The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Out on a Limb
“Libya, Egypt and Syria All Face an Uncertain Future”–headline, Guardian (London), Nov. 20

Too Much Information
“Detroit Mayor Shares Financial Problems With Entire City”–headline, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Nov. 20

Bottom Stories of the Day
“Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar Plans to Vote Obama”–headline, Politico.com, Nov. 18

Global Warmists Live Large
“He is the climate change minister who pledged to ‘lead by example’ in the fight against global warming,” reports London’s Daily Mail:

But Charles Hendry is facing accusations of hypocrisy after buying himself a 20-bedroom castle [sic; apparently it is 14 bedrooms and 20 rooms]–with a potentially massive carbon footprint–as a second home.

Blair Castle in Ayrshire, which went on the market for £2.5million [about $3.9 million], has three storeys, 16 bathrooms and a heated outdoor swimming pool set in 260 acres of beautiful countryside.

It is likely to rack up colossal energy bills during the cold Scottish winter if Mr Hendry plans to heat all 14 bedrooms, two kitchens and four reception rooms in the main castle.

Just like Al Gore. Of course, it’s unfair to judge global warmism by the behavior of politicians. But what about scientists? Blogger Anthony Watts reports that NASA’s James Hansen, father of global warmist alarmism, has been cashing in:

NASA records released to resolve litigation filed by the American Tradition Institute reveal that Dr. James E. Hansen, an astronomer, received approximately $1.6 million in outside, direct cash income in the past five years for work related to–and, according to his benefactors, often expressly for–his public service as a global warming activist within NASA.

This does not include six-figure income over that period in travel expenses to fly around the world to receive money from outside interests. As specifically detailed below, Hansen failed to report tens of thousands of dollars in global travel provided to him by outside parties–including to London, Paris, Rome, Oslo, Tokyo, the Austrian Alps, Bilbao, California, Australia and elsewhere, often business or first-class and also often paying for his wife as well–to receive honoraria to speak about the topic of his taxpayer-funded employment, or get cash awards for his activism and even for his past testimony and other work for NASA.

Ethics laws require that such payments or gifts be reported on an SF278 public financial disclosure form. . . . Hansen nonetheless regularly refused to report this income.

Nice work if you can get it. ABC News, meanwhile, offers a new “scientific” “breakthrough”:

The emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas that are now rapidly warming the earth are by definition invisible.

But what if we could see them? Might the United States have begun to regulate them long ago–as with other emissions we do see?

The Graphics Department of ABC News, working with technicians from the FLIR camera company, whose special “GasfinderIR-GF” cameras can “see” greenhouse gases, has created artist’s impressions of what it might look like if we could see our greenhouse gas emissions.

Who needs science when you can just imagine stuff? And here’s a bit from CarsDirect.com on the pros and cons of diesel vehicles:

Environmental concerns. This is the primary reason why many people choose to use a diesel car, and in this debate it certainly has benefits in both using less fuel per mile, and also making less CO2, or carbon dioxide. But the diesel fuel is not completely pollution free, and in fact has been shown to produce carcinogens, soot and NOx, which can be just as harmful to the environment.

Carcinogens “can be just as harmful to the environment” as carbon dioxide? That’s like saying cigarette smoking can be just as harmful as breathing.

Today’s Vandals Have No Standards
Heather Mac Donald will love this one: The New York Times reports on a disturbing new trend of vandalism against trees. In San Francisco, “every tree” on one block “has been spray-painted in shades of purple, red, white and black.” The reason? “Graffiti, taggers believe, is not easily covered or removed from trees without harming them.”

But here’s the part that tells you everything about the Times’s worldview:

The vandalism has angered residents, and possibly threatened the health of some trees, which are remarkably rare in San Francisco because very few tree species are indigenous. The tagging also appears to violate one of the tenets of the graffiti subculture: it is supposed to be a reaction to urban life, not an attack on nature.

We would describe the people who create graffiti as vandals damaging the property of others. The Times sees them as a “subculture” that has “tenets,” one of which is that you do not vandalize trees. Even more hilarious, it informs us of these alleged tenets in an article that proves they do not exist.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”