Published Friday, October 16, 2009

What's the hurry?

On Oct. 14, 2009, the following stories appeared across the fruited plain:

* "National Weather Service predicts record cold, damaging early season snow in Pennsylvania."

The story said Quaker Staters already shocked by early autumn chills should bundle up and hope for the best as heavy snows and record lows added more confusion to an already colder-than-usual year.

* "Record-breaking cold continues in Chicago."

Chicago TV reported: "Chicago has spent the last 17 days with below-average temperatures, and a high of a mere 47 degrees made Tuesday the coldest Oct. 13 in 82 years, CBS 2's Mary Kay Kleist says.

"Kleist says the trend will continue through the upcoming weekend. While the normal high for this time of year is 64 degrees, the highs will top out only in the 40s on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and in the 50s on Saturday and Sunday."

* "Montana temperature records drop."

When they are talking about cold weather in Montana, where cold is as common as dirt, you know something's not right. And it wasn't, as the National Weather Service reported that new low temperature records would be broken all across the state. Brrr.

And in honor of Al Gore and his fictitious film "An Inconvenient Truth," the Reuters News Service reported:

* "Quiet Atlantic hurricane season a boon for insurers."

The story said the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season had been the quietest in more than a decade. Imagine that. And just three years after Al Gore promised us that Hurricane Katrina was merely a taste of the terror to come as a warming Earth generated monster storms.

Atlantic hurricane activity has dropped every year since Katrina, but Gore doesn't mention that. He doesn't care, because his net worth has risen by more than $100 million since he became pope of the Church of Global Warming in 2001.

But with record-shattering cold weather making the news in mid-October, it is entirely logical, by Washington standards, that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is eager to move forward on climate change legislation designed to end global warming. Or not.

Swell. In the face of undisputed evidence that global temperatures have been flat or dropping since 1998, Pelosi thinks global warming is a priority when it's not even a reality.

Every day, more evidence arrives that the early "facts" presented about the man-made global warming theory were wrong. Every day, more and more early supporters of this bogus concept admit to second, third or fourth thoughts. Some have gone so far as to admit that maybe the sun actually has as much to do with planetary temperatures as the carbon emissions created by Gore's fleet of SUVs.

If Congress and Pelosi want to legislate an end to global warming, wouldn't it be wise to make sure this mythical beast is real before we attack it with piles of money?

If nothing else, we have learned in the past few months that just because politicians say something is urgent, that doesn't make it so. Just ask them where the $800 billion in TARP money for the banks went. They don't know. And the banks still aren't lending like they were supposed to.

One day global warming may be a problem. This is not that day.

We didn't wait on bailouts, buyouts and stimulus plans that solved nothing and left us deeper in debt. But it's still not too late to keep from wasting trillions on Al Gore's favorite fairy tale.

Call your congressperson today and tell them that when it comes to global warming legislation, this is the perfect time to sit back and chill.

(send your e-mail comments to: alex@newnan.com )