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Thomas Sowell's recent opinion piece, labeled "Cold Water on 'Global Warming' in my local newspaper, gives us some typical "conservative" diatribe that allegedly supports the contention that global warming is either not happening or is not influenced by human activity. In his rant, he casually mentions a conference held in New York this week that was sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a calm and peaceful sounding name but masking its membership and its own funding. The Heartland Institute has received $791,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 and Walter F. Buchholtz, an ExxonMobil executive, serves as Heartland's Government Relations Advisor, according to Heartland's 2005 IRS Form 990, pg. 15. It is no benign coincidence that Exxon's corporate position, and that of many of its executives personally, is that global warming either doesn't exist or is not attributable to human activity. For Sowell to suggest that this was a gathering of anything more than lobbyists and camp followers in the mold of James Inhofe and others of like mind is ludicrous. Thomas Sowell is one angry black man who got left behind during the civil rights movement and has been trying to ingratiate himself with the white majority in this country for some time. His arguments, for any regular readers of his column, are generally non-sequiturs and follow the "conservative" party line as if scripted. In the column cited, he makes the assertion without attribution "some scientists say that the warming created the increased carbon dioxide, rather than vice-versa." It is a literary trick right out of the pages of the Fixed News Channel where it is mantra for their interviewers to attack a guest with the phrase "some people say" without ever identifying those persons for a critical evaluation. Sowell repeats the tactic in order to free himself from having to produce facts and references that can be checked. Concluding his article, and I do hope that you pass these comments along to him to let him know that even his darlings in red states don't always buy his song, he states "those who have a big stake in global warming hysteria are unlikely to show up at the conference in New York, and unfortunately that includes much of the media." It's one thing to have an opinion about what has already happened, but Sowell opines about things that may or may not happen and states them as facts that did or did not happen. You call this responsible journalism? Now, the rebuttal, of course would be for Creators and Sowell to provide a follow-up to state how many people who had "big stakes" actually appeared (after all, why would any self-respecing scientists show up at a conference where the deck is stacked by Exxon and its non-scientists?) and what members of any media appeared to report on this non-event. My guess is that neither Creators nor Sowell will address what actually happened because it suits the agenda of both to avoid scrutiny for what is published. Thomas Sowell: proof that God has a sense of humor.