Sunday, September 12, 2004

Cool summer gives global warmers the freeze: "It's been a disappointing summer for global warming alarmists. Hollywood, Mother Nature and the media just haven't cooperated. Even with the unusual situation of two successive hurricanes pounding Florida and another bearing down imminently, global warming hysteria seems to be on ice for now. The summer began with so much promise for the climate control crowd with the release of the global warming disaster movie, 'The Day After Tomorrow.' While the movie made plenty of money, global warming activists wanted much more than that. They hoped the movie would foment global warming hysteria in the same way that 'The China Syndrome' and 'Silkwood' contributed to public sentiment against nuclear power plants. Instead, the movie was so over-the-top with implausible weather phenomena that no one -- not even the usually global warming-sympathetic media -- took it seriously. Then, unlike the movie, the real 'day after tomorrow' turned out to be pretty nice."




GREAT STUFF: COULD BE GOOD FOR FOR OVERTURNING GREENIE NONSENSE

"As the in-house newsletter of the nation's political and bureaucratic establishment, it's not surprising that The Washington Post would run a hit piece on the Data Quality Act late last month.

The act, passed with little fanfare as part of a 2000 appropriations bill, gives the regulated a fighting chance to challenge the quality of the science used by the government in formulating the rules it imposes on the rest of us.

The law not only has the potential to overturn government regulations that are based on immature or slipshod science, but to finally bring some semblance of parity to the endless struggle between the regulators and regulated.

But Washington doesn't like to play fair, or to be challenged on its supposed expertise on everything under the sun. The political process is increasingly driven by a sense of crisis that only sensationalized science can generate. And that makes the act a prime target of the regulate-first, worry-about-the-science-later crowd.

The Post portrayed the law as the "nemesis of regulation" and fretted about its use by "industry" to challenge federal rulemakers on the scientific merits. The story warned ominously that the law, under President Bush, "has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation" - though a careful read suggests otherwise. All this could only be viewed as worrisome by those who assume that all government regulations are, ipso facto, beneficial, cost-effective and justified by science.

But we don't share those assumptions. Regulations are routinely handed down from on high based on questionable, immature and incomplete science, thanks to something called "the precautionary principle," which licenses the government to act on the mere suspicion that something might be harmful to human health. Whether these potentially costly actions are scientifically justified is a question frequently put off for another day, and then promptly forgotten, while the regulations live on in perpetuity. And where is it written that individuals, businesses and industries shouldn't be permitted to fight back?

Dr. John Graham, who heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs inside the Office of Management and Budget, sees the Data Quality Act as a tool for holding regulators to a higher scientific standard. It's helpful not just to industry, he points out, but to a "wide diversity" of individuals and interests that might have reason to challenge the quality of government science.

Among those who have stepped forward to take advantage of the law are the American Chemistry Council, which challenged the science used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in banning the use of arsenic-treated lumber in playground equipment. Sugar interests and the Salt Institute challenged the validity of federal dietary recommendations aimed at curtailing the public's consumption of these products. And the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers challenged the government's rankings of clothes dryers according to their alleged susceptibility to lint fires. Some of these petitions might seem frivolous and self-serving - unless your own livelihood or the survival of your company are threatened by actions based on dubious science.

Critics of the Bush administration routinely accuse it of "politicizing" science, and they point to the Data Quality Act as a case in point. But the corruption of science for political purposes has been going on for decades. Some of the administration's shrillest critics are most at fault for twisting the data to suit their agendas. And this White House has done more than any in recent history to insist on higher scientific standards before costly and consequential regulations are imposed on Americans".

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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