INHOFE'S IDIOCY

[halva]

Irving is Free!
(From Israel Shamir)

Happy news in time for Christmas – David Irving was released from his Austrian jail and apparently left for England . This is the best finale for the Tehran Conference; pity he was not there, but surely this conference was not the last one. On the picture left – Irving is being set free in the court.

The Jewish newspaper Haaretz noticed that the judge who allowed the old historian to go back home for Christmas was “a sympathiser of Jorg Heider”, an Austrian right-winger. The newspaper forgot to mention that Heider would qualify as a soft leftie in the Jewish state. The newspaper never told us about political sympathies or relation to Jews of the judges who sentenced Irving and who tried Zundel.

Merry Christmas, Dr Irving, and all our readers! Let us hope for speedy liberation of other prisoners of Zion, from Marwan Barghouti to Ernst Zundel!

Here is what I wrote when Irving was sentenced:
http://www.israelsh amir.net/ English/ForWhom. htm in English

[jayreynolds]

Stop promoting Hate against Jews, Wayne. It's one of your lesser known but no less abhorrent positions.

[halva]

Let's debate Freedom of Speech, Raynolds.

[halva]

Also this:


Quote:
Originally Posted by halva
Legal prohibition of the claim that there is uncertainty as to the connection between human activity and climate change is the only way I can see of beginning to level the playing field between "skeptics" and climate change campaigners, at the moment totally and undemocratically skewed in favour of the former.


I want some more ideas on this. Are there other possible ways for achieving the same result?

I know that many many ideas are floated at places like the Smogblog, but all of them are in the reactive mode.

[foot_soldier]

RE: INHOFE'S IDIOCY, incidentally the topic of this thread:

December 17, 2006
On a swift boat to a warmer world
By Daniel P. Schrag
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/12/17/on_a_swift_boat_to_a_warmer_world/

I AM A climate scientist and an optimist. This may seem like a contradiction, with all the talk of scorching heat waves and bigger, deadlier hurricanes. But it's not.

Let's be clear: I am not a skeptic on climate change. In my earth science courses, I teach that burning fossil fuel is raising atmospheric carbon dioxide to levels not seen on Earth for more than 30 million years. In public lectures, I show pictures of what would happen to Florida and the Gulf Coast if half the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, asking people to imagine abandoning New Orleans and Miami. I tell people that, unless we take action to reduce emissions, the question is not whether this is going to occur, but when.

Yet I am an optimist because I believe we can fix the climate change problem. We can deploy the technologies to meet our energy needs while slashing carbon emissions: plug-in hybrids, windmills, carbon sequestration for coal plants, and even nuclear power. We have responded to larger challenges in the past, such as when FDR appropriated most of the nation's industrial capacity to build ships, tanks, and airplanes for World War II.

Unfortunately, I am a little less optimistic today than I was a couple of weeks ago, before testifying at the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. It was Senator James Inhofe's last hearing as chair of the committee, and the focus was on media coverage of global warming. I was invited by the Democratic staff to counter arguments that global warming is a hoax perpetrated on the American people by scientists like me.

Inhofe is a climate skeptic. But I still hoped I could help educate our lawmakers -- maybe not Inhofe, but perhaps some of the others. In my opening statement, I explained that global warming is not a partisan issue. America should lead the world and capitalize on an extraordinary business opportunity as we invest in new energy technologies, I said.

Then I watched in horror as Inhofe's witnesses spouted outrageous claims intended to deceive and distort. Two were scientists associated with industry-funded think tanks. They described global warming as a "mass delusion" among the scientific community, sowing confusion by misrepresenting the ice core data that connects carbon dioxide and temperature over glacial cycles, and claiming that "global warming stopped in 1998" -- an anomalously warm year. They even recommended burning as much fossil fuel as possible to prevent another ice age.

Unfortunately, the format does not allow for direct debate. Some senators defended the integrity of the scientific community, including Barbara Boxer, who will become chair of the committee in January. But amid the collegiality and decorum that is the tradition in the Senate, no one stood up and called this hearing what it was: a gathering of liars and charlatans, sponsored by those industries who want to protect their profits.

Later that day, Inhofe issued a press release that specifically highlighted my testimony, claiming that I "agreed" with him that the Kyoto Protocol "would have almost no impact on the climate even if all the nations fully complied." In fact, I had interrupted him during the hearing to object to this claim, reminding him that Kyoto was only conceived as a first step, and never as a long-term solution.

I later learned that Inhofe's communications director, Marc Morano, was a key figure in publicizing the swift boat veterans' attack on John Kerry in 2004. Morano, it seems, is still up to his old tricks, twisting the facts to support his boss's outrageous claims. This made my visit complete: a glimpse at our government that sees the world only through glasses tinted by special interests, which treats science as a political football, no matter what is at stake.

I am still an optimist. We still have time to avert a climate catastrophe. But I am not counting on government, or at least this government, to lead us toward a solution. As our leaders accept the outrageous spectacle I saw the other day as just a normal day in Congress, we will have to take the first step without them.

Daniel P. Schrag is professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

.

[halva]

http://www.enouranois.gr/english/political/heidicullen.htm

[foot_soldier]

January 30, 2007
'Inconvenient Truth' Producer Pens Kids' Global Warming Text
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200701/CUL20070130b.html

Excerpt:

.....Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, told Cybercast News Service Monday that David's book isn't the first to try and tell children about global warming.

Last year, the United Nations Environment Program published "Tore and the Town on Thin Ice," a children's book about a young boy in an Arctic village who loses a dog sled race because he crashes through thinning ice supposedly caused by manmade "greenhouse gas" emissions.

Inhofe said he also found it interesting that Scholastic made the announcement regarding David's book just before the United Nations is set to release a major study on climate change.

"It appears that Laurie David is joining the United Nations in aiming its global warming propaganda at children," the senator said.

"Having failed for nearly three decades to convince the American people and their leaders to jump on the global warming alarmism bandwagon, David and the U.N. are trying to fill the minds of children with 'sky-is-falling' global warming hysteria," Inhofe said.....

http://www.cnsnews.com/storyimages/2007/Down%20to%20Earth.jpg



Thank god for James Inhofe! Otherwise we'd be overwhelmed by the evil forces bent on destroying the American way of life!

[halva]

Footsoldier, are you trying to bring Reynolds back to this place??? Answer this question please???

What is the peculiar nostalgie de la boue that attracts you to this sewer of a forum??

And why do you need to keep slinging off in this way at the Inhofes, the Ed Smells, etc.??? And at the same time NOT engaging with the Littlemores of the world, whose particular hypocrisy you allow to stand unchallenged and whom you do NOT try to win over to what might be called OUR side!!!

Were you getting bored having intelligent engagement with Big Bunny at the moderated Megasprayer forum, showing both you and him to your best advantage??

I can understand what motivates Socrates to post here, having been kicked out of everywhere else. What is your excuse???

You appear to be answering my question as to why it is that you do not wish to have a one-to-one analytical discussion with me on the subject of aviation emissions. You do NOT understand or know something of which I am ignorant. You want to adopt an aloof, above-the-fray stance, but at the same time you cannot resist the temptation of getting into slanging matches with the plebs and the scum.

[halva]

It was NEVER my choice to be arguing with the chemtrails debunkers. And I do not WISH to debate with global-warming sceptics. There are so many people losing their time doing this.

Next month there is going to be a big global warming function here in Athens, with the tone being established by Stavros Dimas, Greenpeace, and other luminaries who say all the things you would approve of about aircraft emissions, but are STILL trying to hide behind their index fingers on the subject of deliberate spraying of aerosols, which they simply say they are AGAINST, avoiding the issue of whether it is actually occurring, even now, when newspaper articles and other mainstream media coverage of the "chemtrails" are regularly appearing. .

These are the people with whom we are competing for credibility, not the Inhofes, with whom THEY are competing for credibility.

We do not have the resources to waste on any task other than establishing OUR credibility at the expense of the Greenpeaces and the Dimases. Not attacking them as if they are the main enemy, but also not tolerating the elementary absence of logic in their positions.

Don't you have the stomach for this particular fight,, Footsoldier??

[halva]

Footsoldier, I would prefer interchanges of this kind with you NOT to be taking place on public forums. I don't know why you continue to decline to be part of the e-mail discussion between people at your level that I have invited you to join.

That and continuation of your posting at Megasprayer (and elsewhere I suppose) seems to be preferable to the slumming that you keep sinking back into here.

[foot_soldier]

Footsoldier, are you trying to bring Reynolds back to this place??? Answer this question please???

The answer is NO. I couldn't care less what Reynolds does. I'm adding a current article to a thread, period.

What is the peculiar nostalgie de la boue that attracts you to this sewer of a forum??

And what is the particular obsession that compels you to keep returning? No one is twisting your arm to monitor this place.

And why do you need to keep slinging off in this way at the Inhofes, the Ed Smells, etc.??? And at the same time NOT engaging with the Littlemores of the world, whose particular hypocrisy you allow to stand unchallenged and whom you do NOT try to win over to what might be called OUR side!!!

I read the Littlemore "Is Geo-engineering The Answer" thread. I have no interest in trying to "win him over."

Were you getting bored having intelligent engagement with Big Bunny at the moderated Megasprayer forum, showing both you and him to your best advantage??

I can understand what motivates Socrates to post here, having been kicked out of everywhere else. What is your excuse???

You appear to be answering my question as to why it is that you do not wish to have a one-to-one analytical discussion with me on the subject of aviation emissions. You do NOT understand or know something of which I am ignorant.

I never said I did. I know what I know and I have tried to share that. If you were more respectful of people's wishes for at least a minimal level of personal privacy I would still be sharing with you. I am sorry to have to say this in a public venue but you have left me no choice at this juncture.

You want to adopt an aloof, above-the-fray stance, but at the same time you cannot resist the temptation of getting into slanging matches with the plebs and the scum.

Yes, as is glaringly apparent, I've been here at all hours, day after day, "slinging it out" with jerks.

:rolleyes:

Come on, get a grip.

You cannot control other people.
.

[halva]

If one cannot control other people, Footsoldier, cut your throat now.

Reality and truth are concrete, not abstract. We are not talking about "other people". We are talking about you. When you say to me "you cannot control other people" you mean I cannot "control" you. In other words, whatever I say and do to try to persuade you of my viewpoint, it will have no effect.

This must be the stance of Mr. Inhofe, which is why you get angry with him.

[halva]

And please justify why it is that you are NOT INTERESTED in winning over precisely the section of public opinion that is CRUCIAL to our success or failure???

Get off your high horse and ARGUE with someone who IS interested in YOU!!

[foot_soldier]

March 28, 2007
Inhofe vows to put brakes on Gore’s ‘Live Earth’ concert at the Capitol
http://www.hillnews.com/leading-the-news/inhofe-vows-to-put-brakes-on-gores-live-earth-concert-at-the-capitol-2007-03-27.html

Fresh from his face-to-face tussle with former Vice President Al Gore, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is vowing to stall Gore’s hotly anticipated Capitol concert to draw attention to global warming.

Inhofe’s belief that climate change is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is common knowledge in the capitol, and environmental groups cheered the new prospects for carbon-capping legislation when he ceded the Environment and Public Works Committee gavel this session. But Inhofe’s parliamentary powers can block indefinitely the resolution that would permit Gore to choose the capitol’s West Front for the U.S. leg of his seven-continent Live Earth concert tour — a collaboration between Gore and promoter Kevin Wall, who masterminded previous blockbuster charity concerts Live Aid and Live 8.

“There has never been a partisan political event at the Capitol, and this is a partisan political event,” Inhofe said yesterday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted late last week to pass the authorizing measure for Live Earth by unanimous consent. But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) raised an objection on the floor, seeking more time for his side to look at the resolution.

Inhofe appeared to see little room for an accommodation that could allow the concert to go forward. “There’s no compromise. Either we change the rules or we don’t.”

Inhofe added that other members share his concerns, including unnamed Democrats as well as Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), ranking member of the Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over the concert resolution.

Democrats “may not be willing to stand up to Al Gore, but many of them found it just as objectionable as Republicans do,” he said.

Bennett’s office did not return a request for comment by press time.

Inhofe’s latest challenge to Gore comes after their forceful exchange during last week’s hearing in the environment committee, when Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) stepped in to stop Inhofe from dictating terms of response to the 2000 presidential nominee. Gore declined to sign a personal energy usage pact proffered by Inhofe.

The Mall is already booked during the July 7 date slated for Live Earth, so the exigent need to secure use of the Capitol led Rules Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to support unanimous passage, Rules staff director Howard Gantman said.
“They have made it clear that they’re opposed to it,” Gantman said of the GOP. “They’re blocking passage of the bill. As far as next steps, if Republicans wanted to discuss their opposition, we would do so.”

Chad Griffin, an adviser to Live Earth, was taken aback by Inhofe’s objections to using the Capitol to promote environmental health. The West Front was used to inaugurate Earth Day in a 1990 event, for which Gore, a former senator, sponsored the authorizing resolution.

“This is a totally non-partisan event,” Griffin said, noting that Reid cosponsored the concert resolution with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

The Capitol concert would be free of charge, incurring a $5 million cost to Live Earth. Promoters would recoup that amount if they were forced to choose another venue, Griffin said. Reid added language to the resolution ensuring that the Capitol Police would be reimbursed in advance for their estimated $1.5 million in security costs.

“It was a priority for Live Earth that the taxpayers not pay a single dime” for the show, Griffin said. “Given that, we remain optimistic.”

Snowe, a longtime supporter of carbon emissions curbs who co-chairs an international climate-change group, said yesterday that she was surprised the concert idea had become controversial among her colleagues. She expressed hope that concert organizers would not be forced to move the U.S. performance out of Washington if the Capitol proves impossible.

“That would certainly provide an unfortunate message on behalf of the U.S., that somehow we’re languishing in our desire to combat the problem,” Snowe said. “We should be a leader in this endeavor.”

Reid remains optimistic that the climate-change fight can come to the Capitol dome, spokeswoman Liz Oxhorn said.

[foot_soldier]

March 29, 2007
Gore climate event turned away from D.C.
GOP senator says the proposed 'Live Earth' concert is partisan and shouldn't be at the Capitol.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-warm29mar29,1,2579216.story?coll=la-news-a_section

WASHINGTON — When former Vice President Al Gore testified before Congress last week, his appearance was viewed as the triumph of environmentalists over doubters in the debate over global warming.

Fresh from Hollywood, where his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar, Gore imbued Democrats now in power on Capitol Hill with a sense of mission, urging them to "rise to the occasion and present meaningful solutions to this crisis."

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), former chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, seemed a lonely dissenter. Forced by November's election results to surrender the gavel to enviro-friendly Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Inhofe — who has called the alarms about man-made global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" — challenged what he called the inaccuracies in Gore's assertions and spent most of his time making speeches to the former vice president.

Now, it seems, Inhofe is winning the next round.

Promoters of "Live Earth" — which they describe as "a 24-hour concert on 7/7/07 across all 7 continents" — wanted to use Washington's National Mall as the North American venue. When the Interior Department rejected the proposal, questioning whether planners could get enough portable toilets for the expected crowd, the promoters turned to Congress.

In partnership with Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, "Live Earth" organizers sought a congressional resolution allowing them to hold the concert — featuring such performers as Snoop Dogg, Bon Jovi, Lenny Kravitz, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, and the Black Eyed Peas — on the steps of the Capitol.

They lined up bipartisan support: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) cosponsored the resolution. After Republicans raised concerns about security costs, the promoters offered to reimburse the government for the estimated $1.5 million in police expenses. They started making plans.

But Inhofe objected "to having any events on the Capitol grounds that are either highly partisan or politically controversial — and the proposed Gore concert is both," said Marc Morano, the GOP communications director for the Environment and Public Works Committee. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) questioned the issue on the Senate floor last Friday, holding up its passage.

As a result, concert planners are checking the availability of other locations on the East Coast, including Shea Stadium and other venues in the New York area.

"While it's unfortunate for the American people that we are being blocked from staging the U.S. concert in our nation's capital, the show must go on," Chad Griffin, a "Live Earth" advisor, wrote in an e-mail to supporters on Capitol Hill.

The cancellation of the Capitol venue disappointed many in Congress. "It's unfortunate that Sen. Inhofe has decided to make something like the environment a partisan issue," said Reid's spokesman, James Manley.

Noting that many political events — including the 1990 Earth Day celebration — have been held on the Capitol steps, Snowe was, her spokesman said, "genuinely disappointed" by objections from her fellow Republicans. "She thinks it's a very unfortunate message to send that somehow this country is languishing behind in the desire to combat carbon emissions," said communications director David Snepp.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) was aghast.

"Not since former Interior Secretary James Watt tried to ban the Beach Boys from appearing on the National Mall has such a misguided effort at political censorship been undertaken by a Republican official," Markey said. "It's dangerous enough to deny science; it's sheer lunacy to deny song."

Anyone think this situation is "entertaining?"

.....But Inhofe objected "to having any events on the Capitol grounds that are either highly partisan or politically controversial — and the proposed Gore concert is both," said Marc Morano, the GOP communications director for the Environment and Public Works Committee.....
In my opinion, we ignore this state of affairs at our peril.

We now live in a country where the president can get away with accusing anyone who, for example, challenges the direction of his open-ended Iraq agenda of being "partisan." That's exactly what he did yesterday, in case anyone missed it.

I think it is an ominous development when persons in high-level positions start shooting their mouths off like this.

[halva]

Footsoldier I have embarked on a strategy at DeSmogBlog whose aim is to provide a solution to the problem posed by the likes of Inhofe.

You have never said whether you agree or disagree with my strategy. Of what use to me is your intelligence?.

I do not think that "protest politics" is appropriate when one is dealing with such a single-minded enemy.

[foot_soldier]

James "Global Warming Is A Hoax" Inhofe continues to make a royal @ss of himself:

October 27, 2007
Inhofe says he'll block emission-limit legislation
http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=7273633

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, who has called global warming a hoax, says he will block a bipartisan Senate bill that would limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, is Congress' most vocal skeptic of the idea that human activity is responsible for global warming.

Yesterday, during a lengthy speech on the Senate floor, he said the media, environmental groups and "Hollywood" liberals, among others, have exaggerated the causes and effects of global warming.

The Oklahoman reported on Inhofe's speech from its Washington bureau.

Inhofe maintains that a growing number of scientists are agreeing with him and have questioned computer models used to predict future temperatures and water levels.

Inhofe said during his speech that energy prices would rise and the economy would slow if any limits on greenhouse gas emissions were set.

[halva]

The fact that people like him have a platform in Congress where they can air their "views" while people like "us" (is there a "we"?) are not part of the public debate but relegated to a special section of discourse that we share with cranks and obsessives of every kind, is a political problem.

You don't like the way I want to try to solve the problem (my "political agenda"). But what is your counter-proposal, Footsoldier??? Merely to go on asserting that this Inhofe is "making an ass of himself"?

Yes. That is what your counter-proposal is. That is what you do and that is what you are going to continue doing.

[halva]

You are part of the problem, not part of the solution.