Stalag FoxNews

Climate change reporting has scraped the bottom of the barrel as Bill O'Reilly of FoxNews gives his take on global warming:

O'REILLY: This has been the worst hurricane year on record. 23 storms. Of course, we all remember the tsunami last Christmas and some climatologists are very worried the planet is vulnerable to even more violent weather. With us now is Jess (sic) Schultz, Chief Climatologist with Weather 2000, a consulting firm her in New York City. You heard Bernie Rayno (of Accuweather) say 15 more years of intense weather. Is that your outlook as well?

SCHULTZ: Yes. We're actually in the middle or getting somewhat into an active phase of this ocean conveyor belt system, what we call the thermohaline system and what happens is it grows stronger for about 30 years and that transports all sorts of heat and energy and moisture to different areas, which can, in turn, increase the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and it can do a lot of other things as well.

The NewsHounds site lists this Jeff Schultz character as part of a consulting outfit called Weather 2000 "that specializes in creating a comfort zone for corporations that wish to ignore or deny the science behind global warming". Sen. Rick Santorum has pushed private firms such as Weather 2000 recently, going so far as to suggesting the dismantling of the National Weather Service in favor of the commercial outfits -- mostly in favor of those who happen to contribute to the Rethuglican's coffers. O'Reilly's namedropping of Accuweather fingers the offending party.

But really, what kind of earth scientist would sit there and not have his explode in laughter upon hearing someone blame an eathquake-induced tsunami on the weather. But I imagine this idiot Schultz has no trouble suppressing himself from saying the partisan talk-show equivalent of career suicide. When in doubt, the paid-off consultants can fall back on the old reliable: