First there was Live Aid –

A multi-venue rock music concert held on July 13, 1985 organized to raise awareness and funding to help relieve the effects of a widespread famine in Ethiopia. Billed as the ‘global jukebox’, the main sites for the event were Wembley Stadium, London and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia which attracted an attendance of about 72,000 and 90,000 respectively. Other acts performed at other venues such as Sydney and Moscow. It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: an estimated 1.5 billion viewers, across 100 countries, watched the live broadcast.

Then there was Live 8 –

A series of benefit concerts that took place on July 2, 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and Summit held in Scotland from July 6-8 2005. They were also timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. Run in support of the aims of the UK’s Make Poverty History campaign and the Global Call for Action Against Poverty, the shows planned to pressure world leaders to drop the debt of the world’s poorest nations, increase and improve aid, and negotiate fair trade rules in the interest of poorer countries. Ten simultaneous concerts were held on July 2nd and one on July 6th. On July 7th, the G8 leaders pledged to double 2004 levels of aid to poor nations from 25 to 50 billion US dollars by the year 2010. Half of the money was to go to Africa.

In other words, the Live 8 event had a goal of influencing political leaders rather than raise private sector money as was done in ‘85. This turned off many Conservatives in the US.

In the classic tradition of morons not learning from experience, a third sequel was planned. This time, to “raise awareness” to the non-problem of global climate change called, Live Earth. And like most third in the series sequels, Live Earth departed from the success of the first event changing its focus from poverty and hunger to the egotistical idea that man is solely responsible for the rise in earth’s temperatures.

This massively expensive ecomoronic lovefeast was planned by the politically insignificant has been politician and High Priest of the Church of Global Warming of Modern Day Idiots, former Vice President Chicken Little, I mean former Vice President Al Gore. Speaking to the concert goers in that incredibly condescending manner that he is well known for, Gore hoped to raise awareness to a non-problem that he and his cult followers have already been successful in saturating the media with. I mean how much more awareness did this event hope to raise. They’ve already gotten the bulk of the world believing this bunk when the science just doesn’t support his conclusions.

The arrogant idea that man has the power to effect the world’s climate shows that man, no matter how intelligent we are, can’t realize that we don’t control the world, we are part of it.

The earth’s climate has been changing since the planet came into existence. Which is evidenced by an article that appeared in AFP last Friday…

Via Breitbart.com

Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.

DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.

That contrasts sharply with the prevailing view that a lush forest of this kind could only have existed in Greenland as recently as 2.4 million years ago, according to a summary of the study, which is published Thursday in the journal Science.

The samples suggest the temperature probably reached 10 degrees C (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer and -17 C (1 F) in the winter.

They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.

“These findings allow us to make a more accurate environmental reconstruction of the time period from which these samples were taken,” said Martin Sharp, a glaciologist at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a co-author of the paper.

“What we’ve learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought.”

In a separate paper, also published in Science, European experts said they had analysed the world’s deepest ice core, enabling them to reconstruct patterns of warming and glaciation over the past 800,000 years.

The 3,260-metre (10,595-feet) core was drilled into the East Antarctica icesheet at the Franco-Italian base, Dome C. The drillers, gathered in a venture called the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) stopped just 15 metres (48.75 feet) short of the bedrock.

Using traces of the hydrogen isotope deuterium in air bubbles trapped in the ice layers, the scientists built a record of greenhouse-gas concentrations over the aeons, which in turn provides a record of temperature.

They found the temperature varied widely, by as much as 15 C (27 F) over the 800,000 years. In the last Ice Age, which ended around 11,000 years ago, the temperature was 10 C (18 F) lower than today.

The EPICA team had previously analysed the Dome C core to a depth equivalent to 650,000 years ago.

If there were no humans, no cars, no industrialization, no wasteful incandescent light bulbs, and no burning of fossil fuels to heat and light homes, then what prey tell is the explanation for temperatures in excess of those we are currently experiencing?

-Crickets-

How about natural cyclic phenomena?

Current science better supports the idea that sunspot activity, not carbon dioxide has a direct effect on the levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. Water vapor is produced by the world’s oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams and it is this water vapor which is trapping the heat in NOT carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide makes up 1/400th of 1% of all the gases in our atmosphere. Of that, man is responsible for approximately 3%. So if we were to halt all of man’s contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere, at best we would be saving an unimpressive 6 Billion Metric Tons. There would still be an estimated 180 Billion Metric Tons entering without man’s contribution.

Along with this is the fact that increases in carbon dioxide levels lag temperature increases by 10 – 20 years. So literally increases in CO2 are the result of, not the cause of global warming.

The Live Earth event was an undeniable failure. The South African show was hindered by a massive snow storm. Snow Storm! Talk about poetic justice!

Television audiences did not tune in.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

NBC’s three-hour primetime “Live Earth” special, which included highlights from Saturday’s global concerts, failed to generate much enthusiasm in the ratings.

The estimated 2.7 million viewers was slightly under the 3 million viewers NBC has averaged on Saturday nights in the summer with repeats and the Stanley Cup hockey playoffs on what is already the least-popular night of television.

One climate expert has estimated that approximately 100,000 trees would need to be planted to “offset” the energy used in jet fuel shuttling those rock stars to their various venues. That’s real ecofriendly isn’t it? I wonder how many trees it would take to offset the billions of kilowatt hours of electricity used at the various venues for lighting and sound?

Offsetting carbon usage is nothing more than a self imposed tax on carbon. Carbon taxes will do nothing to reverse global warming. And neither will having a house that uses 100 times the amount of energy as does the average American household Mr. Gore.

… but no mention of Clinton’s pardoning of 339 criminals during his 8 years in office.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other prominent leftists are complaining about President George W. Bush’s decision to spare I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby prison time but conveniently ignore the hundreds of criminals that William Jefferson Clinton granted full pardons for.

From the AP via AccessNorthGA.com:

“The president said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the president shows his word is not to be believed.” - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

“It is time for the American people to be heard - I call for all Americans to flood the White House with phone calls tomorrow expressing their outrage over this blatant disregard for the rule of law.” - Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

“This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice.” - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

But conveniently none of them mention Clinton’s pardoning of Hillary’s law partner and co-conspirator in Whitewater, Susan McDougal. McDougal was granted a pardon on Clinton’s last half day in office along with some 141 others. As George W. Bush was preparing to take the oath of office on January 20, 2001, Clinton was wearing out his pen granting pardons to the likes of McDougal and his own brother Roger who was serving time for “Conspiracy to distribute cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 846? and “Distribution of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)”

In his 8 years in office, Clinton granted 339 full pardons. These are individuals who, with the stroke of Slick Willy’s pen, had their convictions erased. And now his biggest fans on the left are condemning George W. Bush for granting clemency to “Scooter” Libby?!? If you ever needed a definition of hypocrisy… now you have it.

See the list of pardons granted by President William Jefferson Clinton during his tenure

Allowing the destruction of the Bush-McKennedy “Grand Compromise” (that pig bill that we call “The Great American Sellout”) to sit for a few days, I’ve had a chance to contemplate the lessons to be extracted from the experience. What did Talk Radio and Bloggers learn from the battle to kill the bill?

We learned that when back door deals are being hustled through Congress, the American people need to know as-soon-as-possible and we are the ones who must keep up the fight. America has political ADHD and those in Congress who propose these back door deals rely on that. If the people are not reminded of the danger of an impending piece of legislation it will pass. However if they are reminded day after day, the American people have the muscle to defeat these dangerous bills.

We learned that talk radio and the conservative blogosphere work well together. Bloggers are passionate people. We can recognize dangerous aspects of pending legislation then pick it apart. Talk radio has the power of its audience. When a talk radio show host can grab hold of the research done by the conservative blogosphere and take that information to his/her audience, wondrous democratic forces take hold. The people are empowered. It makes them think. It makes them read. Most of all it makes them want to talk about what they like about what’s going on. But more importantly it makes them talk about what they don’t like about what’s going on. And that’s what happened with the death of Bush-McKennedy.

Talk radio audiences are some of the most well informed people in the country. They look to talk radio not for news, but rather to confirm that they are not alone in their opposition or support for a particular item. Sometimes they don’t know what to think about an issue and tune in to see what others think. Ultimately, talk radio audiences make up their own minds. This is why shows like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, Mike Gallagher, Michael Medved, and the countless others succeed and Air America failed.

Talk radio audiences read the leftist dominated dead tree media and they watch the leftist dominated MSM. These people think, unlike the mindless robots that listened to Air America before its bankruptcy and NOW its impending demise. If you ever notice there will be two differing opinions between Conservative hosts as opposed to the mindless parroting of the leftists. Doom and Gloom will always lose out to optimism and hope.

(Cartoon drawn by Paul Nowak.)

In the past few days there has been the grumblings of resurrecting the “Fairness Doctrine” being heard on The Hill. Why? Because their precious bill failed. The American people didn’t want anything to do with that bill. So talk radio got blamed because the people were informed.

Because talk radio is dominated by conservatives, liberals in Congress want to silence the dissent. Forget that the dead tree media and network tv news is dominated by liberal thinking and bias. Forget that talk radio IS the balance to an unbalanced media. “We must balance talk radio in order to make things fair,” is the message that Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi are speaking of when they talk about resurrecting the “Fairness Doctrine”. They have no interest in being fair. They want leftist indoctrinating propaganda being pushed by the New York Times, broadcast networks, CNN, and MSNBC to be the only source of information available in order to contaminate the voter pool which is dominated by political apathy. They know that if theirs is the only message being put out, that keeps them in power. 

What better example of the power of democracy do we have than the events leading up to the demise of the “Great American Sellout”? The bill died because the people wanted it to die. Talk radio and the blogosphere have given the people a voice. And that voice has put politicians of both parties on notice. “We’re watching you” is the message of that voice and they don’t like it.