THE FOUNDATION: OPINION

“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.” —James Madison

OPINION IN BRIEF

“There’s a reason why one should be extremely wary of the computer models that are cited by the endless doomsday predictions of Al Gore, the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change, and all the other advocates of ‘global warming.’ The reason is clouds. Computer models simply cannot provide for the constant variability of clouds, so they ignore them. In a July issue of The Economist an article called ‘Grey-Sky thinking’ was subtitled, ‘Without understanding clouds, understanding the climate is hard. And clouds are the least understood part of the atmosphere.’ Since the increasingly rabid claims of Earth’s destruction from rising temperatures depend on computer modeling, how can they be regarded as accurate if they must largely exempt or deliberately manipulate the impact of clouds? How can you make predictions, whether it’s a week or a decade from now, if you haven’t a clue why clouds do what they do?” —Alan Caruba

FOR THE RECORD

“Unfortunately, self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism. [The recent] Newsweek cover story on global warming is a sobering reminder. It’s an object lesson of how viewing the world as ‘good guys vs. bad guys’ can lead to a vast oversimplification of a messy story… As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale—as Newsweek did—in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.” —Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson

THE GIPPER

“We have already made great progress toward ensuring a healthy environment. Our general course has been charted with the passage of numerous Federal and state environmental laws. Our state governments and many localities have strengthened their capabilities for dealing with environmental issues. Many of our industries are coming to view the generation of wastes as lost profit potential. It is now time to make sure that the paths we have chosen are the best ones. It is time to review the environmental regulations and to make certain we are doing the most efficient job possible. Certainly we can afford a clean environment, but we must work for it in the most creative and effective way.” —Ronald Reagan

SELECT READER COMMENTS

(Our servers automatically delete “Reply” messages to this e-mail. To submit or to view reader comments visit our Reader Comments page. Join the debate at the Patriot Blog.)

“Enjoyed the article ‘Debunking the gullible warming Gorons’. When one sees Jupiter, Mars, Pluto and other planets where man doesn’t even have a chance to fart out some methane or where no SUVs have ever roamed, one must truly question Algore’s ‘global warming’ panic. It does sell books though and it makes the likes of pinko liberal commies like Al rich and more capable of taking down America—which must be his ultimate goal.” —Suffolk, Virginia

“Fact: the average temperature of the earth changes over time. There is no absolute proof that the perceived current rise is caused by human activity. Those who see it as such do not understand what science is really about. The most important factor in any scientific investigation is to have all the relevant facts. In the matter of global warming this is not the case. Therefore we cannot say anything about the subject for sure. We are still in the ‘forming hypothesis’ stage of scientific investigation.” —Rio Vista, Colorado

“Under the heading of ‘New climate reports,’ you start out saying, ‘In the winter of 2007, NASA…’. The winter of 2007 hasn’t happened yet. It’s still the summer of 2007. Did you mean the winter of 2006?” —Littleton, Colorado

Editor’s Reply: Winter 2007 began 21 December 2006 and lasted until 20 March 2007. We stand by our statement.

“There is no way I could let your latest call for donor support go unheeded. If every American took the time to read and understand your message, what a wonderful world it would be. You are the best! Keep the campfires glowing so all of your supporters can carry the message from east to west, north to south, and all points in between.” —Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania

FAMILY

“According to a new study, the latest troubles of young Hollywood aren’t isolated to the Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohans of the world. In general, sociologists are finding that the hook-up culture and partying scene are helping to prolong the risky behavior of teenagers well into their 20s… New data from the National Center for Health Statistics reports that 56% of all births among women aged 20-24 were to unwed mothers. Crime is higher—so is alcohol consumption, as more kids report binge drinking in their early 20s than any other period. Although some are blaming this period of ‘extended adolescence’ on complicated neurological impulses, I think the answer is more readily apparent in our anti-marriage culture… Marriage provides a unique stability in life. Studies show that it reduces crime and ‘anti-social behavior.’ It provides financial, physical and emotional security unrivaled by other relationships. Until Americans embrace marriage anew for its inherent benefits to society, the stories of the next generation are bound to have too many unhappy endings.” —Tony Perkins

CULTURE

“Will the execution-style murder of three young students in Newark, NJ, finally turn the tide in the immigration enforcement debate? Will we at last abandon the deadly, chaotic, lawless sanctuary nation experiment and restore America’s lost status as a sovereign nation under the rule of law? The death of six innocent men and women and the injury of more than 1,000 at the hands of several illegal alien 1993 World Trade Center bombers wasn’t enough to convince politicians in New York and across this country to end illegal alien sanctuary policies. The death of nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and children at the hands of the 9/11 jihadists who exploited our lax entrance and visa enforcement policies in 2001 wasn’t enough. The death of 10 innocent men and women in the Washington, DC, area at the hands of an illegal alien sniper and his bloodthirsty mentor in 2002 wasn’t enough. But now we are in the heat of a presidential election cycle. The open-borders opportunists in immigration enforcement clothing are professing to see the light. With illegal alien murder suspect Jose Carranza and his alleged MS-13 gang-banging boy helpers who are being sought in the brutal Newark murder case dominating the news on the Eastern seaboard, politicians can’t find a camera fast enough to condemn the very sanctuary policies they promoted and tolerated for decades…[L]awmakers have taken this go-with-the-flow attitude toward illegal alien border-crossers and visa overstayers and deportation fugitives. ‘Let ‘em come.’ But in the wake of the Newark murders and the illumination of illegal alien gang crime penetrating the country, a new rallying cry came from the lips of Newark Mayor Cory Booker: ‘Get this evil out of my city’.” —Michelle Malkin

LIBERTY

“Remember when we heard that if only our leaders had known how to ‘connect the dots,’ the September 11 attacks could have been prevented? After nearly six years without a similar attack, the government has learned much about detecting the outlines of jihadist terror plots before they take shape. As a result, and after all the aggravations and humiliations of what I still hope are temporary safety procedures, our security has remained essentially intact. But can we say the same thing about our freedoms? At this point, I must interrupt… to apologize to all Leftists settling in for a juicy tirade against the Patriot Act, wiretaps for terrorists, or the sufferings of sensitive poets in residence at Guantanamo Bay. It is not the Bush administration’s efforts to protect us from ‘terror’ (more maturely known as jihad) that compromise our freedoms, it is jihad itself. And the basic freedom to discuss, analyze, debate, imagine, and, therefore, resist jihad is now under unprecedented assault.” —Diana West

GOVERNMENT

“Government must proceed carefully when exercising power, lest a ‘long Train of Abuses and Usurpations’ inspire the people to again water the ‘tree of liberty… with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ In no other culture and under no other government has the importance of an armed citizenry been made so explicit or as carefully guaranteed as it has under the American constitutional order. While both ancient Rome and the British Parliament paid statutory lip service to the value of being armed, only in the United States was being armed recognized as an inviolable right protected by the Constitution… If the average person today wonders about his relationship to his government, the Second Amendment provides ample guidance. It represents the ideal of American political and social life: the individual, self-governing, self-motivated, self-respecting, dignified, free citizen—who takes these virtues so seriously that he will maintain the personal power to back them up.” —Scott McPherson

RE: THE LEFT

“Do you know what I’m waiting for? There’s a constituency here in the Democrat Party that’s being ignored, that’s being left out. They went out and they did a little debate for them, did a dog and pony show, they pandered to them, but why will nobody ask, ‘Is Hillary gay enough? Is Obama gay enough? Is John Edwards, the Breck Girl, gay enough? Would they be good gay leaders?’ In order to be elected you have to be the ultimate groupie and have all the right stuff to prove that you’re down for the struggle, be it whether you’re gay, be it whether you’re a woman, be it whether you’re black. Is Hillary woman enough? Now is she black enough? Is Obama black enough? Is Edwards more of a woman than Hillary is? Are they gay enough? You know what nobody’s asking? Nobody’s asking the question, ‘Are they man enough?”’ —Rush Limbaugh

POLITICAL FUTURES

“’Not all the nation’s ills can be blamed on President Bush, Democratic candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday,’ begins an Associated Press dispatch from Cedar Falls, Iowa. But it turns out this is just by way of introducing populist boilerplate: ‘Part of the problem here is not just George Bush and the White House,’ Obama told a crowd of hundreds gathered at a park in Cedar Falls. ‘We can’t just change political parties and continue to do the same kind of things we’ve been doing. We can’t just go about business as usual and think it’s going to turn out differently.’… The AP certainly shows good news judgment here: It is highly unusual for a Democrat to acknowledge that not all problems are caused by Bush, and that in itself is interesting. Eight years ago, George W. Bush was in the same position as Obama, Hillary Clinton and that nice-looking young man with the hair and the Southern accent are today: seeking his party’s nomination to succeed a two-term president. Bush understood that he was not running against Bill Clinton and for the most part ignored him. Had he made a statement to the effect that Clinton was not responsible for all of the nation’s ills, this would have been taken as an attack on the incumbent. By contrast, today’s Democrats have invested so much of their identity in hatred of Bush that it is news when one of them acknowledges that Bush is not to blame for all of the nation’s ills. The problem is, even people who think Bush is the root of all evil don’t have to vote Democratic next year, since Bush will not be on the ballot. Perhaps Obama has woken up to that fact.” —James Taranto

THE LAST WORD

“Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA’s Web site and look at the ‘U.S. surface air temperature’ rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed. Then again, you might not. They’re not issuing any press releases about it. But they have quietly revised their All-Time Hit Parade for U.S. temperatures. The ‘hottest year on record’ is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century—2000, 2002, 2003, 2004—plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America’s Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast. If climate change is, as Al Gore says, the most important issue anyone’s ever faced in the history of anything ever, then Franklin Roosevelt didn’t have a word to say about it. And yet we survived.” —Mark Steyn

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.)