The Hollywood Liberal

Political Moral Hazard
Without consequences—or worse, with rewards—for wrongdoing, there is an incentive to do wrong. One need look no further than Wall Street and Washington, D.C. READ THE WHOLE ITEM By David Sirota

Without consequences—or worse, with rewards—for wrongdoing, there is an incentive to do wrong. One need look no further than Wall Street and Washington, D.C.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

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Quick Fact: On Beck , Gray falsely claims Gore “admitted the entire premise for An Inconvenient Truth wasn’t really true”

On Glenn Beck’s radio show, Pat Gray falsely claimed that Al Gore “admitted the entire premise for An Inconvenient Truth wasn’t really true” because Gore said during 2007 congressional testimony that it “[s]ometimes … has been true in the past” that increases in global temperatures have preceded increases in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Gray’s claim is undermined by Gore’s very next remarks — part of which were aired, and which affirm the consensus on global warming — that “[t]he opposite has also been true in the past. But what’s happening now is that we because of human action are overwhelming all of those cycles

From the December 10 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program:

GRAY: Al Gore — I just found this audio yesterday. Actually, testimony from 2007. I hadn’t seen this before. Apparently, he’s admitted CO2 doesn’t necessarily drive temperature; it can be the other way around. Temperature drives the CO2 up. And here’s where — this is Congressman Joe Barton of Texas pushing him on it.

[begin audio clip]

BARTON: Temperature goes up before the CO2 goes up.

GORE: Sometimes that has been true in the past. The opposite has also been true.

[end audio clip]

GRAY: OK. So, he just admitted the entire premise for An Inconvenient Truth wasn’t really true.

Fact: Gore’s testimony affirmed the central premise of global warming consensus

Gore: “[W]hat’s happening now is that we because of human action are overwhelming all of those cycles.” On March 21, 2007, during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing, Barton stated, “I have an article from the Science magazine … that explains historically a rise in CO2 concentrations did not precede a rise in temperatures but actually lagged temperature by 200 to 1,000 years — yes, lagged. CO2 levels went up after the temperature rose. It appears that temperature appears to drive CO2, not vice versa.” During his response, Gore stated, “[T]he fact that more CO2 traps more heat in the lower part of the Earth’s atmosphere is really beyond dispute. I mean, it’s not — that’s not me saying that; that’s what the scientists have known for 180 years. And for 100 years they’ve done the calculations on pretty much exactly what the magnitude of the heating effect is.” After Barton then claimed that “the temperature goes up before the CO2 goes up,” Gore responded:

GORE: Sometimes that has been true in the past. The opposite has also been true in the past. But what’s happening now is that we because of human action are overwhelming all of those cycles. [Joint House committee hearing, 3/21/07 (from the Nexis database)]

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ThinkFast: December 10, 2009
In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech this morning, President Obama called his own accomplishments “slight” in comparison to past winners and spoke at length about the irony of winning the award as a wartime president. He evoked the concept of “just war” to argue for the use of force that is “necessary” and “morally […]

In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech this morning, President Obama called his own accomplishments “slight” in comparison to past winners and spoke at length about the irony of winning the award as a wartime president. He evoked the concept of “just war” to argue for the use of force that is “necessary” and “morally justified.”

Five young Muslim American men from suburban Washington “who disappeared late last month were detained in Pakistan on Wednesday in a police raid on a house linked to a militant group.” One of the men left behind a video “calling for the defense of Muslims in conflicts with the West and suggesting that ‘young Muslims have to do something.’”

Hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh is “criticizing” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for allowing Democrats “to debate and vote on amendments” during the health care debate. He has “questioned McConnell’s strategy a few times” this week, “joining a chorus of growing critics.” McConnell aides called Limbaugh’s show to explain, but he “did not seem to buy it.”

“A bare majority of Americans support President Obama’s plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan,” a new CBS News/New York Times poll found. “But many are skeptical that the United States can count on Afghanistan as a partner in the fight or that the escalation would reduce the chances of a domestic terrorist attack.”

“A recent pay increase for Afghan troops and police appears to have resulted in a surge of applicants,” said a top U.S. military official. Half of December’s recruiting objective was met in the first seven days, while “in the three previous months, recruiting fell short of targets.”

Yesterday, the UK Meteorological Office released a statement signed by 1,700 scientists in Britain expressing the “utmost confidence” in the “scientific basis” that global warming is “due primarily to human activities,” undercutting skeptics in the wake of the right-wing “Climategate” scandal.

To fight global warming, American businessman and philanthropist George Soros suggested that climate financing be boosted with some $100 billion in Special Drawing Rights from the International Monetary Fund. Soros called the current proposal of $10 billion insufficient.

Following a City Council vote of 7-1, the city of Berkeley “mailed coat hangers to 20 members of Congress on Wednesday in protest of the anti-abortion amendment in the House version of the federal health care bill.” The “metal coat hangers were mailed with a protest letter to members of the House of Representatives who voted in favor of the amendment but have a history of supporting abortion rights.”

South Carolina lawmakers defeated a measure to impeach Gov. Mark Sanford (R) yesterday but recommended a formal rebuke for his trips to Argentina to see his mistress. ”We can’t impeach for hypocrisy. We can’t impeach for arrogance. We can’t impeach an officeholder for his lack of leadership skills,” said GOP Rep. James Harrison.

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Palin Refuses To Say If She?d Debate Gore On Climate Change: ?It Depends On What The Venue Would Be?
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In an interview with NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore pushed back against Sarah Palin’s anti-Copenhagen conference Washington Post op-ed by saying that “the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality.” “The scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal,” said Gore.

Palin responded to Gore yesterday afternoon on her Facebook page, saying that “he’s wrong in calling me a ‘denier.’” Palin added that she believed “Climategate” proved that the “findings” of “the leading experts” in climate science “are flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.” On Laura Ingraham’s radio show today, Palin continued her attack on Gore. But when Ingraham asked if she would be willing to debate Gore on the issue, Palin demurred, saying that if it was in the wrong “forum” she would “get clobbered”:

INGRAHAM: Would you agree to a debate with Al Gore on this issue?

PALIN: Oh my goodness. You know, it depends on what the venue would be, what the forum. Because Laura, as you know, if it would be some kind of conventional, traditional debate with his friends setting it up or being the commentators I’ll get clobbered because, you know, they don’t want to listen to the facts. They don’t want to listen to some reasonable voices in this. And that was proven with the publication of this op-ed, where they kind of got all we-weed up about it and wanted to call me and others deniers of changing weather patterns and climate conditions. Trying to make the issue into something that it is not.

INGRAHAM: But what if it’s an Oxford-style, proper debate format. I mean, he’s going to chicken out. I mean, if you challenge him to a debate, do you actually think he would accept it?

PALIN: I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh, he wouldn’t want to lower himself, I think, to, you know, my level to debate little old Sarah Palin from Wasilla.

Listen here:

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Obama’s Nobel Speech: A More Muscular Moralism
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PoliticsObama accepts Nobel, says war has role in peaceSportsWill the Redskins keep Campbell?NationalHAYDEN: The free flow of secretsNationalCARAFANO: Oh Canada! Quelling cybersecurity threatsNationalCould 'good cry on Oprah' repair Tiger's image?WorldKey Shi'ite backs a democratic secular IraqPoliticsCatchall bill: Have guns, will travel on AmtrakWednesday, December 9, 2009Rate this storyAverage 5.00after 1 votes Login or register to rate this storyBy Monica Crowley Either a war has to be fought, or it doesn't. In his speech on Afghanistan last week,…

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The Senate’s Scary Health Care Deal
Tunku Varadarajan, The Daily Beast
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