WE HAVE BEEN GORED, AGAIN - AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  As the grown-ups plan our missile defense (see story below), the children meet in Copenhagen.  Al Gore made his appearance, and immediately committed a major-league gaffe, adding to Climategate.  From The Times of London:

There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

Not so fast, esteemed prophet.

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Wieslav Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

COMMENT:  Geez!  You'd think by now that the global-warming priesthood would try to get things right, or at least avoid mistakes like this.  But the arrogance just overflows. Good for Dr. Maslowski, in standing up to the Goracle.  Now let's reexamine the entire subject of global warming and nail down the facts before we bankrupt the West.

Oh, by the way, you'll notice the word "poleaxed" in the story.  I didn't know what it meant either, and so I went to a dictionary.  For those young readers educated in American schools, that's a book that lists a lot of words, the way the iPod lists songs, and tells you their meaning.  Poleaxed means to be knocked down, hit or shocked, as if with a poleax, which is a form of battle-ax. 

We don't do enough on language here, and I'm just easing my guilt.

December 15, 2009