Desperately seeking record high temperature

If you're at all interested in the global warming debate, you should read this entire 2002 piece by the late John L. Daly.

Excerpts:

There is one all-time hot record that is the ultimate global prize: 58°C (136°F) set at Al Aziziya, Libya, in 1922. This was the hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere in the world and has stood for 80 years in spite of real or imagined `global warming". It is even noted in the Guinness Book of Records. But 1922 is a long time ago and the longer it stands, the less convincing are the claims about global warming in the eyes of the public.
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In all of Death Valley, the ARC has chosen just about the hottest spot possible in the hottest valley in North America. They have in effect put it into a natural oven - and done so in the full knowledge of Badwater's topography. Now all they have to do is wait - wait for the inevitable day when the conditions will be just right - clear skies, still air, a blazing sun, and that instrument will heat up from the combined heating of the air, the immense heating from the nearby cliff only metres behind the instrument, the intense reflected heat radiation from the salt pan, and the mercury will very likely fall over the Libyan line and record the `hottest temperature ever measured on earth'.

Then we will see the champagne corks fly as the greenhouse industry will cry with righteous indignation, announcing the `new hottest temperature ever recorded on earth', how it's all due to global warming etc. etc. and all the time, the whole thing will be about as fake as a three dollar bill.

Even the wording on the plaque on the instrument betrays the real intent - the exclusive emphasis on the significance of heat, of global warming, of record-breaking temperatures, of the `hottest year ever' etc. The plaque speaks of little else. Even the opening words of the text are `Carbon dioxide released by human activities etc. ....'. Consequently, it is reasonable to conclude that record-breaking is the primary purpose of the instrument, not genuine climatic research.