Willamette's opportunity to be in leadership of something

OK, true, still behind Stanford, but that's still pretty rarefied air for the Oldest University in the West.

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Tomorrow Night: CHASING ICE

If you missed this during its brief stay at the wonderful Salem Cinema, don't despair, you can see it tomorrow night, January 10, at 7 pm at the Grand Theatre in downtown Salem, part of the Salem Progressive Film Series, one of the many great things going on in Salem.

Speakers

Evelyn Sherr Is a Professor of Oceanography, in the Earth, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Department at Oregon State University. Prior to coming to OSU, she graduated from Emory University in Georgia with a B.S. in Biology. She went on to receive her PhD in Zoology from Duke University and did her Post Doctoral work at the University of Georgia in the Microbiology Department. Professor Sherr’s research work focuses on aquatic microbial ecology, pelagic food webs, heterotrophic microbes and the ecology of the arctic and sub arctic marine ecosystems. Her work in the Arctic Ocean coincided with the period when summer sea ice loss was becoming increasing evident. Professor Sherr has participated in numerous field programs in the Arctic beginning in 1994, conducting research in Alaska, the Bering Sea and the North Pole, to name a few. She continues to conduct research in the Arctic and has over 100 publications. She lives in Corvallis with her husband Barry.

Ed Brook Ed Brook is a professor of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University and studies climate history to understand how the earth system responds to climate change. His work uses polar ice cores as recorders of past climate change, and focuses on the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate change, on time scales of decades to hundreds of thousands of years. One clear outcome of ice core studies is the recognition that human activities have radically altered the levels and cycles of major greenhouse gases, pushing the atmosphere toward a state it has not seen for at least 50 million years. Ed Brook’s work has also contributed to our understanding of how quickly climate can change. For example, during the last ice age climate in many parts of the world shifted from cold to warm conditions over just several decades, and sometimes faster. The mechanisms behind these abrupt shifts are only partly understood. Ed’s research group is involved in further studies of their timing and impact, to better understand the probability of similar events in the future. From 1996 to 2004 Ed was a faculty member at Washington State University before moving to his current position at Oregon State University. Ed has conducted field research in Antarctica, Greenland, Scandinavia, northern Canada, and the western U.S. and runs one of a handful of analytical laboratories devoted to greenhouse gases in polar ice cores. His research group is currently involved in projects at both poles, including the WAIS Divide Drilling project in Antarctica and the NEEM ice core in Greenland. Ed is a Leopold Leadership Fellow, a Google Science Communication Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Another Valentine's Week Do Not Miss: Joel Salatin (Free)

Joel Salatin holds a hen during a tour of Polyface Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Willamette University is making tremendous strides.  The prior President sat on the board of directors for Portland General Electric (PGE), primary owner of the single biggest source of world-wrecking CO2 in Oregon, the Boardman power plant (also a prodigious source of toxic Mercury, which lowers IQ all over the world) and was never heard to utter a word about coal.  

Since then, he has been replaced by a NASA veteran, someone who probably gets that the world is running very short of time to avert climate catastrophe.  Last year's Dempsey Lecture was by Dr. James Hansen of NASA, who spoke about his creative plan for carbon taxes with 100% rebates to citizens.  

This year, Joel Salatin will speak; since industrial agriculture is responsible for a huge share of climate-wrecking pollution, Joel's determinedly place-based model of agriculture is important ... and vital for the Willamette Valley.  

 America’s most famous sustainable farmer to deliver Dempsey Lecture

Farmer Joel Salatin believes our country’s food system is in a state of crisis — from nutrient deficiency to pollution to animal abuse to rural economic decay — and that all of these issues can be solved by one thing: local food.

It’s not a surprising statement from the self-described “lunatic farmer” whose roles in Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and the film, “Food, Inc.,” have turned him into one of the most prominent spokespeople for the local and sustainable food movements.
Salatin will bring his ideas to Willamette University Feb. 12 when he delivers the 2013 Dempsey Lecture. Titled “Local Food to the Rescue,” the lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall at the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Salatin’s family-run Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley uses alternative practices — including chicken tractors and pasture-fed “salad bar beef” — that have become a model for sustainable farmers across the country. Polyface serves more than 10 retail outlets, 3,000 families and 50 restaurants through on-farm sales and metropolitan buying clubs.

“Most of the things that I do or say are considered lunacy by the conventional agriculture community,” Salatin says. “We’re a nation which is well-fed but undernourished. We lead the world in obesity, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and a host of other chronic maladies. Clearly it’s not just a matter of bins and bushels and volume, it’s a matter of nutrient density and food quality. Those are things our conventional system doesn’t even consider.”

Even regions like the Willamette Valley, known for its thriving sustainable and local agriculture communities, have room for improvement, Salatin says.

“I haven’t been any place in the U.S. where 95% of the food produced there isn’t exported first and then reimported,” he says. “We should be growing it here, processing it here and eating it here. That is ultimately a far more secure food system.”

In addition to farming, Salatin is a prolific writer and sought-after conference speaker whose humorous and conviction-based speeches are akin to theatrical performances.
“If you think the current food system — 1,500 miles between farmer and plate, gluten intolerance, factory farming, reduced aquifers, manure waste pollution and a host of other maladies — if you think all of that is just wonderful, then don’t come to my lecture,” he says. “But if you care about any of that, and that’s not the kind of world you want your children to inherit, then I want you to come.”

This event is sponsored by the Dempsey Foundation and Willamette University’s Center for Sustainable Communities.  Info: Joe Bowersox, 503-370-6220.

Related Event

Willamette will host a free showing of “American Meat,” a documentary featuring Joel Salatin, on Feb. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Paulus Lecture Hall (Room 201) at the Willamette University College of Law.

The film highlights the state of the country’s livestock industry. After the showing, filmmakers and local experts in sustainable agriculture and the locavore movement will lead a roundtable discussion.

Looking for a Good Cause?

The Power of Community was our first film Passive House: A Building Revolution is Next!

Please Join Us In Getting Out Our New Film!

Dear Friends,

This film, the second in the series, tells how to cut CO2 from buildings by 80 to 90%!

Today 48% of all US energy used and CO2 generated is from our buildings, 85% of that is in heating and cooling them.  Our new film on the Passive House addresses this issue.

I am reaching out to you again, most of whom have copies of our first film, The Power of Community.  If you found it inspiring and valuable, please help fund our new film.  I am working on final professional editing, sound, color, and graphics - all cost money.

There are two ways to help.  First, send a donation through our Kickstarter campaign at http://tinyurl.com/bgockyp or through our website at www.communitysolution.org and note it is for the new film.  Either place you can donate at whatever level you can - every dollar makes a difference.  Second, and this is very important, even if you can't help financially, share what we are doing with others and encourage them to join us on Kickstarter and in getting Passive House: A Building Revolution out!

It is a film that is very timely.

Thank you very much!
Faith

PS. Powell Smith wrote up a great support page for our Kickstarter Campaign:
http://mapawatt.com/2012/11/10/passive-house-design-a-worthy-project/ 

Passive House is a method of building and retrofitting that reduces heating and cooling energy use.

This film is nearing completion and we need your help Now!
We have 20 days to finish our funding on Kickstarter!

Quick Links...
Community Solutions -- Our Main Website
Passive House Film Website
The Power of Community Film Website
Kickstarter Film Funding Site

Community Solutions Contact Information
phone:  937-767-2161

You don't have to be a Democrat to attend, just someone concerned for Salem's future

Greenwash This: Dumping 500 lbs of Coal at Bank of America (Photo credit: Rainforest Action Network)

Join us for lunch with Evan White---at noon, Wednesday, November 28.

Emerging Issues Series
The Road Forward from Election 2012
NOVEMBER: 

Evan White, speaking on

Coal Trains & Export Facilities -- 
Their impact on Salem and the Mid-Willamette Valley

Noon to 1 PM
Kwan's Cuisine, 835 Commercial St SE, Salem, Wednesday, November 28, 2012

White will speak on speak on local efforts to inform citizens on the impact of proposals to transport coal by rail through Salem to a proposed coal export facility in Coos Bay. 

Evan White was born in New York City, raised in Honolulu Hawaii, and went to college on "the mainland."  He has a BA degree in Economics from Claremont McKenna College, an MA in Economics from the University of California at Berekely, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance.  He served as a Finance Officer in the US Army, had a brief career in private industry, and then joined the staff of the Oregon Public Utility Commission as its first economist.

Evan has been a Salem resident since 1972.  Now retired, he works as the volunteer Land Use Chair of the Sunnyslope Neighborhood Association and does income taxes for seniors and low income persons through the volunteer AARP tax aide program.

Several months ago, he met a Beyond Coal advocate at the Salem Saturday market who recruited him to the effort to help educate Salem residents about the risks that coal trains would pose to our community.

Cost: $11.50 (Includes Buffet Luncheon, Tea & Gratuity)
Reservation Deadline-Tuesday, November 27

To make your reservation:  e-mail: mariondemoforum@yahoo.com(click link)
or call our message line: 503-363-8392

Please join us to hear Evan White. We encourage you to bring your questions and comments.  As always, we would like to welcome our guests with a large audience. You can assist us in planning a successful luncheon by MAKING YOUR RESERVATION EARLY. (Kwan's requires a headcount on the day before the luncheon to ensure adequate seating and food servings.)


To make your reservation for the Wednesday luncheon, please reply to this message at mariondemoforum@yahoo.com giving your name, telephone number, any special dietary needs, and the number of people who will attend.

You may also make a reservation by calling our message line at 503-363-8392 and providing the same information. Please indicate that you are making a DemoForum reservation and state the name and date of the event.

Related articles

• BREAKING: Risking Arrest for My Granddaughter
• Do Coal Plants Really Kill People?

Coal Trains and Selling Out the Willamette Valley

The Willamette Valley contains most of Oregon's population; it extends from Portland in the North to Eugene in the South. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anyone who lives in Salem and environs needs to anticipate what coal exports really mean here:  Selling out our future for the empty promise of a few jobs.  Look at the states where King Coal has had its way (West Virginia, Kentucky, PA), and compare them to Oregon.  Now, which is the better model?

Coal exports down the Columbia and up to Bellingham and down to Coos Bay mean the destruction of livability in the Willamette Valley in service of global capital seeking to maximize profits by externalized costs (environmental devastation, climate disruption, reduced property values all along the routes of these behemoth coal trains), with no benefits to the people paying those costs (us).

Coal exports are a gigantic step backwards for the US.  Not only does it return us to the days of colonial status, exploited for our raw materials and stuck with the negative consequences, but it would help ensure a runaway carbon nightmare of the Six Degree C (11F) hotter global temperature average, which is pretty much a nightmare future in the best case.

Anyone with children or grandchildren or simply a modicum of concern for the future needs to realize what a serious threat we face from continued use of coal. 

Bottom line:  if the Iranians and North Koreans had a thousand 100-megaton nukes each and the means to drop them on any place in the world, that would only be a tiny fraction of the threat we face from coal.  It's only the limits of our primitive monkey-based brains that make it so easy for us to see threats from other bands of monkeybrains and so hard to recognize the much more potent and serious threats we unleash upon ourselves.

Related articles

• Red Means Stop for Big Coal Exports in the Pacific Northwest

Hard Truth about Coal (aka "The Enemy of the Human Race")

Coal on the Marches line (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As you read this, coal exportation threatens our right to live in a healthy community.  Coal exportation will pollute our air and water with toxic coal pollution, put our communities' safety at risk, clog our railroads and waterways, and recklessly stoke the climate crisis all the way.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.  Oregon has always been at the forefront of this issue.  Over 25 communities across the Oregon and Washington have passed city resolutions calling for an area wide environmental impact statement to assess the full implications of the coal export projects.

Governor Kitzhaber and the state agencies have the power to stop this invasion on our right to a healthy community. They can deny or delay permits and demand evaluations from federal agencies to block coal exportation here in Oregon.

Want to learn more about how coal exportation will affect Salem?
Want to learn what you can do about it?

Come to our Coal Hard Truth Forum!

Salem Coal Hard Truth Forum
Wednesday October 10th, 7:00-8:30pm

Willamette University
College of Law
Paulus Lecture Hall (Room 201)
245 Winter Street SE, Salem
(Refreshments Provided)

Join us for an evening of panelists and Q & A, with experts talking about the health, economic, and environmental impacts of coal export projects in Oregon and Washington.

Speakers include

• Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health at Portland State University, senior physician at Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Hospital, and member of the Social Justice Committee and Board of Advisors for Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR),
  
• Reverend Rick Davis of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Salem, and
  
• Peter Frick-Wright, a frequent contributor to The Oregonian, Bike and Sierra Magazine, which sent him to cover the first coal export terminal proposals in 2010.

I'm happy to email you the official invitation and any more information you would like on this critical issue. You can reach me at lucy@greencorps.org

Related articles

• Editorial: Coal trains, terminals need comprehensive environmental reviews
• Oregon Activists Say No to Coal Exports

The Silence on Global Warming | Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/09-0

People talk about how no one particular weather event can be tied to climate disruption as if admitting the limits of our understanding means that there IS no connection, rather than that our tools for discernment are weak in the face of such vast complexity. Smarter people than us would tread carefully in the face of such complexity, rather than acting like two year olds who assume that what they don't know can't hurt them.

Coal is the enemy of the human race, the slow "screw the future" suicide system

This is an excellent post by Cliff Mass, UW meteorologist on his weather blog, on why coal trains are a REALLY BAD IDEA for the environment & human health.

Also, Professor Dan Jaffe, of UW Bothell, has documented the substantial contribution of Asian pollution to our background pollution levels (see here for one story on this). This is really scary stuff!

Here are some highlights. Want to see the coal dust blowing off a coal train? Click on this image to see a video of a coal train in British Columbia...you will see HUGE amounts of dust blowing off into a scenic river basin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jixOquzgNqk

Even worse...once the coal gets to China they burn it, producing all sorts of particulates and gases that then moves across the Pacific to worsen regional air quality problems here in the Northwest. In fact, Professor Dan Jaffe, of UW Bothell, has documented the substantial contribution of Asian pollution to our background pollution levels (see here for one story on this).

More on our predicament: Business trying to silence the warnings on climate

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/18/cyberbulling-scientists-using-threats-in-an-effort-to-silence-the-discussion-on-climate-change/

Cyberbullying Scientists: Using Threats in an Effort to Silence the Discussion on Climate Change « JONATHAN TURLEY

Word: Capitalism vs. the Climate

Image via WikipediaThe insightful Naomi Klein.

But the effects of the right-wing climate conspiracies reach far beyond the Republican Party.  The Democrats have mostly gone mute on the subject, not wanting to alienate independents. And the media and culture industries have followed suit.  Five years ago, celebrities were showing up at the Academy Awards in hybrids, Vanity Fair launched an annual green issue and, in 2007, the three major US networks ran 147 stories on climate change.   No longer. In 2010 the networks ran just thirty-two climate change stories; limos are back in style at the Academy Awards; and the “annual” Vanity Fair green issue hasn’t been seen since 2008.

This uneasy silence has persisted through the end of the hottest decade in recorded history and yet another summer of freak natural disasters and record-breaking heat worldwide. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry is rushing to make multibillion-dollar investments in new infrastructure to extract oil, natural gas and coal from some of the dirtiest and highest-risk sources on the continent (the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline being only the highest-profile example).  In the Alberta tar sands, in the Beaufort Sea, in the gas fields of Pennsylvania and the coalfields of Wyoming and Montana, the industry is betting big that the climate movement is as good as dead.

If the carbon these projects are poised to suck out is released into the atmosphere, the chance of triggering catastrophic climate change will increase dramatically (mining the oil in the Alberta tar sands alone, says NASA’s James Hansen, would be “essentially game over” for the climate).

All of this means that the climate movement needs to have one hell of a comeback.  For this to happen, the left is going to have to learn from the right.  Denialists gained traction by making climate about economics: action will destroy capitalism, they have claimed, killing jobs and sending prices soaring.  But at a time when a growing number of people agree with the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, many of whom argue that capitalism-as-usual is itself the cause of lost jobs and debt slavery, there is a unique opportunity to seize the economic terrain from the right.  This would require making a persuasive case that the real solutions to the climate crisis are also our best hope of building a much more enlightened economic system—one that closes deep inequalities, strengthens and transforms the public sphere, generates plentiful, dignified work and radically reins in corporate power.  It would also require a shift away from the notion that climate action is just one issue on a laundry list of worthy causes vying for progressive attention.  Just as climate denialism has become a core identity issue on the right, utterly entwined with defending current systems of power and wealth, the scientific reality of climate change must, for progressives, occupy a central place in a coherent narrative about the perils of unrestrained greed and the need for real alternatives.

Building such a transformative movement may not be as hard as it first appears. Indeed, if you ask the Heartlanders, climate change makes some kind of left-wing revolution virtually inevitable, which is precisely why they are so determined to deny its reality. Perhaps we should listen to their theories more closely—they might just understand something the left still doesn’t get. . . .

Coal companies: Planet-wrecking greed that knows no limits

Cover via Amazon

  The evil bastards atop the coal industry (to put the most charitable possible name to them), hell bent for profits at the expense of a habitable planet, have Salem and other towns in the Northwest in their sights.  The plan is to export coal to China, where they will use the power and send us the pollution (mercury, polonium, and other nasties) in abundance.

According to an article in Saturday's The World newspaper and in Monday's Statesman, there is indeed a discussion occurring regarding the shipment of coal to Coos Bay.  I'm not sure what rail line connects Montana and Wyoming with Coos Bay but the UP line through Salem seems the most likely.  Should we be concerned?  Maybe we should all watch "The Last Mountain," recently shown at the Salem Progressive Film Festival in September.

======================================================================
"COOS BAY -- The Oregon International Port of Coos Bay has signed an exclusive negotiating agreement with an unnamed company interested in shipping coal from the North Spit of Coos Bay.

At the port commissioners' monthly meeting Thursday night, port CEO Jeff Bishop said the Dutch consulting firm Portolan had helped port staff evaluate four proposals, code-named Versatile, Mainstay, Clover and Glory.  They ranged from a plan to export 100,000 metric tons of zinc and chrome annually to a plan to export 26 million tons of coal.

The proponents' experience, environmental track record and financial strength were the most heavily weighted criteria in the committee's selection process. How each proposal fit in with the port's other projects was an important factor. Proponents had  to demonstrate an understanding of the project and a familiarity with what Bishop called the state's 'permitting culture."

They also had to explain what commitments they'd need from the port, how they'd expect a port facility to be financed and their  proposed timeline.  Project Mainstay, a scheme to export 6 million to 10 million tons of thermal coal per year, got the approval.  Thermal coal is burned to fuel power plants".
==========================================================

I also have heard that up to 16 a day mile-long coal trains may find their way through Salem with the desire to make these two-mile long trains.  As you can see from the above article, zinc and chrome are also being considered.  The coal trains that I have seen heading north along I-5 are uncovered, spewing coal dust all along the rail line.

I, for one, don't want to wait until this is a done deal but I don't know what to do next.  Any suggestions?

Coal exports to China: The worst of all possible worlds

Oh, brilliant.  Let's export the coal to China, so that it is burned with zero pollution control and deposits the mercury, polonium and other radioactive isotopes, and smog into Oregon in about six hours after combustion.

The question we should ask anyone who wants to mine coal, but especially to mine and export coal is this:  Why do you hate America so much?  Why would you want to condemn our children to an impoverished and degraded future of poisoned food, acidified and barren oceans, and uncontrollably wild climate extremes?

Insanity.  If you have children or grandchildren, you need to understand this:  our only hope for moderating the worst that we've got coming is keeping the coal in the ground.

What will it take?

A Salem thinker asks, how do we wake people up to what's coming down?

Cigarettes and Climate and the Power of Doubt

Image by Tumbleweed:-) via Flickr
"Doubt is our product."

For those in Portland next Monday afternoon/evening:

Image via WikipediaHead over to the White Stag block for an important talk about what is perhaps the most insidious, scary part of pumping millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere:  It makes the oceans into big vats of carbonic acid, acid that eats at the base of the food chain at the most vulnerable point.

Ocean Acidification Event in Portland

Learn more about our "other" carbon problem.

Care about the Pacific Northwest’s oceans? Worried our fossil-fuel addiction is jeopardizing our marine and shellfish industries? Learn more about ocean acidification in the Northwest at E2′s event, the Acid Test: Ocean Acidification and the Pacific Northwest.

Speakers will include Washington Representative Brian Baird, NRDC oceans attorney Leila Monroe, and commercial fisherman Amy Grondin. E2 will also screen NRDC’s new short film, Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification.

Where: White Stag Block, University of Oregon – Portland
When: Monday, September 12, 6:00-8:00 PM.

More info.
It’ll be a great, informative event about the Northwest’s “other” carbon problem.

Think climate change is a hoax?

Sure wish you were right.

Meanwhile, as the world burns . . .

Image via Wikipedia(Tip of the hat to Sam Smith for this.)

Climate change update

Dahr Jamail, Aljazeera - The rate of ice loss in two of Greenland's largest glaciers has increased so much in the last 10 years that the amount of melted water would be enough to completely fill Lake Erie, one of the five Great Lakes in North America.

West Texas is currently undergoing its worst drought since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, leaving wheat and cotton crops in the state in an extremely dire situation due to lack of soil moisture, as wildfires continue to burn.

Central China recently experienced its worst drought in more than 50 years. Regional authorities have declared more than 1,300 lakes "dead", meaning they are out of use for both irrigation and drinking water supply.

Floods have struck Eastern and Southern China, killing at least 52 and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands, followed by severe flooding that again hit Eastern China, displacing or otherwise affecting five million people.

Meanwhile in Europe, crops in the northwest are suffering the driest weather in decades….

Professor Cindy Parker co-directs the Programme on Global Environmental Sustainability and Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health . . .

"Everything that affects our environment affects our health," Parker said, "As fancy as our technology is, we still cannot live without clean water, air, and food, and we rely on our environment for these.". . .

"People think technology is going to save us from climate change, but there is no technology on the horizon that will allow us to adapt ourselves out of this mess," Parker said, "We can physiologically adapt to higher temperatures, but all that adaptation is not going to save us unless we also get the climate stabilized."

"If this continues unabated this planet will not be habitable by the species that are on it, including humans," she concluded, "It will be a very different planet. One that is not very conducive to human life."

The world's population is growing by roughly 80 million people per year, and at the current rates of birth and death, the world's population is on a trajectory to double in 49 years.

William Ryerson is the president of the Population Institute, a non-profit organisation that works to educate policymakers and the public about population, and the need to achieve a world population that is in balance with a healthy global environment and resource base. . .

"We have 225,000 people at the dinner table tonight who weren't there last night, so to maintain our current population we're already over-pumping underground aquifers," [said]Ryerson, "India is over-pumping, and we have over 100 million people in India dependent on over-pumping, so this can't be sustained. “

Unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency recently revealed that greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year to the highest carbon output in history, despite the most serious economic recession in 80 years.

This means that the aim of holding global temperatures to safe levels are now all but out of reach. The goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius, which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" is now most likely just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol, a chief economist of the IEA.

"Population is the multiplier of everything else," explained Ryerson, who believes climate change cannot adequately be addressed until the overpopulation problem is solved.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

Image via WikipediaLooks like one of the urak-hai, the extra corrupt and nasty orcs, was working for Rupert Murdoch while also working both sides of the street in the much-ado-about-nothing "Climategate" "scandal".

That was the imbroglio manufactured by a credulous press that finds actual science all much too confusing and prefers something much simpler and more familiar: stealing emails and excerpting little bits in a carefully chosen order so as to make them appear to say something nefarious.

"Climategate" could safely be forgotten if it hadn't been carefully created just when needed to prevent global action on climate, and if it had not become an article of faith among the know-nothings in the GOP and their house organ, Faux News (another of Sauron's legions).

Oh, is hacking into emails a crime?

All the furor about Rupert (Sauron) Murdoch's latest crimes reminds a few of us what a phony tempest "Climategate" was . . . As Bob Park notes:

4. HACKERS: CLIMATEGATE REVISITED.

Two years ago, e-mail files of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were hacked and selectively posted on the web. Rupert Murdoch newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, expressed shock at the "criminal conspiracy" and "scientific blacklisting." The "gate" suffix was added to invite comparison with the infamous break-in at the Watergate by Nixon's goons, but the climategate burglars were treated as heroes. There was not one line of criticism about the only criminal offense in the whole sordid climategate affair of hacking into private files. It is ironic that hacking by the Murdoch papers is now threatening the Murdoch empire.