Filibuster myth-busters

By Wendy E. Long
The Washington Times

If you were a senator, whose views would be more important to you: liberal special-interest groups, or registered voters?

The liberal groups demand that Democrats filibuster (prevent the Senate from voting on) some of President Bush's best-qualified nominees to the federal appeals courts. But a recent Ayres McHenry nationwide survey reveals that 82 percent of registered voters believe well-qualified nominees deserve a Senate vote. That includes 85 percent of Republicans, 81 percent of Democrats, and 81 percent of Independents.

Some Senators apparently believe voters won't see through partisan obstructionism. But they can't possibly believe the other myths about the filibuster.

Myth No. 1:Filibuster of judges is a sacred tradition.

Fact: The filibuster is nowhere in the Constitution. It is not among the "checks and balances" our Founding Fathers created. It did not even exist until the 1830s, and the "tradition" involves legislation, not judicial appointments. The filibuster was used to defend slavery and oppose the Civil Rights Act — hardly noble purposes. The current obstruction of judges is no "traditional" filibuster: it is the first time in more than 200 years that either party has filibustered to keep judges with majority support off the federal bench.

Myth No. 2: Mr. Bush's nominees are being treated no differently than other presidents' nominees.

Fact: In the last Congress, 10 of the president's 34 appellate nominees were filibustered — the lowest confirmation rate since FDR. Democrats mask their sabotage of these nominees by citing the confirmation rate of judges to federal courts overall — an irrelevant statistic, because the federal courts of appeal make final rulings on most issues of constitutional law. Liberals also argue that Abe Fortas was not confirmed as Chief Justice in 1968. But Mr. Fortas was opposed by a Senate majority (both Republicans and Democrats), and President Johnson withdrew the nomination. Today, a Senate majority supports the nominees, and the president is not withdrawing them.

Myth No. 3: The Senate has a "co-equal" role with the president in judicial nominations.

Fact: The Constitution expressly gives the president — and only the president — the power to nominate federal judges. All the Senate can do is say "yes" or "no" to the president's choices. That is the "check" in the "checks-and-balances" system, to make sure no unqualified nominee becomes a federal judge. It does not give Senators — and a minority of Senators at that — the power to insist on judges who suit their own ideology.

Myth No. 4: The current filibuster is about "free speech."

Fact: Historically, the filibuster has given senators in the minority a chance to speak on the Senate floor before the majority rushes to pass a bill. But the current filibuster is not about the right to speak out. It is about blocking judges. These nominees have been pending for months — some for years. There has been, and remains, ample time to speak about them. The majority welcomes free speech and free debate — followed by a free vote.

Myth No. 5: The filibuster protects "the right of the minority" to veto nominees.

Fact: The Constitution requires two-thirds vote for certain things. Appointing judges is not one of them. So the basic principle of democracy applies: The majority decides. The filibuster of judicial nominees turns majority rule on its head, because 41of 100 senators can keep a judge off the bench without ever even voting.

A liberal minority needs federal judges to advance their agenda — allowing child pornography as free speech, mandating same-sex marriage, removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, banning school prayer and preventing the death penalty for murderers and terrorists — because they can't win these issues at the ballot box. Mr. Bush promised to nominate judges who will apply the law as written and stay out of politics. The recent Ayres survey shows 67 percent of voters agree that "we should take politics out of the courts and out of the confirmation process." A full 61 percent of Democrats agree with this statement, as well as 73 percent of Independents and 69 percent of Republicans.

The American people want senators to do the job our tax dollars pay them to do. Senators who fail to do their jobs — either by failing to show up for their committee meetings, by voting against restoring the Senate tradition of up-or-down votes for judges, or by halting the work of the federal government — might find themselves out of work when they really need the consent of the governed: at their next election.

Wendy E. Long is counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, a former Clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and former press secretary to former Sens. Gordon Humphrey and Bill Armstrong

Cheney pledges filibuster override

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Vice President Dick Cheney jumped into the escalating fight in the Senate over the filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees with his sharpest words yet.

"For more than 200 years, the Senate has exercised this responsibility by voting either to confirm or reject nominations sent up by the president," he told a gathering of Republican lawyers yesterday. "Recently, however, a minority of senators has turned away from two centuries of practice and begun filibustering judicial nominees."

Mr. Cheney confirmed what many already assumed: He supports the so-called nuclear option and will perform his parliamentary duty to override the filibusters against judicial nominees, if it comes to that.

"If the Senate majority decides to move forward, and if the issue is presented to me in my elected office as president of the Senate, and presiding officer, I will support bringing those nominations to the floor for an up-or-down vote," Mr. Cheney said. "On the merits, this should not be a difficult call to make."

At issue are the seven judiciary nominees whose confirmations Democrats say they will block, arguing they are too conservative for the federal appellate courts. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid accused the Bush administration of going back on a promise to stay out of the judges fight in the Senate.

"Last week, I met with the president and was encouraged when he told me he would not become involved in Republicans' efforts to break the Senate rules," the Nevada Democrat said. "Now it appears he was not being honest, and that the White House is encouraging this raw abuse of power."

Meanwhile, Majority Leader Bill Frist is pressing forward with his plans to take part in tomorrow's "Justice Sunday" telecast aimed at gaining public support among parishioners for stopping the Democratic filibusters of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.

Mr. Frist wants to change chamber rules to bar the use of filibusters on judicial nominees. He told The Washington Times he has the 51 votes needed to do so. As the president of the Senate, Mr. Cheney would only vote if there is a tie.

For years, Republicans have accused Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee of blocking court nominees based on their personal religious views on issues such as abortion. Republicans hope that tomorrow's telecast -- piped into churches nationwide -- will turn around their stagnant public relations campaign on the issue.

The Tennessee Republican has come under heavy criticism from Democrats and liberal church leaders for his participation in the telecast.

"We are surprised and grieved by a campaign launched this week by Family Research Council and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who said that those who disagree with them on President Bush's judicial nominees are against people of faith," said Robert Edgar, general secretary of the liberal National Council of Churches.

"Their attempt to impose on the entire country a narrow, exclusivist, private view of truth is a dangerous, divisive tactic," he said. "It serves to further polarize our nation, and it disenfranchises and demonizes good people of faith who hold political beliefs that differ from theirs."

Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly Presbyterian Church, admonished Mr. Frist that "the First Amendment is good for the church and it's good for America."

"We would like to urge Senator Frist to reconsider supporting such movements," said Mr. Kirkpatrick, who has publicly opposed Mr. Bush and Mr. Frist on homosexual "marriage."

"We believe that this is a time when religious people need to come together and not to create a climate of divisiveness and it is certainly not a time in which we turn political disagreements into religious conflicts."

Tomorrow's "Justice Sunday" will be broadcast at 7 p.m. from Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., and be hosted by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family.

Joining them will be Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi, the retired federal judge who was filibustered by Democrats before Mr. Bush "recess appointed" him to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals."

DO YOU TRUST YOUR NEIGHBOR TO PAY TAXES?

Mona Charen writes about income taxes vs. a consumption tax.

Junk Science

As most of you have probably seen by now since this news topics is a couple days old, the CDC says they overestimated the number of deaths caused by obesity. Actually, back in the fall of 2004, there were reports that their estimates were too high, and deaths may be 20 percent fewer than their original "data" indicated.

And now, they say it is around 25,000 per year instead of 400,000. That's some discrepancy folks. Now, to shift gears somewhat to a matter unrelated to obesity, but nonetheless interrelated thru junk science, I pose this question:

"If our scientists and researchers are this far off on their experiments/studies/research/data analysis on deaths related to "obesity" ( i.e. "more than average fatness"), how in God's green earth ( sorry, it's Earth day - had to use it) can anyone believe that our scientists can study/research/analyze data/understand/predict what is really happening in the "realm of global warming"? Undoubtedly this is a vastly more compilcated area of science.

I would like to submit this piece of information to you:

"The surface of the planet has warmed one Fahrenheit degree over the past century. If that warming had been caused by a blanket of CO₂ trapping heat and transferring it back to Earth, the atmosphere should heat up first, then the surface.

Is that what actually happened? At the end of the 20th century (1976-2000), the surface of the planet was heating up 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. To warm the earth at that rate, the atmosphere should have been heating up even faster, at 0.41 degrees per decade.

But according to independent readings from weather satellites and weather balloons, the atmosphere warmed more slowly than the surface, at 0.13 degrees per decade. The model is off by a mere 200 percent." (Emphasis added - H.H.)

If it is all junk science, then the "Henny Penny - The sky is falling" fear mongerers out there must have a reason - an agenda. Don't they?

Via Jeffblogworthy, a little insight on todays' "eco-wackos" from Dr. Patrick Moore, founding member of Greenpeace:

By the mid-1980's... we had won over a majority of the public in the industrialized democracies. Presidents and prime ministers were talking about the environment on a daily basis.

For me it was time to make a change. I had been against at least three or four things every day of my life for 15 years; I decided I'd like to be in favor of something for a change. I made the transition from the politics of confrontation to the politics of building consensus. After all, when a majority of people decide they agree with you it is probably time to stop hitting them over the head with a stick and sit down and talk to them about finding solutions to our environmental problems.

Compromise and co-operation with the involvement of government, industry, academia and the environmental movement is required to achieve sustainability [of the environmental movement.] It is this effort to find consensus among competing interests that has occupied my time for the past 15 years.

Not all my former colleagues saw things that way. They rejected consensus politics and sustainable development in favor of continued confrontation and ever-increasing extremism. They ushered in an era of zero tolerance and left-wing politics. Some of the features of this environmental extremism are:

Environmental extremists are anti-human. Humans are characterized as a cancer on the Earth. To quote eco-extremist Herb Hammond, "of all the components of the ecosystem, humans are the only ones we know to be completely optional". Isn't that a lovely thought?

They are anti-science and technology. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and unnatural. Science is invoked to justify positions that have nothing to do with science. Unfounded opinion is accepted over demonstrated fact.

Environmental extremists are anti-trade, not just free trade but anti-trade in general. In the name of bioregionalism they would bring in an age of ultra-nationalist xenophobia. The original "Whole Earth" vision of one world family is lost in a hysterical campaign against globalization and free trade.

They are anti-business. All large corporations are depicted as inherently driven by greed and corruption. Profits are definitely not politically correct. The liberal democratic, market-based model is rejected even though no viable alternative is proposed to provide for the material needs of 6 billion people. As expressed by the Native Forest Network, "it is necessary to adopt a global phase out strategy of consumer based industrial capitalism." I think they mean civilization.

And they are just plain anti-civilization. In the final analysis, eco- extremists project a naive vision of returning to the supposedly utopian existence in the garden of Eden, conveniently forgetting that in the old days people lived to an average age of 35, and there were no dentists. In their Brave New World there will be no more chemicals, no more airplanes, and certainly no more polyester suits."

Kennedy In-Law Secretly Taped Hillary Aide

From NewsMax

Sen. Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law, who pled guilty to bank fraud charges yesterday in New Orleans, secretly tape recorded former top Hillary Clinton campaign aide David Rosen - and may have taped Hillary herself - as part of an FBI probe into an Aug. 12, 2000 gala fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign."

Borders/Bush/Vigilantes

I have had a couple of readers comment on my posts in regards to the volunteer border patrols, what effects they may be having, and President Bush's remarks and his calling them vigilantes, and what effect it may have.

Let me share a couple more thoughts. First, what is a vigilante?

(1) vigilantes: members of a vigilance committee; unpaid workers; volunteers; vigilance men

(2) vigilance: the process of paying close and continuous attention; watchfulness; alertness; vigilant attentiveness

While on the surface and by strict definition standards, GW's use of the word "vigilantes" to describe the "Minutemen Project" might seem innocuous.

However, I think any truthful, clear thinking person would agree that the term "vigilantes" usually connotes a much stronger and negative image and is an emotionally charged adjective.

Not only is it unfortunate that President Bush chose to use this word in the first place, but the Bush Administration isn't backing down from the use of the word as can be seen here. How unfortunate - and potentially damaging to the Republicans. They could be driving a wedge between them and many concerned (over border issues) citizens.

The Minutemen Project's original intent was to patrol the border for only ONE month. New York Newsday (via the L.A. Times) posts an article, "Border-Watch Group to Stop Patrols",
"The Minuteman Project says it will focus on protesting businesses that employ illegal migrants and push for immigration reform", whereby they claim they have been successful in making their point and are going to turn their attention now towards businesses that hire illegals.

However, the Minutemen leaders have "promised an encore if there is no progress toward safeguarding the border by October."

"We'll be back. We can put between 10,000 and 21,000 people on the border in all four Southwestern states," Deacon said.

"We will close down the border the way we closed this section. Our message is very clear — we want our government to secure our borders."

One of the Minutemens detractors is MayorRay Borane. "Ray Borane, the mayor of Douglas, said the effort had been 'very superficial and clearly insincere'."

"It doesn't surprise me that they ended it," he said. "As soon as the media packed up and left, they left as well. All they accomplished was being a hindrance to the Border Patrol and creating international hard feelings. Their biggest accomplishment was getting the media's attention. It was, as the Mexicans say, all song and no opera."

Uh, huh. A hindrance to the Boder Patrol. I have seen absolutely no facts to back up this assertion; every thing has been quite the opposite. Oh, well. Facts are minor things. Right?

I have a very strong suspicion that Mayor Borane's most compassionate criticism of the Minutemen Project and most damaging aspect of their mission was "creating international hard feelings."

Damn, I need to be loved!

Newt says, Border control 'absurd,'

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House who led the Republican revolution of the last decade, is blasting the the lack of control at America's borders as "absurd." "I don't think we're stepping up to the plate on a whole series of big challenges, and [the border] is one of them," Gingrich said yesterday on Sean Hannity's national radio show. "You can't have the director of central intelligence, Porter Goss, testify publicly to the Congress that he's genuinely afraid that a weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear weapon, is going to come across the border, and then do nothing about it. I think it's absurd."

The ex-congressional leader says Washington is not stepping up to the plate. Gingrich is urging people to contact federal lawmakers and urge them to take the matter seriously.

I am glad Newt Gingrich is speaking up on this matter. Read the rest of the article at World Net Daily.

Two U.N. oil-for-food probers resign

By Desmond O. Butler, The Washington Times

"Two senior investigators with the U.N. committee probing corruption in the oil-for-food program have resigned in protest, saying they think a report that cleared Kofi Annan of meddling in the $64 billion operation was too soft on the secretary-general.............."

Read the rest here, Two U.N. oil-for-food probers resign. Registration required.

China/Japan politics: Worse to come

"This past weekend, the Chinese Communist government organized a protest demonstration in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing. Under the watchful eyes of Chinese security agents and police, the young protestors were encouraged to throw stones at the embassy in protest over the latest Japanese history textbook continuing to omit mention of Japanese atrocities in China during World War II."

"As anti-Japanese protests in China have spread and increased in intensity over the past week or so, the implications for bilateral relations have become more serious. What at first could be dismissed as a periodic flare-up of animosity, in essence a perennial occupational hazard for diplomatic and commercial ties between the two countries, has expanded into an issue with the potential to poison relations more substantively, and thus to cloud North Asian stability, for a long time to come—at least well into 2006."

"For China, the big question is a domestic one—that is, whether the government has unwittingly unleashed a force that it cannot control. Could protests against Japan mutate into protests against the Chinese government of a sufficient scale and intensity to threaten the ruling Chinese Communist Party? Moreover, if the Chinese government acts to curb anti-Japanese activity for fear of protests getting out of hand, it may appear soft on the "enemy" and stir up further resentment in the process. More broadly, the more Chinese people become used to protesting over grievances of any kind, the greater the risk there is to party control."

"It should be noted, however, that the economic reforms of the past few years have made protests—over corruption, lay-offs and the like—quite common in China and have not prevented the party from maintaining broad stability. It would be highly premature to regard the latest protests as a precursor to another incident of similar the magnitude to the 1989 pro-democracy protests. At present, all that can said is that either tolerating or, as some suspect, pandering to nationalistic sentiment has inherent dangers for the Chinese government, though not necessarily ones that will immediately undermine political stability."

Homosexual Advocacy Group Criticizes New Pope

Wow, what a shocker - a shocker that this group would be critical of this selection. And, they thought a pope would be selected that would turn Catholicism on its' head and embrace gay marriage. As CNSNews reports:

Not everyone had words of praise for the selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new pope. A homosexual advocacy group expressed "concern" that Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "does not present a hopeful vision of the future or inspire optimism for affirming language, policies or outreach." Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) noted that Ratzinger "authored a Vatican document condemning marriage and adoption by gay men and lesbians in July 2003."

Full Story

You're delusional if you think the Catholic religion is going to change its' core beliefs and teachings to accomdate you. (And, no, I'm not Catholic.)

Can you say narcissism?

Tom Delay

I have heard people claim that the left is after Tom Delay because he is successful and effective in his role. That is quite possible. There could be several reasons. To sidetrack and derail the Republican party would seem to be a logical motive and a lower profile Republican might not cause the waves they are looking for.

Someone did pose this question on the Delay matter, "If DeLay was as incompetent/ineffective as Reid, Pelosi, Dean... are claiming, why wouldn’t the liberals want him around?"

Exactly.

Border Patrol Proving Successful

Jeff Hartwick has written an article for Global Politician, "Resounding Success: Minutemen Have Made a Difference on the Border and in Washington" in which he writes:
"In recent days, the Minuteman Project (MMP) has stirred up a lot of controversy for its activity along the U.S.-Mexico border. Liberal activists have been concerned about possible 'human rights violations' against illegal aliens by the MMP volunteers. And even President Bush implied that the Minutemen were 'vigilantes.' But the critics have been proved wrong. The project has thus far been a resounding success." Full article.

Support

I agree. C'mon Mr. President, let's show some brass ones.

Lott urges Bush to give DeLay 'aggressive support' /Audrey Hudson/ Washington Times

President Bush needs House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to further his legislative agenda and should be more outspoken in his defense against ethics charges, Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said yesterday.

Regstration required.

Global Warming

There are many stories that do not garner any coverage by the mainstream media; and they are, in many instances, just as important as those stories that do make it to press. How does this happen? How are these decision / choices made? The agenda, of course. The agenda is what drives the decision making process. "They" push the stories that serve their political bias.

Case in point - Global Warming. How many of you heard about the tremendous snowstorm in the Sahara Desert that took place January 26 & 27, 2005? In what turned out to be the worst snowfall in over a half a century, much of the Sahara Desert (the largest desert in the world) was covered in a blanket of snow. NASA satellite photos of this can be seen here. But because this type of news story throws a little cold water on all their global warming hype, it's not newsworthy. The agenda drives the "news".

Is Global Warming Real? "Everyone" knows that the planet Earth is heating up like an overstoked sauna, right? EVERYONE! "Global warming is 'a weapon of mass destruction,' says Sir John Houghton, the former head of the British Meteorological Office, who also served with other prominent scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group convened by the UN.

"Scientists know this: The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) published a petition with 1,000 signatures saying that computer simulations show that mankind is causing a dangerous warming of the planet." Ah, yes .... man, of course. But let's be specific - cut to the chase. "American policy and American factories, power plants, and cars are largely to blame, according to UN scientists, because it’s disproportionately their exhaust that’s putting carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the air, causing the planet to heat up."

But not all Americans. More specificity is needed. Republicans ...... not Democrats. You see, Republicans are for big business, and big business only. Democrats are for the little guy ... and only the little guy. Democrats are never employed by, nor will they ever be, employed by big business. And all their stock and bond holdings in their retirement plans are invested in "Mom & Pop" operations. But, I digress... sorry.

Some (many?) "experts" say the planet’s temperature most likely will rise 6 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit this century, and then at more catastrophic levels thereafter for the next 1,000 years - due to the greenhouse effect. What exactly is the greenhosue effect? How does it work? What causes it? (Man does dummy; I already told you this; Pay attention "oh non-believer".)

Ok, ok. "The sun shines, sending us energy. Some of the energy, mostly in the form of high-frequency waves of visible light, passes through the layer of gases we call our atmosphere and hits the earth. As it does, it changes from visible light into the lower-frequency, invisible waves we call infrared energy – or heat. That’s what’s going on when the sun shines on a rock and the rock becomes hot to the touch.

Heat is then radiated from the earth back toward space. But because the frequency of infrared waves is lower, they can’t pass as easily through the earth’s layer of atmospheric gases – including CO₂, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor – and are trapped.

The heat stays trapped for a time, heating up the atmosphere and the earth below it like a greenhouse warming in the winter sun. The heat-trapping gases are called 'greenhouse gases.' The greenhouse effect isn’t all bad, though. 'The earth can only sustain life because it is wearing a light blanket of greenhouse gases,' ............ 'Without them, the planet would be 65 degrees [Fahrenheit] colder' – which is to say it would be an ice ball."

"Global warming first became big news as a doomsday scenario about 15 years ago – just as the Soviet bloc was about to collapse. A joint session of Congress held hearings on global warming as a possible threat to life on earth." (Previous to this period, the "big scare" we had was that a new Ice Age was coming.) "By 1990 President George H. W. Bush and the Senate cooperated to begin spending more than $1 billion per year to fund scientists at universities and institutes to study global warming."

"Since the UN’s global warming panel – the IPCC – was formed in 1987, it has issued three scientific assessment reports, which have all relied heavily on computer modeling. You start with an idea of how the earth’s climate works, plug in the prevailing winds, so much rainfall, so much sunlight, so many tons of greenhouse gases ... and you try to predict: If CO₂ production goes up 1 percent per year, what will the earth’s temperature be in 2050?"

Now there is a question that begs to be asked here, and the unfearing Heavy-Handed will ask it. Use your own personal experience here. How many of you watch (or listen to) the weather forecasts and try to make some decisions / plans for the next day or two based what was forecasted. How accurate were the forecasts? What about the 5 day, 7 day, 10 day forecasts you might see? How accurate were they? Be honest, now.

Here goes now, the big question that Heavy-Handed is unafraid to ask: "How in the hell can someone project what the average global temperature will be 50 years from now when they cannot get the 3 day forecast correct?" !!!!

Well "anywho", the IPCC claimed, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to vast right wing Republican to human activities.”

Interestingly, researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (including astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon) in July of 2003 published a paper arguing that the 20th century had not been the warmest in the last 1,000 years. They confirmed "that from 800 to 1300 A.D., average temperatures in many regions worldwide were 2 to 4 degrees or more higher than the allegedly sweltering 20th century. It’s referred to as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), and the extra warmth made life better, not worse. It is not only the arcane techniques of paleoclimatology, such as testing core samples of glacial ice for radioisotopes, that testify to the MWP, but history – such as people’s contemporary accounts of what they grew in their fields."

Such as:

Decent wine grapes grew in Merrie England. (No more, alas.) Olives grew in 13th-century Germany, where St. Albert the Great also noted abundant fig and pomegranate groves in Cologne and the Rhine valley – places too cold for those crops today. Renaissance culture awakened and flourished throughout Europe.

The MWP also explains why Greenland, now essentially a glacier, could credibly be called Greenland. It was a Danish colony, and things actually grew there.

Following the MWP, the Greenland colony died out as average temperatures plummeted 3 to 5 degrees – about 2 degrees colder than our climate today. This Little Ice Age (LIA) finally moderated but lasted in most places until about 1900. For whatever reason, many regions have warmed up about 1 degree since 1900.

The data used on "global warming" studies used such "a small number of temperature record samples to create its dramatic trend line that the margin of error is substantial." “They’re showing incomplete sets of data. If you do that, it’s easy to show the curve you want people to see. For explaining this, they called me a ‘right-wing extremist.’ I don’t care what wings are. I want to know what the facts are,” said Soon.

This is important piece of data here folks:

Soon speaks enthusiastically of logic and measurement. “One of the most important pillars of the claim that CO2 is producing global warming,” he says, “is the thermometer readings taken over the last 150 years. They show warming from 1900 to the 1940s. But the amount of CO2 produced then was negligible compared to the next period – from the 1940s to the 1970s – when there was cooling. So how can the CO2 be producing the warming? That is the contradiction. They have yet to show why this would be.”

Heavy-Handed does find that to be quite paradoxical. For you global warming, fear mongerers out there, who always want to blame George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Tom Delay, someone, you might want to skip the next paragraph.

Since they’re astrophysicists, Soon and Baliunas know about sunspots – powerful pulses of electromagnetic energy whose effects are felt hundreds of millions of miles distant. It turns out that while increased CO2 emissions don’t correlate very well with global warming, something else does – something as far out of our control and as firmly in the hands of God as it can be: the fluctuating heat of our ultimate heat source, the sun.

Oh, no! This cannot be.

"More research is needed, but it appears that, stretching back 1,000 years, when sunspot activity went up, the earth got warmer; when the activity went down, the earth got colder."

Hmmmm....good point......
“No one in Washington gets large grants by saying something isn’t a problem. Meanwhile, the $10 billion thrown at climate modeling research in the last 15 years was wasted.”

The result from all these theories of impending doom is hard to test, "since the proof is 100 years away. In the meantime, you could argue that it has become a form of welfare for liberal scientists."

Could scientists have created a "global-warming paradigm for themselves that benefits them – as a cause and as a livelihood?"

Stay tuned. I plan to post further on this.