Karl Rove aka Bush’s Brain predicted this morning on Fox News that Sarah Palin “gets in” to the presidential race next month (h/t TP):

One can never really figure out Rove’s machinations since he helped ruin the country and his own party as President Bush’s consigliere. He and the Bush mob don’t like Rick “Four Pinocchios” Perry — even though Rove  helped make Perry possible, as HuffPost has noted.

Certainly Obama looks beatable with his plummeting popularity and lame messaging, which is no doubt why Perry got it.  But if Palin were smart — yes, I know — why would she get in now, rather than a month ago, which might have forestalled Perry — or even earlier, to forestall  Michele Bachmann?  Her entry now means a three-way split for the tea party vote and would probably make Mitt Romney the happiest of all.

As for Palin herself, she makes Perry seem like Lincoln (see Palin blames ‘Gore-gate’ for “this snake oil science stuff”).  During the 2008 presidential campaign, the Washington Post itself gave her its highest (which is to say lowest) rating of “Four Pinocchios” for continuing to “to peddle bogus [energy] statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers.”

There aren’t enough Pinocchios in a children’s library for this crop of GOP presidential candidates.

The second lead story in today’s Washington post is a so-so piece on climate science merged with a very confused political analysis.

Contrary to the sub-head, for instance, the scientific consensus — or, more accurately, the scientific understanding — around climate change and its threat to humanity has strengthened considerably in the last few years (see links below).

But it is the use of the term “wedge issue,” which the article never defines, that is the source of the political mischief.  For the record, “A wedge issue is a social or political issue, often of a divisive or otherwise controversial nature, which splits apart or creates a ‘wedge’ in the support base of one political group.”

Where there is confusion on climate change and politics, Roger Pielke, Jr., is often found.  The article quotes him as the sole source on the “wedge issue” claim:

“Climate change has become a wedge issue,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado professor who has written extensively on the climate debate. “It’s today’s flag-burning or today’s partial-birth-abortion issue.”

Pielke cites two well-known wedge issues that split Democrats, issues that Republicans have used to their advantage to drive a wedge between liberal Democrats and more moderate or conservative ones (as well as independents)

But the article actually makes the case that climate change is an issue splitting Republicans, and thus — intentionally or otherwise — it makes the case that global warming potentially can be used to the advantage of progressives.

That isn’t typically the view of Pielke and his fellow “climate pragmatists,” who argue that the best way climate activists and others can achieve mitigation and adaptation policies is to downplay climate change or stop talking about it entirely.  Of course, there is no evidence for this view whatsoever and much evidence to the contrary (see “Can you solve global warming without talking about global warming?” and “The GOP War Against Climate Adaptation“).

That said, the article actually seems to treat the term “wedge issue” as if it just means  “divisive issue” or “controversial issue.”  Let’s look at the story:

Read more

Cattle walks in a burnt area of the Amazon rain forest (AFP/File)

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon up 15%

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon increased by 15 percent during the past 12 months, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said Wednesday.

From July 2010 to July 2011 the vast South American rainforest lost 2,654 square kilometers (1,649 square miles) of vegetation in the states of Mato Grosso and Para, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite photos.

Read more