Fact checker fallacies, global warming and methane, regulation roundup, and more

POLITIFACT – HANS BADER

Openmarket.org: “Fact Checker” Repeals The Laws Of Supply And Demand: The Bias Of PolitiFact

The left-leaning, self-proclaimed “fact checker” PolitiFact ignored the most basic economic law, the law of supply and demand, in claiming that cap-and-trade legislation, which is designed to limit energy consumption and increase the price of energy from non-renewable sources, could actually result in “an average lower cost for consumers.” Even the supporters of such legislation, such as President Obama, have admitted that such legislation increases energy costs to consumers.

The steady stream of outright falsehoods coming from PolitiFact, and its blatant double standards and hypocrisy, are chronicled at a blog called PolitiFact Bias. Additional commentary on the bias of the head of PolitiFact in Virginia can be found here. A rebuttal to false claims made in defense of PolitiFact Virginia can be found here.

GLOBAL WARMING & METHANE – MARLO LEWIS

Globalwarming.org: Should We Fear the Methane Time Bomb (Part Deux)?

Climate alarmists have long warned that warming of the Arctic could melt frozen marine and permafrost sediments, releasing methane trapped in peat bogs and ice crystals (clathrate hydrates, see photo above). Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that packs 21 times the global warming punch as CO2 over a 100-year time span and more than 100 times the CO2-warming effect over a 20-year period.

So the fear is that methane emissions from the thawing Arctic will accelerate global warming, which in turn will melt more clathrates and methane-bearing sediments, which will produce still more warming, in a vicious circle of climate destabilization. In a previous post, I offered a skeptical perspective on this doomsday scenario.

This week the journal Nature published a study raising similar concerns about the potential for significant releases of methane from the Antarctic ice sheets.

REGULATION ROUNDUP – RYAN YOUNG

Some of the latest goings on in the world of regulation:

• Incandescent light bulbs are now banned in the EU. But some clever souls have found a loophole. Since the law applies only to household use and exempts industrial uses,at least two manufacturers have re-branded their bulbs to say they are intended for industrial use. The reason they are doing this is simple: their customers want them too.

• Hunster Spanjer, age three and a half, is deaf. His preschool has also asked him to change his name because it violates the school’s weapons policy. The sign for “Hunter” resembles a point-and-shoot gesture, which makes perfect sense. The school officials, however, do not.

• Canada’s government gave an $800,000 handout to a sausage company so it can develop a non-exploding sausage.

• UK health and safety inspectors strike again: high-rise apartment dwellers in Leeds may no longer place doormats outside their doors. Inspectors say they are a fire hazard.

• A 68-year-old man was fired from his Wells Fargo job because he stole ten cents from a laundromat in 1963. New federal regulations require bank employees to have clean criminal records. No blemish is too small or too long ago.