Newsweek's Sharon Begley, who earlier this week had the unscientific gall to blame the Midwest floods on global warming, continues to offend more and more people with her every keystroke.

The object of her current disaffection, comedian/magician Penn Jillette, isn't taking her affront lying down. In fact, he published a response at the Los Angeles Times Thursday to her recent attack on his global warming skepticism.

To set this up, here's what Begley posted at her Lab Notes blog last Friday concerning June's "Amazing Meeting" conference sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation (emphasis added throughout, h/t Reason):

Newsweek's senior editor Sharon Begley has taken it upon herself to publicly declare the recent floods in the Midwest are being caused by global warming.

Those familiar with her work shouldn't be even slightly surprised by this, as Begley was the person responsible for the August 13, 2007, Newsweek cover story "Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine" which evoked widespread criticism including from one of her fellow editors.

Regardless, Begley is at it again with an article in the upcoming issue of Newsweek disgracefully entitled, "Global Warming Is a Cause of This Year’s Extreme Weather" (emphasis added throughout):

Some journalists are so confident that we're already cooked by global warming that they're scolding ignorant Americans in advance for all the now-unpreventable doom that's coming our way. Newsweek's Sharon Begley rings in the new year by shaking her head at the Stupid, Soon to Be Overheated Majority and how we'll have to adapt to being cooked:

As scientists and policy types figure out what changes will be necessary to cope with global warming, it's obvious that massive sea walls will be required to hold back rising oceans, that enormous new reservoirs will be needed to cope with the alternating droughts and deluges that many regions will suffer and that a crash program to develop heat- and drought-resistant crops would be a good idea if people are to keep eating....

The media are finding new and innovative ways to disparage those who question global warming hysteria.

You’ve probably heard that Scott Pelley from CBS likened global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers back in March, but in an article dated October 1, Newsweek Senior Editor Sharon Begley (pictured at right) found a fresh analogy that vilifies skeptics.

In an article posted on the new The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media Web site, she dismissed them as the equivalent of moon landing deniers.

When asked if journalists should be more interpretive or analytical in their climate change reporting Begley said, “It depends …When you cover the history of the space program, you don't quote the percentage of Americans who think the moon landings took place on a stage in Arizona.”