Senator Harry Reid’s Press Release: Time To Stop Acting Like Climate Change Deniers Have A Valid Point Of View – They Don’t
‘If skeptics had taken a stroll along Potomac River on a 70-degree day this Feb., they would have seen cherry trees blossoming earlier than at any time since they were planted 100 years ago’
Umm, no. Let’s go to the data…
Correction for Reid: Both 1990 and 2000 had earlier blooms:
The National Park Service (NPS) has confirmed Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms peaked on March 20, tied for third earliest on record.
In the NPS’s 92-year record dating back to 1921, the only years with earlier bloom dates were 1990 (March 15) and 2000 (March 17) . Three other years in the record matched this year’s peak bloom date of March 20: 1921, 1927, and 1945.
You’d think with a well paid staff at his disposal, Senator Reid could at least do some fact checking before bloviating about how “deniers” have no valid point of view.
How embarrassing it must be that we mere bloggers have to point out his factual gaffes he and his staff miss.
[UPDATE: My friend, nationally syndicated radio show talk host Lars Larson has the ultimate zinger for this where he says:
You know, I think this qualifies Senator Reid of Nevada as an official “Blooming Idiot”. ]
Here is Senator James Inhofe’s Press Release on Reid’s announcement:
“He says ‘the time to act is now’ – yet Reid hasn’t brought a cap-and-trade bill to floor since 2008, & he’s the one who said cap-and-trade had been deleted from his dictionary”
“If it’s time to act on anything, it would be to stop President Obama from implementing these global warming policies that the American people have clearly rejected”
Perhaps the title should have been: Time To Stop Acting Like Senator Reid Has A Valid Point Of View on Global Warming – He Doesn’t
h/t to Climate Depot
Senator Reid’s speech is an amazing work of misinformation. I had a hard time not tearing my screen in half and wrinkling it up like paper for the trash.
At some point “a differing point of view” crosses a threshhold, and becomes a lie.
At some point “expressing a viewpoint” becomes “inciting the rabble to riot.”
Senator Reid must be desperate, for he is straying over the line.
Still amazes me that Sen. Reid doesn’t get laughed and hooted out of any room he walks into, basically he’s the poster child for “bad senator” – unable to get a budget done in 3 years, regularly makes baseless & stupid accusations, and some how managed to parlay his 193K /year government job into a multi-million dollar fortune during his tenure.
Harry Reid is a senile, old, fool – oh, and a frakking liar.
I wonder if the NPS record will be technically “disappeared” soon… I am thinking a 404 error is in its future.
“…basically he’s the poster child for “bad senator” –
unablerefusing to get a budget done in 3 years…”Better wording.
I do like showing the politicians up for the asses they are. Their world is sound bites not facts, once they enter an empirical environment they are stuffed, they lose their most potent weapon, Bull****.
Facts. Who needs facts when you’ve got assertions?
I was relieved to find out the pederasty rumors might not be true, but worse, now it appears the guy works with Mann.
If Harry Reid can’t even get right something as 5th-grade simple as when the cherry trees blossomed… How is it that we can trust him to understand the implications of QE3 or Fannie & Freddie being forced to reduce principle??
Even funnier when you consider that an engineering laboratory has been named after him…
http://www.unr.edu/around-campus/facilities/reid
The Harry Reid Engineering Laboratory, so named because of the pork that funded it.
Politicians and actors are professional prevaricators. They specialize in Rhetoric (in the classical sense) – the ancient art of persuading people to believe something that just ain’t so.
They operate independently of facts, and must maintain amnesia about the lines they have previously delivered if they are to maintain the ability to recite the next line without hesitation.
This may explain why the movie industry is over-run with Liberals.
This does NOT explain why the so-called ‘news media’ are also over-run with Liberals. The explanation for that lies in the obsession with ratings that attract advertisers. The media believe that sensationalism improves ratings. I believe the media is mistaken.
In the Internet Age, *everything* is archived, and every blogger loves exposing the clay feet of our ‘idols.’ An ever-growing history of mendacity is harming the media, and will harm all those ‘celebrities’ who fail to embrace honesty and forthrightness.
“It is easier to fool people….
than to convince them that they have been fooled”….Mark Twain
Who better to fool the folks than an accomplished set of liars, fools and tools ?
In contrast to the Harry Reid announcement, the link to the National Park Service page has some useful information, such as their definition for the five distinct stages of blooming and dates for each since 2004. Therein is contained another link to the history of peak blooms for two different varieties (Yoshino and Kwanzan) going back to 1921. March 20 is definitely early, but certainly not unprecedented. See here .
Maybe Willis has time to do his usual thorough job of demolishing flimsy claims like this.
Even if Reid’s anecdote was correct, which it is not, some year has to be the year with the earliest bloom, and 100 years isn’t very long.
As no fan of the good senator his statement is no worse than McCain’s about the eskimos having no word for robin when McCain was a big believer is CAGW. Maybe he still is and just is quiet about it.
It does not matter. Harry’s statement will be blown all over the media and the truth will never see light of day accept at “Denier Blogs”
That is the simple explanation for the tactics of CAGW from day one.
In poking around the internet on the subject of the Media and Truth, (can one really use those two words in the same sentence,) I found this little gem.
Sure sounds like implementation of Hegel’s Philosophy.
This drivel would be a lot less scary if you did not have Huffington Post, UCLA, a lot of PhDs and money behind it. Good ole’ Harry fits right in no doubt with Nancy leading the pack.
I do not know about the rest of you but I highly resent being treated as a ‘Hive Animal’ like an ant with a ‘collective mind’ seems we have been demoted from sheep to ant and they are buzy building out new Sustainable Hives in New York City.
Let’s see, early blooms in 1990, 2000 and 2012, could it be some kind of a cycle?
mkelly says:
August 8, 2012 at 8:09 am
“As no fan of the good senator his statement is no worse than McCain’s about the eskimos having no word for robin when McCain was a big believer is CAGW. Maybe he still is and just is quiet about it.”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/scarewatch/revkin_says_no_robin_inuit_word.html
“Senator McCain was not the first to say that there was no Inuit word for ‘robin’. Three years earlier, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had produced a radio program entitled No Word for “Robin”: Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic. The BBC World Service had also broadcast the program, but, like McCain and Revkin, without checking the facts.”
Revkin belieed it as well, it seems.
If CAGW is real; and if it causes Cherry trees to blossom earlier; how is this a problem?
Senator, you may see Man-Made global warming when you look at the lovely cherry trees, but I just see springtime. They typically bloom in spring. The earlier the better as far as I can see…
DirkH says:
“Revkin belieed it as well, it seems.”
Sorry, “believed” was intended. And I wanted to add: This goes to show that believing any warmist public radio program is a stupid mistake (which McCain doubtlessly comitted).
I read a paper this past year that showed how UHI is effecting the flora, causing longer growing seasons.
Harry should just stick to slander.
Some guy told Harry. Maybe it was in a file named Readme_Harry.
Harry Reid is not one to let mere facts interfere with a good political point.
So if the science is settled, the way forward clear, nothing in doubt etc etc how come we need all the lies deceptions and obfuscations……..
This, of course, is no surprise at all. Truth, in American political discourse, had gone the way of the Dodo. It seems only to matter that idiology and self serving policy is furthered, the truth be damned.
Pelosi said that some guy who know about cherry trees told Ried the trees blossomed in February. Some guy told him, that makes it a fact.
So during nice, warm, weather trees invest in sexual reproduction. Why not just invest in making thick tree rings?