Inside the Beltway

Before Gore

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: “Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.”

The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention “great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones,” and “at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”

“This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s,” says Mr. Lockwood. “I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all.”

Worth pondering

Reacting yesterday to word that certain European governments and officials are suddenly trying to abandon their costly “global warming” policies, Royal Astronomical Society fellow Benny Peiser, of the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University in Great Britain, recalls the teachings ofMarcus Aurelius: “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

Darker dome

The Architect of the Capitol estimates that by having installed energy-efficient comfort-control systems and lighting, including occupancy sensors that automatically turn off lights when they are not needed, they are saving American taxpayers more than $2.2 million per year.

No pun intended

Pair of headlines as positioned for release yesterday by the Associated Press:

“Karl Rove to Resign at End of August.”

“Stock Futures Point to Higher Open.”

Cleavage surge

The Global Language Monitor (GLM), a U.S.-based assemblage of academics, wordsmiths and bibliophiles that analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage, word choices and their effect, just completed its first ranking of top “political buzzwords” for the first half of 2007.

For instance, the 2006 list of the most popular buzzwords — terms or phrases that become loaded with emotional freight beyond the normal meaning of the word — included “global warming,” “insurgency,” “credibility,” “throes,” and “quagmire.”

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