The Global Warming Debate, by Mike Ramirez

Eduard Zorita, Why I think that Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred from the IPCC process

A prominent climatologist inScientist at the Institute for Coastal Research, the Department of Paleoclimate, which is part of the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht, Germany, named Eduard Zorita has written a statement that demands that those researchers who are the heart of Climategate be banned from further involvement in the IPCC process. Here is his statement:

Why I think that Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred from the IPCC process,
November 2009

Short answer: because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore.

A longer answer: My voice is not very important. I belong to the climate-research infantry, publishing a few papers per year, reviewing a few manuscript per year and participating in a few research projects. I do not form part of important committees, nor I pursue a public awareness of my activities. My very minor task in the public arena was to participate as a contributing author in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.

By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication. My area of research happens to be the climate of the past millennia, where I think I am appreciated by other climate-research 'soldiers'. And it happens that some of my mail exchange with Keith Briffa and Timothy Osborn can be found in the CRU-files made public recently on the internet.

To the question of legality or ethicalness of reading those files I will write a couple of words later.

I may confirm what has been written in other places: research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies, and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU-files. They depict a realistic, I would say even harmless, picture of what the real research in the area of the climate of the past millennium has been in the last years. The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.

These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to tweak their data so as to fit the 'politically correct picture'. Some, or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties under a unified picture. I had the 'pleasure' to experience all this in my area of research.

I thank explicitely Keith Briffa and Tim Osborn for their work in the formulation of one Chapter of the IPCC report. As it destills from these emails, they withstood the evident pressure of other IPCC authors, not experts in this area of research, to convey a distorted picture of our knowledge of the hockey-stick graph.

Is [it] legal or ethical to read the CRU files? I am not a lawyer. It seems that if the files had been hacked this would constitute an illegal act. If they have been leaked it could be a whistle blower action protected by law. I think it is not unethical to read them. Once published, I feel myself entitled to read how some researchers tried to influence reviewers to scupper the publication of our work on the 'hockey stick graph' or to read how some IPCC authors tried to exclude this work from the IPCC Report on very dubious reasons. Also, these mails do not contain any personal information at all. They are an account of many dull daily activities of typical climatologists, together with a realistic account of very troubling professional behavior.

D. D. Eisenhower: Government Shouldn't Support Scientific Research

In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States warned in his farewell speech not to trust the "military-industrial complex." That's a well know comment and is regularly quoted by the Left when criticising Defense Budgets. What is far less known is a quote warning against Government support of scientific research.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 {emphasis mine, ed.}

To me, this means that we must not allow public policy to be driven solely by the research/studies of a limited number of scientists...as has come to pass with AGW. Our government is proposing to raise a staggering amount of money through "Cap & Trade" of carbon "credits" through direct taxation, as well as indirect (fines and fees). This will have a tremendous impact upon our society, not to mention our civilization, because literally, just about everything will rise steeply in price.

When you throw in the prospect of a Value Added Tax on pretty much everything, you can easily predict what will happen to our depressed economy: We as a country, as well as the rest of the world, excepting India & China (who flat out refuse to be a party to economic suicide), will spiral into a prolonged and deep economic pit. One that will make the "Great Depression of the late 1920's and 1930's look like a short-term blip in the economic road.

Fortunately, a whistle-blower at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia (it's pretty much now accepted that the 64 MB file dump wasn't done by a hacker) may very well have single handedly headed off western civilization's economic self-destruction. Because depending upon "settled" science that is anything but settled is beyond stupid and enters the realm of imbecility.

The implications that have been revealed by the emails that have now gone viral all across the net is mind blowing. A handful off researches have warped the "peer review process beyond belief. Having scientific papers "reviewed" by other climatologist who have authored papers with those who are presenting articles/research for publication is a conflict of interest of the highest sort. Additionally, they have labored to get editor's whom they view unfavorably fired from journals for publishing papers that were critical of the cabal's positions.

As the late Billy May would say, "but wait, there's more"...the icing on the cake are emails from the climatologists associated with the CRU to researchers around the globe urging them to delete emails and data that might come under the purview of Freedom of Information Act requests, both in the UK as well as the US. Then according to UEA, the CRU's basic untainted data, was accidentally "lost", and all that remains is the "massaged" data. When you add in that the New Zealand government's official climate agency appears to have altered data that pertains to historical temperatures within New Zealand...as well as issues with France's database that looks to have been manipulated as well. Additionally, recently NASA, through their climate agency located at the Goddard facility in Maryland, altered their data base to reflect temperatures that were lower than "originally" reported.

Oddly enough, many of the scientists who work at these various places, have at one time or another, have authored papers with one another that "validate" the science of AGW. When you consider that nearly all present research is based upon studies that have apparently been altered to fit a predetermined goals, and a political agenda, upon which ALL of the various laws that are proposed or have been enacted for capping and trading of carbon emissions have been based is...disconcerting to say the least.

Now, Mr. Obama is preparing to head to Copenhagen, Denmark for the United Nations Climate Change Conference hosted by the Danes on behalf of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to present a plan wherein the United States will reduce it's carbon emissions by 17%. Factor in China (who surpassed the US this year as the single largest producer of CO2) and India's (who will pass the US in production of CO2 next spring) refusal to be bound by any agreements along with the inability of Europe to remain anywhere near those goals they set for themselves and any possible agreement that could come from Copenhagen, based upon the CRU's tainted data...is a travesty and utterly ridiculous as well as economic suicide.

American's Who Oppose Government Siezure of Health Care Increasing

Gallop's new poll on ObamaCare is yet another round of depressing news for this Administration:

Americans currently tilt against Congress’ passing health care legislation, with 49% saying they would advise their member to vote against a bill (or they lean that way) and 44% saying they would advocate a vote in favor of the bill (or lean toward advising a yes vote). …

Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to new health care legislation — 86% would advise their member of Congress to vote against it, while 12% would want their member to support it. Democrats, on the other hand, favor it by a 76% to 17% margin. Independents oppose passage of a bill by 53% to 37%.

Support among all three party groups has declined since the early October high — falling by 6 points among Democrats, 8 among independents, and 12 among Republicans. However, Democratic support recovered somewhat from early November (71%) to late November (76%).

The only way I could possibly support any of the bills under consideration, would be if Congress had NOT SPECIFICALLY EXEMPTED ITSELF from coverage of those bills. If it's good enough for us peons, then WTF isn't it good enough for them?

Food Stamps: The US County By County

Here's a link to the NYTimes map of food stamp usage, county by county. The proportion of which ethnic group is the largest recipient of government largess is...intersting to say the least.

Health Care Polls, Consolidated

Here's a link to a number of different polls on the popularity of government seizure of health care from various sources, such as CNN, Fox, ABC, etc.

ClimateGate, What It's About: A Synopsys

The following, in it's entirety was found i the comments of TigerHawk, a blog by a professor of Princeton University. It's a great synopsis of what ClimateGate is about. It was posted by the ubiquitous anonymous poster (though TigerHawk has his email address/IPP)...I decided to post the entire (2) entries because they are an excellent brief on what the brouhaha is all about.

By Anonymous, at Sun Nov 29, 12:07:00 PM:

Following is copied from another source but is quite illuminating:

"An easy explanation of what ClimateGate means,

ClimateGate emails and computer programs were taken from a main server at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. It is not known if this was a theft or the actions of a whistleblower, disgusted with what the lead scientists at CRU were doing.

ClimateGate exposed the cabal of 20 – 30 scientists (not just at CRU) that peer reviewed each others papers, strong-armed scientific journals to only print their views, and then sat on the IPCC panels as authors judging which published studies go into the IPCC final reports. This is why they always keep shouting “peer reviewed studies, peer reviewed studies, peer reviewed studies”. They owned the peer review process.

ClimateGate exposed that this small group has been adding positive corrections to the raw global temperature data, inflating the amount of published temperature rise over the last 50 years. Both CRU in the UK and NASA-GISS in the US add these biases. At CRU, the programmers did not even know what and why some corrections were added every month. Only since satellite monitoring for comparison have the amounts of biasing leveled off.

ClimateGate exposed the leaders of this cabal instructing each other to delete emails, data files, and data analysis programs ahead of already filed Freedom Of Information Act requests for raw data and computer codes, clearly a crime.

ClimateGate exposed the “trick” about the Hockey stick figure and other studies that performed proxy construction of past temperatures. After all, reconstruction of the last 1,000 years of climate is the first step in predicting the future with super computer programs as explained below:

Everything about all 21 super computer programs used by the IPCC to determine future global warming rely on best-determined past sensitivities to solar and volcanic effects (climate forcings) from the proxy temperature record.

1. The elimination of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age (the handle of the hockey stick) was necessary so that past solar effects could be minimized, thereby allowing almost all of the warming in the last 75 years to be blamed on Greenhouse Gasses. Raw data (like tree-ring thickness, radioisotope of mud layers in a lake bottom, ice core analyses, etc.) are used as a proxy for reconstruction of the temperature record for 1000 AD to 1960 AD. To ensure desired results, statistical manipulation of the raw data and selecting only supporting data, cherry-picking, was suspected and later proved.

2. The slope of long-term 10-year running average global temperature using thermometers from 1900 to present (the blade of the hockey stick) was maximized with the sloppy gridding code, Urban Heat Island effects, hiding the declines, and even fabricating data (documented in the leaked source code comments revealed with ClimateGate). This ensured that the Greenhouse Gas effect coefficient in all 21 of the super computers was maximized, and that maximizes the temperature result at year 2100 based on Greenhouse Gas increases. This thermometer data was used to replace the tree ring-divergence after 1960 and plot this over the climate history data of (1) above giving the false impression that the reconstructed 1000 AD to 1960 AD results are more accurate than they are.

continuing ....

By Anonymous, at Sun Nov 29, 12:13:00 PM:

contiunuing ...

3. Because tuning of the super computer programs uses back casting, the computer outputs could always replicate the 20th Century (by design); therefore it was assumed that the models had almost everything in them. Because of (1) and (2) above, nearly all climate change predicted by the models was due to CO2 and positive feedbacks and hardly any of the climate change was for other reasons like solar, understood or not.

4. Over the years, when better numbers for volcanic effects, black carbon, aerosols, land use, ocean and atmospheric multi-decadal cycles, etc. became available, it appears that CRU made revisions to refit the back cast, but could hardly understand what the code was doing due to previous correction factor fudging and outright fabricating, as documented in the released code as part of ClimateGate.

5. After the IPCC averages the 21 super computer outputs of future projected warming (anywhere from 2-degrees to 7-degrees, not very precise), that output is used to predict all manner of catastrophes. (Fires, floods, droughts, blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, insects, extinctions, diseases, civil wars, cats & dogs sleeping together, etc.)"

This seems to be an accurate assessment of what happened. Should we be surprised that the models have failed to predict the last ten years? What's scary is that they models could have been half right, because of dumb luck.


If this assessment is correct, the World has been had by an epic conspiracy. If so, the hockey stick is at the center of this, which implicates Michael Mann. What did Al Gore know and when did he know it?

ClimateGate Video

The Wisdom of Plato

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is that they end up being ruled by men worse then themselves.

Plato, 428-348 BCE

I've never run into this quote before...but it strikes me as being VERY pertinent in this day and age. I've just finished reading an interesting article from the London Daily Mail, newspaper, wherein those who lived through World War 2 have become deeply disenchanted with how British society has become twisted over the past 60 years.

The title of the article says it all: "'This isn't the Britain we fought for,' say the 'unknown warriors' of WWII" and is based upon a book by Tyneside writer, 33-year-old Nicholas Pringle. He began gathering letters and surveys from men and women in their 80's and 90's and lived during the war. What he found astounded him. In total, he received a few more than 150 letters that detailed the thoughts and feelings of these men and women about the turn that British society has taken.

When you look at the letters themselves there is a simple truth that quickly emerges, and that is these men and women have the government.

They feel, in a word that leaps out time and time again, 'betrayed'.
New Labour, said one ex-commando who took part in the disastrous Dieppe raid in which 4,000 men were lost, was 'more of a shambles than some of the actions I was in during the war, and that's saying something!'
He added: 'Those comrades of mine who never made it back would be appalled if they could see the world as it is today.

'They would wonder what happened to the Brave New World they fought so damned hard for.'

Time after time, letter after letter, this contempt for Political Correctness and Multiculturalism rises to the fore. But it is in the comments section where the disgust for the turn of the government away from traditional English/British/UK values really shines through. Here is a sampling:

"'Our country has been given away to foreigners while we, the generation who fought for freedom, are having to sell our homes for care and are being refused medical services because incomers come first.' Her words may be offensive to many - and rightly so."

In Heaven's name, WHY is that offensive?
- Ray, Birmingham, UK, 21/11/2009 5:06
Click to rate Rating 994Report abuse

My dad died some years ago - funny, I was saying just the other day that if he came back now he just wouldn't recognise this country. Not only that, he'd be furious, indignant, disgusted and above all bewildered. A profoundly decent bloke, like many of his generation, he would feel betrayed by modern Britain's obsession with triviality, lies, filth and smut. What a contemptible nation we have become.
- John, Halton, England, 21/11/2009 4:48
Click to rate Rating 754Report abuse

These brave men and women won't be around for much longer - much to the governments pleasure. The path will then be clear to complete the population replacement from 3rd world countries without their generations dissent.
- Bob McKenzie, London, UK, 21/11/2009 4:47
Click to rate Rating 723Report abuse

I feel more at home here (France) than in my homeland ENGLAND!!! Can anyone here explain why Britain, especially England, had to become multi- culti? Why???
- ed, france, 21/11/2009 4:46
Click to rate Rating 661Report abuse

.We are losing our National identity and are being bullied into submission by those in power. They know there is nothing that we can do. It is too late. We slavishly adhere to the various EU dictats, most of which are ignored on mainland Europe. We dutifully sort out our recycling items, putting them into the correct containers, whilst those paid to do the job, watch. H&S regulations and greedy, US Insurance giants are killing off traditions such as Bonfire Night. Police do nothing, or have their hands tied, when it comes to dealing with the yobs who roam the streets. The so called Human Rights Act is nothing but a sham. Another stick to beat us with. The only people that are protected by the equality Law are those from different ethnic backgrounds. Our titles, Mr.Mrs,Miss are no longer used, lack of respect again. society has been levelled according to the lowest common enominator. An elderly gentleman in our street always greets me by touching his cap. Manners.
- andrea m preston, glastonbury uk, 21/11/2009 4:39
Click to rate Rating 633

Multiculturalism is a failed experiment, and sadly, only the people who once knew a homogeneous Britain seem smart enough to understand that. But carry on, Britain, carry on putting your own native people in jail for thought crimes and wondering why Orwell's 1984 has come true on your very streets. Keep on getting laughed at by your own Government and by the legions of unappreciative immigrants who come to your country to specifically sit on the dole. Maybe when sharia law is instituted, you'll finally understand what the people in this article were talking about. A nation fit for kings, how did it come to this?
- Fenria, USA, 21/11/2009 3:06
Click to rate Rating 221

How right are these comments. The war veterans are not the only age group with these sentiments; believe me, there are lots of us out here. What to do about our country? The mainstream politicians are a sorry bunch who will not tread outside party lines or they will be deselected. This is the sad truth - individual thinkers not allowed. Some of our greatest leaders of the 20th century would definitely not be selected now. Winston Churchill? Forget it, he wouldn't even get to the interview stage these days. If we want our country to at least take some steps to repair the damage, then think very carefully who we vote for.

Don't vote along your traditional party lines - we will just elect another robot. Listen to exactly what our candidates are saying. Study their body language and sincerity. Are they in it for their own gain or do they really care? If things get much worse the British will rise up, and you know what suppressed anger is like when it finally bursts.
- Roger, London, England, 21/11/2009 1:52
Click to rate Rating 158

It's no wonder that the British National Party (BNP) won a surprising number of seats in the EU parliament this year. I suspect that in the coming election that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been attempting to postpone in order to hang onto power just that much longer will be a shock to many people in the British political elites. I suspect that the BNP will win at least 20, but perhaps as many as 40 seats...that may not sound like a lot, but it will see them getting at least one ministerial portfolio as they will be the natural alliess of the Tory Party (conservatives).

How does this apply to the United States, you ask...ours is the first generation that has not demanded that recent immigrants become absorbed by our society. In the past 40 or so years, the "multi-kulti" has become the dominant theme. In the past, during the period of colonization, our fore bearers saw themselves as Englishmen first, Americans second. It was following the French & Indian Wars that there emerged the concept of being Americans first. The entire basis of our separation from England was that we, as a country, were being denied our basic rights as Englishmen. That we were not being allowed a voice in the general running of the then colonies. That period is the emergence of the concept that we were Americans FIRST! and not in fact Englishmen.

Now, with the leftist concept of multiculturalism, minorities/immigrants used to be polish-AMERICANS, italian-AMERICANS, with the emphasis on being AMERICAN. Now, we have completely reversed that concept: AFRO-americans, HISPANIC-americans, ASIAN-americans. This is having the effect of a general breakdown of social values, with the concurrent breakdown of "family-values". Our children are now being taught that there is nothing special about "America" and what it means to be an American. That in fact, America is the root of all the worlds ills...this despite the simple fact that many people around the world desperately want to come here and better themselves and the lives of their children.

If this trend continues, this country will be a very different place that what we were even 20 years ago. I don't think that this is a good thing. The "Hope & Change" that Mr. Obama is attempting to do is to merely make our country a mirror of Europe...along with all that entails...a much expanded government interference in the lives of the citizenry as well as a huge increase in taxation to pay for those who no longer are productive members of the work force.

Dreams of Diocletion Or A 3rd Pary?

Over at the reclusiveleftist.com, they're talking about abandoning the Democratic party and forming a new "3rd Party"...

When the Roman Empire was broken, Diocletian fixed it. He completely revamped the imperial government, discarding centuries of tradition in favor of a new organizational structure designed to meet the challenges of the day. You can do stuff like that when you’re an emperor. It was sort of a one-man Constitutional Convention.

I think of Diocletian whenever I contemplate the political mess in this country. We are broken and busted and in desperate need of change. And no, I don’t mean “change we can believe in,” which is obviously change we can’t believe in. If representative democracy is ever going to work again, I think we need to find a way around the existing two major parties. That’s what we were talking about in this thread, and it’s why I decided to put up this post.

The original impetus for this discussion was the Stupak amendment, which brought with it the realization (or confirmation, for some of us) that the Democrats really, really aren’t the party of women’s rights.

To quote Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame:

HAVE THINGS GOTTEN SO BAD THAT WE’RE dreaming of Diocletian? I think he’s a poor model. He took power in a military coup, vastly enlarged the bureaucracy, and tried to solve inflation caused by lousy fiscal policy with price controls, a disastrous failure. He persecuted Christians, and though he purchased some temporary stability via authoritarianism, he didn’t address the core problems and left an empire that was, overall, weaker than before. It says bad things when core Democratic constituencies think that’s what we need now . . . . Hope and change, anyone?

I think that Violet of reclusiveleftist is missing something here. The party that she desires to form would be a fringe/radical party that might at best, elect a few city council/state representatives scattered around the country much like the Green Party has.

The thing is, there is already a third party beginning to coalesce in many parts of the country. It seems to be made up of moderates and independents of BOTH parties who are disgusted with the “business as usual/inside the beltway” mentality that reigns in Washington, DC. The Dem’s have shifted hard left this year, the GOP has become “Dem Lite” (”we’ll just spend a little less” and call ourselves a different party” of the past eight years) and neither party is at all responsive to the moderates (left/centre, right/centre).

That’s where the “Tea Party” protesters are coming from, they’re neither far right, nor left. Their social agenda is that of moderates. Most are FISCALLY conservative which is a horse of a far different colour from a “socially conservative” movement. By far the vast majority of these people want responsible government, not government that spends us into the poor house, or mortgages our great grand children’s future earnings to pay for NOW. Additionally, they want a balanced budget.

If you're going to spend more money on one thing, then you have to cut somewhere else, not borrow money that our decendants will have to foot the bill for. They're not ignorant rednecks crawling out of the back woods to spew invective, most have never gotten involved in any political arena beyond voting. Now, this past spring and summer, for the first time in their lives, they are getting involved and actually attending "congressional town hall meetings" and voicing their opinions. Most Congressmen, only have proforma "town halls" where their supporters are the only ones who attend. By having a very large group of people in attendance who not only don't support the policies that are being pushed in Washington, they vehemently oppose them, and that has scared, not jut their Congressmen, but the Main Stream Media as well.

If you look back at our own history, you’ll see that the Republican Party formed in the late 1840’s/early 1850’s through dissatisfaction with the then crumbling Whig party. They also gathered up more socially conscience people from the Democratic party…but I think that what we are witnessing now, is the coalesces of a new party that is a wee might different from the GOP.

Because, let me tell you, the “base” of the GOP is very unhappy with their leadership. Especially so over the past 6 years. The free spending ways of the former GOP majority in Congress genuinely angered a lot of people. That’s why the GOP lost their majority in 2006, and it’s seats in Congress shrank again last year.

On the other hand, with the economy in the dumps, people are very frightened of the huge increase in spending this year. Which is why independents/moderates are fleeing from support of the Dem’s in such large numbers now. If you take a look at the movement in polls over the past several months you’ll see the trend. It’s pretty obvious to see, unless you live inside the beltway.

But any way, I’ve written on this a couple of times on my blog. But as far down this is on your post, I doubt seriously if anyone will pay attention. Thanks for letting me vent.

Climategate Documents

Hit the title for the complete list and down loadable files/data sets/emails for all the of the Climategate docs. Some of the excerpts of emails within the archives (edited for brevity, emphasis added):

From Michael E. Mann (withholding of information / data):

Dear Phil and Gabi,
I’ve attached a cleaned-up and commented version of the matlab code that I wrote for doing the Mann and Jones (2003) composites. I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.

From Nick McKay (modifying data):

The Korttajarvi record was oriented in the reconstruction in the way that McIntyre said. I took a look at the original reference – the temperature proxy we looked at is x-ray density, which the author interprets to be inversely related to temperature. We had higher values as warmer in the reconstruction, so it looks to me like we got it wrong, unless we decided to reinterpret the record which I don’t remember. Darrell, does this sound right to you?

From Tom Wigley (acknowleding the urban effect):

We probably need to say more about this. Land warming since 1980 has been twice the ocean warming — and skeptics might claim that this proves that urban warming is real and important.

From Phil Jones (modification of data to hide unwanted results):

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

From Kevin Trenberth (failure of computer models):

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

From Michael Mann (truth doesn't matter):

Perhaps we'll do a simple update to the Yamal post, e.g. linking Keith/s new page--Gavin t? As to the issues of robustness, particularly w.r.t. inclusion of the Yamal series, we actually emphasized that (including the Osborn and Briffa '06 sensitivity test) in our original post! As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations.

From Phil Jones (withholding of data):

The skeptics seem to be building up a head of steam here! ... The IPCC comes in for a lot of stick. Leave it to you to delete as appropriate! Cheers Phil
PS I’m getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !

From Michael E. Mann (using a website to control the message, hide dissent):

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you’re free to use RC [RealClimate.org - A supposed neutral climate change website] Rein any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through, and we’ll be very careful to answer any questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you’d like us to include.

From Phil Jones (withholding of data):

If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them.

Seriosly, don't take my word for it. Take a look at the files themselves. They are quite damning. Even more importantly, I spent the last few days trying to make the smallest of the computer models work. I have some experience with coding using FORTRAN77. The programs are a mess and literally don't work.

Mostly, I feel very sorry for the mysterious "Harry" who spent 3 years trying to make these programs work. He must be a gibbering idiot by now. I gave up after a few days and this porr man spent over 3 years trying to make the operate in the manner CRU claimed they would. No wonder why the CRU was hiding it. They can't make their models work, much less match the historical trends. Nor can they show in their models that they can accurately predict the future, much less match the present and historical date.

Yet, we are told that the science is "settled" and if you present a countervailing view, you are a "denier" and are the equivalent of someone who denies they Holocaust took place. It certainly appears to me that not only has the science not been "settled" but they haven't reached the level of a theory, only that of a hypothesis. I always learned way back in grade school, that scientific research started with an idea, which was then built into a hypothesis:

A hypothesis (from Greek ὑπόθεσις; plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon...People refer to a trial solution to a problem as a hypothesis — often called an "educated guess"[5] — because it provides a suggested solution based on the evidence. Experimenters may test and reject several hypotheses before solving the problem.

But, if you deny any other hypothesis as invalid, without either testing, or modeling are you not creating invalid science yourself? Therein lies the problem here as I see it. These men are not only denying access to their data/models, but they are refusing to allow anyone else to test their hypothetical models, thus they don't have a theory, and the science is not only not "settle" but they are imposing a viewpoint that hasn't been proven in any manner at all.

It is upon this base that they demand that our entire civilization completely alter the way we create energy, and how we approach our daily lives. That's not science, it's politics and perhaps economics, but it's certainly not politics.

Happy Thanksgiving Day, 2009

I give thanks for being an American and having the freedom to voice my opinion, that's not an option in many places in this wide world of ours. For that I give thanks to G-d, B''H!

The Real Cost of ObamaCare

Here's a graph showing the real cost of ObamaCare. It's really a Congressional shell game. Congress claims that the government seizure of the health care industry will only coast $1.2 trillion dollars over it's 1st 10 years. That's a lie. Because the first 4 years, costs will be minimal, while the taxation will be huge. On the other hand, once the plan is actually implemented, in it's first 10 years of usage, it will cost $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS, that's more than double it's "projected" first 10 year costs. This is, again, because it won't be fully implemented in the first 4 years of the "10 year plan". Thus, the Democratic leadership in Congress is lying to America in order to make their plan for ObamaCare merely SEEM to be saving money.It goes without saying the if Congress was actually going to be covered by the plan they are foisting off on the rest of us, the pill they are shoving down our throats wouldn't be nearly so bitter.

Global Warming Is Not Settle Science, It's a Hoax

Ian Plimer, posting at Pajamasmedia.com makes some very interesting points in his column today. He relates that in recorded history, there have been several periods of warming and cooling. During the Roman Era, there was a 600-year long period of warming wherein temperatures were as much as 4ºC warmer than now. The "seas did not rise", but neither did the world's ice sheets melt. On the contrary, human civilization reached one of it's periods of tremendous advances.

During the period that followed, the Dark Ages, when "civilization" collapsed under the invasions of the west by various German tribes and the Huns, was an extended period of cooling that was accompanied by starvation, disease, and the serious decline in population.

In roughly the 10th Century occur ed what has been called the Medieval Warming period. It's during this period that the cultivation of grapes was for several hundred years, was successful...in of all places, England. For more than 400 years it was considerably warmer, perhaps as much as 5ºC warmer. Once again, the "seas did not rise" nor did the ice sheets disappear. What came next has been called the "The Little Ice Age" when temperatures were much colder and remained until roughly 1850. It comes as no surprise that after 4 Centuries of cooling, temperature began to rise once more. Plim states that,

Unless I have missed something, I am not aware of heavy industry, coal-fired power stations, or SUVs in the 1,000 years of Roman and Medieval Warmings. These natural warmings are a dreadful nuisance for climate alarmists because they suggest that the warming since 1850 may be natural and may not be related to carbon dioxide emissions.

There was warming from 1860 to 1880, 1910 to 1940, and 1976 to 1998, with intervening periods of cooling. The only time when temperature rise paralleled carbon dioxide emissions was 1976-1998. The other warmings and coolings in the last 150 years were unrelated to carbon dioxide emissions.

Something is seriously wrong. To argue that humans change climate requires abandoning all we know about history, archaeology, geology, astronomy, and solar physics. This is exactly what has been done.

Files from the UK Climatic Research Unit were hacked. They show that data was massaged, numbers were fudged, diagrams were biased, there was destruction of data after freedom of information requests, and there was refusal to submit taxpayer-funded data for independent examination.

Data were manipulated to show that the Medieval Warming didn’t occur, and that we are not in a period of cooling. Furthermore, the warming of the 20th century was artificially inflated.

The answer to this enigma was revealed last week. It is fraud.

Plim is right, and here is the smoking gun. It's an email from:

From: Kevin Trenberth

To: Michael Mann

Subject: Re: BBC U-turn on climate

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:57:37 -0600

Cc: Stephen H Schneider, Myles Allen, peter stott, “Philip D. Jones”, Benjamin Santer, Tom Wigley, Thomas R Karl, Gavin Schmidt, James Hansen, Michael Oppenheimer

Hi all

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low.

This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on Saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather). …

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Emphasis is mine...and well placed. The scientists themselves at CRU admit that they can't replicate historica data, much less predict the future.

Presidential Cabinet's Business Experience Since 1900

Here's a rather shocking graphic showing the business experience (in percentages) of all the Presidents since 1900. In a surprising turn, NO Democratic President since Harry Tuman has reached even 50%, but this President, who genuinely NEEDS some advisors with experience in private industry, not even 10% of his cabinet appointments have experience in the private sector. That's a telling result, and goes a long way to explain the mess Mr. Obama is making of things. It also explains the Keynsian approach to economics that he has adopted. It's a favorite point of argument for academics who have never actually ventured outside of a classroom and had to deal with real life issues...so, I expect Mr. Obama to to use try yet another round of deficit "stimulus" as a way of fixing the economy. It won't work any better than the last one did, but they will TRY.

Global Warming?

We'll Go On Without Their Support

Climategate Implosion is Bush’s Fault

Climategate Implosion is Bush’s Fault", so says the Anchoress. In wonderfully written post she gives an excellent explaination of why the MSM WILL NOT REPORT CLIMATEGATE. Here in brief is her hypothosis...see I too can use scientificlikebigwordsandsoundreallysmart:

It’s Bush’s fault: if Bush had not fought back when CBS News called Florida for Al Gore before polls in the panhandle had closed, if Bush had not taken Gore’s selective re-count to the Supreme Court, if Bush had just taken those hanging chads like a man and allowed Al Gore to ascend to the presidency (as he’d been groomed to do before he sighed and fumed his way through debates, put his common sense into a lockbox and stumbled into the Buddhist convent, discovering the existence of “no controlling legal authority,”) whether the Vice-President actually won or not (the NY Times eventually admitted “not”) then Al Gore would not have had to seek redemption and his fortune in climate hucksterism, and the left would not have had to over-indulge him in it, overcompensating in order to “kick Bush in the leg.”

That’s basically it. The AGW/Climate Change question became a rigorous boondoggle that got out of control not because the scientist who first suggested a connection between human carbon emission and a change in climate were bad people, or that the question was not worth asking, but because bad people then took the uncertain hypothesis, put it on media-fueled steroids, demonized anyone who disagreed with them, made it political -so much so that even the scientists got caught up in the good/bad, smart/stupid, Gore/Bush, Left/Right identifiers- and found real power there; they allowed the AGW movement to become the dubious centering pole upholding the giant circus tent of their worldviews.

As such, it is not permitted to be shaken. Shake the centering pole, and everything could come tumbling down: Oh. My. Gawd! If the Gore-doubters were right about this, what else might they be right about? And if they’re all stupid, and I’m smart, but they’re right and I’m wrong . . .

Implosion.

If the true-believers of AGW got this wrong, and they’d attached it to all of their politics, all of their hate, all of their superiority, then everything is in a free-fall.

And this is why the mainstream media cannot possibly report on Climategate until they have an acceptable counter-narrative that they can haul out in order to either debunk the story or soften its edges, even as they break the news.

The press, who spent a huge portion of their credibility convincing America that

I literally thanked her for putting into words that which I had not the wit to say...

Climategate: Expert Prognosis, Hack Was Inside Job

An excellent sysopsis of how a hack is done has been posted on "Its Tea Time" blog.

Hit the title to a link for a full read...and I suggest that you read "the whole thing" as Glenn Reynolds would say.

An often cited statistic above is "80% of hacks are from insiders". True, but it does depend on what manner of hack to stay within that statistic. Further, many hacks are simply not reported.

Will's conclusion is that the hack was conducted by someone on the inside who is angry that at FOIA request was denied. He concludes this from the date/time of some of the last emails, etc.:

Update: I found the following report from Steve McIntyre's blog (a prominent climate change critic) pointing out further evidence it may have been an insider, based partly on a very recent FOIA refusal from CRU.

Additionally, he concludes that, I am, personally still not ruling out the possibility of an outside, foreign intelligence agency being behind the hack. This is because of the monetary motive, the sophistication of the release, the history of intelligence based hacking against even human rights organizations, and the history of such attacks being generally something which comes "from the outside" when the logs are posted publicly. It should be noted that this would be an extremely dangerous, diplomatically attack to perform. So, in this case, the FOIA angle would be cover, or as they say, "plausible deniability". A red herring.

For me, this simply raises the probability this hack was performed "from the inside".

Realclimate.org Billed As In The Pocket Of Climategate Scientists

It appears that the website realclimate.org has been in fact a rubber stamp for Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW) supporters, and that they have been censoring any comments or articles that oppose any of the "scientists" working in the AGW field. They have evidently refused to publish any articles that are skeptical of AGW as well as refusing to post comments on their website of those who might oppose AGW as being settled science

For example, RealClimate.org has been billed as an objective website at which global warming activists and skeptics can engage in an impartial debate. But in the CRU e-mails, the global warming establishment boasts that RealClimate is in their pocket.

Here is the memo in question, emphasis is mine:

From: "Michael E. Mann"
To: Tim Osborn , Keith Briffa
Subject: update
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:51:53 -0500
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: Gavin Schmidt


guys, I see that Science has already gone online w/ the new issue, so we
put up the RC post. By now, you've probably read that nasty McIntyre
thing. Apparently, he violated the embargo on his website (I don't go
there personally, but so I'm informed).

Anyway, I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way
you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about
what comments we screen through, and we'll be very careful to answer any
questions that come up to any extent we can. On the other hand, you
might want to visit the thread and post replies yourself. We can hold
comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think
they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd
like us to include.
You're also welcome to do a followup guest post, etc. think of RC as a
resource that is at your disposal to combat any disinformation put
forward by the McIntyres of the world. Just let us know. We'll use our
best discretion to make sure the skeptics dont'get to use the RC
comments as a megaphone...
mike

--
Michael E. Mann
Associate Professor
Director, Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Department of Meteorology Phone: (814) 863-4075
503 Walker Building FAX: (814) 865-3663
The Pennsylvania State University email: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
University Park, PA 16802-5013

http://www.met.psu.edu/dept/faculty/mann.htm

In other words, we will do everything in our power to support the "party line" on AGW, regardless of the ethical issues involved. Science is supposed to be about the free flow of ideas. That by publishing your findings, you then make public your data and methods hoping that someone will be able to reproduce your findings. The fact that no one has been able to use ANY of the data (oh and by the way, so sorry, but we seem to have lost the information you were seeking, better luck next time) and thus not been able to replicate any of the theories (thus the science ISN'T SETTLED as AGW supporters claim) tends to buttress the claims of those who say AGW is bunk. As Robert Tracinski states in a realclearpolitics.com article:

The picture that emerges is simple. In any discussion of global warming, either in the scientific literature or in the mainstream media, the outcome is always predetermined. Just as the temperature graphs produced by the CRU are always tricked out to show an upward-sloping "hockey stick," every discussion of global warming has to show that it is occurring and that humans are responsible. And any data or any scientific paper that tends to disprove that conclusion is smeared as "unscientific" precisely because it threatens the established dogma.

For more than a decade, we've been told that there is a scientific "consensus" that humans are causing global warming, that "the debate is over" and all "legitimate" scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this "consensus" really means. What it means is: the fix is in.

This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It's the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being "confused" by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

This is the scandal of the century. It needs to be thoroughly investigated-and the culprits need to be brought to justice.

Der Spiegel On Obama: Another Jimmy Carter

After of year of trying a "nicer" approach to foreign policy even Der Spiegel, a left leaning glossy magazine from Germany is comparing Mr. Obama to the failed presidency of James Earl Carter. You know, the "man from Plains, GA" who was going to bring a softer face to America's appearance to the world...

Obama's advisers fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."

But the comparisons to the Carter Administration are easy to make, Mr. Carter repeatedly refused to take strong stands on any foreign policy issue, preferring instead to talk, talk and talk some more. Even when the new Islamic Republic virtually declared war on this country by seizing the Embassy in Tehran, which until the advent of the Carter Doctrine WAS a declaration of war. Mr. Carter preferred to attempt a commando style raid instead of more direct action. A raid, by the way, which ultimately failed. That failure brought world wide derision and was a direct contribution to his being "retired by the electorate". That by the way is the phrase Mr. Carter uses to refer to his crushing defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Once again, we have a President who refuses to pick up the "big stick" as advocated by the first progressive President, Theodore Roosevelt, who's presidency was the first in which America began to genuinely flex our economic and political strength. It was his expansion of American naval power by laying down the first dreadnought class battleships that we as a country began to exert influence around the globe. His send the then Atlantic Fleet on a circumnavigation of the world that America began to show our desire to influence world events.

Mr. Obama on the other hand, seems to be shrinking from our position as the sole world power. Thus the apt comparison to Mr. Carter. By refusing to acknowledge that the recent corrupt election in Iran deserves notice, Mr. Obama,

unlike George W. Bush, who openly supported Iran's pro-American democratic dissidents against the mullahs due to his belief that the advance of freedom in Iran and throughout the world promoted US national interests, Obama supports the anti-American mullahs who butcher these dissidents in the streets and abduct and imprison them by the thousands due to his "hard-nosed" belief that doing so will pave the way for a meeting of the minds with their oppressors.

Yet Obama's policy is anything but realistic. By refusing to support the dissidents, he is not demonstrating that he is a realist. He is showing that he is immune to reality. He is so committed to appeasing the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei that he is incapable of responding to actual events, or even of taking them into account for anything other than fleeting media appearances meant to neutralize his critics.

With a weak foreign policy team as is now in place the comparisons to Mr. Carter a bound to continue and come much more often.

Energy, What To Do?

While I do disagree with those who believe that anthropomorphic global warming I do support many of the things they endorse, though for economic reasons. Thus, in North America, we have enough coal to last for at least the next 400 years at conservative estimates, that doesn't mean we should be using it to produce our electricity.

There are other means to do so, that don't harm the environment, or least are greatly reduced in their impact. Hydroelectric power has just about reached it's limits, though many areas are beginning to explore mini dams with relatively low power turbines to supplement local energy needs.

Additionally, by recycling many of the products we use, we decrease the amount of energy necessary to produce those same items. My wife and I recycle most everything I can because quite frankly our land fills can't hold the huge amounts of garbage that we fill them with. And by recycling we reduce the amounts of raw materials we need to make many of those products we use on a constant basis such as paper products, plastic, glass, and metals.

I think we need to seriously increase the funding for alternative sources of energy especially geothermal, wind and solar (including methods of obtaining same from space). But we also need to reinvest in nuclear power.

By investing in Nuclear power, we can greatly reduce and even end our dependence upon coal fired electrical plant. France and Japan both use nuclear power plants for 75% or more of their electrical energy needs. Even Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Green Peace believes that we need to fully exploit nuclear power as a solution to many of our energy needs.

Going back to the early days in Greenpeace in the 1970s and 1980s, we were totally focused on nuclear war and nuclear testing in the Cold War. We failed to distinguish between the beneficial uses of the technology and the evil uses of the technology.

It became clear to me that there was a logical disconnect. The people who were most concerned about climate change were most opposed to nuclear power. Greenpeace is against fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power. Those three technologies produce over 99 percent of world energy. What kind of a path to a sustainable future is that?

By building wind farms in those areas which sustain the minimum amounts of air necessary to run large scale wind farms, North and South Dakota, Northern Texas, off the coast of Rhode Island, Southern Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware, North and South Carolina, and other areas, we can further reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels for energy generation. Recently, the Kennedy family successfully, through the offices of the late Edward Kennedy, senior Senator for Massachusetts, defeated the creation of a wind farm to the south of their family compound on the belief that it would be an eye sore and reduce the property values of the family holdings. Hopefully, the companies that were deterred before, will try once more. While wind generation isn't the complete answer, it is one of many.

Yet another source of energy that we have only begun to explore is tapping the power of the earth's core. While it isn't the "millions of degrees" temperature recently claimed by Al Gore, it is several thousand and is more than ample to super heat water, or other appropriate liquids to the temperatures necessary to power turbines. While this technology is still in its "infancy," once it is properly explored and sufficiently developed there is no reason not to use it as part of our arsenal of energy production.

The last promising area of energy generation is solar power. At the present time, it too is still in its early stages of development, costing roughly $1.28 for every $1.00 of energy produced. However, with continued funding and research it should be possible in the next 10 years to reduce the cost to roughly $0.33 for every $1.00 generated.

So, while I don't accept the science of anthropomorphic global warming, I do agree that we need to reduce our impact upon climate in general. One merely needs to see pictures of the industrial waste lands in China and portions of the former Soviet Union to understand that our planet cannot continue to support us if we poison it. By developing more efficient ways of supplying energy needs, and using several sources of renewable energy we will be able to sustain economic growth for decades to come.

It's the Economy Stupid

Unfortunately for the country, they Keynesian economic model this president is following failed in the 1930's to end the great Depression. WW2 ended the Depression. As time slowly ekes away, this president is gaining the appearance of Jimmy Carter 2...Spending tremendous amounts to end a recession can only work if you actually spend the money wisely.

The economic stimulus package that was passed last spring, was unfortunately targeted as a pay off to Democratic constituencies. None of the money has gone to the kinds of big ticket job producing infrastructure projects that would provide long term jobs. Additionally, this new transparent way of running the country had to bribe a Senator from Louisiana with $300 million just to get her to vote to CONTINUE debating a health care bill that a majority of the populace doesn't want. "Just shut up and get out of the way" isn't how this country works.

ITS THE ECONOMY STUPID, jeez, even SNL gets that much. You don't try and make over 1/6th of the economy in a period of economic crisis. The CBO has said that both of the health care seizure plans presently under consideration will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars. We can't afford that. There are far more cost effective ways of doing this within the current framework.

Health Care
If you have to absolutely screw around with the system, here's a way within the present framework to modify the system that will increase health insurance coverage far beyond what it is now.

1. Portability, remove employment as a means of health insurance. Allow the 1300 companies to offer insurance regardless of state lines. This will allow genuine market competition.
2. Tort Reform, lawyers have boosted the costs medical coverage by 20% or more (some say 30%). It should not be a gigantic crap shoot. Limit damages to actual loss, and only with gross negligence. Loser pays.
3. Make health costs 100% tax-free. Additionally, by allowing portability between states and permit ALL of the health insurance organizations to provide insurance regardless of state lines. The moment you do this, people go out and join co-ops and get great rates. Places like the Elks, Kiwanis, etc... were all set up originally for the purpose of allowing their members to get group health discount rates.
4. Force the Pharmaceutical companies to sell to other countries at the same rate as they charge their biggest customers here. They will then pay more, and we'll pay less. This will institute immediate savings, because America presently permits other countries to provide drugs at a vastly reduced rate, while we foot the full bill plus the difference they pay.
5. Fix SS/Medicare. Move the retirement age back to 65 as a minimum for eligibility for Medicare. Vigorously prosecute all fraudulent disability claims. Tack on a sales tax to pay for it. This will eventually end the Ponzi scheme, while honoring the obligations. We have to stop adding people to the roles.

JOBS
Fixing the economy is difficult because quite simply no one understands how it works. It's become such a complicated area of expertise, that no one can possibly master it. On the other hand there are a few simple solutions that do seem to work well.
1. Return the unspent Stimulus Funds. If Congress can't keep their greedy hands off of it, then at the very least it should be used as small business loans with fairly low interest rates. This will have the effect of freeing up funds that small business needs in order to conduct their operations. Additionally, by allowing small business those funds, they will increase their hiring. It costs small businesses an average of $330k to create full time positions. Under the stimulus, the government has spent $2.4 million each to create temporary positions that will need to be refunded every year. That's an 8-1 spending ratio, not cost effective in the long run.
2. Reduce taxes across the board, better yet, overhaul the "progressive" (or rather the REGRESSIVE) income tax system. My preference would be for a flat income tax rate for all individuals, businesses and or corporations. End end any and all federal tax breaks for business. Tax all businesses equally with no exceptions. Do the same for individuals. The ONLY exception on individual taxes would be for those who earn below X dollars (i.e. the poverty line).
3. Reign in government spending by eliminating those departments which are merely jobs programs in disguise. Education, for one, combine HHS, HUD and vastly reduce their mandate. Eliminate Labour. Use the money saved to pay off the debt, return those workers to the public sector where they could be producing wealth instead of sucking off the government tit.
4. Permit localities and states to grant incentives to those who wish to build manufacturing concerns so that we can rebuild our manufacturing base. A base that is rapidly siphoning off to Mexico, China and India.

Political Reforms
1. End ALL EARMARKS. Stop spending money outside of the constitutionally required framework.
2. Support a balanced budget amendment.
3. Seriously revamp the bureaucracy to make it easier to terminate those who are inefficient.
4, Hire managers who will run the government as if it is a business and not a jobs program.

There in simplistic terms is my prescription for fixing "things" I doubt anyone of importance is listening but I can always hope for change, right? After all look what "hope and change" got us so far...

Only 38% Support Obama/Pelosi/Reid Care

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan. Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

I think now that the details of both the House and Senate version of Obama Care are available, We The People just don't seem to like it too much. When you tie this into the new Gallup Poll showing a majority of Americans don't want the government involved in delivering health care, these numbers make much more sense.

Global Warming, Is It A Hoax, or Just Bad Science?

I've just done some rather quick study on a theory advanced more than 60 years ago by a Serbian civil engineer and mathematician named Milutin Milanković. Milanković Cycle theory proposes that the variations in

...eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit determined climatic patterns on Earth, resulting in 100,000-year ice age cycles of the Quaternary glaciation over the last few million years. The Earth's axis completes one full cycle of precession approximately every 26,000 years. At the same time, the elliptical orbit rotates, more slowly, leading to a 23,000-year cycle between the seasons and the orbit. In addition, the angle between Earth's rotational axis and the normal to the plane of its orbit moves from 22.1 degrees to 24.5 degrees and back again on a 41,000-year cycle. Currently, this angle is 23.44 degrees and is decreasing.

His theory proposes that there is roughly a 25-40,000 year period of warm climates between much longer periods of glaciation, commonly referred to as an ice age. His theory was very popular in the 1970's and 1980's, but eventually fell out of favour.

However, a small number of climatologists and paleontologists have continued to work in this area. Some of those who have been labeled as deniers by proponents of anthropomorphic global warming are these scientists. But soon it was observed that global temperature was increasing and at about this time Global Climate Modeling (GCM) received more attention and the Milankovitch analogue was forgotten. There has been little further discussion about the possibility of a coming ice age.

Eventually, other scientists began to study temperatures from around the globe and noticed from the late 19th century until the early-mid 1980's of a consistent rise in temperature. Through many iterations, several climatologist decided that the steep rise in the production of CO2 was the culprit of this warming period. Jennifer Marohasy writes, that

the idea that our consumption of carbon and production of CO2 was contributing to climate warming was the work of Loutre and Berger and a paper by Loutre in 2000 claimed that the Holocene (the current warm period) would extend for at least another 30,000 (KY) years because of the effect of CO2 concentration as a greenhouse gas.

It was acknowledged in this paper that the orbital geometry 400KY which featured muted amplitude, was the “best and closest analogue to our near future climate”, but inexplicably the Global Climate Model LLN2-D NH was “tuned” to replicate the past 200KY climate transitions when isolation amplitude was at it’s highest level over the 400KY cycle and quite unlike present conditions. Using different values for CO2 it was found that “best agreement with SPECMAP is obtained near 210 ppmv CO2 ”.

Then using a modeled Holocene they projected climate using a range of CO2 forcing, and they reported that there was no transition to ice for at least 30KY into the future.

The algorithm for this process is not disclosed but the authors rightly list the limitations of the model in which CO2 is considered as an external forcing i.e. the carbon cycle is not simulated by the model. Clouds and the hydrological cycle are simplified and so is the heat transport to middle and deep ocean. In addition regional changes such as the North Atlantic and over Europe are not simulated “and might depart from the global trend”.

It is unfortunate that these limitations appear to have been ignored and the AGW hypothesis was born and has occupied science and the media ever since. {Emphasis mine}

Now, with "Climategate" it appears that those scientists who are employed by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, who have the most to lose in terms of prestige, grant money and public recognition, may very well have "massaged" their data to reach a predetermined political, agenda driven, conclusion. Furthermore, it's not been sufficiently proven that CO2 is the gas that has driven the warming period in the first place.

There is further detailed material in a paper by Dr Willie Soon which shows that there is no evidence to support global warming by CO2.

The concentration of CO2 varies according to the temperature of the ocean and CO2 follows temperature. If the present decline in temperature continues we can expect to see a decline in the rate of CO2 as more is dissolved in a cooler sea.

If this is in fact the case, then AGW is dead. It may in fact take many years to defeat this political agenda completely, but public sentiment has been turning against it now for the past year or so. Hence the inability of the UN to renegotiate the Kyoto Accords. No nation wants to negotiate it's economic destruction, and that's what it would take, the dismantling of the Western economic system in order to achieve the goals of the original system.

Watch this video:


UPDATE: From tomorro's London Times an account of the hack of CRU at the University of East Anglia that includes this surprising synopsis:

Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals.

There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But what is clear is that the integrity of the scientific evidence on which not merely the British Government, but other countries, too, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claim to base far-reaching and hugely expensive policy decisions, has been called into question. And the reputation of British science has been seriously tarnished. A high-level independent inquiry must be set up without delay.

5 Proposals To Overhaul Medical Care in America

While perusing the comments on Roger L Simon's blog, I came across Mark Malone's ideas. They made so much sense I had to reproduce them with some additions of my own. Mine will be in italics.

1) Break the monopoly. Allow competing health care organizations. If doctors can’t lose their licenses, they are free to provide solutions they know work, but that the AMA won’t allow.

2) Tort reform. Most of the tort lawyers are parasites. They add no value, except to keep some docs honest, but their role should be far more limited. It should not be a gigantic crap shoot. Limit damages to actual loss, and only with gross negligence. Loser pays. (One could also “kill all the lawyers”. .45 caliber tort reform.)

3) Make health costs 100% tax-free. Better, eliminate the 16th amendment (the income tax system). Then establish a national sales tax system (the Fair Tax). It is easy to do. Simply pass a Constitutional amendment banning income taxes. Congress will then find another tax system (unless they want no money for the government). This will have the added benefit of making manufacturing far more competitive in this country. Additionally, allow portability between states and permit ALL of the health insurance organizations to provide insurance regardless of state lines.
The moment you do this, people go out and join co-ops and get great rates. Places like the Elks, Kiwanis, etc… were all set up originally for the purpose of allowing their members to get group health discount rates.

Then, the government screwed them by making Employer-based insurance benes tax-free. Who uses taxed monies to buy insurance, when you can get it tax-free via your employer? Problem comes when your employer offers it not, or has a small group of employees, and so, gets a lousy rate. Ending the income tax system means these co-ops will become huge, maybe even millions strong. Great rates.

4) Force the Pharmaceutical companies to sell to other countries at the same rate as they charge their biggest customers here. They will then pay more, and we’ll pay less. Watch how quickly their glorious socialized medicine systems go broke, once we are no longer subsidizing them. This is huge, because America in effect permits other countries to provide drugs at a vastly reduced rate, while we foot the bill.

5) Fix SS/Medicare. Decree that those now under 50 will no longer be eligible for benefits upon disability or retirement. Move the retirement age back a couple years, since people are living far longer {I would move the agree to 65 as a minimum for eligibility for Medicare}. Prosecute all the fraudulent disability claims (like faked bi-polar). Tack on a sales tax to pay for it. This will eventually end the Ponzi scheme, while honoring the obligations. We have to stop adding people to the roles.

These are all sensible ideas, but the GOP leadership will never ever EVER adopt them. Because they are part of the problem. They have been captured by the "inside the beltway" mentality and have become Dem Lite. With the above changes, we wouldn't be shattering the system to "fix it". Additionally, I would ensure that Congress and federal employees are included within that frame work enumerated above, because by excluding them, we create a 2 tiered system that allows the "elite" better care than the proles.

A 3 Day National Spending Strike

While I was reading an entry in Pajamasmedia.com, about turning out the leadership of the National GOP as well as congress, I came across what may be a brilliant idea.

I’ve always said, heaven help Washington if the electorate ever figures out they have the power. One 3 day nationwide strike and this country would be on it’s knees. Just imagine if those “rich” lower middle, upper lower wage workers stop spending money at Wal-Mart, the grocery store and gas stations. Image if they started to put their money in savings instead of buying a new car or stereo or TV. What if they ate at home instead of going out, watched the movies they own instead of going to the theater? Stopped driving their gas guzzling cars and spent even more time with a good book, their family or their church.

I think this has the potential to be a brilliant idea. Imagine that...a 3 day spending strike by all the Tea Party people to protest government spending.

If you throw into the mix just how much more we will be spending over the next 10 years once the government seizes control of health care. The spending spree will only get far, far worse. After all, who honestly thinks that the government is going to keep costs of health care down, once they take control? Not even the CBO is saying either the Senate or House bill will do so. The Senate will cost us only 189 billion more, while the House bill is projected to cost $280 billion more. Comments?

Honesty In Science...

Richard Feynman on Honesty in Science:

It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else
come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

I hope that the above will be kept in mind as the debacle over the hack at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia comes to light. Evidently someone broke into a "secure" server and copied a vast amount of data and emails over the past weekend. Their real crime has been to publish it all and show a spotlight on an organization that has evidently gone to great lengths to hide, alter or misrepresent data in order to reach a preordained conclusion.

If, as I suspect, those scientists have destroyed data and emails in order to hide their fraud, then AGW or climate change, is finished. That in and of itself insn't a bad thing, as global warming has gone far beyond being a science to many of it's supporters and become something of a pseudo religion. After all, if you label those who oppose you, for whatever reason, "deniers" then perhaps you've gone too far.

UPDATES: here's my comment from www.realclimate.com:

I’m not a climatologist, but I am educated. and I believe myself to be a reasonably intelligent individual. It seems to me that the emails requesting the deletion of all emails on (subject) be deleted to avoid FOIA requests for data is rather damning in and of itself. Especially if that request is for specific data in order to replicate a study.

Now if such a destruction of email/data is to prevent someone from replicating a study…isn’t that in fact a criminal act? If not publicly so, but from a scientific stand point.

For example, several years ago a group of scientists claimed to have devised a way to create “cold fusion”…but NONE of their research was replicable…and so were publicly thrashed (in a figurative way). Now…if these scientists at CRU have hidden/destroyed their data files in order to prevent anyone from replicating their research, does this not call into question EVERYTHING they’ve done? Does this not call into question ALL of their research?

As you can see, I’m not hysterically accusing anyone of anything, merely asking a reasonable question. I’ve taken the time to track much of the information that is now publicly available and come to my own conclusions. Now, is the what if part…

If this hack, and the information that has been released is proven to be accurate, what response will this site take?

Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks for your time

.

Obama's No Tax Pledge Slips Into History

During the election campaign, September 12, 2008 during a rally in Dover, New Hampshire, then-prospective presidential candidate Obama said:

I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

Fast forward to today...and Mr. Obama can no longer claim that he won't raise middle class taxes. Every single bill being considered for the seizure of the American health care system by the federal government will raise taxes. Here is a quick over-view of the Senate Majority leader's, Harry Reid, 2100+ page bill will raise your taxes:

1. The clearest violation is the 5% excise tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures (including teeth whitening). I assume that cosmetic surgery and similar procedures are skewed toward the high end of the income distribution, but there certainly are many people getting these treatments with annual family income less than $250,000.

2. The bill would allow State insurance exchanges “to charge assessments or user fees to participating health insurers, or to otherwise generate funding, to support its operations.” [ §1311(d)(5)(A) ] Health insurers would pass these “assessments or user fees” through to consumers as higher premiums. This would affect anyone who buys health insurance, including those with family income less than $250,000.
The bill would impose a 40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500 (individuals) / $23,000 (families). While policies this generous are almost certainly skewed higher on the income distribution, there are definitely families with income less than $250,000 receiving these plans. Again, health insurers would pass these tax increases through to those families.

3. The bill would increase taxes on all health insurance plans, as well as on brand-name drugs and biologics, and on medical devices. These tax increases would affect anyone who buys these goods, even if their family income is less than $250,000.
According to CBO, “By 2019, … the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 31 million, leaving about 24 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants.)” (p. 8) These roughly 16 million people would pay “penalties” of $95 per adult in 2014, $350 per adult in 2015, and $750 per adult in 2016 and later. You’re charged half as much for each kid. Most of these 16 million people paying higher taxes will have family income less than $250,000 and will pay higher “penalties,” although not all will pay these full amounts.

4. The bill would create a new 0.5 percentage point increase in payroll taxes on individuals with incomes greater than $200,000 in 2013 and families with incomes greater than $250,000 in 2013. Since these amounts are for 2013 and not indexed, someone making $233K in 2009 would be affected by this in 2013, assuming 1% annual real wage growth and CBO’s assumptions about inflation. If you’re making $220K this year, you’ll probably be hit by the new tax in 2016. $210K this year, you first get bit in 2017, and so on.

So basically, when the federal government takes over health care, our taxes will rise, just as the cost of health care will rise. In the case of health care costs, those costs will rise dramatically. Unfortunately, it's the middle and lower classes who will pay, and pay, and pay some more. The wealthy have never had to worry about costs, but those of who actually work for a living do. Small business owners will be hit the worst. Those that I know are terrified about the impact of these bills. Not only will they be forced to lay off people in order to pay the "fees" and "fines" (taxes by any other name), but for the forseable future, they WON'T BE HIRING PEOPLE ANY TIME SOON! So much for any economic growth, at least for the next several years.

What most Democratic politicians just don't understand that small business is the engine upon which this country's economy is built. By muzzling any ability for small business growth, they also muzzle any possible job growth. A simple solution, would be for them to play the old game "Sim City" and see the direct impact of taxes and fees upon the growth of a simple city model. My experience was that when you raise taxes and fees beyond a fairly low point, growth is dramatically hampered. I seriously doubt that any politician will do so, "saying it's only a game". Yes, that's true, it's only a game and has a simple economic model, but in that context, it can be used as an excellent learning tool for basic economics.

County By County Unemployment Growth

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

Follow the link for a very interesting video on how unemployment has grown under,

1st A Democratic Party Controlled Congress, and
2nd A years worth of Democratic control of both Congress and the Presidency.

Moe Lane points out that:

It is no doubt rude of me to point out that this outbreak video represents two years’ worth of a Democratic-controlled Congress, and one year’s worth of a Democratic-controlled government. At least, I hope that it is, seeing that we were promised an unemployment rate at least two points below the one that we’re having now. My being allowed to be rude seems like a bare minimum in the realm of recompense.

My sentiments exactly.

In St Louis County, Its OK To Assault Opponents To Democratic Party

It's evidently OK to assault political opponents of the Democratic Party and SEIU/HCU in St. Louis County, MO. The county prosecutor County there Counselor Patricia Redington, is still "investigating" the alleged incidents. That's three months AFTER the assaults occured. In St. Louis County the average time for an arrest to be made for assault is 2 days. That is of course, unless you belong to the SEIU/HCU, then there is a much longer delay. In an email to independent journalists (read NON-MSM)

Redington says her office “is reviewing the police report and has been interviewing various witnesses.”

Allow us to remain slightly skeptical and ask, just who exactly is Patricia Redington interviewing?

*She hasn’t spoken to Kenneth Gladney
*Redington hasn’t spoken to Kelly Owens.
*Redington hasn’t called any of the witnesses on the police report.
*Redington hasn’t contacted any of the Tea Party members that are seen on video
*Redington hasn’t contacted any of the people who shot video that night and whose *YouTube urls are listed on the evidence page
Who exactly is Redington interviewing? If she’s talking to witnesses, she’s only talking to ones pre-approved by SEIU’s defense lawyer, the high powered Paul D’Agrosa. We should keep in mind that D’Agrosa is being paid by SEIU Local 2000, the employer for Elston McCowan and Perry Molens. He, like SEIU and their new media spin team, have fallen silent. Despite her protestations, it’s very clear that Redington is delaying action for some reason. If Big Government hadn’t broken the story, it’s not hard to imagine no word of this would have been spoken until health care was passed and the charges could be filed or pled down over a busy holiday weekend.

I suppose that this is the new face of criminal prosecution...it's OK to assault opponents of Democratic Party policies.

Breibart to Eric Holder, US Atty Gen...Investigate ACORN

Breitbart: There’s a lot of hypocrisy and the dust has settled for ACORN and at the end of the day they’ve recognized that Eric Holder, the Attorney General, has not initiated an investigation into ACORN after we now have seven tapes. There were five initially that came out, ACORN was defunded by the Senate, was defunded by the House, lost it’s link to the Census; while all that damage occurred, Congress didn’t come in to investigate them, obviously not the Attorney General’s office, and they’ve now realized let’s get back into business because they realized that the dust settled and they were not being investigated, it was Hannah, James, and me who were being investigated, that’s why we’ve been forced to offer this latest tape.

Hannity: Are you saying, Andrew, that there are more tapes?

Breitbart: Oh my goodness there are! Not only are there more tapes, it’s not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it’s not just ACORN, and we’re going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don’t give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.

Hannity: This is a blockbuster, what you’re saying here. You guys have more tapes, you’ll release them before the election, that could have a big impact on the election, obviously…

I'd call this a line in the sand...investigate NOW or we'll begin to release tapes just before the election in November 2010. I'd love to see Mr. Breibart do just that...it would give a royal screwing to the Democratic Party. After all, they are the party of ACORN. Any significant damage to ACORN will almost certainly splash all over the Dems...as well as the Dem in Chief, Barack Obama.

I wonder just how closely his campaign and ACORN worked in the past election cycle. I've heard rumours that is was a very close relationship. I don't know how close, but if what I've been hearing murmurs of, ACORN worked in conjunction with Obama and was given access to his maxed out donor's list so that they could solicit funds to be used as additional campaign dollars. I'd love to see an investigation into that, though I doubt it will happen.

Mr. Obama, Where Are The Stimulus Jobs You Promised

From Biggovernment.com and quoted in it's entirety, a statement by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC)
Americans are hurting – there is no doubt. Unemployment is at a record high and since Speaker Pelosi has been in the Speaker’s chair, 8.7 million more people are unemployed. What’s even more frightening is that 3 million of those jobs have been lost just since the misnamed stimulus was shoved through Congress less than a year ago. So where are the jobs?

Earlier this week, we learned that Recovery.gov, the official Administration website charged with reporting abuse was its own worst offender. It is full of fake stimulus jobs in fake Congressional districts. It also shows that $3 million couldn’t even produce a single job in South Carolina’s fake 43rd district. Somehow, $1.8 million was spent for 1.4 jobs in the fake 00 district. This would be funny, but the money belongs to taxpayers, not the government.

Wednesday night, ABC News broke the news that the Government Accountability Office says that one out of every 10 jobs claimed to have been “saved or created” by the Administration came from projects where no stimulus funds had been spent. When asked about the inaccuracies, the spokesman for Recovery.gov replied, “Who knows, man, who really knows. There are 130,000 reports out there.”

After a week of reports on blatant inconsistencies in stimulus spending, and a hearing in the House Committee on Oversight and Government, this Administration still has not provided adequate answers as to the whereabouts of stimulus funds. In response to this Administration’s insufficient communication on stimulus spending, I called for an examination of all stimulus dollars appropriated.

You see, the Recovery Act includes a provision that allows for the establishment of a Recovery Independent Advisory Panel (RIAP). This panel consists of five presidentially appointed members to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board on how it could prevent fraud, waste, and abuse relating to covered funds. The President has yet to appoint this panel despite widespread stimulus inaccuracies.

On Thursday, I publicly called on the President to appoint this panel immediately. The Recovery Act is one of the largest spending bills in our nation’s history and it’s critical that we work together to maintain our goals of transparency and accountability. If this panel is not appointed by December 1, 2009, I will call for an outside, independent examination of spending and reporting inaccuracies.

These actions will address short-term reporting problems. But we really should have our eyes on the horizon. In the long term, we must continue to push this Administration and Speaker Pelosi to give this economy the economic jolt it needs.

Our plans like the Economic Recovery and Middle-Class Relief Act of 2009 (H.R. 407) unleashes the potential of American businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs. We help stabilize home values and help more responsible families achieve the American dream of owning a home. Instead of continuing to skyrocket federal spending, our plan offers incentive-based relief to individuals and job creators. It reduces the burden that the government places on both employers and employees and provides assistance to the unemployed.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come together to demand immediate accountability for stimulus spending inaccuracies and in the long-term, work together on bipartisan job creation plans to get America rolling again.