The New York Times has announced that the entire world is outraged at Israel’s behavior in bombing Qana.  So it must be true. Or is it?

Nothing is more heartrending than the suffering of children. Emotionally we all want to put the blame on the bombs, the bombers, and those who ordered the bombing. And yet that is obviously a twisted perversion of reality. Because it is the explicit policy of Islamist terror groups to hide behind children, shooting missiles at Israeli civilians all the time. The gains to the terrorists are enormous. Israelis inevitably feel guilty about the unwanted casualties, but they don’t know what else to do in the face of constant attacks on their own children at home. The Muslim masses are predictably outraged because they only hear one side of the story. And the Leftist media continue to lie—- there is no other word for it—- about who is choosing to expose children to danger.

So the seeds are planted from the beginning. The BBC and the New York Times have labeled the black hats and the white hats for years and years. We are seeing just another replay of Leftist propaganda since Stalin—- who was the innocent victim of Western aggression until decades after his death, when a few old Lefties sheepishly admitted his crimes. Communism killed some 100 million innocents in the 20th century, according to the authoritative Black Book of Communism  (Livre Noire du Communism in the original French).

And yet, the most famous intellectuals of the 20th century served this murderous ideology. We are simply seeing a repeat today, with the usual suspects on the Left siding with Islamic fascism just as they took sides with the Leftist fascism of Stalin and Mao.

The Qana story is just a replay of Abu Ghraib, the myth that Saddam had no WMDs, the Wilson-Plame bedroom farce, and on and on. It has just become a kind of reflex of the Left: Israel and the United States are always wrong. Everything is set up for the same mendacious narrative.

Hezbollah killed the children of Qana, just as it killed the children of Haifa. Hezbollah is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his fellow criminals of the mullahcracy in Tehran, who created the Hezbo monster with malice aforethought to “wipe Israel off the map.” There’s no mystery here. They are dead serious about a second genocide against the Jews of Israel. There has never been any effort to lie about it on the part of the Khomeini cult in Tehran. So we know who is responsible.

And yet, the “liberal” media always blame the good guys. There is something twisted and perverse about the media narrative, some sense of delight in enabling the overt malice of the Islamofascists. Because the media know. They know what’s going on. They are just playing dumb, trying to turn their easily-led audiences against those they hate the most. The media take an almost sexual delight in facilitating the murderous malice of Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad. In the calculus of moral responsibility, the New York Times and its ilk must therefore be held to blame in equal measure with the aggressor. “If it bleeds, it leads,” is their working slogan, and it is hard to evade the thought that the biggest “journalists” and editors have learned to enjoy that game, that sense of importance, that arrogation of power. They are co-conspirators in the slaughter of innocents.

The Leftist media will now tell us who won in Lebanon. They know, because they make the rules. When they announce that Israel lost, a frisson of delight will shiver the Left around the world. Muslims will hand out candy in the streets. And the world will become much more dangerous.

Read the rest.

The American Thinker

The deployment of the Basiji in the mine fields shows what one can expect from the Mullah-Regime · By Matthias Küntzel

In pondering the behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I cannot help but think of the 500,000 plastic keys that Iran imported from Taiwan during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. At the time, an Iranian law laid down that children as young as 12 could be used to clear mine fields, even against the objections of their parents. Before every mission, a small plastic key would be hung around each of the children’s necks. It was supposed to open for them the gates to paradise.

“In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettela’at, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the mine fields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes could henceforth be avoided, Ettela’at assured its readers. “Before entering the mine fields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.”[1]

The children who thus rolled to their deaths formed part of the mass “Basij” movement that was called into being by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. The Basij Mostazafan – the “mobilization of the oppressed” – consisted of short-term volunteer militias. Most of the Basij members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically and by the thousands to their own destruction. “The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies,” a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War has recalled, “It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander’s orders, everyone wanted to be first.”[2]

The western media showed little interest for the Basiji – perhaps because journalists could not be present during the hostilities or perhaps because they did not believe the reports. Such disinterest has persisted to this day. The 5000 dead of Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attack on the Kurds of Halabja have remained in our memory. History has forgotten the children of the minefields.

Today, however, Ahmadinejad appears in public in his Basiji uniform. During the war, he served as one of the Basiji instructors who turned children into martyrs. The generation that fought in the Iran-Iraq War has come to power along with Ahmadinejad. He owed his election in Summer 2005 to the contemporary Basiji movement. In Fall, he announced a “Basiji Week.” According to a report in the newspaper Kayan, some 9 million Basiji heeded the call, “forming a human chain some 8,700 kilometers long…. In Tehran alone, some 1,250,000 people turned out.”[3] In his speeches, Ahmadinejad praises the “Basiji culture” and the “Basiji power” with which “Iran today makes its presence felt on the international and diplomatic stage.” Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Chair of the Guardian Council, goes so far as to describe the very existence of Iran’s nuclear program as a triumph of those Iranians who “serve the Basiji movement and possess the Basiji-psyche and Basiji-culture.”[4]

Far from being the subject of criticism, the sacrifice made of the Basiji in the war against Iraq is celebrated nowadays more than ever before. Already in one of his first television interviews, the new President enthused: “Is there an art that is more beautiful, more divine, more eternal than the art of the martyr’s death?”[5] The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, held up the war against Iraq, on account of the fearlessness of the Basiji, as a model for future conflicts.

...

The human wave tactic was implemented as follows: the barely armed children and teenagers had to move continuously forward in perfectly straight rows. It did not matter whether they fell as canon fodder to enemy fire or detonated the mines with their bodies: the important thing was that the Basiji continued to move forward over the torn and mutilated remains of their fallen comrades, going to their deaths in wave after wave.[8] The tactic produced some undeniable initial successes for the Iranian side. “They come toward our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging,” an Iraqi officer complained in Summer 1982, “You can shoot down the first wave, and then the second. But at some point the corpses are piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all!”[9] By Spring 1983, the Pasdaran had sent some 450,000 Basiji in shifts to the front. After three months, whoever survived his deployment was sent back to his school or workplace.[10]

How were the Basiji recruited? Principally, in the schools: the Pasdaran sent “special” educators who hand-picked their martyrs from the obligatory paramilitary exercises. Propaganda films – like the 1986 television film “A Contribution to the War” – praised this alliance between students and the regime against those parents who tried to save their children’s lives.[11]

Secondly, the regime employed incentives. Thus, in a campaign called “Sacrifice a Child for the Imam”, every family that lost a child on the battle field was offered interest-free credit and other generous benefits. Moreover, enrollment in the Basij gave the poorest of the poor a chance for social advancement. Basiji reservists are still today treated as protégés of the Mullah-regime.[12]

Thirdly, the regime employed coercive measures. The following story of young Hossein, which was documented by the German weekly der Spiegel in 1982, is merely one among thousands:

“Why did you enlist?” The youngster in the camouflage fatigues, with both sleeves and pants legs rolled up, doesn’t answer. “His name is Hossein. He doesn’t know his family name,” the translator says. The boy is twelve at most. His face is gaunt, his body is bent forward, he breathes in spurts. One can see that he has trouble staying on his feet. “Polio,” the translator says. …Hossein comes from Mostalbar, a tiny spot somewhere between Shiraz and Bandar Abbas. …One day some unknown Imams turned up in the village. They called the whole population to the plaza in front of the police station and they announced that they came with good news from Imam Khomeini: the Islamic Army of Iran had been chosen to liberate the holy city Al-Quds – Jerusalem – from the infidels. …Hossein had no choice. The local Mullah had decided that every family with children would have to furnish one soldier of God. Because Hossein was the most easily expendable for his family and because, in light of his illness, he could in any case not expect much happiness in this life, he was chosen by his father to represent the family in the struggle against the infidel devils.[13]

Of the twenty children that went into battle with Hossein, only he and two others survived.

In 1982, during the retaking of the city of Khorramshahr, 10,000 Iranians died. Following “Operation Kheiber”, in February 1984, the corpses of some 20,000 fallen Iranians were left on the battle field. The “Karbala Four” Offensive in 1986 cost the lives of more than 10,000 Iranians. All told, some 100,000 men and boys are said to have been killed during the Basiji operations.[14] Why did the Basiji rush with such fervor to their own destruction?

 Quite enlightening.  Go read the rest.

Matthias Küntzel's Blog

By Michael Holden

LONDON, July 26

(Reuters) - Sacdiya Hussein Ali was 7 years old when she was taken to a stranger's house in her native Kenya and held down on a mat by 10 women who pulled her legs apart while a woman cut her with a razor blade.

"The lady who was doing the circumcision came between my legs and she started cutting my private parts," Ali, now 34 and living in London, told Reuters. "After the cutting I was screaming. They had put some clothes in my mouth so I couldn't shout, but they could still hear me screaming."

Ali is one of an estimated 3 million women and girls who suffer female genital mutilation (FGM) each year. The practice, also known as female circumcision, involves removing part or all of a girl's clitoris or labia. It is often carried out by an older woman with no medical training, using anything from scissors to tin can lids and pieces of glass. The victims have no idea what is going to happen to them and anaesthetic or antiseptic treatment is often not used.

"When they cut me, they mixed some herbs and eggs ... and poured it where they had cut and stitched me with thorns," Ali recounted.

The centuries-old practice, prevalent mostly in Africa, is now also being brought by immigrants to Western countries, like Britain. "FGM is a huge problem in the UK," said Ensharah Ahmed, community development officer at the UK-based Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development (Forward). Forward estimates there are around 279,500 women living in Britain who have undergone FGM, with another 22,000 girls under 16 in danger of joining them.

Just horrific.

Al-Reuters 

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.

...Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right -- legal and moral -- to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the Blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest air campaign and land invasion in history, which flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

...Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?

Thank you, Charles.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.

President Bush’s embryonic stem cell policy began with lies and has now ended with one.

Bush reserved his first veto as president for one of the only valuable things this do-almost-nothing Congress has managed to actually get done.

With a flourish of a veto pen that has remained dormant no matter how dopey Congress has been, the Senate bill allowing public funding of embryonic stem cell research has been consigned to the legislative trash can. [What a load of crap -ed.]

An administration that has shown itself over and over again to have trouble telling the truth is now telling Americans in wheelchairs, those with damaged hearts, babies who are diabetic and those left immobile by Parkinsonism not to worry. The president, whose grasp of science left him unable to identify creationism as a fundamentally religious idea, and his trusty sidekick Karl Rove, rarely seen in a white lab coat but who knows something about rats, [Yeah, DemocRATS... -ed.] having been in Washington for some time now, claim to know best which medical research is most likely to benefit diseased Americans in the future.

When Bush uttered his first confused words on the subject of embryonic stem cell research five years ago in August 2001, he said that he was opposed to embryonic stem cell research since it involved the destruction of human life.

He noted that there were embryos, and many of them, already in existence in infertility clinics and left unwanted by those who created them. But he held it was wrong to use those in research. Instead, he told us, he had found a way out of the dilemma of how to do embryonic stem cell research without destroying any embryos.

What had Bush figured out that no one in the scientific community could see then and remains unable to see now?

There were, he said, 60 stem cell lines that had been made from embryos which held “great promise that could lead to breakthrough therapies and cures.” If he gave federal money to support research on those lines and funded research on adult stem cells, such as bone marrow, fetal blood cells taken from umbilical cords and other adult stem cells found in skin, muscle and the intestine, then all would be well.

Wrong science, flawed ethics
The president’s supporters, a much larger set then than now, blessed his insight and his wisdom in producing a marvelous "compromise" and pronounced the quandary over stem cell research resolved.

Except, as even the president must have known and some of his most vocal supporters knew, the president was talking through his hat.

PMSNBC

System Administrator Appreciation Day

If you can read this, thank your sysadmin

A sysadmin unpacked the server for this website from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. All to serve this webpage.

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. All to make sure the webpage found its way from the server to your computer.

Fig. 1 Ted.

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers, and keeps the printers going no matter how many copies of the tax code someone from Accounting prints out.

A sysadmin worries about spam, viruses, spyware, but also power outages, fires and floods.

When the email server goes down at 2 AM on a Sunday, your sysadmin is paged, wakes up, and goes to work.

A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work -- to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

So if you can read this, thank your sysadmin -- and know she is only one of dozens or possibly hundreds whose work brings you the email from your aunt on the West Coast, the instant message from your son at college, the free phone call from the friend in Australia, and this webpage.

Show your appreciation

Friday, July 28th, 2006, is the 7th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. On this special international day, give your System Administrator something that shows that you truly appreciate their hard work and dedication.

Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgement. It's the least you could do.

Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let's be honest, sometimes we don't know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.

'nuff said.

Neither the mainstream media nor Kofi Annan have mentioned it, but Hizballah has attacked UNIFIL observers twice this week. (Hat tip: Larry.)

From the UN’s own press releases:

24 July 2006:

One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable.

Notice: in this instance, the UN observer was injured badly enough to be evacuated to an Israeli hospital. Where they saved his life.

Not a word of condemnation from Kofi Annan for Hizballah. And not a word of gratitude for Israel, for saving a UN peacekeeper’s life.

25 July 2006:

This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin.

Via:  Little Green Footballs

...When Israeli forces completed their pullout from Lebanon in early 2000, Foreign Minister David Levy reminded Annan that it was now up to Lebanon, in collaboration with UNIFIL, to live up to their obligations to deploy the Lebanese army in the south and to secure its border. That the present conflict is occurring is proof positive of the failure of the Lebanese government and of UNIFIL to even attempt to fulfill these obligations. The arsenal and forces that Hezbollah has amassed on Israel’s northern frontier were assembled under the eyes of UNIFIL. In fact, accusing the U.N. troops of “failure” would be inaccurate; “enabler” might be a more apt description.

One incident we encountered during our visit to Israel last year illustrates this sad fact. In January 2005, Hezbollah planted five camouflaged “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs), inches on the Israeli side of the border near Zarit, 15 mountainous miles inland from the Mediterranean coast.  The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) detected these IEDs and, following procedure, notified UNIFIL. A French UNIFIL engineer duly certified that the devices were indeed IEDs, then “requested” that Hezbollah remove them. Hezbollah, not denying it had planted them, flatly refused, stating that since the mines were (just barely) inside the “Zionist” border, it was up to the “Zionists” to remove them. So the IDF sent in a large armored bulldozer to carry the mines off for disposal. This task required making a sharp 90-degree right turn from an Israeli road onto the narrow border trail where the IEDs were located. Making this sharp right turn, the left front corner of the bulldozer inevitably occupied, for a couple of seconds, about a meter of land on the Lebanese side. During those seconds a Hezbollah fighter directed an anti-tank missile at the narrow, unguarded windshield of the bulldozer. The pinpoint strike, which our Israeli sources have admitted required extraordinary training and skill, killed the bulldozer’s driver, Sgt. Maj. Jan Rotzanski, a 21-year-old Russian immigrant from Herzliya. The cynical cruelty of this murder, which Hezbollah proceeded to widely celebrate across Lebanon, speaks volumes not only about Hezbollah, but also about UNIFIL.

Nor has the situation changed much now that the conflict is “hot.” UNIFIL’s only apparent action this past week has been to voice concerns that its troops might get hit in the crossfire. This is indeed a risk — because UNIFIL has long permitted Hezbollah to locate its forces, including its missile batteries, in the very shadow of installations belonging to the “peacekeepers.” UNIFIL has thus turned into a very convenient and high-profile human shield for terrorists.

Interesting observation.  Read the rest.

National Review Online

July 25, 2006: The mainstream media has, under the cover of the Israeli incursions into Lebanon, managed to expose another intelligence effort. This time it is a total of eight data-mining programs used to assist analysts in locating terrorists and stopping them before they carry out their plans. Five of these were developed under the efforts of the Total Information Awareness program run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and cancelled by Congress.

Tracking terrorists has become a high priority since the September 11 attacks. These efforts have included listening to their communications, tracking finances, and also trying to locate patterns indicating terrorist activity. These programs have helped break up several attacks, usually through arresting cells of terrorists (like the group in Florida). These efforts actually represent two different lines of research. One area is software that filters data to give analysts a much smaller haystack to search though. The other area is a group of programs that allow analysts from various agencies to collaborate via computer networks.

This is not the first time that intelligence efforts have been compromised by the mainstream media. The New York Times has twice blown major intelligence efforts by the National Security Agency involving effort to intercept terrorists' communications and in tracking finances. Other media outlets have blown open programs that involved keeping terrorists under wraps – and have even revealed interrogation techniques by publishing the logs for one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, Mohammed al-Khatani, who was believed to be slated as the 20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks.

In a very real sense, what has happened is that the mainstream media has decided to leak as many programs as they can. These days, to find out what the United States is doing, all an al-Qaeda operative has to do is to subscribe to the New York Times and USA Today – a grand total of $1.75 per weekday. Logging onto the websites is free. – Harold C. Hutchison

Strategy Page

A militant Islamic group has filed a police report against Indonesia's Miss Universe candidate accusing her of indecency, a lawyer for the organization said Tuesday.

Nadine Chandrawinata's participation in the contest and display of her body in a swimsuit there "is actually insulting for Indonesian dignity and women," Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) attorney Sugito told Reuters.

Chandrawinata did not make it to the finals of the Sunday competition in Los Angeles, which was won by Miss Puerto Rico, but she had drawn heavy media coverage in Indonesia, partly because of her mixed Indonesian-German parentage and Eurasian looks.

Sugito said FPI had also filed complaints against four people involved in sponsoring and organizing Chandrawinata's participation.

"I am worried that Nadine is only victim of their ambition," he said.

Under Indonesian law, police would have to investigate whether there was sufficient evidence for a case under the complaint, and if so, turn their findings over to prosecutors for a decision on whether it merited going to court.

The offences involved carry potential sentences ranging from two to six years in jail, Sugito said, adding that the posing requirements of the competition offended the standards not just of Islam but other religions.

A government decree against participation in beauty contests issued when strongman Suharto was president is still technically in effect in Indonesia, although in practice it has been disregarded since he lost power in 1998.

Some 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam, making it the world's most populous Muslim country.

Although most Indonesian Muslims are considered relatively moderate and the government is officially secular, hard-line groups are becoming increasingly vocal and visible.

The result has been a tug-of-war in Indonesian politics over how much religious values should be reflected in law.

FPI has filed complaints with the police on other issues previously, while critics say it encourages such vigilante tactics as attacking bars selling alcohol during the Muslim fasting period.

An April protest organized by FPI against the Indonesian edition of Playboy magazine was marked by rock throwing and vandalism.

Nice.... 

Yahoo! 

CNN's Robertson Now Admits: Hezbollah 'Had Control' of His Anti-Israel Piece

Better late than never? On CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, CNN’s senior international correspondent Nic Robertson added all of the caveats and disclaimers that he should have included in his story last week that amounted to his giving an uncritical forum for the terrorist group Hezbollah to spout unverifiable anti-Israeli propaganda.

Back on July 18, Hezbollah took Robertson and his crew on a tour of a heavily damaged south Beirut neighborhood. The Hezbollah “press officer” even instructed the CNN camera: “Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians living in this building?”

In his original story, Robertson had no complaints about the journalistic limitations of a story put together under such tight controls, and Robertson himself at one point seemed to agree with the Hezbollah propaganda claim that Israeli jets had targeted a civilian area: “As we run past the rubble, we see much that points to civilian life, no evidence apparent of military equipment.”

Challenged by Reliable Sources host (and Washington Post media writer) Howard Kurtz on Sunday, Robertson suggested Hezbollah has “very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,” that the terrorist group “had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,” and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: “There's no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.”

But the closest Robertson came to making any of these points in the taped package that aired last week was admitting that “we [he and his CNN crew] didn’t go burrowing into all the houses,” after pointing out (for the second time) that “we didn’t see any military type of equipment” in the area Hezbollah chose to let them tour.

Five days later, Robertson argued that “journalistic integrity” required skepticism: “When you hear their [Hezbollah’s] claims, they have to come with more than a grain of salt, that you have to put in some journalistic integrity. That you have to point out to the audience and let them know that this was a guided tour by Hezbollah press officials along with their security, that it was a very rushed affair.”

While some viewers undoubtedly deduced out that it was “a guided tour” from the numerous sound bites from the Hezbollah press officer, it’s not as if Robertson ever complained about his limitations or explicitly warned viewers that there was no way he could confirm any of the claims.

Nic Robertson, of course, isn’t the only correspondent going on these Hezbollah-arranged tours, as CNN’s Reliable Sources noted yesterday. In a set-up to his interview with Robertson, Kurtz played clips of NBC’s Richard Engel and CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer relating their trips into the damaged areas, with Palmer providing the sort of disclaimer that Robertson failed to include last week: “This morning, Hezbollah showed journalists around the ruins of its former stronghold, but Hezbollah is also determined that outsiders will only see what it wants them to see.”

I'm shocked!  Shocked, I tell you!

NewsBusters 

What if the people, institutions, and attitudes of today were somehow taken back in time to World War II? What would have been the result? Would we have ended up winning or losing that war?

 Those of us old enough to remember World War II face many painful reminders of how things have changed in Americans' behavior during a war. Back then, the president's defeated opponent in the 1940 election — Wendell Wilkie — not only supported the war, he became a personal envoy from President Roosevelt to Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

We were all in it together — and we knew it. People who had been highly critical of American foreign policy before we were attacked at Pearl Harbor now fell silent and devoted themselves to winning the war.

What if the people, institutions, and attitudes of today were somehow taken back in time to World War II? What would have been the result? Would we have ended up winning or losing that war?

What about the great cry of the hour, a cease fire?

It so happens that World War II had the biggest cease fire in history. It was called "the phony war" because, although France was officially at war with Germany, the French did very little fighting for months, while the bulk of the German army was in Poland and France had overwhelming military superiority on the western front.

Famed correspondent William L. Shirer reported on the "unreal" western front, with soldiers "on both sides looking but not shooting." German soldiers bathed in the Rhine and waved to French soldiers on the other side, who waved back.

During this period Hitler offered to negotiate peace with France and England.

Kofi Anan would have loved it.

Read the rest.

Jewish World Review

There are now 2500 Australian soldiers and police in East Timor, mostly in the capital, Dili.

While thousands of Australian soldiers and police have served in East Timor since 1999, none have been accused of sexual misconduct. The behaviour of some peacekeepers has outraged many UN staff, several of whom have resigned in disgust.

In one of the worst instances detailed in Ms Ospina's report, a peacekeeper from an unnamed country is alleged to have abused two boys and two girls in the enclave of Oecussi.

In early 2001, two soldiers were sent home with injured penises after allegedly attempting sexual intercourse with goats.

Ms Ospina says that, as in other UN operations, the arrival of peacekeepers has attracted prostitution. She refers to a study showing that in 2004 there were 250 female and 110 male sex workers in Dili. Of the males, 75 per cent were younger than 18.

The report says the fear and reluctance to report sexual misconduct by UN personnel may be justified. Both the perpetrators and, usually, the person to whom such cases would be reported are men in positions of relative power, the report says.

Nice one, Kofi. What's one more UN scandal?

The Age

Israel is being set-up in the world’s media to meet an impossible standard. To its critics, if Israel does not instantly destroy all of Hizbullah and its fixed installations (and that “instant” has now already passed) and do it without taking any casualties itself or inflicting any collateral damage on the other side, then it has failed. 

By this peculiar standard, any country that has ever fought a war has “lost” it after the first week.  But it should surprise no one that this standard is only applied to Israel and the United States. It is an absurd standard, and a defeatist one.

Having set the rules of the game so as to ensure failure, critics then commence laying blame on the country which is presumed guilty merely by being who and what it is. The victim of unprovoked attacks is thus guilty of “disproportionate&r dquo; response. Eliminating military installations hidden among civilians (such hiding being a war crime itself) becomes an attack on civilians.

Such guilt-mongering is not simply wrong, it is also camouflage, designed to divert attention away from the party which bears far greater responsibility.

There is a person responsible for the devastation both in Israel and in Lebanon.  And that person is the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. 

This is “Kofi’s War.”  Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 under the guarantee of a UN resolution that the border area would not be remilitarized.  The responsible agent of that guarantee was Kofi Annan.

Defenders might say that the UN did not have the military power to enforce that policy. So why did it not say so? Kofi still had the bully pulpit of the Secretary Generalship. He could have called for a larger force and the will to use it.

Do you remember the conferences called to examine the building of what we are now told are impenetrable underground bunkers?  Neither do I. 

Do you remember the speeches calling attention to the stockpiling of offensive missiles?  Neither do I. 

Do you remember the investigation of the use of civilian domiciles to house weapons launchers and thus endanger the local citizenry?  Neither do I.

Excellent.  Read the rest.

The American Thinker 

Screaming at the can of food will not make it open by itself.

I should not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase leaves.

If I put a live mouse in my food bowl, I should not expect it to stay there until I get hungry.

The guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while. I will not watch him constantly.

If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.

I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at nothing (especially right after my human has finished watching "The X-Files").

Television and computer screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.

No matter how dangly and attractive they are, my human's earrings are not cat toys.

If I play 'dead cat on the stairs' while people are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, one of these days it will really come true.

My human is capable of cooking bacon and eggs without my help.

The cat food is already dead. I do not need to kill it by swatting bits of it all over the floor.

I am a carnivore. Potted plants are not meat.

I will never be able to walk on the ceiling, and staring up the wall and screaming at it will not bring it any closer.

It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it all dissolves in the boiling coffee.

The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.

If my human wants to share her sandwich with me, she will give me a piece. She will notice if I start eating it from the other end.

I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside.

The large dog in the back yard has lived there for six years. I will not freak out every time I see it.

If I must give a present to my human's overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a live cockroach, even if it isn't as tasty.

Even though I hear voices in my head, I do not have to answer them.

And now, my additions:

Just because I can squeeze myself under the dresser doesn't mean I can get back out again on my own; and furthermore, Mom doesn't appreciate having to get out of bed in the middle of the night to pull out the drawers in order to rescue me.

Scratching the lip of the litter box covers nothing. Same thing with the wall next to the box.

The scenery in the pantry/closet/laundry room doesn't change much, and I don't need to explore these "new rooms" everytime the door to one of them is opened.

Batting toys (or food) under the refrigerator, stove, or similar is not an effective way to get humans to join in playing with you.

Hat tip:  My sweet baby... 

In the experiment the research team headed by Dr. Arno Rauschenbeutel and Professor Dieter Meschede decelerated several caesium atoms for a period of several seconds so that they were hardly moving, then loaded them onto a 'conveyor belt' consisting of lasers. This conveyor belt is made up of a standing light wave composed of many peaks and troughs – possibly comparable to a piece of corrugated iron. 'Unfortunately it cannot be predicted which trough precisely the atoms will land in,' Arno Rauschenbeutel explains. 'It's rather like pouring several eggs from a big dish into an egg carton – which section each egg rolls into is a matter of chance.'

However, anyone wishing to calculate with atoms must be able to place them exactly. 'All the atoms on the conveyor belt have to have the same distance from each other,' is how Arno Rauschenbeutel sketches the challenge. 'Only then can we get them to interact in a controlled way in what is called a quantum gate.' By lining up gate operations like these it would already be possible to carry out simple quantum calculations.

The Bonn physicists therefore subsequently 'sorted' the atoms in their experiment on the conveyor belt. They did this by first taking a photo to record their positions. They next set the conveyor belt moving – and with it the caesium atoms 'trapped' in the troughs. In this way they transported the wrongly placed atoms to their 'laser tweezers' – this is basically nothing more than another conveyor belt consisting of laser beams which is oriented orthogonally to the first conveyor belt. 'When we set the tweezers' light wave in motion, we can lift the wrongly placed atoms off the conveyor belt,' Arno Rauschenbeutel explains. 'Then we move the conveyor belt to the desired position and simply pop the atom back in.'

The film shows how well this works: the tweezers select two atoms consecutively from the belt and put them back on again in such a way that they are exactly the same distance from each other and from a third atom. 'Sorting seven atoms in this way takes us about two seconds,' Dr. Rauschenbeutel says.

Pretty darn cool. Maybe this will lead to a cure for liberalism...

Physorg.com

f ever there was an example of what’s wrong with the intersection of government and science, the Environmental Protection Agency’s 20-year campaign to scare the public about dioxin is certainly a leading candidate.

The EPA slammed into a bureaucratic wall this week when a National Academy of Sciences panel told the agency to take its dioxin report back to the drawing board. But the NAS’ rejection of the EPA report was handled with kid gloves -- permitting the agency to save face by allowing the dioxin scare to continue indefinitely.

“EPA assessment of dioxin understates uncertainty about health risks and may overstate human cancer risk,” was the headline of the NAS’ media release announcing (and summarizing) its review of the EPA’s latest dioxin scaremongering.

The NAS said the evidence that dioxin caused cancer in humans was “not strong” and that risk estimates had to be imagined through use of mathematical models. Despite the acknowledged absence of evidence linking dioxin with cancer in humans, the NAS panel bizarrely agreed that dioxin was “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”

It’s the sort of 2-plus-2-equals-five conclusion that only connoisseurs of regulatory bureaucracy can fully appreciate.

The EPA issued in 2003 a draft report on dioxin alleging that the substance was 10 times more carcinogenic than the agency previously claimed -- and some dioxin hysterics had already been calling it the “most toxic manmade chemical” for which there was “no safe exposure.”

Read the rest at Fox News. 

The Real 'Inconvenient Truth'

Greenhouse, global warming - and some facts

JunkScience.com
April 21, 2006

Given the number of JunkScience.com readers expressing some confusion over the "greenhouse effect," carbon dioxide, global warming and climate change, we thought it might be a good idea to pull together a page of questions-and-answers, complete with a few nice little graphics explaining the facts.

We thought that since there is long-standing, intense public interest in these topics and that vast sums of public and private monies are being thrown at the much-dreaded "problem" of "global warming," there should be a wealth of quality explanations and graphics to which we can point readers to alleviate their confusion.

That was about the time that our quick project and quiet weekend went awry very quickly.

Who would have thought so many "issue" sites, environment sites and, yes, government sites, could be hosting so much utter garbage on a topic subject to such intense scrutiny? Who could have imagined having to spend several hours wading through searches to find a few simple graphics correctly expressing the greenhouse effect? Who knew that so many blowhards are out there pontificating from complete ignorance?

Some of the bad descriptions appear to be poor efforts at simplifying the material to suit grade school course work and the like, but that does not make them any more acceptable. Obviously a slight rethink of this project was necessary. We will now try to deliver an extremely simplified version of how this greenhouse thing actually works and some indication of what might be expected from what is known about the Earth and what has been measured, rather than simply guessed about.

Basic misconceptions that must be addressed include:

Does the Earth's atmosphere primarily behave like an actual greenhouse?

No. The term "greenhouse effect" is unfortunate since it often results in a totally false impression of the activity of so-called "greenhouse gases." An actual greenhouse works as a physical barrier to convection (the transfer of heat by currents in a fluid) while the atmosphere facilitates convection. So-called "greenhouse gases" in the Earth's atmosphere do not act as a barrier to convection so the impression of actual greenhouse-like activity in the Earth's atmosphere is wrong.

For an expanded description of physical greenhouses see Sue Ann Bowling's ASF piece here.

Supplemental, April 25: A couple of people have written challenging whether physical greenhouses function as convection barriers since they do radiate and so does the atmosphere - apparently we need to expand on this point. To begin with, a physical greenhouse is simply a contained subset of the atmosphere - it is not bounded by the near-vacuum of space as is the planet's atmosphere and so has rather different properties. The proof that convection containment is critical to the function of physical greenhouses is that it is possible to create structures with similar radiative properties, one which allows convective activity between the structure and unconstrained atmosphere and one which does not. Only the structure constraining internal-external convection will function as an effective greenhouse. Greenhouse gases categorically do not inhibit convective activity and so are not like a physical greenhouse.

Forgetting about the unfortunate-but-commonly- used terminology for a moment, is the so-called 'greenhouse effect' bad?

Only if you think undesirable a habitable planet with relatively stable temperature. Our moon, lacking greenhouse effect, makes a kind of comparison even though lack of atmosphere makes it uninhabitable regardless of temperature. The moon's mean surface temperature by day is 107 °C (225 °F) and by night drops to -153 °C (-243 °F). The Lunar temperature increases about 260 °C from just before dawn to Lunar noon. So, if you fancy such a temperature range then a greenhouse effect-free world is for you, otherwise you might want to be pleased we have it here on Earth.

How much does the so-called 'greenhouse effect' warm the Earth?

It's estimated that the Earth's surface would be about -18 °C (0 °F, 255 K) with atmosphere and clouds but without the greenhouse effect and that the (we'll call it "natural") greenhouse effect raises the Earth's temperature by ~33 °C (59 °F). Devoid of atmosphere it would actually be a less cold -1 °C (272 K) because the first calculation strangely includes 31% reflection of solar radiation by clouds (which could obviously not occur without an atmosphere) while clouds actually add significantly to the greenhouse effect - for simplicity, just stick with ~33 °C.

[Edited for clarity, April 24] Theoretically, if the planet's surface cooled by radiation alone, then the greenhouse-induced surface temperature would be much warmer, about 350 K (77 °C), but atmospheric motion (convective towers carrying latent and sensible heat upwards and large scale circulation carrying it both upwards and polewards) significantly increase the "escape" of energy to space, leaving Earth's surface more than 60 °C cooler than a static atmosphere would do.

So, despite there being far more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere than required to achieve the current greenhouse effect, and that has been so since before humans discovered fire, evapo-transpiration and thermals transport heat higher in the atmosphere where radiation to space is increased. This is why Earth remains about 15 °C rather than about 77 °C.

Wait a minute! Those aren't the numbers I learned!

Ah! Someone who remembers their science classes eh? Well, you got us. Reference works frequently list the planet's mean surface temperature as 16 °C (61 °F); sometimes 15 °C (59 °F) is mentioned and yes, these are about the expected temperatures by calculation -- in the 1960s and 1970s numbers as high as 65 °F (18 °C) were popular but we haven't seen those for some time. Here we run into a little bit of a problem, however -- taking the Earth's temperature is no trivial task. In fact, even defining precisely what we mean by the absolute surface air temperature is challenging. Current global temperature anomalies (the amount of warming or cooling reported) are estimated against an expected average of 14 °C (57 °F) -- the guess-timated mean temperature over the period 1961-1990.

Are greenhouse gases like a blanket around the Earth?

No, for the same reason that they don't behave like an actual greenhouse, they simply do not behave as a barrier to convective activity and so aren't "like a blanket."

Do greenhouse gases trap the sun's radiation/'heat'?

Not to any great extent. The Sun, being much hotter than Earth, emits high energy, shortwave radiation while Earth, in response, emits longwave radiation. The cooler the portion of the Earth or atmosphere, the lower energy intensity, longer wave radiation is emitted -- that old white hot, yellow hot, red hot thing. Greenhouse gases are generally transparent to incoming solar radiation -- they let most solar radiation through -- and opaque to Earth's radiation -- they absorb and transfer the Earth's infrared radiation by a variety of means. That said, oxygen and ozone do absorb incoming Ultraviolet (UV) radiation (<0.3µm) and water, ozone, oxygen and, to a tiny extent, carbon dioxide also absorb a small amount of incoming shortwave below the 3 micron (µm) wavelength range (>see graphic) and it is mostly the UV absorption by ozone that causes warming in the stratosphere above the tropopause. The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere (which is based at the earth's surface and has temperature that decreases with height, extending about 10-50Km or 6-30 miles above the surface) and the stratosphere (which is a stable region of very low levels of vertical mixing above the troposphere).

A representation of relative emission wavelengths can be seen on the following graphic.

Greenhouse gases, therefore, do not "trap heat," but could be fairly described as delaying the energy transfer from Earth to space. "Trapping heat" implies that the energy is stuck in the system forever -- this is a false notion. Greenhouse gases do not emit energy in the same bandwidth that they absorb energy, and thus emissions from carbon dioxide are not absorbed by carbon dioxide. While energy may be delayed on its inevitable journey back to space, it will eventually be emitted regardless of the number of intervening stages.

Do greenhouse gases 'reradiate' the infrared radiation they absorb?

This is an unfortunate expression that is all too common. Absorbed radiation is transformed to either kinetic or potential energy and, as such, no longer exists in its original form -- hence, it cannot be "reradiated." When molecules absorb infrared radiation they are said to become excited ("hot"). Such molecules can release energy usually in one of three ways: by chemical reaction (uncommon, since greenhouse gases are pretty stable and non-reactive); quenching (transferring energy to cooler molecules, increasing their temperature) and; emission (usually at lower energy [longer wavelength] radiation than the energy previously absorbed). Once more, since the absorbed energy has been transformed it cannot be said to be "reradiated".

Is 'greenhouse' the same as 'global warming'?

Absolutely not. We'll look at both terms below.

What about 'climate change' then?

That's a different thing altogether. Change is what the climate is always doing and is the result of our planet's orbital eccentricities, axial wobble, solar brightness variation, cosmic ray flux, etc.. There are also plausible terrestrial drivers of climate change too, including super volcanic events and tectonic movement, but these are not in the realm of anthropogenic (manmade) effects and so we won't looking at them here.

The global mean temperature over which there has been so much obsession is only one part of climate -- for example, how wet or dry the climate happens to be is probably of far greater significance than a simple mean temperature -- in fact, it's not even clear that a global mean temperature is a particularly useful metric. However, it is the cause of great angst at present so it will remain the focus of this document for that reason alone.

Graphics for a simple understanding of the greenhouse effect

This first graphic meets the criteria of being simple, doesn't say things like "reradiated" (as so many do), specifically includes water vapor and clouds as both absorbers and emitters (remarkably few greenhouse graphics do so) and is reasonably proportionate.

Big note here -- we were unable to find useful graphics adequately expressing convection, which, as we highlighted above, keeps the planet more than 60 °C cooler than would otherwise be the case.

The next graphic provides an indication of the infrared component of the planetary radiation budget. Note that these are expressed as percentages and that the 100% incoming and outgoing solar energy balance is not the whole story -- there is additional energy transfer in progress between the atmosphere and surface, and surface and atmosphere. This is the natural greenhouse effect that makes life as we know it possible on Earth. (Don't worry if you don't quite follow the numbers, we'll provide a "map" view below.)

The preceding view is very pretty and contains lots of numbers but we can perhaps get a better look at what is going on from a different representation. The following is from Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget (Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997). This is expressed in Watts per square meter (Wm^-2) and tells the same story of the incoming 342 Wm^-2 = outgoing (235 + 107 Wm^-2). Note that there is relatively little direct reflection and radiation from surface to space but significant exchange via the atmosphere. Note further that the surface receives almost twice the energy from the atmosphere as it does directly from the sun. The exchange between surface, atmosphere and surface is what is meant by greenhouse effect. (Those not enjoying lots of numbers or missing primary colors might prefer viewing this simplified Earth energy budget)

It might also help novices to conceive of the atmosphere and the natural greenhouse effect as a kind of a metaphorical energy flow control valve. There's a lot of energy bouncing around, but the amount of energy entering the system and the amount leaving is fairly tightly constrained. The atmosphere is acting as a kind of check valve, slowing the loss of energy to space but the net incoming (324 + 168 Wm^-2) = net outgoing (390 + 78 + 24 Wm^-2).

Okay, if that's greenhouse, what is 'global warming'?

While greenhouse is the "what," "global warming" really refers to the "how much." Populist overuse and abuse has largely rendered "global warming" meaningless -- what is really meant is "enhanced greenhouse" -- yes, another term but don't worry, we'll explain this one easily and quickly. Since Arrhenius began speculating a century ago about low CO₂ levels and ice ages the hypothesis of temperature relation to atmospheric carbon dioxide has drifted in and out of scientific focus. At present it is the focus of a great deal of attention. "Enhanced greenhouse" means the additional delay in energy loss to space induced by the fraction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by humans before those gases are removed from the atmosphere by breakdown and/or biological activity.

So, greenhouse is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere. In simple terms, however, the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total greenhouse effect. The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other "minor greenhouse gases." As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO₂.

The adjacent radiation absorption window graphic gives an idea of which molecules absorb various wavelengths. Where the shaded portions completely span between 2 lines it indicates that particular wavelength is fully absorbed and the "window" is saturated (or said to be "closed"). Rather obviously, once a window is saturated adding more gases with the same properties will do nothing. This point seems to cause confusion for some people so perhaps consider multiple shades on a window with each shade blocking half the light coming through - pull one shade and you reduce the light source by half, pull another so you block half the light coming through the first shade, etc.. The effect of each shade diminishes as you keep adding more and eventually you get no additional effect - you have saturated or blocked the radiation window and it makes no difference if you double or quadruple the number of shades again.

Well, I heard that carbon dioxide is bad -- it's pollution, isn't it?

There seem to be a few things that your informant forgot to tell you -- like carbon dioxide being an essential trace gas that underpins the bulk of the global food web. Estimates vary, but somewhere around 15% seems to be the common number cited for the increase in global food crop yields due to aerial fertilization with increased carbon dioxide since 1950. This increase has both helped avoid a Malthusian disaster and preserved or returned enormous tracts of marginal land as wildlife habitat that would otherwise have had to be put under the plow in an attempt to feed the growing global population. Commercial growers deliberately generate CO₂ and increase its levels in agricultural greenhouses to between 700ppmv and 1,000ppmv to increase productivity and improve the water efficiency of food crops far beyond those in the somewhat carbon-starved open atmosphere. CO₂ feeds the forests, grows more usable lumber in timber lots meaning there is less pressure to cut old growth or push into "natural" wildlife habitat, makes plants more water efficient helping to beat back the encroaching deserts in Africa and Asia and generally increases bio-productivity. If it's "pollution," then it's pollution the natural world exploits extremely well and to great profit. Doesn't sound too bad to us.

But we're responsible for all the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect?

Gracious no! Humans can only claim responsibility, if that's the word, for abut 3.4% of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually, the rest of it is all natural (you can see the IPCC representation of the natural carbon cycle and human perturbation here or a simple schematic from Woods Hole here). Half our estimated emissions fail to accumulate in the atmosphere," "disappearing" into sinks as yet undetermined. Humans' total accumulated carbon contribution could account for perhaps 25% of the total non-water greenhouse gases (that is, accounting for all the increase since the Industrial Revolution regardless of source and irrespective of whether warming from any cause might result in an increase in natural emission to atmosphere -- we're simply claiming the lot as anthropogenic or human-caused here).

Clarification June 4: the mention of 25% of total non-water greenhouse effect above and the following mention of 2.5% of total greenhouse effect has confused a few readers, leading to some e-mails suspecting one or the other to be a typographical error. The figures are correct. Recall that water vapor accounts for about 70% and clouds (mostly water droplets) accounts for another 20%, thus water in it's various forms is 90% of the greenhouse effect, leaving 10% for non-water greenhouse effect. Of this remaining 10%, mainly atmospheric carbon, humans might be responsible for 25% of the total accumulated atmospheric carbon, thus 0.25 x 0.1 = 0.025 x 100 = 2.5% of the total greenhouse effect.

Ah, we've added 2.5% to the total greenhouse effect then?

Not exactly, if it were such a simple accumulation, we could easily determine exactly how much Earth would warm from a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ (not much) and certainly that would be an improvement on the silly figures bandied about. Theoretically, in a dry atmosphere, carbon dioxide could absorb about three times more energy than it actually does, as could clouds in the absence of all other greenhouse gases -- look at it as there already being "competition" for available suitable longwave radiation (energy these gases can absorb), if you like. Readers should be aware that the temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic (that means there is a diminishing response as you keep adding more, like the additional window shade example, above). If we consider the warming effect of the pre-Industrial Revolution atmospheric carbon dioxide (about 280 parts per million by volume or ppmv) as 1, then the first half of that heating was delivered by about 20ppmv (0.002% of atmosphere) while the second half required an additional 260ppmv (0.026%). To double the pre-Industrial Revolution warming from CO₂ alone would require about 90,000ppmv (9%) but we'd never see it - CO₂ becomes toxic at around 6,000ppmv (0.6%, although humans have absolutely no prospect of achieving such concentrations).

Well, how much does carbon dioxide heat the Earth?

Oh my, we were afraid you were going to ask that. Because so many of the atmospheric processes are still being sorted out and quantified this is a non-trivial task. But alright, here goes.

What we can do is plot some of the more common estimates -- note that these are something of a curve-fitting exercise on our part because we don't have the full papers and workings at hand. Stay with us while we run through a couple of rough sketch graphs, following which we'll try a different approach to see if we can't narrow the possibilities.

We'll offer three of the more commonly used and/or discussed estimates for the amount of cooling Earth would experience for a hypothetical zero-CO₂, cloud-free atmosphere; Lindzen (5.3 °C clear sky, 3.53 °C with 40% cloud), along with Charnock & Shine (12 °C clear sky), C&S are the big number guys in the estimation game (both from Physics Today, 1995) and Kondratjew & Moskalenko (7.2 °C, commonly cited but we are not sure why, perhaps because Houghton used their estimate in his book, 'The Global Climate', 1984) - here these estimates are simply scripted up to produce the following graphs and the numbers are imprecise, merely adequate to give everyone a reasonable look at how carbon dioxide fits into the picture. Note also that there is still dispute over whether water would (does) act as a positive or negative "feedback" (multiplier effect) since water vapor and droplets (clouds) affect both incoming Solar radiation and outgoing Earth radiation.

Our simple script is logarithmic (remember our example of adding more shades over a window) but does not allow for complete saturation of radiative wavelengths, likely increases in evapo-transpirative cooling, increases in albedo (bright clouds reflecting more incoming solar radiation) nor any variation by latitude and so will progressively overestimate potential warming from CO₂ alone. No matter, it does quite well enough to demonstrate the principle.

You can see how much this little script has overshot the mark since Lindzen states explicitly that a doubling from 300ppmv to 600ppmv of atmospheric carbon dioxide would result in only 0.5 °C warming. Rather obviously, Lindzen's calculations do not suggest a particularly large greenhouse influence on post-Industrial Revolution temperatures and, significantly, this does not include clouds, so CO₂ would really only be a fraction of the total effect shown (Lindzen states 0.22 °C if calculated with 40% cloud cover). Despite our over-estimation of the numbers on the graph it should be apparent there is only moderate warming potential from carbon dioxide emissions. These have all been plotted simultaneously so you can see the range of estimates for incremental change in temperature driven by greenhouse gases and below we show for a quadrupling of CO₂-equivalent greenhouse gas relative to pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Update May 14: we've had a few people wonder why we "allow" claims of 40% cloud cover as though such was an outrageous claim -- what can we say? These thumbnails link to NASA's famous Blue Marble composites (low resolution versions) and you can find plenty more Earth images on their Visible Earth site. end update.

Since some people are not familiar with logarithmic effect, we'll just point out a few features from the above graphs. Note the diminishing effect in all cases -- the first half of pre-IR greenhouse-driven temperature increment in each estimate is achieved by less than 20 parts per million carbon dioxide (20ppmv CO₂), it then took adding thirteen times as much again to repeat the performance (to 280ppmv). The estimated temperature increment range for a doubling of pre-IR CO₂ (graphed as 300ppmv to 600ppmv) is just +0.6 °C to +1.5 °C and for a quadrupling (to 1200ppmv) +1.3 °C to +2.9 °C.

Lots of numbers, which ones fit what we think we know of the Earth's greenhouse effect?

Let's try working backwards for a moment. The Earth's greenhouse effect is commonly estimated at 33 °C and these calculations simply assume that to be true. If water vapor accounts for 70% and clouds another 20% then we have 10% left for carbon dioxide and the ubiquitous "other" GHGs. Lindzen's 3.53 °C cooling potential for complete removal of CO₂ would then seem to fit the bill fairly adequately at around 10.7% of the total effect, while there's really not room for the larger estimates. Note, however, that carbon dioxide is generally reckoned to account for between 4.2% and 8.4% of Earth's greenhouse effect because water vapor and clouds also behave differently at different concentrations and temperatures (we warned you this wasn't linear).

If, on the other hand, we assume Charnock and Shine are closer to the mark then ~36% of Earth's greenhouse effect would be driven by CO₂. This is intuitively unreasonable since water is both prolific and has absorption windows overlapping those of carbon dioxide to a large extent. Given that water covers more than 70% of the globe and that the lower atmosphere over water tends to be relatively well supplied with water both as vapor and clouds and further given that water is the dominant absorber in wavelengths expected in the warmer regions, such as in the tropics where water is hugely prolific and where significant greenhouse warming occurs, it simply does not seem reasonable to expect CO₂ to preferentially absorb more than one-third of the available energy. This suggests (but does not prove) that Lindzen is likely to be the nearest estimate from those we've plotted above.

Note that if you discount all other possible drivers of global temperature change -- meaning that humanity has completely taken over from all natural effects that were operating until that time (highly unlikely) -- then the estimate of Charnock & Shine neatly fits observed warming over the period. If their massive estimate of greenhouse effect from carbon dioxide is true then a worst case doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide will still only produce a total warming under 1.5 °C (and we're thought to be almost half-way there already). This still does not suggest a major enhanced greenhouse catastrophe.

If that's all the anticipated greenhouse effect, where do the big warming estimates come from?

Ah, this is where it gets rather contentious because the big warming numbers come not from measurements but from computer models. These computer models and their output are passionately defended by the modeling clique and frequently derided by empiricists -- but the bottom line is that models make an enormous range of assumptions. Whether all the assumptions, tweaks and parameter adjustments really collectively add up to a realistic representation of the atmosphere is open to some conjecture (current climate models do not model "natural" climatic variation very well), but there is no evidence yet that they can predict the future with any greater certainty than a pack of Tarot cards. Moreover, humans do a lot besides emitting greenhouse gases, changing vegetation and transpiration rates through agriculture, for example, and many effects expected to both increase and decrease regional temperatures are not included in these models.

Regardless, climate models are made interesting by the inclusion of "positive feedbacks" (multiplier effects) so that a small temperature increment expected from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide invokes large increases in water vapor, which seem to produce exponential rather than logarithmic temperature response in the models. It appears to have become something of a game to see who can add in the most creative feedback mechanisms to produce the scariest warming scenarios from their models but there remains no evidence the planet includes any such effects or behaves in a similar manner.

Update May 14: There has been some claim we are ignoring "self-evident" positive feedbacks, which we'd be delighted to highlight if only someone could point to any such empirical measure. The bottom line, however, is that the IPCC estimates a trivial 0.6 °C ± 0.2 °C warming during the Twentieth Century and both the GHCN-ERSST Data Set and the HadCRUT2v Data Set record the period of the 19-teens through mid-1940s as having a global trend of +0.13 °C/decade for a net warming of 0.45 °C -- leaving a mere 0.15 °C ± 0.2 °C net warming potential for the post-WWII period of significant carbon emission from fossil fuel use. It is evident, to us at least, that if positive feedback mechanisms exist (entirely plausible) then their effect is negligible or mitigated by negative feedback mechanisms (equally plausible). Unlike modelers, who alter their virtual worlds at whim, we can only measure what the world actually does, and there simply isn't room in the measured change for the existence of significant unmitigated positive feedbacks. -- end update.

As an example of how mileage may vary, as they say, we've reproduced here a table of comparisons between 108 model guess-timations for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide compiled by Kacholia and Reck, published in 1997. Note that the range spans from 0.2 °C to 6.3 °C and that the same modelers get large variations as they play with their model parameters, e.g. Washington and Meehl show listings of 1.3 °C; 1.4 °C–3.5 °C; 1.6 °C; 4.0 °C and back to 1.6 °C over the course of a decade (not highlighted as being egregious or any such thing, just frequent in this list). Charnock and Shine appear in this list (1993) with estimations of 1.5 °C–2.4 °C and we derive their 1995 discussion in Physics Today as 1.46 °C so we're in the ballpark and they may have reduced their estimate as Lindzen seems to have done, listed here from 1982 as 1.46 °C–1.93 °C and stating explicitly in the same Physics Today discussion that he estimated 0.5 °C for clear sky conditions and just 0.22 °C when including 40% cloud cover.

Unfortunately there has been no narrowing of the estimated range of "expected" warming from a doubling of CO₂ -- in fact the range has widened even further as ever more players attempt to stand out in a crowded publication field. It isn't that the physics of carbon dioxide's radiative properties keep changing, rather that ever more imaginative "feedbacks" are shunted into the positive column to make model output more interesting. The bottom line is that you need to stuff a huge amount of CO₂ into the atmosphere to get much response as more of the absorptive bands near saturation.

Why do we suspect the big warming numbers are likely wrong?

Actually, you can play with some parameters and work it out for yourselves. Since the really big guesses made by the IPCC and some truly bizarre output by climateprediction.net (CPN) are at least linear, if not exponential in their response to changes in minor trace gases we can work backwards and below you will find a pair of calculators so you can have a go.

Update: we didn't even manage to post this yet and poor old CPN has suffered a major embarrassment: Error discovered in the BBC Climate Change Experiment. So now even they know they're wildly over-guess-timating. The BBC is advising those they dragooned into the project that their model runs will be restarting here. Meanwhile, Red Tops like The Inquirer are mischievously postulating "With around 200,000 PCs running the experiment non-stop for two months, it looks very much as if the BBC experiment is making more of a contribution to global warming than scientific knowledge." Fortunately, the real world is not so easily perturbed. End update.

At left we have a linear calculator. To know how it works you just have to remember that the Earth is about 15 °C, so that's the output target you are aiming at producing at the bottom of the calculator. You know that carbon dioxide accounts for something less than 10% of the Earth's greenhouse effect so your first input is going to be a number less than or equal to that (in fact, we've limited the calculator so any greater input will be calculated as 10% and it will ignore any attempted input that is not greater than zero). The second parameter is the guess-timated warming. The output produced will be what the current global mean temperature must be for the linear increase to be as input.

At right we have a logarithmic calculator so you can play with the atmosphere to your heart's content. The calculator will always assume a base of 33 °C for the starting net greenhouse effect - it's limited to a max of 10% greenhouse effect from CO₂ and a minimum of 2ppmv CO₂ so you can really have a play with the atmosphere and logarithmic effect. Notice how doubling small concentrations of carbon dioxide gives large responses while the reverse also applies - enjoy! When you are finished we have some more information below the calculators.