Soon after arriving in Copenhagen, President Obama “called on world leaders to come to an agreement on climate change, no matter how imperfect, and pressed for a global climate change accord to include a way to monitor whether countries — namely China — are complying with promised emissions cuts.” “We are running short on time,” said Obama. “The time for talk is over.”

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) refused to commit to supporting the Senate health care bill, saying his concerns about abortion had “not been fully answered.” “We are working hard to persuade Senator Nelson that this is in the best interest of Nebraska and his constituents and the country,” White House senior adviser David Axelrod said.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) plans to delay the vote on Senate health care legislation as long as possible, forcing the chamber to take up the bill on Christmas Eve. “I think it’s our responsibility to stretch this out because every day we do we have time to tell Americans what’s in it,” DeMint told the press.

The Senate Banking Committee approved Ben Bernanke for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman. The 16-7 vote was far closer than the near-unanimous support he received four years ago. His nomination now heads to the full Senate for a “fiery debate,” and even some of his allies on the committee say they “might reconsider [their support] when the vote went to the Senate.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) warned yesterday that he will not support emergency funding for President Obama’s troop increase in Afghanistan if the White House request includes money to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. “I am not going to support a bill that — that facilitates bringing Gitmo prisoners to the United States,” he said.

“In an unusual dead-of-night session that opened just after midnight,” the Senate voted early this morning 63 to 33 to break a Republican filibuster and move to a vote on a Pentagon funding bill. The $626 billion plan “is the last spending measure due to pass this year and was easily passed by the House earlier this week. A final vote is expected early Saturday.”

“The Obama administration is planning to repatriate six Yemenis” held at Guantanamo Bay, “a transfer that could be a prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen” and the closure of the prison. “But Yemen’s security problems and lack of resources have spawned fears about its ability to monitor and rehabilitate returnees.”

In “an exceptionally heavy barrage by American drones in Pakistan” yesterday, “five Predator aircraft fired 10 missiles at suspected militant compounds along the border with Afghanistan.” Pakistani officials said the attacks killed at least 15 people, including 7 foreigners.

“Congress is launching a broad-ranging investigation into possible waste, misuse and corruption tied to billions of taxpayer dollars used to support private military contractors in Afghanistan.” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) called “for stepped-up government oversight of contract work in Afghanistan,” noting that “Pentagon auditors have already challenged nearly $1 billion in charges by military contractors.”

And finally: Keep it real with Michael Steele.

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It is my view that regardless of Administration, the President acting through the entire executive branch is fully entitled to express his policy judgments to the EPA Administrator, and to expect his subordinate to carry out the judgment of what the law requires and permits. . . . I cannot support any investigations that could have a chilling effect within the deliberative process of the Administration, and cause future career and political employees from refraining from an open and honest dialogue.

By some strange miracle, Inhofe has had a complete change of heart on the inviolability of the “unitary executive” during the Obama presidency. In June, Inhofe even supported a criminal investigation into whether the EPA was “suppressing science” when its officials did not support the report of an EPA economist who had plagiarized blog posts from global warming deniers.

Energy companies are abandoning the sinking ship of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in droves over its opposition to clean energy action, whether by the EPA or by Congress.

Under pressure, Chamber president Tom Donohue today claimed the Chamber “continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.” And spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel recently argued that the Chamber respects the science of climate change:

We’ve never questioned the science behind global warming.

This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. Just last month, the Chamber’s Senior Vice President William Kovacs called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to put “the science of climate change on trial.” The Chamber, dominated by pollution-industry skeptics such as Don Blankenship, Harry Alford, and Fred Palmer, has questioned climate science since at least 1992:

2008: Chamber President Tom Donohue Says ‘Scientific Inquiry’ Into Climate Change ‘Should Continue’ Because Of ‘Cooling Trend.’ [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 3/4/08]

2001: Chamber Claims Global Warming ‘About One Percent From Human Activity,’ Says ‘Things Just Change.’ [CNNFN, 7/16/01]

1992: Chamber Sponsors Global Warming Denier Pat Michaels To ‘Refute The Global Warming Warnings.’ [Chicago Sun-Times, 5/13/92]

In addition to being the Chamber of Commerce president, Tom Donohue works for Union Pacific, a company opposed to climate regulation.

President Obama “is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan,” including a plan advocated by Vice President Biden “to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda.” Despite launching a new strategy in March, the review comes amid deteriorating conditions, the recent disputed elections, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s dire report.

The Obama administration is set to announce a new policy “making it much more difficult for the government to claim that it is protecting state secrets when it hides details of sensitive national security strategies.” Agencies must now convince the Justice Department “that the release of sensitive information would present significant harm to ‘national defense or foreign relations.’”

At the UN today, President Obama “plans to deliver a stern speech to the leaders of the world’s nations,” challenging them “to live up to their responsibilities even as he acknowledges that the United States has also fallen short on many fronts.” “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” Obama will say.

Sarah Palin made her Asian debut with a speech in Hong Kong, in which she spoke as “someone from Main Street U.S.A.” At the event, which was closed to the press, Palin blamed the government for the current financial crisis. “We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place,” she said, adding, “We’re not interested in government fixes, we’re interested in freedom.”

The Seattle Times reports that there will be only one reporter allowed at the “Welcome Home Glenn Beck” event in Mount Vernon, Washington. The Fox News host is attending the sold-out event to raise money for Mount Vernon’s historic Lincoln Theater and will also receive the key to the city from the mayor of Mount Vernon.

The House voted 331-83 yesterday to extend unemployment benefits “in hard-hit states through the end of the year.” Approximately 314,000 people were set to exhaust their benefits this month. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised that the Senate will take up the legislation “very, very quickly.”

The Massachusetts Senate voted approved a bill yesterday that will allow Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to “appoint an interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, paving the way for the appointment of a new US senator as early as tomorrow.” The House approved a similar measure five days earlier and “both chambers are planning to give a final procedural endorsement to the measure and to send it to the governor’s desk today.”

Former Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (R), who quit his job with a year remaining in his term, has landed at a major international law firm. DLA Piper announced that it hired Martinez “to advise clients on a range of issues.” The former senator will be banned from lobbying for two years per congressional rules.

The Washington Times reports that conservative and business groups are “launching fresh challenges aimed at derailing President Obama’s nominees.” Emboldened by the ouster of green jobs adviser Van Jones, Obama’s opponents are now targeting David Michaels, the president’s pick to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

And finally: Who’s the chattiest member of Congress? That would be Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who spoke 257,274 words last session. According to a new website, Congress Speaks, California was the most loquacious state, and some of the most common words were “California,” “country,” and “Iraq.”

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Last month, Politico published a chart illustrating the transportation costs from the offices of all 100 U.S. Senators. Topping off the list was Cornyn, who has spent over $150,000 on travel costs during the first half of the 2009 fiscal year.

When a local ABC News affiliate in Dallas (WFAA) asked him about his expensive travel habits, Cornyn called Politico’s report “a cheap shot.” The reporter then asked the obvious follow-up, “In what sense was it a cheap shot? They were using the Secretary of the Senate information?” However, Cornyn wouldn’t budge and instead decided to dig in:

CORNYN: Oh yeah, not every state is the same. When you represent a state as big as Texas and traveling home from Washington D.C. every weekend, it unfortunately costs some money.

The “Texas is a big state” defense seems plausible on its face, but the same records Politico reported show that Texas’s other U.S. Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R), spent nearly 43 percent less on travel than Cornyn during the same period ($87,651).

Moreover, California Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who represent a state similar to Texas in size and population (and one that’s further away from Washington, DC), spent less than Cornyn on travel combined (Boxer $72,473; Feinstein $29,917; Total $102,390).

But also, WFAA reports that Cornyn and his staff spent more than $55,000 in taxpayer money on a three day retreat to St. Michaels, MD in February and that “a third of the costs, $17,353, was Cornyn’s alone”:

He was reimbursed for $7,750 in incidentals. The senator’s per diem, a daily allowance, was $5,226 for the three-day trip. For a 162-mile, round-trip journey from Washington, D.C., transportation to get the senator to Maryland cost taxpayers $4,377.66.

Referring to Cornyn’s defense, watchdog group Public Citizen’s Tom Smith said, “I agree senator. It is a big state, and most big cities where he’s spending most of his time have real good airline service. He should be flying coach with the rest of us.”

Cornyn said he does fly commercial but admitted that he also takes more expensive charter jets. When asked if he would “change anything” regarding his travel expenses, Cornyn replied, “No, I wouldn’t. I believe the travel I do is essential.”

Koh, who if confirmed will serve as legal adviser to the State Department, was reported out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about three weeks ago, but has languished ever since — a fact which, I’d imagine, makes him thrilled that he resigned as Dean of Yale’s Law School in order to serve in government.

Recall that before the committee vote, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) also placed a hold on Koh’s nomination. That delay only lasted a week.

The Facebook group “We Support Harold Hongju Koh” and Jay Michaelson at the Huffington Post both write that the hold has been placed by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and David Vitter (R-LA). ThinkProgress called both Cornyn’s and Vitter’s offices, but was unable to confirm that they are responsible for the hold.

In an article for National Review Online today, Cato Institute Senior Fellow and prominent climate change skeptic Patrick J. Michaels attacks “Inquisitor Hansen” and accuses him of “terrorizing the American people.” Pivoting off of Hansen’s CEO comment, Michaels also explicitly accuses Hansen of breaking federal law:

Speaking of crimes, what about the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from electioneering? In the hotly contested state of Iowa, on October 26, 2004, Hansen gave a public speech in which he stated that “John Kerry has a far better grasp than President Bush on the important issues that we face.” Kerry lost Iowa by a mere 10,000 votes.

Michaels’s claim is flagrantly false. The Hatch Act, which restricts the political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government, specifically allows federal employees to “express opinions about candidates and issues” and even “make campaign speeches for candidates in partisan elections.”

But Hansen’s speech wasn’t even a campaign speech. It was a lecture on “Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference.” In fact, after Hansen gave the speech in which he did acknowledge he would vote for Kerry, he specifically told the AP that he was “speaking as a private citizen” and that he had “paid his own way for the Iowa appearance.”

But the bigger issue is Savage himself and how the hell he gets away with stuff like saying this, and saying that people with AIDS should be put in concentration camps. And then when people protest at the station, he calls on his own listeners to come down and beat them up.

“I know of no one who believes attention to Iraq at that point diverted our attention from Tora Bora,” McCain said. …

“We should have put more boots on the ground there to apprehend [Bin Laden]. Everyone agrees. But I have no reason to believe that because we urged attention to Iraq, it had any tactical effect on the battleground.”

But according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, even before the Tora Bora battle, Bush began meeting with Army Gen. Tommy Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq:

On Nov. 21, 2001, 72 days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush directed Rumsfeld to begin planning for war with Iraq. “Let’s get started on this,” Bush recalled saying. “And get Tommy Franks looking at what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to.” …

Bush’s order to Rumsfeld began an intensive process in which Franks worked in secret with a small staff, talked almost daily with the defense secretary and met about once a month with Bush.

Similarly, Michael Gordon, co-author of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, has reported that Franks, in charge of the battle, was upset about Bush’s turn to Iraq:

I was at Tora Bora at that point, in December ‘01. The desire to have a war plan for Iraq has already been telegraphed to [General] Tommy Franks at Centcom. Franks is actually struggling with Tora Bora, with his unhappiness with the results in Afghanistan, just as he is on the eve of returning for a very important meeting at Crawford with the President. I think they made a very quick decision that in principle Iraq was next on the agenda.

Reporter Christina Lamb, using Woodward’s book as her source, has said that “there was another reason for Washington’s reluctance to commit troops on the ground” at Tora Bora. According to Woodward, when Gen Tommy Franks received the top-secret message asking for an Iraq war plan within a week, he was incredulous. “They were in the midst of one war in Afghanistan, and now they wanted detailed planning for another? Goddamn,” Franks said, “What the f*** are they talking about?”

– Jordan Michael Smith

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Conference participants include weather anchorman John Coleman, who wants to sue Al Gore to expose the “fraud” of climate change, and Patrick Michaels, who fabricated his legitimacy by inaccurately referring to himself as Virginia’s “state climatologist.”

In recent days, President Bush has tried to give the illusion that he is taking steps to solve global warming. In today’s press briefing, however, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino refused to distance the Bush administration from the deniers:

PERINO: I don’t think the President has an opinion on the meeting. I haven’t talked to him about it. And if people want to gather and express their views, they’re obviously very welcome to do so, and New York is as good a place as any.

QUESTION: You are saying that he doesn’t disagree with these people who are questioning…

PERINO: The President’s position on climate change is well- known. He’s long said that human beings are contributing in some ways to climate change.

Watch it:

Perino’s vague answer — that humans are contributing “in some ways” to global warming — mirrors the White House’s vague position. While trying to appear environmentally-friendly, the administration has dropped progressive energy investments, muzzled government climate scientists, kowtowed to industry executives, and spouted denier rhetoric.

Also yesterday, these deniers released a report “arguing that recent climate change stems from natural causes.” Their report was the “work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists.” By contrast, the Nobel-Prize winning IPCC’s report was the work of several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries over a five-year period.

Transcript:

QUESTION: Thank you, Dana. On another question — two questions. President Klaus of the Czech Republic, and John Stossel, the co-anchor of ABC’s 20-20, are among 98 speakers at the International Conference on Climate Change, Global Warming: Truth or Swindle, which is now going on in New York City. And my question: Does the President welcome or deplore this gathering of so many scientists who have signed a petition that global warming probably is natural and not a crisis?

PERINO: I don’t think the President has an opinion on the meeting. I haven’t talked to him about it. And if people want to gather and express their views, they’re obviously very welcome to do so, and New York is as good a place as any.

QUESTION: You are saying that he doesn’t disagree with these people who are questioning…

PERINO: The President’s position on climate change is well- known. He’s long said that human beings are contributing in some ways to climate change. And that’s why we’re taking steps to deal with it, and in fact, tomorrow will make a — have remarks at the International Renewable Energy Conference, when he talks about that very issue.

Savage responded to the campaign by suing CAIR for copyright infringement and Fox News rose to his defense. But the advertisers have been paying attention to the Hate Hurts America initiative. On Friday, the group announced that five more advertisers have dropped “The Savage Nation”:

The Hate Hurts America Community and Interfaith Coalition (HHA) today announced that five more radio advertisers have joined a growing list of companies that have stopped advertising or refuse to place their ads on Michael Savage’s “Savage Nation” radio program.

HHA said the advertisers – ITT Technical Institute, Chattem, Inc. (owners of Gold Bond, Icy Hot, and Selsun Blue), Union Bank of California, Intuit (parent company of TurboTax and QuickBooks), and GEICO Insurance – dropped their commercials after being contacted by visitors to the newly-created “No Savage” website.

According to CAIR, “US Cellular, Sprint Nextel, Sears, Universal Orlando Resorts, AutoZone, Citrix, TrustedID, JCPenney, OfficeMax, Wal-Mart, and AT&T” have also stopped advertising on Savage’s show. Brave New Films has a list of contact info for advertisers who are continuing to advertise with Savage.

Here are a few examples of the hate Savage has spewed over the years:

- “90 percent of the people on the Nobel Committee are into child pornography and molestation.” — Michael Savage [12/12/07]

- “Notice what this double-talking slut just did, this mind-slut Barbara Walters. And I stick by those words. She’s an empty mind-slut.” — Michael Savage [3/16/07]

- Madeline Albright is “a traitor. In my opinion, she should be tried for treason, and when she’s found guilty, she should be hung.” — Michael Savage [10/9/06]

- The U.S. Senate is “more vicious and more histrionic than ever, specifically because women have been injected into” it. — Michael Savage [9/12/06]

- To “save the United States,” lawmakers should institute an “outright ban on Muslim immigration” and on “the construction of mosques.” — Michael Savage [11/27/06]

Hate Hurts America’s petition calling for advertisers to boycott Savage is here.

Savage is now claiming he is a victim of censorship. Repeatedly attacking C-SPAN this week as “fascists” and modern versions of the “brownshirt movement in Hitler’s Germany,” Savage encouraged his listeners to call and email CSPAN about their supposed “blacklisting” of his speech.

On Washington Journal this morning, host and C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb read aloud some of the emails he has received from alleged listeners of Savage’s show. The emails defending Savage are filled with personal attacks, referring to Lamb as an “ass loser Communist,” “pervert,” “bed-wetting commie,” and worse. Watch it:

Michael Savage is obviously not responsible for the content of these emails. But it’s worth noting that such attacks are standard fare for Savage’s radio show. According to Savage, MoveOn.org members are “rat-bastard Communists,” supporters of the Fairness Doctrine are “Nazis” and “no different than the Bolsheviks in 1917,” and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) says things that “Goebbels would be proud of.”

As Lamb notes in his introduction to the emails, Savage is also using the faux controversy to make money by charging his fans $20 apiece to buy a copy of the supposedly censored speech.

(HT: Paddy)

Digg It!

The Bush administration is “nearing completion of a long-delayed executive order that will set new rules for interrogations” by the CIA. The order is expected to “ban the harshest techniques used in the past,” including waterboarding, “but to authorize some methods that go beyond those allowed in the military by the Army Field Manual.”

“More than a month after the Office of Special Counsel announced it will establish a task force to mount a government-wide investigation of alleged violations of the law that limits political activity in federal agencies, the group’s formation remains in the preliminary stages.”

“The Taliban has merged its propaganda and field operations with those of the global al Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden,” enabling the Taliban to “develop from a xenophobic, home-grown Islamist movement into a more outward looking force that is helping to advance al Qaeda’s global interests.”

Activists say President Bush’s Darfur sanctions announced yesterday are “too little, too late.” The sanctions “target three people with suspected links to the violence as well as about 30 companies” in Sudan. “Three people? After four years? And not one of them the real ringleader of the policy to divide and destroy Darfur?” asked John Prendergast of the Enough Project.

The New York Times finds that some conservatives in Congress are “struggl[ing] to appease increasingly restless constituents” over Iraq. “I think this is the most expensive, stupidest thing ever done,” one Republican and former “staunch backer” of President Bush now says.

“Under increasing pressure from Democrats in Congress to increase the number of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security says it has finally approved a process to weed out potential terrorists and admit as many as 7,000 Iraqis by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.”

“Even ‘moderate additional’ greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past ‘critical tipping points’ with ‘dangerous consequences for the planet,’ according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.”

Bush scolded opponents of the immigration reform legislation, saying they “haven’t read the bill” and are offering “empty political rhetoric.” Conservatives bristled at his remarks. “I don’t think name-calling does any good at this point,” said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. “No yelling and screaming by the administration is going to change our minds,” said another conservative.

“The United States is better prepared to deal with a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf region in 2005, but still lacks a formal structure for coordinating a national response, the head of the U.S. Coast Guard said on Tuesday.”

And finally: “You go to the club with the yacht you have…” Now that Donald Rumsfeld is no longer Defense Secretary, he has time for his “other hobbies” — skiing, squash, and yachting. He and his wife have joined the Miles River Yacht Club in St. Michaels, MD, which is “considered one of the more exclusive boating clubs on the Eastern Shore.” But the Examiner notes that Rumsfeld will likely do little yachting because his “membership is mainly for socializing.”

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.

Michaels added that “if you believe that warming causes cooling, you’re like my neighbors down in Virginia who think that if you put hot water in the ice cube tray, it freezes faster. It doesn’t work that way.” Watch it:

The severe blizzards in Colorado weren’t necessarily caused by global warming. But they also don’t prove that climate change isn’t happening. As the concentration of carbon dioxide increases, the frequency of extreme weather events — including snowstorms — also increases. Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2001 report notes that “global average water vapour concentration and precipitation are projected to increase during the 21st century.”

Transcript:

PAT MICHAELS: Uh, Neil, if you believe that warming causes cooling, you’re like my neighbors down in Virginia who think that if you put hot water in the ice cube tray, it freezes faster. It doesn’t work that way.

And in fact, in Denver, there were very few people who, I think, tried to conflate the snowstorm with warming, they just tried to ignore the fact, that in fact it’s snowing like crazy in Denver, despite the fact that unlike in the East, where there is no warming trend in the winter temperatures, there is a warming trend in the winter temperatures in Colorado.

NEIL CAVUTO: Dan, if more of those who support global warming did not live in the East Coast, or more specifically in New York, and were stationed in Denver, they might have a different take on things?

DAN GAINOR: Oh, I think so.

Democratic congressional leaders announced yesterday they plan to “place a moratorium on all earmarks until lobbying changes are enacted.”

President Bush met yesterday with three retired generals and two academics who disagreed with the Iraq Study Group’s plan “to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria.” It is another sign “the president is gathering support for a new plan that ignores several of the bipartisan committee’s recommendations.”

The group of experts “also recommended the president make some changes in his national security team,” which is “‘likely to fuel Pentagon rumors‘ that Marine Gen. Peter Pace will be removed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

“The founding pastor of a second Colorado church has resigned over gay sex allegations,” the AP reports, “just weeks after the evangelical community was shaken by the scandal surrounding megachurch leader Ted Haggard,” a long-time opponent of gay marriage.

Bienvenido a Miami, Rep. Tancredo. “After drawing criticism from Florida lawmakers for calling Miami a third-world country, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) will visit the city Thursday to speak on ‘The Need for Assimilation,’” The Hill reports. Tancredo agreed to visit Miami only if the trip included “a stay at a five-star beachfront resort.”

In the wake of a House ethics committee report that found the Foley scandal represented a “present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House,” incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said yesterday that she will introduce legislation to increase oversight of the page program.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged another $83.5 million to fight malaria. “All totaled,” the Gates Foundation “the Microsoft Corp. chairman and world’s richest man, and his wife, Melinda, has donated $765 million to fight malaria, which kills one person every 30 seconds.”

In a recent interview, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the incoming House intelligence committee chairman, could not identify the Muslim roots of Hezbollah and al Qaeda. Asked by a reporter whether al Qaeda was Sunni or Shiite, Reyes replied incorrectly, “Predominantly — probably Shiite.” Other members on the committee and several top counterterrorism officials also failed the quiz.

“Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years,” a team of NASA-funded scientists found. “Researchers assessing the impact of carbon emissions on the world’s climate have calculated that late summer in the Arctic will be ice-free by 2040 or earlier – well within a lifetime.”

USA Today reports on a Gallup poll that finds a “record high 62 percent of Americans say the war in Iraq isn’t ‘worth it,’ and a record low 16 percent say the United States is winning.”

And finally: SNL’s George Bush gets a makeover. “Previously played by Will Forte, Mr. Bush is now being played by Jason Sudeikis. Lorne Michaels, the NBC television show’s executive producer, said that where Mr. Forte played Mr. Bush as whiny and beleaguered, Mr. Sudeikis…is playing him as having ‘absolute confidence and buoyancy.’ But in a sign that the world is starting to look past Mr. Bush’s tenure, Mr. Michaels said he was freeing up Mr. Forte to play a new political role eventually: that of one of the 2008 contenders.”

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.

The governor’s office has sent a letter to the University of Virginia requesting that Patrick J. Michaels not use his title of state climatologist when conducting his private consulting business.

The state is concerned that the U.Va. professor’s controversial views on global warming could be mistaken for the state’s views…The governor’s office has repeatedly said that Michaels does not represent the state with his opinions about global warming.

In fact, it seems that “State Climatologist” is not even a real position:

[The] letter also addressed the question of whether Michaels’ position as state climatologist is an appointment of the governor or of U.Va. Hanley does acknowledge that Michaels was originally appointed state climatologist by Gov. John Dalton in 1980.

However, she said the code of Virginia “does not provide for the governor to appoint a state climatologist.”

Charlottesville City Councilor Kevin Lynch researched the topic and concluded that Dalton’s “appointment” does “not appear to have been legitimate.” On the basis of Dalton’s letter, Michaels has collected a government paycheck for the last 26 years and is currently earning $91,530.

The State now has nothing to do with the title or the office, which is administered by the University of Virginia, where Michaels teaches. Much more at cvillenews.com.

Their solution: “support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists.” (The memo also refers to people who believe in global warming science as those “whose true motivation is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use of fossil fuels, especially coal.”)

But the coal-based utility leading the campaign ran up against a problem: there is no scientific community who agrees with them. The memo acknowledges almost everyone who disputes global warming science have no “involvement in climatology.” So they’ve decided to lavish funding on one climatologist who will do their bidding: Pat Michaels.

The memo describes how the coal-based utility contributed “$100,000 to Dr. Michaels this year.” It also “contacted all the [utilities] in the United States” asking for contributions to Michaels’ research and “obtained additional contributions.” Here are a few highlights from Michaels’ career:

– In 2003, Michaels famously “proved” that global warming was mostly hype by mixing up degrees and radians.

– In 2004, Michaels told Business Week, “We know how much the planet is going to warm. It is a small amount, and we can’t do anything about it.”

– This year, Michaels completely misrepresented a study by Curt Davis to falsely claim that Antartica has been gaining ice in recent years.

In 2003, A Harvard scientist told the Senate Republican Policy Committee that Michaels has “published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science.”

Funding Michaels is part of a larger propaganda campaign, involving several industries, described in the memo. Other activities include bankrolling a movie that attacks An Inconvenient Truth, deceptive advertisements by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and aggressive lobbying. Corporations meet regularly with Michaels and CEI to discuss strategy.

You can read the memo here. Desmog blog has more.

In his letter, Michaels backs away from that claim, but offers a new argument:

Every modern climate model predicts that Antarctica will gain ice in the 21st century, resulting in a slight lowering of sea levels (which will, nonetheless, be largely compensated for as slightly warmer surface temperatures cause ocean waters to expand).

This argument is technically correct, but highly misleading.

Most of the ice loss in Antarctica is occurring in the coast. It’s not happening in a regular, linear fashion that can be captured by existing models. As a result, most of this ice loss is getting missed by the models. Richard Alley, who is writing the upcoming IPCC report on these issues, explains in a 2005 paper published in Science magazine:

[T]he models used in these projections lack some of the physical processes that might explain the rapid rates of ongoing coastal changes and lack the oceanic forcing responsible for inducing these changes…

Michaels’ shift is a good example of how climate skeptics operate. Throw out an argument and see what happens. If that doesn’t work, try something else. The goal here is not to win the argument, but just to keep things in doubt.

Fight back with the facts. Pledge to see An Inconvenient Truth:

[inconvenienttruthwidget]

(Note: Even if you’ve already seen the film, make sure to pledge and be counted.)

In the new issue of National Review, Steorts owns up to one of his errors in a “clarification” letter to the editor. Here’s an excerpt:

CLARIFICATION

My article “Scare of the Century” (June 5) quoted University of Virginia climate scientist Patrick J. Michaels as saying that “Antarctica has been gaining ice,” and, based on Michaels’s view, called 2002 a “high-water mark for Antarctic ice.” Michaels cited a study by Curt Davis to support his position. Davis subsequently noted that his study did not measure ice changes over all of Antarctica. It showed that a large part of the East Antarctic ice sheet was growing while much of the West Antarctic ice sheet was shrinking. Davis wrote in his study that, if the observed growth pattern held for all of East Antarctica, it would outweigh estimated ice loss in West Antarctica; but he did not conclusively prove this to be the case.

Steorts’ “clarification” also contains an error. Davis’ study is for the interior of Antartica only. The fact that Davis wrote that growth in the Eastern interior may outweigh losses in the Western interior can’t be used to suggest that Antartica is gaining ice overall. The study doesn’t cover losses on the costal areas, where loses are known to be substantial.

Steorts tries to argue his error was irrelevant:

The argument in “Scare of the Century,” however, did not depend on Davis’s study; in fact, it noted that research subsequent to Davis’s shows a current net ice loss for Antarctica.

Steorts, however, dismissed that subsequent research out of hand, relying on the same false claim 2002 was “a high water mark for ice.” Steorts wrote that “Alarmism over [that] study is on the order of going to the beach at high tide, drawing a line at the water’s edge, and fretting a few hours later that the oceans are drying up.”

The lesson here is simple. On global warming issues, the National Review can’t be trusted.

In his cover story, Steorts then references a study by Isabella Velicogna that examined the whole continent from 2002 to 2005 and found is was losing substantial amounts of ice. But Steorts provides this rebuttal:

2002 — the year in which the study began — was a high-water mark for Antarctic ice, so it’s not too surprising to see some decline since then. Alarmism over Velicogna’s study is on the order of going to the beach at high tide, drawing a line at the water’s edge, and fretting a few hours later that the oceans are drying up.

The original article does not provide a source for the claim that 2002 “was a high-water mark for Antarctic ice” but in an online piece today Steorts said that he was told that information from the CATO Institute’s Patrick Michaels.

ThinkProgress talked to Patrick Michaels this afternoon. Michaels said he was referring to a graph in the study by Curt Davis. ThinkProgress then called Curt Davis. Here is what he had to say:

If Michaels is using my study to claim that 2002 was a high water mark in terms of ice for all Antartica, that is completely wrong. My study result only demonstrated this for the interior of East Antarctica. You can’t use that for Antartica as a whole because the coastal areas of the ice sheet were not included in my analysis. My study clearly stated that the overall mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet depends on the sum of the contributions from the interior and coastal areas.

So it’s the same shell game again. Take a finding for the interior of the eastern part of the continent and pretend the whole continent is gaining ice, even though studies show the western and coastal areas are losing ice at a rapid pace.

Steorts now claims these serious factual errors are immaterial. In his most recent online commentary, Steorts says his article “hinges neither on the question whether Antarctica is presently gaining or losing ice.” That’s odd considering it was promoted on the cover of the National Review with the title “Snow Job: The Truth About the Great Overhyped Glacier Melt.” Seems like what’s happening to the ice is a pretty central point.