Bush's News Conference Tuesday March 21, 2006

I heard the president's news conference live yesterday on my way to work. It was a good session, with the president giving good, thoughtful answers that I figured would be helpful to him. Then I read the headlines later in the day from the MSM, and wondered hw I could have not heard what I heard. They way the MSM made things out to be was completely different than what a listener would have heard had they heard it themselves, as did I. This is just another example of the left-leaning MSM's Bush-bashing.

John Hinderaker at Powerline has a great piece on just this subject.

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Bush
Iraq
News Conference

Global Warming

The debate about human-induced global warming, better known as "anthropogenic global warming", or AGW, continues to be an extremely political and bitter one. Many scientists consider the science settled, and accept as fact that human activity, specifically the release of so-called "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere are the cause of the apparent rise in temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. However, there are also many scientists who dispute the theory of AGW. Two such scientists recently published studies suggesting that either radiation from space or as a result of a meteor or comet that exploded over remote Russia in 1908.

In the first case, renowned geochemistry professor Jan Veizer of the university of Ottawa overcame years of reluctance (out of fear of reprisals) to report his theory in Geoscience Canada. An excerpt:

The standard explanation for vagaries of our climate, championed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), is that greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, are its principal driver. Recently, an alternative model that the sun is the principal driver was revived by a host of empirical observations. Neither atmospheric carbon dioxide nor solar variability can alone explain the magnitude of the observed temperature increase over the last century of about 0.6[degrees]C. Therefore, an amplifier is required. In the general climate models (GCM), the bulk of the calculated temperature increase is attributed to "positive water vapour feedback". In the sun-driven alternative, it may be the cosmic ray flux (CRF), energetic particles that hit the atmosphere, potentially generating cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). Clouds then cool, act as a mirror and reflect the solar energy back into space. The intensity of CRF reaching the earth depends on the intensity of the solar (and terrestrial) magnetic field that acts as a shield against cosmic rays, and it is this shield that is, in mm, modulated by solar activity.

The second example came out just recently by Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He says that instead of human activity, the likely source of global warming is the result of something called the Tunguska Meteorite Event, which occured in 1908 in remote Russia.

Quoted from Mosnews.com:

The Tunguska Event, sometimes known as the Tungus Meteorite is thought to have resulted from an asteroid or comet entering the earth’s atmosphere and exploding. The event released as much energy as fifteen one-megaton atomic bombs. As well as blasting an enormous amount of dust into the atmosphere, felling 60 million trees over an area of more than 2000 square kilometres. Shaidurov suggests that this explosion would have caused “considerable stirring of the high layers of atmosphere and change its structure.” Such meteoric disruption was the trigger for the subsequent rise in global temperatures.

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Global Warming
Anthropogenic Global Warming

Free Market Capitalism versus Socialist Collectivism

Seen recently (don't know the author):

"A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus, college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and many times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. that way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played, while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican Party""

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Free Market Capitalism
Socialism

Katrina Video and the AP "Clarification"

The Associated Press issued a "clarification" of its story earlier this month that erroneously stated that President Bush had been warned prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans that the levees could be "breached" by the force of the storm. The story cited video evidence shown widely on television news showing the president being briefed on the potential damage from the hurricane. The only problem with the story, is that, as reported here BEFORE the AP issued its "clarification", never during the briefings did anyone use the word "breech". They discussed 'overtopping' the levees, which is considerably different than 'breeching'.

What is important here, besides the embarrassingly elementary mistake by those responsible at the AP, is the fact that they thought they had an "A-HA!" moment. They thought they had video evidence of Bush lying about the levees, since after the hurricane he stated (paraphrasing) that "nobody anticipated the breeching of the levees". It shows yet again how outrageously biased and uncareful the AP is in general, and how so much of the mainstream press obviously must also be to unquestioningly run this so easily debunked story. This is almost as good as the Rathergate scandal.

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Katrina
"Bush Lied"
Levees breached

Katrina: The Democrats and Bush-Haters Still Don't Know the Difference Between "Breaching" and "Overtopping"

John Hinderaker at Powerline shows us once again how the Left, and more disturbingly major components of the MSM, continue to get their facts wrong regarding hurricane Katrina and the levees in New Orleans. As discussed in this forum in September of 2005,

"Breaching refers to a hole or break in the integrity of the levee, while overtopping describes the water level rising above the top of the levee, but not the failure of the levee itself. The distinction between the two is crucial to the crux of this article."

You can read all the related transcripts and watch all the videos in question, but it is clear from them that the president was correct when he said, on September 1, 2005, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." The only pre-Katrina warnings ever discussed warned of "overtopping" not "breaching" the levees.

Here's an excerpt from Mr. Hinderaker's article:

"Is it possible that all of these reporters have somehow missed all of the post-Katrina discussions about the important differences between levee overtopping (widely predicted before Katrina hit, including by CNN), and breaching of the levees, which apparently resulted from design or construction defects? It seems almost inconceivable that all of those involved in misreporting the video can claim ignorance."

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Katrina
FEMA
Levees
New Orleans levee breaks