philcrissman.com

Before I link to the following article (yet another article expressing skepticism about global warming, and Al Gore’s movie in particular), I just wanted to make something clear: my skepticism of global warming is not based on any partisan leanings. That is, it isn’t just because I’m a conservative and therefore a shill for the Forces of Capitalism™, and because the whole cause has been embraced by, well, primarily by liberals (or so it seems).

That being said, here is the article I mentioned: Scientists respond to Gore’s warnings of climate catastrophe.

Here are some interesting quotes (emphasis added), just in case you want a nutshell version:

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: “Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention.”

But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of “climate change skeptics” who disagree with the “vast majority of scientists” Gore cites?

No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing significant global climate change. “Climate experts” is the operative term here. Why? Because what Gore’s “majority of scientists” think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them actually work in the climate field.

…

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.” Patterson asked the committee, “On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”

I’ll admit — while I’m trying to keep a open mind (reasonably open), I’m increasingly skeptical of alarmist scenarios such as those presented by Gore’s recent movie.

UPDATE: Just to be fair — this is a Salon.com (warning: many annoying advertisements) article which is more favorable of the film’s message. I’m not sure that it actually answers the objections of the skeptics, but it does provide the other viewpoint.

A spokesperson from Westboro Baptist was on Fox a few nights ago; Westboro Baptist, in case you’ve missed it, is the source of the ridiculous, offensive (to almost anyone, I’d think) protests at recent military funerals, the folks with the “God Hates America” signs, and worse.

Michelle Malkin links to a video clip and includes a bit of the transcript; I thought this was a telling quote:

Phelps-Roper: “I am exactly where my God put me to tell you plainly, that you are going to hell, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

That last phrase, right there, tells us exactly how far off base these folks are from Biblical Christianity (as if the other things they say weren’t clue enough already). The whole idea — I might even argue, the entire point — of the gospel is that there is something one can do about going to hell. Notwithstanding that it is foundational that Christ loved us (not hated us) while we were yet sinners — which would include any sin whatsoever (yes, Fred Phelps — even homosexuality).

The one bright side of all their complaining is that everyone — even the most hardened anti-Christians out there — seems to acknowledge that mainstream Christianity does not agree with the sort of vile stuff coming out of Westboro Baptist. If it weren’t for the fact that they are so clearly in earnest, I would have thought that Westboro was a joke site, like Landover Baptist, but in even worse taste. (Sorry, I’m not going to link to Landover; it is just a parody site, but I’m not a fan of it, either.)

RPS - 25 is Rock, Paper, Scissors expanded to 25 distinct “hand shapes” — each of which defeats twelve of the others, and in turn is beaten by the remaining twelve. Good luck remembering what defeats what.

The whole idea, and the accompanying graphics, is admirable in a perverse way, and definitely amusing. Wholly impractical, of course, and — isn’t the whole point of Rock, Paper, Scissors the fact that it is simple?

Google Browser Sync is brilliant. At least, if you regularly use three or four or more different computers, it is. :)

Not too long ago I heard about and promptly forgot Google Notebook.

Looking through the Google Labs page earlier tonight, I saw a link to it and realized that I’d never really looked at it.

What it is, is a Firefox extension that holds, well… notes, and links to the web pages from whence they came. It is not quite a del.icio.us or a ma.gnolia (it has no tagging, for example) — but it is very much a set of bookmarks, which can be arranged into different “notebooks” (it seems you can have several notebooks going — don’t know if there’s a limit). You can do other interesting things, too, like make a notebook public.

I like it; it is very clean, very easy to show and hide, easy to use, and functional. I’m still trying to decide if it is yet another online bookmark aggregator — I think it might be something else, but I’m not sure what you’d call it. I guess you’d call it… a notebook.