from efforts to promote other professors' work.

But Gray, a highly visible and sometimes acerbic skeptic of climate change, says that's a "flimsy excuse" for the real motivation — a desire to push him aside because of his global warming criticism.

Among other comments, Gray has said global warming scientists are "brainwashing our children."

Now an emeritus professor, Gray declined to comment on the university's possible termination of promotional support.

But a memo he wrote last year, after CSU officials informed him that media relations would no longer promote his forecasts after 2008, reveals his views:

"This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department's capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign (sic) in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms," Gray wrote to Dick Johnson, head of CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and others.

Gray should know that deviation from the party line is strictly verboten.

And do you want the winner for the single most disengenuous statement of 2008?  Getaloadofthis:

The dean of the College of Engineering, which oversees atmospheric sciences, said she spoke with Gray about terminating media support for his forecasts solely because of the strain it placed on the college's sole media staffer.

Yeah, that's right.  Universities hate it when they get publicity.  In a related note CSU has announced they are dropping men's football and basketball because they also attract too much darn attention to the school.

(H/T to Roger Pielke.)

The Real Victims Of Our Actual Weather

You remember our actual weather, such as the extremely harsh winter that still is causing havoc in many part of North America as we head into May?  Well, its effects have been devestating: Where The Buffalo Roam - And Die

 More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program.

More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.

As a result, the park estimates its bison herd has dropped from 4,700 in November to about 2,300 today, prompting the government to halt the culling program early.

Evidently, the harsh winter has forced the buffalo to search for better grazing land which has led to their posing a threat to the business of cattle ranchers:

Bison graze high on Yellowstone's grassy plateaus during the summer. When the weather becomes too harsh and food becomes scarce, they often roam outside the park. That's the problem.

Nash explained the situation in its simplest terms:

"Bison are bison. Bison are nomadic animals. Bison are looking for food. Food is difficult and scarce to come by at the end of the winter. They're leaving the interior of the park [and going] to lower places, in part, to look for food. There's limited tolerance for bison outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park."

That's because just two cases of brucellosis would trigger stringent limits on export of cattle from Montana.

"Montana has spent millions of dollars over the years to get brucellosis eradicated from our livestock," said Martin Davis, who has a cattle ranch within roaming distance north of the park. "And to put that in jeopardy — no one wants that to happen."

Control of the bison population is essential, Davis said.

"Bottom line is, there's too many of them. They've got to be managed. They ran out of pasture. … They're eating themselves out of house and home."

The Real Victim Of “Global Warming”

Bird Dog at Maggie's Farm points out the real victim of the "global warming" hysteria: real conservationism.

At the risk of sounding corny, we believe in good stewardship of our inheritance.

What's irrational? The Green Movement is irrational. Most of it represents feel-good ideas that are hooey: symbolic hooey that is meant to make people feel virtuous while accomplishing nothing. Witness the lightbulb craze, "organic" vegetables, "recycling" plastic bottles (totally energy-inefficient), or hybrid cars (which do nothing "for the planet" but which are great on gas mileage). It's empty vanity and fashion, and nothing more (for an example, see this foolish agonizing piece by Michael Pollan), who has caught a bad case of the vain and guilt-ridden sanctimony of the "I can make a difference" disorder.

Pure organic pixie dust for the latte liberals.

The CO2 obsession is similarly irrational, and, deep down, everybody must know it. It is irrational because it is futile, regardless of whether there is any current warming, and regardless of whether there is any man-made warming.

I've pointed out that it has never been easier to rape the planet right now. Say you're producing biofuel and you have a free pass to eradicate a rain forest. But true conservation is being dragged down into the insanity of the extremists. Bird Dog has it exactly right here. Go read it all.

Holes In One

A golfer in Florida, one Mr. Matt Johnson, helped save the life of  another man, Mr. Dwight Monreal, from the jaws of an aggressive alligator. Johnson did so by wielding a mean four iron and a rake to drive the gator away from Mr. Monreal.

A golfer used a four iron and a rake to save the life of a diver attacked by a giant 11ft alligator as he searched for lost balls in a lake.

Matt Johnson was enjoying a round of golf at his local course in Tampa, Florida, when he heard Dwight Monreal's screams for help.

He rushed to the lake to see 62-year-old Mr Monreal, dressed in full scuba-diving gear, wrestling with the fearsome reptile.

Using his club and a rake, Mr Johnson repeatedly hit the alligator over its head until it released Mr Monreal's left arm from its razor-sharp jaws.

He and playing partner, Tara McNaughton, then dragged Mr Monreal out of the water and rushed him on a golf buggy to the clubhouse at the Tampa Palms Golf and Country Club.

Using his club and a rake, Mr Johnson repeatedly hit the alligator over its head until it released Mr Monreal's left arm from its razor-sharp jaws.

He and playing partner, Tara McNaughton, then dragged Mr Monreal out of the water and rushed him on a golf buggy to the clubhouse at the Tampa Palms Golf and Country Club.

In no way faulting Mr. Johnson, we would have used a nine iron in this situation. (But then we use the nine for everything from driving to putting. We are not very good at golf.) Nonetheless, Mr. Monreal is vowing that he will be back salvaging golf balls as soon as the multiple holes in his one body heal. We have to admire his pluck.

Trifecta

As I am catching up on my reading today, I find that I have yet another Wright-themed post that has to be made. Because Eric Pianin at the Washington Post also saw and heard things that disturbed him today at Wright's appearance at the National Press Club - and he thinks Obama has a major, major problem on his hands.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, explaining this morning why he had waited so long before breaking his silence about his incendiary sermons, offered a paraphrase from Proverbs: "It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Barack Obama's pastor would have been wise to continue to heed that wisdom.

Should it become necessary in the months from now to identify the moment that doomed Obama's presidential aspirations, attention is likely to focus on the hour between nine and ten this morning at the National Press Club. It was then that Wright, Obama's longtime pastor, reignited a controversy about race from which Obama had only recently recovered - and added lighter fuel.

Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.

In front of 30 television cameras, Wright's audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama's vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table, American Urban Radio's April Ryan, confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.

There's a lot more to be disturbed about. Go over and read it all.

Yes, Obama has a major problem Wright now. No, it isn't guilt by association, either. It is guilt by failure to disassociate himself from Wright a long time ago. The failure of Obama to realize that Wright was going to be a real liability speaks quite a lot about Obama's judgment - none of it good. Could this, in fact, be the real end of Obama's chances?

Very possibly. That popping sound you here is the champaign being opened over at Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Wright Or Wrong

Looks like it is going to be one of those nights where things just keep coming up on the same subject. Said subject being Jeremiah Wright. I'm not the only one who sees raging narcissism in the reverend. Joan Walsh at Salon has just admitted that she made a rather large mistake about Wright:

I've now watched Rev. Jeremiah Wright's speech to the Detroit NAACP and his National Press Club appearance this morning. I've also read all 632 (and counting) letters in reply to my Sunday post about Wright's conversation with PBS's Bill Moyers. And in response, I'd like to retract something I wrote on Sunday. Here's the section I regret:

"One thing about my reaction surprised me. I had seen short clips and I was prepared to argue that Wright is a stone-cold narcissist, unprepared to let Obama surpass him, uninterested in whether he's wrong. But Moyers' interview made me see how hurt Wright is. He's genuinely wounded, and I felt sorry for him."

I regret that I hedged my observation about Wright's narcissism. He may be wounded, but this is a man of enormous self-regard, and he's clearly trying to hurt Barack Obama. His national rehabilitation tour started fairly sympathetically with the Moyers conversation, but it's devolved into self-pity and self-glorification ever since. His Sunday night talk to the NAACP was mostly silly, from the questionable science behind his insistence that black children are right-brained (creative) while white children are left-brained (logical and analytical) to his mocking the way white people talk, dance, clap, worship and sing…..

In other words (mine) Wright is spewing his bile at every opportunity now - and he does not care one whit whether his rants damage Obama. What a small, self-centered person Wright is.

Wrong Wright

I'm quite sure Joe Klein's already getting an Obamavalanche in his email box over this post at Swampland. But he has to be getting used to that by now, I suppose.

……for Wright to say the attacks on him are an attack on the black church is to offer a straitened and solipsistic view of that grand institution. Black liberation theology is not the black church.

And worse, Wright's purpose now seems quite clear: to aggrandize himself–the guy is going to be a go-to mainstream media source for racial extremist spew, the next iteration of Al Sharpton–and destroy Barack Obama.

I happened to catch part of NPR's coverage of Jeremiah Wright today (including some fawning from Democratic members of Congress that should get NPR in trouble with the FEC for running campaign commercials gratis, but I digress). Wright sounded exactly as if this is all about him. What a great guy he is and how he's being wronged because people dare to report his spew of hatred.

So, it really is all about him - even if it costs Obama support he desperately needs right now. That, I think, says more about Wright than even his hate-filled diatribes do.

I Think This Is Funny

I don't have the time to crosspost this, but I thought folks here would enjoy this: How Stupid The Daily Kos Thinks You "Is"