Barley, Bears, and Bathrooms

First, Barley. 

There are no more than a handful of history minded individuals that have any idea who Trofim Lysenko was. Yes, that was his real name and it is a scary photo.

He was a Russian scientist born in 1898. He quickly gained recognition and was promoted to director of the Institute of Genetics within the USSR's Academy of Sciences in his early 40's. He was a rock star in the scientific community of the Soviet Union and a favorite of Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader.

What was his secret to success? He came up with a "new theory" of genetics. He laid aside the proven theories of Gregor Johann Mendel of how plants pass on genetic traits to their offspring in favor of his own ideas.

Lysenko believed that he could change the genetic code of plants to the point he could make peas grow outside in the Siberian winter or change barley into wheat. His ideas flew in the face of decades of peer-reviews and hundreds of scientific papers on the subject. But, since he was the pet of Stalin, the man who was personally responsible for the deaths of over 20 million of his own people, he was able to have any criticism of his work classified as heresy, forbidden, and punishable by prison or death.

It took 40 years, the complete collapse of Russian agriculture, and the continued starvation of the Russian people, before the country was able to admit that he was absolutely wrong. With the country starving in the early 1960's, and Russia forced to purchase half of the wheat needed to feed their people from the United States, he was "retired" to a farm outside Moscow.

For a long time, any mistaken idea not based on science or research, was known as "Lysenkoism".


Second, Bears.

In 2006, Al Gore released a film called, "An Inconvenient Truth". This documentary claimed that 2500 climate scientist had signed on supporting this concept that man was destroying the earth with the creation so carbon dioxide and that within a few short decades, global warming would destroy mankind.

Governments, celebrities, and the media grabbed on to this concept as the greatest dramatic news story of the ages. Recycling became vogue, polluters were vilified, and the world was rocked back on its heels.

Now, 10 years later, even as the media continues to pound home the veracity of his prophecies, half of the original scientist who "signed on" as supporters have recanted. We can also document that most of his predictions have failed to come to pass.

1. Temperatures have remained consistent or lowered around the world.

2. Both poles are still covered with ice.

3. Polar bears and other arctic life still thrive.

4. The past 5 years have seen the lowest number of hurricanes and violent storms ever.

5. Climate change researchers have continually been discovered manipulating data to support their desired outcomes.


There were 2 good things that resulted from Gore's alarmist statements:

1. We have become more conscious of conserving, recycling, and striving to preserve the earth.

2. Al Gore has made hundreds of millions of dollars from the "carbon selling exchanges" he created just before he released the film.

But still, it is Lysenkoism, cronyism, and profiteering.


Lastly, Bathrooms.

I don't know if you see the pattern here? Barley, bears, and now bathrooms.

The newest craze to hit the world is the de-gentrification of mankind or the "transgender con". I don't know exactly who pulled this piece of feces out of the toilet, but they are bent on convincing everyone that "some people are born with penises and some people are born with vaginas, but everyone chooses whether they are a man or a woman."

It is odd that the "gender assignists" are adamant that a person should be able to choose their gender, but they then classify gender by the desire to do tasks that have been assigned to genders by society for millennia. In other words;

1. If you like pink, 
2. Are not aggressive, 
3. And like to dress-up, 
4. You are a female. 

1. If you like blue, 
2. Love to break things, 
3. And don't care whether your clothes match, 
4. You are a male.

I like pink and blue, I love to break things and then fix them, I hate aggression and confrontation, and I don't really care what I wear, as long as it is comfortable. That makes me . . . ? It makes me, David. I can always tell what my gender is when I use the bathroom or shower.

Contrary to intellectual manipulation, gender is not based on what you like to do. Gender is connected with your biological sex. It defines what you do as a provider, mentor, and parent in a home. The reason gender is under attack is because of the desire to crush the family. If Progressives can destroy gender, they have obliterated the family. That is their ultimate goal.

This effort to re-define the human race has:

1. No empirical data to study, 
2. No collaborated research, and
3. No peer reviewed studies. 

It is a social experiment being pushed on the world by well-meaning, but mistaken activists.

This is a train-wreck in the making. It is already confusing many people, even the ones they are trying to help. We now have gender for a day people; they are one day male, the next day female, and vice versa.

Some are even trying to sue their co-workers if they fail to address them by their gender preference of the day.

There have always been people who are confused.
There have always been people with genuine biological issues.
There have always been people with social issues that make integration difficult.
There have always been too many people who are critical, abusive, and degrading of others.

These are all problems that need to be addressed individually and not legislated nationally. Destroying the family will only aggravate these issues.

Let's stop this crazy Lysenkoism experiment before we regret it.

An Unconvincing Truth, or Never Let The Truth Get In The Way Of A Good Story

For years we have been entertained by movies that were “based on a true story,” or “inspired by real events.” An in-depth analysis usually reveals that other than the title and a couple of main characters, the original story and the finished movie share very little. Dramatic elements, suspense, intrigue and some sex are usually added to make the production more appealing to a larger audience. While the show may be very successful as a movie in terms of income, informed patrons are heard to mutter as they leave, “that director never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.”

As more and more discussion about Hollywood Al’s movie, “An Unconvincing Truth,” (Oh, I’m sorry,) “An Inconvenient Truth,” reaches the public, the hard facts that are presented there are beginning to thaw faster than the polar ice cap.

(We will skip over the trite retorts given to skeptics that if they don’t believe, they are obviously stupid and move on to some more concrete evidence.)

The Associated Press (AP) released an article on June 27 entitled:

Scientists OK Gore's movie for accuracy
By Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer

Some of the quotes include:

The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. . .”

“. . . But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

"Excellent," said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "He got all the important material and got it right."

Although the AP gave Gore high marks, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a statement the same day chastising the AP for lack of full disclosure and pointed out some troubling relationships with those supporting the Gore film.

AP Incorrectly Claims Dcientists Praise Gore's Movie

June 27, 2006

The June 27, 2006 Associated Press (AP) article titled “Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy” by Seth Borenstein raises some serious questions about AP’s bias and methodology.

AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In the interest of full disclosure, the AP should release the names of the “more than 100 top climate researchers” they attempted to contact to review “An Inconvenient Truth.” AP should also name all 19 scientists who gave Gore “five stars for accuracy.” AP claims 19 scientists viewed Gore’s movie, but it only quotes five of them in its article. AP should also release the names of the so-called scientific “skeptics” they claim to have contacted.

The AP article quotes Robert Correll, the chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group. It appears from the article that Correll has a personal relationship with Gore, having viewed the film at a private screening at the invitation of the former Vice President. In addition, Correll’s reported links as an “affiliate” of a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that provides “expert testimony” in trials and his reported sponsorship by the left-leaning Packard Foundation, were not disclosed by AP. See http://www.junkscience.com/feb06.htm

The AP also chose to ignore Gore’s reliance on the now-discredited “hockey stick” by Dr. Michael Mann, which claims that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century, and that the 1990’s were the warmest decade in at least 1000 years. Last week’s National Academy of Sciences report dispelled Mann’s often cited claims by reaffirming the existence of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. See Senator Inhofe’s statement on the broken “Hockey Stick.” (http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257697 )

Gore’s claim that global warming is causing the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear has also been debunked by scientific reports. For example, a 2004 study in the journal Nature makes clear that Kilimanjaro is experiencing less snowfall because there’s less moisture in the air due to deforestation around Kilimanjaro.

Here is a sampling of the views of some of the scientific critics of Gore:

Professor Bob Carter, of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia, on Gore’s film:

"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

"The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." – Bob Carter as quoted in the Canadian Free Press, June 12, 2006

Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, wrote:

“A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse.” - Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal

Gore’s film also cites a review of scientific literature by the journal Science which claimed 100% consensus on global warming, but Lindzen pointed out the study was flat out incorrect.

“…A study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.”- Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal.

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, wrote an open letter to Gore criticizing his presentation of climate science in the film:

“…Temperature measurements in the arctic suggest that it was just as warm there in the 1930's...before most greenhouse gas emissions. Don't you ever wonder whether sea ice concentrations back then were low, too?”- Roy Spencer wrote in a May 25, 2006 column.

Former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball reacted to Gore’s claim that there has been a sharp drop-off in the thickness of the Arctic ice cap since 1970.

"The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology,” –Tim Ball said, according to the Canadian Free Press.

Contact: MARC MORANO (marc_morano@epw.senate.gov) 202-224-5762, MATT DEMPSEY (matthew_dempsey@epw.senate.gov) 202-224-9797