Jack Kelly and a bit more ...

Well, I am still not posting quite as mush as I should (cough *taxes*), but when Jack Kelly pens a column on global warming, it is a bit like catnip to blogging tabby ... or something. Anyway, I read Kelly column this morning, and then read Davoe's post on it on 2 Political Junkies a bit later. But I swear I came up with my own independent conclusions ahead of reading 2PJ's (which actually probably aren't Davoe's anyway). And those conclusions are .... ah, I got nothing.

Wait no, I was just having a bit of fun with you, I really do have something, which is that Jack complains through the whole column about what journalists are saying about global warming, as if that proves something. Then, at the end, he quotes someone from the National Review complaining about how US journalists aren't covering the stolen emails from east Anglia, and how those emails invalidate the whole of global warming. To which my reaction was "Wha ...?".

I mean, Kely is right about a bit here and there. Kelly mentions a converation on the View and how the women got some specifics wrong on global warming (while making a different point) and how Bobby Kennedy made a silly assessment and prediction a year and a half ago. Although Kelly doesn't mention it, I will throw in for free that Al Gore misquoted a climate scientist recently, Gore saying in ten years there would be no ice in the Arctic.

But here's the thing, when you listen to the scientists themselves, they are actually pretty scary. In the case of the Gore mis-quote, what the scientist said was there is a good chance that in ten years, there will be almost no ice during the summer months in the Arctic. By almost no ice, let's (not look it up on Google, but instead) be conservative and assume this guy means only 20% of the ice that is there now. When it refreezes in the winter (as it does now), it might only come back to 50%, but lets be charitable and say it comes back to 75% of what it is now. That would be from 25% to 80% of the current Arctic ice mass as either water in the ocean or water vapor in the atmosphere. The water vapor will cause perhaps heavier snow falls (look out the window?) and the water in the oceans will causes new sets of beach front property. That is certainly scary enough.

But Kelly wants to tell us that none of that will happen, because reporters are getting some facts wrong, and not covering what he thinks is important.

On an entirely different issue, I was watching the Sunday morning "talkies" this morning, and caught "Meet the Press", particularly their round table. They had David Brooks, Rachel Maddow, Harold Ford and a young Republican Representative. I am quickly warming to Rachel Maddow in these formats, she seems to be interested in the actual record of events as opposed to understanding the spin on events. I like knowing how pundits tell people to look at things, but I think Maddow's contribution is also extremely important and all too often lacking from these shows.

But Brooks had the ultimate comment, one he made straight faced giving the "conventional wisdom" (as he saw it) version of events. He said that he thought (and I paraphrase) the Obama administration had too radical an agenda, with the stimulus, healthcare and cap and trade. What Americans want now is jobs, jobs, jobs (end paraphrasing).

As if the stimulus was not supposed to provide jobs.

I mean, I sort of like David Brooks, he is not a rabid conservative, and he likes to take some thoughtful turns. But sometimes he is a transparent water carrier for conservatives, and this was one of those occasions. I can kind of forgive being conservative but this is a case of being conservative and stupid.