A couple of surprising things to end the year on

Two things to end the year on--a climate update and a new poll. Both are instructive and, for some, surprising.

First, a climate update. Flash . . . it's cold outside. Why is this a hot item (pardon the pun)? Well, as we have been told endlessly by the global warming "experts," we are heading toward a catastrophe of our own doing, where we expire in heat death. But wait, whether in Los Angeles or London, recent predictions have gone crazily awry. Global warming? Seems more like a new Ice Age. Get the parkas out.
Those stranded travelers stuck in airports across Europe because of an arctic freeze are a bit confused as well as angry. Sadly, they've been told for more than a decade now that such a thing was an impossibility — that global warming was inevitable, and couldn't be reversed.

This is a big problem for those who see human-caused global warming as an irreversible result of the Industrial Revolution's reliance on carbon-based fuels. Based on global warming theory — and according to official weather forecasts made earlier in the year — this winter should be warm and dry. It's anything but. Ice and snow cover vast parts of both Europe and North America, in one of the coldest Decembers in history.

But what have we been hearing from the experts? Those who wrote the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, global warming report in 2007 predicted an inevitable, century-long rise in global temperatures of two degrees or more. Only higher temperatures were foreseen. Moderate or even lower temperatures, as we're experiencing now, weren't even listed as a possibility. I saw an article from a British newspaper a few years ago that said snow would soon become a distant memory for those in England.

Here's the ugly truth for the global warming crowd. Since at least 1998 no significant warming trend has been noticeable. Unfortunately, none of the 24 models used by the IPCC views that as possible. They are at odds with reality.

Will this moderate their views? Will they admit it's extremely difficult to predict global weather? I doubt it. Not even the extraordinarily frigid weather now creating havoc across most of the Northern Hemisphere bothers them. Don't wait for any forthcoming admissions from this set. They want to bring down the Western world's economic base, and this is one way to do it.

And the other item has to do with the findings of a new poll. Muslims have gradually lessened their support for radical Islam over the past several years. Guess when the support lessened the most? During the years Bush was in office. But I thought Obama was reaching out to the Muslims, soothing them and offering praise for all their accomplishments (and other fairy tales). Looks like people respond better to strength than to pablum and weakness. Who's surprised by this? Only lefties who think we just need to sit down and make nice with our enemies to disarm them. Yeah, that worked for Hitler, didn't it?