Read the sunspots

Read the sunspots:

"In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that 'the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases.' About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all."

Somebody should send Gore this memo.

Slavery in China

Times Online:

"More than 1,000 children may have been kidnapped and sold into slave labour in a brutal human trafficking ring that has shocked and outraged China.

The children, some as young as 8, worked in brick kilns for 16 hours a day with meagre food rations. They were guarded by fierce dogs and thugs who beat their prisoners at will.

Many were abducted right off the streets of cities in the region and sold to factories and mines for as little as 400 yuan (£27). The unfolding scandal, involving negligent law enforcement and even collusion between government officials and slave masters, burst into the open this week.

Horrified Chinese have followed the stark, unusually frank images of the slaves on television as they were rescued by police. Some children still wore their school uniforms."

Crazy that stuff like this still happens. Is this why stuff from China is so cheap?

Florida Tax Reform

Northwest Florida Daily News: "

With that in mind, state lawmakers will meet in a special session Tuesday to codify changes to the state's taxation system.

The results are expected to provide relief to homeowners and small businesses, but force cities, counties and other taxing authorities to cut spending.

Many government administrators fear the cuts will be severe enough to force them to cut services and/or staff."

Well Hallelujah! As if the county doesn't have a ton of fat that could be cut with no change at all in the core fire/police/justice services it provides. I love the concept of forcing the counties to scale back and tighten their belts.

They call this a consensus?

Financial Post:

"My series set out to profile the dissenters -- those who deny that the science is settled on climate change -- and to have their views heard. To demonstrate that dissent is credible, I chose high-ranking scientists at the world's premier scientific establishments. I considered stopping after writing six profiles, thinking I had made my point, but continued the series due to feedback from readers. I next planned to stop writing after 10 profiles, then 12, but the feedback increased. Now, after profiling more than 20 deniers, I do not know when I will stop -- the list of distinguished scientists who question the IPCC grows daily, as does the number of emails I receive, many from scientists who express gratitude for my series.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists -- the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects -- and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position."

FYI -- The IPCC is the international panel on climate change, a UN organized collection of scientists pushing the global-warming-alarmism.

Top NASA Official Doubts Global Warming

ABC News:

'I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,' Griffin told Inskeep. 'I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.'

'To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change,' Griffin said. 'I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.'

I love it when people talk sense! Read the article to discover the vehement and immediate denunciation from those with a vested interest in promoting global-warming-alarmism.