Tennesseefree.com

Or would you prefer something more digestible like food?

At what point will it occur to some of you that electing the least qualified candidate in Presidential history may not have been a good idea?

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerized forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food.

The latest Agriculture Department economic-impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that the legislation would profit farmers in the long term. But those profits would come mostly from higher crop prices as a result of the legislation’s incentives to plant more forests and thus reduce the amount of land devoted to food-producing agriculture.

According to the economic model used by the department and the Environmental Protection Agency, the legislation would give landowners incentives to convert up to 59 million acres of farmland into forests over the next 40 years. The reason: Trees clean the air of heat-trapping gases better than farming does.

Look out Sam Walton, a new retail genius has stepped forward with an idea to change retailing forever. Enter Hugo Chavez with a new approach guaranteed to at least entertain and amuse those who still believe capitalism is the most efficient economic system.

Behold Comerso. Sort of a CostCo meets Karl Marx.

President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday announced a new chain of government-run, cut-rate retail stores that will sell everything from food to cars to clothing from places such as China, Argentina and Bolivia. “We’re creating Comerso, meaning Socialist Corporation of Markets,” Chavez said at the opening of a “socialist” fast-food location for traditional Venezuelan arepas (cornbread).

“They’ll see what’s good. We’ll show them what a real market is all about, not those speculative, money-grubbing markets, but a market for the people,” said Chavez in his drive to change Venezuela from a market-based economy to a socialist one.

“We’re going to challenge all that junk food that just fattens people up,” he added referring to the arepa stand he opened to the public.

Chavez said the Comerso chain of stores will include “a network of subsidiaries” that will sell new vehicles directly imported from China and Argentina, “without capitalist intermediaries.”

“We’re going to defeat speculation. Private individuals in sales can still sell, but they’ll have to compete with us and with a people who is now fully aware,” Chavez said.

From a Bloomberg op/ed on corporate values and Tiger Woods: (Tiger Woods and the Coming Decline of Celebrity Endorsements):

Green-values-oriented Nike is sticking with Woods for the moment, appearing to be rehabilitation-minded and comeback-oriented in other instances too. This fall, Apple, Excelon, and other companies dropped their memberships in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in disagreement with what they saw as the Chamber’s foot-dragging on climate change policy. Nike kept its membership while resigning from the Chamber board in order to work for change from within, executives said. But the Chamber incident, too, is evidence that companies increasingly see that their values must be reflected consistently in every decision they make, every marketing campaign they run, and every partnership they form.

Also at wisdomisvindicated.

Yep.

Blair articulately defends his decision on Iraq. And it drives people on the Left crazy that one of their few elected leaders won’t yield to their intimidation.

Also at wisdomisvindicated.

This story (”N.C.A.A. Is Said to Inquire Widely of Tennessee’s Recruiting” - NYTimes.com) about an NCAA investigation of UT’s football program was poignant after hearing Phillip Fulmer on 104.5 yesterday and thinking about how different he seems to be from Lane Kiffin. From the article:

The N.C.A.A. is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the University of Tennessee’s football recruiting practices, according to interviews with several prospects, their family members and high school administrators. A significant part of the investigation is focused on the use of recruiting hostesses who have become folk heroes on Tennessee Internet message boards for their ability to help lure top recruits.

Ever since watching Hoop Dreams way back when, I have been intrigued by the recruiting process, and Tennessee’s program seems rather innovative . . . and less carnal than is implied in several recent reports I’ve seen.

Tip ‘o the hat to The City Paper. Also at WisdomisVindicated.

What is more fascinating than the science of Global Warming is the science of human manipulation. This is Orwell brought to life. The premise is that man is all powerful and can change climate because the little box in our living room with talking heads says so. A theory repeated so often it becomes accepted fact. We believe this because Big Brother tells us so. And we have always been at war with Eastasia.

As mentioned in many places this theory of C02 Global Warming is very old. But so is the theory of alchemy. Old theories are many times theories that are never proven.

The automobile is perhaps the most liberating invention in history. It provides a degree of freedom before unknown. Yet in this newspeak the automobile is the enemy of Gaia, who may be Big Brother. We must change our lives and willingly sacrifice our freedom and prosperity because the talking heads tell us so. They are infallible and all knowing.

Eco-totalitarianism is cloaked in the guise of saving the children. Based on an old theory that Big Brother tells us that satellites have confirmed from space. Like the talking heads the satellites are all knowing and cannot lie.

Only by sacrificing our freedom and prosperity can we save the Earth, the children, the bunnies, and the rainbows. Those sacrifices will keep the oceans from rising. We have the power the talking heads tell us. We are all powerful.

But Orwell was right, the sacrifice of the Proles is done to amuse and enrich the Inner Party. As it has always been.

Do they reveal indefensible behavior by a few climate scientists? Absolutely. Do they do anything to undermine the case for global warming and the effects of human activity on that warming? Not so much.

If these e-mails somehow discredit everything climatologists have to say about global warming, then the Luntz memo at least equally discredits anything the GOP has to say about it.

More here:

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

This report linked at National Review’s The Corner blog–about Global Warming wagon circling, is hilarious: “The Perils of Groupthink, Cont'd” - Jonah Goldberg.

Also at WisdomisVindicated.

Findings - Fracas Over Hacked Climate E-Mail Shows Peril of Spinning Science - NYTimes.com:

“In fact, one skeptic raised [a concern about drawing conclusions from two sets of data grafted together] in a comment posted in 2004 on RealClimate, the blog operated by climate scientists. The comment, which questioned the propriety of “grafting the thermometer record onto a proxy temperature record,” immediately drew a sharp retort on the blog from Michael Mann, an expert at Penn State University:

“No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, ‘grafted the thermometer record onto’ any reconstruction. It is somewhat disappointing to find this specious claim (which we usually find originating from industry-funded climate disinformation Web sites) appearing in this forum.”

Dr. Mann now tells me that he was unaware, when he wrote the response, that such grafting had in fact been done in the earlier cover chart, and I take him at his word. But I don’t see why the question was dismissed so readily, with the implication that only a tool of the fossil-fuel industry would raise it.

Contempt for critics is evident over and over again in the hacked e-mail messages, as if the scientists were a priesthood protecting the temple from barbarians. Yes, some of the skeptics have political agendas, but so do some of the scientists. Sure, the skeptics can be cranks and pests, but they have identified genuine problems in the historical reconstructions of climate, as in the debate they inspired about the “hockey stick” graph of temperatures over the past millennium.”

I love how Mann writes “to our knowledge.” Sounds like a press secretary’s resort to plausible deniability.

Also at WisdomisVindicated