The Religion of Global Warming

Michael Barone says something that many of us have said before, but says it so well that it deserves quoting:

Global warming alarmists have an unshakable faith that man-made carbon emissions will produce a hotter climate causing multiple natural disasters. Their insistence that we can be absolutely certain this will come to pass is based not on science -- which is never fully settled, witness the recent experiments that may undermine Einstein's theory of relativity -- but on something very much like religious faith.

All the trappings of religion are there. Original sin: Mankind is responsible for these prophesied disasters, especially those slobs who live on suburban cul-de-sacs and drive their SUVs to strip malls and tacky chain restaurants.

The need for atonement and repentance: We must impose a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system that will increase the cost of everything and stunt economic growth.

Ritual, from the annual Earth Day to weekly recycling.

Indulgences, like those Martin Luther railed against: private jet fliers like Al Gore and sitcom heiress Laurie David can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their carbon-emitting sins.

Corporate elitists, like General Electric's Jeff Immelt, profess to share this faith, just as cynical Venetian merchants and prim Victorian bankers gave lip service to the religious enthusiasms of their days. Bad for business not too. And if you're clever, you can figure out how to make money off it.

Believers in this religion have flocked to conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto and Copenhagen, just as Catholic bishops flocked to councils in Constance, Ferrara and Trent, to codify dogma and set new rules.

We're Not Going to Lose, But If We Do...

I won't be too sorry to lose to the Texas Rangers, whose manager, Ron Washington, is both a character and has character.   Last night's video of Washington giving his young pitcher, Derek Holland, a pre-game pep talk, ought to bring tears to the eyes of anyone who's ever coached baseball from Little League on up:




Beautiful stuff.   That's what makes sports so great.  

Listen to People Who Know

General John Keane (Ret.) has this to say about President Obama's decision to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011:

I think it’s an absolute disaster.  We won the war in Iraq, and we’re now losing the peace.... Forty-four hundred lives lost.  Tens of thousands of troops wounded.  Over a couple hundred thousand Iraqis killed. We liberated 25 million people. There is only one Arab Muslim country that elects its own government, and that is Iraq.  We should be staying there to strengthen that democracy, to let them get the kind of political gains they need to get and keep the Iranians away from strangling that country. That should be our objective, and we are walking away from that objective.

Are we safer today than we were on January 19, 2009, the day before Obama was inaugurated?   That's the key question for 2012.   Are we safer today?   Is the Middle East more stable?  Are we more or less respected (and feared) around the world?  

I think the answers are obvious.

***

UPDATE:   Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, the scholar of the Middle East who is often credited with being the architect of the "surge" strategy in Iraq under President Bush, has this to say on Hugh Hewitt's blog about Obama's decision to cut-and-run from Iraq:

 I think all of our enemies will conclude from this that pressure on us and waiting us out is the way to go. And that’s been the message for a long time, and it’s something that we started to reverse with President Bush’s decision to fight for success in Iraq, and honestly continued with President Obama’s decision initially to reinforce in Afghanistan. But now, we will reinforce the narrative that we will ultimately leave. It will embolden our enemies.

A sad day and a scary portent of things to come.  

Girl of the Day - Joan Fontaine

It was Joan Fontaine's birthday over the weekend.   Her best work was arguably her earliest work as the heroines in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca and Suspicion, for which she was nominated twice in 1941 and 1942 for the Academy Award for Best Actress, winning for Suspicion.   Fontaine, of course, was the actress Olivia de Havilland's sister, and, sadly, the two were estranged throughout their adult lives.   Here's the trailer for Suspicion, which is a great, great movie, and probably Cary Grant's best dramatic role:




Fontaine is also the only classic Hollywood actress memorialized in a Bruce Springsteen lyric, from his first album:

Hey bus driver, keep the change
Bless your children, give them names
Don't trust men who walk with canes
Drink this and you'll grow wings on your feet
Broadway Mary, Joan Fontaine
Advertiser on a downtown train
Christmas crier bustin' cane
He's in love again

Early Bruce was a little too much like Bob Dylan for my taste, and probably for his too.   He quickly moved from random imagery cobbled together to story-telling in his later albums.  

File This Under "Be Careful What You Wish For"

The Arab Spring isn't quite turning into a democratic autumn.   Let's recap where we're at in October:

• Tunisia appears to be moving toward becoming a radical Islamist state.
• Libya, post-Qaddafi, appears to be moving toward adopting sharia as the founding principle of its new state.
• The leader of Afghanistan, Hamad Karzai, says that he would side with Pakistan in a war against America.
• President Obama's negotiations with Iraq to permit American troops to remain in the country as a hedge against further encroachment by Iran broke apart, and Obama has decided to declare victory in a cynical political move, and bring all Americans home.  
• Egypt... well, just by way of example, it's not a crime punishable by three years in prison to speak ill of Islam.  

You get the picture.   Need we always be reminded of the wisdom of Edmund Burke, in writing about the French Revolution, and liberals of his day rejoicing at the new-found "freedom":

“When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose; but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one.”

The world is a dangerous place.   It's even more dangerous when naive liberals are in charge.   Sure, Qaddafi is dead; sure, bin Laden is dead.   Good riddance to them.   But that doesn't mean that radical Islamist ideology isn't still moving forward around the world.   We ignore it at our long-term peril.  

Fussin' and Feudin' Alert™: Kelly calls Christina fat!

Publication: Weekly Life & Style
Date: 31 Oct. 2011

When we get a headline like "Kelly calls Christina fat!" it helps to have pictures. Too many Kellys and Christina's on the field, don'tcha know.

The Kelly is the rudest Kelly, Kelly Osbourne.

The Christina is Christina Aguilera, who doesn't currently look as good as this.

Who is pregnant and who is just fat!

Publication: OK!
Date: 31 Oct. 2011

OK! is one of the mags who is claiming Jessica Simpson is pregnant, and they had a sub-headline this week stating "Who is pregnant and who is just fat!" The three women on the cover were Christina Aguilera, Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas and Holly Madison, pictured above.