Fiction and Reality

Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is ‘Telling Us What to Think’

TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose ‘the fraud of global warming.’

By Jeff Poor

Business & Media Institute

3/5/2008 9:00:18 AM

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.

Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism.

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

Coleman also told the audience his strategy for exposing what he called “the fraud of global warming.” He advocated suing those who sell carbon credits, which would force global warming alarmists to give a more honest account of the policies they propose.

“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the witness stand and testified, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.”

Earlier at the conference Lord Christopher Monckton, a policy adviser to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told an audience that the science will eventually prevail and the “scare” of global warming will go away. He also said the courts were a good avenue to show the science.

 

My dad brought this article home from work the other day and I know that I had to post it here. However, this will probably be the most political that a post on my blog will be.

I copied this article from:http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20080303175301.aspx

Erratic Thought #12

Well, sorry it has been so long since my last post, but I have now decided that this will be the first in a three-part series on what real Christianity is. I wanted to start this series by asking a question about the foundation of our faith: Who is able to go to Heaven? 

To answer this question, I want to tell you about a band from Ireland, called The Script. I purchased their debut album not long after it came out a couple months ago. They have done some really good songs like “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved” and “Before the Worst,” which I would highly recommend. These and a couple others were the main reason that I bought the album, so it wasn’t until a couple days ago that I actually listened to the last track. The song is called “Anybody There.” I had played it before, but it was one of those times that I heard the song and never really listened to the lyrics. What I finally listened to what they were saying, they almost made me cry. Here are the lyrics:

My head keeps saying “no”
But my heart keeps giving in
So hard to let it go
When it’s there, under my skin

Well, if this is the face of a sinner
And if Heaven is only for winners
Well I don’t care
Cause I won’t know
Anybody there

Thought that I’d let it slide
But it’s me that’s slipping in
Thought that I’d go for a ride
Before this crash I’m dying in

Well, if I’m judged on the life I’ve been living
And if Heaven is not so forgiving
Well, I don’t care
Cause I won’t know
Anybody there

Well, I don’t care
Cause I won’t know
Anybody there 

When I finally realized what the song was communicating, I was caught off guard. I was shocked that I was listening to a song that was so directly contrary to the message of the gospel, but I know I shouldn’t have been. After all, we live in a fallen world that doesn’t like to even acknowledge God’s existence and when it does, it usually doesn’t understand the attributes that He possesses. I know that I am personally guilty of sometimes thinking, “Well, I know that a lot of people have not chosen to be a Christian, but I am sure that most of them have at least head the message of the gospel and know what Jesus is all about.” I guess it’s just hard for me to imagine a place where people know nothing of Jesus’ sacrifice. I don’t know if that is the case for the people who wrote this song, or if they have just chosen to reject the reality of the gospel. However, the song has definitely helped to drive home the reality of the lost world that we live in.

So, to answer that question, “Who is able to go to Heaven,” it’s ironic that the answer is anybody, as the name of the song is “Anybody There.” It doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done, through Jesus’ blood, we are all able to enter paradise and spend eternity with our Creator.

In the first verse of the song, it is stated that “If this is the face of a sinner and Heaven is only for winners…” Before we can say if the message of this song is true, we need to define what a winner is. In 2 Timothy, Paul says “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness…” A winner is someone who gave their all and poured themselves out completely like an offering before God. A winner is someone who has kept the faith. Does that include leading a sinless, perfect life as the song suggests? No, it is impossible for anybody to live a perfect life. Paul’s writings are filled with him telling of his own inner conflict between what the Holy Spirit wants him to do and what his flesh wants to do.

In the second verse of the song, the singer says, “If I’m judged on the life I’ve been living and if Heaven’s not so forgiving…” Once again a complete contradiction to scripture as we are taught that we are not judged on the life we have been living. If that were so, God would have no choice but to send everyone to Hell. Rather, we are graciously judged on the life that Jesus lived and then laid down for us. Which is proof in itself that there is no place more forgiving than Heaven.

The more I think about it, though, I think the saddest part of the song is the fact that it is written with a beautiful score of violin, piano, and guitar throughout. The way it is performed makes you feel like the song’s writers had this feeling of hopelessness about the afterlife, with which they seem to be OK. In fact, the song seems to almost be glorifying the feeling as “one of those unfortunate parts of life that we need to except.” There is not one glimmer of hope offered. It just makes me so sad to realize that there are actually people who are actually left believing this their whole lives.

What does real Christianity look like in comparison to this song? I praise God that it is the complete and utter opposite.

Spasmodic Syllogism #1

 

Knowledge is power

Power leads to corruption

Therefore, the gaining of knowledge makes you unethical

The Ultimate Syllogism

 

I am fat

America is fat

Therefore, I am America

 

Erratic Thought #11

Have you ever heard of the expression, “Christmas in July”? I guess it has a couple different meanings. On those car commercials, you always hear, “IT’S SANTA’S CHRISTMAS IN JULY SALE! COME ON IN FOR THE BEST BUYS OF THE SUMMER!” Other times I will hear the expression when someone was telling of a far off vacation and it was snowing in the middle of summer. I have also heard people say, “It was like Christmas in July” in reference to a big blessing they received at a time when they were least expecting it. My mom sometimes works at Cracker Barrel and I will occasionally go inside. Several weeks ago, I walked in and the first thing I saw as I walked in was a huge Christmas tree. A Christmas tree before Fall had even began. Behind the tree were all the Halloween costumes and candy. And behind that were cute little Beanie Baby turkeys for Thanksgiving.  Now I know I shouldn’t be surprised by this; mom tells us all the time about how early the shipments of Christmas decor comes in. But it is seriously seems to be getting earlier every year.

As I continued to look through the store, I saw another tree (to the right). That pitiful looking little “tree” you see cost $40!  Why someone would pay that much for a tiny, fake, ugly tree, that doesn’t even look much like a tree is beyond me. Maybe it’s made from some substance will somehow improve the chemical balance of the atmosphere. I don’t know.

So, I started thinking about all this stuff. We are seeing these things before we even have a chance to rake the leaves that haven’t even fallen yet. Sorry if that made no sense. Before I started writing this, I wanted to find the pictures I would insert into the post. I googled “christmas tree.” By the way, I find it very annoying that whenever you’re surfing the web for no reason, you find really cool pictures. But then when you actually want to find a good picture, all that your search returns are cartoon characters and bunny rabbits.

So, anyway, when I searched for a Christmas tree this was one of the results (on the left). What I saw was a sparkling red, white, and blue tree shaped thing. At first I thought it was another useless photo, but then I read the picture’s caption. It read that this Christmas tree was completely studded with silver. This brought the price up to (are you ready?) $2.8 million. $2.8 million! Now, I don’t know if I made a mistake or if the person who posted the picture made a mistake, but I cannot see very many diamonds. However, that is what the caption said. Or maybe there is no mistake and the diamonds are just really small. You know, all this “Christmas in July”does not just have to with the trees. It’s the nativity’s, the lights, and every other kind  of Christmas decor that companies are making us think we need to enjoy this precious time of year that God has given us.

Matthew chapter twenty-one reads, “Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ”It is written,” he said to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” In this passage, why did Jesus use the word “robbers”? As far as we can tell, the people in the temple were buying and selling their goods fairly among one another. They should not have been doing so within the holy temple, but surely they were not robbers. While these people were not stealing material things as we think of, Jesus was getting at something else. The money changers came into the temple, which was God’s greatest gift to His people, and they made use of it and the many resources He had blessed them with. They did this for their own personal and financial gain. That can be directly related to what we see all around us today. Christmas is one of the greatest blessings we have and our world has taken it and made it solely into something from which they can profit. People in our world today, just like the thieves in the temple, are robbing God (and each other) of the great blessing of celebrating our Savior’s birth. 

It is the ultimate form of idolatry- taking God’s resources and His blessings and making into something that we can praise more than Him. Because of how commercialized Christmas has became, we no longer worship Jesus, but instead worship the Christmas season itself. So, let me ask you: have you been robbing God? Maybe you haven’t set up shop in your church, but as a Christian your very body is God’s temple. Have you taken a blessing God gave you to serve Him and put it above the one who gave it to you? I am personally way too guilty of this to be writing about it on a blog. But I started going on about seeing Christmas trees in July and look what happened.

Erratic Thought #10

Last week was my birthday and I spent some time with family and friends. We went to the mall, walked around, looked at the new iPods and ate lunch. Before we left, I went into a music store and I got a CD by an artist named John Mayer. John is an amazing songwriter and musician. However, one of his songs has really grabbed my attention, here it is: 

“I hate to see you cry
Lying there in that position
There’s things your need to hear
So turn off your tears and listen

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No, it won’t all go the way, it should
But I know the heart of life is good

You know it’s nothing new
Bad news never had good timing
Then the circle of your friends
Will defend the silver lining

Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
Fear is a friend who’s misunderstood
But I know the heart of life is good

I know it’s good”

But, is it really? Beneath all of the pain, suffering, fear, and sin in the world- is the heart of life really good?When I first started thinking about this question, I really wanted a single, solid, universal answer. I wanted an answer that not only applied to my life, but everyone else’s. But the more I thought about it, I realized that everyone’s life cannot be universally good. What was it that Jesus said in John 14:6?

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Jesus said that He is the life. That is followed by Him stating that the only way to the Father is through Him. What does that mean? It means that if you have accepted Jesus as your personal way to God’s forgiveness, then Jesus is not only the life, but He is also your life. Jesus is good and in fact, He is that from which all good comes from. Jesus is perfect. So, if you are a Christian and have accepted Jesus to be the very center of your life, then yes, the heart of your life is indeed very good.

Now an argument that could make is that no matter how much you dedicate your life to Jesus, the core of man’s nature will always be evil. To that I would say that we must define the difference between man’s “nature” and man’s “heart.” After the fall, man’s nature was forever infected by sin- something that cannot be undone. At birth, man’s heart thinks in unison with his nature. However, Ezekiel 36:26 says, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” When we choose to follow Christ, we are given a brand new heart, one that enables us to say no to sin and one that gives us a desire to worship the Creator of the universe. Until we die, our God-given heart and and earthly nature will be at war with one another. But praise be to God who has shown us mercy and chose to send us us his Son as a way that the heart of our lives may indeed be good!

Erratic Thought #9

Here is something to think about: there are really no such thing as shy people.

Now I know you will say, “What the heck are you talking about? I know tons of shy people-people that simply don’t talk very much. They are nervous, timid, and seem to think if they do anything, they might embarrass themselves.” Well, let me tell you my theory. None of this is true. I also know what you are thinking. Yes. I have already blogged about this topic before. I do not think I did it the justice it deserved.

Alright, so for some really quick review, there are two options for these supposedly “shy” people? Either: a) these people are extremely strange or b) they are secretly awesome. Because the chance of the former being true of someone is so low, I am only going to talk about the latter in this post. 

I want to take a look at the word “shy.” What does it mean, exactly? I am sure that all of you reading think the definition of shy would be, “being reserved or having showing nervousness or timidity in the company of other people.” WRONG! Although this is possible, it is almost always another, lesser know, definition. Just as I told you of two different kinds of shy people, the word “shy” actually has several different definitions.. And just in case you doubt the validity of what I am about to tell you, look the word up in a dictionary and just see what you find. I took them from the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first definition of “shy” is this: the act of flinging or throwing something at a target. This is, by far, the much less likely to be the case for your friend, however it does unfortunately happen quite often. Many times, when a child is very young, he or she will be involved in a “throwing” accident. This accident will most often consist of one of three things. It could involve having a small, hard projectile thrown in the vicinity of one’s head-area. It could also consist of having some sort of kitchenware hurled at one’s body, but not necessarily the head (this could be a bowl, a spork, a wooden spoon, or some crinkled up tin foil). The third option is that the child, himself, was thrown at a target. The worst thing about this option is that it can happen to anyone. Have you ever had a friend who was the most outspoken, funny person ever and one day, he just isn’t like that at all anymore. He is now shy. Like I said, it usually occurs in childhood, but a throwing or flinging accident can happen to anyone.

The second definition of shy, which not many people know of, is: not bearing fruit well or prolifically (prolifically means “a lot of fruit”). So, what is it that tells us about your little friend sitting alone? Is he or she really shy? Are they really scared of saying something wrong or being embarrassed? No, or course not! What many of these people are actually doing is concealing a secret- a secret that they will do anything to protect, even if it means keeping quiet for the rest of their lives. They are simply ashamed of the fact that they are horrible gardeners. I know, I know. It is probably hard to believe. But do you really see many plants or flowers in or around your shy friends house. And if you do, make sure to ask if either, their mother grew them or they came from their local Wal-Mart. I hope that I have not offended anyone reading, just remember that there are several definitions of the word “shy.” This is the one I believe to be the most commonly used and applicable one.

Erratic Thought #8

It’s monday. Eight o’ clock. Your homework is due tomorrow morning. Let’s see, how much is left? You have half a math lesson, math corrections, vocabulary for Government, and oh yeah! You still have to finish those literature questions and there are a lot of them. Should you go to sleep soon or stay up late doing all this boring stuff? It is really important to get a good night’s sleep. I mean, there are two study halls at the beginning of the day. You can get some stuff done then, right? 

You have some good excuses, too. Come on! It was a super busy week. With going to the orthodontist, guitar lesson, cross country, doing tons of chores, helping mom, and having just a little free time for yourself, the week seemed to go by so fast.

Bottom line: There is a lot of stuff to do and hardly any time to do it. You want more than anything to just push it away and hope that it will come back tomorrow all finished. What do you do? Well, the appropriate thing to do would be to to bite the bullet (that is one of my favorite phrases) and get it done. I guess my question really is: in what way do you do it?

I have talked to a lot of my friends, when they have found themselves in this situation (OK, not quite that bad). I almost always hear, “Ah! I am just so stressed about all this work,” or “I am just really stressing out about all this vocabulary.” I, personally, hate stressing. I hate it with all my soul. If I know we are going to be late to somewhere I really want to be on time, I intentionally try not to look at the clock. If I have a lot of homework to do, I turn up some loud music, so my mind isn’t thinking about the classes I have the next day. If I know something bad is going to happen, or I am just nervous about something, I just think about all of the blessings in my life. Stressing makes me uncomfortable, it makes me tense, and I have found that the more you try not to think about something, the more you actually do think about it. Now, I acknowledge that at times, stressing can be appropriate, but I overall like to enjoy my life. A stressful life is one of the worst lives I can imagine. I like making the best of every situation, even boring, obnoxious homework.

Maybe, it can sometimes be genuinely helpful to freak out about stuff. But I prefer keeping things simple, light, and fun, if possible. I certainly do not think stressing is good, but I also don’t think it is always bad, either.

Matthew 6:34                                                                                                                                        ”Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Needed Vocabulary Assistance?

Erratic- (definition) not even or regular in pattern or movement; unpredictable (synonyms) changeable, variable, inconsistent, irregular, variable, fickle 

Just something I thought one or two of my readers may benefit from knowing.

Erratic Thought #7

In the past few weeks, before my head hits the pillow and I fall asleep, I cannot help but smile. When I look around all I can see is blessing after blessing from God. No matter how bad the day might have been, I can always look at my family, my friends, my school, and the amazing community that I have been given. Then I think about anything I have done for God- anything I have done to deserve being a part of His family. I do not read the bible very much. I do not share the gospel like I should. Nor do I love others the way God has loved me. I am a horrible representative for Jesus Christ. Everything I do has been infected with sin. I have done nothing at all worthy of His grace and yet somehow at the and of the day, I can smile to myself knowing that whatever crap I have done, God somehow still loves me unconditionally. I cannot think of anything I am more grateful for than this.

If I were to sum up my relationship with God in one word, it would be that. Gratitude. What we all want is to be loved. And I can now know that I, a completely undeserving person, will be adored by the creator of the universe. 

If you had to sum up your relationship with God in one word, what would it be? Would it be one of redemption, one of provision, or one of compassion? I am sure that as I grow in my faith, that “one word” might change. But I hope that instead of simply changing, my respect and adoration for God would become so great that it would be impossible for one word to describe it. I would love it if you would leave a comment saying how you would sum up your relationship with God.

Look What You’ve Done- by Tree63

Look what You’ve done for me
Your blood has set me free


Jesus my Lord look what You’ve done for me

I haven’t been the same
 Ever since that day I called Your name


Yahweh 
Yahweh Look What You’ve done for me

What can I do for You my Lord?
I want You to know my heart is Yours


It’s not a question of what You can do for me


But what can I do for You my Lord?

Up to Your cross I crawled 
Now I am standing ten feet tall


Jesus my saviour look what You’ve done for me

Free at last I’m free
 I owe You my life completely

Yahweh
 Yahweh look what You’ve done for me