Scholastic's 'lil global warming book

CNS reports that Scholastic has acquired a "book to help school kids 'understand why global warming happens'" that is co-authored by the producer of Al Gore's Oscar-nominated documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. (No, it's Larry David's wife Laurie, not one of Al's penguins.) For those with a short memory, CNS also reminds us of the UN's recent venture into children's publishing:

Last year, the United Nations Environment Program published "Tore and the Town on Thin Ice," a children's book about a young boy in an Arctic village who loses a dog sled race because he crashes through thinning ice supposedly caused by man made "greenhouse gas" emissions.

(Given this government-funded kiddie screed, how on earth can liberals attack us for -- a private company -- for our children's books? At least they're marketed to parents.)

Meanwhile, Matt Drudge has an a post on his site about two new books countering the "global warming is all man made" theory that's so trendy with the preschool set. Since Drudge frequently changes his links, here's an excerpt:

Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.

Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years... Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings...

The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.

Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.

Wrap-Up: Jimmy's mea culpa, Corsi goes Vanguard, PGW turmoil

* Jimmy Carter has apologized for the wording of this passage in his book, which seems to imply that defend terrorist bombings are justified because of Israeli occupation of disputed territories:

"It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."

There's no word yet as to whether Carter will also apologize for comparing Israel to South Africa, the killer rabbit episode, Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer, and his presidency.

* Jerome Corsi -- co-author of Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders -- writes that he is also signing on to advise TheVanguard.org, the new conservative answer to the moonbats over at MoveOn. I am indeed in good company!

* The fallout continues from the bankruptcy of Advanced Marketing Services (AMS), the owner of Publisher Group West (PGW), a major distributor of independent publishers. Reports indicate that the creditors' committee recommends liquidation, a move which will further increase the urgency of the dozens of PGW's publishers to find new distribution to the major retailers like Borders, B&N, and Amazon.

Earlier this week, Perseus Book Group made an offer of 70 cents on the dollar to take over PGW's accounts, but that deal has to be approved by the bankruptcy courts, so there's still a lot of uncertainty surrounding facing PGW's presses. I know firsthand how tough this business is, so I wish all of those publishers the best.

Oscar likes global warming, but not "Smoking"

The Oscar nominations were announced today, and liberals everywhere must be all a-titter. Al Gore is said to be so thrilled over An Inconvenient Truth's best documentary nomination that rumor has it he might actually crack a smile. (The reaction of Gore's penguin army to Happy Feet's nomination was not immediately known.)

Besides the undeserved nominations for the dreadful Babel -- a film that captures the sinful depravity of humanity but fails to offer any vision for redemption -- Oscar also screwed up by overlooking Thank You for Smoking. Produced by my former PayPal colleague David O. Sacks, this was one of the wittiest, most thoughtful, and fun movies of 2006. How it didn't at least get a nod for best adapted screenplay is beyond me...

The conservative alternate to MoveOn.org

Check out this new article in Human Events on TheVanguard.org, an organization founded and run by World Ahead author Rod D. Martin (who co-wrote and edited our very first book, Thank You, President Bush). It provides an excellent summary of Martin's strategy to position his conservative website as "the next MoveOn."

For purposes of full disclosure, I'm an advisor of the organization and I also have megalomaniacal reasons to push this article:

“We’re still too new for a feature story,” Martin tells me shortly after the November election. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re still a beta site. You really ought to come back in a year.” But the insiders tell a different story. Launched as an organization last March, TheVanguard.org already has a top-drawer cast, including Silicon Valley heavy-hitters like Eric Jackson (a former PayPal
colleague of Martin’s, where he was head of marketing) and Gil Amelio (former CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, including Apple Computer), among others.

I'm not quite sure that I deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Gil Amelio, but I am proud to be a small part of what TheVanguard.org is doing.

Carter Center advisors resign in protest over book

There's more fallout from Jimmy Carter's problematic book:

Fourteen members of an advisory board to Jimmy Carter's human rights organization resigned on Thursday to protest his new book, which criticizes Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories...

"You have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side," the departing members of the Center's Board of Councilors told Carter in their letter of resignation.

Here is the complete AP article.

Surprise!! Jimmy Carter's book has fact problems

As the nation says goodbye to Gerald Ford, Simon & Schuster is defending a book written by his successor, Jimmy Carter. Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has earned him flak for his anti-Israel editorial stance. But PW reports that a spokeswoman for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is critical of Carter's treatment of the facts:

“We have nothing to argue with about his opinions,” she said. “What we’re talking about are issues of fact.” According to Levin, the main misstep in Carter’s book is the author’s description of UN Resolution 242. “He changes it,” Levin said. “It’s a bedrock fact and from [his erroneous description of it] other of his assertions flow that are distorted.”

I think that there is usually much to argue with Carter about his opinions. But unfortunately the PW article makes it unclear exactly what Carter allegedly erred in describing with regard to UN Resolution 242. Joseph Puder over at Chron Watch does a better job of clarifying the matter:

Carter’s deep and irrational bias against Israel is illuminated by his charges that the Palestinians-Arabs have always been ready to settle for a two-state solution and that U.N. Resolution 242 called upon Israel to return to the 1949 ceasefire lines. Israel in fact...called for the implementation of Resolution 242 in 1967. [They were] rejected by the Arab states then, and Arafat rejected the far-reaching concessions Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered at Camp David II in July 2000. In each case the Arabs and Palestinians responded with terrorism.

As to why anyone cares what Jimmy Carter thinks, I'll never know. Confessing this on my blog might earn me a midnight visit from the Secret Service, but sometimes I wish that in 1969 that UFO had beamed him up (for good), or that ten years later that killer rabbit had managed to swim just a little faster...

The final word on Regan

Happy New Year, and best wishes for the start of 2007.

As you know doubt heard, while I was away Judith Regan got the boot (or was it the bloody glove?) from Rupert Murdoch and is now litigating over her dismissal. No doubt her decision to publish a questionable Mickey Mantle novel was also a factor, although the O.J. Simpson stunt had to be NewsCorp's primary reason for this decision.

I predicted this was coming. Regan has published some interesting books over the years, but she went way over the line with her recent acquisitions. If she thought that her role at Regan Books made her untouchable, she was wrong. Every publisher has to answer to someone for what they choose to publish, and in Regan's case she chose very poorly indeed.