An Age of Plagues

There is time enough in the world to deal with the rise and fall of the sea. There is time enough in the world to work out a way to cope with desertification or coastal erosion.

But what about Drug Resistant plagues?

Will there be enough time?

The thing to keep in mind about plagues is that their behavior in the wild is that they infect at an exponential rate, not an additive rate. In other words, damn fast.

Here is how it will start. (From an AP article at Yahoo.)

Then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled the skinny frame of Oswaldo Juarez, a 19-year-old Peruvian visiting to study English. His lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., Juarez felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood.

I'm dying, he told himself, "because when you cough blood, it's something really bad."

Oswaldo is lucky. Well, that may or may not be so. If he has a relapse, he could end up starting a wild fire.

We may come to a point in our near future where the grim fate of Prince Prospero will be less the stuff of fables then a dark reality.

Conclusive Environmentalist Insanity

New Zealand authors, Robert and Brenda Vale, are promoting their book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living."

From the AFP

PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

It is not a joke. These people are serious. Deadly serious.

They are representative of the logical conclusion of the environmental movement.

The Price Of Obama's Weakness

Iran smells weakness in Washington. They have been playing Obama and the EU states for idiots and cowards over their Nuclear Weapons development. Obama and the rest of the West have done nothing but whimper and whine.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided to up the stakes. Iranian troops have marched into Iraq and have siezed an Oil Well in Iraqi Territory.

This is an act of war.

The Iranians are betting that Obama has no balls.

An official of the state-owned South Oil Co in the southeastern city of Amara, and west of the field, said: "An Iranian force arrived at the field early this morning (Friday).

"It took control of Well 4 and raised the Iranian flag even though the well lies in Iraqi territory," the official added.

What will Obama do?

Will he do anything more than just whimper and whine?

Russia thinks something is rotten in England

Climategate is getting noticed in the far corners of the world. Russian newspapers are discussing a report from a Moscow based organization that claims that Russian Climate data has been deliberately misrepresented by AGW proponents.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory.

You can't cherry pick your data. Doing so is politics, not science.

Hugo Chavez And The Essence Of The Climate Change Hysteria

Among the many world leaders that went to and spoke to the delegates of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, stood one angry ugly little man. This ugly little man spoke to the very essence of what drives the Climate Change Fear Mongers. He reveals that science and the climate are only magicians props that are used to gull the ignorant and the impressionable.

Then President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a “silent and terrible ghost in the room” and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Chavez, and those that gave him his thundering standing ovation, have at that moment stripped away their masks and revealed their real intent. There goal is to advance socialism and to end capitalism where ever it exists.

The Climate Change Fear Mongers know that the science of weather and climate change is full of so many variables and unknowns that it is easy for them to use it to gull the impressionable and to frighten the fearful. They aim to frighten people with the threat of global destruction in order to get them to give up their rights as free human beings.

It has been fairly effective.

That it is all a ugly hoax matters not a bit. Fear is what gives them power.

The Climate Change Fear Mongers have used half truths to hide huge lies. Climate Change is real. It is not something that you should be frightened of anymore than you should be frightened of the rising and the setting of the sun.

Climate Change is as natural to our earth's long existence as are the tides of the sea.

The Earths Climate will change. Mankind can not do anything to prevent that from happening.

In Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Hank Morgan uses his knowledge of eclipses of the sun to fool the locals into believing that he has magical powers. Hank Morgan was good guy. The Climate Fear Mongers are not. But like the character in Mark Twain's fable, the Climate Fear Mongers hope to use something as natural and as normal as the changeable weather and the inevitable climate variability of our planet to frighten you and your friends into freely giving up your rights as a free person.

Do not be afraid.

Have the courage to live free.

Are we all Refusniks now?

Using soviet era political language to describe those that have refused to “go along” with the “stimulus” plan, the framing continues.

From an MSNBC article

Some refuseniks use terms like “Obama’s filthy, stinking stimulus,” and some have ambitions for higher office, but they insist their actions to reject the money are motivated by a sense of fiscal responsibility, not partisan politics.

. . . and the loudspeakers blare "Oceania has always been at war with EastAsia."

A Glossary Of Environmentalist Newspeak

The BBC has very helpfully provided a short glossary of Environmental Newspeak.

Here are three for your amusement.

Carbon footprint The amount of carbon emitted by an individual or organisation in a given period of time, or the amount of carbon emitted during the manufacture of a product.

Carbon intensity A unit of measure. The amount of carbon emitted by a country per unit of Gross Domestic Product.

Carbon leakage A term used to refer to the problem whereby industry relocates to countries where emission regimes are weaker, or non-existent.

Its kind of like Pirate Jargon - a code language of thieves and scum.

Make Them Work For Free Dammit!

The Left's war against the productive continues.

The UK has imposed an onerous tax on Bonuses paid out to bank executives and employees. (See this CNN Article.)

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The odds aren't on its side, but a bonus tax could happen in the United States too.

The United Kingdom this week slapped a 50% tax on bankers' bonuses above about $40,000. The one-time tax will be paid by all banks with employees in the country. France pledged it would adopt the same policy, while Germany's chancellor called the idea "charming."

What would stop US Politicians from bringing this onerous tax to the US?

What would stop them from making it applicable beyond just bank employees?

Can you really trust them to not make it apply to you?

Palin versus Copenhagen

An OpEd in the Washington Post.

In fact, we're not the only nation whose people are questioning climate change schemes. In the European Union, energy prices skyrocketed after it began a cap-and-tax program. Meanwhile, Australia's Parliament recently defeated a cap-and-tax bill. Surely other nations will follow suit, particularly as the climate e-mail scandal continues to unfold.

In his inaugural address, President Obama declared his intention to "restore science to its rightful place." But instead of staying home from Copenhagen and sending a message that the United States will not be a party to fraudulent scientific practices, the president has upped the ante. He plans to fly in at the climax of the conference in hopes of sealing a "deal." Whatever deal he gets, it will be no deal for the American people. What Obama really hopes to bring home from Copenhagen is more pressure to pass the Democrats' cap-and-tax proposal. This is a political move. The last thing America needs is misguided legislation that will raise taxes and cost jobs -- particularly when the push for such legislation rests on agenda-driven science.

Hat tip to Jim In Virginia at the Correspondence Committee

It is not difficult to see why this woman is able to attract so much attention and respect on the Republican side of the isle. If she keeps this up, she will be a very serious contender for the top of the Republican ticket in the next Presidential election cycle.

(Send her some money. Shake up the weak side of the Republican party by supporting someone who is not afraid to take the fight to the Democrats.)

Snow In Sacramento - Anthropogenic Global Warming Hoax Promoted In Copenhagen.

Snow in the Sacramento area is very rare. Fog, that is plentiful enough, snow is not.

From the Sacramento Bee

Snow fell all the way down to the valley, dusting low-lying Elk Grove, Galt and Stockton. Roseville and communities at similar elevation received measurable snowfall, while El Dorado Hills, Auburn, Placerville and beyond felt the weight of a full-blown snowstorm.

While on the other side of the world, (might as well be on a different planet), delegates from various government agencies and their NGO enablers are meeting in Copenhagen Denmark to work out more ways that they can empower themselves at your expense while using AGW as an excuse.

And they are living large while they party on your dime.

From the Telegraph

On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200.

"We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report."

It seems that AGW fear mongering can provide a very comfortable lifestyle.

Lula's Unserious And Infantile Response To The Iranian Nuclear Weapons Problem.

While it might be breathtakingly stupid, it is all too commonplace on the left to argue that nations that have nuclear weapons should just crumple them up and toss them away in order to achieve a moral high ground when dealing with other nations that have or are attempting to develop Nuclear Weapons.

I suppose it is possible for someone to be so naive as to really believe that such a strategy is anything more than madness.

From the Chinese Xinhua News Agency

Brazilian president: only countries without nuclear weapons can criticize Iran

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that the countries which criticize Iran's nuclear program should get rid of their own nuclear weapons as well, according to news reaching here from Berlin.

In order to have the moral authority to criticize Iran, "It is important that those which have a (nuclear) arsenal let go of it, so that we will not have any more arguments," he said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had said that negotiations with Iran were not progressing.

Lula, if the world was run only by Gandhi's, such a strategy might even work. Gandhi is dead. There was only one of him and he only had the success he had because the British did not have it in them to fight and kill several million Indians in order to maintain an expensive and unprofitable empire.

Either Lula is a fool of the first order or he is just bloviating out of his gaseous ass to make himself a figure on the world stage. Dangerous loons like Lula end up provoking wars that other people have to fight and die in.

If Lula is not willing to commit Brazilian troops to a land war in Iran, he should not be allowed anywhere near the discussions on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Program.

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Hat tip to Correspondence Committee: C2 Saturday A.M. Bulldog Edition

The Copenhagen COP15 Climate Summit Screw Job

For some, the Copenhagen COP15 Climate Summit really is a screw job.

Copenhagen's city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to 'Be sustainable - don't buy sex'.

"Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes," the approach to hotels says.

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.

. . . um . . . ah . . .

Climate Gate RoundUp

Various stories about Climate Gate.

Coleman: Media Will Ignore Climategate Until They Hear ‘I Was Wrong’ (PJM Exclusive)

This simple three-word phrase is almost impossible to say because it changes everything. It is easiest for a child to say it — after all, a child isn’t expected to be right about things. But the higher you climb through life, the more difficult it becomes to admit being wrong. It would be devastating for a president of the United States to say it: “I was wrong.” And it may be about as difficult for an established, respected scientist who does research at an institution funded by millions of tax dollars.

That is why I don’t expect any of the scientists caught by the Climategate leak to admit “I was wrong” anytime soon.

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The High Costs of Copenhagen
What Obama's pledge to reduce emissions by 83% would mean in practice.

When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by 2050. Even though no legally binding agreement is expected, what Mr. Obama says in Denmark will define the U.S. position in subsequent international negotiations. He will not say how the cuts will be accomplished. For Americans, the details are worth knowing.

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Climate Fog

As Barack Obama prepares to head to the climate change conference in Copenhagen, there are some distressing signs about the drift of public opinion on the issue.

A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found that the percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening at all has dropped eight points in just the past year. A comprehensive Pew poll released in October was even more worrying: only 57 percent of respondents think there's evidence of warming (down from 71 percent last year), and just 36 percent think it's because of human activity (down from 47 percent). The number of people who think it's a "very serious problem" declined to just 35 percent.

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We-Don't-Want-to-Talk-About-It-Gate

Americans honor the courageous informant, the gutsy citizen who stands against the savagery of the profit-mongering conglomerate. Well, sometimes. It appears, believe it or not, that there are those who aren't religiously tethered to this sacred obligation.

For now -- because of revelations of the ClimateGate scandal, in which hacked e-mails revealed discussions among top climate scientists about the manipulation of evidence -- Phil Jones, head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit in Britain, has stepped down from his position. Michael Mann, architect of the famous "hockey stick" graph, is now under investigation by Pennsylvania State University. Similar inquiries should follow.

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Tainted science
Climate-change research fraud is an outrage

This editorial page has accepted the predominant view of the scientific community that global warming is occurring partly because of mankind’s industrial activity, specifically the release of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” into the atmosphere. This view was strongly buttressed by a March 2007 editorial board interview with climate change experts Tony Haymet and Richard C.J. Somervill of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who laid out a comprehensive view of the scientific case for global warming and the risks it posed to civilization.

But after the events of recent weeks, we have deep doubts about at least one assertion of Haymet’s: that climate researchers operate in “a very open community.” Instead, the recent leak of thousands of e-mails to and from scientists at the University of East Anglia in England, the world’s most influential climate research center, showed something else entirely.

The e-mails described systematic manipulation of data to promote conventional wisdom on global warming and of trying to marginalize or harm scientists with contrary theories. They spoke of deleting e-mails, documents and raw data that were the target of public records requests, in apparent violation of British law.

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Big Costs Are Hurdle to Climate Pact
Many Countries Agree to the Idea of Cutting Greenhouse-Gas Emissions, But They Are Sharply Divided Over How to Fund It

BRUSSELS -- In the weeks leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference, countries from China to Singapore have pledged cuts to their greenhouse-gas emissions.

One question still lurks unanswered: Who is going to pay for it?

Cutting carbon costs money. Factories must be retrofit and industries must be prodded to buy more-expensive green technology. Estimates for the annual tab in developing countries vary widely, but could reach €100 billion ($150 billion) by 2020, and poorer nations are insisting their richer brethren pick up the bulk of it.

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UN panel promises to investigate leaked 'climategate' e-mails

The United Nations panel on climate change has promised to investigate claims that scientists at a British university deliberately manipulated data to support the theory of man-made global warming.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that the allegations raised by leaked e-mails in the so-called "climategate" controversy were too serious to ignore.

"We will certainly go into the whole lot and then we will take a position on it," he told BBC Radio 4's The Report programme. "We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail."

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White House Pushes Back on Climate Change Email Controversy

President Obama's science adviser, Dr. John Holdren, faced a barrage of questions yesterday from Republican Members of Congress about a series of hacked emails at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit that climate change skeptics have seized upon as evidence that the whole concept of climate change is a hoax.

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Webb warns Obama on Copenhagen trip

President Barack Obama should be wary of committing the U.S. to any binding climate standards at a global conference this month without congressional input, one senator warned.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) sent a letter to the president late last week warning Obama against agreeing to any binding climate change agreement during a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark this month.

"I would like to express my concern regarding reports that the Administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon at the upcoming [conference]," Webb wrote to Obama.

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Rep. Issa: Obama's refusal to investigate 'Climategate' emails is 'unconscionable'

The U.N.'s decision this week to investigate whether some of its climate change research had been manipulated constitutes a "direct rebuke" of the Obama administration, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Friday.

The White House's unwillingness to open a similar inquiry could now only be characterized as "a sad abdication of their responsibility to ensure that U.S. policies are not driven by corrupted science and data," the congressman added.

“The very integrity of the report that the Obama administration has predicated much of its climate change policy has been called into question and it is unconscionable that this administration and Congress is willing to abdicate responsibility of uncovering the truth to the United Nations," explained Issa, the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

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Day Fourteen and Counting
Bozell Defends Networks’ Silence on ClimateGate:“Maybe They Just Don’t Know”

Alexandria, VA – For the fourteenth straight day, the three broadcast networks have failed to report on the great and growing ClimateGate scandal on their weekday morning or evening news programs. How to explain this?

Perhaps it is that ABC, NBC and CBS have not yet heard of the story, despite two weeks of non-stop reporting on and discussion of ClimateGate in a whole host of media outlets.

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Parliamentary Speaker: Climate debate derailed?
The Speaker of the Danish Parliament has issued a damning criticism of the climate debate, saying politicians gullibly turn theories into facts.

As the world prepares to converge on Copenhagen for the COP15 Climate Summit, Denmark’s Speaker of Parliament has expressed serious doubts as to the way in which the climate debate has developed.

“The problem is that lots of people go around saying that the climate change we see is a result of human activity. That is a very dangerous claim,” Parliamentary Speaker and former Finance Minister Thor Pedersen (Lib) tells DR.

“Unfortunately I seem to experience that scientists say: ‘We have a theory’ – then that crosses the road to the politicians who say: ‘We know’. Who can be bothered to hear a scientist who says ‘I have a theory’ when politicians go around saying ‘I know’” Thor Pedersen says

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Take back Al Gore's Oscar, 2 Academy members demand in light of Climategate

No, it wouldn't do anything for the environment.

But two Hollywood conservatives (yes, there are some) have called upon the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind the prestigious, profitable gold Oscar statuette that it gave ex-Vice President Al Gore et al two years ago for the environmental movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

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Academy — Take Back Gore’s Oscar!

Los Angeles, CA — Today, Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Oscar nominees, called on the Academy to rescind Al Gore’s Oscar in light of the Climategate revelations.

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Researcher: NASA hiding climate data

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as the 1930s.

"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," Mr. Horner said. "These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."

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Copenhagen targets not tough enough, says Al Gore

Even if a deal is reached at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen next week it will only be the first step towards the far more radical cuts that are needed in global carbon emissions, Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, told The Times last night.

Mr Gore said that to avoid the worst ravages of climate change world leaders would have to come together again to set more drastic reductions than those now planned.

“Even a final treaty will have to set the stage for other tougher reductions at a later date,” he said. “We have already overshot the safe levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.”

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India will not sign binding emission cuts-minister

NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuters) - India will not accept a legally binding emission cut nor a peak year of carbon emissions at the global climate talks in Copenhagen, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday.

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A Few Good Scientists
You want the truth? You can't understand the truth!

You do not understand the first thing about climate research. Man-made global warming is settled science. Disaster is imminent. We know this. It is a fact. We don’t waste time on studies that say otherwise, the same way we don’t waste time on studies that assert that the earth is flat. We are very smart people, and when we say something is so, you should just accept it.

So you think what is in those emails is important? Well, what exactly do you know? Do you see the white lab coats we wear? That color symbolizes pure science. Were someone like you to wear one, within five minutes it would be stained with neon orange powdered cheese and wet with drool from you trying to comprehend the data sets people like me look at every day.

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Dutch: Gore Wrong on Snows of Kilimanjaro
The Netherlands is afire today over a Dutch study concluding Mount Kilimanjaro's snow melt — used as a symbol of AGW by Al Gore — is entirely natural.

Newspapers and news sites in the Netherlands today extensively broke the news of the findings of a research team led by Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damste — a leading molecular paleontologist at Utrecht University and winner of the prestigious Spinoza Prize — about the melting icecap of the Kilimanjaro, the African mountain that became a symbol of anthropogenic global warming.

Professor Sinninghe Damste’s research, as discussed on the site of the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (DOSR) — a governmental body — shows that the icecap of Kilimanjaro was not the result of cold air but of large amounts of precipitation which fell at the beginning of the Holocene period, about 11,000 years ago.

The melting and freezing of moisture on top of Kilimanjaro appears to be part of “a natural process of dry and wet periods.” The present melting is not the result of “environmental damage caused by man.”

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Climategate – it ain’t just about the weather

Climategate is about a lot more than climate. It’s about science and its relationship to politics and profit, the academy, the state and, perhaps most importantly, information control. The manner through which we learn (or thought we did) important knowledge about key aspects of our existence, the way things are hidden, has been exposed in this one instance like the Wizard of Oz.

It’s obvious similar methods of control apply to many other information sources in our society. That is why Barbara Boxer is in shrill blaming-the-messenger mode, insisting that any Congressional investigation of Climategate would target the nefarious “hacker.” She realizes a great unraveling could come from this. So do to the global bureaucrats at the UN and the EU as they prepare for the Copenhagen conference. It is also why the mainstream media was so slow to report the East Anglia CRU emails and documents. They know that if you begin to report these things, you have to report on a lot of other things they have so scrupulously chosen to avoid.

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The End of the Line for Climate Hysteria?
Global warming: the junk science of the modern age.

Following the release into the webworld of hacked emails, computer codes, and a raft of supplementary documents recording the antics of sundry paleoclimatolgists at the University of East Anglia’s influential Climate Research Unit, it has now become ice-crystal clear not only that the world has been cooling for the last decade, but that the global warming crusade is an environmental racket of historical proportions. Many “climate skeptics” and independent researchers have long known this to be the case and have understood that the motivating factor behind this massive and unprecedented fraud is the unsavory quest for power and profit on the part of governments, corporations, and ambitious individuals, scientists as well as entrepreneurs. The evidence for data tampering and all manner of hocus-pocus was available some time ago for anyone who cared to look.

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Competitive Enterprise Institute Petitions EPA to Suspend Proposed CO2 Regs
CEI is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to halt efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions in light of Climategate information.

In light of the Climategate fraud scandal, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) on Wednesday filed a petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suspend its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act, pending a thorough investigation of and public comment on the newly released information.

The still unfolding Climategate scandal produced by the release of thousands of emails and documents from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of East Anglia University in the UK raises new questions and doubts about the scientific basis for the Kyoto climate treaty, the successor treaty to be negotiated later this month in Copenhagen, the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer climate bills, the EPA’s proposed finding that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger public health and welfare, and other EPA regulatory proposals related to the endangerment determination.

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Liberals on Climate: A bridge too far?
Denmark’s prime minister may be battling for a firm agreement at the COP15 meeting, but several members of his party constituency say the climate and energy debate has gone too far.

A mere three days before Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen moves into COP15 negotiating mode to reach a political agreement in Copenhagen, there is unrest on the issue in his own Liberal Party parliamentary group.

According to Berlingske Tidende, several members of the group told a group meeting yesterday, that the climate and energy debate has gone too far, and restricts personal freedoms to an unreasonable degree.

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. . . and some would call it a "Nontroversy."
(Nontroversy? What a creepy Orwelian term. The Irony is thick.)

David Frum Versus Charles Johnson

David Frum tries to talk some sense to Charles Johnson.

Charles Johnson, editor of the Little Green Footballs site, has written a post declaring his personal breach with the American right.

He offers 10 reasons, but they all boil down to the same one: His outrage at the bad characters found in right-wing media and blogosphere.

And yes, there’s no shortage of bad characters. No shortage on the left-hand side either. Or the middle, for that matter. But why surrender to them? Why let them get away with their claim to define your movement?

David, you are wasting your breath.

Charles needs to go his own way. He was never very comfortable with ours. Ours was never "His" movement.

Let him go.

He, and we, will all be the better for it.

Climate Scientists: "No Problem, No Money."

Something from a Jack Kelly article to keep in mind as the Panic Mongers meeting in Copenhagen work themselves into frenzied calls and pleas for ever more powerful and intrusive government controls over peoples lives.

"In the 600-year long Roman warming (3rd Century BC-4th Century AD), it was 4 degrees C warmer than now," he said. "Sea levels did not rise and ice sheets did not disappear. The Medieval Warming (AD 800-1300) followed the Dark Ages and for 400 years it was 5 degrees C warmer. Sea levels did not rise and the ice sheets remained."

There is a saying among climate scientists: "No problem, no money."

AGW is becoming ever more indefensible.

A Claque Of Scientists Massaging Data To Make It Fit Their Theories

Kimberly A. Strassel at the Wall Street Journal has an article titled 'Cap and Trade Is Dead'.

The Climate Fraud revealed by the release of the CRU emails is a game changer. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe is confident now that the controversial extremist Cap and Trade bill is dead.

I am not so confident. The AGW hysteria was never so much about science and facts as it was about wipping up political hysteria to garner support for government control of ever aspect of our lives, from what we eat to how we get to work to what ever they could imagine that an elite class could better plan and coordinate than could the proletariat. They will not give up so easily. I think that the cap and trade bill can be ramed through the congress in much the same way the Reid and Pelosi have rammed through their Rationed Health Care Scheme.

In the event that Cap and Trade does fail this congress, there is the next, and the one after, and so on for them to bring it up again in whole or in parts.

The CRU email scandel shows that the AGW scientist at the core of this are more than willing to mold and bend, even make up out of whole cloth, the rationalizations that they need to justify their ends.

Their correspondence show a claque of scientists massaging data to make it fit their theories, squelching scientists who disagreed, punishing academic journals that didn't toe the apocalyptic line, and hiding their work from public view. "It's no use pretending that this isn't a major blow," glumly wrote George Monbiot, a U.K. writer who has been among the fiercest warming alarmists. The documents "could scarcely be more damaging." And that's from a believer.

Cap and Trade may be dead this congress, . . .may be . . .

They will not give up.

Rigged From The Start

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal that points to the heart of the problem of the Climate Debate and the Leaked Emails.

But the furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or even whether climatologists are nice people in private. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at in the first place, and how even now a single view is being enforced. In short, the impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.

I think it has been rigged from the start.

From Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, to Rachael Carson's Silent Spring, to the great AGW hoax, too many people have had vested interests, both spiritual and financial, in keeping the cons going.

The integrity of the scientific method has taken a terrible drubbing of late. Those that felt it was alright to lie a little bit for the good of the cause have made a farce of science.

Which relates directly to the problem of the Discovery Institute's abuse science.

Every time that we hear someone bitch about the Discovery Institute's abuse of the scientific method, we need to suggest that they take a look at the tree in their own eye before they fuss about the splinter in another's. You can't rebuke the one group without also rebuking the other. It is hypocrisy to even try. They both do the same thing for the equivalent of the same reason; "The Good of the Cause."

The Discovery Institute would be the ignorable laughing stock it deserves to be if it were not for the AGW crowd validating fraudulent science for the good of the cause.

When Science is hijacked by politics

An article in the Wall Street Journal on Carol Browner's dismissal of "Climate-gate." The article mentions a particular email exchange that discusses how a data set could be manipulated to show a desired result.

The part about an intent to delete a file rather than release it under an FOI request is very important. It highlights how the whole peer review process on Anthropogenic Climate Science needs to be called into question.

Actually, all Scientific Peer Review Processes are now under some doubt. If this level of fraud could have been allowed to exist this long, unchecked, and unchallenged, we have to wonder how much of the rest of the scientific peer review process has also been hijacked by politicians posing as scientist.

The controversy is not likely to go away too soon. Republicans in Congress are launching their own investigation. Conservative newspapers and Web sites are buzzing. Of particular note has been the exchange between Professor Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, and Professor Michael E. Mann at Pennsylvania State University.

Among the emails tapped by a hacker is one in which Jones talks to Mann about the “trick of adding in the real temps to each series … to hide the decline [in temperature].”

“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone,” Jones allegedly told Mann.

Their AGW Climate Change con was just too big for them to maintain. It would have been revealed at some point in time. It is disturbing that the scientific community let the fraud go on for as long as they have.

Carol Browner and her fellow travelers may hope that this will all just blow over.

It won't.

7% of all U.S. banks are on the list and face a higher probability of failure

An article in the Wall Street Journal talks about the growing number of banks that are at risk of failure.

The FDIC's quarterly banking profile, which analyzed data from 8,099 federally insured banks, reported that 552 financial institutions, with combined assets of $345.9 billion, were on the government's problem list at the end of September, up from 416 with $299.8 billion of assets at the end of June. That means roughly 7% of all U.S. banks are on the list and face a higher probability of failure.

FDIC officials don't disclose the names of banks on the list, in part because it could lead to bank runs.

With the dollar crashing and hyperinflation looming on the horizon, hard times seem to be a real and growing possibility.

The UN and the Politics of Science

The Wall Street Journal has an article on the leaked emails.

The emails include discussions of apparent efforts to make sure that reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that monitors climate science, include their own views and exclude others. In addition, emails show that climate scientists declined to make their data available to scientists whose views they disagreed with.

The IPCC couldn't be reached for comment Sunday.

There is a link located in this article at the WSJ where you can download and read the leaked emails and other documents yourself.

This issue may stay hot for awhile.

Will the Real Jobless Rate Please Stand Up!

There is something a little “Slim Shady” about the official US jobless rate of 10.2%.

Jeff Cox at CNBC.com has an article posted that is worth reading.

According to the government's broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

The number dwarfs the statistic most people pay attention to—the U-3 rate—which most recently showed unemployment at 10.2 percent for October, the highest it has been since June 1983.

Pray for recovery, prepare for depression.

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AGW Climate Extremists in the spotlight.

The following is from an article in the Washington Post.

In one e-mail, the center's director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

If the hacked e-mails are real, then the AGW climate extremest may find themselves hoisted by their own petards.

Get off your ass and get a job!

The truth behind much of the economic happy-talk that the Obama administration is putting out is that we are in hard times at the moment, with the probability of things getting far worse.

Nouriel Roubini has an article in the New York Daily News that is worth taking a few moments to read.

Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.

While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession.

If you have a job, try to keep it.

If you don't, then you had better be busting your ass to get one. Every day that goes by that you remain unemployed increases the number of people that are in line with you looking for work. Many o these people will be better qualified and more desirable for a company to hire than you are.

Do not rest on your laurels – you don't have any.

Be prepared for some rough times.

Climate Change extremist Al Gore Protested in Florida

Al Gore is finding that his message of social control through Climate Change fear mongering is ginning up some vocal opposition.

From the Palm Beach Post.

The former vice president spoke on climate change at the Mizner Park Amphitheater to a crowd of about 800. More than 200 protesters gathered across the street from the event, and their boos and chants could be heard inside the amphitheater as Gore began his presentation.

Climate Change is real. The insanity promoted by Al Gore and his fellow travelers that would give government ever greater control of our personal lives is at its core more about controlling people than it is about controlling climate. Power is what motivates these eco-wackos, all masked in the guise of altruism.

Venezuelan Water and Electricity Shortages.

Socialists always seem to be in the dark about why life in a socialist paradise sucks.

There is an interesting article in the New York Times on the confusion in Caracas.

CARACAS, Venezuela — This country may be an energy colossus, with the largest conventional oil reserves outside the Middle East and one of the world’s mightiest hydroelectric systems, but that has not prevented it from enduring serious electricity and water shortages that seem only to be getting worse.

President Hugo Chávez has been facing a public outcry in recent weeks over power failures that, after six nationwide blackouts in the last two years, are cutting electricity for hours each day in rural areas and in industrial cities like Valencia and Ciudad Guayana. Now, water rationing has been introduced here in the capital.

The deterioration of services is perplexing to many here, especially because the country had grown used to cheap, plentiful electricity and water in recent decades. But even as the oil boom was enriching his government and Mr. Chávez asserted greater control over utilities and other industries in this decade, public services seemed only to decay, adding to residents’ frustrations.

[Emphasis added.]

A private business must make a profit to survive. A government bureaucracy is not so encumbered.

The incentives are different. A private business thrives off of profit. A bureaucracy thrives off of rationing. With a private business, there is always push for surplus. With a bureaucracy, there is always a necessity for shortage.

Living In The Land Of Make Believe And Wishful Thinking

In the wake of the Fort Hood Massacre, our nations leadership will try to make us all ignore the obvious.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think that we have to come to an honest consensus about what Islam is and is not.

Is Islam what the Qur'an and the Haddith describe? Or is it something else?

Massacre In Texas

Is this a Jihadi attack?

Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base by what officials believe was possibly carried out by an Army officer.

The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.

The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.

Later in the article

Cone said the motive for the attack, which took place just after 1:30 p.m. CT, is unclear.

Some things come to mind.

Venezuela Is Drying Up

Water is becoming scarce is Venezuela. The ugly tyrant is trying to blame "the rich" for the shortage of water.

Water is not a luxury. A city without water will fail. This could be the beginning of the end for Caracas. They are discovering that you can't drink the oil.

Weather forecasters blame the "El Nino" weather phenomenon, saying the periodic weather system has markedly reduced rainfall and created drought conditions.

Others blame the shortage on poor government management of the country's water resources, while President Hugo Chavez faulted the excesses of capitalism.

"What will the rich fill their swimming pools with?" the country's leftist leader asked recently.

"With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighborhoods," he said, blaming the lack of sufficient water on "capitalism -- a lack of feeling, a lack of humanity."

What will they do?

That is an easy one Hugo.

The smart ones will pack their bags, walk away from their houses and flee with their talent and their remaining wealth to freedom in the US or some other country.

The stupid and the poor will remain in Venzuala.

"Wolf! Wolf!" Cry The Anthropogenic Global Warming Activist.

I think that Climate Change is real. I have some serious doubts about Anthropogenic Global Warming. In, short, I think it is over-the-top bullshit put forth primarily by people with a political (socialist, statists, authoritarian, totalitarian) agenda.

Climate Change IS fact.

Anthropogenic Global Warming is Politics.

Mark Henderson, the Science Editor of Times Online discusses the toll of the AGW Activist's "Cry Wolf" strategy.

Exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the threat from global warming risk undermining efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and contain climate change, senior scientists have told The Times.

Environmental lobbyists, politicians, researchers and journalists who distort climate science to support an agenda erode public understanding and play into the hands of sceptics, according to experts including a former government chief scientist.

Excessive statements about the decline of Arctic sea ice, severe weather events and the probability of extreme warming in the next century detract from the credibility of robust findings about climate change, they said.

Such claims can easily be rebutted by critics of global warming science to cast doubt on the whole field. They also confuse the public about what has been established as fact, and what is conjecture.

They are crying "Wolf! Wolf!" so much that they are destroying the trust that people have and need to have in science.

The AGW Activist are turning Science into a farce.

The American Public “Getting Reamed.”

The Politico has a short piece about the 1,990 + page monstrosity that house Democrats are going to try to cram down our throats.

They cite a section as a caution to those that will clammer for it to be read before it is voted on.

“(a) Outpatient Hospitals – (1) In General – Section 1833(t)(3)(C)(iv) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395(t)(3)(C)(iv)) is amended – (A) in the first sentence – (i) by inserting “(which is subject to the productivity adjustment described in subclause (II) of such section)” after “1886(b)(3)(B)(iii); and (ii) by inserting “(but not below 0)” after “reduced”; and (B) in the second sentence, by inserting “and which is subject, beginning with 2010 to the productivity adjustment described in section 1886(b)(3)(B)(iii)(II)”.

Um . . .

Yah. . .

I got that.

A sane person, in the everyday life that you and I live in, would look at that pile of gobblygook and rightfully conclude that the person spewing it was trying to get one over on us.

For the Democrats in Washington D.C., it is how they hide what they are going to do to us.

At the end of the article, the Politico closes with the following paragraph.

But Republican Rep. Joe Barton, who is Texan, said the bill is “about four reams of paper” that add up to the American public “getting reamed.”

Thats Democrats just doing what they do best Joe.

Rationed Health Care is going to be just to die for.

Exercise Versus Diabetes

Diet and exercise seem to be key to staving off type 2 diabetes.

That trial, carried out by the US-based Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group, had shown a diet aimed at achieving 7% weight loss, combined with half an hour of exercise five days a week, reduced the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 58% compared with the placebo group.

The group on metformin, a drug which has been used to treat the condition since the 1950s, saw their risk decline by nearly a third.

In the seven years after the trial ended, both the drug and placebo groups - now also eating more carefully and exercising - saw the rate of diabetes fall.

But the most significant drop was among those who had started out on a diet and exercise regime - their risk was over a third lower than the placebo group.

Dealing with diabetes is a pain. A little exercise and a better diet may be worth it.

The usual cautions here. This is science, so it might even be true.

Too Good To Be True

Another good excuse to eat Thai food!

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

I like curry. This is good news. Nice to have some good news.

The usual cautions here. This is science, so it might even be true.

Producers going on strike in New York

It is not exactly something out of Atlas Shrugged, but it has strong echoes.

Andy Soltis talks about a trend that few others in the MSM dare mention.

New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers -- and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.

More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City -- meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

"The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource -- people," the report said.

What's worse is that the families fleeing New York are being replaced by lower-income newcomers, who consequently pay less in taxes.

The parasitic welfare state can't keep raising taxes with out exhausting its hosts, namely the productive. The productive can move. They can even quit or just simply retire.

In New York, they are moving out.

In a few years when the retirement boom hits, they will probably just up and quit(retire).

Will They Try To Regulate The Carbon Content Of Our Diets?

The environmental movement has the potential to be truly dangerous.

Consider the following two paragraphs in a Times Online article.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

(Emphasis mine)

That last sentence is interesting, is it not??

Do these people understand the role that carbon plays in the diet of carbon based life forms? Do they really mean to propose that government, politicians and bureaucrats should attempt to regulate or otherwise control the carbon content of our diets?

Have they any idea how preposterous that is?

Do they have any concept of the misery and death that would result if they tried?

In the long run, John Maynard Keynes is still dead

The ABC News website has an article by Mark Trumbull discussing the waning expectations that the "stimulus bill" will be able to help "stimulate" any future economic growth.

Americans hoping for a big economic boost from President Obama's economic stimulus programs got a douse of cold water Thursday: The White House's top forecaster said the largest impact of the stimulus on economic growth is probably in the rear view mirror.

That's the case even though unemployment continues to rise and many of the stimulus dollars haven't been spent.

"Most analysts predict that the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009," Christina Romer, who chairs the President's Council of Economic Advisers, said in testimony prepared for Congress. "By mid-2010, fiscal stimulus will likely be contributing little to growth."

In the long run, John Maynard Keynes is still dead. Unfortunately, his economic prescriptions will not die.

When government spends money, it is spending other peoples money. There is a natural disconnect of the value placed on the money by those who earned it when it is spent by those who merely appropriated it.

Stolen money is cheap. Earned money is dear.

Earned money is far more likely to be spent with care than looted money.

No politician and no bureaucrat can ever be as invested in the outcome of the spending of an appropriated dollar then the person that originally earned it. Whether that dollar is spent on a pleasure or invested for the future, the one who earned it is the only one that is able to truly appreciate what that dollar cost him to earn.

To a person that earned a dollar, the notion that it should be used to pay one person to dig a hole and to then pay another person to fill it, sounds like utter madness. To a Keynesian that appropriated a dollar earned by someone else, it is eminently economically sound.

Who wants to play the Iranian Nuclear Inspection Game?

The UN does.

TEHRAN, Iran - A team of U.N. inspectors prepared Sunday for their first look inside a formerly secret — though still unfinished — uranium enrichment facility that has raised Western suspicions about the extent of Iran's nuclear program.

The inspection tour will provide the world's first independent details of the heavily protected site, carved into a mountainside near the holy city of Qom south of Tehran. It also coincides with the countdown to Iran's expected decision on whether to accept a U.N.-brokered plan to process its nuclear fuel abroad.

Iran promised to respond later this week on the proposal, which seeks to ease international worries that Iranian labs could push the uranium enrichment to higher levels for weapons-grade material. Iran claims it only seeks peaceful reactors for research and energy.

What does the UN propose to do if they find that Iran is making nuclear weapons?

What do they think should be the consequences for the UN if the inspectors find nothing, only to discover that Iran has been playing a nuclear 3-card-monte game with them up to the day that Iran announces that they have the bomb?

I would like to be able to look at this inspections plan as a positive development that will help bring the Iranian crises to a peaceful resolution. I have some doubts.

Cap And Trade Opposed Most By Those That Know The Most About It.

Would you be surprised to learn that the more that people know about the Cap & Trade bill, the more they oppose it? An October 2009 Pew poll strongly indicates that while the Cap & Trade bill has its strongest support from those that are most ignorant of it, those that know the most about it are its strongest opponents.

This issue has not registered widely with the public. Just 14% say they have heard a lot about the so-called “cap and trade” policy that would set carbon dioxide emissions limits; another 30% say they have heard a little about the policy, while a majority (55%) has heard nothing at all.

The small minority that has heard a lot about the issue opposes carbon emissions limits by two-to-one (64% to 32%). More Republicans (20%) and independents (17%) than Democrats (8%) have heard a lot about cap and trade. Among the much larger group that has heard little or nothing about the issue, most support it (58% little, 50% nothing).

How do we get enough people to look at the Cap & Trade bill to defeat it? Or is this issue pretty much a guaranteed win for the luddite-environmental movement?

What if your neighbors could inspect your tax returns?

If you live in Norway, they can.

Many media outlets use the tax records to produce their own searchable online databases. In the database of national broadcaster NRK, you can type a subject's name, hit search and within moments get information on what that person made last year, what was paid in taxes and total wealth. It also compares those figures with Norway's national averages for men and women, and that person's city of residence.

Defenders of the system say it enhances transparency, deemed essential for an open democracy.

"Isn't this how a social democracy ought to work, with openness, transparency and social equality as ideals?" columnist Jan Omdahl wrote in the tabloid Dagbladet. He acknowledged, however, that many treat the list like "tax porno" — furtively checking the income of neighbors or co-workers.

Critics say the list is actually a threat to society.

What would stop the Democrats in Congress from putting this kind of "openness" into effect here?

The politics of envy can be so much fun!

The Obama Administration Considers Letting The Taliban Win In Afghanistan

The Obama Administration will certainly go down in history as one of the worst in US Forign policy history. Worse than even the Carter Administration.

From an AP article:

WASHINGTON - Senior al-Qaida leaders are forging deeper relationships with Pakistani militants and often operating from their camps inside the Pakistan border, fueling Obama administration arguments for a shift in the Afghan war strategy that more narrowly targets the terrorists.

For eight years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has focused mostly on Afghanistan's Taliban as an unabashed ally of al-Qaida.

Now, however, forced to choose between sending more troops in an intensified counterinsurgency campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban or largely maintaining troop levels and using more drone strikes to take out al-Qaida along the border, U.S. officials must first determine which enemy is the greater priority.

The Obama Administration will lose Afghanistan with this kind of thinking. I am inclined to think that they would be less bothered by losing Afghanistan to the Taliban then be perceived as pursuing victory. Victory over the enemy is something that the modern day left can’t seem to stomach.

If the Obama Administration fails to defeat the Taliban, or at the very least, fails to keep them out of power in Afghanistan, then Afghanistan will return back to the stone age country that it was when it was executing woman in Soccer fields for showing a wee bit too much of ankle or daring to leave their homes without a male relative as an escort.

If Obama does not choose to pursue victory over BOTH the Taliban and al-Qaida, then his legacy will be one of surrendering to despair and misery from the farthest corners of the world to the very windows of our skyscrapers.

Obama Manages To Blow It With France

Crispian Balmer of Reuters reports on Sarkozy's frustrations with the Obama Administration.

Stung by perceived snubs from U.S. President Barack Obama and encouraged by the growing importance of the G20, Sarkozy is increasingly reaching out to non-aligned states in an effort to extend France's international influence.

He has forged especially close ties with Brazil, is seeking alliances in central Asia and is intensifying his activities in the Middle East, using multi-billion dollar military and civilian nuclear trade deals as his calling card.

These initiatives are being played out against a discordant tone in Franco-American relations. This lack of harmony does not constitute a crisis, but is nonetheless raising eyebrows.

Nobody needs to root for Obama to fail. He is managing that very ably on his own.

NATO Backs McChrystal In Afghanistan

Thom Shanker at the New York Times Reports that Nato backs General McChrystal’s strategy in Afghanistan.

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia - NATO defense ministers gave their broad endorsement Friday to the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan laid out by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, increasing pressure on the Obama administration and on their own governments to commit more military and civilian resources for the mission to succeed.

General McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander in Afghanistan, landed here early Friday to brief NATO defense ministers on his strategic review of an 8-year-old war in which the American-led effort has lost momentum to a tenacious insurgency. The closed-door session — which had not been disclosed in advance — added a note of drama to the sort of NATO ministerial meeting that is often mundane.

“What we did today was to discuss General McChrystal’s overall assessment, his overall approach, and I have noted a broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach,” said NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

We can hope that NATO will give Obama the needed courage to work towards winning in Afghanistan over choosing to lose.

Dancing with the Devil in the pale moonlight.

The problem with accepting the Devils coin is that you will end up dancing to the Devil's tune.

This is proving to be undeniably the case for those companies who have accepted a portion of the 2008 - $700 billion dollar bailout.

It was a Faustian deal. For a pittance, they have sold their corporate souls to the Obama Administration.

Now, day by day, instance by instance, they are discovering that they no longer own themselves. They no longer can decide for themselves what they should do, what is best for their company or what is best for their shareholders. Those decisions now belong to the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and his minions.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration plans to order companies that received huge U.S. government bailouts last year to sharply cut the compensation of their highest paid executives, according to a person familiar with the decision.

The seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 highest-paid executive by an average of about 90 percent from last year, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced.

This person said Wednesday that the Treasury Department will announce the deep pay cuts within the next few days.

Kenneth Feinberg, the special master at Treasury appointed by Obama to handle compensation issues at the seven firms getting exceptional assistance from the government's $700 billion financial bailout package, is making the pay decisions.

The seven companies are: Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

Total compensation for the top executives at the seven firms will decline, on average, by about 50 percent, according to the person familiar with the administration's decision.

Read these articles.

U.S. Said to Order Deep Pay Cuts at Bailed-Out Companies

Pay Czar to Slash Compensation at Seven Firms

US plans big pay cuts at bailout firms

Some people think that Fascism is when the corporations own the government. They have it back-ass-wards. In actuality, Fascism is when the government owns the corporations.

---

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

Bailing out small banks and small businesses.

Jim Kuhnhein reports on Obama's new push to have TARP cover small banks and small businesses. There is also some talk of extending the TARP program out to October of 2010.

Of course, the thing to worry about now is whether or not the small businesses and small banks that accept any of this bailout money will become subject to the same intimidation tactics that they feds have been playing against BofA.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama wants smaller community banks to have greater access to the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund to assist small businesses that are still suffering from a prolonged credit crunch.

Obama on Wednesday plans to announce a package of initiatives designed to increase lending, including a request that Congress increase caps for existing Small Business Administration loans, the administration said.

The new effort comes as the administration is under pressure from liberals to shift the massive bailout fund's focus away from helping big financial institutions and toward homeowners and small businesses. But it also comes as Republicans press Obama to end the rescue program and use bank repayments to reduce the national debt

The trouble with this is that once you accept the Devil's coin, you have to dance to the Devil's tune.

BofA is a prime lesson in the problems with that.


[Hat Tip RealWest @ the Corresponce Committee]

Feds threaten to "fire" BofA Execs for balking at a bad deal.

The Washington Times reports on the strange dealings of the BofA/Merrill Lynch deal of 2008. There is something very rotten at the core of all of this.

Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch - and the government's role in the deal - are the subject of a hearing Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Bank of America executives said they were told their top brass would be fired if they attempted to renegotiate their bid for Merrill by declaring what's known as a "material adverse change" (MAC) - a clause in their acquisition agreement that would allow them to walk away or renegotiate the price in light of Merrill's mounting losses.

"The Treasury and the Fed strongly stated that if we were to invoke the MAC clause and fail to close this transaction, they would remove the board and management due to the risk we would create in the system," according to draft talking points prepared by company attorneys for Mr. Lewis ahead of a Dec. 22, 2008, board meeting.

(Emphisis mine)

How does the Fed come to have the authority to fire the board and management of a private company?

If they can do this to BofA, who could resist them? (Calling Lord Acton . . .)


~~~

And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
- Lord Acton

The Internet Is Good For You!

A new study suggest that using the internet can help promote cognitive ability in the aged.

As the brain ages, a number of structural and functional changes occur, including atrophy, or decay, reductions in cell activity and increases in complex things like deposits of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which can impact cognitive function.

Research has shown that mental stimulation similar to the stimulation that occurs in individuals who frequently use the Internet may affect the efficiency of cognitive processing and alter the way the brain encodes new information.

"We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function," Dr. Gary Small, study author and professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, said in a statement.

So give Grandma a computer for Christmas. If the frustration of working with Windows doesn't drive her to destroy it, it might help keep her mentally young.

A Nobel Prize-Winning Economist's Talks "Deflation"

While some are saying that the threat of deflation has been averted, others are saying saying the opposite.

Concerns about falling prices ran high last year. They've faded recently as consumer spending has stabilized, and many economists say the recovery likely has started. Charles Evans, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, declared last month: "Deflation has been averted."

Not so fast.

Columbia University's Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winning economist, believes an extended bout of deflation is not only possible but likely.

"I think we are on the verge (of persistent deflation)," he says.

When nobody is buying, either because they are afraid to spend or they do not have anything to spend, prices can drop. They can even drop precipitously, causing an economic sinkhole to develop that can cause higher unemployment and larger profit losses.

A sour Christmas would be very bad.

A White Knuckle Christmas

Early indicators have some analyist predicting a grim Christmas.

This holiday season, don't be surprised if your gifts come from discount stores -- or if some of your friends don't buy you anything at all.

Lingering economic worries will cause holiday shoppers to trim budgets and look for more deals this year, according to a National Retail Federation survey to be released today. The survey found that U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $682.74 on holiday shopping, a 3.2% drop from $705.01 last year.

The findings are in line with recent projections by numerous analysts and retail groups that call for a flat to negative Christmas season as consumers continue to worry about their jobs and finances.

The Grinch may steal this Christmas.

Normalizing high joblessness

One way to try to cope with a high rate of unemployment would be to change what is considered normal.

WASHINGTON - Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.

That could add up to a "new normal" of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.

The words "it's different this time" are always suspect. But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can't be counted on now.

Well yah. Socialism sucks.

Further in the article:

"Many factors are pushing against a quick recovery," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute. "Things will come back. But it's going to take a long time. I think we will likely see elevated unemployment at least until 2014."

At best, many economists see an economic recovery without a return to moderate unemployment. At worst, they suggest the fragile recovery could lose steam and drag the economy back under for a double-dip recession.

"We will need to grind out this recovery step by step," President Barack Obama said earlier this month.

It is almost certainly too much to ask, but the folks in Washington D.C. could try getting the f[**]k out of the way and stop increasing the regulatory and tax burdens that they put on business. Businesses create jobs - regulation and taxation destroys them.

Jessica Watson's Big Advenure

Something grand in Australia's The Age.

TEEN sailor Jessica Watson left the marina yesterday to cheers of ''hip, hip hooray'' aboard her pink yacht, beginning her attempt to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the world

.

Such adventurers as this make all of our live richer.

We all could do such things ourselves.

Life IS worth living.

UPDATE

Check out Jessica's Blog.

Obama Dithers On Afganistan

Timesonline has an article up that discusses Obama's lack of leadership in Afghanistan.

IN Afghanistan they would call it a shura, the traditional tribal way of listening to elders’ views before reaching a consensus. In Washington, where President Barack Obama has now held five war councils, they are starting to call it dithering.

With another council on the Afghan war scheduled for this week, US officials admit it could be November before a decision is finally taken on whether to agree to General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops. One participant revealed that the protagonists have not yet discussed troop numbers.

Latest polls show a majority of Americans now disapprove of Obama’s handling of a war which may come to define his presidency. Many senior members of his own party are in open revolt.

Afghanistan seems to have transitioned in the mind of Democrats from "The Right War" to the "What War?"

These are dangerous times, made all the more dangerous by an indecisive, weak, and vacillating leader in Washington D.C. But then again, Obama is a Democrat, so it may silly to expect anything different from him.

Brazil's Olympic Drug Wars

It looks like Rio de Janeiro is on the brink of Marshal Law. Maybe things have calmed down for now, but this is not a good sign.

Rio de Janeiro has said no to an offer by the Brazilian federal government to send federal troops to police the city after Saturday's deadly confrontation between drug trafficking gangs and the military police that tried to intervene in the drug lords battle for better drug-selling spots in the Morro dos Macacos (Monkeys Hill) favela, in Vila Isabel, 6 miles from downtown Rio.

According to the authorities, the little war left 12 people dead, 10 criminals and two policemen. Saturday morning a police helicopter carrying four officers was shot by the drug dealers. The bullets hit the pilot's leg and the chopper propeller.

The pilot was able to land the helicopter in a soccer field from an Olympic Village nearby preventing a bigger tragedy had it crashed into a residential area. The chopper, however, caught fire and two of the military men were killed, the other two suffered minor burns.

The Olympics may prove to be very exciting.

Rush Versus “Unconstrained” Demagogues

Rush discusses the recent controversy over his attempt to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

As I explained on my radio show, this spectacle is bigger than I am on several levels. There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. "Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.

These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.

For the unconstrained, justice is found in the result, not in the process.

The unconstrained are easily seduced into acting on a "the ends justify the means" way of thinking.

When a person believes that justice is dependent on the result, not on the process, they will think it “just” to change the rules and processes from one person to another depending on what result they have predetermined to best serve justice.

For the unconstrained, there is a natural preference for "the rule of men" over "the rule of law."

Here's A Health To The Company

Now sing along.

Here's A Health To The Company

Kind friends and companions come join me in rhyme
Come lift up your voices in chorus with mine
Come lift up your voices all grief to refrain
For we may or might never all meet here again

So here's a health to the company and one to my lass
Let's drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let's drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may or might never all meet here again

Here's a health to the wee lass that I love so well
For style and for beauty there's none can excel
There's a smile on her countenance as she sits upon my knee
There is no man in in this wide world as happy as me

So here's a health to the company and one to my lass
Let's drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let's drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may or might never all meet here again

Our ship lies at anchor, she is ready to dock
I wish her safe landing without any shock
And if ever I should meet you by land or by sea
I will always remember your kindness to me

So here's a health to the company and one to my lass
Let's drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let's drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may or might never all meet here again

Joe "Beau" Biden III Considering A Run For The Senate

An ABC news Exclusive reports that Vice President Joe Biden's Son, "Beau," May run for his fathers old Senate seat.

After nearly a year-long tour in Iraq, Vice President Joe Biden's son, Joe "Beau" Biden III, said he is "absolutely" considering a run for the Senate seat his father occupied for 36 years.

"I'll be making the decision in due course," Biden, 40, told "Good Morning America" today in his first television interview since his return to Delaware last month amid speculation that he would make a bid for the seat.

One of a handful of elected officials to serve in Iraq since the U.S. led invasion in 2003, Biden took a leave of absence from his job as Delaware's attorney general to join his unit as a captain in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, or JAG.

The Senate race is shaping up to be a difficult one. The recent entry by Republican Rep. Mike Castle -- Delaware's only member of the House of Representatives and a popular former governor -- has complicated the outlook for Biden and transformed what was once seen as a safe Democratic seat into a toss-up.

I don't know much about the younger Biden. We will soon be given ample opportunities to learn more about him between now and the election.

I am a partisan. I think that it would be far batter if a Republican were to win that and nearly every other seat. I am however, in favor of Democrats putting up sane and respectable candidates. I hope that Joe "Beau" Biden III will be a refreshing shift away from the lunatic Pelosi type of Democrat that we have come to expect from the far left kook fringe party that the Democrats have become.

And now for something completely different.

Syrah's Spicy Spaghetti Sauce

Meats
1 lbs hamburger
1 lbs ground pork (Hot Italian if you can find it.)

Vegetables
1 onion, large. (Mayan, but any sweet variety will work.)
1 (27 oz) can of El Pato Mexican Style Hot Tomato Sauce. (The is one brand name that is important in this recipe. This stuff will give it kick without being overbearing.)
2 (14.5 oz) cans of stewed tomatoes. (Preferably Italian style.)
1 (8 oz) carton of sliced mushrooms.
2 red bell peppers. (Red is better then green. Green bell peppers are a little bitter compared to the red, yellow or orange bell peppers. Use the Red, orange or Yellow bell peppers before you use the green ones.)
7 large, fat cloves of garlic. (There is "not enough garlic" and "enough garlic", but there is no such thing as "too much garlic.")

2 (6 oz) cans of tomato paste. (Hold these off for after the simmering phase.)

Spices
Olive Oil.
Thyme
Oregano
Marjoram
Basil
Rosemary
Sage.

Spices are to taste. My method is to just dump some in. Just be careful to not pour in the whole bottle. Be mindful that some of these spices are very strong,but don't be afraid of them either. This makes a very large pot of food. (The Olive Oil is used with the browning of the meats.)

Brown the meats in two separate skillets using some Olive Oil in the pans. (Enough to cover the bottoms of the pan. I am told that I use a lot. Use what you are comfortable with.) Olive Oil is a spice. Do Not use corn, vegetable or canola oil. Use Olive Oil. Its worth it.

When the meats are browned, mix them together in your main skillet or pot. (I use a very large dutch oven iron skillet. My brother uses a large soup pot. Both work well.)

Set the heat to simmer.

Add the spices.

Add the vegetables and the sauces. (Do not add the tomato paste yet. That comes later.)

Taste for spices. Add anything that you think is understated.

Cover and let simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Stir occasionally (at least every 15 minutes) to prevent it from burning on the bottom.

After simmering for 2 to 3 hours, add the two cans of tomato paste to the sauce. Stir them in. Let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

Serve over noodles.

I like to use Angle Hair pasta but any of the long noodles will do. Macaroni or even seashell pasta works as well.

This recipe will feed 8 people.


Cautions.

My idea of what constitutes “hot” may be different than yours. I grew up on Cali-Mex cooking. I like things that are hot and spicy. I think that this is one of my most “mild” spicy recipes. Your opinion may differ.

This is a very rich and greasy sauce. Some people may want to pour off or spoon off some of the grease that will rise to the top of the sauce. That is up to you. I think the grease is a big part of what makes this recipe satisfying. The fat content of this recipe makes it a good winter dish.

I do not cook with salt. I find the salt content is best modified to taste at the table with table salt.

If you use an iron skillet. Remove the sauce from the skillet ASAP after you cook the sauce. Iron and Tomato sauces do not get along well when let to sit.

The Middle East's Gulfnews.com Notes Clinton's Failure With Russia.

The following is from an Opinion piece posted at Gulfnews.com

Clinton's main task in Russia was to get the government to agree to prepare for effective sanctions, but she was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was very clear that any talk of sanctions was counter-productive. Clinton pointed out that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expects Iran to implement its promises on its nuclear programme. But this was undermined later in the week by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who warned against intimidating Iran.

Russia is playing its very weak hand well. Its economic position is dire as the oil price has collapsed from its previous record highs. However, Russia is a former superpower and still has nuclear weapons and so it is shown more respect by the Americans than what any other country in such a state would have got.

Weakness is a terrible thing to project. This will not be good for us.

Marty Peretz: Obama Was Taken For A Ride.

Marty Peretz discusses the Obama and Clinton failure with Russia.

And, no, Obama hasn’t reset the American relationship with Russia. He was taken for a ride. Maybe his vanity won’t let him admit it. But, believe me, the Russians know they have taken him (and us) for a big ride, indeed.

Here are the facts:

After Obama agreed to cancel the missile defense program for Poland and the Czech Republic, the president got Moscow to give him an inch. Maybe, they said, we’d have to move on tougher measures against Iran if Tehran doesn’t satisfy us on its nukes. “Hallelujah!” said the president and his entourage.

All of this good cheer is now over. Lavrov greeted Clinton in Moscow with the bad news: “At the current stage, all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process. ... Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive.”

Just before Hillary arrived in Moscow, she warned that America was impatient. With whom? With the Iranians, of course. But her impatience with Tehran will be useless unless we get impatient with Russia.

“We did not ask for anything today,” she said. “We reviewed the situation and where it stood, which I think was the appropriate timing for what this process entails.”

Of course, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. In fact, with the Russians, if you don’t demand and threaten a little, you get zero.

The world is less safe now that Obama is President.

Madeleine Albright: USA No Longer Intends To Be World's No.1 State

Pravda will sometimes print the truth.

Madeleine Albright said during the meeting that America no longer had the intention of being the first nation of the world.

Ms. Albright started her speech in Russian. “Hello and thank you! It’s a pleasure for me to be here,” she said in Russian. Albright wrote in her autobiography that she was trying to learn some Russian during the 1960s.

The former US Secretary of State surprised the audience with her speech. She particularly said that democracy was not the perfect system. “It can be contradictory, corrupt and may have security problems,” Albright said.

America has been having hard times recently, Albright said.

“We have been talking about our exceptionalism during the recent eight years. Now, an average American wants to stay at home – they do not need any overseas adventures. We do not need new enemies,” Albright said adding that Beijing, London and Delhi became a serious competition for Washington and New York.

“My generation has made many mistakes. We give the future into the hands of the young. Your prime goal is to overcome the gap between the poor and the rich,’ the former head of the US foreign political department said.

And the Obama Administration remains clueless on why the Russians are treating them with such contempt.